The world-famous Love Is... cartoon reaches its 35th anniversary on Valentine's Day and its producer, Hampstead Garden Suburb artist Bill Asprey, is celebrating 30 years of drawing the strip.

But Bill, of Creswick Walk, never planned on being a cartoonist. Born in India in 1940 to pilot parents, his passion for art remained a constant through a globe-trotting childhood. "I was drawing and modelling in plasticine from the age of four", he explained.

Prep school in Berkshire was followed by a stint in Santa Monica Junior High School, and California proved something of a culture shock.

"I nearly got knifed by a boy who jumped out when I was walking home," he said. "We were only about 12 or 13."

Bill had unwittingly been talking to his classmate's girlfriend.

A year spent on an Australian farm was more enjoyable. "I wasn't particularly good academically so my father thought it would be a good idea if I went out to Australia and learnt to become a jackaroo," he said. "We rode all day, it was great fun."

At the same time Bill managed to study a correspondence course in art which he completed back in England. "That's the one diploma I've got," he said.

His first job in the art world was as an apprentice at a London art studio where he assisted leading cartoonist Tim' (a pseudonym), who drew Bengo the Boxer Puppy.

"I was one of the assistants who worked with him to produce his television series and in those days it was all live."

Bill would animate the drawing by swivelling the dog's ears or eyes, or scrolling the background to make it look like the puppy was moving. Next, work in advertising agencies was followed by going freelance.

He met his wife Mercia in 1969. After his father's death in an air crash, in Perpignan, France, Bill was in Majorca sorting out his father's assets and Mercia was the Wings travel rep, aka the Maharaj-Kumari Of Paikpara, owing to her aristocratic Indian background.

The couple lived in Swiss Cottage before deciding to leave England and the rat race' and return to Majorca. There Bill worked as a fine artist, but with more than 4,000 registered artists on the island, competition was tough. "To get your work into a gallery you had to sell what tourists wanted to buy," he explained.

After nearly a year, the couple returned to England and settled in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Cartoons came about by chance.

"It wasn't something I planned to do," he said.

"A very good friend of mine, the cartoonist Yik', introduced me to his agent, so that's how I started out."

Bill drew under his full name William, before becoming Leon, after an uncle: "I did cartoons under the name Leon for a long time and they became quite successful I ended up drawing for Playboy for four or five years."

Drawing mostly for Playboy's magazine Oui, Bill found owner Hugh Hefner to be very hands-on: "On one occasion he said I hadn't researched one of the sex aids that I'd illustrated in a joke. He liked the idea and I said would I look into this a little more and he gave me advice on where to go."

Incongruously, while still drawing for Hefner in 1975, Bill started working on Love Is... after his agent heard the creator Kim Casali, who died in 1997, no longer wanted to produce the cartoon herself.

"I had to provide the ideas and the drawings. Of course, it was difficult because I'd never done it before. I had to follow her style at first I actually had to use the same type of little pen she used.

"It was all much smaller than I was used to drawing, but it became second nature to me eventually."

More success followed in 1978, when the Mail on Sunday starting running a Love Is... colour strip and, six years later, the editor asked Bill to adapt Roald Dahl's Big Friendly Giant character for a possible cartoon strip.

Sample strips were sent to the notoriously hard-to-please author but Bill was doubtful: "We didn't think there was very much chance. We were amazed when we got a phone call back saying Yes, great, go ahead'."

In fact, The Mail on Sunday gave the character a half-page every week in their cartoon pull-out, in addition to the Love Is... strip. Bill, working with writer Brian Lee, soon ran out of stories from the The BFG so with Dahl's permission, the pair started to invent their own adventures for the strip which ran for 14 years in the paper.

"I was very lucky because I the only artist who had two features running in there. It was a lot of work but it was fantastic."

Nowadays Bill draws and writes Love Is... for syndication worldwide.

"If not actually drawing, I'm planning. I have ideas books so whenever I think of ideas I jot them down."

In recent years he worked on the original concept designs for Vinopolis, the wine tour centre spread over two-and-a-half acres in south London.

He has also set set up two web sites www.artfulasprey cartoons.co.uk, publishing his work, and www.cartoon world.org, started, with a view to, if nothing else, trying to help cartoonists'.

To aspiring artists he offers the advice: "Believe in your work, be prepared for rejection and fight for your rights."

On the 33 years he has lived in the Suburb, Bill commented: "Because of the Garden Suburb Trust and the care it takes in managing the Suburb, it's changed less than other areas. There's a wonderful community spirit it's like a village in a way."

Likewise Love Is... has retained its essence through the years. "It has developed visually, there's more scope to it, but I hope I kept the same sort of charm that it originally had with Kim."

The fans seem to think so. In fact, when the Dallas Morning News cut the feature, readers bombarded the paper until it returned. As Bill said: "It's the true love sentiment that's what people love about it."