| Title | The Collection 2010 | | Original Price | 7.99 | | Date Cartoons Start | // | Date Cartoons End | // | | Number of Cartoons | 141 | | Published by | Hamlyn | ISBN | 978-0-600-62046-4 |
Introduction by - Fiona Tucker The Giles Annual has been engaging the nation's imagination and homour for over 50 years, and they are as popular with Express readers today as they were when they first began.
Although Giles began his newspaper cartoon career at the much more left-wing Reynold's News in 1937, he is known primarily for his cartoons in the Daily Express and Sunday Express, for whom he worked from 1943 until the end of his career in 1991.
While Giles's politics were not always aligned to those of Express Newspapers, it was nevertheless a very long, successful and prosperous working partnership between the two. during his time with the Express Giles became the highest-earning cartoonist of his time.
The concept of a Giles Annual was first conceived in 1940 (when Giles was still at Reynolds News) in response to his reader's suggestion that an Annual would be the perfect Christmas gift to send to troops serving overseas in the Second World War. The inaugural Annual didn't appear, however, until 1946, when Giles was working for Express Newspapers.
Until his death in 1995, Giles played a major role in the production of the Annuals, selecting all the cartoons himself - a task he found difficult. He felt that the topicality of his cartoons, which appeared on a daily basis, did not translate easily to a yearly publication and he worried that many readers would forget by December an issue that appeared in a cartoon much earlier in the year. Providing explanatory material was mooted byut proved too difficult, and many of the more topical cartoons, for which Giles had a particular talent and affection, never made the final cut. But he needn't have worried - the Annuals have been best sellers since their inception.
The popularity of the Giles Annuals, and of the man himself, remains today, almost fifteen years after his death. While they no longer have the personal input of his genius, the Annuals are, and will continue to be, a testament to one of the great cartoonists and social commentators of our time.
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