The genius of the cartoonist Glen Baxter was the happy result of a childhood in postwar Leeds – periods of dreariness interspersed with trips to the local cinema to watch black-and-white cowboy B-movies, and afternoons spent reading Boy’s Own annuals and the adventures of Dan Dare in Eagle comics – combined with an artistic education influenced by Magritte and André Breton.
Glen, who has died aged 82, was celebrated in Britain and the US for his cartoons, which appeared in publications including the New Yorker and the Observer, as well as being a staple of the humorous greetings card rack, and he was hailed in Europe as a master surrealist. He embraced the influences of his youth by pastiching the macho cowboys and heroic spacemen from the pages of his comics, but his characters, whether wearing tweed, a 10-gallon hat, or perhaps even a wimple, would find themselves in bizarre, pop art-inspired settings, accompanied by the deadpan, witty captions that became his trademark.
