Heath Robinson

 Heath Robinson (1872-1944) was an English cartoonist and illustrator, best known for the complicated and outlandish inventions he portrayed. 'The Sketch' and 'The Tatler' regularly published his work and his cartoons of crazy inventions soon captured the public imagination. Essentially he was caricaturing the age of the machine and the self-importance of some of the people caught up in that age - creating complex inventions that achieved absurdly simple results, while the audience looked on solemnly.
 http://heathrobinson.org/exhibition/index.htm