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British comic strip
the comic strip

Andy Capp is a British comic strip created by cartoonist Reg Smythe, seen in the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror newspapers since 5 August 1957. Originally a single panel cartoon, it was later expanded to four panels. The strip is syndicated internationally by Creators Syndicate. The character is also licensed as the mascot for a line of snack foods (Andy Capp's fries).

Reg Smythe died on 13 June 1998, but the original strip has continued. For some time, the writer and artist were uncredited, but in November 2004 the strip began to carry a credit for Roger Mahoney (artist) and Roger Kettle (writer). Circa 2011, Kettle discontinued his work on the strip and was replaced by Lawrence Goldsmith and Sean Garnett, while Mahoney continued to draw. The appearance of the characters did not change perceptibly. Towards the end of 2020, Mahoney's credit began to be left off strips with a subtle but noticeably different style in both lettering and art. This led to at least one industry source inferring that Mahoney, at 87 years of age, and 65 years of cartooning, had retired. Mahoney died at 89, on 29 November 2022. Strips into 2021 and beyond only show credits for writers Goldsmith and Garnett and continue the subtly different style.

In May 2012, Andy Capp (as well as Flo, Chalkie White, the Vicar, and Jackie the Barman) appeared as an animated series for the first time in promotional material for The Trinity Mirror owned MirrorBingo. com website. The animation was created by Teesside born Chris Hunneysett, who drew from his own background to place Andy Capp in Middlesbrough. Andy Capp had previously appeared in animated form in television adverts for the Post Office (1986) and Kit Kat (1993).

Smythe received the National Cartoonists Society's Humor Comic Strip Award for the strip in 1974. A statue of Andy Capp was erected in Hartlepool on 28 June 2007. It was sculpted by Jane Robbins.

An attempt to transfer Andy Capp to television in 1988 met with little success. The well known British character actor James Bolam played Andy on ITV. The Thames Television series consisted of six episodes that were shown once and have never been repeated. The series was poorly received and attracted some criticism for the way it played up to supposed stereotypes of Northern working class men. In 2012 the series was released on DVD (Region 2) in the UK, licensed by Fremantle Media Ltd to the Network Label (VFD64669 / Network 7953656).

In 1987, a computer game based on Andy Capp, entitled Andy Capp: The Game, was released for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC in Europe and North America. Players had to borrow money in order to replenish Andy's alcohol supply while avoiding fights with his wife Flo and the police.

In 1971, the American company Goodmark Foods licensed the character in the form of “Andy Capp's”, a fried snack food made to resemble french fries.

A Konkani language adaptation of the comic strip, known as Anton Chepekar (आंंतोन चेपेंकार) used to feature in the Konkani daily Sunaparant.

Andy Capp appeared twice in Family Guy. In the first appearance, he and Peter are playing darts at a bar and, when an angry Flo appears, she and Andy have a comic strip style fight, into which Quagmire is unwittingly drawn. The second appearance is when he performs a version of a pap smeer, referred to as a "Capp" smeer, on Lois.

When the children's comic Buster was launched in 1960, its masthead character was entitled "Buster: Son of Andy Capp". Buster wore a cloth cap similar to Andy's until 1992, but the connection was not recognised in the parent strip and had limited development in the children's comic. Buster often referred to his father, and Andy was seen in the comic attempting to find a gas leak in three frames of the 18 June 1960 strip. He was also shown in two drawn photographs in the 2 July 1960 issue, the first of which was displayed by Buster's mum with the pronouncement: "It's a photo of Buster taken with Andy! You can see he's got his dad's fine straight nose". Buster's mum was often referred to by name and was consistently drawn to resemble Andy's wife Flo.