I have previously posted about the artist who coyly signed himself 'Mr. Hill', and my efforts to identify his first name, having seen him referred to variously as Bob, Gordon and Len. Mr. Hill's connection to Cheeky was mainly through his long run on The Krazy Gang, who made their debut in the relatively short-lived Krazy and numbered among them our toothy pal. Mr Hill took over the Krazy Gang artwork duties from Ian Knox in 1977. Ian's surrendering of the strip was presumably because he had begun drawing the 2-pages-a-week 6 Million Dollar Gran in Cheeky Weekly. The mysterious Mr. Hill, whose artwork I've always found very appealing, continued to draw the Krazy Gang when the strip transferred into Whizzer and Chips following Krazy's 1978 cancellation, and the semi-anonymous artist drew the antics of the titular group until the strip came to an end in 1986. The enigmatic Mr H also drew our grinning hero in one issue of Cheeky Weekly.
I first broached the perplexing subject of the artist's first name back in 2013, when the consensus seemed to be that Bob was the appellation he went by outside of his comics work. I further considered the conundrum 2 years later, having discovered an item on a Whizzer and Chips letters page which confirmed that Bob is indeed his name.
However I recently lighted upon some further information which reintroduces the confusion because in Buster dated 16 February 1991, for his entry in the series 'Meet the Artists', Mr. Hill lists himself as Gordon, although giving his full name as Gordon Robert (from which we of course derive the 'Bob' by which he seems to be most frequently known).
Despite this latest revelation, I'm going to continue to refer to him as Bob Hill.
Later the same year, Bob placed an advertisement on the Buster letters page in the 19 October edition, announcing the publication of his book, Mr Hill's Mirthquake.
The address given in the advert would appear to be that of a house in a residential street so I felt it prudent to obliterate some of the details to avoid the present occupants being pestered by hordes of Mr. Hill fans.
I have been able to find very little information about Mr. Hill's humorous volume (he is evidently as reluctant to reveal his first name in his book publishing endeavours as he is with his comic work), but copies are held by a number of reference libraries, the author being known in the corridors of those august repositories of printed works as Gordon Hill.
