Cross, Stan, 1888-1977

Cartoonist. Stanley George Cross was born in Los Angeles in 1888, to English parents who eventually settled in Perth, Western Australia in 1892. Cross was employed by the Railway Department when he was 16 and studied art at Perth Technical College. He left his job to study for a year in London, where his first cartoons were published by Punch magazine. When he returned to Australia, Cross became a freelance artist, contributing cartoons and illustrations to The western mail and The Sunday times. In 1919 he was offered a job at the new magazine, Smith's weekly, where he worked for twenty years specializing in single-panel cartoons. Cross created several comics, such as "Smith's vaudevillains" which started in 1928, and "You & me", which was later renamed "The Potts" and continued by Jim Russell in 1939. He started his cartoon column "For gorsake, stop laughing: this is serious!" in 1933, and it became one of the most popular cartoons in Australia. In 1939, Cross left Smith's weekly to work for The Melbourne herald, where he created the comic "Wally and the Major", later taken over by Carl Lyon. Cross retired in 1970 and died on 16 June, 1977.