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Stanley McMurtry MBE (born 4 May 1936), known by his pen name Mac, is a British editorial cartoonist. McMurtry is best known for his controversial work for the British Daily Mail newspaper from 1971 to 2018.
He adopted the pen name "Mac" while working as a cartoonist for the Daily Sketch in the 1960s. That publication was absorbed by the Daily Mail in 1971, and he worked there for the rest of his career. McMurtry was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2004 New Year Honours for "services to the newspaper industry".
McMurtry's comic strip Percy's Pets was a regular feature in Smash! from 1966 to 1970.
He appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 23 March 2008.
In 2001, the British Medical Association received an apology from the Daily Mail for its publication of a McMurtry cartoon which depicted a black, immigrant "witch doctor" jumping on the bed of a shocked, white NHS patient.
In November 2015, Mac was accused of "spectacular racism"Allegretti, Aubrey. "NEWS: 'Spectacularly Racist' Mac Cartoon In Tom Jones Race Heritage Jibe," HuffPost (03/11/2015). for his cartoon featuring caricatures of African tribes people selling shrunken heads, which referred to the news that singer Tom Jones would undergo tests to discover whether he had black ancestry. Later the same month, following the Paris attacks by Jihadists, Mac produced a cartoon depicting refugees with exaggerated noses crossing the EU's borders with rats at their feet. Some journalists suggested the cartoon evoked antisemitic imagery used by Nazi propagandists, including in their notorious film The Eternal Jew (1940).Buchanan, Rose Troup. "Daily Mail criticised by social media users for cartoon on refugees: Thousands have retweeted a post comparing the Mail's cartoon with that of an Austrian newspaper's from 1939," The Independent (17 November 2015).
Mac came out of retirement in December 2020 to work for the Mail on Sunday.
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