British cartoonist who created whimsical characters best known in the popular “Mr. Men” series of books for children.

Hargreaves was a creative director in an London advertising firm when he began to market his potato-shaped doodles in the early 1970s. The simple figures were given such names as Mr. Tickle, Mr. Happy, Mr. Nosey, Mr. Greedy, and Mr. Grumpy. These characters appeared in books, as BBC cartoons, and in a comic strip in the Daily Mirror. The “Mr. Men” characters spawned more than 700 products, from T-shirts to food cartons, and paved the way for a “Little Miss” series, including Little Miss Helpful and Little Miss Bossy. Together the two series reached worldwide sales of 85 million volumes and were published in 20 languages.