Indispensable Cobbler

@crossgap.bsky.social

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Long time listener, no time caller.

"One of the funny things about thinking up names for fictional characters is that, as soon as you suggest one, it sounds totally unlikely," says Bob, who admits that they dreamt up the names Tom and Barbara Good before finding a title for the series. "We called the characters Tom and Barbara and thought of the surname afterwards. Then the title became one of those screamingly obvious things, and we wondered why we hadn't thought of it in the first place. But titles are like that." John and Bob have no idea where the name Leadbetter came from. "I haven't a clue, says John with a shrug, "but it has a certain poshness about it." "I don't know where that one came from, either," adds Bob. "But the name Margo instantly sounded right for the character and was a good name to say. Jerry, though, was a joke initially. We thought, we've got Tom, so we might as well have Jerry to go with him. But, again, the name seemed to suit."
Cover image of issue 1 of "Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang" from November 1919. The cover shows a WWI soldier and his possessions being blasted into the air against an orange-red background, above the headline EXPLOSION OF PEDIGREED BULL.