Bill Holman was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1903. In 1919, he started studying in Chicago under Carl Ed, and soon found a job with the Chicago Tribune. Holman's first comic was 'Billville Birds', in 1922, which ran only for a short period. Bill Holman moved to New York to try his luck, and ended up drawing 'G. Whizz Jr.' for the Herald Tribune Syndicate. This strip was not a success either, and Holman earned his living mostly selling cartoons and illustrations to various magazines, such as Collier's, Life and Judge.
Holman's luck changed when he created 'Smokey Stover' in 1935, a strip about firemen. In the Second World war, the figure of Smokey Stover appeared as paintings on several American bomber planes. The strip ran until 1973, and had a great, funny style with witty punchlines. In the same style he also drew 'Spooky', about a cat. In 1961, Bill Holman became president of the National Cartoonists Society. He died on 27 February, 1987.
