Author, Illustrator. He is best remembered for his children's picture books that illustrated his character "Spot the Dog," which have sold more than 60 million copies and have been translated into 60 languages. Born Eric Gordon Hill, he left school at the age of 16 and became an errand boy at an art studio where he began drawing cartoons and comic strips in his spare time and it eventually led to a weekly strip in Illustrated and sketches for Lilliput magazines. A year later, he joined an advertising agency, where he helped to present ideas to clients through the use of a storyboard. He then went on to work for the graphic designer Henri Kay Henrion at Erwin Wasey, a London-based agency. After a short stint with an American advertising agency, he returned to England and began freelancing as a graphic designer and illustrator. In 1978, when his son Christopher was 2 years old, he would tell him stories about the adventures of a small puppy named "Spot" and it evolved into a picture book featuring featured the simply-drawn, mischievous yellow puppy with brown spots and a brown-tipped tail with little flaps which could be lifted by small children. After a friend introduced him to a literary agent, his debut book, "Where's Spot" was published in 1980 and was the first publication to use the lift-the-flap concept. It was an immediate success and was soon followed by "Spot's First Walk" (1981), "Spot Tells the Time" (1983), "Sweet Dreams, Spot!" (1984), "Spot's Friends" (1984), "Spot Goes on Holiday" (1985), "The Adventures of Spot" (1986) which became a series of 13 television adaptations of the "Spot" stories, and many other "Spot" books. In 1983 he moved to Tucson, Arizona and later to Templeton California, where he owned a ranch. In 2008 he was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his work in children's literature. He died at his home following a short illness at the age of 86.