Doctor On The Go - Christmas 1976 (SIX pages) (Original)
Medium: Pen & Inks on Acid-free Board
Size: 10" x 14" (260mm x 350mm)
Date: 1976
Code: North5001
These are the unique original Pen & Ink drawings by Harry North.
A complete story run of Harry North's Doctor On The Go featured in Look-In issues #50(1976) - #1(1977).
It's Christmas and the preparations are swiftly in hand at Saint Swithins but who will play Santa Claus? It's decided that there will be a team of dancing Santas to entertain the children's ward. At the same time Tosh Malloy, a convict plans to escape his guard while visiting the hospital but how will he escape? If only he could find a disguise...
Doctor on the Go was a British television comedy series based on a set of books by Richard Gordon about the misadventures of a group of doctors.
- Artist BiographyHarry North (Most active 1970s and 1980s)
Harry North excelled at caricature as his later work for Mad Magazine showed so well. Prior to that he was an accomplished mainstay on the Look-In adaptations of the Doctor series that ran on TV (and previously in film and Richard Gordon's original novels). The series ran in Look-In between May 1972 and late 1978 with name changes to reflect the current version of the TV inspiration; Doctor at Large, Doctor at Sea; Doctor on the Go.
It appears North began his career as an art assistant at IPC in the late 1960s before finding regular work as an artist at Look-In where his first work (a fill-in) appeared in February 1971. He soon established himself with the colour strip On the Buses which ran until 1974 and he remained a Look-In regular until 1988, drawing Doctor in Charge (1974), Doctor on the Go (1975-76), It's Madness (1981), Super Gran (1985), No.73 (1986-87), Gilbert (1987-88) and Alf (1988).
Strips in other papers included The Michael Jackson Story in Valentine (1973), the James Bond strip Doomcrack (Daily Star, 1981) and contributions to News on Sunday (1987) and Heavy Metal (1981/82/93).
Parallel to his work in comics and newspapers, he was a regular illustrator and cover artist for MAD Magazine in both the UK and US. Because of a difference in publishing schedule, the UK edition of MAD had to include newly originated material, including covers. North provided 26 covers between 1976-88, beginning with an image of Ping Pong (King Kong) and including along the way Coronation Street, Apocalypse Now, Charles & Diana, the Oscars and EastEnders. For the American magazine, where he contributed between 1976-94, he drew satirical strip version of "Star Roars" (1978), "Moneyraker" (1980) and "Purple Acid Rain" (1985) as well as contributions to "The MAD Nasty File".
North was also known outside the UK (his work appearing in Pilote and Zona 84) and also illustrated a number of books, including The Shocking Book of Records by Martin Guinness (1983) and The Twitmarsh Files; or, The Barmy Army by R. T. Fishall (1985).