Peter Brookes was born in Liverpool, on 28 September 1943, the son of an RAF Squadron Leader and he attended Heversham Grammar School, Westmorland.
[1] In 2009, he drew a controversial portrayal of Pope Benedict XVI with a condom on his head, which elicited a rebuke from Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor.
[5] With the formation of the coalition government in 2010, he began a notable series of cartoons known as the "Westminster Academy", which depicted Nick Clegg as a public school fag to a red cheeked David Cameron, who was portrayed as a prefect dressed in an Eton suit and Union Jack waistcoat, with Boris Johnson and George Osborne also appearing in some cartoons as his cronies.
[6] Brookes uses T. H. Saunders paper, on which he draws with Pelikan black ink and a dip pen, equipped with Gillott nibs, as well as watercolour and gouache.
He says, "There are three stages to the way I draw cartoons: first they are rendered loosely in soft pencil, then I overlay that with pen and Indian ink, and finally I add tone and colour with watercolour.