"Legge's Eleven", Valiant, 1964
Douglas Francis Maxted was born in West Ham, London, in the third quarter of 1914, son of William E. Maxted and his wife Frances, née Webb. The family moved to Adelaide, Australia in 1925, when Douglas was 11.
He was educated at Norwood School, attending the South Australian School of Arts for two hours every Saturday, where he was taught by Ivor Hele and Millward Grey. He met comic artists Phillip Wearne and Max Judd in Grey's classes. After serving in the Australian army he took a job as a machine operator with a manufacturer of refrigerators, until Wearne approached him to draw comics for H. E. Hoffman. While Wearne did his military service Maxted drew several of his characters, and created "Dick Weston, Star Report" and "Big Rick Roland" in 1944.
In 1947 he set up his own publishing company, publishing Ben Barbary Bushranger Comics, featuring strips like "Vesta the Vesuvian", "Captain Carver", "Little Bosco" and "Peter Dragon of Scotland Yard", until 1949. After that he returned to freelancing and worked in advertising as well as comics. He became art director of the book publisher Rigby Ltd in 1958.
In 1962 he moved to England, where he drew numerous strips for IPC, mostly on sporting themes, including:
- "Legge's Eleven" (1964-70) and "Yellowknife of the Yard" (1971) for Valiant
- "Come On, Coggin!" (1965-66), "Charlie Peace" (1966), "Nutty Slack" (1966-68), "The Sludgemouth Sloggers" (1971-72), "Drifter Long" (1972-73) and "Uncle Ironsides" (1974-75) for Buster
- "His Sporting Lordship" for Smash! (1969), Tiger (1971) and Valiant (1971)
- "Typhoon Tracy" (1970) for Hurricane
- "The Hard Man" (1976-1985) for Roy of the Rovers
In 1983 he and his family returned to Australia, where he painted as a hobby in retirement. He died in 1999.
References[]
- Buster website
- Bio and Doug Maxted interviewed by Daniel Connell (summary) at the National Library of Australia
