Philip Zecanovsky was born in George Street (now Gower Street) in Bloomsbury, London on 25 December 1909. He was the fourth of the eleven children of Simon Zecanovsky, a Russian émigré tailor, and his wife Leah Oistrakh. Philip attended Stanhope Elementary School and at the age of 13, won a scholarship to St Martins School of Art. Upon graduating, he joined Arks Publicity, an agency specialising in advertising for radio companies. There, he worked with a copywriter named Bill Connor, who became his best friend. In 1932 Connor left to join the J Walter Thompson advertising agency. Zec later established his own commercial art studio, working for agencies such as J Walter Thompson. In 1933 Guy Bartholomew was appointed editorial director of the Daily Mirror, and decided to revive its fortunes by transforming it into an American-style tabloid. The aim was to attract fresh advertising revenue by targeting young working-class readers with disposable income, and he hired J Walter Thomson to assist in the redesign and carry out market research. In 1935 Connor became a writer on the paper, producing the ‘Cassandra’ column. Connor was asked by management to find a political cartoonist for the paper and eventually came up with Zec, who had been doing occasional work for the paper including on ‘Belinda Blue-Eyes’, a copy of the New York News cartoon strip ‘Little Orphan Annie’ scripted by Connor. Zec recalled ‘I thought he was insane, as I’d never done a cartoon before and didn’t propose to.’ Zec was talked around and given complete freedom. He thought up his cartoon in the morning, and had it finished by 1 o’clock. He then handed it to the blockmaker for the first edition, which was ready for distribution by 6 o’clock. ‘There was no censorship, directorial or editorial, of any kind’, he recalled: ‘I was free to do exactly as I pleased. I did my one for the day and sent it to the blockmaker and that was it.’ Zec and Connor worked in the same room, and Connor often wrote the captions for the cartoons. Zec recalled that ‘if he had an idea for a cartoon I’d use it – if it was a good one.’ He admired the work of David Low, later recalling them as ‘perfect cartoons’: ‘I couldn’t see how they could possibly be improved.’ However, Zec did not want to copy Low’s style, and, after the outbreak of war in 1939, put more venom into his drawings, preferring to depict Nazis as snakes, vultures, toads or monkeys rather than the strutting buffoons of Low’s cartoons. Along with Low, Neb, Butterworth and many others, his name appeared on Hitler’s death-list.  Zec’s most notorious Daily Mirror cartoon appeared on 5 March 1942, and depicted a torpedoed sailor clinging to a raft, over the caption ‘The Price of Petrol Has Been Increased by One Penny – Official.’ It was one of a series attacking profiteers, and the original caption, which Connor rewrote, was ‘Petrol is Dearer Now.’ A storm of controversy, and government condemnation followed. Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, described it as worthy of ‘Goebbels at his best…plainly meant to tell seamen not to go to sea to put money in the pockets of the petrol owners.’ Zec was horrified at this interpretation, but questions were asked in the House of Commons, and for a time, it seemed that Morrison might close down the Daily Mirror, as he had the Daily Worker. In contrast, Zec’s VE-Day cartoon was widely acclaimed. It depicted a wounded soldier handing over a laurel representing victory and peace in Europe, and the caption read ‘Here you are. Don’t lose it again!’ When Morrison asked Zec to help with Labour publicity for the 1945 General Election, Zec reminded him that he had branded him a traitor during the war. Morrison said that ‘everybody makes mistakes’, but Zec insisted on, and received, an apology. On election day. Zec’s ‘Don’t lose it again!’ cartoon was reprinted by the Daily Mirror, and it occupied almost the entire front page. After the war Zec became a director of the Daily Mirror, and head of its strip-cartoon department. In 1950 he succeeded Hugh Cudlipp as editor of the Sunday Pictorial, remaining in that post until 1952. He continued to draw for the Daily Mirror until 1954, when he was succeeded by Vicky. In 1958 he left the Mirror Group altogether, and moved to the Daily Herald as political cartoonist, remaining for only three years and deciding not to renew his contract. He spent 25 years as a director of the Jewish Chronicle, and was also editor of New Europe. Becoming blind in later life, Zec died in Middlesex Hospital, London, on 14 July 1983.