'Flora, Fauna and Merryweather', comic based on the Disney film 'Sleeping Beauty'.
Roger Hutchings was a mid-20th century British children's book illustrator, painter, colorist, greeting card designer and comic artist. He drew the Disney comic 'Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, the Fairy Godmothers' (1961-1962), serialized in Harold Hare's Own Paper.
Life and career
Roger Hutchings was born as the son of a painter and a mother who was also artistically gifted. His two brothers, Gordon Hutchings and Tony Hutchings would later become comic artists and illustrators in their own right, mostly for the preschool nursery comics of the Amalgamated Press and IPC. Roger Hutchings started his comics career as a colorist of Bert Felstead's 'Leo the Friendly Lion' in the A.P.'s Playhour. In the IPC magazine Harold Hare's Own Paper, he created his first actual comic strip, 'Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, the Fairy Godmothers' (1961-1962), based on the fairies from the Disney animated feature 'Sleeping Beauty' (1959).
In 1963, the Hutchings brothers established their own graphic studio in Soho, where they worked collectively on their comics, children's book illustrations and animation projects. Hutchings later became an art director in Yorkshire and moved to Bath to become a painter. During the 1970s, he also drew greeting cards for the W.N. Sharpe Company in Bradford, Yorkshire. Like the other two Hutchings brothers, his later life and career are shrouded in mystery.