M. FWYP. Mercier also found the word 'GRAVY' humorous and included it a variety of contexts, including a trio of racehorses who were named 'GRAVY BONES', 'GREY SHRDLU' and 'CURLAMO' on signs above their stalls. Other Mercier's whims were depicting buildings, footpaths on floors supported by bed-springs, eccentric three-wheeled automobiles, yaks, and portraits of 'Uncle Ezra' on the walls of rooms. There was also a cast of frequently recurring secondary characters who starred in background gags of their own, including a bearded old gentleman (occasionally referred to as "Argylle"), who wore pince-nez glasses, a striped blazer and either a deerstalker hat or a straw boater – and who sometimes appeared carrying a euphonium, driving one of the above-mentioned three-wheeled cars, or, more often, on stilts; and a seedy old drunk in a battered brass fireman's helmet. Mercier even occasionally appeared as himself in his own cartoons, usually in a self-deprecating role. Mercier also had a naughty 'Gallic' sense of humour, and would often include double meanings in his jokes. His cartoon 'My wife's swallowed a bishop!' shows a woman who appears to have accidentally ingested a chess-piece, but the allusion is to fellatio. In another, a crow is showing another crow several golf-balls among the eggs in her nest, complaining that '... my husband has a detestable habit of leaving his balls lying all over the place!' (I'm Waiting For an Earthquake, p. 52) While on the staff of Smith's Weekly, Mercier contributed a cartoon which included a cat in the foreground. Mercier added a cross under the cat's tail, representing its anus. The Smith's Weekly art editor rejected the cartoon and gave Mercier an angry lecture about including 'smutty gimmicks' in his work. Mercier then drew a down-drawn holland blind under the cat's tail, which hid the cat's anus but emphasised its presence, and re-submitted the cartoon. Mercier retired from The Sun in 1968 and died on 17 March 1981 in Sydney from Parkinson's disease. Cartoon comic-book characters invented by Mercier include: Tripalong Hoppity (a parody of Hopalong Cassidy); Wocko the Beaut; Supa Dupa Man (a parody of Superman); Mudrake the Magician (a parody of Mandrake the Magician); Speed Umplestoop (a parody of Flash Gordon); Three Gun Ferdie (a cowboy who carries an extra gun in his chest....); Yes, What? (a popular radio comedy show of the 1940s); Doc McSwiggle. Emile Mercier's works make up part of the storyline