Victor Weisz

A left-wing cartoonist whose best joke backfired. Born in Berlin to Hungarian-Jewish parents, Victor Weisz reached London in October 1935 and, signing himself Vicky, drew for the News Chronicle, the Daily Mirror from 1954 and the Evening Standard from 1958, with work for the New Statesman alongside; by the 1940s he was one of Britain's leading left-wing cartoonists. At the Standard he invented Supermac, Harold Macmillan as a comic-book superhero, meant as mockery. The name worked in Macmillan's favor instead, and he increased his majority at the 1959 election. Vicky died in 1966, and Supermac is still how many people picture Macmillan.