Video | SCMP cartoonist Harry celebrates 20 years in Hong Kong with a look back at his favourite work

When Harry Harrison arrived in Hong Kong, he was a 32-year-old freelance artist intent on cementing a career in illustration. Now, as he celebrates two decades in the city, the 's satirical cartoonist is, perhaps more importantly, seen by his children's friends as having a "cool" job.

Harrison, 52, drew his first cover cartoon for a week after the handover in 1997. It featured Hong Kong's first chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, wringing the new SAR flag through a mangle with the caption, Wringing in the changes.

His job hasn't changed much since the handover, he said, as politicians and public figures have provided ample material for his sketches. A handful of regular characters have become a comforting sight to readers over the years; two elderly men in a teashop discussing Hong Kong affairs have become the most recognisable.

Both are based on real characters - Mr Wang, a night-watchman from Harrison's first studio building, and Mr Lee, who regularly took the ferry to Lamma Island to practise speaking English with foreigners. "These are your average men on the streets of Hong Kong," Harrison said. "Salt-of-the-earth characters who aren't very political but are quite keen observers to what's going on."

Watch: Harry on his inspiration