Bill Titcombe in 2019
- Credit: Claire Thomas
A prolific artist, illustrator and cartoonist, who worked on more than 65 franchised cartoon characters during his career, has died at the age of 82.
A talented comic strip artist, Bill Titcombe, who lived in Beccles, was best known for his work on Look-In and TV Comic, but his long career has spanned both illustrating children’s comics and books, as well as paintings of birds and wildlife.
Born William Thomas Roland Titcombe in September 1938, Romford, Essex, he was the son of commercial artist Stewart Titcombe and Edith née Littler, who married in 1927.
He was educated at various schools in London and South Africa, and when he left at the age of 15, he began working at London publisher Amalgamated Press, where his career in British comics began.
Bill Titcombe obituary Olly Day
My friend Bill Titcombe, who has died aged 82, was an artist, illustrator and cartoonist who worked on more than 65 franchised cartoon characters, many of them for TV-related magazines such as Look-In and TV Comic during the 1960s and 70s. Among the characters he drew were Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo, and he also created comic-based representations of characters from Dad’s Army and Charlie’s Angels.
Bill was born in Romford, Essex, to Stewart Titcombe, an artist, and his wife, Edith (nee Littler). Educated at various schools in London and South Africa, he secured his first job with Amalgamated Press in London, where, at the age of 16 and under an exceptional mentor, Nobby Clarke, he drew a cartoon strip called Our Ernie for the comic Knockout, progressing over the next five years to work on a variety of characters for the same publication, including Sinbad, Space Age Kit and Billy Bunter.