Leo Baxendale was born in Lancashire on 27th October 1930, and began drawing for publisher DC Thomson's long running title The Beano on a freelance basis in 1952. He went on to create Little Plum, Minnie the Minx, The Three Bears and The Bash Street Kids for the comic, and also helped launch The Beezer in 1956 before parting company with Beano and its stablemates in 1962 and going on to work for Odhams (wehere he helped launch Wham!) and later IPC, for whom he created Sweeny Toddler and Clever Dick, amongst others. He also created Willy the Kid, which was published in book form by Duckworth's from 1976-1978. In 1987, he founded the publishing house Reaper Books.