 Mary Tourtel (1874-1948) was a children's illustrator, married to Herbert Bird Tourtel, an assistant editor of the "Daily Express".Tourtel devised Rupert Bear shortly after the end of World War I, in 1920, when the "Daily Express" was in competition with "The Daily Mail" and its then popular comic strip “Teddy Tail” (featuring a mouse called “Teddy Tail”), as well as with the comic strip “Pip, Squeak and Wilfred” (respectively, these are the names of a dog, penguin, and rabbit) in the "Daily Mirror".Each panel of Tourtel's comic strip story was accompanied by a narrative in rhymed verse.