A Post About Bob

The late 1980s letters pages of Whizzer and Chips quite regularly featured reader enquiries as to the identity of the artist on a particular strip. Thanks to Lazy Bones fan Helen Dennis, whose question appeared in Whizzer and Chips dated 04 July 1987, I can finally lay to rest an uncertainty that has bugged me for some time - what was the first name of the artist who signed himself Mr. Hill?

Irmantas reported some time back that Denis Gifford in one of his volumes on British comics referred to the artist as Bob Hill, but I recently read an interview online in which a colleague referred to the person in question as Len Hill.

Not only do we now know without doubt that he's named Bob, we're aware of his previous occupation.

Let's enjoy Bob's work on that week's Lazy Bones episode.

Bob took over the artwork on Lazy Bones from Colin Whittock when Colin began drawing the 2-page-per-week rural whodunnit strip Mizz Marble. As mentioned above, Bob would often sign his work 'Mr. Hill', but none of his Lazy Bones strips that I have so far seen have been signed. Colin did sign his Lazy Bones work, so maybe the Whizzer and Chips editor didn't want to alert readers to the fact that artwork duties had been reassigned. Bob certainly did a good job of ghosting Colin's style