Colonel Blimp Colonel Blimp Colonel Blimp is a British cartoon character by cartoonist David Low, first drawn for Lord Beaverbrook's London "Evening Standard" in April 1934. Blimp is pompous, irascible, jingoistic, and stereotypically British, identifiable by his walrus moustache and the interjection "Gad, Sir!". Low claimed that he developed the character after overhearing two military men in a Turkish bath declare that cavalry officers should be entitled to wear their spurs inside tanks. The character was named after the barrage balloon, which was known as a blimp. Blimp issues proclamations from the Turkish bath, wrapped in his towel and brandishing some mundane
Evening Standard staunchly Conservative paper, harshly attacking Labour in 1945 in a high-profile campaign that backfired. In the 1960s, the paper was upstaged by "The Evening News", which sold over 1 million copies nightly. During the decade, the paper also began to publish the comic strip "Modesty Blaise", which bolstered its sales throughout the 1970s. The "Evening Standard" ceased publishing on Saturdays on 30 Nov 1974, when it still produced six editions daily. In 1980, Express Newspapers merged the "Standard" with Associated Newspapers' "Evening News" in a Joint Operating Agreement. The new paper was known as the "New Standard" until 1985, when