Mike Noble

Mike Noble is a British comic artist and illustrator, born in Woodford, 17 September 1930. He is best known for drawing strips like Fireball XL5 for TV Century 21.

Biography

Noble's father was a stockbroker's clerk who had artistic talent himself. During the war he was evacuated, like many children, but returned to London and endured much of the blitz. After school Noble attended South West Essex Technical College and School of Art where he studied commercial, rather than fine art. At the age of 17 he joined an advertising studio but found the meticulous reproduction of every day objects limited him in scope. In 1949 he was called up for National Service and for 18 months was in the 8th Royal Tank Regiment in North Yorkshire after which he spent three years in the Territorial Army, where his artistic talent came into good use producing graphics of military hardware.

Returning to the same advertising studio he decided to move on and got a job at Cooper's Studio, London in 1950. Noble admits to learning a lot from Leslie Caswell, (an artist whose figure work in 1950s romance magazines such as Home Notes and weeklies like Everybody's and John Bull, are renowned). Noble's first published comic strip (the field in which he was active for 5 decades) was Simon and Sally, a strip for the comic Robin (from Hulton's line of children's comics). Noble stayed with Billy Cooper's studio and contributed spot illustrations to national magazines, such as Titbits, Wide World, Woman, Woman's Own, and John Bull as well as the regional newspaper Birmingham Weekly Post.