Simon Bond (1947-2011)

Simon Bond, the cartoonist behind the best-selling 101 Uses of a Dead Cat and two sequels, as well as some 20 other collections of drawings, died in Northamptonshire on 22 June 2011, aged 63.

Born Simon Patrick Everett Bond of British parents in New York, on 19 August 1947, his family settled in Nottingham when he was four. Bond studied graphics at West Sussex College of Art and Design, Worthing, and worked on Tatler magazine as a paste-up artist. He returned to the US on health grounds in 1970 where he had a number of jobs, including working as a stand-up comedian and cartoonist. He returned to the UK in the early 1980s.

His first book, Real Funny, appeared in 1976, although it was with 101 Uses of a Dead Cat (1981; in the US as 101 Uses for a Dead Cat) that he created a phenomenon. The book's grotesque humour earned Bond hate mail as well as royalties; it sold over 2 million copies in 20 countries and spawned two sequels, 101 More Uses of a Dead Cat and Uses of a Dead Cat in History. An omnibus, Complete Uses of a Dead Cat, appeared in 2001.

Bond was also the publisher and co-editor of Squib: The Magazine of Comedy Allsorts in 1992-93.

He was married to Linda Marshall in 1985.

Obituaries: The Independent (26 July).

(* Cartoons © Estate of Simon Bond.)