Fred Basset is a comic strip about a male basset hound. The cartoon was created by Scottish cartoonist Alex Graham and published first in the Daily Mail on 8 July 1963. Fred's cartoon strips are renamed as Wurzel in Germany, Lillo il Cane Saggio (Lillo the wise dog) in Italy, Lorang in Norway, Laban in Sweden and Retu, Pitko or Koiraskoira in Finland. Publication history Fred Basset has been published in the United Kingdom newspaper Daily Mail, and latterly The Mail on Sunday, from 1963 to the present. Alex Graham based Fred on his own dog Frieda and drew over 9,000 comic strips. Alex Graham died on 3 December 1991. Once the stockpiled 18 months' worth of Alex Graham cartoons had been published, they were continued in Graham's style with artwork by Michael Martin and Graham's daughter, Arran Keith, continuing the family link. They are new cartoons being published, not merely re-runs of earlier ones. The Michael Martin drawings started out with the general style and humour of the original Graham Freds, but after around 2000 a more casual style of drawing is apparent. The current cartoons still have Alex Graham's original whimsical theme. Fred and his family still live in a pre-1990s era, with only a few hints to modern life, such as satnav and them finally buying a more modern car, as shown in the 2008 annual. Despite Fred's many years featured in newspapers around the world, he is not as well known as other cartoon characters. Fred Basset is currently syndicated in newspapers using the current Michael Martin strips and is available by email subscription or online direct from GoComics.com and others. Characters and story Fred's owners are a middle-aged husband and wife, who are not given names in the strip. The husband is a professional worker in the City of London. He enjoys socialising at his local pubs, The Swan and The Chequers and The Rose and Crown. He is shown often as being temperamental and spends much free time reading the newspaper, walking Fred, and playing golf. The wife manages the house and the family, and has a busy life socialising with friends. She is shown several times as being a bad driver with many accidents with the family car. Known relations to the family are "her rich eccentric" Uncle Albert and her sisters, one in UK and one overseas. A new relation introduced during