The Second Coming of the Daily Mirror

Although the Daily Mirror had flourished during the First World War, as the 1920s progressed the paper began to be weighed down by the influence of its proprietor, Lord Rothermere, whose right-wing political influence began to be felt in the comic strips of W.K. Haselden and the juvenile series Pip, Squeak and Wilfred. This chapter initially examines these examples in detail, focusing on how Haselden’s strips engaged with the general election of 1924 and contemporary debates surrounding female participation in the democratic process, as well as how the characters of Otto Petrovitch Wtzkoffski and his dig Popski in Pip, Squeak and Wilfred allowed the series to reflect strongly anti-socialist sentiments. The chapter then documents the Mirror’s resurrection under its new editorial director, Harry Guy Bartholomew, charting the paper’s reorientation around a populist, working-class address that prioritised female audiences and sought to reflect the authentic experience of contemporary youth. The chapter discusses how, as part of this strategy, the Mirror hugely increased its use of comic strips and began to use images of the female body as a visual signifier of its new ethos and how, within this context, nudity became part of the established address of Norman Pett’s Jane.