Thiruvananthapuram: Popular Kerala cartoonist, V.T. Thomas, who went by his pen name, Toms, died at a private hospital in Kottayam.

He was 86. The end came at 10.30pm on Wednesday. Toms leaves behind wife Thresiakutty and six children.

For six decades he had endeared himself to Kerala audiences with his thought-provoking writings, cartoons and caricatures, triggering many a giggle along the way.

Of all his creations, the one that caught the most popular attention was Boban and Molly. A few generations of Kerala’s children grew up on those cartoons, even as it was a staple diet for grown-up audiences. Boban and Molly were the names of two of his own children.

He was born in 1929 in Kuttanad in Alappuzha district to Vadakkal Thoppil Kunjuthomman and Cicily Thomas, and graduated from the St Berchmans’ College in Changanacherry, Kottayam district.

The early influence in his life was his elder brother, Peter Thomas, who was a cartoonist with the then nationally popular Shankar’s Weekly. That prompted him to join the Mavelikkara School of Arts for a three-year art course.

He then began a career as a journalist, contributing to publications including Kudumba Deepam, Kerala Bhooshanam, Deccan Herald and Shankar’s Weekly.

But it was his association with the Malayala Manorama group since 1955 that took him on to wider fame, after he launched the weekly cartoon titled, Boban & Molly, a full-page cartoon. Many readers of the Malayala Manorama Weekly, in which the cartoon appeared, had no qualms in admitting that they read the last page of the magazine, where Toms’ cartoon appeared, first.

The Boban & Molly cartoon became so popular that a commercial film was produced under the same name in 1971, and an animation film followed in 2006.

After resigning from Malayala Manorama, with some bitterness, he launched his own Toms Publications, based in Kottayam. After his resignation he was engaged in a legal tussle with his employer over the rights to the cartoon. Both Manorama and Toms claimed victory in the legal battle, and Toms later focused on his own publication house.