Denis Gifford - Comic Art and Comic Writing: 1942-82

Comic Art and Comic Writing: 1942-82

Gifford's prolific career as a cartoonist included both newspaper strips and comics, almost entirely for British publishers. His first published work was Magical Monty for All-Fun Comics (1942) at the age of 14, with a contribution to The Dandy the same year, and briefly worked as junior cartoonist for the newspaper Reynold's News (1944–45). He collaborated on comics writing and drawing with school friend Bob Monkhouse while they were still pupils at Dulwich College together.

After his National Service, Gifford drew the Telestrip cartoon for the London Evening News, continuing in Rex magazine (1971–72), and on bubblegum and cigarette sweet packets. Other newspaper strips were produced by Gifford for Empire State News and Sunday Dispatch.

Gifford's early work was with D.C. Thomson and the majority of his work was for humour strips, but he went on to cover various genres and styles, including adventure, detective, science fiction, Western and superheroes.

Gifford was most productive as a comics artist in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. By the early 1970s Gifford's writing career, mainly on the subjects of comics and film history, began to take over from his work as a cartoonist in his own right.