Maurice Dodd (25 October 1922 – 31 December 2005) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

writer and cartoonist best known for his years spent working on ''

The Perishers ''The Perishers'' was a long-running British comic strip about a group of neighbourhood children and a dog. It was printed in the ''Daily Mirror'' as a daily strip and first appeared on 19 October 1959. For most of its life it was written by ...

'' comic strip published in the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ci ...

''.

Biography

Dodd was born in Hackney. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he served in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

as a Servicing Commando, alongside Bill Herbert. After the war Dodd was demobilised and began to study art. He then found work in advertising and, after he won a competition to write a slogan for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'', Bill Herbert, by then the cartoon editor at ''

The Daily Mirror ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

'', offered Dodd the chance to take over the writing of a comic strip he had created, ''

''. Working with the artist Dennis Collins, Dodd provided rough layouts, which Collins then drew from. Dodd continued to work in advertising, such as on the ''

Clunk Click Every Trip "Clunk Click Every Trip" is the slogan of a series of British public information films, commencing in the summer of 1970 presented by Shaw Taylor, then in January 1971, starring Jimmy Savile. The BBC adapted Savile's slogan for the title of his ...

'' series of public information films intended to remind drivers of the benefits of wearing a

seatbelt A seat belt (also known as a safety belt, or spelled seatbelt) is a vehicle safety device designed to secure the driver or a passenger of a vehicle against harmful movement that may result during a collision or a sudden stop. A seat belt redu ...

. It was while he was working on this campaign that Dodd came into contact with

FilmFair FilmFair was a British production company and animation studio that produced children's television series, animated cartoons, educational films, and television advertisements. The company made numerous stop motion films using puppets, clay ...

, a company responsible for the creation of television programmes based on

The Wombles ''The Wombles'' are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures created by Elisabeth Beresford and originally appearing in a series of children's novels from 1968. They live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recyc ...

and

Paddington Bear Paddington Bear is a fictional character in children's literature. He first appeared on 13 October 1958 in the children's book ''A Bear Called Paddington'' and has been featured in more than twenty books written by British author Michael Bond, ...

. Dodd collaborated with the company in bringing ''The Perishers'' to television. Dodd left advertising in 1980 and subsequently wrote a number of children's books. In 1983 Collins retired, leaving Dodd to write and draw ''The Perishers'' alone until 1992, when Bill Mevin began doing all the art work for the strip. Dodd continued working on the strip until he died, from a

brain haemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

, in

Shepperton Shepperton is an urban village in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, approximately south west of central London. Shepperton is equidistant between the towns of Chertsey and Sunbury-on-Thames. The village is mentioned in a document of 959 AD an ...

on 31 December 2005.

References

English children's writers British advertising executives 2005 deaths 1922 births People from Hackney Central Royal Air Force personnel of World War II English cartoonists {{UK-comics-creator-stub