Before entering the comic industry Ted Cowan worked as a lab assistant at Shell-Mex then enlisted into the RAF as WWII broke out. Forced to re-enlist with the army after a crash, he became a dispatch rider, but another accident saw an end to his career in the services. After picking up a comic and being unimpressed by the writing inside, Cowan wrote to Stan Boddington, then editor of Champion. Boddington gave him a chance and Cowan started on Ginger Nutt – a successful strip about a young Australian boy, which ran for almost seven years. Cowan’s next strip - The Jungle Robot – appeared in the first issue of Lion. Many adventures featuring Robot Archie were to follow. While working for Lion, Cowan scripted many popular strips including Paddy Payne, Adam Eterno and of course The Spider which he co-created and wrote the first two complete stories for.

Jack Adrian’s real name is Christopher Lowder. Over the past 50-odd years Christopher Lowder has used maybe a dozen or more pseudonyms, and had a few more foisted on him. He’s written SF, westerns, men’s adventure (for paperback carousels in the rust belt), weird tales, war fiction (WW1, WW2, Vietnam), Regency romances on the High Toby, comicbook scripts (including Dan Dare. Judge Dredd, Adam Eterno and Kids Rule, O.K.), private eye stories, horror and fantasy. He’s edited upwards of 40 mystery/weird anthologies, including a dozen or so posh ones for Oxford University Press. He’s written for the Literary Review, the Times Literary Supplement, and for nearly two decades he was a regular obituarist for the late and very much lamented Independent newspaper. Currently he is Chair of Cradley Parish Council in Herefordshire -- which should be a warning to you all.