Mike Hubbard was born as Ernest Alfred Hubbard in Dublin, Ireland. He came to London after World War I and there he attended art school and joined Dean's Studio as an illustrator. He started out as an illustrator on the British story papers of the Amalgamated Press in the 1930s, including The Thriller and Detective Weekly.
King Solomon's Mines (Look and Learn)
Hubbard moved into comics after the Second World War. He continued to work for AP, making adaptations of 'Treasure Island', 'The Coral Island', 'The Adventures of Robin Hood', 'Sinbad the Sailor', 'The Adventures of Marco Polo' and 'Red River' for Knockout in the second half of the 1940s.
Final Jane strip
He additionally was Norman Pett's assistant on the daily 'Jane' comic strip for the Daily Mail, starting in 1946. Hubbard took over completely in 1948 and turned the comic into an early soap series. He kept it running until 1959, when he made Jane and her lover live happily ever after.
The Secret Garden
By the early 1960s, Hubbard started working for the Fleetway girls' titles. He drew strips based on pop songs for Valentine, the serial 'Nurse Angela' in Princess and strips like 'Annette in Wartime France', 'Angel of the Backstreets' and 'The Peewit Gang' for Schoolgirl's Picture Library. One of his best-known works is however 'Jane Bond, Secret Agent' (1967-1970), that appeared in Tina and Princess Tina. He then did full colour novel adaptations for Ranger, Look and Learn and Pixie in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He died on 25 June 1976.
