Peter Bacon

'The Toy Theatre Folk' (The Daily Express, 1 December 1922).

Peter Bacon was a British illustrator, who illustrated the picture story 'The Toy Theatre Folk' for the Daily Express in November-December 1922.

Life
Peter Bacon would seem one of the more obscure entries in British comic history, as no further productions by this artist are known. The artist's grandson Giles MacDonogh informed Lambiek that "Peter" Bacon was in fact a pen name for Katharine Bacon (1897-1937). She was the daughter of John Henry Bacon MVO ARA (1865-1914), who painted the coronation of George V in 1910. In 1927, Katherine Bacon went to live in Vienna, Austria, where her daughter was born. She returned to England in 1935 and died of tuberculosis two years later.

The Toy Theatre Folk
Five years before leaving for Vienna, Bacon drew the serial 'The Toy Theatre Folk' for The Daily Express. The story tells the adventures of the puppets Harlequin, Pantaloon, Pierette and Pierrot, who sneak out of their nursery to discover the world. It was serialized between 27 November and 19 December 1922 with one image a day and a text caption in rhyme. The short-lived serial appeared during a gap between two of Mary Tourtel's 'Rupert Bear' stories. The iconic bear had been created two years earlier, but wasn't the paper's only ongoing picture story feature yet. During these early years, his adventures were alternated with Tourtel's own 'Margot the Midget', but also picture stories by other cartoonists, including Peter Bacon ('The Toy Theatre Folk'), Dora Gibbon ('Muffy in Moonland'), Tom Cottrell ('Paper Cap') and Weir Browne ('The Robin's Surprise'), as well as an illustrated text serial by Vera C. Alexander and Blanche Keppel Reede ('Adventures in Opal Land'). By 1923, 'Rupert Bear' became the Daily Express' fulltime children's story.

'The Toy Theatre Folk' carried a "Copyright U.S.A.", which might have led some to believe that "Peter" Bacon was an American. However, some 'Rupert Bear' episodes carried the same byline, and they are as British as can be!

'The Toy Theatre Folk' (The Daily Express, 1 December 1922).