Norman Mitchell, commonly known as Norm, was born in NSW and from a young age became interested in newspapers. He joined Smith’s Weekly as a copy boy in 1935 with high hopes of one day moving into the art department. Some months later he became a cadet artist for the same paper and worked under cartoonists Stan Cross and Jim Russell. He eventually left NSW in 1950 to take up a post with Keith Murdoch’s The News in Adelaide. It was here that Norm came into his own. He remained working for The News for the next 30 years.
Pat Oliphant, well-known Australian editorial cartoonist, described Mitchell’s work as having “a loose line… and his cartoons looked as though they’d just jumped out of the ink bottle”.