Robert Nixon
(196?-1973, 1984-present)

Nixon took over Roger the Dodger from Reid (sometime before 1967) and brought his trademark cuteness and clarity to the strip. In 1968 he inherited Lord Snooty, producing quite a good imitation of Dudley D Watkins. In 1972 he drew a revival of Grandpa, which again benefited from his cute touches. In 1973 he left to work for IPC Magazines, becoming their most prolific and high-profile artist during the next decade.

Lord Snooty and Grandpa were adopted by an in-house artist who drew them in a passable but uninteresting pastiche of Nixon's style. Roger the Dodger was taken over firstly by a copycat artist with rather poor draftsmanship, and in 1976 by some nutter who reintroduced an element of madness from Reid's original.

This style did not find favour with new editor Euan Kerr in 1984, and he quickly lured Nixon back to The Beano to return to Roger the Dodger. In explaining this to me, Kerr summed his talents up well: "Bob Nixon has a style extremely popular with readers. I'd put this down to his cute characters and the clear way he tells a story."

In 1986 Nixon created the 'infant terrible' Ivy the Terrible - in many ways, his own Oor Wullie. In the nineties he also drew Korky the Cat for the Dandy.