Raymond Briggs was born in Wimbledon Park, London, in 1934. He studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he graduated in 1957. He became a freelance writer, illustrator and book designer, as well as a teacher of illustration at the Brighton College of Art.
For a long time, he mainly produced children's books, such as 'The Strange House' (1961), 'Father Christmas' (1973), 'Father Christmas Goes On Holiday' (1975), 'Fungus the Bogeyman' (1977), 'The Snowman' (1978) and 'Gentleman Jim' (1980).
In 1982, he created the awarded graphic novel 'When the Wind Blows', about an elderly couple preparing for and living through a nuclear war. This remarkable book, which was made into a movie, was the first of a series of comics for adults Raymond Briggs did, including the moving 'Ethel & Ernest' (1998), in which he tells the story of his parents' lives. Recent children's comic books he made are 'Ug, Boy Genius of the Stone Age' and 'Ivor the Invisible' (2001).
