Spotlight On An Artist: Jack Edward Oliver

Jack Edward Oliver, or JEO as he called himself (and sometimes even just J. Edward Oliver), was the man behind brilliant cartoons such as Cliff Hanger, Vid Kid and Master Mind.

Jack was always intrested in comics and cartoons, and by the age of eight he was drawing his own comic books. His first published work however, wasn't until 1968 when he drew Instant Garbage, which was a full colour humour magazine published by himself. It cost 1/6 and was made up of lots of writing and drawings, ending up to be 16 pages long. It was because of this magazine that got him his coloum - The Instant Garbage Coloum - in Disc. I don't own a copy of Instant Garbage, but here's a scan from a JEO fan site, which I'll link at the bottom.

Disc was a music magazine, as was Music Echo, which he also drew for. In it he drew the hugely popular strip Fresco, which expanded to a full page when the magazine later became Record Mirror. Apart from drawing Fresco, he also started writing more, and had a few other comic strips in the publication, such as Toppo D' Popps.




Record Mirror folded in 1977, and that was when Jack took to comics! There was a massive choice to aim for in the late '70's, and in the end he was hired by IPC media. He took a shot at drawing The Champ - completely breaking away the Baxendale style Champ had been drawn in for so many years, and drew him in his own way. JEO's strips appeared in many different comics including Buster, Whoopee and Whizzer and Chips. Cliff Hanger was probably his most succesful, and some eagle-eyed readers noticed that the number of Cliff's shirt was the episode number! Obviously this failed when they started reprinting the strips in a random order!

Sadly, in 2007 he was diagnosed with cancer, and died in May that year. In 2010, a plaque was placed on his house in his memory. It read: "World Famous - Jack Edward Oliver - 1942 - 2007 - Lived Here - Underpaid Cartoonist".

Jack also has a fan site, which you can visit by following the link below:

http://www.jeoliver.co.uk/

UPDATE:


As mentioned in the comments, Peter Gray posted some of Jack's original Cliff Hanger work on his site. Here it is, with a puzzle to keep you going right from the first box! On the shaceship it reads 'SYADSEUT HSILOBA', which, as Niblet managed to work out, is 'ABOLISH TUESDAYS' backwards!

And if you wish to view the stamps we were talking about, head on over to http://www.philstampcovers.co.uk/ . All of Jack's are May 2007 and before.