Harry New [Agog]

About

Henry ‘Harry‘ New was born in December 1925. From 1983 to 1985 he drew the ‘AGOG’ strip in The Times, featuring the experiences of a robot working in industry.

New worked for the London Electricity Board, and began drawing his cartoon robot for computermagazines, including Dragon User. Its name at first was ‘RU 1-2’, in reference to R2-D2 from the 1977 film ‘Star Wars’. In 1982 New was forced to take early retirement, and began looking for more outlets for his cartoon work. He had no success with agents and national newspapers until in 1983 he approached The Times, which had started a weekly ‘Computer Horizons’ page. The editor was immediately interested, and on 10 May 1983 AGOG became the first strip cartoon to appear in the paper.

New conceived of AGOG as a character that could make computers ‘more approachable’ to readers, explaining that it was ‘rather inept,inclined tobe lazy and has a tendency to human errors and shortcomings.’ Despite being a robot,AGOG’doesn’t always get the answer right.’

A semi-professional flamenco guitarist, in 1984 New was one of the founder members of the Pena Flamenca de Londres, the largest flamenco club in the United Kingdom. New was alsoone of thewinners in a worldwide political cartoon competition organised by the Press Association of Sofia, Bulgaria.

Holdings

15 original strips (HN0001-HN0015) – 1980-1984

References used in biography

• Information from Harry New.
• Harry New’s flamenco cartoon websiteat www.flamencocartoons.co.uk

Active Period

Status

Cartoon style