Bill Yates
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Floyd Buford ("Bill") Yates (July 5, 1921, Samson, Alabama-March 26, 2001, Norwalk, Connecticut) was a cartoonist who drew gag cartoons and comics strips before assuming the position of comic strip editor for King Features Syndicate in 1978.
Yates learned to cartoon by takiing the W. L. Evans Correspondence Course, and his first sale was a five dollar first prize in The Open Road for Boys cartoon contest. He served as an aviator in the United States Navy during WWII, training fighter pilots in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he married Jessie Jean ("Skippy") Hardy. As a journalism student at the University of Texas, he edited the campus humor magazine, The Ranger.
Moving to New York in 1950, he edited Dell Publishing's cartoon magazines (1000 Jokes, Ballyhoo, For Laughing Out Loud) and Dell's paperback cartoon collections. His comic strip about an absent-minded professor, Professor Phumble, was carried by King Features from 1960 to 1978, and he also did the strip Benjy with Jim Berry from 1973 to 1975.
He also illustrated books and comic books, in addition to work in advertising and twice-weekly editorial cartoons for the Westport News in Connecticut. When Sylvan Byck retired from King Features Syndicate in 1978, Yates took over the position of comics editor and stayed there until the end of 1988.
