Doris E White (Active 1950s to 1970s)
Not much is written about Doris White. She was a significant comic book writer and illustrator for Sooty, Pinky and Perky and Toby the Terrier comics and Annuals during the 1960s and 1970s.

Doris White is famous for her illustrations for Enid Blyton's Noddy books in the 1940s/50s. 'Doris White' was also the name of the owner of Link Studios in Holborn, London - an art agency that represented many major artists who supplied material for British comics throughout the 1950s and 1960s.


" Toby the Terrier appeared in colour on the cover and two inside pages of most issues of the comic, enjoying magical adventures that owed a lot to the style of Alfred Bestall's Rupert Bear stories. And like Rupert's mythical home of Nutwood, Toby also inhabited a very old-fashioned version of the English countyside where fields were still ploughed by horses - though modern devices such as cassette tape recorders were also in evidence from time to time (at least they were modern in 1978!).

Because of its 'old world' feel I must admit that I'd always assumed Toby was reprinted from somewhere or other, in the same way that Leonard Matthews later repackaged old Bestall stories in the Rupert comic he produced for Marvel during the 1980s. Having failed to find any earlier appearances of the character either on TV or in books or comics, however, I've come to the conclusion that he must have been a brand new creation after all. What's more, even though none of the stories carry any artist byline, Denis Gifford's Encyclopedia of Comic Characters attributes it to one 'Doris White' - an artist whose only previous credit seems to be for a series called Tales of Tootle Town which appeared in the Amalgamated Press's Playtime way back in 1929!

It's fascinating to think that Toby might have been the brainchild of this important but little-known figure in the history of comics, whose protégés had included prominent figures such as John Burns. Could this have represented a treasured idea that she'd nurtured for many years, constantly putting her own ambition on the back burner as she promoted the careers of others … until retirement finally gave her an opportunity to produce something that was uniquely her own? " -- Phil Rushton