Bill Baker

Bill Baker is something of a mystery artist. Although it is possible to track his work through various comics over a twenty-year period, very little is known about the artist himself. He first appears with one-off stories in Top Spot, followed by a brief serial, 'New Rider at Clearwater', and illustrations for Girl in 1960-64. He remained active in girls' papers for the next decade, contributing to Tina ('Two on Cockatoo') Princess Tina ('Life with Tina'), June ('Call Me Cupid', 'Wedding in the Family') and Pixie Annual.

In 1974 he produced his first literary adaptation for Look and Learn, based on Jack London's The Call of the Wild. This was followed in quick succession by The Sea Wolf (London, 1974-75), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne, 1975), Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes, 1975), The Prince and the Pauper (Mark Twain, 1976), Moby Dick (Herman Melville, 1977), Westward Ho! (Charles Kingsley, 1977), A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens, 1977-78) and King Solomon's Mines (H. Rider Haggard, 1978).

It was during the publication of the latter – in August 1978 – that Baker disappeared from the pages of Look and Learn, the strip taken over with episode nine by C. L. Doughty.

Examples of Baker's work can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.