Neil Bennett (born 1941) is a self-taught as a cartoonist. His first cartoon was published in the Cricketermagazine, but getting started as a cartoonist wasn't easy, and Bennett laterrecalled that "I tried when I was 18, was turned down and gave up until Iwas in my forties." Only in 1987, at the age of forty-six, did he finallyresign to become a full-time freelance. "It was a bit tight atfirst," he recalled, "but getting the first one was good."
Bennett's work has appeared in Private Eye, The Times,Spectator, Law Society Gazette, Punch, Independent Saturday Magazine, Esquire('Jekyll and Heidi' strip), Gramophone, Museums Journal, ECOS, EconomicAffairs, Oldie, New Statesman and Men Only. Best known for single-frame andpocket cartoons, Bennett has been diary cartoonist for The Times since 2000. In2002 he was voted Pocket Cartoonist of the Year by the Cartoon Art Trust.
Bennett draws quickly using fibre-tipped pens, and ishappiest drawing in black and white, rarely using washes or colour.