"Andy Capp," created by Reg Smythe, is one of the most successful comic strips in the world. King Features Syndicate distributes it to nearly 700 newspapers in 34 countries, and it has been translated in 13 languages.

Capp goes by such monikers as "Tuffa Viktor" in Sweden, "Andre Chapeau" in France and "Willi Wacker" in Germany. More than 175 million newspaper readers rank him at the top of the comic charts.

The strip was made into a successful musical, "Andy Capp: The Musical," starring Tom Courtenay, in London's famed West End.

There are nearly 100 Andy Capp anthologies, and everybody's favorite ne'er-do-well starred in a 1987 television series.

Amazingly, the hellion was created by a shy and private man.

Smythe was born in West Hartlepool, England, where his father built small boats. Unlike his creation Andy Capp, Smythe wanted to work. But he felt he had no ability in any field. He went on the dole and unwittingly picked up in his youth the material he was later to use in his cartoons.

A few odd jobs came his way, such as running messages for a butcher, but the economic depression of the 1930s afforded him few chances of a good job.

He joined the British army and for 10 years served in the ranks of the Northumberland Fusiliers. During World War II, he served in the North African campaign and was promoted to sergeant.

After the war he took a temporary job as a telephone clerk, and he began to draw -- with no guidance at all. His style was simple but effective.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, he managed to sell a drawing from the first batch he ever submitted to an editor.

While working at the post office, his artwork appeared in Everybody's magazine, which is now defunct.

"My gross earnings for the two cartoons came to more than I was making at the post office," he once said. "That was all the incentive I needed."

During his early days as a free-lancer, his output reached the amazing figure of 60 cartoons a week! The more he drew, the more he sold. Many of his early gag cartoons appeared in the Daily Mirror.

In 1957, Andy Capp was born. Smythe called the character his "best friend yet."

Editors in Europe bought the strip even before it became a national feature in England.

The strip made its American debut in 1963.

In 1960, Smythe became a founding member of the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain. He won the club's prize for five consecutive years, an unequaled achievement.

The popularity of "Andy Capp" has been attributed to the fact that it is a "particularly human strip in which one man's admittedly strong predilection for a wide range of sin and folly is ever redeemed both by his own wit and his wife's wisdom," Smythe said in an interview.

Beneath the constant surface antagonism between Andy and Flo lie a deep understanding and an unconditional love.

Millions can identify with Andy's ceaseless philosophizing about life, on everything from sports to women to tax collectors.

It's a comic strip about life in working-class Britain that reveals universal truths about the trials and tribulations of life.

Smythe, who left London many years ago, lived a quiet life in Hartlepool on England's north sea coast until his death on June 13, 1998 from cancer. He was 81 years old.