Supermac (cartoon)

"Super-Mac" was a 1958 cartoon image of Harold Macmillan, which became an enduring nickname for him.

With its rather dismissive caption, "How to Try to Continue to be Top Without Actually Having Been There", the cartoon image, by "Vicky" (Victor Weisz) first appeared in the Evening Standard on 6 November 1958. It depicted Macmillan, the British Prime Minister at the time, in the guise of the comic-book hero Superman.

The cartoon was signed "Vicky – with apologies to Stephen Potter", an acknowledgement of the full title of Potter's book of 1958, Supermanship, or, How to Continue to Stay Top without Actually Falling Apart. The figure quickly became a staple of Vicky’s output and "Supermac" (mostly spelt without a hyphen) was widely and enduringly applied as a nickname for Macmillan. Though initially an ironic coinage, it soon rebounded to Macmillan’s advantage, becoming an integral part of his image.D. R. Thorpe's biography of Macmillan (2010) was entitled Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan.

In a subsequent cartoon, a cinema named the "Torytz" (after "Tory") was portrayed with posters proclaiming "Supermac - He's terrific - He's stupendous ... A super-colossal-top-production in true-blue colour". The Conservative Party Chairman, Quintin Hogg, Viscount Hailsham, was dressed as a commissionaire presiding over a "house full", while astonished members of the public, queuing for seats at 12 shillings and sixpence (62½ new pence), marvelled at the image of Supermac.

The creation of "Supermac" reflected an age in which, following the austerity of the post-Second World War period and the débâcle of the Suez Crisis of 1956, Britain was enjoying increasing prosperity and a general upturn in the national mood. This feeling was widely regarded as having been typified by Macmillan’s assertion in July 1957 that "most of our people have never had it so good" (often cited as "you’ve never had it so good"), though some, particularly in retrospect, saw this as a complacent and materialistic observation, maybe unaware that Macmillan had added the warning that "what is beginning to worry some of us is … 'Is it too good to last?'".

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