Comic strip from Punch.
Ernest Howard Shepard was born in 1879 in London as the son of an architect. He entered the Royal Academy School in 1897 as one of it's youngest students. He published his first drawings in Punch in 1907, and remained working of for this magazine until 1953. He served as a Major in the British Army during the First World War, while sending his joke drawings about the battles to Punch. After the War, Shepard was hired to illustrate all the 'Winnie the Pooh' books by A. A. Milne. He was hired as a regular staff cartoonist of Punch in 1921, and became the magazine's lead cartoonist in 1945. After 1953, Shepard continued to illustrate books for many leading authors, including 'Kenneth Grahame ('Wind in the Willows'). While in his mid-eighties, he wrote two children's books himself, titled 'Ben and Brook' (1966) and 'Betsy and Joe' (1967). Shepard died in 1976.
'Winnie the Pooh' was in 1966 adapted into a series of animated feature films by the Walt Disney Company. It was one of the final projects done when Disney was still alive. Over the decades, Winnie the Pooh has been featured in several other Disney pictures, including a children's TV series. Controversially, the Walt Disney Company has put a copyright claim on Winnie the Pooh, even though they didn't originally create this character. It also explains why Winnie the Pooh has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 2006. Shirley Slesinger Laswell, once married to TV producer and comic scriptwriter Stephen Slesinger and later comic artist Fred Laswell, sued the Walt Disney Company over royalties involving 'Winnie the Pooh', since Slesinger was credited with creating the image of Winnie in his red T-shirt. She lost her case.
In 2006 Winnie the Pooh received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, despite originally being a literary character. The star is therefore more a tribute to Disney's version. In 1997 the Sojourner Mars rover inspected various rocks on the planet Mars. Three rocks were named after Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Piglet.
In 1955 Peter Woolcock made a 'Winnie the Pooh' comic strip, published in the children's magazine Playhour. E.B. Shepard's illustrations were additionally a strong influence on Phiny Dick and Monique Martin, AKA Gabrielle Vincent.
'Winnie the Pooh'.