12 Facts About Syd Nicholls

Sydney 'Syd' Wentworth Nicholls was an Australian cartoonist and commercial artist, best known for the long-running comic strip Fatty Finn.

Syd Nicholls was born in Frederick Henry Bay, Tasmania on 20 December 1896, the son of a watchmaker Hubert George Jordan and his wife Arabella Cluidunning, nee Bartsche.

Syd Nicholls adopted his stepfather's surname when his mother remarried in 1907.

Syd Nicholls studied for seven years under Norman Carter and Antonio Dattilo Rubbo at the Royal Art Society of New South Wales.

Syd Nicholls's first published work appeared in the International Socialist in 1912, at the age of sixteen and by the time he was eighteen he was having cartoons accepted by The Bulletin, Australian Worker and Australasian Seaman's Journal.

Politically committed, Syd Nicholls contributed cartoons to Direct Action, the publication of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Syd Nicholls produced Fat and His Friends, first published on 16 September 1923.

Syd Nicholls had twice tried, in 1928 and 1929, to introduce a dream sequence into Fatty Finn, involving pirates, cannibals and highwaymen, but was forced by Knox to return to his original comic style.

Syd Nicholls recalled in an interview in 1973 that, 'Trying to place my new adventure series I found that any time I tried to compete with the local boys.

Unable to compete with increasing paper costs and cheap, imported American comics, Syd Nicholls's publishing company was put out of business in 1950.

At the district registrar's office, Paddington, on 29 August 1942 Syd Nicholls had married Roberta Clarice Vickery, a 25-year-old commercial artist.

Syd Nicholls chaired the New South Wales authors' and artists' section of the Australian Journalists' Association.