Patrick Nicolle (1907 - 1995; London, UK)
Pat Nicolle was the supreme Medievalist of the British Adventure Strip. His life-long passion for Arms and Armour (the title of his well-known Puffin book) - he was a founder member of the Arms and Armour Society at the Tower of London - found superb expression in his great strip of Norman Invasion, Under the Golden Dragon, together with his Robin Hood and Ginger Tom/ Firebrand strips. Later he found himself in his element working for Look and Learn, illustrating, in his inimitable, highly detailed style, countless historical articles and series, as well as painting a glorious full-colour version of Conan Doyle's historical novel, Sir Nigel. Patrick Nicolle was born in Hampstead, London, but the family moved to Birmingham when he was still very young and he spent his boyhood in the Midlands. His elder brother, Jack, was a well-known artist and book illustrator of whom Pat was justifiably proud.

The earliest of Pat's work for boys' papers so far discovered was for the Boys' Own Paper in the mid 1930s - he even painted a cover for one issue - and probably his earliest work for the Amalgamated Press was the cover painting for The Modern Boy's Book of Pirates, published in 1939. His earliest strip appears to be Astra, The Mystery Air Ace, the cover strip for Zoom, a one-off comic published by The Children's Press in 1947. In 1950, his illustrations for a Robin Hood book were seen by Leonard Matthews in a Woolworth's store and he was commissioned to draw a two-page complete Robin Hood strip for Knockout. The rest, as they say, is history!
David Ashford and Norman Wright