Ken Reid (comics artist)
| Ken Reid | |
|---|---|
| Born |
18 December 1919 Manchester, England, UK |
| Died | 2 February 1987 (aged 67) Pendlebury, Greater Manchester, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist, Writer, Artist |
|
Notable works
|
Roger the Dodger Jonah Faceache Fudge the Elf |
| Awards | Best Writer and Best Artist, Society of Strip Illustrators, 1978 |
Ken Reid (1919–1987) was a British comic artist and writer, best known as the co-creator of Roger the Dodger and Jonah for The Beano and Faceache for Jet (later appeared in Buster).
Born in Machester, Reid drew from an early age. At the age of nine he was diagnosed with a tubercular hip and was confined to bed for six months, during which time he drew constantly. He left school at thirteen and won a free scholarship to Salford Art School, but was expelled shortly before graduation after being caught in a local café when he should have been in class. He set himself up in a studio as a commercial artist, with little success until his father offered to act as his agent, and bluffed his way into an interview with the art editor of the Manchester Evening News. Reid was invited to submit ideas for a new children's section for the paper, and proposed The Adventures of Fudge the Elf, which first appeared in 1938 and ran until 1963, with a break from 1941 to 1946 when Reid was on National Service.
After a brief period contributing to Comic Cuts in the late 1940s, Reid proposed a full colour strip called "Zooville" to the Eagle. At the same time, Dundee-based publishers D. C. Thomson & Co., to whom he had been introduced by his brother-in-law, fellow cartoonist Bill Holroyd, invited him to contribute to The Beano. Their managing editor, R. D. Low, travelled to Manchester to discuss a proposed new strip, "Roger the Dodger", with him. Reid accepted their offer, and "Roger" first appeared in The Beano on 18 April 1953.
Over the next decade he drew a number of successful strips for The Beano and its sister comic The Dandy, including "Jonah", a strip about a jinxed sailor who brings bad luck to every ship he sails on, written by Walter Fearne. Reid later recalled how much Fearne's scripts made him laugh, but he made many visual alterations to them, cramming as many as thirty panels to a page.
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