Early life and education Nixon was born in
South Bank, Middlesbrough, in
North Yorkshire on 7 July 1939. He was the fifth of six children born to Arthur Nixon and Phylis Thompson. Robert's mother Phylis worked as a housewife while his father worked locally as a steelworker. As a child, Nixon spent much of his time drawing and sketching, and his artistic skills were recognised when he was seven years old by teachers at Cromwell Road School which he attended in South Bank. During his early years as an artist, and supported by teachers at the Central Secondary Modern School (Victoria Street, Southbank), Nixon won several art competitions and a scholarship to
Middlesbrough Art College in 1955 when he was sixteen. Although his time at art college was cut short by the death of his father, Nixon gained employment locally as a lithographic artist and left in 1965 to pursue his career as a full-time cartoonist, initially for
DC Thomson of
Dundee. During this transition, Nixon met and married Rita Kelly and after living in Middlesbrough for several years they moved to
Guisborough, North Yorkshire, where they raised their four children Paul, Tony, Wendy and Catherine.
Career In
The Beano, he started out drawing
Little Plum in the early 1960s after
Leo Baxendale left
DC Thomson. He later took over
Roger the Dodger from
Ken Reid and
Lord Snooty from
Dudley D. Watkins, and revived
Grandpa, another Ken Reid creation, in the early 1970s in the same comic, as well as
Captain Cutler and
His Butler and Esky Mo in
Sparky. He left DC Thomson shortly afterwards, and started to work at
IPC Magazines (
Fleetway), drawing such characters as
Kid Kong,
Frankie Stein (not to be confused with the
Monster High character of the same name) and
Gums. Nixon drew
The 12½p Buytonic Boy for
Krazy, although Brian Walker frequently deputised when Nixon was on leave. The strip first appeared in issue 1, dated 16 October 1976. Nixon returned to DC Thomson in 1984 after being asked to by new
Beano editor Euan Kerr, and began drawing
Roger the Dodger again, as well as creating
Ivy the Terrible in 1985. Later his friend
Trevor Metcalfe drew this strip. Nixon's strips are still being reprinted in
The Beano, appearing regularly as recently as 2011. He would go on to draw
Beryl the Peril in
The Topper and
Korky the Cat in
The Dandy later on in the decade, and continue drawing them throughout the 1990s. == Death ==