Hooper, William ‘Bill’ (1916 – 1996)

Bill Hopper Pilot Officer Prune original cartoon artwork.

Bill Hopper is best remembered as the creator of the wartime comic character Pilot Officer Percy Prune. At the start of the Second World War, he enrolled as an air gunner, but was soon transferred to ground staff. During the war he met Anthony Armstrong, editor of the training manual, Tee Emm, and together they created the character of PO Prune as a way of instructing wartime pilots what not to do if they wanted to save their lives and their aircraft. In the post-war years, Hooper and Armstrong produced a number of successful books. Hooper worked as political cartoonist for the Sunday Chronicle, and later for the BBC as presenter of the series ‘Willy the Pup’. He also formed a studio of artists to create animations for BBC programmes. He produced a strip cartoon for the Star newspaper before returning to television as, first, an artist and later a presenter. He was also worked for several years as a columnist for the Sunday Pictorial.