Reg Bunn biography

Reginald Bunn (October 1905 - 1971; Kings Norton, Birmingham, England)

Reg Bunn, active late 1940s - 1970, was the most prolific artist working on the Thriller Comics Library. Best known for his many Robin Hood strips, Bunn did excellent work on the U.S. Cavalry Westerns of Ernest Haycox (The Border Trumpet no. 32) and James Warner Bellah (The White Invader no. 88 and Sabre and Tomahawk no. 95) as well as on such diverse titles as Black Hood no. 21), The Scottish Chiefs (no. 58) and Captain Kidd (no. 105). The vast majority of his Thriller Comics output, however, was for the Robin Hood titles. So closely did he become associated with the character that often, when another artist was drawing the strip, Bunn would be asked just to fill in the faces, so that some sort of conformity of style would be achieved.

As a young man, Bunn produced commissioned portraits and caricatures to supplement his income. He spent the war years in Liverpool, suffering a serious motor accident there in 1944 which rendered him paralysed from the neck down. He was told he would never walk again but with considerable effort he recovered, although he would suffer back problems for the rest of his life. After the war he worked as a draughtsman at Rolls-Royce in Derby.

Reg Bunn was one of only two people signed up by Leonard Matthews after a nationwide campaign to find strip artists in 1949. The other was Geoff Campion. Coincidentally, both artists came from Birmingham, though neither knew the other. Through invalidity, Bunn was forced to take a sedentary job and, with an open, rounded, jovial, warm-spirited style (his Buck Jones strips, 1949/50 and his earliest Robin Hood work, 1949/51, both for Comet), it changed over the years until it had become decidedly angular by the time he came to draw The Spider and The Waxer for Lion in the 1960s.

Bunn married and had three children — two sons and a daughter. He spent more than 20 years working from a studio in his home and died in 1971 at the age of sixty-six.
Source: David Ashford and Norman Wright; Wikipedia

Enjoy Reg Bunn's great storytelling in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics JOHN STEEL, PIRATE TALES and CLASH OF BLADES collections.

See REG BUNN ART.