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Doug Sneyd – RIP

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D. D. Degg Updated: January 28, 2025 at 7:00 pm EST 1 minute 2 comments

Cartoonist and illustrator Doug Sneyd has passed away.

From the family obituary:

Passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, at Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, Orillia on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, in his 94th year.

Doug was a renowned commercial artist, illustrator, and cartoonist … From humble beginnings, as a teenager, Doug sketched silhouettes at the Canadian National Exhibition. After high school, Doug was employed as a commercial and portrait artist in Montreal and Toronto.

Doug went freelance in Toronto in 1957, illustrating for major Canadian textbook and magazine publishers. For 12-years, the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, commissioned Doug to paint their holiday cards.

Doug became a cartoonist for Playboy magazine in 1964 and was the longest contributor with over 400 full-page colour cartoons. Also in the mid 1960s, Doug became a daily political cartoonist, first with “Doug Sneyd” in the Toronto Star and later with “Scoops” that he syndicated in over 150 North American papers. These features ran for nearly 20-years. Doug followed up with a heartwarming feature, “Wee Whimsy.”

Doug was a founding member of the Canadian Society of Book Illustrators and was a member of the National Cartoonists’ Society and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. The National Archives of Canada in Ottawa contains 235 of Doug’s works.

Undoubtedly Doug Sneyd is most famous for his fifty-two years of full-page full-color cartoons for Playboy featuring some of the best drawn, sexiest women of any cartoonist.

_{above: Doug Sneyd’s first and last full page, full color Playboy cartoons – September 1964 (left), January/February 2016 (right)}

But as the obituary tells us Doug began his career in the mid-195s and by the end of that decade Sneyd was getting major exposure as a Toronto Star illustrator.

In 1968 Doug started a self-titled political cartoon for The Toronto Star dealing with the world at large. Below is the first panel from October 22, 1968 (The Star) and the last (?) panel from December 19, 1977 (Atlanta Journal).

In 1971 the Toronto Star Syndicate began distributing the panel, and while still political Doug began including cultural and societal cartoons into the mix. Eventually he would revert back to full time politics with his caricatures being standouts. Below is an introduction to the syndicated Doug Sneyd panel.

After resting for a couple months Doug launched Scoops, a political comic strip on March 20, 1978 (below).

For a few years in the first half of the 1970s (June 12, 1972 – November 26, 1976) Doug also did a small one column children’s participation panel called Wee Whimsy. The featured child got the original art.

But, yeah, it will be his voluptuous women in the Playboy cartoons for which Sneyd will be remembered.

If you are an adult, and not at work, The Art of Doug Sneyd blogspot is a wonderful website.

Some early art at the Canadian Animation, Cartooning and Illustration Doug Sneyd entry.

Our condolences to Doug’s family and friends.