Mike Noble (17 September 1930 - 15 November 2018; UK)
Mike Noble was a British comic artist and illustrator, born in Woodford, Essex, and best known for drawing strips like Fireball XL5, Captain Scarlet, Lone Ranger and Follyfoot.

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.

In 1958 he started a long run of regular work in comics, with the strip Lone Ranger and Tonto (Express Weekly) followed by Range Rider for TV Comic. In 1965 he started work on TV Century 21, illustrating Fireball XL5 in colour and, later, Zero-X and Captain Scarlet. He also contributed Star Trek to the later incarnation of TV21 but the imminent demise of this comic led him to jump ship and follow Alan Fennell (his editor at TV Comic and TV21) in illustrating Timeslip in Look-In.

Noble's use of bright colour made him a recognizable artist for his many UK fans. His work on the subsequent strips Follyfoot and The Adventures of Black Beauty showed his talent for dynamic figure work as well as his ability to draw realistic animals. After a short run of other strips he was asked to draw, in black and white, another creation from the Gerry Anderson canon, Space 1999. Although very capable in drawing hardware (from his work in National Service) he was most happy to be asked to draw the Worzel Gummidge strip.

Noble retired from illustration but has still contributed pieces to the Fennell revival of TV21 strips in the 1990s and also enjoyed using his talents locally in illustrating a millennial celebration poster for his village as well as designing a lychgate and stained glass windows for his local church.
Source: Wikipedia

Arthur Ranson (born 3 June 1939; Hornchurch, Essex, UK)
Arthur Ranson is an English illustrator and comic strip co-creator whose fine line penwork and attention to visual detail has led to the misapplied epithet 'photo-realistic'.

Ranson attended the South West Essex Technical College and School of Art in Walthamstow, Essex, where he studied painting and printmaking. Trained initially as an "apprentice stamp and banknote designer" in the 1960s, learning "to translate photographs into watercolour... in stamp size." A "rare ability at the time," he would later use this skill as a "selling point" when pursuing a career "as an illustrator in advertising and publishing."

Ranson first brought the precise techniques he had evolved through his apprenticeship to the UK TV comic Look-in, working first on portrait covers, and later alongside other major comics artists such as John M. Burns, Martin Asbury, Harry North, Colin Wyatt, John Bolton, Jim Baikie, Phil Gascoine, Barry Mitchell, and Bill Titcombe.

After some time drawing "funnies", Ranson drew on his skill in translating pictures across mediums (generally using a Grant Projector, which "projects an image up onto a glass plate, on which one places tracing paper"), and brought his talents to bear for Look-in by creating strips based on such popular TV series as Sapphire and Steel and Danger Mouse, all written by Angus Allan. Since these works were based on specific TV shows, he says that "it seemed important that the characters looked as much like the actors as possible", and thus "used the methods I knew" to achieve the accurate likenesses that typify his work.

Ranson has been appearing in British comics since the early 1970s. Amongst many accomplishments, his works include Anderson: Psi Division, Button Man, Mazeworld and other 2000AD strips.

Ranson also produced a series of comic-strip biographies of well-known music stars and bands, including ABBA (1977), Elvis Presley (1981), The Beatles (1981-2), Haircut 100 (1983) and The Sex Pistols (1983).

Arthur has also contributed to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and X-Men and TV-based strips such as Sapphire and Steel, Dangermouse, Worzel Gummidge, Michael Bentine's Potty Time and Duckula.

Aside from his Look-in and (later) 2000AD comics work, Ranson also produced illustrations for Fiesta and some "advertising work through an agent, including some All-Bran adverts." He produced some assorted work for various other IPC magazines in addition to 2000AD, and was glad of the "more challenging" work to be found in comics, branding himself "too sensitive a plant to get on in advertising despite the high fees."

Ranson stresses the influence of his peers - particularly Brian Bolland - on his own evolution as an artist, moving from being burdened by the "British way of drawing adventure comics... dependable, professional, craftsmanlike and worthy," to seeing and being influenced by work that "looked as though the artist, particularly Bolland, really cared about it."

In 1989, Ranson followed in Bolland—and others'—footsteps, and moved to major British sci-fi comic 2000 AD, where he has remained ever since, with rare forays into the world of American comics, including Batman and the X-Men. He counts himself lucky that this career path has, in his decades-long comics career seen him work primarily with just three writers.

Ranson has a son, Jonas, who is also an artist, and daughter, Cassandra.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery; Wikipedia