Artbeat

Description

Bill Buttle was born in Almonte, Ontario in 1940, and grew up in the village of Pakenham. After receiving a degree in Dentistry from The University of Toronto in 1962, he practiced in Ottawa for five years before moving to Arnprior, which has remained his home. He retired from dentistry in 1988, and began drawing. His work was accepted for syndication by Miller Features in Toronto, and the cartoons ‘Two’s a Crowd’ and ‘Double Bill’ were distributed to weekly papers across Canada, and for the last two years that the Ottawa Citizen had colour Sunday comics, ‘Two’s a Crowd” was a part of that feature.  Weekly newspapers were in decline, however, and by the start of the new century, Bill had stopped doing syndicate work, and has since been concentrating on learning to do caricature, inclining towards political cartooning, but does two regular monthly features, ‘Artbeat’, for The Humm, the Almonte-based arts and entertainment paper, and, being an avid bridge player, ‘Out of Hand’ for the American Contract Bridge League’s Bridge Bulletin. Although hovering on the brink of overwork from these rigorous duties, Bill manages to find time to play banjo and guitar with a bluegrass group, Corduroy Road, which will shortly be releasing its first CD. Bill and his wife and bridge partner, Linda, have been married for forty-three years and have two grown sons, Jonathan and Andrew.