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Artists' Biographies

Biographies are in alphabetical order by last name.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

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Edwin Austin Abbey biography

Edwin Austin Abbey biography

Edwin Austin Abbey (1 April 1852 – 1 August 1911)
One of the greatest American illustrators of the Golden Age of Illustration of the last quarter of the 19th century. His work was praised for its design and historical accuracy and he illustrated works by Marvell, Pope, and Shakespeare. In 1902 King Edward VII appointed him official court painter of the coronation in Westminster Abbey. Amongst his many artist friends was John Singer Sargent.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
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E V Abbott biography

E V Abbott biography

E V Abbott (1899 - 1980; UK)
E V Abbott was a prolific illustrator of children's books and comics, including 'Tiny Tots', 'Bedtime Tales' and 'My First Book'.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
E V Abbott art
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Chris Achilleos biography

Chris Achilleos biography

Chris Achilleos
Born in Famagusta, Cyprus, Chris moved to England with his family in 1960. With a prolific career now spanning over 30 years, Chris is famous for his celebrated paintings for book covers, posters, films, album sleeves and video covers. His work includes covers for authors Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, Robert E Howard and J R R Tolkien, and for Star Trek and Doctor Who.

He has worked for film giants George Lucas, Ron Howard and Ray Harryhausen, and produced concept designs for the films Heavy Metal and Willow. His poster work includes SuperGirl, Bladerunner and Jackie Chan's The Protector. Chris is most famous for his hard-hitting fantasy works and his unique representation of Amazonian women.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
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Neal Adams biography

Neal Adams biography

Neal Adams (15 June 1941 - 28 April 2022; USA)
Neal Adams was one of the innovators in comic strip art to hit American comic books in the late 1960s and 1970s, revitalizing and redefining the looks of the X-Men and Batman. Adams was also an outspoken advocate of creators rights and was central to the attempts to help Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster earn pensions from their creation of Superman and in the setting up of the Comics Creators' Guild.

Adams won the Shazam Award in 1970 and 1971, the Inkpot Award in 1976, Eagle Awards in 1977 and 1978 and has been inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Books Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.

Neal Edward Adams was born on Governors Island, a 172-acre island a half mile from the southern tip of Manhattan in New York Harbor used by the US Army, on 15 June 1941. His father deserted the family when Adams was only 13 and, with college financially out of reach, he attended the School of Industrial Art, a vocational school in Manhattan.

Graduating in 1959, and turned down by DC Comics, he submitted samples to Archie Comics where Joe Simon was creating a superhero line. A sample of The Fly earned him his first professional appearance when a panel from his sample was used in Adventures of The Fly #4 (Jan 1960). Adams was soon drawing fillers for Archie's Joke Book Magazine and was recommended to Howard Nostrand, who needed an assistant on "Bat Masterson", a syndicated newspaper strip based on the TV series.

Adams gained some much needed experience on the strip and turned to advertising, working for Johnstone & Cushing for a year. The company specialised in comic strip advertising and Adams found himself working on AT&T advertising strip "Chip Martin, College Reporter" for Boys' Life and similar work for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

Adams, following a recommendation by Jerry Caplin (brother of Al Capp), was asked to produce samples for a new strip to be based on the popular TV drama Ben Casey. The strip was successfully pitched and was syndicated from 26 November 1962 with a colour Sunday strip added on 20 September 1964. The TV series came to an end in March 1966 and the strip followed on 31 July 1966.

Adams attempted to return to advertising work but needed to fill in, ghosting a few weeks for Lou Fine on the syndicated hardboiled detective serial "Peter Scratch", Stan Drake's "The Heart of Juliet Jones" and was hawking around a strip of his own, "Tangent". He was offered work by Peter Scratch-creator Elliot Caplin on a proposed adaptation of Robin Moore's The Green Berets but Adams – opposed to the war – suggested Joe Kubert, who accepted the job.

Adams made his first splash in comic books drawing horror stories for Warren Publishing before exploiting the gap left by Kubert at DC Comics. After producing a handful of war and horror stories for anthologies like Our Army at War, Adams found himself working on The Adventures of Jerry Lewis and The Adventures of Bob Hope.

After producing a few covers featuring Superman and Batman for Action Comics, Lois Lane and The Brave and the Bold, Adams produced his first team-up story, "The Superman-Batman Revenge Squads" for World's Finest Comics in 1968. However, it was with the supernatural hero Deadman that Adams found his first real success. He took over the artwork with Strange Adventures #206 and illustrated the stories and covers for eleven issues, also taking over the scriptwriting with issue 212. Adams also briefly drew (and even more briefly wrote) The Spectre in 1968.

Adams was assigned numerous covers at DC and, in 1969, also began working for Marvel Comics, pencilling several issues of X-Men, then under threat of cancellation. He, along with writer Roy Thomas and inker Tom Palmer, are credited with turning the characters around, all three winning the Alley Awards (Best Pencil Artist, Best Inking Artist, Best Writer). That same year Deadman entered the Hall of Fame and Adams received a Special Award for "the new perspective and dynamic vibrance he has brought to the field of comic art."

Awards could not save X-Men, which folded with issue 66 (Mar 1970). Adams continued to draw horror comics for Marvel (Tower of Shadows) and Warren (Vampirella), but it was his debut on Batman which was to cement his place in comics' history. He debuted in Detective Comics (Jan 1970) with a story by writer Dennis O'Neil and, in the next eighteen months, introduced the characters Man-Bat and Ra's al Ghul. Adams' talent to draw realistic figures helped ground the series in the real after years of camp adventure that had overtaken the comic book following the success of the 1966-68 TV series. Adams and O'Neil gave Gotham back its brooding hero and reestablished characters like The Joker as a homicidal maniac rather than the prancing buffoonery of the ABC TV show.

Adams and O'Neill also performed a similar revamping of Green Lantern and Green Arrow. Green Lantern was renamed Green Lantern/Green Arrow with issue 76 (Apr 1970) and took the two characters on a journey across America that ran for two years and encompassed one of the pair's most controversial stories in which Green Arrow's ward, the clean-cut Speedy, was revealed as a heroin addict. The series ended with issue 89 (May 1972) ... the frustrating truth being that controversy in comics rarely translated into sales to the broader public. Speaking in 1978, Adams told The Comics Journal, "It takes a good year to get somebody used to a new idea, to get a market used to a new idea ... It takes a while for the news to get around. By the time the news got around to Green Lantern / Green Arrow it was cancelled."

With the exception of his work on Batman, Adams became a more sporadic contributor to DC, although he was involved in a number of 'event' comics, such as the inter-company crossover, Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man (1976) and Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (1978), the latter a 72-page story teaming Superman with boxer Ali to battle aliens.

In 1971, Adams and Dick Giordano, an inker with whom he often worked, set up Continuity Graphics Associates Inc. to produce storyboards for movies and produce comic art for advertising. A studio was set up in New York through which dozens of artists passed. Advertising work would often be passed around various artists with Adams and Giordano inking the main figures. This team effort was often credited to the "Crusty Bunkers", including numerous inking jobs for DC Comics, in the period 1972-77. Adams was also the art director and costume designer for Warp! (1973) a Broadway play by film director Stuart Gordon and playwright Lenny Kleinfeld.

By the late 1970s, Adams was almost invisible at DC or Marvel due, he said, to the introduction of a Work-For-Hire contract which he considered to be "against the intent of the new copyright law." In 1978 he helped set up the Comics Creators' Guild, which attracted 50 members. The Guild, says Adams, achieved many of its aims.

Adams also took time out to study a film course at NYU and filmed a full-length horror film, Nannaz, on a $30,000 budget. It starred Adams, his children Jason and Zeea and comic personalities Gray Morrow and Denys Cowan and told the story of two children who protect an invention of their father's from crooks with the aid of a toy monkey. It was reputedly released via Troma Entertainment in Europe in 1986 or 1987 under the title Death to the Pee-Wee Squad.

In the 1980s, Adams was tempted back into comics and produced Ms. Mystic (1982) and Skateman (1983) for Pacific Comics, the latter lasting only a single issue which was cited as the worst single comic of the past 25 years by Kitchen Sink Press's World's Worst Comics Awards (1990). Ms. Mystic, a witch in the modern world, appeared only twice from Pacific before transferring to Adams' own company, Continuity Comics in 1987.

Formed in 1984, Continuity launched a number of titles, including Zero Patrol, a reworking of a Spanish series by Esteban Maroto (2 issues, 1984-85) and Echo of Futurepast, an anthology which serialised a number of creations that Adams had planned as books to be published in Europe, including a Dracula-Werewolf-Frankenstein team-up by Adams (based on a 1975 comic book and record set, A Story of Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein from Power Records), "Bucky O'Hare" by Larry Hama & Michael Golden, "Tippie Toe Jones" by Lindley Farley & Louis Mitchell and "Mudwogs" by Arthur Suydam.

Continuity entered the superhero market with Armor (1985-92), Revengers (1986-89), Toyboy (1986-89), Samuree (1987-91), Zero Patrol (1987-89), Ms. Mystic (1987-93), Urth 4 (1989-90) and Megalith (1989-93). A 1993 relaunch saw a number of series revert to issue one and new titles appear, the Continuity line-up now including Armor, Cyberrad, Earth, Hybrids, Megalith and Ms. Mystic, with Samuree, Shaman and Valerie, She-Bat added soon after. Continuity were caught up in the collapse of the speculative comics' boom in 1994 part-way through a company-wide crossover. At the time, Adams was also involved in a court case – with Michael Netzer over the rights to Ms. Mystic – which was dismissed in 1997.

One Continuity success was Bucky O'Hare, which became an animated TV series in 1991-92 under the title Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars! on which Adams was credited as executive producer. Adams has worked as a concept designer on movies such as From Beyond (1986), Dolls (1987), Circuitry Man (1990), and the Skeleton Warriors TV series (1994-95).

Adams continues to work with Continuity Studios to produce material for companies, including motion capture comics (such as Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, scripted by Joss Whedon, in 2009 and the upcoming Neal Adams' Blood, based on his Dark Horse Presents series), animatics and CGI. He has also recently been involved with the Disney Educational productions to produce They Spoke Out: American Voices against the Holocaust, an online educational motion comics series that relates the stories of Americans who protested the Nazis or aided Jews during the Holocaust. The first episode was screened in April 2010.

Neal Adams' Monsters, the long-promised story featuring Frankenstein, the Werewolf and Dracula, appeared as a hardcover book in 2004. Adams has occasionally returned to mainstream comics including stories for Giant Size X-Men #3 (2005) and Young Avengers Special #1 (2006) for Marvel and Batman: Odyssey (2010-12) for DC. It was recently (May 2012) announced that Adams would be co-writing (with Christos Gage) The First X-Men, a 5-issue mini-series which Adams would be drawing. Adams has also been involved in a 5-part Wolverine project.

Adams has been twice married, to Cory Adams and Marilyn Adams. His children include daughters Kristine Stone and Zeea Moss and sons Jason (a sculptor under the name Spyda), Joel and Josh Adams.
Source: Steve Holland.
Neal Adams art

See illustrators issue 16 for a Neal Adams feature article.
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Charlie Adlard biography

Charlie Adlard biography

Charlie Adlard (born 1966; Shrewsbury, UK)
Charlie Adlard was born in Shrewsbury, England in 1966. He attended art college in Maidstone, Kent, to study film and video. He did his first work in the UK on serials like 'White Death' with Robbie Morrison and the 2000 AD series 'Judge Dredd' and 'Armitage' in 1992. He continued to work for 2000 AD later on with serials like 'Nikolai Dante' (1997 onwards) and 'Savage' (with Pat Mills, 2004).

Charlie Adlard has been discovered and rediscovered a number of times in both the UK and US. After producing a string of short-lived strips beginning with Biggles Bear in 1989, Adlard approached Steve MacManus with samples and was offered a Judge Dredd strip. He then drew various strips for the Judge Dredd Megazine, notably Armitage, about a brutal Brit-Cit cop and his partner, Treasure Steel (who subsequently featured in her own series), and for Marvel UK, where his best work was probably Dances With Demons, a 4-issue mini-series penned by Simon Jowett; a second collaboration with Jowett, entitled 'Bloodrush', went unpublished.

By this time, Adlard had been discovered by American publishers, drawing stories for Black Orchid Annual, Marvel Comics Presents and Good Guys. After producing a five-issue run of Mars Attacks! for Topps, Adlard began working on the best-selling X-Files comic strip from the same publisher. The strip was a tremendous success and was still selling an average 130,000 copies per issue when Adlard decided to leave, claiming that the strip was straight-jacketed by the demands of the company and he had little artistic control.

He left to work on Shadowman for Acclaim and, although never short of relatively high-profile work (on, for instance, The Crow, Gen13, Superman and X-Men, it might be said that Adlard was critically discovered only when he began working on Larry Young's Astronauts in Trouble in 1999.

In the 2000s, Adlard was, again, kept busy on a range of titles, including Blair Witch: Dark Testaments and Double Image for Image; The Authority and The Establishment for WildStorm, Before the Fantastic Four, X-Men Unlimited, Peter Parker: Spider-Man, ThunderBolts and Warlock for Marvel and Batman/Scarface: A Psychodrama, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Harley Quinn and Batman: Gotham Knights for DC.

However, it was with The Walking Dead for Image that Adlard was yet again rediscovered in 2004. Adlard replaced original artist Tony Moore with issue 7 (April 2004) and has continued the series ever since. The post-zombie apocalypse storyline proved very popular with readers and The Walking Dead won the Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series in 2010.

Adlard has retained his connections with the UK, drawing the graphic novel Playing the Game by Doris Lessing in 1995 and episodes of Nikolai Dante for 2000AD in the late 1990s. However, it was the relaunch of Pat Mills' Savage in 2004 that brought Adlard back to the attention of fans of British comics. He went on to draw three series of the character's revival between 2004 and 2007.
Illustration Art Gallery
Charlie Adlard art
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Martin Aitchison biography

Martin Aitchison biography

Martin Aitchison (born 1919; UK)
Aitchison was born in Birmingham. He was educated at Ellesmere College in Shropshire, leaving aged 15 to attend the Birmingham School of Art and then Slade School of Art. He married fellow art student Dorothy Self.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1939. He was deaf, excluding him from active service in the Second World War, but he worked for Vickers Aircraft as a technical illustrator. He produced drawings for the bouncing bomb designed by Barnes Wallis for the Dam Busters air raid.

He became a freelance commercial artist after the war, producing drawings for a range of magazines. His earliest work was for Hulton Press' Lilliput magazine. He drew for Girl, filling in for Ray Bailey on Kitty Hawke and her All-Girl Air Crew, and illustrating Flick and the Vanishing New Girl in the first Girl annual.

He began to work for the Eagle in 1952, drawing the French Foreign Legion strip Luck of the Legion, written by Geoffrey Bond, for nearly ten years, including spin-off strips in ABC Film Review in 1952. He also drew spy series Danger Unlimited and adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and C. S. Forrester's Horatio Hornblower stories for the Eagle, and Arty and Crafty, written by Geoffrey Bond, for Eagle's junior companion paper Swift. His work for comics displayed his talents in an exuberant and creative medium, working mainly from imagination.

He joined Ladybird Books in 1963, and with Harry Wingfield illustrated many titles in its new Key Words Reading Scheme books, also known as Peter and Jane, which were used to teach so many British children to read. The consistency, naturalistic style and attention to detail of the artist made him a favourite with the prolific British publisher and over a period of a quarter of a century, he illustrated at least 100 different titles. Martin Aitchison was not the only artist to make the switch from The Eagle to Ladybird; Frank Hampson and Frank Humphris also followed the same path.

He left Ladybird in 1987, and retired - apart from drawing a new comic strip, Justin Tyme - ye Hapless Highwayman, written by Geoffrey Bond, and later his son Jim, for the fanzine Eagle Times from 1998 to 2004.
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Cecil Aldin biography

Cecil Aldin biography

Cecil Aldin (28 April 1870 - 6 January 1935)
During his lifetime, Cecil Aldin was described as one of the leading spirits in the renaissance of British sporting art. Following the death of Henry Aiken in 1851, sporting art had been in the doldrums—the comic art of John Leech aside—until the emergence of Aldin and Denholm Armour (1864-1949) towards the end of the 19th century. Between them, they founded a school of realistic portrayal of country pursuits which not only appealed to sportsmen but to the broader public.

He was particularly noted for painting of horses, dogs and hunting scenes—a hobby he particularly enjoyed. The anonymous writer of Aldin's obituary in The Times noted, "But there never yet has been a painter of dogs fit to hold a candle to him. Of all his immensely diverse interests the study of dogs came foremost. as an artist he had the ability to portray the character of his subject: as a man he understood that subject with the sympathy that enabled him to show us our very friend himself ... Somebody once complained that his drawings of dogs were 'too human'; they were not, but often showed character that even their owners had not noticed."

Cecil Charles Windsor Aldin was born in Slough, Buckinghamshire, on 28 April 1870, the son of Charles, a well-to-do builder and contractor, and Sarah Aldin. From an early age he was keen on sketching animals and the countryside and he was encouraged in his artistic aspirations by his father, who readily agreed to his studying art, after which he studied anatomy at South Kensington and animal painting at Midhurst, Sussex, under W. Frank Calderon, who went on to found the School of Animal Painting in 1894.

The Aldin family, which also included Cecil's siblings Arthur Reginald (1872-1937), Percy Charles (1874-1956), Mildred Lilian (later Dunn; 1876-1931), had moved to Clapham and lived in a house called Windemere on the south side of Clapham Common.

Aldin moved first to Chelsea and then to Bedford Park, Chiswick, where he found himself in a brotherhood of artists which included James Pryde and his brother-in-law William Nicholson—the Beggarstaff Brothers—and John Hassall, Phil May, Dudley Hardy, Lance Thackeray and many others; this wide range of friends and colleagues led to much cross-pollination of ideas and techniques.

One of his earliest commissions came from a Master of Foxhounds who wanted a portrait of a horse, an old polo pony, with the horse itself as payment, which Aldin housed in a bicycle shed. Before long, he could be found hacking on his own mount from Bedford Park to meets at Esher. Over a short period he accumulated a second horse (again in exchange for a portrait of a hunter), a Shetland pony, a donkey, two monkeys and thirteen dogs.

His artwork sales paid for his sporting hobbies and there was no shortage of magazines and newspapers who wanted Aldin's work. He found early success when he was asked to illustrated Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Stories in Pall Mall Budget (1894-95). He produced numerous sporting colour prints as well as a series on old inns of England (1919-20), illustrated R. S. Surtees' famous hunting character Jorrocks (Jorrocks on 'Uniting, 1909; Handley Cross, 1911), Dickens' Pickwick Papers (1910) and many other books, as well as contributing to Ladies Pictorial, Illustrated London News, Sketch, The Gentlewoman, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, The Queen, Penny Illustrated Paper, The Sphere, Country Gentleman, Printers' Pie, Windsor,Cassell's Family Magazine, Ludgate Monthly, Royal Magazine, Black and White, Good Words, Boy's Own Paper, The Captain, Animal World, Land and Water Illustrated, The Poster, Pearson's Magazine and Punch, amongst others.

In his autobiography, Aldin claimed: "I may as well state here and have done with it that I have no pretensions to Art. Art for the true artist should have a capital A. For me, I am ashamed to say, it has had a rather small one for my painting has always been founded on substrata of hunting possibilities, that is to say, it has had to provide me with the wherewithal to enable me to hunt, and has been tainted with this aftermath of sporting commercialism."

Aldin's talents did not go unrecognised: he was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, the London Sketch Club and had many paintings exhibited. He was said to be a man of great charm and organised various shows, including childrens' pony shows at Cloutsham Ball and Dunster, le Touquet, and dog shows which were not always serious (with awards for the ugliest dog, for example).

Aldin suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, aggravated by falls in the hunting field, which forced him to give up the sport. He retired to the Balearic Islands, taking all his dogs with him (horses were left behind with approved new owners) and made his home at Camp de Mar, Andraitz, Mallorca. He died at 20 Devonshire Place, Marylebone, London, on 6 January 1935. He was survived by his wife and daughter, his son having been killed in action whilst serving with the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1916.
Source: Steve Holland.
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Graham Allen biography

Graham Allen biography

Graham Allen (born 1940; UK)
Graham Allen was the son of variety performer Clive Allen. He joined Fleetway's staff, where he was working as an art bodger on Cowboy Comics Library by 1957. He drew comic strips for IPC titles from the mid 1960s on, including "Sir Munchkin" (1965) for Lion and "One Man and his Dog" for Buster. He also drew a weekly strip, "Lord Elpus" (1965), for the Sunday Extra newspaper. He then moved to Odhams Press, where he drew in a frenetic Leo Baxendale-inspired style for Wham!, Pow! and Smash!, including "Tuffy McGrew" and "The Nervs" for the latter.

When Odhams merged into IPC, Allen became a regular artist on their humour comics, drawing “Give a Dog a Bone” (1969) for Whizzer and Chips, "Mutt 'n' Chops" (1969), "Fiends and Neighbours" (1973, later in Cor!!), "Scruffy Dog and Shaggy Dog" and "Clarence Stringbean" for Buster, and “Eddie” (1970) and "Spoilsport" (1973) for Cor!!.

Other IPC titles he worked on include TV21, ("Mickey's Moonbugs"), Look-In ("Please Sir!" and "The Fenn Street Gang", 1972), Score 'n' Roar ("Trouble Shooter"), Whoopee! ("Spy School", 1974). He also worked for DC Thomson, drawing "Copycat" for Magic and "Digby the Human Mole" for Plug, and Polystyle's TV Comic, drawing "Nellie and her Tellie" (1974).

From 1981 he drew the daily strip Pub Dog for the Daily Express, and later the Evening News. Other newspaper strips he drew in the 80s and 90s include King Kat for the Daily Star, One Boy and his Dog for the News of the World and Rocky Starr in People Magazine. He also tried his hand at political cartooning for the London Daily News and Daily Express. He has also drawn for Viz, and is a prolific book illustrator.
Source: UK Comics Wiki http://ukcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Graham_Allen
Graham Allen art
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Matias Alonso biography

Matias Alonso biography

Matias Alonso Andrés (born 1935, Spain)
Matías Alonso Andrés was born in Valle de Trapagaran (Euzkadi), near the Bay of Biscay in northern Spain, in 1935. An illustrator and painter from childhood, he won a Segundo Premio Nacional de Pintura (Second National Painting Prize) at the age of 16. He made his comic book debut in the pages of Colorin and Azucena but established himself at the age of 18 when he began drawing El Charro Termerario (1953), written by Pedro Muñoz for Barcelona-based Editora Grafidea. The character Juan Miguel, known as El Charro the bold, was first to be found in the wild west of Mexico and California, often fighting on behalf of the Aztec Indians. After 44 issues, Muñoz and Alonso changed the focus of the strip from Juan Miguel to a secondary character introduced to the strip, the teenage Flaviano, and his friend Knut.

The new series, La Capitana (1955), was set on the high seas and around the globe, from Africa to Australia, and Alonso could be seen developing as an artist: Jaume Salva i Lara has commented (and I'm paraphrasing because I know almost no Spanish and online translators are, at best, a little sloppy) that Alonso's artwork had taken on a lot of personality, the ships and military uniforms (such as those of the French foreign legion) drawn with an eye for detail and the exotic settings showing the influence of Hollywood movies. To counter this rather thankless attention to realism, Alonso tried to make the pages stylistically interesting, although the results could be somewhat mannered. After a further 44 issues, the focus changed again. Now married (although his wife falls ill and is soon left behind), Flaviano travels to India for his next adventure, El Amuleto Verde (1956; The Green Amulet), a somewhat disappointing finale to the trilogy as the artwork became hurried and less detailed, the action bowdlerised and the storyline less interesting. It was brought to an end after 24 weeks.

Alonso went on to draw more historical strips Jarko, el Temible (20 episodes, 1957) and Luis Valiente (24 episodes, 1957) before adapting a series of science fiction stories, commonly known as 'La saga de los Aznar', written by George H. White (the pen-name of Spanish author Pascual Enguídanos Usach, 1923-2006), into comics, producing 44 issues under the title Hazañas de la Juventud Audaz (Daring Feats of Youth), published by Editora Valenciana in 1959-60. Alonso then took over the artwork of the famous Spanish historical strip El Guerrero del Antifaz (The Warrior of the Mask) in 1961, which he drew in the style of the strip’s originator, Manuel Gago. He continued the adventures for 80 issues before Gago returned to the series. To some fans of the famous strip Alonso's artwork, influenced by Gago from the start, was a disappointing hiatus in a series that belonged to Gago; others consider the episodes featuring the clean, precise line of Alonso's artwork and storylines by Vincente Tortajada to be amongst the best. It was around this period that Alonso began working with Luis Bermejo, a Valencian artist who was one of the leading lights of Spanish comics (Aventuras del FBI, Apache). Alonso began working for D.C. Thomson's Commando in 1962 (probably via Bermejo and Selecciones Illustrades) whilst continuing to work locally, drawing various episodes of Espíritu del Oeste (1963, written by Pedro Quesada) for the Spanish publisher Maga.

Alonso also drew La isla del Tesoro (1964) for the magazine Flecha Roja and Las Aventuras de Marco Polo (1964) for Pantera Negra, the latter with Bermejo who, at that time, was also drawing Heros the Spartan for Eagle. In Spain, Alonso collaborated with Bermejo on illustrations for children’s books such as Vida y Costumbres de los Vikingos and África y sus habitantes (1965). By the mid-1960s he was firmly established in the UK market, drawing for Commando, Battle Picture Library, Air Ace Picture Library and War Picture Library, sometimes working in collaboration with Bermejo and with Eustaquio Segrelles. A fine example of his collaborative work with Bermejo can be seen in the "Heros" strip that appeared in Eagle Annual 1967, although his contributions to Boys World Annual 1968 and especially the 1969 volume, show what he was capable of working solo.

From 1967 he became a regular contributor to Victor, drawing dozens of weekly strips over the next 23 years. Often to be found drawing historical or war adventures, the titles alone offer an insight to the range of strips he drew: "Johnny Gurka", "The Lost Warriors of Tartary", "Task Force with Tusks", "Jungle Joe", "The Planet Seekers", "Vengeance Stalks the Veldt", "The Sons of Ra", "The Wild Colonial Boy", "The White Tiger", "Wings of Death", "Eagle of the Rising Sun" and "The Haunting of Running Bear".

Alonso also drew occasional strips outside of the pages of Victor and Commando, including a handful of stories for girls' comics Judy, Diana, Debbie and Emma and the boys' adventure comic Bullet ("Claws of Terror") in the 1970s.

His last known contributions to British comics appeared in the early 1990s when he drew strips for Judy Picture Library and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. By then Alonso had established himself in Spain as a painter--noted for his landscapes of northern Spain and of Spanish ports with boats jostling in the water--and has had his work exhibited in Barcelona and Madrid.

See illustrators issue 22 and illustrators Commando Special Edition for feature articles on Matias Alonso.
Matias Alonso art
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Alvaro biography

Alvaro biography

Alvaro ?Mendoza (possibly born 1952; Spain or Mexico)
Artist, possibly Spanish, about whom nothing can be traced. A number of other artists share this name – one, Alvaro Mendoza, a Mexican artist who has a similar signature (written in capital letters). Mendoza was born in Izlahuaaca, Mexico, in 1952 and clearly would not have been contributing to Look and Learn in January 1963 (!), when two images of Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho Panza, appeared in the magazine.

The signature on the above picture was removed when it was printed in Look and Learn, as was the colour: it appeared only in black & white.
Source: Steve Holland.
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Wayne Anderson biography

Wayne Anderson biography

Wayne Anderson (born 1946, Leicestershire, UK)
Wayne Anderson is an illustrator of books for all ages, children and adults. He created and illustrated the multi Award Winning book RATSMAGIC. After studying a four-year course at Leicester College of Art, Wayne moved to London to become a full-time artist and illustrator before returning to Leicestershire.

Wayne's illustrations feature in over 160 UK books and also appear in animated films and many other formats, including these notable titles:
Ratsmagic (Winner, Gold Medal Best Illustrated Children's Book, Society of Illustrators, 1976)
Hirondelle Wine (Silver Award, most outstanding illustration for an Advertising Campaign, 1978)
The Enchanted World (Certificate of Merit, Society of Illustrators, 1985)
Gnomes & Gardens (Winner, V&A Illustration Awards, 2001)
The Tin Forest (Winner, Original Voices Award USA, Borders Books, 2001)
Dragonology (includes Wayne's work and featured on Children's Best Seller List, New York Times, 2018)

Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Andreas (Martens) biography

Andreas (Martens) biography

Andreas Martens (born 3 January 1951; Weißenfels, Germany)
Andreas, pen name for Andreas Martens, is a German-born Belgian comic artist best known for his science-fiction serials 'Rork', 'Arq' and 'Capricorne'. Born in Weißenfels, East Germany, Martens studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. He eventually ended up at the Brussels Saint-Luc Institute, where he studied with young ambitious comics artists like Berthet, Foerster and Cossu.

Adapting his first name as his pseudonym, his first work appeared in the Saint-Luc magazine Le 9e Rêve, and subsequently created 'Udolfo' in cooperation with his teacher Eddy Paape in Tintin. In the same magazine, he embarked on the philosophical fantasy comic series 'Rork' in 1978. The series was collected in books by Le Lombard between 1984 and 1993 and in between his work on the 'Rork' stories, Andreas published many genre one-shot comics, which cleverly expanded the limits of the comics medium.

À Suivre published several of the short stories he made with scriptwriter François Rivière, that were later collected in the album 'Révélations Posthumes' in 1980. From the early 1980s, he expanded his activities with 'Cyrrus' and 'Mil' in Métal Hurlant, 'Cromwell Stone' (Deligne), 'La Caverne du Souvenir' (Lombard), as well as an adaptation of 'Jane Eyre' for Je Bouquine. After publishing 'Raffington Detective' with Lombard in 1989, Andreas began an association with the publishing house Delcourt.

Delcourt reprinted all his non-Lombard albums, and published new works like 'Coutoo' (1989), 'Dérives' (1991), 'Aztèques' (1992), and 'Le Triangle Rouge' (1995). Andreas has also published his ongoing science-fiction series 'Arq' with this publisher since 1997. In that same year, he returned to Lombard to start another sci-fi serial based on a secondary character from his 'Rork' series, 'Capricorne'.

Andreas teamed up with Philippe Foerster in 1995 and created 'Le Styx' for the collection Signé of Lombard. He joined the magazine Brazil in 1994, where he drew 'Les Lettres' in cooperation with Jamsin and Antonio Cossu. Andreas has illustrated the third instalment of the series 'Donjon Monstres' for Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim in 2002, and he created the adventure one-shot 'Quintos' with Isabelle Cochet for Dargaud in 2006. As a scriptwriter, Andreas has cooperated with Berthet ('Mortes Saisons', Dupuis) and Christian Durieux (the detective series 'Mobilis', Delcourt 1999-2002).

His genre series include Arq, Cromwell Stone, Cyrrus, Rork and its spin-off, Capricorne, as well as a number of single works such as La Caverne du Souvenir (The Cave of Memory), Coutoo, Dérives (Adrift), Aztèques, and Révélations Posthumes (Posthumous Revelations).
Source: Lambiek
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Colin Andrew biography

Colin Andrew biography

Colin Andrew
Colin Andrew has had a long and varied career in comics and as an illustrator and book cover artist, yet remains one of the lesser-known names in the field despite some high profile work.

Born and raised in Dundee, Andrew found work as a junior in Bill McCail's Mallard Features studio in Glasgow. His first published work was a cartoon in Lilliput magazine, and his first strip was for a local paper where he dreamed up the storylines and drew layouts for a story of anthropomorphic trains, in the spirit of Thomas the Tank Engine. After his national service, he moved to London and joined the King-Ganteaume studio, working mostly Westerns and historical strips for Pancho Villa, Rocky Mountain King, TV Heroes and other Len Miller titles. When the King-Ganteaume partnership split, Andrew continued to work for Kenneth King, contributing to Lone Star and Space Ace.

In the late 1950s, Andrew drew a great deal for Zip and Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, notably the Captain Morgan strip in Zip. In 1960 he assisted Syd Jordan, another McCail studio alumni, on Jordan's Daily Express strip Jeff Hawke. The strips were written by Willie Patterson, with whom Andrew collaborated on two newspaper strips in Lord Beaverbrook's Glasgow Daily Herald, both factual strips, one a history of the world cup, the other on famous football players.

His favourite strip was also penned by Patterson, What Is Exhibit X in Boys' World, starring John Brody, a scientific investigator for the Daily Newsflash. The strip was subsequently taken over and Andrew found himself drawing The Boy Who Knew Too Much in Buster as well as features for Boys' World, Eagle, Lion and Tiger over the next few years. He returned to strip work drawing Tomorrow West in Solo, followed by stints in Fireball XL5 and Stingray in TV Century 21 and Alias Smith and Jones for TV Action. Since the 1970s he has concentrated on illustration (including work for World of Wonder and Look and Learn) and book covers; in particular he supplied New English Library with many quickly executed covers in the 1970s. He has also storyboarded television commercials, including the UK Government's PowerGen sell-off. In the 1980s he also drew editorial cartoons for a local newspaper for three years.

Andrew returned to comics in the 1990s via his friend Syd Jordan, who suggested he submit samples to Fleetway and Marvel UK. He was contacted by the latter and worked irregularly on episodes of Dr. Who strips in Doctor Who Magazine.
Source: Steve Holland.
Colin Andrew art
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Peter Andrews biography

Peter Andrews biography

Peter Andrews; UK
Peter Andrews was active as an artist and illustrator in Bristol for many years where he was an active member of the Bristol Savages Artists group. Most of his work is now held in private collections.

His output was very varied ranging from strong graphic style illustration to advertising art, Cornish landscape, pure abstract art and Pop art; also sculpture and large murals.
Peter Andrews art
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Barrie Appleby biography

Barrie Appleby biography

Barrie Appleby; UK
Barrie Appleby is a British comics artist and illustrator who works mainly for Scottish publisher D. C. Thomson & Co., drawing strips such as Dennis the Menace and Roger the Dodger for The Beano since the 1970s. He has also drawn Cuddles and Dimples for The Dandy, as well as strips for Nutty, Hoot, Monster Fun and Buster. He also drew Bananaman in the BEEB comic. In 1999, he took over Bananaman in the Dandy from John Geering. He returned for a short time to do Bananaman in 2008.

In 2003, he took over Roger the Dodger after the death of Robert Nixon. Appleby's Roger strips were similar in style to Nixon's, although his own style was always evident. However, following the Dandy's revamp in October 2004, he relinquished Cuddle Dimples to Nigel Parkinson. A couple of years later, he drew two new strips for the Beano, with Pirates of the Caribeano beginning in September 2006 and London B412 following in October 2007, both were short-lived. He also provided the cover illustrations for the 2008 and 2009 editions of the Beano Annual. In February 2011, Appleby became the full-time Dennis the Menace artist, and he stopped drawing Roger shortly afterwards.

Barrie Appleby returned to draw new Roger the Dodger episodes in August 2012 after Nigel Parkinson took over as Dennis artist. He supposedly left in The Beano in July 2013 along with Barry Glennard and Dave Eastbury when Roger was taken over by Jamie Smart. In early 2014, Barrie returned to The Beano to draw Gnasher and Gnipper and returned to Roger the Dodger in July.

" I think the Beano still sells after all these years because it epitomises British humour - it's very surreal with a lot of slapstick, which goes right back to Charlie Chaplin. It appeals to that anarchic side of kids, the side that enjoys seeing someone get one over on adults. If somebody's trousers fall down or they get kicked up the bum, kids love it. I loved it at that age; it was the same with my kids and now with my grandchildren. At the age of seventeen I was lucky enough to get a position as an art assistant, working for the Walt Disney organisation. This meant leaving my home near Barnsley, South Yorkshire and moving to London. After a few years I married and moved to Canada where both my children were born. Again I was extrememly lucky to find a position with a book publisher in Toronto where I was soon made art director.

However cartoons were still in my blood and I returned to the U.K. It wasn't long before I built up a client base which included IPC Magazines, Marvel Comics and of course D.C Thomson, for whom I have drawn many of their famous characters. Many of which can be seen on this site.

I have lived for many years with my wife Eileen in a small village near Sudbury, Suffolk. Both my children Carrie and Jason and my six grandchildren live near by. After many years of hiding my head in the sand in the face of modern technology my son and grandson, Ben have dragged me kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, by setting up this website for me. " -- Barrie Appleby
Source: Illustration Art Gallery, Barrie Appleby
Barrie Appleby art
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Luis Arcas Brauner biography

Luis Arcas Brauner biography

Luis Arcas Brauner (20 October 1934 - July 1989, Valencia, Spain)
A widely admired painter of portraits (including those of Spanish royalty), landscapes and still life. He enrolled in the School of Commerce at his father's insistence. Arcas, who wanted to devote himself to the arts, eventually entered the Escuela Superior de Bellas artes de San Carlos in Valencia, where he studied until 1954. In that year he held his first exhibition.

Arcas won numerous awards throughout his career as a painter, including the Silver Medal at the 13th Exposición de arte Universitario in 1952, the Premio extradordinario nacional at the 5th National Competition of Fine Arts in Alicante in 1956 and the Premio "La Coruña" at the exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 1960.

His work was widely exhibited in Spain and in North and South America. He was one of the artists who participated in the Setenta y cinco años de pintura valenciana (Seventy-Five years of Valencian painting) exhibition supported by the Valencia City Council in 1975. A retrospective of his work, Treinta años de vida profesional (Thirty years of professional life), was exhibited at the Caja de Ahorros de Valencia.

He died in Cambridge, England, in July 1989, aged 54. Five years after his death, his work was celebrated as part of Un siglo de pintura valenciana (A century of Valencian painting) in Valencia.
Source: Steve Holland.
Luis Arcas Brauner art
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Mike Arens biography

Mike Arens biography

Michael H. Arens (2 December 1915 - 19 June, 1976, USA)
Mike Arens was born in California and began his career as an animator, joining Walt Disney Studios as a production artist in 1937. He worked on the Dance of the Hours segment of Fantasia, and on Pinocchio. After performing his military service in 1942-47, Arens became a regular newspaper strip artist with Hey, Mac! (1947-61).

He turned to comic books in the late 1940s, drawing artwork for Street & Smith's Top Secrets in 1949. From 1952, he drew dozens of strips for Dell Publishing, his first work mostly western strips such as Gene Autry (1951-52, 1954-55, 1957), The Frontiersman (1952-58), Buck Jones (1953-54), Rex Allen (1953, 1956-57), Flying-A's Range Rider (1954-55), Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955), Dale Evans (1956), Chuckwagon Charley (c.1958), and various for Western Roundup (1952-58).

Arens began producing Disney characters for overseas comics such as the British Huckleberry Hound comic in 1961-62. For Western Publishing he drew a variety of Disney and adventure strips, including Chip 'n' Dale (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, 1962), Goofy (1963), Donald Duck (1963), Mary Poppins (Gold Key one-shot, 1964), My Favourite Martian (1964-66), Tarzan (1965-66) and Korak (1966).

For King Features he drew the Roy Rogers Sunday strip (1959-62), Uncle Remus and his Tales of Br'er Rabbit (1968), Mickey Mouse (1968) and both daily and Sunday episodes of Scamp (with inker Manuel Gonzales, 1969-76). Arens was also responsible for a number of Disney Christmas Stories--including Snow White's Christmas Surprise (1966) and Dumbo and the Christmas Mystery (1967)--and many newspaper adaptations for King Features/Walt Disney Productions, including Robin Hood (1973-74), Alice in Wonderland (1974), Herbie Rides Again (1974), (1976), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1975), and many others.

Arens had a parallel career in animation from 1965, working as a story director for Grantray-Lawrence on their Spider-Man and Marvel Superheroes animated shows. In 1967 he became a layout artist for Hanna-Barbera, working on dozens of animated TV shows, including Fantastic 4 (1967), The Banana Splits Adventure Hour (1968-70), Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969-70), amongst many. He was also layout artist on Charlotte's Web, the 1973 Hanna-Barbera movie adaptation of E. B. White's classic novel about a pig trying to avoid being killed for Christmas. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Mike Arens art
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Arno biography

Arno biography

Arnaud Dombre (4 January 1961 - 7 July 1996)
Arnaud Dombre, who used the pseudonym of Arno, was born in France and traveled all over the world (including Iraq, Uruguay and Chile) from a very young age because his father was a French teacher. His interest in comics was forbidden by his parents, but he insisted and continued to study art in France at The Academy of Fine Arts in Paris.

When he was nineteen, he published his first comics in the magazine Métal Hurlant. Here, he met Alejandro Jodorowsky, with whom he began a collaboration on the world-renowned 'Alef-Thau' series.

In 1985, Arno illustrated the collection of short stories "Kids". In 1993, "Agostino, La croisée des Chemins" was published in Casterman. Three years later, while he was working on the eighth 'Alef-Thau' album, Arno died in Paris.

A short Artography:
Print Media (non-comics)
Artist: Album covers: 1994 The Herberts' Oi! Generation [and for hard core music] > 94

French comics
SUIVRE~ (pen/ink/)
ALEF-THAU (pen/ink/) 1962/83-84/86/88-89/91/94 > 62 83 84 86 88 89 91 94
ANTOINE SIX~ (wr/pen/ink/) 1987 graphic album with Jose-Louis Boucquet > 87
AUGUSTIN, LA CROIS_E DES CHEMINS (wr/pen/ink/) 1993 > 93
KIDS~ (wr/pen/ink/) 1985 graphic album reprint > 85
KRIEGSSPIEL: LE JEU DE LA GUERRE (pen/ink/) 1992 > 92
L'ECHO DES SAVANES~ (pen/ink/)
METAL HURLANT~ (wr/pen/ink/) 1980-83 > 80 81 82 83
Various features (pen/ink/) 1980+ > 80 81 82 83
HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE~ (pen/ink/) 1982-83 reprint > 82 83

Note that there is another artist signing 'Arno' who is Arno Beijk (Dutch Artist).
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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John J Arnold biography

John J Arnold biography

John J Arnold
John J. Arnold was a commercial artist specialising in transport. He is known to have contributed illustrations to Look and Learn and Speed & Power magazines, and almost certainly contributed to other IPC Transport titles. His work for Look and Learn often involved beautifully rendered line & wash diagrams of cars, such as in his 'Classic Cars' series (1974) and 'Novelties of Mobility' (1974-75).

He also illustrated other forms of transport, including sailing ships and paddle steamers. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
John J Arnold art
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Martin Asbury biography

Martin Asbury biography

Martin Asbury
Martin Asbury grew up addicted to comics, trawling through newsagents and book shops looking for American comics. Influenced by Burne Hogarth's 'Tarzan', Classics Illustrated and Frank Hampson's 'Dan Dare', he was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and studied painting at St. Martin's College of Art. Apart from illustrating a story for a comic book giveaway, his first illustrative work included the sheet music for Ron Grainer's The Maigret Theme and painting cardboard cut-outs for use on TV.

An advert in an magazine led him to apply for a job as an assistant for "an international cartoonist"; this was on Flash Gordon and Asbury moved to Austria for six months before clashes with Dan Barry led to his departure. Back in England he designed cards for Hallmark, rising to become their chief designer.

Married in 1969, he decided to go freelance and found work drawing for D. C. Thomson's Bunty. With the launch of Wizard in 1970 he graduated onto boys' adventure strips, drawing Soldiers of the Jet Age, The Crimson Claw, The Secret of Deep 16 and others for the paper. At the same time, he also found work on Joe 90: Top Secret, soon to merged with TV21, where he drew Forward from the Back Streets and Tarzan.

Some short-run strips in Countdown led to him drawing Cannon for TV Action and TV Comic before he was hired by Look-In, where, after briefly drawing Follyfoot, he had his first big hit with Kung Fu.

Asbury took over the Dr Who strip in TV Comic before returning to Look-In to draw more 'Kung Fu', and his biggest hit, The Six Million Dollar Man, which ran for four years (1975-79). At the same time, Asbury took over the artwork for Garth in the Daily Mirror following the death of Frank Bellamy. He was to draw the strip for 21 years, working initially with Jim Edgar. From 1995, Asbury also scriptwrited the strip.

In the early days of the strip, Asbury was also able to continue working for Look-In, his strips for that paper including 'Dick Turpin', 'Battlestar Galactica' and 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'. However, an opportunity arose in the early 1980s for a change in artistic direction.

Asbury explained how he became a storyboard artist in an interview in Starlog: "When I was a strip cartoonist, I occasionally did TV commercial storyboards. A friend of mine (Dez Skinn) had an agency dealing with design and graphics and one day a man literally walked in off the street looking for a storyboard artist. I met this guy, production designer Stuart Craig, and he was about to start work on the film Greystoke with director Hugh Hudson. It was that simple.

"For Greystoke I did nearly 3,500 huge drawings, many of them in full colour. I didn't know they were going to be fed through a copying machine and come out as grey blotches. I learned my lesson on that.

Since the release of Greystoke in 1984, Asbury has storyboarded dozens of movies, a few sample credits would include Labyrinth, Willow, Alien 3, Chaplin, Interview with the Vampire, Fierce Creatures, Quills, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Thunderpants, The Hours, Troy, Alexander, Batman Begins, The Da Vinci Code, The Boat That Rocked, the last six James Bond movies (Brosnan/Craig) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

He continues to work as a storyboard artist, his most recent work being for the upcoming Between Two Worlds.
Taken from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Martin Asbury art
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P J Ashmore biography

P J Ashmore biography

Peter J Ashmore (born c. 1923; Coventry, UK)
P J Ashmore was a prolific watercolourist, painting a wide range of illustrations from nature studies to busy Edwardian street scenes and paintings of bi-planes on behalf of Look and Learn magazine.

It is thought that Peter J H Ashmore was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, in 1923. He was married to Joyce Lovell in 1948 and had at least one son.
Source: Look and Learn
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Pythia Ashton-Jewell biography

Pythia Ashton-Jewell biography

Pythia Ashton-Jewell
Pythia Ashton-Jewell is a published illustrator of children's books. Her published books include:

Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple by Jenny Joseph, Pythia Ashton-Jewell (Illustrator) (Souvenir Press, 1995)

What a Wonderful World! A Special Collection, edited by Pat Alexander (Chariot Victor Publishing, 1998)

The Secret of Skytop Hill by Enid Blyton, Pythia Ashton-Jewell (Illustrator) ( Award Publications, 1998)

Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes by Pythia Ashton-Jewell (Illustrator) (Award Publications, 1999)

Alphabet A to Z by Pythia Ashton-Jewell (Illustrator) (Award Publications, 1999)
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Leslie Ashwell Wood biography

Leslie Ashwell Wood biography

Leslie Ashwell Wood (c.1903 - 1973)
Leslie Ashwell Wood was best known for his educational and detailed cutaway drawings and paintings of trains, boats, planes and all manner of mechanical inventions, often featured in Modern Wonder and in the centre page spread of Eagle in the 1950s.

See illustrators issue 4 for a Leslie Ashwell Wood feature article.

Leslie Ashwell Wood art
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Ray Aspden biography

Ray Aspden biography

Ray Aspden
Ray Aspden has been an irregular comic strip writer and illustrator for 35 years, contributing Philpot Bottles' Orfice Boys Own to Denis Gifford's Ally Sloper in 1976-77, a cartoon strip that harked back to the 1930s penny comics, which would often feature a column from the paper's office boy recounting (in badly spelled text) what had been happening that week.

Ray, also a playwright, started writing for D. C. Thomson in the late 1970s, selling two stories to Victor, of which only one appeared (Stokehold Joe in 1980). In 1978, having spotted an advert in The Guardian, he contacted the editors of the upcoming science fiction pocket library, Starblazer, and began contributing scripts. His first submission, The Basilisk Face of Fear'- based loosely on the story of Perseus and the Gorgon's head, was accepted and published as Starblazer #2, 'The Domes of Death'. A second story, a reworking of the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur, followed, published as 'Sinister City' (Starblazer #19).

Ray eventually became one of Starblazer's most regular writers, penning 28 issues published between 1979 and 1986. Discussing his work for the series recently, he admitted that the pattern set for those years was to have one in three of his outlines accepted, either immediately or after some amendment. One ploy used by the editors was to send a cover, bought through an agency, and have Ray write a story around it - 'Terror Tomb' (Starblazer #62) being one example.

His best-known work for the series featured Hadron Halley, the idea springing from a reversal of 'sci-fi' (science fiction) - that fi-sci could stand for Fighting Scientist. The concept of 'Moonsplitter' (Starblazer #50) was to contrast the rational scientific approach of Halley to the gung-ho militarism of General Larz Pluto, although in writing the latter as a buffoon he "transgressed Thomson's moral code of wanting figures of authority to be seen as worthy of respect." He considers the final book "a mess".

As well as his Starblazer writing, Aspden also began contributing strips to two Welsh language publications Sboncyn and Deryn in the early 1980s, writing and drawing two humour strips, Jac-Do and Alys Ofalus. Sboncyn was relaunched as Penbwl in 1989, for which Aspden wrote and drew Huwi Hurt, a Dennis the Menace-type character which Aspden turned into a Hungry Horace clone. The monthly comic folded in 1995.

Since 2004, Aspden has written and drawn two regular strips for Spaceship Away!. Both Mekki and Our Bertie owe a stylistic debt to the Knockout in the 1950s, rather than Eagle.

Ray's interest in history led him to produce illustrations for the series Cutha's Chronicles for the quarterly magazine Wiðowinde (Bindweed), for members of The English Companions (a study group for people interested in the Anglo-Saxon period of British history), since 2005; he has also drawn strips for the historical magazine Facts & Fiction and recently supplied illustrations for the book Derbyshire FolkTales (2010). Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Sergio Asteriti biography

Sergio Asteriti biography

Sergio Asteriti (born 13 February 1930, Venice, Italy)
Sergio Asteriti attended the Venice's Scuola di Magisterto d’Arte, intent on a career in advertising. His first comics work appeared in 1949 when he drew the series I bucanieri for Risveglio, which was distributed around schools in Venice.

After taking only one examination, he left school and moved to Milan, finding work with the publicity agency SPINTA where his workload included drawing movie posters featuring many of the actors in vogue at the time. Two years later, the company went bankrupt and Asteriti found himself in Milan without any work.

Not wishing to return to Venice in defeat, Asteriti hawked his portfolio around various publishers. His interest in comics had developed as a child and, whilst still in Venice, he had known Giorgio Trevisan and Leone Frollo, the latter a Venetian contemporary who introduced him to Giorgio Bellavitis, and other members of the Asso di Picche group, Faustinelli, Ongaro and Pratt.

In 1955 he joined the group of talented newcomers who began working for Caregaro's Edizioni Alpe around that era. Asteriti created the character Bingo Bongo, the comic adventures of a young black boy, for the weekly Cucciolo. Other strips from this period included Congolino and Capitan Jolando, as well as covers for Voici d'Oltremare di Bianconi/Missionari Combboniani and contributions to La Vispa Teresa.

In 1958, Asteriti began working for the English market via Creazioni D'Ami, Asteriti assisted on Fun in Toyland and The Funny Tales of Freddie Frog for the nursery weekly Jack and Jill and eventually took them over. 'Freddie Frog' was passed on to other artists in 1960, but Asteriti continued to work on 'Fun in Toyland' for many years. He continued to draw for the British market until the mid-1970s, also contributing to Bobo Bunny, and illustrations to Disneyland and Walt Disney's Now I Know.

His work also continued to appear in Italy. In the early 1960s he also drew Hayawatha for Corriere dei Piccoli in collaboration with Antonio Lupatelli. Asteriti has alos illustrated fairy stories for AMZ, Boschi and Carroccio.

In 1963, Asteriti produced Pippo e la vacanza culturale, his first strip for the Italian Disney magazine Topolino. Over the next decade he contributed to Disney Italia with increasing regularity and quickly became recognised as one of the leading contributors, both as an artist and, since 1974, a scriptwriter (a task he occasionally shared with his older brother, Franco), and eventually dropped his other work in order to concentrate on Disney characters full time, especially Mickey Mouse. Asteriti has described Mickey as "the best friend of my childhood", a character with whom he grew up. "The only drawback is that I have grown older while he has remained the same, young and healthy, without ever catching a cold!"

Having written and drawn hundreds of stories, Asteriti continues to be one of the major contributors to Italian Disney comics, his illustrative, decorative style perfectly suited for adventures set in medieval and fairy-tale locations. He was awarded Il Premio Papersera in 2008. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Sergio Asteriti art
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Michel Atkinson biography

Michel Atkinson biography

Michel Atkinson
Something of a mystery man with regards to cover artwork. Michel Atkinson was an irregular contributor to various romance and schoolgirl pocket libraries from 1961 until the 1970s, producing covers for Romantic Confessions Picture Library (1961), Love Story PL (1961-62, 1965, 1969-70, 1973-74), True Life Library (1961-62, 1965-66, 1968-69), Princess PL (1961-63), Schoolgirls PL (1961-62), School Friend PL (1962-63), June and Schoolfriend and Princess PL (1968).

There were some fairly substantial gaps during which time he was probably doing book covers. He is known to have been a regular cover artist for the Hank Janson novels published by Roberts & Vinter in 1961-65 and a wide variety of genres for Digit Books in 1963-65.

Although fairly prolific, it is likely that 'Michel' (as he signed most of his book covers) found more regular work outside of producing book covers for paperbacks and for Fleetway Publications from the mid-1960s onwards. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Michel Atkinson art
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Dick Ayers biography

Dick Ayers biography

Richard Bache Ayers (born 28 April 1924; USA)
When Dick Ayers was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2007, it was in recognition of his talents as both an inker and penciller. In the former category, he famously inked the work of Jack Kirby when Kirby was at his peak in the 1950s and 1960s, including early episodes of The Fantastic Four; as a penciller he is best known for his work on Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, his work winning the Alley Award for Best War Title in 1967 and 1968.

Richard Bache Ayers was born on 28 April 1924 in Ossining, New York, the son of John Bache Ayers, an insurance agent, and his wife Gladys Adelia (nee Minnerly), and could trace his ancestors back to pioneers who settled at Newbury Plantation, Massachusetts, in 1635. He was raised in Poultney, near Lake Cayuga, and later said that growing up on his uncle's farm contributed to his ability to draw horses. Ayers served with the Army Air Corps during the Second World War.

Ayers published his first comic strip in the military newspaper Radio Post in 1942. After leaving the army, he took an adventure story he had written and drawn to Dell Comics; they planned to publish it but the project was scrapped before publication. In 1947, he was taking evening classes at Burne Hogarth's Cartoonists and Illustrators School in New York City where he met Superman co-creator Joe Shuster, who would drop in to visit classes, and Marvin Stein, who was teaching classes as well as being Shuster's chief assistant. Visiting Shuster's nearby studio, Ayers began producing occasional pencils for Funnyman.

Shuster also introduced Ayers to Vin Sullivan of Magazine Enterprises where he began drawing Jimmy Durante and Western strips for A-1 Comics and Trail Colt. Ayers co-created The Calico Kid as a back-up for Tim Holt comic.
Whenever trouble loomed, the spineless Calico proved to be a master gunfighter. After five episodes, he revealed an even deeper secret: he was in truth Federal Marshal Rex Fury. Attacked and left for dead, Fury is visited by the ghosts of those who tried to tame the wild west – Wild Bill Hickok, Kit Carson, Calamity Jane and others – and Fury survives with their skills somehow imprinted on him. Dressed in a phosphorescent costume and riding a white stallion named Spectre, he becomes The Ghost Rider.

After his debut in Tim Holt #11, The Ghost Rider soon earned his own title in 1950, which Ayers continued until 1954. He also added stories featuring Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders, based on the boy cowboy of the popular radio series, to his schedule in 1952. At the same time, he began working for Atlas Comics (the forerunner to today's Marvel Comics), drawing horror stories and a revival of The Human Torch.

Ayers was so busy, he employed Ernie Bache as an assistant and set up a small studio in the kitchen of an apartment owned by his wife's employer. In a 2001 interview, Ayers recalled: "Side-by-side we worked for—oh, that was '52. It wasn't until '55 when that damn Wertham thing came and killed all our books, The Ghost Rider and Human Torch. So we were down and we had, mostly, just Charlton. We didn't quite make it.
I lettered first and then I would pencil, and then I'd ink the outlines and then I'd give it to Ernie. Ernie would erase the page (laughs) and then he would finish it. He would put on all the blacks and the Kraft-Tone and bring in all that stuff. So we made a good team. I didn't bother throwing in heavy blacks. I would start them, maybe, but then he would accentuate the lines I'd put in, make them a little stronger. And he was very meticulous in his approach. I mean, everything had to be a certain formula so that we could knock out four pages a day, so he was a good asset for me."

The comic book industry was devastated by the introduction of the Comic Code Authority, who banned anything considered dangerous to juvenile morals. Horror and crime stories disappeared almost overnight and, after 167 stories, The Ghost Rider also fell victim to the sweeping industry changes. Work for Charlton Comics' Crime and Justice and Racket Squad in Action also disappeared.

Ayers' attempt at a superhero, The Avenger, lasted only one issue (it was continued by Bob Powell) and a Ghost Rider replacement, The Presto Kid (a cowboy magician who debuted in Red Mask #51), lasted only a few episodes.

Ayers subsequently concentrated on his work for Atlas, drawing back-up features with Kid Colt Outlaw, Outlaw Kid, Wyatt Earp and Rawhide Kid and, from 1959, inking Jack Kirby's monster stories in Strange Tales, Journey Into Mystery, Amazing Adventures, Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense and over two years of the syndicated newspaper strip 'Sky Masters of the Space Force' (1959-61).

As Atlas introduced new characters, and because Kirby was their go-to artist for new strips, Ayers found himself inking the first appearance of The Rawhide Kid (revamped in 1960), Ant-Man (Tales to Astonish #27, 1962), The Human Torch (first solo story, Strange Tales #101, 1962), Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (1963), and early issues of The Fantastic Four, Thor and The Incredible Hulk (all in 1962).

Inking was a means to an end. Ayers "only inked to survive in comic books and support my family, which included my wife, 4 children and mother-in-law." When asked in 2003 who he enjoyed inking for, Ayers replied, "No one."

In 1964, Ayers took over completely from Kirby as penciller of Sgt. Fury with issue 8, beginning an almost unbroken decade-long run on the comic that was to last until issue 120. The series was penned by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas and, from 1967, by Gary Friedrich. The team of Friedrich, Ayers and inker John Severin turned the book into a recognisable classic; the Howling Commandos and their cigar-chomping leader, Nick Fury, battled around the world in a series of gritty, strongly moralistic stories which were often as negative about war as they were celebrations.

Initially, Ayers had wanted to come off the title: "I didn't like Kirby's pencilling of Sgt Fury and asked off after the 3rd issue. I was in the Army 1942 – 1945 and it didn't connect with how I pictured "army." When Stan put me on to pencilling it, it wasn't until I recalled how it was when, getting into the combat zone, we would exaggerate out combat stories to each other and do anything we could to look different from the others around us. I got a shoulder holster and .45 and wore ski sox and a silk scarf. Then Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos became real to me."

In the 1970s, Ayers switched from Marvel to DC Comics, where he pencilled war stories for Star Spangled War Stories, Army at War, All-Out War and other titles. At the same time he pencilled various other series, including Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth (1976-78), Unknown Soldier (1977-82), Scalphunter (1977-81), Sergeant Rock (1978-81) and Jonah Hex (1979-84). "I was able to accomplish 4 books a month. There'd always be a script for me every time I delivered my pencils," Ayers recalled. "As a result I think I did some of my best storytelling at DC. I was asked to pencil tight leaving the blacks and tones for the inker. It enabled me to do some of my best story telling in Kamandi, Jonah Hex and Unknown Soldier and all the other DC books they had me do."

In the 1980s, Ayers worked for a number of different companies, including Archie, Modern Publishing and Comico, and in the 1990s for Revolutionary and Topps. In 1984-85 he also drew promotional comics for Comic Shack featuring the Tandy Computer Whiz Kids. In 1985 he also accepted the National Cartoonists Society Award for Best Comic Book.

Ayers taught at the Joe Kubert School, his students including Tom Mandrake, Jan Dursemma and Karl Kessel.

Ayers' early work was rediscovered in 1990 and reprinted by AC Comics, although due to Marvel's copyright on a different character named Ghost Rider, the original had to became Haunted Horseman. Discovering the reprints, Ayers agreed to draw some new episodes.

In the new millennium, Ayers has continued to draw occasionally, contributing pin-ups and a number of short stories to benefit and tribute comics (Actor Comics Presents, 2006, The 3-Minute Sketchbook, 2007; The Uncanny Dave Cockrum, 2007). His latest work was an illustration of NY Police Detective John Wilson for the Marvel Mystery Handbook: 70th Anniversary Special (2009). Ayers' son, Rich, has also drawn comics.
Source: Steve Holland.
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Chris Bachalo biography

Chris Bachalo biography

Chris Bachalo (born August 23, 1965)
Chris Bachalo is an American comic book illustrator known for his quirky, cartoon-like style. He became well known for stints on DC Comics’ Shade, the Changing Man and Neil Gaiman's two Death series. Chris has also illustrated several of Marvel Comics’ X-Men-related series, including Generation X (which he co-created), X-Men vol 2, Uncanny X-Men, and Ultimate X-Men. Beginning in April, 2000 Chris illustrated his creator-owned series Steampunk.

Bachalo was born in Canada but was raised in Southern California. He has told interviewers that, as a child, he wanted to be a carpenter until he discovered he was allergic to dust. He attended the California State University at Long Beach, where he majored in graphic art and illustrated a few underground comics.

After graduation, Bachalo sought work in the mainstream comic book industry. His first published assignment was The Sandman #12 (Jan. 1990), part of the "The Doll's House" story arc, for DC Comics. Although before working on that issue, DC had already hired him as the regular artist for Shade, the Changing Man, an older property revived as an adult-oriented series by writer Peter Milligan.

Bachalo’s early work shows strong influence from Sam Kieth, Bill Sienkiewicz and Michael Golden. As his style developed, however, Bachalo’s work became more idiosyncratic. His early 1990s style is minimalist with strong, thick lines, quirky characters and little concern for realism. Bachalo did not shy away from detailed landscapes but showed a rare penchant for pages with many small panels.

In 1993, writer Neil Gaiman selected Bachalo for the Sandman miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living, starring the Sandman’s older sister. At the time, Sandman was one of the most popular and acclaimed series in the industry and the miniseries helped boost Bachalo’s visibility. The creative pair also reunited for Death: The Time of Your Life in 1996.

After working at Marvel (below), Bachalo briefly returned to DC in 1999 for The Witching Hour mini-series with writer Jeph Loeb for Vertigo.

While at DC Comics, Bachalo illustrated the first issue of X-Men Unlimited, which Marvel published as an anthology X-Men comic book. Based on the success and fanfare from X-Men Unlimited #1, in 1994, Bachalo ended his stint on Shade and began working for Marvel Comics. He then illustrated the first three issues of Ghost Rider 2099, one of in a line of series reinventing popular Marvel characters in the year 2099. He also drew a cover for Runaways.

However, he was soon assigned to create a new junior team of X-Men with Uncanny X-Men writer Scott Lobdell. The group Lobdell and Bachalo created, Generation X, was purposely bizarre and idiosyncratic because the two wanted to avoid the recent trend in superhero teams, where each team member represented a recognizable stock character.

Generation X became a hit with the series’ namesake due to Lobdell’s realistically cynical and emotionally immature teen characters and Bachalo’s atypical artwork. Bachalo illustrated the series through much of its first three years, taking a break in late 1995 and early 1996 to illustrate the second Death miniseries, Death: The Time of Your Life.

During his time on Generation X, Bachalo’s artwork underwent a change. Heavily influenced by Joe Madureira, Bachalo's characters became more cartoony and manga-like, with large eyes, heads and hands. He gravitated towards extremes in anatomy, drawing characters that were previously portrayed as bulky, short, or thin as even more so.

In 1997, Bachalo left Generation X for Uncanny X-Men, arguably the comic book industry’s most popular title, remaining until the end of 1998.

In 2000, Bachalo launched Steampunk, a comic book series inspired by the genre of fiction of the same name, which emulates early science fiction and in an alternate version of the early 1900s. The series is written by Joe Kelly and is part of Image Comics’ imprint for creator-owned series, Cliffhanger. The series was criticized for Bachalo's overly detailed pencils, small panels and muddy dark coloring, which sometimes made it difficult to discern what was happening. Similarly, Joe Kelly's writing was not as straightforward as a mass audience typically preferred. Contrarily, the book's supporters praised it for those same reasons, as well as for the sheer imagination of the characters and story. The series, intended to be 25 issues, ended prematurely after the second story arc in issue #12. It is currently available in two reprinted trade paperbacks, Steampunk: Manimatron (ISBN 1-56389-762-8) and Steampunk: Drama Obscura (ISBN 1-4012-0047-8).

When Richard Friend inks Chris Bachalo's pencils, the piece is signed “Chrisendo”, a portmanteau of the names “Chris”, “Friend”, and “Bachalo”.

In the early 2000s, Bachalo completed occasional work on various X-Men series, including Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate War, Grant Morrison's New X-Men (collected in New X-Men vol. 5: Assault on Weapon Plus) and the sequel to the Age of Apocalypse crossover.

Bachalo was also the artist on Captain America for 6 issues (21–26, running December 2003–May 2004 cover dates) pencilling a divisive run written by Robert Morales. In an attempt to humanize Steve Rogers, the pair managed to split fans opinions fairly resoundingly with both leaving the title - Morales 10 issues short of his intended contract for the series.

From 2006 to 2008, Bachalo was the artist for the X-Men title along with new writer Mike Carey after completing his final story arc for Uncanny X-Men (#472–474). He was often filled-in for by artist Humberto Ramos, however.

Bachalo has also pencilled (and coloured) a number of cards for the Vs. collectible card game. These have been renditions of both Marvel and DC characters.

On top of his continuing work for Marvel, Bachalo finished issue #7 of Comicraft's Elephantmen, an issue 4 years in the making. The issue was done entirely in double-page spreads and marks his reunion with Steampunk writer Joe Kelly. The issue's story, “Captain Stoneheart and the Truth Fairy” also represents Bachalo's first work outside Marvel and DC since his fill-in issue of Witchblade.

Bachalo has also been one of the four artists who was originally part of the Spider-Man Relaunch. Brand New Day, along with Phil Jimenez, Steve McNiven and Salvador Larroca.

Starting with New Avengers #51, Bachalo will provide variant covers for the creative team of Brian Michael Bendis and Billy Tan to bring use the "Who will be the next Sorceror Supreme?" storyline.

Antonio Fabela is a regular colorist of Bachalo's work.
Source: Wikipedia
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G W Backhouse biography

G W Backhouse biography

Geoffrey William Backhouse (16 November 1903 - 1 August 1978; b. Holywell, Flintshire, Wales)
In 1927, Backhouse began drawing Strongheart the Magnificent for Comic Life, the comic strip adventures of a magnificent German Shepherd modelled on a canine Hollywood film star. Strongheart, one of the earliest adventure strips to regularly appear in British comics, continued his adventures when Comic Life was relaunched as My Favourite and would continue to appear, drawn by a number of different artists, until 1949.

Shortly before the war, Backhouse drew The Stolen King for Comic Cuts and Buffalo Bill for Butterfly. After the war, Backhouse illustrated a number of books for Collins, including Mr. Mole's Circus by Douglas Collins and a number of books by Denis Cleaver, including Pongo the Terrible, On the Air, On the Films and A Dog's Life, which featured the adventures of two dogs named Pongo and Peter. Backhouse's association with Collins also included illustrations for The Children’s Picture Dictionary (1951) and modern editions of Alice In Wonderland and Enid Blyton’s Shadow the Sheepdog.

Backhouse’s expertise at drawing animals and nature made him the perfect choice to draw a colourful feature strip starring George Cansdale for Eagle in 1954, following Cansdale's trips around the countryside, and the adventures of Tammy the Sheepdog for Swift (1955-58). Backhouse subsequently contributed many wildlife illustrations to Look and Learn and Treasure, appearing in the former from 1962 onwards. Some of his most notable contributions were for a series of short animal stories written by F. St. Mars, Alan C. Jenkins and F. G. Turnbull that appeared in 1967-68. He died in Tollington Park, London N4, in 1978.
Source: Steve Holland.
G. W. Backhouse art
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Jim Baikie biography

Jim Baikie biography

Jim George Baikie (28 February 1940 - 29 December 2017; Orkney Islands, Scotland)
Jim Baikie was a Scottish comic artist whose career stretched from the mid-1960s until the turn of the 21st century, taking in a wide and eclectic range of UK and US strips, from early Doctor Who and Star Trek adventures in titles like TV21, to a lengthy stint on the British girl's comic Jinty in the late 1970s, and work on US properties such as Star Wars and Clive Barker’s Nightbreed in the late 1980s and 1990s, for companies including the superhero giant DC Comics.

Yet his position as one of the finest artists the British comics industry has produced in the past half-century is based largely on his time with the cult British sci-fi comic 2000AD, in particular the first strip he worked on for the title, 1983's Skizz. Co-created with writer Alan Moore, who went on to become the definitive comics creator of his time via titles like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, Skizz was essentially the story of ET: The Extra Terrestrial – at that point a huge hit in cinemas – but transplanted to Birmingham and dressed up with references to unemployment and apartheid, placing it firmly in Thatcher's Britain.

Baikie served as a Corporal with the Royal Air Force in 1956–1963 before joining a printing company. Baikie joined Morgan-Grampian studio as an artist in 1964 and was an illustrator for the National Savings Committee in 1965–1966. Balkie was a bass guitarist in bands James Fenda and the Vulcans and Compass among others.

Baikie began his comics career illustrating the romance comic Valentine for Fleetway. Over the next twenty years, he built a solid reputation working for TV comics such as Look-in, including adaptations of The Monkees and Star Trek, all scripted by Angus Allan. He also worked extensively in British girls' comics such as Jinty. In the 1980s, Baikie drew The Twilight World in Warrior.

In Britain, he is probably best known for collaborating with Alan Moore on Skizz. Baikie was so attached to the character that he went on to both write and illustrate Skizz II and Skizz III for 2000AD. The 2000AD spin-off Crisis also saw Baikie produce the art for the New Statesmen story.

Baikie also worked extensively in the United States, on superhero strips such as Batman and The Spectre. In 1986, he co-created Electric Warrior with writer Doug Moench. A new collaboration with Alan Moore also appeared in the guise of the First American.
Source: The Scotsman; Wikipedia; Illustration Art Gallery
Jim Baikie art
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Robert Bailey biography

Robert Bailey biography

Robert Bailey
World renowned artist, Robert Bailey, trained at Longton College of Art in England during the 1960s. He only just squeaked through with an ‘E for effort' rating at the bottom of a class of 36 students. There followed various careers in photography, journalism and television. The latter was shooting television commercials on film and hosting a children's television show. He then entered the field of aviation art, and became known worldwide in the genre for creating oil paintings of military action and having the veterans sign lithographs made from them.

Movie producer George Lucas came across Robert's aviation art website and asked him to work on Star Wars. After meeting with George at Skywalker Ranch, Robert's career took on a new twist…Star Wars and other movies. Lucas was sufficiently impressed by Robert's work to purchase originals for his private collection. Robert has gone on to create similar work for sale at comic conventions.

His favourite characters are C3PO and Yoda, although he recreates the full spectrum of Star Wars characters in pencil. He is now retired from oil painting but finds that pencil is more fluid and scenes can be created far faster this way. The number of fans at Comic-Cons who purchase Robert's original movie creations has increased in leaps and bounds over the past four years, and he loves to meet all of the fans who attend.

Besides being a licensed Star Wars and Disney artist, Robert is now also licensed for Marvel characters, after having been approached by the Marvel licensor. Characters are mostly The Avengers and Spider Man. Stan Lee, creator of Spider Man, says that Robert is his favourite artist. Besides all these movies and characters, Robert is also creating panels for Breaking Bad, Frozen, Harry Potter, Princess Bride, Games of Thrones, Despicable Me, Tinker Bell and Indiana Jones. Celebrities who have collected Robert's work include George Lucas, Linda Hamilton, Carrie Fisher, Mads Mikkelsen, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Elwes, David Prowse, Ian McDiarmid and Anthony Daniels.
Source: Robert Bailey
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Bill Baker biography

Bill Baker biography

Bill Baker
Bill Baker is something of a mystery artist. Although it is possible to track his work through various comics over a twenty-year period, very little is known about the artist himself. He first appears with one-off stories in Top Spot, followed by a brief serial, New Rider at Clearwater, and illustrations for Girl in 1960-64. He remained active in girls' papers for the next decade, contributing to Tina (Two on Cockatoo) Princess Tina (Life with Tina), June (Call Me Cupid, Wedding in the Family) and Pixie Annual.

In 1974 he produced his first literary adaptation for Look and Learn, based on Jack London's The Call of the Wild. This was followed in quick succession by The Sea Wolf (London, 1974-75), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne, 1975), Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes, 1975), The Prince and the Pauper (Mark Twain, 1976), Moby Dick (Herman Melville, 1977), Westward Ho! (Charles Kingsley, 1977), A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens, 1977-78) and King Solomon's Mines (H. Rider Haggard, 1978).

It was during the publication of the latter – in August 1978 – that Baker disappeared from the pages of Look and Learn, the strip taken over with episode nine by C. L. Doughty. Taken from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Bill Baker art
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Roberto Baldazzini biography

Roberto Baldazzini biography

Roberto Baldazzini (born 18 August 1958)
Roberto Baldazzini is an Italian illustrator and comics artist who specializes in writing and illustrating black and white and full-color erotic comic books.

Roberto Baldazzini is the creator of the Casa HowHard series and contributor to Penthouse comix. He was praised by Moebius (Jean Giraud) as being "An angel who allows us to glimpse the blind dreams of our desires".

His works include Casa HowHard, which tells anecdotes about the sexual adventures of an apartment full of transsexual residents. Everyone in the building, including the janitor, is a transsexual, who has a feminine face, breasts, a womanly derrière, and male genitals. Readers seem either to appreciate the art and to enjoy the stories or to find the former too simple and the latter too silly. The comic book is introduced by Moebius, who suggests that its characters exhibit a “guiltless innocence,” which creates a sense of fun rather than of debauchery.

Baldazzini has also written and illustrated Bayba: the 110 BJ’s, in which the title character, a nymphomaniac transsexual sex slave who lives to please men, transforms herself from a slender youth with a boyish figure into a well-endowed, womanly transsexual by applying a high-tech hormonal crème to her chest and then sets out on a self-imposed mission to satisfy as many men as she can by any means possible. Other than their genitals, her partners are seldom shown and rarely speak. When their faces are shown, they have the appearance of anthropomorphic pigs.

Bayba undergoes a sex-change operation and then enters the Ultimate Bitch contest, the cash prize for the winning of which is large enough that it would allow her to acquire her “freedom” to select her own sexual companions. To win, a contestant must break the previously established record by sexually satisfying 110 men in a single day by performing fellatio on them. However, she does not limit herself only to this method of satisfying her partners, and the comic book contains several scenes that have BDSM themes.

He received a formal education in commerce, after which he took several art courses and, in 1980, he founded Pinguino, for which he created the character Ronnie Fumoso, based on material that was written by Daniele Brolli. His first professional work was his illustration of Brolli's Alan Hassad series, which was published in Italian Orient Express comics magazine in 1980. Since then, he has created numerous other characters, has created advertising art, and has been featured in Penthouse Comix and many other well-known publications.

Although some of his work is executed as simple line drawings that he sometimes colors, others—especially, his pinups—are realistic, fully detailed illustrations or paintings.

In 2017 he teamed up with Korero Press to produce a monograph of his work titled Mondo Erotica.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Roberto Baldazzini art
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James Bama biography

James Bama biography

James Elliott Bama (28 April 1926 - 24 April 2022; USA)
James Bama was an American artist whose work encompasses two major strands: his Western paintings and what can be described - but not dismissively - as pulp art. To the collector, his name is inextricably linked with the adventures of Doc Savage and the paperback covers he illustrated during his time as a commercial artist. He then turned to fine art, which proved even more rewarding commercially and raised his status to Artist and earned him comparisons with Norman Rockwell and N. C. Wyeth.

If one theme can be seen through Bama's work it might be described as "one man (or woman) in the wilderness", as his covers often featured isolated single figures, some alone against expansive backgrounds; it is a style that can be seen in such diverse Bama illustrations as Freedom Road by Howard Fast and Groupie by Johnny Byrne & Jenny Fabian (both Bantam) and Dell's edition of Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape.

James E. Bama was born in Manhattan, New York City, the second son of Benjamin Bama, a Russian-born apron salesman, and his wife Selma, also the daughter of Russian immigrants. Raised in New York City, Bama was inspired to draw by the adventure strips of the time, most notably Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, Burne Hogarth's Tarzan and Frank Miller's Barney Baxter. His father died of a stroke when Bama was 13, and his mother suffered a debilitating stroke the following year; Bama had to cook and clean and began earning money, making his first $50 sale, a drawing of Yankee Stadium, to The Sporting News at the age of 15.

He graduated from the High School of Music and Art and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps' Eastern Flying Training Command unit in 1944, where he worked as a mechanic and physical training instructor, as well as painting murals. On his discharge, he used the GI Bill to enrol at the Art Students League, where he was learned drawing and anatomy under Frank J. Reilly.

After freelancing briefly - his first sales including Western paperback covers A Bullet for Billy the Kid by Nelson C. Nye (Avon, 1950) and Dead Sure by Stewart Sterling (Dell, 1950).

He became known especially for the 62 covers he painted for Bantam Books' reprints of Doc Savage pulp magazine stories. Clark Savage Jr had been the star of 181 full-length adventures in the pages of Doc Savage Magazine (1933-49), 159 of them written by prolific pulpster Lester Dent.

Bama gave Doc a buzz cut, replacing the kiss-curl of his pulp days, and beefed him up, using Steve Holland, a muscular fashion model who had starred in the Flash Gordon TV series in 1954-55, as the basis for his vision of Doc Savage. The books sold incredibly well and all 182 stories were reprinted between 1964 and 1990.

Although much of his early work was Western covers for the likes of Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey, Bama quickly expanded his cover art repertoire to include everything from contemporary novels, thrillers, romances and non-fiction. A small sampling of his work would include A Rage at Sea by Frederick Lorenz (Lion, 1957), Requiem for a Gun by Burt & Budd Arthur (Avon, 1963) and covers depicting James Bond and the characters from Star Trek.

As well as Doc Savage, Bama painted many other covers for Bantam, including King Kong by Delos W. Lovelace (1965) and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1967).

Bama then changed tack after first visiting Wyoming in 1966; he and his wife, Lynn, a photographer whom he met in 1963, moved permanently to Cody, Wyoming, in 1968. During this period he transited from illustration to making more personal works, often inspired by his new surroundings. Much of his work was of contemporary Western and Native American subjects; wildlife and mountain men feature against stunning Wyoming backdrops.

Bama is inspired by real inhabitants of the state, visiting reservations and meeting trappers and cowboys; his prices rapidly escalated and, within three years, he was making far more than he had as an illustrator. He also sought inspiration in travel, to China, Mexico, Tibet and Turkey.

Bama was the recipient of the Spectrum Grand Master Award in 1998 and was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in June 2000. His work is to be found in the collections of Clint Eastwood, Nicholas Cage and Malcolm Forbes as well as numerous galleries.

Bama lived in Wapati, Wyoming, since 1971, and remained keen on physical training, regularly doing heavy exercise even in his eighties. He died on 24 April 2022, four days before his 96th birthday.
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Bambos (Georgiou) biography

Bambos (Georgiou) biography

Bambos Georgiou (born December 1959)
Bambos Georgiou (known as 'Bambos') was born in December 1959. Of Greek Cypriot descent, and speaking only Greek, he has said that it was the discovery of comics at the age of four that helped him learn English, although this form of education was not appreciated by some. One English teacher was thoroughly frustrated that he was always reading comics and his collection - with TV21 being his comic of choice - was thrown out by his mother (along with his Marvels and DCs!!). This only led to him becoming more determined to create his own comics.

In the 1980s he could be found creating Ratman fanzines which were sold on Paul Gravette's Fast Fiction table at Westminster Comic Marts. His first professional sales were scripts to Starblazer, Sid's Snake in Whizzer & Chips and He-man and She-Ra for London Editions.

He co-founded Acme Press in 1985 which published Speakeasy, collections of Maxwell the Magic Cat and Power Comics. Before long he became a prolific contributor - lettering and inking especially - for Marvel UK, IPC, Fat Man Press, London Editions, Titan Books, Deadline, A1, Viz and Panini UK.

He has also contributed to US comics with his inking work appearing in Savage Sword of Conan and Marvel Comics Presents (Nick Fury & Shang Chi) and DC Comics The Ray and Doom Patrol. In 2012 he co-founded the on-line comic Aces Weekly with David Lloyd.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Bambos Georgiou art
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Harry Banger biography

Harry Banger biography

Edgar Henry Banger (27 February 1897 - 1968; Norwich, Norfolk, UK)
Edgar Henry Banger (rhymes with 'danger') - or as he was known, Harry Banger - was born in Norwich, UK and was well known for his amazing cartoon illustrations from 1926 and most proficient through the 1930s in which his colourful characters were included in comics such as Rattler, Dazzler, Rocket and Bouncer.

Banger's most famous was Koko the Pup for DC Thompson's Magic, and also Dully duckling which appeared in Sunny Stories through late 40s and into the 50s.

His artwork was also well recognised through Norfolk, being a regular cartoonist for the local papers such as The Eastern Daily Press, Evening News and the Norwich City Football club paper The Pink Un, in which a lot of his tongue in cheek cartoons were mostly Football based. He was famous for the characters Canary and Dumpling featuring debonair characters with a cartoon Canary or Dumpling head in the Norwich city Colours. A lot of his cartoons were monogrammed HB, Bang, or Harry Banger.

He did most of his work from home in his small studio room in the back of the terrace house that he lived in at Wood Street Norwich, with his wife Maud Banger, daughter Yvonne, and sons Ray and Neville.

After leaving school he had sports cartoons published in the Eastern Daily Press, and later began to work freelance for the Amalgamated Press, beginning in 1926 with "Steve Sticket" in Butterfly, "Enoch Hard" in Comic Cuts, and "Curly Crusoe" in Illustrated Chips.

He worked for the AP for the rest of the 20s and most of the 30s, drawing for The Monster Comic, Crackers, Funny Wonder and Jolly, before moving to DC Thomson, where he drew "Koko the Pup" on the cover of The Magic Comic in 1939-41.

From 1940 he worked for Gerald Swan's comics, where he signed his work "Bang", and after the war, for Paget Publications, Martin & Reid and Target Publications until the mid-50s.

He was one of a small group of comic artists based in Norwich, along with Don Newhouse, Roy Wilson and Louis Briault.

He died in 1968 at the age of 71.
Source: ukcomics.wikia.com & Wikipedia
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Severino Baraldi biography

Severino Baraldi biography

Severino Baraldi (born 1930, Italy)
Severino Baraldi was born on 10 December 1930 in Sermide, a small village 50 kilometres from Mantova in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. As a boy, he entertained customers of the local barber by with his chalk drawings on the pavement. He worked as a carpenter, drawing cartoons for a local paper whose editor encouraged him to seek his fortune in the capital of the Lombardy region.

1962-63 was a major era for Baraldi with the publication of Ulisse ('Ulysses'), adapted from 'The Odyssey' by Gino Fischer, Lo Schianccianoci, based on the work by E. T. A. Hoffman, and Ciuffo Biondo, an adaptation of Peer Gynt by Anna Maria De Benedetti. Ulisse and Ciuffo Biono were praised by the reviewer for Radiotelevisione Italiana for their elegant illustrations, which helped to establish the name of the artist who often signed his work with the abbreviation Bar. At the same time, Baraldi was illustrating the story of Marco Polo and, for Milan publisher Casa Editirice, a variety of other books for children.

For seven years, Baraldi was also a prolific illustrator for the British magazine Look and Learn. More recently, Baraldi illustrated biographies of musicians Dvorak and Verdi for a publisher in Taiwan. In all, Baraldi has contributed to over 220 books and produced 7,500 illustrations. The village of Sermide dedicated an exhibition to his work in June 1997. He continued to work for Famiglia Cristiana and Il Giornalino until retiring a few years ago. Now he is content to be a family man, the father of three daughters and six grandchildren.
Source: Steve Holland.

See illustrators  Pirates! Special Edition for more art by Severino Baraldi.

Severino Baraldi art
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Stefan Barani biography

Stefan Barani biography

Stefan (Steven) Barani
Stefan Barany has proved to be a particularly elusive artist. Best known for his cover artwork for the Sexton Blake Library, he seems to have appeared almost nowhere else, although the cover art from a 1962 issue of Princess Picture Library has been offered by the Illustration Art Gallery.

Barany's first Blake cover appeared on issue 482, Desmond Reid's Murder By Moonlight, in August 1961. Over the next few months he was the main Blake cover artist; a number of titles involved Barany combining images with other artists' work, including one image by Bruno Elettori, but primarily with Angel Badia Camps. His last cover was Lotus Leaves and Larceny, issue 521, April 1963.
Source: Steve Holland.
Stefan Barani art
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Carl Barks biography

Carl Barks biography

Carl Barks (27 March 1901 - 25 August 2000; USA)
Carl Barks was nicknamed "The Duck Man" because of the quality of his work on Disney's Donald Duck. To Barks goes the praise for creating many of the inhabitants of Duckburg, the supporting cast featured in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories for which Barks was drawing in the 1940s.

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon, on 27 March 1901, the son of William Barks and his wife Arminta Johnson. Although he had a brother (two years older), Barks described himself as a rather lonely child, his nearest neighbour being over half a mile away from his parents' farm. The local school had only eight or ten students although Barks later recalled that it offered a good education. In 1908 the family moved to Midland, Oregon, closer to the railroad, where they established a new stock-breeding farm.

The immediate success of this venture meant that within three years the family were able to move to Santa Rosa, California, where William began cultivating vegetables and orchards. Profits were slim and William's anxiety over their financial difficulties led to a nervous breakdown and the family returned to Merrill in 1913.

Barks completed his education in 1916, in part concluded because he was suffering from a hearing disability; it was in the same year that his mother died and Barks had a range of jobs – farmer, woodcutter, mule driver, cowboy and printer. In 1918 he moved to San Francisco, California, and found work with a small publishing firm.

His early interest in drawing had been developed through a correspondence course, although Barks had only taken four lessons because he had so little free time. Now in San Francisco and, in 1921, married to Pearl Turner, he began selling drawings to newspapers. Despite returning to Merrill in 1923 with his growing family (two daughters born in 1923 and 1924), he continued to submit drawings and sold to Judge and the Calgery Eye-Opener. He was offered the editorship of the latter, a Minneapolis-based cartoon magazine, where he earned $90 a month for scripting and drawing most of the contents. He and Pearl were divorced in 1930 and Barks met Clara Balken in Minneapolis and married her in 1938.

In 1935 he learned that Walt Disney was seeking artists and moved to Los Angeles where he was hired at a starting salary of $20 a week. He worked initially as an "inbetweener", drawing the movements of characters between key poses. In 1937, his success at submitting gags led to his transfer to the story department where he first worked on the Donald Duck cartoon Modern Inventions. Over the next few years he contributed to a number of Donald's cartoons, including the first appearance of Huey, Dewey and Louie in Donald's Nephews (1938).

Barks suffered from sinus problems caused by the air conditioning in the Walt Disney art studio and left in 1942. He had then recently collaborated with Jack Hannah – who also worked in the Donald Duck story department – on a number of comic strips for Dell, Pluto Saves the Ship published in Large Feature Comics and the 64-page one-shot Donald Duck comic Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold in Four Color Comics, both published in 1942.

Barks relocated to the Hemet/San Jacinto area east of Los Angeles where he set up a chicken farm, which failed. Barks, did, however, establish himself with Dell's Walt Disney's Comics and Stories as both the author and artist of numerous stories. His first story, The Victory Garden, was published in April 1943 and was followed by some 500 tales featuring the Disney ducks, his creations including Scrooge McDuck (1947), Gladstone Gander (1948), The Beagle Boys (1951), The Junior Woodchucks (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Cornelius Coot (1952), Flintheart Glomgold (1956), John D. Rockerduck (1961) and Magica De Spell (1961).

During this time, Barks divorced his second wife and became acquainted with his third, Margaret Wynnfred Williams, known as Gare, who exhibited paintings locally. They married in 1954.

Although Barks' work was published anonymously, his name became known to fans around 1960. He continued to draw strips until 1966 when he retired, although he was persuaded to script stories until the 1970s. He painted in oils and exhibited and sold at local art shows. In 1971, he was granted permission by Disney's Publications Department to paint scenes from his various stories. When fans learned of this, Barks was inundated with requests and had to announce in 1974 that he was no longer taking commissions.

Duck paintings by Barks began to attract large sums at auction and unauthorized prints led to Disney withdrawing permission from Barks. They relented in 1981 following a campaign by Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz and Conan the Barbarian screenwriter Edward Summer. Summer edited Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times (1981), a collection of Barks' tales alongside a new story illustrated by Barks with watercolour illustrations.

The ambitious Carl Barks Library was published in 1984-1990, the thirty volumes reprinting every Disney comic strip written or drawn by Barks. Gladstone Publishing subsequently produced the Carl Barks Library in Color (1992-98). Barks appeared at his first Disney convention in 1993 and, in 1994, embarked on an 11-country tour of Europe. A retrospective of Barks' work was first held in 1994 and was shown around ten cities, attracting over 400,000 visitors.

In the 1980s, Barks had moved to Grants Pass, Oregon, close to where he grew up. His wife died in March 1993. Barks survived a further seven years before he also died whilst undergoing chemotherapy for leukaemia, on 25 August 2000, aged 99.
Source: Steve Holland.
Carl Barks art
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David Barnett biography

David Barnett biography

David Barnett
David Barnett illustrated a number of Magic Roundabout books, including The Adventures of Dougal, Dougal Around the World, Dougal's Misadventures in Toyland, Dougal's Scottish Holiday and other stories written by Eric Thompson and based on the characters created by Serge Danot.
David Barnett art
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Ken Barr biography

Ken Barr biography

Ken Barr (born 1933, Glasgow, Scotland)
Ken Barr created the iconic 'dagger' logo for Commando comics published by DC Thomson and is famous for his hundreds of covers and thousands of stories for Commando during the 1960s and for his numerous Marvel magazine covers in the 1970s and 1980s.

See illustrators  Commando Special Edition for a full feature article on Ken Barr.

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Hilary Barta biography

Hilary Barta biography

Hilary Barta (born 17 June 1957)
Hilary Barta is an American comic book writer and artist. He began his career in 1982, assisting Marvel inkers Al Milgrom, Joe Sinnott and Sal Trapani to provide inks for the pencils of Don Perlin on The Defenders #108. He inked #115 solo and then inked Dave Cockrum's artwork for a backup feature to the Giant Size X-Men #1-reprint X-Men Special Edition #1 in February 1983.

Throughout the 1980s he worked only as an inker for both Marvel, First Comics and Eclipse. His credits include titles like 'The Thing', 'Starslayer', 'Warp', 'American Flagg', 'Power Pack' and 'Airboy'. As a penciller, he drew back-ups for Steve Rude's 'Nexus', and on stories for Marvel's 'What The--?!' and DC's 'Plastic Man'.

In the 1990s he was still doing mainly inking duties, among others on 'Alpha Flight', 'Power Pack', 'The New Mutants' and 'StormWatch'. He contributed stories to the Paradox Press 'Big Book' series and to Dark Horse's 'Urban Legends'. In 2000 he drew 'Splash Brannigan' stories for Alan Moore's anthology 'Tomorrow Stories'. Later on, he illustrated short stories for 'Simpsons Comics' and 'Treehouse of Horror' for Bongo Comics, 'Jimmy Neutron' stories for Nickelodeon Magazine, and 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' stories for both Mirage Comics and Titan Magazines.

Barta was the regular inker for most of the first 10 issues of John Byrne's The Thing during 1983–84, during-and-after which he moved from Marvel to First Comics to ink a couple of stories for their Warp comic (including some of the earliest work from Bill Willingham). Other inking work for First slowly saw Barta graduate from inks to pencils over a dozen issues of the John Ostrander-written Starslayer, while he also inked a couple of issues of Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! and drew back-ups for Mike Baron's Nexus. Barta also co-wrote and drew a number of stories for Munden's Bar, the back-up feature in Grimjack.

Towards the end of 1986, Barta inked a couple of comics for Eclipse, including an issue of Airboy (#11), before heading back to Marvel to ink Power Pack and various issues of other titles for Eclipse, Marvel and First, notable among them Marvel's adaptation of the horror film House II: The Second Story (Oct 1987). Late 1988 saw Barta launch two series - Marvel's What The--?! and DC's 4-issue mini-series revival of Jack Cole's Plastic Man, on both as penciler rather than inker. His work has a distinctive cartoon-like feel, erring on the surreal and exaggerated side more than the often-realistic work found in other superhero comics. As a result, Barta's art style is very well suited to humor, and it is no surprise that his major non-inking art credits are on humor titles.

In 1989, Barta returned mostly to inking duties on Marvel's Alpha Flight and Power Pack, but was also one of several pencillers in their Marvel: Year in Review - 1989 (1990), alongside Bryan Hitch, Dale Keown, Bob McLeod, Mike Mignola, Herb Trimpe and Lee Weeks. From April to October 1990, he inked Rob Liefeld's art on Louise Simonson's The New Mutants, and over the next couple of years flitted between companies as penciller and inker, as well as writer and cover artist (in particular on What The--?!). In 1993, Barta co-wrote (with Doug Rice) and drew Stupid #1 for Image comics. He wrote, penciled, inked and lettered "The Winning Ticket" in Dark Horse Comics' June 1993 offering Urban Legends, and also contributed "The Wonder of Gas" to DC/Paradox Press's Big Book of Urban Legends in 1994. He inked for Malibu Comics and Image Comics (including Image-branded issues of Jim Lee's WildStorm title StormWatch) and provided stories for further volumes of Paradox Press' Big Book of series in 1996/7/8.

Also in 1998, he inked penciller Kieron Dwyer's artwork on two Elseworlds titles, both written by John Francis Moore: Elseworld's Finest #1-2 (set in the 1920s) and Superman: The Dark Side #1-3 (Superman as raised on Apokolips by Darkseid). In March 2000 he fully illustrated the first of several Splash Brannigan story in Alan Moore's America's Best Comics anthology title Tomorrow Stories, and later contributed to Moore's Tom Strong #14 and the ABC Sketchbook (Dec 2001). Around this time, Barta also wrote and/or illustrated short stories for Bongo Comics' Simpsons Comics and Treehouse of Horror titles, before moving back largely to inking duties for Rick Remender and Dark Horse Comics on Bruce Campbell's The Man with the Screaming Brain.

June 2006 saw him work with Remender again, writing back-ups for the latter's Fear Agent comic, and since then he has mostly contributed in various ways to the many different Simpsons titles. He also inked an issue or so of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics/magazines for Mirage Comics and Titan Magazines. In 2009 he illustrated the Loathsome Lore feature in Creepy #1 for the book's revival at Dark Horse Comics, and in the fourth issue drew "Zombie Wedding at Slaughter Swamp", written by longtime comics writer Nicola Cuti. In 2011 Barta began drawing a series of stories for SpongeBob Comics.
Source: Lambiek and Wikipedia
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Les Barton biography

Les Barton biography

Les Barton (8 December 1923 - 20 October 2008; Wareham, Dorset, UK)
A generation of children grew up giggling to comic strips in Sparky and Whizzer & Chips, drawn by my father, Les Barton, who has died aged 84. He was also a prolific cartoon artist, his gags - populated by wide-eyed folk and often signed Lezz - appearing regularly from the mid-1950s in Punch, Private Eye, the Daily Sketch, Daily Mirror and the Spectator.

The character he made his own from the late 1960s was I-Spy, in a serial in Sparky about a special agent whose face was hidden but whose cloak concealed myriad gadgets, used in animated fashion. He also drew Ma Kelly's Telly, about valve-shaped people who masterminded programmes inside a TV set and, for IPC, Harry's Haunted House and Billy Bunter when the regular artists were indisposed. Later, as IPC tried to re-energise the waning comic market with the irreverent Oink! (a junior Viz), he crafted the Slugs, about a punk band.

A founder member of the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain in 1960, with a then unknown Ronald Searle, he became treasurer for 20 years. Friends and contemporaries included Chic Jacob, Larry (Terry Parkes) and Bill Tidy. He encouraged many young cartoonists to persevere in this most unsecure profession.

Dad left school at 14 and was a dispatch rider with the Royal Corps of Signals as D-day neared. A motorcycle accident led him to retrain as a draughtsman, and as a self-taught artist, he began submitting cartoons to publications in his spare time during a posting to Lagos, Nigeria.

After the second world war he became a process artist for Associated Press, but evenings were spent producing 20 cartoons a week, the first for Reveille in 1949, which earned him a princely £7. He worked as a war artist for the Sun during the Falklands conflict, thanks to a dearth of photos in the early stages.

He worked well into his 80s, having diversified into greetings cards and revisiting his talent for caricature as an on-the-spot artist at corporate events. He loved having an audience, once describing the best as "intelligent, well educated and a little drunk".

He is survived by my mother, Dorothy, myself, and my siblings, Lisa, Peter and Samantha.

Les Barton was born on 8 December 1923 in Wareham, Dorset. A self-taught artist, he started work at the age of fourteen as a telegraph clerk. His first published cartoon appeared in the Militant Miner in 1944. During World War II he served as a draughtsman in the Royal Signals and War Office Signals and produced his first regular cartoons for WAM (West African Magazine) when stationed in Lagos in 1946.

After the war Les Barton worked as a photographic retouching artist and commercial artist in advertising, and also drew strips for IPC and D. C. Thomson children's comics - including "Billy Bunter", "I Spy" and "Harry's Haunted House." Barton - who signed his early work "Lezz" - was a regular contributor to Punch from 1954, and his work has appeared in Reveille, Private Eye, Spectator, Oldie, Daily Mirror and the Daily Sketch.

Barton drew political cartoons and caricatures for The Statist in 1963 and 1964, and during the Falkands War in 1982 he was staff war artist on the Sun. He also designed humorous greetings cards for Camden Graphics, Rainbow Cards and Cardtoons. He died in Hayes, Middlesex, on 20 October 2008.
Source: The Guardian & British Cartoon Archive
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John Batchelor biography

John Batchelor biography

John Henry Batchelor (born 1936; Essex, UK)
John Batchelor (J H Batchelor) has been one of the leading technical illustrators of hardware for five decades. Born in Essex in 1936, and growing up in Leigh-on-Sea during the Second World War, he witnessed dogfights between British and German aircraft in the Essex skies and, even at the age of four, put pencil to paper to draw scenes of aerial combat. The Essex coastline was one of the expected invasion points in Hitler's planned attack on a Britain softened up by the Luftwaffe, and Batchelor's early years were spent surrounded by fascinating military hardware, from tanks to machine guns. By the age of seven he could strip and reassemble a .303 Lewis machine gun and draw its constituent parts.

He left home at 16, travelling for two years before performing his National Service with the R.A.F. Batchelor began drawing for the technical publications of Bristol Aircraft Co., Martin-Baker Aircraft Co. and Saunders-Roe Ltd. One of his last jobs for Saunders-Roe was on the plans for a nuclear-powered version of the (ultimately cancelled) ten-engined Princess flying-boat.

In the early 1960s he turned freelance, contributing to Model Maker and Model Cars. Some of his earliest drawings were cutaways for the Eagle comic; in all he produced 44 episodes (making him the joint fourth most prolific contributor). His illustrations also appeared in Ranger and Tell Me Why. He also worked for the far more prestigious markets, including Time-Life Books, which led to his involvement in one of the most ambitious projects in publishing history: Purnell's History of the Second World War. Launched in 1966 under the overall editorship of Sir Basil Liddell-Hart, this massive partwork--for which Batchelor producing a total of 1,163 illustrations--had sold 10 million copies by 1976. To celebrate this momentous achievement, Batchelor was presented, by Douglas Bader, a solid silver model of a British Saladin armoured car from his grateful publisher.

He continued his association with Purnell as they launched History of the First World War and Encyclopedia of Modern Weapons and Warfare, which added to a total of almost 20 million copies sold. Many of the illustrations were reprinted in book form during the 1970s (the bibliography below is likely to be incomplete) and has also illustrated a wide range of other books--and continues to do so. He has also drawn countless illustrations for the American magazine, Popular Science and has had his paintings exhibited around the world.

Since the mid-1980s, he has also produced artwork for postage stamps via the Crown Agency for 40 countries around the globe, including many for the British Commonwealth. In 2003 he launched his own company, Publishing Solutions, to reprint selections of his work.
Source: Steve Holland
John Batchelor art
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H M Bateman biography

H M Bateman biography

Henry Mayo Bateman (15 February 1887 - 11 February 1970)
H M Bateman was a British humorous artist and cartoonist.

H. M. Bateman was noted for his "The Man Who..." series of cartoons, featuring comically exaggerated reactions to minor and usually upper-class social gaffes, such as "The Man Who Lit His Cigar Before the Royal Toast", "The Man Who Threw a Snowball at St. Moritz" and "The Boy Who Breathed on the Glass at the British Museum."

He was born in the small village of Sutton Forest in New South Wales, Australia. His parents were Henry Charles Bateman and Rose Mayo. His father had left England for Australia in 1878 at the age of 21 to seek his fortune, then returned to England briefly in 1885 before going back with an English wife. Soon after Henry was born, his strong-willed mother insisted that they return to London 'and civilisation'. He had one sister, Phyllis, three years younger.

Henry was always drawing from an early age, consistently producing funny drawings that told stories. He was inspired by comics, and he had a keen critical eye, and was enthusiastically drawing at every available moment. At the age of fourteen he had already decided that he would draw for publication. In 1901, the cartoonist Phil May, in response to a letter from Rose, showed interest in his drawings, and that year he was inspired by an exhibition of black-and-white art at the Victoria and Albert Museum. His father had initially decided that his son should follow him into business, but eventually, after many arguments between him and Rose, his father financed his study at the Westminster School of Art which he commenced at the age of sixteen. He did well, but was bored by the lifeless "life" classes and after qualifying at Westminster transferred his study to the New Cross Art School (now the Goldsmith Institute). He also did some practical work at the studio Charles van Havenmaet.

Bateman's first solo exhibition in 1901 was at the Brook Street Gallery, Mayfair. His first contract was in 1904, for ten drawings and two illustrations in a fourpenny monthly magazine called The Royal. At the age of 17, his style was already that of a mature artist. He then progressed to a contract with The Tatler and many other magazines besides, including the Illustrated Sporting News and Dramatic News and Pearson's Weekly. Bateman greatly influenced the style of American cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman.

Bateman was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

He married Brenda Collison Wier and they had two children, Diana and Monica, both of whom became artists. They lived at Curridge, just north of Newbury, Berkshire.

In later life, he carried on an increasingly acrimonious battle with the Inland Revenue. His final years were spent on the island of Gozo. A centenary celebration of his work was exhibited at Festival Hall on London's south bank in 1987. An English Heritage blue plaque, unveiled in 1997, commemorates Bateman at 40 Nightingale Lane in Clapham.
Source: Wikipedia

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

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Terry Bave biography

Terry Bave biography

Terence H Bave (born 1931; UK)
One of the stalwarts of British humour strips, Terry Bave retired in 2007 to enjoy some well-earned rest after worked in comics for 40 years. Bave's clear, unfussy humour strips were to be found in great numbers – he worked on six or seven characters at any one time – in Fleetway's humour comics in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

Terry Bave was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, in 1931. Inspired by American films and comics, which Bave sought out at newsagents selling American newspapers, he began drawing at an early age. His general education was disrupted by family moves and being twice evacuated during World War II. Bave estimated he attended eleven schools in as many years.

Returning to London in 1945, Bave took on full time work as a clerical assistant at the Post Office Savings Bank. One day a week he attended the Brook Green Day Continuation School until he was sixteen. It was here that he met his wife-to-be, Sheila Newton, who subsequently also worked at the Post Office bank.

From filling the margins and covers of his exercise books to posting regular topical cartoons on the Post Office bank notice board, Bave decided to turn his artistic inclinations into a career. At the age of seventeen he joined the Colonial Survey Department as a trainee cartographer, drawing maps with the aid of aerial photography. His first published cartoon was in the department’s magazine, The Drum.

Bave's combined interest in films and cartoons led to his first professionally published cartoons in the pages of the film magazine Picturegoer and the home movie magazine The Pathescope Gazette. With this success in specialist magazines, Bave sought out others and, by the late 1950s, was also publishing regularly in Do-It-Yourself, TV Times, Fire! and Scooter. In a year, Bave could earn £100 from his cartoons. By then, he had joined a firm of commercial map makers but was contemplating another move. A commission to draw a cartoon design for a dog ointment carton led to an offer of work as a packaging designer for Stable Cartons Ltd.; Bave later moved to C. H. G. Jourdan Ltd. where he successfully designed fancy packaging during the heady days of the psychedelic sixties. At the same time, he became the art editor of The 9.5 Review, put together by enthusiasts of home movies following the demise of The Pathescope Gazette.

In 1967, and still keen to work in comics, Bave targeted Wham!, a recently-launched comic published by Odhams Press. Invited to meet editor Albert Cosser at the publisher’s Long Acre office, he was offered the opportunity to take over the strip Sammy Shrink, about a nine-inch-tall boy with normal-sized parents, which was languishing in the lower regions of the popularity charts.

Bave and his wife created their own character, Baby Whamster, a half-pager which they also scripted; he proved immediately popular as a mascot for Wham! and Baby Smasher was added to the line-up of Wham!’s sister paper, Smash!.

Bave was determined to make a go of comics and used every opportunity to learn more about what his audience wanted, particularly by involving himself in the school attended by his son, Russell (born in 1959). He helped with the school magazine, performed as a ventriloquist at school fetes and wrote a school play.

With the addition of work for annuals and worked sourced locally (including posters, letterheads, leaflets, display advertising, cartoons, etc.), Bave was able to turn freelance. However, Wham! was soon to be merged with Pow!, which promptly folded a few months later. Bave found work on annuals via King Leo Studios but that had all but dried up when the Baves received a letter from Jack Le Grand offering them work on a new paper. This was Whizzer & Chips, a title unlike any other on the market in that it was two comics in one.

Bave created some thirteen possible strips and was invited to write (with Sheila) and draw however many he could reasonably cope with on a weekly basis. Thus, when Whizzer & Chips debuted on 18 October 1969, it featured six strips by Bave: the full-page Me and My Shadow, Ginger’s Tum, Hetty’s Horoscope and Aqua Lad, plus half-pagers Puddin’ Tops and Karate Kid to which Nipper was soon added.

Of these, “Me and My Shadow”, in which young ‘Smudger’ Smith is in constant battle with his own shadow, “Puddin’ Tops”, a brother and sister named after their pudding-top hairstyles, and “Karate Kid”, inspired by their son’s taking up of judo lessons, lasted until the mid-1970s.

One of Bave’s rejected ideas, Eager Beavers, was picked up by Buster, where it ran for eighteen months. The new comic Cor!! included Bave’s Donovan’s Dad and Andy’s Ants. In 1970, Bave and his family moved to a bungalow in Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight, where he and Sheila were to live for over forty years.

Promotional issues often involved creating new characters, and Bave’s creativity gave Whizzer & Chips Jimmy Jeckle and Master Hide, The Scarey’s of St. Mary’s and, most successfully, The Slimms in Cor!!, which capitalised on the contemporary slimming craze – although the portly Mum and Dad in the story had no desire to slim; it was their son, Sammy, who tried different ways each week to help them stick to diets or get some exercise. When Cor!! folded in 1973, the strip moved to Whizzer & Chips where it ran until 1979.

Another ‘two-in-one’ comic, Shiver & Shake, featured the spider Webster and, after a ghosting the strips on occasion, took over the lead characters of both sections, “Shiver” the ghost and “Shake” the elephant. New for Knockout was My Bruvver, in which poor Len is stuck each week with his tearaway younger brother, the little’un. Sammy Shrink was revived in Knockout before transferring to Whizzer & Chips and Bave also took over Desert Fox in Shiver and Shake and Odd Ball in Whizzer & Chips, the latter about a ball that could stretch and morph into any shape. Truly odd, it proved to be one of Bave’s longest-running strips, surviving in Whizzer & Chips until 1990.

The launch of Whoopee in 1974 brought with it two new Bave creations, Toy Boy (who, as his name implied, loved toys) and Stoker, Ship’s Cat, a hungry cat in the mould of Ginger. Other cat characters from Bave’s pen included Police Dog and Cat Burglar (Whizzer & Chips, 1975) and Scaredy Cat (Krazy, 1976-78). 1978 saw the creation of Calculator Kid for Cheeky Weekly but the late 1970s saw the merging of various papers, leaving Bave contributing only to Whizzer & Chips, Whoopee and various annuals and summer specials as the decade turned. Barney’s Badges (Wow!, 1982-83), Good Guy (Buster, 1983) and the feature Top Class Comics (School Fun, 1983-84) kept Bave busy.

The latter half of the 1980s saw fewer new releases from Fleetway, although Bave continued to contribute new characters, including Pete’s Pop-Up Book (Buster, 1985-88), Double Trouble (Nipper, 1987, Buster, 1987- ), Mighty Mouth (Nipper, 1987; Buster, 1987-90), Melvyn’s Mirror (Buster, 1990), The Figments of Phil’s Imagination (Buster, 1991-94) and Imagine (Buster, 1991).

Fleetway’s line of humour titles shrunk further, Whizzer & Chips finally merging with Buster in 1990 and Buster becoming a fortnightly in 1995, eventually folding in 2000. By then, Bave had established himself with rivals D. C. Thomson, ghosting a number of strips – including ‘Number 13’ and ‘Bash Street Kids’ for Beano before taking over ‘Winker Watson’ in Dandy (1991-2002). Over the next few years, Bave’s creations included ‘The Great Geraldoes’ (Beano, 1992-93), ‘Buster Crab’ (Dandy, 1998), ‘Inspector Horse and Jockey’ (Beano, 1999-2000 – a parody of Inspector Morse) and ‘Baby Herc’ (Dandy, 2003). From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Terry Bave art
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Leo Baxendale biography

Leo Baxendale biography

Leo Baxendale (27 October 1930 - 23 April 2017; UK)
Leo Baxendale has been one of the few artists in Britain to advance humour strips in the past sixty years. His work has been frenetic and violent at times, subtle and thought-provoking at others. No other artist has argued the case of humour in British comics as strongly as Baxendale and few (if any) have the credentials to back up their arguments so soundly.

Born in Whittle-le-Woods, Lancashire, on 27 October 1930, Baxendale had a grammar school education; as an artist he was self-taught. Between 1949 and 1950 he served with the catering corps. of the R.A.F., after which he worked as a staff artist for the Lancashire Evening Post, drawing sports cartoons, editorial illustrations, adverts and his own series of self-written articles.

Inspired by David Law’s Dennis the Menace, he submitted work to D.C. Thomson's The Beano, a comic he had read as a child, and was immediately accepted, his first original character appearing in 1953, Little Plum your Redskin Chum, followed shortly afterwards by Minnie me Minx, intended as a female counterpart to the popular Dennis. His third Beano set was the single panel "When the Bell Rings", later to become a full-page strip under the title The Bash Street Kids, Baxendale's first strip to introduce a team of characters.

The atmosphere of total mayhem that Baxendale was developing was certainly at odds with the traditional humour strip, particularly those of the Amalgamated Press, Thomson's main rivals. A contemporary of Baxendale's, Ken Reid, was similarly minded, and The Beano was unrivalled for humour at that time. Baxendale also drew The Banana Bunch for Beezer from its first issue, and would later create The Three Bears for Beano in 1959.

Ten years of tremendous output for relatively little reward left Baxendale suffering from exhaustion and depression, and after contracting pneumonia he left the firm following an invitation from Odhams Press to create a new humour title; this Baxendale did, and Wham! appeared in 1964 with a whole army of new Baxendale creations from General Nit and his Barmy Army, Georgie's Germs and The Tiddlers to Biff and the full-colour double-page Eagle-Eye, Junior Spy.

Most of the strips were passed on to other artists to continue after the first issue, and Baxendale even succeeded in tempting Ken Reid from Thomson's. Such was the success of the title that Smash! was created as a follow up for which Baxendale created Bad Penny, The Nerves, The Swots and the Blots and Grimly Feendish.

Baxendale's interest in politics inspired him to publish a weekly two-page newsletter, Strategic Commentary, written by radical strategist Terence Heelas, which he published for two-and-a-half years (1965-67).

When Odhams was absorbed by lPC Magazines, Baxendale continued to draw, taking on full-time some of the strips he had created plus many new creations, chief amongst them The Pirates and Mervyn's Monsters for Buster, Bluebottle and Basher for Valiant, The Lion Lot for Lion, Clever Dick for Buster and Sweeny Toddler for Whoopee!.

Baxendale left lPC in 1975, writing three books featuring Willy the Kid for Duckworth, who also published his autobiography, A Very Funny Business in 1978. Baxendale drew for Eppo in Holland whilst preparing a case against Thomson's for recognition as creator of his many Beano characters which had continued under various different artists. The case finally came to a mutually agreeable but undisclosed settlement in 1987 after seven years. Baxendale celebrated the result with the release of Thrrp! from Knockabout, his first work in the UK for 12 years. In 1990 he returned to the comic strip with I Love You Baby Basil, a weekly strip for the Guardian newspaper, which he continued to draw until March 1992.

Baxendale has written a series of books - The Encroachment, On Comedy: The Beano and Ideology, Pictures in the Mind, The Beano Room and Hobgoblin Wars: Dispatches from the Front - published through his own Reaper Books imprint. Most are autobiographical with an emphasis on Baxendale's views of comedy. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Pauline Baynes biography

Pauline Baynes biography

Pauline Diana Baynes (9 September 1922 - 1 August 2008; Hove, UK)
Pauline Baynes was an English illustrator whose work encompassed more than 100 books, notably several by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Pauline Baynes was born in Hove, Sussex. For a few years she was raised in India, where her father was commissioner in Agra, but she and her elder sister were sent back to England for their schooling. She spent much of her childhood in Farnham, studying at the Farnham School of Art (now the University for the Creative Arts) and eventually attended the Slade School of Fine Art, but after a year there she volunteered to work for the Ministry of Defence, where she made demonstration models for instruction courses. This work did not last long. She was soon transferred to a map-making department, where she acquired skills that she later employed when she drew maps of Narnia for Lewis and of Middle-earth for Tolkien.

Baynes is probably best known for her covers and interior illustrations for The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, seven books published, one volume a year, from 1950 to 1956 (the first five by Geoffrey Bles, the last two by The Bodley Head). Years later she provided some new illustrations for The Land of Narnia: Brian Sibley Explores the World of C. S. Lewis (HarperCollins, 1998), by Brian Sibley. (According to a School Library Journal review, "the artwork includes full-page illustrations in glowing color".)

When she began work on the Narnia books she was already the chosen illustrator of Lewis's friend and colleague J. R. R. Tolkien. In her obituary for The Daily Telegraph Charlotte Cory described how Baynes and Tolkien came to be associated: in 1948 Tolkien was visiting his publishers, George Allen & Unwin, to discuss some disappointing artwork that they had commissioned for his novella Farmer Giles of Ham, when he spotted, lying on a desk, some witty reinterpretations of medieval marginalia from the Luttrell Psalter that greatly appealed to him. These, it turned out, had been sent to the publishers "on spec" by the then-unknown Pauline Baynes. Tolkien demanded that the creator of these drawings be set to work illustrating Farmer Giles of Ham and was delighted with the subsequent results, declaring that Pauline Baynes had "reduced my text to a commentary on her drawings". Further collaboration between Tolkien and his Farmer Giles illustrator followed, and a lifelong friendship developed ... Later, when she showed him her artwork for a poster featuring Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, the author nodded approvingly and murmured quietly: "There they are, there they are."

Eventually drawings by Baynes appeared not only in Farmer Giles of Ham, but also in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major, Tree and Leaf and (after the author's death) the poem Bilbo's Last Song, which appeared as a poster in 1974 and as a book in 1990. Baynes also painted the covers for two British paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings (in one volume in 1973 and in three volumes in 1981) and produced illustrated poster versions of the maps from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

However, Baynes's own favourite among her works was the set of illustrations she provided for A Dictionary of Chivalry, edited by Grant Uden (Longman, 1968), a project that required two years to complete. As a result, she won the Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association for the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. In a retrospective citation, the Library Association calls it "a reference work that details the life and thoughts of knights". As a reference book it is unique among the winning works and only one other Greenaway Medal in almost sixty years has been awarded for the illustration of non-fiction.

Four years later, Baynes was a commended runner-up for the Greenaway, for Snail and Caterpillar by Helen Piers (Longman, 1972).

Baynes also illustrated The Borrowers Avenged by Mary Norton (1982), the fifth and final book in the Borrowers series, following the death of Diana Stanley, who had illustrated the previous four books. Baynes did the covers for a Puffin edition of the entire series issued in the 1980s.
Source: Wikipedia
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J Beaven biography

J Beaven biography

J Beaven; UK
J Beaven is known to be the artist who created the picture (shown left) of an Elizabethan Theatre used in a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle created in the 1930s by G.J. Hayter & Co, Bournemouth, England. This picture was also used for a Macmillan Educational poster in the 1960s.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
J Beaven art
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Walter Bell biography

Walter Bell biography

Walter Bell
Walter Bell was an artist of English children's comics. He was able to copy the styles of most of his contemporaries, so he was often assigned too fill in for other artists during the artists' holidays or illnesses. He created some characters of his own when he became a freelancer, working at an art studio and later running a studio himself. After being a soldier in World War I, Bell began his artistic career at the Byron Studios. His first published work was a cartoon in the Daily Chronicle, and he was soon assigned to illustrate Tom Browne's Weary Willie and Tired Tim for Amalgamated Press.

He also did cover illustrations for the weekly Illustrated Chips, until he took over the back-page panel Casey Court for ten years. From then on, Bell expanded his activities and took on a variety of independent weekly comics. He drew Mat the Middy for Merry Moments, Lottie Looksharp for The Golden Penny, The Sporty Boyees for The Monster Comic and Sonny Shine the Page Boy for The Jolly Jester.

In 1922, Bell began working exclusively for Amalgamated Press. He drew Geordie Brown in Funny Wonder and many characters for the Nursery Group, such as 'Children of the Forest', 'Fun and Frolic in Fairyland', 'Bobbie and his Teddy Bears', 'Redskin Chums' and 'Snow White and her Friends'.

From 1930, Bell illustrated seasonal comic books for Newnes-Pearson, including The Seaside Comic, Christmas Comic, Holiday Comic, Spring Comic and Summer Comic. Amalgamated Press was not amused by Bell's contributions to these rival publications and reduced his assignments. Therefore, Bell began drawing for the comic supplements of national and local newspapers. Among his line of characters were Molly the Messenger in the Daily Mail Comic and Jolly Jenkins in the Daily Express Comic.

He eventually moved from newspaper comics to the boys' weekly story department at Amalgamated, where he drew Mike, Spike and Greta for The Pilot, Mustard and Pepper for The Ranger and The Professor and the Pop for Detective Weekly. He also took over George W. Wakefield's Bud Abbott and Lou Costello feature in Film Fun. He later worked for several one-shot comic books at P.M. Productions, such as 'Starry Spangles', 'Jolly Jack-in-the-Box' and his final series, 'Flipper the Skipper'. In his retirement, Bell drew cartoons for his local newspaper, the Barnet Press, until his death in 1979.
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Giorgio Bellavitis biography

Giorgio Bellavitis biography

Giorgio Bellavitis (1926 - 21 May 2009; Venice, Italy)
Giorgio Bellavitis was an Italian comic artist, born in Venice. He began his career at an early age, drawing illustrations for published by Montuoro and vignettes for the weekly Sior Tonin Bonagrazia. When Italy surrendered to the allies in 1943, Bellavitis and his family travelled to Pordenone to join the partisans. He provided illustrations to the Venetian partisan weekly Vento di Montagna, and was also imprisoned several weeks with Mario Faustinelli and Alberto Ongaro.

Shortly after World War II, Bellavitis, Faustinelli and Ongaro began the so-called "Group of Venice", together with Hugo Pratt, Paolo Campari and Dino Battaglia. The group launched the magazine Albo Uragano, which was later renamed to Asso di Picche. Bellavitis first comic was 'Robin Hood e gli Allegri Compagni della Foresta', that he published under the pseudonym George Summer in Asso Uragano. Bellavitis also worked with Pratt and Faustinelli on the title comic, 'Asso di Picche'. When the largest part of the Venetian group headed for Argentina, Bellavitis and Battaglia began an association with the publisher Ave in Rome. He created 'La Strada senza Fine' in Lo Scolaro and for Il Vittorioso, he made 'I Cavalieri del Corvo' (1951) 'Acqua Cattiva' (1952), 'Il Palio di Siena' (1953) and 'Amburgo 1947' (1954).

Bellavitis was one of the first Italian artists to draw for the British market, which he did after becoming art director of the agency Cosmopolitan Artists. He also introduced Rinaldo Dami, whose agency later provided most of the Italian artwork for British comics. Bellavitis himself drew 'Paul English' for Swift, shortly after moving to England. He drew 'Mark the Youngest Disciple' and 'Storm Nelson - Sea Adventurer' in Eagle, 'Rodney Flood' in Express Weekly, 'The Ghost World' in Boy's World and 'The New Adventures of Charlie Chan'. In Italy, Bellavitis's 'Stormer Nelson' stories were later reprinted under the title 'Kid Tempesta' in Giono dei Ragazzi.

Giorgio Bellavitis returned to Italy in 1958 to pursue a career in architecture, and was involved in many conservation and restoration projects in Venice. He taught art history at the University of Virginia in 1973, and in 1979 was Thomas Jefferson Foundation Visiting Professor at the university's school of architecture. He died on 21 May 2009.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia & Illustration Art Gallery
Giorgio Bellavitis art
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Frank Bellamy biography

Frank Bellamy biography

Frank Bellamy (1917 - 1976, England)
Frank Bellamy was born in Kettering in 1917. His early artistic influences were the juvenile comics of his childhood, Rainbow and Chips, and he found the Tarzan strips of Hal Foster and Burne Hogarth much more to his taste than the rather static picture stories that mainly featured in British comics of the 1920s and '30s.

The young Bellamy had long been fascinated by big cats and other creatures of the African plains. One frequently-told story of Frank Bellamy's boyhood concerns a travelling circus that visited his home town sometime during the mid 1920s. After school hours Frank enjoyed wandering around the circus camp gazing at the caged jungle cats and, on this particular occasion, approached close enough to pluck a few hairs from a lion's tail. He kept his prize for years afterwards safely stored in a bottle! Such an act may now be deemed foolhardy – for even a well-fed, caged lion is a daunting target. But it does serve to show the sheer determination that Bellamy possessed, a quality that was, in adult life, to take him to the very pinnacle of his chosen profession.

His early work consisted mainly of spot illustrations for such magazines as Everybody’s Weekly and Outspan Magazine. His interest in ‘The Dark Continent’ was to the fore in both of these publications with an illustration to “King Solomon’s Mines” in the former and a number of African-related illustrations in the latter. Another magazine that made use of his talents early on in his career was the Boys' Own Paper.

After an inauspicious spell in advertising (Gibbs toothpaste), Bellamy’s big break as a strip artist came when he was offered the opportunity to work on Mickey Mouse Weekly, the prestigious photogravure comic published by Odhams. He left Norfolk Studios and went freelance. His main contribution to the comic was Monty Carstairs, an upper-crust adventurer whose exploits had been appearing in the comic since February, 1951.

1954 was a landmark year for the young artist, marking the beginning of his long association with Hulton Press. His first work for the publisher was a picture story adaptation of The Swiss Family Robinson for Swift, followed by King Arthur and His Knights, where he progressively used striking double sized frames to depict battle scenes, and Robin Hood and His Merry Men.

When Marcus Morris, editor of Eagle, offered him the opportunity to work on the comic’s prestigious back page, Bellamy was eager to begin. His enthusiasm was, however, tempered a little when he learnt that the work was to be a biographical strip of Sir Winston Churchill, The Happy Warrior. Up to that time the back page ‘historical biography’ had always concentrated on historical figures; to work on the biographical strip of, not only a living person but a great national hero as well, was a rather intimidating task and one that called for a great deal of careful research - as well as tact.

Early in 1959, Hulton Press had been taken over by Odhams and the new owners wanted to see some changes. They decided that Dan Dare, the famous cover character of Eagle, looked too dated and needed a face lift. They wanted someone who would inject a new vitality into the character and asked Frank Bellamy if he would take on the job. Bellamy was uneasy about taking over a character who had been created and nurtured by another artist (Frank Hampson), but during his agreed year on the Dan Dare strip, Bellamy created some stunning pages of artwork that glow vividly with life.

Also for Eagle, Fraser of Africa was one of Frank Bellamy’s greatest successes and it remained one of the artist’s own particular favourites. One feature of the strip that has contributed to its continual appeal is its philosophy of conservation, which was years ahead of its time. This was followed by the fantasy adventure strip Heros The Spartan.

In January 1966, Frank Bellamy began work on a strip version of Thunderbirds, the Gerry Anderson T.V. puppet series that has recently enjoyed yet another successful revival on BBC TV. Anderson's futuristic puppets were incredibly popular in the late 1960s and their exploits were avidly followed by fans in TV Century 21, and throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s Bellamy contributed to many quality periodicals including The Sunday Times, Look And Learn and Radio Times. His work for Radio Times, all featuring the popular character, Doctor Who, is amongst his most sought-after from the 1970s. In 1971 he took over the Garth strip in the Daily Mirror.

Frank Bellamy was a perfectionist who created some of the best colour work ever to appear in British comics. His meticulously-drawn strips were always vibrant and full of life and action. His artwork rarely showed any signs of changes or alterations: he would discard a piece of work and start again rather than resort to process white and paste on patches.
Extracts from Book & Magazine Collector no. 222 by kind permission of the publisher, and authors Norman Wright and David Ashford.

Click for the complete biography courtesy of the publisher and authors.

We also have special limited editions of Frank Bellamy BOOKS including Heros the Spartan, The Complete Adventures of King Arthur and Robin Hood.

Enjoy also the special feature in illustrators issue 5 on Heros the Spartan.

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Mark Bennington biography

Mark Bennington biography

Mark Bennington (born 1963)
Professional illustrator with 30 years experience. Successfully published in all of the UK's major comic titles of the past 30 years, including 'The Dandy', 'The Beano', 'Buster', etc.

Mark Bennington first arrived at Fleetway to help fill some pages for a Whoopee summer special. He quickly became one of Fleetway's rising stars working as an artist and a writer.

His early work for Buster included Blub the Sub as well as writing for Tom Paterson's Buster strip, Gordon Hill's Chalky and Mike Lacey's X Ray Specs.

He stuck with Buster throughout the 1990s writing and drawing for The Crazy Characters centre page spreads and Whizzer & Chip's favourite Memory Banks. He was the second to last artist to leave the comic, ahead of Jimmy Hansen and JEO.

He has provided artwork for a variety of blue chip clients including the BBC, Walkers Snacks, Fleetway Publications and DC Thomson. My work has appeared in national and internationally distributed books, comics, magazines and marketing campaigns.

He has also produced work for a number of blue chip clients including: 'Hill and Knowlton International Marketing', 'BBC', 'Walkers Snacks' and 'Arsenal Football Club'.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Mark Bennington art
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Ted Benoit biography

Ted Benoit biography

Thierry Benoit (born 1947; France)
Ted Benoit has, since the 1980s, been a prominent artist working in the ligne claire style made popular in the pages of the Franco-Belgian comics Tintin and Spirou.

Born Thierry Benoit in Niort, Deux-Sèvres, in rural France on 25 July 1947, he studied cinematography at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques in Paris and later worked in television. His first comics appeared in 1971 after he joined the editorial team of alternative magazine Actuel.

A fan of Hergé and Edgar P. Jacobs, whose works (principally 'Tintin' and 'Blake et Mortimer') filled the pages of Le journal de Tintin, Benoit shared his enthusiasm with other artists who were based around the Pigalle neighbourhood of Paris, leading one of its proponents, François Avril, to coin the term "École Pigalle". This "school" of artists -- including Jacques de Loustal, Charles Berberian and Philippe Petit-Roulet -- helped filled the pages of A suivre and L'Écho des Savanes and other popular French comics in the mid-1980s.

Benoit published a number of strips in the mid-1970s, Géranomimo (1974) and Métal Hurlant from 1976. He also began contributing to L'Écho des Savanes after meeting cartoonist Nikita Mandryka in 1975 and it was here that his Ray Banana strips began appearing in 1978.

His first album, Hôpital (Hospital), was published by Les Humanoïdes Associés in 1979, which won the award for best script at the Festival at Angoulême. His follow-up, Vers la Ligne Claire (Towards the Clear Line, 1980), gathering stories from Libération and Métal Hurlant, showed how his style of drawing was evolving from underground to clear line and had an introduction by Joost Swarte, who had coined the term "ligne claire".

More one-off stories featuring Ray Banana began appearing in A suivre in 1980, followed by the serials Berceuse électrique (Electric Lullaby, 1981) and Cité Lumière (City Light, 1984), both subsequently published in album form by Casterman. Further stories from A suivre were collected as Histoires vraies (True Stories, 1982), written by Yves Cheraqui.

In 1987, Benoit created Bingo Bingo et son Combo Congolais for Métal Hurlant and Métal Aventures as well as writing (for artist Pierre Nedjar), L'homme de nulle part (Nowhere Man, 1989), the memoirs of Thelma Ritter, Ray Banana's wife. A second volume of memoirs featuring Ritter was co-written by Madeleine DeMille and was to be drawn by François Avril but remains in limbo. (Ray Banana also appeared as a character in Philippe Paringaux's novel L'Homme qui ne Transpirait Pas in 1994.)

In 1993, Benoit was one of the artists responsible for reviving the continuing adventures of Blake and Mortimer, drawing two albums (#13 L'affaire Francis Blake, 1996, and #15 L'étrange rendez-vous, 2001) written by Jean Van Hamme.

Benoit's adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Playback, drawn by François Ayroles, appeared from Denoël in 2004.

He has also illustrated a number of books, prints and portfolios and has also been involved with l'association Le Crayon, whose members published The Naked Crayon in 2010. He has also been involved in advertising, notably for Jameson whisky and Bic. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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David Bergen biography

David Bergen biography

David Bergen
Although a popular fantasy artist in the 1990s, almost nothing is known about David Bergen's career. He was active in the 1970s, illustrating Sphere's H. G. Wells' reprints and the cover for SF Digest (1976), as well as books by Arthur C. Clarke and Samuel R. Delaney. He illustrated See Inside a Space Station by Robin Kerrod (Hutchinson, 1977) and an illustration appeared in The Flights of Icarus (Paper Tiger, 1977). Soon after, he could be found contributing covers to DAW Books in the USA (e.g. Barrington J. Bayley's Star Winds and E. C. Tubb's Incident on Ath, both 1978).

Bergen then seemed to disappear until 1990 when his work began appearing on various Pan fantasy and SF titles as well as the Puffin editions of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. He continued to produce covers until at least 1997 when his work again disappears from sight.

What other areas he was (presumably) active in I have no idea; perhaps the lack of credits in the 1980s is literally down to the lack of credits that appeared on books. There can be no doubt as to the quality of his work and he was twice nominated (1991, 1992) for the World Fantasy Award.

Personal information on the artist is almost zero. I believe he was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1947 but a search of the internet turns up nothing else (and any search is rather confused thanks to there being a Canadian author (born 1957) of the same name). Taken from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
David Bergen art
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Luis Bermejo biography

Luis Bermejo biography

Luis Bermejo Rojo (1931 - December 2015, Spain)
Luis Bermejo was born Luis Bermejo Rojo in Madrid in 1931, although the family soon moved to Albacete. It was in Albacete that Bermejo began his professional career, still in his teens, as an assistant to Manuel Gago, himself only in his early twenties but already recognised as a great talent in Spanish comics.

In 1944, Gago created El Guerrero del Antifaz [Warrior of the Mask], which would run for 668 issues, finally ending in 1966. Bermejo began as a letterer on the series in 1947 but, before long, was allowed to ink pages. With Gago’s aid, Bermejo launched his own series in 1948, creating El Rey del Mar (The King of the Sea) for Editorial Valenciana. Written by one of the top scriptwriters of the era, Pedro Quesada, it ran for 46 issues, over which time Bermejo began to assimilate influences other than Gago, notably Alex Raymond.

Bermejo’s comic work diversified. In 1949 he drew Diablillos (Mischief) for Chicos and, a couple of years later, Polín, Poli y Pol-Pol for the same paper; he drew similarly humorous strips for girls for the woman’s magazine Mariló.

Bermejo returned to Madrid to attend the Academy of Fine Arts at San Fernando, studying under illustrator Carlos Sáenz de Tejada. Bermejo’s schooling meant that a more realistic style and better figurework were on display in over 100 episodes of Aventuras del FBI (Adventures of the FBI), created for Madrid-based Editorial Rollán in 1951 and considered a classic in Spain.

Bermejo moved to Valencia and collaborated with a number of top Spanish writers, including Miguel González Casquel with whom he created Sigur (1954) and Federico Trotamundos for Chicos (1955) and Pedro Quesada on the juvenile adventure series Roque Brío (1956). The latter was an unexpected failure, lasting on 8 editions, but the two teamed up again for episodes of Pantera Negra (Black Panther), launched in 1956 with artwork by José Ortiz and, later, Miguel Quesada.

Bermejo had by now established himself at Editorial Maga, working closely with Gago, Miguel and Pedro Quesada and José and Leopoldo Ortiz. Here he produced his second famous work, Apache, scripted by Pedro Quesada, which he drew for over 50 issues from 1958.

Bermejo was already in demand elsewhere, having produced his first strip for the British market via the agency A.L.I. in 1957 - an issue of Super Detective Library featuring private eye Tod Claymore. Bermejo also contributed romance stories to Mirabelle, Romeo and Cherie in 1957-60. At the same time, he was still a busy artist in Spain, working for Bruguera on a series of literary adaptations: La conquista de los poles, Un yanqui en la corte del Rey Arturo (both published in 1957), Una vida aventurerea (1958), Las aventuras del Club Pickwick and Las aventuras de Pinocho (both 1959).

In 1960, Bermejo began drawing the character John Steel for Super Detective Library. The early stories were fairly commonplace war stories but when the stories switched to Thriller Picture Library, Steel was given a make-over and began featuring in a series of jazz-age, crime noir private eye yarns with Bermejo the main artist.

Contributions to War Picture Library, Battle Picture Library, Air Ace and Commando in 1960-62 firmly established Bermejo in the UK and he went on to draw Mann of Battle for Eagle (1962) and a series of stories featuring maritime adventurer Pike Mason in Boys’ World (1963-64).

To cope with the workload, Bermejo often worked with Matías Alonso and the two worked on a number of projects for Editorial Maga, including Marco Polo (1963), Vida y costumbres de los Vikingos (1965) and África y sus habitantes (1966). At the same time, Bermejo was having his biggest success in the UK when he worked on Heros the Spartan for Eagle, alternating adventures with Frank Bellamy in 1963-66.

Bermejo now had an informal studio set up which was responsible for many strips in the UK, notably UFO Agent in Eagle (1966) and The Avengers in Diana (1966-67).

Bermejo, solo, drew The Missing Link for Fantastic in 1967-68 and contributed illustrations to Tell Me Why, Look and Learn and Once Upon a Time, also painting the long-running fairy tale Princess Marigold for Treasure (1969-71).

Bermejo was a popular contributor to James Warren's horror magazines Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie in 1975-79, notably drawing The Rook. In 1979-81, he drew an adaptation of Lord of the Rings which was published throughout Europe. The recovering Spanish market also meant regular work in Cimoc, Metropol, Baladin, Hunter, Zona 84 and other magazines, as well as adapting books by Isaac Asimov and A. E. Van Vogt.

He worked on the revival of the famous adventure strip El Capitán Trueno (Captain Thunder) in 1986, but turned to painting and was able to retire from comics in the early 1990s. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.

See illustrators issue 22 for article on Luis Bermejo and enjoy his storytelling in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics collection JOHN STEEL.

Luis Bermejo art
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Walter Berndt biography

Walter Berndt biography

Walter Berndt (22 November 1899 - 15 August 1979; Brooklyn, New York)
Walter Berndt was a cartoonist known for his long-run comic strip, Smitty, which he drew for 50 years.

Berndt's job as an office boy at the New York Journal put him in contact with leading cartoonists, as he recalled, "When I was 16, I worked as office boy for Tad, Herriman, Hershfield, Tom McNamara, also Hoban, McCay, Gross, T. E. Powers, C. D. Batchelor, Sterrett and Segar. Not much money but a million dollars worth of experience!

He stayed with the New York Journal for five years, sweeping floors, running errands, drawing strips, sport cartoons and what have you. Then one year with World Telegram. From there to the Daily News in 1922 where Smitty and Herby work for me! Golf used to be my love, but it is now taboo. So now it's a little swimmin' in my pool."

Berndt's first strip, That's Different, drawn for the Bell Syndicate, lasted less than a year. In 1922, he created Smitty, which he continued until 1973, working with his assistant Charles Mueller.

Berndt won the Reuben Award for 1969 for Smitty. He also produced the comic strip Herby from 1938 through 1960.

The Berndt Toast Gang, named in honor of Walter Berndt, is a group of Long Island cartoonists who meet on the last Thursday of each month, as explained by cartoonist Lee Ames:

-- When the Long Island group, Creig Flessel, Bill Lignante, Frank Springer, Al Micale and I got together to work for Hanna Barbera in the 1960s, we decided to have a Finnegan's Bar lunch every last Thursday of the month. During that period, Creig brought Walter Berndt to join us. We fell in love with the cigar-smoking old-timer (look who's talking!), as he did with us. After a couple of years he passed away and left us grieving. Thereafter, whenever we convened on Thursdays, we'd raise a toast to Walter's memory. On one such, my big mouth opened and uttered, "Fellas, it's time for the Berndt toast!" I wasn't trying to be cute at the time, but I'm not displeased that it stuck and we became the Berndt Toast Gang, one of the largest branches of the National Cartoonists Society. --
Source: Wikipedia
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Jordi Bernet biography

Jordi Bernet biography

Jordi Bernet Cussó (born 14 June 1944; Barcelona, Spain)
Jordi Bernet is a Spanish comics artist, best known for the gangster comics series Torpedo and Jonah Hex. He was born in Barcelona, the son of a Spanish comic book artist, Miguel Bernet.

He made his debut in comics at fifteen, continuing his father's humorous series Doña Urraca (Mrs. Magpie) after his death in 1960, under the pseudonym "Jordi". While this could support his family, it did not satisfy his artistic ambitions that were inspired by artists such as Hal Foster, Alex Raymond and Milton Caniff. From 1962, Bernet developed a more realistic style, and took on smaller assignments from Italian and British publishers, until he started illustrating for the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou in 1965.

He drew the series Dan Lacombe with his uncle Miguel Cussó as writer, and created a similar series Paul Foran with writer José Larraz, but due to disagreements over editing decisions by Dupuis, Bernet ended the relationship with Spirou. Turning to the German market, in the 1970s he collaborated with Cussó to create Wat 69, a sexy and humouristic heroine for the magazine Pip, and Andrax, a science fiction series for Primo, which both became successful in Germany.

After the fall of Franco, Bernet returned to Catalonia and Spain and worked for several Spanish comics magazines such as Creepy, Metropol and Cimoc, eventually meeting three writers with whom he would form productive partnerships. With Antonio Segura he created the amazone fantasy series Sarvan, and the series Kraken, depicting a sewer monster terrorizing a futuristic fascist society.

Bernet first collaborated with Enrique Sánchez Abulí on several short stories, collected in Historietas negras. When Alex Toth, after producing two stories of Torpedo 1936 in 1981, decided he did not share Abulí's darkly humorous view of mankind and parted with the project, Bernet was asked to continue the work. This became the beginning of a long-lasting series, which became a popular success and was awarded at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. It eventually formed the basis of its own magazine, Luca Torelli es Torpedo in 1992. Later collaborations with Abulí include De vuelta a casa, La naturaleza de la bestia: Ab Irato and Snake: por un puñado de dolares.

Bernet also formed a creative partnership with the Argentine writer Carlos Trillo, resulting in the sexually explicit series Cicca Dum-Dum, the less lewd and more comical series Clara de Noche, and several one-shots, including Custer, Light and Bold and Ivánpiire.

Bernet's more recent publications include several albums for the Italian western character Tex Willer, and a run of work for the U.S. comics market, including a Batman story, and a trilogy detailing "the shocking origin" of Jonah Hex. Bernet has later continued to work with Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray on Jonah Hex.

American artist Will Eisner described his impression of Bernet's work in an anthology preface:
"Here was a man who was producing pure story-telling art. That is art that uses the kind of minimalism so singular to his draftsmanship that it is actually a narrative device in itself."
Source: Wikipedia

See illustrators  Spanish Special and illustrators  Crime Special Edition for feature articles on Jordi Bernet.

Jordi Bernet art
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John Berry biography

John Berry biography

John Berry (9 June 1920 - 10 December 2009; UK)
John Berry was a prolific and popular contributor to Ladybird Books, his work appearing in 40 titles between 1961 and 1978, notably their "People at Work", "Public Services" and the "Hannibal the Hamster" books by Raymond Howe.

John Leslie Berry was born in Hammersmith, London, on 9 June 1920, his father the foreman on the railway at Hammersmith. His father "skipped" when his son was only 5, and Berry and his sister were raised by his mother on £1 a week. He was educated locally before attending Hammersmith College of Art in 1934. He earned a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy in 1939 but was bitterly disappointed to have his studies interrupted by the Second World War.

He volunteered for the R.A.F. in 1940 and served in the Western Desert and the Middle East. In a holding unit waiting to enter Tobruk, he offered to produce a poster advertising a national day of prayer. When the artwork came to the attention of Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, Berry was seconded to the 8th Army as a War Artist. Some of Berry's paintings were exhibited at the National Gallery and are now in the permanent collection of The Imperial War Museum.

Returning to the UK, Berry found work with a wartime acquaintance, Major James Riddell, who wrote children's and travel books. Berry drew a number of short books published by Riddell as Riddle Books, but his income was primarily from advertising.

Asked if he could draw a tiger for an ESSO oil company campaign by the secretary at McCann Erickson, Berry retorted, Yes, put a tiger in your tank. He was paid £25 for the famous slogan, but spent ten years from 1951 drawing tigers for the campaign.

He was a prolific portrait painter, his subjects including the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and Lady Astor. He also worked via Harrods, producing portraits of people who could drop off a photograph which he would turn into a oil painting.

In 1951 Berry married June East, a librarian, and the couple had three sons and two daughters. With a growing family to support, Berry produced book covers for Corgi, Four Square, Panther, Penguin and Readers' Digest. In the Sixties and Seventies, he considered the regular work provided by Ladybird Books to be his bread and butter.

At the same time he continued to produce portraits, his later subjects including the Princess of Wales and President George Bush Sr, and illustrations, including contributing to the 'Special Correspondent' series in Look and Learn in 1967.

In 2004, the Simon Finch Gallery hosted an exhibition of Ladybird work by Berry and Martin Aitchison. A show of Berry's work at the NEC in Birmingham followed in 2005.

Following June's death in 1986, Berry married a second time in 1989 to Jessie Showell. He died on 10 December 2009. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Alfred Edmeades Bestall biography

Alfred Edmeades Bestall biography

Alfred Edmeades Bestall (1892 - 1986, Burma)
Born in Mandalay, Burma, Alfred Edmeades Bestall (MBE) drew and wrote at least 273 Rupert Bear stories for the Daily Express for 30 years from 1935 until 1965, including 40 stories for the Rupert annuals. He also created the specially drawn endpapers of the annuals, where his imagination was given full expression.

Please note that we also have Rupert Bear art by John Harrold.
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Alessandro Biffignandi biography

Alessandro Biffignandi biography

Alessandro Biffignandi (1935 - 21 January 2017; Rome, Italy)
Alessandro Biffignandi was one of Italy's finest painters of cover art and illustrations for comics and magazines. He was born in Rome in 1935 and died in Rome on 21 January 2017, aged 81.

He is primarily associated with his decade-long supply of cover art to British war pocket libraries published by Fleetway in the 1960s and his decade plus association with Italian erotic pocket books. His signature rarely appeared, so even in Italy he was little known and only in recent years has his work been celebrated.

He learnt the finer points of drawing at the Favalli studios. In 1960, he settled in Milan, where he started working for many important periodicals and publishers.

From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, he worked through the Milanese art agencies for the French market and for Fleetway in the UK. His covers for War Picture Library and Battle Picture Library are some of his finest paintings.

He painted covers for the pocket publications of the publishing house Lug, such as Nevada, Hondo, Kiwi, Yuma and Rodeo. He also drew some comics for the books, such as 'Flambo', 'Agent K-3', 'Peter Berg', 'John Kine' and 'Rombo Bill'.

In the late 1960s, he worked for the British Fleetway agency, doing painted covers of The Spider. Since the early 1980s, he has mainly been an illustrator and oil painter.
Source: Steve Holland & Illustration Art Gallery

See illustrators British War Comics Special for an Alessandro Biffignandi feature article.

Alessandro Biffignandi art
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Enki Bilal biography

Enki Bilal biography

Enki Bilal (born 7 October 1951; Yugoslavia)
Enki Bilal is one of the leading graphic novelists to come out of Europe in the past forty years. Still very active, he has occasionally left the field for movies, but has always returned to create something memorable. Although his work has rarely appeared in the UK (although many of his albums are available in English language translation), his work has been championed by Paul Gravett, who says: "Bilal’s visions reveal a decadent dystopia, overwhelming and baroque, inspired by directors like Andrei Tarkowsky of Solaris and Stalker. His plotting is dense, unpredictable, and really repays close attention. There is also a dark, absurdist humour, from the freakish make-up of politicians and the stripped alien cat Gogol to the world chess-boxing championships."

Bilal was president of the 14th Salon International de la Bande Dessinée at Angoulême in 1987. His exhibitions have included two months at the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris in 1991-92 and he was asked to illustrate a stamp in 2006.

Bilal was born Enes Bilalovic in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, on 7 October 1951. His Bosniak father was the tailor to Marshal Tito, Yugoslavia's prime minister and, from 1953, president, and his mother a Slovakian. The young Bilal's twin passions were drawing and the cinema, especially westerns, and these were combined in a movie that he starred in at the age of nine. A short film, it concerned two youngsters from rival gangs who wandered around Belgrade, stopping to sketch out battles between cowboys and indians in chalk on the pavements. The film was never completed: Bilal's family moved to Paris in 1960. At the time, families were prohibited from going into exile and Bilal revealed to a teacher at school that he was shortly to be joining his father in France. Fortunately, the teacher had an eye on their apartment and helped hasten the family's departure. Bilal became a naturalized French citizen in 1967.

Five years later, he met the editors of Pilote, René Goscinny (author of Asterix and Lucky Luke) and Jean-Michel Charlier. Goscinny encouraged him to apply his artistic talents to comics. Bilal studied briefly (three months) at the École des Beaux-Artes, at the same time submitting work to Pilote, where his first published story, 'La Bal Maudit', appeared in 1972.

He began contributing science fiction stories regularly, later collected in Mémoires d'outre-espace, Histoires courtes 1974-1977 (Memories From Outer Space, 1978), although he was sidelined into producing pages of topical humor on current affairs and caricatures for the weekly paper.

His breakthrough came when he began working with Pierre Christin. Their early collaborations included Légendes d'Aujourd'hui (Legends of Today), a linked series of dark, haunting tales, La Croisière des oubliés (The Cruise of Lost Souls, 1975; serialised as 'The Voyage of Those Forgotten', Heavy Metal, 1982), Le Vaisseau de pierre (Ship of Stone, 1976; serialised as 'Progress!', Heavy Metal, 1980) and La ville qui n'existait pas (The Town That Didn't Exist, 1977; serialised as 'The City That Didn't Exist', Heavy Metal, 1983), each set in a different town threatened by mysterious forces – military testing, developers and multinationals – which were later collected as Townscapes (2004).

Bilal became associated with the French magazine Metal Hurlant, and its American counterpart, Heavy Metal, where many of his stories appeared over the next few decades. Serials in Heavy Metal – including Exterminator 17 (1979, written by Jean-Pierre Dionnet), the three volumes of Legends of Today, two volumes of the Nikopol trilogy and The Hunting Party (1983) – introduced Bilal to a wider English-speaking audience than most European creators enjoyed.

Bilal's popularity in Europe had grown considerably with the publication of the political thriller Les Phalanges de l'ordre noir (The Black Order Brigade, 1979), about the revenge sought by a group of former comrades from the International Brigade following a terrorist bombing in a Basque village. The book won the 1980 Prix RTL for best adult graphic novel.

La Foire aux immortels (The Carnival of Immortals, 1980; serialised as 'The Immortals' Fete', Heavy Metal, 1981) introduced the character of Alcide Nikopol, who finds himself in a future Paris ruled over by a corrupt, fascist dictator bent on gaining immortality from Egyptian gods travelling in an alien spaceship. Nikopol allows himself to be taken over by a disillusioned Horus. In its sequel, La Femme piège (The Woman Trap, 1986; as 'The Trapped Woman', Heavy Metal, 1986), Horus is trapped in a block of concrete while Nikopol has been admitted into a psychiatric hospital, although their lives are about to become entangled with that of a London reporter, Jill Bioskop. The third volume of this trilogy was published as Froid Équateur (Cold Equator, 1992).

Bilal had, meanwhile, received rave reviews for Partie de chasse (The Hunting Party, 1983), written by Christin, about a group of aging Soviet political leaders who plot the death of a politician whilst reminiscing about their growing disillusion with the Russian socialist dream.

Meanwhile, Bilal had become involved in the film industry as the production and costume designer for La vie est un roman (1983), directed by Alain Resnais, having earlier designed a poster for Resnais' My American Uncle (1980). He was subsequently asked to design a creature for Michael Mann's The Keep (1983) and do graphic research for Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose (1986) and designed the sets and costumes for the show OPA Mia (1990) by Denis Levaillant and the ballet Romeo and Juliet (1991) based on Prokofiev and choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj.

His graphic novels continued to appear, including Los Angeles - L'Étoile oubliée de Laurie Bloom (Los Angeles - The Forgotten Star of Laurie Bloom, 1984) by Pierre Christin, Hors Jeu (Off Play, 1987, by Patrick Cauvin), Coeurs sanglants et autres faits divers (Bleeding Hearts and Other Stories, 1988) written by Pierre Christin and Bleu Sang (Blue Blood, 1994).

In 1989 he directed the futuristic, post-apocalyptic movie Bunker Palace Hôtel, co-written with Christin, where the elite of a totalitarian regime have fled to an ancient underground bunker to escape from rebels; amongst them, a spy (Carole Bouquet) observes the power struggle as they await the arrival of their leader.

Bilal's other excursions into movies have been equally divisive. As the reviewer of Tykho Moon (1996) said: "The film has admirable art direction but no narrative or directional discipline. Like his earlier effort Bunker Palace Hotel, pic seems destined for Bilal fans only, plus a few comic-strip festivals." Tykho Moon was another futuristic thriller, featuring an aging dictator on the verge of death. His soldiers seek out Tykho Moon, who unwillingly donated brain cells years earlier. Tykho – actually an artist named Anikst – suffers from amnesia and is unaware that he is being sought. The film received a Special Mention at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film in 1997.

Bilal returned to graphic novels with Le sommeil du monstre (The Dormant Beast, 1998), the first of four volumes that tell the story of the downfall of a futuristic Yugoslavia split by wars in the 1990s. Three further volumes appeared to make up the Tétralogie du Monstre series: 32 Décembre (December 32nd, 2003), Rendez-vous à Paris (2006) and Quatre? (Four?, 2007).

Stand-alone titles published in the same period have included Un siècle d'Amour (A century of Love , 1999), by Dan Franck, Magma (2000) and Le Sarcophage (The Sarcophagus, 2001). In 2004, his film Immortel (Ad Vitam) was released, based on the first two Nikopol graphic novel (La Foire aux immortels and La Femme piège) with the action transferred to New York. The film was created in CG Animation using motion capture and was again met with mixed reviews that felt it was both inventive and incoherent.

Bilal's recent work has included Animal´z (2009), about a variety of survivors of global warming, Julia & Roem (2011) and Les Fantômes du Louvre (Ghosts of the Louvre, 2012).

The boxing scenes in Bilal's book Froid Équateur (1992) inspired performance artist Lepe Rubingh to organize the first chess-boxing bout – six rounds of chess plus five rounds of boxing – in Amsterdam in November 2003 (which Iepe won). The World Chess Boxing Organization continues to support championship fights of the hybrid sport around the world. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Enki Bilal art
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Harry Bishop biography

Harry Bishop biography

Harry Bishop (born 3 May 1920; UK)
Harry Bishop is one of the finest artists in the UK who has turned his gaze – and talent – to the wild west. For most of his career he drew western comic strips, and it was his work on Gun Law – based on the television show Gunsmoke starring James Arness as Matt Dillon – for the Daily Express for which he is best remembered. With its superb figurework and accurate portrayals of horse and rider, Bishop drew on influences ranging from Tony Weare to Remington Russell and Norman Rockwell. He was awarded the British Cartoonists Award in 1965. He took over the Wes Slade strip in the Sunday Express in 1980 and this also earned him an award from the Strip Illustrators Society in 1981.

Born in Painswick, Gloucestershire, on 3 May 1920, Harry Bishop was a fan of illustrators like D. C. Eyles, Stanley Woods and H. M. Brock and was keen to attend art school, an interest supported by his parents. He was educated at Hatherley School and the Gloucester School of Art, leaving the latter in 1937 to travel abroad.

Bishop served in the R.A.F. during the war – mostly abroad and for some time with Bomber Command – and recommenced his art education in 1947, using his ex-serviceman's gratuity to began studying at Wimbledon College of Art. Graduating in 1952, he took up a position as a teacher at Mitcham Grammar School.

At the same time he began drawing comic strips for the Amalgamated Press, his earliest known work appearing in Comic Cuts, where he took over the artistic chores for the adventures of Cal McCord, the real-life cowboy and actor, in May 1953. Comic Cuts came to a close soon after, but Bishop was to find a regular home for his work in Swift, which was about to be launched in March 1954. His first strip, Tom Tex and Pinto ran for eighteen months, during which time he also took over the colour cover of Swift, drawing Tarna Jungle Boy from June 1954.

After this rapid rise, Bishop found work on Junior Express drawing Wyatt Earp, Red Cloud and Rex Keene, for Thriller Comics drawing Jesse James and for Sun drawing Billy the Kid. Through these strips he established himself as one of the leading western artists in the UK. In April 1957, he began drawing 'Gun Law' for Express Weekly, continuing the weekly strip until March 1961. A year earlier, in April 1960, the strip had begun appearing in the Daily Express. He continued to write and draw the strip for almost two decades.

Bishop continued to contribute to British comics, although often for brief periods only, drawing Smiley! (Swift, 1958-59), Billy the Kid (Lion, 1959), 'Tarna Jungle Boy' (Swift, 1962-63), Morg of the Mammoths (Lion, 1963-64) and numerous one-off features for TV Express, Boys' World, Eagle and Princess. In 1970-85, Bishop was also a prolific illustrator for Deans.

After drawing a second strip for the Evening Standard, Judy and the Colonel, Bishop drew Tarzan and The Saint for TV Tornado and Blackbow the Cheyenne briefly for Eagle before departing comics around 1967. He returned almost a decade later with The Wrangler, a brief one-off in Ally Sloper (1976), which year marked his debut in the Dutch weekly Eppo, where he drew the western Laben Tal until 1977. 'Gun Smoke' ended in 1978.

Bishop brought the 'Wes Slade' series to a close in 1980-81 following the death of its originator, George Stokes, after which he concentrated on painting. He has produced surprisingly few paintings on western subjects, although a 'modest number' (around 30) were sold via Frost and Reed of Bond Street, London; he has, however, painted landscapes and other subjects and worked in most media, although he prefers pen and ink.

In 1984-85, an eye infection caused him to give up painting completely. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Harry Bishop art
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Simon Bisley biography

Simon Bisley biography

Simon Bisley (born 4 March 1962)
Simon Bisley is a British comic book artist best known for his 1990s work on ABC Warriors, Lobo and Sláine. His style, reliant on paints, acrylics, inks and multiple-mediums, is strongly influenced by Frank Frazetta, Bill Sienkiewicz, Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dalí, Egon Schiele, and Richard Corben. He also took inspiration from rock album covers and graffiti as well as traditional comics art. In turn he and his work has inspired various forms in media, including the Beast in the 2006 Doctor Who episode "The Satan Pit", and Simon Pegg's character graphic artist Tim Bisley on the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced.

While still a student, Bisley did a painting of a robot holding a baby that he sent to the offices of 2000 AD. The image was seen by Pat Mills and inspired him to relaunch the ABC Warriors strip, with Bisley as artist, in 1987. Following this, Bisley took over drawing of Sláine. Bisley also painted the intercompany crossover Judge Dredd and Batman, Judgement on Gotham.

As of 1997, Bisley is an occasional contributor to the comics magazine Heavy Metal.

Bisley has done design work for several music videos, including The Chippendales' "Room Service".

More recently (2014-2015), Bisley pencilled the hugely popular graphic novel The Tower Chronicles: DreadStalker written by Matt Wagner.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia
Simon Bisley art
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Basil Blackaller biography

Basil Blackaller biography

Basil Blackaller (1921 - 1958; Hampshire, UK)
Basil Blackaller was born in Christchurch, Hampshire, in 1921. His comics debut came at the age of 16, drawing "Hairy Dan" in the first issue of DC Thomson's The Beano in 1938. His best known strip was "Pansy Potter, the Strongman's Daughter" for the same title, which he took over from creator Hugh McNeill in 1939 and drew throughout the Second World War.

He also drew "Deep Down Daddy Neptune" (1939), "Cinderella and the Ugly Sisters" (1940), "Big Heep" (1940) and "Smart Alec" (1945) for The Beano, "Castor Oil Craddock" (1948) for The Dandy, and "Dick Turpentine" (1940) for The Magic Comic.

He moved to the Amalgamated Press and switched to adventure strips, drawing for Super Detective Library, in the 50s. He also drew the syndicated science fiction newspaper strip "Ace O'Hara", written by Conrad Frost, in the 1950s, and "Captain Falcon" for Rocket (under the pseudonym "Frank Black") in 1956. He died in Surrey in 1958, aged just 36.
Source: UK Comics Wiki

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Janet Blakeley biography

Janet Blakeley biography

Janet Blakeley
Janet Blakeley was a regular contributor to Look and Learn and was one of their most prolific artists for nature articles in the late 1970s, appearing almost every week.

She also contributed illustrations to Watching Wildlife by Andrew Cooper (London, Usborne, 1982) and the children's novel Alice's Part by Vera Boyle (London, Macmillan Children's Books, 1983). From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Janet Blakeley art
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Michel Blanc-Dumont biography

Michel Blanc-Dumont biography

Michel Blanc-Dumont
Michel Blanc-Dumont started out publishing in Phénix, but eventually joined Jeunes Années, where he illustrated several Indian legends as well as several posters. His actual comics career took off in 1974, when he began the western series Jonathan Cartland with scenarist Laurence Harlé in Lucky Luke Magazine, one of the best western comics series.
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Adriano Blasco biography

Adriano Blasco biography

Adriano Blasco Monterde (1931 - 2000; Spain)
Adriano Blasco is the younger brother of Jesús, Alejandro and Pilar Blasco. He started out drawing harmless humorous characters like 'Chispita' for the girls magazine Mis Chicas in the early 1940s. Since 1947 he was a regular at adventurous weekly Chicos contributing such works as 'Piratas en el Yukon' and 'El genio negro'.

He drew many stories for El Coyote magazine, like 'Pasarse de Listo' and 'Una heroína en Guerra'. For another girls magazine called Florita, he produced such comics as 'Marcela' and 'Lizzy'. In the 1960s, he joined the Blasco studios, where he worked alongside his brothers, Jesús and Alejandro under the only name of Jesús Blasco.
Source: Lambiek
Adriano Blasco art
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Alejandro Blasco biography

Alejandro Blasco biography

Alejandro Blasco Monterde (1928 - 19 October 1988; Spain)
Alejandro Blasco was a Spanish cartoonist and illustrator, famous for the joint work with his brothers Jesús and Adriano Blasco.

As the second of the Blasco brothers, Alejandro Blasco also chose the comics profession. He started out drawing an innocent humorous character called 'Morronguito' for the girls magazine Mis Chicas in the early 1940s. Since 1944 he turned out a series of stories for Chicos, such as 'Dardo Amarillo', 'Por Tierras de Emoción', 'Policía Montada', 'El Ídolo del Lago', and 'Corsario X'. He created 'Gangsters' and 'Una Evasión Difícil' for El Coyote magazine. He also cooperated on Alcotán magazine. He also worked on British comics like 'Billy the Kid' for Sun and 'Buffalo Bill' for The Comet in the 1950s.

Alejandro began his career in 1943 in Mis Chicas, where he already worked his sister Pilar, making the comic strips of the anthropomorphic cat 'Morronguito'. According to Salvador Vázquez de Parga, both his style and that of brother Adriano "accused the influences of Anita Diminuta, the stories of Puigmiquel, and more remotely from those of Walt Disney."

It was successful and in 1945 the hardcover albums titled Morronguito in the river of Pearls were published ".

A year earlier, however, he had begun to collaborate with the magazine Chicos by creating a series of realistic graphics adventures, such as Yellow Dart, Mounted Police, Land of Thrill, The Idol of the Lake, or Corsair X before the magazine was forced to conclude these strips in 1949. He also published in El Coyote and Alcotán.

From 1947 he had begun to work together with his brothers Adriano and Jesús. Ten years later, the three of them set up a studio in a three-storey house in a residential area next to the Vallcarca bridge, dedicated to the production of cartoons for the British and French-speaking markets, always under the signature of the older brother Jesús. They created several comics throughout the 1960s and 1970s ('Steel Claw', 'Los Guerilleros'). Alejandro remained active in the comics field until the late 1980s.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Lambiek
Alejandro Blasco art
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Jesus Blasco biography

Jesus Blasco biography

Jesús Monterde Blasco (3 November 1919 - 21 October 1995, Spain)
From November 1954 when his first strip appeared in the UK, Jesús Blasco carved an astonishing path through British comics, producing some of the most popular stories of their times. British strips often played fast and loose with historical facts and physics and grounding them in Blasco’s photo realistic artwork made them believable to their youthful audience. His artwork inspired a generation of new artists, Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland both acknowledging his influence.

Jesús Blasco Monterde was born in Barcelona, Spain, on 3 November 1919, one of five siblings—brothers Alejandro, Adriano, Augusto and sister Pilar—who, to one degree or another, all worked in comics. Entirely self-taught, Blasco began working professionally in comics shortly after his first prize-winning drawing appeared in Mickey when he was 14. Only 15, he created ‘Cuto’ for Biloche in 1935. The boy hero become one of Spain’s most popular comic creations following his appearance in Chicos in 1940 and Blasco added a second popular strip to his CV when he created ‘Anna Diminuta’ for Mis Chicas.

Blasco was called up to serve during the Spanish Civil War and, after the war, served three years military service whilst still managing to keep up a steady output of comic strips from war stories to nursery tales.

In 1954, he made his debut in the UK and continued to contribute to British comics for over 20 years. From drawing ‘Buffalo Bill’ and ‘Billy the Kid’ in Comet and Sun, Blasco took over the artwork of those most British of heroes, ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘Dick Turpin’. He also turned his hand to fairy tales, drawing beautifully painted spreads for Playhour featuring Pinocchio, the Dancing Princesses, Rumpelstiltskin and others.

In 1962 he drew ‘Vengeance Trail’ for Eagle and, that same year, began work on his two longest-running strips: the darkly menacing adventures of ‘The Steel Claw’ in Valiant and the whimsical children’s fantasy ‘Edward and the Jumblies’ for Teddy Bear.

Thanks to inking help from his brothers Alejandro and Adriano, who did not receive any individual credits in the UK after 1955, the Blasco family were able to turn out an astonishing number of pages each week with no fall-off in quality.

In 1968, Blasco adapted ‘Montezuma’s Daughter’ for Look and Learn and went on to draw further features and stories for that paper and its companion, Treasure. In the 1970s, he also drew the adventures of ‘The Wombles’ and ‘Return of the Claw’, but the market in the UK was no longer able to absorb his output. In 1968 he had drawn ‘Los guerrilleros’, written by Michael Cussó, for Spirou. Now, in 1974, he became more heavily involved in the Portuguese comic Jornal do Cuto and the Spanish comic Chito and his output in the UK fell away. Apart from a few episodes of ‘Dredger’ in Action and the opening three episodes of ‘Invasion’ for 2000AD, Blasco turned his sights to Europe, where he was invited to adapt the Bible as a series of comic strips.

In 1982, Blasco was awarded the prestigious Yellow Kid at Lucca and the French honorary award Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1986 he worked with Victor Mora on reviving ‘El Capitán Trueno’ but the strip was caught up in the collapse of its publisher. Blasco turned to Italy and Bonelli’s long-running western saga ‘Tex’ and science-fantasy ‘Zona X’. He also teamed up again with Victor Mora to recount the historical adventures of ‘Tallaferro’.

Blasco died on 21 October 1995, survived by only one brother, Adriano.

There is an air of total realism about Jesus Blasco's work. Blasco is often almost photographic in the delineation of his characters and, although occasionally this tends towards a rather static look to some frames, his fine sense of composition and sensitive drawing style more than adequately compensates. Born in Barcelona, Jesus Blasco started drawing for Spanish comics while still in his teens. The eldest of five brothers, most of whom are illustrators and who are often engaged in inking his work, he has worked in practically every genre: Historical, Western, Detective, Fairy Tales.

In addition to Thriller Picture Library, he contributed many strips to the Cowboy Comics Library and picture strip versions of two Jeffrey Farnol historical romances for Look and Learn. He drew many strips for Lion, including probably the most celebrated of all his strips in this country - The Steel Claw. Biography extracts courtesy of David Ashford, Norman Wright and Steve Holland.
Jesus Blasco art
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Stuart Bodek biography

Stuart Bodek biography

Stuart Bodek
Stuart Bodik's book cover art appeared on what would seem to be an American family saga, a genre that flourished in the 1970s and 1980s, although it had its roots in such popular novels as The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy and The Whiteoaks of Jalna by Mazo de la Roche.

The late Stuart Bodek was born in South Africa and was represented by Artist Partners in London.
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Stephen Richard Boldero biography

Stephen Richard Boldero biography

Stephen Richard Boldero (1898 - 1987)
Boldero's cover artwork appeared regularly in the 1950s and 1960s, published by most of the leading paperback firms (Corgi, Digit, Arrow, Pan, Panther, Four Square, Consul). He also had a long association with Souvenir Press, producing numerous dust jackets.
Stephen Richard Boldero art
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John Bolton biography

John Bolton biography

John Bolton (born 23 May 1951; UK)
John Bolton is best known for his painted comic strips, his dark, photorealist style particularly effective on horror stories, in which genre he became somewhat typecast through his work on adaptations of Clive Barker and Sam Raimi's film Army of Darkness and his series of voluptuous she-vampire paintings. Bolton's work in the broader field of fantasy is probably best exemplified by his collaborations with Chris Claremont, which included Marada the She Wolf in Epic Illustrated and the 6-issue mini-series The Black Dragon.

Born in London, 23 May 1951, Bolton trained as civil engineer, then worked as a clothes salesman in London. His first comics-related work came via Granddreams, illustrating annuals such as The Magician, The Lone Ranger, Planet of the Apes, Flash Gordon, New Avengers and Tarzan. His first strips appeared in House of Hammer in 1976, including adaptations of Dracula, Prince of Darkness and One Million Years B.C., and early episodes of the Steve Moore-written Father Shandor series. Switching to colour, he made an immediate impact drawing The Bionic Woman for Look-In. Bolton won the Eagle Award for Favourite Comicbook Artist (UK) in 1979.

His American debut came with Kull, written by Doug Moench for Marvel Preview in 1980. A year later, his first painted strips - The Llehs - appeared in Epic Illustrated followed in 1982 by Marada the She-Wolf. Dozens of short horror tales appeared in Twisted Tales, Alien Worlds, Pathways to Fantasy, Tales of Terror, Alien Encounters and Cheval Noir over the next few years, as did The Black Dragon. Bolton could also turn his hand to mainstream comicbooks, which he did with a run of back-up stories in Classic X-Men in 1986-89 and Wonder Woman Annual (1988).

Graphic novels like Someplace Strange (1988), written by Ann Nocenti, and The Yattering and Jack (1992), adapted from a Clive Barker story by Steve Niles, and his painting of the first issue of The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman helped cement his reputation as Britain's finest weird-fantasy/horror artist.

He has since gone on to work on many other titles, chief amongst them Man-Bat (1995), written by Jamie Delano, Menz Insana (1997) by Christopher Fowler, Gifts of the Night (1999) by Paul Chadwick, Batman/Joker: Switch (2003) by Devin Grayson, God Save the Queen (2007) by Mike Carey, The Evil Dead (2008) by Mark Verheiden and The Green Woman (2010) by Peter Straub & Michael Easton.

Over the years, Bolton has also published portfolios, illustrated trading cards and worked as a storyboard and concept artist.

A Short Film About John Bolton (2003) was written and directed by Neil Gaiman, although it featured a fictional version of Bolton's life. Bolton is played by John O'Mahony, with Marcus Brigstocke playing an interviewer who discovers, to his cost, what inspires Bolton's disturbing art. Bolton himself had a cameo in the film.

His latest work is Shame: Conception for Renegade Arts Entertainment, released in July 2011; at the time of writing he is working on the second book in a proposed trilogy. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
John Bolton art
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George Bowe biography

George Bowe biography

George Bowe
George Bowe is a bit of a mystery. His career began at least as early as 1948 when he illustrated two books by Enid Blyton and continued until at least 1974 when he drew At the End of the Rainbow'in Bonnie. In between he contributed illustrations to Boy's Own Paper, Pony Club Annual, Robin Annual, Girl Annual and Swift Annual in the 1950s and 1960s.

For an artist with a career spanning at least 26 years, it is surprising that nothing else is known. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Leslie Bowyer biography

Leslie Bowyer biography

Leslie Bowyer
Leslie Bowyer was an occasional contributor to Eagle, illustrating a short story in 1951 and a feature on the Queen's post-Coronation tour of 1954.

He also produced advertising designs and watercolours and contributed to Children's Own Wonder Book (1947). Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Stuart Boyle biography

Stuart Boyle biography

Stuart Boyle; UK
"I was born, grew up and still live in London, England. My father, Stuart Boyle, was an artist. He illustrated a number of books including Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One." -- Catherine Brighton.

Stuart Boyle painted a number of detailed illustrations depicting scenes from history and used in the Macmillan series of educational posters in the 1960s.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Stuart Boyle art
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Eric Bradbury biography

Eric Bradbury biography

Eric Bradbury (born 1921, England)
Eric Bradbury was born in Sydenham, Kent, but moved to nearby Beckenham at the age of ten where he gained a scholarship to the local Art School in 1936. During the War he was an airgunner flying Wellingtons. Like Geoff Campion, Eric Bradbury began his strip career drawing Our Ernie and other "funnies" characters for Knockout in 1949.

Before long, however, thanks to the persuasion of Leonard Matthews, Bradbury began work on adventure strips. Starting on Knockout's Luck Logan Western strip and, later, as the best of the Campion imitators on the Buffalo Bill strip in Comet, he was soon creating his own strips such as The King's Thief for Comet based on the MGM film - a far more exciting strip than it was a movie!

By the 1960s, Eric Bradbury began to develop his own idiosyncratic, dark, somewhat sinister style, with such strips as Mytek the Mighty and The House of Dolmann for Valiant, Maxwell Hawke for Buster and Doomlord for the new 1980's Eagle. Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
Eric Bradbury art
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Frank Brangwyn biography

Frank Brangwyn biography

Guillaume François Brangwyn (Frank Brangwyn), (1867 - 1956; Belgium)
Frank Brangwyn was something of an artistic jack-in-the-box, estimated to have produced some 12,000 artistic works in a working career that spanned 65 years and a wide range of media, from stained glass windows and glassware to ceramics and furniture. He also painted murals on buildings, painted in oils, watercolours and gouache, made etchings and wood engravings and was a lithographer.

His work ranged from small woodcuts to a series of murals that were originally intended to be placed in the Royal Gallery at the House of Lords in Westminster but were considered "too colourful and lively" for the location. The 16 large works, painted between 1925 and 1932 and covering some 3,000 square feet, became known as the British Empire Panels and are now housed in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea.

Frank William Brangwyn was born Guillaume François Brangwyn in Bruges, Belgium, on 12 May 1867. Frank's father, William Curtis Brangwyn, was an ecclesiastical architect who had moved to Bruges to paint murals and frescoes for Belgian churches as well as designing several buildings and reconstructing others (such as the church of Sint-Andries). Brangwyn did not receive any formal artistic training; instead, his father sent him to practice drawing at the South Kensington Museum where he met Harold Rathbone and Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, who both encouraged his work. Through Mackmurdo, Brangwyn was introduced to William Morris, who employed him as a glazier.

Brangwyn began to develop as a painter and his painting A Bit on the Esk was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885. A passion for the sea led him to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and he developed a good reputation for his seascapes and landscapes. His oil painting Burial at Sea (now in the Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow) won a medal at the Paris Salon in 1891. Brangwyn travelled extensively and his first one-man show was entitled 'From Scheldt to Danube'.

Commercial illustrations for The Graphic expanded his audience and his reputation amongst the artistic community was high: he decorated the façade of the L'Art Nouveau gallery in Paris in 1895 and was one of the artists, along with Rodin and Whistler, invited to show his work at the first exhibition of the Vienna Secession group. Between 1902 and 1920 he executed a great many murals for buildings in London, Venice, Cleveland, Manitoba, Jefferson City, Leeds, Taormina (Sicily) and elsewhere. He was made an associate of the Royal Academy in 1904 and a member in 1919.

During the First World War, Brangwyn was an official war artist, designing many propaganda posters. After the war he was commissioned to produce a series of murals for the House of Lords, paid for by Lord Iveagh. The initial designs, depicting battle scenes, were thought too grim and Brangwyn started afresh, using vibrant colours to depict the achievements of Britain's colonies during the conflict. These were rejected by the Royal Fine Arts Commission and Brangwyn was understandably devastated.

After executing another large commission for the Rockefeller Center in New York, Brangwyn became more reclusive and pessimistic, a situation that had begun years earlier and contributed to by the death in 1924 of his wife, Lucy (née Ray, a nurse whom he had married in 1896). Brangwyn began to dispose of many of his possessions; over 400 pieces were gifted to Bruges in 1936 in order to establish a permanent museum in his native city; a substantial collection was also donated to the William Morris Museum, Walthamstow. A museum of Brangwyn and of de Belleroche was established at Orange, France, in 1947.

Brangwyn was knighted in 1941 and a major retrospective of his work was held at the Royal Academy in 1952 - the first living Academician to be so honoured. He died on 11 June 1956 at his home in Ditchling, Sussex, aged 89. Biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Dan Brereton biography

Dan Brereton biography

Dan Brereton (born 22 November 1965; San Francisco, USA)
Dan Brereton is an American professional writer and illustrator who has produced notable work in the comic book field.

Barely out of art school, Dan burst onto the scene in 1989 winning his first industry award for the BLACK TERROR miniseries (Eclipse Comics) and hasn't looked back since. In the last two decades he's produced a prolific body of work in Comics, and has won and been nominated many times for several different industry and fan awards. He has also worked in Animation, TV, Film, Music, Publishing and Theme Parks.

Brereton is known for his skills as a painter and his distinctive character designs. He gained attention for his work on "Batman: Thrillkiller", "Superman and Batman: Legends of the World's Finest", and "JLA: Seven Caskets". His most famous work is his own series "The Nocturnals".

Outside the comic book field, Brereton's work includes the package illustration for a video game called "Machine Head", billboard and advertising art for Rawhide (a Wild West park in Scottdale), concept art for Pressman Films, the television show Numb3rs, development for Disney Television Animation and album covers for the bands Toto, Fireball Ministry, Sote, Ghoultown, and Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe.

Image Comics published "Dan Brereton: The Goddess & The Monster," a collection of his best work, in August 2010.

Dan lives in California with his family and their many pets. Hobbies include Reading, Movies, TV, Comic Conventions, Pestering Sushi Chefs and Divining Parallel worlds. His favorite hobby, as it turns out, is his job.
Source: ComicBookDB & Wikipedia
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Charles Edmund Brock biography

Charles Edmund Brock biography

Charles Edmund Brock RI (5 February 1870 - 28 February 1938; London, UK)
Charles Edmund Brock was a widely published English line artist, portrait painter and book illustrator from Cambridge, who signed his work C. E. Brock. He specialised in illustrating period books.

He was the eldest of four artist brothers, including Richard Henry Brock and Henry Matthew Brock, also an illustrator. And they all shared the same studio in Cambridge.

Brock was born in Holloway, London. The family later settled in Cambridge. He studied art briefly under sculptor Henry Wiles.

He received his first book commission at the age of 20 in 1890. He became very successful, and illustrated books for authors such as Jonathan Swift, William Thackeray, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot. Brock also contributed pieces to several magazines such as The Quiver, The Strand, and Pearsons. He used the Cambridge college libraries for his "picture research".

In illustration Brock is best known for his line work, initially working in the tradition of Hugh Thomson, but he was also a skilled colourist. As a painter he received plaudits for his realism and vibrancy he created in his work. Only a small quantity of his known paintings have been located which is why their prices have been so high.

He and his brothers maintained a Cambridge studio filled with various curios, antiques, furniture, and a costume collection. They owned a large collection of Regency era costume prints and fashion plates, and had clothes specially made as examples for certain costumes. Using these, family members would model for each other.

Unequivocally the most famous and valuable paintings in Brocks career were his golf paintings – The Bunker; The Drive; and The Putt – all of which were painted in 1894 as part of the same series. These paintings were famously acquired together by a Japanese collector in 1991 for $1.5 million. The most valuable of these is The Putt, which was famously repainted due to the position of the caddy and bystander as the commissioner of the painting wanted to bring himself, the putter, more into the fore front of the painting. Interestingly the initial unsigned painting is considered to be the more impressive of the two versions, and is even used as the print for postcards and posters sold in many Golf Museums.

C E Brock was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

Brock did not publish any more work after 1910. He died on 28 February 1938 in Cambridge.

The approach of C.E. Brock's work varied with the sort of story he was illustrating. Some was refined and described as "sensitive to the delicate, teacup-and-saucer primness and feminine outlook of the early Victorian novelists," while other work was "appreciative of the healthy, boisterous, thoroughly English characters" – soldiers, rustics, and "horsey types." Other illustrations were grotesqueries drawn to amuse children looking at or reading storybooks.!!

See illustrators  Pirates! Special featuring C E Brock.

See our original copy of The Art of the Illustrator featuring C E Brock published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Charles Edmund Brock art
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Henry Matthew Brock biography

Henry Matthew Brock biography

Henry Matthew Brock RI (1875 - 1960)
The youngest of a trio of brothers, all of whom were illustrators, Henry Brock shared a studio with brothers Charles and Richard in their large Cambridge house. H.M. Brock was an extremely prolific artist, turning his hand to every conceivable type of publication: classics, novels, poetry, essays, school stories, children's annuals and comics, as well as posters and other forms of advertising. When Leonard Matthews brought in H.M. Brock to draw his serial, Breed of the Brudenells in 1949, it was not the artist's first foray into comic strip work. During the 1930s he had been drawing spot illustrations for comics-notably for Happy Days - and even a strip adventure of school life, Study 13, for Sparkler. It was Breed of the Brudenells, however, later reprinted in Thriller Comics Library no. 9 as Hunted on the Highway, which brought the artist, then in his seventies, into the adventure strip in a major way.

The few issues of the Library drawn by Brock are all superbly evocative of the period in which they are set and - despite the onset of blindness - beautifully drawn and it is only in his very last work, Dick Turpin and the Followers of the Fang (no. 189), that it becomes obvious that his sight was really deteriorating and Pat Nicolle was called in to redraw faces and horses and generally "pull the artwork together". Pat Nicolle recalled just how much he hated having to "muck about" with the great man's work. In truth, however, Pat helped to make Brock's last work one of the best highwayman strips in the genre.
Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

See illustrators  Pirates! Special featuring H M Brock.

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Richard Henry Brock biography

Richard Henry Brock biography

Richard Henry Brock (1871 - 1943)
Accomplished British artist and illustrator known for his paintings of rural scenes from British life, including horse-riding, country walks, children at play, farmers at work (herding, ploughing, driving cattle, feeding horses), and country pursuits.

Brother of the well-known artists Henry Matthew Brock and Charles Edmund Brock, the three brothers shared a studio in their large Cambridge house.
Source: Illustrators Art Gallery
Richard Henry Brock art
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Robert Brook biography

Robert Brook biography

Robert Brook
Despite a great deal of digging, almost nothing is known about artist Robert Brook. He appears to have begun working for the educational weekly Look and Learn in around 1965. His work was often highly detailed, as shown in the illustration left that depicts a scene from Margaret Landon's novel Anna and the King, which was later turned into the musical The King and I (filmed in 1956, starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner).

This was one of a series of covers Brook produced featuring Famous Couples, others including Hiawatha & Minnehaha, Robespierre & Eleanor Duplay, Andrian Nikolayev & Valentina Tereshkova (two Russian cosmonauts) and Heathcliff & Cathy. Other cover series drawn by Brook included Animal Heroes and Famous Partnerships.

Inside Look and Learn, he illustrated the serial The Red Bonnet by Henry Garnett with some delightful black & white illustrations and a feature on The Literary Lambs (Charles and Mary). He often worked in colour, illustrating historical features such as The Tyrant of Mysore, about the Duke of Wellington's defeat of the Sultan of Mysore in 1799, and a long-running feature on Dancing Around the World, which ran for 20 episodes in 1968. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Robert Brook art
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Mary A Brooks biography

Mary A Brooks biography

Mary A Brooks (born 1922)
Mary Brooks was the illustrator of Enid Blyton's Noddy Gets Into Trouble (1954) and Noddy Meets Father Christmas (1955), having earlier contributed to The Enid Blyton Holiday Annual at least as early as 1951. She wrote and illustrated many books for nursery-age children in the 1960s ranging from early learning titles like One, Two, Three 123 (1966) and ABC 123 (1966) to illustrated animal books, books of rhymes and fairy stories.

She also produced illustrations for the magazine Treasure, where she also illustrated nature scenes. Her work also appeared in a number of books published by Purnell (1978-80) and Dean (1986-87) and it is said that, even in her late eighties, she continues to paint.

Mary A. Brooks was married to Laurence William Penn in Dartford, Kent, in 1947. He died in 1989, aged 73. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Mary Brooks art
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Gordon Browne biography

Gordon Browne biography

Gordon Frederick Browne (15 April 1858 - 27 May 1932)
Gordon Frederick Browne was an English artist and children's book illustrator in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

He was born in Banstead, near London, the younger son of notable book illustrator Hablot Knight Browne (who as "Phiz" illustrated books by Charles Dickens). He studied art at the Heatherley School of Fine Art and South Kensington Schools and started to receive professional commissions while still at college.

From the 1880s, Browne was one of Britain's most prolific illustrators, his work appearing in newspapers, magazines and many books by children's authors including Frederic William Farrar, G.A. Henty, Juliana Horatia Ewing, Andrew Lang, Talbot Baines Reed, L. T. Meade, Catherine Christian and E. Nesbit.

Between 1894 and 1913, he did 9 illustrations for Arthur Conan Doyle's works.

Browne worked in watercolour and pen and ink. He was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) and the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA). Browne was an early member of the Society of Graphic Art and showed three works at their first exhibition in 1921.

He died in Richmond, London in 1932.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Ralph Bruce biography

Ralph Bruce biography

Ralph Bruce
Ralph Bruce was a talented illustrator who worked for Look and Learn in the 1960s. Until the mid-1960s he was a regular artist for The Children's Newspaper and was probably brought to the educational paper by former Children's Newspaper editor, John Davies, who took over the editorship of Look and Learn in 1965.

His artwork covered a huge range of subjects. His historical illustrations ranged from ancient Greece and Roman Britain, to the eras of Shakespeare, Caxton and modern journalism. He was particularly adept at portraits and drew everyone from Dickens to the Beatles for Look and Learn as well as contributing covers for various series, including Famous Couples and When They Were Young in the late 1960s. Some of his best work was contributed to the long-running series The Story of Opera, penned by Robin May,

Prior to working for Look and Learn, Bruce had illustrated book covers for Digit Books in the late 1950s, titles including The Deep Six by Martin Dibner, I Came Back by Krysyna Zywulska, White August by John Boland, Air Patrol Biscay by Richard T. Bickers, Horns of the Dragon by Felix Trigg, Battle of the Bulge by William M. Stokoe, The God of Channel 1 by Donald Stacy, Nor Iron Bars a Cage by W. H. Aston, all in 1957. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Ralph Bruce art
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Margaret Brundage biography

Margaret Brundage biography

Margaret Hedda Brundage (née Johnson) (9 December 1900 - 9 April 1976; Chicago, USA)
Margaret Brundage was an American illustrator and painter who is remembered chiefly for having illustrated the pulp magazine Weird Tales. Working in pastels on illustration board, she created most of the covers for Weird Tales between 1933 and 1938.

Brundage was born in Chicago, Illinois, of Swedish and Irish ancestry. Her father, Jonathan E. Loutitt (later Loutit) died when she was eight years old; she was raised by her mother (Margaret Jane Loutit Johnson) and grandmother Margaret (Houston) Loutit, for whom she was named, in a Christian Science household. Both her parents had come to Chicago from the Orkney islands off the coast of Scotland. Brundage's mother remained both a widow and a devout Christian Scientist for the rest of her life, and supplemented their income by instructing beginning Christian Science disciples

Margaret Hedda Johnson graduated from Girard Grammar School and attended McKinley High School in Chicago, where, coincidentally, Walt Disney was a classmate. ("I finished; he didn't," she later remarked.) She graduated from McKinley in 1919. As editor of the high school newspaper, Margaret Johnson was able to tell Walt Disney whether or not she would include any of his drawings in the McKinley newspaper. Immediately after high school, Margaret worked providing illustrations for Chicago newspapers - she would draw fashion designs in both colour and in black-and-white, from ideas and descriptions provided by an agency. Her education continued at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, 1921–23, (where Disney once again was her classmate); she later stated that her failure to graduate was due to her inept lettering though she continued her freelance work for the agency while she completed her coursework. During this period - Prohibition - Margaret also worked at the Dill Pickle Club, a speakeasy. where she met a sometime decorator and house painter nicknamed "Slim" due to his spare frame. This was Myron Reed Brundage, a notorious womaniser.

In 1927, she married Myron "Slim" Brundage in Chicago. Brundage was a former hobo, a man with tendencies toward radical politics and alcohol. They had one child, a son, Kerlyn Byrd Brundage (born 27 August 1927; died 1972), always called "Byrd". The marriage was not a success, and ended in divorce in 1939.

In Weird Tales, Brundage illustrates Robert E. Howard's Queen of the Black Coast, a story about Conan the Barbarian. Over the period from 1933 to 1938, Brundage executed cover art, first for Oriental Stories, later known as The Magic Carpet, then, famously, for Weird Tales. She was the most frequently-appearing cover artist on Weird Tales during her stint with the magazine. Her first cover appeared on the September 1932 issue; she created covers for 39 straight issues from June 1933 to August 1936. Her last original cover was for the Jan. 1945 issue, for a total of 66 original-artwork covers. (The total of 67, often cited in sources, includes a repeat of that final 1945 cover on the November 1953 issue.) She was paid $90 per cover—enough to support herself, her son, and her invalid mother (died 1940) in years when her husband contributed nothing to the family's survival. From 1936 through 1938, Brundage often alternated with others as cover artist; Virgil Finlay was her chief competitor.

Brundage's art frequently featured damsels in distress in various states of full or partial nudity; her whipping scenes were especially noteworthy and controversial. Her sensual images usually illustrated scenes from the pieces chosen by editor Farnsworth Wright as cover stories; her work was so popular among readers that some WT writers, like Seabury Quinn, cannily included scenes in their stories that would make good Brundage covers.

Since she signed her work "M. Brundage", many of the magazine's readers were unaware that the artist was female. (Complaints about the erotic nature of her work increased after October 1934, when editor Wright revealed that the "M." stood for "Margaret," that the artist was a woman.) After 1938, when the magazine's editorial offices moved from Chicago to New York City, a new 'decency' standard was imposed (primarily through the efforts of then-mayor of New York Fiorello La Guardia) on pulp magazines sold at newsstands, and the nude or semi-nude young women that had been the primary subjects of Brundage's covers were out. Practical problems with shipping Brundage's fragile pastel art from Chicago to New York also diminished her appeal to the editorial regime that followed Wright's 1940 departure.

She continued to draw after her relationship with the magazine ended, and appeared at a number of science fiction conventions and art fairs, where some of her original period works were stolen. Yet she never fully recovered financially from the loss of regular work at WT; her later years were spent in relative poverty. She continued to work until her death.
Source: Wikipedia

See illustrators  issue 25 for feature article about Margaret Brundage.
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Claus Brusen biography

Claus Brusen biography

"I started back in 1976, with drawings inspired by Salvador Dali, and of course by the Album covers in the seventies, especially artists like Patrick Woodroffe. Later I discovered the fantastic work by Michael Parkes which has that romantic dreamlike thing that I love so much. Claude Verlinde for his expression in the faces of his figures, and very dreamlike landscapes.

All three I admire for there fantastic skills, and wonderful sense for composition. Other inspiration sources are the Victorian painters, such as John Anser Fitzgerald and Richard Dadd.

For many years I worked with the surreal expression “Dali/Ernst/Magritte.” But always with the fascination for the world of Fairies and other little creatures.

It was not until 1998 that the world of Nactalius. “The name of my own World.” Started seriously and became the only thing I from then on worked with, the discovering of the ordinary life of fairies and other small creatures has from that year been my only passion to Paint. The fascination of painting is, you are able to create a world that is entirely your own, it is indeed the 'Land of make-believe'." -- Claus Brusen
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Juliana Buch biography

Juliana Buch biography

Juliana Buch Trabal (Active 1970s onwards; Barcelona, Spain)
Juliana Buch Trabal lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. She does artwork for various British comics, such as the girls' comics Bunty, Mandy and Tammy, including comic strips 'Rich Girl, Poor Girl', 'Jumble Sale Jilly', 'Sadie in the Sticks' and 'The Stranger'.

These stories are reprinted in foreign publications, such as the Dutch girls' magazine Tina (where her serial is called 'Marnie en Sanne'). She has also drawn exclusively for Tina, as well as the Dutch magazine Penny.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Juliana Buch art
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Reg Bunn biography

Reg Bunn biography

Reg Bunn (born October 1905; active late 1940s - 1970; King's Norton, Birmingham, England)
Reg Bunn was the most prolific artist working on the Thriller Comics Library. Best known for his many Robin Hood strips, Bunn did excellent work on the U.S. Cavalry Westerns of Ernest Haycox (The Border Trumpet no. 32) and James Warner Bellah (The White Invader no. 88 and Sabre and Tomahawk no. 95) as well as on such diverse titles as Black Hood no. 21), The Scottish Chiefs (no. 58) and Captain Kidd (no. 105). The vast majority of his Thriller Comics output, however, was for the Robin Hood titles. So closely did he become associated with the character that often, when another artist was drawing the strip, Bunn would be asked just to fill in the faces, so that some sort of conformity of style would be achieved.

Reg Bunn was one of only two people signed up by Leonard Matthews after a nationwide campaign to find strip artists in 1949. The other was Geoff Campion. Coincidentally, both artists came from Birmingham, though neither knew the other. Through invalidity, Bunn was forced to take a sedentary job and, with an open, rounded, jovial, warm-spirited style (his Buck Jones strips, 1949/50 and his earliest Robin Hood work, 1949/51, both for Comet), it changed over the years until it had become decidedly angular by the time he came to draw The Spider and The Waxer for Lion in the 1960s. Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

Enjoy Reg Bunn's great storytelling in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics JOHN STEEL, PIRATE TALES and CLASH OF BLADES collections.

Reg Bunn art
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Sid Burgon biography

Sid Burgon biography

Sidney William Burgon (born 3 October 1936; Northumberland, UK)
Sid Burgon was born in Berwick-on-Tweed, Northumberland on 3 October 1936. He was taught to draw by his mother. He left school at 14 and worked as a mechanic for thirteen years, drawing as a hobby and taking night classes in art, until his co-workers at the garage encouraged him to follow his talents. After selling some cartoons, signed "SWAB", to The Weekly News, he quit the day job and became a full-time freelance cartoonist in 1963, working for various newspapers and magazines.

He started drawing comics in 1970, drawing "Hot Rod" for Whizzer and Chips, then "Joker" for Knockout. Other strips he drew at IPC include "The Invisible Monster" (1975) for Monster Fun, "Ivor Lott and Tony Broke" (1981), "Roy's Toys" and "School Funds" (1980s) for Buster, "Adam and his Ants" (1982) for Wow!, "Bookworm" (1978) and "Lolly Pop" for Whoopee!, "The Toffs and the Toughs" in Whizzer and Chips, "Milly O'Nare and Penny Less" for Jackpot, and "Hit Kid" in Krazy.

He won the Society of Strip Illustrators award for Best Artist in 1982. In 1987 he was recruited by DC Thomson, but he insisted that he still be allowed to work for IPC. Strips he drew for DC Thomson included "Biffo the Bear" in The Beano, "Adrian the Barbarian" for The Beezer, and "Bully Beef and Chips" and "Keyhole Kate" for The Dandy. He retired in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
Source: UK Comics Wiki
Sid Burgon art
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Zdenek Burian biography

Zdenek Burian biography

Zdenìk Michael František Burian (11 February 1905 - 1 July 1981; Kopøivnice, Czechia)
Zdenìk Burian was a Czech painter, book illustrator and palaeoartist. Burian's artwork played a central role in the development of palaeontological reconstruction and he is regarded as one of the most influential palaeoartists of all time.

Burian began his career as an illustrator in the 1920s and became famous in his native Czechoslovakia for his illustrations of novels, mainly adventure novels and classic works. His illustrations of the novel The Mammoth Hunters (1937) by Eduard Štorch gained the attention of the Czech palaeontologist Josef Augusta, who collaborated with Burian as a scientific advisor. Their collaboration resulted in Burian's work being used in a number of books on prehistoric life written by Augusta, culminating in a series of six great illustrated volumes published in 1956–1966, the most famous of which was Prehistoric Animals (1956). After Augusta's death in 1968, Burian worked with numerous other scientists. He continued to produce artwork for further books, as well as for magazines and museums.

It is not known precisely how many paintings Burian produced, with estimates ranging between 1,000 and 20,000. Between 500 and 800 of his paintings were prehistoric reconstructions. In total, his illustrations were published in over 500 books, out of which approximately two dozen were on prehistory. Many of his paintings have reached an iconic status; they were extensively copied by later artists and influenced conceptions of dinosaurs and how they were depicted in popular culture.
Source: Wikipedia
Zdenek Burian art
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Hilary Burn biography

Hilary Burn biography

Hilary Burn
Hilary Burn is a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists. Her work appears in many British bird books.
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Jim Burns biography

Jim Burns biography

Jim Burns (born 1948)
Jim Burns is probably the best known contemporary British Science Fiction illustrator. He has perfected his own style by highlighting not only the traditional elements of SF but also its organic and erotic overtones.

His works are striking for their 'larger than life' portrayal of scenes of the far future and in particular his fantastic 'hardware'. His masterful technique depicts land, sky and space vehicles in gleaming metal and plastic so perfectly painted that one feels one can actually feel the cold metal touch of chrome or smell the pungent odour of plastic. He is constantly in demand for book covers. Jim has worked with Ridley Scott on Bladerunner and has books published of his work, notably Transluminal, Lightship, Planet Story and Mechanismo.
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John M Burns biography

John M Burns biography

John Michael Burns (1938 - 29 December 2023; Essex, UK)
John M Burns' first work was as an illustrator for Junior Express and School Friend. During the 1960s, Burns worked on TV Century 21 and its sister magazines, including the Space Family Robinson series in Lady Penelope.

For a while he drew daily comics strips for newspapers The Daily Sketch, The Daily Mirror and The Sun, including The Seekers, Danielle and, for a period succeeding Enrique Romero during 1978-79, Modesty Blaise for The London Evening Standard.

He moved on to illustrate TV tie-in strips for now-defunct title Look-in, always scripted by Angus P. Allan. Burns was already well-known by the start of the 1980s. He also worked on the title story for Countdown. It was when he made the crossover to 2000 AD, along with fellow Look-in alumni Jim Baikie and Arthur Ranson, that his position in British comics was cemented.

Burns began by working on Judge Dredd, a strip to which he continues to contribute to this day. By his own admission (in a 2004 interview with David Bishop in the Judge Dredd Megazine), Burns does not enjoy drawing science fiction strips, and the look of Judge Dredd is one that he finds particularly unpleasant to draw: this is ironic, as his version has drawn much reader acclaim.

In 2007 Burns worked on the Nikolai Dante strip, and proved so successful that he is now considered the lead artist on the story. He also co-created (with Robbie Morrison) a contemporary adventure strip, The Bendatti Vendetta for the Megazine, this is unique for the title in having no science fiction or fantasy elements at all.

In 2008 he finished an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, whose script was rendered by Amy Corzine, for UK publisher Classical Comics. Having previously worked on similar adaptations of Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore and, which is more, Wuthering Heights by Brontë's sister Emily, Burns was able to bring considerable experience to the project.
Source: Wikipedia; Illustration Art Gallery

See The Art of John M Burns illustrators  Special Edition.

Some of the most regularly requested art has been John M Burns' fabulous pen and ink artwork for Modesty Blaise, written by Peter O'Donnell.

We have original signed Modesty Blaise newspaper strips by JOHN M BURNS, NEVILLE COLVIN, JIM HOLDAWAY and ROMERO or click to see ALL Modesty artwork in stock and enjoy some highly collectable BOOKS ABOUT MODESTY BLAISE including our latest Expanded Edition of The Modesty Blaise Companion.


John M Burns art
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Frederick William Burton biography

Frederick William Burton biography

Sir Frederick William Burton (8 April 1816 - 16 March 1900 (London); Co. Wicklow, Ireland)
Sir Frederick William Burton RHA was an Irish painter born in Co. Wicklow on 8 April 1816, the third son of Samuel Frederick Burton and his wife Hanna Mallett.

The old Burton seat was Clifden, Corofin, Co. Clare, which was built around the middle of the eighteenth century. The artist's grandparents were Major Edward William Burton, Clifden, who was High Sherriff of Clare in 1799, and his wife, Jane Blood of nearby Roxton.

Educated in Dublin, he was elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy at the age of twenty-one and an academician two years later. In 1842 he began to exhibit at the Royal Academy. A visit to Germany and Bavaria in 1842 was the first of a long series of trips to various parts of Europe, which gave him a profound knowledge of the works of the Old Masters. From 1851 he spent 7 years working as a painter in the service of Maximilian II of Bavaria.

Burton worked with George Petrie on archaeological sketches and was on the council of the Royal Irish Academy and the Archaeological Society of Ireland. He was elected an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1855, and a full member in the following year. He resigned in 1870, and re-elected an honorary member in 1886.

Sir Frederick was appointed the third director of the National Gallery, London in 1874.

A knighthood was conferred on him in 1884, and the degree of LL.D. of Dublin in 1889. In his youth he had strong sympathy with the Young Ireland Party. He died in Kensington, west London and is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin.

Burton's best-known watercolours, The Aran Fisherman's Drowned Child (1841) and The Meeting on the Turret Stairs (1864; also known as Hellelil and Hildebrand) are in the National Gallery of Ireland. Meeting on the Turret Stairs was voted by the Irish public as Ireland's favourite painting in 2012 from among 10 works shortlisted by critics.
Source: Wikipedia
Frederick William Burton art
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John Busby biography

John Busby biography

John Busby
John Busby is a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists. His work appears in many British bird books.
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John Buscema biography

Giovanni Natale Buscema, (11 December 1927 – 10 January 2002; Brooklyn, New York City)
John Buscema was an American comic book artist and one of the mainstays of Marvel Comics during its 1960s and 1970s ascendancy into an industry leader and its subsequent expansion to a major pop-culture conglomerate. His younger brother Sal Buscema is also a comic book artist.

Buscema is best known for his run on the series The Avengers and The Silver Surfer, and for over 200 stories featuring the sword-and-sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. In addition, he pencilled at least one issue of nearly every major Marvel title, including long runs on two of the company's top magazines, Fantastic Four and Thor.

He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2002.

Buscema graduated from Manhattan's High School of Music and Art. He took night lessons at Pratt Institute as well as life drawing classes at the Brooklyn Museum. While training as a boxer, he began painting portraits of boxers and sold some cartoons to The Hobo News. Seeking work as a commercial illustrator while doing various odd jobs, Buscema found himself instead entering the comic book field in 1948, landing a staff job under editor-in-chief and art director Stan Lee at Timely Comics the forerunner of Marvel Comics. The Timely "bullpen", as the staff was called, included such fellow staffers as established veterans Syd Shores, Carl Burgos, Mike Sekowsky, George Klein, and Marty Nodell. Fellow newcomer Gene Colan, hired roughly two months earlier, recalled that "... John never seemed very happy in comics ... there always seemed to be something else he really wanted to do."

His first recorded credit is penciling the four-page story "Till Crime Do You Part" in Timely's Lawbreakers Always Lose #3 (Aug. 1948). He contributed to the "real-life" dramatic series True Adventures and Man Comics (the premiere issue of which sported one of Buscema's earliest recorded comic book covers), as well as to Cowboy Romances, Two-Gun Western (for which he drew at least one story of the continuing character the Apache Kid), Lorna the Jungle Queen, and Strange Tales.

Until the bullpen was dissolved a year-and-a-half later, as comic books in general and superhero comics in particular continued their post-war fade in popularity, Buscema penciled and inked in a variety of genres, including crime fiction and romance fiction.

Buscema married in 1953. He continued to freelance for Timely, by now known as Atlas Comics, as well as for the publishers Ace Comics, Hillman Periodicals, Our Publications/Orbit, Quality Comics, St. John Publications, and Ziff-Davis.

Buscema's mid-1950s work includes Dell Comics' Roy Rogers Comics #74-91 (Feb. 1954 - July 1955) and subsequent Roy Rogers and Trigger #92-97 and #104-108 (Aug. 1955 - Jan. 1956 & Aug.-Dec. 1956); and the Charlton Comics series Ramar of the Jungle and Nature Boy — the latter, Buscema's first superhero work, with a character created by himself and Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel.

Buscema next produced a series of Western, war, and sword and sandal film adaptations for Dell's Four Color series. Buscema recalled, "I did a bunch of their movie books ... that was a lot of fun. I worked from stills on those, except for The Vikings. ... I think one of the best books I ever did was Sinbad the Sailor."

He drew at least one issue of the radio, film, and TV character the Cisco Kid for Dell in 1957, as well as one- to eight-page biographies of every U.S. president through Dwight Eisenhower for that company's one-shot Life Stories of American Presidents.

During a late 1950s downturn in the comics industry, Buscema drew occasional mystery, fantasy, and science-fiction stories for Atlas Comics' Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense, and Strange Worlds, and American Comics Group's Adventures into the Unknown, and Forbidden Worlds before leaving comics to do freelance commercial art. He began a freelance position for the New York City advertising firm the Chaite Agency, which employed such commercial artists as Bob Peak and Frank McCarthy.

Buscema spent approximately eight years in the commercial-art field, freelancing for the Chaite Agency and the studio Triad, doing a variety of assignments: layouts, storyboards, illustrations, paperback book covers, etc. in a variety of media. Buscema called this time "quite a learning period for me in my own development of techniques".

He returned to comic books in 1966 as a regular freelance penciller for Marvel Comics, debuting over Jack Kirby layouts on the "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." story in Strange Tales #150 (Nov. 1966), followed by three "Hulk" stories in Tales to Astonish #85-87 (Nov. 1966 - Jan. 1967). He then settled in as regular penciller of The Avengers, which would become one of his signature series, with #41 (June 1967). Avengers #49-50, featuring Hercules and inked by Buscema, are two of his "best-looking issues of that period", said comics historian and one-time Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, who wrote those issues. Thomas and Buscema introduced new versions of the Black Knight and the Vision during their collaboration on The Avengers.

In order to adapt to the Marvel Comics style of superhero adventure, Buscema "synthesized the essence of (Jack) Kirby's supercharged action figures, harrowing perspectives, monolithic structures, mega-force explosions, and mythological planetscapes into a formula that he instantly integrated into his own superbly crafted vision," wrote comics artist and historian Jim Steranko. "The process brought Buscema's art to life in a way that it had never been before. Anatomically balanced figures of Herculean proportions stalked, stormed, sprawled, and savaged their way across Marvel's universe like none had previously".

Buscema would pencil an average of two comics a month in collaboration with such inkers as George Klein, Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins, Joe Sinnott, his younger brother Sal Buscema, Tom Palmer, and, occasionally, Marvel production manager and sometime inker-cartoonist John Verpoorten. John Buscema named Frank Giacoia, Sal Buscema, and Tom Palmer as his favorite inkers.

Among Buscema's works during this period fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books are The Avengers #41-62 (June 1967 - March 1969) and The Avengers Annual #2 (Sept. 1968); the first eight issues of The Sub-Mariner (May-Dec. 1968); The Amazing Spider-Man #72-73, 76-81, 84-85 (ranging from June 1969 - June 1970 providing layouts finished by either John Romita Sr. or Jim Mooney), and two issues he himself finished over Romita layouts. Buscema drew the first appearance of the Prowler in The Amazing Spider-Man #78 (Nov. 1969).

In August 1968, Buscema and Stan Lee launched a new title, The Silver Surfer. That series about a philosophical alien roaming the world trying to understand both the divinity and the savagery of humanity was a personal favorite of Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee, who scripted. Buscema penciled 17 of its 18 issues — the first seven as a 25¢ "giant-size" title at a time when comics typically cost 12¢.

Toward the end of the decade, Buscema drew some fill-in issues of superhero series and returned to familiar 1950s genres with a spate of supernatural mystery stories in Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows, and romance tales in My Love and Our Love. He then returned to his signature series The Avengers for 11 issues inked by Tom Palmer.

The creative team of Roy Thomas and John Buscema introduced new characters such as Arkon in The Avengers #75 (April 1970), Red Wolf in #80 (Sept. 1970), and the Squadron Supreme in #85 (Feb. 1971). With Jack Kirby's departure from Marvel in 1970, Buscema succeeded him on both of Kirby's titles: Fantastic Four (penciling issues #107-141, following John Romita Sr.) and Thor (#182-259). He additionally launched the feature "Black Widow" in Amazing Adventures vol. 2, #1 (Aug. 1970).

Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee, who collaborated with Buscema on many stories up to this time, wrote:

"One thing I loved about Big John is the fact that I didn't have to spend time writing synopses for him ... He'd always growl over the phone, 'Don't bother sending me any outlines, Stan. I hate to waste time reading them. Just tell what you've got in mind over the phone. I'll remember it.' So I'd tell him the story I wanted, and I have a hunch he didn't even write any notes while I spoke — because I spoke too fast — but it didn't matter. He remembered every last detail and the stories always came out perfect — at least as far as I was concerned. "

Buscema began penciling Conan the Barbarian with #25 (April 1973) following Barry Smith's celebrated run, and debuted as the Conan artist of the black-and-white comics-magazine omnibus Savage Sword of Conan with issue #1 (Aug. 1974). He would eventually contribute to more than 100 issues of each title, giving him one of the most prolific runs for an artist on a single character. He additionally drew the Conan Sunday and daily syndicated newspaper comic strip upon its premiere in 1978, and even contributed some storyboard illustrations for the 1982 Conan movie, as well as painting four covers for the Conan magazines. In 2010, Comics Bulletin ranked Buscema's work on Conan the Barbarian seventh on its list of the "Top 10 1970s Marvels".

For about ten years, he would produce an average three to four books' worth of pencils a month, such as Nova (1976) and Ms. Marvel (1977). In addition to his regular assignments he would pencil covers and fill-in issues of titles including Captain America, Captain Britain (Marvel UK), Daredevil, The Frankenstein Monster, Howard the Duck, Master of Kung Fu, Red Sonja and Warlock. He also drew a story for the science-fiction anthology Worlds Unknown.

Buscema contributed as well to Marvel's black-and-white comics magazines, including the features "Ka-Zar" in Savage Tales #1 (May 1971) and "Bloodstone" in Rampaging Hulk #1 (Jan. 1977), and Doc Savage #1 and 3 (Aug. 1975, Jan. 1976). Other magazine work ran the gamut from horror (Dracula Lives!, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie) to humor (Crazy, Pizzaz).

Buscema left the Thor title for a time to launch the Marvel version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs character Tarzan in 1977. Other licensed projects include a 72-page The Wizard of Oz movie adaptation in an oversized "Treasury Edition" format with DeZuniga inking. For Power Records, which produced children's book-and-record sets, Buscema drew Star Trek and Conan the Barbarian comics. He contributed some superhero drawings for Pro, the NFL official magazine (1970), and penciled some chapters of the first issue of Marvel Comics Super Special featuring the rock group Kiss (1977).

In 1978, small-press publisher Sal Quartuccio released The Art of John Buscema, a retrospective that included an interview, previously unpublished sketches and drawings, and a cover that was also sold as a poster.

Buscema capped off the decade penciling writer Doug Moench's three-issue Weirdworld epic-fantasy tale "Warriors of the Shadow Realm" in Marvel Super Special #11-13 (June-Oct. 1979). Pacific Comics released an accompanying portfolio of six signed, colored plates from the story.
Teaching

In the mid-1970s, Buscema ran the John Buscema Art School, which advertised for students in the pages of many Marvel titles. Stan Lee made appearances as a guest lecturer at Buscema's school, and some of the school's graduates (including Bob Hall and Bruce Patterson) went on to become professional cartoonists. Buscema later said that teaching the class was "very gratifying" but that having to make the 60-mile drive after a day's work was too exhausting, and ultimately forced him to give it up. Buscema then collaborated with Lee on the book How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way (Marvel Fireside Books, 1978), a primer on comic book art and storytelling based on the comic art classes Buscema had given a few years prior, and has remained in print for over 25 years, in its 33rd printing as of 2007.

After drawing the first issue of The Savage She-Hulk (Feb. 1980), Buscema abandoned regular superhero work in order to spearhead art duties on all three Conan titles. The popularity of the character spurred the release of a Conan movie in 1982; Buscema provided pencils and inks for a 48-page movie adaptation.

He continued to tackle other high-profile projects such as a Silver Surfer story for Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980), a King Arthur story in Marvel Preview #22 (Summer 1980), the St. Francis of Assisi biography Francis, Brother of the Universe (1980), the second Superman and Spider-Man team-up (1981), and an adaptation of the 1981 movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.

He left King Conan in 1982 after nine issues, although he remained with Marvel's Robert E. Howard franchise with a revival of the Kull series for 10 issues, and left The Savage Sword of Conan in 1984 with #101 with a series of stories that he plotted himself. After pencilling the Conan the Destroyer movie adaptation in 1984 and the Conan of the Isles graphic novel in 1987, he left Conan the Barbarian with #190 in 1987, ending a 14-year association with the character.

After nearly five years away from superheroes, except for the first two issues of the X-Men-related, four-issue miniseries Magik (Dec. 1983 - March 1984), Buscema returned to familiar ground as regular penciller on The Avengers from #255-300 (May 1985 - Feb. 1989). He was regular penciller on Fantastic Four for its 300th issue, during a 15-issue stint from #296-309 (Nov. 1986 - Dec. 1987). Additionally, he fit in the three-issue film adaptation Labyrinth (Nov. 1986 - Jan. 1987) and the four-issue miniseries Mephisto (April–July 1987), starring a character he created with Stan Lee in The Silver Surfer.

Buscema reteamed with Lee on the Silver Surfer himself with the 1988 graphic novel Silver Surfer: Judgment Day, self-inked and done entirely as full-page panels. That year he and inker Klaus Janson drew a Wolverine solo feature in the biweekly anthology Marvel Comics Presents, followed by self-inked Wolverine series in that title. He pencilled the first 14 issues (Nov. 1988 - mid-Nov. 1989) of the first Wolverine ongoing series, self-inked on #7-8.

Buscema began his sixth decade in the field by joining Roy Thomas for a return to The Savage Sword of Conan with #191 (Nov. 1991) for a 20-issue run. Conan the Rogue, a graphic novel Buscema plotted, pencilled, inked, and colored over a period of five years in his spare time appeared that same year.<Actinic:Variable Name = '54'/><Actinic:Variable Name = '55'/> He both penciled and inked the graphic novel Wolverine: Bloody Choices (Nov. 1993).

Buscema returned to crime fiction with The Punisher War Zone #23-30 (Jan.-Aug. 1994, self-inking #26-29), that title's 1993 summer annual, and the 1994 graphic novel A Man Named Frank, a parallel-universe Punisher Western tale. He pencilled the Punisher portions of 1994's Archie Meets the Punisher team-up. No longer attached to a regular series after his Punisher run, he penciled and inked The Avengers Annual #23 (1994) and five more black-and-white Conan adventures, serving as that Marvel franchise's final artist on The Savage Sword of Conan with #235 (July 1995) and on the short-lived spin-off Conan the Savage with #10 (May 1996). Through 1999, he penciled a variety of superhero comics; both penciled and inked a black-and-white short story for Shadows and Light (1998); and made a final return to Conan with the Death Covered in Gold three-issue miniseries (1999).

Buscema worked with DC Comics for the first time in 2000, initially doing both pencils and inks on a "Batman Black and White" short story in Batman: Gotham Knights #7 (Sept. 2000). He reunited with Stan Lee on the 2001 one-shot Just Imagine Stan Lee and John Buscema Creating Superman.

He finished the pencils on 2003's Superman: Blood of my Ancestors, begun by Gil Kane, who had since died, and had just signed on for a five-issue miniseries with Roy Thomas, JLA: Barbarians, though he died after finishing the first issue.

Buscema's passion for drawing was such that he continued to draw and sketch in his spare time, often on the back of comic book art pages, and these images form a considerable body of work in their own right.
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Adolfo Buylla biography

Adolfo Buylla biography

Adolfo Álvarez-Buylla Aguelo, (1927 - 18 January 1998; Spain)
Adolfo Buylla was a Spanish artist specializing in the science fiction genre. He teamed up with fellow artist Braulio Rodriguez and together they illustrated the 'Flash Gordon'-like 'Diego Valor' series in the 1950s. A noble hero, fighting for justice and morality, 'Diego Valor' was also adapted into a television series. In the early 1970s, he created the science fiction satire 'Yago Veloz', in which many clichés of the genre were ridiculed.

Buylla additionally drew 'Carlos Audaz' in El Campeón de las Historietas, 'Hazañas del Mío Cid' in Flecha Roja and 'El Capitán Trueno'. He contributed to Maga collections like 'El Defensor' and 'Inspector H. Diario de un Detective'. His 1969 series was published in titles like Gaceta Junior, El Wendigo and, in the 1980s, in Transformers.

Since the 1970s, Buylla also worked for foreign publishers. He was present in Marvel's Chiller Giant and Epic Illustrated and DC's war and mystery titles ('G.I. Combat', 'House of Mystery', 'House of Secrets'). He contributed to many of the Gold Key horror titles in the 1970s ('Ripley's Believe it or Not', 'Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery', 'Grimm's Ghost Stories' and 'Twilight Zone').

Buylla additionally worked for Pacific Comics ('Alien Worlds', 1983), Renegade Press (Revolver, 1986), Charlton ('Space": 1999', 1976) and Warren (Creepy, 1981). For the British market, he worked alongside artists like Mike McMahon, for such magazines as 2000 AD. Among his UK credits are the Marvel UK titles 'Doctor Who' (inks, 1981-82), 'Warheads' (inks, 1990) and 'Knights of Pendragon' (inks, 1992).
Adolfo Buylla art
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Douglas Cameron biography

Douglas Cameron biography

Douglas Cameron
Born in Broxburn, West Lothian, Scotland. Now living in Glasgow. Influences include: Lucian Freud, Rodin, Van Gogh, Hockney, Munch, Pollock, Hirst, Gerhard Richter, Ralph Steadman, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley. Music including: Mogwai, Spiritualized, Arab Strap, minimal techno, the Just Joans, folk, electronica, spoken work Bleakness Less.
Source: *Check*
Douglas Cameron art
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Geoff Campion biography

Geoff Campion biography

Arthur Geoffrey Campion (1916 - 1997)
Geoff Campion brought real punch and vigour into British adventure comics. His characters would charge straight at the reader on horseback or throw an enemy bodily at him. All through the 1950s and 1960s, it was the policy at Fleetway House that their action artists based their styles on the work of Campion. As one editor put it: "When I get a prospective artist in here, I give him a handful of Campion's strips and tell him to draw it exactly like that and you've got it made." But no one could do it quite like Campion could.

Geoff Campion was one of Leonard Matthews' major discoveries. In 1948, he answered an advertisement for new comic artists and, after a short spell of drawing humorous cartoon strips for Knockout, was soon "bagged", as he said, by Leonard Matthews for a new series of comics to be known as Cowboy Comics Library. When Matthews told him he wanted him to try his hand at Westerns, Geoff replied that he couldn't draw horses. Matthews' reply has gone into adventure strip folklore: "Bloody well learn then!" Campion learnt.

As Campion said, "It was advice I've been extremely grateful for ever since." He became one of the country's finest horse artists, and one of the great exponents of the Western genre. Campion was never really at home with other historical periods, however, and his American Civil War saga, Stonewall Jackson Wins His Spurs (no.147) seems far superior to Quo Vadis (no.19), however accurate his portrayal of the film actors involved, and The Last of the Mohicans (no.15) more authentic than Robin Hood's Jest (no. 10). Although Campion was only responsible for one Robin Hood strip, he drew two Dick Turpin strips: his first for the Knockout Fun Book 1954, and the other for Sun, the only Turpin strip printed in the comic in full colour. He also drew a little-known strip featuring a highwaywoman, Black Velvet, for Poppet, the short-lived girl's comic.

Born in Coventry, England and mainly self-taught as an artist, Geoff began his working life as a tax inspector but, during the War as a staff officer in the East India Command, he contributed cartoons to the forces' magazine, Jambo, and, in 1948, successfully answered an advertisement put out by the Amalgamated Press for new artists. For a period during the 1950s, Campion drew the majority of covers for Comet and Sun, as well as most of the long strips, Strongbow the Mohawk, Buffalo Bill, Billy the Kid and Battler Britton. He drew the opening episodes for all these series and the artists who later worked on the series were required to follow his lead. Campion's work was used as a "template", and was continually sent out to artists as examples of what was required. In the '60s he became a stalwart of Lion, drawing Spellbinder, his own favourite strip, and in the '70s, his work could be found in Battle Action, as forceful as ever. Biography extract courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
Geoff Campion art
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Angel Badia Camps biography

Angel Badia Camps biography

Angel Badia Camps (born 1929; Spain)
Ángel Badia Camps was born in Puig-reig, in the Cataluña area of Spain, which borders southern France, in 1929. His father was exiled to France following the Spanish Civil War, only returning after nine years when Franco offered a conditional amnesty and allowed him to return and move with his family to Barcelona.

His love of drawing had begun early and Camps was encouraged by his parents but his knowledge of comics was limited to En Patufet and his education came with the discovery of American comics at the Sant Antonio market. Camps developed a fascination with American culture – with artists Milton Caniff and Alex Raymond and the films of John Ford and Howard Hawks, with American literature and the music of Glen Miller and jazz.

Camps attended the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes. He began working professionally in Ameller, drawing fairy stories, and his work began appearing regularly in Florita, Aventuras de Capa Negra (17 issues written by Salvador Dulcet, 1953) and Pulgarcito (1954).

Although he drew comic strips, including the humorous stories of "Pilaropo al servicio de las damas" for La Risa (1956) and medieval historical tales Aventuras de Flecha Roja [Adventures of Red Arrow] (1956-57) and Flecha y Arturo (1956) for Ediciones Gráficas Ricart.

However, it was his work for romance comics such as "Marisol" (Lupita, 1950), Mariló, Sentimentale, Modelo, Dalia, Merche and Sissi that he established himself. He illustrated Bernadette (1956) for Editorial Bruguera. Through this romantic work, Camps developed a lengthy association with the British romantic comics' market, first appearing in Valentine in 1961. Over the next few years he contributed strips to Serenade, Roxy and True Life Library (1964). According to David Roach, "At first glance his drawing style was almost indistinguishable from (Jorge) Longaron's as he mixed a thrillingly loose and expressive line with an inventive and sophisticated sense of composition. His girls were the very epitome of 'the Spanish look' – heavy-lidded, thickly mascara'd eyes, big hair, big lips and lithe, languid bodies."

To give his work accuracy, Camps travelled to the UK and took over 300 reference photos of hospitals, buses, bridges, streets... everything had to be English which was not entirely a chore as his work coincided with the era of The Beatles, swinging London models and MG sports cars.

Camps is perhaps better known in the UK as a cover artist. Following his first appearance in 1960 on the Sexton Blake Library, he produced hundreds of covers for True Life Library, Star Love, Love Story Library, Oracle, Pop Pic Library, Charm, Young Lovers and other titles. The 1950s and 1960s were the heyday of magazine illustration before colour photography became the norm and Camps's paintings were widely reprinted throughout Europe and Scandinavia, often appearing in women's magazines before being reused as covers elsewhere.

For his native Spain, Camps produced heavily illustrated translations of Heidi (1966) and Otra Vez Heidi (1966), based on the works of Juana Spyri, Los Hijos del Capitan Grant (1968) and Viaje al Centro de la Tierra (1969), both by Jules Verne, Aventuras de Tom Sawyer (1969) by Mark Twain and stories featuring Robin Hood (by Norman R, Stinnet) and Davy Crockett (by Elliot Dooley) for Editorial Bruguera.

By the late 1960s, he was working again almost exclusively for Spanish markets, Editorial Bruguera employing him on various lines of paperbacks, including Libro Amigo, La Conquista del espacio, and Selección Terror. Camps also produced work for Molino, Toray and Ceres.

Although he was still earning a good living, and demand for cover artwork slowed in the 1980s as video became a more popular form of home entertainment than reading, Camps set up a school with fellow artist Rafael Cortiella, which ran for ten years. Camps subsequently concentrated on painting, although he had been exhibiting paintings since 1974.

Camps relates the story that he was painting whilst on holiday in Olot when the owner of a Barcelona gallery approached him and asked if he had ever exhibited his work. Camps said he was merely a Sunday painter but the gallery owner was persistent. "He asked if he could come to my studio and took almost everything I had." His work has, from 1986, featured in numerous solo exhibitions in Madrid, Barcelona, London, Brussels, Castellon and New York. His most regular exhibitor is the prestigious Sala Pares in Barcelona. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Angel Badia Camps art

See illustrators issue 1 for an Angel Badia Camps feature article.
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Milton Caniff biography

Milton Caniff biography

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (28 February 1907 - 3 April 1988; Hillsboro, Ohio, USA)
Milt Caniff was one of the most famous and highly respected American comic strip artists. His newspaper strips Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon were syndicated all over the world. Terry and the Pirates ran for over 12 years and featured a host of very memorable characters brought to life by his skilled draughtsmanship. Pat Ryan, Dragon Lady, Burma, Chopstick Joe, Singh Singh and April Kane are just a few of his characters that became household names. Terry and the Pirates finished in December 1946, principally because Caniff did not own the rights to his own creation.

He quickly created a new strip Steve Canyon which was to prove equally popular and it ran successfully until his death in 1988.

Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff did cartoons for local newspapers while studying at Stivers High School (now Stivers School for the Arts) in Dayton Ohio. At Ohio State University, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity and later illustrated for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual). Graduating in 1930, Caniff began at the Columbus Dispatch where he worked with the noted cartoonist Billy Ireland, but Caniff's position was eliminated during the Great Depression. Caniff related later that he had been uncertain of whether to pursue acting or cartooning as a career and that Ireland said, "Stick to your inkpots, kid, actors don't eat regularly."

In 1932, Caniff moved to New York City to accept an artist job with the Features Service of the Associated Press. He did general assignment art for several months, drawing the comic strips Dickie Dare and The Gay Thirties, then inherited a panel cartoon named Mister Gilfeather in September 1932 when Al Capp quit the feature. Caniff continued Gilfeather until the spring of 1933, when it was retired in favor of a generic comedy panel cartoon called The Gay Thirties, which he produced until he left AP in the autumn of 1934. In July 1933, Caniff began an adventure fantasy strip, Dickie Dare, influenced by series such as Flash Gordon and Brick Bradford. The eponymous main character was a youth who dreamed himself into adventures with such literary and legendary persons as Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe and King Arthur. In the spring of 1934, Caniff changed the strip from fantasy to "reality" when Dickie no longer dreamed his adventures but experienced them as he travelled the world with a freelance writer, Dickie's adult mentor, "Dynamite Dan" Flynn.

In 1934, Caniff was hired by the New York Daily News to produce a new strip for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Daily News publisher Joseph Medill Patterson wanted an adventure strip set in the mysterious Orient, what Patterson described as "the last outpost for adventure," Knowing almost nothing about China, Caniff researched the nation's history and learned about families for whom piracy was a way of life passed down for generations. The result was Terry and the Pirates, the strip which made Caniff famous. Like Dickie Dare, Terry Lee began as a boy who is travelling with an adult mentor and adventurer, Pat Ryan. But over the years the title character aged, and by World War II he was old enough to serve in the Army Air Force. During the 12 years that Caniff produced the strip, he introduced many fascinating characters, most of whom were "pirates" of one kind or another.

Introduced during the early days of the strip was Terry and Pat's interpreter and manservant Connie. They were later joined by the mute Chinese giant Big Stoop. Both he and Connie provided the main source of comic relief. Other characters included: Burma, a blonde with a mysterious, possibly criminal, past; Chopstick Joe, a Chinese petty criminal; Singh Singh, a warlord in the mountains of China; Judas, a smuggler; Sanjak, a lesbian; and then boon companions such as Hotshot Charlie, Terry's wing man during the War years; and April Kane, a young woman who was Terry's first love.

But Caniff's most memorable creation was the Dragon Lady, a pirate queen; she was seemingly ruthless and calculating, but Caniff encouraged his readers to think she had romantic yearnings for Pat Ryan.

During the war, Caniff began a second strip, a special version of Terry and the Pirates without Terry but featuring the blonde bombshell, Burma. Caniff donated all of his work on this strip to the armed forces—the strip was only available in military newspapers. After complaints from the Miami Herald about the military version of the strip being published by military newspapers in the Herald's circulation territory, the strip was renamed Male Call and given a new star, Miss Lace, a beautiful woman who lived near every military base and enjoyed the company of enlisted men, whom she addressed as "Generals". Her function, Caniff often said, was to remind service men what they were fighting for, and while the situations in the strip included much 'double entendre', Miss Lace was not portrayed as being promiscuous.

Much more so than civilian comic strips which portrayed military characters, Male Call was notable for its honest depiction of what the servicemen encountered; one strip displays Lace dating a soldier on leave who had lost an arm (she lost her temper when a civilian insulted him for that disability). Another strip had her dancing with a man in civilian clothes; a disgruntled GI shoved and mocked him for having an easy life, but Lace's partner was in fact an ex-GI blinded in battle. Caniff continued Male Call until seven months after V-J Day, ending it in March 1946.

In 1946 Caniff ended his association with Terry and the Pirates. While the strip was a major success, it was not owned by its creator but by its distributing syndicate, the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News, a common practice with syndicated comics at the time. And when Caniff, growing more and more frustrated with the lack of rights to the comic strip he produced, was offered the chance to own his own strip by Marshall Field, publisher of the Chicago Sun, the cartoonist quit Terry to produce a strip for Field Enterprises. Caniff produced his last strip of Terry and the Pirates in December 1946 and introduced his new strip Steve Canyon in the Chicago Sun-Times the following month. At the time, Caniff was one of only two or three syndicated cartoonists who owned their creations, and he attracted considerable publicity as a result of this circumstance.

Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon, although not gaining the popularity of Terry and the Pirates, nevertheless enjoyed greater longevity. Like his previous strip, Steve Canyon was an action strip with a pilot as its main character. Canyon was portrayed originally as a civilian pilot with his own one-airplane cargo airline, but he re-enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and remained in the Air Force for the remainder of the strip's run.

While Steve Canyon never achieved the popularity that Terry and the Pirates had as a World War II military adventure, it was a successful comic strip with a greater circulation than Terry ever had. A short-lived Steve Canyon television series was produced in 1958. Steve Canyon was often termed the "unofficial spokesman" for the Air Force. The title character's dedication to the military produced a negative reaction among readers during the Vietnam War, and the strip's circulation decreased as a result. Caniff nonetheless continued to enjoy enormous regard in the profession and in newspapering, and he produced the strip until his death in 1988. The strip was published for a couple of months after he died, but was ended in June 1988, due to Caniff's decision that no one else would continue the feature.

The character of Charlie Vanilla, who appeared frequently with an ice cream cone, was based on Caniff's long term friend Charles Russhon, a former photographer and Lieutenant in the US Air Force who later worked as a James Bond movie technical adviser. The character of Madame Lynx was based on Madame Egelichi, the femme fatale spy played by Ilona Massey in the 1949 Marx Brothers movie Love Happy. The character stirred Caniff's imagination, and he hired Ilona Massey to pose for him. Caniff designed Pipper the Piper after John Kennedy and Miss Mizzou after Marilyn Monroe.

Caniff was one of the founders of the National Cartoonists Society and served two terms as its President, 1948 and 1949. He also received the Society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1947 for work published during 1946, which included both Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates as well. Caniff would be named Cartoonist of the Year again, receiving the accompanying trophy, the Reuben, in 1972 for 1971, again for Steve Canyon.

He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1988. He received the National Cartoonists Society Elzie Segar Award in 1971, the Award for Story Comic Strip in 1979 for Steve Canyon, the Gold Key Award (the Society's Hall of Fame) in 1981, and the NCS has since named the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.

In 1977, the Milton Caniff Collection of papers and original art became the foundation for what is known presently as the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Covering 696 cubic feet (19.7 m3), the collection fills 526 boxes, plus 12,153 art originals and 59 oversized items. In addition to the original artwork, the collection includes Caniff's personal and business papers, correspondence, research files, photographs, memorabilia, merchandise, regalia, awards, audio/visual material and scrapbooks.

He died on May 3, 1988 and was buried in the Mount Repose Cemetery, Haverstraw, New York.
Source: Wikipedia and Illustration Art Gallery
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Mario Capaldi biography

Mario Capaldi biography

Mario Capaldi (1935 - 2004; UK)
Mario Capaldi was a productive artist for Marvel UK's junior titles. He started his career in 1959, and has drawn every kind of strip since. His Marvel UK credits range from 'Care Bears' to 'James Bond Junior' and 'Zorro'. He did a comic adaptation of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' for The Saturday Evening Post, as well as 'Famous Five' in Fleetway's Blyton centenary magazine. He also drew historical and fairytale comics for that publication. Capaldi was a major contributor to the magazine Misty, provided art for Mayfair's Carrie comic, Fleetway's 'Robo Machines' comic, and did a couple of fill-in stories for TV Action.

A book about Mario's early life has been written by his daughter, Vanda Capaldi. It is called 'Mario: A Biography in Poetry' and is available through the author's website. Vanda is currently (2013) researching another book concerning Mario's extensive art career.

vandacapaldi.moonfruit.com

Mario Capaldi art
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Josep Marti i Capell biography

Josep Marti i Capell biography

Josep Marti i Capell
Spanish artist Josep Marti i Capell has drawn for various European publishers. He started out with realistic western and war stories for the pocket books of the British Fleetway and Thomson agencies. For The Victor comic, he illustrated comics strips like 'Bill and Ben, the fighting Tennis Men', 'The Whirler', 'Duke Farlow', 'Crazy Fred Kay's Railroad', 'The Seventh Mission' and many others. For Tiger comic he illustrated the comic strip 'Roy of the Rovers'.

At Editorial Ferna he drew 'El Pequeño Grumete' between 1953 and 1957, as well as several western titles. He eventually took on a caricatural style, and commenced a large production for the German market. In the 1970s, he illustrated the series 'Ben's Bande' in Yps with texts by Peter Wiechmann.

For the Kauka Verlag, he drew the short-lived series 'Furor Teutonicus' (or 'Die Teutonen') in Primo in 1974, as well as a revamped version of 'Tom und Biber' for Kauka Gold Comic, called 'Tom Dooley'. He was also an illustrator of several stories with 'Fix und Foxi' and 'Die Pichelsteiner'. Marti drew 'Muumi' for Egmont Kustannus, albums with the elephant 'Benjamin Blümchen' and 'Bibi Blocksberg' for Xenos Verlag, and stories with 'Sumsi' and 'Pumuckl' for the publisher Dino.

He was also involved with the French P&T Productions and Joker Editions with several saucy comics for the collections BD Folies and Blagues Coquines. In a more realistic style, he drew the pony comics 'Ciara' for the Norwegian Olco Publications and 'Herbie' in Penny. For the Apricale Ab in Stockholm, Marti drew a humorous album about medieval monks called 'The Brothers of Apricale'. Throughout his career, he has been mainly affiliated with the Bardon Art agency in Barcelona.
Source: based on Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Roy Carnon biography

Roy Carnon biography

Roy Carnon (1911 - 2002; UK)
Roy Carnon was responsible for a stunning cover for All This and a Medal Too by Tim Carew, published by Corgi Books in 1960. The book was an autobiography, originally published by Constable & Co. in 1954, and featured the reminiscences of the author - real name John Mohun Carew (1921-1980) - about his experiences in the army between 1937 and 1950. Carnon had worked for Corgi Books at least as early as 1956, although had earlier worked in advertising (e.g. for Reed Paper Group).

Carnon, born 6 July 1911, the son of Frederick Wallace Carnon (a civil servant) and his wife Gertrude Eisdell (nee Lee), had grown up in Isleworth, London, attending art school in Chiswick for a short time. He became an illustrator, working mainly for advertising agencies, and was always to be found sketching in parks, or on buses and trains and always carried a small sketch-book or a pack of plain postcards in case inspiration struck.

During the Second World War, Carnon continued to sketch even when he was working as a fireman during the London Blitz; he subsequently joined the RAF ground crew and then became a navigator on Sunderlands, seeing action in Africa, India and the Far East.

After returning to civilian life, Carnon continued to work in advertising, as well as producing book covers. He was responsible for a number of covers for Edgar Rice Boroughs' science fiction novels published by Four Square Books in 1961-65 and illustrated Famous Fighting Aircraft for the Collins Wonder Colour Books series in 1964.

In 1965, Carnon became one of the team responsible for producing concept drawings, sketches and paintings for Stanley Kubrick, then working with author Arthur C. Clarke on the landmark science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. For this he was responsible for visualising space craft, film sets and the iconic 'wheel' space station.

After this, he worked on many other movies, including the Bond movies, Where Eagles Dare, The Battle of Britain, Frenzy, Superman, The Dogs of War, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds, The Dark Crystal, Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi, Ladyhawke and Link.

Roy Frederick Carnon was married to Violet Marian Steer in 1935 (died 1971); he re-married, in 1998, to Margaret J. Harrold. He died in August 2002, aged 91. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Nino Caroselli biography

Nino Caroselli biography

Benedetto "Nino" Caroselli; Italy
Nino Caroselli was an Italian painter and illustrator. Although not much is known about him, he would appear to have been active in Italy as a cover artist and painter.

In the UK, Nino Caroselli produced hundred of covers for the pocket libraries published by Fleetway. He first appeared in 1959 as an illustrator for Top Spot but very quickly established himself as a cover artist on Super Detective Library, Thriller Picture Library and Cowboy Picture Library. However, it was his work for the War libraries that would keep him busy for many years during the 1960s.

Caroselli also did 16 covers for the Sexton Blake Library in 1960-61 and he also produced at least one book cover (Angelique and the King by Sergeanne Golon, J. B. Lippincott).
Source: Steve Holland

See illustrators British War Comics Special for a Nino Caroselli feature article.

Nino Caroselli art
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Felix Carrion biography

Felix Carrion biography

Félix Carrión Cenamor (29 November 1920 - June 2003; Madrid, Spain)
Félix Carrión was born in Madrid. He began to work with textile in the capital of Spain. His true passion was drawing however, and when he lost his job at age 40, he moved to Barcelona to pursue a career as a cartoonist. His first work were contributions to the 'El Capitán Trueno' comic book and the magazine Pulgarcito in 1961. From 1963, he drew for El Capitán Trueno Extra, illustrating stories with 'El Capitán Trueno', 'El Jabato' and 'El Príncipe Errante'. He did several comic adaptations of novels, for instance of the work of Karl May and Jules Verne.

Between 1970 and 1977, he illustrated several stories for Joyas Literarias, such as 'Los Pescadores del Trepang', 'El Capitán Aventuroso' and 'Los Buscadores de Oro'. He also drew for foreign publications through agencies until 1992. He worked for 2000AD on 'Flesh' and drew for the British magazine The Hornet, and illustrated the series 'Buffalo Bill' for the Dutch publisher Bull. His final works for the Spanish market were 'La Historia de España' (1986) and 'La Historia Universal' (1992).
Source: Illustration ArtGallery
Felix Carrion art
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Brian Casey introduction

Brian Casey introduction

Brian Casey
" I have had a passion for Motorsport for as long as I can remember - as small boy I would often smuggle my way into the Crystal Palace Race Circuit to listen to the sound of Racing cars warming up their engines early on a Sunday morning, in the glorious days before the noise abatement people objected. I would get there early in the morning hoping to catch a glimpse of the likes of the young Mansell and Senna. Little did I know what an effect this was going to have on me in later life, even when I left home, got married and eventually moved to Kent.

Purely by chance I found myself living 20 minutes from the historic Brands Hatch racing circuit, so it was only a matter of time before I was chatting with a colleague from work who was a Motorbike Marshall at the weekends. He invited me along to a meeting at Lyddon Race Circuit in Kent. I was hooked and travelled the whole length of Britain armed with my trusty camera. It was around this time that I really started to take my passion to another level as I was getting more and more commissions from Riders and their friends, I was going to bigger Race Meetings, taking myself off to Brands Hatch for British Superbike Meetings, the British Grand Prix and most of the Car and Bike shows, collating photographic material for future commissioned artworks.

I like to capture the sense of action, speed and excitement, along with a fantastic eye for detail, so the recent demand for commissioned art from Corporate, Commercial, and private clients has increased to a level that I now work full time as a Freelance Illustrator. I have work published with Felix Rosenstiels Widow and Son, in the Markham Collection, and my portfolio includes Formula 1, Superbikes, Touring Cars, GT'S, Supercars, the Clubman Motorbike Riders, Classic and Convertibles. I am a full member of the Guild of Motoring Artists, also a full member of the Coloured Pencil Society. "

Exhibits
The Donnington Motor Museum; The Goodwood Revival Meeting; Silverstone Race Circuit; Brands Hatch Race Circuit; The Bromley Pageant of Motoring; The Hop Farm Car, and Bike Meetings; Knebworth House (Car Show); Stamford House (Jaguar Show); Hall Place & Gardens, Kent (Solo Art Exhibition) .
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Giovanna Casotto introduction

Giovanna Casotto introduction

Giovanna Casotto (born 2 August 1962; Lombardy, Italy)
Casotto has worked for erotic magazines Selen, Blue and Desire, and continues to delight with her 1950s inspired styling and delicate dream like Pin-Ups.

Giovanna Casotto is an Italian comic book artist and illustrator, known by her erotic comics. Casotto's erotic stories are inspired by a 1950's pin-up aesthetic. She often poses herself as a photographic reference for the comics.

Casotto was born in Desio, in Lombardy. She was passionate about drawing and comics since childhood; before entering this career she lived as a housewife. She attended the school of comics in Milan for three years, after which she published some short stories for Intrepido magazine, written by Mauro Muroni. In 1994 she met Franco Saudelli, with whom she became a frequent collaborator.

In 1991, the publisher Stefano Trentini proposed her to draw stories about football, but she refused, not feeling attracted to the genre. Trentini himself, three years later, involved her in the project of the erotic culture and comics magazine Selen. When the magazine closed, she moved on to the similar monthly publication Blue, published by Coniglio Editore and began to publish erotic tables for the English magazine Desire. Casotto's stories were first published in the U.S. in 1994, in the series Bitch in Heat by the Fantagraphics imprint Eros Comix.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Giovanna Casotto art
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Richard Caton Woodville Jnr biography

Richard Caton Woodville Jnr biography

Richard Caton Woodville Jnr. (1856 - 1927, England)
Richard Caton Woodville Jr was a widely recognised and prolific artist, producing many accomplished illustrations and paintings, notably for the Illustrated London News. He is particularly remembered for his battle scenes and many of his paintings are in military art collections, such as the National Army Museum, the Royal Naval College, the Royal Canadian Military Institute, the London Scottish Regiments Museum Trust and West Point, as well as national collections such as the Tate Gallery.

He was the son of Richard Caton Woodville (1825-1855) an American artist and the son of a stockbroker, who originally studied medicine but who turned to painting as a career.

In 1845, at the age of 20, Caton Woodville Jnr left Baltimore to train at the Kunstacademie in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he lived for the next six years with his wife, Mary Theresa (nee Buckler), whom he had married on 3 January 1844.

In 1879, his painting Before Leuthen, Dec. 3rd, 1757 was exhibited at the Royal Academy and, over the next few years he produced many popular paintings, amongst them Kandahar and Saving the Guns at Maiwand (both inspired by the Second Anglo-Afghan War), and many scenes from the Zulu War and First Boer War. His painting The Moonlight Charge at Kassassin was exhibited at the Fine Art Society in 1883 and The Guards at Tel-e-Kebir was exhibited by Royal Command in 1884. The latter was painted for the Royal Family in 1882 and led to a number of further commissions, including the wedding of Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1885. He later also painted a portraits King Edward VII and King George V.

Woodville was commissioned by the Illustrated London News to paint a series depicting famous battle throughout history, including the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Charge of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman, the Battle of Blenheim, the Battle of Badajos and several of the Battle of Waterloo. In 1895 he produced some 200 drawings, 2 large paintings and 2 smaller paintings. He maintained a large collection of arms and uniforms at his studio.

Woodville lived at Flat B, Dudley Mansions, 29 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, Middlesex, where he committed suicide on 17 August 1927: at shortly after 1 pm, Woodville's housekeeper and a friend, Mr. P. Gair, heard a report from a revolver and found Woodville sitting in his favourite chair in the studio attached to his house with a bullet wound to his head. He was still breathing, but died on the way to the hospital. Although he had been laughing and joking only that morning, Woodville had recently been suffering from heart trouble and pain from his leg, which he had broken years earlier and which had been aggravated by a second accident in Egypt.

After such an active life, Woodville was worried that, at 71, he would become an invalid. A letter read out at an inquest on 20 August 1927 revealed his final thoughts: "I am mentally and bodily ill. My health is a thing of the past." The Coroner recorded a verdict that Woodville was of unsound mind when he shot himself. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Catel biography

Catel biography

Catherine Muller (born 27 August 1964; France)
Catherine Muler, also known as Cathy Muller, Catel Muller or simply Catel, studied at the School of Plastic Arts in Strasbourg, where she graduated in 1990. She specialized in illustrations for children, and has cooperated with the publishers Nathan, Epigones and Hachette. In 1996, she made her first stories with the characters 'Bop et Blop' in cooperation with Paul Martin for the monthly Images Doc, published by Bayard Presse.

Present in Je Bouquine from 1999, she graphically created the series 'Marion & Charles', based on two novel characters by Fanny Jolly. In 2000, she began the series 'Lucie' with writer Véronique Grisseaux in the collection Tohu Bohu of Les Humanoïdes Associés. The series was continued by the publishing house Casterman from 2003 until 2006.

Together with scriptwriter Sophie Dieuaide, she made 'Les Papooses', also for Casterman between 2003 and 2005. Her series 'Top Linotte' runs in the Fleurus magazine Les P'tites Sorcières, and has been published in book format by Fleurus and Dupuis since 2010.

In 2004, she wrote the more adult World War I comic 'Le Sang des Valentines' for Christian De Metter. Besides children's comics, she has also made graphic novels like the comics biographies of 'Kiki de Montparnasse' (2007) and 'Marie Gouze dit Olympe de Gouges' (2012) with Jean-Louis Bocquet, 'Dolor' with Philippe Paringaux (2010) and 'Rose Valland, capitaine Beaux-Arts' with Claire Bouilhac and Emmanuelle Polack (2009).
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Lance Cattermole biography

Lance Cattermole biography

Lance Harry Mosse Cattermole (1898 - 1992)
Lance Cattermole, the Science Museum Group, of all places tells us, was born in Ireland, 19 July 1898, son of Sydney Cattermole, an artist, and grandson of George Cattermole (1800-68) – illustrator of ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ and other Charles Dickens works.

Educated in Worthing, Sussex and Odiham, Hants, and studied at Central School of Arts & Crafts 1922-23 and at the Slade School 1923-26. Cattermole lived near Worthing for many years.

He is represented in many museums and collections. Produced posters for BR. Produced artwork for Scottish Region series. The Look and Learn site shows two pieces credited to him.

Lance Cattermole drew lots of railway posters and many are archived in the National Railway Museum. One of my favourites is not the traditional tourist-duping sunny scene of the British seaside but this lovely lady from “Morecambe for First Class Holidays” poster (1960). Cattermole also drew for the prestigious Macmillan educational posters series in the 1960s.

It's confusing as to why he would serve in the First World War in 21st Eastern Ontario Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force as it states on the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment Museum site where you can see a sketch (for a Player’s Cigarette card) with a very familiar signature – so maybe it's right!

A story by Anthony C. Wilson called “A voice in the wall” appeared in the BBC Children’s Hour Annual (1952) and Cattermole's illustrations are remarkable for their sharp colour and movement.
Source: Standby4action and Illustration Art Gallery
Lance Cattermole art
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Caza biography

Caza biography

Philippe Cazaumayou (born 1941; USA)
Caza (born Philippe Cazaumayou) has never been appreciated in the UK and USA the way he should be and indeed is in Europe. He's as much an Sci-Fi visionary as Moebius and shares a similar sense of the horrifically bizarre with H. R. Giger.
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Glenn Chadbourne biography

Glenn Chadbourne biography

Glenn Chadbourne (born late October circa 1963; Maine, USA)
Glenn Chadbourne is an American artist. He lives in Newcastle, Maine. He is best known for his work in the horror and fantasy genres, having created covers and illustrated books and magazines for publishers such as Cemetery Dance Publications, Subterranean Press, and Earthling Publications. Mr. Chadbourne is known for his sense of humour and down to earth manner, as well as the stark honesty of his work.

Glenn Chadbourne attended Lincoln Academy before continuing his education at The Portland School of Art. He also attended the University of Maine at Augusta, as well as the University of Southern Maine.

His first published work was in the late 1980s for the Stephen King related newsletter called Castle Rock. He won a contest that called for artists to submit something Stephen King related.

He wrote, illustrated, and self-published a few comics called ChillVille and Farmer Fiend's Horror Harvest in the early 1990s. He eventually met Rick Hautala and was asked to illustrate his short story collection Bedbugs. After Cemetery Dance Publications printed Bedbugs in 1999, things began to click for Mr. Chadbourne, and he has since illustrated work for many of the top names in the horror genre.

He recently illustrated The Secretary of Dreams: Volume 1, a graphic collection of Stephen King stories that was published by Cemetery Dance Publications in 2006 in three limited editions. Volume Two was announced as being drawn by Glenn Chadbourne in early 2007.

"I was born up here in Damariscotta, Maine, some 49 years back on a late October day. Nothing spectacular there. No particular fanfare. No sirens bleating in the streets, no cries of joy or horror from those in attendance."
Source: Wikipedia
Glenn Chadbourne art
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Paul Chadwick biography

Paul Chadwick biography

Paul Chadwick (born 1957; Seattle, USA)
Paul Chadwick is an American comic book creator best known for his series Concrete about a normal man trapped in a rock-hard body.

Born in Seattle, Chadwick grew up in its suburb Medina, where his father, Stephen F. Chadwick, was the City Attorney. As a teenager, he participated in Apa-5, the amateur press alliance of comics fans, and he then attended Art Center College of Design, majoring in illustration. Graduating in 1979, he began his career creating storyboards for Disney, Warner Brothers, Lucasfilm and other film studios, contributing to such films as Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Strange Brew, The Big Easy, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, Lies and Miracle Mile.

Chadwick provided art for the Dazzler comic book, published by Marvel Comics, before creating Concrete, first published by Dark Horse Comics in Dark Horse Presents #1 (July 1986). He wrote Gifts of the Night for DC Comics' Vertigo with art by John Bolton.

After working on several Matrix comics, Chadwick was asked by the Wachowskis to write The Matrix Online. He outlined the general story direction (and various natural offshoots) of events to take place in the MMORPG game.

He illustrated cards for the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game.

Chadwick has personally been recognized for his work with the Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist for 1989, and nominations for the Harvey Awards for Best Artist, Writer, and Writer/Artist that same year. His work on Concrete has also won that series several awards.
Source: Wikipedia
Paul Chadwick art
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John F Chalkley biography

John F Chalkley biography

John Frederick Chalkley (1938 - 2009; UK)
John Chalkley worked as both an illustrator and as a fine artist. His art education was at Hornsey College of Art 1955 - 1961. From then until 1985, when he commenced painting full time, he combined painting with teaching art on a part-time basis. He also worked as a freelance illustrator for books and magazines.

John Chalkley has exhibited in many mixed shows and staged more than 20 one-man exhibitions in galleries in Yorkshire, the Lake District, Devon, Hertfordshire and London.
Source: http://www.artjohnchalkley.co.uk/index.htm
John F Chalkley art
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Steven Chapman biography

Steven Chapman biography

Steven Halliwell Chapman (active c1925 - 1969)
Steven Chapman had been drawing for juvenile adventure stories since the mid 1920s, notably in the Aldine Robin Hood and Wild West annuals. In the 1930s he was contributing picture stories for the back pages of various Amalgamated Press comics as well as illustrations for their story papers such as Triumph and Champion. Indeed, at some time or other, he contributed spot illustrations and covers to the majority of the boys' and girls' papers published by the firm. This wide experience enabled him to bring a wealth of expertise to his work for the Thriller Comics Library. Whether drawing pirates (To Sweep the Spanish Main no. 56), Elizabethan courtiers (Kenilworth no. 51), or the many Three Musketeers adventures he did for the library, Steve Chapman was one of the finest and most historically accurate of artists, always evoking the authentic period atmosphere.

Incidentally, there was something decidedly Elizabethan about Steve Chapman's appearance and Matthews persuaded Sep Scott to use Chapman as a model for his cover painting of Kenilworth - most appropriate as Chapman had drawn the entire strip! When his style - and, indeed, the whole genre of historical strips - lost favour with the Amalgamated Press, Steve Chapman found himself temporarily without work. Amalgamated Press' loss was D.C. Thomson's gain and, from 1961, Chapman spent the rest of his working life drawing magnificent strips for the likes of Hotspur and Victor, utilizing all his skills at depicting historical adventure. Fittingly, his last strip, for the 1969 Hotspur annual, was set in Regency prize-fighting days. Biography extract courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
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Howard Chaykin biography

Howard Chaykin biography

Howard V. Chaykin (born 7 October 1950; New Jersey, USA)
Howard Chaykin was born in Newark, NJ and started his career in comics as an assistant to Gil Kane. Working in the studio of Wallace Wood, he made his debut with the western 'Shattuck' in Overseas Weekly in cooperation with Nicola Cuti. He also assisted Gray Morrow and Neal Adams.

From the early 1970s, Chaykin worked as a freelancer for publishers like Marvel, DC, Warren and Atlas. He started out drawing stories for publications like Marvel Spotlight and Marvel Premiere, working with characters like 'Solomon Kane' and 'Monark Startalker'. In 1974, he created 'Cody Starbuck' for the Star Reach review.

In Heavy Metal, he proved himself one of the best authors of science-fiction graphic novels. Chaykin pioneered the graphic novel in the USA with 'The Stars my Destination', 'The Swords of Heaven' and 'Flowers from Hell'. In 1977, prior to the movies, he drew the first 'Star Wars' comics with scripts by Roy Thomas for Marvel, which were a very big hit.

In 1983, he created the hit series 'American Flagg!' over at First Comics. Among his best known comics are his DC works 'The Shadow' (1986) and 'Blackhawk' (1988), and his post-modern graphic novel 'Time2' at First Comics (1987), in which he could indulge his love for jazz and New York.

In 1988, he created the erotic 'Black Kiss'. Since then his comics output has been limited. He briefly returned to Marvel for a Wolverine/Nick Fury graphic novel and the mini-series 'Power and Glory'. Howard Chaykin also works as an executive script consultant for television on such serials as 'The Flash' and 'Viper TV'.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia

See illustrators issue 12 for a Howard Chaykin feature article.

Howard Chaykin art
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Alessandro Chiarolla biography

Alessandro Chiarolla biography

Alessandro Chiarolla (born 11 September 1942; Italy)
Alessandro Chiarolla was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, an Italian colony in Africa at the time. He entered the comics field with the help of Renato Polese. He began working for Il Vittorioso in 1960, with his first comic 'La Bella Petroia'. During the 1960s, he produced many comics for Il Vittorioso and Il Giornalino.

Until 1974, he drew for foreign publishers through art agencies. For the British Fleetway, he worked on Princess Tina ('Catherine Arrogant'), Tiger, Hurricane and Buster ('Patch Eye Hooker', etc.). For France, he illustrated strips with 'Lancelot', and for Germany, he produced 'Reno Kid' and 'Buffalo Bill'.

He cooperated with Alfredo Castelli on several stories for Il Giornalino and Il Corriere dei Ragazzi, such as 'Bassa Marea', 'Fortini sul Fiume' and the series 'Central Hospital'. After a brief stint at the publishing houses Lancioi and Edifumetto, Chiarolla joined the publishing house Bonelli, where he illustrated such series as 'Bella & Bronco', 'Martin Mystère' and 'Zagor'.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Alessandro Chiarolla art
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Frank Cirocco biography

Frank Cirocco biography

Frank Cirocco (born 13 June 1956)
Frank Cirocco was born on June 13, 1956, per profile in Alien Legion #1 (April 1984), or on June 15, 1955.

Frank Cirocco started his comics career in underground comix. He founded underground magazine Venture in 1976, together with Gary Winnick.

He went on to become an artist for Marvel, where he has worked on a list of titles. He co-created 'Alien Legion' with Carl Potts. Again with Gary Winnick, Frank Cirocco founded Lightsource Studios, where he created the comic 'Space Babe', among others.

His non-comics employers include Lightsource Studios, Dreamworks, Yahoo!, LucasArts, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, LeapFrog, Mattel, Universal Studios, and Rocket Science Games.
Source: Comicbookdb.com
Frank Cirocco art
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Bob Clampett biography

Bob Clampett biography

Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett (8 May 1913 - 2 May 1984; San Diego, California, USA)
Bob Clampett was an American animator, producer, director, and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros., and the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil. Clampett was born and raised not far from Hollywood, and early on expressed an interest in animation and puppetry. After leaving high school a few months shy of graduating in 1931, Clampett joined the team at Harman-Ising Productions and began working on the studio's newest short subjects, titled Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

Clampett was promoted to a directorial position in 1937 and during his fifteen years at the studio, directed 84 cartoons later deemed classic and designed some of the studio's most famous characters, including Porky Pig and Tweety. Among Clampett's most acclaimed films are Porky in Wackyland (1938), Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943) and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946). Clampett left Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1946 and turned his attention to television, creating the famous puppet show Time for Beany in 1949. A later animated version of the series, titled Beany and Cecil, ran on ABC for five years beginning in 1962 and ending in 1967, which was well loved by millions, and credited "a Bob Clampett Cartoon".

In his later years, Clampett toured college campuses and animation festivals as a lecturer on the history of animation. His Warner cartoons have seen renewed praise in decades since for their surrealistic qualities, energetic and outrageous animation, and irreverent humor. Animation historian Jerry Beck lauded Clampett for "putting the word 'looney' in Looney Tunes."

Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett was born in San Diego, California and was displaying extraordinary art skills by the age of five. From the beginning, Clampett was intrigued with and influenced by Douglas Fairbanks, Lon Chaney, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and he began making film short-subjects in his garage beginning when he was twelve. While living in Hollywood as a young boy, Clampett and his mother Joan lived next door to Charlie Chaplin and his brother Syd. Clampett also recalled watching his father play handball at the Los Angeles Athletic Club with another of the great silent comedians, Harold Lloyd. From his early teens Clampett showed an interest in animation and puppetry. Clampett made hand puppets as a child, and before adolescence had completed what animation historian Milt Gray describes as "a sort of prototype, a kind of nondescript dinosaur sock puppet that later evolved into Cecil." In high school, Clampett drew a full-page comic about the nocturnal adventures of a pussycat, later published in color in a Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times. King Features took note and offered Clampett a "cartoonist's contract" to begin a seventy-five dollars a week after high school. King Features allowed Clampett to work in their Los Angeles art department on Saturdays and vacations during high school. On occasion, King Features would print one of Clampett's cartoons for encouragement. In addition, they paid his way through Otis Art Institute, where Clampett learned to paint with oils and to sculpt.

Clampett attended both Glendale High School and Hoover High School in Glendale California but left Hoover a few months short of graduating in 1931. Afterwards, Clampett got a job working at a doll factory owned by his aunt, Charlotte Clark. Clark was looking for an appealing item to sell and Clampett suggested Mickey Mouse due to growing popularity. Unable to find a drawing of the character anywhere, Clampett took his sketchpad to the movies and came out with several sketches. Clark was concerned with the copyright, so the two drove to the Disney studio. Walt and Roy Disney were delighted and they set up a business not far from the Disney studio. Clampett recalled his short time working for Disney: "Walt Disney himself sometimes came over in an old car to pick up the dolls; he would give them out to visitors to the studio and at sales meetings. I helped him load the dolls in the car. One time his car, loaded with Mickeys, wouldn't start, and I pushed while Walt steered, until it caught, and he took off."

Clampett was, in his words, so "enchanted" by the new medium of sound cartoons that he instead joined Harman-Ising Studios in 1931 for ten dollars a week. Schlesinger viewed one of Clampett's 16mm films and was impressed, offering him an assistant position at the studio. His first job was animating secondary characters in the first Merrie Melodie, Lady, Play Your Mandolin! (1931). The same year, Clampett began attending story meetings after submitting an idea eventually used for Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!. The two series were produced at Harman-Ising until mid-1933 when they split into Leon Schlesinger Productions. In his first years at the studio, Clampett mostly worked for Friz Freleng, under whose guidance Clampett grew into an able animator. When he joined Harman-Ising, Bob Clampett was only 17 years old.

By 1934, Schlesinger was in a bit of a crisis trying to find a well-known cartoon character. He noted that the Our Gang series consisted of nothing but "little kids doing things together," and a studio-wide drive to get ideas for an animal version of Our Gang commenced. Clampett submitted a drawing of a pig (Porky) and a black cat (Beans), and, in an imitation of the lettering on a can of Campbell's Pork and Beans, wrote "Clampett's Porky and Beans." Porky debuted in the Friz Freleng-directed I Haven't Got a Hat in 1935. Around the same time, Schlesinger announced a studio-wide contest, with a money prize to whichever member of the staff turned in the best original story. Clampett's story won first prize and was made into My Green Fedora, also directed by Freleng.

Clampett felt encouraged after these successes, and began writing in more story contributions. After Schlesinger realized he needed another unit, he made a deal with Tex Avery, naming Clampett his collaborator. They were moved to a ramshackle building used by gardeners and WB custodial staff for storage of cleaning supplies, solvents, brooms, lawnmowers and other implements.] Working apart from the other animators in the small, dilapidated wooden building in the middle of the Vitaphone lot, Avery and Clampett soon discovered they were not the only inhabitants - they shared the building with thousands of tiny termites. They christened the building "Termite Terrace", a name eventually used by fans and historians to describe the entire studio. The two soon developed an irreverent style of animation that would set Warner Bros. apart from its competitors. They were soon joined by animators Chuck Jones, Virgil Ross, and Sid Sutherland, and worked virtually without interference on their new, groundbreaking style of humor for the next year. It was a wild place with an almost college fraternity-like atmosphere. Animators would frequently pull pranks such as gluing paper streamers to the wings of flies. Leon Schlesinger, who rarely ventured there, was reputed on one visit to have remarked in his lisping voice, "Pew, let me out of here! The only thing missing is the sound of a flushing toilet!"

On the side, Clampett directed a sales film, co-animated by Chuck Jones and in-betweened by Robert Cannon. Clampett filmed Cannon in live action as the hero and rotoscoped it into the film. Clampett planned to leave Leon Schlesinger Productions, but Schlesinger offered him a promotion to director and more money if he would stay. Clampett was promoted to director in late 1936, directing a color sequence in the feature When's Your Birthday? (1937). This led to what was essentially a co-directing stint with fellow animator Chuck Jones for the financially ailing Ub Iwerks, whom Schlesinger subcontracted to produce several Porky Pig shorts. These shorts featured the short-lived and generally unpopular Gabby Goat as Porky's sidekick. Despite Clampett and Jones' contributions, however, Iwerks was the only credited director. Clampett's first cartoon with a directorial credit was Porky's Badtime Story. Under the Warner system, Clampett had complete creative control over his own films, within severe money and time limitations (he was only given $3,000 and four weeks to complete each short). During production of Porky's Duck Hunt in 1937, Avery created a character that would become Daffy Duck and Clampett animated the character for the first time.

Clampett was so popular in theaters that Schlesinger told the other directors to imitate him, emphasizing gags and action. When Tex Avery departed in 1941, Avery's unit was taken over by Clampett, while Norman McCabe took over Clampett's old unit. Clampett finished Avery's remaining unfinished cartoons. When McCabe joined the armed forces, Frank Tashlin rejoined Schlesinger as director, and that unit was eventually turned over to Robert McKimson. Milton Gray notes that from The Hep Cat (1942) on, the cartoons become even more wild as Clampett's experimentation reached a peak. Clampett later created the character of Tweety, introduced in A Tale of Two Kitties in 1942. His cartoons grew increasingly violent, irreverent, and surreal, not beholden to even the faintest hint of real-world physics, and his characters have been argued to be easily the most rubbery and wacky of all the Warner directors'. Clampett was heavily influenced by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, as is most visible in Porky in Wackyland (1938), wherein the entire short takes place within a Dalí-esque landscape complete with melting objects and abstracted forms. Clampett and his work can even be considered part of the surreal movement, as it incorporated film as well as static media. It was largely Clampett's influence that would impel the Warners directors to shed the final vestiges of all Disney influence and enter the territory they are famous for today. Clampett was also famous for doing some brief voices or sound effects in some of the cartoons, the most famous being ending his most famous cartoons with his own joke on impersonating the Warner Bros. zooming in shield sound effect (otherwise known as "Bay-woop!"). Clampett liked to bring hip cultural movements into his cartoons, especially jazz; film, magazines, comics, novels, and popular music are referenced in Clampett shorts, most visible in Book Revue (1946), where performers are drawn onto various famous books.

Clampett was a good source for censorship stories, though the accuracy of his recollections has been disputed. According to an interview published in Funnyworld #12 (1971), Clampett had a method for ensuring that certain elements of his films would escape the censors' cut. It consisted of adding material aimed just at the censors. They would focus on cutting those and thus leave in the ones he actually wanted.

Clampett continued to direct cartoons each year at the studio until 1946. His unit was taken over by Arthur Davis. The Big Snooze was his final cartoon with the studio, and one for which he did not get screen credit (only one of three he directed pitting Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd). While the generally accepted story was that Clampett left over matters of artistic freedom, Davis remembered that Clampett was fired by then-cartoon studio executive Eddie Selzer, who was far less tolerant of him than Leon Schlesinger. Clampett's style was becoming increasingly divergent from those of Freleng and Jones, the other unit directors, and this is thought by some to be the primary reason for his departure. The Warners style that he was so instrumental in developing was leaving him behind. Warner Bros. had recently bought the rights to the entire Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies studio from Schlesinger, and while his cartoons of 1946 are today considered on the cutting edge of the art for that period, at the time, Clampett was ready to seek new challenges. Clampett left at what some considered the peak of his creativity and against everyone's advice.

Clampett worked for a time at Screen Gems, then the cartoon division of Columbia Pictures, as a screenwriter and gag writer. In 1947 Republic Pictures incorporated animation (by Walter Lantz) into its Gene Autry feature film Sioux City Sue. It turned out well enough for Republic to dabble in animated cartoons; Bob Clampett directed a single cartoon, It's a Grand Old Nag, featuring the equine character Charlie Horse. Republic management, however, had second thoughts due to dwindling profits, and discontinued the series. Clampett took his direction credit under the name "Kilroy".

In 1949, Clampett turned his attentions to television, where he created the famous puppet show Time for Beany. The show, featuring the talents of voice artists Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, would earn Clampett three Emmys. Groucho Marx and Albert Einstein were both fans of the series. In 1952, he created the Thunderbolt the Wondercolt television series and the 3D prologue to Bwana Devil featuring Beany and Cecil. In 1954, he directed Willy the Wolf (the first puppet variety show on television), as well as creating and voicing the lead in the Buffalo Billy television show. In the late 1950s, Clampett was hired by Associated Artists Productions to catalog the pre-August 1948 Warner cartoons it had just acquired. He also created an animated version of the puppet show called Beany and Cecil, which began its run on ABC in 1962 and was on the network for five years.

In his later years, Bob Clampett toured college campuses and animation festivals as a lecturer on the history of animation. In 1975 he was the focus of a documentary entitled Bugs Bunny: Superstar, the first documentary to examine the history of the Warner Bros. cartoons. Clampett, whose collection of drawings, films, and memorabilia from the golden days of Termite Terrace was legendary, provided nearly all of the behind-the-scenes drawings and home-movie footage for the film; furthermore, his wife, Sody Clampett, is credited as the film's production co-ordinator. In an audio commentary recorded for Bugs Bunny: Superstar, director Larry Jackson claimed that in order to secure Clampett's participation, and access to Clampett's collection of Warners history, he had to sign a contract that stipulated Clampett would host the documentary and also have approval over the final cut. Jackson also claimed that Clampett was very reluctant speaking about the other directors and their contributions.

Clampett died of a heart attack on May 2, 1984 in Detroit, Michigan, just six days before his 71st birthday, while touring the country to promote the home video release of Beany & Cecil cartoons. He is buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.
Source: Wikipedia
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James Clark biography

James Clark biography

James Clark (1895 - 10 July 1977; Glasgow, Scotland)
James Clark was born in Glasgow and began working at the publishing firm of John Leng in Dundee in 1919. He contributed illustrations to adult and children's publications. For more than thirty years, he drew the adventures of 'Willie Waddle' for various titles and annuals. When D.C. Thomson launched The Dandy Comic in 1937, Clark was present with 'Jimmy and his Grockle'.

He then made 'Leave It To Lop Ears' in Magic Comic, 'Centipede Pete' and 'King of the Jungle' in Dandy Comic. Clark was asked to do the illustration of 'Three Men in a Tub' in 1940, and these illustrations show his artistic talent to the full extent. His cartoons, as well as the strip 'Towser', appeared in The People's Journal (1944-47).

From the late 1940s, he was present in The Beano with 'The Invisible Giant' and a new version of 'Pansy Potter' (1949-55). From 1953 to 1960, he drew 'Tiny Tim' for The Topper and his other 1950s work includes 'Young Dandy', 'The Castaway Kydds' and 'Dockland Davie' for The Dandy. James Clark died in 1977, aged eighty-two.
Source: Lambiek
James Clark art
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Dorian Cleavenger biography

Dorian Cleavenger biography

Dorian Cleavenger
Dorian Cleavenger is a highly collected artist who has worked for Disney, US Steel and many other large corporations and is well known for his pseudo realism and erotic pin up art.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
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Rene Cloke biography

Rene Cloke biography

Rene Cloke (born 1904; Plymouth, UK)
Rene Cloke was born Irene Mabel N. Cloke in Plymouth on 8 October 1904. According to the Dictionary of British Book Illustrators, she "works as a postcard and greetings card designer, and as an author and illustrator of stories for very young children ... mainly depicting nursery animals and pixies."

As well as her books, she also produced illustrations for many annuals, including Uncle Oojah's Big Annual, Blackie's Children's Annual, Tiny Tots Annual, Jack and Jill Annual, Playhour Annual and Jack and Jill Harold Hare Book.

She also contributed to Sunny Stories.
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Eduardo Teixeira Coelho biography

Eduardo Teixeira Coelho biography

Eduardo Teixeira Coelho (3 January 1919 - 31 May 2005; Terceira island, Azores, Portugal)
Eduardo Teixeira Coelho was a Portuguese comic book artist and illustrator best known for his adventure series Ragnar le Viking. In some of his early work he used the pseudonym Martin Sievre.

Coelho's career began when he moved from The Azores to mainland Portugal. His most notable work there was for the magazine Mosquito, beginning in 1943. He moved to Brazil in the 1950s and taught at the Pan-American School of Art in São Paulo. In 1955 he moved to France and for the next several decades worked on a number of series, many of them for the magazine Vaillant, including Ragnar.

Coelho died in Florence, Italy, aged 86, where he had lived for several years.
Source: Wikipedia
Eduardo Teixeira Coelho art
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Joseph Clement Coll biography

Joseph Clement Coll biography

Joseph Clement Coll (1881 - 1921; USA)
Joseph Clement Coll began his professional career working for the New York American in the late 1890s. He was soon working for magazines such as Collier's, Everybody's and the American Sunday Magazine. Coll's reputation stands mainly on his pen & ink story illustrations.

In contrast to most illustrators who worked in pen & ink, Coll achieved true tonal gradations in his illustrations by using pen strokes to build up a complete range of values. He was influenced by the Spanish pen & ink artist Daniel Vierge.

Clement Coll's other great qualities were his vivid imagination and the unique perspectives that he used in his works. Coll was also a painter and he often painted the cover or frontispiece of books which were reproduced in color and then drew the pen & inks to illustrate the text.
He was considered to be an ideal illustrator for authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle and other adventure writers.

His illustrations for books such as Talbot Mundy's King of the Khyber Rifles and Sax Rohmer's The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu were widely reprinted for many years. Coll died in 1921 of appendicitis.
Joseph Clement Coll art
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Michael Codd biography

Michael Codd biography

Michael Codd (1938; UK)
Codd was born in Wembley in 1938. The artist's illustrations have graced a number of publications, from 'The Children's Illustrated Bible' to 'Mayfair' magazine, and the covers for the first Modesty Blaise hardcover run (Souvenir Press UK).

More recently he was commissioned by Leicester Arts and Museums Services to produce paintings for their 2011 exhibition 'Visions of Ancient Leicester' which explored the city's Roman and Medieval history. He is married to the sculptor Chris Codd and lives in Hampshire. His son Matt works in the movies, including Serenity and Judge Dredd.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Michael Codd art
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L B Cole biography

L B Cole biography

L B Cole (1918 - 1995; USA)
Leonard Brandt Cole had worked as art director for a lithography outfit, before entering the comic book field during the Golden Age in the early 1940's. He was mainly a cover illustrator for titles like Suspense Comics and Contact Comics. In his early work, he always used basic, flat colors and produced what he called "poster color covers". Illustrating over 1500 covers, Cole drew everything from funny animals to superheroes to jungle girls and science-fiction. A science-fiction fan, Cole would often slip rocket ships and ray guns onto books such as 'Captain Flight' and 'Contact Comics' which were supposed to be devoted to contemporary aviation.

As for interior artwork, Cole did pencils and/or inks on several features for Holyoke Publications, Gilberton and Farrell. Cole also published comic books through Star Publications, producing various crime, terror, jungle and romance titles in the late 1940s and 1950s. He was art director and editor at Dell Publishing in the early 1960s. He has mainly done commercial art and design from the mid 1960s onwards, working among others on audio-visuals for University Films.
Source: Lambiek
L B Cole art
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Simon Coleby biography

Simon Coleby biography

Simon Coleby (born 2 March 1967; UK)
Simon Coleby is a British comic book artist who has worked mainly for British sci-fi comic 2000 AD and Marvel Comics.

Coleby started his mainstream work in the British comics industry in 1987, working at both 2000 AD and Marvel UK. His first published work was a cover for issue #222 of the latter's Transformers comic, depicting Carnivac and Springer. At 2000 AD he contributed heavily to Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper spin-offs Friday and Venus Bluegenes, as well as becoming the lead artist on Low Life.

After working with Christos Gage on "Midnighter: Armageddon", he is working on the post-World's End relaunch of The Authority with writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. He will also be working on Wildstorm's adaptation of Fringe because, according to editor, Ben Abernathy, "Simon Coleby is so far ahead on 'Authority' he has time to contribute 11 pages a month" and "Simon Coleby ... is definitely on the fast-track to becoming an 'elite' level artist."
Source: Wikipedia
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Roger Coleman biography

Roger Coleman biography

Roger Coleman (known to be active 1960s - 1970s)
An accomplished book cover artist, Roger Coleman illustrated many Corgi, Pan and Ballantine paperback covers during the 1960s and 1970s. His art is particularly atmospheric. Now in his 80's (Feb 2013) he has reputedly become reclusive so not much more is known about him.

His cover work includes
Warbonnet Creek (EE Halleran, Corgi, 1962)
The Man with the Golden Gun (Ian Fleming, Reader's Digest, 1966)
The Valley of Hanoi (Irwin R Blacker, Corgi, 1968)
A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute, Pan, 1974)
The Legacy (Nevil Shute, Ballantine, 1973)
Most Secret (Nevil Shute, Pan & Ballantine, 1973)
Pied Piper (Nevil Shute, Pan & Ballantine, 1973)
Trustee from the Toolroom (Nevil Shute, Ballantine, 1972)
The Rainbow and the Rose (Nevil Shute, Ballantine, 1972)
Ruined City (Nevil Shute, Pan, 1974)
Landfall (Nevil Shute, Ballantine, 1972)
Pastoral (Nevil Shute, Pan, 1974)
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Roger Coleman art
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Henry Coller biography

Henry Coller biography

Henry Coller (21 December 1886 - 1958; London, UK)
Henry Coller was a commercial artist and illustrator whose fame rated just a few lines in a couple of post war art directories and also an entry in Who's Who in Art. My interest in him was aroused because among many other assignments Coller prepared the artwork for five series of cigarette cards issued between 1928 and 1934. These I will come back to a little later.

Born on 21 December 1886 in Wood Green, London, Henry was the son of the Rev W E Coller. It's a reasonable assumption that Henry shared his father's faith as his illustrative work in later years included a number of religious paintings. It is also a strong possibility that his father moved from London to Manchester as Henry was educated at Rusholme High School in that city before going on to study art at the Manchester School of Art.

In a series of articles that Coller wrote for The Artist magazine in 1936/37 under the heading ‘My Approach and Methods in Story Illustration' he revealed a desire to be a commercial artist rather than risk the vagaries of trying to get established in ‘fine art'. I quote: “I realized quite early that the readiest and most constant market was for line drawings for press advertising and so my later school of art years were spent in trying to master that most difficult tool, the pen. I concentrated, of course, on the pretty girl (the demand for that elusive being is always there) and I am still trying!”

Apart from that rather sensible early career decision Coller shows that he has a nice sense of humour. This is also apparent from a later statement regarding the type of work he was called upon to do. “For some years I was kept busy making line drawings to advertise every conceivable commodity – soaps, sports outfits, cigarettes, cough cures and baby foods – even a few ‘Kodak' drawings, until those responsible for that advertising realized that the logical thing to do was to advertise cameras by means of photographs.”

Whilst Coller admits he was treated well by most of his clients it was apparent then, and I doubt that much has changed today, that not every employer was strictly ethical. Prewar poster designers were probably pre-eminent among commercial artists and commanded the highest fees but some advertisers were obviously keen to get their art on the ‘cheap'. This is how Coller put it: “It is, however, a rather significant fact that although my drawings have been used quite a few times as posters, I have never yet been paid the price of a poster design.”

Nevertheless, Coller was good enough and industrious enough to be kept busy with a variety of assignments. His entry in Who's Who in Art (6th Edition) lists his specialties as, “sports sketches, drawings of sportsmen, men's fashions and other advertisements” and among his past work, “designs for Barney's Tobacco, Times Furnishing, Salute the Soldier (1943-44), Black & White Whisky (1950)”. The publications to which he contributed include Strand, Tatler, Windsor, Wide World, Passing Show, Pearsons, Sketch, Woman & Home, My Home, Women's Weekly, John Bull, Pictures That Teach and Home Journal.

Books that he illustrated include, Captain of Springdale by Dorita Fairlie Bruce (OUP), The Colour Book of Bible Stories by Joy Wheaton (Ward Lock), White Arab by Percy Westerman (Blackie) and, with others, Mrs Strang's Annual for Girls (OUP), The Wonder Book of Bible Stories, Moses in the Promised Land and The Life of Jesus, all by David Kyles (Ward Lock), and Picture Stories of the Old Testament by Mary Miller (Lutterworth).

The preponderance of religious books listed above, which probably date from the 1950s, suggest that Henry Coller managed to find a useful niche at a time when sketches for advertisements and magazine stories were starting to dry up. There are a number of religious paintings by Coller illustrated on the Look and Learn website which Steve feels may have been reprinted in Bible Story.

Henry Coller maintained a studio in London and gave an address at 38 Cleveland Square. A photo of him in his studio was published in The Artist magazine. Apart from his commercial work he found time to exhibit at the Royal Academy and also to paint portraits. One of these of Baron Pethick-Lawrence is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. He was a member of both the Chelsea Arts and London Sketch Clubs. He was married with four children and died in 1958.

(* A couple of additional notes: William Edward Coller was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, and was a schoolmaster in Blackburn, Lancashire, where the first two children of his children, Frederick Ernest W. (1876- ) and Ethel Jane (1880- ), were born. His wife, Jane (nee Watts, whom he had married in 1874), died in early 1880 at the age of 40, and W. E. Coller was married later that year to Elizabeth Anne Whitehead. Three further children followed, William Lonsdale (1882- ), born in Blackburn, and Edward (1884- ) and Henry, both born in Wood Green.

W. E. Coller continued to teach as a private tutor in English, Latin and French, but was also a Congregational Minister; in 1891 the family were living at Chorlton on Medlock, Manchester, in Lancashire; by 1901 they had moved to Moss Side, Manchester. Hence Henry Coller's attendance of a Manchester school.)
Source: Steve Holland
Henry Coller art
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Dennis Collins biography

Dennis Collins biography

Dennis Collins
The Perishers strip was the brainchild of the then Daily Mirror cartoon editor, Bill Herbert. Scripted by Ben Witham and drawn by Dennis Collins, it first appeared in the Manchester edition of the Mirror in February 1958.

Alas, the strip did not thrive and Bill enlisted the aid of advertising artist/writer Maurice Dodd. Maurice didn't work in the usual way of producing a written script from which the artist worked, but worked out his own ideas in rough pencilled layouts with action and dialogue in situ, while Dennis continued to execute finished drawings for the script. Ben Witham moved on to write gags for the popular single frame cartoon Useless Eustace.

The Collins - Dodd combination was successful and the Perishers moved into the national editions in October 1959. The partnership lasted until Dennis retired in 1983. Maurice then took on the complete execution of the strip, from idea to finished artwork, until 1992, when he once again went into partnership, this time with Bill Mevin who now executes the finished work.
Dennis Collins art
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Mike Collins biography

Mike Collins biography

Mike Collins ((born 1961; West Bromwich, UK)
Mike Collins is a Wales-based comic book artist and writer and has been working in comics since the mid-1980s.

Born in West Bromwich in 1961, he moved to Wales in 1985 after an abortive stab at a career in the Law, in London. Despite his training as a barrister, Mike decided that he enjoyed the fiction-based life of comic book characters over the fiction-based statements of clients. He is married to Karen Collins and father of 3 daughters, Bethan, Rebecca and Rhiannon and is currently placed in Cardiff. He is the Grandson of Military Medal winning World War One soldier Thomas Guinane.

UK comics --- in the mid to late 1980s, Mike wrote and drew strips for Marvel Comics United Kingdom division, amongst them; Spider-Man, Transformers, Doctor Who, and Zoids. He also worked on the celebrated UK weekly comic 2000 AD drawing Judge Dredd, Sláine and Rogue Trooper, as well as writing various Future Shocks.

US comics --- Mike was hired in the 'Second Wave' of British artists lured to the United States in the late 1980s. Through the 1990s, he worked primarily for DC Comics on their key titles - Batman, Superman, Flash, Teen Titans, Wonder Woman and the Justice League.

He also drew a series of licenced comics for the company, using various TSR, Inc./Dungeons and Dragons characters. A brief spell at Marvel saw Mike working on Uncanny X-Men (Key issue: #266, the first appearance of Gambit). He was back to DC though, to write and draw Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, a revival of a 1960s Charlton Comics character.

Mike's primarily known for his work on TV and movie tie-in comics- for both Marvel and DC he has written and drawn Star Trek comics. In the late 1990s, he drew a Babylon 5 mini-series, "In Valen's Name", written by series creator J. Michael Straczynski and Peter David. A departure from most tie-in productions in that it actually serves as series 'canon' being based on an unused 3rd season script.

Mike is the artist (and sometime writer) on Panini Comics 'Doctor Who Magazine', Mike also wrote and drew a strip for the late, lamented Weekly World News, as well as co-creating the series American Gothic with Ian Edginton for 2000 AD.

Outside of comics Mike paints covers to a monthly series of downloadable Star Trek novels - the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, and works as a storyboard artist for both animation and live-action TV and movies.

Major work recently published is a 135 page adaptation of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' for Classical Comics. His regular 'Doctor Who' collaborators, inker David Roach and colour artist James Offredi, worked with him on the book, with the script writer being Sean Michael Wilson. The graphic novel was chosen as one of the Top Ten Graphic Novels of the year by the Sunday Times and has gone on to sell well across by the UK and US, with several foreign language versions also coming out.

For BBC Books he has drawn The Only Good Dalek- the first graphic novel from the publisher, written by long time Doctor Who author Justin Richards, and a sequel/prequel to the TV episode Victory of the Daleks, The Dalek Project.

He wrote and designed the first ever Welsh language graphic novel - Mabinogi in association with Cartwyn Cymru in 2001, and is the first UK artist to produce a series of graphic novels for Norway with Gunnar Staalesen, featuring his celebrated private eye, Varg Veum. He works as a key illustrator for Welsh language school books using the comic strip medium, aimed at reluctant learners.

He supplied art for a number of cards in the Harry Potter Trading Card Game.

Mike is the lead singer of Cardiff based Tom Waits tribute band 'Tom Waits for no man'. Named by his daughter Rebecca, who is also a founding member alongside Viv Lock on guitar and Terry Williams on bass. They are a large contribution toward the lively and fast-growing Whitchurch music scene.

As well as comics work, Mike is a storyboard artist for Calon and Dinamo on children's TV shows, primarily the BAFTA winning Hana's Helpline, Igam Ogam and Cwm Teg. He has also worked on short live action movies, one of which -Day At The Beach- was BAFTA nominated in 2004. He also storyboarded on the Warhammer 40,000 CG film UltraMarines, and for Doctor Who Confidential.
Source: Wikipedia
Mike Collins art
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Joe Colquhoun biography

Joe Colquhoun biography

Joe Colquhoun (1926 - 1987; Middlesex, UK)
Joe Colquhoun was a British comics artist best known for his work on Charley's War in Battle Picture Weekly. He was also the first artist to draw Roy of the Rovers.

Born in Harrow, Middlesex, Joe Colquhoun served in the Royal Navy during World War II, and won a place at Kingston upon Thames School of Art on his return. His career in comics began in 1951 in Jungle Trails, and he went on to work for IPC Media on titles such as Lion, and later Tiger, where he drew Roy of the Rovers for six years, from 1954 to 1960, despite having no interest in football.

In the early 1970s he worked mainly for IPC's humour comics Buster and Cor!!, until Battle Picture Weekly came along in 1976. For Battle he drew Soldier Sharp: the Rat of the Rifles and Johnny Red before editor Dave Hunt assigned him to work on Pat Mills' First World War story Charley's War in 1978.

After Charley's War finished in 1986 Colquhoun drew for Mask until his death in 1987. Source: Wikipedia
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Neville Colvin biography

Neville Colvin biography

Neville Maurice Colvin (17 December 1918 - 1991; New Zealand & UK)
Neville Colvin was born in New Zealand and began his career as a cartoonist in 1936 working for the Wellington Evening Post doing political and sports cartoons for a decade.

In 1946, facing political censorship, he left New Zealand and moved his family to London where he continued his cartooning career, primarily drawing sports and political cartoons for the News Chronicle, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Evening Standard until the mid-1950s.

He then decided to expand his scope to serialized newspaper strips drawing Ginger & Co. for Swift Weekly from 1960-62.

Colvin briefly drew the James Bond strip 1976=97, providing an ending to the story 'Ape of Diamonds' for syndication whilst author Jim Lawrence and artist Yaroslav Horak concentrated on a new series
for the Sunday Express. Colvin drew episodes 3384-3437 for the Daily Express, the strip ending on 22 January 1977.

Between 1977 and 1980, Colvin worked on a number of projects, including a Sunday strip featuring Modesty Blaise written by Peter O'Donnell, but the idea was dropped after Colvin had drawn seven episodes. Colvin subsequently replaced Romero on the daily strip on 27 May 1980 with the story 'Dossier on Pluto'.

He went on to draw 1,902 episodes - only slightly fewer than Jim Holdaway, the first artist on the Modesty Blaise strip- and his last strip appearing on 15 September 1986. One story, 'The Scarlet Maiden' (published in 1982), was the completion of the Sunday strip tryout from some years earlier.

Neville Colvin died in Camden, London, in 1991.
Source: Bear Alley & http://nevillecolvin.com/
Neville Colvin art

We also have original signed Modesty Blaise newspaper strips by JIM HOLDAWAY, JOHN M BURNS, PATRICK WRIGHT and ROMERO or click for all Modesty Blaise original ART in stock and not forgetting our highly collectable BOOKS ABOUT MODESTY including our latest The Art of Modesty Blaise (Limited Edition catalogue)
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Guy Colwell biography

Guy Colwell biography

Guy Colwell (born 28 March 1945; Oakland, California, USA)
Guy Colwell (born March 28, 1945, in Oakland, California) is an American full-time Figurative Social Surrealist painter and occasional underground cartoonist. Although not African-American himself, Colwell's comics often portray blacks in strong roles in stories of life on the streets. His paintings reflect on the human condition, economic inequality, injustice and alienation from the natural world.

Colwell studied art at the California College of Arts and Crafts. After completing two years there, he dropped out to travel and get some life and work experience. When he had worked an almost two-year stint as a sculptor for Mattel and was preparing his return to college, he was arrested for draft refusal and sentenced to two years in Federal Prison at Mcneil Island, Washington state. His experiences there and the period after his release were the genesis of his underground comix series Inner City Romance, begun in 1972. He was financially unable to continue art school as planned but deeply committed to painting as his life work, so was mainly self-taught thereafter. During the turbulent 1970s scene in San Francisco, Colwell worked as an illustrator for the underground paper Good Times and joined the commune that produced this weekly.

Colwell left the Good Times after the paper ceased publication and concentrated on doing paintings and a few comic books until the mid 80's. After this creative period marred by drug abuse, Colwell worked for Rip Off Press as a colorist, also contributing stories, artwork or production to many underground comic book titles and anthologies. He authored a second comic book series under the title "Doll" and completely stopped using drugs and alcohol while working at Rip Off Press.

In 1986, upon hearing of a cross-country peace march (The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament), Colwell took an 18-month leave of absence from Rip Off Press to join what was touted by original Great Peace March organizer David Mixner as a major event in American history. While on the GPM, Colwell helped draw route maps for the marchers as well as creating art depicting marchers in their everyday lives. His route maps and drawings are part of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

On returning to Rip Off Press, by 1988 relocated to Auburn California, Colwell became strongly influenced by the great natural beauty and wildlife of the Sierra Mountains. Nature and animal subject matter would thereafter become much more prominent in his work and inspired a deeper exploration of surrealism. Travels throughout Europe on foot with a backpack and several trips to Africa have deepened this aspect of the pictures he produces. His artwork today is internationally recognized for powerful social commentary. The sometimes uncomfortable images he renders with sharp clarity reminiscent of Renaissance masterworks have received praise from art critics and have been sought after by collectors who are looking for something more than pleasant wall decorations.

Colwell currently is married and lives in Berkeley, California, where he devotes himself to creating personal and political art. His 2004 painting, The Abuse, is his depiction of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. This being Colwell's most controversial work, Lori Haigh, the owner of the San Francisco gallery where it was exhibited received death threats and was physically attacked. Her gallery also received damage from unknown persons, causing it to close permanently.

Examples of Colwell's original works can be seen at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California and the Pritikin Museum in San Francisco which features his magnum opus "Litter Beach". In September 2012, his work was featured in Juxtapoz magazine.
Source: Wikipedia
Guy Colwell art
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Tim Conrad biography

Tim Conrad biography

Tim Conrad (born 1951; USA)
Tim Conrad began his career in the mid-1970s, inking on Marvel titles like 'Kull' and 'Bran Mak Morn', and pencilling 'Conan' and stories for 'Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction'. He drew for Marvel's Epic Illustrated in the 1980s, doing painted comics like 'Almuric' and 'Toadswart'. Both appeared as graphic album later on.

He also worked for Pacific Comics, writing and drawing on titles like 'Alien Worlds', 'Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers', 'Thrillogy' and 'Twisted Tales'. In the 1990s, he did work for Fantagor Press ('Horror in the Dark'), First Publishing ('Hunchback of the Notre Dame') and Eclipse Enterprises ('Down, Satan', 'Tapping the Vein').
Source: Lambiek
Tim Conrad art
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Noel Cook biography

Noel Cook biography

Noel Cook (1896 - 1981)
Noel Cook was born in New Zealand, but he moved to Australia. In 1924 his comic strip 'Roving Peter' appeared in the Sunday Times. In 1933, his 'Bobby and Betty', a text strip with the text underneath the pictures, was published in the Daily Telegraph. Cook worked for publisher K. G. Murray, where he produced many science fiction titles such as 'Pirate Planet', 'Peril Planet' and 'The Blue Ray'.

Later, he was employed by Offset Publishing, where he did 'Dick Dean - Star Reporter', 'Bobby and Betty', 'Peter' and 'Kokey Koala'. The latter was later published by Elmsdale Publications as 'Kokey Koala and his Magic Button', and became very popular with children. Noel Cook became staff artist with associated Newspapers in Sydney. He left overseas in 1950, and became art director of children's magazines by Fleetway Publications in London.
Source: Lambiek
Noel Cook art
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John Cooper biography

John Cooper biography

John Cooper (born 1942; UK)
John Cooper is an artist of UK action and war comics and worked for nearly all the British comics publications since the 1970s.

His credits vary from Look-in ('Doctor at Sea'), Disney to SHOOT! and 2000 AD. He is best known for the 'Johnny Red' from Battle magazine.

He was the artist for the first commissioned 'Judge Dredd' story, which was published much later due to its extreme violence. John Cooper is also active as an illustrator.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia & The Illustration Art Gallery
John Cooper art
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Harold Copping biography

Harold Copping biography

Harold Copping (25 August 1863 - 1 July 1932; UK)
Harold Copping was a British artist, born in Camden Town on 25 August 1863, the second son of Edward Copping (a journalist) and Rose Heathilla (nee Prout), the daughter of J. S. Prout, the water-colour artist. His brother, Arthur E. Copping, became a noted author, journalist and traveller.

Copping grew up in St. Pancras. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools and won a Landseer Scholarship to study in Paris. He was a successful painter and illustrator, living in Croydon and Hornsey during the early years of his career.

Copping was a notable illustrator of Biblical scenes and in order to achieve some authenticity in his work, notably an illustrated edition of The Bible published in 1910, he travelled to Palestine and Egypt. This version was a best-seller and led to many more commissions for Copping.

A trip to Canada inspired the collection of watercolour sketches Canadian Pictures. Amongst the many books he illustrated were The Gospel of the Old Testament, Scenes in the Life of Our Lord, Scripture Picture Books, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Tales from Shakespeare, Character Sketches from Dickens, Longfellow and others.

Copping was married to Violet Amy Prout in 1888, and had children Ernest Noel (1889- ), Romney (1891-1910) and Violet (1891-1892). Following his wife’s death in 1894 (aged only 29), Copping was married a second time, to Edith Louise Mothersill, in 1897 and had children Joyce (1901-1934) and John Clarence (1914-1977).

Copping lived for many years at The Studio, Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, Kent. He died at home on 1 July 1932, aged 68, after some years of ill-health and a Memorial Fund was set up in his name to provide for his widow and children, raising over £500. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Richard Corben biography

Richard Corben biography

Richard Corben (born 1940)
Born in Missouri, Richard is best known for his illustrated fantasies in Heavy Metal (Métal Hurlant) magazine, and he is the celebrated author and artist behind the popular graphic novel Den series and the creator of Jeremy Brood. In a varied career, Corben's work also includes the cover of Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell album.

See Warren US Artists illustrators  Special Edition for a Richard Corben feature article.

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Philip Corke biography

Philip Corke biography

Philip Corke
British artist who worked on the Trigan Empire for a year in 1974-75. Previously he had illustrated a number of books for North Cheap publisher’s Young World Productions. Following this brief sojourn into comics, he returned to illustrating books and posters, mostly historical subjects, also penning titles for the Longman Butterfly Books series.

See The Art of The Trigan Empire for more about Philip Corke.

Enjoy our ORIGINAL TRIGAN EMPIRE ART by Don Lawrence, Ron Embleton, Oliver Frey, Philip Corke, Miguel Quesada and Gerry Wood.

Philip Corke art
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Graham Coton biography

Graham Coton biography

Graham Coton (1 December 1926 - 14 October 2003; London, UK)
Graham Coton's artistic metier was the Second World War. Born in Woolwich, London, he was largely self-taught and attended the Goldsmith's College of Art in London, which he says was a "disaster", and his education was interrupted during World War II. He served in the R.A.F. from 1944 and in 1946/1947 he was working there as a Physical Instructor.

He began freelancing for Amalgamated Press in the early 1950s. Although he started as a strip artist by drawing Kit Carson for Cowboy Comics Library and later drew four short strips for the Thriller Comics Library (an adventure of Gulliver for no. 5, a Dick Turpin strip for no. 8 and two Three Musketeer strips in issues 12 and 26), it was not until he started drawing Captain Phantom, the World War II Master Spy, for Knockout in 1953, that he really came into his own. Some of these strips were later reprinted in Thriller Comics Library with the lead character renamed Spy 13.

Coton was very much a new force in comics when he first appeared, bringing with him a violent, ultra-tough approach. Coton also created the strip Space Family Rollinson in the early 1950s which was reprinted in France, Germany, Italy and Portugal.

Coton's two short Musketeer strips are interesting mainly for their story lines- particularly the reunion with Aramis in Musketeers Ride Again (no. 26) - for the artwork is not really in tune with the swashbuckling genre.

Coton will be mainly remembered as far as comic art is concerned for his car racing strips in Tiger, his superb war strips in Top Spot and, most of all, for his dynamic covers for the War and Battle Picture Libraries.

Besides his work for the comics, Coton did artwork for numerous magazines, books, Royal Doulton commemorative plates, Readers Digest and book jackets, among other things. He also did commissions that were numerous and varied, from portraits, to animals, pets, landscapes, seascapes, trains, planes and automobiles. He died on 14th October 2003 at his home in East Sussex.   David Ashford and Norman Wright & The Illustration Art Gallery

See illustrators issue 6 for a Graham Coton feature article and the illustrators  Pirates! Special Edition.

Graham Coton art
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Ernest Crofts biography

Ernest Crofts biography

Ernest Crofts (1847 - 1911)
A very talented mid-Victorian painter and illustrator.
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Roy Cross biography

Roy Cross biography

Roy Cross (born 23 April 1924; London, UK)
Roy Cross RSMA, GAvA is a British artist and aviation journalist best known as the painter of artwork used on Airfix kits from the 1960s.

Born in Southwark, London and mainly self-taught, he learned his craft at the Camberwell School of Art and as a technical illustrator for training manuals for Fairey Aviation during the second world war. He progressed from there to producing advertising art for the aircraft industry and other companies. He illustrated for The Aeroplane and the Eagle comic.

In 1952 he joined the Society of Aviation Artists, but it is for his work at Airfix which he is best known. He started in 1964 with box art for Airfix's Do 217 and his last work for them was the box art for the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen (1974). He went into marine paintings.

Roy Cross's interest in marine art began when accompanying his father on walks around the London docks, sketching the boats he had seen when returning home. Aged 15, he began to work for a Thameside shipping office. Here he saw Thames barges and the last of the sailing coasters, and thus in the 1930s was born his lasting love of sea and ships.

After training at the St. Martins School of Fine Art, Roy Cross's artistic career became established as an illustrator in numerous fields for journals and books. During the Second World War he illustrated air force maintenance books and pilots’ manuals, as well as publications such as 'Aeroplane' and 'Aviation Week'. His detailed drawing of the Gloster Meteor, Britain's first service jet fighter, took him eight weeks to create, was a yard in length, and became acknowledged as a masterpiece of this specialised branch of technical illustration. In addition he exhibited his work at the Society of Aviation Artists, of which he is also a member.

After the war, Roy Cross produced illustrations for the tops of the Airfix model boxes which are remembered by generations of children today. Sadly, much of his Airfix artwork was destroyed but the lids of many millions of boxes remain.

However, as an illustrator, he felt restricted by the limiting factors of commercial art and longed for greater freedom of expression.

He decided thus to concentrate primarily upon marine painting and he was immediately successful. Elected a Member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists in 1977, his art covers clipper ships to Mississippi steamboats, warships to commercial steam vessels and Royal Yachts to Americas Cup contenders. The combination of research, the practical application of this knowledge and the love of his subjects has its rewards, as Roy Cross is considered by many to be the one of the most accurate painters of historical marine vessels of all time.

In 2010 Roy was invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace in view of his "outstanding services to art..."

Roy Cross's paintings are in the collections of: The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, The Constitution Museum Foundation, Boston; The Peabody Museum, Salem MA, and in private collections worldwide.

He was interviewed by James May in James May's Top Toys, discussing the changing tastes in box art and the airbrushing out of bombs and explosions from his pictures.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Roy Cross art
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George Cruikshank biography

George Cruikshank biography

George Cruikshank (27 September 1792 - 1 February 1878; London, England, UK)
George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.

Cruikshank was born in London. His father, Isaac Cruikshank, was one of the leading caricaturists of the late 1790s and Cruikshank started his career as his father's apprentice and assistant. His older brother, Isaac Robert, also followed in the family business as a caricaturist and illustrator.

Cruikshank's early work was caricature; but in 1823, at the age of 31, he started to focus on book illustration. He illustrated the first, 1823 English translation (by Edgar Taylor and David Jardine) of Grimms' Fairy Tales, published in two volumes as German Popular Stories.

On 16 October 1827, he married Mary Ann Walker (1807–1849). Two years after her death, on 7 March 1851, he married Eliza Widdison. The two lived at 263 Hampstead Road, North London.

Upon his death, it was discovered that Cruikshank had fathered 11 illegitimate children with a mistress named Adelaide Attree, his former servant, who lived close to where he lived with his wife. Adelaide was ostensibly married and had taken the married surname 'Archibold'.

Cruikshank's early career was renowned for his social caricatures of English life for popular publications.

He achieved early success collaborating with William Hone in his political satire The Political House That Jack Built (1819).

In the same year he produced the remarkable anti-abolitionist New Union Club. It satirised a dinner party organised by abolitionists with black guests.

His first major work was Pierce Egan's Life in London (1821) in which the characters Tom and Jerry, two 'men about town' visit various London locations and taverns to enjoy themselves and carouse. This was followed by The Comic Almanack (1835–1853) and Omnibus (1842).

He gained notoriety with his political prints that attacked the royal family and leading politicians. In 1820 he received a royal bribe of £100 for a pledge "not to caricature His Majesty" (George IV of the United Kingdom) "in any immoral situation". His work included a personification of England named John Bull who was developed from about 1790 in conjunction with other British satirical artists such as James Gillray, and Thomas Rowlandson.

Cruikshank replaced one of his major influences, James Gillray, as England's most popular satirist. For a generation he delineated Tories, Whigs and Radicals impartially. Satirical material came to him from every public event – wars abroad, the enemies of Britain (he was highly patriotic), the frolic, among other qualities, such as the weird and terrible, in which he excelled. His hostility to enemies of Britain and a crude racism is evident in his illustrations commissioned to accompany William Maxwell's History of the Irish rebellion in 1798 (1845) where his lurid depictions of incidents in the rebellion were characterised by the simian-like portrayal of Irish rebels. Among the other racially engaged works of Cruikshank were caricatures about the "legal barbarities" of the Chinese, the subject given by his friend, Dr. W. Gourley, a participant in the ideological battle around the Arrow War, 1856–60.

For Charles Dickens, Cruikshank illustrated Sketches by Boz (1836), The Mudfog Papers (1837–38) and Oliver Twist (1838). He also illustrated Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi (1838), which Dickens edited under his regular nom de plume, "Boz". Cruikshank even acted in Dickens's amateur theatrical company.

On 30 December 1871 Cruikshank published a letter in The Times which claimed credit for much of the plot of Oliver Twist. The letter launched a fierce controversy around who created the work. Cruikshank was not the first Dickens illustrator to make such a claim. Robert Seymour who illustrated the Pickwick Papers suggested that the idea for that novel was originally his; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any specific input.

The friendship between Cruikshank and Dickens soured further when Cruikshank became a fanatical teetotaler in opposition to Dickens's views of moderation.

In Somerset Maugham's short story "Miss King", Cruickshank's influence is referenced:
" She wore a large white cotton nightcap (on entering Ashenden has noticed the brown wig on a stand on the dressing-table) tied under the chin and a white voluminous nightdress that came high up in the neck. Nightcap and nightdress belonged to a past age and reminded you of Cruickshank's illustrations to the novels of Charles Dickens. "

In the late 1840s, Cruikshank's focus shifted from book illustration to an emphasis on alcohol temperance and anti-smoking. Formerly a heavy drinker, he now supported, lectured to, and supplied illustrations for the National Temperance Society and the Total Abstinence Society, among others. The best known of these are The Bottle, 8 plates (1847), with its sequel, The Drunkard's Children, 8 plates (1848), with the ambitious work, The Worship of Bacchus, published by subscription after the artist's oil painting, now in the Tate Gallery, London. For his efforts he was made vice president of the National Temperance League in 1856.

When the invasion scare of 1859 led to the creation of the Volunteer Movement, Cruikshank was one of those who organised Rifle Volunteer Corps (RVCs). At first his unit was the 24th Surrey RVC, which recruited from working men who were total abstainers and was named 'Havelock's Own' in honour of Major-General Sir Henry Havelock, a hero of the Indian Mutiny and pioneer of Temperance Clubs in the army. However, Cruikshank received little encouragement from the Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey, and was rebuked for crossing into Kent to recruit. Disgusted, he disbanded his unit in 1862 and began anew in Middlesex, organising the 48th Middlesex RVC (Havelock's Temperance Volunteers). The unit ran into financial difficulties and when Cruikshank was forced to retire due to age, he was replaced as commanding officer by Lt-Col Cuthbert Vickers, a wealthy shipowner. The 48th Middlesex merged with the 2nd City of London RVC, also a working-men's unit, composed mainly of printers from the Fleet Street area, and the combined unit had a long history as the City of London Rifles.

After he developed palsy in later life, Cruikshank's health and work began to decline in quality. He died on 1 February 1878 and was originally buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. In November 1878 his remains were exhumed and reburied in St. Paul's Cathedral. Punch magazine, which presumably did not know of his large illegitimate family, said in its obituary: "There never was a purer, simpler, more straightforward or altogether more blameless man. His nature had something childlike in its transparency."

In his lifetime he created nearly 10,000 prints, illustrations, and plates. There are collections of his works in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. A Royal Society of Arts blue plaque commemorates Cruikshank at 293 Hampstead Road in Camden Town.
Source: wikipedia
George Cruikshank art
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Robert Crumb biography

Robert Crumb biography

Robert Dennis Crumb (born 30 August 1943; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)
Robert Crumb is an American cartoonist and musician. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture. His work has attracted controversy, especially for his depiction of women and non-white races.

Crumb first rose to prominence after the 1968 debut of Zap Comix, which was the first successful publication of the underground comix era. Countercultural characters such as Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, and the images from his "Keep on Truckin'" strip, were among his popular creations. Following the decline of the underground, he moved towards biographical and autobiographical subjects, while refining his drawing style, a heavily crosshatched pen-and-ink style inspired by late 19th- and early 20th-century cartooning. Much of his work appeared in a magazine he founded, Weirdo (1981–1993), which was one of the most prominent publications of the alternative comics era. He is married to cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb, with whom he has frequently collaborated.

In 1991, Crumb was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Robert Crumb was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a Catholic household of English and Scottish ancestry, and is a descendant on his mother's side of former U.S. president Andrew Jackson. His father, Charles V. Crumb, authored the book Training People Effectively, and was a Combat Illustrator for 20 years in the United States Marine Corps. His mother, Beatrice, was a housewife who reportedly abused diet pills and amphetamines. Charles and Beatrice's marriage was unhappy and the children were frequent witnesses to their parents' arguments. The couple had four other children: sons Charles Junior and Maxon, both of whom suffered from mental illness; and daughters Sandra and Carol.

Inspired by the works of Walt Kelly, Fleischer Brothers animation, and others, Crumb and his brothers drew their own comics and sold them door to door. At fifteen, Crumb became obsessed with collecting jazz and blues records from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Crumb's first job, in 1962, was drawing novelty greeting cards for American Greetings in Cleveland, Ohio. There he met a group of young bohemians such as Buzzy Linhart, Liz Johnston, and Harvey Pekar. Johnston introduced him to his future wife, Dana Morgan, whom he married in 1964. Dissatisfied with greeting card work, he tried to sell cartoons to comic book companies, who showed little interest in his work. In 1965, cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman printed some of Crumb's work in the humor magazine he edited, Help!. Crumb moved to New York, intending to work with Kurtzman, but Help! ceased publication shortly after. Crumb briefly illustrated bubblegum cards for Topps before returning to Cleveland and American Greetings.

In 1966, Crumb and Dana took LSD, after which Crumb increasingly found his job at American Greetings difficult to bear. In 1967, encouraged by the reaction to some drawings he had published in underground newspapers, including Philadelphia's Yarrowstalks, he and two friends left for San Francisco, the center of the counterculture movement; he called Dana to follow him in 1968. His Zap Comix #1 appeared early that year, followed by #2 and #0; later issues also featured work by Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Robert Williams, and S. Clay Wilson. The countercultural work was filled with gratuitous sex, drugs, and violence; it sold well, and marked the beginning of the underground comix era.

Crumb was a prolific cartoonist in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He produced much of his best-known work then, including his Keep on Truckin' strip, and strips featuring characters such as the bohemian Fritz the Cat, spiritual guru Mr. Natural, and oversexed African-American stereotype Angelfood McSpade. In 1978, he divorced Dana and married cartoonist Aline Kominsky, with whom Crumb has frequently collaborated.

Crumb and family moved to a small village near Sauve in southern France in 1991. In 2009, after four years of work, Crumb produced The Book of Genesis an unabridged illustrated graphic novel version of the biblical Book of Genesis. Source: Wikipedia
Robert Crumb art
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Cyrus Cuneo biography

Cyrus Cuneo biography

Cyrus Cuneo
Cyrus Cuneo was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Cyrus Cuneo art
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Cynicus (Martin Anderson) biography

Cynicus (Martin Anderson) biography

Cynicus (Martin Anderson) (1854 - 1932; Tayport, Fife, Scotland)
Victorian artist Martin Anderson (who we know as Cynicus) first met success as a pioneering satirical cartoonist and then later as a comic postcard illustrator. In 1902 Anderson founded his postcard publishing business and from humble beginnings in Tayport became a star of the London Art Scene.

While the Cynicus Publishing Company prospered and became a significant local employer the success was short lived and, by 1911, he faced financial ruin.

Anderson and his sister subsequently lived in poverty in the mansion home, (known locally as "Cynicus Castle") that he had built on the proceeds of his postcard business. He died in 1932 and was buried in an unmarked grave, his very grand but neglected home being demolished seven years later. A sad end.
Source: About Postcards
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Roy Dami biography

Roy Dami biography

Rinaldo 'Roy' Dami (born 1923; Cismon del Grappa, Italy - 14 February 1979)
An accomplished artist, illustrator and writer in his own right, Roy Dami co-founded the art agency named after him and his brother Piero, Studio Creazione Dami, and the publishing house Dami International.

Studio Dami was an important player in British comics, providing much of the artwork for the many war comics (and Western comics) published after the war. As an agent, Dami introduced numerous talented Italian (and later, Argentinian) artists to the post-war British comics scene.


Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Roy Dami: British War Comics illustrators  Special
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Santo D'Amico biography

Santo D'Amico biography

Santo D'Amico (11 December 1927 - 25 October 1995; Italy)
The Italian artist Santo D'Amico worked for a variety of Italian and French publishers during the 1960s and 1970s.

After studying at the Liceo Artistico, Santo D'Amico moved on to study Architecture. While still studying, he presented his drawings and comics to several publishers. He had his first publications in Il Giornalino, doing lots of illustrations and "cinema novels" like 'Sifrid', 'Capitani Coraggiosi' and 'Guglielmo Tell'. While also cooperating with Paoline publishers, he began a collaboration with Il Vittorioso, for which he illustrated series like 'Na'Giamba', 'Speron d'Oro', 'Squadriglia Acrobatica' and 'Jolly', the latter in cooperation with Roberto Diso. Other work included Swiss Family Robinson which appeared in the UK comic Princess Tina in the early 1970s.

For the French market, he worked mostly with Diso on so-called "petits formats". With Diso, he created 'Dan Panther' (1964-69), as well as 'Atoman contro Killer' (1965-66). He also worked on series like 'Perceval' (1959-60) and 'Lancelot' (also in cooperation with Diso, scripts by Jean Ollivier, 1965-87). D'Amico has illustrated 40 episodes of 'The Phantom'. He spent the final years of his career working for Il Giornalino.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia & Illustration Art Gallery
Santo D'Amico art
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Gino D'Antonio biography

Gino D'Antonio biography

Luigi (Gino) D'Antonio (16 March 1927 - 2006; Milan, Italy)
Gino D'Antonio came to the UK to work for Studio Dami on British comics. He illustrated "No Rest for Biggles" in Junior Mirror and "Biggles Takes Charge" in Express Weekly. His big break came when he drew Buffalo Bill in the Comet. He went on to War Picture Library where his first strip was Red Devils in 1957. He also drew Paddy Payne in Lion and strips in Valiant.

His work for Tell Me Why and Look and Learn included classic novel adaptations such as Quo Vadis by Henry Sienkiewicz, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Luigi (Gino) D' Antonio, writer and artist, was born in Milan on March 16, 1927. He began his career almost by chance. In the mid-forties, he was the neighbour of Mario Oriani (a writer on Corriere dei Ragazzi) who helped him to start his career as author and artist. D'Antonio was always passionate about drawing, and began his career on Jess Dakota, (Joe Dakota in France) at Della Casa publishers, in a style obviously inspired by Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon.

In 1950, he became acquainted with Mario Leone and drew the series Angeli della strada (based on Leone's story). From 1951 to 1957, he collaborated on the magazine Il Vittorioso. In 1952 he began his most famous series, Pecos Bill, a western series created by Guido Martina and Raffaele Paparella. In 1954, he drew many illustrations for the weekly magazine Domenica del Corriere and some episodes of the second series of El Kid, another western, based on stories by Gianluigi Bonelli (published by Audace (the first incarnation of Sergio Bonelli Editore)). In 1955-56, still for Audacity and with Bonelli, he drew some episodes of I Tre Bill and also contributed to Western, a review published by Dardo.

In 1955 he became acquainted with Rinaldo Dami who headed his own studio with a team of artists who worked for the English market. Within the Dami studio, D'Antonio illustrated dozens of stories for Junior Mirror, Junior Express, Top Spot, Thriller Picture Library (Battler Britton Target Berlin - 1958), Cowboy Picture Library (Gun Rule - 1962), Fleetway Super Library and War Picture Library, and drew covers for Eagle and Boys World. He also drew adaptations for traditional literature (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Moby Dick, Quo Vadis, Tale of Two Cities, The Odyssey) for Tell me Why and World of Wonder. These latter being colour illustrations which he had not attempted before.

In 1966 he created Il storia del West (History of the West) for Italian publisher Bonelli (which was still called Araldo at this time).

In 1970, he started his collaboration with Il Giornalino working with texts by Alberto Ongaro, and drew episodes of Jim Lacy, the short history of Il Soldato Casciella, created the character of Susanna (for which he wrote all the episodes and collaborated on the drawings with his friends Renato Polese and Ferdinando Tacconi). His final project for this year was to finish the adaptation of Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island started by Franco Caprioli, a project that was halted due to the death of the author.

In 1971 Storia del West won the Three Days prize, and in 1974 the ANAF prize, at the International Show of Comics.

In 1976, he both wrote and drew Uomo dello Zululand, the second volume of the collection of hard-bound albums A Uomo un' will avventura, (A Man, an Adventure, which appeared in the French Mon Journal in a larger size) published by Cepim (another incarnation of Bonelli). In 1977 and 1978, he received the ANAF prize for "Best Italian Story Writer".

D'Antonio also wrote and drew all the episodes of the war series Il mercenario. In 1980, at the International Exhibition of Comics at Rapallo, he received the prize for the Best Story Writer. In 1983, he drew, in alternation with Tacconi, the covers of Full, the first Italian experimental comic (quickly abandoned) by Bonelli.

In 1984-85, D'Antonio's new series, a western entitled Bella & Bronco, launched (it appeared in El Bravo in France). The episodes were only 64 pages in length, but in a format slightly larger than traditional Bonelli size. The originality for this series stemmed from the fact that the heroes were women, which is rather rare as regards westerns. In 1986, D'Antonio turned his hand to another popular Italian series Orient Express, where he created the character Mac lo Straniero with drawings by Tacconi. He drew three episodes in this series: Il lungo viaggio, Verdi Campi di Fiandra and Ultimo atto. In 1986 he created Uomini senza Gloria (Men without Glory), a large historical fresco on the Second World War. In 1987, he became comics editor of the newspaper Il Giornalino, a position which he relinquished in 1992.

In 1989, he wrote a script for Nick Raider, the new Bonelli character created by Claudio Nizzi. Since then he has written many episodes for this series.

In 1996, at the International Show of Comics at Lucca, Italy, he received the title of "Master of the Comics" for his life time's achievement in comics. In 1999, he worked on the new Bonelli series: Julia as a writer with illustrations by Giancarlo Berardi. Gino D'Antonio died in 2006.

Mike McMahon, the 2000AD artist of Judge Dredd, said of him "The only artist whose work I copied and traced on a regular basis when I was growing up".
Source: DanDare.info and Illustration Art Gallery

See illustrators British War Comics Special for a Gino D'Antonio feature article.

Gino D'Antonio art
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Benoit Dartigues biography

Benoit Dartigues biography

Benoît Dartigues; Sabres, Landes, France
In the 1980s, after studying architecture, Benoît (Benedict) Dartigues, alias BuD, launched into Comics. He began in To Follow and Heavy Metal but soon moved into press illustration and (using watercolours) advertising. In 2000, following an accident, he settled in Aquitaine and created a small publishing house but left after a few years to return to illustration. In 2010, under the pseudonym BuD he started the erotic series "Girls of Joy, Woman of Dreams". Then he turned towards illustration for Youth magazines (Bayard, Fleurus, Hachette, …).

He works in digital painting, i.e. he designs, draws and paints his pictures using a computer. The works are then Giclee printed as limited editions on canvas or art paper. This process is controlled by EPSON France, who guarantee the authenticity and provenance of each work by the artist.

In 2009, after the passage of Hurricane Klaus and the devastation of a nearby local forest had left vast empty spaces, he took up his brushes and discovered a new form of expression for him, acrylic:

"I've always been fascinated by the sky and the clouds, whether on sea or in the air. Bad photographer, I try since childhood to draw and paint what I see and feel. Today I seek in my work to capture the light and the materials around me and to compose a palette with which I build my paintings. One can then see a hyperrealistic image or even an abstract composition. But the important thing is that it exudes emotion that I want to translate."
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Geof Darrow biography

Geof Darrow biography

Geofrey Darrow (born 21 October 1955; Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA)
Geofrey "Geof" Darrow is an American comic book artist, best known for his work on comic series Shaolin Cowboy, Hard Boiled and The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, which was adapted into an animated television series of the same name, as well as his contributions to The Matrix series of films. Darrow's approach to comics and art has been cited as an influence by a multitude of artists including Peter Chung, Frank Quitely, Seth Fisher, Eric Powell, Frank Cho, Juan José Ryp, James Stokoe, Chris Burnham, Aaron Kuder, Nick Pitarra.

Geofrey Darrow was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He attended a Catholic school for thirteen years. Darrow read comics, mostly DC, from an early age, but he only decided to pursue a career in illustartion after first seeing Jack Kirby's work in Fantastic Four Annual #3. As a teenager, he encountered Maurice Horn's The World Encyclopedia of Comics, which contained excerpts from Lieutenant Blueberry illustrated by Jean Giraud, whose art further affected his outlook on comics. Darrow ordered all available Blueberry volumes, gradually moving to other European works, such as Jean-Claude Mézières' Valérian and Greg and Hermann's Bernard Prince.

After graduating from Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, Darrow worked as a freelance illustrator for various advertising agencies. In the late 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles and joined Hanna-Barbera, where he worked as a character designer on a number of cartoon series, most notably Super Friends in its various incarnations. During his time in animation, Darrow became acquainted with such comic and animation industry figures as Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Tex Avery and Dave Stevens. In 1982, Darrow met French comic book creator and his artistic idol Mœbius, who was staying in Los Angeles while working on Tron for Disney. Upon learning that Darrow is an artist interested in creating comics, Mœbius arranged a meeting for him with Les Humanoïdes Associés, the publisher of French science fiction anthology Métal Hurlant, and offered to collaborate on some sort of project. Eventually, Darrow moved to France to be able to work with Giraud more closely as the two were planning to produce a comic strip written by Mœbius and drawn by Darrow, but Giraud left France for Tahiti two weeks after Darrow's arrival. Despite that, they were able to produce an art portfolio titled La Cité Feu, penciled by Darrow, inked and colored by Mœbius, published in 1984 by Éditions Ædena. The meeting with Les Humanoïdes Associés resulted in Darrow's first published comics work which was also the debut of his character Bourbon Thret. The following year, the story was reprinted in Geof Darrow Comics and Stories along with a new one, also starring Bourbon Thret, and several pin-ups colored by Mœbius, Tanino Liberatore and François Boucq. The volume was also released as a limited edition accompanied by Darrow Magazine, which mostly consisted of illustrated private jokes from various French comic artists. Mistaking the Magazine for an actual periodical publication, a number of artists contacted Darrow and sent him their portfolios in hopes of doing artwork for the magazine.

During one of their stays in Los Angeles, Mœbius introduced Darrow to Frank Miller, which led to a friendship and a number of comics collaborations. Darrow, Miller and Steve Gerber started developing a Superman series as part of the Metropolis proposal, then after the idea fell through, Miller offered Darrow to work on a Daredevil story he was writing that would delve into the character's origin.

Miller realized he didn't want to be the person to bring Darrow into the world of Big Two artist-for-hire, and the two focused on developing their own story. As Darrow had never worked with a writer before, he often strayed from the script, prompting Miller to make a number of significant changes to the story. Between 1990 and 1992, Dark Horse published the three-issue mini-series titled Hard Boiled, which earned Miller and Darrow the 1991 Eisner Award in the "Best Writer/Artist Team" category. After Hard Boiled, Darrow wanted to do a superhero story, specifically, an Iron Man story, although Marvel wasn't interested. Miller and Darrow started developing the concept into their next project, The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot. This time, they worked in the so-called "Marvel style": Miller wrote a few paragraphs describing the general plot, from which Darrow drew the eighty-page story, which Miller then wrote the dialogue over. Between 1993 and the series' first issue, released in 1995, the characters of Big Guy and Rusty appeared in a number of Darrow-illustrated posters and pin-ups, occasionally crossing over with other creator-owned characters such as Spawn and Ash.

In 1994, Dark Horse started a new imprint titled Legend, spear-headed by Frank Miller and John Byrne and encompassing works by various creators including Art Adams, Mike Mignola and Darrow. The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot was published in two issues in 1995 and 1996 under the Legend imprint. The characters also appeared in two issues of Mike Allred's Madman, and the comic book was later adapted into a 26-episode animated series of the same name, produced by Columbia TriStar Television and Dark Horse Entertainment, airing for two seasons from 1999 to 2001.

After finishing Big Guy and Rusty, Darrow decided to return to his Bourbon Thret character but felt he needed to "adapt" him for the American audience. In Geof's words:

I've always liked the character, and I wanted to do it again, but I thought "well, that's an odd name. No one in the United States will like it, it's just too odd. What can I call him?" I like Westerns and I like martial arts movies, so it's like taking a page from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's an odd two things to put together, so that's what I decided to call him. Shaolin Cowboy instead of Bourbon Thret. <...> I told Frank Miller I wanted to do something like a western, and Frank says "whatever you do, don't put cowboy in the title! That doesn't sell!" So of course I followed his advice.

Meanwhile, the then-unknown Wachowski siblings, impressed by Darrow's art for Hard Boiled, wanted to work with him on their production of The Matrix. Warner Bros. contacted Darrow, and after reading the script he agreed to work on the film. Wachowskis also brought comic book artist Steve Skroce from their short stint on Epic Comics' Ectokid, and the two proceeded to work on the concepts and storyboards which, when finished, played a pivotal role in getting the movie greenlit and financed. The Wachowskis later brought in Darrow as the conceptual designer on Speed Racer, although his contributions were significantly smaller compared to The Matrix trilogy. In 1999, shortly after the release of the first Matrix film, the Wachowskis announced they'll be working on an animated adaptation of Hard Boiled but the project was cancelled due to Miller not wanting to see his creation as an animated film. In 2019, Warner Bros. announced that Darrow and Skorce will be returning as storyboard artists and concept designers for the production of the fourth installment of The Matrix.

After finishing work on The Matrix trilogy, the Wachowskis set up a publishing house, Burlyman Entertainment, for which Darrow provided the logo illustration. Burlyman's output consisted of two paperbacks of The Matrix Comics collecting the short comic stories from The Matrix website, as well as seven issues of Darrow's Shaolin Cowboy, published between 2005 and 2007, and six issues of Doc Frankenstein, a Wachowskis-written and Skroce-drawn series originating from a concept developed by Darrow, which he described as "Doc Savage meets Citizen Kane".

In 2009, it was announced that the Wachowskis and Circle of Confusion were producing an animated feature of Shaolin Cowboy, subtitled Tomb of Doom, written and co-directed by Darrow, and animated by Madhouse. Darrow spent a year living in Japan and working on the production which was halted after the American financers, The Weinstein Company, backed out. Around half of the footage was finished, and some of the completed scenes and pencil tests were shown at San Diego ComicCon in 2012 and Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo in 2015. The film was supposed to feature a sequence animated by Masaaki Yuasa. In 2012, Shaolin Cowboy resumed publication at Dark Horse with a 96-page book stylized as a pulp magazine containing a Shaolin Cowboy prose story written by Andrew Vachss (with whom Darrow has had a working relationship dating back to the early 90s) with spot illustrations by Darrow, a prose story by Michael A. Black with spot illustrations by Gary Gianni and one-page strips written and drawn by Darrow. The book was followed by The Shaolin Cowboy, a four-issue mini-series subtitled Shemp Buffet for the collected edition, and The Shaolin Cowboy: Who Will Stop the Reign?, another four-issue mini-series, which incorporated some the visual ideas from the unfinished animated feature.

In 2015, DC Comics announced Darrow as the artist for the supplemental mini-comic to the third issue of Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello's The Dark Knight III: The Master Race, as well as the variant covers for issues 3 and 4, though none of his contributions were ultimately realized. Meanwhile, Dark Horse issued a press release announcing the first English-language collection of the Bourbon Thret strips, to be partially re-colored by Dave Stewart. Since then, Dark Horse has re-released Hard Boiled and The Big Guy and Risty the Boy Robot with new coloring by Stewart as well as the entirety of Shaolin Cowboy in a uniform format. As of 2019, the Bourbon Thret collection still hasn't been released.

Over the course of his career, Darrow has contributed storyboards and conceptual designs for a number film productions, many of which ended up cancelled, including J. J. Abrams' Superman: Flyby, an animated feature by Ridley Scott, one of Hollywood's attempts at adapting Akira, and Alex Proyas' adaptation of Paradise Lost. Outside of comics and film, Darrow has contributed artwork to a number of trading card series, including Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars Galaxy, Witchblade, The Shadow and Madman, as well as promotional posters, CD covers and role-playing games. Darrow also serves on the national advisory board of PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children.
Source: Wikipedia
Geof Darrow art
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Chris Davey biography

Chris Davey biography

Chris Davey; Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, UK
An airbrush artist with years of experience, Chris has become Osprey Publishing's principal illustrator of RAF aircraft, having produced the profiles for over a dozen books since 1994. His most recent work included Aces 27 and 30, and Combat Aircraft 14 and 19. He is particularly adept at 'big' aircraft like the Halifax and Sunderland.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Chris Davey art
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Gordon Davies biography

Gordon Davies biography

Gordon Charles H Davies (6 May 1923 - 1994; Kent, UK)
Gordon C Davies was a prolific book cover artist from the 1950s to the 1980s, most notably on a great many science fiction books as he was a very good artist of technology, from trains and planes to spaceships, and military subjects which included hardware.

I became aware of Davies' work when I began collecting SF books published by Curtis Warren; he worked prolifically for them (the rates were low); Phil Harbottle was a big fan of his work and when we were writing Vultures of the Void was of the opinion that it was Davies' covers that sold Curtis Warren's SF line, not the quality of the stories (which was also low... sometimes very low!). Davies produced over 40 covers for Curtis in 1952-54. In 1954, a book appeared under the byline Gordon Davies, although it was probably not by the artist.

Davies also worked for various other publishers around the same period including Scion, Authentic Science Fiction, Futuristic Science Stories, Panther Books and Brown Watson. The cheap paperback boom came to an end in 1954 and Davies had to find work elsewhere, including features for Daily Mail Boys Annual, Swift Annual, Eagle Annual and centre-spreads for the Eagle weekly. He continued to produce covers for Pan Books and New English Library, notably for titles by Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein.

Davies was born in West Derby, Lancashire, on 6 May 1923. [I believe he was the son of Henry and Martha (nee Rawlinson), who were married in West Derby in 1922.] Davies married Marjorie P. Mason in Surrey in 1951, Judy R. Hunt in Canterbury, Kent, in 1988.

He lived at 155 Sunningvale Avenue, Biggin Hill, Kent before moving to Woodlands Farm, Lyminge, Kent, in about 1970, where he lived until his death in 1994, aged 70.
Source: Bear Alley
Gordon Davies art
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G H Davis biography

G H Davis biography

George Horace Davis (1881 - 1963; London, UK)
George Horace Davis was a British artist who was born in London and studied at Ealing School of Art. He served in the Royal Flying Corps during the first World War.

G H Davis has been called one of the most prolific artists of all time, despite this, it is extremely rare to come across his artwork for sale as it rarely leaves the collections of his admirers.

He was for a time staff artist on the publications Graphic and Sphere and in 1923 became chief staff artist on the Illustrated London News. During World War I he was head of aerial diagrams for the Royal Flying Corps and an Official War Artist. Davis wrote many articles connected with marine illustration and was very prolific as an illustrator, famous for his diagrammatic drawings and cut-away cross-sections of ships and new inventions.

His drawings are very detailed and produced in pencil, black ink and grisaille with very occasional colour work. Much of his art was used to publicise new models of car on the market. He was a member of RSMA and a founder-member of the Society of Aviation Artists. Showed at RA, Imperial War Museum which holds his work and elsewhere. Lived in Ewell, Surrey, then latterly in Brighton, Sussex.

His art first appeared in the Illustrated London News in July 1923 and he worked for them until his death 40 years later.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
G H Davis art
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Jack Davis biography

Jack Davis biography

John Burton Davis, Jr. (2 December 1924 - 27 July 2016); Atlanta, USA
Jack Davis was an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories. He was one of the founding cartoonists for Mad in 1952. His cartoon characters are characterized by extremely distorted anatomy, including big heads, skinny legs and extremely large feet.

Jack Davis was born in Atlanta, Georgia. As a child, he adored listening to Bob Hope on the radio, and tried to draw him, despite not knowing what Hope looked like.

Davis saw comic book publication at the age of 12 when he contributed a cartoon to the reader's page of Tip Top Comics #9 (December 1936). After drawing for his high school newspaper and yearbook, he spent three years in the U.S. Navy, where he contributed to the daily Navy News.

Attending the University of Georgia on the G.I. Bill, he drew for the campus newspaper and helped launch an off-campus humor publication, Bullsheet, which he described as "not political or anything but just something with risqué jokes and cartoons." After graduation, he was a cartoonist intern at The Atlanta Journal, and he worked one summer inking Ed Dodd's Mark Trail comic strip, a strip which he later parodied in Mad as Mark Trade.

In 1949, he illustrated a Coca-Cola training manual, a job that gave him enough cash to buy a car and drive to New York. Attending the Art Students League of New York, he found work with the Herald Tribune Syndicate as an inker on Leslie Charteris's The Saint comic strip, drawn by Mike Roy in 1949-50. His own humor strip, Beauregard, with gags in a Civil War setting, was carried briefly by the McClure Syndicate. After rejections from several comic book publishers, he began freelancing for William Gaines' EC Comics in 1950, contributing to Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales, The Vault of Horror, Piracy, Incredible Science Fiction, Crime Suspenstories, Shock Suspenstories and Terror Illustrated.

In 2011, Davis told the Wall Street Journal about his early career and his breakthrough with EC: "I was about ready to give up, go home to Georgia and be either a forest ranger or a farmer. But I went down to Canal Street and Lafayette, up in an old rickety elevator and through a glass door to Entertaining Comics where Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines were putting out horror (comic) books. They looked at my work and it was horrible and they gave me a job right away! Every time you went in to see Bill Gaines, he would write you a check when you brought in a story. You didn't have to put in a bill or anything. I was very, very hungry and I was thinking about getting married. So I kept the road pretty hot between home and Canal Street. I would go in for that almighty check, go home and do the work, bring it in and get another check and pick up another story."

Davis was particularly noted for his depiction of the Crypt-Keeper in the horror comics, revamping the character's appearance from the more simplistic Al Feldstein version to a tougher, craggier, mangier man with hairy warts, salivating mouth and oversized hands and feet, who usually didn't wear shoes. Among the classic horror tales he illustrated were "Foul Play" which was cited in Dr. Fredric Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent for its depiction of "a comic book baseball game". Others, like "Tain't The Meat, It's The Humanity", "Death Of Some Salesman", "Fare Tonight Followed By Increasing Clottiness", "Tight Grip" and "Lower Berth" were Crypt-Keeper classics. He did the covers for every issue of Crypt from issue #29 to #46. In his work for Harvey Kurtzman's war comics he tackled a variety of subjects and had a particular affinity for depicting American Civil War stories.

He also did many covers for Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and Incredible Science Fiction as well. The editors, William M. Gaines, Albert B. Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman have said he was the fastest artist they had in those days, completely penciling and inking three pages a day at times, or more. His use of the brush to create depth and mood was unique and memorable. His wrinkled clothing, scratchy lines and multi-layered layouts were so popular in the 1950s, that other artists at rival companies began copying the style—notably, Howard Nostrand in Harvey's horror comics. In the late 1950s, Davis drew Western stories for Atlas Comics. His 1963 work on the Rawhide Kid (#33-35) was his last for non-humor comic books.

His style of wild, free-flowing brushwork and wacky characters made him a perfect choice when Harvey Kurtzman launched Mad as a zany, satirical EC comic book in 1952. He appeared in most of the first 30 issues of Mad, all 12 issues of Panic and even some work in Cracked. Davis contributed to other Kurtzman magazines—Trump, Humbug and Help!—eventually expanding into illustrations for record jackets, movie posters, books and magazines, including Time and TV Guide. He completed an 88-card set of humorous cartoons called Wacky Plaks, which Topps Chewing Gum Co. released in 1959. In 1961, he wrote, drew, and edited his own comic book, Yak Yak, for Dell Comics. In 1965, he illustrated Meet The North American Indians by Elizabeth Payne, published by Random House as part of their children's Step Up Books line. (ISBN 0-394-80060-5). He returned as a regular contributor to Mad magazine in the mid 1960s and appeared in nearly every issue after that for decades. He also drew many covers for the magazine, especially in the 1970s.

Davis also had a regular comic strip feature in Pro Quarterback magazine in the early 1970s entitled Superfan, which was written by his Mad cohort, Nick Meglin.

Davis first came to the attention of TV Guide in 1965 when he illustrated an eight-page advertising supplement for NBC's TV lineup, which featured icons such as Johnny Carson, Dean Martin and fictional characters such as Dr. Kildare, Napoleon Solo and Maxwell Smart. His first cover for the magazine came in 1968, when he depicted a tribute to Andy Griffith, in which the actor was hoisted on the shoulders of his co-stars, Don Knotts and Jim Nabors. Davis recalls, "Every assignment was a thrill because TV Guide was the top magazine in the country. I couldn't wait to get in my little MG and drive from New York out to the magazine's offices in Radnor, Pennsylvania, to show the editors my latest design. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world." Davis would contribute 23 covers for TV Guide between 1968 and 1981. In 2013 the magazine honored him in a retrospective in which it recounted his history with the publication, and spotlighted some of his most memorable covers, including those depicting Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (March 28, 1970), Davis' childhood hero Bob Hope for a cover on Hope's history with the Oscars (April 10, 1971) and Bonanza (August 14, 1971). Years later, while watching a TV interview of Hope, Davis was gratified to notice that his Hope cover was displayed on the back wall of the comedian's office; "it was one of the proudest moments of my life," recalled Davis.

Davis created the cartoon bee which (in decal form) appears on the flanks of all the buses in the Bee-Line running from Westchester to New York City. A Westchester resident at the time, Davis lived directly adjacent to one of the Bee Line's bus routes, and he mentioned in an interview how gratifying it was to see his own artwork drive past his window several times every day. Similar synchronicity happened when Mad moved to 1700 Broadway, where the magazine's fifth-floor production department was next to a wall that had previously been the location, only three feet away, of an immense Davis cartoon for a bank, an advertisement that towered six stories over 53rd Street.

Like fellow Mad alumnus Paul Coker, Jr., Davis also contributed to Rankin-Bass productions; his character designs are featured in Mad Monster Party, The King Kong Show, The Coneheads and the cartoon series The Jackson 5ive. For Raid insecticide, Davis created the animated bug that screamed "Raid?!" Phil Kimmelman Associates created several commercials designed by Davis and animated in his style.

Davis produced the artwork for the poster for the 1963 comedy chase film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (which he then parodied for the cover of the Mad paperback "It's a World, World, World, World Mad"). When the Criterion Collection released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in 2014, Davis provided illustrations for the accompanying booklet.

Davis' artwork for the comedy Western Viva Max! (1969) formed the centerpiece of that film's promotional campaign, and he did the same for the film Kelly's Heroes in 1970. His poster for Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) presented the film in a comic light.

In 1963 Davis produced a work of cover art for the Richard Wolfe album, Many Happy Returns of the Day! released by MGM Records, and designed the Homer and Jethro album, Homer and Jethro Go West (RCA Victor).

In 1966, Davis created the cover art for the Johnny Cash album, Everybody Loves a Nut.

Davis was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2003. He also received the National Cartoonists Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. A finalist for inclusion in the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990, 1991 and 1992, he received the National Cartoonists Society's Advertising Award for 1980 and their Reuben Award for 2000.

In June 2002, Davis had a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Society of Illustrators in New York. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2005.

In 1989, Davis was commissioned by the United States Postal Service to design the 25-cent Letter Carriers stamp. There was some concern that the cartoon would offend some letter carriers as being too informal and not respectful of their position. However, the President of the Letter Carriers Union gave his blessing, and the stamp was well received. Although postal policy does not allow artists to portray living persons on stamps, one of the carriers in the stamp is an unmistakable self-portrait of Davis.

As of May 2014, he is the only surviving artist of the EC horror comics. Their colourist (who did no story art for EC), Marie Severin is also still living. Wallace Wood died in 1981 and Reed Crandall died the following year. Bernie Krigstein died in 1990 and Graham Ingels died the following year. Joe Orlando died in 1998. Johnny Craig and George Evans died in 2001. Jack Kamen and Will Elder died in 2008, Frank Frazetta and Al Williamson died in 2010. Harry Harrison died in 2012 and Al Feldstein died in April 2014.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia
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Jon Davis biography

Jon Davis biography

John Fredrick Charles Davis MBE (Fl. 1960s - 1980s)
Science fiction illustrator Jon Davis – best known to British comics fans for his work on TV Century 21, Lady Penelope, Countdown and Princess Picture Library comics in the 1960s and 70s – has been awarded an MBE for services to Children's Literature.

Jon has been an Illustrator since 1960, working on book jackets, magazine illustration, drawing strips such as Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, The Secret Service and UFO. An integral part of the establishment of Linden Artists in the 1960s, his book art includes work for Ladybird (such as an edition of Frankenstein in 1984) and Rupert the Bear.

Jon was one of the key artists who drew for the comic TV21 in the 1960s and early 1970s and also drew for D .C Thompson in The Sparky Comic which included Mr Bubbles & Klanky The Robot.

He began drawing science fiction art in 1973, after reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
“I enjoy the work I do now,” he says, “which is mainly history books for children – all Cartoons, Great fun!”

He has published his own book, the Fantastic Adventures of Trevor & Eric, available for purchase in print from Authorhouse or as an eBook download from Kobo.

“I enjoy the work I do now,” he says, “which is mainly history books for children – all Cartoons, Great fun!”
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Jon Davis art
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Reginald B Davis biography

Reginald B Davis biography

Reginald Ben Davis (10 December 1907 - 1998; UK)
R B Davis was a regular illustrator of nature subjects and animals for Look and Learn and Treasure. Some of his Look and Learn illustrations were collected in Animal Partnerships by Maurice Burton (1969).

Born on 10 December 1907, Davis was a commercial artist before the Second World War working for Byron Studios. After the war he became a regular artist for School Friend, drawing the adventures of castaway schoolgirl 'Jill Crusoe'. Amongst his other strips for the same paper were 'Jon of the Jungle', 'Kay of Cedar Creek', 'Phantom Ballerina' and 'Penny of Maywood Stables'.

Davis was also a regular cover artist for Schoolgirls' Picture Library from its debut in June 1957 and later illustrated text stories for Girls' Crystal in the early 1960s. From 1962 he concentrated on colour illustration work and only occasionally returned to comic strips. In the 1970s he concentrated on illustrating wildlife books. Davis lived in Liphook, Hampshire, where he died in late 1998, aged 90.
Source: Look and Learn
Reginald B Davis art
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Al Davison biography

Al Davison biography

Al Davison; Newcastle, UK
Al Davison is an English comic book writer and artist from Newcastle, England. He now resides in Coventry, where he runs The Astral Gypsy, his studio and Comic shop with his wife Maggie.

He is most famous for his autobiographical graphic novel The Spiral Cage (Renegade Press, 1988, longer version Titan Books, 1990), Absolute edition from Active Images 2003 which describes his lifelong struggle with spina bifida and his rise to successful comic book creator, martial arts scholar, film maker, and performer. The Spiral Cage featured in Tony Isabella's 1000 Comic Books You Must Read.

He is the subject of a documentary, also called The Spiral Cage, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.
Source: Wikipedia
Al Davison art
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Leo Davy biography

Leo Davy biography

Leo Davy (1924 - 1987; UK)
To the end of his life, Leo Davy shunned art dealers and critics, believing that painting spoke for itself. His late works provide a connection between his landscapes, inspired by the north Cornwall coast which he has made his home, and the tradition of abstraction to which he has been a contributor. An assessment of the significance of his work to British art as a whole has yet to be made but, "Leo Davy is vital to our understanding of the British abstract tradition," Barry Barker, Arnolfini Director.
Leo Davy art
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Victor de la Fuente biography

Victor de la Fuente biography

Víctor de la Fuente (1927 - 2 July 2010)
Víctor de la Fuente was a Spanish comic book artist and writer. He worked mostly in the western, second world war, and heroic fantasy genres.

De la Fuente was born in Ríocaliente, and started his comics career in Adolfo López Rubio's studio in 1945. In this period he worked for Spanish magazines such as Chicos, Flechas y Pelayos and Zas. In his mid-40s he moved to Latin America, first to Cuba, then to Argentina and Chile, where he signed a contract with Editorial Zig Zag. In 1957 he became director of the El Peneca magazine and founded his own advertisement agency.

In 1961 he returned to Spain, and subsequently worked for local publishers as well as British ones including Fleetway (War Picture Library) and DC Thomson. In 1968 he started a collaboration with the French magazine Pilote, published by Dargaud, with the series Les diamants sanglants ("The bloody diamonds"). The following year he began the western comic Sunday, written by Víctor Mora and published by Spanish Selecciones Ilustradas.

In 1969–1971, de la Fuente wrote and drawn the heroic fantasy series Haxtur for the Spanish magazine Trinca; in 1971 he also drew a single story for American publisher Warren, "I Am Dead, Egypt. Dead", written by Doug Moench, which appeared in Eerie #35. The story won the prestigious 1972 Warren Award for best story. In 1972 he created, again for Trinca, the post-apocalypse series Mathai-Dor, which remained unfinished due to rights problems. In the same year he moved to France, and executed the erotic-western series Mortimer for Italian publisher E.P. In 1973 Haxtur won two awards at the Trieste and Genoa comics festivals in Italy.

In 1974 he created another western series, Amargo, for Hachette. In 1976 he took part to the comics adaptation of the Holy Bible and the history of France for Larrousse. In 1977 he collaborated with the Belgian magazine Tintin and, in 1978, he created another heroic fantasy character, Haggarth, for the Belgian magazine À Suivre. In 1979, he began the long western series Los gringos, written initially by Jean-Michel Charlier and, from 1992 onwards, by Guy Vidal. In 1980 de la Fuente won the Yellow Kid Award in Lucca.

His last works were a series of Tex Willer stories for Italian publisher Sergio Bonelli Editore and the French album Aliot, written by Alejandro Jodorowsky. De la Fuente died in 2010 and was buried at Le Mesnil-Saint-Denis
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Victor de la Fuente art
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Neville Dear biography

Neville Dear biography

Neville Dear; UK
A prolific artist for Look and Learn, illustrating a wide variety of historical subjects and various series including 'Disasters That Shook the World' (1963), 'By the Rivers of Babylon' (1964), 'They Made Headlines' (1964), 'Epic Stories of the Iron Road' (1965) and others. In 1949, Dear and two other students from the Royal College of Art were commissioned to decorate the walls of the children's section of the Chelsea Public Library.

In the 1950s he began producing illustrations for William Collins, including work for Collins' Magazine, Collins Boys' Annual and books, including Showell Styles' 'Tiger Patrol' series.

As well as his magazine illustrations for Look and Learn, Ranger, Argosy, Picture Post and others, Dear also worked for Oxford University Press, Wheaton, Hodder & Stoughton, Corgi, and Eyre Methuen. With others he illustrated The Hamlyn Bible for Children (1974) and he was a regular illustrator for Reader's Digest's condensed books.
Source: Look and Learn
Neville Dear art
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Arturo del Castillo biography

Arturo del Castillo biography

Arturo Perez Del Castillo (1925 - 1992)
The Chilean artist del Castillo's pen and ink work has been highly admired for many years. In the late 1950s he worked for Fleetway Publications, defining the art of fine penmanship on such strips as The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask

By the 1960s he was producing westerns for comics such as Top Spot, Ranger and Cowboy Picture Library; Garret (1962 - scripts by Ray Collins: pseudonym of Argentinian writer Eugenio Zappietro); Dan Dakota, Kendall (sheriff of Dodge City) , Larrigan (reprinted in both Fleetway's Lone Rider Picture Library and Cowboy Picture Library nos. 455, 463, 467), and Los tres mosqueteros en el Oeste. In 1974, again with Ray Collins he created Il Cobra, and with Oesterheld Loco Sexton. His most famous creation remains the western strip, Randall: The Killer, began in 1957.

del Castillo became famous for his skilful and detailed penwork, and in particular for his cross-hatching technique. In the late 1950s, del Castillo drew a number of comic strip adaptations of Alexandre Dumas' novels, such as The King's Musketeers, which first appeared in Film Fun and was then reprinted in Lion Comic, and The Man in the Iron Mask that also appeared in Fleetway's Lion Comic.

However, his main subject and greatest love, was always that of the western. One of his earliest western characters - Ringo - appeared in the last three editions of Top Spot (January 2nd, 9th and 16th 1960). Whilst Dan Dakota - Lone Gun appeared in Ranger comic. He also contributed at least one story to Cowboy Picture Library - CPL 467: Ghost Town.

In the mid-sixties, he participated in the "Bande Dessinée et figuration narrative" exhibition in Paris. The exhibition was held at the Musée d'Art at the Louvre.

Arturo del Castillo retired in 1989 and died in Buenos Aires in 1992.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

See more on Arturo del Castillo in our illustrators issue 19 and enjoy his Western storytelling in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics collection LARRIGAN.

Arturo del Castillo art
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Pino Dell'Orco biography

Pino Dell'Orco biography

Pino Dell'Orco; Rome, Italy
Pino Dell'Orco was an aeroplane-obsessed schoolboy who grew up in Rome reading the comics of the legendary German/Italian artist Curt Caesar.

Dell'Orco was something of a prodigy and as a teenager he became an apprentice to Enrico DeSeta before joining the Favalli studios to paint movie posters. Dell’Orco had absorbed DeSeta's style so completely that he could (and indeed did) paint entire posters in his style, which DeSeta would then sign! In the late 1950s Favalli died and the studio broke up with most of the artists relocating to Milan to join the D’Ami studio.

Dell'Orco, on the other hand, moved to London where he joined the Bryan Colmer agency. After a few years painting paperback covers Colmer approached Dell'Orco about the possibility of creating war covers for Fleetway and he jumped at the chance, going on to paint over 300 of them throughout the 1960s. As it turns, some of his fellow cover artists were his old colleagues at the Favalli studio -- Allessandro Biffignandi and Nino Caroselli, now based in Milan, though bizarrely the fact that they ended up working on the same comics was pure coincidence.

Pino Dell'Orco's paintings were invariably masterpieces of design and this is particularly true of his many covers for Air Ace. Working on artboard roughly the size of a U.S. original comic book page he had a far more minimalist approach than DeGaspari. His paintings often employed quite thin blocks, even using the bare surface of the board as a background colour and employing quick flicks of the brush, charcoal or pencil for details. They have a dynamic immediacy that flies off the page - but even more than that - it is their composition that really makes them stand out. Dell'Orco's covers are all about overlapping shapes, negative space, clashing colours, extreme perspective and vertiginous angles. The cover to Air Ace #156 is a terrific example of his extremely angled aeroplanes criss – crossing each other – indeed, they are almost abstract cover designs, beautifully complemented in this case by the classic early 60’ lettering.
Source: David Roach in Today's Inspiration: http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/cover-art-of-british-war-comics-day-2.html

See illustrators British War Comics Special for a Pino Dell'Orco article.

Pino Dell'Orco art
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Tony Dezuniga biography

Tony Dezuniga biography

Tony Dezuniga (8 November 1932 - 11 May 2012)[
With writer John Albano, Tony Dezuniga co-created DC Comics long-running and best-loved Western anti-hero Jonah Hex, and with Sheldon Mayer the first Black Orchid.

Dezuniga was the first Filipino comic book artist whose work was accepted by American publishers, paving the way for many other Filipino artists to break into the international comic book industry.
Tony Dezuniga art
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Frank Dickens biography

Frank Dickens biography

Frank Dickens
Frank Dickens began his famous and long-running Bristow strip in the Aberdeen Press and Journal in 1961 and has since produced more than 12,000 strips, the majority published in the London Evening Standard between 1962 and 2001. Bristow is the longest-running daily cartoon strip by a single author and has been in continuous publication since its inception.

It's principal character, the eponymous Bristow, is a buying clerk (18th in line for Chief Buyer) in the Chester-Perry Organization and his adventures involve everything to do with the drudgery of commuting, bureaucracy and large office life.
Frank Dickens art
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Mike Dickinson biography

Mike Dickinson biography

Mike Dickinson
Mike Dickinson has lived in Bradford on Avon with his family for forty years.

He is the author and illustrator of several books including 'On the Road with Ronnie the Rep' (Littlehampton Book Services, 1987) and 'Danny's Birthday' (Scholastic Little Hippo, 2000).

"I used to be a children's author/illustrator and a cartoonist. I am now combining the illustrating with the cartooning and producing humorous animals in papier mache. They are mostly crafted from recycled card and newspaper and each one is unique."
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Mike Dickinson art
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Ian Dickson biography

Ian Dickson biography

Ian Oscar Dickson (15 January 1905 - 21 July 1987; New Zealand and UK)
Ian Dickson was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, on 15 January 1905. He grew up in Melbourne and was self-taught as an artist. Dickson was something of a world traveller, seeking out work as a cartoonist and illustrator wherever he was. His work appeared in the Adelaide Register News Pictorial, the Brisbane Telegraph and tourist brochures for the Queensland government.

Emigrating to England, he produced illustrations for film companies and work for Razzle before moving to Ceylon, working for the Times of Ceylon and Ceylon Observer. Returning to Britain in 1935, his work appeared in Punch, London Opinion, Men Only and Blighty, often drawing glamour girls. During the War he served with the R.A.F.

For 15 years he drew Mum each week for the Sunday Graphic and his comic strips also appeared in Eagle Annual, Girl Annual and Swift Annual. Illustration Art Gallery
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David Dimmock biography

David Dimmock biography

David Dimmock (active 1960s)
Another artist about whom not so much is known. He was active during the 1960s and his work appears in many issues of the popular Look and Learn magazine during 1968 and 1969, including the adventure series 'Today's Pioneers' and 'The Battle with Big Muddy'.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
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Roberto Diso biography

Roberto Diso biography

Roberto Diso (born 16 April 1932; Rome, Italy)
Roberto Diso was born in Rome. He worked for Il Vittorioso since 1954, where he made a couple of comics in cooperation with Santo D'Amico. Later on, he was affiliated with the Giolitti studios, where he produced mainly war stories for the British Fleetway agency, such as 'Zip Nolan' in Lion Comic.

He was also the artist for the first 'Tiger' story. For the French market, he provided artwork to 'Lancelot' and 'Dan Panther' for Éditions Aventures et Voyages, again in cooperation with D'Amico. He also drew adult strips (1965), episodes of 'Goldrake' and mystery strips for the German market.

He joined Bonelli publishers in 1974, where he became one of the artists of 'Mister No'. Diso became the main illustrator and cover artist of the series from issue 116. In 1985, he created 'Rodo', the first strip he created on his own, in the magazine Giungla. In 1989, he illustrated 'Rudy X' with scripts by Rinaldo Triani in the review Comic Art, for which he also created several independent stories.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Roberto Diso art
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Maurice Dodd biography

Maurice Dodd biography

Maurice Dodd (25 October 1922 - 31 December 2005; Hackney, London, UK)
Born in Hackney, London, Maurice Dodd was an English writer and cartoonist best known for his years spent working on The Perishers comic strip published in the Daily Mirror.

During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force as a Servicing Commando, alongside Bill Herbert. After the war Dodd was demobilised and began to study art. He then found work in advertising and, after he won a competition to write a slogan for Time, Bill Herbert, by then the cartoon editor at The Daily Mirror, offered Dodd the chance to take over the writing of a comic strip he had created, The Perishers. Working with the artist Dennis Collins, Dodd provided rough layouts, which Collins then drew from.

Maurice didn't work in the usual way of producing a written script from which the artist worked, but worked out his own ideas in rough pencilled layouts with action and dialogue in situ, while Dennis continued to execute finished drawings for the script. Ben Witham moved on to write gags for the popular single frame cartoon Useless Eustace.

The Collins - Dodd combination was successful and the Perishers moved into the national editions in October 1959. The partnership lasted until Dennis retired in 1983. Maurice then took on the complete execution of the strip, from idea to finished artwork, until 1992, when he once again went into partnership, this time with Bill Mevin who now executes the finished work.

Dodd continued to work in advertising, such as on the Clunk Click Every Trip series of public information films intended to remind drivers of the benefits of wearing a seatbelt. It was while he was working on this campaign that Dodd came into contact with FilmFair, a company responsible for the creation of television programmes based on The Wombles and Paddington Bear. Dodd collaborated with the company in bringing The Perishers to television. Dodd left advertising in 1980 and subsequently wrote a number of children's books.

In 1983 Collins retired, leaving Dodd to write and draw The Perishers alone until 1992, when Bill Mevin began doing all the art work for the strip. Dodd continued working on the strip until he died, from a brain haemorrhage, in Shepperton on 31 December 2005.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Maurice Dodd art
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Peter Doherty biography

Peter Doherty biography

Peter Doherty
Peter Doherty notes on his intriguingly named Not a Proper Person blog that he is not to be confused with the famous singer bloke. "I'm the much less well known comic book illustrator." Within the comic book industry, however, he is well known—as a regular artist for 2000AD's Judge Dredd and chronicler of the early life of Death in Judge Dredd Megazine, or as an artist who has tackled Grendel, Superman, Batman and Catwoman, or as a colourist for Geof Darrow's surreal Shaolin Cowboy.

At a time when Britain's comics were beginning a love affair with fully painted art in the wake of Simon Bisley's 'Slaine: The Horned God', Doherty preferred treating colour as an enhancement to his line art. "The few bits I actually painted were a bit of a disaster," he would later say. "Mostly I coloured my line drawings—I'd ink on watercolour paper with waterproof ink then use transparent media like coloured inks, watercolours and thinned acrylics so the line showed through, and finally finish off with solid colour over the top."

Doherty was taking an applied physics degree at university when he decided that his career should take a different direction. He met Duncan Fegrado, then working on 'The New Statesman' for Crisis with writer John Smith. Smith's friend Chris Standley was also trying to get into comics and he and Doherty collaborated on a five-page story "about an unemployed bloke, something we knew a lot about back then."

After meeting Steve MacManus at a Glasgow comics' convention, the story was sold to Crisis (Felicity, Crisis 47, 1990), with Doherty also providing that issue's cover. He was immediately offered Young Death, the origin story of the popular character from the 'Judge Dredd' strip, written (under the pen-name Brian Skuter) by Dredd co-creator John Wagner for the debut issues of a new 2000AD spin-off, the Judge Dredd Megazine. Doherty's first professional assignment couldn't have had a higher profile.

It's dark humour proved a hit with readers and Doherty soon became a regular on the Dredd strip in 2000AD, drawing episodes of the epic 'Judgement Day' storyline and a memorable one-shot, Bury My Knee at Wounded Heart, often cited as being one of the best Dredd stories ever. He also drew Mechanismo Returns for the Judge Dredd Megazine (1993) and a one-off tale of Armitage (1994).

Doherty soon found himself working for the US market, drawing the 6-issue Grendel Tales: The Devil May Care (1995-96) and Carson of Venus (Dark Horse Presents, 1998) and pencilling a 3-part series for Vertigo's The Dreaming written by Bryan Talbot ('Weird Romance', 1997). Further work on The Dreaming, Superman 80-Page Giant, Batman and Superman: World's Finest and Catwoman followed from DC Comics over the next few years.

In 2001 Doherty (then a relative newcomer to computers and computer colouring) found himself working full-time for a computer games company. Over the years he has also worked as an illustrator, storyboard artist and designer but has always returned to comics when the opportunity allows.

The 2005 2000AD strip Breathing Space (set in Luna 1, a moonbase in the Dredd universe) was begun by Doherty, but a lengthy illness meant the strip had to be reassigned after two issues; Doherty coloured the remaining seven episodes (pencilled and inked by Laurence Campbell & Lee Townsend).

Doherty has subsequently worked mostly as a colourist—on the 3-issue mini-series Seaguy (2004) and the 7-issue Geof Darrow series Shaolin Cowboy, which he also lettered and designed. The latter was nominated for five Eisner Awards in 2005.

His recent work has included colouring the Dredd episode 'The Convert' in 2000AD (2010) and a DCU Legacies back-up, 'Revelation!', drawn by Frank Quitely (2011). Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Peter Doherty art
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Gerry Dolan biography

Gerry Dolan biography

Gerry Dolan
With Doctor Who back on our TV screens, it seems apt to take a look at the work of a Doctor Who artist.

Gerry Dolan worked only briefly for Dr Who Magazine, providing illustrations for the short story The Infinity Season (#151, August 1989), written by Dan Abnett, and the strip Stairway to Heaven (#156, January 1990) scripted by John Freeman from a story by Paul Cornell and inked by Rex Ward.

Both featured Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and were noted for Dolan's detailed rendition of the character. The strip's appearance in Doctor Who Magazine coincided with the final episode of the Sylvester McCoy era of the TV show (December 1989) and a gap of seven years before the TV movie and sixteen before the series was revived.

Dolan also contributed to The Worm, an exercise in record breaking that took place 1991 at London's Trocadero. From an outline by Alan Moore, 125 creators gathered to draw and letter a 250-foot long comic strip, recognised as the longest comic strip in the world.

Since those brief appearances, Dolan seems to have disappeared from the world of comics. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Peter Van Dongen biography

Peter Van Dongen biography

Peter van Dongen (born 21 October 1966; Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Peter van Dongen is a Dutch illustrator, commercial artist and graphic novelist from Amsterdam. He is known for his use of the "Clear Line" drawing style in the tradition of Hergé and E.P. Jacobs. Despite being active since the 1980s, the meticulous Van Dongen has a small but widely praised oeuvre. His masterpiece is the graphic novel series 'Rampokan', in which he explores the history of the Dutch Indies, the land of Van Dongen's ancestors.

Born in Amsterdam in 1966, Van Dongen graduated as an advertising artist from the Amsterdam Graphic School. He published his first comic strips in amateur and alternative magazines like Rebel Comix and De Balloen in the early 1980s. In 1986-1987, he made the promotional strip 'Prince en Buster', which appeared on the back-pages of Wordt Vervolgd magazine and was meant to attract subscribers. In 1990 he published his debut graphic novel 'Muizentheater', a gripping tale of two working class lads growing up in Amsterdam during the Depression years. A nice feature of 'Muizentheater' is that it is one of the very few books about Amsterdam that does not feature any canals - van Dongen hates clichés. 'Muizentheater' earned Van Dongen the Dutch Stripschapprijs for the Best Comic Book of the Year in 1991.

Van Dongen continued to work as a commercial illustrator in the 1990s and it took almost a decade before he published a new book. This was 'Rampokan-Java' (1998), a tale about the independence struggle in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia, and it was even better received than his debut. For the plot, he relied heavily on the lives of his mother and grandmother. The story was told in a stunning Clear Line style with sepia coloring - the echo of Hergé's colonial classic 'Tintin in Africa' was constantly there in the background. 'Rampokan' was co-designed by Joost Swarte and earned both author and publisher the 1999 Dutch Prize for Best Book Design. In 2004, the second part, 'Rampokan-Celebes', appeared. In 2005, he organized a series of expositions with artwork by Indonesian artists like Tita and Anto Motulz, held on several locations in Java.

In 1991 Van Dongen won the Dutch Stripschapprijs for 'Best Comic Book of the Year', with 'Muizentheater'. On 19 January 2018 Peter van Dongen won the Dutch Stripschap Prize 2018, the annual oeuvre award for Dutch comics artists.
Source: Lambiek comiclopedia
Peter Van Dongen art
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Selby Donnison biography

Selby Donnison biography

Selby William Donnison (19 August 1921 - February 1995; Tynemouth, UK)
Selby William Donnison was born on 19 August 1921 in Tynemouth, Northumberland. He drew for Super Detective Library (1953-56), Thriller Picture Library (1952-54), Cowboy Comics Library (1952-57), The Sun ("Billy the Kid", 1953).

In the 1960s he illustrated for The Bible Story, and drew for Lion, including "Tales of Tollgate School". He was still working in the 1980s, when he drew "The Four Marys" for Bunty. He also illustrated books on a variety of subjects. He died in Newport, Monmouthshire, in February 1995.
Source: UK Comics Wiki
Selby Donnison art
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David Dorman biography

David Dorman biography

David "Dave" Dorman (born 1958; Michigan, USA)
Dave Dorman is a science fiction, horror and fantasy illustrator best known for his Star Wars artwork.

Dorman's parents are Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jack N. Dorman and Phyllis Dorman. Both parents are deceased. Dorman is married to award-winning TV/video producer, writer and publicist Denise (McDonald) Dorman of WriteBrain Media. He has a son, Jack, who was born in 2004.

Dorman's father Jack Dorman was renowned for his work and awards in the field of radio-controlled airplanes. Jack Dorman created historically accurate interiors for the planes and was an expert at model building. Dorman attributes his attention to detail to his father and credits both parents with giving him emotional and financial support early in his career. Together, Dorman and his father won numerous awards for their model building projects.

Dorman attended Saint Mary's Seminary and University in Maryland and The Kubert School in New Jersey. Dorman also taught a week-long seminar at the art department of Savannah College of Art and Design in the mid-1990s. The head of the art department at the time was Durwin Talon. Dorman has been asked to teach workshops at Flashpoint Academy and the American Academy of Art, both in Chicago, Illinois. He is also a co-founder of Comix Academy, along with Durwin Talon, Scott Hampton and Christopher Moeller and John van Fleet. This is a master class in comic book illustration.

Dorman attended a graphic arts program at St. Mary's College in Maryland, but left after a year because it did not have an illustration component. Next, he attended The Kubert School in New Jersey, but left after one year because their curriculum only taught black and white illustration and Dorman wanted to be a cover artist. As an illustrator, he describes himself as self-taught.

Dorman began his professional career in 1979, and has done illustration for comic book companies Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, but his break came in 1983, when his artwork first appeared on the cover of Heavy Metal magazine. Hasbro commissioned Dorman to paint over 100 pieces realistic artwork for its 3-inch series of G.I. Joe action figures in the mid-1980s. In 1994, Dorman was commissioned to do the artwork for a series of 90 trading cards for the Ultraverse comic book setting. In 1996, Hasbro asked Dorman to create more artwork for its 12-inch G.I. Joe collector series.

Although he has produced art based on such characters as Indiana Jones, Batman, and Superman, he became most well known for his Star Wars artwork. The Star Wars Art of Dave Dorman was published in 1996 by Random House/FPG. Dorman won a poll of the readers of The Official Best of Star Wars Magazine in 1998, as "Best Star Wars Artist". Dorman won an Eisner Award in 1993 for his paintings in the book Aliens: Tribes. In 2010 he won the prestigious Inkpot Award at San Diego Comic-Con, where he was a featured guest that year. During that show, he also launched his new career retrospective book, ROLLING THUNDER: The Art of Dave Dorman, which is published by IDW Publishing and Desperado Publishing.

Dorman began his role-playing game (RPG) work beginning with Pacesetter Ltd in 1985, and began freelancing for TSR in 1987, producing cover art for Dungeons & Dragons books as Gargoyle and the original Draconomicon, among others. Dorman also did artwork for the games Shadowrun (FASA), Torg (West End Games, or WEG), Champions (Hero Games), Mayfair Games' "Role Aids", Rifts (Palladium Books), and Blood of Heroes. Dorman also produced all the art for some of West End Games' Star Wars role-playing game supplements in the 1990s. He did some illustrations for the Micronauts toy line in the early 2000s.

Dorman has been known for more than 20 years because of his photo-realistic style of oil painting. Dorman's Star Wars: The Art of Dave Dorman cocktail table art book was the top-selling art book in 1996 for Ballantine Books and became the textbook of choice for illustration courses at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. He was also voted "The #1 Star Wars Artist of All Time" by Star Wars Galaxy Magazine in 1996. Star Wars creator George Lucas is a fan of Dorman's work and has purchased dozens of Dorman's original oil paintings. Dorman held a license with Lucasfilm for many years to do limited edition prints.

Dorman's own proprietary work, Wasted Lands, written by science fiction author Del Stone Jr., is currently making the rounds in Hollywood for a film adaptation. This action/adventure film is heavily influenced by Dorman's appreciation of directors like Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Whom he met on the Alien Resurrection movie set), Akira Kurosawa and Leone, as well as writers Joe Lansdale, Stephen King and F. Paul Wilson. Dorman is in development with Hollywood actor Dan Roebuck (River's Edge, Lost, Desperate Housewives) for a fictional children's book authored by Roebuck. Dorman is also in development with Dave Elliott's Atomeka Press for a Wasted Lands publishing project.

Dorman has been featured in interviews for the Dennis Miller Radio Show, Mancow's Morning Madhouse, Sci Fi Channel, Turner Network Television's Southern Living Presents magazine program, and WEAR-TV in Pensacola, an ABC affiliate. Dorman is an avid supporter of Tom Roush's Pensacola Film Festival and the Baytowne Film Festival and he creates the artwork for their annual event posters.

Dorman can be found annually at his Comic-Con booth in San Diego with his contemporaries, Scott Hampton, Christopher Moeller, and John Van Fleet. In 2010, Dorman was a "special guest" at San Diego Comic-Con International. Dorman exhibited for the very first C2E2 in Chicago in April 2010. Dorman also regularly attends the Wizard World Chicago, HeroesCon, and Detroit's Motor City Comic Con, and is often the featured guest artist at numerous Magic: The Gathering tournaments. Dorman's own company, Rolling Thunder, publishes art books and limited edition litho prints.

In 2010, IDW Publishing, now partnered with Desperado Publishing, is putting out the new book "Rolling Thunder: The Art of Dave Dorman." A special edition issue will launch at San Diego Comic-Con International, where Dorman is a "special guest." Dorman estimates this book shows about half of his artwork, many of it personal work and pieces never before seen by the general public. In the book, Dorman speaks candidly and personally for the very first time about his mid-life crisis and how he survived it. In 2009, Dorman was a judge for the SPECTRUM Annual, the fantasy world's bible for illustrators. In 2009, Dorman also made history by creating entirely digital art, for his very first time, during Reverie '09, sponsored by MassiveBlack.com and ConceptArt.org.

Also in 2010, Dorman launched the podcast "Wednesday is Comic Book Day" with his wife, Denise Dorman – a mash-up of comic book industry insider news, pop culture news and interviews. The podcast is a free download on iTunes and is available via Farpoint Media, the producers of the show.

Dorman has been the guest of honor at Comic-Con in San Diego three times. It was there that he earned the Eisner Award in 1993 for his art work on Alien: Tribes.

He has been a longtime resident of Shalimar, Florida and of Mill Creek, Illinois. He moved to Geneva, Illinois in 2005. In 2006, Dorman offered to create an original 3' x 6' oil painting worth US$50,000 for anyone that would buy his home in Shalimar Pointe, Florida. As of mid-2011, Dorman had attended Comic-Con twenty-seven years in a row.
Source: Wikipedia
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Cecil Doughty biography

Cecil Doughty biography

Cecil Langley Doughty (7 November 1913 - 26 October 1985; UK)
C L Doughty was one of the most prolific and successful historical illustrators to work on Look and Learn and other weekly educational papers. He produced several thousand illustrations between 1961 and 1982, his output astonishing in both quantity and quality.

Doughty was born in Withernsea, Yorkshire and trained at Battersea Polytechnic, London. His earliest comic strip was a two-page Buffalo Bill adventure which appeared in Knockout in July 1948. Doughty produced strips for Phillip Marx’s Star Flash Comic and Challenger Comic in 1948, followed by the cover and interior art for an adaptation of 'Oliver Twist' for the first issue of A Classic in Pictures (1949). 'Lorna Doone' followed soon after (in issue 8) before Doughty returned to the Amalgamated Press, drawing ‘Terry Brent’, a spot-the-clue detective series for School Friend.

Doughty found his metier when he began drawing for Thriller Comics, the 64-page pocket library edited by Leonard Matthews. His first tale was an adaptation of W. Harrison Ainsworth’s Windsor Castle (1953) followed by a variety of stories featuring Robin Hood and Dick Turpin.

Critic David Ashford, a long-time fan of Doughty’s work, has said, “Turpin’s comrades were beautifully realised by Doughty. Based, as they are, on R. H. Brock’s drawings for the Newnes pocket book series of the 1930s, all the varied personalities came to life – among them, the elegant “gentleman highwayman” Tom King, the swaggering Irishman, Pat O’Flynn and, perhaps best of all, the humorous character Jem Peters, he of the mutton chop whiskers. All are portrayed with obvious affection and enormous gusto. Strongly influenced not only by the Brock brothers but by other 19th century artists of 18th century subjects such as Hugh Thomson, Doughty’s style is, I think, best expressed in the one word, “debonair”. There is a certain way in which his leading characters stand, move and tilt their head which is peculiar to Doughty. It is a style which is ideal for these historical entertainments and strongly reminiscent at times of Douglas Fairbanks at his swashbuckling best.”

Doughty's ability was often overlooked in the 1950s, his only full page painting appearing on the rear cover of an issue of Comet in 1958. He worked briefly for Express Weekly (1957-58) and for eight months took over the artwork for 'Jack O'Lantern', a historical adventure strip in Eagle (1959-60).

In 1962, Doughty began producing illustrations in colour and black & white for Look and Learn. Doughty occasionally wrote his own scripts for the series on 'Famous Houses' that appeared on the centre pages of in early issues.

When Look and Learn closed in April 1982, Doughty decided to retire from commercial artwork and concentrate on landscapes. Already in his late sixties, he held an exhibition of his 'straight' work in Carmarthen, where he was then living. He also took on commissions and produced some magnificent paintings for fans.

In 1985, Doughty moved to a dilapidated cottage with a splendid studio, but died shortly after, aged 71. An extensive biography and gallery of Doughty's Look and Learn work appeared in a 2012 book entitled Pages From History. Illustration Art Gallery and Steve Holland.

See illustrators  issue 2 for Cecil Doughty feature article, Pages From History book, and Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition.
Cecil Doughty art
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Lela Dowling biography

Lela Dowling biography

Lela Dowling Cirocco; California, USA
Lela Dowling is the comic artist of comics like 'Weasel Patrol'. She has made many prints and paintings in the fantasy genre. She also adapted the novel 'Dragonflight' for comics and contributed her version of 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'The Owl and the Pussycat' to the collection 'The Dreamery'. In the early 1990s, she worked as a game developer for Moby Games.

Lela Dowling Cirocco was born in Southern California and raised by parents who loved the outdoors, books, humor and poetry, all of which is reflected in her distinctive artwork. She has over 30 years of experience, creating a distinguished and award-winning body of work.

Her detailed pen and ink, pencil and watercolor illustrations still reveal traces of an early influence by the English Illustrator Arthur Rackham, while her whimsical cartoons were inspired by popular comic strips such as Walt Kelly's 'Pogo'.

Lela's work has been published in a wide variety of forms. In addition to limited-edition art prints, portfolios, illustrated books, comics and even doing a weekly newspaper strip, she has also worked commercially for companies such as LucasFilm, Yahoo!, Mattel, Electronic Arts, Hasbro and Leapfrog. Her many contributions include computer character animation, toy and character design, storyboarding and concept illustration.

Beginning a new chapter in her artistic career, Lela is a co-founder of the Skyland Gallery along with husband Frank Cirocco. She is delighted to further investigate her love of nature in this latest venture and looks forward to exploring exciting new directions in her art.
Source: Skyland Gallery & Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Serge Drigin biography

Serge Drigin biography

Serge Drigin (1894 - 1977, Russia and UK)
Serge Drigin, sometimes spelled Sergie, Sergey or Serge R. Drigin, was a Russian artist, born on 8 October 1894, who, without formal training, became a successful illustrator in the UK in the 1920s. Formerly a sailor, he illustrated at least one book in his native Russia, Skazka o rybakie i rybkie by E. Venskii, in 1919 before beginning a prolific output for British magazines such as The Detective Magazine, Modern Boy and Chums.

He produced many startling covers for various titles published by George Newnes in the 1930s, including Scoops, Air Stories, War Stories, Fantasy and others. In around 1941, he was working for War Artists & Illustrators, based in central London, who supplied material to War Illustrated and Sphere amongst others.

In around 1934-35, he briefly turned to comics and drew various episodes for Film Picture Stories and the serial The Flying Fish in Sparkler. He returned after the war, when paper shortages meant that illustrators were finding work thin on the ground. He produced numerous one-off strips in 1947-48, mostly for Scion Ltd. In 1948, Drigin began drawing strips for Manchester-based J. B. Allen, producing a number of series for Allen's Comet, Sun and Merry-Go-Round comics until 1949.

In the 1950s, he was still very active, contributing features and artwork to various annuals, including Swift and Eagle, but seems to have grown inactive around the mid-1950s.

Drigin was married three times, firstly to Ruth Evelene Baker at Totnes, Devon, in 1923, with whom he had a daughter Shirley N., born 1927 (who later became a veterinary assistant in South Africa). The Drigins separated soon after and Ruth Drigin remarried in 1929. Serge Drigin was subsequently married at Lambeth in 1931 to Eva Walker (1905-1993) and, at Fulham in 1954, to Joan Octavia A. Nicholle (1916-1992).

Drigin, who was naturalised in 1932, died in Lambeth, his death registered in 2Q 1977 under the name Sergie Drigin. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Philippe Druillet biography

Philippe Druillet biography

Philippe Druillet (born 28 June 28 1944; Toulouse, France)
Philippe Druillet is a French comics artist and creator, and an innovator in visual design.

Druillet was born in Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, France but spent his youth in Spain, returning to France in 1952 after the death of his father. A science fiction and comics fan, Philippe worked as a photographer after graduating from high school, drawing only for his own pleasure.

His first book appeared in 1966, entitled Le Mystère des abîmes (The Mystery of the Abyss). It introduced his recurring hero Lone Sloane and played on science-fiction themes partially inspired by his favourite writers, H. P. Lovecraft and A.E. van Vogt. Later Druillet created book covers for republications of Lovecraft's work, as well as numerous movie posters.

After becoming a regular contributor to the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote in 1970, Druillet's Lone Sloane saga grew steadily more flamboyant, as he pursued innovations including bold page designs and computer-generated images. His backdrops of gigantic structures inspired by Art Nouveau, Indian temples and Gothic cathedrals earned him the nickname of "space architect". Six tales about Sloane's exploits were collected in Les six voyages de Lone Sloane in 1972, hailed by many as his masterpiece, and Sloane was again the hero of the graphic novel Délirius (1973), written by Jacques Lob. In 1973, Druillet also produced the Moorcock's Elric-inspired Yragaël for Pilote, and Vuzz for the magazine Phénix

In 1975 Druillet joined Jean-Pierre Dionnet, Bernard Farkas and Moebius to form the publishing house Les Humanoïdes Associés, and the magazine Métal Hurlant. This was to be a vehicle for his finest stories, and showcased a steady evolution in his graphical skills. His series Lone Sloane and Vuzz continued, and other stories of this period include La Nuit, and Nosferatu. In 1980 Druillet produced Salammbô, a comic-book trilogy based upon Flaubert's proto-heroic fantasy novel Salammbô.

Outside his work as a cartoonist and illustrator, Druillet has also been active in architecture, rock opera, painting, sculpture and digital art. He worked as a designer on the film, Sorcerer directed by William Friedkin in 1976. He collaborated on Rolf Liebermann's Wagner Space Opera in the Opera de Paris in the late 70s to early 80s, and founded the Space Art Création in 1984. More recently he made Les Rois Maudits 2005 remake's artwork and designed large parts of the background.
Source: Wikipedia
Philippe Druillet art
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Edmund Drury biography

Edmund Drury biography

Edmund Drury (active 1952-1965)
Little is known of this excellent artist - we are not even certain whether his name is Edward or Edmond as it appears he was known to all simply as "Ted". It is believed that he was born in South Africa and was discovered by Ted Holmes who used him for the pirate strip, Guy Gallant for the cover of Comet. Drury also drew for the Hulton Press, producing another 18th century strip for Girl, as well as a strip for the first Eagle Annual.

His illustrations for the text serialisations of Edgar Rice Burroughs' early Tarzan stories in Comet show just how versatile this stylish artist could be. According to Leonard Matthews, Drury was "handsome to a degree" but "of a very objectionable nature" and extremely arrogant. Drury left British comics in the mid 1960s and returned to South Africa. Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright
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Robert Dudley biography

Robert Dudley biography

Robert Charles Dudley (1826 - 1909; London, UK)
Robert Dudley was a versatile artist who enjoyed a considerable reputation in his own time. A painter of seascapes, he practised across a range of printing media; mainly a lithographer and chromolithographer, he was also a draughtsman drawing on wood for mid-Victorian periodicals; an accomplished designer of book-covers (Ball, p.148; King, p.16) and Christmas cards (1887); and a writer and illustrator who published a number of black and white and coloured books for children. Highly productive, he is most remembered for his vivid illustrations for The Atlantic Telegraph (1866), and for his bindings. Constrained, like all of his contemporaries, by the conditions of a crowded and competitive market, Dudley was willing to turn his hand to whatever employment was available.

However, he was never a wage-slave and his complex work-pattern, doing whatever was available and suitable, was in his case a slightly surprising development. Unlike many artists who came from lower middle-class backgrounds or 'from trade' – as in the case of E. H. Wehnert, whose father was a tailor – Dudley had the advantage of being born into the moneyed bourgeoisie, and did not have to work to live. His father, Charles Stokes Dudley, is recorded on his son's marriage certificate as a London 'gentleman', and Robert would have enjoyed the benefits of a comfortable childhood, finally inheriting the family's wealth. This situation is reflected in the fact that he lived for most of his adult life at one address, 31 Landsdowne Road in fashionable Notting Hill, owning a property which, while not in the same league as houses in Belgravia or Holland Park, was far beyond the means of most of his fellow-artists, and a marked contrast to the situation of contemporaries such as John Franklin and John Sliegh, who lived in rented accommodation as lodgers. He may also have benefitted from his marriage in 1859 to Amelia Hunt, the daughter of the successful Liverpool artist of domestic genre, Andrew Hunt. No doubt this union brought a significant dowry, and Dudley's life, buttressed with old money, was essentially that of a prosperous 'gentleman-artist'. Freed from the necessities of having to work, he nevertheless engaged with a wide range of projects, an approach that sustained his interest through a varied and prosperous life.

Following a false start which involved the exhibition of a genre piece at the Royal Academy in 1853 (an endeavour that erroneously led to the chronicling of two artists of the name of Dudley, even though they are the same person), his earliest work was essentially of technical rather than artistic value. His earliest training is unknown, but must have been in a lithographer's workshop.

In the early 1850s he held the post of principal draughtsman under the direction of the architect Matthew Digby Wyatt, in charge of the recording of the monuments in the Medieval and Renaissance Courts at the Sydenham Crystal Palace.

This was followed by other journalistic work. Engaged by Day and Son, the chromolithographers who published luxurious picture books and were the leading practitioners in the field, Dudley became a specialist in the representation of applied art. The best of his early work appears in Examples of Decorative Art, Selected from the Royal and Other Collections <Actinic:Variable Name = '1860'/>. This is a detailed catalogue of a range of exotic and patterned objects; like all artists working in the milieu of the time, he was bound by the Pre-Raphaelite fascination with 'facts' and 'truth', and here, as elsewhere, he is primarily concerned with the 'copying' of 'reality'. Though decorative in effect, these are essentially straightforward informational designs, and at this point Dudley seems very much a technician/artist, supplying a vast market with commemorative or functional images in bright and sometimes livid colours.

His art takes an imaginative (and slightly troubling) step forward in the form of a series of 41 chromolithographs for A Memorial of H.R.H. Albert Edward Prince of Wales and H.R.H. Princess of Denmark,also known, with rather greater brevity, as The Wedding at Windsor (1863 and 1864). This album is a montage of the events and characters. A celebration of the opulence and traditions of the British Royalty, it provides a detailed representation of interiors, landscapes, architecture and costumes. Produced, once again, by Day and Son, its subject-matter is well-suited to the saturated colours and precise lines that characterise the chromolithographic medium. Ruari Maclean considers these images 'the highest point of faithful representation yet achieved by chromolithography' (p.132); a perfect souvenir, they provided their curious middle-class audience with an insight into the rituals of the aristocracy. Heraldic in character, the Wedding seems both fantastic and realistic, a catalogue of super-charged artefacts which ultimately have the hallucinatory unreality of a dream, rather than the super-realism the artist was aiming at. His figures, especially, are more like observed things rather than individuals, porcelain models of people than people. This tendency is exemplified by his treatment of The Bridesmaids, which seem like some many ornaments on display.

Dudley's work both here and throughout his drawing on stone is nevertheless of the highest quality, and by the mid-sixties he was recognised as one of the leading practitioners of the process, and one of the Days' principal men. At this time he was also working as an artist in black and white, and seemed able to shift effortlessly from chromolithography to wood-engraving. He did illustrations for a version of the Bible (1860), embellishing its pages with severe designs 'freely adapted and drawn on wood', contributed to The Library Shakespeare [1873–75], and produced sundry images for a series of children's books, several of which were engraved by the Dalziels.

Children's books became a mainstay in the seventies, eighties and nineties, and Dudley was the author and illustrator of a series of successful publications. These included The Twigs <Actinic:Variable Name = '1890'/>, a bizarre piece of anthropomorphism in the manner of Harrison Weir and Ernest Griset, and King Fo, the Lord of Misrule <Actinic:Variable Name = '1884'/>, a book of medieval fooling in livid tones. He also supplemented his own endeavours with illustrative work for John Edgar's The Boy Crusades(1865), Franz Hoffman's The Christian Prince <Actinic:Variable Name = '1882'/>, and numerous others. His talent was especially suited to the representation of historical themes, or at least to stories set in some half-imagined past. A chronicler of the minutiae of artefacts, he brought a sense of journalistic conviction to his designs, converting even the fantastical into the plausible. As Gleeson White explains of his work for The Boys' Own Magazine,he illustrated in a medievalist style, enhancing 'historical romances' with 'spirit and no little knowledge of archaeological details' (p.85). What is more surprising is his humour, a quality that sits uneasily next to his historical exactitude.

Through all of these commissions he continued to exhibit paintings. Early in his career he discovered an aptitude for seascapes and other marine subjects. From 1865 to 1891 he displayed a total of 47 maritime paintings in oil and watercolour at London venues including the Royal Academy, Suffolk Street and the fashionable Grosvenor Gallery (Graves, p.85). Examples can be found in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Institute of Civil Engineers, London, and the Maritime Museum, Liverpool; none has been exhibited in recent times. These works had a general audience, but Dudley's interest in this genre was put to best use in his monumental series of chromolithographs for The Atlantic Telegraph (1866).
Source: VictorianWeb.org
Robert Dudley art
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Jack Dunkley biography

Jack Dunkley biography

Jack Dunkley (26 September 1906 - March 1994; London, UK)
Jack Dunkley was born in Holloway, London and educated at the Sir Hugh Middleton Secondary School. He left Sir Hugh Middleton Secondary School at 16 and joined the film industry in Wardour Street, producing subtitles for advertising films, and took evening classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He left the film studio in 1930, and became a full-time freelance cartoonist in 1932.

His earliest work was a regular sports cartoon in the Daily Mirror called "Sport Shorts" and he drew sports cartoons for thirty years.

From 5 August 1957 he drew a daily strip about a working-class family, The Larks. Early scripts were written by radio comedy writers Bill Kelly and Arthur Lay. TV writer and former cartoonist Robert St. John Cooper took over from them until 1963, when he was replaced by Brian Cooke, who made the family middle class, and later by Ian Gammidge. It lasted 28 years, finally ending on 28 February 1985.

'The Larks' revolves around Sam Lark, a supermarket employee married to his wife Sal. In 1961 they had a child, Stevie. Later episodes gave them a daughter named Susie. The family also took a pet, the cat Soso. 'The Larks' ran with equal success in French as 'Sam et Zette'.

Dunkley drew two other strips for the Mirror - the cookery strip Patsy, and the gardening strip Mr Digwell, written by Gammidge - and also drew editorial cartoons and covers, including an illustration of a hand holding a gun, captioned "Today YOUR finger is on the trigger", on General Election day on 25 October 1951.

He also contributed illustrations and caricatures to the Radio Times, Daily Sketch, News Chronicle, Daily Express and others. He died in March 1994 in Hendon, Middlesex.
Source: UK Comics Wiki; Lambiek comiclopedia
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Les Edwards biography

Les Edwards biography

Les Edwards (born 1949; UK)
Les Edwards is a British illustrator known for his work in the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres, and has provided numerous illustrations for book jackets, posters, magazines, record covers and games during his career. In addition to working under his actual name, he also uses the pseudonym Edward Miller to paint in a different style and to overcome restrictions placed on him by his association with horror. He has won the British Fantasy Society award for Best Artist seven times, and was awarded the World Fantasy Award in 2008.

Edwards studied at Hornsey College of Art between 1968 and 1972, where he says he was "firmly advised that he would never be an illustrator" due to a general perception in the department that the job was too difficult, and later claiming that the experience failed to provide much of use in later years. After graduating, Edwards was taken on by the Young Artists agency in London, and began working as a freelance illustrator.

Over the course of his prolific career Edward's work has included advertising campaigns, graphic novels and film design, but he is perhaps best known for his book jacket illustrations spanning the horror, fantasy and science fiction genres. Over the years he has provided many illustrations for genre titles, including numerous pieces for Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and Pratchett's Discworld setting, and books by authors such as Anne McCaffrey.

Edwards is also known for his numerous covers for books in the Fighting Fantasy series, including Caverns of the Snow Witch, Demons of the Deep, and Crypt of the Sorcerer, and many of the more recent re-issues.

Many of Edward's paintings appeared as covers for Games Workshop's White Dwarf magazine during the 1980s, and he was featured, along with other illustrators from Young Artists, in an Illuminations exposé in White Dwarf. He also provided the covers for the Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplements Power Behind the Throne and Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, and a series of illustrations for the Dark Future game.

In 1989 Games Workshop published an anthology of Edward's work entitled Blood and Iron. He has also provided several pieces of work for Milton Bradley's HeroQuest, and covers for books for FASA's Shadowrun and Earthdawn RPGs. Edwards has also provided illustrations for British science fiction periodicals Interzone and Postscripts. as well as the now-defunct AD&D fantasy publication IMAGINE Magazine.

Edwards has illustrated two graphic novels, both adapted by Steve Niles from short stories in Clive Barker's Books of Blood. Having met at the World Fantasy Convention in London, Barker later recalled Edwards and recommended him to Eclipse Books for the first, Son of Celluloid; after its success Rawhead Rex followed. Edwards also created the UK publicity posters for the films The Thing, Graveyard Shift and Nightbreed, the latter a commission he received as a result of Clive Barker's influence.

Edwards has also provided a number of record covers during his career. A portion of one of his illustrations, originally created for The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton was also used as cover art for Metallica's early single, "Jump in the Fire", whilst his painting The Croglin Vampire appeared as the cover of the album "Alive and Screamin' by Swiss band Krokus. More recently he produced the cover for the album Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy.

In recent years Edwards has also begun working under the pseudonym Edward Miller, a move designed to allow him to pursue a more diverse range of commissions without any assumptions on the part of publishers based on his prior work, particularly any restrictive association with the horror genre.

Edwards has won the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist seven times, and has been nominated three times for a World Fantasy Award which he finally won, as Edward Miller, in 2008, as well as having acted as a judge for the awards in 2003, and was the artist Guest of Honour at the 1995 World Science Fiction Convention.

Edwards is now represented by his wife, Val Edwards, with whom he lives in Brighton, England. When not painting, his pastimes include model kit building, playing the guitar and fencing.

Edwards often refers to his vintage horror work as his 'Red Period', a reference to the profusion of gore prevalent in horror illustration at the time, and to more recent work as his 'Blue Period'. Edwards is generally known for his emphasis on portrait elements, whilst as Miller, on the other hand, he places a greater emphasis on landscapes, and what he views as a more 'romantic style'.

Amongst Edwards' influences he cites the early influence of comic illustrator Frank Bellamy, particularly the Heros the Spartan strip, as well as Eagle's Dan Dare, and a later love for the work of illustrator Bruce Pennington, and describes a childhood attraction to anything 'strange or bizarre', drawing from a very early age, inspired by comics and film. His later exposure to macabre and violent elements in the work of more traditional artists, such as Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, left an impression. Other major influences include William Blake, John Singer Sargent and John Everett Millais.

Although he has also occasionally used gouache, and more recently has often worked in acrylics, Edwards' original medium of choice is oil paint. This is used on any smooth board, ideally hardboard, which is primed with gesso. Following from preliminary sketches, images are constructed on the support with a hard pencil before being developed using washes of a neutral coloured acrylic, usually brown, a technique Edwards says he borrowed from 'the old masters'. The oils are mixed with an alkyd medium called liquin, which thins the paint and speeds drying time.

Edwards and Miller are also separated by distinctions of medium, with pieces under the Miller name more typically executed in acrylic paint on canvas panels as opposed to Edward's more usual use of oils on smooth board. Recently Edwards is enjoying the freedom found in the digital medium with programs like Painter, although he continues to express a preference for traditional painting techniques.
Source: Wikipedia


See illustrators issue 8 for a Les Edwards feature article.
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Will Eisner biography

Will Eisner biography

Will Eisner (1917 - 2005, USA)
The Spirit is his greatest creation and is still being reprinted regularly, despite being created in 1940. Renowned for his cinematic style and unusual panel layout and angles, Eisner is highly respected by his peers. Born in 1917 in Brooklyn, he formed a partnership with Jerry Iger to produce comic strips for the voracious comic book publishers of the 1940s. His Hawks of the Sea was a tremendous pirate adventure strip. Lou Fine, Bob Powell, Jules Feiffer, Wally Wood, Jerry Grandenetti, plus many other respected artists have worked for and with Eisner throughout his career.

Over the past few years he has produced a series of innovative graphic novels beginning with the award winning A Contract with God. His book Comics and Sequential Art is one of the top selling books on how to draw comics and is continually being reprinted.

Will Eisner art

See also our WILL EISNER BOOKS and enjoy Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition featuring Willis Rensie (Will Eisner)!
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Gil Elvgren biography

Gil Elvgren biography

Gillette A Elvgren (15 March 1914 - 29 February 1980; St. Paul, Minnesota, USA)
Gillette Elvgren was an American painter of pin-up girls, advertising and illustration. Best known for his pin-up paintings for Brown & Bigelow, Elvgren studied at the American Academy of Art. He was strongly influenced by the early "pretty girl" illustrators, such as Charles Dana Gibson, Andrew Loomis, and Howard Chandler Christy. Other influences included the Brandywine School founded by Howard Pyle.

Gillette A. Elvgren was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and attended University High School. After graduation, he began studying art at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. He subsequently moved to Chicago to study at the American Academy of Art. He graduated from the Academy during the depression at the age of twenty-two. Elvgren joined the stable of artists at Stevens and Gross, Chicago's most prestigious advertising agency. He became a prot¨¦g¨¦ of the artist Haddon Sundblom.

In 1937, Gil began painting calendar pin-ups for Louis F. Dow, one of America's leading publishing companies, during which time he created about 60 works on 28" x 22" canvas and distinguished them by a printed signature. Many of his pin-ups were reproduced as nose art on military aircraft during World War II. Around 1944, Gil was approached by Brown and Bigelow, a firm that still dominates the field in producing calendars and advertising specialties. He was associated with Brown & Bigelow from 1945 to 1972. At Brown & Bigelow Elvgren began working with 30" x 24" canvases, a format that he would use for the next 30 years, and signed his work in cursive.

Elvgren was a commercial success. He lived in various locations, and was active from the 1930s to 1970s. In 1951 he began painting in a studio in his home, then in Winnetka, Illinois, using an assistant to set up lighting, build props and scenes, photograph sets, and prepare his paints. His clients ranged from Brown and Bigelow and Coca-Cola to General Electric and Sealy Mattress Company. In addition, during the 1940s and 1950s he illustrated stories for a host of magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping. Among the models Elvgren painted were Myrna Hansen, Donna Reed, Barbara Hale, Arlene Dahl, Lola Albright and Kim Novak.
Source: Wikipedia
Gil Elvgren art
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Gerry Embleton biography

Gerry Embleton biography

Gerry Embleton (born 1941; London, UK)
Gerry Embleton is a British artist, born in London. He is the brother of Ron Embleton.

When 21-year-old artist Gerry Embleton began contributing centre-page illustrations to Look and Learn in 1962, he was already an 11-year veteran of the comic industry, his artistic career having begun at the age of nine inking pages for his older brother, Ron.

He worked with Ron regularly throughout the 1950s, inking 'Strongbow the Mohawk' for Zip and colouring 'Wulf the Briton' for Express Weekly. His first solo work, an illustration, was published in Mickey Mouse Weekly when he was 14 and he began working freelance at the age of 15. Some of his best early work appeared in Zip, where he took over the 'Strongbow the Mighty' strip in 1958, and Cowboy Picture Library where he drew Davy Crockett, Kit Carson and Kansas Kid (1959-62).

From 1961, he became better known for colour strips, producing fill-in episodes of 'Riders of the Range' for Eagle and taking over 'Colonel Pinto' for TV Express. Embleton contributed strips to Boys' World, Robin, Tiger and illustrations to Look and Learn in the 1960s, although his best-known work was 'Stingray' for TV Century 21 (1966-67).

In the 1970s, Embleton concentrated on illustrating books and became noted for the historical accuracy of his military illustrations, although he also illustrated fairy tales and histories of the American West. He briefly returned to comics to draw 'Dan Dare' for the revived Eagle in 1982.

In 1983, he moved to Switzerland. He lives in Prêles near Neuchâtel.

In 1988, he co-founded Tima Machine AG, a company based in Switzerland involved in creating vivid life-size historical figures for museums and exhibitions. Embleton wrote and photographed The Medieval Soldier: 15th Century Campaign Life Recreated in Colour Photographs (1994).

He is now best known as an illustrator of military and historic subjects. He has illustrated more than 40 titles for the military publisher Osprey. Gerry Embleton has been a leading illustrator and researcher of historical costume since the 1970s and he is an internationally respected authority on 15th and 18th century costumes in particular.

Gerry Embleton is a founding member of the Company of Saynt George, a living-history association. His book "The Medieval Soldier", co-authored with Tolkien illustrator John Howe, had a big influence on the living-history hobby as a whole.
Source: Look and Learn and Wikipedia.

We also have BOOKS featuring Gerry's work and his much admired ART for many Osprey series of military uniforms.

Gerry Embleton art
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Ron Embleton biography

Ron Embleton biography

Ronald Sydney Embleton (6 October 1930 - 13 February 1988; London, UK)
Born in Limehouse, London in 1930, Embleton began drawing as a young boy, submitting a cartoon to the News of the World at the age of 9 and, at 12, winning a national poster competition.

In 1946 Embleton went to the South-East Essex Technical College and School of Art. There he had the incredible good fortune to be taught by David Bomberg, one of the greatest – though at that time sadly under-appreciated – British artists of the twentieth century.

At 17 he earned himself a place in a commercial studio but soon left to work freelance, drawing comic strips for many of the small publishers who sprang up shortly after the war.

He was soon drawing for the major publishers. His most fondly remembered strips include Strongbow the Mighty in Mickey Mouse Weekly, Wulf the Briton in Express Weekly, Wrath of the Gods in Boys' World, Tales of the Trigan Empire and Johnny Frog in Eagle and Stingray in TV Century 21.

Embleton also provided the illustrations that appeared in the title credits for the Captain Scarlet TV series, and dozens of paintings for prints and newspaper strips. A meticulous artist, his illustrations appeared in Look and Learn for many years, amongst them the historical series Roger’s Rangers.

Oh, Wicked Wanda! was a British full-colour satirical and saucy adult comic strip, written by Frederic Mullally and drawn by Ron Embleton. The strip regularly appeared in Penthouse magazine from 1973 to 1980 and was followed by Embleton's equally saucy dark humoured Merry Widow strip, written by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione.

Less well known, however, was his equally energetic career as an oil painter. In fact, being a painter had been his life's ambition – his 'driving force', according to his daughter Gillian. It was only his remarkable success as an illustrator that in the end largely diverted him from the painter's path.

Embleton died on 13 February 1988 at the relatively young age of 57 after a lifetime of truly prodigious artistic output of remarkable quality.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

Enjoy our recently published Ron Embleton illustrators  Special Edition and enjoy Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition featuring more of Ron's wonderful artwork!

We also have BOOKS featuring Ron's work including Wulf the Briton, The Trigan Empire  and Look and Learn.

Enjoy our ORIGINAL TRIGAN EMPIRE ART by Don Lawrence, Ron Embleton, Oliver Frey, Philip Corke, Miguel Quesada and Gerry Wood.

Ron Embleton art
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Dan Escott biography

Dan Escott biography

Dan Escott (1928 - 1987, England)
Dan Escott wrote and drew many features which played to his strength and interest in heraldic and medieval illustration. He was a regular contributor to the From Then Till Now feature in Look and Learn as well as creating back cover series on flags of the world, national symbols of Britain and the Guilds of London amongst many others.

Escott was born in Surrey on 3 December 1928. He studied at Croydon School of Art where he first came in contact with the subject of heraldry. Discovering that he had a flair for heraldic illustration (he won the school's Arms and Armour drawing competition two years running), he joined the College of Arms as a trainee herald painter, designing heraldry for stained glass, wood carvings, ceramics, engravings, banners, flags and coins, and developing a strong, bold style which stood him well when he began producing illustrations for advertising. One of his best known works was a painting of the Battle of Crecy which was published in the Illustrated London News.

In 1967 he was invited to work at the Institute of Heraldry in Virginia for the US forces, designing many regimental and other insignia, including badges for the Washington DC Police Department. Returning to England in 1968, he continued to work as a book and magazine illustrator. After the dissolution of his first marriage to Barbara Mitchell, he married Wendy Manfield (née Thornborough) in 1983 and emigrated to Australia where he worked for the Australian Geographic. Escott died of cancer in Sydney on 7 May 1987, aged 58.
Biography courtesy of Steve Holland.
Dan Escott art
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George Evans biography

George Evans biography

George R Evans (5 February 1920 - 22 June 2001; Pennsylvania, USA)
George Evans was an American cartoonist and illustrator who worked in both comic books and comic strips. His lifelong fascination with airplanes and the pioneers of early aviation was a constant theme in his art and stories.

Born in Harwood, Pennsylvania, Evans studied art from a correspondence course. He was still in his teens when he made his first sales, both illustrations and writing, to pulp magazines. Early in World War II, Evans was an aircraft mechanic at Shaw Field in South Carolina, where he sometimes flew in the planes he had worked on. He studied at the Scranton Art School and then entered the Army.

* Comic books *
In the post-World War II years, Evans began working for comic books, including an in-house staff position at Fiction House until 1949. Originally hired to rule panel borders, erase pencils and fill in blacks for other illustrators, he sat next the teenaged artist Frank Frazetta. Evans eventually got up the nerve to show his portfolio to the editor where the surprised staffer exclaimed, "What the hell are you doing this job for, when you can draw like this?" After that, Evans was given feature stories to draw in 1947. Among the features he illustrated were "The Lost World in Planet Comics and "Tigerman" in Rangers Comics. His favorite work from this period was for Fiction House's Wings Comics and he did a few illustrations for the company's pulp line as well. He picked up odd jobs while still attending art classes, including some farmed out to him by Better Publications' art editor Graham Ingels, who would later join Evans at Fiction House and at EC Comics. Evans' titles for Fawcett included the When Worlds Collide film adaptation and the Captain Video television adaptation, plus horror stories for Strange Suspense Stories, This Magazine Is Haunted, and Worlds of Fear. He contributed to the company's westerns and romance titles as well. Until the end of his life, Evans believed his work for Fawcett was better than any other in his career. He liked the people there and assembled a team of inkers and assistants after becoming one of Fawcett's top illustrators in 1950.

His work for EC Comics in the early 1950s included powerful covers and crime stories for Crime SuspenStories and memorable World War I aviation covers and stories for Aces High. He was a semi-regular contributor to The Haunt of Fear, Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and Shock SuspenStories (the latter of which also had three covers by Evans). Evans' shocking cover for Crime Suspenstories #23 was held up at the Senate Hearings On Juvenile Delinquency in 1954, among many other comic book covers from a variety of publishers. He stayed with EC through their new direction and Picto-Fiction experiments, contributing to MD, Impact, Piracy, Terror Illustrated, Crime Illustrated and Shock Illustrated, among others.

After EC, he contributed to Gilberton's Classics Illustrated, Dell and Gold Key. His books for Classics Illustrated included Romeo and Juliet (No. 134, September 1956); Lord Jim (No. 136, January 1957); The Little Savage (No. 137, March 1957); In the Reign of Terror (No. 139, July 1957); The Crisis (No. 145, July 1958); The Buccaneer (No. 148, January 1959); The Three Musketeers (No. 1, revised, May 1959); The Hunchback of Notre Dame (No. 18, revised, with Reed Crandall, Fall 1960); Oliver Twist (No. 23, revised, with Reed Crandall, Fall 1961); Julius Caesar (No. 68, revised, with Reed Crandall, 1962); and In Freedom's Cause (No. 168, with Reed Crandall, 1962; published UK 1963; published US 1969).

*Comic strips *
For Boys' Life Evans drew Space Conquerors! for the August 1953-March 1958 issues. During the 1960s, he was an assistant and ghost artist for George Wunder on the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. He did occasional work in comic books during this period, most notably for Warren's Blazing Combat black and white magazine and Eerie, Gold Key's The Twilight Zone and Ripley's Believe It Or Not! During the 1970s, he contributed comics to the National Lampoon. He drew DC Comics' war comics and mystery tales, and for Marvel Comics he did mystery-horror stories plus work on 2 issues of Super-Villain Team-Up featuring Doctor Doom and Sub-Mariner. Al Williamson passed Secret Agent Corrigan on to Evans in 1980, and the strip ended with his 1996 retirement. For several years before that, the strip, as with all story strips, was becoming less popular. As the strips' circulation dwindled, the syndicate was about to cancel it in 1991. Originally, Evans had been glad, and had taken on other work. Then Evans was lured back, because it turned out that the strip's popularity in European markets justified keeping it going for 5 more years.

* Aviation art *
George Evans in 1953 at work on "Frank Luke!" for Frontline Combat #13 (July–August 1953).
Evans' first love was World War I aviation, and he did many paintings of World War I dogfights, including a calendar for The Cross and Cockade Society. He also did book jacket art. For David Manning White's Marlborough House, Evans created the cover illustration for The Black Swallow of Death: The Incredible Story of Eugene Jacques Bullard, The World's First Black Combat Aviator by P.J. Carisella, James W. Ryan and Edward W. Brooke (1972). This illustration is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.

* Books and later career *
He illustrated a children's book, The Story of Flight, for Random House. The last page, which shows a man flying with a rocket pack, shows the rear of the Evans family home with Evans working at his drawing board in an upstairs window. In 1975, the hardcover novel Far Lands, Other Days contained many Evans black-and-white illustrations and a painted cover. In the 1990s, Factoid Books (a DC offshoot) released its Big Book of... series in which Evans drew some of his last comics: one a biography of baseball great Ty Cobb, another the story of the first air mail flight; and in 1998, the life of Judge Roy Bean in The Big Book of the Weird, Wild West.

Along with many other former EC artists and similar talents. he contributed many illustrations to at least nine of the 18 volumes of Art Linkletter's Picture Encyclopedia for Boys and Girls. He was commissioned to do storyboards for the film Jaws 3-D.

Evans, who in 1982 was living in Levittown, New York, on Long Island, was living in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, when he died at age 81. His final work was the Flash Gordon Sunday page of 21 January 2001.
Source: Wikipedia
George Evans art
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Frances Olive Esme Eve biography

Frances Olive Esme Eve biography

Frances Olive Esme Eve
Esme Eve was born in Sydenham, London and designed book jackets, fabrics and beautiful greeting cards for the Medici Society.
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F R Exell biography

F R Exell biography

F R Exell
Not much is known about this accomplished book illustrator who appeared most active in the 1960s and 1970s. Exell illustrated the paperback editions of 'Moonfleet' by J Mead Falkner (1963 edition) and 'The Quarantine Child' by Geraldine Symons (published 1966) and illustrated the 'History's Heroes' feature for Look and Learn magazine in the 1970s.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
F R Exell art
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Derek Eyles biography

Derek Eyles biography

Derek Charles Eyles (1902 - 1974)
Derek Eyles was born in North Finchley, London, and had an artist brother, Geoffrey, with an uncannily similar style, although, according to Leonard Matthews, of no use when it came to "our sort of thing", i.e. adventure strip work. Derek Eyles was the Amalgamated Press' number one horse artist and all new artists were given his work to help them learn to "do horses properly". He worked for Knockout from number one, having previously been working on Wild West Weekly, producing some of that paper's superb full-colour cover paintings as well as many of the interior illustrations.

Eyles' first strip work was for Knockout in 1947: a Western serial, The Phantom Sheriff (a strip featuring the same character appeared in the Knockout Fun Book for 1949 and is one of his best pieces of work).

This was followed, in 1948, by his masterly Dick Turpin's Ride To York and then by a complete Western story, Buffalo Bill's Close Call, in January 1949. His Kit Carson strips for the early issues of Cowboy Comics Library rank with the very best examples of the genre and his wonderful Western plates graced many of the A.P. annuals throughout the 1950s, including Comet. As well as contributing to a myriad of comics and annuals, Derek Eyles was a prolific book illustrator working for many publishers, painting covers and illustrations for a wide range of subjects. Biography extract courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
Derek Eyles art

See illustrators issue 5 for a Derek Eyles feature article and enjoy Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition with more of Derek's wonderful artwork!
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Carlos Ezquerra biography

Carlos Ezquerra biography

Carlos Sanchez Ezquerra (born 12 November 1947; Zaragoza, Spain)

Carlos Ezquerra is a Spanish comics artist who works mainly in British comics and currently lives in Andorra. He is best known as the co-creator of Judge Dredd.

Ezquerra started his career based in Barcelona, drawing westerns and war stories for Spanish publishers. In 1973 he got work in the UK market through agent Barry Coker, drawing for girls' romance titles like Valentine and Mirabelle, as well as westerns for Pocket Western Library, and a variety of adventure strips for D. C. Thomson & Co.'s The Wizard. The UK was a popular market for Spanish artists as the exchange rate meant the work paid well, but Ezquerra moved to London to be near the work, settling in Croydon with his wife.

In 1974, on the strength of his uncredited work for The Wizard, Pat Mills and John Wagner headhunted him, through Coker, to work for the new IPC title Battle Picture Weekly. He drew "Rat Pack": inspired by the film The Dirty Dozen, the strip, written by Gerry Finley-Day, featured a gang of criminals recruited to carry out suicide missions. But his commitments elsewhere meant he couldn't draw it full time, and other artists were also used.

In 1976 Battle editor Dave Hunt convinced him to commit himself to the title, offering him the laid-back anti-hero "Major Eazy", written by Alan Hebden. Ezquerra drew nearly 100 episodes in the next two and a half years, basing the character's appearance on the actor James Coburn.

He was asked to visualise a new character, future lawman "Judge Dredd", for the science fiction weekly 2000 AD, prior to its launch in 1977. His elaborate designs displeased the strip's writer, John Wagner, but impressed editor Pat Mills, and his cityscapes persuaded Mills to set the strip further into the future than initially intended. But Wagner (temporarily) quit over ownership issues and Ezquerra followed him when the first published appearance of the character was drawn by another artist, Mike McMahon. He returned to Battle, where he once again teamed up with Alan Hebden to create "El Mestizo", a black gun-for-hire who played both sides against the middle during the American Civil War.

In 1978 he and Wagner created Strontium Dog, a sci-fi western about a bounty hunter in a future where mutants are an oppressed minority forced into doing such dirty work, for Starlord, a short-lived sister title to 2000 AD with higher production values. Starlord was later merged into 2000 AD, bringing "Strontium Dog" with it. Ezquerra was almost the only artist to draw the character, until 1988, when writer Alan Grant decided to kill him off in a storyline called "The Final Solution". Ezquerra disagreed with the decision, and refused to draw the story, which was instead illustrated by Simon Harrison and Colin MacNeil. In 2000 Wagner and Ezquerra revived "Strontium Dog" based on a treatment Wagner had written for an abortive TV pilot. Initially, stories were set before the character's death in a revised continuity, but 2010's "The Life and Death of Johnny Alpha" brought Johnny back from the dead.

Other 2000 AD strips he drew included Fiends of the Eastern Front (1980), a vampire story set in World War II, written by Gerry Finley-Day, and adaptations of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat novels. In 1982 he returned to "Judge Dredd" to draw "The Apocalypse War", a seven-month epic which he drew in its entirety. He has continued to draw the character semi-regularly, handling the whole of "Necropolis" in 1990, "Origins" in 2006-7, and many others.

Ezquerra has also collaborated numerous times with writer Garth Ennis on Bloody Mary, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, War Stories, a Hitman annual with artist Steve Pugh, and two Preacher specials (The Good Old Boys and The Saint of Killers miniseries) for DC Comics, and Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Entertainment. In 2009 his son Hector inked his pencil work for Strontium Dog: Blood Moon.

Ezquerra occasionally uses the nom de plume "L John Silver" for work such as "The Riddle of the Astral Assassin!" in 2000 AD issue 118.
From biographical notes on WikiPedia.

See illustrators issue 22 for a Carlos Ezquerra feature article.

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Stephen Fabian biography

Stephen Fabian biography

Stephen Emil Fabian, Sr (born 3 January 1930; Garfield, New Jersey, USA)
Stephen Fabian is an American artist who specializes in science fiction and fantasy illustration and cover art for books and magazines. Fabian also produced artwork for TSR's Dungeons & Dragons game from 1986 to 1995, particularly on the Ravenloft line. He was self-taught, two of his primary influences being Virgil Finlay and Hannes Bok. His work is usually signed Stephen Fabian or Stephen E. Fabian.

Fabian was a recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2006. He has also been a two-time nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist (1970 and 1971), and a seven-time nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist (1975–1981). Collections of his work include Ladies & Legends (1993) and Stephen E. Fabian's Women & Wonders (1995).
Source: Wikipedia
Stephen Fabian art
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Bert Felstead biography

Bert Felstead biography

Herbert Felstead (Active 1940s - 1970s; UK)
Herbert Felstead was a British artist known for illustrating nursery comics in comics such as Playhour and Jack and Jill.

Prior to his work as a comic artist, during the mid 1940s he was a director at the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. Using the signature Fel, he then became an illustrator for several titles published by Juvenile Productions Ltd. in the first half of the 1950s. He first appeared in the Jack & Jill comic book in 1956, taking over 'Teddy & Cuddly' from Hugh McNeill. One of his best known features in the long-running 'Leo the Friendly Lion', that began in Playhour in 1961. Another popular feature Felstead worked on was 'Fliptail the Otter' in Jack and Jill from 1967.

He also filled in on several other strips ('Wink & Blink, the Playful Puppies' and 'Pam's Supermarket' in Playhour, 'Moony from the Moon' and 'Pinky & Perky' in Harold Hare's Own Paper), and his work was reprinted in magazines like Bonnie and annuals up until the 1980s. In the mid-1970s he became the artist of 'Little Joe', a strip created by Ian Gammidge, in the Daily Mirror.
Source: Lambiek and Bear Alley
Bert Felstead art
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Roland Fiddy biography

Roland Fiddy biography

Roland John Fiddy (17 April 1931 - 3 July 1999; Plymouth, UK)
Roland Fiddy was born in Plymouth in 1931. His schooling was quality: first the Devonport High School, then four years at the Plymouth College of Art, and finally two years at the West of England College of Art in Bristol. This last stretch of study came after three years of National Service in the RAF from 1949 to 1951. He worked as an art teacher in Bristol for two years before turning full-time freelance cartoonist.

Fiddy's first cartoon sale was to the monthly pocket magazine Lilliput in July 1949. This, a best-seller of its day, combined bright articles, full-page cartoons and the occasional pin-up nude, a winning formula for a shilling (five pence). Fiddy next went further up-market to the weekly humorous magazine Punch, selling the first of many cartoon contributions to its editor, Malcolm Muggeridge, in 1952. Newspapers welcomed joke cartoons then, and soon Fiddy was contributing to the Daily Mail, the News Chronicle and the Daily Mirror.

Fiddy's first regular characters were drawn for boys' comics, a forgotten but interesting side to his career. After Eagle, the top weekly picture paper of its period, was bought from the publisher Edward Hulton by Odhams Press in 1960, its editor Clifford Makins was on the look-out for new characters that would add a touch of much-needed humour to the otherwise adventure hero strips. Fiddy came up with Sir Percy Vere, a noble if nutty knight. Three years later, still for Odhams Press (now known as Longacre), he created an up-to-date series for their new comic, Boys' World. This was the adventures of a clumsy conscript called Private Proon. His final series for a children's comic came in 1965, a page of mixed cartoons called "Fun With Fiddy". This ran in the short-lived weekly Ranger.

There were a couple of other adult comic strips drawn by Fiddy: "Paying Guest" for the Sunday Express (1985) and "Him Indoors" for the People (1986). Although both had fair runs, "Paying Guest" being the longer with 10 years, neither strip made the mark that his classic "Tramps" did with its daily appearance covering a decade.

There was a paperback book compiled of some 110 strips, Tramps in the Kingdom (1979). The author is credited as Iain Reid, while Fiddy is reduced to a signature on the cover and a small line on the credit page, "Drawn by Fiddy". Curiously for a man who cheerfully takes all the credit, Reid in his introduction reveals himself as a practising Christian. The book selects only the semi-religious jokes that appeared in the Sunday Express, not a single one of the workaday-week gags. And Reid quotes from the then Archbishop of Canterbury while sparing just one line about his artist's work. "Fiddy, who draws the strip so well, found out that Percival and Cedric began to change visually as he got to know them better." In some 750 words not even a mention of Fiddy's first name!

Fiddy was much appreciated for his humour and his style around the world. He won first prize at several international cartoon competitions including Knokke-Heist in Belgium (1990), Beringen Festival (1984), Netherlands Cartoon Festival (1985), Sofia (1986) and Yomiyuri Shimbun of Japan (1988).

He was married to the Danish artist Signe Kolding, and his books include The Best of Fiddy (1966) and a series of 11 Fanatic's Guides (1989-92).

Roland Fiddy was much appreciated for his stand alone comic panels and humour, winning first prize at several international cartoon competitions including Knokke-Heist in Belgium (1990), Beringen Festival (1984), Netherlands Cartoon Festival (1985), Sofia (1986) and Yomiyuri Shimbun of Japan (1988), it would be fair to call Fiddy one of the topmost cartoonists of his genre.

He also contributed to Boys' World (1963-64).
Source: Dennis Gifford (Obituary in The Independent), Illustration Art Gallery
Roland Fiddy art
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Mickey Finn biography

Mickey Finn biography

Mickey Finn
Not much is known about this artist, other than he painted a number of book covers for Souvenir Press in the 1990s. Could this possibly be a nom de brosse?
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Mickey Finn art
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Walkden Fisher biography

Walkden Fisher biography

Walkden Fisher (1913 - 1979; Birkdale, Southport, UK)
Walkden Fisher was born in Birkdale in 1913, the grandson of Alderman Thomas Fisher, a freeman of the borough and one of Southport's civic fathers. He was educated at King George V School and then studied at the Victoria School of Art, Southport, for five years. An early hobby of his art school days was making puppet theatres and, after building a theatre in his cellar, he and other students performed plays.

Walkden Fisher might be best known as as a cutaway artist in Eagle, as a modelmaker for the “Dan Dare” strip and as a contributor to Eagle: for instance, a 12-part series on "Running a Model Railway", to the Eagle annuals (Number 3) and the spin-off books (Trains, Modern Wonders and Hobbies).

Fisher was involved with the Bakehouse group of artists under Frank Hampson as a model maker, producing models of spaceships like the Anastasia and other items associated with Dan Dare, including a table-top model of Space Fleet Headquarters. When the studio moved south to Epsom, Fisher would often make the trip with his models.

Walkden Fisher also contributed a double-page feature on underground trains in Swift Annual 4 (1958).

But he was also a talented cartoonist, his distinctive signature in the shape of a fish instantly recognisable.

In his detailed biography on Bear Alley, Steve Holland notes Fisher began his artistic career illustrating books written by Ellison Hawks, a Hull-born journalist and photographer who had worked as advertising manager for Meccano Ltd. and then as a general editor for Amalgamated Press and editor of The Dog Owner. Hawks had been producing dozens of books on science, astronomy and aircraft since around 1910 and Fisher's association with him lasted for over a decade.

Fisher joined the R.A.F. as a draughtsman, spending two years in charge of the drawing office of 231 Group South-East Asia Command in Calcutta, where he also painted security posters for the USAF.

In addition to his work for Eagle, he also contributed freelance illustrations for many brochures and advertisements and is also remembered as a pioneer in slot car racing, who later became art editor of Model Car magazine and a technical editor of the American magazine Model Car and Track.

Walkden, who lived in Stockport where Eagle was first created, played a major role in the early success of the Automobile Road Racing Association slot car racing group, preceded by the Southport M&EC in which Fisher also played a role, which is still running today.

Walkden played a huge part in the building of the club's first main layout, which featured in an article he wrote and illustrated for Eagle Annual Volume 8 and also appeared in articles in Model Maker and Meccano Magazine.

"Walkden was a stickler for having everything look realistic and had as much scenery as he could fit in", recalls one former Automobile Road Racing Association member in a discussion thread on the International Slot Car Forum about the history of the Stockport-based club, which features many pictures of the layout and club members.

In the 1970s he was semi-retired and a one-man exhibition of his work was held at Southport's Atkinson Gallery in April 1973. A year later, Fisher was elected to be a life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In later years he also contributed cartoons to the Salvation Army magazine War Cry.

For many years Fisher, who was married and had a son, lived in Princes Street, Southport. He died in 1979, aged 66. Some of his artwork was subsequently published as fine art prints by a local firm, Hesketh Publishing.
Source: DowntheTubes.com & Bear Alley
Walkden Fisher art
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Dorothy Fitchew biography

Dorothy Fitchew biography

Dorothy Fitchew (flourished 1910 - 1922 (died))
Landscape and natural history painter and illustrator
Dorothy Fitchew art
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William Russell Flint biography

William Russell Flint biography

Sir William Russell Flint (4 April 1880 - 30 December 1969; Edinburgh, UK)
Sir William Russell Flint RA was a Scottish artist and illustrator who was known especially for his watercolour paintings of women. He also worked in oils, tempera, and printmaking.

Flint was born in Edinburgh on 4 April 1880 and was educated at Daniel Stewart's College and then Edinburgh Institution. From 1894 to 1900 Flint apprenticed as a lithographic draughtsman while taking classes at the Royal Institute of Art, Edinburgh. From 1900 to 1902 he worked as a medical illustrator in London while studying part-time at Heatherley's Art School. He furthered his art education by studying independently at the British Museum. He was an artist for The Illustrated London News from 1903 to 1907, and produced illustrations for editions of several books, including W. S. Gilbert's Savoy Operas (1909) and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (1912).

Flint was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

Flint was elected president of Britain's Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours (now the Royal Watercolour Society) in 1936 to 1956, and knighted in 1947.

During visits to Spain, Flint was impressed by Spanish dancers, and he depicted them frequently throughout his career. He enjoyed considerable commercial success but little respect from art critics, who were disturbed by a perceived crassness in his eroticized treatment of the female figure.

Flint was active as an artist until his death in London on 30 December 1969.
Source: Wikipedia

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

William Russell Flint art
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Charles Folkard biography

Charles Folkard biography

Charles James Folkard (1878 - 1963; London, UK)
Charles Folkard was born in Lewisham, London, and attended St. John's Wood School of Art, as well as Goldsmith's College School of Art.

He is the creator and original artist of the famous newspaper strip 'Teddy Tail', who made his first appearance in The Daily Mail on 5 April 1915. Folkard drew several stories for the Mail, which were collected in books by A & C Black, Ltd.

Folkard was succeeded by his artist son, Harry Folkard. Charles Folkard then focused on book illustration. He has done illustrations for such books as 'Swiss Family Robinson', 'Grimm's Fairy Tales', 'The Arabian Knights' and 'Children's Shakespeare'.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia & The Illustration Art Gallery
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Alfonso Font biography

Alfonso Font biography

Alfonso Font (born 28 August 1946; Barcelona, Spain)
Alfonso Font is a Spanish comic book creator and cartoonist.

Alfonso Font was born in Barcelona, Spain. He began his comics career in the early 1960s as an apprentice in the local Editorial Bruguera studio, working mostly at western, war, mystery and horror series, especially for foreign publishers. In the 1970s he worked for the British publisher Fleetway on several comics, in particular war series such as Black Max (commissioned through the Bardon Art agency); later he would also work for American publishers Warren Publishing and Skywald.

In the 1970s he moved to Paris, where he collaborated with the magazine Pif gadget where, among others, he created the science fiction series Les Robinsons de la terre (The Robinsons of Earth). In 1972 he illustrated the series Geminis, written by Carlos Echevarría, dealing with espionage adventures set in World War I, before moving on to work for the French publishing house Editions du Vaillant on comic strips for Pif magazine scripted by Patrick Cothias including “Sandberg, Pere et Fils”, a strip sadly dropped from the title as it was considered too adult for its target teen audience.

After working on “Tequila Bang” written by Victor Mora for the weekly Spanish news magazine La Calle, Font began writing more of his own scripts, creating several series and characters that have given him international recognition, including Historias negras (Dark Stories), a collection of eighteen short, dark humorous adventures, and the science fiction Cuentos de un futuro imperfecto (Tales of an Imperfect Future).

This was followed in 1982 by the similar, though more hilarious El prisionero de las estrellas (The Prisoner of the Stars), an ecological-themed series, and Clarke y Kubrick, Espacialistas Ltd (Clarke & Kubrick: Spatialists Inc.). Though the two main protagonists' names are those of the creators of 2001: A Space Odyssey, author Arthur C. Clarke and film director Stanley Kubrick, this series is mostly inspired by Robert Sheckley's short stories. In 1982 he also released an erotic-comic series entitled Carmen Bond.

As well as a number of short stories such as “El As Negro” (The Black Ace), Font also created the comic strips “En busca del Cimoc perdido” (Searching for the lost Cimoc) and “Federico Mendelssohn Bartholdy contra el doctor Fut Maun Chut” (Federico Mendelssohn Bartholdy vs. Dr. Fut Maun Chut) He also drew the graphic album Barcelona al Alba (Barcelona at Dawn), created in collaboration with scriptwriter Juan Antonio De Blas, based on real events that took place in Barcelona in 1925.

In 1985 Font created Jon Rohner (initially as Jann Polynesia), a comic book series about a seaman's wanderings inspired by tales from authors such as Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson. The series won the Haxtur Award in 1990 as "Best Short Comics" in the Salón Internacional del Cómic del Principado de Asturias at Gijón.

In 1987 he created Taxi, about a young female taxi-driver who lives a series of spy adventures. The Italian magazine L'Eternauta, in 1988, published his series Alice e gli Argonauti (Alice and the Argonauts), a science fictional adventure of a young girl searching for her father, imprisoned by a dictatorial government. Also in Italy, he published a series of self-contained stories entitled Private Eye, about a private detective, and Bri D'Alban, about the clash between the Catholic church and the Cathar heretics during the early 13th century.

In 1993 Font received the Grand Prize at the Barcelona International Comic Fair, in Barcelona, Spain, for his whole career.

In 1996 he received the Yellow Kid Award at the Lucca Comics & Games event, in Lucca, Italy.

In 1998 Font started drawing Tex Willer for Sergio Bonelli Editore, written by Mauro Boselli. Four years later he became a regular member of the staff working at Tex ongoing series; in 2012 he also worked at a short story of Dylan Dog.

In 1999, with writer Ewald Fehlau, he adapted Jason Dark's Ghost Hunter for German Publisher Bastei Verlag. In 2004 he was one of the artists called for the revamping of Pif Gadget, appearing with the pirate comic Les Aventures de Trelawney, written by Richard Marazano. In 2010 he provided art for the medieval historic series Heloise de Montfort, also with script by Marazano.

Starting in 2003, many of his classic stories were reprinted in Spain, in books such as Historias negras (Dark Stories) (2003), El as negro (The Black Ace) (2004), Barcelona al alba (Barcelona at Dawn) (2004), Federico Mendelssohn Bartholdy (2007), Jon Rohner, marino (Jon Rohner, sailor) (2008), Historias negras (Dark Stories) (2017), Taxi (2018), La flor del nuevo mundo (The Flower of the New World) (originally published as The Epos of Chile) (2018.)

He is still active, and his most recent album, Aloma: The Treasure of the Temerario was published in Germany in 2018.

Represented today worldwide by SAF (Strip Art Features), recent work includes the children’s story “Shelter for Lost Dreams.” and a new thriller/adventure series for SAF, which is again based in his beloved Barcelona.

Alfonso Font is a multi award-winning artist (awards that include the highly coveted “Yellow Kid”), and much admired by other comic creators.

Font's mastery of anatomy is self-evident, notes fellow Spanish artist Sergio Bleda. “I challenge you to show me an artist that can draw hands in such a natural and expressive manner as he does – it is his use of perspective, scene layout, narrative, volume, lightning, and textures.
Source: Downthetubes and Illustration Art Gallery
Alfonso Font art
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Ronald Forbes biography

Ronald Forbes biography

Ronald Forbes (1917 - 2013; Dundee, Scotland)
Born in 1917 in Dundee, he went to Stobswell School, leaving at 14 to join DC Thomson, where he worked as a junior in the art department.

On the outbreak of war in 1939 Mr Forbes joined the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, serving for more than six years as a tank driver.

He saw action with the 11th Armoured Division in Normandy, Belgium, Holland and Germany in 1944-45, when he lost many friends and comrades.

For many years he contributed to the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry Association and painted the regimental crest and battle honours that were recently restored to the Cupar association.

After the war Mr Forbes went back to college to study art and during the 1950s and early 1960s was a freelance artist working mainly for Amalgamated Press in London on the Rover. Captain Condor was one of his more well-known creations.

On moving back to Dundee, he worked for DC Thomson comics such as Bunty, Judy and Jackie.

He retrained as a teacher, qualifying in 1967, and taught at Fairmuir School in Dundee until his retirement in 1982.

He returned to art and major DIY projects on three homes. From his final home in Moulin, near Pitlochry, he continued drawing and painting into his early nineties.

He exhibited his work in many local galleries and sold Highland landscapes, still life and working horse paintings.

Mr Forbes died peacefully in Perth Royal Infirmary, just a month after his wife Nancy. He is survived by his children Allison and Malcolm.
Source: http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/obituaries/pitlochry-artist-and-war-veteran-ronald-forbes-dies-aged-96-1.71272
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Jean-Claude Forest biography

Jean-Claude Forest biography

Jean-Claude Forest (11 September 1930 - 29 December 1998; Paris, France)
Jean-Claude Forest was born in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, a Paris suburb, and graduated from the Paris School of Design in the early 1950s and immediately began working as an illustrator.

While at the Paris School of Design Forest drew his first comic strip, Flèche Noire (The Black Arrow). After creating Le Vaisseau Hanté (The Ghost Ship) he illustrated several issues of Charlot, a popular French comic book series loosely based on Charlie Chaplin.

Forest eventually became the premier cover artist of French publisher Gallimard's leading French science-fiction paperback imprint, Le Rayon Fantastique, also drawing covers for numerous French newspapers and magazines including France Soir. Together with renowned film director Alain Resnais, Forest was one of the founders of the French Comic-Strip Club in the early 1960s.

Forest became world famous when he created the sexy sci-fi strip Barbarella, which was originally published in France in V Magazine in 1962. The strip was an immediate bestseller and was soon translated into a dozen languages. In 1967 it was adapted by Terry Southern and Roger Vadim and made into a major motion picture, with Forest acting as design consultant.

Forest created many other cartoons and comic books, also writing scripts for comic strips and for French television.

He was awarded the Grand Prize at the 1984 Angoulême Comics Festival and in Sierre (Switzerland) in 1986.

Jean-Claude Forest suffered from severe asthma for many years and died in 1998 at the age of 68.
Source: Wikipedia
Jean-Claude Forest art
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Don Forrest biography

Don Forrest biography

Don Forrest (active 1950s & 1960s)
Donald A. Forrest is a wildlife artist noted for his illustration of birds. One of his most notable books is The Birdwatcher's Key which is an illustrated guide to 382 different species to be found in the British Isles and North-Western Europe.

Forrest's career may date back to at least as early as 1949 and the publication of a children's book entitled Binkie Beacon and His Friends. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Don Forrest art
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Robert Forrest biography

Robert Forrest biography

Robert Forrest (born circa 1905, died late 1968; active 1951 - 1968; UK)
Robert Forrest came into the comic business quite late in life (well into his forties), after a career with the Inland Revenue. He had never drawn professionally but was taken on by Ted Holmes for Comet, drawing Kit Carson for the front page. With his action-packed, free style, Forrest was a natural, at home in all adventure genres but, when Leonard Matthews used him for The Lyons Mail, he found his true metier, as one of the finest of all the historical Thriller Comics Library artists. As well as working for the TCL, Forrest continued to draw Western strips for its companion title, Cowboy Comics Library. He contributed to its Kit Carson and Buck Jones issues early on and later, towards the end of the run, full-length adaptations of Western novels, which can stand among his best work.

Forrest even tried his hand at science fiction, with The Martian, a strip version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Princess of Mars", for Comet. He drew a fine strip for Knockout in 1960 - The Mad Emperor - which vividly conveyed the opulence and decadence of the Russian court in the 18th century. As with his masterpiece, The Picture of Dorian Gray (TCL 148), even the architecture, massive, opulent and overpowering, seemed to evoke the atmosphere of horror and terror. He also drew a splendid version of R.L. Stevenson's famous story, Jekyll and Hyde, which was originally destined for the Thriller Comics Library but, the policy by then having swung against historical fiction if favour of War stories and Westerns, it was decided to use it as a serial strip in Top Spot late in 1959. Forrest was also one of the 'Karl the Viking' artists for Lion magazine.

Forrest's strip adaptations of Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four for Look and Learn are recognised as the best Sherlock Holmes picture strips ever produced. For the same magazine, Forrest produced his only colour strip - a serialisation of the story of Richard III -, which shows what a master colourist he was. Incidentally, the last chapter was drawn and painted by Eric Parker, indicating perhaps an illness or even, perhaps, Forrest's sudden death. Certainly the present authors can find no further work by this artist after that date.
Source: David Ashford, Norman Wright, Illustration Art Gallery

Enjoy his war story in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics FLEETWAY FIRSTS and his swashbuckling action in PIRATE TALES and CLASH OF BLADES.

Robert Forrest art
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Hal Foster biography

Hal Foster biography

Harold "Hal" Rudolf Foster (16 August 1892 – 25 July 25 1982; Nova Scotia, Canada)
Hal Foster, was a Canadian-American illustrator and writer best known as the creator of the comic strip Prince Valiant. His drawing style is noted for a high level of draftsmanship and attention to detail.

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Foster rode his bike to the United States in 1919. In 1928, he began one of the earliest adventure comic strips, an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan. In 1937, he created his signature strip, the weekly Prince Valiant, a fantasy adventure set in medieval times. The strip featured Foster's dextrous, detailed artwork; Foster eschewed word balloons, preferring to have narration and dialogue in captions.

Foster was a staff artist for the Hudson's Bay Company in Winnipeg and rode his bike to Chicago in 1919 where he studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and soon found illustration assignments. The illustrator J. C. Leyendecker was an early influence on Foster.

Foster's Tarzan comic strip, adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs's novels, began October 20, 1928. Foster returned to do the Tarzan Sunday strip beginning September 27, 1931, continuing until Burne Hogarth took over the Sunday Tarzan on May 9, 1937. He soon grew tired of working on an adaptation and began planning his own creation.

William Randolph Hearst, who had long wanted Foster to do a comic strip for his newspapers, was so impressed with Foster's pitch for Prince Valiant that he promised Foster a 50-50 split of the gross income on the strip, a very rare offer in those days. Prince Valiant premiered on February 13, 1937, continuing for decades. In 1944, Foster and his wife Helen moved from Topeka to Redding Ridge, Connecticut. In 1954, the couple was seen on television's This Is Your Life. In 1971, the Fosters retired to Spring Hill, Florida. In 1967, Woody Gelman revived some of Foster's earlier work for his Nostalgia Press.

In 1970, Foster was suffering from arthritis and began planning his retirement. He had several artists draw Sunday pages before choosing John Cullen Murphy as his collaborator and permanent replacement in 1971. Murphy drew the strip from Foster scripts and pencil sketches. Foster stopped illustrating (and signing) the Prince Valiant pages in 1975. For several years, he continued writing the strip and doing fairly detailed layouts for Murphy, eventually doing less and less of both the writing and art until prolonged anaesthesia during an operation took his memory and he no longer remembered ever doing Prince Valiant.

Foster attended the Comic Art Convention in 1969, and the OrlandoCon in 1974 and 1975.

Foster was 73 when he was elected to membership in Great Britain's Royal Society of Arts, an honor given to very few Americans.

Foster died in Spring Hill in 1982.

Foster is a seminal figure in the history of comics, especially action-adventure strips. R.C. Harvey argues that Foster and Flash Gordon artist Alex Raymond "created the visual standard by which all such comic strips would henceforth be measured."

Foster's clear yet detailed panels, uncluttered by word balloons, were appreciated by contemporaries of his generation such as Lynd Ward, but perhaps his greatest impact was on the young artists who drove the Golden Age of Comics. Foster was a major influence on this generation, many of whom went on to become iconic and influential artists themselves. Joe Kubert called Foster, Raymond and Milton Caniff the “three saints” of comic art in the 1930s and 40s. Several sources have identified early work by Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and Bob Kane as swipes from Foster, and Kirby claimed that he "cannibalized" Foster's style, among others. Kirby also stated that the character design for Etrigan the Demon was an homage to Foster, taken from a Prince Valiant strip. Wally Wood was "obsessed" with Foster's work, and began copying his newspaper strips at the age of two. Frank Frazetta called Foster's work on Tarzan “perfection, a landmark in American twentieth-century art that will never be surpassed." Among the many other artists who have cited Foster as an important influence are Steve Ditko, Mark Schultz, William Stout, Bill Ward, and Al Williamson. Williamson, who met Foster on a few occasions, described him as "a very stern gentleman, very stern, no nonsense. You could never call him Hal or Harold, it's Mr. Foster. ... you don't see that kind of people anymore, the ones that really command your respect."

In his review of Prince Valiant for The Comics Journal, Matt Seneca wrote "as far as long-form serialized action comics go, the only equal to Foster American comics have produced is Kirby, and Kirby was never shy about proclaiming his debts to the master."

Foster was recognized for his work by the National Cartoonists Society with the Reuben Award in 1957, the Story Comic Strip Award in 1964, the Special Features Award in 1966 and 1967, all for Prince Valiant. He received the Elzie Segar Award in 1978 and the Gold Key Award (their Hall of Fame) in 1977. Foster was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1996 and the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creators Hall of Fame for his contributions to comic books in 2005. The latter award was accepted on behalf of the family by writer-artist Dave Sim, a longtime admirer of Foster's work. Foster was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2006.
Source: Wikipedia
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Henry Fox biography

Henry Fox biography

Henry Fox (?1911 - ?1980; UK)
Back in the 1960s, Henry Fox became associated with Badger Books to such an extent that his cover artwork has become almost as well known as the novels they were attached to. Any fan of the work of the Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe will know and revere work of Fox H. (as the artwork was often neatly signed). Fox's covers are part of the charm of the books not because they are works of genius but because, like the books, they are pulpy, rushed and formulaic yet hint at wanting to be so much more.

Fox began his association with Badger Books (John Spencer & Co.) in early 1957 when he produced a handful of covers for the company's War and Supernatural titles; the work dried up after a year and it wasn't until mid-1960 that he became their main artist, producing over 200 covers for Badger before the company ceased publishing novels in mid-1967.

As far as I can tell, Fox began producing covers as early as 1952 when he worked for Arrow Books. By 1956 he was also being employed by Ward Lock and Pan, although throughout this period had also produced covers for the cheaper end of the market: Modern Fiction, Comyns and Alexander Moring. He also produced romance covers for Mills & Boon.

During the early 1960s, Fox also worked for the Amalgamated Press, producing covers for the Sexton Blake Library, 1961-62, and various war libraries, 1960-63 (and irregularly thereafter). In the late 1960s, post-Badger, he changed tack completely and began illustrating magazine stories, notably the 'Brer Rabbit' stories in Once Upon a Time and illustration for Treasure and Look and Learn.

Apart from his book covers and illustrations, very little is known about Fox. In the Artwork from the Pan Archive auction catalogue (Bonhams, 1991), the writer claimed that Fox was the pseudonym of one Henry Hall. Not true... and the only explanation I can think of is that at some point Fox worked for agent Maurice Hall and Hall's name appeared on the back of some artwork handled by Bonhams.

After a lot of digging I have discovered that Fox was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Art who lived in North London for most (if not all) of his working life, at 158 Alexandra Road, N.W.8 [fl.1948-59] and 27 Springfield Gardens, Barnet, N.W.9 [fl.1962-75].

I've not been able to trace him beyond 1975 and would love to know what happened to him. Henry Fox was a capable artist when working for the better paid markets although, for better or worse, he'll probably be remembered longest for his trashier work for Badger Books. At least that connection means his work has spread to the internet and any web site dedicated to Badger -- see the Pel Torro web site, for instance -- is almost a shrine to Henry Fox. The Look and Learn web site has a number of Fox's later illustrations from Treasure.

UPDATE (12 November 2006)
Thanks to Claire Batley of the RSA, we have a little more info. on Fox. Fox was elected a fellow of the RSA on Friday 1 November 1940. The RSA Journal carried addresses for members from vol. 94 (1945-46) at which time Fox was already living at 158 Alexandra Road. His move to 27 Springfield Gardens was noted in vol. 111 (1962-63). In the list of fellows in vol. 119 (1970-71), Fox has become a life member of the RSA. And, finally, in vol. 125 (1978-79) it is noted that he has moved to 26 St Peter's Crescent, Bexhill-on-Sea, E. Sussex.

The next available members list is from 1981 and Fox's name has disappeared. So it would appear that Fox died some time between 1979-81.

Having narrowed down the field of search, I was able to check the death registers for that period and there are two Fox suspects who died in that period whose deaths are registered at Hastings & Rother (which seems to be the place where all deaths in East Sussex are registered): Henry Stanley Fox (b. 26 December 1899, d. 1979) and, to me the more likely candidate, Henry Fox (b. 2 June 1911, d. 1980). I say the latter is more likely simply because the phone records don't record a middle initial.
Source: Steve Holland (Bear Alley)
Henry Fox art
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Picchioni Franco biography

Picchioni Franco biography

Picchioni Franco (1942 - 2002)
Picchioni Franco (aka P. FrankO) was an Italian artist. After finishing art school Picchioni Franco attended the "Institute Don Orione" in Rome, where he studied the subject "movie posters". His early works, both painted covers and half-tone illustrations, were published by the magazine "Giallo Selezione" in the early 60's. At first he signed his works Picchioni or simply Franco, before he finds his trademark signature: P. Franco.

In 1965 he started working for "Edizioni COFEDIT", and from then on magazines of the Roman imprint have their characteristics in their modern and effective covers. Many of these covers are printed in spot colors - i.e. the shade of a spot color - such as a spot light is created by printing smaller dots halftone of the base color, like those of "Fantasm", "Gordon Shott", or "Dany Coler" and "Demoniak"; but others ones are painted like those of "Alika".

Franco had a very wide range as an artist, with good knowledge of the works of many Italian painters like Averardo Ciriello and American artists like Frank Frazetta.

In 1966 he began an intense collaboration with" Edizioni Ma.Ga". He made the covers of their novel series: "Gialli del Cerchio Rosso" and "F.B.I.'s Story", novels that are collect more for the beautiful girls pictured on the covers than for the narrative content. Franco also painted almost all of the covers of "Joe Sub" and "Lucy Melson". At the same time, he was active as cover artist and did very important artwork in the field of movie posters. He worked closely with the "Studio Paradiso", but had also direct contacts with film studios who commissioned a number of flyers and posters.

In 1968 he painted several covers for Edizioni Fratelli Spada, where he met one of his admirers, Romano Felmang. Later Felmang, by putting Franco in direct contact with publishers, often asked him to paint the cover for his comic in various comic books. Thus we can see the beautiful cover on comic books like "Zorro", "Il Santo", "Sylvie", "Loana", "Sgt Clem", "I Diavoli" and many others.

When the recession of comic books with painted covers and movie posters came, Franco began to paint posters for the circus, mainly tigers, lions and lion tamers.

Franco left us in the early 2000s due to an incurable disease.
Source: Mandrakewiki.org
Picchioni Franco art
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Stanley Arthur Franklin biography

Stanley Arthur Franklin biography

Stanley Arthur Franklin (30 October 1930 – 2 February 2004; London, UK)
Stanley Arthur Franklin was a British political cartoonist whose career on the Daily Mirror and The Sun newspapers covered almost forty years.

Stanley (Stan) Franklin, born at Bow in the East End of London, was the son of coppersmith Harry Franklin. He left school at 14, and later attended Hammersmith School of Arts and Crafts where he produced his first cartoon published in Fleet Street, and took classes in lithography at The Working Men's College, Camden. He admired work of the Daily Mirror's Philip Zec which inspired him to become a political cartoonist. However, he failed to gain employment at the Evening Standard, and joined an advertising agency.

First employed as cartoonist with the Daily Herald in 1954, he moved on to the Daily Mirror in 1959, succeeding 'Vicky' (Victor Weisz). He stayed at the Mirror until 1970, moved to The Sun in 1974, and worked with that paper until 1998. His work included many cartoons of leading politicians and aristocracy, including several prime ministers, and Prince Philip who collected Franklin's sketches of the Royal Family.

As a free-lance cartoonist he produced work for the New Statesman and for illustrated books: Alf Garnett's Little Blue Book (1973), The Thoughts of Chairman Alf (1973), Alf Garnett Scripts (1973), and Dick Emery's In Character (1973). He was a founder member of the Cartoonists' Association, formed in 1966, and was a member of the Fleets Street's old Press Club and a guarantor of the London Press Club. Franklin died at Kingston-upon-Thames near London in 2004.
Source: From biographical notes on Wikipedia.
Stanley Arthur Franklin art
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Dave Franks biography

Dave Franks biography

Dave Franks
Italian English by birth, Dave Franks' imagination and ability to work fast from memory have long helped established him as key to major players including Disney, Madame Tussauds, Coca Cola, and EMI.

Dave began his career working alongside Comic art creator Frank Langford in the 1980s whose mantle he was later to adopt. " I was also good at helping agencies out of difficult situations where they'd spent all night talking about doing the work and found there was almost no time for the artist (me) to actually do it.. "The conversation would go, 'Oh Dave I know this is impossible but would you help us out..etc etc..no matter what I'd get it done and they just could not believe it.

A recent Waterstones campaign was another eleventh hour job. One client even accused him of producing work that was 'too good'... "Now I'm painting, and it's such a relief from the digital fiddling about we get sucked into which so often looks sterile. Painting is more immediate and I'm having a lot of fun with it".
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Frank Frazetta biography

Frank Frazetta biography

Frank Frazetta (9 Feb 1928, USA - 10 May 2010)
Probably the greatest name in fantasy/sword and sorcery art. Born in 1928 in Brooklyn, he studied fine art in New York and started work as an assistant to John Giunta. Influenced by Hal Foster his work for various comics publishers in the 1940s culminated in 1952 with the only comic completely drawn by Frazetta, Thun'da Tales 1.

Following a few short pieces for DC his cover work began for Famous Funnies #209 - #216 featuring Buck Rogers. During the 1950s he worked on the daily strip Johnny Comet with brief periods on Flash Gordon and Li'l Abner. In the 1960s he began his painted covers for Eerie and Creepy magazines, the Ace paperbacks for Tarzan and the Lancer Conan series of novels. Today his original paintings are sold at Sotheby's for tens of thousands of dollars.
Frank Frazetta art

See also our Frank Frazetta books.
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Frank Kelly Freas biography

Frank Kelly Freas biography

Frank Kelly Freas (27 August 1922 – 2 January 2005; New York, USA)
Frank Kelly Freas was an American science fiction and fantasy artist with a career spanning more than 50 years. He was known as the "Dean of Science Fiction Artists" and he was the second artist inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Born in Hornell, New York, Freas (pronounced like "freeze") was the son of two photographers, and was raised in Canada. He was educated at Lafayette High School in Buffalo, where he received training from long-time art teacher Elizabeth Weiffenbach. He entered the United States Army Air Forces right out of high school (Crystal Beach, Ontario, Canada). He flew as camera man for reconnaissance in the South Pacific and painted bomber noses during World War II. He then worked for Curtis-Wright for a brief period, then went to study at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh and began to work in advertising. He married Pauline (Polly) Bussard in 1952; they had two children, Jacqui and Jerry. Polly died of cancer in January 1987. In 1988 he married (and is survived by) Dr. Laura Brodian.

The fantasy magazine Weird Tales published the first cover art by Freas on its November 1950 issue: "The Piper" illustrating "The Third Shadow" by H. Russell Wakefield. His second was a year later in the same magazine, followed by several Planet Stories or Weird Tales covers and interior illustrations for three Gnome Press books in 1952. With his illustrating career underway, he continued to devise unique and imaginative concepts for other fantasy and science fiction magazines of that period. In a field where airbrushing is common practice, paintings by Freas are notable for his use of bold brush strokes, and a study of his work reveals his experimentation with a wide variety of tools and techniques.

Over the next five decades, he created covers for hundreds of books and magazines (and much more interior artwork), notably Astounding Science Fiction both before and after its title change to Analog—indeed, from 1953 to 2003. He started at Mad magazine in February 1957 and by July 1958 was the magazine's new cover artist; he painted most of its covers until October 1962 (featuring the iconic character, Alfred E. Neuman). He also created cover illustrations for DAW, Signet, Ballantine Books, Avon, all 58 Laser Books (which are now collectors' items), and over 90 covers for Ace books alone. He was editor and artist for the first ten Starblaze books. He illustrated the cover of Jean Shepherd, Ian Ballantine, and Theodore Sturgeon's literary hoax, I, Libertine (Ballantine Books, 1956). That same year he drew cartoon illustrations for Bernard Shir-Cliff's The Wild Reader.

Freas also painted insignia and posters for Skylab I; pinup girls on bombers while in the United States Army Air Forces; comic book covers; the covers of the GURPS worldbooks Lensman and Planet Krishna; and more than 500 saints' portraits for the Franciscans executed simultaneously with his portraits of Alfred E. Neuman for Mad. He was very active in gaming and medical illustration. His cover of Queen's album News of the World (1977) was a pastiche of his October 1953 cover illustration for Tom Godwin's "The Gulf Between" for Astounding Science Fiction.

Freas published several collections of his art, frequently gave presentations, and his work appeared in numerous exhibitions. He was among several of the inaugural recipients of the Hugo Award for Best Artist in 1955 and was recipient under different names of the next three conferred in 1956, 1958, and 1959. With six more Hugo awards to his name (1970 and 1972–76), he became the first person to receive ten Hugo awards (he was nominated 20 times). No other artist in science fiction has consistently matched his record.

Freas was twice a Guest of Honor at Worldcon, at Chicon IV in 1982 and at Torcon 3 in 2003, although a fall suffered shortly before the latter convention precluded him from attending.

He died in West Hills, California and is buried in Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth.
Source: Wikipedia

See illustrators  issue 28 for a Frank Kelly Freas feature article.

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Fred Fredericks biography

Fred Fredericks biography

Fred Fredericks (born 1929; USA)
Fred Fredericks is an American cartoonist, who has drawn the Mandrake the Magician comic strip for over 40 years, taking over for the late Phil Davis.

Creator Lee Falk modernized the comic when Fredericks took over the strip, making it more reality-based by focusing less on science fiction and fantasy, and making Mandrake operate more like a secret agent, often helping out the police with cases they could not solve.

After creator Lee Falk died in 1999, Fredericks has also been responsible for writing the scripts for the Mandrake strip by himself.
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Barbara Freeman biography

Barbara Freeman biography

Barbara Constance Freeman (29 November 1906 - May 1999; Ealing, UK)
Barbara C Freemam illustrated many books by other writers, including The Treasure Hunters by Enid Blyton, and many collections of fairy tales, both traditional tales by Bros Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and modern stories. Some of her earliest illustrations are found in The Cuckoo Book (1942), a book of fairy tales by Edith Mary Bell.

"Barbara C. Freeman is a gentle writer, with a particular appeal to girls. She makes no great demands of her readers, but does provide good entertainment. Anyone wanting easy, fluent, romantic stories would do well to consider her work." So wrote Felicity Trottman in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers.

Freeman was both a writer and artist, starting out primarily as an illustrator.

"I write, I suppose, chiefly because I enjoy writing," she later said. "I like living in two worlds: the one I was born into and the other (which becomes entirely real) which I write about. I'm deeply interested in the way ordinary people lived in the past and the way in which the past thrusts into the present. I believe that most writers find that their characters develop lives of their own and sometimes take charge of both conversations and plots. This, for me, is pure delight, and I allow my people all the freedom that is possible.

"At art school I was trained to observe details of every kind, and it is a habit that one never grows out of. Details, especially those of the past, fascinate me."

Barbara Constance Freeman was born in Ealing, Middlesex, on 29 November 1906, the daughter of writer and second-hand bookseller William Freeman and his wife Lucy Constance Freeman (nee Rimmington), who were married in 1905. She studied at the Tiffin Girls' School, Kingston-upon-Thames and at Kingston School of Art.

Freeman began working as a painter with Green & Abbott, a West End wallpaper studio (1926-27). From there she turned freelance, often working on annuals. She specialised as an artist of fairy tales, although in a realistic style with fantastic elements. She was often called upon to illustrate classic stories the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. She also produced illustrations for The Children's Encyclopedia.

As television grew and the number of annuals and entertainments for children disappeared in the 1950s, Freeman turned to writing her own stories, beginning in 1956. He first books, Timi and Two-Thumb Thomas, were published in 1961.

Her work was exhibited at the Heritage Centre, Kingston-upon-Thames Museum, in 1989.

Since her early childhood, she lived in a mid-Victorian house with a large garden, from which she drew much of her inspiration. She died in May 1999. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Barbara C Freeman art
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Carlos Freixas biography

Carlos Freixas biography

Carlos Freixas Baleito (31 October 1923 - 26 February 2003; Spain)
Carlos Freixas Baleito studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He had his first steps as an illustrator at the early age of 14, guided by his father Emilio Freixas. As his father's assistant, he saw his first work published in Lecciondes magazine, including the stories 'La Revancha' and 'La Muerte de mi Doble'. Together with his father, he began an association with the publishing house Molino. Their collaboration eventually resulted in the publishing project Mosquito, which they started with the aid of Angel Puigmiquel in 1944. Carlos Freixas created his first character at this time, 'Pistol Jim', whose adventures appeared in Gran Chicos and later Plaza El Coyote.

Molino asked him to join the Argentine division of this publishing house in 1947. He moved to Buenos Aires, where he did his first Argentine comics for Patoruzito. He often collaborated with Alberto Ongaro, who wrote 'Drake el Aventurero' for him and with whom he illustrated Hector German Oesterheld's scripts for 'El Indio Suarez'. Freixas was also the author of 'Darío Malbrán Psicoanalista' for Aventuras magazine, a comic strongly inspired by the atmosphere of Buenos Aires of the time. For Patoruzito he created the boxing comic 'Tucho, de Canilla a Campeón'. He also did several detective ('Elmer King') and motor comics ('Juan Manuel Fangio'). Freixas additionally returned to publishing in the 1950s.

Although a well-known and respected artist in the Argentine comics scene, homesickness made Freixas decide to leave the country in 1956. Back in Spain, he resumed his collaboration with his father and co-operated on most of Freixas senior's illustration work. He also took on agency work for the British market through Creaciones Editoriales. He appeared in several comic books published by IPC, such as Valentina, Marilyn and Bounty.

In Spain, he contributed to Juan Martí Pavón's magazine Chito in 1975, and he made a comics adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 'Gaspar Ruiz' as well as some horror stories for Bruguera. Freixas spent the final stages of his career working for US comics (including Marvel's Monsters Unleashed), Sweden ('Joe Dakota' stories for Semic's Colt title) and especially the Netherlands. He was a regular artist on series like 'Marleen' for Dutch girls' magazine Tina through Bardon Art.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Friz Freleng biography

Friz Freleng biography

Isadore "Friz" Freleng (1905 - 1995)
Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer, best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros.

He introduced and/or developed several of the studio's biggest stars, including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam (to whom he was said to bear more than a passing resemblance) and Speedy Gonzales.

The senior director at Warners' Termite Terrace studio, Freleng directed more cartoons than any other director in the studio (a total of 266), and is also the most honored of the Warner directors, having won four Academy Awards.

After Warners shut down the animation studio in 1963, Freleng and business partner David DePatie founded DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which produced cartoons (notably The Pink Panther Show), feature film title sequences, and Saturday morning cartoons through the early 1980s. The nickname "Friz" came from how "frizzly" his hair was at one time.
Friz Freleng art
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Keith Fretwell biography

Keith Fretwell biography

Keith Fretwell
The late Keith Fretwell was a very skilled aviation artist. He illustrated numerous books in Osprey’s Aircraft of the Aces series.
Source: Osprey Publishing
Keith Fretwell art
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Oliver Frey biography

Oliver Frey biography

Oliver Frey (30 June 1948 - 21 August 2022, Switzerland and UK)
Swiss-born illustrator and comic artist resident in the UK for many years, Frey was a fan of Eagle and Look and Learn as a boy. He studied film at the London School of Film Technique and began drawing comic strips to support himself, working for Fleetway's picture libraries.

After briefly running a film company in Switzerland, Frey returned to the UK and worked as a full-time comic strip artist and illustrator, working on two of his favourite boyhood comic strips, The Trigan Empire (1976-77) in Look and Learn and Dan Dare (1982-83) for the revived Eagle, drawing two episodes of “Return of the Mekon” in 1982, the eight-part story known as “The Timads” in 1983, and a number of one-off Dare stories for various Specials and the 1984 Eagle Annual.

His many credits also included work for the computer magazines CRASH, Zzap!64 (“Terminal Man” (written by Kelvin Gosnell, re-published by Oliver himself in 2010) ) and Amtix, along with art for War Picture Library and FEAR Magazine.

With his brother, Franco, he was a co-founder of Newsfield Publications, providing hundreds of covers and illustrations for their many computer and horror magazines. He later co-founded Thalamus Publishing.

Through the late 1970s and the 1980s Frey was a prolific creator of gay erotic art, usually published under the pen name Zack. These included “Rogue”, a comics series featuring a big, muscular bad-boy hero for HIM Magazine, a monthly gay male pornography publication which he and his partner Roger Kean owned, along with related titles.

Oliver was the artist hired by director Richard Donner to create the comic book art for the black and white opening sequence in Superman: The Movie.

See illustrators  issue 32 for a feature article on Oliver Frey and illustrators  Pirates! Special Edition for Oliver's piratical art!

Enjoy our ORIGINAL TRIGAN EMPIRE ART by Don Lawrence, Ron Embleton, Oliver Frey, Philip Corke, Miguel Quesada and Gerry Wood.

Oliver Frey art
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Leone Frollo biography

Leone Frollo biography

Leone Frollo (born 1931, Italy)
Born in Venice in 1931, Leone Frollo still lives in the Rialto area. Initially he studied as an architect, but failing to find success he was persuaded to become involved in comics.

In 1948 he had his first story published in an English magazine It was received so well by the publisher, Fleetway that they retained his service for many other projects where hoe continued to work until 1963.

Despite illustrating Westerns, Science Fiction, machines, horror, costumes etc, he became considered as the major exponent of erotic art and Frollo's women put on and take off their clothes in a wickedly exhibitionist manner.
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Bernie Fuchs biography

Bernie Fuchs biography

Bernard 'Bernie' Fuchs (29 October 1932 - 17 September 2009; Illinois, USA)
Bernie Fuchs was an American illustrator known for advertising art, magazine covers and illustration, and portraiture, including for a series of U.S. postage stamps.

Fuchs' painting style was based in photography, but nevertheless always maintained a painterly simplification of detail and color. Born October 29, 1932 in O'Fallon, IL, he went on to study art at Washington University in St. Louis, MI, graduating in 1954.

Fuchs started his career working in Detroit as a car advertisement illustrator at New Center Studios. Some of Fuchs most acclaimed work was for sports magazines; over the course of his life he created over 50 covers for Sports Illustrated and received the honor of Sport Artist of the Year from the American Sport Art Museum and Archives in 1991.

Fuchs was commissioned for the illustration of four U.S. postage stamps released in 1998. The stamps featured folk musicians Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry, and Josh White. Fuchs also illustrated several children's picture books, including Ragtime Tumpie and Carolina Shout!, both written by Alan Schroeder.

He painted portraits of several U.S. Presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, as well as of such athletes and celebrities such as Muhammad Ali, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Ted Koppel and Katharine Hepburn as well as illustrations of Carol Burnett for the title card for her show.

Fuchs died on September 17, 2009 in Fairfield, CT.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

See illustrators  issue 7 and illustrators  issue 8 for feature articles on Bernie Fuchs.

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Fernando Fusco biography

Fernando Fusco biography

Fernando Fusco (1 August 1929 - 10 August 2015; Ventimiglia, Liguria, Italy)
Born in Ventimiglia, Fernando Fusco was a prolific artist for both the French and British markets, working in varying genres like romance and western. He made his debut in 1948 with the series 'Jeff Cooper' - his style strongly influenced by the great American writers of the time - that was published by Chiavari.

During his military service he worked for Il Vittorioso (The Victorious). Afterwards, in 1955, he moved to France and during this period he worked for publishers Editions Mondiales of Cino del Duca, Éditions Montsouris and the World Press agency. For the first he created the heroic series scientific Scott Darnal, for the second Cendrine and Esperanza and for the third he adapted a number of novels into comic strip format for some national newspapers such as Paris Jour.

For the Intermonde agency, he adapted Victor Hugo's 'L'Homme qui Rit' under the pseudonym Rifer, 'Salambo' based on the novel by Gustave Flaubert, as well as 'Cosmos An 2200' written by Claude Vaincourt and published in L'Union. In addition, at Sagéditions he drew the comic adaptation of the television series Bonanza and Tarzan.

From 1958, he was present in L'Intrépide with 'Commado du Silence' (script by Georges Sandier), 'Pirates du Ciel', 'La Flèche Brisée' and the heroic-science series 'Scott Darnal'. The latter was later continued in Mireille. Also for Mireille, he created 'Magali', one of his few humorous works. From 1960, he contributed to La Sage and produced series like 'Aigle Noir', 'Bonanza' and 'Willie West'. He was also present in Lisette with 'Cendrine' (script by Cendrine Rochemond) and 'Espéranza' (script by Montaubert). The fruitful collaboration with the French publishing house continued with Willie West, Plume de Falco or rewriting comics for other television series like 'Rin Tin Tin' and 'Le Cheval de Fer'.

In addition, he worked for the British market through the Temple Art Agency, focusing mainly on romance stories. In 1970, he returned to his native Italy and started series like 'Lone Wolf' and 'I Due dell'Apocalisse' (The Two Apocalypses) with Luigi Grecchi in Intrepido of the publishing house Universo.

From 1973, he was part of Bonelli's team of artists that worked on the 'Tex Willer' stories. Fusco worked exclusively on this character until 2010, when he decided to focus on painting.

With nearly 7,000 pages to his name, Fusco's version is one of the best-loved among 'Tex Willer' fans, with his style combination of very refined and simple at the same time, combined with gentle humor and his acknowledged expertise representing horses. Fernando Fusco passed away on 10 August 2015.
Source: Wikipedia
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Horace Gaffron biography

Horace Gaffron biography

Horace C Gaffron; UK
A talented Scottish artist illustrator who was a veteran of the Somme where he lost his leg but lived to the age of 103. He illustrated many covers for Good Housekeeping mostly during the 1930s and 1940s (in the UK and USA). Proud of his Scottish ancestry, and nicknamed 'Jock', he was the last living Gordon Highlander.

His studio was in Scotland but he travelled to the USA quite often to meet his publisher (including Good Housekeeping), In Britain in the 1950s he drew for various children's annuals and in the 1960s he worked for Look And Learn magazine painting historical scenes and religious themes.

Gaffron often favoured an unusual magazine cover layout, with a large image on top and underneath it a much smaller, wider angle that further expands or underlines the main image. Sort of like a two panel comic strip and surely unique in cover design.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Horace Gaffron art
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Felix J. Gardon biography

Felix J. Gardon biography

Felix J Gardon; Choisy le Roi, France
Not much is known about this accomplished French artist, who appears to have been most active during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and focussed on still life and natural history themes.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Phil Gascoine biography

Phil Gascoine biography

Phil Gascoine (8 June 1934 - August 2007)
Phil Gascoine was a British comics artist whose career spanned 45 years. His numerous credits included work on girls' comics such as Wendy, Bunty (for D.C. Thomson) and Jinty (for Fleetway), The Sarge and various other strips in Battle Picture Weekly (also for Fleetway), issues of Commando (for D.C. Thomson) and Blake's 7: A Marvel Monthly, Transformers (covers only), Knights of Pendragon, Motormouth and Codename: Genetix (for Marvel UK), Knight Rider and Robin of Sherwood in Look-In, and also The Unknown Soldier and Shade the Changing Man for DC Comics in America.

Born on 8 June 1934, Phil left school at 15 and turned his interest illustration and artwork into a career by calling in at art studios along Fleet Street where he was able to obtain work as an office boy. His contacts with the various studios earned him his first freelance work. After doing his two years national service, he returned to work in a studio but found he was spending much of his time doing nothing. Finding an agent, he began freelancing artwork to Pearsons, drawing episodes of their Emergency Ward 10 pocket library, based on the TV series.

He sent samples of his work to D. C. Thomson, wrapping them in a piece of card on which he had drawn a young girl at an ice skating rink. Thomsons had just launched Bunty and were looking for artists for this new line in girls' comics. Phil spent most of the next fifteen years drawing for Bunty, School Friend, June and Jinty.

In the mid 1970s, he came to wider attention in Battle Picture Weekly, which began running credits for artists and writers in the wake of a similar move by 2000AD. Adopting a far grittier style than he had used in girls' stories, he drew various features ('Battle Badge of Bravery', Battle Honours', 'Unsung Heroes of War', etc.) and strips ('The Sarge', 'The Wilde Bunch', 'Sailor Small'). Around the same time he also drew football and boxing strips for Victor.

With the attention of the wider market, Gascoine began drawing strips for Marvel UK, including 'Blake's 7', 'Thundercats', 'Action Force', 'Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers' and 'The Real Ghostbusters', for five years, although retained his connection with Fleetway, for whom he drew 'News Team' (in Eagle) and various strips for Tammy. In 1985-86, Gascoine was also working for Look-In, drawing episodes of 'Robin of Sherwood' and 'Knight Rider'.

Gascoine was one of many artists tempted to work for DC Comics, producing The Unknown Soldier in 1988-89. He found regular work with Marvel UK during their American boom period (1992-94) when he was pencilling Knights of Pendragon, Motormouth and Genetix. During this period he also drew 'Darkhawk' for Marvel, the 4-issue Dreadlands for Epic, pencilled The Punisher: Die Hard in the Big Easy for DC and inked Tank Girl: Apocalypse, Egypt and Shade: The Changing Man for Vertigo.

In the later years of his career, he was working full-time on 'Wendy', a girl's horse story published in Europe through syndication by D.C. Thomson, and on occasional strips for Loaded magazine.

Phil Gascoine died in August 2007 after a short illness.
Phil Gascoine art
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Giorgio De Gaspari biography

Giorgio De Gaspari biography

Giorgio De Gaspari (30 January 1927; Milan, Italy) - 15 October 2012; Venice, Italy)
For such an incredibly talented artist, not much is known about Italian painter Giorgio De Gaspari. Although his merits are widely appreciated, hard facts about the artist are hard to come by.

De Gaspari was born in January 1927, possibly in Varese - or the province of Varese - north of Milan in north-western Italy, not far from the Swiss border. He began his career under the auspices of comic strip artist and illustrator Walter Molino who, in the 1940s, was a leading contributor to Grand Hotel, to which paper De Gaspari also contributed; another strip ('Uragano, il re della prateria' [Hurricane, the King of the Prairie]) appeared in Success Collection published by CEA in 1946-47. De Gaspari also worked for Il Giornalino di Carroccio and illustrated il Giustiziere scarlatto for Albi Mignon.

In May 1947 his first illustrations appeared in La Domenica del Corriere, a Sunday paper which he was to continue contributing to until February 1970, producing over 1,000 illustrations. De Gaspari's paintings were of high quality and innovative in their use of original material, tools and techniques. He would use any sort of paper, create collages and cut and scratch the images. Such experimentation did occasionally cause him to fall foul of his editors. In one instance, on a Kit Carson cover painting for Cowboy Picture Library, he used real sand glued onto the page; although it made for a superb, textured image, it all had to be scraped off and a new sandy background painted in by an in-house 'bodger' rather than run the risk of damaging the machinery that turned the artwork into four-colour separations.

De Gaspari was a busy children's book illustrator in Italy for publishers Valladri, Agostoni, Lucchi and Fabbri as well as contributing illustrations to Arianna. Amongst the many titles he illustrated in the 1940s and 1950s were editions of Pinocchio, Don Quixote, The Three Musketeers, Moby Dick, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and various fairy tale books.

De Gaspari's first cover in the UK appeared on the Sexton Blake Library in February 1958, gracing Peter Saxon's The Sea Tigers; his second (and last) cover showed his talent for variety, illustrating Collapse of Stout Party by Jack Trevor Story.

De Gaspari thereafter turned his talents to providing covers for Fleetway's many pocket libraries, including Cowboy Picture Library (30 covers, 1958-60), Thriller Picture Library (39 covers, 1958-60) and Super Detective Library (4 covers, 1960).

However, it was with his work for War Picture Library that he is mainly known in the UK. Beginning with the very first issue in September 1958, De Gaspari produced 32 of the first 48 covers (1958-60) and were still appearing regularly until 1961, during which period (1960-61) he also contributed 12 covers to Air Ace Picture Library and the debut number of Battle Picture Library (1961). A brief resurgence in 1966 marked the end of De Gaspari's original appearances in the UK, although his work continued to appear, albeit infrequently, on book covers and in Reader's Digest Condensed Books.

He moved to London and lived there for many years, but eventually tiring of the rat-race, moved to the tiny Venetian island of Pellestrina, where, signing his work Giorgio Foresto, he would exchange his paintings for the necessities to support his Spartan existence. He died in Venice in October 2012.
Source: Steve Holland and The Illustration Art Gallery

See illustrators issue 15 and illustrators  British War Comics Special for feature articles on Giorgio De Gaspari, and enjoy his cover art in FLEETWAY FIRSTS and JOHN STEEL WW2 AGENT.

Giorgio De Gaspari art
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Martin Geraghty biography

Martin Geraghty biography

Martin Geraghty; UK
Martin Geraghty is a comic book artist who lives and works in the UK.

His first commission was for the Marvel UK comic Overkill but the comic folded before his story was published.

He began drawing for Doctor Who Magazine in 1993 and has continued to draw regularly for it ever since.

Outside of comics Martin works in advertising.
Martin Geraghty art
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Gary Gianni biography

Gary Gianni biography

Gary Gianni (born 1954; USA)
Gary Gianni is an American comics artist best known for his eight years illustrating the syndicated newspaper comic Prince Valiant.

After Gianni graduated from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1976, he worked for the Chicago Tribune as an illustrator and network television news as a courtroom sketch artist.

He also illustrated numerous magazines, children's books and paperbacks. He made his comic book debut in 1990 with illustrated adaptations of The Tales of O. Henry and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for the Classics Illustrated series. He went on to work for Dark Horse Comics he contributed to Indiana Jones and the Shrine of the Sea Devil and The Shadow.

He illustrated Wandering Star's Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (1998) and Bran Mak Morn: The Last King (2001) and The Complete Conan of Cimmeria Volume 2 (2004), all by Robert E. Howard.

After John Cullen Murphy retired from Prince Valiant in 2004, Gianni began drawing the strip, continuing until March 25, 2012, when Thomas Yeates became the strip's illustrator on April 1, 2012.

Gianni won the 1997 Best Short Story Eisner Award for his collaborating with Archie Goodwin on Heroes in DC Comics' Batman: Black & White.
Source: Wikipedia & The Book Palace

See our Gary Gianni BOOKS including Bran Mak Morn and Solomon Kane.

Gary Gianni art
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Charles Dana Gibson biography

Charles Dana Gibson biography

Charles Dana Gibson (14 September 1867 - 23 December 1944)
Charles Dana Gibson was an American illustrator. He was best known for his creation of the "Gibson Girl", an iconic representation of the beautiful and independent American woman at the turn of the 20th century.

His wife, Irene Langhorne, and her four sisters inspired his images. He published his illustrations in Life magazine and other major national publications for more than 30 years, becoming editor in 1918 and later owner of the general interest magazine.

Gibson was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on September 14, 1867. He was a son of Josephine Elizabeth (née Lovett) and Charles DeWolf Gibson. He had five siblings and was a descendant of U.S. Senators James DeWolf and William Bradford.

A talented youth with an early interest in art, Gibson was enrolled by his parents in New York City's Art Students League, where he studied for two years.

Peddling his pen-and-ink sketches, Gibson sold his first work in 1886 to Life magazine, founded by John Ames Mitchell and Andrew Miller. It featured general interest articles, humor, illustrations, and cartoons. His works appeared weekly in the popular national magazine for more than 30 years. He quickly built a wider reputation, with his drawings being featured in all the major New York publications, including Harper's Weekly, Scribners and Collier's. His illustrated books include the 1898 editions of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau as well as Richard Harding Davis' Gallegher and Other Stories.

His development of the "Gibson Girl" from 1890 and her nationwide fame brought Gibson respect and wealth.

His wife and her elegant Langhorne sisters also inspired his famous Gibson Girls, who became iconic images in early 20th-century society. Their dynamic and resourceful father Chiswell Langhorne had his wealth severely reduced by the Civil War, but by the late 19th century, he had rebuilt his fortune on tobacco auctioneering and the railroad industry.

After the death of John Ames Mitchell in 1918, Gibson became editor of Life and later took over as owner of the magazine. As the popularity of the Gibson Girl faded after World War I, Gibson took to working in oils for his own pleasure. In 1918, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1932.

He retired in 1936, the same year Scribner's published his biography, Portrait of an Era as Drawn by C. D. Gibson: A Biography by Fairfax Downey. At the time of his death in 1944, he was considered "the most celebrated pen-and-ink artist of his time as well as a painter applauded by the critics of his later work."
Source: Wikipedia
Charles Dana Gibson art
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Ian Gibson biography

Ian Gibson biography

Ian Gibson (UK)
Ian Gibson made his debut in the British comic fanzines Aspect and Orpheus. In 1973, he worked for House of Hammer and IPC Girl's Comic Group, and did promotional art for various record companies. He began a collaboration with Valiant editor John Wagner, for whom he drew 'Death Wish', some 'Judge Dredd' stories, 'Ace Trucking Co.' and 'Robo-Hunter'.

In the 1980s, he published in the British comics magazine 2000 A.D., where he used the pseudonyms of Emberton and Q. Twerk. With Alan Moore, he worked on 'The Ballad of Halo Jones', and with Alan Grant and John Wagner, he created 'The Chronicles of Genghis Grimtoad' (1990).

Gibson was also present on the US market with 'Mister Miracle' (DC Comics) and 'Meta 4' (First Comics). Since 2000, he is back at 2000AD, with new 'Judge Dredd' and 'Robo-Hunter' stories.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Denis Gifford biography

Denis Gifford biography

Denis Gifford (26 December 1927 - 2000; London, UK)
Denis Gifford was born in Forest Hill, London, on Boxing Day 1927. He made his first comic, 'The Ragtime', when he was still a kid. By the time he was fifteen he was spending his homework time drawing adventures of 'Pansy Potter' in The Beano magazine. After a brief spell as junior cartoonist on Reynold's News, he was called into the RAF, where he spent his duty weekends drawing a super-hero comic-book, 'Streamline', for a Manchester publisher. After demob he set up a studio with another cartoonist chum, Bob Monkhouse, producing complete comics for the many small publishers that proliferated in the late 1940s.

Then he joined Knockout magazine, the top comic of the day, taking over the popular favourites 'Our Ernie' (created by Charles Holt) and 'Stonehenge Kit the Ancient Brit'. He also did a long spell on 'Marvelman' comics, and the daily satire strip 'Telestrip' in the London Evening News. Other comics he worked on were 'Simon the Simple Sleuth', 'William Wagtail' and 'Dicky Diddle'.

The only comic Denis Gifford created himself was 'Steadfast McStaunch', which ran from 1950 to 1952. For some reason, Denis Gifford was allowed to sign his work, when most of the other British and Scottish artists working for publisher DC Thompson remained anonymous to their readership.

Denis Gifford has written over 50 books, mostly on the subjects of comics and cinema, and can be regarded as one of British foremost comic experts. Ever since he was young, he collected comics, until his collection completely took over his house. He also created several programs for radio and television, the last one being the radio show 'A Hundred Laughs for a Ha'penny', about the history of comics, which he did in 1999 together with his old friend Bob Monkhouse. Denis Gifford died in May 2000.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Denis Gifford art
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Sir John Gilbert biography

Sir John Gilbert biography

Sir John Gilbert RA (21 July 1817 - 5 October 1897; London, England, United Kingdom)
Sir John Gilbert RA was an English artist, illustrator and engraver.

Gilbert was born in Blackheath, Surrey, and taught himself to paint. His only formal instruction was from George Lance. Skilled in several media, Gilbert gained the nickname, "the Scott of painting". He was best known for the illustrations and wood-engravings he produced for the Illustrated London News.

Gilbert was initially apprenticed to a firm of estate agents, but taught himself art by copying prints. He was unable to enter the Royal Academy Schools, but mastered watercolour, oils, and other media. From 1836 he exhibited at the Society of British Artists, and at the RA from 1838. The art patron Thomas Sheepshanks and the artist William Mulready suggested that he learn wood engraving. Starting with Punch, he moved on to the Illustrated London News. He designed an impressive number of wood-engravings (over 2000) for that publication and for The London Journal. He also produced very many illustrations for books, including nearly all the important English poets (including his illustrated Shakespeare with almost 750 drawings). He became president of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1871. He exhibited some 400 pictures in watercolour and oil exhibited at the various societies. In 1872 he was knighted. He became an RA in 1876, in the same year as Edward John Poynter.

The Gilbert-Garret Competition for Sketching Clubs was started in 1870 at St. Martins School of Art, and named after its first president, John Gilbert.

Gilbert is buried at Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries.
Source: wikipedia
Sir John Gilbert art
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Terence Gilbert biography

Terence Gilbert biography

Terence Gilbert (UK)
Terence Gilbert is a chronicler of the contemporary scene. This he achieves with supreme success in his unique style combining realism with impressionism. He is present at events where action at every level of society is taking place: polo at Windsor, racing at Longchamp, rowing at Henley Royal Regatta, or ballet at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
His assured draughtsmanship and exceptional observation enable Terence to capture an exact moment of action as well as the atmosphere of the setting where the event is happening.

Having studied at Camberwell Arts School in London, his knowledge of structure and anatomy enable him to portray the bodily tension of a sporting or theatrical moment: the stance of a fighter; the leap of a ballet dancer, a jockey's balance on a race horse and the dexterity of a jazz musician.

Terence's range of work is remarkably varied. He is extremely well-known and highly regarded for his equestrian portraits and his paintings on racing and sporting themes. Moreover, he has achieved international renown for his portraiture. His most significant commissions include a painting of HM The Queen and President Reagan riding at Windsor, which was presented to the President at the White House and a portrait of HM King Hussein of Jordan painted at Sandhurst. He has been commissioned by stars of film and stage, as well as painting many sporting heroes.

Terence has exhibited successfully worldwide and is in constant demand for new paintings.
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John Gillatt biography

John Gillatt biography

John Gillatt
John Gillatt is a British artist who mainly draws football comics. His most famous series is probably 'Billy's Boots'. The series is about the little boy Billy Dane, who got incredible football skills through his boots. The series was later continued by Mike Western.

John's credits in British comics span decades, including work on “Jet Ace Logan”, “Johnny Cougar”, “Dan Dare” (for New Eagle, which Barrie edited) and, perhaps most famously, the opening episodes of “Billy's Boots” for Scorcher. (A strip that went on to further success in Holland where Billy Dane was transplanted to the continent and, unlike his British incarnation, grew up to become a talented football star in his own right, as Lew Stringer recounted on Blimey! It's Another Blog About Comics back in 2010 – a version kick started with some deft new art by John).

Gillatt first drew 'Jet-Ace Logan' for Comet and later Tiger in the late 1950s. In 1989 he took on the daily 'Scorer' comic for The Mirror, along with writer Barrie Tomlinson and fellow artist David Pugh.
Source: Downthetubes.net & Lambiek Comiclopedia

See our book Fleetway Classics JET-ACE LOGAN.

John Gillatt art
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Alberto Giolitti biography

Alberto Giolitti biography

Alberto Giolitti (14 November 1923 - 15 April 1993; Rome, Italy)
Alberto Giolitti was an Italian-American comic book artist, born in Rome, where his family held (and still hold) one of the most famous café, Giolitti, where he also worked for a while.

He debuted as artist for Il Vittorioso in the late 1940s. After World War II, Giolitti moved to South America, where he worked for Editorial Lainez and Columba of Buenos Aires. After three years of stay in that country, he was able to move to his original destination, the United States: here he became a mainstay of Western/Dell Publishing, for which he pencilled numerous characters, including Indian Chief, Tonto, Cisco Kid, Turok, Gunsmoke.

After having obtained the American citizenship, in 1960 he returned to Italy, although continuing to collaborate with Western and other US and British publishers. Series he worked on in this period include also Gold Key Comics' Star Trek. For the same company he drew a King Kong adaptation. In Rome he established a popular studio of comics artists, called Studio Giolitti after him.

In 1986 he realized a long science-fiction story, "Cinque anni dopo" ("Five Years Later"), and from the late 1980s he finished several stories of the main Italian comics western character, Tex Willer.

Alberto Giolitti died in Rome in 1993.
Source: Wikipedia
Alberto Giolitti art
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Ruggero Giovannini biography

Ruggero Giovannini biography

Ruggero Giovannini (1922 - 1983; Rome, Italy)
The word that most accurately describes the strip work of Giovannini is "rugged"; peculiarly apt for an artist whose Christian name is "Ruggero". His Western work for Thriller Picture Library, Cowboy Picture Library and for Top Spot is first class, his style eminently suitable for the hard-bitten subject matter. Paradoxically, however, perhaps his very best work was not a Western strip but a superb, action-packed version of The Three Musketeers (from a first class script by Leonard Matthews) for Look and Learn. Printed in full colour, this is one the most resplendent versions of Dumas' story ever to appear in comics, Giovannini's unusual "tough" style modified by a new swashbuckling grace.

Born in Rome, he began working as a strip artist in the pages of the celebrated comic journal, Vittorioso, in 1945. His first strip for the British comics was a wildlife adventure series based on the true-life exploits of Armand and Michaela Denis for Junior Express Weekly in 1955, followed by Red Devil Dean for the same paper. The following year, he was given the front page strip of the comic (now renamed Express Weekly), drawing Freedom is the Prize, set in Ancient Rome and introducing the character of Wulf the Briton, later to be made famous by Ron Embleton. His longest running strip for British comics was another story set in Ancient Rome: Olac the Gladiator for Tiger. He drew many more Historical strips for Ranger and for Look and Learn, including a fine version of Ben-Hur for the latter. It must be admitted, however, that, like so many European artists, Giovannini was not comfortable drawing English historical subjects as can be seen by his work for Dick Turpin and the Double Faced Foe (TCL no. 149) where the lack of authenticity is glaringly apparent.
Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

See also our Ruggero Giovannini books including his great storytelling in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics WESTERNS collection.

Ruggero Giovannini art
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Shane Glines biography

Shane Glines biography

Shane Glines
Shane Glines is an illustrator, animator, cartoonist and character designer. Currently working as a designer at WB Animation.

Glines worked as a layout and cleanup artist for Spümcø, before becoming a character designer at Warner Bros. for DC Comics' based series such as Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond.

He also did character design work on Cartoon Network's Samurai Jack and has illustrated several covers for the comic Gotham Girls.

In his own words:
"I worked in Los Angeles from 1992 to 2000 for John Kricfalusi at Spumco, for Bruce Timm at WB, and a few brief gigs at Disney and Cartoon Network. I designed characters for Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond and Justice League. I left the industry in 2000 to do my own thing, created the subscription webpage cartoonretro.com and published about 10 books of my own work as well as books on vintage cartoonists Russell Patterson and Hank Ketcham.

In 2011 I retired the Cartoon Retro site and returned to Los Angeles. I am currently designing on WB's new 3D Beware the Batman series.

I've devoted much of the last 20 years to preserving and promoting the work of the great cartoonists and illustrators of the 1920's through the 1960's.

My 406 page art book S Curves is now available for the iPad, Kindle and other mobile devices through Apple's iBookstore, Barnes & Noble and others."
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Cecil Glossop biography

Cecil Glossop biography

Cecil Glossop (fl. 1921-1940; UK)
Popular and prolific illustrator for Chums (a weekly boys paper that ran from 1892 to 1941), The Scout, The Crusoe magazine, The Pioneer, and The Boys' Friend comics between 1922 and 1940.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

See illustrators issue 16 for a Cecil Glossop feature article and Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition.

Cecil Glossop art
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Michael Godfrey biography

Michael Godfrey biography

Michael Godfrey (31 Aug 1903 ? - 16 Mar 1983 ?)
Michael Godfrey was an accomplished and prolific illustrator for Look and Learn magazine and associated publications. He illustrated many articles relating to medieval history, including Magna Carta, Henry II, William the Conqueror, The Canterbury Tales.
Source: Look and Learn
Michael Godfrey art
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José (Pepe) Gonzalez biography

José (Pepe) Gonzalez biography

José (Pepe) González Navarro (1939 – 13 March 2009; Spain)
José "Pepe" González Navarro (often known as Pepe Gonzalez), born in Barcelona, was a Spanish comic book artist, celebrated for his comic strips, his depiction of sensuous women and for his 'Vampirella'.

José González started his career at the age of 17 working on Rosas Blancas and Brigitte for the company Editorial Toray. He joined the agency Selecciones Ilustradas in 1960 and drew romance comics for Fleetway. González also worked as a pin-up artist during this time for the international market.

González began working as an artist for British comics as a teenager. Born in Barcelona, he was introduced to the world of comics by Javier Puerto, who had spotted two portraits drawn by González which were hanging in the window of a tailor's shop where his mother worked. Puerto presented him to Josep Toutain, the manager of the Selecciones Ilustradas agency, who tested the young artist by having him copy some "Cisco Kid" artwork by Jose Luis Salinas. The result was an exact reproduction (down to the stains on the paper) and González was immediately hired to draw Westerns such as Yuki el Temerario for Editorial Valenciana.

Selecciones Ilustrades had then recently broken into the British market, supplying work to Len Miller and Westworld Publications. González found himself working on "Doc Holliday" which appeared in Miller's TV Heroes and Young Marvelman Annual in 1959.

González also showed a talent for drawing girls in the pages of Rosas Blancas, Susana and Serenata for Editorial Toray. Toutain introduced his new recruit to Reginald Taylor, editor of Boyfriend, and Mike Butterworth, editor of Valentine, and González found himself drawing romance strips for the British market for the next decade, contributing to the aforementioned papers as well as Serenade, Marilyn, Love Story Picture Library, Trend & Boyfriend, Jackie, Mirabelle, Romeo, Judy and Mandy.

Due to his connections with S.I., González started working for Warren Publishing in 1971. Jim Warren described his reaction to seeing González's art in The Warren Companion:

" The minute I took one look at Pepe González's artwork, I knew we had it! We survived 12 issues but there it was. This is what I wanted for the first issue but couldn't put together. "

Starting with issue 12 in 1971, González became the primary artist for the character Vampirella. Comics historian David Roach discusses the reaction to González's art on Vampirella in The Warren Companion.

His first "Vampirella" strip appeared one year later in Vampirella #12 and caused an immediate sensation. Here was the same glamour and sophistication that had worked so well in Britain applied to a character of enormous potential but hitherto little direction. The cover of #19 featured González's memorable full figure painting of Vampirella, a bat balanced on her outstretched hand, which came to symbolize the character on everything from posters to books to stickers and pillows. It was an icon, as a pin-up for adolescents (of all ages) that his vision of her worked best since her strips, particularly in the early day, failed to live up to their potential.

González received immediate acclaim for his work on Vampirella, and his first story won the Warren Award for best art in a story in 1971. González drew the Vampirella story for every issue from issue 12 through issue 34. He won another Warren Award in 1974 for best art on a story for his work in issue 33.

By mid-1974, González's output for Vampirella reduced and multiple fill-in artists including Jose Ortiz and Leopold Sanchez contributed Vampirella stories. González would remain as the primary artist for Vampirella for the next few years, but by 1977 he shared duties with artist Gonzalo Mayo. Warren would also reprint the three part series "Herma", which had been originally drawn in 1974 in issues 8-10 of 1984.

After issue 82 of Vampirella in 1979, González ceased drawing for Warren, except for one page pin-up contributions (which had started appearing with issue 39 in 1975) which were printed on the Contents page. González would return to Warren in 1982 and would draw stories for Vampirella in the final 6 non-reprint issues of the title until Warren's bankruptcy. From 1971 through 1983, González drew 58 stories for Warren Publishing, putting him in the top 10 most prolific artists at the company. He drew 53 total strips of Vampirella, making him that title's most prolific artist.

See illustrators Spanish Special for a José (Pepe) González feature article and enjoy a revealing anecdote about José (Pepe) in illustrators issue 21.

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Juan Gonzalez Alacreu biography

Juan Gonzalez Alacreu biography

Juan González Alacreu (born 1937; Burriana, Castellón, Spain)
Juan González Alacreu was born in Castellón in Spain in 1937. At the age of eight he began taking classes at the School of Arts and Crafts; With only sixteen he obtained a scholarship to study at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia, where he had as teachers Sanchís Gago, Genaro Lahuerta and Bayarri.

He worked for many years in illustration for various publishers, including 'I Believe' and other independent publishing houses. In 1968, together with Frejo and Alfredo Sanchis Cortés, he formed the Art Studium team , dedicated to the production of illustrated children's books and series for the foreign market, including comic strips such as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves for Once Upon A Time magazine. Other children's illustrations include Captain Hispania (1959) and Hansel and Gretel (1980).

After completing his stage as an illustrator, he dedicated himself entirely to painting. His work stands out for an art, where the purity of the drawing is the basis of his work, to later paint the light, the lights and the reflections, with vigorous brushstrokes, full of oil.

In his painting you can see a great influence of Valencian painters such as Sorolla. He has been an official painter of the Greater Fallera of Valencia for many years. His work has been exhibited in numerous art galleries and is in private collections around the world.

The female figure is in most of his paintings the protagonist of his paintings, although he always joined them, the Mediterranean landscape, the traditional scenes of Valencian life, both indoors, in activities of daily life and in his chores in the rice fields and the Albufera, either with clean, bright and overcast skies, so common in the region. Its theme is very diverse, arousing great expectation in its paintings of Valencian women, wearing the regional dress with great elegance, in these paintings, the great wealth of dresses and dressings can be appreciated with great realism.

It is obvious that he adores "his" landscape and is passionate about the light and customs of the Valencian Community, capturing it in his work, intelligently and intuitively in color, and with almost perfect plasticity. Some art experts,They have framed his work, within classicism-impressionism, with a notable influence from that of Joaquín Sorolla, especially in technique.

He is also a great portrait painter, painting great figures of Valencian society and politics. For many years he was the official painter of the major fallera in Valencia; These large portraits are exhibited in the Fallero Museum of that city. It is a popular custom in Fallas times, to visit its exhibition, already becoming a tradition of the festivals of that autonomous community.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Juan Gonzalez Alacreu art
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John S Goodall biography

John S Goodall biography

John Strickland Goodall (7 June 1908 - 2 June 1996; Norfolk, UK)
John S. Goodall RBA RI was a British author, watercolour painter and illustrator best known for his wordless picture adventures (one award-winning example being The Adventures of Paddy Pork), although his output has included more conventional pictures, and illustrations for a wide range of publications (including the Radio Times) and books by the "fictitious village schoolmistress Miss Read".

For many years John Strickland Goodall was one of Britain's favourite illustrators of children's books. Aimed at an adult audience his books 'An Edwardian Season' and' Victorians Abroad' were very popular and this helped Goodall become one of England's beloved artists due to the subject matter of his works - the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

John was born in Heacham in Norfolk on 7 June 1908 the son of Prof Joseph Strickland Goodall an eminent cardiologist, and his wife, Amelia Hunt. He came from a long line of doctors. He attended Harrow School. His father permitted him to leave academia and instead train as an artist under two family friends: Sir Arthur Stockdale Cope and John Watson Nicol. From 1925 to 1929 he attended the Royal Academy of Arts. He married Margaret Nicol in 1933.

During the Second World War he worked as a camouflage artist, based in India. He had his first public exhibition of paintings in the Government School of Art in Calcutta in 1943. After the war he settled in Tisbury where he shared an idyllic cottage with his wife. The house featured in many of his paintings.

He died in Shaftesbury on 2 June 1996.

A self-portrait created during the Second World War is held by the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery and Wikipedia
John S Goodall art
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Robert Gould biography

Robert Gould biography

Robert Gould (born ?1950s; USA)
For over 30 years, Imaginosis President Robert Gould has been involved with the development, creation, and production of art and story for all media. In 1974, Robert received a Bachelor's Degree of Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art, majoring in Art Education with a minor in Literature and Film. During his time at college, he and three other artists published "New Legends", the first commercially successful underground comic book published in Boston.

After receiving his degree, he continued the work in the comic book field, supplying work to Marvel Comics and numerous other comic publications. Seeking to explore the possibilities of combining picture and word in visual narrative, Robert and writer Eric Kimball formed the company, Two Man Horse. Together they created and published numerous works inspired by their love of Pre-Raphaelite art and philosophy. Two Man Horse was commissioned by StarReach Publications to create an original comic book story based on Michael Moorcock's widely popular Elric of Melnibone book series. "The Prisoner of Pan Tang" won numerous awards and firmly established Robert as the pre-eminent illustrator for Michael Moorcock's tragic hero.

In 1978, Robert began his career as a book cover designer and illustrator by designing the covers for the six book Elric of Melnibone saga, his sensitive watercolors and dramatic graphic design contrasting sharply with the style of fantasy illustration at the time and proved wildly popular. He continued to re-design Moorcock's entire fantasy publishing line of over 50 books, developing a distinct but interrelated style for each series. His work garnered him many awards, including the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist in 1991 and spawned a new style of fantasy illustration both in the US and Europe.

For over fifteen years, Robert continued his career as a book designer and illustrator for publishers in the US and Europe, completing well over 180 cover designs. He specialized in book series and exercised complete control over all design, illustration and typographic aspects of his projects. Robert created an individual, cohesive identity – a "theme" - for each series and worked closely with the authors and editors to maximize the impact of combining image and word.

At this time, Robert and fellow artists Eric Kimball, Barry Windsor-Smith and Jeffrey Jones formed the New Romantic Brotherhood. They promoted and published works based on an art philosophy they called New Romanticism: a blending of their common devotion to medieval and late nineteenth century Pre-Raphaelite and symbolist Art and philosophy expressed in their distinctly modern sensibilities.

Seeking to further push the boundaries of quality in image reproduction, Robert founded Cygnus in 1981 with partner Marc Halperin to support and publish works by contemporary fantasy artists that were of a fine art nature. Using archival materials and highly precise duotone reproduction methods, Cygnus produced "The Drawing Collection", a series of four boxed reproductions of pencil drawings by Gould, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jeffery Jones and Alan Lee. "The Drawing Collection" and the art prints that followed set a new standard for fantasy art reproduction. For it's innovative work in printing and fantasy publishing, Cygnus received many awards in the printing and fantasy fields and set the recognized standard for quality art reproduction in the fantasy genre.

In the late 1980s, Robert moved from Boston to Los Angeles and began spending more time in Devon, England with fellow artists Alan Lee and Brian Froud. Having always had a strong interest in the visual narrative aspects of film, Robert left the field of book design in 1991 to explore the possibilities of bringing fantasy and mythic fiction to the screen.

Robert served as Vice President of the Los Angeles based film production company, The Lynda Guber Organization (LGO), for six years. During his tenure under a production deal at Sony Pictures Entertainment, he was responsible for all administrative and development functions of the company, including selecting and attaching properties, writers and directors.

Robert's intimate experience with the studio development process challenged him to create a property development model that better served both the artist and the production company. Having worked with internationally recognized faery artist Brian Froud and contributed to the creation of Brian's international best seller, LADY COTTINGTON'S PRESSED FAIRY BOOK, Robert saw the exceptional cross media potential of the artist's work. He created an innovative business plan and subsequent agreement for LGO to exclusively represent Brian for three years in his publishing, licensing and entertainment concerns. To handle all publishing and licensing agreements, Robert attached The Beanstalk Group, the premiere independent licensing company in the US, with whom he had worked on DINOTOPIA.

In 1999 Robert formed Imaginosis, a media arts company that works with visual artists and writers to collaboratively create and strategically develop entertainment intellectual properties that have broad, transmedia applications while maintaining the integrity, quality, depth of imagination, vision, philosophy, locale, characters and paraphernalia unique to the property and the creator's original vision. In 2005, Robert formed Imaginosis Publishing, a division of Imaginosis.
Source: Robert Gould
Robert Gould art
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Janet & Anne Grahame Johnstone biography

Janet & Anne Grahame Johnstone biography

Janet & Anne Grahame Johnstone (1928 - 1979 (Janet) 1998 (Anne))
Janet Grahame Johnstone (1 June 1928 – 1979) and Anne Grahame Johnstone (1 June 1928 – 25 May 1998) were twin sisters and British children's book illustrators best known for their delicate, detailed prolific artwork and for illustrating Dodie Smith's classic book The Hundred and One Dalmatians

The twins were born in 1928 to successful British portraitist and costume designer Doris Zinkeisen and her husband, Captain Edward Grahame Johnstone. They attended the Heathfield School in Ascot, Berkshire during World War II; their artistic bent nurtured both at home and at school. Later, they attended Saint Martin's School of Art in London, where they studied period clothing styles before moving to Suffolk in 1966. The twins never married and would both live with their mother until their deaths (Zinkeisen died in 1991).

The Johnstone sisters' popularity took off in the early 1950s, when they were noticed by publishers and acquired a growing reputation as talented illustrators. They always worked together, passing drawings back and forth across their studio until both twins were satisfied with the final outcome. Janet specialized in animals and birds. Anne focused on the period costumes that so dominated their work. Because of their symbiotic collaboration, until the death of Janet in 1979, there was never a book illustrated under either one of their names alone.

The first important book the twins worked on was The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, who was already a very successful playwright and author. In 1956 she invited them to illustrate her first children's book, and it was an immediate success, captivating parents and children alike. Eventually, Smith's book was made into a feature-length animated film by Walt Disney.

The twins' further success with later Smith books, The Starlight Barking and The Midnight Kittens, made them the most widely recognized illustrators of children's books in England at the time. Their business association developed into an enduring friendship until Smith died in November 1990.

Although not widely remembered, the twins at an early stage of their career worked extensively in British television, during the formative years of children's programming. They produced a considerable amount of artwork for programmes including "Tai Lu", "Andy Pandy," and "The Flower Pot Men." These programmes were very popular with British children during the 1950s and 1960s.

Over the course of their career together, the sisters illustrated more than 100 books. These included classic fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, J. M. Barrie, Charles Kingsley, a series based on Biblical tales, Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greeks and Trojans (Purnell and Sons, London, 1963), as well as a large variety of rhyme and modern story-collections. Early commissions included Enid Blyton's Tales of Ancient Greece (1951), and new illustrations for a shocking old German children's morality book, Struwwelpeter (1950). The Johnstones illustrated many of Paul Gallico's magical children's stories, working on Manxmouse, The Man who was Magic, and Miracle in the Wilderness. Their most collectible book to date is Enid Blyton's 1979 Dean book, called, The Enchanted Wood.

Most of their work was done designing Christmas cards and illustrating numbers of large, brightly coloured gift books, mainly published by Dean. Their full-page illustrations surrounding nursery rhymes, fairy tales or children's prayers were in the tradition of undemanding effusiveness set by older artists like Hilda Boswell, still hugely popular with the public though increasingly frowned on by critics.

Janet and Anne also illustrated many company logos and advertisements, including a wine label designed by the twins for their own brand of wine (Chateau Badingham). Their work was also featured in the British children's magazine Finding Out.

In 1979, Janet died as a result of smoke inhalation following a fire in the kitchen, leaving Anne devastated and alone for the first time in her life. Their brother Murray described them together as one and a half rather than two people. Anne found herself unexpectedly responsible for the entire business enterprise previously shared with her sister, and managed to honour all of their outstanding commissions. She had to master the techniques for drawing and painting animals, particularly horses, which had been the specialty of her sister. Eventually she became so adept that she was elected a Member of the Society of Equestrian Artists in 1998.

On her own in the 1980s, Anne produced many fine illustrations. Two particularly notable books she illustrated were the editions of Peter Pan and The Water Babies, published by Award Publications. Each year she also produced Christmas cards for Royles, which were very popular. Other projects included designs for limited edition Christmas jigsaw puzzles for the British bookstore chain Waddingtons, and two books she wrote and illustrated about Santa Claus. Over the years, she became an expert in 19th-century military uniforms and often worked as an heraldic artist through the College of Arms. Anne died of liver cancer in Badingham, Suffolk on 25 May 1998 at the age of 69. She continued to work until two days before her death. Source: The Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia

Enjoy the feature articles about Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone in illustrators  issue 5 and illustrators  issue 23.

Janet & Anne Grahame Johnstone art
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Maureen & Gordon Gray biography

Maureen & Gordon Gray biography

Maureen & Gordon Gray
For such prolific illustrators and strip artists, almost nothing is known about Maureen and Gordon Gray. Some library sources give their years of birth as 1932 (Gordon) and 1940 (Maureen), but that information should be treated with care.

Usually signing their work 'Gray', they were regular contributors to comics in the 1980s, producing Kid's Army, a Second World War strip loosely based on the TV sitcom Dad's Army, Fame, based on the TV show, and The Fantastic Adventures of Adam Ant, about pop-star Adam travelling through time to pop up at various points in history. These strips all appeared in DC Thomson's TV Tops comic in around 1982.

The Grays then began appearing in Look-In, contributing Bucks Fizz (1983-84), The Story So Far featuring Shaking Stevens (1985), A-Ha (1986) and Michael Jackson (1986), Airwolf (1986), The A-Team (1986-87) and Five Star Life (1987).

A later graphic novel is credited to Maureen Gray only: The Haunting of Julia (2007) is based on Mary Hooper's children's novel Thirteen Candles, described thus: "When Julia watches Dad's video of herself preparing to blow out the candles, she notices something weird and mysterious, a dark hazy shape, leaning over her shoulder. She's sure it blew out the candles, but what is it?" From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Maureen & Gordon Gray art
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Harry Green biography

Harry Green biography

Harry Green (born 1920; UK)
A little-known artist, Harry Green contributed extensively to Look and Learn in the 1970s and 1980s, illustrating a variety of subjects ranging from historical buildings to football. However, it was as a transport illustrator that he really made his mark in the 1980 with the series "Britain's Railway Wonders". Green also contributed illustrations to Speed & Power in the 1970s.

His book illustrations include Architecture (1969), Architecture: The Great Art of Building (1969), Discovery of Australia (1969) and Discovery of South America (1970), some of which were jointly illustrated by Gwen Green who was also a prolific children's educational book illustrator. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Harry Green art
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Mike Green biography

Mike Green biography

Michael T Green (Known active 1970s & 1980s)
Mike Green was a ceramicist as well as a comics artist. He drew strips such as The Drips, Penny Dreadful (for Wow!), Snip and Snap (The Tearaway Terriers), Weedy Willy (for Oink!) and the slightly edgy Jumbo and Jet (from Sparky).

Mike Green art
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Roland Green biography

Roland Green biography

Roland Green (1890 - 1972; UK)
Roland Green was a noted nature artist, particularly known for his pictures of birds, which he painted in oils and watercolours.

He was born Roland Green in Rainham, Kent, in January 1890, the son of Roland Green, a taxidermist, and his wife Emily Filmer whom he married in the 1880s. Roland was their third child and first son, following Ivy (1885) and Daisy Eunice (1886). According to one biography, Green's father "taught him how to skin, stuff and set up birds, which gave Roland a fine knowledge of anatomy and plumage. Whilst at school he showed a gift for drawing and painting birds and went on to study at the Rochester School of art as well as Regent Street Polytechnic."

By 1911, Green was working as an artist/lithographer in London, the family having moved to Seven Kings, Essex, where Green's father was now employed as a joiner in the building trade. He later moved to Hickling in Norfolk, where his work attracted the attention of Lord Desborough, owner of the Hickling Estate. Green was commissioned to paint the frieze on the walls of Whitelea Lodge depicting the birds of the Hickling Broad.

Green illustrated a number of books, including contributions to The Birds of Australia by Gregory Mathews (London, Witherby, 12 vols., 1910-27) following the death in 1912 of J. G. Keulemans, who illustrated the first four volumes. Other books include Birds in Flight by W. P. Pycraft, The Bird Book by Enid Blyton, Wing to Wing by E. H. Ware and The Ladybird Book of British Wild Animals by George Cansdale.

Green died in Norfolk in 1972, aged 82. He never married. A large collection – 120 watercolours and 7 oil paintings – of Green's artwork amassed by Commander David Joel, a schoolboy when he was first introduced to Green, was sold in 2012 with profits going to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust and the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society.

Joel said in an interview: "There was not anyone on the Broads who did not know about Roland Green. He lived in the reed beds and people thought he was a hermit, but he was anything but. He was an extrovert who gave talks at school and loved enthusing children with his love of art ... Modern artists use photographs but Green worked only from observation and that is why his birds look absolutely real." Joel has written a tribute to Green, A Homage to Roland Green – His Norfolk Legacy (2012), published by St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington.

Note: Wikipedia gives his name as Roland J. Green, but there is no record of Green having a middle name or initial. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Roland Green art
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Rick Griffin biography

Rick Griffin biography

Rick Griffin (18 June 1944 - 18 August 1991; USA)
Like so many comic artists, Rick Griffin showed his talent as a youngster. He attended the Los Angeles Chouinard Art Institute where an instructor told him: "You cannot make art with a Rapidograph!" His singular drawing style developed - still using the Rapidograph - with practical experience on publications such as Surfer Magazine (he was an avid surfer), Car Toon Magazine, Hot Rod Cartoons and artwork for 'Big Daddy' Roth.

Settling in San Francisco in 1966, Rick Griffin's style reached maturity in the richly colored psychedelic concert posters he designed for Bill Graham's Fillmore and Chet Helm's Family Dog rock concerts. The famous 'Flying Eyeball' poster (Bill Graham #105) ranks as the most treasured of all his posters collected by fans and modern art museums alike.

Griffin drew comics for 'Zap' (with Victor Moscoso), 'Snatch' and 'Tales from the Tube', and created some several unforgettable designs for many album covers for the Grateful Dead and other San Francisco counter-culture rock bands of the sixties. Rick Griffin had a motorcycle accident on 15 August 1991 and died from his injuries a few days later.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Rick Griffin art
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Josep Gual biography

Josep Gual biography

Josep Gual i Tutusaus; Spain
Josep Gual i Tutusaus began his career working for publishers of his native Catalonia until he entered the international market by means of the agency Selecciones Ilustradas. In Spain, he drew for Toray serials like 'Brigada Secreta', 'Espionaje' and 'Las Enfermeras' in the 1960s. He was additionally the artist of 'Mark Danger' in Hurón (scripts by Manuel Dominguez Navarro, 1968), 'Adam & Evans' in Cómics (scripts by Victor Mora, 1972) and 'Jeff Blake, el Hombre de Pinkerton' in Kung-Fu (scripts Andreu Martín, 1983).

As for his agency work, he drew for Fleetway in Britain. Since 1969 he was one of the new illustrators of the Australian comic book 'Devil Doone', following the retirement of Hart Amos. In the 1970s, he contributed to Creepy and other American horror titles of publishers Skywald and Warren. Later on, Josep Gual drew the erotic newspaper strip 'George & Lynne' with scripts by Conrad Frost for the British daily The Sun.

Gual has drawn among others 'James Bond' for the Scandinavian publisher Semic (1980s) and Disney comics for Egmont (1980s, 1990s). For the German magazine Yps, he has drawn series 'Tommy, der Trommler'. In later years, he has drawn through the Comicon agency. Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Juanjo Guarnido biography

Juanjo Guarnido biography

Juanjo Guarnido (born 1967; Granada, Spain)
Juanjo Guarnido is a Spanish illustrator and the co-author of the comic book series Blacksad.

Juanjo Guarnido got his degree in fine arts in his birth city of Granada. Guarnido collaborated on several fanzines and produced work for Marvel Spanish publications (Comics Forum - Planeta de Agostini).

Unfortunately, the small size of the Spanish market forced him to turn to other means of earning a living. In 1990, he left Granada and moved to Madrid, where he worked on a TV series for three years. There he met Juan Díaz Canales, with whom he discussed producing comics. In 1993, Guarnido applied for a job with the Walt Disney Studios in Montreuil-sur-Bois so moved to Paris in 1993 and was employed as a lay-out man and animator on films like 'Hunchback of the Notre Dame' (1996), 'Hercules' (1997) and he was the lead animator for the character Sabor in the Disney film 'Tarzan' (1999).

After Guarnido left Disney, he reconnected with Canales. After contacting several editors, Guarnido and Canales finally signed on with French publisher Dargaud, and in November 2000, Quelque part entre les ombres (Somewhere within the Shadows) was published. It was a success among critics and the public, and won the Prix de la Découverte at the Sierre International Comics Festival and the "Avenir" Prize at the Lys-lez-Lannoy Festival, respectively in Switzerland and France. In March 2003, the second album Arctic-Nation was released. It was once again a success, winning the Prize Awarded by the Audience and the Prize for Artwork at the 2004 Angoulême International Comics Festival. The third instalment of the Blacksad series, Âme Rouge (Red Soul), was published in 2005. In 2006 it was awarded the Angoulême Prize for a Series.

In his spare time, he started making comics together with Canales. This eventually resulted in the launch of their critically acclaimed anthropomorphic black cat detective 'Blacksad', of which the first book was published by Dargaud in 2000. Guarnido's film noir-inspired comic is inhabited by a great many remarkable and unusual animal characters, including anthropomorphic cameos of famous persons and a wide range of reptile villains. The series is published in French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Czech, English, Finnish, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Swedish, and Turkish.

Guarnido was also the cover artist and illustrator for the final installment of Pierre Boisserie's collective science fiction series 'Voyageur' that was published by Glénat between 2007 and 2011. With Canales' wife Teresa Valero he additionally set up the heroic fantasy children's series 'Sorcellières', that is published by Dargaud since 2008.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Juanjo Guarnido art
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Jackson Guice biography

Jackson Guice biography

Jackson Guice (born 27 June 1961; USA)
Jackson "Butch" Guice started working in the comics field in 1981. He did inks for Warlords of Light and Galexia Magazine at Astral. He then did artwork for 'Crusaders' and 'The Southern Knights' at Guild.

He joined Marvel, where he cooperated on the titles 'Micronauts', 'Avengers', 'Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme', 'Indiana Jones', 'Iron Man', 'New Mutants', 'Alpha Flight', 'Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.' and 'Thor' throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. He was also present in 'Nightbreed' published under the company's Epic imprint.

He has worked with writer Mike Baron on First Comics titles like 'Badger', 'Nexus' and 'The Chronicles of Corum'. At the start of 1987, Guice contributed to the 'Southern Knights' series, published by Comics Interview Publications.

Guice has also worked extensively DC Comics, doing among others a long run on 'Superman' in Action Comics, but also on 'Batman', 'The Flash', 'Ressurection Man', 'Agent Liberty' and 'Birds of Prey'. In addition, he did the 'The Terminator: Endgame' mini-series for Dark Horse. He also drew 'Eternal Warrior' and 'Bloodshot' for Valiant Comics, and 'Sliders: Narcotica' for Acclaim.

Guice left DC in Spring 2001, and went to Crossgen Comics. There, he became the penciller of the 'Ruse' series, about a supernatural detective. When CrossGen folded a couple of years later, Guice returned to DC to draw for 'JLA: Classified' and 'Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis', as well as Wildstorm's 'Storming Paradise'. He also returned to Marvel as an artist on 'Captain America' and 'Ultimate Origins'.
Source: Lambiek
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Paul Gulacy biography

Paul Gulacy biography

Paul Gulacy (born 1953; USA)
Paul Gulacy is best known for his work on Marvel's 1970s title 'Master of Kung Fu', and on DC's 'Batman' in the 1990s. Just like Jim Steranko, Gulacy pioneered a kind of super-realistic, cinematic style, illustrating spy stories in particular. Working in collaboration with writers like Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy produced work on books like 'Shang-Chi', 'Master of Kung Fu', 'James Bond 007', 'Six from Sirius' and 'Batman'. Gulacy was the artist of one of the first US graphic novels, 'Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species', written by Don McGregor for Eclipse Enterprises in August 1978.

Gulacy has done magazine art for Hustler and Heavy Metal Magazine, and was a cover illustrator for Eclipse Enterprises, New Media Publishing, Capital Comics, AC Comics, Dark Horse Comics and 'Hard Rider' paperbacks. He drew black-and-white comic stories for the Warren magazines Eerie and Vampirella, and in Epic Illustrated, in 1979-1980. Gulacy teamed up with Doug Moench again for the mini-series 'Six from Sirius' (1984), 'Six from Sirius II' (1986-1986) and 'Slash Maraud' (DC, 1987-1988). In the 1980s, he also worked on Eclipse Enterprises features like 'Airboy' and 'Valkyrie', and on 'Black Diamond' for AC Comics.

The 1990s brought contributions to many of DC's 'Batman' titles, such as 'Batman', 'Legends of the Dark Night', 'Batman: Prey' and 'Batman: Outlaws'. He also worked on the company's SF movie-related titles like 'Predator' and 'Star Wars'. Further contributions were to Topps ('Zorro' and covers), Acclaim's Valiant imprint ('Bloodshot', 'Turok' and covers) and Penthouse Comix.

By 2002 he returned to the kung fu genre with the mini-series 'Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu', another collaboration with Doug Moench for Marvel Comics. During this period, he also drew the science-fiction/spy comic 'S.C.I. Spy' for DC. In 2006, he was assigned to do the Marvel mini-series 'Squadron Supreme: Hyperion vs Nighthawk' with Marc Guggenheim, which was followed by 'True Believers' with Cary Bates.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Roger Hale biography

Roger Hale biography

Roger Hale (b. 24 July 1943; Farnborough, England)
Roger Hale was born in Farnborough, England, on July 24, 1943. After leaving public school armed with diplomas displaying a heavy bias to the right side of the brain, he joined the Farnham Academy of Fine Arts.

Besides studying painting, sculpture and lithography Hale created his own portfolio of graphic design. This resulted in his being head hunted by two leading international advertising agencies.

Hale held a number of creative and management positions at three of the world's most reputable agencies in London, Brussels and Amsterdam before starting his own agency in this last city, under the name of Hale & Friends.

In its heyday H&F was voted 'The Best in its Category' by a trade monitor of advertising agencies, but after a total of twenty-three years in the business Hale took the almost unprecedented step of closing his agency in midstream and embarking on an uncharted journey in search of what he now calls “A sincere and uncomplicated existence”.

Although spiritual pursuit of that goal can be infernally eternal, at least living on an island in Brazil, and focusing on painting and writing has gone a long way towards achieving it!

Sensuality is central in Hale's work; whether portraying the fiery passion of dance or expansive landscapes with dramatic skies, the central theme is movement, displaying his capacity to move effortlessly from uninhibited broad brush strokes to fine pen drawings.

Hale has exhibited in the New York, Brazil, Belgium and The Netherlands.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
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Roger Hall biography

Roger Hall biography

Roger Hall (born 26 December 1914; UK)
Roger Hall began earning his livelihood as an artist painting front-of-house display material for cinemas, a career path also followed by his good friend, the late Sam Peffer. Like Sam, Hall moved on to produce book covers and dust jackets for many British publishers and, later, found work with Design Bureau, whose artists were responsible for many of Hamlyn's "All Colour Paperbacks" in the late 1960s/early 1970s. It was here that the two finally met, remaining good friends until Sam's death earlier this year.

Roger Hall was born at St Barts Hospital on Boxing Day 1914, the son of a stoker who worked at Wimbledon Power Station. Hall grew up in Islington and showed an early interest in, and talent for, drawing. A few months after leaving school, he became a junior at the London Art Service, a firm specialising in cinema display work. At the age of 15 he worked on lettering huge, 48-sheet posters, banners and other advertising material.

After a while, Hall became desperate to move onto the artistic side of the operation in the studios below. One of the firm's artists, Bill Wiggins, suggested that he draw some specimen illustrations to show to the company's chief artist Oscar Brown and, using a Saturday Evening Post cover as his reference, Hall painted a town crier. Brown's terse response was to instruct Hall to "start downstairs on Monday".

After an apprenticeship of mixing paint and running errands, Hall began contributing life-size heads to displays, having spent every weekend studying portraits at the Tate and National Gallery. His hero was John Singer Sargent, the top portrait artist of his era and a master at the realistic portrayal of people. After a couple of years, Hall had developed a realistic style that allowed him to accurately paint up to twenty portrait panels a week from publicity brochures and photos. Given his output, he asked for a 2/6d. pay rise—bringing his wage up to £1 a week—and left when the firm prevaricated.

Now aged 18, he joined Art Display Services, a new firm based in a former banana warehouse off Shaftesbury Avenue who supplied hand-painted cut-out displays for cinema foyers. One of his most memorable assignments was a 20-foot high picture of Charles Bickford, made up from twelve pieces of 5 x 5-feet plywood, for the Regal, Marble Arch.

Hall continued this work until he was called up in 1941. Demobbed at the end of 1946, he joined Pulford Publicity to paint posters. For £16 a week—more than double the average wage— he painted between 200 and 300 posters for the firm, the first a quad poster featuring a large portrait of Michael Redgrave for Fame Is The Spur (1947). Other posters included Circle Of Danger (1951) and The Adventurers (1952).

After producing two or three posters a week for seven years, Hall found himself frustrated by the firm's boss, Eric Pulford, who insisted on designing and laying out all the work for Hall to finish. He left, turning to the thriving field of book cover illustration, producing dust jackets for Hutchinson and covers for Arrow, Pan, Corgi, Panther, Four Square, Mayflower and even Mills & Boon.

In the 1960s, he returned to painting film posters for Geoff Wright but, due to work commitments elsewhere, passed on the work to Sam Peffer in 1971. Hall, meanwhile, was working in television and film production work, also illustrating 14 Ladybird books in their 'Famous People' series.

Hall also illustrated three popular series for Collins: The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators. In the late 1960s, Hall contributed cover illustrations to IPC's Princess Tina and, in the early 1970s, painted illustrations for the nursery comic Hey Diddle Diddle.

Sam Peffer recalls: "During one of my quieter spells in 1977, a phone call from Roger Hall led to a couple of jobs that gave us both a great deal of pleasure. He had been commissioned to paint murals stretching the length of the walls in two new Safeway supermarkets—one in South Norwood, the other at Blackfen, Sidcup—all expenses paid, and he needed another artist to assist him. Was I interested? I jumped at the opportunity. It was a totally new experience for me, and a very enjoyable one."

Hall moved to Spain in 1986, but travelled widely. He held three exhibitions before returning to the UK in 2003, retiring to Gloucestershire, where he continued to paint landscapes and local scenes.
Source: Steve Holland
Roger Hall art
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Frank Hampson biography

Frank Hampson biography

Frank Hampson (1918 - 1985, UK)
Frank Hampson was only thirteen when he got an assignment to draw sketches for Meccano Magazine. At the age of twenty, he started studying at the Victoria College of Arts & Sciences.

During World War II, he served in the Royal Army Service Corps and became a lieutenant. At the end of the war, freshly married, he started attending the Southport School of Arts and Crafts and tried to make a living doing freelance jobs. He met Marcus Morris, a vicar, who had ambitions for founding a national Christian magazine, The Anvil, with a special emphasis on material for youngsters.

Eventually, Morris employed Hampson full-time, and they created Eagle, the magazine that featured the popular Dan Dare comics, in 1950. Hampson started out doing all the work single-handedly, but soon gathered a large crew of hard-working artists around him, including artists Desmond Walduck, Harold Johns, and Donald Harley, as well as writers Alan Stranks and Arthur C. Clarke.

The years between 1955 and 1959 were the heyday of the Eagle studios. In addition to 'Dan Dare', Hampson has worked on a variety of other strips for Eagle, such as 'The Great Adventurer', 'Tommy Walls', 'Rob Conway' and 'The Road of courage'.

After this, with a new editor, Frank retired from the 'Dan Dare' strip, leaving it to Frank Bellamy. In 1975, he was given an award recognizing his work at the Comic Festival in Lucca. He died of a stroke in 1985.

See also our FRANK HAMPSON BOOKS including Dan Dare.

Frank Hampson art
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Martin Handford biography

Martin Handford biography

Martin Handford
The artist creator of Where's Wally (Where's Waldo in USA) with many magazine illustrations to his name, including Miss London..
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Jim Hanson biography

Jim Hanson biography

Jim Hanson
Jim Hanson is a British comics artist whose credits include the Bumpkin Billionaires for Whizzer and Chips and Buster, Son of Andy Capp for Buster (Comic), as well as Dennis the Menace in the Beano.
Jim Hanson art
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David A Hardy biography

David A Hardy biography

David A Hardy (b. 10 April 1936)
David Hardy is a British space artist and was born in 1936 in Bournville, UK. He studied at the Margaret Street College of Art in Birmingham, and was soon painting for the British Interplanetary Society.

He started his career as an employee in the Design Office of Cadbury's, where he created packaging and advertising art for the company's confectionery.

His first science fiction art was published in 1970, but he has gone on to illustrate hundreds of covers for books, and for magazines such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact. His work also appears regularly in magazines such as Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy Now and Popular Astronomy, for which he also writes articles.

Jon Gustafson and Peter Nicholls write that he is "known as much for his astronomical paintings in the accurate tradition of Chesley Bonestell as for his sf work". Some of his best early work, at age 18, was to illustrate a nonfiction book by Patrick Moore, Suns, Myths and Men (1954). Gustafson and Nicholls remark that The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction was "the magazine for which he developed his famous "Space Gumby," a green alien which lent humour to his vivid astronomical scenes. He was an important artist for Vision of Tomorrow and worked also for Science Fiction Monthly, If and Gal."

David has illustrated and produced covers for dozens of books in the UK, USA and Germany, both fact and fiction, including many by Patrick Moore, some by Arthur C. Clarke and the late Carl Sagan, all of whom own (or owned) his originals, along with Wernher von Braun, Isaac Asimov and even Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and Brian May, among many others.

He also worked on Patrick Moore's The Sky at Night on TV from when it started in 1957, more or less until the present day (sadly it now uses little space art), and has appeared three times in person. In 1974 he started writing his own non-fiction books for both children and adults. His first novel, Aurora: A Child of Two Worlds, was published in 2003, with a revised edition in 2012. Since 1970 he has worked on covers for SF magazines (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, Interzone, etc.), factual magazines (New Scientist, Focus, Astronomy Now, Sky & Telescope, etc.), movies (e.g. The Neverending Story), TV (Blake's Seven, Tomorrow's World, Cosmos, Horizon, etc.), computer games, record and CD art (from Hawkwind to Holst's The Planets Suite), video, and planetarium art.

He is European Vice President of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, and Vice President of the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists.

He has been Artist Guest of Honour at a number of science fiction conventions, including Stucon, Albacon, Armadacon, Novacon, the 2007 Eurocon, and Illustrious, the 2011 Eastercon. He was also a guest speaker at the 2012 Microcon at Exeter University.

David is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including:
1979 Nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist.
1987 Won 'Best European SF Artist' award.
2001 Won the Lucien Rudaux Memorial Award.
2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 Best cover art, readers award, Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact.
2005 FUTURES was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Related Book.
2005 FUTURES received the Sir Arthur Clarke Award for 'Best Written Presentation'.
Source: Wikipedia & Illustration Art Gallery

http://www.astroart.org/hardy-profile

David A Hardy art
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Dudley Hardy biography

Dudley Hardy biography

Dudley Hardy (15 January 1867 - 11 August 1922; Sheffield, UK)
Dudley Hardy, RI, ROI, RBA, RMS, PS, was an English painter and illustrator.

Hardy was the eldest son of the marine painter Thomas Bush Hardy, under whose influence and tutelage he first learned to draw and paint. In 1882 he attended the Düsseldorf Academy where he remained for three years. After a further two years' study in Paris and at Antwerp Academy he returned to England to live and work in London.

In 1885 Hardy began exhibiting at the Royal Academy, an association that lasted to his death. His painting, Sans Asile (1889), a view of rough sleepers in Trafalgar Square, was exhibited at the Paris Salon, and the Royal Society of British Artists Gallery in 1893; it was this painting that established his reputation. Sans Asile and his 1889 painting Dock Strike (London Dock Strike), were part of a wider artistic and statistical examination highlighting London poverty.

The preferred subjects for his work became the Middle East and Brittany; painting scenes of desert life and Breton peasantry. Although not visiting the Sudan he became a 'War Artist' for the 1890s Sudanese War, providing illustrations for London periodicals. His interest in illustration led to the production of French graphic influenced poster imagery, most notably the Yellow Girl advertisement for Today magazine, and Gaiety Girls, a series of posters depicting actresses of the Gaiety Theatre. Further illustrations were for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and the Savoy Theatre. Much of Hardy's illustrative work is held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In the early 1900s he produced a range of comical postcards, and in 1909 a series of caricatures for the souvenir programme of the Doncaster Aviation Meeting, England's first airshow.

Hardy was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", the seminal collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

Hardy joined his friend George Haité as a founder member of the London Sketch Club; and became the club's president. He later joined the Eccentric Club.

Dudley Hardy died in London of heart failure in 1922, and was buried at Brookwood Cemetery near Woking in Surrey
Source: Wikipedia & Illustration Art Gallery

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Dudley Hardy art
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Wilf Hardy biography

Wilf Hardy biography

Wilfred Hardy (7 July 1938 - 2016; Brentford, UK)
Wilf Hardy began working for Treasure in its early days after working as a commercial artist. Some of his earliest illustrations were designed to help youngsters understand subjects ranging from building a motorway to the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. Hardy is best known for his technological paintings, in particular planes, ships, trains and spacecraft.

Hardy became one of the mainstays of Fleetway's educational titles, working for Look and Learn, Ranger, Speed & Power and World of Knowledge. His best known series was the long running Into the Blue which helped establish him as an aviation artist of renown, an area he has continued working in - nowadays in oil and other media - for posters and private commissions.

Producing the series 'Into the Blue' in Ranger and Look and Learn for some years helped Hardy develop an ability to depict aircraft of every description, from the days of stick and string to futuristic zeppelins. Hardy often picked the subject matter himself, although the text was usually editorially written, and designed the layouts for his pages.

'Hardy's Drawing Board' was a popular feature in later issues of Look and Learn. Hardy is a member of the Guild of Aviation Artists.

Hardy enjoyed a long association with the International Air Tattoo (started 1971, became the Royal International Air Tattoo in 1996) and illustrated many advertising posters, brochure covers (and latterly, quite possibly T-shirts and mugs) for this and other air shows and events.

Wilfred Hardy lived in Kent. He married Barbara Woolstencroft in 1960 in Kent. They had three sons (born 1961, 1963 and 1965).
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Bear Alley Blog

See also our BOOKS featuring Wilf Hardy.

Wilf Hardy art
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Don Harley biography

Don Harley biography

Donald Eric Harley (born 1927; London, UK)
Don Harley was born in London in 1927, and studied at Epsom College of Art, where Frank Hampson visited to give a talk about the Eagle and the comic strip Dan Dare. Harley soon applied for and got a job in Hampson's studio.

He became the backbone of the Dan Dare strip, especially during Hampson's periods of illness, and worked with Hampson, Eric Eden and Joan Porter until the studio was disbanded in 1959 after Odhams Press took over the paper. He remained on the strip for a time, drawing the second page while Frank Bellamy did the first, from scripts by Eden. After a year Bellamy left the strip and Harley became the lead artist, assisted by Bruce Cornwell, until 1962 when a new team of writer David Motton and artist Keith Watson took over.

He later drew "Thunderbirds" in Countdown (1971-72), and worked in nursery comics in the 1980s.
Source: UK Comics Wiki
Don Harley art
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Ken Harrison biography

Ken Harrison biography

Ken H Harrison (born c. 1940; UK)
Ken H. Harrison is a British comic book and cartoon artist at DC Thomson. He drew Robbie Rebel, Big Brad Wolf and Lord Snooty for The Beano, The Hoot Squad for Hoot (later reprinted as The Beano's The Riot Squad), The Broons and Oor Wullie for The Sunday Post, Skookum Skool, Spookum Skool and The Snookums for Buzz and Cracker comics.

He drew Desperate Dan for The Dandy between 1983 and 2007 until The Dandy was revamped. He drew the front cover illustration for Classics from the Comics. Until 2012 he drew Minnie the Minx from The Beano, in a style reminiscent of original artist Leo Baxendale.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
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John Harrold biography

John Harrold biography

John Harrold (born 1947)
John Harrold first drew Rupert for the Daily Express in 1973 for Fun to Cook with Rupert, and his first Rupert the Bear story and annual work was in 1976. John is still illustrating Rupert today, almost 30 years later, and although living and working in France, he makes time to be at Canterbury (Rupert's birthplace) for Rupert's Birthday celebration in November each year.

Please note that we also have Rupert Bear art by John Harrold and other Rupert Bear art.

John Harrold art
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Andrew Haslen biography

Andrew Haslen biography

Andrew Haslen
Andrew Haslen is a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists. His work appears in many British bird books.
Andrew Haslen art
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John Hassall biography

John Hassall biography

John Hassall (21 May 1868 - 8 March 1948; Kent)
John Hassall was an English illustrator known for his advertisements and poster designs.

Hassall was born in Walmer, Kent, and was educated in Worthing, at Newton Abbot College, and at Neuenheim College, Heidelberg. After twice failing entry to The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he emigrated to Manitoba in Canada in 1888 to begin farming with his brother Owen. He returned to London two years later when he had drawings accepted by the Graphic. At the suggestion of Dudley Hardy (along with Cecil Aldin, a lifelong friend), he studied art in Antwerp and Paris. During this time he was influenced by the famous poster artist Alphonse Mucha.

In 1895, he began work as an advertising artist for David Allen & Sons, a career which lasted fifty years and included such well-known projects as the poster "Skegness Is so Bracing" (1908). Between 1896 and 1899 alone, he produced over 600 theatre poster designs for this firm while, at the same time, providing illustrations to several illustrated newspapers. Making use of flat colours enclosed by thick black lines, his poster style was very suitable for children's books, and he produced many volumes of nursery rhymes and fairy stories, now fetching high prices on eBay, such as Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes (1909).

In 1901, Hassall was elected to the membership of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the Royal Society of Miniature Painters. He also belonged to several clubs, including the Langham (until 1898), the Savage, and the London Sketch Club, of which he was a President from 1903-1904.

In 1900, Hassall opened his own New Art School and School of Poster Design in Kensington where he numbered Bert Thomas, Bruce Bairnsfather, H. M. Bateman and Harry Rountree among his students. The school was closed at the outbreak of the First World War. In the post-war period, he ran the very successful John Hassall Correspondence School.

John Hassall was the father of poet Christopher Hassall and the printmaker Joan Hassall, OBE. He was also the grandfather of the actress Imogen Hassall and grandfather (and surrogate father) to noted "green" architect, David Dobereiner.

Arguably John Hassall's most famous creation was "The Jolly Fisherman" in 1908, which is regarded as one of the most famous holiday advertisements of all time. His 1910 design for the Kodak Girl, in her iconic striped blue and white dress, became a feature of Kodak's advertising to the 1970s. Hassall's design was continually updated to reflect changing fashions and trends and was longer lasting and of greater international significance than his Jolly Fisherman.
Source: Wikipedia
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William Hatherell biography

William Hatherell biography

William Hatherell (1855 - 1928)
William Hatherell was a Victorian era illustrator who worked for magazines such as The Graphic, Harpers, Scribner's and the Century.

Today he is mostly remembered for crudely printed images as sadly the printing technology in Hatherell's day was pretty primitive. Combined with cheap paper stock, it stripped Hatherell's work of much of its sensitivity and expressiveness. Of course, like all resourceful artists Hatherell made the best of his limitations; he emphasized strong compositions and high contrasts that could survive the publication process.

Hatherell might easily have used the disadvantages of his medium as an excuse for dashing off fast, limited work. Many artists did. In fact, his employers encouraged him to do so, in order to increase productivity and profits. Instead, Hatherell worked carefully and deliberately, crafting sensitive pictures with subtle features that were undetectable to his larger audience. As one contemporary noted, Hatherell stubbornly refused to lower his standards:

Hatherell became noted for his refusal to be pressured into hasty work. For illustrating current events, for instance, he used models, often carefully posed in his backyard. When you go back and look at Hatherell's original pictures, you can see the extra effort he put into touches such as subtle shading and expressive faces and gestures.

Hatherell toiled his entire life accepting that publication would degrade the quality of his pictures. He had no defence to this handicap except his wits and his personal integrity. Of course, today almost any artist can publish sharp, high resolution images to the world at the push of a button. We tend to underestimate the competitive advantage that this gives our work over the work of our talented predecessors such as Hatherell.

These delicate touches were difficult and time consuming. Many of them would be undetectable by the reading public. Why did he do all that extra work trying to get it right?

Hatherell was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", the seminal collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918 that has, somewhat ironically, stood the test of time.

Hatherell and some of his peers were a lot better than we remember them today, based on their published work. Now that it is possible to recapture the true quality of their original pictures, we owe it to them to honour all those long afternoons they put into trying to get it right when they thought no one might ever know the difference.
Source: Illustration Art Blogspot

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

William Hatherell art
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Jack Hayes biography

Jack Hayes biography

Jack Hayes; UK
Artist who contributed a number of superb illustrations to The Bible Story. Almost nothing is known about Hayes' career. His known works include the illustrations for The New Oxford Illustrated Bible (Oxford University Press, n.d.), Flags of the World by I. O. Evans (Hamlyn, 1970).

In the early 1970s he illustrated paperback covers for Corgi and Fontana on titles as wide-ranging as The Long Wait and Kiss Me, Deadly by Mickey Spillane (both 1970), Too Few For Drums by R. F. Delderfield and Only the Valiant. Great Legends of the West by Charles Marquis Warren (both 1972) and The Gallows Herd by Maureen Peters and Steamboat Gothic by Frances Parkinson Keyes (both 1973).
Source: Look and Learn
Jack Hayes art
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Gerry Haylock biography

Gerry Haylock biography

Gerald A Haylock (born 1928; Kent, UK)
Gerry Haylock was a British comic artist from Bromley, Kent, who was active from the 1950s throughout the 1970s. He worked as an artist for Eagle and its female counterpart Girl in the 1950s and 1960s.

For Eagle, he was a regular artist on 'The Guinea Pig', and he also drew features like 'Knights Of The Road' between 1960 and 1962.

For Girl, he illustrated stories like 'A Cosy Christmas', 'White Queen of Calabar', 'Persia's Lady Mary' and 'Angel of Mercy'.

He was also present in Countdown (with 'U.F.O.' in 1971) and Joe 90 (with 'Land of the Giants'). He was an artist for the 'Doctor Who' comic stories for TV Action (1971-1973) and TV Comic (1973-1975, 1978) and painted covers for Schoolgirls' Picture Library.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Gerry Haylock art
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Helen Haywood biography

Helen Haywood biography

Helen Haywood (1908 - 1995; UK)
Helen Haywood was an English writer and illustrator of children's books. She was born in England in 1908 but was taken as a child to Chile, where her father, an engineer, worked on the trans-Andean railway. She remained in Chile until she was approximately 15 years old. Her experiences were recounted in an unpublished novel, "Childhood in Chile."

Her books were published by Thomas Nelson Ltd through the 1950s and 1960s. She created a series of books based around the character Peter Tiggywig and friends. Books written and illustrated by Helen Haywood in the Tiggywig series: - Peter Tiggywig Goes Camping; Peter Tiggywig Runs Away; Peter Tiggywig's Wonderful Train; Peter Tiggywig At School; Peter Tiggywig's Birthday Party; Peter Tiggywig At The Picnic; Peter Tiggywig's Toy-shop; Peter Tiggywig At Sea.

Other work includes Master Mouse the Madcap (1958), and Animal Playtime and Animal Worktime which appeared in the Look with Mother series, and a paperback series for children published by Nelson including 'Aesop's Fables'(1965) 'Brer Rabbit' and the 'Water Babies' (abridged).

Miss Haywood was a keen student of science and an amateur naturalist and anthropologist. Many of the books she illustrated for the publisher Hutchinson & Co., London, were keenly observed and scrupulously accurate depictions of plants, birds and animals. When commissioned to do illustrations for a children's book on dinosaurs, her research into the skin colours she subsequently chose for her dinosaur illustrations was cited by the Royal Academy of Sciences.

Haywood was also a practitioner of the art of fore-edge painting. She became acquainted with the art form through an uncle who was associated with the Bayntun-Riviere Bindery of Bath. She did several fore-edge and double fore-edge paintings on commission every year from the 1930s to the 1970s for Inman's Books, an antiquarian book dealer in New York City.

She died in Bournemouth, England in 1995.
Helen Haywood art
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Reginald Heade biography

Reginald Heade biography

Reginald Cyril Webb (1901 - 1957; London, UK)
Reginald Heade is considered by many to be the greatest British 'Good Girl' artist of the 1950s. Heade was in fact a pseudonym, his actual name being Reginald Cyril Webb.

Heade is intrinsically linked to the lurid pulps written by Hank Janson (Stephen D. Frances) of the crime / sexploitation genre.

Reg Heade only produced a few covers for the Thriller Comics Library but they were of quite exceptional quality. He is, of course, noted for his 'girlie art' covers for the Hank Janson series of paperback "hard-boiled" thrillers for the author/publisher, Stephen Frances, but he also produced some superb Western paperback covers for Archer Books in the late '40s, four sensitively painted colour plates for The Adventures of Robin Hood published by Collins, powerful illustrations in bold colour for a series of children's classics for Partridge Publications Ltd., dust jackets for W.E. Johns' Worrals books, some covers for A.P.'s Sexton Blake Library and later, under the name "Cy Webb", extraordinarily-detailed work for Pan and Panther.

It was a pity he did no strip work for the T.C.L. for he was an excellent exponent of the art as can be seen in his strip work for Knockout in the late '40s, the Robin Hood strip he did for Sun in the early 1950s and his beautiful version of When Knights Were Bold that he painted in monochrome for Playhour, filling in for Arthur Horowicz. Born in Forest Gate, London, it appears that the name "Heade" was, in fact, a pseudonym and that the artist's true name was simply Reginald Cyril Webb.
Source: David Ashford and Norman Wright

See also Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition for more Reginald Heade art!

Reginald Heade art
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Thomas Heath Robinson biography

Thomas Heath Robinson biography

Thomas Heath Robinson (1869 - 1953)
T. Heath Robinson was an English illustrator of books and magazines, in both line drawings and full color. He illustrated many books for Allen, Nisbit, Dent, Sands and others as well as illustrations for magazines and adventure strips, including Cassell's Family Magazine, The Idler, Pall Mall Magazine, Told in Pictures and The Strand.

Born into a family of artists, Thomas Heath Robinson - like his younger brothers, Charles and William - followed in the footsteps of his father (who was chief illustrator for The Penny Illustrated Paper (1838–1902)) and uncle (who worked for The Illustrated London News). William Heath Robinson is today the most famous of the three, with Thomas the least known.

Thomas first studied at the Islington School of Art in about 1885. His plan was to build a career as an illustrator. Accordingly, he submitted his portfolio to several publishers and was rewarded with his first commission, in 1893, to produce a series of line drawings for a short story by popular novelist, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, for the Pall Mall Magazine. The monthly Magazine was launched in 1893 as an off-shoot of the extremely successful newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette. Its aim was to offer well-illustrated short stories, poetry and serialised novels. Within a short time, it had established a reputation for commissioning leading writers and artists to produce work for the publication. Thus, Thomas Heath Robinson found his career launched in a new and popular paper illustrating the work of a well-established writer of sensational stories.

Two years later, in 1895, Robinson was commissioned to illustrate what turned out to be a remarkable book, by Frank Rinder, Old World Japan - Legends of the Land of the Gods. From the gilt illustration of a graceful Japanese lady on the green cloth cover, to the black and white vignettes and full-page illustrations peppered through the text, this book is a gem. Clearly, it reveals contemporary enthusiasm for things Japanese - a taste which had burgeoned since the 1860s and the reopening of Japan to the West - and also Robinson’s remarkable talent and agility as an illustrator. Certainly, he must have looked to Japanese prints and have been excited by the plunging perspectives, asymmetrical patterns and the incisive lines. It is also interesting to compare Robinson’s illustrations with those produced, in the same year, by the young Aubrey Beardsley for Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. Beardsley, of course, had learned much from Japanese prints. He had also been excited by the work of artists such as Toulouse Lautrec, whose stylishly erotic posters were beginning to adorn the walls of Paris in the early ‘90s. Beardsley had already made his public debut as an illustrator in April, 1893, with his striking interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s femme fatale, Salome, in the art magazine, The Studio. In contrast, Thomas Heath Robinson's illustrations for Rinder’s book on Japan do not have the same static figures, tense with eroticism, that we find in Beardsley, but they do reveal a vivid exploration of the power of black and white in illustrations that are at once full of sinuous, Art Nouveau movement and rich with exoticism. Robinson and Beardsley must have been well aware of one another's work.

Robinson had made his name and - during these years when finely-illustrated books reached levels of quality and popularity which they have probably never exceeded - he was in demand as one of the leading black and white artists of the period. Indeed, he led the way for his brothers, Charles and William, who also launched themselves as successful illustrators in the 1890s and early 1900s.

In the first decade of his career, Thomas Heath Robinson illustrated over 30 books, in addition to work in magazines and other journals. At the same time, he began to work in colour, developing his skills in oil paintings, focusing on landscapes and portraits. From 1906, when he moved to the London suburb of Pinner, his family and the local countryside were often the subjects he loved most.

The First War brought with it many problems. Work dried up; the market for fine, illustrated books dwindled. Heath Robinson might have been struggling, financially, but this did not stop him from continuing to sketch and paint. Indeed, it was after the War that he and his brothers – popularly called the ‘three musketeers’ - joined the Langham Sketching Club. Established as early as 1838, this had long been the home of some of the best black and white illustrators. Weekly, artists gathered together to sketch and then to enjoy a discussion about their work. They held regular exhibitions and these proved popular with the public and dealers.

Before the First War, Robinson had already been commissioned to illustrate several history books for children, by the publisher, Blackie. Frequently printed in colour, Robinson's lithographs make clear his increasingly bold use of composition, perspective and pattern. After the War, the revival of a market for illustrated books was tardy but, by the 1920s, Robinson was being commissioned once again, especially to produce illustrations to children’s books. From this time on, some of his best work must have enriched the lives of inter-War children and introduced them to history, science, literature and adventure through books issued by several publishers, including Blackie and Cassell.

Thomas Heath Robinson continued to paint in oils. Quite often, his pictures were preparatory work for some of his lithographic illustrations. These paintings are very engaging. Given that the illustrations were aimed largely at children, the oils immediately capture attention: patterns of busy movement; the action staged in the foreground; emphatic silhouettes; the drama heightened by the use of patches of strong, complementary colours. There is a joyousness to these pictures, a sense that Robinson, in his imagination, is in the midst of it all; there is even a hint of the ridiculous - which reminds us that, in the inter-War years, William Heath Robinson, Thomas’s brother and close neighbour, built a reputation based almost entirely on a comic output.

Robinson retired to St Ives - which was, of course, an artists’ colony as well as a place he had enjoyed on many holidays. Until the end, he continued to work. Focusing mainly on oil paintings, these were now usually divorced from the demands of lithographic reproduction. He never lost the compositional devices he had learned from his early studies - of Japanese prints, photography and fin de siècle black and white illustrations - and he continued to focus on dramatic narratives. But - perhaps in response to the delights of St Ives - his palette lightened and his colour became more variegated and subtle, applied with a deft and painterly touch.

Thomas Heath Robinson’s work is well worth searching for. His brilliant black and white illustrations, comic strips, the theatrical paintings he produced in preparation for his vivid colour lithographs and the sketches and oil paintings of his later years, reveal an artist who continued to experiment throughout his life. The art dealer, Chris Beetles, in 1992, was one of the first to recognise the worth of all three of the Heath Robinson brothers and produced The Brothers Robinson, which is a wonderfully well-illustrated account of their work. Thomas, the eldest, may now be the least well-known, but he was probably the most adventurous and certainly not the least gifted.
Source: Howgill Tattershall Fine Art & The Illustration Art Gallery
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William Heath Robinson biography

William Heath Robinson biography

William Heath Robinson (31 May 1872 - 13 September 1944; London, UK)
William Heath Robinson was an English cartoonist and illustrator best known for drawings of ridiculously complicated machines for achieving simple objectives.

In the UK, the term "Heath Robinson" entered the language during the 1914–1918 First World War as a description of any unnecessarily complex and implausible contrivance, much as "Rube Goldberg machines" came to be used in the US from the 1920s onwards as a term for similar efforts. "Heath Robinson contraption" is perhaps more often used in relation to temporary fixes using ingenuity and whatever is to hand, often string and tape, or unlikely cannibalisations. Its continuing popularity was undoubtedly linked to Second World War Britain's shortages and the need to "make do and mend".

William Heath Robinson was born at 25 Ennis Road on 31 May 1872 into a family of artists in an area of London known as Stroud Green, Finsbury Park, north London. His father Thomas Robinson (1838-1902) and brothers Thomas Heath Robinson (1869-1954) and Charles Robinson (1870–1937) all worked as illustrators.

His early career involved illustrating books – among others: Hans Christian Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales and Legends (1897), The Arabian Nights (1899), Tales from Shakespeare (1902), Gargantua and Pantagruel (1904),<Actinic:Variable Name = '2'/> Twelfth Night (1908), Andersen's Fairy Tales (1913), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1914), Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (1915) and Walter de la Mare's Peacock Pie (1916).

In the course of his work, Robinson also wrote and illustrated three children's books, The Adventures of Uncle Lubin (1902), Bill the Minder (1912) and Peter Quip in Search of a Friend (1922). Uncle Lubin is regarded as the start of his career in the depiction of unlikely machines.

During the First World War, he drew large numbers of cartoons, depicting ever-more-unlikely secret weapons being used by the combatants. He also depicted the American Expeditionary Force in France.

W Heath Robinson was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

He also produced a steady stream of humorous drawings for magazines and advertisements. In 1934 he published a collection of his favourites as Absurdities, such as:
"The Wart Chair. A simple apparatus for removing a wart from the top of the head"
"Resuscitating stale railway scones for redistribution at the station buffets"
"The multimovement tabby silencer", which automatically threw water at serenading cats

Most of his cartoons have since been reprinted many times in multiple collections.

The machines he drew were frequently powered by steam boilers or kettles, heated by candles or a spirit lamp and usually kept running by balding, bespectacled men in overalls. There would be complex pulley arrangements, threaded by lengths of knotted string. Robinson's cartoons were so popular that in Britain the term "Heath Robinson" is used to refer to an improbable, rickety machine barely kept going by incessant tinkering. (The corresponding term in the U.S. is Rube Goldberg, after the American cartoonist born just over a decade later, with an equal devotion to odd machinery. Similar "inventions" have been drawn by cartoonists in many countries, with the Danish Storm Petersen being on par with Robinson and Goldberg.)

One of his most famous series of illustrations was that which accompanied the first Professor Branestawm book written by Norman Hunter. The stories told of the eponymous professor who was brilliant, eccentric and forgetful and provided a perfect backdrop for Robinson's drawings.

One of the automatic analysis machines built for Bletchley Park during the Second World War to assist in the decryption of German message traffic was named "Heath Robinson" in his honour. It was a direct predecessor to the Colossus, the world's first programmable digital electronic computer.

In 1903 he married Josephine Latey, the daughter of newspaper editor John Latey. Heath Robinson moved to Pinner, Middlesex, in 1908. His house in Moss Lane is commemorated by a blue plaque.

He died in September 1944 during the Second World War and is buried in East Finchley Cemetery.

The Heath Robinson Museum opened in October 2016 to house a collection of nearly 1,000 original artworks owned by The William Heath Robinson Trust. The museum is in Memorial Park, Pinner, close to where the artist lived and worked. A nearby branch of the Pizza Express restaurants features designs inspired by the artist's work.

The name "Heath Robinson" became part of common parlance in the UK for complex inventions that achieved absurdly simple results following its use as services slang during the 1914–1918 First World War.

During the Falklands War (1982), British Harrier aircraft lacked their conventional "chaff"-dispensing mechanism. Therefore, Royal Navy engineers designed an impromptu delivery system of welding rods, split pins and string which allowed six packets of chaff to be stored in the airbrake well and deployed in flight. Due to its improvised and ramshackle nature it was often referred to as the "Heath Robinson chaff modification".
Source: Wikipedia

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

William Heath Robinson art
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Robert Heindel biography

Robert Heindel biography

Robert Heindel (born 1938; Ohion, USA)
Born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1938, he was drawing and painting from an early age.

In 1958 he married Rosalie Petres, his high school sweetheart, who was to remain a major inspiration and support throughout his artistic career. Most of his works carry a tiny rose in dedication to her. In 1966, the couple was given tickets to see Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev perform “Paradise Lost,” an evening that changed the course of his life. Thereafter the ballet would be his focus.

Mr. Heindel's initial paintings of individual dancers eventually led to close associations with well-known dance companies in the United States, among them the San Francisco Ballet, the Atlanta Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre. His intensely personal studies often capture the private moment - the dancer in repose, the dancer at the barre, the dancer in rehearsal. Mr. Heindel's painting style evolved over the years. Although one usually associates his work with lush color, sensuous form, and subtle lighting, many of his later paintings are strong abstract statements, sometimes dark and enigmatic.

His international success was founded on his first major exhibition in London in 1985, titled “Obsession of Dance,” which was attended by Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowden. Numerous exhibitions in London followed, winning him widespread acclaim throughout Europe. The late Diana, Princess of Wales, an admirer of his art, once wrote to him, “Experts hold your work in the highest regard, I know, but for me it simply succeeds in capturing the spirit of dance as art.” In the 1990s he expanded his artistic horizons by accepting a commission to design sets and costumes for David Bintley's “The Dancehouse.” He also painted, at the invitation of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, scenes from the stage performances of “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” the posters for which have since become classics.

By the early 1990s, Mr. Heindel was showing in Tokyo, having gained the attention of His Imperial Highness Prince Norihito Takamado. Since then he has exhibited in Japan almost annually. Reflecting his mastery of diverse art forms, Mr. Heindel painted vibrant images of the traditional Noh and Kabuki theaters in addition to those of avant-garde dance groups.

His paintings hang in London's National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. Collectors of his work have included Princess Diana, Princess Margaret, Prince Takamado, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Anthony Dowell, Michael Crawford, George Lucas, Harold Prince, and David Bintley.
Source: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/artists/robert-heindel-5976
Robert Heindel art
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Fred Hembeck biography

Fred Hembeck biography

Fred Hembeck (born 30 January 1953; USA)
Fred Hembeck is an American comics artist, as well as a writer about comics. Since the 1970s, he has created countless of parodies on DC and Marvel superhero comics. His Marvel parodies were collected in 'Fantastic Four Roast' and 'Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe', his DC gags ran in the Daily Planet.

Among his most notable parodies are his classic cover redos and 'Petey, The Adventures of Peter Parker Before He Became Spiderman', that appeared in Marvel Tales. Throughout the years, he has created a variety of characters, such as, 'The Dog' (in Smilin' Ed in 1980), 'Mr. Mumbo Jumbo' (in Topps Comics Satan's Six in 1993), the autobiographical 'Little Freddy'. He has also drawn for the underground publications of FantaCo Enterprises.
Source: Lambiek
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Bob Hersey biography

Bob Hersey biography

Bob Hersey
Bob Hersey is a published author and a leading illustrator of children's books.

Some of the published credits of Bob Hersey include Everyday Things (Explainers Series, 2007), Dinosaurs (Kid Kits, 2007), Bats (Scary Creatures, 2004), Birds of Prey (Scary Creatures, 2004), Dinosaurs Sticker Book (2000), Norman Rockwell: A Pop-up Art Experience (1999), Monet's House at Giverny: A Pop-up Carousel (1999), Van Gogh's House: A Pop-up Experience (1998), The Book of Britain (1986), The Children's Book of The Earth (1978), The Children's Book of The Seas (1978), Children's Encyclopedia of Prehistoric Life (1977) and Look and Learn magazine (1980s).
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Bob Hersey art
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Mike Heslop biography

Mike Heslop biography

Michael Peter Heslop
London born Michael has exhibited and won awards worldwide and is collected by many of the world's leading sportsmen and women. His career spans a period of some forty years, having trained for five years at the Somerset College of Art and Brighton College of Art and Design, England. His work is collected both in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Michael was Senior Lecturer at Falmouth School of Art and Design, from 1983-1986, before moving to live and work in Stockholm, Sweden for two years as resident artist for Studio Frank. This was followed by representation in New York, by the agent Artco. In the year 2000 he devoted his time solely to painting equestrian and golfing subjects.

Michael's paintings of the history of golf, modern golfers and golf course landscape painting include famous and historic golfing events such as the Ryder Cup, US Open, British Open and golf courses and golf clubs from the US, England and Scotland including the Old Course St Andrews, St George's in Toronto plus famous and respected golfers such as Arnold Palmer, JackNicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan and the famous 1-iron, Bobby Jones, Donald Ross, Walter J Travis, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Sam Snead, Lee Trevino and other well known, historic golf names.

His equestrian art includes Reckless Abandon, Devonshire Lad, Big Bucks and Ruby Walsh, U.S. Lady's Secret, Kauto Star, Frankel, Camelot, Father Probus, Sea the Stars, Phoebe, Alex Da Silva, examples of dressage and studies of Arab breeds.

Mike Heslop is an accomplished book illustrator and painted the 1st US editions of Greenwitch (1974), The Grey King (1975) and Silver on the Tree (1977). His illustrations were also used for the dust wrappers of the UK 1st editions published by Chatto & Windus and Corgi and Puffin paperback UK cover illustrations in the same years.

Now living in The West Country in England, more art and information can be found at Mike Heslop's Gallery. Please note that Heslop is not the rock musician of the same name.
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Mike Higgs biography

Mike Higgs biography

Mike Higgs; UK
Mike Higgs is the artist of the successful strip 'The Cloak', that appeared in the Odhams Press weekly Pow! (1967-68) and Smash! (1968-69). He drew 'Space School' for Whizzer & Chips, 'Thundercap' and 'Willy of the Wizard World' for Buster, and for amateur publications like Ka-Pow and Unicorn ('Tales from a Distant Star', 'The Barbarian'). Higgs also created the daily strip 'Moonbird' for various Associated Newspapers titles, and later in a series of children's books.

Higgs eventually moved on to design books for among others Hawk Books, including the reprints of Eagle 'Dan Dare' pages, 'Comics at War', 'The Comic Art of Charlie Chaplin', 'Popeye: the 60th Anniversary Collection' and 'The Monster Society of Evil'.
Source: Lambiek and Illustration Art Gallery
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Tony Higham biography

Tony Higham biography

Tony Higham (Known active 1970s and 1980s)
Surprisingly little is written about this prolific British comic strip artist, whose work regularly featured in Tammy (Monumental Detective, 1976; Everything in the Garden, 1980), Jinty and Pixie comics.
Tony Higham art
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Burne Hogarth biography

Burne Hogarth biography

Burne Hogarth (25 December 1911 – 28 January 1996; Chicago, USA)
Burne Hogarth was an American cartoonist, illustrator, educator, author and theoretician, best known for his pioneering work on the Tarzan newspaper comic strip and his series of anatomy books for artists.

Burne Hogarth was born in Chicago in 1911, the son of a housewife and a carpenter. His parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe. He displayed an early talent for drawing. His father saved these efforts and, some years later, presented them and the young Hogarth to the registrar at the Art Institute of Chicago. At age 12, Hogarth was admitted, thus embarking on a long formal education that took him through such institutions as Chicago's Crane College and Northwestern University, and New York City's Columbia University in New York City -- all the while, studying arts and sciences.

Due to his father's premature death, Hogarth began work at age 15, when he became the assistant at the Associated Editors Syndicate and illustrated a series called Famous Churches of the World. He worked for several years as an editor and advertising artist. This work provided steady (and, by 1929, crucial) employment. In 1929, he drew his first comic strip, Ivy Hemmanhaw, for the Barnet Brown Company; in 1930 he drew Odd Occupations and Strange Accidents for Ledd Features Syndicate.

As the Great Depression worsened, Hogarth relocated to New York City at the urging of friends. He found employment with King Features Syndicate in 1934, drawing Charles Driscoll's pirate adventure Pieces of Eight (1935). In 1936 came the assignment that catapulted Hogarth's illustration career. With Tarzan, Hogarth brought together classicism, expressionism and narrative into a new form of dynamic, sequential art: the newspaper comic strip. Hogarth drew the Tarzan "Sunday (newspaper comic strip) page" for 12 years (1937–45; 1947–50). This work has been reprinted often, most recently by NBM Publishing.

Almost as long as he was a professional artist, Hogarth was a teacher. Over the years, he was an instructor of drawing to a variety of students at a number of institutions, and by 1944 Hogarth had in mind a school for returning World War II veterans. The Manhattan Academy of Newspaper Art was Hogarth's first formal effort, and by 1947 he had transformed it into the Cartoonists and Illustrators School. This academy continued to grow, and in 1956 was again renamed, as the School of Visual Arts (SVA), now one of the world's leading art schools. Hogarth designed the curriculum, served as an administrator and taught a full schedule that included drawing, writing and art history. Hogarth retired from the SVA in 1970 but continued to teach at the Parsons School of Design and, after a move to Los Angeles, the Otis School and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

During his years teaching, Hogarth authored a number of anatomy and drawing books. Dynamic Anatomy (1958) and Drawing the Human Head (1965) were followed by further investigations of the human form. Dynamic Figure Drawing (1970) and Drawing Dynamic Hands (1977) completed the figure cycle. Dynamic Light and Shade (1981) and Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery (1995) explored other aspects relative to rendering the figure.

After more than 20 years away from strip work Hogarth returned to sequential art in 1972 with Tarzan of the Apes, a large-format hardbound graphic narrative published by Watson Guptill in 11 languages. He followed with Jungle Tales of Tarzan (1976), integrating previously unattempted techniques such as hidden, covert, and negative space imagery with inspired color themes into a harmonious visual description, a pinnacle of narrative art. These texts, in addition to Hogarth's strip work, exert a pervasive and ongoing influence within the global arts community and among delighted readers everywhere.

His energetic speeches were known for addressing any topic that was thrown at him with a lengthy string of ideas that could cover the French Revolution and amusement parks by way of Postmodernism and graffiti art, meandering through economics and globalization, only to return to an enlightened answer to the original question. In his teaching he was known for a vigorous and surprising approach, which could include instructions such as: "Paint me this sound: a spider walking on his web. What is the music of that sound?"

He received recognition for his work in the USA, including the National Cartoonist Society Advertising and Illustration Award for 1975, Magazine and Book Illustration Award for 1992, and Special Features Award for 1974, and dozens of awards internationally. He taught, wrote, created and theorized lucidly and passionately into his last days. For decades he was regularly invited to international events, frequently in a starring capacity. Shortly after attending the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 1996, Hogarth returned to Paris where he suffered heart failure, dying January 28 at age 84. In 2010 Hogarth was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame.
Source: Wikipedia

See also Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition for more Burne Hogarth art!

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William Hogarth biography

William Hogarth biography

William Hogarth (10 November 1697 - 26 October 1764; London, England)
William Hogarth FRSA was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art.

His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects". Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".

William Hogarth was born at Bartholomew Close in London to Richard Hogarth, a poor Latin school teacher and textbook writer, and Anne Gibbons. In his youth he was apprenticed to the engraver Ellis Gamble in Leicester Fields, where he learned to engrave trade cards and similar products.

Young Hogarth also took a lively interest in the street life of the metropolis and the London fairs, and amused himself by sketching the characters he saw. Around the same time, his father, who had opened an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house at St John's Gate, was imprisoned for debt in Fleet Prison for five years. Hogarth never spoke of his father's imprisonment.

Hogarth became a member of the Rose and Crown Club, with Peter Tillemans, George Vertue, Michael Dahl, and other artists and connoisseurs.

By April 1720, Hogarth was an engraver in his own right, at first engraving coats of arms, shop bills, and designing plates for booksellers.

In 1727, he was hired by Joshua Morris, a tapestry worker, to prepare a design for the Element of Earth. Morris heard that he was "an engraver, and no painter", and consequently declined the work when completed. Hogarth accordingly sued him for the money in the Westminster Court, where the case was decided in his favour on 28 May 1728. In 1757 he was appointed Serjeant Painter to the King.

In 1731 Hogarth completed the earliest of his series of moral works, a body of work that led to significant recognition. The collection of six scenes was entitled A Harlot's Progress and appeared first as paintings (now lost) before being published as engravings. A Harlot's Progress depicts the fate of a country girl who begins prostituting – the six scenes are chronological, starting with a meeting with a bawd and ending with a funeral ceremony that follows the character's death from venereal disease.

The inaugural series was an immediate success and was followed in 1735 by the sequel A Rake's Progress. The second instalment consisted of eight pictures that depicted the reckless life of Tom Rakewell, the son of a rich merchant, who spends all of his money on luxurious living, services from prostitutes, and gambling – the character's life ultimately ends in Bethlem Royal Hospital. The original paintings of A Harlot's Progress were destroyed in the fire at Fonthill House in 1755; A Rake's Progress is displayed in the gallery room at Sir John Soane's Museum, London, UK.

When the success of A Harlot's Progress and A Rake's Progress resulted in numerous pirated reproductions by unscrupulous printsellers, Hogarth lobbied in parliament for greater legal control over the reproduction of his and other artists' work. The result was the Engravers’ Copyright Act (known as ‘Hogarth’s Act’), which became law on 25 June 1735 and was the first copyright law to deal with visual works as well as the first to recognize the authorial rights of an individual artist.

In 1743–1745, Hogarth painted the six pictures of Marriage à-la-mode (National Gallery, London), a pointed skewering of upper-class 18th-century society. This moralistic warning shows the miserable tragedy of an ill-considered marriage for money. This is regarded by many as his finest project and may be among his best-planned story serials.

Marital ethics were the topic of much debate in 18th-century Britain. The many marriages of convenience and their attendant unhappiness came in for particular criticism, with a variety of authors taking the view that love was a much sounder basis for marriage. Hogarth here painted a satire – a genre that by definition has a moral point to convey – of a conventional marriage within the English upper class. All the paintings were engraved and the series achieved wide circulation in print form. The series, which is set in a Classical interior, shows the story of the fashionable marriage of the son of bankrupt Earl Squanderfield to the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant, starting with the signing of a marriage contract at the Earl's mansion and ending with the murder of the son by his wife's lover and the suicide of the daughter after her lover is hanged at Tyburn for murdering her husband.

Hogarth died in London on 26 October 1764 and was buried at St. Nicholas Church, Chiswick, London.
Source: Wikipedia
William Hogarth art
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Gordon Adam Hogg biography

Gordon Adam Hogg biography

Gordon Adam Hogg aka 'Gog' (1912 - 1971)
Gordon Hogg's first cartoon was published in the Daily Sketch in 1938. After the war he became chief editorial artist on the Daily Sketch and, using the pseudonym 'Gog', took over the 'Pop' cartoon strip for ten years when John Millar Watt retired in 1949. Very few of the original POP strips have survived.
Source: The Political Cartoon Gallery
Gordon Adam Hogg art
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Jim Holdaway biography

Jim Holdaway biography

Jim Holdaway (1927 - 1970; Barnes, UK)
Born in Barnes, London, Jim Holdaway became a freelance illustrator in 1950, working for publishers such as Odhams and Farrington Press. He worked on all types of artwork, adverts, cartoons, book illustrations and covers. His first full length stories were for Gallant Detective in 1952, and then went on to strips for Comic Cuts, and Swift. His first newspaper strip was Romeo Brown in the Daily Mirror. Sadly none of the original art for this strip has survived. This association with Peter O'Donnell led to the creation of Modesty Blaise which he drew from 1963 until his untimely death in 1970.
Jim Holdaway art

Some of the most regularly requested art has been Jim Holdaway's fabulous pen and ink artwork for Modesty Blaise, written by Peter O'Donnell.

We have original signed Modesty Blaise newspaper strips by JOHN M BURNS, NEVILLE COLVIN, JIM HOLDAWAY, PATRICK WRIGHT and ROMERO or click to see ALL Modesty artwork in stock and enjoy our highly collectable BOOKS ABOUT MODESTY BLAISE including our latest Expanded Edition of The Modesty Blaise Companion.
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Fred Holmes biography

Fred Holmes biography

Frederick Thomas Holmes (1908 - 1994)
It is extraordinary the way certain artists take to the adventure picture strip as to the manner born. Fred Holmes was one of these. His first strip, Robin Hood of Sherwood was published in Sun in August 1953, (and reprinted in TCL 91) and gives all the appearance of work done by a long-established strip artist. For his very next strip, he was entrusted with creating a brand new character for the comics: Claude Duval. This strip began in September of 1953 for Comet and he made it his own.

Like all Associated Press's new adventure strip artists at this time, Fred was given artwork by Campion and Eyles to study before getting down to work. Both influences can be seen in his work, but Holmes had a style that was all his own, which he was able to adapt to suit not only period costume adventures but, later, football strips, taking over Roy of the Rovers for Tiger and the rather jokey Carson's Cubs for Lion; Western strips such as Billy the Kid for Sun and Buffalo Bill for Comet and several World War II battle stories for the various War Picture Libraries.

Fred has intimated that his initial break into illustrations came about because Drummonds of Stirling, Scotland, who were looking for an artist to illustrate their series of religious annuals for children, confused him with Frederick W. Holmes (no relation), a well-known illustrator of the time. If true, we can be grateful that such a mix-up occurred. We can also be grateful that this work came to an end after the War, prompting Fred to answer an advertisement put out by the Temple Art Agency looking for children's book illustrators. When Holmes realised it would mean working for comics, he was overjoyed. Starting by contributing spot illustrations to stories in Film Fun, Jingles and Tip Top, Holmes worked steadily for A.P. with occasional strip work for D.C. Thompson's Hotspur, Victor and Hornet in the late 60s until, shortly after the demise of Lion, he retired from comic work.

Fred Holmes was born in Lindsdale, Buckinghamshire, and took a postal course in illustration with the British and Dominions School of Drawing. Before the age of twenty, Holmes' drawings were appearing in such publications as the Meccano Magazine and the Co-op Magazine as well as in the pages of the Birmingham Weekly Post. Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
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Richard Hook biography

Richard Hook biography

Richard Hook (1938 - January 2010; UK)
Richard Hook was born in 1938 and trained at Reigate College of Art. After national service with 1st Bn, Queen's Royal Regiment, he became art editor of the much-praised magazine Finding Out during the 1960s.

He then went on to work as a freelance illustrator, earning an international reputation for his deep knowledge of Native American material culture.

He provided many illustrations, predominantly scenes from British history and daily life, for Look and Learn magazine during the 1960s and 1970s and illustrated more than 50 titles for Osprey, contributing to these books for over 30 years. Sadly Richard passed away in January 2010.
Source: Osprey Publishing & The Illustration Art Gallery

See also Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition for more Richard Hook art!

Richard Hook art
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James Francis Horrabin biography

James Francis Horrabin biography

James Francis "Frank" Horrabin (1 November 1884 – 2 March 1962; Peterborough, UK)
James "Frank" Horrabin was an English socialist and sometimes Communist radical writer and cartoonist. For two years he was Labour Member of Parliament for Peterborough. He attempted to construct a socialist geography and was an associate of David Low and George Orwell.

Born in Peterborough and educated at Stamford School, he studied metalwork design at the Sheffield School of Art, where he met his future wife, Winifred Batho, whom he married in 1911. He became a staff artist on the Sheffield Telegraph in 1906, and art editor for the Yorkshire Telegraph and Star in 1909.

In 1911 he moved to London as art editor of The Daily News. He drew his first maps for this paper during the Balkan War of 1912–13. He became editor of The Plebs, journal of the workers' education campaign group the Plebs' League, to which he also contributed caricatures, in 1914 and a guild socialist in 1915. He also lectured at the Central Labour College.

In 1919 he created The Adventures of the Noah Family in The Daily News, originally a daily panel cartoon, later a continuing four-panel comic strip. It featured a suburban family who shared their names with the Biblical Noah and his sons, who lived at "The Ark", Ararat Avenue with their pet bear cub, Happy. The strip continued into the 1940s, in the News Chronicle after 1930, and was collected into several hard back books, most notably the Japhet and Happy Annuals and Summer Books between 1932 and 1952, and had a fan club, The Arkubs. He illustrated H. G. Wells' The Outline of History in 1920. In 1922 he created Dot and Carrie, a strip about two office workers, for The Star, which continued until 1962, moving to the Evening News in 1960.

His 1923 text An Outline of Economic Geography, which sold in large numbers and was translated into nine other languages, attempted to provide workers with an account of economic (and political and historical) geography that used bourgeois "pure geography" but put it within a socialist and historical–materialist framework.

In 1924 he co-wrote Working Class Education with his wife Winifred. He supported the general strike in 1926, and co-wrote The Workers History of the Great Strike (1927) with Ellen Wilkinson MP and Raymond Postgate. He had a long-standing affair with Wilkinson. He was the Labour MP for Peterborough from 1929 to 1931, under the premiership of the first Labour Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald. In 1930, he was one of seventeen Labour MPs to sign the "Mosley Memorandum", drawn up by Oswald Mosley. He lost his seat at the General Election of 1931 occasioned by the split in the party consequent on MacDonald forming a National Government.

In 1932 he joined the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda, becoming chairman in 1936. He also joined the national council of the Socialist League, becoming editor of its journal The Socialist and Socialist Leaguer, giving up the editorship of The Plebs. He promoted socialism through his journalism, his appearance on radio programmes like Your Questions Answered, and by illustrating educational texts like Lancelot Hogben's Mathematics for the Million (1936) and Science for the Citizen (1938), and Jawaharlal Nehru's Glimpses of World History (1939 edition). From 1934 on he produced several editions of An Atlas of Current Affairs, for which he also drew the maps.

Horrabin also supported the British Provisional Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky, and signed a letter defending Trotsky's right to asylum and calling for an international inquiry into the Moscow Trials.

In 1937, only a few months after its institution, the BBC Television Service produced an occasional political discussion programme called News Map, which was usually presented by the former MP. News Map did not leave the studio and was mainly interested in foreign affairs stories.

In the 1940s he co-founded the Fabian Colonial Bureau (later the Fabian Commonwealth Bureau) with Rita Hinden and Arthur Creech Jones, and edited its journal, Empire. He was chairman of the Bureau from 1945 to 1950. He also wrote a regular column for the monthly magazine Socialist Commentary, edited by Hinden. In 1947 he and Winifred divorced, and the following year he married Margaret Victoria McWilliams, a widow with whom he had been having an affair since the early 1930s. He scaled back his political activities from the 1950s due to failing health. He died of bronchopneumonia at home in Hendon, London, on 2 March 1962 aged 77. He had no children.
Source: Wikipedia
James Francis Horrabin art
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Ken Houghton biography

Ken Houghton biography

Ken Houghton (died ?1980s)
Ken Houghton was the artist for 'Lorna Doone', the last comic strip to appear in Look and Learn magazine before it's sad demise with issue 1049 (17 April 1982), and so this was his only comic strip work in Look and Learn.

The first episode of 'Lorna Doone' appeared in Look and Learn in issue 1003 (30 May 1981).

Ken Houghton ran a comic artist evening class in the late 1970s at a school where artist and illustrator Russ Nicholson taught Art & Design.

Ken introduced Russ to the world of comic strip illustration and Russ writes "He was a lovely patient man, a very good teacher, who died too young, and is missed by those who knew him. One of his other students at that time was a very young 16 year old called Sean Phillips who has since risen to be a well known comic artist working these days for Icon, an imprint of Marvel Comics."

Other art identified as drawn by Ken Houghton includes the following:
An advert in comic strip form for The Green Cross Code (1972)
'Rat Pack' in Battle Picture Weekly (mid-late 1970s)
some complete stories in Tammy (mid-late 1970s)
Tansy of Jubilee Street in Jinty (10 May 1980+)
Bessie and Her Barrow in Tracey from Jan 1981
Detestable Dinah in Tracy from Dec 1981 - ?1982
The Secret of Penny Farthing (inks; art by Sean Phillips) in Bunty from June 1982 - Oct 1982
Judy Annual 1980 (inks)
Judy Annual 1984 featuring several strips illustrated by Ken Houghton including The Time Machine, Simple Simon (inks)

Although he shares his surname with another comic strip artist, Stanley Houghton (qv), they were apparently unrelated. It is thought that Ken Houghton died some time in the 1980s.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Stanley Houghton biography

Stanley Houghton biography

Stanley Houghton; UK
Stanley Houghton was one of the comic artists who drew for the British comic magazine All Girl Comics in the 1950s. Girl was a sister publication to Eagle, published by Hulton Press from 1951 until 1960, taken over by Longacre and then by IPC Magazines before being subsumed by Princess in October 1964.

In the 1960s Houghton drew for Look and Learn magazine ('Rob Riley') and for the British girl's comic June, including the cleverly named comic strip 'Pony Tales'.

Some of the stories and comics were also collected in bound Girl Annual albums. Stanley Houghton drew 'Belle of the Ballet' (written by George Beardmore), among other stories.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery & Lambiek Comiclopedia
Stanley Houghton art
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Margaret Maitland Howard biography

Margaret Maitland Howard biography

Margaret Maitland Howard (1898 - 1983; London, UK)
Margaret Maitland Howard was a painter, illustrator and draughtsman. Born in London, she studied at the Byam Shaw and Vicat Cole School of Art and Royal Academy Schools, where she was a multiple silver medal-winner.

She exhibited at the RA, NEAC, SWA, RP and ROI. Just after World War II she was appointed draughtsman to the Institute of Archaeology at London University. She was Ridley Art Club member and the daughter of the artist Henry James Howard. She lived in Sutton, Surrey.

Though a 20th Century artist her best work has a romantic neo-classical style reminiscent of the Pre-Raphaelites and late Victorian classicists.
Source: Babington Fine Art & Liss Lewellyn Fine Art
Margaret Maitland Howard art
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Norman Howard biography

Norman Howard biography

Norman Howard (1899 - 1955)
Painted a wide-range of illustrations for the Macmillan series of educational posters during the 1950s, ranging from a Pulp Mill to the American Declaration of Independence to Hannibal's Elephants crossing the Rhone.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Norman Howard art
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Andrew Howat biography

Andrew Howat biography

Andrew Howat
Born in Hale, Cheshire, Howat studied life drawing, anatomy and painting at Manchester School of Art.

Andrew Howat has contributed a wide variety of work to Look and Learn. In the late 1970s, he was one of the key artists providing features on the rear cover, including the miscellaneous strip 'Strange Facts' and episodes of the 'Land of Legend' and 'Crowning Glory' series.

After his move to London he worked at a commercial studio before linking up with fellow artists Bob Robins and Gordon Davidson to produce illustrations for magazines and books. The trio often signed their work 'RDH'.

Howat later worked for various London advertising agencies as well as freelancing as a designer of greetings cards. He continues to design cards featuring landscapes and views of London as well as to paint landscapes in watercolour and pastel around London and Hertfordshire.

One of his paintings of the Palace of Westminster was used as a Christmas card by the House of Commons in 1999. He currently lives in north London.
Andrew Howat art
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Mike Hubbard biography

Mike Hubbard biography

Ernest Michael (?Alfred) Hubbard (2 April 1902 - 25 June 1976; Ireland)
Michael Hubbard was one of the most talented artists ever to draw for comics. Perhaps best known for taking over Jane from Norman Pett in the Daily Mirror, he drew superbly atmospheric illustrations for The Thriller in the 1930s, including some sensational covers. Mike also enjoyed drawing Jane Bond, Secret Agent for Tina in the late 1960s, the adventure Allan Quatermain for Ranger and the science fantasy story Pals for The Bumper Story Book for Boys.

As would be expected from the artist who drew "Jane", his delineation of the female form was second to none, equalled only by Heade. This talent was not exploited in the Thriller Comics Library as his only strip to appear in the series was Treasure Island (no.3) and that was not an original but adapted from the serial, which had appeared in Knockout some years previously. The only woman to appear in this was Jim Hawkins' mother!

His strip work for the comics can be seen to its best advantage in Ranger and Princess Tina in the 1960s where he not only drew but painted lavish versions of the classics, notably King Solomon's Mines and Coral Island (a version of which he had previously drawn for Knockout in 1946) for the former and The Secret Garden for the latter.

An unfinished version of Lorna Doone, perhaps also destined for Princess Tina, was probably the last work he produced before he died. The colour is radiantly jewel-like and atmospheric, and the drawing of exceptional quality, beautifully evoking the world of Blackmore's novel. Michael Hubbard was born and trained as an artist in Dublin before starting work in Dean's Studios. He was an excellent portrait painter and an expert on the history of architecture.
Source: David Ashford, Norman Wright, Illustration Art Gallery
Ernest Michael Hubbard art
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Frank Humphris biography

Frank Humphris biography

Frank Humphris (31 March 1911 - March 1993)
Frank Humphris studied at Gloucester College of Art, and worked as a painter and illustrator until the Second World War, when he served as a cartographer in the War Office. He amassed a collection of vintage western gear and antique guns, and became a specialist in western comics.

In 1952, living in Teddington, Middlesex, he took over the Eagle's "Riders of the Range", which he drew until 1962. He later drew "The Devil's Henchmen" for the Eagle, and produced illustrations for other magazines. He created "Gun Lore" in Boy's World, then returned to Eagle to draw "Blackbow the Cheyenne". He left comics in the 1970s to concentrate on painting and writing.
Source: UK Comics Wiki
Frank Humphris art
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Geoff Hunt biography

Geoff Hunt biography

Geoff Hunt
Geoff Hunt is one of the leading marine artists of his generation. After formal art school training Geoff worked in marine publishing where he acquired a love of marine history. A Member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists since 1989, and a trustee since 1992, he was responsible for the RSMA's book A Celebration of Marine Art and The Tall Ship in Art. His work hangs in public and private collections around the world. There are 12 of his paintings in the Royal Naval museum in Portsmouth.
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Alan Hunter biography

Alan Hunter biography

Alan Hunter (19 February 1923 - 1 August 2012; Coventry, Warwickshire, UK)
Alan Hunter was a stalwart of the British fantasy and horror small press scene, and his work graced many of the magazines and booklets of the last thirty years, especially Ghosts & Scholars and Dark Dreams.

Best known for his intricately detailed black-and-white ink drawings, he also painted beautiful and detailed covers in the brightly coloured Pulp tradition for the first two issues of Nebula Science Fiction published in Autumn 1952 and Spring 1953, and was credited as this magazine's art consultant.

Numerous early drawings in his more typical manner appeared as interior art in Nebula and New Worlds through the 1950s. A rare professional fiction appearance was "The Piper" (September 1953 Authentic #37).

Throughout a long working life Hunter was generous in his production of usually unpaid work for Small Presses, Semiprozines and Fanzines. The many publications which featured his artwork include Aklo, Algol and its successor Starship, Ansible, Banana Wings, British Fantasy Newsletter, Dark Horizons, Fantasy Tales, Ghosts and Scholars, Science Fiction Chronicle, SFinx, Vector and Whispers.

He was also a contributor to Graveside Grope, an adult-themed Star Trek zine. He also contributed the first cover to Dez Skinn's Fantasy Advertiser in 1970.

One arguably iconic design, illustrating the March/April 1973 Vector reprint of Philip K Dick's "The Android and the Human" (December 1972 SF Commentary), shows combat between a symmetrically positioned human armed with a gearshaft and Robot armed with a thighbone: echoing a conceit from Dick's essay, the man's torn flesh reveals metal while the robot oozes blood.

Hunter continued to produce ink drawings – much beloved in Fandom – until well into his eighties; late examples include covers and interior art for Banana Wings in 2009.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Alan Hunter art
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Hermann Huppen biography

Hermann Huppen biography

Hermann Huppen (born 17 July 1938; Belgium)
Hermann Huppen is a Belgian comic book artist who is better known under his pen-name Hermann. He is most famous for his post-apocalyptic comic Jeremiah which was made into a television series.

Hermann was born in 1938 in Bévercé (now a part of Malmedy) in Liège Province. After studying to become a furniture maker and working as interior architect, Hermann made his debut as comic book artist in 1964 in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou with a four page story. Greg noticed his talent and offered him to work for his studio. In 1966, he began illustrating the Bernard Prince series written by Greg, published in Tintin magazine. In 1969, also in collaboration with Greg, he began the western series Comanche. This appeared at the same time as other western series such as Blueberry.

Hermann began writing his own stories in 1977, starting the post-apocalyptic Jeremiah series, which is still produced today. In the same period, he also made three albums of Nick, inspired by Little Nemo in Slumberland, for Spirou. In 1983 he began a new series, Les Tours de Bois-Maury, which is set in the Middle Ages and is less focused on action than his other works.

Hermann has also created many non-series graphic novels sometimes together with his son Yves H. One of them, Lune de Guerre, with a story by Jean Van Hamme, was later filmed as The Wedding Party by Dominique Deruddere.

Hermann is characterized by a realistic style and stories that are both sombre and angry, with a sense of disillusion with regards to the human character in general, and current society more specifically.
Source: Wikipedia
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Gordon Hutchings biography

Gordon Hutchings biography

Gordon Hutchings
Gordon Hutchings took over the long-running Gulliver Guinea-Pig strip from Philip Mendoza around 1961 and his crisp charming work appeared in Playhour and later the Teddy Bear Annual.
Gordon Hutchings art
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Len Huxter biography

Len Huxter biography

Len Huxter (Active 1970s)
Not much is known about this talented artist and illustrator who worked, inter alia, for Look and Learn magazine.
Len Huxter art
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Victor Ibanez biography

Victor Ibanez biography

Victor Ibáñez Sanchis (born 1938, Spain)
Victor Ibanez (Vicente Ibáñez Sanchis) was born in Valencia in 1938. He began his career as an apprentice at Editoria Valenciana in 1954, contributing to collections like Comandos (1954) and later Yuki, el Temerario (1958) and Cuentos Gráficos Infantiles Cascabel (1958). By 1960 he was also present at Maga with contributions to Johnny Fogata (scripts by Pedro Quesada) and Muchachas. Work for Valenciana during this decade included Kid Tejano and El Sargento Virus. However, Ibáñez was mainly drawing action comics for the British market, among others for The Victor and Pow!.
Victor Ibanez art
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Leslie Gilbert Illingworth biography

Leslie Gilbert Illingworth biography

Leslie Gilbert Illingworth (2 September 1902 – 20 December 1979; Barry, Wales)
Leslie Gilbert Illingworth was a Welsh political cartoonist best known for his work for the Daily Mail and for becoming the chief cartoonist at the British satirical periodical Punch.

Illingworth was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan in Wales in 1902 to Frederick and Helen MacGregor Illingworth. His father, who was originally from Yorkshire, was a clerk at the engineers' department for Barry Railway & Docks Company while his mother was a teacher. As a child Illingworth attended the Church School of St Athan, before winning a scholarship to the local grammar school in Barry. From Barry County School he found work at the lithographic department at the Western Mail, mainly due to the fact that his father played golf with the chief executive of the paper, Sir Robert J. Webber.

Whilst working at the Western Mail, Illingworth also attended the Cardiff School of Arts, to which he had won a scholarship. Having already seen some of his artwork published in the Football Express before attending College, he now found himself drawing cartoons for the Western Mail and took on the role of deputising for the paper's celebrated political cartoonist J. M. Staniforth. In 1920 Illingworth won a further scholarship, this time to the Royal College of Art in London. He moved to the capital, but after just a few months he received news that Staniforth had died and he was offered the post of political cartoonist on the Western Mail, and he returned to Wales as Staniforth's replacement. After just three weeks in Cardiff he returned to London to study at the Slade School of Art, but he continued to be employed by the Western Mail.

Illingworth took commissioned work from Owen Aves, an editor, and when Avers became an agent he found enough work for Illingworth for him to go freelance. In 1927 Illingworth saw his first work published in the satirical magazine Punch. Illingworth then travelled to the United States and also undertook further art training in both Berlin and Paris, living in the latter for a while where he studied at the Academie Julian. On returning to Britain Illingworth was in demand as a freelance artist seeing his work appear in not only many magazines, but also in advertising for firms such as Winsor & Newton and Grey's Cigarettes.

In 1938 Percy Fearon retired as cartoonist of the Daily Mail, and Illingworth applied for the vacancy, though under a pseudonym as he correctly believed that members of the Mail staff were prejudiced against his work. Despite this his work was accepted and he joined the paper in November 1939. He was chief political cartoonist for the Mail throughout the Second World War, and although the War brought plenty of material to draw from, Illingworth's detailed style made producing daily work for the Mail and Punch a chore.

In 1945, following the death of John Bernard Partridge, Illingworth was offered the position of Second Cartoonist at Punch working alongside E. H. Shepard. In 1948 he became a member of the 'Punch Table', being invited into creative meetings where the senior staff would discuss the content of forthcoming issues. Despite becoming Cartoonist of Punch a year later, a title that alternated between himself and Norman Mansbridge, he was never very creative in coming forth with satirical ideas, and would build his work on the ideas of others. Illingworth continued to work for the Daily Mail until 1969, though he worked for a short time for The Sun covering Paul Rigby and in 1974 he worked for the News of the World producing a weekly cartoon.
Source: Wikipedia
Leslie Gilbert Illingworth art
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Graham Ingels biography

Graham Ingels biography

Graham J Ingels (7 June 1915 - 4 April 1991; Cincinatti, USA)
Graham J. Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig. Ingels' flair for horror led EC to promote him as Ghastly Graham Ingels, and he began signing his work "Ghastly" in 1952.

Born in Cincinnati, Ingels began working at age 14 after the death of his father, commercial artist Don Ingels, Graham was 16 when he entered the art field drawing theater displays. He studied at New York's Hawthorne School of Art.

Graham and Gertrude Ingels married when he was starting as a freelancer at age 20. He entered the U.S. Navy in 1943, and he began working that same year for Fiction House Publications, both in their pulp magazines and their comic book division. Black and white illustrations signed G. Ingels appeared in Planet Stories, Jungle Stories, North-West Romances and Wings. He contributed one painted cover to a 1944 issue of Planet Stories as well. For Planet Comics, he illustrated stories in the "Hunt Bowman" series and the "Aura, Lord of Jupiter" series. He also painted a mural at the United Nations building.

The Ingels had two children, Deanna (born 1937) and Robby (born 1946), who was named after a character - Robespierre - created by child impersonator Lenore Ledoux for the Baby Snooks radio program.

A regular in Planet Comics and Rangers Comics in the late 1940s, Ingels worked for Magazine Enterprises and other publishers of comic books and pulps. He became an art director at Better Publications (Ned Pine's Comics Group later known as Nedor), where he gave early comic book assignments to George Evans, with whom he would form a long friendship, and a young Frank Frazetta, who credited Ingels as the first in the business to recognize his talent. During this period, Ingels created covers and stories for the company's Startling Comics and Wonder Comics; these and other Better Publications comics reveal certain panels by other artists have been redrawn by Ingels to improve the artwork.

Ingels drew crime comics for Magazine Enterprises (Manhunt, Killers) and Westerns for a variety of companies, including Magazine Enterprises (Guns), Youthful Magazines (Gunsmoke), Hillman Periodicals (Western Fighters) and D.S. Publishing Co. (Outlaws). D.S. also published crime stories drawn by Ingels in Underworld, Gangsters Can't Win and Exposed. There were also short stories and one painted cover by Ingels in Dell Comics' Heroic Comics around 1947.

In 1948, Ingels was hired by Al Feldstein, the editor of EC Comics, to provide artwork for their titles which included Gunfighter, Saddle Justice, Saddle Romances, War Against Crime, Modern Love and A Moon, A Girl... Romance. The company's Western and romance comics were later cancelled or converted to horror and science-fiction titles. In Grant Geissman's Foul Play, Feldstein explained that Ingels' early work for EC was disappointing, but publisher Bill Gaines was fiercely loyal to everybody, which is why Ingels remained at the company. When EC introduced Tales From the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear, it soon became apparent to both Gaines and Feldstein that Ingels was an ideal choice as an illustrator of horror.

Ingels' unique and expressive style was well-suited for the atmospheric depiction of Gothic horrors amid crumbling Victorian mansions in hellish landscapes populated by twisted characters, grotesque creatures and living corpses with rotting flesh. A trademark image was a character with a thread of saliva visible in a horrified open mouth.

As the lead artist for The Haunt of Fear, he brought to life the Old Witch, horror host of "The Witch's Cauldron" lead story, and he also did the cover for each issue from issue 11 through 28. A prolific artist, Ingels also drew the Old Witch's appearances in Tales From the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, plus stories for Shock SuspenStories and Crime SuspenStories. The Old Witch's origin story was told in "A Little Stranger" (The Haunt of Fear #14).

Because of his many "Witch's Cauldron" stories, he was strongly identified with the character of the Old Witch, an association that continues until the present day. Ingels' artwork on the eight-page lead stories, and his splash pages, particularly on issues #14 and 17, set a new standard for horror illustration that have rarely been equaled. "Poetic Justice" in the 12th issue, was adapted for the 1972 Tales From the Crypt film from Amicus studios in England, with Peter Cushing as the kindly old junk collector, and Ingels' "Wish You Were Here" (The Haunt of Fear #22) was also adapted.

When EC cancelled its horror and crime comics, Ingels drew for EC's New Direction titles: Piracy, M.D., Impact and Valor. He later contributed to EC's short lived Picto-Fiction line.

After EC ceased publication in the mid-1950s, Ingels contributed to Classics Illustrated but otherwise found little work, as discussed by Nostrand in Foul Play: "He was kind of a sad case, because when the horror stuff went out, Graham went out with it. His forte was strictly doing horror comics, and there weren't any more horror comics being done".

Ingels took a teaching position with the Famous Artists correspondence school in Westport, Connecticut. He later left the Northeast and became an art instructor in Lantana, Florida, refusing to acknowledge his work in horror comics until a few years before he died. There's no question that Ingels' life changed dramatically once he settled in South Florida, thanks in great part to a girlfriend named Dorothy Bennett. An artistic soul in her own right, Bennett handled the day-to-day aspects of Ingels' teaching business, cherished his artistic talent and encouraged his various endeavors. The couple lived next door to each other for years and finally moved in together.

"Horror We? How's Bayou?" in The Haunt of Fear issue #17 is considered by many EC's best illustrated horror story ever and perhaps the best by anyone in any era. The homicidal maniac's creepy visage was taken from a vintage movie still of the 1920 silent film, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring John Barrymore. The art for this tale won an award as best EC horror art at the 1972 EC Fan-Addict Convention.

In 2004, the webcomic Is This Tomorrow? featured Ingels in its series of comic book trading cards.

Started in 2011, the Ghastly Awards adopted their name from Ingels's non-de-plume. The award, which honors excellence in horror comics, is presented annually. Ghastly Graham Ingels was, of course, the first Hall of Fame inductee.
Source: Wikipedia
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Ingres biography

Ingres biography

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (29 August 1780 - 14 January 1867; Montauban, France)
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest legacy.

A man profoundly respectful of the past, he assumed the role of a guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style represented by his nemesis, Eugène Delacroix. His exemplars, he once explained, were "the great masters which flourished in that century of glorious memory when Raphael set the eternal and incontestable bounds of the sublime in art ... I am thus a conservator of good doctrine, and not an innovator." Nevertheless, modern opinion has tended to regard Ingres and the other Neoclassicists of his era as embodying the Romantic spirit of his time, while his expressive distortions of form and space make him an important precursor of modern art.

Ingres was born in Montauban, Tarn-et-Garonne, France, the first of seven children (five of whom survived infancy) of Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres (1755–1814) and his wife Anne Moulet (1758–1817). His father was a successful jack-of-all-trades in the arts, a painter of miniatures, sculptor, decorative stonemason, and amateur musician; his mother was the nearly illiterate daughter of a master wigmaker. From his father the young Ingres received early encouragement and instruction in drawing and music, and his first known drawing, a study after an antique cast, was made in 1789. Starting in 1786 he attended the local school École des Frères de l'Éducation Chrétienne, but his education was disrupted by the turmoil of the French Revolution, and the closing of the school in 1791 marked the end of his conventional education. The deficiency in his schooling would always remain for him a source of insecurity.

In 1791, Joseph Ingres took his son to Toulouse, where the young Jean-Auguste-Dominique was enrolled in the Académie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture. There he studied under the sculptor Jean-Pierre Vigan, the landscape painter Jean Briant, and the neoclassical painter Guillaume-Joseph Roques. Roques' veneration of Raphael was a decisive influence on the young artist. Ingres won prizes in several disciplines, such as composition, "figure and antique", and life studies. His musical talent was developed under the tutelage of the violinist Lejeune, and from the ages of thirteen to sixteen he played second violin in the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse.

In March 1797, the Academy awarded Ingres first prize in drawing, and in August he traveled to Paris to study with Jacques-Louis David, France's—and Europe's—leading painter during the revolutionary period, in whose studio he remained for four years. Ingres followed his master's neoclassical example but revealed, according to David, "a tendency toward exaggeration in his studies." He was admitted to the Painting Department of the École des Beaux-Arts in October 1799, and won, after tying for second place in 1800, the Grand Prix de Rome in 1801 for his The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles. His trip to Rome, however, was postponed until 1806, when the financially strained government finally appropriated the travel funds.

Working in Paris alongside several other students of David in a studio provided by the state, he further developed a style that emphasized purity of contour. He found inspiration in the works of Raphael, in Etruscan vase paintings, and in the outline engravings of the English artist John Flaxman. In 1802 he made his debut at the Salon with Portrait of a Woman (the current whereabouts of which are unknown). The following year brought a prestigious commission, when Ingres was one of five artists selected (along with Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Robert Lefèvre, Charles Meynier, and Marie-Guillemine Benoist) to paint full-length portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul. These were to be distributed to the prefectural towns of Liège, Antwerp, Dunkerque, Brussels, and Ghent, all of which were newly ceded to France in the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville. Napoleon is not known to have granted the artists a sitting, and Ingres's meticulously painted portrait of Bonaparte, First Consul appears to be modelled on an image of Napoleon painted by Antoine-Jean Gros in 1802.

In the summer of 1806 Ingres became engaged to Marie-Anne-Julie Forestier, a painter and musician, before leaving for Rome in September. Although he had hoped to stay in Paris long enough to witness the opening of that year's Salon, in which he was to display several works, he reluctantly left for Italy just days before the opening.

Ingres' stylistic eclecticism represented a new tendency in art. The Louvre, newly filled with booty seized by Napoleon in his campaigns in Italy and the Low Countries, provided French artists of the early 19th century with an unprecedented opportunity to study, compare, and copy masterworks from antiquity and from the entire history of European painting. As art historian Marjorie Cohn has written: "At the time, art history as a scholarly enquiry was brand-new. Artists and critics outdid each other in their attempts to identify, interpret, and exploit what they were just beginning to perceive as historical stylistic developments." From the beginning of his career, Ingres freely borrowed from earlier art, adopting the historical style appropriate to his subject, leading critics to charge him with plundering the past.

Newly arrived in Rome, Ingres read with mounting indignation the relentlessly negative press clippings sent to him from Paris by his friends. In letters to his prospective father-in-law, he expressed his outrage at the critics: "So the Salon is the scene of my disgrace; ... The scoundrels, they waited until I was away to assassinate my reputation ... I have never been so unhappy." He vowed never again to exhibit at the Salon, and his refusal to return to Paris led to the breaking up of his engagement. Julie Forestier, when asked years later why she had never married, responded, "When one has had the honor of being engaged to M. Ingres, one does not marry."

Ingres' portrait of fellow student Merry-Joseph Blondel in front of the Villa Medici in 1809
Installed in a studio on the grounds of the Villa Medici, Ingres continued his studies and, as required of every winner of the Prix, he sent works at regular intervals to Paris so his progress could be judged. As his envoi of 1808 Ingres sent Oedipus and the Sphinx and The Valpinçon Bather (both now in the Louvre), hoping by these two paintings to demonstrate his mastery of the male and female nude, but they were poorly received. In later years Ingres painted variants of both compositions; another nude begun in 1807, the Venus Anadyomene, remained in an unfinished state for decades, to be completed forty years later and finally exhibited in 1855.

He produced numerous portraits during this period: Madame Duvauçay, François-Marius Granet, Edme-François-Joseph Bochet, Madame Panckoucke, and that of Madame la Comtesse de Tournon, mother of the prefect of the department of the Tiber. In 1810 Ingres's pension at the Villa Medici ended, but he decided to stay in Rome and seek patronage from the French occupation government.

In 1811 Ingres finished his final student exercise, the immense Jupiter and Thetis, which was once again harshly judged in Paris. Ingres was stung; the public was indifferent, and the strict classicists among his fellow artists looked upon him as a renegade. Only Eugène Delacroix and other pupils of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin—the leaders of that romantic movement for which Ingres throughout his long life always expressed the deepest abhorrence—seem to have recognized his merits.

Although facing uncertain prospects, in 1813 Ingres married a young woman, Madeleine Chapelle, who had been recommended to him by her friends in Rome. After a courtship carried out through correspondence, he proposed to her without having met her, and she accepted. Their marriage was a happy one, and Madame Ingres acquired a faith in her husband which enabled her to combat with courage and patience the difficulties of their common existence. He continued to suffer the indignity of disparaging reviews, as Don Pedro of Toledo Kissing Henry IV's Sword, Raphael and the Fornarina (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University), several portraits, and the Interior of the Sistine Chapel met a generally hostile critical response at the Paris Salon of 1814.

A few important commissions came to him. Notably, the French governor of Rome asked him to paint Virgil reading the Aeneid (1812) for his residence, and to paint two colossal works—Romulus's victory over Acron (1812) and The Dream of Ossian (1813)—for Monte Cavallo, a former Papal residence undergoing renovation to become Napoleon's Roman palace. These paintings epitomized, both in subject and scale, the type of painting with which Ingres was determined to make his reputation, but, as Philip Conisbee has written, "for all the high ideals that had been drummed into Ingres at the academies in Toulouse, Paris, and Rome, such commissions were exceptions to the rule, for in reality there was little demand for history paintings in the grand manner, even in the city of Raphael and Michelangelo."

Art collectors preferred "light-hearted mythologies, recognizable scenes of everyday life, landscapes, still lifes, or likenesses of men and women of their own class. This preference persisted throughout the nineteenth century, as academically oriented artists waited and hoped for the patronage of state or church to satisfy their more elevated ambitions."

Ingres traveled to Naples in the spring of 1814 to paint Queen Caroline Murat, and the Murat family ordered additional portraits as well as three modestly scaled works: The Betrothal of Raphael, La Grande Odalisque, and Paolo and Francesca. Apart from the Betrothal, however, he never received payment for these paintings, due to the collapse of the Murat regime in 1815. With the fall of Napoleon's dynasty, he found himself essentially stranded in Rome without patronage.

During this low point of his career, Ingres made his living by drawing pencil portraits of the many tourists, in particular the English, passing through postwar Rome. For an artist who aspired to a reputation as a history painter, this seemed menial work, and to the visitors who knocked on his door asking, "Is this where the man who draws the little portraits lives?", he would answer with irritation, "No, the man who lives here is a painter!". Nevertheless, the portrait drawings he produced in such profusion during this period are of outstanding quality, and rank today among his most admired works.

During this period, Ingres formed friendships with musicians including Paganini, and regularly played the violin with others who shared his enthusiasm for Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, and Beethoven. The works he sent to the 1819 Salon were La Grande Odalisque, Philip V and the Marshal of Berwick, and Roger Freeing Angelica, which were once again condemned as "gothic" by critics.

Ingres and his wife moved to Florence in 1820 at the urging of the Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini, an old friend from his years in Paris, who hoped that Ingres would improve his position materially, but Ingres, as before, had to rely on his drawings of tourists and diplomats for support. His friendship with Bartolini, whose worldly success in the intervening years stood in sharp contrast to Ingres's poverty, quickly became strained, and Ingres found new quarters. In 1821 he finished a painting commissioned by a childhood friend, Monsieur de Pastoret, the Entry of Charles V into Paris; de Pastoret also ordered a portrait of himself and a religious work (Virgin with the Blue Veil). The major undertaking of this period, however, was a commission obtained in August 1820 with the help of de Pastoret, to paint the Vow of Louis XIII for the Cathedral of Montauban. Recognizing this as an opportunity to establish himself as a painter of history, he spent four years bringing the large canvas to completion, and he travelled to Paris with it in October 1824.

The Vow of Louis XIII, exhibited at the Salon of 1824, finally brought Ingres critical success. Conceived in a Raphaelesque style relatively free of the archaisms for which he had been reproached in the past, it was admired even by strict Davidians. Ingres found himself celebrated throughout France; in January 1825 he was awarded the Cross of the Légion d'honneur by Charles X, and in June 1825 he was elected to the Institute. His fame was extended further in 1826 by the publication of Sudre's lithograph of La Grande Odalisque, which, having been scorned by artists and critics alike in 1819, now became widely popular.

A commission from the government called forth the monumental Apotheosis of Homer, which Ingres eagerly finished in a year's time. From 1826 to 1834 the studio of Ingres was thronged, and he was a recognized chef d'école who taught with authority and wisdom while working steadily. The critics came to regard Ingres as the standard-bearer of classicism against the romantic school —a role he relished. The paintings, primarily portraits, that he sent to the Salon in 1827 were well received.

Despite the considerable patronage he enjoyed under the Bourbon government, Ingres regarded the July Revolution of 1830 with enthusiasm. That the outcome of the Revolution was not a republic but a constitutional monarchy was satisfactory to the essentially conservative and pacifistic artist, who in a letter to a friend in August 1830 criticized agitators who "still want to soil and disturb the order and happiness of a freedom so gloriously, so divinely won." Ingres's career was little affected, and he continued to receive official commissions and honors under the July Monarchy.

One of only two works sent back to Paris during Ingres's six-year term as Director of the French Academy in Rome, the Stratonice was exhibited for several days in mid-August 1840 in the private apartment of the duc d'Orléans in the Pavilion Marsan of the Palais des Tuileries. While lampooned in Le Corsaire for its lofty subject matter yet extremely modest proportions (less than one metre across), overall the work was warmly received; so much so that on his return to Paris in June 1841, Ingres was received with all the deference that he felt was his due, including being received personally by King Louis-Philippe for a tour around Versailles. One of the first works executed after his return was a portrait of the duc d'Orléans, whose death in a carriage accident just weeks after the completion of the portrait sent the nation into mourning and led to orders for additional copies of the portrait.

Ingres shortly afterward began the decorations of the great hall in the Château de Dampierre. These murals, the Golden Age and the Iron Age, were begun in 1843 with an ardour which gradually slackened until Ingres, devastated by the loss of his wife on 27 July 1849, abandoned all hope of their completion and the contract with the Duc de Luynes was finally cancelled. A minor work, Jupiter and Antiope, dates from 1851; in July of that year he announced a gift of his artwork to his native city of Montauban, and in October he resigned as professor at the École des Beaux-Arts.

The following year Ingres, at seventy-one years of age, married forty-three-year-old Delphine Ramel, a relative of his friend Marcotte d'Argenteuil. This marriage proved as happy as his first, and in the decade that followed Ingres completed several significant works. A major undertaking was the Apotheosis of Napoleon I, painted in 1853 for the ceiling of a hall in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, and destroyed by fire in the Commune of 1871. The portrait of Princesse Albert de Broglie was also completed in 1853, and Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII appeared in 1854. The latter was largely the work of assistants, whom Ingres often entrusted with the execution of backgrounds. In 1855 Ingres consented to rescind his resolution, more or less strictly kept since 1834, in favour of the International Exhibition, where a room was reserved for his works.

Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte, president of the jury, proposed an exceptional recompense for their author, and obtained from emperor Napoleon III Ingres's nomination as grand officer of the Légion d'honneur.

With renewed confidence Ingres now took up and completed The Source, a figure for which he had painted the torso in 1820; when it was seen with other works in London in 1862, admiration for his works was renewed, and he was given the title of senator by the imperial government.

The last of his important portrait paintings date from this period: Marie-Clothilde-Inés de Foucauld, Madame Moitessier, Seated (1856), Self-Portrait at the Age of Seventy-nine and Madame J.-A.-D. Ingres, née Delphine Ramel, both completed in 1859. The Turkish Bath, finished in a rectangular format in 1859, was revised in 1860 before being turned into a tondo. Ingres signed and dated it in 1862, although he made additional revisions in 1863.

Ingres died of pneumonia on 14 January 1867, at the age of eighty-six, having preserved his faculties to the last. He is interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris with a tomb sculpted by his student Jean-Marie Bonnassieux. The contents of his studio, including a number of major paintings, over 4000 drawings, and his violin, were bequeathed by the artist to the city museum of Montauban, now known as the Musée Ingres.
Source: http://www.jeanaugustedominiqueingres.org/
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres art
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Peter Jackson biography

Peter Jackson biography

Peter Charles Geoffrey Jackson (4 March 1922 - 2 May 2003, Brighton, UK)
Peter Jackson was a master of historical illustration, second to none in his ability to bring any period to life. His wonderful London Scrapbooks drawn for the Evening News from the 1940s onwards, some of which were collected in two memorable volumes, "London Explorer" and "London is Stranger Than Fiction", are legendary. Jackson began his career adapting classics into comic strips for newspapers in the late 1940s. This led to his long association with the Evening News. His collection of maps, prints and artefacts from all ages of London formed the basis of a number of books, including London: 2000 Years of a City and Its People, The History of London in Maps and Walks in Old London.

Jackson trained at the Willesden School of Art in London, and his first published work was an illustration for True Story in 1945. In the late 1940s, he drew a series of adventure classics, one of which, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, was printed as Thriller Comics Library no. 29 with additional frames by Patrick Nicolle (taken from his 1952 Sun strip). Jackson is the first to dismiss this strip and it is certainly not in the same league as his version of Treasure Island, part of the same series, which was published in book form by Pitman, or any of the wonderful work he was to do later.

Much of his working life was taken up with historical reconstructions, etc., and his work for Look and Learn, Express Weekly, Swift, Mickey Mouse Weekly and Eagle confirm that he could have been an even greater asset to the Thriller Comics Library.

Jackson was chairman of the London Topographical Society, a founder member and chairman of the Ephemera Society and was to have been the recipient of an OBE. The announcement of this honour arrived a day after his death on 2 May 2003, aged 81.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery

Enjoy Peter Jackson's fascinating book London Is Stranger Than Fiction and see also Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition for more Peter Jackson art!

Peter Jackson art
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Sandy James biography

Sandy James biography

Sandy James (died ?2013)
Little is known about Sandy James, an iconic 1980s British comic artist whose work included:
Ring Raiders (Ring Raiders)
S.O.S. Special Operations Squad (Eagle)
Super Naturals (Super Naturals)
Timespell (Eagle)
The Battling Yorkshires (Look and Learn)
Johnny Cougar (Tiger)

Sandy also illustrated the majority of the covers and posters for M.A.S.K comic and also illustrated at least one story, possibly printed in issue 16. It is likely that Sandy illustrated himself as part of the Venom cover to issue 28 (the artist with the beard).
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Sandy James art
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Tove Jansson biography

Tove Jansson biography

Tove Marika Jansson (9 August 1914 - 27 June 2001; Helsinki, Finland)
Tove Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finnish children's author, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Stockholm, Helsinki and then Paris. Her first solo art exhibition was in 1943. At the same time, she was writing short stories and articles for publication, as well as creating the graphics for book covers and other purposes. She continued to work as an artist for the rest of her life, alongside her writing.

Jansson wrote the Moomin books for children, starting in 1945 with The Moomins and the Great Flood. The next two books, Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll, published in 1946 and 1948 respectively, saw the series achieve high sales.

Starting with the semi-autobiographical Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor's Daughter) in 1968, she wrote six novels including the admired Sommarboken (The Summer Book) and five books of short stories for adults. For her work as a children's writer she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966.

Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, in 1945, during World War II. She said later that the war had depressed her and she had wanted to write something naïve and innocent. This first book was hardly noticed, but the next Moomin books, Comet in Moominland (1946) and Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), made her famous. She went on to write six more Moomin books, a number of picture books and comic strips. Her fame spread quickly and she became Finland's most widely read author abroad. For her "lasting contribution to children's literature" she received the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1966. She continued painting and writing for the rest of her life, although her contributions to the Moomin series became rare after 1970.

Although she had a studio in Helsinki, she lived many summers on a small island called Klovharu, one of the Pellinge Islands near the town of Borgå. Jansson's and Pietilä's travels and summers spent together on the Klovharu island in Pellinki have been captured on several hours of film, shot by Pietilä. Several documentaries have been made of this footage, the latest being Haru, yksinäinen saari (Haru, the lonely island) (1998) and Tove ja Tooti Euroopassa (Tove and Tooti in Europe) (2004).

Jansson died on 27 June 2001 at the age of 86. She is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki.
Source: Wikipedia
Tove Jansson art
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Alex Jawdokimov biography

Alex Jawdokimov biography

Alex Jawdokimov; Smolensk, Russia
Born in Smolensk, Russia, Alex Jawdokimov has led a remarkable life. He was brought up on a kolhoz (collective farm), but spent many of his childhood years in various concentration camps across Europe.

He came to England in 1950 by way of Germany with his mother, who was a World War II refugee. He speaks Russian, German and English and became a naturalised British subject five years after arriving in the country. He was a student at the Somerset College of Art, Taunton.

In 1956 Alex Jawdokimov spent a brief spell in Canada, learning to fly with the RAF. He then settled in London in 1958 and formed a Russian Cossack Dance Company (his mother had been a professional dancer in Russia) which toured Britain. He also began to act, mostly in minor roles for television. Film parts then followed and he can count amongst his credits films including ‘Music Lovers', ‘The Tamarind Seed' and ‘The Eagle Has Landed'.

Despite his love of acting, Alex Jawdokimov's interest was still principally in painting and he exhibited alongside hundreds of other artists every weekend on the Hyde Park Railings in the Bayswater Road. He then worked in an advertising agency, afterwards becoming a freelance artist and illustrator, but he soon tired of the routine and commercial aspect of the work and began to devote more and more of his attention to his own style and methods of painting.

Film locations offered wonderful opportunities for on-the-spot sketching and the recording of various landscapes. As a result, Jawdokimov has painted many different areas of the British Isles and the Continent. He lives in North London with his family and his love of the city is exemplified in his many pieces of artwork depicting the famous landmarks and characters of the city where he has chosen to settle.

In 1969, after a short period as a commercial artist, he took the plunge and began painting seriously. He has developed his own style, using an acrylic base texture and lighting, finishing in oils for highlights and body colour.

Landscapes are his first love, but he has also become known for his Edwardian and Victorian London scenes. He has now developed a spectacular landscape style of birch forests using silver and gold leaf.

He has had showings in throughout the UK and Australia and San Francisco.
Source: http://www.artbol.com/painting-artist/alex-jawdokimov
Alex Jawdokimov art
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John Jensen biography

John Jensen biography

John Jensen (8 August 1930 - mid 2018)
John Jensen was born John Gibson in Sydney, Australia, on 8 August 1930, the son of the cartoonist Jack Gibson. He later adopted his stepfather's surname, and from 1946 to 1947 studied at the Julian Ashton Art School, Sydney. Jensen's first cartoon was published in the Sydney Sun in 1946 and he then began freelancing as a cartoonist for publications such as Australia National Journal and Pertinent.

In 1950 Jensen worked his passage to England as messboy on the SS Fred Christiansen, and was briefly an actors' dresser at London's Piccadilly Theatre, before becoming a full-time cartoonist. From 1951 to 1953 he drew pocket cartoons, caricatures and illustrations for the Birmingham Gazette, and in 1953 contributed his first cartoon to Punch. He then worked from 1953 to 1956 as staff cartoonist for a Scottish news and picture agency called Scotnews Ltd, also producing a daily "Laughlines" cartoon for the Glasgow Bulletin, and daily pocket cartoons signed "Gibby" for the Glasgow Evening Times.

In 1956 Jensen returned to London, and freelanced for a wide range of publications including Weekend, Lilliput, Daily Express, Daily Sketch, Sunday Dispatch, New Statesman, Books & Bookmen, High Life, and King. From March 1958 he spent a few months on the London Evening News, drawing a daily cartoon, and in 1961 became political cartoonist for the new Sunday Telegraph.

From 1972 he was a regular contributor to Punch, and in 1973 he began contributing theatre cartoons to the Tatler, in a series that lasted until 1977, and social cartoons to the Spectator, working for that magazine until 1976. In 1979 he left the Sunday Telegraph, and began contributing a weekly strip to Now! magazine, continuing until it closed in 1981. In 1989 he began contributing cartoons and illustrations to the Sunday Correspondent, until its closure in 1990.

Ambidextrous, Jensen was an admirer of Bateman, Ospovat, Peter Arno, Bert Thomas, Trier, Hiroshige, and Olaf Gulbransson, and preferred to watch his caricature subjects on video in addition to photographs. He worked on paper and drew twice publication size using a dip pen, brush and Kandahar ink. For colour work he used watercolour paper and Winsor & Newton watercolour and gouache paints.

A director of the Cartoon Art Trust since 1988 and its Chairman from 1992 to 1993, he was one of the founder members of the British Cartoonists' Association in 1966 and its Chairman from 1995 to 2000. Jensen won the first ever Lifetime Achievement Award ("Grinny") at the 1st Nottingham Cartoon Festival in 2002. He also wrote occasional journalism, mostly on cartoonists and cartoons. Jensen died in 2018, at the age of 88.

His work is represented in the galleries of numerous public collections, including the British Museum and the V&A; and the British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent (Canterbury).
Source: British Cartoon Archive
John Jensen art
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Phil Jimenez biography

Phil Jimenez biography

Phil Jimenez (born 12 July 1970; Los Angeles, USA)
Phil Jimenez is an American comic book artist and writer, known for his work as writer/artist on Wonder Woman from 2000 to 2003, as one of the five pencilers of the 2005-2006 miniseries Infinite Crisis, and his collaborations with writer Grant Morrison on New X-Men and The Invisibles.

Phil Jimenez was born and raised in Los Angeles and later Orange County, California. He moved to New York City to attend college at the School of Visual Arts, where he majored in cartooning. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1991.

After graduating from SVA, Jimenez was hired by DC Comics Creative Director Neal Pozner at age 21, with his first published work illustrating four pages in the 1991 miniseries War of the Gods.<Actinic:Variable Name = '6'/> Pozner was HIV-positive when he and Jimenez started dating, and was hesitant about dating someone younger and HIV-negative. Nonetheless, Jimenez became both Pozner's partner and caretaker, saying:

"Neal Pozner was my first editor, and he was probably my greatest mentor at DC Comics. He was an incredibly talented man, with some very strong opinions about the way things should be done. I developed a crush on him the minute I met him, and I wanted to know more about him, and I wanted to be with him all the time. So I'd hang out with him at work, in the offices, far later than I had any reason to. I would buy clothes I couldn't afford to impress him. And eventually, I mustered the nerve to ask him on a date. And he was 15 years older than I was. And he had been my boss. And so, against his better judgement, he said yes. And it actually ended up being a really wonderful relationship.

Following Neal Pozner's death in 1994, Jimenez wrote and illustrated the 1996 DC miniseries, Tempest, based on a character from Pozner's late-1980s Aquaman series. In the last issue, Jimenez dedicated the miniseries to Pozner, and wrote an editorial page in which he came out publicly for the first time. "It got over 150 letters," he says, "including the classic letter from the kid in Iowa: 'I didn't know there was anyone else like me.' That's what counts. It meant a lot to people."

Much of Jimenez's work is related to works by George Pérez, whose art strongly influenced Jimenez. Jimenez has worked on several Teen Titans-related series (some issues of the ongoing series New Titans and Team Titans, and the miniseries JLA/Titans, The Return of Donna Troy and Tempest), was the main artist of Infinite Crisis, a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, and did a long run as writer/artist of Wonder Woman beginning with issue #164 (Jan. 2001). (Perez had worked on the series in the late 1980s to early 1990s). Perez and Jimenez would also co-write a 2-part story together in Wonder Woman (Vol. 2) issues #168-169 in 2001. Jimenez would leave as series writer/artist with issue #188 in March 2003. Jimenez and Pérez also have worked together in 2005-2006 in the miniseries Infinite Crisis (where Jimenez was the main penciller, and Pérez drew some sequences and covers for the series) and DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy (written by Jimenez and inked by Pérez).

Jimenez is also known for his work on various titles for DC Entertainment's "mature readers" imprint, Vertigo, including Swamp Thing, The Invisibles with acclaimed writer Grant Morrison, and his own creator-owned series, the sci-fi/fantasy mashup Otherworld. In 2003, Jimenez drew several story arcs of Morrison's popular New X-Men run.

It was announced at the 2007 San Diego ComicCon that Jimenez had signed an exclusive contract with Marvel Comics. He was one of the four artists working on Marvel's flagship title, The Amazing Spider-Man, the company's sole Spider-Man title, in which Marvel upped its frequency of publication to three issues monthly, and inaugurated the series with the "back to basics" story arc "Brand New Day" at the beginning of 2008. His first work on Spider-Man was in the Free Comic Book Day 2007: Spider-Man #1 (June 2007) comic book, with writer Dan Slott, which served as a prelude to "Brand New Day". During his run, Jimenez drew the cover for The Amazing Spider-Man #583, featuring Barack Obama.

He appeared at the White House for the National Design Awards to present original art to First Lady Michelle Obama.

In 2009 Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada announced that Jimenez would take over the art chores on Astonishing X-Men beginning with Issue #31. In 2010 Jimenez co-wrote the book The Essential Wonder Woman Encyclopedia with John Wells for Del Rey Books. He later returned to DC Comics, illustrating a brief stint on Adventure Comics featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Fairest, a spin-off of Bill Willingham's book Fables.

Jimenez appeared in a panel discussion on diversity in sci-fi/fantasy fandom in March 19, 2015 episode of the Comedy Central humor and commentary program The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, along with Marvel Comics' director of content and character Sana Amanat, hip-hop artist Jean Grae and comedian Mike Lawrence. During the discussion, Jimenez commented, "It feels strange to me that we would partition race, gender and nerd as if they were distinct things...All human beings are this combination of experiences and ideologies...Everybody's get some nerd in them. But the idea that, somehow, being a nerd is separate from one’s religious or moral or political beliefs is strange to me. We all bring everything to our decision-making on a daily basis."

Jimenez supervising a June 12, 2011 figure drawing class at the LGBT Center in Manhattan.
Jimenez teaches a life drawing course as part of the undergraduate cartooning program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he himself once studied. He has also held figure drawing classes outside of SVA, at places such as the LGBT Center in the West Village.

Jimenez provided sketches seen in the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man. In scenes in which Peter Parker, played by Tobey Maguire, is seen creating sketches of his costume, the close-ups of his hands are actually those of Jimenez.

Jimenez created art for the first permanent AIDS awareness exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry and his art has appeared on album covers, and in editorial magazines. His artwork has been featured in mainstream publications such as TV Guide, and he himself has been profiled or recognized in Entertainment Weekly, The Advocate, Instinct magazine and Out magazine.
Source: Wikipedia
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JOB (Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Bréville) biography

JOB (Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Bréville) biography

JOB (Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Bréville) (25 November 1858 - 15 September 1931; France)
Jacques Onfroy (sometimes Onfray) de Bréville, known by the pen name JOB after his initials (25 November 1858, Bar-le-Duc – 15 September 1931, Neuilly-sur-Seine), was a French artist and illustrator.

His father opposed his entry to the École des beaux-arts after graduating from the Collège Stanislas. He therefore joined the French army, but returned to Paris in 1882. In the intervening period, he maintained a keen taste for military, patriotic and nationalistic subjects. He finally joined the École des beaux-arts and exhibited at the 1886 'Salon des artistes français', receiving a mixed reception. He therefore began a career as an illustrator, contributing caricatures to La Caricature and to La Lune.

However, he is best known for his illustrations for children's books, most frequently for texts by Georges Montorgueil. His major colour compositions contributed to the cult of 'heroes of the nation' such as Napoleon I and Joachim Murat. Several of his illustrations appear in La Vieille Garde impériale (The Old Imperial Guard), published in 1932 by Alfred Mame and fils de Tours. His eye for detail can be seen in L'Épopée du costume militaire français - even in works intended for children, he tried to reproduce uniforms with extreme precision.

His best known works are Murat, Le Grand Napoléon des petits enfants, Jouons à l'histoire, Louis XI, Napoléon, Bonaparte and Les Gourmandises de Charlotte. He also illustrated the life of George Washington and was well known in the USA. He was a Sociétaire of the 'humoristes' and exhibited with the Incoherents. His studio has been reconstructed at the musée de Metz.

See our BOOKS featuring JOB's art and enjoy the feature article on JOB in illustrators  issue 19.

JOB (Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Bréville) art
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Ron Jobson biography

Ron Jobson biography

Ron Jobson
Ron is a well-known illustrator and the creator of many of the propaganda posters during the Second World War. In 1967 he was responsible for the illustrations on all of the Matchbox 1-75 Series model boxes for that year.
Ron has also produced illustrations for Airfix model boxes and for many books on aircraft and spacecraft.
Ron Jobson art
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Harold Johns biography

Harold Johns biography

Harold Alfred Johns (14 June 1918 - 1980; Devon, UK)

Harold Johns was born in Totnes, Devon and studied at Victoria College of Art and Science in 1938, where he met Frank Hampson. During the Second World War he drove tanks for the Yorkshire Hussars, trained as a cartographer and was awarded the British Empire Medal. After the war he studied at Southport School of Arts and Crafts, again with Hampson. He assisted Hampson and Marcus Morris (Eagle's Editor) in producing the dummy issue of the Eagle that sold the paper to Hulton Press, and soon joined Hampson's studio to work on Dan Dare.

When Hampson fell ill in the summer of 1952, Johns took over as the primary artist for the "Marooned on Mercury" storyline, assisted by Greta Tomlinson, from scripts written by Chad Varah. He and Tomlinson were sacked in 1953 for moonlighting on other comics, despite having previously cleared it with Marcus Morris.

He continued to work as an illustrator, until he died suddenly, whilst out sketching in Sefton, Lancashire, in 1980, aged 62.
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Michael Johnson biography

Michael Johnson biography

Michael Johnson (born 1940s; Thirsk, UK)
Studied Painting and Sculpture at York School of Art, England. Spent his early years as freelance, and worked mainly on artworks for magazines, advertising and book illustration in England and the rest of Europe. An accomplished and adaptable book and magazine illustrator with bags of experience.

Magazine illustrations include: Sunday Times, Telegraph, Observer, Woman's Own, Mirror, Harpers & Queen, Motor, Good Housekeeping, Nova, Penthouse, Stern, Bunte, Constance, Swensk Damtid Ning.

Worked for Advertising Agencies and Design Groups in London, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Oslo, Brussels, Amsterdam, Milan, Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Nice.

Worked with many publishers including Penguin, Pan, Granada, Collins, Fontana, Panther, TransWorld, Dragons World, Arrow, Hamish Hamilton, Readers Digest, Dorling Kindersly

Late 1960s and Early 1970s: Contract with German advertising agency (H.B.U. Dusseldorf) as consultant Art Director and Illustrator, working on experimental three dimensional artworks used in market research.

Paintings published as prints by Paul Hamlin, Frost and Reed (England) and Scandecor (Sweden), a series of five girls' heads in the Top Ten best selling list (1980s).

Exhibited with the "Quichua" painters group in Provence (landscapes and nudes). Worked on publicity material for Bernardo Bertolucci, Stephen Spielberg, Walt Disney Productions.

Portrait Commissions include: H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, Aristotle Onassis, Al Capone, President Kennedy, Sir Lew Grade, Barry Norman, Sybilla Edmondstone, various fashion models.

Over the years has had seven books published:
Angela's Rainbow (Dragons World, 1983) : A story of beautiful girls journeying through time and space, based on the Sakti Shiva story in Indian mythology.
Paper Gliders 1 and 2: Two books of paper gliders to make and fly designed by the author.
Paper Planes 1 and 2: Two books of classic aeroplanes to be made up into flying scale models.
Flying Dinosaurs: Flying scale models of pterodactyls.
Birds of Provence (Barthelemy 2000) guide book.

Worked on specialized architectural illustrations for various developments in the South of France, one in Saudi Arabia. This, in turn have led to commissions (Aerial views) of private houses and gardens.

Commissioned to produce large undersea paintings showing sunken ships, also several large aircraft paintings of corporate jets flying over specific landscapes.

Worked with Sir Norman Foster on a book entitled "Aeroplane" (following a similar concept as the book produced by Le Corbusier in 1925), tracing the history of man's early attempts to fly, through to the most advanced developments of today.

In 2001, conceived and designed a book based on the Japanese "Shunga" books (erotic art) of the 17th century, 25 drawings and 50 sketches were produced.

In 2002 – 2005, conceived and illustrated a fantasy book and film scenario, based on the 11th century journey of Berengaria (later the wife of Richard the Lion Heart) from Provence to the south of Spain.
Source: Michael Johnson website

See illustrators issue 4 for a Michael Johnson feature article.

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Bruce Jones biography

Bruce Jones biography

Bruce Jones, USA)
Bruce Jones started out as an artist in New York in the 1970s, selling illustrations to science fiction magazines, comic books, fanzines and men's magazines. In the mid-1970s Jones turned to writing for the Warren magazines.

Since the 1980s, he has worked for numerous comics like Alien Worlds, Batman, Conan the Barbarian, Incredible Hulk, Vampirella and Weird War Tales. He has also let loose his unusual imagination in his own comic Twisted Tales.
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Chuck Jones biography

Chuck Jones biography

Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones (1912 - 2002, USA)
"Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio.

He directed many of the classic short animated cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester, Pepé Le Pew and the other Warners characters, including Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening and What's Opera, Doc? (all three of which were later inducted into the National Film Registry) and Jones' famous "Hunting Trilogy" of Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1951-1953).

After his career at Warner Bros. ended in 1962, Jones started Sib Tower 12 Productions and began producing cartoons for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including a new series of Tom and Jerry shorts and the television adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

He later started his own studio, Chuck Jones Productions, which created several one-shot specials, and periodically worked on Looney Tunes related works.
Chuck Jones art
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Jeffrey Jones biography

Jeffrey Jones biography

Jeffrey Catherine Jones (10 January 1944 - 19 May 2011; USA)
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Jeff studied geology in college before moving to New York in 1967 where she became an illustrator. In 1971 she created the strip called Idyll for National Lampoon magazine. Her early comic included work for Charlton and DC, but her vocation is painting. She has illustrated many paperback covers for Ace and Bantam including many Robert E Howard works.

In 1976, along with Barry Windsor Smith, Mike Kaluta and Berni Wrightson, she founded The Studio, where she produced a number of high quality extremely limited edition prints. Her black and white strip I'm Age appeared in Heavy Metal magazine.

Jones created the cover art for more than 150 books through 1976, as well as venturing into fine art during and after this time. Fantasy artist Frank Frazetta called Jones "the greatest living painter". Although Jones first achieved fame as simply Jeff Jones and later as Jeffrey Jones, she transitioned to female and added Catherine as a middle name in 1998.

See also our BOOKS featuring Jeffrey Jones.

Jeffrey Jones art
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Sydney Jordan biography

Sydney Jordan biography

Sydney Jordan
Scottish artist Sydney Jordan was initially drawn towards a career in flying and studied at the Miles Aircraft Technical College in Reading. Unable to find a job, he joined a small artists' studio in Dundee, his place of birth.

He assisted Len Fullerton on his comic Dora, Toni and Liz and came up with a new science-fiction character, Orion. In 1952, he moved to London and started working for the agency Man's World.

Here, he came up with Dick Hercules, and submitted his Orion character to the Daily Express, who advised him to make his hero an RAF pilot: Jeff Hawke was born.

After the first few aircraft episodes, Jeff Hawke took off into space and became a popular feature of the Daily Express. Sydney Jordan and his friend Willy Patterson, who wrote the scenarios, devoted themselves to this series, which appeared until 1974 and was translated and published in countries all over Europe.
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John L Jukes biography

John L Jukes biography

John L Jukes (11 October 1901 - 31 October 1972; Birmingham, England)
John L. Jukes was one of the early British comic artists. He was born in Ladywood, Birmingham, and lived in Australia for a few years before returning to Britain.

After a series of single-panel cartoons for several comic papers, his first original comics were published in 1931, such as 'Merry Mike's Ice Cream Bike', 'Heap Big Beef', 'Jim Jam' and 'Jollity Farm'. He worked for the Amalgamated Press from the 1920s to the 1950s, and produced comics like 'Ben & Bert the Kid Cops', 'Dutchy & Dolly', 'The Wonder Zoo', 'Sam Scatterem', 'P.C. Easy', 'George the Jolly Gee Gee' and 'Mike Spike & Greta' for magazines such as Comic Cuts, Funny Wonder, Joker and Radio Fun.

He took over the comic 'Alfie the Air Tramp and Wagger the Sky Terrier', created by Charlie Pease, which graced the front page of comic magazine The Joker. After World War II, John Jukes drew a number of other comics, such as 'Tommy Trinder', 'Archie Andrews', 'Norman Wisdom' and 'Dinah Mite'.

He also created a special Coronation strip with 'Alfie the Air Tramp' for The Joker on 15 May 1937, in the style of Roy Wilson.

John Jukes died in Cornwall on October 31, 1972. He is the grandfather of the author and journalist Peter Jukes.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Joe Jusko biography

Joe Jusko biography

Joe Jusko (born 1 September 1959; born New York, USA)
Joe Jusko is an American artist known for his realistic, highly detailed painted fantasy, pin-up, and cover illustrations, mainly in the comic book industry. Jusko painted the 1992 Marvel Masterpieces trading cards, the popularity of which has been credited with initiating the painted trading card boom of the 1990s.

Growing up in New York, Jusko attended the High School of Art and Design, where his instructors included Bernard Krigstein. He graduated in 1977 with the DC Comics Award of Excellence in Cartooning.

After graduating, Jusko worked as an assistant for five months for Howard Chaykin, which led to Jusko selling his first cover for Heavy Metal magazine at the age of 18. Forgoing college, Jusko went straight into the commercial illustration world.

During his career, Jusko has worked for almost every major comic book publisher, producing hundreds of images for both covers and interiors. In addition to his long stint as one of the main cover artists for The Savage Sword of Conan, Jusko has painted every major character that Marvel Comics has created, most notably the Hulk and the Punisher.

Jusko has also produced covers and interior art for many other comics companies and characters, including DC Comics, Crusade Comics, Innovation Comics, Harris Comics, Wildstorm Comics, Top Cow Productions, and Byron Preiss Visual Publications.

Besides the 1992 Marvel Masterpieces trading card set, Jusko painted the 1995 Art of Edgar Rice Burroughs trading cards. His work is featured in the 1996 card set Fleer's Ultra X-Men Wolverine Cards, as well as Conan the Barbarian and Vampirella trading card sets.

Jusko has also produced storyboards for ad agencies, for such notable clients as the World Wrestling Federation.

Jusko produced the collection, The Art of Joe Jusko (Desperado Publishing, 2009), as well as a graphic novel adaptation of Steve Niles's supernatural detective Cal MacDonald.

At one point in his career, Jusko became "disillusioned with the lack of work . . . and became a [New York City] police officer. After several years I realized art was my main passion and went back to it full time. Luckily, the second time was a charm and my career took off." After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Jusko created the Police and Firefighter Heroes of September 11 lithograph, all proceeds of which went to the New York City Police and Fire Department Widows' and Orphans' Fund.

Jusko won the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Painter in 1992 and 1993, and the Wizard Fan Award for Favorite Painter in 1993 and 1994. His fully painted graphic novel Tomb Raider: The Greatest Treasure of All won a Certificate of Merit from the Society of Illustrators (which accepted Jusko as a member in 2007).
Source: Wikipedia

See illustrators issue 14 for a feature article on Joe Jusko.

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Michael Kaluta biography

Michael Kaluta biography

Michael Kaluta (born 1947, USA)
Born in Guatemala (of U.S. Citizens), he has been influenced by Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, and Maxfield Parrish, amongst others. He began his comics work in the 1970s for DC and it was during this time that he first illustrated The Shadow. In the late 1970s he joined with Barry Windsor Smith, Bernie Wrightson and Jeff Jones at The Studio where he produced a series of limited edition prints and photoprints. In the 1980s he produced a number of book covers and record sleeves, and in 1985 illustrated Elaine Lee's SF satirical play/graphic novel Starstruck. More recently he has returned to painting covers for the new Shadow and Tarzan comic books for DC and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Minidoka book for Dark Horse. Michael has also illustrated covers for DC's new Aquaman (issues 64-75).
Michael Kaluta art
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Jack Kamen biography

Jack Kamen biography

Jack Kamen (29 May 1920 - 5 August 2008; Brooklyn, New York, USA)
Jack Kamen was an American illustrator for books, magazines, comic books and advertising, known for his work illustrating crime, horror, humor, suspense and science fiction stories for EC Comics, for his work in advertising, and for the onscreen artwork he contributed to the 1982 horror anthology film Creepshow.

Kamen's first professional job was as an assistant to a sculptor working for the Texas Centennial. He studied sculpture with Agop Agopoff and was a student of Harvey Dunn, George Brandt Bridgman and William C. McNulty. When Kamen attended classes at the Art Students League and the Grand Central Art School, he paid for his studies by painting theatrical scenery, decorating fashion mannequins and creating sculptures. Shortly after he began his illustration career with Western and detective pulp magazines, he was called into the Army in 1942. After World War II, he started drawing comic book stories for Fiction House and the Eisner & Iger studio.

Artist Al Feldstein also did work for the Eisner & Iger studio, where Kamen and Feldstein became friends. Later, Feldstein brought Kamen into EC Comics, as Kamen recalled in an interview with Ken Smith:
He called me up, and I went in and met the both of them. Al was there. Bill said, 'This boy wonder of mine is recommending you for this work.' I was delighted, because Bill Gaines was always Bill Gaines, and Al was my friend. So I got the work. I was glad to get it. And then, as the popularity increased, Bill one day said, “Look, I don’t know what you’re getting, but I’ll meet anybody’s price and I’ll keep you busy all of the time. How would you like to be exclusive?” And I said I’d love it!

After initially getting EC assignments to illustrate romance comics, he soon became one of the most prolific EC artists, drawing crime, horror, humor, suspense and science fiction stories. He was known for his drawings of attractive women. Describing Kamen's understated style, EC editor Al Feldstein said, "We gave Kamen those stories where the All-American girl and guy are married and then chop each other to pieces." In Tales from the Crypt #31, Kamen drew a semi-autobiographical self-satire, "Kamen's Kalamity", later adapted to HBO's Tales from the Crypt TV series as "Korman's Kalamity". The story depicted the transition from romance to horror by Kamen, who called it "my favorite story".

After EC's line of comics fell victim to industry censorship in 1954–55, it was Kamen who suggested to the publisher that the company could avoid the newly imposed Comics Code Authority strictures with a pricier magazine format, which Kamen dubbed Picto-Fiction. However, EC's woes followed the new line of Picto-Fiction titles, including those with stories by Kamen. The magazines were underdistributed and soon canceled.

After leaving EC, Kamen began drawing Sunday supplement illustrations and creating advertising art for a wide variety of clients: Esquire Shoe Polish, Mack Trucks, Pan American Airlines, Playtex, RCA, Smith Corona and Sylvania. For artist Tom Palmer, Kamen described one of his unusual painting techniques:
Did you know I used Prismacolor pencils along with an acrylic paint wash to create my paintings? I would use a smooth illustration board and apply my basic color in a very watery wash of acrylic, and after it dried I would start rendering with Prismacolor pencil. Then I would take an electric eraser, with a particular eraser, that when you erased anything, before you got down to removing color, you could mix the color pencil very, very smooth, almost like an oil painting.

He also drew all the comic book artwork for Stephen King and George A. Romero's 1982 horror anthology film Creepshow, King and Romero's homage to the EC horror comics. Although the bulk of the artwork for the graphic novel adaptation of the film was done by acclaimed macabre artist Berni Wrightson (along with his daughter who did some of the coloring), Kamen illustrated the cover.

Jack Kamen married his wife, Evelyn in 1946. They had four children. Jack Kamen died at his home in Boca Raton on August 5, 2008 from causes related to cancer.
Source: Wikipedia
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Peter Kay biography

Peter Kay biography

Peter Kay
Peter Kay was an artist who worked for Girl - the female counterpart of Eagle magazine - in the 1950s and 60s, drawing strips such as "Susan of St. Brides" and "Lindy Love", both written by Ruth Adam.

He also drew covers for Mandy, June, Princess Picture Library and Schoolgirls' Picture Library.
Source: UK Comics Wiki
Peter Kay art
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Ted Kearon biography

Ted Kearon biography

Ernest 'Ted' Kearon
Ted Kearon was the artist of the robot 'Archie' and one of the main artists of the magazine Lion in the 1950s. The 'Archie' comic was created by Kearon and writer George Cowan under the title 'The Jungle Robot' in Lion in 1952. It then disappeared for four years, and returned in 1957, this time under the title 'Archie the Robot'. The new version ran for 17 years, until Lion stopped publication in 1974.

From the early 1960s, the comic also appeared in the Dutch weekly Sjors, where it was soon continued by the artist Bert Bus. For Lion, Kearon has also illustrated other series, including 'Castaways of Typhoon Island', 'The Day the World Drowned' and 'Steel Commando'. He additionally drew 'Morgyn the Mighty' strips for The Victor.

Ted Kearon was one of the most prolific of the artists who worked for Lion in the 1950s. Together with scriptwriter George Cowan, he created the famous character of robot Archie for this magazine in 1952. In the over 20-year history of the comic ‘Robot Archie’ (originally known as ‘The Jungle Robot’, then ‘Archie The Robot Explorer’, and finally ‘Robot Archie’), Archie, at first a mute robot, got his voice and acquired a unique, often boastful personality. The development of the comic over time was also apparent in terms of content. If in accordance with the first title, the early adventures took place in the jungles of Africa and South America, more and more science fiction elements were added later. Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Ted Kearon art
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Jack Keay biography

Jack Keay biography

Jack "John" Edwin Keay (10 May 1907 - 1999; King's Norton, UK)
Artist who contributed a variety of illustrations and covers to Look and Learn. When he signed his work, it was usually as “Jack Keay”. Jack Keay was born in King’s Norton, Worcestershire, on 10 May 1907. Little is known about Keay’s career, but he was a popular book cover artist who worked for Pan, Panther, Hutchinson, Fontana and Four Square in the 1957-62 period.

Keay illustrated a number of books in the 1970s and 1980s, including The Change of Life by Muriel E. Landau (1971), Gunfighters of the Wild West by Eric Inglefield (1978), American Civil War by Philip Clark (1988), American War of Independence by Philip Clark (1988) and Viking Explorers by Rupert Matthews (1989). He died in Hounslow, London, in 1999, aged 92.

Jack Keay is not to be mistaken for John R. Keay (qv) who also contributed to Look and Learn. Source: Look and Learn
Jack Keay art
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John Keay biography

John Keay biography

John R Keay; UK
Artist who contributed to the ‘This Made Headlines’ and ‘Dateline’ series which appeared on the inside front cover of Look and Learn in the late 1970s.

Keay had a highly distinctive style, achieving an unusual smoothness of texture in his illustrations, both in colour and black and white. He usually signed his pictures “Keay”. Keay was represented by John Martin & Artists and also illustrated books, including Kings of Israel by David Kent (1981).

John Keay is not to be mistaken for Jack Keay (qv) who also contributed to Look and Learn. Source: Look and Learn
John Keay art
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Michael Kelleher biography

Michael Kelleher biography

Michael Kelleher; USA
Michael Kelleher has been working in the comic industry for 25 years as an illustrator, inker, and digital colorist. His credits can be found in hundreds of books from Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Dynamic Forces, Dynamite, Image and dozens of other publishers.

In 2004, Mike founded Kellustration Digital Art, one of the largest digital art restoration services in the world. Over the past 12 years Kellustration has restored tens of thousands of pages of classic artwork.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

http://www.michaelkelleher.com/index.html

Michael Kelleher art
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Selby Kelly biography

Selby Kelly biography

Selby Daley Kelly (13 August 1917 - June 2005; USA)
Selby Kelly was the third wife and widow of 'Pogo' artist Walt Kelly. Born in Boulder, Colorado, she eventually settled in Los Angeles, where she pursued a long career in animation. She worked for the Disney studios from 1930 until the strike of 1941.

In the following years, she worked for some of the major Hollywood studios, such as MGM, Walter Lantz and Warner Bros. In the 1960s, she worked for Hanna-Barbera. She cooperated on a television special about 'Pogo' in 1969, and this is when Walt and Selby fell in love.

She became his third wife and he became her second husband but, sadly, they only had a few years together. Kelly died in 1973 and Selby, who had been helping him with his work during his illness, continued the 'Pogo' strip for almost two years with the aid of Stephen Kelly, Don Morgan, letterer Henry Shikuma and several other hands. Afterwards, she supervised many other 'Pogo' projects, such as reprints, merchandise and other related products.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Selby Kelly art
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A E Kennedy biography

A E Kennedy biography

Albert Ernest Kennedy (1883 - 1963; active 1930s - 1950s)
A E Kennedy was an illustrator of children's books mostly about animals. His clever and expressive illustrations, slightly cute, are still collected today. He was the elder brother of noted flower painter Cecil Kennedy and was one of the few illustrators of whom Alison Uttley approved both for his work and his personality.

As well as fairytales and humorous series of playing cards, amongst many other books he also illustrated were most of the Alison Uttley 'Sam Pig' and 'Tim Rabbit' stories.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
A E Kennedy art
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Cam Kennedy biography

Cam Kennedy biography

Campbell Kennedy (b. 15 October 1944; Glasgow)
Campbell ("Cam") Kennedy is a Scottish comics artist. He is best known for his work on 2000 AD, especially the flagship titles Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper.

Following work in commercial art in his hometown of Glasgow, Kennedy went freelance and worked as an illustrator on D.C. Thomson's Commando, a well-known British war comic, between 1967 and 1972, before leaving comics altogether to become a professional fine artist. Kennedy's work has been described as gritty, energetic, chunky and raw.

In 1978 he was lured back to comics work again, beginning by drawing the Fighting Mann (1980-81) strip for Fleetway Publications' Battle comic. As Battle began to wind down, Kennedy moved across to its stablemate, the weekly sci-fi anthology comic 2000 AD

Working during the title's "Golden Era", Kennedy was instrumental in several well-known strips that continue to this day, including The V.C.s (written by Gerry Finley-Day, Judge Dredd (with John Wagner and Alan Grant, most notably on the "Midnight Surfer" story which reintroduced Chopper) and Rogue Trooper (again with Finley-Day). His association with the comic, which is largely produced by fellow Scotsmen, has never faltered: in 2005, Kennedy designed and produced a brand new strip, Zancudo, written by Simon Spurrier for the Judge Dredd Megazine, and Wagner has written three stories about character Kenny Who?, an alter-ego for Kennedy, based on Kennedy's early problems getting work at American companies (as well as making jokes on issues like creator's rights and censorship).

In America, Kennedy established a profitable working relationship with writer Tom Veitch, producing the creator-owned Vietnam War-inspired science fiction fantasy The Light and Darkness War for Marvel Comics' Epic imprint. This led to the pair working on a Star Wars spin-off, Dark Empire, for Dark Horse Comics. Kennedy has worked on other Star Wars licensed comics, including Boba Fett stories with writer John Wagner. For DC Comics Kennedy has worked on Lobo, Batman, Outcasts and The Spectre. For Marvel, he has illustrated the Punisher, Daredevil and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

As part of the UNESCO City of Literature in 2007 he has drawn Kidnapped, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, written by Alan Grant, published by Waverley Books. Some of the art for this has been bought for the collections of the National Library of Scotland.

A follow-up has been made by the same creative team, it is an adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde and was as part of the One Book – One Edinburgh 2008 campaign.
Cam Kennedy art
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Ian Kennedy biography

Ian Kennedy biography

(Charles) Ian Kennedy (born 1932, Scotland)
Best known as a superb cover artist for DC Thomson - most of the Thomson adventure annual covers of the '80s were by him as are, to this day, all the best Commando Library covers - Ian Kennedy also drew many strips for the Amalgamated Press in the '50s and was the best of the new Dan Dare artists in IPC's New Eagle. He is extremely versatile and, as well as being a thoroughly convincing War artist in his many Battler Britton stories, he drew excellent Western strips. He drew Billy the Kid for Sun and Hopalong Cassidy and Davy Crockett for Knockout, the latter being of particular interest for its authenticity as well as for its backwoods humour.

Ian Kennedy was born in Dundee, Scotland, and, on leaving school, worked for five years in DC Thomson's Art Department which he said was the best training an apprentice comic artist could possibly wish for.
Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

See dedicated COMMANDO illustrators  Special Edition and illustrators issue 1 for an interview with Ian Kennedy.

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Tom Kerr biography

Tom Kerr biography

Tom Kerr
Tom Kerr was a British comic strip artist whose work has appeared in comics such as Look-in, the Eagle, Valiant, and TV21. He has also drawn for many annuals of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Monkees annuals, Look-in annuals etc.

Tom Kerr began his career in the late 1940s, drawing 'Little Lew' for Pets' Playtime Comic published by Philmar. Then in the 1950s he drew 'Fay' in the Weekend Mail Comic and 'Monty Carstairs' in Mickey Mouse Weekly. He also drew for girls comics such as Marilyn ('Mum', 'Wham! My Man!'), School Friend, Girls' Crystal and June.

Strips include Boy Bandit in Jag Comic (later Tiger) 1968-1969 and the Tara King/The Avengers strip in TV Comic (1968). He also worked for comics such as Lion, Buster, Thunder, The Eagle, Knockout, Valiant, Princess, TV21, Lady Penelope, Solo, and Jet.

He was present in Buster from the early 1960s with his own comic 'Rip Kerrigan', but also with fill-ins on 'Kelly's Eye', 'Captain Hurricane', 'The Steel Claw', 'Charlie Peace', 'Kraken' and 'Black Axe'. Longer running serials were 'Life with Uncle Lionel' (1963-65) and 'Mary Jo' (1964-67) for Princess. Among the other comics he drew were 'Boy Bandit' in Jag Comic (later Tiger) in 1968-1969, 'Tara King/Avengers' in TV Comic (1968) and 'Oddball Oates' in Lion (1969-70).

IPC planned a comic strip character called Captain Britain which was to be drawn by Kerr during the early 1970s. Marvel later produced a similar character but the idea seemed to be dropped by IPC long before this.

In 1970 he drew the first ever 'Adam Eterno' strip in Thunder, as well as 'Peter the Cat' in Score 'n' Roar and 'Billy's Boots' in Scorcher. Other work from the 1970s was 'Crowther in Trouble' in Look-In, 'Phil the Fluter' in Lion and 'Orphan Alone' in June, as well as the 'Clarks Commandos' advertising strip. His final comics work was for D.C. Thomson's nursery comics Twinkle and Little Star.
Source: Lambiek and Illustration Art Gallery
Tom Kerr art
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Eric Kincaid biography

Eric Kincaid biography

Eric Kincaid (born 1931; London, UK)
Eric Kincaid ARMS became captivated by illustrations in books on his 8th birthday when he was given a book about Robin Hood, illustrated by H.M. Brock. ‘I can remember lying on my stomach on the living room floor, engrossed in the story, when I turned a page and saw Brock’s black and white illustration depicting the death of Robin. The emotion came through to me from the printed page. I was deeply moved and knew that this was what I wanted to do with my life’.

Born in London in 1931, Eric studied illustration and design at Gravesend School of Art where Peter Blake was a contemporary and Quentin Crisp one of the life models. After two years national service and then working in advertising Eric became a comic strip artist where he drew the last Dan Dare story for the Eagle.

In 1971 Eric was offered the chance to fulfil his real ambition to illustrate children’s books when the publishing company, Brimax Books asked him to illustrate a book of Nursery Rhymes. There followed a long and successful relationship with Brimax who commissioned over 100 books from Eric over the next 30 years. These included Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Oliver Twist, Alice in Wonderland, Aesop’s Fables and anthologies of poetry and nursery rhymes. Eric went on regular book signing tours of America and Canada and regularly attended the Frankfurt Book Fair. His titles have appeared in 14 languages and world-wide sales exceed 8 million copies.

Eric now lives in Dorset where he settled in 1990 and has now asked Towngate Publications to handle the printing and promotion of his limited edition prints. He has also asked the Towngate Gallery to exhibit his full range of original Jungle Book paintings with a view to promoting his prints and sale of his originals to keen collectors.
Source: http://www.erickincaid.com/
Eric Kincaid art
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Dave King biography

Dave King biography

Dave King (born 12 February 1964)
Dave King is an animation director, producer, writer and artist.

King started in the comic industry, writing and drawing for UK publishers such as London Editions Magazines, Marvel UK (and later for Panini), Fleetway Publications, H. Bauer, and the Scout Association.

He wrote or drew strips including Count Duckula, Rugrats, Barbie, Beetlejuice, The Spice Girls, Scazza for Roy of the Rovers, Taliska's Travels in Time for Cosmic, and Dennis the Menace and Gnasher and Desperate Dan, for The Beano and The Dandy.

King worked extensively with Warner Bros. Worldwide Publishing, scripting and drawing Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain and Taz-Mania, with many of his strips published by DC Comics.

He also wrote and drew newspaper strips including Looney Tunes and Taz-Mania, along with Ren & Stimpy and The Workers.

In the mid-1990s, King began working more in animation, co-art directing a music video for U2, taken from the film Batman Forever, and went on to work with many UK animation companies. In 2002 he directed the VBirds short series for Cartoon Network UK and in 2012 founded the company, Raindog Studios, directing, writing and producing for animation.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Dave King art
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Gordon King biography

Gordon King biography

Gordon King (born 6 June 1939; UK)
Gordon King has long been regarded as one of the country's most popular contemporary artists working in watercolours, oils and acrylics. His paintings have been admired and collected at numerous one-man exhibitions both in the U.K. and abroad.

Gordon's ability to portray his subjects with a delightful delicacy and atmosphere has earned him considerable acclaim throughout the art world.

In his early 20s he went freelance and became a Member of the Society of Industrial Artists (MSIAD), illustrating for major magazines and advertising agencies. Gradually he built up the commission side of his work by painting portraits and exhibiting his work until in the mid 70s he gave up illustration work altogether to enable him to concentrate full-time on his paintings which at that time were predominantly in oils. Success came quite rapidly, showing at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions in London and later at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, painting mostly figurative subjects.

His paintings of girls in natural surroundings soon became his trade mark and the popularity of the watercolours in the early 80s, including book covers for Souvenir Press, together with the success of his prints, limited editions and silk-screens brought him the high profile that he has today.

In 1995, his first book “A Romance with Art” was published, with a foreword by HRH The Princess Royal, featuring a wide range of his oils and watercolours. A second edition followed later.

Gordon lives and works in his studio in Buckinghamshire which provides the backdrop for many of his paintings. He exhibits worldwide and has been featured painting live on a number of television programmes including the BBC2 arts series “Close-Up”, Channel 5's “Open House” and Sky Sports with the P.G.A.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Gordon King art
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Jack Kirby biography

Jack Kirby biography

Jack Kirby (1917 - 1994, USA)
One of the fathers of the comic book, there is hardly an artist in comics today who has not been directly or indirectly influenced by Kirby. In his early career he worked at the Fleischer animation studios, and in the 1940s teamed with Joe Simon to create many different super-hero teams and characters.

Among these were Captain America for Timely, Stuntman and Boy Explorers for Harvey. In the 1960s he worked with Stan Lee on Fantastic Four, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers, etc, and he was the major factor that made Marvel a household name in comics.


See also our JACK KIRBY BOOKS.
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Josh Kirby biography

Josh Kirby biography

Ronald William "Josh" Kirby (27 November 1928 – 23 October 2001; Liverpool, UK)
Josh Kirby was an English commercial artist born in Waterloo, on the outskirts of Liverpool, Merseyside.

Josh Kirby was educated at the Liverpool City School of Art, where he acquired the nickname Josh, which comes from having his work compared to that of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The nickname stuck and Kirby was rarely called by his real name later. He died unexpectedly, of natural causes, in his sleep at home in Shelfanger near Diss in Norfolk at the age of 72. He was painting a new addition to his Magnum Opus, the Voyage of the Ayeguy portfolio before he died.

Kirby painted film-posters, magazine and book covers. Creating a total of over 400 cover paintings, his personal preference was for science fiction jackets (for example see Robert Silverberg's Majipoor novels and Kirby's own Voyage of the Ayeguy) and his work on the covers of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels is well known. He also created the poster art for Monty Python's Life of Brian and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

Charles de Lint said Kirby stood apart from most genre commercial artists for "his own flair and unique vision". He worked almost exclusively in oils.

In 1991, Paper Tiger Books published a graphic album collecting some commercial and private works by Kirby, titled In the Garden of Unearthly Delights (a reference to Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights). This was followed in 1999 by another graphic album titled A Cosmic Cornucopia, which includes extensive text by David Langford and two chapters dedicated to his work for Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
Source: Wikipedia
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Roy Krenkel biography

Roy Krenkel biography

Roy Gerald Krenkel (11 July 1918 – 24 February 1983; USA)
Roy Krenkel, who often signed his work RGK, was an influential American illustrator who specialized in fantasy and historical drawings and paintings for books, magazines and comic books.

His artwork revealed the strong influence of artist Norman Lindsay, in addition to Franklin Booth, Joseph Clement Coll and J. Allen St. John. Before serving in World War II, he studied with George Bridgman at the Art Students League of New York.

After WWII, he attended Burne Hogarth's classes at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, which became the School of Visual Arts. There he met a group of young cartoonists, including Joe Orlando, Frank Frazetta and Al Williamson. Frazetta noted, "I met Roy Krenkel back in 1949 or 1950, and he has never ceased to be a constant source of inspiration to me—a truly conscientious artist who will not tolerate incompetence."

Krenkel sometimes collaborated with Frazetta and Williamson on pages the trio drew for EC Comics particularly in Weird Science, Weird Fantasy and Weird Science-Fantasy. His splash page contribution to Williamson's “Food for Thought” (Incredible Science Fiction 32, November–December 1955), a highly detailed alien landscape, is often regarded as a peak achievement in comic book illustration. Krenkel only drew one solo story for EC, the unsigned “Time to Leave” (Incredible Science Fiction 31, September–October, 1955), displaying a futuristic cityscape of architectural splendors. Krenkel inked many of Williamson's comic stories for Marvel and ACG in the 1950s as well.

Krenkel was known for regarding his own work as disposable and unimportant.

He did several illustrations for science fiction magazines. Science fiction author Harry Harrison recalled, “Krenkel was a master penciler. I know. When he shared a studio with me and Wally Wood, I inked one of his illustrations for Marvel Science Fiction magazine. The influence of fine artists Norman Lindsay and Alma Tadema can be seen in his work.”

Notable are his 23 paperback book cover paintings as well as frontispieces for Edgar Rice Burroughs and other fantasy writers published by Donald A. Wollheim at Ace Books. During the late 1960s, he created cover paintings for DAW Books and Lancer Books. When Lancer revived Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, with revisions by L. Sprague de Camp, Krenkel was cited by cover artist Frazetta as a consultant. Krenkel also created preliminary roughs which Frazetta modified and used when he painted covers for Warren Publishing's Creepy and Eerie. Krenkel drew one-page "Creepy's Loathsome Lore" and "Eerie's Monster Gallery" stories as well as rough layouts and inks for "H2O World" with collaborator Al Williamson.

During the 1970s, he illustrated both covers and interiors for Howard's The Sowers of the Thunder and The Road of Azrael, published by Donald M. Grant. It was at this time Krenkel created seven special paintings for a limited edition portfolio illustrating the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. He also contributed to several science-fantasy fan publications, including Richard A. Lupoff's Xero, the Burroughs-oriented ERBdom and Amra, devoted to the works of Howard.

Danton Burroughs, the grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs, commented, “Roy Krenkel was a key factor in the 1960s revival of my grandfather's writings. Krenkel's illustrations forever secured his position as one of the all-time great Edgar Rice Burroughs illustrators.”

Following his death, Krenkel's friends Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson created the story "Relic", published in Epic Illustrated #27, as a tribute to him.

In 1963, Krenkel won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist.
Roy Krenkel art
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Bernie Krigstein biography

Bernie Krigstein biography

Bernard Krigstein (22 March 1919 - 8 January 1990; USA)
Bernie Krigstein was an American illustrator and gallery artist who received acclaim for his innovative and influential approach to comic book art, notably in EC Comics. He was known as Bernie Krigstein, and his artwork usually displayed the signature B. Krigstein.

Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Krigstein was trained as a classical painter.

Krigstein's best known work in comic books is the short story "Master Race", originally published in the debut issue (April 1955) of EC Comics' Impact. The protagonist is a former Nazi death camp commandant named Reissman who had managed to elude justice until he is spotted ten years later riding the New York City Subway. This story was remarkable for its subject matter, since the Holocaust was rarely discussed in popular media of the 1950s, as indicated by the controversy that same year surrounding Alain Resnais's Night and Fog (1955).

Krigstein, who sometimes chafed at the limits of the material EC gave him to illustrate, expanded what had been planned for six-pages into an eight-page story. The results were so striking that the company reworked the issue to accommodate the two extra pages. Krigstein had stretched out certain sequences in purely visual terms; repetitive strobe-like drawings mimic the motion of a passing train, and Commandant Reissman's final moment of life is broken down into four individual poses of desperate physical struggle. Art Spiegelman described the effect in The New Yorker: "The two tiers of wordless staccato panels that climax the story... have often been described as 'cinematic', a phrase thoroughly inadequate to the achievement: Krigstein condenses and distends time itself... Reissman's life floats in space like the suspended matter in a lava lamp. The cumulative effect carries an impact—simultaneously visceral and intellectual—that is unique to comics."

Krigstein also did humor, such as "From Eternity Back to Here" in Mad #12, "Bringing Back Father" in Mad #17 and "Crash McCool" in Mad #26. His wife, Natalie, wrote romance comics during the genre's peak. They had a daughter, Cora, in 1949.

In the early 1960s, Krigstein left comics in order to draw and paint illustrations for magazines, book jackets (notably, the first edition of Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate) and record albums, eventually turning away from commercial assignments in order to focus on fine art. In 1962, he took a position at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, where he taught for 20 years.

As he told a 1962 interviewer, "It's what happens between these panels that's so fascinating. Look at all that dramatic action that one never gets a chance to see. It's between these panels that the fascinating stuff takes place. And unless the artist would be permitted to delve into that, the form must remain infantile."
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Harvey Kurtzman biography

Harvey Kurtzman biography

Harvey Kurtzman (3 October 1924 – 21 February 1993; Brooklyn, New York, USA)
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and editor of comic books and magazines. His large body of work includes writing and editing the parody comic book MAD from 1952 until 1956, and the sexy and satirical Little Annie Fanny strips in Playboy from 1962 until 1988. His work is noted for its satire and parody of popular culture, social critique, and an obsessive attention to detail. His working method has been likened to that of an auteur, and those who illustrated his stories were expected to follow his layouts strictly.

Born to Jewish immigrants, Kurtzman took early to cartooning. After graduating from New York's High School of Music & Art, he spent the 1940s doing freelance work for various publishers and publications before getting regular work at EC Comics in 1950, writing and drawing for their New Trend line of comic books. He wrote and edited the Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat war comic books, where he also drew many of the carefully researched stories, before he created his most-remembered comic book, Mad, in 1952.

The Kurtzman-scripted stories were drawn by top EC cartoonists, most frequently Will Elder, Wally Wood, and Jack Davis; the early Mad was noted for its social critique and parodies of pop culture. The comic book switched to a magazine format in 1955, and Kurtzman left it in 1956 over a dispute with EC's owner William Gaines over financial control. Following his departure, he did a variety of cartooning jobs, including editing the short-lived Trump and the self-published Humbug. In 1959, he produced the first book-length work of original comics, the adult-oriented, satirical Jungle Book.

He edited the low-budget Help! from 1960 to 1965, a humor magazine which featured work by future Monty Python member Terry Gilliam and the earliest work of underground cartoonists such as Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton. He brought Help! to an end after the success of the risqué Playboy feature Little Annie Fanny began to take up too much of his time. While Annie Fanny provided much of his income for the rest of his career, he continued to produce an eclectic body of work, including screenwriting the animated Mad Monster Party? in 1967 and directing, writing and designing several shorts for Sesame Street in 1969.

From 1973, Kurtzman taught cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His work gained greater recognition toward the end of his life, and he oversaw deluxe reprintings of much of his work. The Harvey Award was named in Kurtzman's honor in 1988. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1989, and his work earned five positions on The Comics Journal's Top 100 Comics of the 20th Century.
Source: Wikipedia

See our selection of BOOKS featuring Harvey Kurtzman.

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T S La Fontaine biography

T S La Fontaine biography

Thomas Sherwood La Fontaine (21 December 1915 - 2007)
Tom was born in Smyrna (now Izmir), Turkey. His parents (both English) were in the carpet trade there. Tom went to preparatory school in England at Rottingdean near Brighton, with his older brother Geoff. They excelled at sport both there and later at Tonbridge School where Tom was captain of cricket. At Tonbridge Tom painted a large mural in the art school, which remained there for several decades and ironically was removed when Tom’s son – Robin, was a pupil there in about 1972.

Tom began a lengthy correspondence course – the John Hassell course, from Regent School of Art, while he was still at Tonbridge. He felt that an artist should not only be able to paint but be able to draw well. His sister – Madge was often used as a model as he practised drawing. When he left Tonbridge he went to London to Art School.

The war interrupted his training as an artist and both he and Geoff served in the Beds and Herts regiment, and he saw active service in North Africa, Italy (Cassino) and was also at Dunkirk. He was wounded when a machine gun volley hit him first in the left calf, then in the right thigh and the third bullet killed the soldier next to him. While he was in hospital (twice) he continued painting and drawing. Madge would send him paints and canvases. Geoff was killed on May 6th 1943 at the age of 29 - only three months after arriving in North Africa.

After the war he continued his training as a portrait painter and initially did a lot of commercial art from his studio in London. He also did many illustrations for the girls' magazine Girl and for the comic Eagle, the educational magazine Look and Learn, as well as book illustrations.

He went often to the London zoo in Regent’s Park to draw animals. Some of his first commissioned work was from patients of his sister, Madge - who worked in London as a physiotherapist. One of her patients was Mrs Procter-Warner who saw a picture Tom had done of a green budgerigar in a cage. She liked it so much she bought it. She also commissioned him to do the painting called “Impromptu” which was one of many of his pictures displayed in the Royal Academy of Art in London.

Tom married in 1947 to Margaret Storey. Margaret’s passion was horses and she always had a collection of horses and donkeys that were all used as models in Tom’s pictures. The dogs and local cows featured prominently too. In the early years when there were fewer commissions, Tom would do several pictures of the family owned pets – especially in winter - that were later sold. His work was displayed in Ackermans gallery in London from 1962 and many commissions came his way through the gallery.

Tom traveled extensively over the years to paint commissioned pictures throughout Europe, South Africa, Asia and America. Indeed, his trips to America became regular – once or twice a year, and many of his clients became good friends and kept up with him over the years.

In the last 8-10 years of his life as he reduced the number of commissioned works, he started to do more pictures for his own enjoyment. He had done some details from pictures by Rubens and he enjoyed having more time to develop his own style. He really enjoyed the “Wounded Diana” pictures that he was able to do in his last few years. The ‘hounds’ in those pictures were family pets and featured regularly in his pictures. One wonders what more creations he would have done – given more time.

He once said that it was a wonderful thing to have work that was also his hobby and that he would never stop painting – and he never did. Even on holidays he would have his sketchbook and watercolours with him. When he was at home he would be in his studio all morning, then he would work in the vegetable garden, chop wood, or repair fences in the afternoon. If there was no commission he was working on then he would begin his own picture.

He painted many hundreds of pictures through his lifetime although many of the early ones remain unrecorded. Then there was a period of black and white photography. Latterly though he always photographed the completed picture before it left the studio. Fortunately most of them were catalogued a few years before his death although some are still 'unknown'.

During his final illness, as he reviewed photos of his work, he remarked that he was pleased that he had painted so many pictures. He brushed with royalty in painting Princess Anne and Prince Charles – the latter giving him a sitting at Buckingham Palace. His pictures have appeared in auctions mistakenly attributed to such great artists as Munnings and Stubbs.
Source: http://www.lafontaineartist.com & The Illustration Art Gallery
T S La Fontaine art
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Bill Lacey biography

Bill Lacey biography

Bill Lacey (1917 - 2000)
Bill Lacey was one of the finest storytellers British comics ever produced. Born in 1917, he served in Bomber Command in the RAF during World War II. In 1947 he worked for Jackman Studios Bible publishers and drew amongst others The Story of Jesus. He then moved to work on the prestigious comic Mickey Mouse Weekly in which he drew Robin Alone. It was in Super Detective Library that he really made his mark, drawing #3 Bulldog Drummond, #54 The Riddle of the Blue Men, various Dirk Rogers adventures and all the Blackshirt issues starting at #103 'Wanted - Blackshirt. He also drew 4 of the John Steel Special Agent World War II issues : #157, #160, #165 and #171. He only drew two Thriller Picture Library issues #76 The Covered Wagon and #347 Operation Freedom.

He contributed to girls comics including The Circus Ballerina for Princess. He also worked for Film Fun, Buster, Tiger, Lion and Valiant. He then went to work for the marvellous magazine Look & Learn where he drew a version of Great Expectations and Eagles Over the Western Front a Biggles inspired WW1 series that saw Lacey excelling in depicting action packed dogfights over the French countryside. His other main strips for Look & Learn included Agent of the Queen which told the adventures of a Victorian James Bond and Number 13 Marvel Street which featured a schoolboy sleuth with a supercomputer.

In the 1970s his style and expertise were also used in Battle Picture Weekly and Valiant, and numerous other annuals. He did his final comics work in Buddy in 1981, including The Wilde Boys and The Q-Bikes.
Bill Lacey art

See also the complete Eagles Over The Western Front collected stories by Bill Lacey.
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Mike Lacey biography

Mike Lacey biography

Mike Lacey; UK
Mike Lacey is a prolific artist whose work has appeared in nearly all Fleetway/IPC funnies since the 1970s. For many years, he drew 'X-Ray Specs' for Monster Fun and Buster. His many features for Whoopee! include 'Blinketty Blink', 'Bumpkin Billionaire's', 'Jimmy Fix-it', 'Chip', 'Kid's Court', and 'Scared Stiff-Sam'. For Whizzer and Chips, he made 'Boy Butler', 'Pete's Pocket', 'Phil Fitt', 'Sid's Snake' and 'Slow Coach'.

He also made many features for Jackpot ('Cry Baby', 'Ritchie Wraggs', 'Snap Happy'), Shiver and Shake ('Match of the Week'), Monster Fun ('Art's Gallery'), Buster ('Nightmare on Erm Street', 'Strongarm'), Cor!! ('Wacky'), Cheeky ('Speed Squad'), Wow ('Ship-wreck School') and Knockout ('The Super Seven'). He eventually turned to commercial artwork.

He is the son of artist Bill Lacey ('Super Detective Library' and 'Eagles over the Western Front').
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Mike Lacey art
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Ronald Lampitt biography

Ronald Lampitt biography

Ronald George Lampitt (born 16 March 1906 - October 1988; Worcester, UK)
Ronald Lampitt produced illustrations for magazines, including Zoo, Passing Show, Illustrated, Modern Wonder, John Bull, Look and Learn and Treasure. In the early 1950s, he could be found in the pages of Mickey Mouse Weekly, illustrating "The Story of Lassie".

His main subject was landscape paintings and paintings of rural scenes; his scenic views of towns were published as travel posters by railway companies, including G.W.R. and Southern Railway.

His book illustrations included work for Summer Pie, Oxford University Press and Ladybird Books, many of them in collaboration with Henry James Deverson (1908-1972). Lampitt's association with Deverson included working on the Mainly for Children series published by the Sunday Times in the early 1960s but also went deeper as Lampitt was married to H.J.'s sister, Mona Deverson (1911-1995), in 1938. The couple had two daughters, Judy and Susan.

Lampitt lived for some five decades (1938/88) at the same address, 10 Old Farm Road East, Sidcup, Kent. His death was registered in Bexley, Kent in October 1988, aged 82.

An interesting photo from circa 1900 appears on the Getty Images website of Henry Lampitt, captioned "grandfather of the artist Ronald Lampitt, at home with his family in Fladbury, Worcestershire". A little digging turns up a few facts about Henry ... he was born in Fladbury in 1851 and was resident there until his death in 1922. He was married in 1874 and had 11 children. Henry's third son, Rowland Edward Lampitt (1879-1959), a clerk with Great Western Railways, was married in 1904 to Florence Pope and Ronald was the first of three sons. His father's job meant that Ronald probably grew up in Fladbury, Worcestershire, and in Middlesex, youngest brother John being born in Brentford in 1920.
Source: Steve Holland (Bear Alley)
Ronald Lampitt art
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David Langdon biography

David Langdon biography

David Langdon (24 February 1914 - 18 November 2011; UK)
David Langdon was born in London in 1914, the son of Bennett Langdon and his wife Bess. Keen on drawing from the age of four, he studied "Design and Decoration" at Davenant Grammar School, London, and contributed sketches to the school magazine. However, he was largely self-taught. Langdon's parents did not regard art as offering a worthwhile career, and in 1931 he left school to work in the Architects Department of the London County Council. For the next five years he concentrated on professional qualifications, but in 1935 he had his first cartoons published in the LCC staff journal, London Town.

In 1936 Langdon sold his first cartoon - a joke about Mussolini - to Time and Tide, and in 1937 he was invited to contribute to Punch after meeting Kenneth Bird, who was then its Art Director. Langdon felt at home at the Punch office. "It was a holy-of-holies sort of atmosphere", he recalled: "It was all very quiet, with highly-polished floors." Styles of cartoon were changing and Langdon's work suited the moment. As he recalled, "I concentrated on pure humour at a time when the simplified drawing and the short caption were taking over from the stylised drawing and the copious legend." In 1937 Langdon began contributing to the new magazine Lilliput, and sold an idea for an advertisement to Shell.

On the outbreak of war in 1939 Langdon left the LCC to become an Executive Officer in the London Rescue Service. At the same time he began to make a name for himself as a cartoonist, recalling later that "we minor cartoonists left it to David Low to satirise and exhort and try to move mountains": "We occupied ourselves with the minutiae of life as it was lived hour by hour in the shortest term view. We were flattered by having our work together with Low's described as contributing to the war effort." Langdon produced a series of wartime information cartoons for London Transport featuring Billy Brown of London Town, with verses by Richard Usborne. These became so famous that they inspired a song by Noel Gay: "Who stood up and saved the town when London Bridge was falling down? Mr Brown of London town."

In 1941 Langdon's first book of cartoons was published, entitled Home Front Lines. In the same year he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, eventually becoming a squadron leader and, from 1945 to 1946, editor of the Royal Air Force Journal. Langdon worked quickly, and it was noted in 1942 that "it takes him about twenty minutes to finish a drawing." His wartime output was large and very popular, and on his demobilisation in 1946 he became a freelance, making regular contributions to Punch. In 1948 he started a long association with the Sunday Pictorial, later renamed the Sunday Mirror, by contributing a weekly column of topical cartoons, and in 1952 he also began contributing to the New Yorker.

In 1953 Langdon created Professor Puff and His Dog Wuff for Eagle, the children's comic, and a book of these strips was published in 1957. In 1958 Langdon was elected to the Punch Table. His drawings also appeared in Paris-Match, Radio Times, Saturday Evening Post, Aeroplane, Royal Air Force Review, Collier's, True and The Spectator. From 1959 he produced an annual racing calendar for Ladbrokes. He also drew a set of caricatures of lawyers and High Court judges, and produced a considerable amount of advertising work including drawings for Bovril, Winsor & Newton, Shell, Schweppes and others.

Langdon had an economical style, citing his influences as Honore Daumier and Kenneth Bird ("Fougasse"). He once described his method of working as "controlled mind-wandering": "You pick something out of the paper - I'm very much a current affairs cartoonist, you know - you think about it, your mind wanders away, you pull it back, it wanders away again, you pull it back once more, and by now the gag is beginning to stare you in the face." For the final version he would use a brush and ink over a pencil outline drawn half larger than reproduction size on white Bristol board. He claimed to have introduced the "open mouth" into humorous art, to indicate who is speaking.

In 1977 Langdon described his weekly routine. On Monday he would go through the papers, and in the evening rough out his Punch cartoons. The next day he would take them into the Punch office, returning home in the afternoon to work on the finished versions. On Wednesday he would take the finished cartoons to the Punch editorial lunch, and in the afternoon begin working on his roughs for the Sunday Mirror. On Thursday he would take these roughs to the Mirror office, and remained there until the chosen cartoons were finished. A devoted supporter of Wycombe Wanderers football club, where he sat for a time on the committee, his daughter recalled that "watching the Blues and playing golf at Harewood Downs were my father's way of relaxing at the end of a week thinking up new and original ideas for cartoons".

In 1988 Langdon was awarded an OBE and elected FRSA. In 1990 he stopped working for the Sunday Mirror, and he also stopped working for Punch when it folded in 1992, having contributed at least 5,000 cartoons to the magazine. In 2001 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Cartoon Art Trust. David Langdon died peacefully in his sleep on 18 November 2011, at the age of 97.
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Alan Langford biography

Alan Langford biography

Alan Langford (Active from 1979; UK)
Alan Langford is a freelance artist and illustrator who specialises in equestrian subject matter. A member of the Society of Equestrian Artists; the painting of horses is an occupation he finds both enjoyable and rewarding. He describes himself as a painter of horses in their natural or working environments, rather than specifically a landscape painter.

He began his artistic career in 1979, working as a full-time illustrator for “Etchmasters” of Alresford, illustrating topographical scenes in pen and ink, which were transferred on to copper plaques. After three years at “Etchmasters”, Alan went freelance working through a Fleet Street artist agency, illustrating comics, book covers and fantasy game books.

Since then Alan has illustrated history books, encyclopaedias, adventure stories, myths and legends.
He has worked for B.B.C. Television, illustrating the stories of “Romulus and Remus” and “Androcles and the Lion” for the popular children's programme “Zig -Zag”. He has also worked as an art tutor in adult education, and is frequently asked to demonstrate his drawing and painting techniques for amateur art societies, the W.I. Etc.

Currently he works mainly as an equestrian artist, painting horses and ponies in the open tract of the New Forest or Dartmoor in Devon. His love of riding and horses has aided him in depicting these remarkable animals with empathy, vigour and movement. A fascination for Romany’s and their horse fairs has exerted a powerful influence on his paintings.

In the summer of 2012, he was invited by Tim Craven, curator at Southampton City Art Gallery to exhibit one of his large oils in the exhibition entitled “Nags to Thoroughbreds”. The exhibition ran from September 2012 until February 2013 and featured the galleries entire equestrian collection, which included the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Alfred Munnings and Lucy Kemp Welch.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Alan Langford art
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Frank Langford biography

Frank Langford biography

Frank Langford (1926 - 1998; UK)
Cyril Eidlestein / Frank Langford were one and the same artist, born Cyril J. Eidlestein. He changed his name by deed in the 1960s to Frank Langford.

He first appears in comics in the late 1950s drawing for Roxy and then leaps to collectors' attention as the artist of the comic strips 'The Angry Planet' in Boy's World in 1963 and 'Lady Penelope' in Lady Penelope in 1966-69.

Most fans lose sight of him after his work for Countdown and TV Action in the early 1970s but a keen eye will spot his name in countless advertising strips from the 1960s onwards. The KP Outer Spacers adverts (part 1, part 2, part 3) appeared in 1982.

He is also known for drawing 'Jack and Jill', which ran in The Herald and The Sun tabloids.
Source: Steve Holland (Bear Alley) & The Illustration Art Gallery
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Clint Langley biography

Clint Langley biography

Clint Langley; UK
Clint Langley is a British comic book artist best known for his work on series with Pat Mills at 2000 AD and as the cover artist for Marvel Comics' Guardians of the Galaxy.

He is an artist who combines painting, photography and digital art and as well as his work in comics, he has provided the art for role-playing games and collectible cards.

Langley went to Hastings College and studied art and design.

Langley's first published work was with Nighfall Games's role-playing game SLA Industries in 1993. His work appeared in their first three books, SLA Industries, Karma and Mort, for which he painted the cover. He also provided the large wrap-around painting for the game's GM's Screen.

Langley began his career at 2000 AD on Dinosty with Pat Mills, and went on to work on some of the comics flagship titles, like Judge Dredd and Sinister Dexter.

He has since repeatedly collaborated with Mills, most notably on his long-running series ABC Warriors and Sláine where he is the current artist on both.

Mills also has formed Repeat Offenders with Langley and Jeremy Davis "to develop graphic novel concepts with big-screen potential" and the first project will be an, as yet unpublished, graphic novel called American Reaper. It has been option by Trudie Styler's Xingu Films and Mills will be writing the screenplay.

Since 2007 he has also got work in the American comic book market providing covers for Marvel Comics, especially those connected with Dan Abnett, who he worked with on Sinister Dexter, leading to a run on the modern incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Source: Wikipedia
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Roger Langridge biography

Roger Langridge biography

Roger Langridge (born 14 February 1967)
Roger Langridge is a New Zealand comics writer/artist/letterer, currently living in Britain.

Langridge originally came to public prominence most notably with the Judge Dredd Megazine series The Straitjacket Fits (written by David Bishop), a surreal, hallucinatory, convention-bending strip set in an insane asylum with a cast of characters who realised they were in a comic strip and burst from the edge of the frame. He had previously been a regular artist for the 1988 issues of the Auckland University Students' Association's magazine Craccum.

His cartoon style proved perfect for the series and he continued to work for the Megazine, in addition to a series of comedy books dedicated to his Buster Keaton-inspired character Fred the Clown, which he wrote and drew as a webcomic before self-publishing the material as small press titles. These were collected as a single volume by Fantagraphics Books in 2004. His work on Fred the Clown was nominated for two Eisner Awards, a Harvey Award, a Reuben Award and an Ignatz Award. Langridge also does illustration work.

For Doctor Who magazine he did one-panel humorous images for the "Review" section. He also does a weekly illustration for the UK TV magazine Inside Soap.

He has also provided artwork for Shaenon Garrity's Smithson webcomic.

Langridge has provided the Fin Fang Four, with Scott Gray, first for Marvel Monsters, then a series of short stories and in late 2008 as a digital comic on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited.

He was the writer, and usually the cartoonist for Boom! Studios' The Muppet Show comics (2009–12).

In 2012, he scripted for IDW a four-issue Popeye miniseries, illustrated by Bruce Ozella, so successful that even before the second issue it was expanded into an "ongoing" series, according to Langridge.
Source: Wikipedia
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Andy Lanning biography

Andy Lanning biography

Andy Lanning; UK
Andy Lanning is a British comic book writer and inker, known for his work for Marvel Comics and DC Comics, and for his collaboration with Dan Abnett.

Lanning works primarily at Marvel Comics and DC Comics as an inker. He has also pencilled books, such as his creation The Sleeze Brothers.

Lanning's writing has included his and Abnett's 2000 relaunch of DC's title Legion of Super-Heroes. The two co-created the Resurrection Man character with artist Jackson Guice in 1997.

Lanning and Abnett also collaborated on an ongoing Nova series for Marvel, which premiered in 2007. The duo previously authored a Nova miniseries as a tie-in for the Marvel crossover Annihilation, starring Richard Rider, now the only member of the Xandarian Nova Corps. This led into their piloting the Annihilation: Conquest storyline, and the core characters from this went on to form the new Guardians of the Galaxy.

Lanning teamed up with Abnett to write the latest incarnation of The Authority, with Simon Coleby on art, as part of the World's End relaunch of the core Wildstorm titles.

It was announced at Wizard World Chicago in June 2008 that Abnett and Lanning had signed an exclusive deal with Marvel, which they hoped would give them time to work on the "cosmic" characters they dealt with, as well as more earth-based ones. The contract allows them to finish existing commitments, so they will be able to finish their fifteen issue run on The Authority. Their first major work which followed this was "War of Kings", which depicted the "cosmic" aftermath of Secret Invasion. He is also writing a Marvel/Top Cow crossover, Fusion.
Source: Wikipedia
Andy Lanning art
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Walter Lantz biography

Walter Lantz biography

Walter Benjamin Lantz (27 April 1899 – 22 March 1994; New York, USA)
Walter Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for creating Woody Woodpecker and creating Walter Lantz Productions.

Lantz was born in New Rochelle, New York to Italian immigrant parents, Francesco Paolo Lantz (formerly Lanza) and Maria Gervasi from Calitri. According to Joe Adamson's biography, The Walter Lantz Story, Lantz's father was given his new surname by an immigration official who Anglicized it. Walter Lantz was always interested in art, completing a mail order drawing class at age twelve. He was inspired when he saw Winsor McCay's animated short, Gertie the Dinosaur.

While working as an auto mechanic Lantz got his first break. A wealthy customer named Fred Kafka liked his drawings on the garage's bulletin board and financed Lantz's studies at the Art Students League of New York. Kafka also helped him land a job as a copy boy at the New York American, owned by William Randolph Hearst. Lantz worked at the newspaper and attended art school at night.

By the age of 16, Lantz was working in the animation department under director Gregory La Cava. Lantz then worked at the John R. Bray Studios on the Jerry On The Job series. In 1924, Lantz directed, animated, and even starred in his first cartoon series, Dinky Doodle, and soon replaced George "Vernon" Stallings as head of production (In the 1920s, Bray began to concentrate on competing with Hal Roach, the "king of two-reelers"). Lantz moved to Hollywood, California after Bray switched to a publicity film studio in 1927, where he worked briefly for director Frank Capra and was a gag writer for Mack Sennett comedies.

In 1928, Lantz was hired by Charles B. Mintz as director on the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon series for Universal Studios. Earlier that year, Mintz and his brother-in-law George Winkler had succeeded in snatching Oswald from the character's creator, Walt Disney. Universal president Carl Laemmle grew dissatisfied with the Mintz-Winkler product and fired them, deciding instead to produce the Oswalds on the Universal lot. While schmoozing with Laemmle, Lantz wagered that if he could beat Laemmle in a game of poker, the character would be his. As fate would have it, Lantz won the bet, and Oswald was now his character.

Lantz inherited many of his initial staff, including animator Tom Palmer and musician Bert Fiske from the Winkler studio, but importantly he chose fellow New York animator, Bill Nolan, to help develop the series. Nolan's previous credentials included inventing the panorama background and developing a new, streamlined Felix the Cat. Nolan was (and still is) best known for perfecting the "rubber hose" style of animation. In September 1929, Lantz released his first cartoon, Race Riot.

By 1935, Nolan parted company with Lantz. Lantz became an independent producer, supplying cartoons to Universal instead of merely overseeing the animation department. By 1940, he was negotiating ownership for the characters he had been working with.

When Oswald had worn out his welcome, Lantz needed a new character. Meany, Miny and Moe (three ne'er-do-well chimps), Baby-Face Mouse, Snuffy Skunk, Doxie (a comic dachshund) and Jock and Jill (monkeys that resembled Warner Brothers' Bosko) were some personalities Lantz and his staff came up with. However, one character, Andy Panda, stood out and soon became Lantz's headline star for the 1939-1940 production season.

In 1940, Lantz married actress Grace Stafford. During their honeymoon, the couple kept hearing a woodpecker incessantly pecking on their roof. Grace suggested that Walter use the bird for inspiration as a cartoon character. Taking her advice, though a bit skeptical, Lantz debuted Woody Woodpecker in an Andy Panda short, Knock Knock. The brash woodpecker character was similar to the early Daffy Duck, and Lantz liked the results enough to build a series around it.

Mel Blanc supplied Woody's voice for the first three cartoons. When Blanc accepted a full-time contract with Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. and left the Lantz studio, gagman Ben Hardaway, the man who was the main force behind Knock Knock, became the bird's voice. Despite this, Blanc's distinctive laugh was used throughout the cartoons.

During 1948, the Lantz studio created a hit Academy Award-nominated tune in "The Woody Woodpecker Song", featuring Blanc's laugh. Mel Blanc sued Lantz for half a million dollars, claiming that Lantz had used his voice in later cartoons without permission. The judge, however, ruled for Lantz, saying that Blanc had failed to copyright his voice or his contributions. Though Lantz won the case, he paid Blanc in an out-of-court settlement when Blanc filed an appeal, and Lantz went in search for a new voice for Woody Woodpecker.

In 1950, Lantz held anonymous auditions. Grace, Lantz's wife, offered to do Woody's voice; however, Lantz turned her down because Woody was a male character. Not discouraged in the least, Grace made her own anonymous audition tape, and submitted for the studio to listen to. Not knowing who was behind voice he heard, Lantz picked Grace's voice for Woody Woodpecker. Grace supplied Woody's voice until the end of production in 1972, and also performed in non-Woody cartoons. At first, Grace voiced Woody without screen credit, thinking that it would disappoint child viewers to that know Woody Woodpecker was voiced by a woman. However, she soon came to enjoy being known as the voice of Woody Woodpecker, and allowed her name to be credited on the screen. Her version of Woody was cuter and friendlier than the manic Woody of the 1940s, and Lantz's artists redesigned the character to suit the new personality.

Lantz's harmonious relationship with Universal, the studio releasing his cartoons, was jarred when new ownership transformed the company into Universal-International and did away with many of Universal's company policies. The new management insisted on owning licensing and merchandising rights to Lantz's characters. Lantz refused and withdrew from the parent company by the end of 1947, releasing 12 cartoons independently through United Artists in 1948, into the beginning of 1949. Financial difficulties forced Lantz to shut down his studio in 1949. Universal-International re-released Lantz's UA (and several earlier) cartoons during the shutdown and eventually came to terms with Lantz, who resumed production in 1951. From this point forward, Lantz worked faster and cheaper, no longer using the lush, artistic backgrounds and stylings that had distinguished his 1940s work.

Lantz used his TV appearances on The Woody Woodpecker Show (which began in 1957) to demonstrate the animation process. Later, Lantz entertained the troops during the Vietnam War and visited hospitalized veterans. Walter Lantz was a good friend of movie innovator George Pal.

By the 1960s other movie studios had discontinued their animation departments, leaving Walter Lantz as one of two producers still making cartoons for theaters (the other studio was DePatie-Freleng Enterprises). Lantz finally closed up shop in 1972 (by then, explained, it was economically impossible to continue producing them and stay in business as rising inflation had strained his profits), and Universal serviced the remaining demand with reissues of his older cartoons.

In retirement, Lantz continued to manage his properties by licensing them to media. He continued to draw and paint, selling his paintings of Woody Woodpecker rapidly. On top of that, he worked with Little League and other youth groups in his area. In 1982, Lantz donated 17 artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, among them a wooden model of Woody Woodpecker from the cartoon character’s debut in 1941. The Lantzes also made time to visit hospitals and other institutions where Walter would draw Woody and Grace would do the Woody laugh for patients.

In 1990 "Woody Woodpecker" was honored with a star on the Hollywood "Walk Of Fame". In 1993, Lantz established a ten thousand dollar scholarship and prize for animators in his name at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Walter Lantz died at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California from heart failure on March 22, 1994, aged 94.

Some characters in the Lantz universe (both cartoons and comics) are Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (formerly), Space Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, Homer Pigeon, Chilly Willy, Charlie Chicken, Wally Walrus and many more.

In 1959 Lantz was honored by the Los Angeles City Council as "one of America's most outstanding animated film cartoonists".
In 1973 the international animation society, ASIFA/Hollywood, presented him with its Annie Award.
In 1979 he was given a special Academy Award "for bringing joy and laughter to every part of the world through his unique animated motion pictures", being the second animator to receive this award (the first was Walt Disney — who received it three times —, while Chuck Jones was in 1995 the third — and the latest — to receive the merit).
In 1986 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Source: Wikipedia
Walter Lantz art
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Don Lawrence biography

Don Lawrence biography

Don(ald Southam) Lawrence (1928 - 2003)
Born in East Sheen, London, on 17 November 1928, Don Lawrence used his gratuity from National Service to attend Borough Polytechnic to study art. He became a regular contributor to the superheroic adventures of Marvelman in 1954 before producing the Western strips Wells Fargo and Pony Express for Zip and Swift He found work with Fleetway, drawing another Western, Billy the Kid, before finding his niche drawing historical strips Karl the Viking, Olac the Gladiator and Maroc the Mighty.

Fully colour strips for Lion Annual and Bible Story, including the life of Herod the Great in the latter, led to him being offered The Trigan Empire, which debuted in the short-lived Ranger in September 1965 before finding a regular home in the educational weekly Look and Learn from June 1966. Lawrence was to draw this iconic strip for 11 years in all.

After 11 years on Trigan Empire, Lawrence helped create Storm, the story of a man catapulted into the distant future, for the Dutch weekly comic Eppo. Lawrence painted 22 volumes of Storm's adventures between 1976 and 1995. That year, Lawrence lost the sight in one eye and a final volume was completed with the assistance of Liam McCormack-Sharp in 2001. Lawrence was widely respected in continental Europe (he was made a Knight of the order of Oranje-Nassau by Queen Beatrix of Holland) and won many awards. He died on 29 December 2003, aged 75.

See our DON LAWRENCE BOOKS including The Trigan Empire, Storm, Karl the Viking and The Legacy.

See also our illustrators  special edition The Art of Don Lawrence which gives a comprehensive look at the career of this iconic comic strip artist and illustrator and is packed with illustrations, including complete story reprints from Bible Stories, Look and Learn and Ranger.

Enjoy our ORIGINAL TRIGAN EMPIRE ART by Don Lawrence, Ron Embleton, Oliver Frey, Philip Corke, Miguel Quesada and Gerry Wood.

Don Lawrence art
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Frank Marsden Lea biography

Frank Marsden Lea biography

Frank Marsden Lea (born 1910; UK)
Frank Marsden Lea, born 1910. A talented artist and illustrator who, inter alia, designed posters for London County Council Tramways 1928-1932 and painted many illustrations for Look and Learn during the 1960s.

He trained at the Nottingham Art School; 1916-1917 and also attended Manchester School of Art.
Source: London Transport Museum & Illustration Art Gallery
Frank Marsden Lea art
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Garry Leach biography

Garry Leach biography

Garry Leach (born 19 September 1954)
Garry Leach is a British comics artist, editor and publisher. Garry began his career working for 2000AD drawing on series such as Dan Dare and M.A.C.H. 1. He later worked on the series The V.C.s.

In 1981 he joined Dez Skinn's company, Quality Communications. where he worked as art director and was the first artist on Alan Moore's revival of Marvelman in Warrior. His work on Marvelman proved highly popular but due to his slow pace of working, he left art duties to be replaced by Alan Davis. For Davis' first few stories Leach worked as inker to allow Davis to settle into the strip. Leach's work on Marvelman remained the prototype, as Davis has insisted that "my ‘style’ on the series was simply a bargain-basement attempt to imitate what Garry had done".

Leach and Alan Moore also created Warpsmith for Warrior together; Warpsmith featured in its own strip and eventually became a supporting character in Marvelman. With Dave Elliott, Leach set up Atomeka Press in 1988. Their first title was the anthology title, A1, which included new Warpsmith material by Moore and Leach.

After Atomeka and A1 finished in the mid-1990s, Leach worked mainly in advertising, but returned to comics in the late 1990s as John McCrea's inker on Hitman. He also drew the first issue of Warren Ellis's series Global Frequency, and designed many of that title's characters. He continues to contribute inking work to 2000 AD, most recently on Future Shorts with Rufus Dayglo.

In 1999 he won the Eisner Award for 'Best Single Issue/Single Story' for Hitman #34: "Of Thee I Sing", with Garth Ennis and John McCrea.

Leach has illustrated cards for the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering.

He has returned to publishing and restarted Atomeka Press with Dave Elliott. A1 is being published again with a mix of old and new material, including new work by Leach. The A1 Sketchbook was released in late 2004, containing four Miracleman-related pin-ups (although the pin-ups were not explicitly said to be Miracleman for possible legal reasons). A variant of the sketchbook was produced, featuring a Miracleman front cover and Kid Miracleman back cover by Leach.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Joseph Lee biography

Joseph Lee biography

Joseph Lee
Joseph Lee was born in Burley-in-Wharfedale, near Leeds, on 16 May 1901. He won a scholarship to Leeds Grammar School, and showed such a talent for art that, in about 1915, his widowed mother managed to find enough money for him to attend Leeds College of Art. Here his contemporaries included Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Henry Carr. Lee left the School of Art in 1918, and in 1919 took a correspondence course with Percy V. Bradshaw, sending specimens of his work to London papers. Despite the rejections, his mother found £20 for him to go to London, where he freelanced until the money ran out. He then found a job in the art department of an advertising agency.
Lee's first published cartoon appeared in The Bystander in 1920, and in the following year, when still only nineteen, he became political cartoonist on the ailing Pall Mall Gazette, with a Press Gallery pass for the House of Commons. Strand Magazine described him as "the youngest of the men of his craft who have now an established reputation." Lee spent hours sketching from the Gallery, and never forgot the disillusionment of discovering "the contrast between a Member's official utterances on the floor of the House, and the private opinions that Member afterwards expressed in the smoking-room."
In 1923 the Pall Mall Gazette was absorbed by the Evening Standard, and Lee moved on to the Liverpool Daily Courier, as cartoonist and Art Editor. In 1924 he returned to London to work on the Sunday Express, and also did some work deputising for Strube on the Daily Express. However, at this time Lee had left-wing sympathies, and in 1926 he resigned from the Sunday Express over its coverage of the General Strike. He managed to support himself with freelance work, producing a daily political or social cartoon for the Daily Chronicle, as well as syndicated cartoons for Allied Newspapers, and cartoons for Bystander, Tatler, Sketch, London Opinion, Punch and others. He then persuaded the editor of the Daily Mail to take him on, and, although the initial project failed, Lee stayed on as general artist for the paper. In 1933 he even created a comic strip - "Pin-money Myrtle" - which ran for several years.
In 1934 Lee sent four trial cartoons to the London Evening News, one of which was published on 14 May 1934 as the first of a series entitled "London Laughs." In these cartoons Lee proved particularly adept at depicting cricket-loving colonels, chubby and slightly vulgar ladies with sparkling jewellery, and dapper City gents. With the outbreak of war in September 1939 the Evening News changed the title of the series to "Smiling Through." These were also popular, and within a few years Lee was producing two cartoons a day - "Smiling Through" for the Evening News, and another for the Allied Group of provincial papers, published in Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff, Sheffield, Middlesborough, and Aberdeen. In May 1945 "Smiling Through" reverted to the original title of "London Laughs" - although in 1946, when Lee visited the United States, it briefly appeared as "New York Laughs".
In 1949 Lee moved to Wokingham, outside London, sending his cartoons to the Evening News by train. As a contemporary account noted, Lee travelled into London on only two or three days each week, drawing his cartoons at home. To satisfy the daily publishing schedule he worked on two cartoons simultaneously, using separate drawing-boards: "At 7.30 every morning the raw material for the cartoonist's work arrives in the form of a specially-early delivery of all the daily papers. During the next two hours he squeezes the news, which is so often mainly depressing, for humorous ideas. Then, with the best two in mind, he sets out for an hour's walk. As he crosses fields or calls on farm friends, 'London Laughs' take shape ready for drawing-board and pencil the moment he gets home. By lunch-time two have been lightly sketched in."
After sketching the roughs, Lee spent between two and four hours "inking in" the two cartoons, before sending them to the paper by the 10.10am train next day. Because he relied on the morning papers of the day before publication, Lee was always two days behind the news, and when his cartoons reached the Evening News the editor had the job of deciding "whether the laugh will 'hold' - whether events sustain the idea of the cartoon." If they had not been overtaken by events the cartoons went into the paper. In 1963 the CCGB presented Lee with an award for Special Services to Cartooning, and in July 1966, having become the longest running daily cartoonist in history, with almost 9,000 "London Laughs" appearing in the Evening News, he retired to Norwich.
Lee's politics gradually changed, and by now he was a "vociferous Tory." Even in retirement he continued to produce political cartoons three days a week for the local Eastern Daily Press, and to work for children's comics such as Wham! and Whizzer & Chips. In addition Lee drew advertisements, including some for British Railways. Lee was influenced by Rowlandson and Phil May, and worked mostly in black and white using a brush and watercolour. His second marriage was to the painter Kathleen Seaman, daughter of the writer and editor H.W. Seaman. Joe Lee died on 15 March 1975.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Maurice Leloir biography

Maurice Leloir biography

Maurice Leloir (1 November 1853 - 7 October 1940; Paris, France)
Maurice Leloir, born on 1 November 1853 in Paris where he died on 7 October 1940, was an illustrator , watercolourist, draftsman, printmaker, writer and French collector.

Son and pupil of the painter Auguste Leloir and watercolourist Héloise Colin, he exhibited first at the Salon of French artists, becoming a member. He was involved, along with many other painters, in the Crozant School located in the valleys of Creusoises.

Around the 1890s, Maurice Leloir and his students, inspired by the new-fangled photographs, inundated the illustrated book market with illustrations that accurately represented the costumes and attitudes of the past, and their illustrations were hugely appreciated by the readership.

A prolific illustrator of books - notably including children's books such as Richelieu by Theodore Cahu, magazines and periodicals, he founded the Society for the History of Costume in 1907.

His brother, Alexandre-Louis Leloir, was also an accomplished and acknowledged painter and illustrator, and the author Guy de Maupassant dedicated his new book 'Idyll' to him in 1884.
Source: Wikipedia
Maurice Leloir art

See illustrators issue 14 for a Maurice Leloir feature article.
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Rick Leonardi biography

Rick Leonardi biography

Rick Leonardi (born 1957; Philadelphia, USA)
Rick Leonardi was born in Philadelphia in 1957 and grew up in New England. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1979, then had several jobs for over a decade. He started drawing for Marvel in 1980. He has drawn for various titles, including 'Spider-Man', 'Hulk', 'Vision and Scarlet Witch', 'Cloak & Dagger' and 'Uncanny X-Men'.

In the 1990s, he co-created 'Spider-Man 2099', as well as the mini-series 'Colossus TPB: God's Country' and 'Rampaging Hulk'. In addition to his Marvel work, he was present at Dark Horse in the 1990s with 'Predator' and at DC with 'Batman' and 'Teen Titans'.
Source: Lambiek
Rick Leonardi art
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Brian Lewis biography

Brian Lewis biography

Brian Moncreif Lewis (3 June 1929 - 4 December 1978; UK)
Brian Lewis is an artist whose reputation has continued to endure long after his death. Known in science fiction circles for his often abstract covers for New Worlds, Science Fantasy and Science Fiction Adventures and in comic circles for his contributions to House of Hammer, appreciation of Lewis's work has grown as more of his work for other papers and magazines is discovered.

Brian Moncreif Lewis was born on 3 June 1929 and served his National Service with the RAF. An interest in science fiction led him to co-edit and contribute to The Medway Journal fanzine in the early 1950s. His first professional sale relating to SF is thought to be an illustration relating to Journey Into Space for the Radio Times. His connections with Nova Publications began in 1954 and, between 1957 and 1962 he painted some 80 covers for their three SF magazines, his work often showing a strong surrealist influence. During the same period he also painted a number of rather more straight-forward covers for Digit Books.

Lewis made his comic strip debut in 1959, drawing early strips for Lone Star and TV Comic. However, it was with Jet Ace Logan in Tiger that he found his feet and there followed a 13-month run on Captain Condor in 1961-63. Lewis also proved adept at drawing sports and war strips, culminating in work for Eagle where he drew Mann of Battle and Home of the Wanderers. Science fiction was not forgotten and Lewis drew SF tales for Boys' World, Tiger and Hurricane. In 1964 he also proved himself as a humour artist when he began contributing cartoon strips to Wham! and, over the next few years, humour and adventure strips often ran concurrently in the pages of Smash!.

In the late 1960s, Lewis worked for the Central Office of Information on public information films and also contributed to the Beatles' animated movie Yellow Submarine. He suffered a heart attack in 1970 and struggled for some years, drawing strips for Countdown and Look-In and a series of scientific biographies for All About Science. In 1976, his agent contacted Dez Skinn suggesting Lewis as an artist for the upcoming House of Hammer; Skinn was only persuaded after seeing samples, but the connection proved fruitful, eventually leading to a brief association between Lewis and 2000AD where he drew covers and, briefly, the Dan Dare strip.

A busy artist in the late 1970s, painting books covers and contributing to The Muppet Show Diary, annuals, Vampirella and Target magazine, Lewis suffered a heart attack and died on 4 December 1978, aged only 49. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Gaetano (Tanino) Liberatore biography

Gaetano (Tanino) Liberatore biography

Gaetano (Tanino) Liberatore (born 12 April 1953; Quadri, Italy)
Gaetano Liberatore, better known as Tanino Liberatore, is an Italian comics author and illustrator. His best known fictional character is RanXerox.

Born in Quadri (province of Chieti), Liberatore went to high school in Pescara where he met comics artist Andrea Pazienza. He later finished his architectural studies at the University of Rome. From 1974 to 1978, he designed record covers for RCA. In 1978 he met Stefano Tamburini and published his first work in Tamburini's comics magazine Cannibale. In 1978 RanXerox was born, a cyborg-punk, ultra strong creature created by Tamburini. Several stand alone hardcover albums ensued, translated in several languages.

Liberatore's work has been republished in several international comics magazines (Transfert, Métal Hurlant, A Suivre, L'Écho des savanes, Chic). The cover of Frank Zappa's The Man from Utopia album features an illustration by Tanino Liberatore, showing Zappa as RanXerox. In 1984 he drew the album cover for the New York City based ska band, The Toasters, first 7 inch release, Beat Up. During this time he also created a few 'one of a kind' pieces of art work for Toasters frontman Robert "Bucket" Hingley.

He has also done art direction for films.
Source: Wikipedia
Gaetano (Tanino) Liberatore art
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Kenneth Lilly biography

Kenneth Lilly biography

Kenneth Norman Lilly (30 December 1929 - Spring 1996; UK)
Kenneth Lilly was one of the finest of British nature artists, his drawings of wildlife - most notably the kind of wildlife you would find in your hedgerow or nearby fields - drawn with a passion and interest for the subject.

Born in Bromley, Surrey, on 30 December 1929, Lilly became a prolific contributor of illustrations and covers to Look and Learn and Treasure. He produced a number of notable series for the former, illustrating Maxwell Knight’s This Month in the Country (1967) and Ken Denham’s series on Animal Families (1968).

Lilly was also a regular illustrator of books from the 1970s onwards and an exhibition of his animal paintings was held at the Medici Galleries in London in 1983. Some of the best illustrations can be found in Kenneth Lilly’s Animals (1988). As well as books, Lilly also illustrated a set of stamps entitled Friends of the Earth, released in 1986.

In 1992, Dorling Kindersley published a series of short children's books under the title Kenneth Lilly's Animal Ark, which grouped animals with common features (feathers, scales, spots or stripes) with a single sentence description by Angela Wilkes. A later series by Tessa Potter featured different animals and different seasons. One of his most notable series was a number of books which depicted animals at life size.

Lilly, who lived in Devon, died in the spring of 1996, aged 66. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Kenneth Lilly art
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Barrie Linklater biography

Barrie Linklater biography

Barrie Linklater (born 1931, UK)
Born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, in 1931, Barrie Linklater studied at Woolwich Polytechnic School of Art and began his artistic career working in a London studio before leaving for Australia where he worked as a freelance for four years.

Returning to London, Linklater forged a reputation as a fine portrait artist and subsequently as an equestrian artist, his first commission in the latter area coming from HRH the Duke of Edinburgh during a sitting for a portrait in 1975. Equestrian work has since been commissioned by Her Majesty The Queen and the City of London amongst many others. In all he has 13 paintings in the Royal Collection and his work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery. Linklater lives and works in Berkshire.

In the 1960s, Linklater contributed illustrations to Look and Learn's adaptation of H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon in 1963 and later, in 1967, began producing covers and illustrations on a semi-regular basis. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Barrie Linklater art
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Virginio Livraghi  biography

Virginio Livraghi biography

Virginio Livraghi (born 1924, Cremona, Italy)
Virginio Livraghi was a painter, born in Dovera in the province of Cremona in the Lombardy region of Italy, in 1924. Dovera is only 35 km southeast of Milan and it is no surprise that Livraghi gravitated to this centre of artistic excellence. In the late 1940s he worked as an animator on the famous Italian film La Rosa di Bagdad directed by Anton Gino Domenighini and quickly found a market for his illustrations with Milanese publishers Carroccio, Gino Conte, Fratelli Fabbri, Piccoli and others in the 1950s and 1960s.

His talents lay in illustrations for young children, especially fairy tales (including classics like Snow White, Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland and Pinocchio) and stories about animals (including Penny, an Italian translation of Isobel St Vincent's Penny Pullet, and Maria Pia Pezzi's Curly Pig, which made the reverse journey in translation into English).

Working via Creazioni Dami, Livraghi began producing delightful colour strips and illustrations for British nursery comics, beginning with a run of strips starring the comical adventures of Playhour's Leo the Friendly Lion, taking the strip over from Harold McCready in April 1960 and later handing over to another ex-animator, Bert Felstead, in February 1961.

That year, Livraghi began drawing illustrations and covers for the British educational magazine Knowledge and the Italian nursery magazine Michelino, published by the Fabbri brothers. In February 1969 he returned to the British market after a four year absence to draw illustrations featuring Brer Rabbit for Once Upon a Time. These beautiful colour illustrations would continue to appear until October 1971, although Henry Fox provided an increasing number of fill-ins from mid-1970.

It is a shame so little is known about this immensely talented artist: he was one of the best artists in the field of anthropomorphic animals to work in the UK; in Brer Rabbit especially he captured the humour and sense of mischief of the stories he illustrated as Brer constantly outwitted the wily creatures who wanted to capture him. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Virginio Livraghi art
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Darren Lock biography

Darren Lock biography

Darren Lock
Not much is known about this talented artist, who worked as a cover illustrator for Souvenir Press during the early 2000s.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Darren Lock art
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Vincent Locke biography

Vincent Locke biography

Vincent Locke (born 1966, USA)
Vince Locke is an American artist, often associated with grotesque and violent fantasy and horror images, although his work has also included mainstream superhero work for Batman and The Spectre, as well as work for British comics 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine.

Born in Michigan in 1966, the son of a sign painter. Influenced by artists like Andrew Wyeth and turn of the century illustrators, Locke came to fan attention with his work on Deadworld, a zombie horror series created by Stuart Kerr and Ralph Griffith for their own small press outfit Arrow Comics. Deadworld, by Kerr and Locke, was launched in 1987 but lasted only seven issues before the collapse of the black & white market in the US. Deadworld was continued by Caliber Comics and Locke continued drawing the series until 1991 as well as inking Baker Street in 1989-91.

Locke found work with Vertigo, drawing or inking episodes of The Sandman (1992-93), American Freak: A Tale of the Un-Men (1994), Sandman Mystery Theatre (1994-95), Witchcraft: La Terreur (1998) and The Books of Faerie: Auberon's Tale (1998). For Paradox Press Locke drew A History of Violence (1997) written by John Wagner, which was filmed by David Cronenberg in 2005 with Viggo Mortensen in the lead role.

The artist has also been long associated with the death-metal band Cannibal Corpse. He has painted covers for all their albums starting with Eaten Back to Life in 1989. The ultraviolent images - ranging from zombie doctors to visceral birth scenes. Locke also illustrated the graphic novel Evisceration Plague which was distributed during the band's tour promoting the album of that name and featured stories based on each of the songs.

In the early 2000s, Locke was a popular contributor to White Wolf and Wizards of the Coast, producing many illustrations for the latter's Forgotten Realms role-playing games. In 2006-09, Locke drew a number of Tales from the Black Museum one-off stories for Judge Dredd Megazine, a Tharg's Future Shocks and two Judge Dredd yarns for 2000AD. He has also drawn illustrations for two collections of stories by Caitlin R. Kiernan, Frog Toes and Tentacles (2005), Tales from the Woeful Platypus (2007) and A is for Alien (2009).

Locke, married and with three children, lives in the suburbs of Michigan. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Bernard Long biography

Bernard Long biography

Bernard Long (born 1926)
Bernard Long was an accomplished British book illustrator and comic book artist. Long was a contributor to Jack & Jill, drawing the light-hearted adventures of Fliptail the Otter in around 1970, and to the Jack & Jill and Teddy Bear annuals. He was an extraordinarily talented and reliable contributor to many Amalgamated Press/ Fleetway/ IPC titles and the Young Telegraph during the 1990s.

He was an exceptionally good nature artist and it seems very likely he contributed to various educational magazines as well as nursery comics. It is thought that he contributed to Look and Learn in the late 1960s and back page artwork for Fun-To-Do in later years, for which information I should thank David Slinn, who recalls that Long was "quietly efficient, very reliable and, as a result, somewhat taken for granted."

His extensive bibliography includes:
Prehistoric Animals, by Rupert Oliver (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1982 ISBN 0-340-27165-5)
Prehistoric Man, by Rupert Oliver (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983 ISBN 0-340-28608-3)
Dinosaurs, by Rupert Oliver (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983 ISBN 0-340-28609-1)
Strange and Curious Creatures, by Rupert Oliver (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1984 ISBN 0-340-34718-X)
Monster Mysteries, by Rupert Matthews (Hove, Wayland, 1988 ISBN 1-85210-354-X)
Lost Treasures, by John Wright (Hove, Wayland, 1989 ISBN 1-85210-357-4)
Victorian Children, by Anne Steel (Hove, Wayland, 1989 ISBN 1-85210-816-9)
Egyptian Farmers, by Jim Kerr (Hove, Wayland, 1990 ISBN 1-85210-906-8)
The First Settlements, by Rupert Matthews (Hove, Wayland, 1990 ISBN 1-85210-769-3)<Actinic:Variable Name = '1'/>
Greek Cities, by Barry Steel (Hove, Wayland, 1990 ISBN 1-85210-778-2)
Plague and Fire, by Rhoda Nottridge (Hove, Wayland, 1990 ISBN 0-7502-0048-0)
Forests, by Michael Chinery (London, Kingfisher, 1992 ISBN 0-86272-915-7)
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Bernard Long art
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Francisco Solano López biography

Francisco Solano López biography

Francisco Solano López (26 October 1928 – 12 August 2011; Argentina)
Francisco Solano López was a comics artist. Acknowledged as one of the most influential Argentine comics artists, he was best known as the co-creator of El Eternauta.

López began his career in 1953 working for the publishing house Columba where he illustrated the series Perico y Guillerma. Working for Editorial Abril he met Héctor Germán Oesterheld, assigned to illustrate his series Bull Rocket for the magazine Misterix. They collaborated on the series Pablo Maran and Uma-Uma, before joining to start Oesterheld's publishing house Editorial Frontera. For the Frontera first publication of the monthly Hora Cero, the team produced the series Rolo el marciano adoptivo and El Héroe. López also alternated as artist on the Ernie Pike series with Hugo Pratt, Jorge Moliterni and José Antonio Muñoz. On September 4, 1957 in the publication of Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal, the science-fiction series El Eternauta made its first appearance.

A success, El Eternauta came to the attention of the authorities as the series featured commentary of the political situation of Argentina and neighbouring Chile, prompting López to flee for Spain to avoid possible arrest. In 1959 López began working for Fleetway in Madrid and later London, producing artwork for a host of series, including Galaxus: The Thing from Outer Space, Pete's Pocket Army, The Drowned World, Janus Stark, and Kelly's Eye.

Having returned to Argentina, López resumed collaboration with Oesterheld on El Eternauta II in 1968 with a new publishing house, Editorial Records. He also started work on science-fiction saga Slot-Barr with writer Ricardo Barreiro, and the police series Evaristo with Carlos Sampayo. In the late 70s López again fled Argentina following persecution from the authorities, and from Madrid he arranged the publication of both El Eternauta and Slot-Barr with the Italian magazines LancioStory and Skorpio.

In the 90s, Solano Lopez produced work in the erotic comics genre, achieving hits with El Prostíbulo del Terror, from a story by Barreiro, and Silly Symphony, made for the magazine Kiss Comix.

Solano López died on August 12, 2011 from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Source: Wikipedia
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Orson Lowell biography

Orson Lowell biography

Orson Byron Lowell (1871 - 1956; Wyoming, Iowa)
Orson Lowell was an American artist and illustrator of covers and interiors for leading magazines.

Born in Wyoming, Iowa, Lowell was the son of landscapist Milton H. Lowell. He was 11 years old when his family moved in 1882 to Chicago. Lowell attended public school in Chicago until 1887, when he began taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied with J.H. Vanderpoel and Oliver Dennett Grover.

In November 1893, Lowell moved to New York City to build his career. By 1905, his work was in high enough demand to allow him to buy a house in New Rochelle, New York while maintaining his studio in New York. New Rochelle came to be a well-known art colony and illustrator's community soon after his arrival. Residents there included Norman Rockwell, Edward Penfield, J. C. Leyendecker, Franklin Booth and Coles Phillips.

By 1907, he became known for his cartoons with a social message published in the humor magazine Life. A contemporary of illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, Lowell illustrated for major magazines, including American Girl, Century, Cosmopolitan, The Delineator, Judge, Ladies' Home Journal, Leslie's Weekly, McCall's, McClure's, Metropolitan Life, Puck, The Saturday Evening Post, Scribner's, Redbook, Vogue and Woman's Home Companion.

Lowell was a very social individual, joined most of the arts clubs in New York and held positions in many of them. Among these were the Players Club, the Society of Illustrators (where he was among the first group of non-founding members), the Guild of Free Lance Artists (where he served as president 1924-25), the New Rochelle Art Association and the New Rochelle Public Library, where he was a trustee from 1930 until 1944.
Source: Wikipedia
Orson Lowell art
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Antonio Lupatelli biography

Antonio Lupatelli biography

Antonio Lupatelli (1930 - 18 May 2018, Italy; Busseto, Italy)
Antonio Lupatelli was an Italian children's book illustrator and author, best known under his pen name Tony Wolf. Early in his career, he has also worked as a comic artist. In his home country he worked for Il Corriere dei Piccoli, where his best known comic series was 'Ciccio Sprai' (1974-1975). He was one of the Italians working for the British publishing company Fleetway, where his text comics appeared in their children's weeklies and annuals. Lupatelli was among several artists to illustrate the comic series 'Freddie Frog' and 'Fun in Toyland'. In Italy he is however best remembered for his many book illustrations starring animals, gnomes, dragons, elves and other fairy tale characters. Among his other pseudonyms are Oda Taro, L'Alpino and Antony Moore.

Antonio Lupatelli was born in 1930 in Busseto, Italy, not far from Parma. He moved to Cremona during his childhood, where he remained for the rest of his life. It even earned him the nickname "Il Lupo di Cremona" ("The Wolf of Cremona"). Lupatelli began his career in the 1950s where he worked for the studio of the brothers Nino and Toni Pagot, who'd later become famous as the creators of 'Calimero'. In 1958 he became a storyboard artist for the French company Payot Film. As a comic artist, he joined Roy D'Ami's art studio around 1957. He was one of the artists for D'Ami's comic about little Indian 'Hayawatha' in the Italian magazine Il Corriere dei Piccoli (1957-1959, 1961-1962), along with Mario Faustinelli, Carlo Porciani and Antonio Canale.

A far more durable collaboration took off around the same time when Lupatelli started working for the British publisher Fleetway, most likely also through D'Ami. Fleetway published various children's magazines, including Playhour and Jack and Jill.Lupatelli was one of several artists who created illustrations and text comics about children, cute animals and fairy tale characters for these publications, including Sergio Asteriti, Jim Turnbull, Peter Woolcock and Gordon Hutchings. Asteriti worked as Lupatelli's assistant. Two of the comic series he worked on were 'The Funny Tales of Freddie Frog', starring a character originally created by Peter Woolcock, and 'Fun in Toyland'. He contributed to the magazines' annual books, for which he most notably drew 'Little Sooty', a boy who is half human, half scooter, from scripts by D'Ami. In 1961 Lupatelli also illustrated 'Moony of the Moon' for the Harold Hare annuals, which told the adventures of an extraterrestrial Moon creature who now tried to live on Earth among his human friends. The feature was later drawn by British artist John Donnely.

By 1961 Lupatelli lent his talent the Italian publishing company Fratelli Fabbri Editori, where he created illustrations for school books and fairy tales. A notable children's book series was 'I Cuccioli' ('The Spoons'), which he signed with Tony Wolf (an anglicized version of his original name). He also worked for the monumental Italian comic magazine Il Corriere dei Piccoli, where he illustrated the comic strip 'Ciccio Sprai' (1974-1975), based on scripts written by Charles Triberti. With writer Giampaolo Barosso he furthermore created 'Robi e Robo' (1974-1975) around the same period. He also made a comics version of 'Lo Schiaccianoci' ('The Nutcracker'). From 1978 onwards Lupatelli worked almost exclusively for Dami Editore, writing and illustrating over 200 children's and toddlers' books, most notably the six-volume series 'Le Storie del Bosco' ('The Woodland Folk', 1984-1985), which contains large illustrations about a group of forest inhabitants and their encounters with giants, elves and other fairy tale creatures. Among his other books are 'Le Storie', 'Il Viaggio delle Meraviglie' (1988), 'Le più belle filastrocche' (2003), as well as the children's Bible 'Bibbia dei piccoli' (2005) and a series of "touch and feel" books. He furthermore illustrated the bedtime story series 'Piccoli racconti di animali' (1997-1998) by Pierangela Fiorani.

One of the longest collaborations of Lupatelli's career took off with publisher Lo Scarabeo in Turin. During the 1980s he illustrated a series of tarot cards for them. One of these, 'Tarocchi degli Gnomi. I Tarocchi più piccoli del mondo' (1987), was the smallest tarot game in the world. During the same decade Lupatelli also created the seven-part children's book series 'The Woodland Folk' (1984-1985). From 1990 on he made graphic contributions to the book adaptations of the Swiss claymation TV series 'Pingu'. His artwork was also used for the audiocassette and VHS video covers. Other animal characters whose adventures he visualized in book form were the panda 'Pandi' and the bear 'Teddy'.

In March 2018 Antonio Lupatelli was a honorary jury member during an international illustration contest in Villa Grimaldi Nescio in Nervi, in which more than 860 children's book illustrators from all over the world took part. At this occasion a special retrospective book was published which reflected upon his entire career. Sadly enough the artist passed away two months later.
Antonio Lupatelli art
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Lewis Lupton biography

Lewis Lupton biography

Lewis F Lupton (1909 - 1996)
Illustrator for Macmillan's History Class Pictures, published from 1951.
Lewis Lupton art
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Sydney Seymour Lucas biography

Sydney Seymour Lucas biography

Sydney Charles Seymour Lucas (9 May 1878 - 1954; England)
Sydney Seymour Lucas was an illustrator and portrait painter, the son of artist J. Seymour Lucas, R.A. (1849-1923) and his wife, also an artist, Paris-born Marie Elizabeth, daughter of Louis Dieudonne de Cornelissen (1851-1921), then living at 21 Queen Square. Born Sydney Charles Seymour Lucas on 9 May 1878, he was baptized at St John the Evangelist, Westminster, on 1 June 1878. In the 1880s, the family moved to 1 Woodchurch Road, St. John, West Hampstead, a purpose-built studio and home designed by John Seymour Lucas's friend, the architect Sydney Williams-Lee.

Lucas was educated in Suffolk (in 1891, he was boarding with James George Easton, vicar of St Margaret's Church, Ilkeshall St Margaret), Westminster School (1892-95) and at the Royal Academy Schools, and began selling illustrations professionally around the turn of the century (some references give the dates his work flourished as 1904-40).

Lucas was married in 1905 to Mary Douglas Clark. By 1911, Lucas and his family, which now included a son, Arthur Henry Seymour-Lucas, born in 1908, were living at 61 Rudolph Road, Bushey, Hertfordshire. Mary Douglas Seymour-Lucas died, in 1933, at the early age of 48 at the time, the Lucas family were living at 64 Falconer Road, Bushey.

Lucas worked at 6 Albert Studios, Albert Bridge Road, Battersea, in 1934. His younger sister, Marie Ellen Seymour Lucas (later Grubbe), also studied as an artist.

Lucas died in Blyth, Sussex, in 1954, aged 76.
From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Sue Macartney Snape biography

Sue Macartney Snape biography

Sue Macartney Snape
Sue Macartney Snape has been poking fun at British stereotypes for over fifteen years in the pages of the Saturday Telegraph Magazine. With pin-sharp commentary by Victoria Mather, she has skewered fanciful fashions and foibles since 1994 in their weekly 'Social Stereotypes' column. John Julius Norwich has described her as a "master of caricature" and has said that her paintings "illustrate the English social scene more brilliantly and with greater accuracy than those of any other painter working today." Cartoonist Martin Rowson has said her artwork "can encapsulate an entire social milieu in a drooping eyelid or a flared nostril." Elsewhere she has been described as the "Wodehouse of Art".

Born in Tanzania, Sue Macartney Snape grew up in Australia, arriving in London in 1980. She has exhibited widely, including sell out exhibitions with David Ker, Jonathan Clark and at the Sloane Club. She has also painted many commissions, including ones from Glyndebourne, The Metropolitan Opera and Barbara Amiel (Mrs. Conrad Black).

She won the 2004 Pont Award for drawing the British Character for her funny, colourful caricatures of folks from all walks of life, which have been collected in a series of books over the years. Another book, Araminta's Wedding, was a humorous story of the upper classes by Jilly Cooper. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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MacIntyre biography

MacIntyre biography

MacIntyre (Active 1970s)
Not much is known about this accomplished artist who we know worked for Look and Learn magazine during the 1970s.
MacIntyre art
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Peter Maddocks biography

Peter Maddocks biography

Peter Maddocks (born 1 April 1928; Birmingham, UK)
Peter Maddocks is a noted British cartoonist who has contributed to many of the UK's leading Daily and Sunday national papers with cartoon series such as ‘Four D. Jones’ at the Daily Express in the late 50s and early 60s and 'No.10' in the 60s and 70s.

He has also created animated films for the BBC including The Family Ness, Penny Crayon and Jimbo and the Jet-Set.

Maddocks was born in Birmingham. In 1939 he won a scholarship to the Moseley School of Art in that city. He was taught by a man named Norman Pett at the Moseley School of Art. At the age of 15, Maddocks decided to leave school and join the Merchant Navy from 1943-1949.

After his 6 years in the Navy, he set up his own advertising agency where he designed cinema posters and wrote western series. He produced his first cartoons for the Daily Sketch from 1953-1954. From 1955-1965 he worked for the Daily Express where he created his infamous comic strip 'Four D. Jones'. In this comic, a cowboy traveled in the fourth dimension. This comic was a success for 10 years for the Sunday Express.

He later became the Cartoon Editor for Express Newspapers from 1965-1966 and from 1968-1971 was the Special Features Editor of King Magazine. Maddocks' characters tend to be goggle-eyed with splayed-out fingers.

Maddocks has made contributions to the following:
Daily Star
Daily Record
Manchester Evening News
Mail on Sunday
Private Eye
Daily Mirror
Daily Telegraph
Evening Standard
Evening News
Sunday Telegraph
Mayfair
Woman's Own
Source: Wikipedia
Peter Maddocks art

See illustrators issue 3 for a Peter Maddocks feature article.
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Robert Maguire biography

Robert Maguire biography

Robert A Maguire (3 August 1921 - 26 February 2005; USA)
Robert Maguire painted over 600 covers for such publishers as Pocket, Dell, Ace, Harper, Avon, Silhouette, Ballantine, Pyramid, Bantam, Lion, Berkeley, Beacon and Monarch - virtually every mainstream publishing house in New York - making his original cover art a tour de force in the last half of the twentieth century.

Robert Maguire began his education at Duke University, but like so many others of his generation, left for service in World War II. Upon his return, his interest in art led him to the Art Students League, where his instructor was the famed Frank Reilly. Two of Maguire's more noteworthy fellows included Clark Hulings and Jimmy Bama, graduates all of the class of '49. Mr. Maguire is a Member Emeritus of The Society of Illustrators.

Bob Maguire's career took off immediately with his first work for Trojan Publications: cover art for their line of small pocket pulps, with titles like Hollywood Detective Magazine (Oct. 1950). Maguire did three of the eight covers for this pocket pulp series. From then on, his career blossomed.

His classic period of the 50s and 60s grew out of his skilled female images, some of the best and most memorable of the period. Maguire's mastery of the femme fatale created a vintage paperback icon: his women are passionate yet somehow down to earth, approachable, though sometimes at your own risk. These images compel one to wonder what led up to that instant in time and where it will lead next, the very stuff of timeless art.

Robert Maguire continued evolving and his contributions to the golden age of noir art are legion. That period, fraught with reaction and change, produced extremes. Life in the 1950s was set against a backdrop of Joe McCarthy, Ezekiel Gathing and their ilk, ranting of fear and hatred, while the USA was experiencing a social revolution that reverberates to this day. R. A. Maguire's work is a window on the birth of that revolution.
Robert Maguire art
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Roger Mahoney biography

Roger Mahoney biography

Roger Mahoney (born 1933; Portsmouth, UK)
Roger Mahoney is a British cartoonist who has worked on a great many newspaper strips. He was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire in 1933, and from 1947 to 1951 studied art at the Southern College of Art, Portsmouth.

He began freelancing as a cartoonist while working as a professional musician – a drummer – and sold his first drawings to the Daily Sketch and Daily Mirror. In 1954 he sent some of his cartoons to Barry Appleby, creator of the “The Gambols” cartoon strip in the Daily Express. Appleby encouraged him and became a lifelong friend, introducing him to Lancaster, Giles and Artie…

Mahoney created his first strip (“Mopsy”) for the weekly Fleetway Publications magazine Princess, and afterwards contributed strips and jokes to a number of publications including the Scottish Daily Record (“Agony Is” and “Sammy the Caterpillar”), Woman’s Realm (“Mum”), Daily Mirror (“Millie”, “The Greens”, and “Mandy Capp”), Sunday Express (“L”) and Daily Star (“What’s in a Name?” and “Last of the Summer Wine”)…
On Barry Appleby’s death in 1996 Mahoney took over the writing and drawing of “The Gambols” for Express Newspapers…

After the death of Reg Smythe in 1998 Roger Mahoney also took over drawing “Andy Capp” for the Daily Mirror, along with writer Roger Kettle and they have been credited since 2004.
Roger Mahoney art
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Bill Mainwaring biography

Bill Mainwaring biography

Bill Mainwaring (Active 1950s - 1970s)
Bill Mainwaring was a British comic book artist, who was active in at least the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1950s, he drew 'Son of Glory' and 'Pathfinder' for Express, followed by 'Blue for Danger' and 'The Eric Sykes Story' for T.V. Express in 1960 and 1961. Another TV-related comic by Mainwaring was 'Bootsy & Snudge', that ran in TV Comic in 1961. In 1964, he was also present in Wham! with the adventure/humour strip 'Billy Binns and His Wonderful Specs' (script by Ted Cowan).

Mainwaring was the artist of the romantic and exciting girls' comic 'Princess Anita' in School Friend around the same time. This serial also ran in Dutch magazine Sjors. Mainwaring continued to work for girls' magazines and annuals until the 1970s, appearing regularly in such publications as June, Tammy and Sally (with 'Sara's Kingdom').
Source: Lambiek
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Milo Manara biography

Milo Manara biography

Maurilio Manara (born September 12, 1945; Italy)
Milo Manara is an Italian comic book writer and artist, best known for his erotic approach to the medium.

After architecture and painting studies, he made his comics debut in 1969 drawing for Genius, a Fumetti neri series of pocket books from publisher Furio Vanio in the wake of the popularity of Kriminal and Satanik.

In 1970 he provided illustrations for the magazine Terror, and starting in 1971 drew the erotic series Jolanda de Almaviva written by Francisco Rubino, issued in small format by publisher Erregi. Joining the youth magazine Il Corriere dei Ragazzi, he worked with Rubino, Carlo Barbieri, Mino Milani and Silverio Pisú.

With Pisú Manara he launched the publications Telerompo and Strategia della Tensione in 1974 and the series Alessio, Il Borghese Rivoluzionario, and with writer Mino Milani the series La parola alla giuria in 1975. Manara and Pisú later went on to publish Lo Scimmiotto (The Ape) along the story of the Chinese Monkey King in Alter Linus in 1976, and with Alfredo Castelli, L'Uomo delle Nevi (The Snowman) in 1978.

During this period Manara began publishing work in several Franco-Belgian comics magazines including Charlie Mensuel, Pilote and L'Écho des savanes. Manara created the first stories featuring HP and Giuseppe Bergman, which grew to become a large body of work. The character "HP" is based on Manara's friend, the Italian comics creator Hugo Pratt, and a collaborator on some of Manara's most acclaimed work, initially Tutto ricominciò con un'estate indiana (1983, Indian Summer) and later El Gaucho (1991). Manara also completed two stories working with another of his heroes, Federico Fellini. In his own right Manara has been commended on his skills as a scenarist, as with the western L'uomo di carta (1982, The Paper Man).

Manara's reputation for producing comics that revolve around elegant, beautiful women caught up in unlikely and fantastical erotic scenarios became solidified with work such as Il Gioco (1983, also known as Click or Le Déclic), about a device which renders women helplessly aroused, Il Profumo dell'invisibile (1986, Butterscotch), introducing the heroine Miele (Honey) and a sweet-smelling body-paint which makes the wearer invisible, and Candid camera (1988, Hidden Camera) featuring the same protagonist in further explicit adventures. In the following years of combining sequels, original work and collaborations with noted creators, Manara's production continued in this direction to explore erotic comics themes with an artistic and storytelling expression in a manner considered unique to Manara.

In the U.S. The Ape was serialised in Heavy Metal in the early 1980s and Manara received some exposure through collaborations with Neil Gaiman and other artists.

In connection with their joint project Quarantasei, in July 2006, Manara designed a helmet for Moto GP rider Valentino Rossi, specifically made for the Italian GP in Mugello.

Rossi declared: "He has drawn some kind of a mythical history of my life, in cartoons, with some of my heroes such as Steve McQueen, Enzo Ferrari, Jim Morrison, and other characters such as my dog Guido, the chicken Osvaldo and a lot of beautiful women! I really like Milo...he's a person that I have admired for a long time. "

In 2003, Manara's work featured on the cover of Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro's second studio album "The Vertigo of Bliss". Manara also created the artwork for all the singles released from this album.

In October 2006, Manara developed character designs for the animated television series City Hunters. The series, of ten 11 minute episodes, blends traditional animation techniques with modern CGI, to be broadcast across all of Latin America on the FOX network throughout 2006 and 2007.

Manara penciled an X-Men project written by Chris Claremont for Marvel Comics. X-Men: Ragazze in fuga was released in April 2009 in Italy this was later reprinted by Marvel Comics in English as XMen:women.

In 2013 he started to do variant covers for issues of Marvel comic books.

See illustrators  issue 25 for a Milo Manara feature article.

Milo Manara art
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Stan Manoukian biography

Stan Manoukian biography

Stanislas Manoukian (born October 1969; Paris, France)
Born in Paris, Stan Manoukian is a veteran illustrator working in the comic book industry in France and the U.S and as a designer and story boarder for movies and commercials.

Vintage Science Fiction, Classic Monsters and Romantic writers like Edgar Poe, Lovecraft or Mary Shelley as well as Jules Verne or H.G. Wells filled his childhood and influenced him for ever, spending most of his time drawing strange creatures which look like a mix between aliens from outer space and Cthulhu's spawn.

In 2006 he started to draw "A Monster A Day" as way to develop his own critter universe and the project grew bigger and bigger. Inspired by old books, dictionaries and old engraved plates and paintings owned by his father, he likes to represent his creatures in the manner of the old encyclopedias; indexing them, classifying them and describing them.


STAN AND VINCE
Stan Manoukian and Vincent Roucher are known for their collective oeuvre as Stan & Vince. Their best known series is the science fiction saga 'Vortex' (1993-2003).

Both artists were born in Paris in 1969; Vince in August and Stan in October. They enrolled at the Estienne art school in 1985, where they quickly joined forces. The duo started working together after their graduation in 1988, doing designs for the press, concept and character design for animation projects and animated films. Among their creations were the designs for the characters and backgrounds of the puppet series 'Les Bestioles'.

Their first comic books were solo efforts, however. Stan produced the fantasy album 'Parasite' at Zenda in 1992, while Vince created 'Eden' for the same publisher at the same time.

Their first joint comics project, 'Vortex', was a remarkable one. Each story of the science fiction series 'Vortex' (Delcourt, 1993-2003) was told twice: once from the perspective of character Campbell (drawn by Stan) and once from that of Tess Wood (drawn by Vince). The series about the hunt for time traveling Nazis is full of tributes and references to the American comic books and pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s.

Stan and Vince's passion for American pop culture was also evident in their parody comic album 'Putain de télé!', which was published by Albin Michel in 1995.

Working from their Parisian studio, Stan and Vince contributed stories to magazines like L'Echo des Savanes, Spirou and Fluide Glacial, while continuing to work on commercial projects.

Their work was picked up by Dark Horse Comics in the United States, who assigned them to draw 'The Shadow and the Mysterious 3' (1994), a graphic novel starring the 1930s pulp novel hero, written by Mike Kaluta and Joel Goss. This was followed by the crossover 'The Shadow and Doc Savage' (two issues, 1995) with Steve Vance, and a run on 'Tarzan' with Lovern Kindzierski in 1996. They also provided artwork for 'The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine' (based on Dave Stevens' classic comic book hero) and covers for 'Star Wars' and 'Ghost'.

Their work in France continued with a couple of collaborations with French comedian and film director Benoît Deléphine, such as the science fiction comics 'L'Imploseur' (Albin Michel, 2000), 'La Bombe' (Albin Michel, 2001) and 'Godkiller' (Albin Michel, 2005). An art book of their work called 'Time Capsule' was published by Delcourt in 2006, with a foreword by Lewis Trondheim. The book reveals their inspirations (cartoons, cinema, animation, advertising, science fiction) and show their talent and fantasy. Stan and Vince then teamed up with Swiss comics legend Zep for the creation of 'Les Chronokids' (Glénat, 2008-2014), a children's comic about two time travelling kids.

Stan and Vince have also participated in the series 'L'Atelier Mastodonte', a collective comic series about a fictional comics atelier (Dupuis, 2013-2014). They returned to science fiction for 'Metalfer' (Dargaud, 2013) and 'Now Future' (Glénat, 2016), the latter being another collaboration with Benoît Deléphine. Stan's solo book 'Diary of Inhuman Species' (Ankama, 2009) presents a travel log of the author's supposed alien abduction, while Vince's solo work include a contribution to the erotic anthology 'Premières fois' (Delcourt, 2008) and the erotic comic 'Esmera' with Zep (Glénat, 2015).
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia & Black Dragon Press
Stan Manoukian art
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Maroc biography

Maroc biography

Maroc (Robert Coram)
"Maroc" was the pen name of Robert Coram who contributed to London Opinion, Answers, Blighty, Inky Way Annual, Weekend Mail, Passing Shows, Sunday Chronicle, Daily Dispatch, Children's Own Favourite, Men Only, Strand, Sunday Telegraph and Razzle - especially the 4-6-page Reggie series.

In the 1960s he also drew Sportrait pocket cartoons for the Evening Standard. Coram's comic strips included Prairie Pete and Pronto, Ann Howe, Bob and Tanner, Wibble and Wobble and his pocket cartoon series included Wartime Humour and To-Day's Smile.
Maroc art
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Esteban Maroto biography

Esteban Maroto biography

Esteban Maroto (born 1942; Madrid, Spain)
Esteban Maroto is a Spanish comic book artist. Born in Madrid, he began his career in the 1960s with series like Cinco por infinito, published in English by Continuity Comics as "Zero Patrol" (heavily retouched by editor Neal Adams).

'Wolff' by Maroto was published in the UK by New English Library in the magazine Dracula. Dracula was published in the US by the Warren Publishing Company under the title Dracula Book 1 in 1972; the cover was by Esteban Maroto.

In the 1970s he started to be known in his own country when the magazine Trinca published Alma de Dragón. He designed the "metal bikini" for the character Red Sonja, in Savage Tales #3, Comixscene #5, and in the first issue of The Savage Sword of Conan and pencilled her first solo story, which was inked by Neal Adams and Ernie Chan. He also redesigned Satana for Marvel Comics and drew her second solo story in Vampire Tales #3. In issue 4 of the same series he drew an outstanding adaptation of the short story "The Drifting Snow" by August Derleth.

Maroto joined Warren Publishing in November 1971 when artists from the Spanish agency Selleciones Illustrada started appearing in the their three horror magazines, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Maroto's first story, "Wolfhunt", appeared in Vampirella #14. Maroto quickly became one of the most well known and critically acclaimed Spanish artists at Warren. He would eventually draw 101 stories for them, more than any other artist except Jose Ortiz. Maroto won the Warren Award for best artist/writer in 1972, and his story "A Scream in the Forest" won the best art in a story award in 1973. Maroto remained with Warren until its folding in 1983.

Two Maroto's series were reprinted in Eerie and Vampirella. Manly, renamed Dax the Warrior, was reprinted in issues 39-41, 43-50 and 52 of Eerie. All of issue 59 was dedicated to Dax, which reprinted again the majority of these stories. His series Tomb of the Gods was reprinted in Vampirella issues 17 through 22.

He also contributed black and white illustrations for the Roger Zelazny book Changeling and Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away.

He later worked on the series Amethyst, Zatanna, Atlantis Chronicles, The Savage Sword of Conan, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Dracula: Vlad the Impaler and X-Men Unlimited. In Italy, he worked for Sergio Bonelli Editore's series Brendon.

See illustrators Spanish Special for an Esteban Maroto feature article.

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William Francis Marshall biography

William Francis Marshall biography

(William) Francis Marshall (1901 - 1980)
Francis Marshall studied at Slade before entering the world of advertising illustration. In 1928 he began a 10-year relationship with Condé Nast, drawing for Vogue. In 1959 he wrote a successful book on drawing entitled Magazine Illustration.
William Francis Marshall art
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Tony Masero biography

Tony Masero biography

Tony Masero
Tony Masero has been an established illustrator for many years. He studied Graphics in London in the sixties and worked as a Graphic Designer before taking up illustration full time.

During his career he has completed numerous illustration commissions for clients across the world, in both publishing and advertising.

Nowadays he still uses his Graphic Design skills and combines these with traditional painting and digital techniques to create his cover artwork.

He combines his painting with creative writing and has had many novels published. Westerns and Thrillers are his main output, for which he also creates his own cover art.

Tony is well known as a Dr Who and Western cover artist, including covers for several Target novelisations.

He lives with his wife Diana in the UK and Portugal.
Source: http://www.artnillustration.com/index.html and Illustration Art Gallery
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Fortunino Matania biography

Fortunino Matania biography

Fortunato Fortunino Matania (16 April 1881 - 8 February 1963; Italy and UK)
Born in Naples in 1881, Fortunino Matania trained at his father's studio and illustrated his first book at the age of 14. He studied in Paris, Milan and London, where he worked on The Graphic. He returned to Italy at the age of 22 for military service in the Bersaglieri. He then returned to London where he joined the staff of The Sphere.

With the outbreak of World War I he became a war artist and spent nearly five years at the front drawing hundreds of sketches. His work was admired by military experts and critics alike for his technical accomplishment and scrupulous accuracy. His war art features in virtually every history or encyclopaedia of WW1 ever produced.

At the end of World War I Matania illustrated numerous ceremonies in London, including the coronation of Edward VII. During the first half of the 20th century he literally illustrated history as it happened. He was made a Chevalier of the Crown of Italy, and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and The Royal Institute of Art.

In his studio he maintained an enormous collection of artefacts to aid him in his work. He rarely made preliminary sketches, preferring to begin an elaborate illustration without previous preparation. It was as if he had a exact mental photograph of the art before he began to paint or draw. His reputation was such that he was visited in his studio in London by Annigoni, Russell Flint, and John Singer Sargent, and his work is collected and admired by many of today's greatest artists and illustrators.

He was an expert at historical scenes from all periods of history and his Ancient Roman and classical illustrations are particularly admired and collected. During WW2, many of his paintings and drawings were destroyed when his studio was bombed in the Blitz. He was so prolific, however, that many examples of his art still survive.

Matania was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", the seminal collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

His pictures were published every week in Illustrazione Italiana from 1895 - 1902, in The Graphic from 1901 - 1904, and in The Sphere from 1904 to 1963. He also contributed regularly to Britannia & Eve, and The Passing Show, where his Edgar Rice Burroughs illustrations appeared amongst others. His work has been used in numerous magazines and books such as Look & Learn, London Life and many others.

Enjoy our BOOKS featuring Fortunino Matania and some fascinating Matania EPHEMERA.

See illustrators issue 3 for a Matania feature article and more of his art in PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition and a mini feature in illustrators issue 14.

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918, including Fortunino Matania.

Fortunino Matania art
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Lorenzo Mattotti biography

Lorenzo Mattotti biography

Lorenzo Mattotti (born 24 January 1954; Brescia, Italy)
Lorenzo Mattotti is an Italian comics and graphical artist as well as an illustrator. His illustrations have been published in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Vogue, The New Yorker, Le Monde and Vanity Fair. In comics, Mattotti won an Eisner Award in 2003 for his Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde graphic novel.

Mattotti was born in Brescia (Lombardy).

He studied architecture when he was young, but did not finish the course. Instead he became a comics artist. After a few traditional comic stories he decided he wanted to tell different kinds of stories and portray these in a different style.

Il Signor Spartaco was the first comic made under this ambition. The story centred around the dreams of a train passenger making it possible for Mattotti to use forms and colors in a way previously unseen in the classic French-Belgian comic world. He focused more on the inner world of his characters en the total absence of an adventure was also a radical change in the comics universe.

Mattotti is mainly inspired by painters, musicians, writers and directors. To him, the relation between text and image should be the same as with text and music. The two should enrich each other. Unusually, in Mattotti's comics the text illustrates the illustration instead of the other way around. He always makes sure the text has enough freedom for multiple interpretations.

With Fires (1986) Mattotti made his name in the comics world. The story revolves around the struggle between nature and civilization. The main character is a crew member of a pantser ship who has to make sure a mysterious island is ready for civilization. Dreams and associations again play an important role. Although Fires has a clear story line, Mattotti evades an explicit, chronological story. The inner battle of the main character to change and get out of his strict environment is more important. Graphically the album is a highlight in his artistic career: he worked six years on the book, which resembles a gallery of paintings.

After "Fires" Mattotti earned a reputation of being a master of color in comics. Therefore, the black and white comic "The Man at the Window" (1992) surprised his public. Together with his ex-wife Lilia Ambrosi he made this comic about a man who searches his way in the world and who has troubles with relationships. This semi-autobiographical novel is an intense and sensitive comic in which he uses different outings for pen drawings. He uses lines who as a text tell a story. The story is not so important and completely up to the reader to interpret.

In Caboto (1992), a comic book he drew as a commission from the Spanish government to commemorate the 500th birthday of Christopher Columbus' discovery of America, he tells the adventures of the explorer Sebastian Cabot. The story is poetic in tone and revolves around the fears and dreams of the people involved, including the women aboard the explorers' ship and the impressions the Indians might have had when first viewing the ships. Inspired by 16th century mannerism, he used a different style.

Stigmates (1998) was a new black and white comic with linear drawings, but darker and more nervous than The Man In The Window. It tells the tragic life of a drunk who wakes up one day with stigmata.
Source: Wikipedia
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F Stocks May biography

F Stocks May biography

F Stocks May (flourished 1950s)
Illustrated many older children's books during the 1950s including 'The Boys Book Of Heroes' and 'Heroes Through the Ages'.

Illustrated the serialisation of the Lone Pine book 'Seven White Gates' in the comic Mickey Mouse Weekly between December 1953 and March 1954.
F Stocks May art
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Angus McBride biography

Angus McBride biography

Angus McBride (1931 - 2007)
Angus McBride is one of the world's most respected historical and fantasy illustrators, and contributed to numerous books, magazines and articles, including the classic Look & Learn, JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, and more than 70 Osprey titles in the past three decades. Born in 1931 of Highland parents, but orphaned as a child, he was educated at Canterbury Cathedral Choir School. He worked in advertising agencies from 1947, and after National Service, emigrated to South Africa where he lived for several years, before relocating to Ireland before his sad demise in 2007.
Angus McBride art
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Jock McCail biography

Jock McCail biography

John 'Jock' McCail (1894 - 1962; County Durham)
John "Jock" McCail was born in the first quarter of 1894 in West Hartlepool, County Durham, the son of a shipyard worker. He started out apprenticed as a shipyard joiner, probably to his stepfather, Thomas Rogers, while taking evening classes in art.

About 1920 he moved to Dundee to work in the art department of DC Thomson's newspaper The Courier. His brother Bill joined him there about five years later, but soon after, Jock moved to London and became a freelance artist.

He settled in London as a freelance artist in 1925. He began an association with Amalgamated Press and drew many adventure serials for the Amalgamated Press and Odhams Press comics, including:
~ "City of Jewels" (1931) for Mickey Mouse Weekly
~ "Abdul the Desert Robber" (1932) for The Joker
~ "The White Knight" (1935) for Sparkler
~ "Son of an Outlaw" (1936) for Sunbeam
~ "The Ruby of Ra Tae" (1937) for Crackers
~ "Pantha the Bandit" (1938) and "Duke, Dan and Darky" (1939) for Comic Cuts
~ "Get-Your-Man Gilligan" (1938-39) for Jolly Comic


He also did illustration work for The Champion and The Triumph, including a cover for the UK introduction of 'Superman' in 1938. His comic 'City of Jewels' was published in Mickey Mouse Weekly in 1931.

He also illustrated prose stories for The Champion and The Triumph. However, paper shortages during the Second World War reduced his publishing opportunities. His brother Bill joined him in London in 1940, and they both found work with Gerald Swan's comics.

Strips Jock drew included:
~ "Ah Wong" (1940-49) for New Funnies
~ "Bring 'Em In Hank" (1940) for Slick Fun
~ "Darrell King" for Thrill Comics (1940-48), New Funnies (1949) and Slick Fun (1950)
~ "Dene Vernon" (1940-46) for Thrill Comics
~ "Tiny Tim & Co" (1940) for Extra Fun
~ "Adolf the Awful" (1940) for Topical Funnies
~ "Jungle Jokers" (1941) for Fresh Fun
~ "Hyam Wright" (1946) for Comicolour
~ "Iron Boy" (1950) for Cute Fun
~ "TNT Tom" (1951) for Dynamic Thrills

He also contributed to Merry Maker, Swell Comic, Merry Moments, Funny Tuppenny, Crash Comics, Jolly Arrow, Squibs and others. He died in the second quarter of 1962 in Hendon, Middlesex.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Jock McCail art
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James E McConnell biography

James E McConnell biography

James E. McConnell (1903 - 1995)
Well known as a paperback and book jacket artist, particularly for Westerns, James McConnell never turned his hand to picture strips. Leonard Matthews, seeing his paperback work on display in a bookshop, soon had him working as a cover artist for Amalgamated Press, doing the majority of covers for the all text Western Library, a great many of the Cowboy Comics Library covers and a fair number of covers for Thriller Comics Library.

His robust, action-packed style is instantly recognisable. He always seemed more at home with cowboys rather than historical swashbucklers, his covers for the Western Library being of a particular high standard. Nonetheless, some of his historical covers for Thriller Comics Library are very satisfying for he is a great professional and can turn his hand to any genre. McConnell was an incredibly prolific artist, frequently completing a cover painting and the rough for another painting in the same day.
James E McConnell art

See illustrators  issue 11 for a McConnell feature article and more of his art in PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.

McConnell is a first class water-colourist and his colour technique has often been compared with - and even, on occasion, confused with - that of Reginald Heade. See for yourself!
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Harold McCready biography

Harold McCready biography

Harold McCready (22 February 1897 - 1972; Salford, Manchester, UK)
He was born in Salford, Manchester, the son of Samuel and Eliza McCready, on 22 February 1897. His father was born in Ireland but came to Lancashire with his family where he worked as an elementary school teacher in Broughton, marrying Eliza McCance in Salford in 1894. Harold was raised in Broughton and began working as a colliery labourer in Chesterfield at the age of 14. He served in the Notts & Derby Regiment and became a 2nd Lieutenant in the Warwick Regiment during the Great War.

McCready married Lily Moss in Leeds, Yorkshire, in 1918 and had a son, Desmond Roy McCready who was born in London in 1924. Released from war service in around 1919, he subsequently became an animator, working on the 'Bonzo' series of cartoons for New Era Films in 1924-26. At that time he was living at 133 Goldhawk Road, Hammersmith, moving after his marriage to 126 Goldhawk Road. The marriage may not have lasted as he appears to be living on his own in later years at various addresses. During the 1930s he lived at 7 Westwell Road, Wandsworth SW11 [1929-34], 153 Merlin Road, Welling, Bexley Heath [1934-36] and The Drive, Blendon Hall, Bexley Heath [1937-39].

McCready was active as a comic strip artist in the 1930s, drawing 'In the Days of Robin Hood' for The Boys' and Girls' Daily Mail (1934) and 'Invaded by Vikings' for Jolly Jack's Weekly, a comic supplement given away with The Sunday Dispatch (1934).

Unfortunately, he then disappears until 1956 when he began painting the cover strip, 'Jolly Days with Dicky and Dolly', for Playhour. What he was doing in between is unknown, although his clear abilities and large-eyed style might have found a home in, say, Mickey Mouse Weekly, as fellow Dicky and Dolly artist Ron Nielsen had, or in the Associated Press' other nursery papers like Tiny Tots.

These were quite delightful strips, obviously aimed at the very young — simple storylines that could be related in three or four frames, colourfully drawn and full of cheery animal characters. Basically, the tried and tested formula that dated back to Mrs Hippo's Kindergarten fifty years earlier. McCready was probably at his best when he was showing winter landscapes, with snow piled thick on fences and branches, and colourful scenes of summer holidays, fireworks nights and Christmas day frolics. You'll find lots of examples of McCready's Dicky and Dolly at the Look and Learn Picture Gallery.

McCready's work on the strip was intermittent on occasions as he also worked on 'Jack and Jill of Buttercup Farm', the cover strip for Jack and Jill in 1957; when Dicky and Dolly were displaced from the front cover in 1959 by 'Tiger Tim and the Bruin Boys', who joined Playhour when it merged with Tiny Tots, McCready was one of the main artists during its nine month run.

Dicky and Dolly returned for another three months as cover stars (1959-60) before they were replaced by TV star 'Sooty', drawn by Gordon Hutchings. McCready launched a new strip, 'Leo the Friendly Lion', based on a character who had appeared in Playhour Annual a couple of years earlier. He remained on the strip only a couple of months before sharing duties drawing 'Sooty' on the cover with Gordon Hutchings, taking over for a run between September and November 1960, plus one episode published in February 1961.

After that, McCready disappears from the pages of Playhour and I've yet to find any other work by him. McCready was living at 21 Jedburgh Street, Battersea S.W.11 in 1957-61 and Brian Woodford, a sub on Playhour in the 1950s, recalls visiting him at Battersea, describing his as "a short, very unassuming man, nothing at all what you would expect of an artist."

Colin Wyatt recalls: "I also went to his house on a couple of occasions to pick up artwork. I remember that on each occasion he just opened his front door, passed over the package, and closed it again."

This latter point is echoed by Brian Woodford: "The first time I went there I remember I couldn't find the street or his house and thought how nice it would be to get there and be offered a glass of something refreshing. Instead, no conversation, simply 'Here it is. Goodbye.' Very unlike Ron Embleton. I remember going to his home and being invited into his studio where we sat and talked about art for more than thirty minutes."

(I'm reminded of a story I heard about Ted Kearon, the artist of Robot Archie, who lived down on the south coast. Anyone visiting Ted to collect artwork was kept waiting on the doorstep by Mrs. Kearon who was keen never to have her husband distracted from his work. If they needed to talk to him, they weren't invited in; instead, Kearon — wearing a smock to keep his clothes clean — was allowed onto the doorstep to quickly deal with any business.)

McCready was, it would seem, fanatical about bullfighting. "I was told that (he) had taken thousands of feet of film using a 35mm film camera which he often carried around in a large holdall," says Colin.

I believe Harold McCready subsequently moved to 7 Luxborough House, Luxborough Street, W.1 [1966-67], and later moved to Richmond upon Thames, where he died in early 1972, aged 75.
Source: Steve Holland (Bear Alley)
Harold McCready art
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Ian McIntosh biography

Ian McIntosh biography

Ian T P McIntosh (active 1960s and 1970s)
Not much is known about this talented artist. During the 1960s and 1970s his accomplished illustrations graced many wildlife books with ornithological portraits, including wild ducks, redstart and parrots.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Ian McIntosh art
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Dave McKean biography

Dave McKean biography

David McKean (born 29 December 1963)
Dave McKean is an English illustrator, photographer, comic book artist, graphic designer, filmmaker and musician. His work incorporates drawing, painting, photography, collage, found objects, digital art and sculpture. McKean's projects include directing an original feature titled Luna and a book with the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

After a trip to New York City in 1986 during which he failed to find work as a comics artist, McKean met writer Neil Gaiman, and the pair collaborated on a short graphic novel of disturbing childhood memories, Violent Cases, published in 1987. This was followed in 1988 by a Black Orchid miniseries and Hellblazer covers for DC Comics.

In 1989, he illustrated the Batman graphic novel, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, with writer Grant Morrison. Comics historian Les Daniels observed that "Arkham Asylum was an unprecedented success, selling 182,166 copies in hardcover and another 85,047 in paperback...McKean produced 120 pages of paintings for Arkham Asylum, offering powerful visual reinterpretations of the classic characters."

From 1989–1997 McKean produced the covers for Gaiman's celebrated series The Sandman, all its collected editions, and many of its spin-offs. In 1998, the cover images from The Sandman were released as one compiled volume titled Dustcovers: The Collected Sandman Covers. Further collaborations with Gaiman produced the graphic novels Signal to Noise in 1992 previously serialised in The Face magazine, about a dying filmmaker and his hypothetical last film; and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch, which explored similar themes as Violent Cases through the imagery of the Punch and Judy show. In 1995 McKean wrote and illustrated a book for The Rolling Stones called Voodoo Lounge to tie-in with the release of their album of the same name.

Between 1990 and 1996 McKean wrote and drew the ten issues of Cages, an ambitious graphic novel about artists and creativity, illustrated in a stripped-down pen-and-ink style influenced by Alberto Breccia, José Antonio Muñoz and Lorenzo Mattotti. Cages was published as single volume by Kitchen Sink Press in 1998, and in a new edition by NBM Publishing in 2002. In 2010, Cages was released by Dark Horse Comics in paperback.

McKean designed the posters for the Raindance Film Festival for five years from 1996-2000. In 1997 he wrote, directed and edited a ninety second trailer for the festival. In 2005, McKean designed the poster for the 32nd Telluride Film Festival. In 2006, he designed projections, sets and directed film clips for the Broadway musical Lestat, adapted from Anne Rice's novels, with music and lyrics by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

McKean has created a few books documenting his travels using only illustrations. Examples include Postcards from Vienna, Postcards from Barcelona, Postcards from Paris (2008), and Postcards from Brussels (2009). He wrote another book of 200 pages called Squink (éditions BdArtist(e)) that gathered a number of drawings in 15 chapters.

McKean has collaborated with Neil Gaiman on three children's picture books, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (1998), The Wolves in the Walls (2003) and Crazy Hair (2009), and illustrated Gaiman's children's novels Coraline (2002) and The Graveyard Book (2008), as well as S. F. Said's Varjak Paw (2003). The Wolves in the Walls: a Musical Pandemonium premiered as a play in Glasgow in 2006 with Improbable and the National Theatre of Scotland. He illustrated David Almond's The Savage published in April 2008, and Slog's Dad published in September 2010. In 2011, McKean collaborated with Richard Dawkins on The Magic of Reality, a science book for children.

In 2008, McKean collaborated with Heston Blumenthal on The Fat Duck Cookbook, an autobiography, compilation of key recipes and insight into Blumenthal's scientific method. The book was nominated in the James Beard Foundation Awards for Cooking from a Professional Point of View and won the Photography/Illustration award.

McKean created six images for the Royal Mail's Mythical Creatures collection, which featured depictions of mythical creatures found in British folklore, including dragons, unicorns, giants, pixies, mermaids, and fairies. The collection was released in the UK on 16 June 2009. The Presentation Pack contains short descriptions of each subject by author Neil Gaiman.

MirrorMask, McKean's first feature film as director, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005. The screenplay was written by Neil Gaiman, from a story by Gaiman and McKean. A children's fantasy which combines live action and digital animation, MirrorMask was produced by Jim Henson Studios and stars Stephanie Leonidas, Jason Barry, Rob Brydon, and Gina McKee. Before MirrorMask, McKean directed a number of television intros and music videos as well as several short films, such as The Week Before (1998) and N(eon) (2002), which are included in the compilation DVD of McKean's work Keanoshow from Allen Spiegel Fine Arts. McKean has directed The Gospel of Us, a film of the National Theatre Wales's Passion play in Port Talbot which stars Michael Sheen. A new feature film, Luna, written and directed by McKean and starring Stephanie Leonidas, Ben Daniels, Dervla Kirwan and Michael Maloney will be released in the first quarter 2013.

McKean was a concept artist on the TV mini-series Neverwhere (1996), which was created and co-written by Neil Gaiman, and the feature films Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).

McKean is an accomplished jazz pianist, and founded the record label Feral Records with saxophonist Iain Ballamy.

McKean has won numerous awards and accolades. Over the years, he has been nominated five times for a World Fantasy Award in the category of "Artist", and he won the award in 1991. His graphic novel Cages won the Alph-Art, Pantera, and Harvey Awards for best Graphic Novel. He has been nominated six times and won three Spectrum Awards in the categories of "Advertising", "Book", and "Comic". His collection of short comics, Pictures That Tick won the V&A Museum Illustrated Book Awards Overall First Prize. In 2004, McKean won a BSFA Award in "Short Fiction" along with Neil Gaiman for their work, The Wolves in the Walls. His film MirrorMask was nominated for the William Shatner Golden Groundhog Award for Best Underground Movie, the other nominated films were Green Street Hooligans, Nine Lives, Up for Grabs and Opie Gets Laid
Source: Wikipedia


See illustrators issue 15 for a Dave McKean feature article.
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Hugh McClelland biography

Hugh McClelland biography

Hugh McClelland (flourished 1937 - 1956)
Hugh McClelland, born in South Africa, was a cartoonist who filled a corner of the Mirror newspaper with his wild western comic 'Beelzebub Jones', beginning in 1937. About eight years later, the witty and prolific McClelland became the first head of the Mirror strip cartoon department.

In 1937, he introduced his wild Western comic strip Beelzebub Jones in the pages of the Daily Mirror. After taking over as cartoon chief at the Mirror in 1945, he dropped Beelzebub Jones and moved on to a variety of new strips, including Dan Doofer, Sunshine Falls and Jimpy.

In 1952, he exited the Mirror for the tabloid Daily Sketch. He drew Pip, Squeak and Wilfred until 1956 when he left Selsey and emigrated with his family to Canada. He launched his last strip, Jimmy Gimmicks, in 1957, but it lasted only two months.

McClelland had a working method that expedited his production. He would pencil 20 weeks of strips at one session, writing dialogue as he progressed and then ink these in outline. Lastly, he would go back and fill in the blanks.

He stopped his own 'Beelzebub' strip and launched several new series like 'Dan Doofer', 'Sunshine Falls' and 'Jimpy'. In 1952, McClelland suddenly left the Mirror for the Daily Sketch. His last strip, 'Jimmy Gimmicks', lasted only two months, in 1957.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Hugh McClelland art
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Denis McLoughlin biography

Denis McLoughlin biography

Denis McLoughlin (15 April 1918 – 22 April 2002; Bolton, Lancashire, England)
Denis McLoughlin was an illustrator and artist whose sixty-eight year career bought him little fame. Denis's work had been criminally ignored until the 1970s. A handful of collectors recognised his talents and they, thankfully, were vocal in their praise of his talents. Indeed, for such a minor figure in the world of art, Denis McLoughlin has been the subject of a surprising number of booklets in the past, from Francis Hertzberg's duplicated fanzine Illustrated by d. mcloughlin (1978), which he later expanded into the book The Master of Light & Shade (1995), to Dave Nicholson's The Life and Art of Denis McLoughlin (1993) and David Ashford's The Hardboiled Art of Denis McLoughlin (1994). I have done my little bit to champion Denis, with articles in The Book & Magazine Collector, Paperback Parade and elsewhere... to be honest, he was such a nice guy you wanted to let people know.

McLoughlin was a welcome guest at London book fairs, a short, energetic Lancastrian even in his seventies who cheerfully signed books for fans who sought out his illustrations for annuals and hardbacked books from fifty years past. He had a no-nonsense approach to his work; maintaining a 50-60 hour, six-day working week, which he only slowed down in the 1990s.

Denis's hardcore following cherished his work, discussed and dissected it in the pages of magazines in the UK and USA, where Tom Lesser championed his work; in more recent years Matthew Gore brought his work to the attention of a new generation on the internet via his much-visited web-site.

The Art of Denis McLoughlin is the book that Denis deserved. His artwork shown off the way it should be seen, full colour in a coffee-table-sized book. Early chapters include autobiographical reminiscences by Denis about his early life and work, illustrated with some astonishing photographs of the murals Denis painted during his wartime service. Even as Denis served his time as an ack-ack gunner, he was earning a little on the side drawing covers and joke books for London publishers. It's a delight to see so many of these early books illustrated as they're now extremely scarce.

However, for most people, the centrepiece of the book are the pages dedicated to Denis's days working for T. V. Boardman. Publisher of the Bloodhound Books line of crime novels, Denis would draw some 700 dustjackets, plus scores of paperback and magazine covers for Boardman between 1945 and 1967. Early books featured fully air-brushed art (around 1957, the colour was reduced to save money) and were mostly in coloured inks, poster colour and coloured pencils – a particularly effective mixture in annuals. Later books were pen and ink drawings, another cost-cutting decision, but McLoughlin was able to get the maximum potential from each medium.

Over the years, his work ranged from fully painted action illustrations to minimalist designs. He was not frightened to experiment with layouts, incorporate photographs or mix realism and metaphor. With his brother Colin and wife Dorothy, Denis often acted out scenes for reference photographs, and all three were the stars of more than one cover. This aspect of Denis's work is explored in the book with photographs juxtaposed with Denis's finished covers.

One must not forget that Denis was also the artist of a series of Buffalo Bill annuals and comic strips; these, too, are covered in depth. There's even a complete early "Roy Carson" strip for you to marvel at.
Source: Steve Holland

See our book The Art of Denis McLoughlin about Denis and his extraordinary life and work.
Also illustrators issue 1 for a feature article about Denis McLoughlin.


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Al McKimson biography

Al McKimson biography

Al McKimson
"Al McKimson" the regular artist on the Roy Rogers comic strip from 1949 - 1953 was actually the brothers Chuck & Tom McKimson. The strip was syndicated by King Features.
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George McManus biography

George McManus biography

George McManus (23 January 1884 - 22 October 1954; Saint Louis, Missouri, USA)
George McManus was born of Irish parents in Saint Louis, Missouri. He dropped out of school at age fifteen and started working at the Saint Louis Republic newspaper which published his first comic, 'Alma and Oliver'. In 1904, after winning some money, he moved to New York and was employed by the New York World. For this journal, he worked on several running stories, such as 'Snoozer', 'The Merry Marcelene', 'Panhandle Pete', 'Ready Money Ladies', 'Let George Do It', 'Cheerful Charlie' and 'Nibsby the Newsboy in Funny Fairyland' (which shows some similarities to 'Little Nemo in Slumberland' by Winsor McCay).

In 1904, McManus created 'The Newlyweds', about an elegant young couple and their baby, Snookums. This series, the first family strip in an American newspaper, became quite popular and caused rival newspaper The New York American to invite McManus to work for them, which he did from 1912 on.

He continued 'The Newlyweds', now renamed 'Their Only Child', and started up several other daily comics, like 'Rosie's Beau', 'Love Affairs of a Mutton Head', 'Spareribs and Gravy' and the famous 'Bringing Up Father'. This comic about an Irish immigrant worker, Jiggs, and his wife Maggie, was syndicated by King Features Syndicate from 1913. The strip inspired several movies - in four of them, McManus himself played the role of Jiggs. When McManus died in 1954, 'Bringing Up Father' was continued by Frank Fletcher and Vernon Greene.

George McManus has influenced a great number of artists, including Hergé and Joost Swarte. With his subtle but relentless humor, he described American society, ridiculing its insatiable desire for luxury and its egotism.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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John McNamara biography

John McNamara biography

John Joseph McNamara (20 April 1918 - February 2001)
John McNamara, born 20 April 1918, began his artistic career as a teenager around 1934, drawing caricatures of film, sporting and local personalities for numerous New Zealand publications, including Paramount Theatre of Stars (1935), Standard (1936), Radio Record, New Zealand Sporting Life and Referee, Junior for NZ, Boys and Girls (1937-38), Clarion (1938), Cappicade (1937-39) and Katipo (1940). By the late 1930s he was also a political cartoonist working regularly for the Southern Cross where his work continued to appear until at least 1951.

He drew hundreds of caricatures and illustrations of famous sporting figures of the era including footballers Jim Taylor, Jack Lee, Neil Franklin and Dennis Compton, rugby players Morrie Doyle, Billy Wallace, Stan Dean, Ken Jones, boxers Cyril Hurne, Time Tracy, Eddie Thomas and Don Cockell, golfer Zoe Hudson, snooker world champion Joe Davis, cricketers Freddie Brown and Len Hutton, jockeys Lester Piggott and Gordon Richards and others, including illustrations of the 1948 Olympic team and a series of portraits of rugby players involved in New Zealand's 1949 tour of South Africa.

At the same time he continued to draw political cartoons for Southern Cross and New Zealand Listener, including aspects of the 1949 election in which Peter Fraser was defeated by Sidney Holland. McNamara was critical of the latter's links with the British Conservatives.

McNamara travelled to the UK in March 1950 at the age of 31 and found work on British newspapers. Although the full extent of his work over here is unknown, he appears to have found work fairly quickly. Two early strips -- possibly both published in the Daily Herald -- featured "Bats" Belfry, which had a horse racing background and involved bet setting and detective work, and an adaptation of C. S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower. McNamara also found work with Amalgamated Press drawing issues of Thriller Comics, ranging from adaptations of Westward Ho!, The Red Badge of Courage and Hopalong Cassidy to the adventures of Dick Turpin and Robin Hood.

In 1958, McNamara took over the artwork for Francis Durbridge's "Paul Temple" comic strip, which had been appearing regularly in the London Evening News since 1950, originally drawn by Alfred Sindall and subsequently by others.

McNamara drew the popular strip until it came to an end on 1 May 1971, during which time Paul Temple underwent a change in appearance so that the character in the newspaper resembled Francis Matthews, who played Temple in the BBC TV series (1969-71). The strip came to an end shortly after the TV show's third season finished.

McNamara died in Surrey in February 2001, aged 82.
Source: Bear Alley
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Hugh McNeill biography

Hugh McNeill biography

Hugh McNeill (1910 - 1979)
Hugh McNeill was born in Manchester and apprenticed at an Art studio, the Kayebon Press, attending evening classes at the Manchester School of Art. Hugh was best known as a brilliant "funnies" artist for Knockout but his "straight" strips are a delight and his Dick Turpin work is amongst his best. McNeill was chosen by Leonard Matthews to start off the long series of Dick Turpin strips, which were to appear on the back page of the original large-page format Sun. Called "Highway Days", the strip introduced a new companion for Turpin - a girl comrade, Moll Moonlight (a character created by Leonard Matthews). These strips were originally light-hearted affairs but soon after the format of the comic changed, so too did the Turpin stories. The readers were suddenly plunged into the Gothic horror genre of the "penny bloods" and Turpin and Moll Moonlight found themselves in a series of adventures set in haunted manor houses where weird happenings were very much the order of the day and the chief villain was the splendidly evil master criminal "Creepy" Crawley.

McNeill based his Dick Turpin on the actor Richard Greene (whom he had portrayed earlier in his strip version of the film The Fighting O'Flynn for Sun), and the 'gothic' Turpin adventures had an atmosphere akin to that in the 1953 Richard Greene film, "The Black Castle". McNeill was given examples of Derek Eyles' work to help him in drawing horses and the occasional frame of a horseman shows clearly how big a debt he owed to Eyles. Biography extract courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

Hugh McNeill art
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Rodger McPhail biography

Rodger McPhail biography

Rodger McPhail
Rodger McPhail was born in 1953 and is extremely well known for his superb wildlife bird paintings.
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Clifford Meadway biography

Clifford Meadway biography

Clifford Henry Meadway (6 October 1921 - 1999)
Clifford and Wendy Meadway were regulars at Look and Learn for many years, drawing all manner of subjects. I [Steve Holland] was lucky enough to correspond with Wendy in 2006 when I was researching the history of Look and Learn. First, a little bibliography...

Clifford Henry Meadway was born on 6 October 1921 and became well known as a painter of railway engines. Titles he illustrated include Railways at the Turn of the Century, 1895-1905 (1969), Railways at the Zenith of Steam, 1920-40 (1970), Railways in the Years of Pre-eminence, 1905-1919 (1971), The Dawn of World Railways, 1800-1850 (1972), Railways in the Formative Years, 1851-1895 (1973), Railways in the Transition from Steam, 1940-1965 (1974), Railways in the Modern Age Since 1963 (1975), Great Steam Locomotives of All Time (1976) and Great Western in Colour (1978), all written by O. S. Nock; later titles include Guide to Airliners by Andrew Kershaw (1979), Guide to Racing Cars by Nigel Roebuck (1979), Model Railways by Cyril Freezer (1980), Guide to Fighting Ships by Andrew Kershaw (1980), Let's Look at Tractors by Graham Rickard (1988) and Woodland Trees by Theresa Greenaway (1990). Cliff died in 1999.

Wendy, his wife, often collaborated on their books but was also a fine nature artist in her own right and illustrated dozens of children's books on animals and other subjects, including Garden Birds by Jean Cooke (1982), Discovering Flowering Plants by Jennifer Coldrey (1986), Discovering Rats and Mice by Jill Bailey (1986), Discovering Flies by Christopher O'Toole (1986), Discovering Beetles by Malcolm Penny (1986), Discovering Crickets and Grasshoppers by Keith Porter (1986), Discovering Ants by Christopher O'Toole (1986), Discovering Rabbits and Hares by Keith Porter (1986), Discovering Frogs and Toads by Mike Linley (1986), In the Town by Ralph Whitlock (1986), In the Park by Ralph Whitlock (1986), In the Soil by Ralph Whitlock (1986), Animal Movement by Malcolm Penny (1987), Animals and their Young by Malcolm Penny (1987), Discovering Seabirds by Anthony Wharton (1987), Discovering Crabs and Lobsters by Jill Bailey (1987), Discovering Trees by Jill Bailey (1988), Discovering Bugs by George McGavin (1988), Let's Look at Horses by Kenneth Quicke (1988), Endangered Animals by Malcolm Penny (1988), Animal Partnerships by Malcolm Penny (1988), Stream by Deni Bown & Michael Atkinson (1989), Animal Movement by Tony Seddon (1989), Wild Animals by Anyon Ellis (1989), Wood by Deni Bown (1989), Park by Deni Bown (1989), Garden by Deni Bown (1989) and Pond by Deni Bown (1989).

I'll now hand you over to Wendy...

" My husband, Cliff, and I always felt it was such a shame that they stopped publishing Look and Learn, which covered so many diverse subjects. Cliff and I were many years with Look and Learn, nearly always illustrating articles that showed how things worked. We covered a great variety of subjects, including the early Walkman, tower cranes, milk parlours, egg grading and packing, loading train containers, testing runways, steam roundabouts in fairgrounds, laying macadam on roadways, etc., etc. This often entailed travelling around in our search for reference for our paintings. I know Cliff went to train depots for the container article and our local farms were helpful for the milk and egg articles. To this day I sometimes see a large piece of machinery and think, "I know how that works!"

I suppose that these days young people find everything on the internet, so much easier when I think of the challenges of finding references that Cliff and I had. I am a true computer illiterate: haven't got one, haven't even touched one! Can find better things to do with my time and money. But that's just my opinion!

As to my past career, well, I did a five year art course at Harrow Art College, got various diplomas, then went to a small studio in London, where we did a great variety of things, among them working for the War Office, diagrams for technical books and many, many birthday and Christmas cards. This is where I met Cliff, who had spent 15 years in the R.A.F. as an engineer, so he was always given all the complicated mechanical jobs to do. he had never been to Art School, so, did I waste five years training? I don't think so!

It was whilst in the studio that we were introduced to Blandford Press and the railway books took off, something like 13 all told. Eventually the Studio folded and some of us became freelance and some gave up art work.

Because deadlines were so tight, Cliff and I often 'shared' a job. This was particularly so with the Blandford books. I did some of the paintings and Cliff did some, and even we couldn't tell them apart. We worked in colour and black & white—when you are freelance you never say you can't do something. In between books we did the usual thing of trudging round publishers with our folio. We never had an agent.

I guess my happiest time was painting for the natural history books, as wildlife has always been my great passion, but I also love steam locomotives, so much enjoyed the railway books. Cliff, as I may have mentioned, became Judges of Hastings chief Christmas card artist, and painted about 2,000 for them!

There was no family background in art, but my mother was a hairdresser and loved to do little drawings of flowers. My father did some tailoring, and was quite inventive and would make simple clothes for me when I was a child. I am, by the way, an only child.

When we were 'between jobs' Cliff and I would do paintings for local galleries. Cliff was a very fine landscape artist and had some success with selling his paintings, usually local scenes, in watercolour. I would do animal and flower studies, also watercolour, which is the medium that we always used. In later years, photographs were used more and more in flower, mammal and bird identification books and I lost much work, so turned my hand to commissioned animal portraits—great fun!

They say that artists never retire, but, some 18 months ago, I decided to call a halt to my artwork. I belong to so many natural history societies that I no longer seem to find time to paint. Cliff died just on 7 years ago, and over the last three years certain things have happened which have made me feel that I must get as much enjoyment out of life as I can, so that's what I am doing—going out a lot and really enjoying myself! "
Source: Bear Alley Blog
Clifford Meadway art
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Philip Mendoza biography

Philip Mendoza biography

Philip Mendoza (14 October 1898 - 1973, Dakston, London, England; active 1948-1970)
Born in Hackney, London, Philip Mendoza was a descendant of the great bare-knuckle pugilist of the Regency days, Daniel Mendoza, and was, by all accounts, a most colourful character in every meaning of the word. He was dark and swarthy and usually wore a bright-hued neckerchief, which added to his gypsy-like appearance. During the 1940s he illustrated a number of books, including Biggles Charter Pilot (1943), and a great many paperback covers of all genres (signing his work under many aliases, including Gomez, Ferrari, Garcia, Grimaldi and Zero) before turning to comics.

One of his greatest achievements occurred early on in his career: The Mighty Atom (1948), an all colour strip comic, designed and drawn in its entirety by Mendoza. This publication, from the tiny firm of Denlee Publishing Co., can probably lay claim to being the first all-colour, all picture, British comic. It certainly shows Mendoza's versatility, containing as it does strips featuring highwaymen, cowboys, detectives, space-travellers and funnies. It was written and published by the author/publisher, Stephen Frances, for whom he later designed the silhouette logo of Hank Janson for the famous series of "hard-boiled" paperback thrillers. Mendoza drew the comic, Captain Vigour, for Miller's Sports Cartoons series before starting work for the Amalgamated Press.

He drew strips for Sun, Comet, Cowboy Comics Library, Super Detective Library and, during its early years, for Thriller Comics Library; first contributing a number of short strips, in issues 4 and 6, and then the splendidly drawn Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (number 7). His ability to capture a brooding atmosphere was admirably displayed in The Green Archer (no.16) and Phantom Footsteps (no. 20, for which he also contributed the cover painting) and his Rogues' Moon (no.66) is an entertaining piratical adventure. His one piece of work for the Super Detective Library: The Island of Fu Manchu (no. 9) is generally accepted as one of the best issues of the series. Mendoza was a true professional who would turn his hand to almost any style of strip. During the latter part of his career, a great deal of his output was for the nursery comics. His version of Kenneth Graham's Wind in the Willows was published in book form, in full colour, by Leonard Matthews' Martspress. Biography extract courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
Philip Mendoza art

See illustrators  issue 26 and illustrators  issue 12 for Philip Mendoza feature articles and much more of his art in PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.
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Colin Merrett biography

Colin Merrett biography

Colin Merrett (aka Colin Merritt) (14 October 1914 - March 2005; Croydon, Surrey, UK)
Colin Merrett began work as a comic strip artist in 1936 for Amalgamated Press with Chang the Pirate for Joker. In the late 1940s, Merrett was used extensively by P.M. Productions for their splendid series of short-run comics printed in two-tone photogravure such as Flash, Zip and Sky High.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, for Associated Press's Chips, he drew his longest running strip, Paul Power and his Speed Shell. Merrett was very much at home with the Western and The Outlaw Orphan (TCL no. 17) contains some of his finest work; as does his Buffalo Bill and Billy the Kid work for Comet and Sun and for The Billy the Kid Book of Picture Stories.

In the early 1950s he contributed to AP's "picture library" titles, including Cowboy Comics Library ("Buck Jones", "Billy the Kid, "The Kansas Kid", 1951-59), Thriller Picture Library ("The Outlaw Orphan", "Dick Turpin", "Battler Britton" 1952-57) and Super Detective Library, ("The Black Abbott", 1953). He also drew "Billy the Kid" (1954) for Sun, and "Buffalo Bill" (1955) and "Strongbow the Mohawk" (1956) for Comet.

His historical strips are also of interest, particularly his versions of Treasure Island and Westward Ho for Amex's A Classic in Pictures in the early 1950s (for which he also did the cover paintings). Merritt's Dick Turpin strips for the library (appearing in nos 2 and 8) are great fun, despite the somewhat inaccurate period flavour.

In the 1960s and '70s he drew for Look and Learn, including an adaptation of Robinson Crusoe (1972), IPC's girls' titles, including "Surprise Corner" (1963-64) for Poppet and "Ross - Student Nurse" (1970) for Princess Tina, "Our Janie"(1971) for Tammy and boys' titles, including "Danny Jones - Time Traveller" (1965) for Hurricane. In the 1980s he found work with DC Thomson, drawing strips including "Belle of the Ball" for Bunty, and continued working into the 1990s. He died in Eastbourne, Sussex, in March 2005.
Sources: UK Comics Fandom; David Ashford and Norman Wright
Colin Merrett art
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Edward Mesjasz biography

Edward Mesjasz biography

Edward Mesjasz (1929 - 2007)
Not much is known about this accomplished Polish oil painter, who seemed to concentrate on vivid and dynamic cavalry scenes and picturesque tranquil landscapes.
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Otto Messmer biography

Otto Messmer biography

Otto James Messmer (16 August 1892 - 28 October 1983; New Jersey, USA)
Otto James Messmer was an American animator, best known for his work on the Felix the Cat cartoons and comic strip produced by the Pat Sullivan studio.

The extent of Messmer's role in the creation and popularity of Felix is a matter of ongoing dispute, particularly as he only laid his claim to the character after the death of Sullivan, who until that time had received the credit. However, most prominent comics and animation historians support Messmer's claim, as do the veterans of the Sullivan studio.

Messmer was born August 16, 1892 in West Hoboken, New Jersey (now Union City). He attended Holy Family Parochial School. He had a love of vaudeville and the entertainment industry instilled in him by his parents and teachers beginning at a young age. He attended the Thomas School of Art in New York City from 1911–1913, and participated in a work-study program with the Acme Agency, where he did illustrations for fashion catalogs.

Messmer's first love, however, was cartooning. Inspired by Winsor McCay's animated films, such as How a Mosquito Operates, Messmer began creating his own comics for local newspapers in 1912, the same year he met Anne Mason, whom he married in 1934. One of his comics, Fun, ran as part of the Sunday comics' page for New York World.

Messmer signed a deal with Jack Cohn of Universal Studios in 1915 to produce a test film of a character Messmer created called "Motor Mat". It was never released, but drew the interest of animator Pat Sullivan, though Messmer instead decided to go to work with Henry "Hy" Mayer, a well-known cartoonist. Mayer and Messmer collaborated on the successful animated series The Travels of Teddy, which was based on the life of Teddy Roosevelt. Messmer would subsequently work for Sullivan, who handled the business side of the work, with Messmer handling creative responsibilities. When Sullivan served a nine-month prison sentence in 1917, Messmer briefly returned to work with Mayer, until Messmer was drafted into World War I.

When Messmer returned to the United States in 1919, he returned to Sullivan's studio, which was hired by director Earl Hurd of Paramount Screen Magazine for a cartoon short that would accompany a feature film. Sullivan gave the project to Messmer, whose end result, Feline Follies, starred Master Tom, a black cat, who was a prototype to Felix, which brought good luck to people in trouble.

Sullivan's involvement in the project is disputed, although handwriting in the animation has been identified as his.

Felix was the first cartoon character created and developed for the screen, as well as the first to become a licensed, mass merchandised character. Sullivan took the credit for Felix, and though Messmer directed and was the lead animator on all of the episodes he appeared in, Sullivan's name was the only onscreen credit that appeared in them. Messmer also oversaw the direction of the Felix newspaper strip, doing most of the pencils and inks on the strip until 1954.

Felix the Cat starred in over 150 cartoons until 1931, when animation studios began converting to sound films. The newspaper strip’s popularity began to fade in the late 1930s, though the character was reintroduced to new fans via comic books in the 1940s. Messmer then teamed with Douglas Leigh on the large moving electronic signs that lit up Times Square.

Messmer also produced more Felix comic books in the 1940s and 1950s for companies such as Dell Comics, Toby Press, and Harvey Comics, as well as doing animation for the Paramount studios (Several Popeye cartoons carry his credit). By the 1960s, Felix had been reinvented for television, and Messmer's longtime assistant Joe Oriolo (the creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost) made sure that Messmer was finally credited as the creator of Felix the Cat. Messmer continued working on the character for the rest of his life.

Messmer died of a heart attack at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey on October 28, 1983, aged 91. Today, Felix the Cat is run in syndication in over 250 newspapers all over the world.
Source: Wikipedia
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Peter Metcalf biography

Peter Metcalf biography

Peter Metcalf (1944 – 2004; Norwich, England)
Although unconfirmed, the British artist Peter Metcalf mentioned below fits the dates and his subject matter, style and signature are similar (given the passage of time) to that shown in the art.

Peter Metcalf was born in Norwich in 1944. His father was a dyer for the silk trade and when Peter was 15 he joined his father’s business which had expanded to dyeing for the hosiery and shoe trade. This is where Peter learned his knowledge of colour.

A self taught artist Peter loved his native Norfolk and spent many hours walking the Broadland Marshes. Having such a feel for the East Anglian landscape Peter painted the local countryside often featuring grazing sheep, river banks and quiet country lanes. In contrast Peter also painted bustling street scenes such as ‘Gentleman’s Walk’ in Norwich depicting everyday activities. The Norfolk coastline also provided atmospheric subjects of inland creeks at Blakeney and Morston with mud banks at low tide and magnificent evening skies.

Peter painted both in oil and watercolour and had numerous one-man exhibitions. He was a long serving committee member of The Great Yarmouth and District Society of Artists and his paintings are in many local private collections and also in America, Canada, Australia, Holland and Germany – even as far as China.

Peter painted for nearly forty years and for the last twenty seven years was a full time artist. In his later years he suffered from the illness ME, however, he was determined, with encouragement and help from his wife Marie, to continue painting and attended the Great Yarmouth Society meetings. He was greatly liked and had many friends.

The style of Peter's work changed as he found the vapours of oil paint made him unwell so, using waterbased paint which still had the appearance of oil, Peter's paintings took on a new look and became loose and flowing. The ‘new’ paint was quick drying so Peter could again work outside ‘Plein Air’ which allowed a spontaneous approach to his work.

Many of his paintings had been reproduced as prints and greetings cards.

Peter Metcalf died suddenly on 28th January 2004 aged 59 years.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Trevor Metcalfe biography

Trevor Metcalfe biography

Trevor Metcalfe (born May 1939)
Trevor Metcalfe submitted his first cartoons to his local newspaper. He attended Art School, where he was class mates with Bob Nixon, a future comic artist with whom he would cooperate on several occasions. After his National Service, Metcalfe worked on a freelance basis for D.C. Thomson around 1960, creating among others 'Bullies and Babies', but eventually found employment with a printing firm.

He returned to comics in 1965 and began a long collaboration with Fleetway. He drew popular strips for all the main humour titles, and additionally did script work for other artists, including Nixon. Among his features are 'J.R.' and 'Town Tarzan' (in Whizzer & Chips), 'Sweet Tooth' (in Whizzer & Chips'), 'Ad Lad' (in Whoopee!), 'Doughnut and Rusty' (in Monster Fun), 'Bird Man and Chicken' (in Krazy), 'Sheerluck and Son' (in Whoopee!), 'The Amazing Three' (in Jackpot) and 'Angel's Proper Charlies' (in Jackpot).
Source: Lambiek and Illustration Art Gallery
Trevor Metcalfe art
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Ever Meulen biography

Ever Meulen biography

Eddy Vermeulen (born 12 February 1946; Belgium)
Ever Meulen is a Belgian illustrator and comic strip artist. His work has appeared in Humo, the magazine for which he drew "Balthazar de Groene Steenvreter" ("Balthasar the Green Stone Eater") and "Piet Peuk" ("Pete Stub"), Futuropolis and New Yorker magazines.

Considering that he never really made a comic book, Ever Meulen is something of an oddity in European comix history. Still, his artwork owes a lot to the European comix tradition and his influence in comix circles is impressive. Ever Meulen, whose real name is Eddy Vermeulen, was born in Kuurne in February 1946, in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and studied graphic arts at the Saint-Luc Institutes in Ghent and Brussels. By then he drew his inspiration from architecture, Saul Steinberg, old-fashioned futurism, pop-art and psychedelic art.

He held his first exposition of his cartoons at the age of 18, and three years later he first used his pen name, Ever Meulen. Shortly after his studies, he fulfilled his military service and after that, he became part of the underground movement of the time. He produced illustrations and some comic strips for the anarchist magazine DIng. His work was noted by Joost Swarte who invited him to participate in Cocktail Comix, an anthology for new Dutch talent in 1973.

Vermeulen began an international career making comic stories but mostly illustrations and caricatures for magazines like Tante Leny Presenteert!, Modern Papier, Télé-Moustique, Furore and Michel Deligne's Curiosity Magazine (the gag comic 'Mammouth le Fortich', a.o.). Since the early 1970s, he is the main artist for Humo magazine, initially with comics like 'Piet Peuk', but later with headers for sections like 'TTT', covers and many illustrations about the rock 'n roll revival and 1950s nostalgia, sometimes using the pseudonym Eddy Flippo.

His style became sharper and hookier when he published in Oor in 1979. He also made designs for album covers and posters, and was engaged by Parisian advertising agencies. A collection of Vermeulen's work, 'Feu Vert', was published by Futuropolis in 1987. Vermeulen's art became more surreal and abstract in the 1990s and during this period, Vermeulen was an internationally celebrated artist, whose artwork has graced the cover of The New Yorker.

A new collection of his artwork was published in 2005, 'Verve'. Since 1993 Ever Meulen also teaches illustration at the Institut Saint-Luc art school in Ghent.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Ever Meulen art
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Bill Mevin biography

Bill Mevin biography

Wilfred D 'Bill' Mevin (23 January 1922 - 30 December 2019; West Derby, Lancashire, England)
Bill Mevin was a British comic artist and animator. His career spanned over half a century in which he mostly created comics based on popular pre-existing cartoon shows and TV series for TV Comic and Pippin. He was most notably one of the early 'Doctor Who' comic artists, and additionally worked on popular newspaper strips like 'Soapremes' for the Daily Mail and 'The Perishers' (1992-2006) for the Daily Mirror.

Born in 1922, Bill Mevin attended the Liverpool School of Art. He subsequently went on to work for Gaumont British in the 1940s as an animator, and when GB-Animation closed he worked on Batchelor and Halas's full-length Animal Farm, released in 1954, working alongside comic artists such as Maurice Dodd, Reginald Parlett and Harold Whitaker. It was the first full-length feature animation to be made in Britain – and part financed by the CIA as part of their campaign against Stalinism.

He joined the Sunday Chronicle as a topical cartoonist when Batchelor and Halas also closed its doors, working for them until the paper was taken over, and during a career that spanned several decades, drew strips for a variety of comics such as Eagle Extra, Express Weekly (drawing “Wee Sporty”), Pippin and TV Comic, drawing strips for the latter, initially published by Lord Beaverbrook and then by Polystyle Publications, such as 1970s episodes of “Barney Bear” (taking over from Bill Titcombe), “Bugs Bunny”, “Droopy”, “Lenny the Lion”, a strip centred on the puppet sidekick of ventriloquist Terry Hall, “Popeye”, “Space Patrol”, a terrific run on Gerry Anderson’s “Supercar”, “World Cup Willie”, based on the 1966 FIFA World Cup mascot, and, of course, “Doctor Who”, taking over from Neville Main.

Bill's work on “Supercar” began on TV Comic in 1961, possibly prompted by the appearance of Supercar in a colour “Lenny the Lion” strip. Shaquille le Vesconte has previously noted Mevin returned the characters to their caricatured glory, instilling a lively cartoon movement that was absent in the series. The only time this was at odds in the strip was when the regulars would meet the more realistically depicted guest characters. “But this could be forgiven as the art was far more dynamic, and struck a fine balance between the drama and humour of the scripts,” Shaquille commented on his Complete Gerry Anderson Comic History site. “Part of this additional humour and characterisation may have been due to Mevin himself, as he was already writing (as well as drawing) Lenny the Lion, and collaborated with writer Alan Fennell on some of the story ideas.

Whereas most artists had only a professional interest in drawing strips, Bill Mevin was actually a long-time friend of the composer of the music for Supercar and other Gerry Anderson series, Barry Gray, as they had met in the RAF while serving in India. Shaquille le Vesconte noted Bill Mevin and Barry Gray both shared musical and artistic interests, and it was their mutual friendship which kept Mevin interested in Supercar – making him one of the more enduring of artists on any strip, clocking up three years straight – including the annuals and specials.

Bill remained proud of his six-month stint on “Doctor Who” for TV Comic throughout his life, returning to the strip to create two covers for Marvel UK’s Doctor Who Classic Comics (Issues 7 and 15) and also provided the cover for Paul Scoones limited edition hardback of his excellent The Comic Strip Companion.

His work for the young children’s title Pippin included “Bill and Ben, The Flowerpot Men”, “The Herbs”, “Morph” and “Pogle's Wood”, among others, and “Happy Families” for Whizzer & Chips in the 1970s and 1980s.

When work in comics began to founder in the 1980s and 1990s he returned to working for newspapers, drawing the Dallas and Dynasty-spoofing strip called “The Soapremes” in 1986, then working with Maurice Dodd on “The Perishers” for the Daily Mirror from 1992, taking over from Dennis Collins, until the strip ended after Dodd's death on 31st December 2005.

In retirement, Bill continued to draw pictures for Perishers fans and charity auctions, and wrote a novel for Young Adults, Peggy (2016), about a flying pony, published by Troubador – a descendent of Pegasus – who is given to a young girl by Zeus himself.

He was predeceased by his wife, Lilian (nee Archbold), whom he married in 1953. They lived in Bromley, Kent, until her death in 2012, aged 87.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery, Downthetubes.net
Bill Mevin art
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Jean-Claude Mézières biography

Jean-Claude Mézières biography

Jean-Claude Mézières (23 September 1938 - January 2022; Paris, France)
Jean-Claude Mézières is a French comic strip artist and illustrator. Born and raised in Paris, he was introduced to drawing by his older brother and influenced by comics artists such as Hergé, Andre Franquin and Morris and later by Jijé and Jack Davis.

Educated at the Institut des Arts Appliqués, upon graduation he worked as an illustrator for books and magazines as well as in advertising. A lifelong interest in the Wild West led him to travel to the United States in 1965 in search of adventure as a cowboy, an experience that would prove influential on his later work.

Returning to France, Mézières teamed up with his childhood friend, Pierre Christin, to create Valérian and Laureline, the popular, long-running science fiction comics series for which he is best known and which has proved to be influential to many science fiction and fantasy films, including Star Wars.

Mézières has also worked as a conceptual designer on several motion picture projects - most notably the 1997 Luc Besson film, The Fifth Element - as well as continuing to work as an illustrator for newspapers, magazines and in advertising. He has also taught courses on the production of comics at the University of Paris VIII: Vincennes-Saint-Denis.

Mézières has received international recognition through a number of prestigious awards, most notably the 1984 Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême award.

Mézières knew Moebius as a young man and had planned to go to Mexico together when they were 16 but only Moebius managed the trip.

The two worked together on 5 issues of a magazine published by Hachette on the history of Civilisation. Then he had some strips published in Pilote magazine.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia
Jean-Claude Mézières art
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Mike Mignola biography

Mike Mignola biography

Mike Mignola (born 16 September 1960; Berkeley, California, USA)
Mike Mignola is an American comics artist and writer best known for creating Hellboy for Dark Horse Comics, part of a shared universe of titles including B.P.R.D., Abe Sapien, Lobster Johnson, Witchfinder and various spinoffs. He has also created other supernatural and paranormal themed titles for Dark Horse including Baltimore, Joe Golem and The Amazing Screw-On Head.

Mignola's film work includes Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Blade II (2002), the 2004 adaptation of Hellboy, its 2008 sequel and its 2019 reboot.

Mignola was born in Berkeley, California. He began his career in 1980 by illustrating spots in The Comic Reader. His first published piece was in The Comic Reader #183, a spot illustration of Red Sonja (pg. 9). His first published front cover was The Comic Reader #196 in November 1981. In 1982 he graduated from the California College of the Arts with a BFA in Illustration.

In 1983 he worked as an inker at Marvel Comics on Daredevil and Power Man and Iron Fist and later on titles such as The Incredible Hulk, Alpha Flight, and the Rocket Raccoon limited series.

In 1987, he began working for DC Comics as well. He drew the Phantom Stranger and World of Krypton limited series. With writer Jim Starlin, Mignola produced the Cosmic Odyssey miniseries in 1988. Mignola drew covers for several Batman stories, including "Batman: A Death in the Family" and "Dark Knight, Dark City". Writer Brian Augustyn and Mignola crafted the Gotham by Gaslight one-shot in 1989. Through the early 1990s Mignola worked on covers and backup features for various DC and Marvel Comics. He collaborated twice with writer Howard Chaykin. In 1990-1991, they produced the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser limited series for Epic Comics, with inker Al Williamson. This was followed with the Ironwolf: Fires of the Revolution graphic novel in 1992.

Prior to 1994 Mignola had done work-for-hire illustration. That year, Dark Horse Comics released Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Mignola's creator-owned project. Though he wrote the story himself, it was scripted by John Byrne. The next Hellboy story, The Wolves of Saint August, was completely written and drawn by Mignola. Since then all Hellboy stories have been written solely by Mignola with the exception of They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships, which was co-written by Joshua Dysart.

Makoma (2006) was the first Hellboy story not drawn by Mignola, featuring the art of Richard Corben. Corben would return to draw many flashback stories for the series. Other artists have also had a hand in drawing flashback stories including Jason Shawn Alexander, Kevin Nowlan and Scott Hampton. In 2007, following after 2005's The Island, British artist Duncan Fegredo took over art duties on the ongoing story arc of Hellboy from Darkness Calls onwards.

Mike Mignola returned as the full-time artist for Hellboy in 2012 for the series' conclusion, Hellboy in Hell.

In 1998 the first Hellboy spinoff, Abe Sapien, was launched. It was not written by Mike Mignola, but it did feature his Hellboy short story "Heads" as a back-up. Abe Sapien did not take off properly until a decade later in 2008's The Drowning. Since then it has had several short stories and beginning in 2013 it became an ongoing series with Scott Allie as the lead writer with Mignola.

Lobster Johnson was the next spinoff, debuting as a back-up feature in 1999's Box Full of Evil. The series got its own title later in 2007's Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus. It returned again with the miniseries The Burning Hand in 2012, followed by various short stories.

B.P.R.D. was the third spinoff, but it was the first one which was conceived to be more than just a one-off side story, but rather a series of stories. It began with 2002's Hollow Earth, which continued on from Hellboy: Conqueror Worm. Beyond that followed a series of short stories designed to explore what the B.P.R.D. series could be. 2004's Plague of Frogs was the story that solidified what the series was, and would set the direction for future books to come, so much so that the first major story cycle is collected in omnibus editions titled B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs. A vast majority of the stories in this era were co-written with John Arcudi and drawn by Guy Davis.

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth is the main series continuing after the catastrophic events at the conclusion of the Plague of Frogs cycle. Guy Davis left the series in 2011 with the conclusion of Hell on Earth: Gods. Tyler Crook became the new ongoing artist beginning with Hell on Earth: Monsters, but he is joined by several regular artists, most notably James Harren and Laurence Campbell.

Continuing where Hell on Earth left off, The Devil You Know is written by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie with Laurence Campbell serving as the regular artist.

Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder (more commonly known simply as "Witchfinder") began with a teaser story in 2008's MySpace Dark Horse Presents #16, followed by a full miniseries in 2009. It follows the stories of the occult investigator, Sir Edward, agent of Queen Victoria.

The Frankenstein began with Frankenstein Underground in 2015. Set in 1956, this miniseries follows Frankenstein (in the Hellboy Universe, the Frankenstein monster takes his father's name) as he ventures into the Pellucidar-like Hollow Earth. This also canonized Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The series was further expanded in 2020 with Frankenstein Undone, a direct sequel to Shelley's novel.

The Hellboy Universe also includes numerous spinoffs that only span a single book:
Sledgehammer 44: Set in World War II, this series is about the Epimetheus Vril Energy Suit created by Doctor Helena Gallargas.
Frankenstein Underground: Set in 1956, this series follows the Frankenstein monster as he ventures into the Pellucidar-like Hollow Earth.
Rise of the Black Flame: Set in 1923, this series explores how Raimund Diestel became the Black Flame.
The Visitor: How & Why He Stayed: This series follows the life of an alien visitor set to kill the infant Hellboy in 1944.
Rasputin: The Voice of the Dragon: Set in 1941, this series follows Trevor Bruttenholm as he becomes an agent for the allied forces in World war II.
Koshchei the Deathless: Hellboy and Koshchei sit in a pub in Hell and chat.

The Outerverse: Baltimore began with a 2007 illustrated novel, and continued as a comic book series. It was created by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden.

Like Baltimore, Joe Golem: Occult Detective began as an illustrated prose novel (2012's Joe Golem and the Drowning City) and later continued as a comic book series. It was created by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden and exists in a shared universe with Baltimore called "The Outerverse".

Alan Moore has described Mignola's style as "German expressionism meets Jack Kirby". His style has also been likened to an amalgamation of Jack Kirby and Alex Toth.

Mignola worked as an illustrator for Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula. He was also the production designer for the Disney feature film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire in 2001, and was a concept artist for 2002's Blade II, also directed by del Toro, and a concept artist for Pixar's Brave.

Mignola was hired by Bruce Timm to provide character designs for Batman: The Animated Series in 1991. His redesign of Mr. Freeze was used for the series.

Mignola's design of the 1880s Batman costume from the comic Batman: Gotham by Gaslight appeared in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Hellboy was made into a feature film in 2004 by director Guillermo del Toro. Mignola was closely involved with the movie's production, and a sequel was released in 2008. Hellboy has been made into two direct-to-video animated films, Sword of Storms in 2006 and Blood and Iron in 2007.

Mignola's The Amazing Screw-On Head debuted in 2006 on the Sci-Fi Channel, starring the voices of Paul Giamatti and David Hyde Pierce.

Mignola worked on the script for the R-rated Hellboy reboot film (2019), that was directed by Neil Marshall, and starred David Harbour as Hellboy. He ended up receiving only a "based on" credit in the film.

As of 2014, Mignola resides in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

Regarding the influence of his religious upbringing on his artwork, Mignola explained in a 2014 interview, "No, I don't believe in anything, really. Not on a conscious level. That is the beauty of it. I was raised Catholic. I was taught a bunch of stuff. I find religion fascinating, but at no time does any of that tie my hands. I get to play with stuff without getting too reverential. There's some Miltonian stuff to the geography of my Hell, the Hell I'm doing is much closer to the world I created in The Amazing Screw-On Head. It's this pile, this jumble of old buildings for the most part. It's entirely made out of everything I want to draw."
Source: Wikipedia
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Frank Miller biography

Frank Miller biography

Frank Miller (born 27 January 1957; Maryland, USA)
Frank Miller is an American writer, artist, and film director best known for his dark comic book stories and graphic novels such as Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300. He also directed the film version of The Spirit, shared directing duties with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and produced the film 300. He is also known for creating the comic book character Elektra.

Miller was raised in Montpelier, Vermont, the fifth of seven children of a nurse mother and a carpenter/electrician father. His family was Irish Catholic.

Miller grew up a comics fan, with a letter he wrote to Marvel Comics being published in The Cat #3 (April 1973). His first published work was at Western Publishing's Gold Key Comics imprint, gotten at the recommendation of comics artist Neal Adams, to whom a fledgling Miller, after moving to New York City, had shown samples and received much critique and occasional informal lessons. Though no published credits appear, he is tentatively credited with the three-page story "Royal Feast" in the licensed TV-series comic book The Twilight Zone #84 (June 1978), by an unknown writer, and is credited with the five-page "Endless Cloud", also by an unknown writer, in the following issue (July 1978). By the time of the latter, Miller had his first confirmed credit in writer Wyatt Gwyon's six-page "Deliver Me From D-Day", inked by Danny Bulanadi, in Weird War Tales #64 (June 1978).

Former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter recalled Miller going to DC Comics after having broken in with "a small job from Western Publishing, I think. Thus emboldened, he went to DC, and after getting savaged by Joe Orlando, got in to see art director Vinnie Colletta, who recognized talent and arranged for him to get a one-page war-comic job". Other fledgling work at DC included the six-page "The Greatest Story Never Told", by writer Paul Kupperberg, in that same issue, and the five-page "The Edge of History", written by Elliot S. Maggin, in Unknown Soldier #219 (Sept. 1978). His first work for Marvel Comics was penciling the 17-page story "The Master Assassin of Mars, Part 3" in John Carter, Warlord of Mars #18 (Nov. 1978).

At Marvel, Miller would settle in as a regular fill-in and cover artist, working on a variety of titles. One of these jobs was drawing Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #27–28 (Feb.–March 1979), which guest-starred Daredevil. At the time, sales of the Daredevil title were poor but Miller saw something in the character he liked and asked editor-in-chief Jim Shooter if he could work on Daredevil's regular title. Shooter agreed and made Miller the new penciller on the title. As Miller recalled in 2008:

When I first showed up in New York, I showed up with a bunch of comics, a bunch of samples, of guys in trench coats and old cars and such. And [comics editors] said, 'Where are the guys in tights?' And I had to learn how to do it. But as soon as a title came along, when [Daredevil signature artist] Gene Colan left Daredevil, I realized it was my secret in to do crime comics with a superhero in them. And so I lobbied for the title and got it".

Daredevil #158 (May 1979), Miller's debut on that title, was the finale of an ongoing story written by Roger McKenzie and inked by Klaus Janson. After this issue, Miller became one of Marvel's rising stars.

However, sales on Daredevil did not improve, Marvel's management continued to discuss cancellation, and Miller himself almost quit the series, as he disliked McKenzie's scripts. Miller's fortunes changed with the arrival of Denny O'Neil as editor. Realizing Miller's unhappiness with the series, and impressed by a backup story he had written, O'Neil fired McKenzie so that Miller could try writing the series himself. Miller and O'Neil would maintain a friendly working relationship throughout his run on the series. With issue #168 (Jan. 1981), Miller took over full duties as writer and penciller. Sales rose so swiftly that Marvel once again began publishing Daredevil monthly rather than bimonthly just three issues after Miller became its writer.

Issue #168 saw the first full appearance of the ninja mercenary Elektra — who would become a popular character and star in a 2005 motion picture —although her first cover appearance was four months earlier on Miller's cover of The Comics Journal #58. Miller later wrote and drew a solo Elektra story in Bizarre Adventures #28 (Oct. 1981). He added a martial arts aspect to Daredevil's fighting skills, and introduced previously unseen characters who had played a major part in the character's youth: Stick, leader of the ninja clan the Chaste, who had been Murdock's sensei after he was blinded and a rival clan called the Hand.

Unable to handle both writing and penciling Daredevil on the new monthly schedule, Miller began increasingly relying on Janson for the artwork, sending him looser and looser pencils beginning with #173. By issue #185, Miller had virtually relinquished his role as Daredevil's artist, and was providing only rough layouts for Janson to both pencil and ink, allowing him to focus on the writing.

Miller's work on Daredevil was characterized by darker themes and stories. This peaked when in #181 (April 1982) he had the assassin Bullseye kill Elektra, and Daredevil subsequently attempt to kill him. Miller finished his Daredevil run with issue #191 (Feb. 1983), which he cited in a winter 1983 interview as the issue he is most proud of; by this time he had transformed a second-tier character into one of Marvel's most popular.

Additionally, Miller drew a short Batman Christmas story, "Wanted: Santa Claus – Dead or Alive", written by Dennis O'Neil for DC Special Series #21 (Spring 1980). This was his first professional experience with a character with which, like Daredevil, he would become closely associated. At Marvel, O'Neil and Miller collaborated on two issues of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual. The 1980 Annual featured a team-up with Doctor Strange while the 1981 Annual showcased a meeting with the Punisher.

As penciler and co-plotter, Miller, together with writer Chris Claremont, produced the miniseries Wolverine #1–4 (Sept.-Dec. 1982), inked by Josef Rubinstein and spinning off from the popular X-Men title. Miller used this miniseries to expand on Wolverine's character. The series was a critical success and further cemented Miller's place as an industry star.

His first creator-owned title was DC Comics' six-issue miniseries Ronin (1983–1984). In 1985, DC Comics named Miller as one of the honorees in the company's 50th-anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great.

Miller was involved in a few unpublished projects in the early 1980s. A house advertisement for Doctor Strange appeared in Marvel Comics cover-dated February 1981. It stated "Watch for the new adventures of Earth's Sorcerer Supreme - - as mystically conjured by Roger Stern and Frank Miller!". Miller's only contribution to the series would be the cover for Doctor Strange #46 (April 1981). Other commitments prevented him from working on the series. Miller and Steve Gerber made a proposal to revamp DC's three biggest characters: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, under a line called "Metropolis" and comics titled "Man of Steel" or "The Man of Steel", "Dark Knight" and "Amazon". However, this proposal was not accepted.

In 1986, DC Comics released the writer-penciler Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, a four-issue miniseries printed in what the publisher called "prestige format" — squarebound, rather than stapled; on heavy-stock paper rather than newsprint, and with cardstock rather than glossy-paper covers. It was inked by Klaus Janson and colored by Lynn Varley.

The story tells how Batman retired after the death of the second Robin (Jason Todd), and at age 55 returns to fight crime in a dark and violent future. Miller created a tough, gritty Batman, referring to him as "The Dark Knight" based upon him being called the "Darknight Detective" in some 1970s portrayals. Released the same year as Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' DC miniseries Watchmen, it showcased a new form of more adult-oriented storytelling to both comics fans and a crossover mainstream audience. The Dark Knight Returns influenced the comic-book industry by heralding a new wave of darker characters. The trade paperback collection proved to be a big seller for DC and remains in print 25 years after first being published.

By this time, Miller had returned as the writer of Daredevil. Following his self-contained story "Badlands", penciled by John Buscema, in #219 (June 1985), he co-wrote #226 (Jan. 1986) with departing writer Dennis O'Neil. Then, with artist David Mazzucchelli, he crafted a seven-issue story arc that, like The Dark Knight Returns, similarly redefined and reinvigorated its main character. The storyline, "Daredevil: Born Again", in #227–233 (Feb.-Aug. 1986) chronicled the hero's Catholic background, and the destruction and rebirth of his real-life identity, Manhattan attorney Matt Murdock, at the hands of Daredevil's nemesis, the crime lord Wilson Fisk, also known as the Kingpin. After completing the "Born Again" arc, Frank Miller intended to produce a two-part story with artist Walt Simonson but it was never completed and remains unpublished.

Miller and artist Bill Sienkiewicz produced the graphic novel Daredevil: Love and War in 1986. Featuring the character of the Kingpin, it indirectly bridges Miller's first run on Daredevil and Born Again by explaining the change in the Kingpin's attitude toward Daredevil. Miller and Sienkiewicz also produced the eight-issue miniseries Elektra: Assassin for Epic Comics. Set outside regular Marvel continuity, it featured a wild tale of cyborgs and ninjas, while expanding further on Elektra's background. Both of these projects were well received critically. Elektra: Assassin was praised for its bold storytelling, but neither it nor Daredevil: Love and War had the influence or reached as many readers as Dark Knight Returns or Born Again.

Miller's final major story in this period was in Batman issues 404–407 in 1987, another collaboration with Mazzucchelli. Titled Batman: Year One, this was Miller's version of the origin of Batman in which he retconned many details and adapted the story to fit his Dark Knight continuity. Proving to be hugely popular, this was as influential as Miller's previous work and a trade paperback released in 1988 remains in print and is one of DC's best selling books and adapted as an original animated film video in 2011.

Miller had also drawn the covers for the first twelve issues of First Comics English language reprints of Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub. This helped bring Japanese manga to a wider Western audience.

During this time, Miller (along with Marv Wolfman, Alan Moore and Howard Chaykin) had been in dispute with DC Comics over a proposed ratings system for comics. Disagreeing with what he saw as censorship, Miller refused to do any further work for DC, and he would take his future projects to the independent publisher Dark Horse Comics. From then on Miller would be a major supporter of creator rights and be a major voice against censorship in comics.

After announcing he intended to release his work only via the independent publisher Dark Horse Comics, Miller completed one final project for Epic Comics, the mature-audience imprint of Marvel Comics. Elektra Lives Again was a fully painted graphic novel written and drawn by Miller and colored by longtime partner Lynn Varley. Telling the story of the resurrection of Elektra from the dead and Daredevil's quest to find her, as well as showing Miller's will to experiment with new story-telling techniques.

1990 saw Miller and artist Geof Darrow start work on Hard Boiled, a three-issue miniseries. The title, a mix of violence and satire, was praised for Darrow's highly detailed art and Miller's writing. At the same time Miller and artist Dave Gibbons produced Give Me Liberty, a four-issue miniseries for Dark Horse. Give Me Liberty was followed by sequel miniseries and specials expanding on the story of protagonist Martha Washington, an African-American woman in modern and near-future southern North America, all of which were written by Miller and drawn by Gibbons.

Miller also wrote the scripts for the science fiction films RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, about a police cyborg. Neither was critically well received. In 2007, Miller stated that "There was a lot of interference in the writing process. It wasn't ideal. After working on the two Robocop movies, I really thought that was it for me in the business of film." Miller would come into contact with the fictional cyborg once more, writing the comic-book miniseries, RoboCop vs. The Terminator, with art by Walter Simonson. In 2003, Miller's screenplay for RoboCop 2 was adapted by Steven Grant for Avatar Press's Pulsaar imprint. Illustrated by Juan Jose Ryp, the series is called Frank Miller's RoboCop and contains plot elements that were divided between RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3.

In 1991, Miller started work on his first Sin City story. Serialized in Dark Horse Presents #51–62, it proved to be another success, and the story was released in a trade paperback. This first Sin City "yarn" was rereleased in 1995 under the name The Hard Goodbye. Sin City proved to be Miller's main project for much of the remainder of the decade, as Miller told more Sin City stories within this noir world of his creation, in the process helping to revitalize the crime comics genre. Sin City proved artistically auspicious for Miller and again brought his work to a wider audience without comics. Miller lived in Los Angeles, California in the 1990s, which influenced Sin City.

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear was a five issue miniseries published by Marvel Comics in 1993. In this story, Miller and artist John Romita, Jr. told Daredevil's origins differently from in the previous comics, and provided additional detail to his beginnings. Miller also returned to superheroes by writing issue #11 of Todd McFarlane's Spawn, as well as the Spawn/Batman crossover for Image Comics.

In 1995, Miller and Darrow collaborated again on Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, published as a two-part miniseries by Dark Horse Comics. In 1999 it became an animated series on Fox Kids. During this period, Miller became one of the founding members of the comic imprint Legend, under which many of his Sin City works were released, via Dark Horse. Also, it was during the 1990s that Miller did cover art for many titles in the Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line.

Written and illustrated by Frank Miller with painted colors by Varley, 300 was a 1998 comic-book miniseries, released as a hardcover collection in 1999, retelling the Battle of Thermopylae and the events leading up to it from the perspective of Leonidas of Sparta. 300 was particularly inspired by the 1962 film The 300 Spartans, a movie that Miller watched as a young boy. In 2007, 300 was adapted by director Zack Snyder into a successful film.

Miller moved back to Hell's Kitchen by 2001 and was creating Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again as the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred about four miles from that neighborhood. His differences with DC Comics put aside, he saw the sequel initially released as a three-issue miniseries, and though it sold well, it received a mixed to negative reception. Miller also returned to writing Batman in 2005, taking on the writing duties of All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, a series set inside of what Miller describes as the "Dark Knight Universe." and drawn by Jim Lee.

Miller's previous attitude towards movie adaptations was to change after Robert Rodriguez made a short film based on a story from Miller's Sin City entitled "The Customer is Always Right". Miller was pleased with the result, leading to him and Rodriguez directing a full-length film, Sin City using Miller's original comics panels as storyboards. The film was released in the U.S. on April 1, 2005. The film's success brought renewed attention to Miller's Sin City projects. Similarly, a film adaptation of 300, directed solely by Zack Snyder, brought new attention and controversy to Miller's original comic book work. A sequel to the film, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, based around Miller's second Sin City series and co-directed by Miller and Robert Rodriguez, was released in theaters on August 22, 2014.

In April 2015 an eight-issue second sequel to The Dark Knight Returns, titled The Dark Knight III: The Master Race, was announced. Miller was announced as co-writer alongside Brian Azzarello. The series will be released twice-monthly starting in fall 2015.

Until their divorce in 2005, Miller was married to colorist Lynn Varley, who colored many of his most acclaimed works (from Ronin in 1984 through 300 1998), and the backgrounds to the 2007 movie 300. He has since been romantically linked to New York-based Shakespearean scholar Kimberly Halliburton Cox, who had a cameo in The Spirit (2008).

In July 2011 at the San Diego Comic-Con International 2011 while promoting his upcoming graphic novel Holy Terror in which the protagonist hero fights Al-Qaeda terrorists, Miller made a remark about Islamic terrorism and Islam saying, "I was raised Catholic and I could tell you a lot about the Spanish Inquisition but the mysteries of the Catholic Church elude me. And I could tell you a lot about Al-Qaeda, but the mysteries of Islam elude me too."

In November 2011, Miller posted remarks pertaining to the Occupy Wall Street movement in his blog, calling it "nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness." and said of the movement, "Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy. Maybe, between bouts of self-pity and all the other tasty tidbits of narcissism you’ve been served up in your sheltered, comfy little worlds, you’ve heard terms like al-Qaeda and Islamicism." Miller's statement generated controversy.

In October 2012, Joanna Gallardo-Mills, who began working for Miller as an executive coordinator in November 2008, filed suit against Miller in Manhattan for discrimination and "mental anguish", stating that Miller's girlfriend, Kimberly Cox, created a hostile work environment for Gallardo-Mills in Miller and Cox's Hell's Kitchen living/work space.

Although still conforming to traditional comic book styles, Miller infused his first issue of Daredevil with his own film noir style Miller sketched the roofs of New York in an attempt to give his Daredevil art an authentic feel not commonly seen in superhero comics at the time. One journalist noted,

"Daredevil's New York, under Frank's run, became darker and more dangerous than the Spider-Man New York he’d seemingly lived in before. New York City itself, particularly Daredevil's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, became as much a character as the shadowy crimefighter; the stories often took place on the rooftop level, with water towers, pipes and chimneys jutting out to create a skyline reminiscent of German Expressionism's dramatic edges and shadows."

Ronin shows some of the strongest influences of manga and bande dessinée on Miller's style, both in the artwork and narrative style. Sin City was drawn in black and white to emphasize its film noir origins.

See our BOOKS by Frank Miller.
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John Millar Watt biography

John Millar Watt biography

John Millar Watt (14 October 1895 - December 1975)
Born at Gurrock on the Clyde, educated at Ilford, studied art at The Sir John Cass Institute and The Slade. In 1915 he joined the Artist's Rifles and was later commissioned into the Essex Regiment. Serving on the Western Front in the line at Dedville, Beaumont Harnell and the Somme, he was gassed at Virny Ridge. Demobbed in 1919 he became a student at the Slade. While still at art school he drew some sports cartoons for the Daily Chronicle and the Christmas cover in colour for the Sphere in 1920.

In 1921 on May 21st, the great comic character, Pop appeared in the Daily Sketch. In 1925 the first Pop annual appeared and continued annually until 1949. He painted front covers for Sphere for Royal weddings, Coronations, state funerals as well as Christmas numbers, The Illustrated London News, Readers Digest and many other publications.

As a water colourist and oil painter he exhibited at The Royal Academy of Art as well as many galleries. In the late 1950s, Millar Watt turned his talents to adventure comic strips and historical illustrations. His work appeared in Thriller Picture Library (covers and interior art, especially Robin Hood and Dick Turpin), Robin Hood Annuals (covers and full colour plates), Look & Learn magazine (colour and black and white illustrations for many famous historical scenes and events), Ranger ( Treasure Island serial) and historical work for Topper annuals. Sadly, much of his original work has disappeared over the years, lost or destroyed.

See our BOOKS featuring John Millar Watt.

See illustrators  issue 26 for John Millar Watt feature article and more of his art in PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.

Enjoy John Millar Watts' great storytelling in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics PIRATE TALES and CLASH OF BLADES collections.

John Millar Watt art
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Barrie Mitchell biography

Barrie Mitchell biography

Barrie Mitchell
Barrie Mitchell is an artist of UK action, sports and adventure comics.

Barrie Mitchell did a four-year apprenticeship as a comics artist with Link Studios, alongside John M. Burns. His early work was for girls' comics like Bunty (including "The Four Marys"), Mandy and Diana, and also drew for Bonanza annuals, Pow!, Wham!, Smash! ("Brian's Brain", 1966-68; "His Sporting Lordship", 1969-72) and Sparky. In 1967 he drew three motor-racing related strips, "Tales from the Tracks", "Lightning Storm" and "Drive for your Life", for Lion.

From the early 1970s he specialised in football strips, beginning with "Paxton's Powerhouse" for Scorcher and "Jack of United"/"Jimmy of City" (1970-74) for Score 'n' Roar. He went on to draw "Skipper Willie" and "Cast Iron Bull" for Wizard, "Twisty" (1976-77) and "Kid Cox" for Bullet, "Play Till You Drop" and "Look Out For Lefty" for Action, "Guts to be a Goalie". "Pickford", "Stark: Matchwinner for Hire" (1978-82) and "Superstar" for Scoop, and "Marks Brothers" and "Playmaker" for Roy of the Rovers, and he drew the lead "Roy of the Rovers" strip in 1992-93, and returned to the character in 1997. He returned to the character in a one-off strip published in the Daily Mail in 2011, written by Ian Rimmer. In 1989-90 he drew "Scorer" in the Daily Mirror.

Non-football strips he drew include "Day of the Eagle" for Battle, "M.A.C.H. 1" and "Judge Dredd" for 2000 AD, "The Lawless Touch" for Tornado, "Doctor Who" for Doctor Who Magazine, "Speed Kings" (1978-81) for The Victor, and "Knight Rider", "Worzel Gummidge", "The A-Team" and "Streethawk" and the bio-strips 'When They Were Young' and 'The Story So Far' for Look-In.

He was the final artist of the soccer comic 'Roy of the Rovers'. He drew the strip from October 1992 until its cancellation in March 1993.

Mitchell then went to work for Marvel UK. In 1997, he returned to the revived 'Roy of the Rovers' series. Mitchell also cooperated on The Mirror's 'Scorer' strip in 1989-1990. In the early 1990s, he was also the artist of 'Playmaker', another comic in the Roy of the Rovers comic book.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery & UK Comics Wiki
Barrie Mitchell art
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Moebius (Jean Giraud) biography

Moebius (Jean Giraud) biography

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud, aka 'Moebius', Jean Giraud and 'Gir' (8 May 1938 - 10 March 2012; France)
Never has a pen-name been so apt: like the half-twisted Möbius strip he took his pen-name from, Jean Giraud seemingly had two sides which, when examined carefully, proved to be aspects of a single creative mind. As Gir, co-creator of Blueberry, one of France’s most popular comic strips, selling out print-runs of a quarter million copies with each new album, his brushwork was detailed and realistic; as Moebius he used intricate, visually arresting pen-work to explore his subconscious in the pages of Arzach, The Airtight Garage and The Incal.

Giraud had an impact on the visual arts that went beyond comic books. He was seen as a figurehead linking the bande dessinés with Modernism and the nouveau réalisme (although he denied any conscious effort to do so); as co-creator of Métal Hurlant magazine, he took comics to an older, more literate audience; and, in cinema, his fans ranged from Federico Fellini to Hayao Miyazaki and his style influenced dozens of others, including Ridley Scott, George Lucas, James Cameron and Luc Besson.

Giraud was modest about his talents, acknowledging the influences of others, notably Joseph Gillain on his work as Gir, and Alexander Jodorowsky, whom he credited with unchaining his vision and allowing it to fly free to create the surreal worlds of Moebius. Even as the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain held a five-month retrospective—“Moebius Trance-form”—of his work, Giraud told Le Figaro that the act of creating images was not as romantic as often portrayed and that it was something rather ordinary; speaking to the LA Times in 2011, he admitted to feeling happy and amazed when he was told by young fans that his work had changed their lives and read statements like “Moebius is a legendary artist”. “A legend—now I am like a unicorn,” he responded.

Born in Nogent-sur-Marve, a suburb of Paris, on 8 May 1938, Jean Henri Gaston Giraud’s parents divorced when he was three and he grew up in Fontenay-sous-Bois with his grandparents. He began drawing illustrations and comic strips—mostly featuring cowboys and indians, inspired by Hollywood westerns—as a way to pass melancholic hours whilst his mother was out working; at 14 he was introduced by his father to the science fiction magazine Fiction and he became a regular reader of both Fiction and Galaxie for the next twenty-five years. He sold his first story to publisher Jacques Dumas (Marijac) at the age of 15.

At 16 he began training at the École des arts appliqués in rue Dupetit-Thouars, Paris, and earned a diploma in applied arts after two years. At the age of 18 he began producing artwork for advertising and fashion and his first substantial comic strip, ‘Les aventures de Frank et Jérémie’ for Far West magazine. He then devoted himself to comic strips, drawing for Fripounet et Marisette, Cœurs villants and Sitting-Bull.

When his mother moved to Mexico to remarry, Giraud joined her for nine months, returning to France to undertake his military service, drawing for the military newspaper 5/5 Forces Françaises whilst stationed in Germany and Algeria. On his release, he visited Belgian artist Joseph (Jijé) Gillain, whom he had met prior to joining the army, at his home near Paris, who hired him as an assistant. Gillain had absorbed the qualities of American storytelling during a long sabbatical to the USA, and introduced Giraud to the works of Milton Caniff and others whose style was highly realistic. Gillain was then drawing Jerry Spring for Spirou and Giraud became his inker on the story La Route de Coronado, published in 1961 and collected as an album in 1962.

In 1961-62, Giraud also worked with Jean-Claude Mézières on the collection L’Histoire des civilisations for Hachette whilst also producing illustrations for the satirical magazine Hara-Kiri where he first began using ‘Moebius’ as a signature.

Giraud met Jean-Michel Charlier, editor-in-chief of the newly founded Pilote magazine and was invited to draw Charlier’s new western strip featuring Lieutenant Blueberry, one of the most popular comic strips to appear throughout Europe. Blueberry was the nickname of Mike Donovan, a lieutenant in the US Cavalry based at Fort Navajo where he faced constant battles against gunrunners and local Indian tribes. Charlier travelled to the USA to research his scripts and filled them with historical detail, matched by Giraud’s highly detailed artwork.

Drawing, and sometimes colouring, Blueberry filled most of Giraud’s time for the next decade, with each new storyline in Pilote quickly released in album form; sixteen stories had appeared by 1973. Giraud was able to use the time—and the royalties generated by Blueberry—to his own advantage and began exploring new territories. He contributed a number of short stories to Pilote, notably ‘La déviation’ (1973) and ‘L’homme est-il bon?’ (1974), exploring different styles of storytelling and letting his imagination roam free.

Other artists were also trying to break free of the constraints of comics: L’Echo des Savanes was launched in 1972 by former Pilote creators Marcel Gotlib, Claire Bretécher and Nikita Mandryka, marking a new direction for the bande desinees in France.

After one further volume of Blueberry, Giraud teamed up with writer Jean-Pierre Dionnet, artist Philippe Druillet and financial director Bernard Farkas to found Le Humanoides Associés and publish Métal Hurlant (Screaming Metal). Initially conceived as a French answer to American underground ‘comix’, Heavy Metal (as it became in translation) was the launching pad for Giraud’s Arzach and Druillet’s Lone Sloane and very quickly attracted the likes of Richard Corben, Jacques Tardi, Vaughn Bode, Serge Clerc, Enki Bilal and many others. It was in the pages of Métal Hurlant that Moebius experimented with non-narrative (Arzach, 1975) and non-linear (Le garage hermétique de Jerry Cornélius, 1976-79) stories, developing many of the iconic images that were to make Moebius such an influence—the figure of Arzach flying over a barren alien landscape on a pterodactyl or the pith-helmeted Major Grubert, first introduced in ‘Les vacances du Major’ (France-Soir, 1974) and reintroduced in ‘Le major fatal’ in Métal Hurlant before taking a central role in The Airtight Garage.

It was Giraud’s experimental stories that attracted the attention of film-maker Alejandro Jodorowsky, who, in 1975, was attempting to adapt Frank Herbert’s political, ecological and religious science fiction epic, Dune. Although the film eventually came to nothing, it was central to Giraud’s future influence on film-makers. During the pre-production of Dune, Giraud met visual effects supervisor Dan O’Bannon and the two collaborated on the short serial ‘The Long Tomorrow’ for Métal Hurlant. O’Bannon, left penniless after the collapse of Dune, returned to the USA where he roomed with Ronald Shusett, picking up the threads of a screenplay they had begun working on some years before about the crew of a spaceship, whose voyage is interrupted by a mayday signal. The script was offered to Ridley Scott, who used many of the creative team assembled by Jodorowsky—including Giraud, Chris Foss and H. R. Giger—to design the SF/horror classic Alien, released in 1979.

Giraud was now able to split his time between his various personae: Gir was able to take up the reigns of Blueberry once again, re-teaming with Charlier to produce six further albums. With Charlier’s death in 1989, Giraud turned to writing the series as well as drawing, producing another five volumes between 1995 and 2005. At the same time, he also penned four volumes (1991-97) featuring another western hero Jim Cutlass (another Charlier/Gir creation who had made a single appearance in Pilote in 1976) with artwork by Christian Rossi.

Moebius, meanwhile, embarked on the multi-volume story of L’Incal, which debuted in Métal Hurlant in 1980. Written by Jodorowsky, the story is set in a dystopian galactic empire where rulers, rebels and aliens are all seeking an energy crystal which has fallen into the hands of a shambolic private eye, John Difool. This simple premise underpins an endlessly inventive masterpiece, a relentlessly-paced galaxy-spanning adventure, which, at the same time, charts Difool’s philosophical and spiritual evolution.

Meanwhile, Jean Giraud was in demand from the film industry as a concept designer, storyboard artist and even director. His films included the animated Les Maîtres du temps (Time Masters) and Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, live-action SF/fantasy movies TRON, Masters of the Universe, Willow, The Abyss and The Fifth Element, and the hybrid live action/cartoon Space Jam. For French TV he directed the animated Arzak Rhapsody and La Planète Encore. The story ‘Cauchemar blanc’ (L’Echo des Savanes, 1974) was filmed by Matthieu Kassowitz in 1991; a Blueberry movie starring Vincent Cassel in the title role was released in Europe in 2004 (in America it went straight to DVD under the title Renegade).

In the 1980s, Giraud spent much of his time in America (and briefly in Tahiti and Japan) where, championed by Jean Marc and Randy Lofficier, many of his best works began appearing in translation, some—like the Marvel/Epic edition of The Airtight Garage—newly coloured. His connections with Marvel led him to illustrate the two-part Silver Surfer: Parable, written by Stan Lee.

The series won the 1989 Eisner Award for best finite series and Giraud (along with collaborators Paul Chadwick and Charles Vess) picked up a second Eisner for the story ‘Concrete Celebrates Earth Day’ in 1991. Translations of Giraud’s work won the Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material in 1988, 1989 and 1991. Giraud had long been recognised for his work, taking major prizes at Lucca (Italy), Angoulême (France) comic festivals and the Salón Internacional del Cómic (Spain). In 1985 he was decorated with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French president François Mitterrand.

In 1992, he again collaborated with Jodorowsky on Le Coeur Couronné (The Crowned Heart), which ran for three albums (La Folle du Sacré-Coeur, 1992, Le Piège de l’irrationnel, 1993, and Le Fou de la Sorbonne, 1998), and again in 1994 with Griffes d’Ange (Angel Claws).

A sequel to The Airtight Garage, L'Homme de Ciguri, appeared in 1995 and Giraud, despite being kept busy with his scripts and artwork for Blueberry and Jim Cutlass, still managed to produce further Moebius works, including an Incal sequel, Le Nouveau Rêve (2000), and Ikaru (Icarus, 2001) drawn by Jiro Taniguchi.

Giraud died in Paris on 10 March 2012, aged 73, after a long battle with cancer and is survived by his wife, Isabelle and two children, Helene and Julien, from an earlier marriage. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.

Moebius (Jean Giraud) art

We also have a wide selection of Moebius (Jean Giraud) graphic novels and Moebius art books.
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Sheldon Moldoff biography

Sheldon Moldoff biography

Sheldon 'Shelly' Moldoff (14 April 1920 - 29 February 2012; USA)
Sheldon Moldoff began his career with DC Comics in 1939 assisting Bob Kane with Batman. He went on to draw many of DC's most famous characters including The Flash, Green Lantern, The Spectre, The Black Pirate and Hawkman. Shelly drew nearly every issue of Batman and Detective Comics from 1953 through 1967.

Sheldon Moldoff, one of the architects of the comic book Golden Age, died from kidney failure on 29 February 2012, aged 91. Mark Evanier noted in a tribute published on 3 March 2012 that Moldoff was the last surviving artist to have contributed to Action Comics #1, perhaps the most collectable of all comic books; although Moldoff did not contribute Superman's debut, he did contribute artwork to that issue – a sports strip filler on the inside back cover. It was his first professional appearance.

Born in Manhattan, New York, on 14 April 1920, Sheldon Douglas "Shelly" Moldoff was the son of Russian-born immigrants Ben Moldoff (Baruch Moldanski) and his wife Kate. He was raised in The Bronx. After teaching himself to draw, he was introduced to comics by illustrator Bernard Baily, who lived in the same apartment house as Moldoff and his family. At 17, he broke into the comic book industry, selling his first strips to Vincent Sullivan, the editor at National Periodicals.

Moldoff drew covers for the first appearances of The Flash (Flash Comics #1) and Green Lantern (All-American Comics #16) in 1940. In April 1940 he created the character Jon Valor, The Black Pirate, for Action Comics (#23) and took over the artwork (from Dennis Neville) for Hawkman (in Flash Comics #4). In All Star Comics (#5, Jul 1941) he introduced Hawkgirl.

Drafted in 1944, Moldoff returned to drawing in 1946, working for Standard, Fawcett, Marvel and Max Gaines' EC Comics. In 1948, he packaged two horror titles (This Magazine is Haunted and Tales of the Supernatural) which he first took to Fawcett Comics; when Fawcett turned them down, he took them to Max Gaines at EC who offered him a percentage of the profits. Gaines launched Tales from the Crypt a few months later and Moldoff was threatened with blacklisting if he tried to take legal action.

Moldoff subsequently took his dummies back to Fawcett, who paid him $100 for the titles (the latter became Strange Suspense Stories when it launched in 1952) and offered him as much work as he wished to take on. Fawcett folded the titles in 1953 and Moldoff became the assistant to Bob Kane, ghosting Kane's Batman comic strips. Although the work was anonymous – the strips were signed as by Kane – it was steady work; Moldoff also sold strips to DC Comics independently and thus kept himself busy until 1967.

During this period, he helped create the original Bat-Girl (Betty Kane), Batwoman, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Clayface and, as the stories began to grow more outlandish, Bat-Mite, Ace the Bat-Hound, Zebra Batman and the Merman Batman.

In the 1960s, DC made an effort to update Batman and a number of other long-term artists, were let go. Kane's contract was renegotiated in 1967 and he moved into TV animation where he created Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, for which show Moldoff produced storyboards. He was also the writer, producer and storyboard director of Marco Polo Junior versus the Red Dragon (1972) and Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu (2001).

Moldoff also continued to draw the occasional strip, drawing giveaway promotional comics for Big Boy and Red Lobster restaurants, Blockbuster Video and others. His last work for DC Comics appeared in 2000's World's Funniest one-shot where he illustrated a chapter of Evan Dorkin's Superman and Batman tale.

Moldoff was "outed" in 1991 when Julius Schwartz admitted at a convention "All the years I was buying artwork from Bob Kane, I wasn't buying it from Bob Kane, I was buying it from Shelly Moldoff." Moldoff became a regular at conventions, selling drawings and signing autographs.

Moldoff and his wife, Shirley, retired to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he died. Shirley predeceased him in 2002; he was survived by his children, Richard Moldoff, Kenneth Moldoff, Ellen Moldoff Stein and seven grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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Agricole Louis Montagne biography

Agricole Louis Montagne biography

Agricole Louis Montagné (19 August 1879 - 12 February 1960; France)
Born in Avignon, France, the very talented artist Montagné exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1901 and was declared exemplary in 1911 which earned him a travel scholarship. He was made ??a member of the Legion of Honour in 1932. Living in Paris and in the village of Angles at the castle Pontmartin, he was a member of the influential artistic movement Group of Thirteen.
Montagné was appointed director of the École des Beaux-Arts d'Avignon in 1920 and curator of the Villeneuve-lès-Avignon museum. Montagné died in Paris in 1960.
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Allan Morley biography

Allan Morley biography

Allan Morley (1895 - 1960)
Allan Morley was one of D.C. Thomson's most prolific artists, working for them from 1925 to 1950. He drew strips for The Beano, The Dandy and The Topper comiics, including 'The Magic Lollipops', 'Hungry Horace', 'Big Fat Joe', 'Freddy the Fearless Fly', 'Sammy's Super Rubber' and of course 'Keyhole Kate'.

'The Magic Lollipops' featured a boy with a jar of lollipops, which, if you licked them would turn into what you wanted, though not necessarily in quite the way you wanted. 'The Magic Lollipops' ran in The Beano from 1941 until 1951, during which time sweets were in short supply. The rationing of sugar and sweets in Britain during WWII was severe and continued for quite a few years after the war.

Allan Morley was one of only two artists permitted by D C Thomson to initial his work.

It is of note that of the artists working for D.C. Thomson (the publishers of Beano, Dandy, Beezer & Topper), only veteran artist Dudley D. Watkins was allowed to actually sign his artwork, and only from late 1946 onwards. Fellow artist Allan Morley, who drew 'Keyhole Kate', was also allowed to identify his work by initialling his drawings with 'A.M.' from January 1947 until he stopped drawing comic strips in 1950.

(Apparently, Leo Baxendale would sometimes sign his work only to find it had been whited out prior to publication. However, during his Wham! days at Odhams his strips bore his signature, but it was not to last....)
Source: paulmason.info
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Hugh Morren biography

Hugh Morren biography

Hugh James Morren (24 May 1921 - February 1995)
Hugh James Morren was born in Norwich. He had moved to Manchester by 1952, when he married Dorothy Marcus. While working in a factory in Manchester, he took night classes in drawing. His comic strip Tommy Wack, about a lazy workman, which ran in the Daily Express from 1968 and later in The Sun, was based on his experiences in the factory.

He also worked in weekly comics. Strips he worked on include "Wee Peem" (1956-57), "Dippy the Diver" (1957), "Betty's Grandad" (1958), "Joe for Champ" (1959), "Lazy Jones" (1960) and "The Country Cuzzins" (1963-64) for The Beano; "Just Jimmy" (1956-58) and "The Smasher" (1957-) for The Dandy; "Sporty Shorty" (1959) for The Comet; "Little Al" (1960) for The Hotspur; "Calamity Jane" (1956-60), "Big Ed" (1956) and "The Mob Next Door" (1964) for The Beezer; and "Harry Presto" (1969) and "Helpful Henry" (1970) for Sparky.

He died in Hull on in February 1995.
Source: UK Comics Wiki
Hugh Morren art
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Beverley R Morris biography

Beverley R Morris biography

Beverley Robinson Morris (14 July 1816 - 19 March 1883; Ireland & UK)
Information about Beverley R. Morris is sketchy but a little research reveals the following. He was the brother of the Reverend Francis Orpen Morris, BA, of Nunburnholme Rectory, Bayton, Yorkshire, who was a well-known naturalist, who published a number of books about birds and their nests as well as butterflies and moths.

Beverley R. Morris authored a similar two-volume work, British Game Birds and Wild Fowl (1855) which he also illustrated with plates coloured by hand. The book was well reviewed, the Daily News saying that it "has a unique position among works of its class. The sixty hand-coloured plates are splendidly executed".

Beverley Robinson Morris, M.D. was the fourth son of Rear-Admiral Henry Gage Morris. He was born in Ireland on 14 July 1816, but grew up in England, the family moving to Worcester in 1824 and settling in Charmouth, Dorset, in 1826. Morris later trained at Trinity College, Dublin.

He was married to Annie Robinson Skottowe (b. Isle of Man; d. Burnham, Somerset, 21 Jun 1890), daughter of Lieutenant George Augustus Frederick Skottowe, late of the Royal Navy, at St Marylebone Church on 20 June 1850. They had a daughter, Florence Bellenger Skottowe Morris, on 13 March 1851, who married W. B. Saunders in 1874; a second daughter, Annie Leonora Morris, died in 1866 shortly after being born.

Morris worked as a doctor in York and Nottingham; whilst working as Physician to the York Dispensary in the 1840s, his specialty appears to have been the treatment of the insane and he published A Theory as to the Proximate Causes of Insanity and Observations on the Construction of Hospitals for the Insane in 1844.

At the same time he was editor of The Naturalist, which described itself as "A popular monthly magazine illustrative of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms".

He died on 19 March 1883 at 17 Burns Street, Nottingham, aged 66. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Beverley R. Morris art
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Edward Mortelmans biography

Edward Mortelmans biography

Edward Eugene Louis Mortelmans (1915 - 2008; London, UK)
Edward Mortelmans is a 20th-century English artist and illustrator. His primary modes of expression are watercolour and black and white line drawings.

Educated; Upper Hornsey Road Evening Art Institute;
Educated; Central Institute of Art and Design;
Educated; Slade School of Fine Art.
Designed posters for London Transport 1948.

He is best known for illustrating some books by Gerald Durrell and some covers for books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Mortelmans was a watercolour artist, who commercially practiced cover artistry and book illustration, mostly for a visual audience of children and young adults. He illustrated the cover for a number of E. R. Burroughs paperback editions for Four Square Books including The Son of Tarzan, The Beasts of Tarzan and Lost on Venus.

He did some magazine work, including cover design for the first American pulp magazine, Argosy. He has also been associated with illustrating several series, like the Twenty Names series of Hodder and Stoughton, How and Why Wonder Books of Corgi Books and the Oxford Graded Readers series of Oxford University Press. He has produced commissioned art for British Railways. Edward Mortelmans' illustrations have been critically acclaimed.
Source: London Transport Museum & Wikipedia
Edward Mortelmans art

Enjoy more of his art in our PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.
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Dean Motter biography

Dean Motter biography

Dean Motter (born 1958; Canada)
Dean Motter is a Canadian artist, illustrator and graphic designer best known as the creator of Mister X and Terminal City, two highlights of the "comics aren't for kids" boom of the 1980s/90s.

The history of Mister X began in the early 1980s: Motter was then sharing a studio with Ken Steacy and Paul Rivoche and the character went through a lengthy development process before independent publisher Vortex Comics began insisting that work the comic book needed to begin. Motter provided a story outline from which Gilbert Hernandez created a script, illustrated by Jaime Hernandez. After only four issues, the Hernandez brothers quit, citing non-payment by Vortex, and Motter wrote issues 5 through 14, which were illustrated by Seth (Gregory Gallant).

Mister X himself was an architect, the creator of Radiant City, which has been designed on the principals of psychetecture, driving its citizens mad.

Although the character continued to appear, it was in the hands of other writers and artists. Motter later used the characters in Electropolis and returned to them in the mini-series Mister X: Condemned, published in 2008-09 by Dark Horse.

Motter has earlier co-created The Sacred & the Profane with art by Ken Steacy, which he later described as being influenced by the Symbolists and the Pre-Raphaelites, aesthetics he had wanted to introduce into comics since his days as an art history student. Mister X was influenced by Art Deco, German Expressionism, film noir, Russian Constructivism, Bauhaus, mid-20th century industrial design and the futuristic artwork of SF and popular mechanics magazines of the pulp era.

Motter's influences, thanks to his upbringing in Canada, were European, especially French, when it came to comics, although for Mister X he acknowledged the heavy influence of Will Eisner and Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Motter, born in 1958, began reading comics around the age of 8 or 9 and was also a fan of vintage horror and science fiction films. He produced comic pages for his college newspaper and freelanced for Media Five, a tabloid magazine published in London, Ontario, whilst at college. After moving to Toronto, he was a regular at the Silver Snail comic book store. The owner of Silver Snail produced the SF magazine Andromeda in 1977-79, reprinting stories by Arthur C. Clarke and A. E. Van Vogt. Mottor worked as art director and designer for the magazine.

Another acquaintance, Marty Herzog, began working as a creatove director with CBS Records Canada, which led to Motter designing album covers for numerous bands, creating the cover art for Anvil's Metal On Metal (1983 Juno Award winner), Seamless by The Nylons (1984 Juno Award winner) and Jane Silberry's No Borders Here (1985 Casby Award winner). He was awarded the Best of the 80's Album Cover award by the Toronto Art Directors Club for Honeymoon Suite in 1985.

The Sacret & the Profane was originally published as a 5-part serial in Star+Reach in 1977-78. Motter and Steacy subsequently revised and coloured the strip for Epic Illustrated in the early 1980s; the revision was then reprinted as a graphic novel by Eclipse in 1987. The story has echoes of James Blish's A Case Of Conscience as it concerns Sister Marianna, a nun aboard a spaceship of the Catholic Interstellar Crusade – in effect, a flying church – who has begun to question her faith. After attacking an alien vessel, the human crew start to fall prey to an invading alien force.

Following on from his work on Mister X, Motter was invited to produce a comic based on Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner, drawn by Mark Askwith, a former Silver Snail manager who went on to become a TV producer.

In 1990, Motter relocated to New York, working for Byron Preiss Visual Publications where he was art director and senior designer, as well as editing a series of graphic novels based on the stories of Raymond Chandler. He subsequently joined DC Comics as manager of the Creative Services Department. This latter job allowed him to freelance and, for Vertigo, he produced Terminal City, drawn by Michael Lark.

Reverting to freelance, he continued the Terminal City saga with Aerial Graffiti, also drawn by Lark. The two also teamed up for the Batman graphic novel Nine Lives, winner of the Will Eisner Award in 2003. Motter's other works have included The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (adapted for Classics Illustrated), Batman: Gotham Knights, Grendel: Red, White and Black, Hellblazer and 9-11: Artists Respond. Further stories have appeared Superman Adventures, Star Wars Tales, Will Eisner's The Spirit, and Wolverine. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Dean Motter art
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F. Munger biography

F. Munger biography

Frank Munger (1920 - 2010)
A talented, self-taught artist, born in Buckinghamshire, who in 1945 joined Iliffe Press as an editorial artist. Exhibited his first paintings in London, 1966, and worked in all media but mainly watercolour, also showing in the provinces and having solo exhibitions local to West Hallam, Derbyshire, where he lived.

Was a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society, the Guild of Aviation Artists and was a founder-member of the Guild of Motoring Artists. Wildlife and landscapes were also painted. Won a number of awards, including Aviation Painting of the Year, 1991. Numerous magazine and book illustrations are included in Munger's work, which is held in public and private collections.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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José Muñoz biography

José Muñoz biography

José Muñoz (born 10 July 1942; Argentina)
Jose Munoz is nowadays best known for his work on the series Alack Sinner, which has been hugely popular in Europe for over thirty-five years. The detective series and the many volumes that have spun off from it are characterised by the artist's heavy use of chiaroscuro and the exaggerated (often grotesque) faces and figures.

José Antonio Muñoz was born on 10 July 1942 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and studied painting, sculpture and drawing at the Escuela Panamericana de Arte where he was taught by Alberto Breccia and Pablo Pereyra.

At the age of 18 he published his first comic strips in the pages of Hora Cero and Frontera, magazines strongly associated with Hector Oesterheld. Muñoz drew several episodes of Oesterheld's Ernie Pike and also illustrated Precint 56 by Ray Collins (Eugene Zappietro) for Mixterix, then edited by Hugo Pratt.

For many years Muñoz worked in Francisco Solano Lopez's studio, which was set up in the early 1960s to capitalise on the vast amount of artwork that could be supplied to British comics. Lopez, at his peak, had six assistants, working on weekly and monthly assignments ranging from weekly science fiction and football yarns (Kelly's Eye, Raven on the Wing, etc.) to monthly war titles (for War, Battle, Air Ace, etc.). The studio's output was immense and for the most part it is impossible to distinguish the work of individual artists.

Muñoz travelled to Europe for the first time in March 1971 and in Spain, via a mutual friend, Oscar Zarate, met Carlos Sampayo, a fellow Argentinian who, shortly after, settled in Madrid. Muñoz, meanwhile, settled in London where he was working regularly for Lion, drawing a number of short-lived strips – 'A Stitch in Time', 'The Treasure-Hunt Twins', 'Lost in Limbo Land' and 'Sark the Sleeper' – ahead of Lion's imminent folding into Valiant, where he would draw a few stories featuring Adam Eterno.

At this time, he was being encouraged by Breccia and Hugo Pratt during trips to Paris and Lucca to create his own work, but Muñoz's separation from his wife and daughter led to him living in a commune and earning money washing dishes.

Again, Oscar Zarate persuaded him to visit Carlos Sampayo at his home in Castelldefels, Spain. Here, the two began to develop the character Alack Sinner, who was to debut in AlterLinus and Charlie Mensuel in 1975. The two also began working on other albums, including El bar de Joe [Joe's Bar] and Sophie Goin' South, both published in 1981. The following year Muñoz was named Best Artist at Lucca. Alack Sinner won the Best Foreign Comics Album award at Angoulême in 1978 and 1973. Another collaboration with Sampayo, Billie Holiday, won the Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material in 1994.

Very little of his work has been seen in the UK. Escape magazine's tenth issue featured 'Joe's Bar' in 1987 and Viet Blues was serialised in Crisis in 1990-91. In Europe Muñoz has continued to work with increasing recognition. He collaborated with American author Jerome Charyn on Au croc du serpent (1996) and Panna Maria (1999) and continues to collaborate with Sampayo on such titles as Dans les bars (2002), Le livre (2004) and further adventures of Alack Sinner.

In 2002 he was awarded the Max-und-Moritz-Preis in Germany for his life's work and, in 2007, he became only the fourth non-French language creator to receive the Grand Prix at Angoulême. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Jill Murphy biography

Jill Murphy biography

Jill Murphy (5 July 1949 - 18 August 2021; London, UK)
Jill Murphy was a British writer and illustrator of children's books, best known for the Worst Witch novels (starting in 1974) and the 'Large Family' picture books (since 1986). She has been called "one of the most engaging writers and illustrators for children in the land".

Born in London, Murphy showed an interest in writing and drawing at the age of six; although not excelling in other school subjects, she had made her own enormous library of hand-written and illustrated books while still at primary school. She enjoyed reading boarding-school stories, which provided material and inspiration for Miss Cackle's Academy in the Worst Witch series, as did the Ursuline High School, Wimbledon, which she attended. She grew up a Roman Catholic, but she is no longer practising. Her stay-at-home mother was a "book maniac" and her father was an Irish engineer.

Murphy started to write The Worst Witch — "the magical tale of an accident-prone girl attempting to navigate the magical codes and murky corridors of Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches" — while still at school, but put the book on hold while she attended Chelsea and Croydon Art Schools. She continued to write it during a year living in a village in Togo, West Africa, and later while working as a nanny back in the UK.

After receiving rejection letters from publishers to whom she offered the book (as she recalls, "They said children would be frightened about a school for witches..."), in 1970 when she was 21 she decided to try the new young company Allison and Busby, and, she says, was "thrilled to find the publishers were quirky like me". "They accepted it immediately, and printed 5,000 copies, and I remember wondering how many aunts and uncles I had, and what we would do with the rest," she said in an interview with The Telegraph. However, the book proved an instant success, selling out within two months of publication in 1974. Murphy continued working as a nanny until the publication in 1980 of The Worst Witch Strikes Again prompted her to devote herself to writing full-time.

In 1986, a television film with the same title as her fantasy novel premiered on ITV. It later aired on The Disney Channel during the 1990s around the time of Halloween.

The Worst Witch stories have become some of the most successful titles on the Young Puffin paperback list and have sold more than three million copies. They were also made into a successful 1986 film and an ITV series, airing on CITV between 1998 and 2001.

Murphy is also known for her picture books, especially the "Large Family" series, which detail the domestic chaos of an elephant family. First published in 1986, Five Minutes Peace has sold more than five million copies worldwide and has been translated into 19 languages.

For the second book, All in One Piece (1987), she was a commended runner-up for the Greenaway Medal from the British Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject (the second of her two commendations).

The "Large Family" is now a TV series on CBeebies and ABC Kids. In 1996 The Last Noo-Noo was adapted as a play and performed at the Polka Theatre, London.

Murphy also wrote Dear Hound (2010), about a deerhound who goes missing after a storm and the quest for his owners to find him.

Recipient of many notable literary awards, Murphy received an honorary fellowship from University College Falmouth in 2007 and lived in St Mabyn, Cornwall until her death from cancer on 18 August 2021.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Jill Murphy art
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John Cullen Murphy biography

John Cullen Murphy biography

John Cullen Murphy (3 May 1919 - 2 July 2004; New York, USA)
John Cullen Murphy was an American illustrator best known for his three decades of work on the Prince Valiant comic strip.

Born in New York City, Murphy spent his childhood in Chicago and in New Rochelle, New York, where his family moved in 1930.

He started art classes at the age of 9, but aspired to be a baseball player. He received supervision from artists like George Bridgman, Norman Rockwell, Charles Chapman and Franklin Booth. He was playing baseball one afternoon when he got the attention of Norman Rockwell, his New Rochelle neighbor, who asked the 15-year-old if he would like to pose for some magazine ads. Rockwell's Starstruck, showing a forlorn Murphy gazing at pictures of movie starlets, was the September 22, 1934 cover of The Saturday Evening Post. The experience inspired the young Murphy to become an illustrator.

Rockwell became one of his good friends and mentors. Murphy started his career early, selling his first illustrations while he was still in high school. After high school, he studied in New York City at the Phoenix Art Institute and the Art Students League, where he was taught by the anatomist George Bridgman.

Murphy entered the U.S. Army in 1940, joining the 7th Regiment. He became an anti-aircraft officer during World War II, rising to the rank of major. He spent several years in the Pacific, beginning in Australia and ending in Tokyo. He was an aide to General William F. Marquat, who was on General Douglas MacArthur's staff. During the war, Murphy continued to illustrate, sending work to the Chicago Tribune and painting numerous portraits of military figures, including MacArthur.

Murphy's first professional work at the age of seventeen was for Madison Square Garden's publicity department, drawing boxing cartoons. On average two of his cartoons a week were published by sports magazines in Chicago. He resumed his art career upon his return from military service. During the 1940s, he was a popular magazine illustrator, regularly seen in Collier's, Look, Esquire, Liberty, Sport, Holiday and Columbia, published by the Knights of Columbus.

Murphy's art often depicted sports subjects. His boxing material unexpectedly led him into the comic strip field, something he had never previously considered. In 1950, writer Elliot Caplin (brother of cartoonist Al Capp) of King Features Syndicate asked Murphy to illustrate a boxing comic strip he was planning to write. Murphy accepted his invitation. The resulting daily comic strip, Big Ben Bolt, was launched in 1950 and ran until 1978.

Murphy began his collaboration on Prince Valiant (the saga of a young Norse prince who becomes a knight of King Arthur's round table at Camelot) with creator Hal Foster in 1970 when Foster decided to lessen his workload at age 78. From the fall of 1970 until early 1980 Foster sent Murphy pencilled layouts, notes, and initially scripts.

With Foster's retirement in 1979, Murphy's son Cullen took over the writing. Cullen Murphy began contributing stories to Foster while studying at Amherst College. Bill Crouch also contributed six story lines over the next four years. Murphy continued to draw Prince Valiant with his son scripting and his daughter doing the lettering and coloring until his retirement in March 2004, when he turned the strip over to his chosen successor, illustrator Gary Gianni. Murphy died four months later in Cos Cob, Connecticut.

Murphy never copied Foster's style, preferring a harder pen line instead of the softer brush look, giving the strip a more angular feel. Frank Bolle helped Murphy in layouts and research but Murphy's detailed pen work could still be seen in all the finished pages.

In 1951, Murphy married Joan Byrne, also from New Rochelle. They had eight children. His son, Cullen Murphy (John Cullen Murphy, Jr.), is a writer and magazine editor.
Source: Wikipedia
John Cullen Murphy art
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Musio biography

Musio biography

Musio (Active 1970s)
Not much is known about the very talented artist and illustrator Musio, whose illustrations graced many magazines and books, including World of Wonder (including the strip Ladies of Honour) and Look and Learn.
Musio art
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Russell Myers biography

Russell Myers biography

Russell Myers (born 9 October 1938; USA)
Russell Myers is an American cartoonist whose popular Broom-Hilda appears in American newspapers. The strip, featuring a 1,500-year-old, beer-guzzling, cigar-smoking, man-crazy witch and her friends, was launched in 1970 and is syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. At least 25 collections of the strip appeared in 1971-87.

Born in Pittsburg, Kansas, on 9 October 1938, Myers was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where his father, a college professor, taught at Tulsa University. He attended Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, where artist Archie Goodwin was a fellow student, and the University of Tulsa. Interested in cartooning from an early age, Myers began illustrating greetings cards for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City in 1960 when his first cartoon submissions were rejected.

"Broom-Hilda" was based on an idea by Elliott Caplin (brother of cartoonist Al Capp), who suggested the characters, which Myers designed. Caplin submitted the strip to the Chicago Tribune Syndicate and it began appearing on 19 April 1970. Myers won the National Cartoonists Society's Humor Comic Strip Award for 1975 for his work on the strip.

Myers married his wife Marina in 1964. Living in Grants Pass, Oregon, the Myers family includes son Stewart and daughter Rosie. His hobbies include reading, collecting old cars and hanging out at the local Saturday night dirt track, where he sponsors a car. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Russell Myers art
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Angel Nadal biography

Angel Nadal biography

Angel Nadal Quirch (born 1930; Spain)
Spanish artist Angel Nadal was one of a group of artists discovered in Spain when Ron Clark, Barry Coker and Keith Davies went in search of new humour artists for planned launches by the new Fleetway Publications. In Spain, they discovered the Bruguera School of artists and introduced a host of them to the pages of Film Fun, Knockout and the newly launched Buster.

One of the leading artists thus discovered was Angel Nadal. Born Ángel Nadal Quirch in Barcelona in 1930, Nadal began his career in 1944 as an assistant to Antonio Ayné and Emilio Boix. He began working for Editorial Valenciana's Jaimito where, in 1948, he credited the strip Sindulfo Sacarina. That same year he also began working for Bruguera.

Editorial Bruguera were established as Black Cat Publishing by Juan Bruguera in 1910 but was renamed by Bruguera's son in 1939. Black Cat launched the weekly comic Pulgarcito [Tom Thumb] in 1921 but its popularity grew after 1947 and Bruguera expanded with more humour titles such as Din Dan and El DDT.

Nadal began working on strips for the magazine Pulgarcito, his creations including Casildo Calasparra (1948), Sandalio Pergamín (1948), Don Folio (1951), Don Cloroformo (1951) and Pascual, criado leal (1953). Nadal's style of artwork mixed realism with caricature and he became known for his ability to draw attractive women in such strips as Rosita, la vampiresa (1951) and Las mujeres de Nadal (1954). Nadal also drew historietas costumbristas – stories of daily life – including "Matildita y Anacleto, un matrimonio completo" (El DDT, 1954) and "Maripili y Gustavito, todavía sin pisito" (Sissi, 1958).

In 1957, some of Bruguera's contributors – amongst them José Escobar, José Peñarroya, Carlos Conti, Guillermo Cifré and Eugenio Giner – were unhappy with their lot and set up the group DER (Dibujantes Españoles Reunidos [Spanish Designers Reunited]) who created Tio Vivo, a Spanish adult humour magazine along the lines of the Argentinean comic Rico Tipo. Nadal's contributions included Tip y Top y su pandilla and Marilin, chica moderna (1959), which were immediately dropped when the paper was taken over by Bruguera in 1961.

The struggling paper was also home to the work of Gin (Jordi Ginés) and Raf (Joan Rafart), who, along with another Bruguera regular Martz Schmidt (Gustavo Martínez) and Nadal, were to become regulars in British comics, represented by Bardon Art.

Nadal's first work in the UK was the gag strip Laugh in a Line for Film Fun, but he soon became a regular in Buster and Knockout. Although a prolific contributor to the early issues of the former, his earliest success was with Blarney Bluffer in Knockout (1960-63). In 1962, Nadal took over the front cover artwork on Buster when he began drawing Buster's Diary (later "Buster's Dreamworld"), which he continued to draw until 1974. At the same time he also drew the popular The Nutts for Valiant (1962-76). His later work in the UK included Minnie's Mixer (Whizzer & Chips, 1969-73) and Penny Pincher (Buster, 1973-74).

In the 1970s, Nadal also began contributing stories featuring Goofy and Mickey Mouse to the Danish Disney publications published by Gutenburghus. He also drew episodes of Donald Duck in the 1980s. For the German market, he drew Viva la Revolution in Primo and San Tomato in Zack. Other German strips include Bussi Bär and Fridolin for Kauka Verlag.

Nadal's studio was based in Cadaques, where Salvador Dali was a near neighbour. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Arthur Nash biography

Arthur Nash biography

Arthur Nash
Arthur Nash was a contributor to Look and Learn, his artwork appearing in 1981. Nash was also a contributor to Treasure. Nash also illustrated Alice in Wonderland but is otherwise unknown. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Floyd Nash biography

Floyd Nash biography

Floyd Nash (probably UK)
Not much known about this accomplished artist. May also be known as 'W Floyd Nash'.
Floyd Nash art
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Susan Neale biography

Susan Neale biography

Susan Neale
Susan graduated from Harrow Art College London with a BA in Art & Design, her professional career was primarily concerned with illustration for publishing and advertising. Susan moved to the north of England in the late 80's and obtained a PGCE Teaching Degree in Art Education. Susan now has a beautiful studio in a rural location where she paints commissions and tutors workshops and exhibits her work.

Susan won the IPC Magazines Daler Rowney Watercolour award in 2000.
http://www.thehayloftstudio.com/
Susan Neale art
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Paul Neary biography

Paul Neary biography

Paul Neary is a British comic book artist, writer and editor.
His first work was for Warren Publishing in the 1970s before working with Dez Skinn at Marvel UK as well as work for 2000 AD. He later became editor-in-chief of Marvel UK in the 1990s but is now best known for inking Bryan Hitch's work on The Ultimates for Marvel Comics.

His first published work was in Warren's anthology title, Eerie, working on various stories and series including "Hunter" and its sequels, before drawing various Future Shocks for 2000AD for various writers, including Alan Moore.

In 1978 he started working on Hulk Weekly for Marvel UK which had just been drastically revamped by Dez Skinn. During this time he drew various strips for Marvel UK, including Hulk and Nick Fury, plus helping new artists such as Alan Davis.

During the early 1980s he created Madman for Dez Skinn's Warrior before becoming a regular inker for Alan Davis's work for DC Comics. Their most notable work at this time being a run drawing Batman for Detective Comics.

Neary became closely associated with Davis, inking his work from titles such as Uncanny X-Men to Captain Britain. Their working partnership still lasts to the present.

Neary became editor-in-chief of Marvel UK from c. 1990–1993, helping launch a number of US-sized titles in addition to the company's ongoing UK range. This began with Death's Head II and was followed by titles such as Hell's Angel (changed to Dark Angel after a copyright battle with the Hells Angels), Warheads, Digitek and Motormouth (later Motormouth and Killpower). Sales of the comics were initially high but over expansion soon brought an end to Marvel UK's US line, with Panini Comics buying the company's assets, including Doctor Who Magazine.

Neary has since been concentrating on inking since then. He has inked Bryan Hitch's work on The Authority and is now regularly working with Hitch on The Ultimates for Marvel Comics. From biographical notes on Wikipedia.
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Rudy Nebres biography

Rudy Nebres biography

Rudy Nebres (born 14 January 1937; Philippines & USA)
Rudy Nebres was one of a group of talented Filipino artists who found work in the USA with DC and Marvel, amongst them Alfredo Alcala, Alex Nino, Nestor Redondo and Tony De Zuniga.

Born Rodolfo D. Nebres (pronounced NAY-bres) in the Philippines on 14 January 1937, Rudy was able to attend art school in Manila thanks to the sacrifices of his parents, who sold their possessions to pay for his tuition. He made his first professional sales as a teenager and was already working regularly before he graduated.

After graduating, he found work with ACE Publications and Graphic Arts Service (GASI), where he worked on various stories including 'Baby Face' (1958-59) for Extra Komiks, 'Kamay ni Dimas' (1962) for Ditektib Komiks, 'Themesong' (1963-64) for Redondo Komix, 'Anino ng Agila' (1964) for CRAF Klasix, 'Blanca Negra' (1965) for Hiwaga Komiks, 'Babaing Bakulaw' (1965) for Espesyal Komiks with writer Galo Burgos, 'Ang Paborito ni Linda' for Hiwaga Komiks with writer Mer. A Abella, 'Nakabakas sa Langit' (1965-66), for Pioneer Komiks with writer Angel Ad Santos, 'Suicide Sammy' (1967) for Aliwan Komiks with writer Greg Igna de Dios, 'Javlin and the Pirates' 1968) for Pilipino Komiks,'Magkuwento Ka Puso' (1968) for Aliwan Komiks, 'Micaela' (1968) for Aliwan Komiks, 'Talagang Gusto Kong Magpakatino!' for Kislap Komiks (1971-72) and many others.

Rudy Nebres began working for DC Comics in 1972 when DC Comics publisher Carmine Infantino and Editor Joe Orlando visited the Philippines on a scouting trip. He was given assignments on such DC mystery titles such as The Unexpected, House of Secrets and Ghosts, but was not working as regularly as he wanted. He continued to draw for Filipino comics such as 'Ginintuang Rehas' for Sixteen Magazine (1973-74), 'Huwag Mo Akong Tangisan!' for Kislap Komiks (1973-74) and 'Paper Doll' for Kislap Komiks (1974-75).

Nebres moved to the United States in 1975 and promptly found much more success when he started working for Marvel Comics on such prestigious titles like Dr. Strange, The Avengers, Iron Fist, Master of Kung Fu and The Hulk. His speciality, however, was sword and sorcery and his talents for drawing the muscular heroes like Conan, Kull, Red Sonja and John Carter are renowned. His ability is to draw exaggerated musculature without losing the realism of the figure. He has put this down to a strong grasp of anatomy. "The key is the collarbone. If that's off, the whole drawing will be wrong," he has said.

He found much further acclaim when he started working for Warren Publishing on Creepy (1978-82), Eerie (1978-83), 1984 (1978-79), 1994 (1980-82), The Rook (1979-82), Vampirella (1980-82) and The Goblin (1982), where he turned in stories that represented an extraordinary evolution in his art characterized by profuse, graceful hatching, dynamic figurework and imaginative compositions.

Tim Perkins has said, "His line work was very stylised and yet still had all the contemporary licks of his fellow Filipino artists. Instantly recognisable amongst the group his work flowed with the same lushness of line that the others had, but with a greater dynamic, which probably explained his use of super-heroic titles, when the others were considered, wrongly in my honest opinion, not to be suitable for superhero comics."

Nebres was in demand as an inker. Editor Ralph Macchio recalled working with Doug Moench and John Buscema on 'Warriors of the Shadow Realm' (Marvel Super Special #11-13) in 1979: "We needed an inker to work on John's brilliant pencils who would brink his own flair to the pencils but not over-power the delicacy of what John had drawn. We were astonished at how faithfully (Rudy) rendered John's pencils yet added his own special touch."

He next spent 10 years working with Neal Adams for Continuity Studios doing storyboards and animatics, but was able to work on Continuity comics titles like Armor (1986-90), Toy Boy (1986-87), Megalith (1989) and Ms. Mystic (1989).

He went freelance again afterwards and has since worked on a variety of titles and companies like Spider-man, Conan and Punisher for Marvel, as well as a Negation one-shot in an issue of Crossgen Chronicles for Crossgen Comics in 2002.

The Art of Rudy Nebres, a collection of fan commissions, was published by SQP Inc in 2000.

Nebres currently lives in Edison, New Jersey, with his wife Dolores. They have two children Melvin and Edwin.

In a 2012 interview, Neil Adams said that Nebres "has got to be one of the nicest guys in comics. He's very humble, almost too self-effacing. he's humble to the point that I want to hit him in the head and say, 'You're better than you think you are. You're great.' He's that humble, but he puts better lines on the page than any artist or inker I know." From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Rudy Nebres art
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Vic Neill biography

Vic Neill biography

Vic Neill (Died January 2000)
Vic Neill was an eminent British comic strip artist who drew for D.C. Thomson and I.P.C.'s comics. His first notable comic work was on Sparky strip Peter Piper. In 1969, he replaced Dudley Dexter Watkins on Topper cover star Mickey the Monkey after Watkins' sudden death. Neill was a big admirer of Watkins' artwork. He made his debut in the Beano with The McTickles in 1971. In 1974, this was replaced by another Scottish-themed strip, Wee Ben Nevis.

In 1977, when D.C. Thomson launched their new comic, Plug, a spin-off from The Bash Street Kids, Neill became the regular artist of the title character's strip, which he continued to draw after it merged with The Beezer two years later. In the 1980s, Neill drew a lot of material for I.P.C. Magazines. This included strips such as Top of the Class in Buster comic and Shipwreck School and Spare-Part Kit in Whoopee. His final strip for them, Nightmare on Erm Street, appeared in Buster in 1990.

Returning to the Beano in the late 1980s, he took over The Germs from David Sutherland. Neill then started drawing Billy Whizz in 1992, and became the strip's regular artist the following year when the Beano switched to full-colour printing. While initially drawing the character in a loosely comparable style to David Parkins and Trevor Metcalfe when they shared the workload, once he was established as main artist he began making incremental changes to Billy's appearance. Most notably, Billy had always had two long hairs on the top of his head, but in the 9 July 1994 issue of the comic his hair fused into a lightning flash, and his head shape was also changed from oval to round. In the Beano's 1997 reader vote, Neill drew Tim Traveller, the boy with the time-travelling bike. Tim won the poll, along with Crazy for Daisy and went on to become a regular in the comic.

He continued drawing for the Beano until his death in January 2000. Billy Whizz was taken over by Graeme Hall, with Keith Reynolds becoming his replacement on Tim Traveller, but The Germs ended. A number of his Billy Whizz strips were later reprinted in the Beano in 2008-2009.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia
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Mark A Nelson biography

Mark A Nelson biography

Mark A. Nelson
Mark A. Nelson is a prolific artist, primarily of fantasy subjects, who has drawn widely for comics, illustrated role-playing games and worked for computer games (Raven Software, where he was senior artist in 1998-2004, Big Rooster, Emergence Games, Sega Games).

Nelson was born on 28 November in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and was educated at Moorehead State College, at Cleveland Institute of Art and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He later worked as a professor of art at Northern Illinois University for over twenty years.

His comic strip credits have included Starslayer (First, 1985), Aliens (Dark Horse, 1988-89), Feud (Marvel/Epic, 1993) written by Mike Baron and Blood and Shadows (DC, 1996), written by Joe R. Lansdale. His work has also appeared in Graphic Classics from Eureka Productions, and he has also contributed to IDW Comics, Eclipse Comics (Airboy), Now Comics, Kitchen Sink Comics and Just Imagine Comics.

His illustrations have been published by Hero Illustrated, Subterranean Press, Cemetery Dance Publications, Borderlands Press, Roadkill Press, Ziesing Books, Journal Wired, Byron Priess, Sight and Sound Books, Worldbook-Childcraft, David C. Cook and Fantasy Newsletter.

Nelson has had a long association with the role-playing games industry and has produced illustrations for many Dungeons and Dragons books and Dragon magazine.since the mid-1980s. He had also produced artwork for games including Villains and Vigilantes (Fantasy Games Unlimited), Earthdawn and Shadowrun (FASA) and Orpheus (White Wolf). He also produced illustrations for the collectable card game Magic: The Gathering.

He has published two collections of artwork: From Pencils To Inks: The Art of Mark A. Nelson (2004) and Strange Thoughts and Random Images (2008).

Nelson nowadays works as a conceptual artist creating digital skins and textures for computer games. He was the lead instructor of the Animation Department of Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin.

He now lives in Missouri City, Texas, with his wife, artist Anita C. Nelson. They jointly run Grazing Dinosaur Press. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Paul A Nicholas biography

Paul A Nicholas biography

Paul A. Nicholas
Little is known about Nicholas. He produced many beautiful watercolour paintings of birds of all varieties and other nature scenes, incorporating woodlands and river banks. Paintings appeared in the 1960s and 1970s — he was active at least 1964-72 — but I have not traced any books illustrated by Nicholas. It is possible that he was an amateur, albeit talented, painter rather than a full-time illustrator. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Russ Nicholson biography

Russ Nicholson biography

Russ Nicholson (UK)
Nicholson was educated at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, part of Dundee University. He came to the attention of fantasy fans through his work for fanzines in the 1970s. His early work appeared in girls' comics and annuals. He has revealed: "I was introduced to the world of drawing comics through a comic artist, Ken Houghton, who ran a comic artist evening class at a school where I taught Art & Design."

Nicholson contributing to Bunty, Diana, Jinty, Misty and Tracy and he also produced cartoons for Mayfair in around 1980. His career really took off in the early 1980s with his association with the Fighting Fantasy games books. Nicholson had been the illustrator of Dicing With Dragons: An Introduction to Role-Playing Games (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982) written by Ian Livingstone. The book included an adventure game, 'Eye of the Dragon'.

In the mid-1970s, Livingstone was the co-founder, with Steve Jackson, of Games Workshop, who were importers of Dungeons & Dragons and publishers of White Dwarf. Nicholson has been a prolific illustrator for the magazine and the company.

In 1981, Livingstone and Jackson wrote the first of a series of fantasy role-playing adventure books which they sold to Puffin Books and published as The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in 1982, which Nicholson illustrated. The book sold well and Puffin asked for more, which Livingstone and Jackson eagerly provided. Nicholson illustrated the following Fighting Fantasy titles: The Citadel of Chaos (1983) by Jackson, Masks of Mayhem by Robin Waterfield (1986), Chasms of Malice by Luke Sharp (1987), Stealer of Souls by Keith Martin (1988), Island of the Undead by Keith Martin (1992), Deathmoor by Robin Waterfield (1994) and Magehunter by Paul Mason (1995); Advanced Fighting Fantasy titles illustrated by Nicholson include Blacksand! (1990) and Allansia (1994), both by Marc Gascoigne & Pete Tamlyn. Nicholson also illustrated two Fighting Fantasy novels, Demonstealer by Marc Gascoigne (1991) and Shadowmaster by Ian Livingstone and Marc Gascoigne (1992).

Nicholson also created creatures for the Fiend Folio Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game book (TSR, 1981). The six episodes of the 'Fabled Land' series, co-written by Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson, were (1) The War-Torn Kingdom (1995); (2) Cities of Gold and Glory (1995); (3) Over the Blood-Dark Sea (1995); (4) The Plains of Howling Darkness (1995); (5) The Court of Hidden Faces (1996); and (6) Lords of the Rising Sun (1996).

Other stories illustrated by Nicholson have included numerous titles by Dave Morris, including The Lands of Legend (Corgi, 1986), The Battlepits of Krath (Knight, 1987), The Kingdom of Weird (Knight, 1987), The Walls of Spyte by Morris & Oliver Johnson (Knight, 1988), Necklace of Skulls (Mammoth, 1993), Knightmare: Lord Fear's Domain (Yearling, 1994), Heart of Ice (Mammoth, 1994), Twist of Fate (Mammoth, 1994). He was also the illustrator for the Richard Carpenter's Robin of Sherwood Gamebooks: The King's Demon by Graham Staplehurst, 1987; The Sword of the Templar by Paul Mason, 1987. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Will Nickless biography

Will Nickless biography

Will Nickless (1902 - 1977; UK)
Will Nickless began his career as an artist working for an agency at the age of 18, having left school at 14. He joined the staff of Motor magazine in 1920, producing technical drawings and, later, general figure work. He left to become a freelance artist, illustrating books and occasionally writing them himself. His work has been described as "very detailed . . . his pen and ink work looks like engraving."

William Nickless was born in Brentwood, Essex, on 4 April 1902, the son of William Thomas Nickless and his wife Ada Caroline (née Bayliss), married in London in 1899. He was the second eldest of five children and grew up in north St. Pancras, where his father worked as a builder's clerk.

Although interested in drawing from an early age, he followed his father's wishes and first worked at an engineering factory in Acton; however, he kept up his drawing and eventually found work as an artist at Gameges department store, where he drew illustrations for their mail order catalogues. He then joined Temple Press, working on their magazines The Motor, Aeroplane, Motor Cycling and Commercial Motor. It was whilst working on the staff at Temple that he met Nellie Agnes Carter, two years his junior. They married in 1927 and a son, named Will, was born the following year.
Nickless went freelance in 1940, working for various magazines, including the Radio Times, and advertising agencies. He also set up his own press, printing limited editions of his poetry and a series of anti-war etchings which were reproduced in New Leader in 1939.

During the war years he developed an interest in music and took up the violin, which led him to making several himself. His other hobbies included making model engines and astronomy, for which he used a reflecting telescope he had constructed himself.

After the Second World War, Nickless became a popular illustrator for children's books and annuals (including Eagle and Swift annuals). Between the 1940s and 1970s he illustrated the Worzel Gummidge books of Barbara Euphan Todd and classics by John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps), Thomas Hughes (Tom Brown's Schoolday's) Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels). H. Rider Haggard (Allan Quatermain, King Solomon's Mines, Ayesha, She, Nada the Lily) and George Macdonald (The Princess and the Goblin), as well as contemporary adventure and historical adventure novels for both boys and girls, school stories and fairly tales.

As a writer, Nickless penned a series of books about anthropomorphised animals, beginning with Owlglass in 1964; these area said to have been inspired by his living at Heathfield House, a Victorian house hidden within the Wealden Forest.

Nickless lived in Rotherfield, Sussex, for many years where he died in early 1977, aged 74. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Will Nickless art
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David Nicolle biography

David Nicolle biography

David Nicolle (born 4 April 1944)
David Nicolle is a British historian specialising in the military history of the Middle Ages, with a particular interest in the Middle East and is the son of the illustrator Pat Nicolle. He worked in the BBC Arabic service for a number of years, before going 'back to school', gaining an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and a doctorate from Edinburgh University.

He later taught world and Islamic art and architectural history at Yarmuk University, Jordan. He has written many books and articles on medieval and Islamic warfare, and has been a prolific author of Osprey titles for many years. David lives and works in Leicestershire, UK.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Patrick Nicolle biography

Patrick Nicolle biography

Patrick Nicolle (1907 - 1995, England)
Pat Nicolle was the supreme Medievalist of the British Adventure Strip. His life-long passion for Arms and Armour (the title of his well-known Puffin book) - he was a founder member of the Arms and Armour Society at the Tower of London - found superb expression in his great strip of Norman Invasion, Under the Golden Dragon, together with his Robin Hood and Ginger Tom/ Firebrand strips. Later he found himself in his element working for Look and Learn, illustrating, in his inimitable, highly detailed style, countless historical articles and series, as well as painting a glorious full-colour version of Conan Doyle's historical novel, Sir Nigel. Patrick Nicolle was born in Hampstead, London, but the family moved to Birmingham when he was still very young and he spent his boyhood in the Midlands. His elder brother, Jack, was a well-known artist and book illustrator of whom Pat was justifiably proud.

The earliest of Pat's work for boys' papers so far discovered was for the Boys' Own Paper in the mid 1930s - he even painted a cover for one issue - and probably his earliest work for the Amalgamated Press was the cover painting for The Modern Boy's Book of Pirates, published in 1939. His earliest strip appears to be Astra, The Mystery Air Ace, the cover strip for Zoom, a one-off comic published by The Children's Press in 1947. In 1950, his illustrations for a Robin Hood book were seen by Leonard Matthews in a Woolworth's store and he was commissioned to draw a two-page complete Robin Hood strip for Knockout. The rest, as they say, is history! Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

See illustrators  issue 10 for a Patrick Nicolle feature and enjoy more of his art in our PIRATES! illustrators  Special and his great storytelling in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics CLASH OF BLADES collection.

Patrick Nicolle art
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Jean-Michel Nicollet biography

Jean-Michel Nicollet biography

Jean-Michel Nicollet (born 1944; France)
Jean-Michel Nicollet took courses at the Art School, where he met Jacques Tardi. He made his debut in 1970, with a few illustrations for the magazine Lui. In 1977, for Métal Hurlant magazine, he made 'Ténébreuses Affaires', a series of short fantastic stories, in collaboration with writer Picaret.

Specializing in illustration, he did numerous covers and has exhibitions of his paintings. His work, which is mainly done in acrylic, is characterized by a dark and unnerving style, showing a preference for themes of the supernatural.
Source: Lambiek
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Ronald Niebour biography

Ronald Niebour biography

Ronald Niebour (4 April 1903 - 19 July 1972; London, UK)
Ronald Niebour was a British cartoonist who used the penname "NEB". He is best known for his pocket cartoons in the Daily Mail.

Ronald Niebour was born in Streatham, London, on 4 April 1903. He was educated at Barry County School in South Wales which he attended with Leslie Illingworth, who was later his colleague as a cartoonist on the Daily Mail.

After two years in the Merchant Navy Niebour became a schoolteacher, teaching metalwork and handicrafts for three years at schools in Birmingham, Weymouth and Kendal.

Niebour was self-taught as an artist. His was initially the Football Cartoonist for the Barry Dock News and the Cardiff Evening Express. He became the Sports Cartoonist of the Oxford Mail, before joining the staff of the Birmingham Gazette and the Birmingham Evening Despatch.

After submitting some sketches, Niebour joined the Daily Mail in London on 26 September 1938, initially working on the Woman's Page and the Gardening Notes. After the outbreak of World War II he changed to drawing pocket cartoons, which became very popular. At the end of the war one of his cartoons was found in a file in the ruins of Hitler's Chancellory.

Niebour also drew advertisements and worked for Punch.

Niebour retired from the Daily Mail on 1 December 1960 and died at his home in Benajarafe, near Málaga, Spain, on 19 July 1972.
Source: Wikipedia
Ronald Niebour art
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Alex Nino biography

Alex Nino biography

Alex N Niño (born 1 May 1940; The Philippines)
Alex N. Niño was born in Tarnac, The Philippines, and dreamed of being a comic artist since he was a small boy. He began his career assisting his father, who was a photographer. He was a medical student at the University of Manilla, but eventually chose an artistic profession. In 1965, after learning the finer points of the comics profession from Jess Jodloman, he started a collaboration with Clodualdo del Mundo and created 'Kilabot Ng Persia' ('The Terror of Persia') for Pilipino Komiks. Later, he teamed up with Marcelo B. Isidro to create 'Dinoceras' for Redondo Komiks.

After working on a couple of stories with Mars Ravelo, he began an association with publisher Pablo S. Gomez, who gave him full artistic freedom. In 1966, Niño came up with his own comic, 'Gruaga - The Fifth Corner of the World', for Pioneer Komiks. Again in associationi with Isidro, he made the series 'Mga Matang Nagliliyab' ('The Eyes that Glow in the Dark') in Alcala Komiks. Alex Niño freelanced for several comics companies, like PSG Publications, where he did a series of short stories about Bruhilda Witch and where a number of his collaborations with Pablo Gomez were made into movies.

By 1975, Niño ended his collaboration with Gomez and started to focus on the U.S. market, like many of his contemporaries. Already active in the US since the early 1970s, he contributed to D.C. mystery titles and drew comic adaptations of literary classics like 'Moby Dick', 'The Time Machine' and 'The Three Musketeers' for Pendulum Press. In 1973 he illustrated 'Captain Fear' for Adventure Comics from a script by Bill Kanigher. For Rima, he made the series 'Space Voyagers'. He was additionally the artist of several stories of 'Korak, the Son of Tarzan', and until 1978 he was a regular artist for DC's Weird War Tales.

He continued his adaptation work at Marvel in 1975, and also drew for the company's 'Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction'. Starting in 1977, he was additionally present in Warren's horror magazines, Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella. He was active as an illustrator for Heavy Metal and Byron Press. During the 1980s, Niño's work appeared in Batman Annual and Space Clusters, as well as publications by New Comics Group and Pacific Comics. In 1994, he returned to the comics field more prominently with a new version of 'Conan the Barbarian', scripted by Roy Thomas.
Source: Lambiek

See more of his art in our PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.

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Robert Nixon biography

Robert Nixon biography

Robert Nixon (7 July 1939 - 22 October 2002; UK)
Robert Nixon was a regular contributor to The Beano for many years, best known for his work on the likes of Roger the Dodger and Lord Snooty. Nixon's clean line and storytelling talents meant that word balloons were scarcely necessary for readers to follow the action. Nixon had a talent for ghosting styles, whether they were Ken Reid, Leo Baxendale or Dudley D. Watkins, but brought to his artwork a distinctive cuteness. Nixon's editor at The Beano told The Guardian that Nixon would have been able to illustrate a note to the milkman and still make it look appealing.

Robert Thomas Nixon was born in South Bank, near Middlesbrough in North Yorkshire, on 7 July 1939, the fifth of six children born to Arthur W. Nixon, a steelworker, and his wife Phyllis (nee Thompson), who had married in 1931. He was educated at Cromwell Road School and the Central Secondary Modern School, both in South Bank, where his youthful artistic talents were encouraged. He won several art competitions and earned himself a scholarship to Middlesbrough Art College in September 1954 but he became disillusioned with the course and dropped out. Instead, he found work as an apprentice lithographer and photo-retoucher at a printing factory. That same year, 1955, his father died at the early of 49.

Nixon married Rita M. Kelly in Middlesbrough in 1961 and had four children: Paul H. (1962), Anthony R. (1964), Wendy Anita (1966) and Catherine Ann (1968).

A fellow student encouraged him to try cartooning and he began trying his hand at cartooning, submitting samples to D. C. Thomson. His first success was to produce three fill-in episodes for The Beano's Little Plum, the first published in April 1964. Later that year, Ken Reid departed from The Beano and Nixon took over his "Roger the Dodger", which he continued to draw until 1973. He turned freelance and 1965, soon after which the family moved to Guisborough, Cleveland.

In 1968, Nixon inherited "Lord Snooty" from Dudley D. Watkins. Later strips for Thomsons included Esky Mo (1969) and Captain Cutler (1972) for Sparky and Grandpa for The Beano (1971).

Nixon was offered work – and the higher page rate of £17 as opposed to £12 a page – by IPC Publications, who were expanding their range of humour titles following the success of Whizzer & Chips and he began contributing "Hire a Horror" and "Ivor Lott and Tony Broke" to Cor!! in 1972 and "Soggy the Sea Monster" and "Frankie Stein" in Shiver & Shake in 1973. This work enabled him to work full-time for IPC, who soon added Whoopee!, Monster Fun and Krazy to their line-up of titles, to which Nixon contributed King Arthur and His Frights of the Round Table (1974), Kid Kong (1974) 12½p Buytonic Boy (1976).

Nixon drew The Gems, written by Trevor Metcalfe, for The Sun newspaper for eighteen months in 1976-78, but his main output continued to be weekly strips for IPC. He took over "Gums" for Buster and "Kid King" for Jackpot as well as creating Laser Eraser for the latter (1979); Elephant on the Run (1978) and Stage School (1979) ran in Cheeky Weekly and Ossie (1982) and Family Trees (1983) in Wow!. During this period, he also drew Parkie (1982) for a local newspaper, the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette. At his peak he was producing nine pages a week.

After fifteen-years, the newly appointed editor of The Beano, Euan Kerr, tried to tempt him back but without success. Later that same week, the editor of IPC's humour titles called with the news that mergers would leave him with fewer pages to work on; Nixon contacted Kerr and asked if the offer of work was still open.

Nixon was tempted back to D. C. Thomson, where his first "Roger the Dodger" strip appeared in January 1985. Nixon's favourite amongst the characters he created debuted in The Beano later that same year: "Ivy the Terrible",followed by "Willie Fixit" (1985) in Topper and "Polar Blair" (1985) for the newly launched Hoot.

Nixon took over the artwork for both Korky the Cat (The Dandy) and Beryl the Peril (Topper) in 1986, and continued to draw various other strips for The Beano, including "Little Monkey" (1987) and "Roger's Dodge Clinic" (1989). Nixon also illustrated related merchandise, including jigsaws and Easter egg boxes.

As an artist, Nixon had already illustrated cartoon greetings cards for the Noel Tatt Company and joke books written by Gyles Brandreth. In his spare time, he enjoyed painting fantasy landscapes in oils, pastels and watercolours.

Nixon continued to draw until his death on 22 October 2002, aged 63, his final page – the cover for the Beano Summer Special (2003) – arriving the day before he died. His longest-running strip, "Roger the Dodger" was continued by Barrie Appleby for some years and a series of Nixon reprints were introduced in 2011 before Appleby returned the following year.
From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Mike Noble biography

Mike Noble biography

Mike Noble (17 September 1930 - 15 November 2018; UK)
Mike Noble was a British comic artist and illustrator, born in Woodford, Essex, and best known for drawing strips like Fireball XL5, Captain Scarlet, Lone Ranger and Follyfoot.

Noble's father was a stockbroker's clerk who had artistic talent himself. During the war he was evacuated, like many children, but returned to London and endured much of the blitz. After school Noble attended South West Essex Technical College and School of Art where he studied commercial, rather than fine art. At the age of 17 he joined an advertising studio but found the meticulous reproduction of every day objects limited him in scope. In 1949 he was called up for National Service and for 18 months was in the 8th Royal Tank Regiment in North Yorkshire after which he spent three years in the Territorial Army, where his artistic talent came into good use producing graphics of military hardware.

Returning to the same advertising studio he decided to move on and got a job at Cooper's Studio, London in 1950. Noble admits to learning a lot from Leslie Caswell, (an artist whose figure work in 1950s romance magazines such as Home Notes and weeklies like Everybody's and John Bull, are renowned). Noble's first published comic strip (the field in which he was active for 5 decades) was Simon and Sally, a strip for the comic Robin (from Hulton's line of children's comics). Noble stayed with Billy Cooper's studio and contributed spot illustrations to national magazines, such as Titbits, Wide World, Woman, Woman's Own, and John Bull as well as the regional newspaper Birmingham Weekly Post.

In 1958 he started a long run of regular work in comics, with the strip Lone Ranger and Tonto (Express Weekly) followed by Range Rider for TV Comic. In 1965 he started work on TV Century 21, illustrating Fireball XL5 in colour and, later, Zero-X and Captain Scarlet. He also contributed Star Trek to the later incarnation of TV21 but the imminent demise of this comic led him to jump ship and follow Alan Fennell (his editor at TV Comic and TV21) in illustrating Timeslip in Look-In.

Noble's use of bright colour made him a recognizable artist for his many UK fans. His work on the subsequent strips Follyfoot and The Adventures of Black Beauty showed his talent for dynamic figure work as well as his ability to draw realistic animals. After a short run of other strips he was asked to draw, in black and white, another creation from the Gerry Anderson canon, Space 1999. Although very capable in drawing hardware (from his work in National Service) he was most happy to be asked to draw the Worzel Gummidge strip.

Noble retired from illustration but has still contributed pieces to the Fennell revival of TV21 strips in the 1990s and also enjoyed using his talents locally in illustrating a millennial celebration poster for his village as well as designing a lychgate and stained glass windows for his local church. From biographical notes on Wikipedia.
Mike Noble art
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David Nockels biography

David Nockels biography

David Nockels (UK)
David Nockels was a prolific contributor to magazines and books, specialising in nature, animals and the environment. His illustrations began appearing in Look and Learn in around 1967 and he was also a regular contributor to World of Wonder in the early 1970s, at which time he was living in Shooter's Hill (London) and also acting as an occasional agent.

David Nockels contributed illustrations to many books on wildlife subjects between 1967-79, amongst the many titles he contributed to including Arthur by Ernest Dudley (1970) and the Atlas series from Heinemann (Atlas of Wildlife, Atlas of Plant Life, Atlas of the Sea, 1972-74); Young World Productions, Hamlyn, Bodley Head, Salamandar and Ward Lock also published his work.

In 1980 he began working for Methuen Children's Books and wrote and illustrated a series of pop-up books entitled Animals in Action (1981) as well as two children's story books, Hungry Little Chimpanzee and Little Lost Duckling, both published in 1982. Nockels also wrote and illustrated the Naughty Pets Board Book series for Deans International (1985), which included such titles as Percy and Katie in Trouble, Billie and Bertie at the Seaside, Bobby and Tom have a Feast and Beckie and Jamie on the Farm. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
David Nockels art
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Harry North biography

Harry North biography

Harry North
Harry North excelled at caricature as his later work for Mad Magazine showed so well. Prior to that he was an accomplished mainstay on the Look-In adaptations of the Doctor series that ran on TV (and previously in film and Richard Gordon's original novels). The series ran in Look-In between May 1972 and late 1978 with name changes to reflect the current version of the TV inspiration; Doctor at Large, Doctor at Sea; Doctor on the Go.

It appears North began his career as an art assistant at IPC in the late 1960s before finding regular work as an artist at Look-In where his first work (a fill-in) appeared in February 1971. He soon established himself with the colour strip On the Buses which ran until 1974 and he remained a Look-In regular until 1988, drawing Doctor in Charge (1974), Doctor on the Go (1975-76), It's Madness (1981), Super Gran (1985), No.73 (1986-87), Gilbert (1987-88) and Alf (1988).

Strips in other papers included The Michael Jackson Story in Valentine (1973), the James Bond strip Doomcrack (Daily Star, 1981) and contributions to News on Sunday (1987) and Heavy Metal (1981/82/93).

Parallel to his work in comics and newspapers, he was a regular illustrator and cover artist for MAD Magazine in both the UK and US. Because of a difference in publishing schedule, the UK edition of MAD had to include newly originated material, including covers. North provided 26 covers between 1976-88, beginning with an image of Ping Pong (King Kong) and including along the way Coronation Street, Apocalypse Now, Charles & Diana, the Oscars and EastEnders. For the American magazine, where he contributed between 1976-94, he drew satirical strip version of "Star Roars" (1978), "Moneyraker" (1980) and "Purple Acid Rain" (1985) as well as contributions to "The MAD Nasty File".

North was also known outside the UK (his work appearing in Pilote and Zona 84) and also illustrated a number of books, including The Shocking Book of Records by Martin Guinness (1983) and The Twitmarsh Files; or, The Barmy Army by R. T. Fishall (1985). From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Harry North art
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Kevin Nowlan biography

Kevin Nowlan biography

Kevin Nowlan (born 7 February 1958; USA)
American artist Kevin Nowlan has been active in the comics' fan press since the early 1980s. Born in Chandron, Nebraska, Kevin C. Nowlan graduated from High School and attended the Salina, Kansas Area Vocational-Technical School, where he learned the basics of art, layout and design. After two years he took a job with a local printing firm creating and designing brochures, letter headings and adverts.

He submitted illustrations to The Comics Journal and was commissioned by editor Gary Groth to produce a number of covers, beginning with an X-Men cover for issue 68 (November 1981); Nowlan went on to produce covers and spot illustrations for both The Comics Journal and Amazing Heroes (including a fully-painted Supergirl cover for the latter) over the next couple of years.

His work was noticed by inker Terry Austin and Nowlan found himself pencilling a fill-in issue of Doctor Strange (#57) before taking over Moon Knight from Bill Sienkiewicz. This proved to be a disaster and he quit after only three-and-a-half issues; however, the work proved popular and he was offered more work with Marvel (Daredevil, a Nightcrawler or Long Shot mini-series) and by DC (Star Trek, a Batman graphic novel, an Aquaman mini-series), all of which he turned down. Instead, he drew strips for National Lampoon and concentrated on posters and covers for the major comics' publishers, which allowed him to draw strips such as "Grimwood's Daughter" (a back-up strip in Dalgoda) for Fantagraphics.

He has subsequently worked for both DC and Marvel, drawing The Outsiders and Green Lantern Corps for the former and New Mutants for the latter. Complaints from readers that he had made the Mutants too cartoony led to Nowlan working primarily as an inker from 1988. In this role he has continued to work for Marvel, DC. Wildstorm and Image.

Some of the highlights of this work includes Batman: Sword of Azrael (1992), Aliens: Salvation (1993), Superman vs. Aliens (1995) and Superman: Distant Fires (1997). In 1999, he began drawing the adventures of young boy-genius Jack B. Quick for Alan Moore's Tomorrow Stories.

More recently he has been involved in the Batman Confidential series and Metal Man in DC's weekly Wednesday Comics, inking the pencils of José Luis García-López, and the one-shot Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish (2011), written by Mike Mignola.

Nowlan was the subject of Eric Nolen-Weatherington's collection, Modern Masters Volume 4, published by Twomorrows Publishing in 2004. He lives in Kansas with his wife, Deanne.
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John Nyberg biography

John Nyberg biography

John Nyberg; USA
John Nyberg is a comic book artist and inker. He began his career in 1985 working for First Comics in the title Starslayer in 1985. After a few years of working for minor companies like Comico, Eclipse Comics and a few others, his first published work for DC Comics was published in 1988 in the title Action Comics.

Later on he worked on titles like Plastic Man, Tailgunner Jo and Christmas with the Super-Heroes. He is best known for his work on the titles Doom Patrol, Green Arrow and Flash. On later years, he was hired by Dark Horse Comics and later on by Marvel Comics.
Source: Illustartion Art Gallery
John Nyberg art
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Mitch O'Connell biography

Mitch O'Connell biography

Mitch O'Connell; USA
“The Prince of Pop Art”, Mitch O'Connell is a beloved, cherished and respected leader of the “Lowbrow” art movement and one of the greatest illustrators of all time!* Inspired by Pin-ups, hot-rods, comics, sideshows and all things kitsch, cuddly and curvaceous, he takes the vintage and makes it contemporary with his distinctive, eye-popping Pop Art imagery. He's happy to play nice and follow instructions with illustration assignments for nearly every publication on Earth. Magazine work includes Newsweek, Time, Rolling Stone, New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, GQ and Playboy! Overnight deadlines met for newspapers include The New York Times, Village Voice, Chicago Tribune and dozens more! He's been featured in the world of rock 'n' roll on album covers and posters for groups from The Ramones to Weezer to No Doubt to Moby! Mitch's doodles are utilized in advertising campaigns for major companies from McDonalds to KFC, 7-11 to Coca-Cola! And when he's not working with an art director, his fine art paintings have been exhibited in sold-out gallery shows from New York to Berlin, Tokyo to Miami and Hollywood to Mexico City.

His sexy tattoo flash is a fixture on the walls of tattoo shops around the word (and on the bodies of thousands of tattoo lovers) with many of the designs collected in two bestselling books “ Mitch O'Connell Tattoos Volume 1” and “Mitch O'Connell Tattoos Volume 2“! His newest book, “Mitch O'Connell, the World's Best Artist by Mitch O'Connell” is a huge career-spanning retrospective look at his art from the age of 3 to now!
Source: mitchoconnell.com
Mitch O'Connell art
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Brian O'Hanlon biography

Brian O'Hanlon biography

Brian O'Hanlon
Little is known about Brian O'Hanlon. He was a painter and illustrator whose career seems to have extended over at least 55 years. A search of auction records reveals a number of oil paintings and watercolours sold over the past 15 or so years, the earliest being a watercolour of Crookston Castle, built in the Pollok district of Glasgow in around 1400AD. This was dated 1931.

The most recent dated work is from 1988. This later work, in oil, is primarily of rural scenes — fields of poppies, river estuaries, the Fenlands. One painting is described as looking through the window of a fisherman's cottage out onto a beach, possibly near the Suffolk coastal town of Aldeburgh.

Armed with this connection to Suffolk, it is possible that O'Hanlon is (or was) Brian Francis O'Hanlon, whose death, at the age of 77, was registered in Bury St Edmunds in 1991. Brian Francis O'Hanlon was born 23 June 1914. The only other official trace would appear to be a marriage (in Croydon, Surrey) in 1944 to Margaret Watson. I believe he was born in Scotland, which would make sense if the teenage O'Hanlon was painting Scottish scenery in the 1930s. This should be considered speculation only.

In the late 1960s, O'Hanlon would appear to have been producing romantic illustrations in colour for women's magazines and at least one cover for June and School Friend (1968). How extensive O'Hanlon's contributions in these areas were is unknown. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Brian O'Hanlon art
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Alexander Oliphant biography

Alexander Oliphant biography

Alexander George Oliphant (2 May 1911 - 1971; Scotland)
Alexander George Oliphant was a Scottish artist who was exhibiting paintings in the 1930s at which time he was living in Grangemouth. Oliphant was living in London (at 30 Bedford Chambers, Piazza, City of London) at least as early as 1945 and moved to 9 Graham Terrace, Westminster around 1948, then 23 St George's Court, Brompton Road, South Kensington, around 1949.

For at least a decade (1952-62), Oliphant had a studio at 4 Cavaye Studios, Cavaye Place, Kensington SW10. Around 1962, he moved to 55 Crompton Court, Brompton Road, South Kensington, SW3, where he was to live until his death in the autumn of 1971, aged 60.

He contributed to Eagle Annual, Daily Mirror Book for Boys, and was the artist who illustrated Sea Change, Richard Armstrong's award-winning novel, and the series Sink the Scharnhorst!, in Ranger in 1965-66. He was subsequently a prolific contributor of Second World War illustrations to the early issues of World of Wonder shortly before his death.

He was married to Thora M. Goldsmith (nee Clee), the former wife of William L. Goldsmith, in Paddington in 1947. Thora, born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, in 1911, died in London in 1968, aged 56.
Alexander Oliphant art
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Giorgio Olivetti biography

Giorgio Olivetti biography

Giorgio Olivetti (born 20 April 1908; Italy)
Giorgio Olivetti was born in Bologna on 20 April 1908. Little seems to be known about his career outside of his work on cinema posters. One imagines that he began his professional career as an artist in the 1920s, although the earliest work I have been able to trace dates from 1942, a film poster promoting the release of Il Bacio della Pantera (Cat People) starring Simone Simon.

Olivetti produced a steady stream of film posters starring everyone from Charlie Chaplin (Luci della Ribalta (The Great Dictator, 1952) to John Wayne (A Cavalieri dei Nord Ovest - She Wore a Yellow Ribbon), 1949; La battaglia di Alamo - The Alamo,1960. His posters include La foresta Incantata - The Enchanted Forest, 1945; Forza Bruta - Brute Force, 1947; Singapore, 1948; L'Ambiziosa - Payment on Demand, 1951; Seduzione mortale - Angel Face, 1952, Rancho Notorious, 1952; Il Forestiero - The Million Pound Note, 1953; Vortice, 1953; Vera Cruz, 1954; La Ragazza del Secolo - It Should Happen to You, 1954; Riccardo III, 1955; Tempesta sul Nilo - Storm Over the Nile, 1955; Il Cacciatore di Indiani - The Indian Fighter, 1955; Quado la citta dorme - While the City Sleeps, 1956; Trapezio - Trapeze, 1956; L'Alibi era perfetto - Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, 1956; Una Strega in Paradiso - Bell, Book and Candle, 1958; A qualcuno piace caldo - Some Like It Hot, 1959; La dolce vita, 1959; Un maledetto imbroglio, 1959; Il Mattatore - aka Love and Larceny, 1960; Viva L'Italia, 1961; I cannoni di Navarone - The Guns of Navaronne, 1961; Il conquistatore di Corinto, 1961; Invito ad una Sparatoria - Invitation to a Gunfighter, 1964; Una Pistola per Ringo, 1965; Io, io, io... e gli altri, 1965; Doringo - The Glory Guys, 1965; Gambit, 1966; A Sud-Ovest di Sonora - The Appaloosa, 1966; I Professionisti - The Professionals, 1966; Casino Royale, 1967; Emmanuelle, 1969.

In Italy, he also illustrated covers for Films in Anteprima [Filmes in Review) (1947) and at least one calendar (Calendario di Frate Indovino, 1965). Beginning in the late 1950s, in common with a number of leading Italian cinema poster artists, Olivetti worked briefly for British publishers in the late 1950s, producing cover illustrations for the Sexton Blake Library (1958-59) and True Life Library (1960) via Cosmopolitan Artists. An illustration featuring Joan of Arc appeared in an early issue of Look and Learn in 1962. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Olivia (de Berardinis) biography

Olivia (de Berardinis) biography

Olivia Amanda De Berardinis (born 29 Nov 1948; USA)
Olivia has described herself as "a painter of women, sexualized, surreal women. People always ask me how I got into the business. What they really want to know is why I am such an anomaly, Which I'm not ... I think its strange that women aren't known for this genre, since it is ours to know."

Her first book was introduced by Hugh Hefner, who noted, "Male artists tend to do the predictable in erotica. Olivia surprises. She works with patterns — from the natural to the quasi-natural, from the intricate traceries of lingerie to the startling lines of a tattoo. None of the women in this collection are simply nude: They are contained by lace, by metal, by satin, by leather. Beneath the designs, beneath the artifice is the feminine form."

Born in Long Beach, California, on 29 November 1948, Olivia Amanda De Bernardinis grew up primarily on the the east coast. She began drawing at the age of three or four, developing an early interest in drawing a Barbie-like character based, she says, on her mother. After attending the New York School of Visual Arts (1968-70), she worked at numerous bars and clubs as a waitress or barmaid whilst she began producing artwork — minimalist designs, some of which were exhibited at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in the early 1970s.

From around 1974, she began drawing for adult magazines and established herself as a leading erotic artist, publishing the first of numerous portfolios and illustrations for Playboy in 1984. She married Joel Beren in 1979, a photographer who also acts of agent for Olivia's paintings, which were sold and licensed through their own companies O Card Company and Ozone Productions. They moved to Malibu, California, in 1987, where they continue to live and work.

Olivia's books have included Let Them Eat Cheesecake: The Art of Olivia (1993), Second Slice: The Art of Olivia II (1997), Cheesecake Chronicles Vol. 1 (2000), American Geisha: The Art of Olivia III (2003), Bettie Page by Olivia (2006) and Malibu Cheesecake (2011). As well as producing prints, calendars and note cards, she recently collaborated on a limited edition print which featured a poem by Neil Gaiman. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Olivia (Olivia De Bernardinis) art
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Chris Orr biography

Chris Orr biography

Christopher Orr (born 8 April 1943; London, UK)
Christopher Orr MBE RA is an English artist and printmaker who has exhibited worldwide and published over 400 limited edition prints in lithography, etching and silkscreen.

Orr was born in Islington, London. After studying at Ravensbourne and Hornsey Schools of Art, he graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1967 with an MA in printmaking. He was made a fellow of the Royal College of Art in 1985, a fellow of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers in 1988, elected Royal Academician in 1995 and appointed professor of printmaking at The Royal College of Art 1998 to 2008 and is now a Professor Emeritus.

Combining his work as a full-time artist with teaching, he has also taught at Cardiff College of Art, Central St Martins, London, and at the Royal College of Art, London.

His work is best described in his own words "During my thirty nine years as an artist I have been put in various pigeon-holes, such as 'quintessential English' or a 'latter-day Hogarth'. But are these epithets reasonable? My pictures are composed of well-mixed metaphors, references, allusions jokes and descriptions. Does 'Chris Orr-like' refer to a typically English muddle? The tradition of graphic eccentricity (Heath Robinson, Donald McGill, Steve Bell et al.) is fair enough, I am happy to acknowledge many influences in this area."

Chris Orr has had many solo shows in the UK, including the Serpentine Gallery, London, 1971, the Whitechapel Gallery, London and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1976. He is represented by the Jill George Gallery, where he has been regularly exhibited since 1978.

International solo shows include Galleria Grafica, Tokyo, Japan, in 1980, Jay Street Gallery, New York, USA, in 1983 and Print Guild, Melbourne, Australia in 1987.

He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

In 2013 the Royal Academy published Chris Orr: the Making of Things, about his life and work. Orr lives and works in London.
Source: Wikipedia and Illustration Art Gallery
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Jose Ortiz biography

Jose Ortiz biography

José Ortiz Moya (1 September 1932 - 23 December 2013)
José Ortiz was a Spanish comic artist with a career spanning over 60 years. He is best known for his collaborations with Antonio Segura and for his agency work for foreign publishers. Born in Cartagena, Murcia, his career commenced after winning a contest organized by the Spanish magazine Chicos. Throughout the 1950s, he did his first professional work for pocket-sized comics published by Editorial Maga, including 'Capitan Don Nadie', 'Ballin', 'Sebastian Vargas', 'Dan Barry el Terremoto', 'Pantera Negra', 'Jungla', 'El Duque Negro' and 'Johnny Fogata'. In 1958, he was additionally present at Toray with 'Sigur el Vikingo'.

Ortiz is best known for his work for foreign publishers, especially Fleetway in Britain and Warren in the USA. In 1962, he illustrated the comic strip 'Caroline Baker, Barrister at Law' for the English newspaper Daily Express. During the 1960s he also drew 'Smokeman' and 'UFO Agent' for Eagle magazine, 'The Phantom Viking' in Lion and contributed to Fleetway collections like Air Ace Picture Library, Commando Library and the Battle Picture Library.

Through Josep Toutain's Selecciones Ilustradas agency, he was one of the main contributors to the horror magazines published by James Warren in the USA between 1974 and 1983. He illustrated series like 'Apocalypse', 'Night of the Jackass' and 'Coffin' in Eerie, and 'Pantha' and several other stories in Vampirella. In the late 1970s, he also contributed to the collection 'Grandes mitos del Oeste' with Josep Toutain, and illustrated stories with 'El Cuervo' and 'Tarzan'.

Back on the Spanish market, he began a fruitful collaboration with scriptwriter Antonio Segura in 1981. Together, they created the post-apocalyptic saga 'El Hombre' in Cimoc magazine, followed by 'Jack el Destripador', 'Morgan' and 'Burton y Cyb'. They also took part in the launch of the publishing house Metropol with Leopoldo Sanchez, Manfred Sommer and Jordi Bernet. The short-lived firm produced the comic magazines Metropol, Mocambo and KO Cómics. Ortiz was additionally present in Spanish magazines like 1984, Zona 84 and Totem.

Ortiz's British work during the 1980s includes 'The Tower King', 'The Fifth Horsemann' and 'The House of Daemon' for Eagle, and 'The Thirteenth Floor' for Scream!. He also illustrated various 'Rogue Trooper' and 'Judge Dredd' stories for 2000AD. In the 1990s, he focused on working for the Italian market. Together with Segura, he created 'Ozono' in the magazine L'Eternauta, and the humorous serial 'But O'Brien' in Torpedo. Ortiz began a collaboration with Sergio Bonelli Editore in 1993, and has contributed to this publisher's series 'Tex Willer', 'Ken Parker' and 'Magico Vento'.

José Ortiz passed away from heart failure in a Valencia hospital at the age of 81 on 23 December 2013.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia

See feature article in illustrators  issue 22.

See much more about his Life and Work for Warren magazines in our illustrators  Special hardcover editions: Warren Magazines: The Spanish Artists and The US Warren Artists.
Jose Ortiz art
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Leopoldo Ortiz biography

Leopoldo Ortiz biography

Leopoldo Ortiz Moya (born 11 September 1930, Spain)
Leopoldo Ortiz was the older brother of the more famous — at least in the UK — artist Jose Ortiz. Born Leopoldo Ortiz Moya in Cartagena, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, on 11 September 1930, like his brother, with whom he worked closely, Leopoldo was educated at the Escuela Valenciana.

His first big success was the historical swashbuckler El Principe Pablo [Prince Paul], set in the mythical country of Chon-Chon, ruled by a once powerful king whose life had been blighted by the loss of his wife and young son. Unknown to the king, or the powerful enemies he has, his son Paul is still alive, believing himself the son of a merchant and it is only as her wedding approaches that Paul's sister, Rosalia, learns that she has a brother. The series ran to 25 issues from 1953 and was followed in 1954 by Terciopelo Negro [Black Velvet], in which another prince, Marco Scipio, dons a black mask as he tries to restore his father's fortunes, battling the Doge of Venice who has seized power.

Leopoldo's early comics, published by Editorial Maga, had covers by Jose, and their working relationship also led Leopoldo to write 47 issues of Dan Barry, el Terremoto [Dan Barry, Earthquake], drawn by Jose (with one episode by Miguel Quesada); at the same time, he wrote and drew Carlos de Alcátena and El Caballero de la Rosa [The Cavalier of the Rose] for Maga.
Leopoldo subsequently drew a number of other series for the same publisher, including Jungla, Audaces Legionarios-El Capitán Rey [Bold Legionnaires - Captain King], and two series of Bengala (a Tarzan-like character from the jungles of India), often working with scriptwriter Pedro Quesada.

Leopoldo Ortiz was one of the earliest contributors to the famous Commando pocket library published by D. C. Thomson in 1961, but his main output for the UK was for rivals Air Ace Picture Library and War Picture Library, drawing over two dozen issues between 1961 and 1969. This was still something of a sideline to his work in Spain, which included Espia, El Libertador, El Gran Cazador, Flecha Roja (in Pantera Negra) and Policía en acción (in Españolin) during the 1960s.

Leopoldo Ortiz continued to work into the 1980s, his later strips including The Secret Files of the Luftwaffe for Warlord, Shi-Kai in the Spanish magazine Kung-Fu and Metropol. He subsequently retired from drawing comics. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Leopoldo Ortiz art
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R F Outcault biography

R F Outcault biography

R F Outcault (14 Jan 1863 - 28 Sep 1965; USA)
R. F. Outcault was the creator of The Yellow Kid, often cited as "the hero of the first true comic strip" (to quote The World Encyclopedia of Comics, ed. Maurice Horn). The Yellow Kid was a fad that lasted only briefly but proved culturally significant and left enough ephemeral detritus behind that he was not forgotten.

Richard Felton Outcault was born in Lancaster, Ohio, on 14 January 1863, the son of Jesse Pugh Outcalt (1833-1910), a cabinet maker who owned a furniture business, and his wife Catherine Ann (nee Davis). He was born with the surname Outcalt and known to his family and friends as Dick.

Dick Outcalt showed an early talent for drawing. At school in Lancaster he would sketch teachers and scholars in class. At the age of 15 he travelled to Cincinnati and enrolled in the McMicken University's School of Design where he studied for three years. Returning to Lancaster, his father established him with a studio and he became a portrait painter. This did not particularly suit his talents as he preferred to produce more humorous drawings. Instead, he found work as a painter with the Hall Safe and Lock Company in Cincinnati.

At the same time, he used his talents to produce illustrations for local newspapers and worked on the Cincinnati Graphic and later on the Cincinnati Enquirer as a cub reporter. It was a story he wrote and illustrated for the Enquirer about an exhibition of the work of Thomas A. Edison that brought him to the attention of the famous inventor. Edison needed a technical illustrator for the 1888 Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley and Middle Atlantic States, which was to be held in Cincinnati that year, and hired Outcalt. Impressed by the drawings, Edison employed Outcalt as a technical illustrator at his West Orange, New Jersey, headquarters and sent him to Paris to prepare for the Exposition Universelle, held between May and October 1889. Whilst in Paris, Outcalt — by now signing himself Outcault — found time to study art in Paris's Latin Quarter and developed the habit of wearing a beret and cape.

Outcault returned to New York to work on the staff of Electrical Magazine, owned by one of Edison's friends. In Lancaster he married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Jane ("Mamie") Martin, the 20-year-old daughter of a local banker, on 25 December 1890. The newly married couple settled in Flushing, New York, and Outcault began freelancing cartoons and jokes to Truth, Judge and Life magazines where they were well received. It was here that he developed the style and characteristics that would make his name; his cartoons were highly detailed and many featured the street kids who lived in the slum tenements of New York. Eventually, Outcault settled on one location for his cartoons, Hogan's Alley.

Outcault was hired in 1894 to produce technical illustrations for the New York World, but continued to sell cartoons. It was in the pages of Truth that he introduced a bald, snaggle-toothed young character in a nightshirt on 2 June 1894. The background character appeared three more times over the next ten months. This fourth cartoon, originally published on 9 February 1895, was reprinted in the New York World and Outcault began producing new cartoons for the paper. From 5 May 1895, Outcault's cartoons began to expand in size and appear in colour and the bald little kid — his nightshirt blue in that first colour cartoon — developed from a background character on the sidelines of the cartoon and began to feature more prominently.

On 5 January 1896 the kid's nightshirt became yellow for the first time and, whilst the character was never named, he was from then on referred to as the Yellow Kid. Over the next few months the silent Kid began to issue irreverent messages to his readers on his nightshirt, usually commenting on the subject of the day's cartoon. The growing popularity of the character — a 'type' that Outcault would see around the slums on his newspaper assignments — earned him the notice of advertisers; the bright yellow shirt proved an attractive billboard and before long there was a great deal of Yellow Kid merchandise available, ranging from buttons to booze.

The growth in popularity of the Kid coincided with a newspaper war that raged between the New York World, published by Joseph Pulitzer and the New York Journal, founded by William Randolph Hearst, who raided the World for some of its best artists and writers, including Outcault. Outcault's final cartoon in the New York World appeared on 17 May 1896... but it was not the end for the characters of Hogan's Alley, as the page was continued by George B. Luks.

Hearst, meanwhile, advertised heavily that the New York Journal was now the home of the Yellow Kid, appearing in the Sunday colour supplement each week in a series of full-page panels under the title "McFadden's Row of Flats". The war between the Journal and the World was still in full force and stories became more and more sensational in the battle for readers — to the point where stories were of dubious veracity. To distinguish between the two papers, Hearst's was often referred to as the Yellow Kid Paper, but at that time both papers were featuring the Yellow Kid, who was still appearing in Hogan's Alley in the World. Because of this, the two were inexorably linked and as early as 1897, the New York Press was referring disparagingly to the "yellow journalism" of the two papers.

One apparent myth regarding the Kid is that Hearst and Pulitzer went to court over ownership of the character. According to Richard D. Olson, "The weak link in the myth is that there doesn't appear to be any record of such a decision, and I know a lot of people who have looked for it." Elsewhere, we learn that Outcault tried to apply for copyright of "The Yellow Dugan Kid" in September 1896, but due to an irregularity in his application, copyright protection was never granted.

The lack of control he could exercise over his creation led Outcault to abandon the Yellow Kid. Hearst employed him as the editor of the comic page of the New York Evening Journal where he created Casey's Corner and The Huckleberry Volunteers, the Yellow Kid occasionally popping up in both strips. Outcault left Hearst to create Poor Li'l Mose for the New York Herald in 1901 and, around the same time, produced Shakespeare in Possumville for Judge.

However, it was his next creation, Buster Brown, launched in the New York Herald on 4 May 1902, that put Outcault back in the public eye. The main character was a young child of wealthy parents who dressed him like Little Lord Fauntleroy; however, Buster Brown was actually a practical joker, breaking windows or playing pranks which usually ends with him receiving a 'licking' from his mother.

The character again proved very popular and Outcault was again tempted by money to take the strip to Hearst's New York Journal. "Buster Brown" was continued in the Herald by other artists until 1911; Outcault, meanwhile, launched his own nameless version in the Journal, which would run until 1921 (with reprints continuing to appear in some papers as late as 1926). In this instance, Outcault made sure he retained all the merchandising rights to the character and benefited from the countless spin-offs into advertising and theatre. Outcault rapidly became a rich man and as early as 1905 was earning more from selling clothing and merchandise than he was from the syndication of the comic strip.

In 1909, he set up the Outcault Advertising Company to exploit the success of his creations, although he continued to draw the Sunday (now nameless) Buster Brown strip until 1921. He retired, passing control of the Outcault Company to his son, Richard F. Outcault Jr., who became its new president.

Outcault concentrated on painting for the next few years, exhibiting widely. He also reprinted volumes of his Yellow Kid and Buster Brown comics. In the summer of 1928 he fell suddenly ill and died on 28 September at the age of 65. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
R F Outcault art
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Arthur Oxenham biography

Arthur Oxenham biography

Arthur Oxenham
Arthur Oxenham was a prolific artist and illustrator who was particularly associated with the Read About It series of children's educational books published by Wheaton in the 1960s. Although relatively short (usually 24 pages), Oxenham illustrated 72 volumes in association with series authors Olive Gregory and Eileen Everett in five years; the series eventually lasted some 120 books (the later ones with other artists) and many of the early titles were subsequently reissued in the 1970s with different artwork. There was also a Welsh language series (published in 1967) which reprinted nine of the early titles.

Although the series included a wide range of geographical and historical subjects, Oxenham was primarily a wildlife illustrator, contributing many animal-related covers and dozens of colour illustrations to the Peeps at Nature series which featured animals from around the world. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Arthur Oxenham art
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Keith Page biography

Keith Page biography

Keith Page
Keith has been involved in comics since 1976, being represented by The Temple Art Agency. He has worked on most Fleetway and DC Thomson titles over the years including Thunderbirds, Sonic the Comic, Eagle, Mask, Supernaturals, Wildcat, Football Picture Library, Dandy, Starblazer, 2000AD, Starlord and Revolver. He also worked on Mighty Max for Marvel UK.

He is currently working for DC Thomson on Commando. He has produced science fiction book covers and has worked on a variety of book illustration commissions. Keith occasionally works on scripts and writes magazine articles.
Keith Page art
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Stefan Pajaczkowski biography

Stefan Pajaczkowski biography

Stefan Pajaczkowski (born 29 Jan 1900, Poland; d. 2 June 1978, Edinburgh)
Stefan Pajaczkowski was a Polish artist who illustrated books in his native Poland, and was known primarily for his expertise on Polish military subjects.

Born in Lviv (now part of the Ukraine) on 29 January 1900, the son of physicia Vladimir Pajaczkowski, who was the director of the General Hospital in Sanok for many years, and his wife Wanda Sekowskich Pajaczkowska. Stefan Pajaczkowski graduated from the Gimnazjum Sanockim in 1918 and then aided soldiers returning from the front, earning a silver medal from the Austrian Red Cross. It was during the war, and a visit to Vienna's museums and galleries, that his passion for art grew, although at the end of the war — and with it the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — he joined the Military Academy in Wiener-Neustadt.

Pajaczkowski joined a reserve cavalry squadron but was admitted the following year to the Old Riding School and spent some time in hospital in 1920. He studied at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lviv but abandoned the notion of becoming a lawyer in favour of drawing and painting in the studio of war artist Zygmunt Rodakowski.

He graduated from the Lviv Landowners Agricultural course in 1926, he settled in Wankowicach and ran a farm as well as being appointed a lieutenant in the general militia. He was married in 1927. At the outbreak of World War II, Pajaczkowski took up a position as steward of an estate in Kostarowcach in the county of Sanok. At the end of the war he was to be found with military units in Przemysl in the south east of Poland. He was demobbed in 1946 with the rank of captain.

After the war he settled with his family in Poznan where he worked in real estate until 1950, later taking a job with the Krajowym Zwiazku Spóldzielni Przemyslu Ludowego i Artystycznego [National Co-operative Union of the Folk and Art Industry]. In 1951 he became a member of the Zwiazku Polskich Artystów Plastyków [Association of Polish Artists and Designers].

Although he painted extensively from the 1920s on, his best period is considered to be the 1950s when he made numerous paintings and watercolours of battle scences and uniforms. In 1956, he helped re-establish and became curator of the Wielkopolska Military Museum which had existed in Poznan in 1919-39; the collection was first exhibited at the pavilion at Old Market Square in Poznan in February 1963. In 1965, he helped establish the Stowarzyszenia Milosników Dawnej Broni i Barwy [Association of Friends of Old Arms and Colours].

"1,000 Years of Polish Arms" was a major exhibition of Stefan Pajaczkowski's paintings that visited many Polish cities; his expertise at depicting Polish military uniforms, especially those of the Polish Cavalry, can be seen in the 1980 collection Jazda Polska.

Pajaczkowski died suddenly in Edinburgh on 2 June 1978 whilst visiting the UK and Scotland. His ashes were returned to Poland where they were buried at Junikowskim Cemetary, Poznan. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Alex Packham biography

Alex Packham biography

Alexander Packham (born 1914; UK)
British born artist Alexander Packham illustrated a number of Macmillan Educational Posters during the 1960s and has a passion for the outdoors and the sea.
Alex Packham art
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Francesco Palma biography

Francesco Palma biography

Francesco Palma
Palma was a contributor of a double-page feature about Spartacus to a 1970s Tell Me Why annual but is otherwise unknown. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Francesco Palma art
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Kim Palmer biography

Kim Palmer biography

Kim Palmer
Not much is known about this talented artist who painted a number of book covers for Souvenir Press during the 1980s.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Kim Palmer art
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Brant Parker biography

Brant Parker biography

Brant Julius Parker (26 August 1920 - 15 April 2007; USA)
Brant Parker was an American cartoonist. He co-created and drew The Wizard of Id comic strip until passing the job on to his son, Jeff Parker, in 1997. Cartoonist Johnny Hart, his co-creator, continued writing the strip until his death on April 7, 2007. Parker himself died eight days later, on April 15.

Debuting in 1964, The Wizard of Id gave Parker and Hart a flexible premise for satirising modern society through the distorting mirror of a multi-levelled medieval kingdom, misruled by a petty sovereign, "a tyrant's tyrant" who has an over inflated ego and an over sensitivity about his tiny size. In his expressive, spontaneous-looking style, Parker drew all of the Wizard panels, basing them on gags that he and Hart refined together.

Parker studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, California. He worked for the Walt Disney Studio before and after World War II, taking time off to serve in the United States Navy. After leaving Disney in 1945, he moved to New York to work as a political cartoonist for the Binghamton Press.

Parker received the National Cartoonists Society Humor Comic Strip Award for 1971, 1976, 1980, 1982 and 1983. He also received their Reuben Award for his work on the strip in 1984 and their Elzie Segar Award in 1986.
Source: Wikipedia and theguardian.com
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Eric Parker biography

Eric Parker biography

Eric Robert Parker (1898 - 1974; UK)
Eric Parker is probably best known as the Sexton Blake artist, being responsible for hundreds of full-colour covers for the Sexton Blake Library as well as countless covers and interior black and white illustrations for Union Jack and Detective Weekly. He was a consummate draughtsman, at home illustrating any period of history, and the few strip stories he drew for Thriller Comics Library are amongst the best in the entire series. With the exception of The Children of New Forest (no. 38), which was mainly a reprint of his 1945 Knockout strip with some new material added, and The Secret of Monte Cristo (no. 14), which originated as a superb Parker Sexton Blake strip in Knockout but which for the Thriller Comics Library version was so extensively re-drawn by Reg Bunn that it could scarcely be classified as a Parker strip at all, Parker's contributions were all especially drawn for the Library.

His artistic ability was discovered early on and the young Eric had an article about his talent and the scholarship it had won for him, together with his photograph, in the Boy's Own Paper in 1913. From the outset of his career in illustration, he was prolific and his work can be seen in a wide variety of publications throughout the 1920s and '30s. His first strip work was for Knockout, starting with whimsical fantasy strips such as The Queer Adventures of Patsy and Tim, before going onto a Western strip, The Adventures of Bear Cub. This was followed by a long series of excellent adaptations of adventure classics including Gulliver's Travels (1942-3), Kidnapped (1945-6), "The Black Arrow (1948) and The Three Musketeers (1946).

The work of Parker can be seen in many publications other than those of the Amalgamated Press, notably the evocative historical illustrations, painted in two-tone colour, for the Daily Mail Annual for Boys and Girls. Latterly he worked for the educational magazine, Look and Learn, writing and illustrating such superb historical series as The Scrapbook of the British Army and The Scrapbook of the British Navy, and also producing "visualisation" - sketched-out roughs detailing composition, etc - for other artists to complete. At the time of his death he left the full-colour artwork for an uncompleted series he had created called A Thousand Years of Spying. An unfinished Napoleonic strip of excellent quality was also never published. Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
Eric Robert Parker art

See illustrators issue 9 for an Eric Parker feature article and enjoy more of his art in our PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.

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Reg Parlett biography

Reg Parlett biography

Reginald Edward Parlett (2 August 1904 - 18 November 1991, England)
Reg Parlett was born in Camberwell, London, son of comics artist Harry Parlett. His older brother George was also a comics artist, and he was related to the games designer David Parlett and the postcard artist Tom Parlett.

After leaving school Reg became a clerk for the travel agent Thomas Cook. His father submitted some of his work to the Amalgamated Press, and he became a full-time staff artist there in 1923. He started with one-off cartoons for Merry and Bright and by the late 1920s was drawing covers for the paper.

He created "Danny and Domino" for The Funny Wonder in 1927, and drew Charlie Chaplin (1932-), Robin Hood and "The Sheriff of Sherbet City" for the same title. Other strips he drew include "Big Hearted Arthur" for Radio Fun, "Vernon the Villain" for The Jester, "Peggy the Pride of the Force" for Larks, "Lizzie and her Comical Courtiers" (1928-40), "Larry the Larky Legionnaire" (1932-39) and "Our Screen Screams" (1935-37) for The Wonder, and "Jerry, Jenny and Joe" for Tip Top. He also drew for Crackers and Jingles.

He served in the RAF during World War II, and afterwards joined Gaumont-British Animation as a writer, working on the "Animaland" cartoon series. He continued to work in comics, drawing for independent titles like Funny Comic, Flash, Challenger, Funbeam and Zip.

After Gaumont-British closed in 1950 he worked on the animated film Animal Farm as an artist, and returned to the Amalgamated Press, where he worked for the next several decades, through its tranformations into Fleetway Publications and IPC. He drew "The Sky Explorers" (1952-53) for The Comet, and in 1958, following the death of Frank Minnitt, he took over drawing Billy Bunter in Knock-Out, which he drew until 1961.

In the 1960s he drew Just Jake in the Daily Mirror. Strips he drew for the AP include "Big One" (1964-65) for The Big One; "The Happy Family" (1968) for TV Fun; "The Crows" (1968) for Valiant; "The Lion Street" and "Mowser" for Lion; "Ivor Lott and Tony Broke" and "Nightmare" for Cor!!; "Lolly Pop" and "The Hand" for Shiver and Shake; "Evil Eye", "Teacher's Pet" and "Creepy Car" for Whoopee!; "It's a Nice Life" and "Kid King" for Jackpot; "Belle Tent", "Harry's Haunted House" and "Bewitched Belinda" for Whizzer and Chips; "Calling 'U' for Useless" for Swift; "Dim Dan" for Giggle; "Fido" for Eagle; "Goodies and Baddies" for Wow; "Fit Fred and Sick Sid" for Krazy; and "Mustapha Million" for Cheeky.

He was perhaps best known for his work on Buster, where he drew "Buster" (1974-85), and created "Bonehead" (1971-74), "Kid Gloves" (1975-80), "Disappearing Trix" (1979-82), "Fright School" (1985-88) and "Beastenders" (1987-90).

He continued with contributions for Cor, Wow and Whoopee well into his 80s, and his humorous strips are still much loved. The 2 August 1984 issue of Buster celebrated his 80th birthday, and a 1989 issue of Big Comic Fortnightly celebrated his 85th.

He died in Surrey on 18 November 1991, leaving a widow, Mary, who he had married in 1928, and two sons, Malcolm and Graeme.
Source: UK Comics Wiki & The Illustration Art Gallery
Reginald Parlett art
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Antonio Parras biography

Antonio Parras biography

Antonio Parras (1929 - 2010; Spain)
Antonio Parras was born in Barcelona February 2, 1929. Before turning to comics, Antonio Parras had several jobs, such as assistant chemist, secretary of a lawyer and as a retoucher in a printing house. His first comics were published in the Spanish magazines El Globo (El Duende) and KKO (La Dama del Antifaz), both of the publishing house De Haro. He also worked for Bruguera for a while.

He moved to Paris in 1955, where he began associations with the World Press and Édi-France agencies. He drew several historical stories in the series Belles Histoires de l'Oncle Paul (in Spirou) and Grands Noms de l'Histoire de France (in Pistolin), both scripted by Jean-Michel Charlier. In 1956, he drew Alerte au Gabon in Risque-Tout, and he contributed illustrations to Line, Sonia, Ici-Paris, Bonjour Bonheur and Vaillant. He appeared in Hello Bédé with La Dernière Lune in 1992 (text by Rodolphe and Le Tendre), and he co-operated on the collective album Transports Fripons at Les Humanoïdes Associés. In 1993, he teamed up with Patrick Cothias, and created La Lièvre de Mars at Glénat.

Ten years later, Parras began Le Méridien des Brumes with text by Eric Juszezak at Dargaud. Two books have appeared, in 2003 and 2007. Antonio Parras is furthermore the cover illustrator of 34 Bob Morane books for Librairie des Champs Elysées. He passed away in Paris in June 2010.
Antonio Parras art
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Alan Parry biography

Alan Parry biography

Alan Parry (fl. 1970s; UK)
A prominent and accomplished artist illustrator for Look-In magazine during the 1970s. His work includes comic strip adaptations of UK TV series including Catweazle, The Adventures of David Cassidy/The Partridge Family, Man About the House, Bless This House, The Kids from 47A.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Alan Parry art
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Peter Partington biography

Peter Partington biography

Peter Partington
Peter Partington is a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists. His work appears in many British bird books.
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Bernard Partridge biography

Bernard Partridge biography

Sir John Bernard Partridge (11 October 1861 - 9 August 1945; London, UK)
Sir John Bernard Partridge was an English illustrator. Born in London, he was the son of Professor Richard Partridge, F.R.S., president of the Royal College of Surgeons, and nephew of John Partridge, portrait-painter extraordinary to Queen Victoria. For some years he was well known as an actor under the name of Bernard Gould.

Partridge was educated at Stonyhurst College, and after matriculating at the University of London entered the office of Dunn & Hansom, architects. He then joined for a couple of years a firm of stained-glass designers (Lavers, Barraud and Westlake), learning drapery and ornament; and then studied and executed church ornament under Philip Westlake, 1880–1884. He began illustration for the press and practised watercolour painting, but his chief success was derived from book illustration.

In 1891 he joined the staff of Punch and, in 1910, became its chief cartoonist, replacing Edward Linley Sambourne. During his time at Punch, Partridge published several cartoons showing his support for the Suffragist movement. He was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and of The Pastel Society. In 1915, he designed World War I posters, some of which are now held at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, including Take up the Sword of Justice (H33861/33).

Partridge was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

In 1925, he was knighted by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and gave his support to the government during the General Strike.
Source: Wikipedia and Illustration Art Gallery

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Bernard Partridge art
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Oliver Passingham biography

Oliver Passingham biography

Oliver Passingham
Oliver Passingham worked on the strips Leslie Shane (a female detective modelled on Alex Raymond's famous Rip Kirby strip) and the science fiction classic Rick Random which appeared in Super Detective Library. From the early 1960s through to around 1990 he work on a variety of DC Thomson comics.
Oliver Passingham art
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Tom Paterson biography

Tom Paterson biography

Tom Paterson; Scotland
Scottish artist Tom Paterson was a productive contributor to the comic titles of both Fleetway and D.C. Thomson, initially in a style close to Leo Baxendale's.

In the period 1973-1990, Paterson did art on such Fleetway features as 'Grimley Feendish' (Shiver & Shake), 'Clever Dick and Dozy Mick' (Whoopee!), and 'Sweeny Toddler' (Shiver & Shake). He has worked for D.C. Thomson since 1986, and drew among others 'Calamity James', 'Minnie the Minx' and 'The Numskulls' (The Beano).
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Roger Payne biography

Roger Payne biography

Roger Payne (born c. 1934)
Roger Payne is a professional illustrator from the UK. His homoerotic work is well known amongst aficionados but he has also done many illustrations for books and magazines, including historical illustrations for Look and Learn.
Roger Payne art

Enjoy more of Roger Payne's art in our PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.
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Patrice Pellerin biography

Patrice Pellerin biography

Patrice Pellerin (born 2 November 1955; Brest, France)
Patrice Pellerin is a French cartoonist and a writer and illustrator of comic strips (bande dessinée), including the celebrated L'Épervier (The Sparrowhawk).

Born in Brest on 2 November 1955, the son of the Prefect of Haute-Saône in Vesoul, Patrice never stayed long in the same place and lived in twenty-two different cities - even three years in Madagascar - before settling in Lampaul-Guimiliau, not far from the sea that gives so much colour to the characters he creates.

He taught himself drawing, copying the masters he admires, the painters of the Renaissance or the Grand Siècle. He worked for a time at Reims in a cartoon studio and learnt the ropes with Pierre Joubert.

He is the author of the comic strip The Hawk (L'Épervier), the nickname given to a pirate king of the French eighteenth century and former pirate, knight Yann Kermeur.
Source: Wikipedia
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Jordi Penalva biography

Jordi Penalva biography

Jordi Bosch Peñalva (born 1927, Barcelona, Spain)
Jordi Penalva was one of the leading artists for Fleetway's War and Battle picture libraries in the 1960s. In the seven years between 1963 and 1969 he provided about 75 covers for each title, marked by their quality. David Roach describes Penalva's work as combining "a wonderful, gritty sense of the dramatic with a textural, highly accomplished painting ability." and "his heroes ruggedly handsome soldiers often striking dramatic poses, usually surrounded by blazing guns, smoke, explosions and vast swathes of colour."

Penalva was born in Barcelona in 1927, the younger brother of Antonio Bosch Peñalva, who was also a notable artist, providing covers for many issues of Schoolgirls Picture Library and June & School Friend Picture Library). His full name was Jordi Bosch Peñalva, the Spanish tradition being to retain the mother's surname as well as his father's family name. However, as his older brother signed his work 'Bosch Penalva', Jordi used his mother's maiden name when signing his work.

In the mid-1960s, Penalva also began working for D. C. Thomson's rival Commando pocket library and over the next decade produced 180 covers, averaging just over one a fortnight between 1969 and 1974. Penalva was also supplying illustrations and cover for Scandinavian magazines—notably for Semic's newspaper strip reprints of The Saint, James Bond, Modesty Blaise and others—and for the German publisher Bastei.

Penalva, like many other Spanish artists, could also be found contributing to James Warren's magazines, providing covers for Eerie, Vampirella, 1984 and The Rook in 1978-82—his cover for Eerie 96 was voted the best cover of 1978. During the same period he was painting covers for DAW Books and Playboy Press.

In the late-1970s to mid-1980s he was also painting covers for Josep Toutain's magazine 1984 (later Zona 84), Comix Internacional and Thriller in his native Spain as well as comics from other publishers, including Blue Jeans, Super Bumerang and Kung-Fu.

Subsequently, Penalva was able to concentrate on painting, in oils, watercolours and acrylics, with occasional more commercial diversions, such as producing paintings for commemorative plates, providing background paintings for the Spanish animated movie Katy, Kiki y Koko (1988). Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Jordi Penalva art

See illustrators issue 2, illustrators issue 22, and The Art of Commando (illustrators Special Edition) for Jordi Penalva feature articles.
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Joseph Pennell biography

Joseph Pennell biography

Joseph Pennell (4 July 1857 - 23 April 1926; Philadelphia, USA)
Joseph Pennell was an American artist and prolific illustrator and author of several art and illustration books.

Born in Philadelphia, and first studied there, but like his compatriot and friend, James McNeill Whistler, he afterwards went to Europe and made his home in London. He produced numerous books (many of them in collaboration with his wife, Elizabeth Robins Pennell), but his chief distinction is as an original etcher and lithographer, and notably as an illustrator. Their close acquaintance with Whistler led the Pennells to undertake a biography of that artist in 1906, and, after some litigation with his executrix on the right to use his letters, the book was published in 1908.

He taught at Slade School of Art. He won a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle (1900), and 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

Pennell visited San Francisco in March 1912, where he undertook a series of so-called "municipal subjects". These were exhibited in December 1912 at "the prestigious gallery of Vickery, Atkins & Torrey", according to Mary Millman and Dave Bohn, authors of The Master of Line: John W. Winkler, American Etcher, (Capra Press: Santa Barbara, CA, 1994). It is possible that Pennell's visit inspired San Francisco printmakers Robert Harshe and Pedro Lemos, along with sculptor Ralph Stackpole and painter Gottardo Piazzoni, to found the California Society of Etchers in 1912, now the California Society of Printmakers. Longtime members of California Society of Printmakers believe that Pennell was a member of the New York Etchers Club, established in 1877, although his membership in the New York Etchers Club is not confirmed.

Pennell did the poster for the fourth Liberty Loans campaign of 1918. It showed the entrance to New York City's New York Harbor under aerial and naval bombardment, with New York in flames and the Statue of Liberty partly destroyed, her head and her torch blown off. He taught at the Art Students League of New York.
Source: Wikipedia & Illustration Art Gallery
Joseph Pennell art
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Glenn Pepple biography

Glenn Pepple biography

Glenn David Pepple (born 1960; USA)
A high school contemporary of Jon J. Muth, Glenn Pepple contributed illustrations to Epic (1985) and a one-page painting to Clive Barker's Hellraiser issue 4 (1990). Pepple was also one of six contributors to Night, a collection of six prints published by Peter & Pan Publishers (1985) in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, each plate signed and numbered.

Pepple lives in New York. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Rosa C Petherick biography

Rosa C Petherick biography

Rosa Clementina Petherick (September 1871 - 20 December 1931; Croydon, UK)
Rosa Clementina Petherick was a British book illustrator. She contributed illustrations to numerous children's story books, annuals and periodicals, particularly those produced by Blackie and Son Limited.

Rosa Clementina Petherick was born in 1871 in Addiscombe, Croydon. She was the eldest of five daughters born to the artist Horace William Petherick (1839-1919), whose black-and-white illustrations were frequently reproduced in periodicals. In the census of 1891 she and her four younger sisters are listed as living with their parents, William and Clementina, in Maple Lodge, at 25, Havelock Road, Croydon, and Rosa is recorded as an "art student". In the summer of 1896 she gained an "honourable mention" in a competition in The Studio, and her drawing of a lady picking flowers was reproduced under the pseudonym "Grumbler".

Horace Petherick is recorded as the householder until 1920, after which the Misses Petherick (including Rosa?) lived there until 1927.

Her illustrations of children and their toys were used by many publishers. They appear in numerous annuals and compilation volumes, particularly those produced by the prolific firm of Blackie and Son. Three colour plates are found in the 1931 Little One's annual by Blackie which are still full of movement and humour. Her early work is similar to that of many Victorian illustrators, but as her skills developed, the outlines become bolder, the colours simpler, and the compositions more striking, following the "poster" style made popular by John Hassall. Her work is often signed in full, Rosa C. Petherick, but she also developed a monogram of a backward-facing "R" sharing the upright with a "P", with a "C" superimposed.

Rosa died suddenly in Brighton on 28th December 1931, and was given a brief obituary in The Times. This mentions that her etchings were to be found in the National Portrait Gallery, that the music publisher Robert E. Mack took an interest in her work, and that she left three sisters "well known in the musical world".
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Rosa C Petherick art
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Harry Pettit biography

Harry Pettit biography

Henry A. Pettit (August 1913 - August 1958; London, UK)
Henry Pettit was born in West Ham, London, in August 1913, son of Henry William Pettit and his wife Ruth Augusta, née Harwood. At the age of nineteen he lost a leg when he jumped from a moving train, slipped on ice and fell under the wheels. He studied at St Martin's School of Art and, after a time working in advertising, became a freelance illustrator and painter, specialising in wildlife, especially birds. He was a member of the Royal Society of Watercolour Artists and also painted in oils. He married Grace Tingley in 1939. They settled in Spring Valley Mill in Ardleigh, Essex and restored as a working mill.

In the mid-1950s Pettit contributed comic strips to Playhour and Jack and Jill annuals, and illustrations, often in scraperboard, to Eagle, Swift and Girl annuals. From 1955 to 1958 he worked for Playhour, producing "Jungle Days and Woodland Ways" (1955), "The Little Friends of Francis Pitt" (1955-56), "Little Red Squirrel" (1956-58) "Dogs" (1958), "Friends of Little Red Squirrel" (1958) and "All About Cats with Peter and Pam" (1958) in colour on the back page. His wife, Grace, also worked for Playhour, writing replies to children's letters.

Spring Valley Mill was used as the setting of Children's Film Foundation film, Treasure at the Mill, in 1957, which starred Pettit, Grace, and their three children, Merrilyn (13), Hilary (12) and Harry (7). A novelisation by Malcolm Saville, illustrated by Pettit, was published the same year.

Suffering from ill-health, Pettit died in August 1958, aged only 45. His granddaughter, Eleanor Boorman, is a well-known portrait painter.
Source: UK Comics Wiki
Harry Pettit art
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Norman Pett biography

Norman Pett biography

Norman Pett (born 27 April 1891; Birmingham, UK)
Pett was born inn Birmingham, England. After being invalided out of the First World War, he studied art at the Press Art School. Later, he taught art at the Mosley Road Junior Art School and at Birmingham Central School of Art.

In 1932, he set out to create a comic strip that would be as popular to adults as the famous 'Pip, Squeak and Wilfred' was to children. And so, Jane was created. For the first few years, Pett's wife Mary modelled for him but eventually he started to use professional models instead, the most famous of which was Chrystabel Leighton-Porter who modelled for him during World War Two.

Until the war, Jane had a little daily funny story, but at the start of the war, she became a continuous story. "The turning point in Jane's career, when she became a success was when we turned her from a daily joke into a continuous story. In other words, when she was stripped in both senses of the term," Pett told Pathé News in 1943. Pett retired from drawing Jane after drawing her for 16 years in 1948, and the strip was continued by Michael Hubbard.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Ken Petts biography

Ken Petts biography

Kenneth John Petts (17 September 1907 - 20 February 1992; London, UK)
Ken Petts, the son of an artist, was born on 17th September 1907 in Southgate, London. At the age of fifteen, he attended Hornsey Art School. He married in March 1931, and came to Bedford in 1952, where he resided at 89, Beverley Crescent. He came to live in Bedford because his two children, John and Jean, were attending Bedford Modern School. His friendship with Sammy Volz, (fellow-student at Hornsey Art School, caricaturist, and later art master at Bedford Modern School, from 1928 until his death in 1958), possibly played a part in his decision to live in Bedford.

Petts was enlisted as designer of the Bedford Modern School's christmas card. This usually featured the "blore facade" in the snow, or some festive lights illuminating the great windows.
He was a keen cricketer, and a member of the Martlets, a cricket club composed of B.M.S. masters, parents and recent O.B.M.s, who toured in Kent every summer during the pre and post-war years. These records include his self portrait as a bowler.

His chief work was in advertising, before he was claimed by the Royal Air Force (where he rose to the rank of corporal). While he was there, he drew portraits of commanding officers and American colonels.

After his release he turned to magazine work but continued in advertising work, albeit to a lesser extent.
His pictures appeared on the covers and pages of numerous issues of John Bull, Woman, Look and Learn, and other publications. Petts based some of his subjects on Bedford models. The policeman featured in "The Policeman's Car," John Bull(1956), is from Bedford. The three girls who modelled for "The Engagement Ring", John Bull(1952), are also Bedfordians.

Petts was very proud of his artwork on biblical subjects for children's publications, such as The All-Colour Children's Bible and The Life of Jesus (John Bull supplement). There are many examples which show that he was right at the end of a tradition of history-painting going back to the late 18th century, almost recalling both the pre-Raphaelite and Cecil B. de Mille styles.

He was invited by Bedford Borough Council to contribute the frontpiece to Bedford 1166-1966, showing the presentation of the earliest extant charter by Henry the 2nd at Rouen. Another later civic commission was to paint a group portrait, showing 95-years-old Richard Turner (Petts's neighbour in Beverley Crescent), being presented to the Queen by Sir John Howard, on the occasion of H.M.'s visit to Bedford Modern School in 1977. (Neither of these works are present in this collection). K.J. Petts died on the 20th February 1992. Source: The National Archives (Jean Petts, daughter)

Enjoy more of Ken Pett's art in our PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.

Ken Petts art
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William Francis Phillipps biography

William Francis Phillipps biography

William Francis Phillipps (Active 1950s - 1980s)
Remarkably little is known about this prolific and very accomplished British artist and illustrator. Famed for his paperback cover art, he painted the front covers for many Agatha Christie Pan Books paperbacks during the early 1960s and was an illustrator par excellence for several children's titles (across the ages) including Look and Learn, Treasure, Once Upon A Time and Teddy Bear.

He illustrated many other covers including a remarkable series of western paperback covers for New English Library in the 1970s by J T Edson as well as for the popular Edge and Adam Steele wild west series.

He also illustrated many books including 'The Mysterious World of Dinosaurs' and the magazine series 'Birds That Cannot Fly', both in 1980.

He was equally at home painting cosy children's nursery rhymes, gritty western covers, Bible stories, vivid natural history portraits (mostly fauna, including Dinosaurs), and many other subjects.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
William Francis Phillipps art
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Edwin Phillips biography

Edwin Phillips biography

Edwin Phillips
Phillips' illustrations were widely used in the magazines Look and Learn and in Everybody's Weekly, as well as in many titles of the 1950s and 1960s.

His photo-realistic style and use of colour were ideal for the time when colour illustrations were few and far between and photography was beginning to take over in popular weeklies in the UK

Very little biography could be found for Edwin Phillips and it is a great source of sadness that despite their popularity many talented book and magazine illustrators of the 1950s and 1960s were just work-for-hire and often not even credited.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & http://standby4action.wordpress.com/tag/everybodys-weekly/
Edwin Phillips art
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Alan Philpott biography

Alan Philpott biography

Frederick Alan Philpott (28 July 1916 - 1997; Lewisham, London, UK)
Frederick Philpott was born in Lewisham, London, on 28 July 1916, son of Frederick James Philpott and his wife Florence Mary, née Gasson. When he left school he took evening classes at the Sir John Cass School of Arts and Crafts, and later at Woolwich Polytechnic.

His first work in comics was "Deerfoot the White Indian" in the Mickey Mouse Christmas Special in 1939. Shortly afterwards he joined up with RAF as a wireless operator/air gunner, but he was the only survivor of a collision of two loaded bombers on the runway. After treatment in Karachi for severe burns, he was sent to Delhi Air Headquarters Training Command to draw Japanese aircraft for recognition training.

He returned to England after the war and resumed his career as a comics artist, drawing for small publishers Amex, including adaptations of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Henry V and Macbeth for Classic in Pictures, and A. Soloway. He went on to get work with the Amalgamated Press, mainly adaptations of popular western films for Film Fun.

In 1952 he co-created Robot Archie with writer Ted Cowan for the AP's new weekly, Lion. He drew "Rebels of Ancient Rome" for the same title. Also in the 1950s, he drew John Steel stories for Super Detective Library, and Kit Carson and Buck Jones stories for Cowboy Comics Library.

From the 1960s on he mainly drew for DC Thomson, including "The Deathless Men" (1966-80) in The Hornet and The Hotspur, "The Tough of the Track" for The Victor, and war stories for Warlord and Commando. He also had work published in Look-In, including the Pathfinders strip, and the AP's War Picture Library. He died in Yeovil, Somerset, in the third quarter of 1997.
Source: UK Comics Wiki
Alan Philpott art
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Wilfred Plowman biography

Wilfred Plowman biography

Wilfred Plowman (1929 - 2015; Leicester, UK)
Wilf Plowman was a prolific and accomplished artist and illustrator whose work secured an international reputation – and Royal approval at home.

Born in Leicester, he attended the city's college of art before heading for the Central School of Art in London and the Academie des Beaux Arts in Paris.

After working for many years as a graphic designer, illustrator and art director, he moved to Devon in 1967 to concentrate on painting.

He spent two years as an art lecturer at the South Devon Art and Technology College in Newton Abbot and Torquay, then 22 years as a part-time art lecturer in Exeter.

Despite his teaching commitments, his output of work has been prolific — and the Royal Family are a favourite subject.

The Royal Family at Work and at Play depicts the Queen, Prince Philip in his carriage, Prince Charles playing polo and Princess Anne riding. They are also shown engaged in public duties — Trooping the Colour, laying wreaths at the Cenotaph and Prince Charles and Princess Diana meeting the ruler of Kuwait, Sheikh Saad-Al-Saba.

He recalled: “I am quite a royalist. I like the Royal Family, they are wonderful people.”

He said: "I was commissioned by Sheik Saad-Al-Saba to do a painting for him. The equerry to the Sheik called me from Kuwait. I could hardly believe it. He said the Sheik would be interested in seeing paintings I had done with the possibility of doing a portrait of himself and his wife. He had seen a photograph of the painting of the Royal Family which included him.

"I was just about to go out to Kuwait when it got invaded, so that put an end to that episode.

Prince Philip bought a painting of himself driving a coach and four, which he heard about after it was exhibited at the Bicton Horse Trials. He invited Wilf to Buckingham Palace and decided he wanted to buy it.

Princess Anne bought a painting of herself horse racing at Epsom.

The sale of prints of Prince Anne's painting raised many thousands of pounds for Save the Children. Prince Charles playing polo made an appearance in many paintings.

Other pictures commemorate wartime achievements — Spitfires and Hurricanes flying over English countryside and Formula 1 Grand Prix. Starlight Attack depicts the 1982 assault on Two Sisters in the Falklands by 45 Commando. Others, like Three-Ring Circus, are more lighthearted.

In 2011 he said he felt he was coming to the end of his “painting life” and sold many of his paintings to raise money for charity.
Source: Exeter Express & Echo
Wilfred Plowman art
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Renato Polese biography

Renato Polese biography

Renato Polese (27 April 1924 - 9 May 2014; Rome, Italy)
The Roman comic artist Renato Polese began working in the comics field at the end of World War II. His earliest work was published in the Italian magazines Giramondo and Il Vittorioso.

In 1954 he went to England, where he worked for several publishers (Fleetway, Hulton, IPC) across many genres, including western, crime and science fiction.

Back in Italy, he started to work on 'La Storia del West' with Gino d'Antonio for Bonelli, and illustrated books in the collection 'Collana Rodeo'. He also illustrated series like 'Safari' in Il Vittorioso (script Claudio Nizzi) and 'Bella e Bronco').

In 1970, he began a long cooperation with Il Giornalino, while also continuing to work for the British Fleetway group. For Il Giornalino, he worked on many series until the early 1990s, including 'Babe Ford' (with Mario Basari), 'Pony Express' (with Gianni Caratelli), 'Mister Charade' (with Alfredo Castelli), 'Sheriff' (with Alberti), 'Angeli del West' (with Longi), 'Cheyenne' (with De Angelis), 'Susanna' (with D'Antonio) and a couple of Jules Verne adaptations. Again for Bonelli, Polese drew 'L'Uomo di Pechino' in the 'Un Uomo, un'Avventura' collection. Additionally, he collaborated on series like 'Ken Parker', 'Nick Raider' and 'Zagor'.

Today he is much remembered for his work in the western genre, but he also worked in science fiction and even police adventures. His work for UK publishers between 1957 and 1970 includes Thriller Picture Library, Cowboy Picture Library, Lone Rider Picture Library, Wild West Picture Library, Comet, Top Spot, Valiant and Lion comics.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Lambiek
Renato Polese art
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Mark Poole biography

Mark Poole biography

Mark Poole; USA
Mark Poole is a worldwide award winning and displaying artist, working primarily in oils. Mark has made a career in the illustration industry for over 20 years. Currently, Mark is concentrating on his personal visions of imaginative realism. His oil paintings cross subtle dream landscapes with emotional journeys.

Mark's client list includes:
Magic the Gathering
Fantasy Flight Games (FFG)
Dungeons and Dragons
Upper Deck
The History Channel
Blizzard Entertainment
Cirque du Soleil
Sony Online Entertainment
Catalyst Games
Dover Publications
White Wolf Studios
Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
Source: Illustration Art Gallery, Mark Poole
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John Pound biography

John Pound biography

John Pound; USA
John Pound is perhaps best known for his work on the 'Garbage Pail Kids' trading card series from the late 1980s. As a kid, Pound was inspired by early Mad and Disney comics. In later years, his inspiration came from artists such as Robert Crumb and Rick Griffin. He started his career doing stories and covers for underground comix. One of his comix creations was 'Flip the Bird'.

In 1984, Art Spiegelman called Pound to work on some Wacky Packages paintings for a stickers series. They liked the work he did. One of the Wacky Packages was a 'Garbage Pail Kids' doll in its box. Other works by Pound include the 'Meanie Babies' and cover and interior art for titles such as 'Howard The Duck' and Mad Magazine.
Source: Lambiek
John Pound art
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Nick Potter biography

Nick Potter biography

Nick Potter (born 8 January 1947; Kent, UK)
Born in Kent, swiftly transported to South East London and raised by an academic father and dressmaker mother who called him Nicholas.

They played him jazz and gospel records on a 78rpm wind up record player. They gave him paper and pencils and told him 'Art isn't just short for Arthur'.

After spells in Somerset, the Midlands and Brighton, training as a painter and printmaker and working in bakeries, bars and building sites he returned to London and remembered his mothers words... and became an Artist not an Arthur.

During his artistic career, Nick has drawn many newspaper and comic strips, including Dogtanian, The Trapdoor, Man and Best Friend, and Speak to me Victor.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & schizoi.com
Nick Potter art
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Dudley Pout biography

Dudley Pout biography

Edward Dudley Pout (24 November 1908 - 12 December 1991; Kent, UK)
Edward Dudley Pout was born at Frog Island Farm, Herne, Kent, on 24 November 1908, the 2,000 acre farming estate being owned jointly by Pout’s father and his four brothers. The Pout family moved to various farms, and at the age of 8, young Dudley attended the village school at Swalecliffe where his headmistress recognised his drawing ability and arranged for an interview with the principal of Margate School of Art. He was awarded a full-time Art Scholarship, and at the age of 13 became their youngest ever student. At 15 he left Art School to join the family farming business, and worked enthusiastically for some years before his desire to become a commercial artist could be sated. A new cinema opened in Dover in 1930, and Pout became fascinated by the poster artwork that was used to advertise current and forthcoming features. Tracking down the suppliers, he applied for a job and was taken on by East Kent Poster Services of Dover at the wage of 32/6 a week.

Two years later, aged 26, Pout became Manager of the Stoll Art Studios in Chatham, producing billboards, posters, handbills and press advertisments for the Stoll Empire Theatre. He married Vida Standing in 1932, the daughter of a farming neighbour. His work came to the attention of London publicity magagers who tempted him to Wardour Street where he worked until 1938, providing original posters for the major British film studios. Uncertainty in the film industry led him to take on wider advertising work via a Fleet Street agency; during the War he served in the Metropolitan Police Reserve, which allowed him to continue supplying artwork for film studios until his house was damaged by a 'doodle bug' and the Pouts moved to Orpington, Kent.

After the War, Pout continued to work as a freelance commercial artist, and in the 1950s he found work with the Hulton Press, illustrating stories and features for Eagle and Girl, including 'The Adventure Club' by J. Jeferson Farjeon (1952-53) and 'What's His Name?' (1953) in Eagle and illustrations for the 'Yvette' series by Sylvia Little (1952) and 'Travel Girl' by Molly Black (1952-53) in Girl.

From 1952, he concentrated on drawing strips for Girl, where his work included 'Tess and the Mystery Journey' (1953), 'Pat of Paradise Island' (1953-54), the 'Vicky' series (1954-58) and 'Angela Air Hostess' (1958-61). After these two very successful strips, Pout continued to draw for Girl for another two years ('Sally of the Seven Seas', 1961; 'Prince of the Pampas', 1961; various biographical strips, 1961-62) but, mindful of the decline in sales and concern for his wife's poor health, was forced to leave comic strips behind.

Pout moved back to Kent and resumed farming, specialising in cross-breeding cattle. He retired in 1973 to a small house in Biddenden, Kent, where he painted in oils for pleasure, although he also produced a series of 'Farming in Bygone Days' paintings for a postcard company. Pout lived at Gribble Bridge Lane Farm, Biddenden, Ashford, Kent, where he died on December 12, 1991, aged 83.

Pout wrote a slim book of autobiographical reminiscences entitled The Life and Art of One Man of Kent (1982). The book includes a wide array of Pout's illustrations -- from early cartoons and oil paintings to his film posters, illustrations (for The Leader, The Householder, Britannia and Eve, etc.) and photographs.

He also briefly recalled his days on the Hulton comics thus:
"We artists attended the Boys and Girls Exhibition at Olympia, signing autograph books and explaining how the art work for their papers was prepared. Because of the quality of the publication I found that the parents were just as interested and many were also reading the stories."
Source: Steve Holland (Bear Alley)
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Malcolm Poynter biography

Malcolm Poynter biography

Malcolm Poynter (born 1947; UK)
Malcolm Poynter was born in Croydon in 1947 but grew up in Southampton. He is related to the painter Sir Edward Poynter which helped develop his interest in artwork, as did his boyhood reading of The Eagle. He attended Winchester School of Art (1965-67) and St Martin's College of Art (1967-70) where he was a contemporary of Gilbert & George, Richard Long, Bill Woodrow nad John Goto.

His comics work began to appear in the 1970s in underground newspapers, including Eddie Trunker and Rip Toph in Oz and International Times. He also contributed to Xozmic Comics, It's All Lies, Rock 'n' Roll Madness Funnies, Animal Weirdness and Ally Sloper.

He worked for a wide range of magazine and book publishers, including Radio Times, Time Out, Image, Science Fiction Monthly (NEL), Pan Books and several top shelf magazines. He also did advertising for Levi jeans and Octopus Books and album artwork for Peter Gabriel.

He became art director for Mecanic, a high street fashion manufacturer and t-shirt printer and then produced graphics for many years for ITN, Thames TV and Meridian TV.

In 2000 he returned to painting and subsequently had exhibitions in New York, London, Dorset and Wiltshire. He has also worked in embroidery.

A few years later, Poynter moved from his studio in Dalston, London, to Aigen, Austria, where he bought a former garden centre which he has turned into a gallery. Aigen is also the home of Nick Treadwell, Poynter's agent, who moved to Dalston some years before Poynter and bought a 500-year-old prison which he also turned into a gallery. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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George Pratt biography

George Pratt biography

George Pratt (born 13 October 1960; Texas, USA)
Born in Beaumont, Texas, George Pratt moved to New York to study drawing and painting at the Pratt Institute in 1980. His work appeared in Epic Illustrated, Heavy Metal, Eagle magazine and many other publications. He did interior illustrations for Bantam Books, Ariel Books and Kipling Press, and cover paintings for DC Comics.

A successful painter, he is represented by galleries in New York and his native Houston. His work is in private collections all over the world, and has been exhibited in the Houston Museum of Fine Art.

In 1990, he published his first graphic novel, 'Enemy Ace: War Idyll', at DC Comics/Warner Books. It is a brilliantly artistic graphic novel about the First World War, which was nominated for both the Eisner Award and the Harvey Award. Later on, has made a fully painted 'Batman' graphic novel, called 'Harvest Breed', and the 'Wolverine: Netsuke' miniseries for Marvel. He has also worked as a teacher at the Pratt Institute and at the Joe Kubert School of Art. With Steven Budlong and James McGillion, he has made a documentary film about his travels through the Mississippi Delta.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Hugo Pratt biography

Hugo Pratt biography

Hugo Eugenio Pratt (15 June 1927 – 20 August 1995; Italy)
Hugo Pratt was an Italian comic book creator who was known for combining strong storytelling with extensive historical research on works such as Corto Maltese. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2005.

Born in Rimini in Romagna to Rolando Pratt and Evelina Genero, Hugo Pratt spent most of his childhood in Venice in a very cosmopolitan family environment. His paternal grandfather Joseph was of English origin. He was also related to the actor Boris Karloff, whose birth name was William Henry Pratt. In 1937, Hugo Pratt moved with his mother to Abyssinia (Ethiopia), joining his father who was working there following the conquest of that country by Benito Mussolini's Italy. Pratt's father, a professional Italian soldier, was captured in 1941 by British troops and in late 1942, died from disease as a prisoner of war. The same year, Hugo Pratt and his mother were interned in a prison camp at Dirédaoua where he would buy comics from guards and later was sent back to Italy by the Red Cross. In 1944, he was at risk of being executed as SS troops had mistaken him for a South African spy.

After the war, Pratt moved to Venice where he organized entertainment for the Allied troops. Later Pratt joined the 'Venice Group' with other Italian cartoonists, including Alberto Ongaro and Mario Faustinelli. Their magazine Asso di Picche, launched in 1945 as Albo Uragano, concentrated on adventure comics. The magazine scored some success and published works by young talents like Dino Battaglia, Rinaldo D'Ami and Giorgio Bellavitis. His character Asso di Picche ("Ace of Spades") was a success, mainly in Argentina, where Pratt was invited in 1949.

In the late 1940s, he moved to Buenos Aires where he worked for Argentine publisher Editorial Abril and met Argentine comics artists like José Luis Salinas, Alberto Breccia and Solano López. The passage to Editorial Frontera saw the publication of some of his most important early series. These included Junglemen (written by Ongaro), Sgt. Kirk, Ernie Pike and Ticonderoga. They were all written by Héctor Germán Oesterheld, one of the major writers of Argentine and perhaps world comics. Pratt taught drawing in the Escuela Panamericana de Arte directed by Enrique Lipszyc. He often travelled to South American destinations like the Amazon and Mato Grosso. During that period he produced his first comic book as a complete author, both writing and illustrating Anna della jungla ("Ann of the Jungle"), which was followed by the similar Capitan Cormorant and Wheeling. The latter was completed after his return to Italy.

From the summer of 1959 to the summer of 1960, Pratt lived in London where he drew a series of war comics for Fleetway Publications, with British scriptwriters. He then returned to Argentina, despite the harsh economic times there. From there, he moved again to Italy in 1962 where he started a collaboration with the children's comic book magazine Il Corriere dei Piccoli, for which he adapted several classics of adventure literature, including Treasure Island and Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.

In 1967, Pratt met Florenzo Ivaldi, and with him created a comics magazine named after his character, Sgt. Kirk, the hero first written by Héctor Oesterheld. In the first issue, Pratt's most famous story was published: Una ballata del mare salato (A Ballad of the Salt Sea), which introduced his best known character, Corto Maltese.

Corto's series continued three years later in the French magazine Pif. Due to his rather mixed family ancestry, Pratt had learned snippets of things like kabbalism and lots of history. Many of his stories are placed in real historical eras and deal with real events: the 1755 war between French and British colonists in Ticonderoga, colonial wars in Africa and both World Wars, for example. Pratt did exhaustive research for factual and visual details, and some characters are real historical figures or loosely based on them, like Corto's main opponent, Rasputin. Many of the minor characters cross over into other stories in a way that places all of Pratt’s stories into the same continuum.

Pratt's main series in the second part of his career include Gli scorpioni del deserto (five stories) and Jesuit Joe. He also wrote stories for his friend and pupil Milo Manara for Tutto ricominciò con un'estate indiana and El Gaucho.

From 1970 to 1984, Pratt lived mainly in France where Corto Maltese, a psychologically very complex character resulting from the travel experiences and the endless inventive capacity of his author, became the main character of a comics series. Initially published from 1970 to 1973 by the magazine Pif gadget, it brought him much popular and critical success. Later published in album format, this series was eventually translated into fifteen languages.

From 1984 to 1995 Pratt lived in Switzerland where the international success that Corto Maltese sparked continued to grow. In France, most of his pre-Corto Maltese works were published in several album editions by publishers such as Casterman, Dargaud, and Humanoides Associés. A wanderer by nature, Hugo Pratt continued to travel from Canada to Patagonia, from Africa to the Pacific area. He died of bowel cancer on 20 August 1995.

Pratt has cited authors like Robert Louis Stevenson, James Oliver Curwood, Zane Gray, Kenneth Roberts, Joseph Conrad, Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville and Jack London as influences, along with cartoonists Lyman Young, Will Eisner, and especially Milton Caniff.

On Friday, July 15, 2005, at San Diego Comic-Con's 17th Annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, he was one of four professionals that year inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame.

One of the series created by Pratt, entitled "The Scorpions of the Desert" in English, has been continued after Pratt's death. In 2005 a sixth volume in this series was released, drawn by Pierre Wazeem and entitled "Le chemin de fièvre". A seventh album was scheduled by the French publishers Casterman for release in March 2008. Casterman have also on several occasions hinted at the possible future release of a further episode in the Corto Maltese saga. Source: Wikipedia.
Hugo Pratt art
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John Prentice biography

John Prentice biography

John Prentice (17 October 1920 – 23 May 1999; Texas, USA)
John Prentice was a cartoonist who took over the comic strip Rip Kirby upon the death of the strip's creator, Alex Raymond, in 1956.

Prentice was born in Whitney, Texas. From 1940-1946 he served in the United States Navy. After briefly attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, he moved to New York City and worked in a variety of illustrator jobs before being tapped to replace Alex Raymond. Prentice drew the strip for the next 43 years.

Prentice worked occasionally for DC Comics in the 1950s, providing artwork for the first issue of Showcase comics' story, "Fireman Farrell".

Prentice received the National Cartoonist Society Story Comic Strip Award for the series in 1966, 1967, and 1986.
Source: Wikipedia
John Prentice art
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Cyril Price biography

Cyril Price biography

Cyril Gwyn Price (8 February 1905 - 17 September 1970; Glamorganshire; UK)
Cyril Gwyn Price was a Welsh cartoonist, who also worked under the pen names 'Gwynne', 'Kim' and 'Spike'. Born in Pontypridd, Glamorganshire, Wales, he left school at age 14 and worked as a miner for ten years.

He then settled in Bristol, where he became a sports cartoonist for the Bristol Evening World from 1932 to 1935. He also created some comic strips for the paper, such as 'Junior and Happy' and especially 'Montie the Monster' (1934), about the (Scottish) Loch Ness Monster.

He later got the opportunity to draw for the comic papers of the Amalgamated Press, such as Illustrated Chips ('Private Potts', 1934), Comic Cuts ('Tomato Kahn' (1935), 'PC Penny' (1938-1944), 'Dizzy'(1939-1953), 'Big-Hearted Martha' (1939-1951), The Joker ('Bert and Daisy', 1937), Jolly Comic ('Al and his Pal', 1938) and Butterfly ('Spotsem and Getsem', 1939-1940) throughout the rest of the 1930s.

During World War II, Price's comics career was briefly interrupted, but he took up the pencil again by creating 'The Whiskers' (1948-1952) for The Daily Graphic. Published under the pseudonym "Gwynne", it featured the adventures of a group of forest animals, namely Whisk the squirrel, Hank the rabbit, Mr. Owl and Toddles the tortoise. When the Daily Graphic was bought by a new newspaper owner in 1952 the paper changed its name to The Daily Sketch and 'The Whiskers' was removed from its pages.

Price received a spot for a new pantomime gag comic, 'Harry' (1953), which he published under the pseudonym "Kim". Nevertheless, the same year he became a contributor to TV Comic for five years, where he added "Spike" to his list of pen names. 'The Whiskers' returned there under the title 'The Whiskers in TV Land', while Price also made large detailed cartoons called 'I.T. Antics' until 1957.

Since TV Comic featured so many comics based on TV shows Price couldn't stay behind. He made two comics about TV clown Coco (Nicolai Poliakoff) and Richard Hearne's comedic character Mr. Pastry. The latter comic even received a spin-off, 'Jane', revolving around Mr. Pastry's Scottish terrier. As Spike, he drew the gag comic 'T.V. Tim', about a little boy and his faithful spaniel Cathode. The gags begin with Tim seeing something on the television, after which he tries it out himself, ending in disaster. He furthermore made a series of beautiful cartoon animal illustrations in the tradition of Roy Wilson.

In 1959 Price joined Playhour, where he briefly drew a pantomime comic called 'Baby Brother', about a little boy and his dog. He had a brief TV series called 'Funnyways Farm' in 1963 in conjunction with Small Films (Oliver Postgate). His final comic strip was 'Tricky Dicky' (1970-1973), a gag comic about a young boy who was rather lazy. To avoid working he thought up seemingly clever plans, yet always got his come-uppance.

After Price passed away in 1970 from a heart attack in Bromley, Kent, the comic was continued by other artists. 'Tricky Dicky' should not be confused with the similarly titled gag comic by John Dallas which ran in The Topper in 1977.

Lambiek comiclopedia

Cyril Price art
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Robert Prowse biography

Robert Prowse biography

Robert Prowse Jr (1858 - ?1934; Clerkenwell, London)
Robert Prowse junior illustrated many covers for detective novels, boys' monthlies, book illustrations, etc.

He married Josephine Veillard in Wandsworth in 1878 and had thirteen children: Josephine (1880), Beatrice (1881), Robert (1883), Jessie J. (1884), Kate E. (1887), Richard M. (1889), Charles G. (1891), Tom (1894), Rene (1896), Albert E. (1898), Mildred A. (1899), Dorothy M. (1901) and Marjorie Adelaide (1903).

His earliest known work appeared under the byline R. Prowse Junr. In 1877 when he provided illustrations for The Vacant Throne! by Oswald Allan (London, E. Head, 1877) and Everybody's Christmas Annual whilst still in his late teens. He provided covers for a number of E. Harcourt Burrage's novels when they were published in the “Best for Boys” series in 1892-93.

It was around 1893 that Robert Prowse junior began his association with the Aldine Publishing Co., producing illustrations for their partwork publications of Burrage's The Lambs of Littlecote and The Island School amongst many other contributions. His illustrations appeared in Aldine's Garfield Boys' Journal (1894-95) and Aldine Cheerful Library (1894-95), and he worked for most of Aldine's library titles, becoming their main cover artist from the mid-1890s. His work can be found on Boys' First-Rate Pocket Library, Aldine Detective Tales, and Aldine Romance of Invention, Travel and Adventure Library in the 1890s. Probably his most famous covers were for the Aldine Robin Hood Library, and he continued to provide cover art for years to come, his last known work appearing on the Aldine Invention Library (1913) and Aldine Cinema Novels (1915).

Robert Prowse Jr. was living in Tottenham, Middlesex, in 1901 with his wife Josephine (born in Paris) and two children, Josephine and Beatrice, both born in Battersea. I'm still not sure when Robert Prowse Jr. died but my best suspect died in Romford, Essex, in 1934 aged 76. Unfortunately, there's no way of confirming this without a copy of the death certificate.

Robert Prowse's father, also called Robert Prowse, was a prolific illustrator of penny dreadfuls. Prowse Sr. was married to Jane Anne Smith in Clerkenwell in 1858 and had seven children: Robert Jr (1858), Jessy Jane (1860), Arthur (1862), Jane Adelaide (1864), Maud Elizabeth (1873), Grace Ethel (1876) and Frederick Ernest (1879). Jane Prowse was ten years his junior, and during his early artistic career the family lived in Clerkenwell, London EC, where four of their children were born (the last registered in Islington). The Prowses later moved to Battersea where a further three children were born. In the 1881 census the family was living at 80 Freke Road, Battersea, Surrey. The senior Robert Prowse died in 1886.
Source: Steve Holland
Robert Prowse art
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Spencer Pryse biography

Spencer Pryse biography

Gerald Spencer Pryse (1882 - 1956; Ashton, UK)
Spencer Pryse was a British artist and lithographer.

Born at Ashton, he studied in London and Paris, and first won success at the Venice International Exhibition in 1907. In the same year, he joined the Fabian Society, and helped to found The Neolith, a periodical of literature and the fine arts; the journal was printed in lithography. He was a regular exhibitor at the Senefelder Club and contributed works to Punch, the Strand Magazine, and The Graphic.

During the Great War, Pryse produced a considerable body of lithographic work, some of it in color under the title Autumn Campaign (1914). This was based in his time in France and Belgium at the beginning of the war when he drove around in a Mercedes carrying lithographic stones in the back. He served as a dispatch rider for the Belgian government and was present at the Siege of Antwerp. The artist wrote a memoir of this time entitled Four Days: an account of a journey in France made between 28 and 31 August 1914, published by John Lane in 1932. Pryse also saw some of the Battle of the Marne and the Aisne but was back in Belgium to record the fall of Ostend and the subsequent retirement along the River Yser. Pryse also worked with the Indian Army in France and several of his lithographs depict scenes of Indian troops.

Later, he served as a captain in the Queen Victoria's Rifles, King's Royal Rifle Corps, and was mentioned in dispatches. His main action was in the Third Battle of Ypres where he won the Military Cross, the 1914 Star, the Order of the Crown of Belgium, the Croix de Guerre.

By the end of 1916, Pryse had made an application to become a war artist, and towards the end of the war, was granted permission to sketch at the front and he was able to record the conditions of trench warfare in numerous watercolor drawings, but many of these were lost in the German offensive of 1918. The remaining drawings were exhibited later in London and were described as having "a freshness and authenticity that were not always apparent in the works of the official war artists." Unfortunately, many of these were destroyed by enemy action during the Second World War. He left the regiment at the end of the war but rejoined it in 1921 when the battalion was stationed on Wormwood Scrubbs for three months during a coal strike.

Spenser Pryse was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

During the war, he also designed a number of posters including several published by Frank Pick for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London in London, as well as for the Labour Party, The British Red Cross, and for the Empire Marketing Board. One of his most famous posters, entitled The Only Road for an Englishman shows a regiment of British soldiers marching through a ruined town.

He worked in Hammersmith from 1914–1925, but in 1925 traveled to Morocco and observed some of the fighting there against the French. He returned to the country and lived there for some years after 1950.

Pryse was commissioned in 1924 to create a series of lithographs for the British Empire Exhibition illustrating the extent and variety of life with the British Empire. He died at Cranford House, Stourton, Worcestershire on 28 November 1956 aged 74. He married Muriel Anstace Theodora, daughter of the Rev. Laurence Farrall, in 1932, and they had three daughters, one of whom, Tessa Spencer Pryse, a landscape artist, became an art student against her father's wishes.
Source: Wikipedia & Illustration Art Gallery

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Spencer Pryse art
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F W Purvis biography

F W Purvis biography

F W Purvis (born 1900)
Not much is known about this talented artist. He illustrated the 'Dauntless Jock' stories in the 1950s written by Allan K. Taylor and set all around the world, including the Wild West and the African Jungle; the anthology of short stories 'None But the Brave' written by Claude Smedley, Jane Dowling et al; and the classic novel 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
F W Purvis art
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Arnaldo Putzu biography

Arnaldo Putzu biography

Arnaldo Putzu (6 August 1927 -1 September 2012; Rome, Italy)
Arnaldo Putzu was an Italian artist renowned for his film posters for Italian and British films, such as Get Carter and the Carry On films.

Born in Rome, the son of an Italian navy officer, he studied art at the Rome Academy. While doing illustration work in Milan, he met the poster artist Enrico de Seta in 1948. De Seta took him to Rome to work in the Italian film industry.

After four years with De Seta, Putzu set up his own studio. He worked for several artists including Augusto Favalli, who then controlled many artists employed by the Cinecittà film studios.

An executive of the Rank Organisation based in Rome was impressed by the poster artwork coming out of Studio Favalli and spotted an opportunity for Rank to have high quality posters for the low wages paid to Italian artists in the postwar era. In collaboration with Eric Pulford, then creative head of Rank's Downton Advertising (who also handled United Artists), Rank began employing Italian artists to work on their film publicity. At first Pulford brought the artwork to the artists in Rome by personally flying between the two cities, but by the late 1950s the artists themselves, such as Renato Fratini, best known for designing the British poster for From Russia With Love were being brought over to live and work in Great Britain.

Putzu began to work for Pulford in the late 1950s. His first British poster was for The Secret Place (1957). He arrived in Britain in 1967 with his first poster in England being for Morecambe and Wise's film The Magnificent Two; he had designed their previous That Riviera Touch in Rome.

He worked on posters in a variety of film genres, such as the Carry On series and Hammer Films including Creatures the World Forgot and The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. In his Get Carter posters, he illustrated Michael Caine in a pink tie and floral jacket that he never wore in the film.

From 1973 through to 1981 Putzu illustrated the covers of a children's TV magazine called Look-In. Putzu enjoyed the regular work with the magazine that was not too far away from his offices though eventually the magazine covers were replaced by photos.

By the end of the decade, film posters began to be illustrated with cheaper retouched photographs rather than painting. Putzu returned to Rome in October 1985. Suffering from Alzheimer's disease in his early 80s, he found for a while that the symptoms could be alleviated by painting.
Source: Wikipedia
Arnaldo Putzu art
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Q

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Miguel Quesada biography

Miguel Quesada biography

Miguel Quesada (born 1933)
Spanish artist, born Miguel Quesada Cerdán in Albacete on 4 January 1933. Became interested in drawing cartoons whilst at school and, in late 1945, began assisting Manuel Gago, a family acquaintance, on his strip La Pandilla de los 7. He then collaborated with his brother Pedro on a number of strips for Valenciana and Bruguera publishing houses. For the publisher Maga he created Pacho Dinamite and Tony y Anita as well as briefly taking over the popular Pentera Negra strip.

He worked with his one-time school friend Luis Bermejo in Valencia through whom he began working for British comics. He was a regular contributor to Air Ace Picture Library and Commando as well as producing occasional weekly strips, including a run of stories featuring The Iron Man for Eagle and The Trigan Empire for Look and Learn. In later years Quesada concentrated on book illustration.

Enjoy our ORIGINAL TRIGAN EMPIRE ART by Don Lawrence, Ron Embleton, Oliver Frey, Philip Corke, Miguel Quesada and Gerry Wood.

Miguel Quesada art
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Nadir Quinto biography

Nadir Quinto biography

Nadir Quinto (1918 - 1994)
Nadir Quinto's contributions to the Thriller Picture Library were strips featuring the adventures of Robin Hood. Nadir Quinto was born in Milan and attended the Accademia di Brera and, immediately after the War, began contributing picture strips to most of the top Italian comic journals such as Dinamite, Albi di Salgari, Festival and L'Intrepido. In 1946 he began drawing and lettering strips for Corrieri dei Piccoli. After his brief time drawing Robin Hood strips for the TPL, he left comics to concentrate on illustration, only to return to drawing strips for the Italian comic journals in the 1970s.  Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
Nadir Quinto art
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R

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Paul Rainer biography

Paul Rainer biography

Paul Rainer (flourished 1950s and 1960s)
Paul Rainer, an illustrator about whom not much is known. We know he was active in the 1950s in Everybody's Magazine, and in the 1960s contributed to both Bible Story and Look and Learn.

He illustrated a couple of series in Look and Learn including 'People and Plants' in 1966, the excellent 'Who Said...?' in 1967 and various others in 1968-69. Before that, he was one of the regular illustrators for Bible Story, illustrating 'The Story of the Life of Jesus' (1964).
Source: Steve Holland
Paul Rainer art
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Dan Rainey biography

Dan Rainey biography

Dan Rainey (Active 1930s - 1960s)
'Rainey' was briefly a cover artist around 1960-62 who worked for Badger Books and Digit Books. When I (Steve Holland} was having a dig around for information, I stumbled upon the work of Dan Rainey, who is quite possibly our artist. Rainey is described as Irish and his watercolours flourished in the 1930s. I'm not convinced this is an accurate description as, elsewhere, at least one piece of artwork to be found in the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum dates from 1977.

The signature visible in the painting of a small coaster is certainly similar to the signature to be found on some of the covers below. A search on Google also turns up some prints of the Titanic.

An auction in 2013 at RDS Clyde Hall, Ballsbridge, Dublin, included a collection of 10 albums, 7 of which contained "historical recollections and research by Dan Rainey, 35 watercolours and various photographs and documents. Articles include East Belfast characters, Holidays in Dublin and Portrush, a collected history of Holywood, childhood memories of Ballymacarret in the 1920s, the Connswater Flute Band, etc." The final three albums contained a total of 129 watercolours and pen and ink drawings of historical buildings and locations throughout Ireland and also ornithological drawings from the 1930s. Another auction included 204 large watercolours and pen and ink drawings, 8 small watercolours and 1 oil painting of ships that passed through Belfast, all contained loosely in albums. Another album comprised 19 pages of watercolours of ships ensigns, flags and colours.

Apart from saying that it still needs to be confirmed that cover artist Rainey is Dan Rainey, all I can add is that Rainey's cover for Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key was based on an earlier cover by De Seta
(click: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XsVALQtGIZM/TNiCl9TrlwI/AAAAAAAAS6A/I3Ggotjtf9U/s1600/Digit-nn+Hammett+Glass+Key+%28small%29.jpg)
Source: Bear Alley Blog
Dan Rainey art
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William Rainey biography

William Rainey biography

William Rainey (1852 - 1936; London, UK)
William Rainey was born in Kennington, London, in 1852, the third son of George Rainey, a surgeon and lecturer at St. Thomas Hospital, and his wife Martha (nee Dee).

Rainey studied at South Kensington School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools and was landscape and figure painter in watercolours as well as a book illustrator, noted for his delicate brush strokes. He won medals at the Chicago (1893) and Paris (1900) exhibitions and was elected to the RI in 1901 and ROI in 1932.

He illustrated numerous books, including works by G. A. Henry, Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, William Makepeace Thackery, Mrs. Molesworth and L. T. Meade, among others. He was also a regular contributor to numerous magazines, including Black and White, The Boy’s Own Paper, The British Workman, Cassell’s Family Magazine, Chatterbox, Chums, The Girl’s Own Paper, Good Words, The Graphic, The Harmsworth Magazine, The Illustrated London News, Little Folks, The Ludgate Monthly, The Penny Magazine, Punch, The Quiver, The Strand Magazine, The Temple Magazine, The Windsor Magazine and Young England.

Rainey lived at Avonmore, Granville Hill, Eastbourne. He died at Grand Parade, Eastbourne, on 24 January 1936, aged 83. He was married to Harriett Matilda Bennett (1859-1919) on 11 June 1877 at St. George the Martyr, Queen Square, and had four children: Florence Harriet Rainey (1878-1959), Edith Elsie Rainey (1881-1896), George William Rainey (b. c.1887) and Victor Thomas Rainey (1898-1917).
Source: Look and Learn
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Arthur Ranson biography

Arthur Ranson biography

Arthur Ranson (born 1939, Essex, UK)
Arthur Ranson is a highly talented English illustrator and comic strip co-creator whose fine line penwork and attention to visual detail has led to the misapplied epithet 'photo-realistic'.

Ranson attended the South West Essex Technical College and School of Art in Walthamstow, Essex, where he studied painting and printmaking. Trained initially as an "apprentice stamp and banknote designer" in the 1960s, he learnt "to translate photographs into watercolour ... in stamp size" and he would later use this skill when pursuing a career as an illustrator in publishing and advertising.

Ranson first brought the precise techniques he had evolved through his apprenticeship to the UK TV comic Look-in, working first on portrait covers, and later alongside other major comics artists such as John M. Burns, Martin Asbury, Harry North, Colin Wyatt, John Bolton, Jim Baikie, Phil Gascoine, Barry Mitchell, and Bill Titcombe.

After some time drawing "funnies", Ranson drew on his skill in translating pictures across mediums (generally using a Grant Projector, which "projects an image up onto a glass plate, on which one places tracing paper"), and brought his talents to bear for Look-in by creating strips based on such popular TV series as Sapphire and Steel and Danger Mouse, all written by Angus Allan. Since these works were based on specific TV shows, he says that "it seemed important that the characters looked as much like the actors as possible", and thus "used the methods I knew" to achieve the accurate likenesses that typify his work.

Ranson has been appearing in British comics since the early 1970s. Amongst many accomplishments, his works include Anderson: Psi Division, Button Man, Mazeworld and other 2000AD strips.

Ranson also produced a series of comic-strip biographies of well-known music stars and bands, including ABBA (1977), Elvis Presley (1981), The Beatles (1981-2), Haircut 100 (1983) and The Sex Pistols (1983).

Arthur has also contributed to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and X-Men and TV-based strips such as Sapphire and Steel, Dangermouse, Worzel Gummidge, Michael Bentine's Potty Time and Duckula.

Aside from his Look-in and (later) 2000AD comics work, Ranson also produced illustrations for Fiesta and some "advertising work through an agent, including some All-Bran adverts." He produced some assorted work for various other IPC magazines in addition to 2000AD, and was glad of the "more challenging" work to be found in comics, branding himself "too sensitive a plant to get on in advertising despite the high fees."

Ranson stresses the influence of his peers - particularly Brian Bolland - on his own evolution as an artist, moving from being burdened by the "British way of drawing adventure comics... dependable, professional, craftsmanlike and worthy," to seeing and being influenced by work that "looked as though the artist, particularly Bolland, really cared about it."

In 1989, Ranson followed in Bolland—and others'—footsteps, and moved to major British sci-fi comic 2000 AD, with rare forays into the world of American comics, including Batman and the X-Men. He counts himself lucky that this career path has, in his decades-long comics career seen him work primarily with just three writers.

Ranson has a son, Jonas, who is also an artist, and daughter, Cassandra.
Arthur Ranson art
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Ernest Ratcliff biography

Ernest Ratcliff biography

Ernest Ratcliff
Ernest Ratcliff drew the newspaper comic 'Lindy' for the London Evening News in the 1960s. The comic also appeared in the French paper Paris-Jour.

Ratcliff painted many illustrations for the children's story paper Once Upon A Time in the 1970s, including mini-serialisations of the story of 'Doctor Livingstone meets Henry Stanley' and 'Magda the Snomwaiden'. He also illustrated (including covers) a children's book about Robin Hood in the 1970s.
Ernest Ratcliff art
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Leo Rawlings biography

Leo Rawlings biography

Leo Rawlings (born 16 May 1918; Birmingham, UK)
As a boy, Rawlings won a scholarship to the Central School of Art in Birmingham. Rawlings as a child suffered from a speech defect and a nervous sensitivity which affected his self-confidence. His mother dying a few years earlier also affected the young Rawlings deeply. All of which contributed to the boy achieving very little at the school. His father removed his son (now aged 13), from the school at the Headmaster’s request.

The family re-located to Blackpool, where Rawlings began to attend evening art classes. By the time he was 17, he had passed many drawing and painting examinations and was running his own one-man business as a scenic and display artist. Rawlings joined the Blackpool T.A. and trained as a Gunner/Signaller with the137th Field Regiment R.A. His Regiment was posted overseas in September 1941, in support of the Singapore garrison. With the fast approaching Japanese forces bearing down on Singapore , Rawlings and his Regiment moved north to join other British forces fighting a rearguard action in trying to stem the Japanese advance. The British Army failed to prevent Japanese forces from capturing Singapore and Rawlings along with thousands of other troops were captured. It was during this time that Rawlings began to draw the scenes of war he witnessed. (The artist had a photographic memory and was able to draw scenes he witnessed at a later time). He was unofficially commissioned after his capture by Lieutenant General Sir Louis Heath to keep a visual record of the prisoners lives as a P.O.W.

It was during this period that he drew over a hundred eye-witness paintings of the prisoners daily lives. Many were drawn whilst he was ill in the prison jungle hospital. Completed drawings were hidden inside a stove-pipe which was buried under his bed. The penalty for taking photographs or keeping any other records was death by the Japanese.

After the P.O.W.’s were liberated in 1945, Rawlings returned home to Britain with his drawings. After several unsuccessful attempts to get his paintings exhibited, they were finally shown in 1946 with a large number of people attending. Thereafter, Rawlings exhibited his paintings and lectured about his wartime experiences. In 1964, the stress of re-living his P.O.W. experiences through his lectures was beginning to affect the artist. On his doctor’s advice he sought to sell his collection, which was bought by the Imperial War Museum, which still hold them today. Rawlings died in 1984.

P.O.W. artist - ‘The pictures and sketches he drew reveal the different styles he used, often changes imposed on him by the difficult nature of the materials he employed.’ (From the Deputy Director of the Imperial War Museum forward notes, page ix). Some of the artwork is very detailed, whilst others are sketches. Rawlings had to make use of the materials to hand which included Chinese Indian ink, crushed sandstone, clays and vegetable juices. He also used his own hair to make paint brushes. Paper was initially provided by an army officer, General Heath, after that it was a case of using any paper that came into his possession.

Comic artist - Rawlings worked as a boys comic artist for D.C. Thomson, L. Miller and Sons Ltd, London (and probably other publishers as well). For The Victor and The Hornet comics, he drew many war strips including The Island of No Return, which was set in a World War Two Japanese P.O.W. camp. It is obvious in his artwork for the strip that he drew on his drawings and experiences of P.O.W. life. For the strips Rawlings used a style best suited to a boys comic, neat, clean and tidy, but not overly detailed as would be found in a painting.

Artwork that Rawlings did for L. Miller and Sons Ltd, London included working on one of Britain's first superheroes, Young Marvelman. I believe he also worked on Marvelman, who was Britain's very first superhero. You can read one of Young Marvelman's adventures drawn by Rawlings below. This adventure (and the front cover scan) is from Young Marvelman, Vol.2, no.121. The Young Marvelman story is copyright Marvel Characters Inc.

Marvel Comics are currently publishing the Marvelman and Young Marvelman adventures in chronological order, as collected books. My apologies for the state of some of the images below, my copy of the Young Marvelman comic the story came from, isn't in the best of condition.
Source: http://www.victorhornetcomics.co.uk/rawlings.html
Leo Rawlings art
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Fred Ray biography

Fred Ray biography

Fred Ray (1920 - 2001; USA)
American artist Fred Ray made his name in the 1940s with Superman before spending the next two decades working on Tomahawk for DC Comics.
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Alex Raymond biography

Alex Raymond biography

Alexander Gillespie Raymond (2 October 1909 - 6 September 1956; New Rochelle, New York, USA)
Alex Raymond was born in New Rochelle, New York, as the son of an engineer. Although he showed an early interest in drawing, he had his first job as an order clerk in Wall Street. When the economic crisis hit the USA in 1929, he enrolled in the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. A year later he started working with Russ Westover, the creator of 'Tilly the Toiler' and was introduced to King Features Syndicate.

Shortly afterwards, he transfered to Lyman Young ('Tim Tyler's Luck'), from 1930 to 1933. In 1932 and 1933, he ghosted both Young's daily strips and Sunday pages of 'Tim Tyler'. In this same period, he additionally assisted Chic Young on 'Blondie'. At the end of 1933, Raymond was asked by King Features Syndicate to create a Sunday page that could compete with 'Buck Rogers'. Together with writer Don Moore, Raymond came up with the science-fiction comic 'Flash Gordon' and its complentary strip, 'Jungle Jim', an adventurous saga set in South-East Asia. In addition, Alex Raymond signed on to draw 'Secret Agent X9', a daily strip scripted by Dashiell Hammett for the Evening Journal. All three creations started in January, 1934.

While working on his comic series, Raymond additionally produced illustrations for Blue Book, Look, Collier's and Cosmopolitan. By the end of 1935, Alex Raymond stopped with 'Secret Agent X9', leaving it to Charles Flanders, to spend more time on his Sunday features. In particular, 'Flash Gordon' became world famous. In 1944, Raymond joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served in the Pacific, while his comics were continued by his assistant Austin Briggs.

Demobilized as a Major in 1946, Raymond created 'Rip Kirby', a daily police strip, which also enjoyed enormous success and ran for 5 decades. The hero, ex-Marine Rip Kirby returns from World War II and goes to work as a private detective, sometimes accompanied by his girlfriend, fashion model Judith Lynne "Honey" Dorian. Her given name and nickname were borrowed from the names of Raymond's three daughters.

Alex Raymond died at the height of his fame, on 6 September 1956, after a car accident that also injured Stan Drake. Alex Raymond's influence on other cartoonists was considerable during his lifetime, and has not diminished after his death. The 'Flash Gordon' newspaper strip was continued by artist Jim Keefe.

Alex Raymond said about his comic art: "I decided honestly that comic art is an art form in itself. It reflects the life and times more accurately and actually is more artistic than magazine illustration - since it is entirely creative. An illustrator works with camera and models; a comic artist begins with a white sheet of paper and dreams up his own business - he is playwright, director, editor and artist at once."
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia & Illustration Art Gallery

See illustrators  issue 25 for a feature article about Alex Raymond.

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Kim Raymond biography

Kim Raymond biography

Kim Raymond (born 1957; UK; Woking, Surrey, England)
Kim Raymond is a British comic book artist and animator. Best known in the UK as a contributor to the Judge Dredd series of comics in the 2000AD series, newspaper comic strips appearing in the first UK newspaper to be printed in full colour, Today, and The Daily Star. He is also one of the first UK born artists to obtain international recognition for developing commercial Disney art originating from the UK.

Kim Raymond was born in Woking, Surrey to parents Eric, an ex-navy communications engineer working in the domestic television industry and Patricia Raymond, a nurse.

His early love of comics was of home-grown UK titles such as The Beano, Tiger and Lion, and more significantly, TV(Century)21, a spin-off title accompanying the puppet TV series of Gerry Anderson.
Kim Raymond at his studio in Surrey - mid 1980s

British artist Frank Bellamy contributed regularly to TV21 and later drew a daily comic strip for The Mirror newspaper, Garth. This had a major influence on the ambitions of Raymond, along with the growing availability of Marvel comics in the UK such as Spiderman, The Silver Surfer and Thor.

After three years studying animation at art college in Surrey he took his interest to The Walt Disney Company in London, and began as a junior artist in the Character Merchandising Division. But after a year decided to pursue a career in comics, approaching the agent of David Wright, illustrator of the daily newspaper strip Carol Day, through his son Patrick Wright, at the time himself illustrating Modesty Blaise for the London Evening Standard.

Raymond started his comic career working for Dundee-based DC Thompson on girls' titles such as Mandy and Tracy. Later he progressed to boys comics for IPC London, on M.A.S.K., Robo machines, Starcom and then later Tharg's Future Shocks and Judge Dredd in black and white in the early eighties.

His ability to draw women well and with confidence eventually led him to contribute to the exploits of Judge Anderson, Psi Division, in Judge Dredd. He confesses that he was heavily influenced by Jim Holdaway, the first Modesty Blaise artist; Romero, a Spanish artist who took up the mantle on Modesty Blaise after Holdaway’s untimely death, Frank Bellamy, and Ron Smith, who twice helped him with advice and guidance in his early and later comic career. Smith was also a regular Dredd artist and a co-contributor to the City of the Damned epic on which Raymond also worked, illustrating three episodes. His final comic work appeared over several years in the two daily national newspaper strips, Checkout Girl (The Daily Star) and Roy of the Rovers (Today Newspaper).

In the late eighties it became clear to Kim Raymond that the UK comics industry was becoming more 'licensed properties' with little room to create new characters, so he returned to the area of work that had a huge legacy for him in terms of drawing quality, the art of Walt Disney.

He worked for several years as a freelance contributor, and then in 1992 created Character Magic Ltd in order to further develop both the quality of work that he was producing and also service the large licensee base that he was consulted to engage with by Disney. After further masterclass training in both the US and Paris, Raymond became the leading UK Disney Character artist and in 1999 he began working for The Disney Stores Europe as a consultant.

He currently holds the position of Senior Principal Artist working for the U.S. parent company at Disney in London and is responsible for many Disney art successes.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Kim Raymond art
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Hubert Redmill biography

Hubert Redmill biography

Hubert Redmill
Hubert Redmill, Eagle's sixth-most prolific Cutaway artist who, between 1952 to 1960 drew around 40 cutaway drawings for Eagle's centre pages.

The subjects for his cutaway paintings included motocycles, motor cars, World War II fighter aircraft and bombers,
Source: The Eagle Times
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E Dorothy Rees biography

E Dorothy Rees biography

E Dorothy Rees
E Dorothy Rees was a fabulous illustrator although her life and work appear to be pretty much a mystery! An accomplished and prolific illustrator of children's books, she was active during the 1920s - 1950s and her art style is reminiscent of Mabel Lucy Attwell.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
E Dorothy Rees art
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Basil Reynolds biography

Basil Reynolds biography

Basil Reynolds
Basil Reynolds wrote and drew the popular Wonders of the Wild comic strip for many years for a variety of publications including Mickey Mouse Weekly (1952-1954), Express Weekly and Express Annuals (1955-1962) and Playhour Annual (1957-1958).
Basil Reynolds art
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Frank Reynolds biography

Frank Reynolds biography

Frank Reynolds (13 February 1876 - 18 April 1953; London)
Frank Reynolds was a British artist. Son of an artist, he studied at Heatherley's School of Art.

Reynolds had a drawing called A provincial theatre company on tour published in The Graphic on 30 November 1901. In 1906 he began contributing to Punch Magazine and was regularly published within its pages during World War I. He was well known for his many illustrations in several books by Charles Dickens, including David Copperfield (c. 1911), The Pickwick Papers (c. 1912) and The Old Curiosity Shop (c1913). He succeeded F.H. Townsend as the Art Editor for Punch. He was also a prolific watercolour painter and was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours from 1903.

Frank Reynolds was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

One of his more notable works is entitled Jingle and his journal contributions included:
London Magazine
The Sketch
Punch (magazine)
Windsor Magazine
The Illustrated London News
Source: Wikipedia and Illustration Art Gallery

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Frank Reynolds art
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Warwick Reynolds biography

Warwick Reynolds biography

Warwick Reynolds (8 April 1880 - 15 December 1926; London, UK)
Warwick Reynolds was born in Islington, London, on 8 April 1880. His father, Warwick Reynolds senior, was a cartoonist and watercolourist.

He was educated at Stroud Green, and studied art at the Grosvenor Studio, St. John's Wood Art School. He started a career as a magazine illustrator in 1895, which included working on Ally Sloper's Half Holiday and The Gem. He was particularly interested in drawing and painting animals, and made a study of the animals in the Zoological Society's collection in 1895-1901. He illustrated numerous books on wildlife subjects.

Reynolds was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", the seminal collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

He married Mary Kincaid, daughter of a master printer, in 1906, and they settled in Glasgow, apart from a year he spent in Paris, where he studied at Julian's and produced pastel street scenes. He died in Glasgow on 15 December 1926. His nephew Basil Reynolds was also a comic artist.
Source: UK Comics Wiki

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Warwick Reynolds art
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John Richardson biography

John Richardson biography

John Richardson; UK
John Richardson is a British comics artist and writer who has worked for various publishers on titles such as 2000AD, as well as the Eagle (on D.A.D.D), Scream (on The Nightcomers), Pussy Muldoon (DC Thomson's Celebrity Magazine) and 'Ally Sloper Vol 3 4 (on Pagan) as well as the cartoon strip Amanda for The Sun newspaper.

Amongst John’s other commissions are a strip featuring Tina Tailpipe for SUPER BIKE, and Twong for a British magazine. Twong is, so John assures me, the Greek God of CB (well the Greeks were a very advanced civilisation). Apparently, Twong was born deaf, and only the advent of CB has given him the ability to hear.

By way of a complete change of style and emphasis, John also produces a Famous Five strip for an Enid Blyton fanzine. “Fortunately, I only have to draw the pictures for this — they supply the plot line. It’s published in Denmark and appears in lots of different languages. It’s really weird to see your speech bubbles filled with some totally unheard of language. Source: British Comics Wiki & Crash (online ed.)
John Richardson art
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Chris Riddell biography

Chris Riddell biography

Chris Riddell (13 April 1962)
Chris Riddell OBE is a South African-born English illustrator and well-respected author of children's books and a political cartoonist for the Observer. He has won three Kate Greenaway Medals - the British librarians' annual award for the best-illustrated children's book, and two of his works were commended runners-up, a distinction dropped after 2002.

Books that he wrote or illustrated have won three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes and have been silver or bronze runners-up four times. On 9 June 2015, he was appointed the UK Children's Laureate.

Some of Riddell's most celebrated work are The Edge Chronicles (1998), a children's book series cowritten with Paul Stewart and illustrated by Riddell. Set in the fictional world known as "The Edge", the books have been praised for Riddell's beautifully detailed line drawings and the unique nature of their collaborative writing process.

For his illustrations, Riddell was a commended runner-up for the 1994 Kate Greenaway Medal (Something Else by Kathryn Cave) and highly commended for 1999 (Castle Diary by Richard Platt).

He won the 2001 Medal for illustrating Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter by Platt. The press release called Pirate Diary the first "information book" to win the Medal since 1975 and "a fictionalised account" when he spoke with author Richard Platt the harsh necessities of historical accuracy came into play. 'Everything I got excited about got shot down. No parrots, eye-patches or wooden legs. Thank god there were weapons and amputations!' (quoting Riddell).

Three years later, Riddell won the Greenaway again, this time for his work on Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver" (Walker, 2004), retold by Martin Jenkins from the 1726 classic Gulliver's Travels. The panel chair commented, "Gulliver is a tour de force. Chris Riddell has given us 144 pages of fantastic, faultless illustrations, which constantly extend the power of the text. Our winning title also proves that today's picture books are not just for the youngest age-groups, but are <Actinic:Variable Name = 'also'/> an important source of pleasure and learning for readers of all ages." (The 2001 and 2004 panels recommended Pirate Diary and Gulliver for readers age 8+ and 10+, while their recommendations for thirteen other shortlisted books ranged from 2+ to 7+.)

Other books illustrated by Chris Riddell include Fergus Crane, Corby Flood, and Hugo Pepper, all set in the same world. These books were also co-written with Paul Stewart. Stewart and Riddell also collaborated with him on Muddle Earth and the Barnaby Grimes series. Most recently, Riddell has both written and illustrated the Ottoline series, written while he was on holiday visiting his brother in Malaysia. The first book, Ottoline and the Yellow Cat (2007), won the final Smarties Prize in age category 6-8 years (the Smarties were discontinued in 2008). It has been followed by Ottoline Goes to School and Ottoline at Sea.

Beside writing and illustrating books, Riddell is an acclaimed political cartoonist for the Observer newspaper in London, where his caricatures of politicians from John Major to Gordon Brown, Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, have earned him a reputation as a fine draughtsman and acute commentator on the political scene. Before working at the Observer, Chris spent time working at the Economist as an illustrator and occasional cover artist.

Chris Riddell is the cover artist for the Literary Review magazine formerly edited by Auberon Waugh, a role he took over from the late Willie Rushton. Chris's serial gag cartoon for this magazine, called "Illustration to Unwritten Books", was published in book form as The Da Vinci Cod and Other Illustrations to Unwritten Books.

In November 2017, Riddell publicly accused department store chain John Lewis of plagiarizing elements of his 1986 picture book Mr Underbed for their Christmas advert "Moz the Monster". The chain defended the allegations, noting that the concept of a monster who lived under a child's bed was a common literary trope, and that both works had dissimilar plots. The row led to renewed interest in the book, with copies quickly selling out from stores.
Chris Riddell art
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William Ridgewell biography

William Ridgewell biography

William Ridgewell
William Ridgewell worked as a lithographer, illustrator and comic strip cartoonist. His first drawings were published, as postcards, when he was 17. Stationed in India during World War I he drew posters for the Indian War Loan and contributed cartoons and sketches to The Looker-On and Indian Ink.

Upon his return to Britain, Ridgewell worked for Tit-Bits, Bystander, Punch and Passing Show. He drew advertisements for many diverse companies, including Stone's Ginger Wine and Pratt's Petrol.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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John Ridgway biography

John Ridgway biography

John Ridgway (born 4 May 1940; UK)
Ridgway began his career initially as a hobby, drawing D.C.Thompson's Commando War Stories alongside professional work as a design engineer. In 1984 Ridgway became a full-time professional, broadening his employment to include 2000 AD, Guttenberghus, Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

Ridgway's full-colour work is immediately distinctive for its unusual realism coupled with a delicate, sketchy pencil line, the two combining to give a slightly old-fashioned look influenced strongly by classic British artist Frank Hampson. This has made him ideal for illustrating strips such as the 1960s set Summer Magic and Enid Blyton's The Famous Five, but it is also a look that lends itself well to large-scale science fiction such as Babylon 5. His portfolio is unusually wide, incorporating Doctor Who, Zoids, the Incredible Hulk and My Name is Chaos.

Ridgway has been responsible for creating the look for a number of series, including Hellblazer, Luke Kirby and Junker, a sign of the high regard in which he is held by many editors. He was also the artist chosen to depict Judge Dredd without his helmet for the first and only time in the character's 28-year history, in the saga The Dead Man.

He has recently begun experimenting with incorporating computer graphics into his work.
Source: From biographical notes on Wikipedia.

See also COMMANDO illustrators  Special Edition.

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John Rignall biography

John Rignall biography

John Rignall (1916-2004)
John Rignall is known to have illustrated many books and magazines, including natural history - particularly ornithology - for the children's magazine Once Upon A Time and educational posters for Macmillan on a wide variety of topics.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
John Rignall art
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David Roach biography

David Roach biography

David Roach; UK
David Roach is a British comic book artist and writer based in Wales, United Kingdom. Roach actively illustrates for many companies, including 2000 AD, Panini Comics, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Topps, and the gaming company Wizards of the Coast.

Roach started comic book illustration in the 1980s, self-publishing the Hellfire fanzine. Since 1988 Roach has worked as an inker and penciller for 2000 AD on such titles as Nemesis the Warlock, Judge Anderson, Judge Dredd and Synnamon.

In the 1990s, Roach started producing work for DC Comics, drawing Batman and Demon and inking Challengers of the Unknown. Roach contributed to the Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi.

Roach is associate editor of the U.S. based magazine Comic Book Artist, which is dedicated to the historical representation of comic-book characters. Roach was co-editor of The Warren Companion: The Definitive Compendium to the Great Comics of Warren Publishing (2001) the revised edition of the Slings and Arrows Comics Guide (2003) and The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes (2004).

The Welshman has been an on-off contributor to 2000AD since 1988, as well as regularly working as an inker on the strip features in Doctor Who Magazine.

He comes from a family of academics, and has been developing a parallel career of late as something of a comic book and illustration historian.

Roach has worked as illustrator for consecutive Dungeons & Dragons role playing game book titles for publishers Wizards of the Coast.

Roach's recent work has included working as storyboard artist and penciller of accompanying graphic novel, Hard Choices 'What happened on Algol?', for Ultramarines: The Movie both written by Dan Abnett and released on 29 November 2010. Source: Wikipedia & comicbookresources.com

See also our SPANISH Warren Artists illustrators  Special Edition.

David Roach art
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Frank Robbins biography

Frank Robbins biography

Franklin "Frank" Robbins (9 September 1917 – 28 November 1994; Boston, USA)
Frank Robbins was a notable American comic book and comic strip artist and writer, as well as a prominent painter whose work appeared in museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, where one of his paintings was featured in the 1955 Whitney Annual Exhibition of American Painting.

In 1939, the Associated Press hired Robbins to take over the aviation strip Scorchy Smith which he drew until 1944. Robbins created his Johnny Hazard strip in 1944 and worked on it for more than three decades until it ended in 1977. Robbins' Johnny Hazard comic book was published by Standard Comics from August 1948 to May 1949. The Sunday strips were reprinted in a full-color volume published by the Pacific Comics Club. Other reprints were published by Pioneer Comics and Dragon Lady Press.

In 1968, Robbins began working as a writer for DC Comics. His first story for that publisher appeared in Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #83 (May 1968). He became the writer of Superboy as of issue #149 (July 1968) and began writing Batman and Detective Comics the following month. Robbins was instrumental in returning Batman to the character's gothic roots, such as his story "One Bullet Too Many". Working with editor Julius Schwartz and artists Neal Adams and Irv Novick, he would revitalize the character with a series of noteworthy stories reestablishing Batman's dark, brooding nature.

He introduced Jason Bard as a supporting character in Detective Comics #392 (Oct. 1969) and later wrote a series of backup stories featuring the character Man-Bat was co-created by Robbins and Neal Adams in Detective Comics #400 (June 1970) and the Ten-Eyed Man debuted in Batman #226 (Nov. 1970) by Robbins and Novick. Robbins helped launch the Plop! title and briefly drew DC's licensed version of The Shadow before moving to Marvel Comics. There he launched the Invaders series with writer Roy Thomas in 1975 and co-created the characters Union Jack, Spitfire, and the Kid Commandos.

Other Marvel work included Captain America and Ghost Rider as well as the licensed characters Human Fly and Man from Atlantis. His final new comics work was published in the black-and-white magazine The Tomb of Dracula vol. 2 #2 (Dec. 1979). He moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and spent his final years focusing on painting. He died of a heart attack on November 28, 1994.
Source: From biographical notes on Wikipedia.
Frank Robbins art
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Dave Roberts biography

Dave Roberts biography

Dave Roberts; USA

Dave is well known for his work on the Mantra comic book series.
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Wally Robertson biography

Wally Robertson biography

Walter (Wally) Robertson (16 May 1892 - 10 February 1983; Glasgow, Scotland)
Walter Robertson, known as "Wally" or "Robbie", was born in the Gorbals, Glasgow, the son of Alfred Robertson, a slater. He was educated at Queens Park School and Woodside, both in Glasgow, and was awarded a two-year scholarship to the Glasgow School of Art. In 1912 he joined a colliery agent's office as a clerk, and spent a year apprenticed to an architect, before joining a lithographic artist's studio in 1914.

While working there he submitted some work to the Amalgamated Press, which editor Dick Chance accepted. Soon another editor, Fred Cordwell, invited him to an interview for a staff artist's job. Before 1914 was over he was working on Merry and Bright (drawing "Flossie and Phyllis") and Butterfly.

He moved to London, where he found a job at the famous Fleetway House (Amalgamated Press), the major publishing company, in 1914, drawing for comic titles Chips, Merry & Bright and Butterfly.

He served in the Sixth London Regiment during the First World War, and on his return attended Heatherley's Art School. He sold some illustrations to magazines like London Opinion and Passing Show, but soon returned to the AP.

During the next thirty years his work appeared in numerous AP weeklies, including many 'funnies' titles including Funny Wonder, Jester ("Rip and Van Winkle", 1922-26), Merry and Bright, Crackers, Comic Cuts, Larks, Joker, Illustrated Chips, Jolly Comic, Knock-Out, Jingles and Comet ("Tough Tex", 1952).

Paper shortages during and after the Second World War meant the AP had to cut back on the number of comics they published. Robertson made up for the lost work by drawing for smaller publishers, including Paget, Martin and Reid, Gerald Swan and others, on titles including Ace Comic, Paget's Funny Cuts ("Allofa Twist", 1948), Merry Laughs, Super Duper, Merry Moments, Super Star, Coloured Slick Fun, Cute Fun and Fresh Fun.

He ghosted many strips in other artists' styles for the AP, but by the late 1950s his drawing skills were no longer in demand, and he worked as a letterer for a few years before retiring. He died on 10 February 1983 in Bromley, Kent.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Walter (Wally) Robertson art
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Albert Robida biography

Albert Robida biography

Albert Robida (14 May 1848 - 11 October 1926; Compiègne, France)
Albert Robida was a French illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, and novelist. He edited and published La Caricature magazine for 12 years. Through the 1880s he wrote an acclaimed trilogy of futuristic novels. In the 1900s he created 520 illustrations for Pierre Giffard's weekly serial La Guerre Infernale.

He was born in Compiègne, France, the son of a carpenter. He studied to become a notary, but was more interested in caricature. In 1866 he joined Journal amusant as an illustrator. In 1880, with Georges Decaux, he founded his own magazine La Caricature, which he edited for 12 years. He illustrated tourist guides, works of popular history, and literary classics.

His fame disipated after World War I but he was rediscovered thanks to his trilogy of futuristic works:
Le Vingtième Siècle (1883)
La Guerre au vingtième siècle (1887)
Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique (1890)

These works drew comparison with Jules Verne. Unlike Verne, he proposed inventions integrated into everyday life, not creations of mad scientists, and he imagined the social developments that arose from them, often with uncanny accuracy: social advancement of women, mass tourism, pollution, etc. His La Guerre au vingtième siècle describes modern warfare, with robotic missiles and poison gas. His Téléphonoscope was a flat screen television display that delivered the latest news 24-hours a day, the latest plays, courses, and teleconferences.

Robida illustrated two works by Pierre Giffard: La Fin du Cheval ("The End of the Horse"), on the inevitable replacement of the horse by the bicycle and then by the car.

La Guerre Infernale ("The Infernal War"), a 1908 serial adventure novel for children that appeared weekly every Saturday. Robida contributed 520 illustrations.The novel is set in the future and features uncanny parallels to World War Two, including an attack on London by Germany and a conflict between Japan and the United States. It was subsequently republished as a book.

Robida died 11 October 1926 in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, France.
Source: Wikipedia
Albert Robida art
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Fred Roe biography

Fred Roe biography

Fred Roe (1864 - 1947; UK)
Fred Roe was an English painter and illustrator specializing in large historical scenes with period costumes. He was also a collector of, and authority on, antique furniture, writing A History of Oak Furniture (1920). Roe was elected to the Royal Institute of British Painters in 1909.
Fred Roe art
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Michael Roffe biography

Michael Roffe biography

Michael Roffe (Fl. 1970s)
Michael Roffe is a talented painter of military subjects who has illustrated many titles for Osprey over the years, including the Men-at-Arms and Vanguard series. His artistic talents span a variety of historical periods; he has illustrated titles relating to the Boer War, the English Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars and the American War for Independence.
Source: Osprey Publishing
Michael Roffe art
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Marshall Rogers biography

Marshall Rogers biography

William Marshall Rogers III (22 January 1950 - 24 March 2007; New York City)
Marshall Rogers was an American comics artist best known for his work at Marvel and DC Comics in the 1970s.

Rogers was born in the Flushing neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, and raised there and in Ardsley, New York. He took up mechanical drawing in high school, and then attended Kent State University in Ohio, where he studied architecture.

He studied architectural drawing, and his work was characterized by detailed rendering of buildings and structures.

He left college in 1971 before graduating, and returned home to New York, where he discovered his family was moving to Denver, Colorado, where his father's employer, Johns Manville, was relocating. Opting to remain, he completed a 52-page story he had begun in college and presented it in 1972 as a sample to Marvel Comics production manager John Verpoorten, who found Rogers' work wanting. To earn a living, Rogers did illustrations for men's magazines that he described as "low-grade schlock sleazo magazines that had illustrations to precede the stories". When one client went bankrupt owing him at least $1,000, a friend, Jim Geraghty, offered him a rent-free house for the winter in Easthampton, New York, on Long Island, in exchange for "four or five illustrations" for a local art project. The following summer he worked in a hardware store for several months, was fired, and while living on unemployment benefits approached the short-lived Atlas/Seaboard Comics and, as he said:

"was given a couple of very small assignments. One was to design a costume for a kung-fu character they were going to establish, and another was to do a couple of illustrations for a back-up feature in a black-and-white monster book. The kung-fu costume I designed was rejected because they said, 'It was too good,' which meant, I felt, the costume was too intricate to draw over and over. The black-and-white illustrations were used. One appeared in the back of the black-and-white monster book on a little game-page they called 'Dr. Frankenstein's Brain Twisters."

At some unspecified point, Rogers recalled, he "bounced in and out of a shipping clerk job" and did some retouching work for DC Comics on reprints of 1940s Batman stories. He continued showing samples to both Marvel and DC, and in 1977, his artwork began interesting Marie Severin and Vince Colletta, the two companies' respective art directors. "That got me my first job; it wasn't really the drawing ability", he said in 1980, "as much as my design capabilities."

Some of his first comic-book work appeared in the black-and-white magazine The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, where he worked with writer Chris Claremont on a story featuring the "Iron Fist" supporting characters Misty Knight and Colleen Wing as the Daughters of the Dragon. He eschewed the grey wash that was used in other black-and-white comics stories in favor of applying screentone.

With writer Steve Englehart, Rogers penciled an acclaimed run on the Batman in Detective Comics #471-476 (Aug. 1977 - April 1978), providing one of the definitive interpretations that influenced the 1989 movie Batman and that was adapted for the 1990s animated series. The Englehart and Rogers pairing was described in 2009 by comics writer and historian Robert Greenberger as "one of the greatest" creative teams to work on the Batman character. DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz noted in 2010: "Arguably fans' best-loved version of Batman in the mid-1970s, writer Steve Englehart and penciller Rogers's Detective run featured an unambiguously homicidal Joker...in noirish, moodily rendered stories that evoked the classic Kane-Robinson era." In their story "The Laughing Fish", the Joker is brazen enough to disfigure fish with a rictus grin, then expects to be granted a federal trademark on them, only to start killing bureaucrats who try to explain that obtaining such a claim on a natural resource is legally impossible. The supervillain Deadshot was redesigned by Rogers during his Detective Comics run. Rogers also penciled the origin story of the Golden Age Batman in Secret Origins #6 (Sept. 1986) with writer Roy Thomas and inker Terry Austin.

The two also did a sequel miniseries, Batman: Dark Detective, and worked together on other series, including Marvel's The Silver Surfer and a short run on DC's revived Mister Miracle. Englehart and Rogers' first Batman run was collected in the trade paperback Batman: Strange Apparitions and the second run in Batman: Dark Detective. Rogers remained as artist on Detective Comics for a few issues after Englehart's departure from the series. With writer Len Wein, he co-created the third version of the supervillain Clayface. Rogers' other Batman work included a story arc in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight that was begun by writer Archie Goodwin and completed by James Robinson.

An Englehart-Rogers story featuring Madame Xanadu that sat in inventory for a few years was published as a one-shot in 1981, in DC's first attempt at marketing comics specifically to the "direct market" of fans and collectors. In 1986, Rogers drew a graphic novel adaptation of "Demon with a Glass Hand", an episode of The Outer Limits television series, based on a script by Harlan Ellison. It was the fifth title of the DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel series.

At Eclipse Comics during the early 1980s, he collaborated on the graphic novel Detectives Inc. with writer Don McGregor, drew the Scorpio Rose series and the first Coyote series written by Englehart, and wrote and drew his own whimsical series Cap'N Quick & A Foozle. In 1992, McGregor and Rogers crafted a two part-story for Marvel in Spider-Man issues #27-28 dealing with bullying and gun violence.

Rogers died on March 24, 2007, at his home in Fremont, California. His Batman collaborator Steve Englehart said he was told by Spencer Beck, Rogers' agent: "His son found him. They think it was a heart attack, and that he might have been dead for a while."
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia
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Enric Badia Romero biography

Enric Badia Romero biography

Enric Badia Romero (born 1930; Spain)
The celebrated Spanish artist launched the comic Alex in 1953 and in 1970 took over the illustration of Modesty Blaise, the long running syndicated newspaper strip of Peter O'Donnell's adventurous sexy heroine, for longer than any other artist. He is also famous for his full colour and pen and ink illustrations of the scantily clad heroine Axa.

See also illustrators  issue 22.

Some of the most regularly requested art has been Romero's fabulous pen and ink artwork for Modesty Blaise, written by Peter O'Donnell.

We have original signed Modesty Blaise newspaper strips by JOHN M BURNS, NEVILLE COLVIN, JIM HOLDAWAY, PATRICK WRIGHT and ROMERO or click to see ALL Modesty artwork in stock and enjoy our highly collectable BOOKS ABOUT MODESTY BLAISE including our latest Expanded Edition of The Modesty Blaise Companion.


Enric Badia Romero art
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Richard O Rose biography

Richard O Rose biography

Richard O Rose (Known active 1950s and 1960s)
Unfortunately not much is known about this accomplished artist. He was a prolific illustrator whose work regularly appeared in John Bull magazine during the 1950s. He excelled at cartoons and caricature - possibly inspired by Ronald Searle.

He also enjoyed illustrating children's stories and fairy tales including The Pied Piper of Hamelin, The Jackdaw of Rheims, Sir Uncle Fred, and many more. His work appeared in children's books and comics, including Look and Learn magazine and Princess Annual in the 1960s.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Richard O Rose art
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Alex Ross biography

Alex Ross biography

Nelson Alexander "Alex" Ross (born 22 January 1970)
Alex Ross is an American comic book writer/artist known primarily for his painted interiors, covers, and design work. He first became known with the 1994 miniseries Marvels, on which he collaborated with writer Kurt Busiek for Marvel Comics. He has since done a variety of projects for both Marvel and DC Comics, such as the 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come, which Ross co-wrote. Since then he has done covers and character designs for Busiek's series Astro City, and various projects for Dynamite Entertainment.

His feature film work includes concept and narrative art for Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and DVD packaging art for the M. Night Shyamalan film, Unbreakable. He has done covers for TV Guide, promotional artwork for the Academy Awards, posters and packaging design for video games, and his renditions of superheroes have been merchandised as action figures.

Ross' style has been said to exhibit "a Norman-Rockwell-meets-George-Pérez vibe", and has been praised for its realistic, human depictions of classic comic book characters. His rendering style, his attention to detail, and the perceived tendency of his characters to be depicted staring off into the distance in cover images has been satirized in Mad magazine. Because of the time it takes Ross to produce his art, he primarily serves as a plotter and/or cover artist.

Comics Buyer's Guide Senior Editor Maggie Thompson, commenting on that publication's retirement of the Favorite Painter award from their CBG Fan Awards due to Ross' domination of that category, stated in 2010, "Ross may simply be the field's Favorite Painter, period. That's despite the fact that many outstanding painters are at work in today's comic books."
Source: Wikipedia
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Christopher Rothero biography

Christopher Rothero biography

Christopher Rothero
Christopher Rothero is an expert on the armies of medieval Europe. He has written and illustrated several titles for the Osprey Men-at Arms series including Men-at-Arms 210 The Venetian Empire 1200-1670, Men-at-Arms 111 The Armies of Crécy and Poitiers, and Men-at-Arms 113 The Armies of Agincourt.

Christopher Rothero has been drawing and making things with his hands for as long as he can remember. In the early days with plasticine, balsa and tissue payer, and scraps of paper brought home by his father. Later it was bits of wood with sharp penknives and chisels. He left school at fifteen and went to the National Sea Training school and then served in the Merchant Navy as a boy seaman.

This was followed by a period in the Regular Army. After four years he was badly injured on exercise in Germany and invalided out of the service. From here he trained to be a teacher specializing in art. There followed twenty years in teaching and the headship of two schools. During this period he also spent his holidays and weekends illustrating books and writing articles.

Eventually he left teaching and pursued a full time career as a book illustrator. He has written and illustrated five books on medieval military history and illustrated over a hundred books written by other authors. He has samples of his artwork in the National Army Museum, the Agincourt Museum France, the Oxford and Bucks Museum, and in various private collections in the United States and Europe.

He recently hecame involved in sculpture and the various materials fascinate him, he especially likes to create in different forms of metal wire, string, screws and nails. He prepares each piece with careful drawings and his love of line and characterization informs each piece of work. Chris hopes that every piece of work gives as much pleasure to the viewing public as it gives Chris to make them
Source: Illustration Art Gallery and Bicester Sculpture Group
Christopher Rothero art
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Carlos Roume biography

Carlos Roume biography

Carlos Gabriel Roume (1923 - 26 September 2009; Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Carlos Roume was born in Buenos Aires as the ninth son of the architect and sculptor Francisco Roume. He got his fame through his animal drawings, especially horses. His first professional work was for the advertising agency Publicidad Albatros in 1945 and then for Publi-Art. He moved to France at the age of 25, where he spent several years working in the advertising field.

Back in Argentina, he made his first professional comics, starting with 'Lapacho Juan' in the magazine Patoruzito. In the following years, he made a series of literary adaptations, including 'La Vida de Lassie' for Editorial Abril, as well as 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Moby Dick' for Pimpinela.

While continuing to make his adaptations for Pimpinela, he created the 'Tarzan'-like character 'Sabú' with Leonardo Wadel for Editorial Códex in 1952. Roume worked for Hector German Oesterheld's Hora Cero magazine from 1957 and collaborated with Oesterheld himself on serials like 'Nahuel Barros', 'Tipp Kenya' and 'Patria Vieja'. 'Pichi' was created for Frontera Extra, from scripts by Oesterheld's brother Jorge, in 1959.

Starting in 1959, Roume also provided artwork to the British Fleetway group. Roume illustrated 'Dick Daring' stories for Thriller Picture Library, and worked on Cowboy Comics and Cowboy Picture Library, for which he did 'Kit Carson'. He drew Conan Doyle's 'Rodney Stone' in Ranger and Look and Learn, as well as some stories of 'Olac the Gladiator' in Tiger (1961-62). He was then present in titles like Valiant ('Blade of the Frontier'), Hurricane ('Two Fists Against The World'), Ranger ('Rodney Stone') and Tina ('Black Beauty').

Roume worked for the British market until the early 1970s, his final contributions were to Tell Me Why, Princess Tina, including the fabulous adaptation of Black Beauty, and World of Wonder. He was by then mainly present in Italy, drawing series like 'Hayawatha', 'Zane Canon' and 'Alazzan' for Il Corriere di Piccoli.

From the 1970s he worked almost exclusively in his home country, starting with the newspaper comic 'Manquillán, el Cóndor Perdido' with Osvaldo Guglielmo for the Buenos Aires daily Clarín. In 1972 he provided the artwork for a special edition of 'Martin Fierro', a new collaboration with Oesterheld, for Billiken. In 1974 he began his long association with the publishing house Récord, for which he illustrated a great many western stories for magazines like Fénix until 1995.

Carlos Roume spent his final years in Tandil in the Buenos Aires Province, making horse bronzes and watercolor paintings.
Source: Lambiek
Carlos Roume art
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Harry Rountree biography

Harry Rountree biography

Harry Rountree (1878 - 26 September 1950)
Harry Rountree was a prolific illustrator working in England around the turn of the 19/20th centuries. He came from New Zealand in 1901 to London, when he was 23 years old.

Harry Rountree was determined to make his mark on the then-flourishing magazine and book market. For two years he struggled, studied and sold the occasional drawing. However, when the editor of Little Folks magazine gave him a commission to illustrate a story with an animal, he found his feet and suddenly he became quite successful.

By 1903 he was illustrating books for the editor of Little Folks, writing and illustrating his own books, and in demand by nearly every publisher in London. He was one of the subjects in Percy V. Bradshaws' "The Art of the Illustrator" 20 part series, published in 1918, where six stages of the creation of an illustration were published along with notes and biography.

Rountree is also noted for his illustrations of British Golf Courses & golfing caricatures.

During the First World War, he served as a captain in the Royal Engineers.

Rountree produced well-liked cartoons for the magazine Punch from 1905 to 1939, and also created advertising, posters and book illustrations for writers such as P. G. Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Source: Wikipedia

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Harry Rountree art
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David Rowe biography

David Rowe biography

David Rowe (1924 - 23 October 2004; flourished 1950s - 1970s; Preston, Lancashire, UK)
David Rowe was born in Preston in 1924 and served in World War II in the Royal Navy, on Destroyers, and was torpedoed in the Atlantic. He had a long career as the artist and writer of humorous and often trenchant football cartoons. His career took off in the mid 1950s. He may well be best known for his work in Shoot Magazine beginning with the first issue in August 1969.

David Rowe began drawing the long-running 'Playboy' series for the Daily Mirror newspaper in 1962, for whom he also created 'Nobby'. Rowe remained with The Daily Mirror until 1986, his newspaper strips amusing millions of Mirror readers every day for 23 years. He continued to work as a freelance cartoonist until his retirement in 1994.

David Rowe sadly died from leukemia in October 2004. He lived in St Annes and loved gardening and was a wonderful colleague, always ready to help in any way he could. He leaves a widow, Barbara, children Jayne and Chris, and grandchildren Beth and Jo.
Illustration Art Gallery
David Rowe art
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R Charles Roylance biography

R Charles Roylance biography

R. Charles Roylance (?1913 - ?2009; ?Warrington, Lancs, UK)
R. Charles Roylance was a British comics artist who drew Captain Hurricane in Valiant and The Best of the West in Lion, as well as other IPC strips including Nipper. He also drew for Cowboy Comics Library between 1953 and 1961, and for Warlord in the 1970s.

He also illustrated books, the earliest located being "Valerie Steps Out" by Samuel Thomas James in 1948.
Source: Albion British Comics Database Wiki & Illustration Art Gallery
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John Royle biography

John Royle biography

John Royle
John Royle has worked as an illustrator for over 20 years, producing artwork for many advertising campaigns, magazine covers / illustrations and Comic books.

" I'm presently Pencilling a series with fan favorite characters, Danger Girl/ G.I.Joe for IDW. First published work was at Marvel Uk and then went on to pencil numerous titles for Marvel USA and DC comics including Wolverine, Excalibur, Star Trek Academy, Ultra Force, Prime and Robin.

I pencilled the series of Indiana Jones Lost Treasures and a number of chapters for comic book adaption of Stan Lee's Alexa book with additional chapters by Dave Gibbons and Dan Jurgens.

I've worked on many titles for Panini/Marvel featuring various Marvel superheroes and the Spectacular Spiderman. "
Source: http://johnroyleart.com
John Royle art
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Luis Royo biography

Luis Royo biography

Luis Royo; Aragon, Spain
Luis Royo is a Spanish artist born in Olalla, a village in the Aragonese province of Teruel. He is best known for his fantasy illustrations published in numerous art books, magazines such as Heavy Metal and various other media including book and music CD covers, video games and Tarot cards.

Beginning his career as a furniture designer, he was attracted to the comics industry in the late 1970s by the work of artists like Enki Bilal and Moebius, and in 1979 he turned to art as a full time career.

Within a few years, he was publishing art within and on the covers of such magazines as Comix Rambla Internacional, El Vibora, Heavy Metal, National Lampoon and Comic Art as well as providing cover illustrations for publishers including Tor Books, Berkley Books, Avon, Warner Books, Bantam Books and others.
Source: Wikipedia
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Steve Rude biography

Steve Rude biography

Steve Rude (born 31 December 1956; Madison, Wisconsin, USA)
Steve Rude is an American comic book artist. In 1981, Rude became widely known in the comics world when he and writer Mike Baron created Nexus, an independent science fiction comic book with a large supporting cast.

For the series, Rude designed a dozen or so distinctive alien races, including the Thunes, the Amphibs, the Quattros, the Giz, the Demons, and others. The series ran for eighty issues (although Rude did not pencil them all), and seven short, almost-yearly mini-series after the initial series ended.

In 2004 Rude co-created and penciled The Moth with writer/inker Gary Martin.

Announced on November 15, 2006 is Rude's own "Rude Dude Productions", a new publishing entity covering new issues of Nexus and The Moth in 2007 as well as an anthology series. The new Nexus series was Rude's first work with Baron since the last issue published by Dark Horse Comics.

The first Nexus issue from Rude Dude was released as issue #99 (part 1 of the "Space Opera" story), and was set immediately following the last Dark Horse issue. After a few delays, issue #100 was published, followed by the final two issues of "Space Opera" printed together as one double-sized issue.
Source: Wikipedia
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John Ryan biography

John Ryan biography

John Ryan
John Ryan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Aged 7, he wrote his first book 'Adventures of Tommy Brown' and sold it to his mother for two pennies.

After service in Burma he went to study at the Regent Street Polytechnic. Ryan created the character Captain Pugwash in 1950 for The Eagle. He was also the creator of 'Harris Tweed, Extra Special Agent', a would-be private eye, and Lettice Leefe, the Greenest Girl in School (for Girl magazine), but 'Captain Horation Pugwash' was his most endearing character.

Although listed as an illustrator, John Ryan has written and illustrated 20 books such as The Very Hungry Lions, Mamel and the Tower of Babel and Giantkiller.
John Ryan art
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Rudolf Sablic biography

Rudolf Sablic biography

Rudolfo Sablicem (24 January 1916 - 29 March 2012; Vinkovci, Croatia)
Rudolf Sablic was born in Vinkovci in 1916 and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1939 and completed a special painting course at V. Beciæ. He first exhibited at the illegal exhibit of the partisan artist in Split in 1943, in the sculptor's studio of Marina Studina.

At first he painted stark nature and landscapes in post impressionist style (around the Dubrovnik area, 1951), then found his own expression, and since 1952 he has liked lyrical abstraction. In the cycle of Istrian motives (1953), he displayed a sensual sense of matter for the image and chromaticity, which remained in his later feature ( Modri ??kristali, 1979). Papers (collages, frotaže) are subtle compositions inspired by musical forms; the drawings emphasized the dynamism of movement in the space, and in the latter works a figurative drawing in the chromatic illumination of surfaces. He was involved in illustration and equipment of books, theatrical and film scenography ( Samac, 1958).

He worked as a theatrical scenographer for the Zagreb Drama Theater and HNK, and in Belgrade and Dubrovnik. He also worked as an animated film setter and was involved in illustrating and graphing equipment of books. He was also interested in music, and for hours he spent hours playing violin and trumpet. He has worked in Milan and in recent years in Zagreb.

Extract from RUDOLF SABLIC
Text authors: Darko Schneider, Marina Barièeviæ, Maja Juras
ISBN: 978 953 182 082 0

" Rudolf Sablic is one of the few, even more important, witnesses of the Croatian art scene from the middle of the last century to the present day. An artist, who certainly belongs to an indispensable place in the history of Croatian art. "
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Antoine de Saint Exupery biography

Antoine de Saint Exupery biography

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 - 31 July 1944; Lyon, France)
Saint-Exupéry was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and also won the United States National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.

Saint-Exupéry was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, working airmail routes in Europe, Africa, and South America. He joined the French Air Force at the start of the war, flying reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised from the French Air Force, he travelled to the United States to help persuade its government to enter the war against Nazi Germany.

Saint-Exupéry spent 28 months in America, during which he wrote three of his most important works, then joined the Free French Air Force in North Africa—although he was far past the maximum age for such pilots and in declining health. He disappeared and is believed to have died while on a reconnaissance mission from Corsica over the Mediterranean on 31 July 1944.

Prior to the war, Saint-Exupéry had achieved fame in France as an aviator. His literary works posthumously boosted his stature to national hero status in France, including The Little Prince which has been translated into 300 languages. He earned further widespread recognition with international translations of his other works. His 1939 philosophical memoir Terre des hommes (titled Wind, Sand and Stars in English) became the name of an international humanitarian group; it was also used as the central theme of Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec. His birthplace of Lyon also named its main airport after him.
Source: Wikipedia
Antoine de Saint Exupery art
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Alberto Salinas biography

Alberto Salinas biography

Alberto César Salinas (1 November 1932 - 2 January 2005; Argentina)
Alberto Salinas is the son of the famous Argentine comic artist José Luis Salinas. He started his career in advertising for Pueyrredón Propaganda, but debuted in comics in 1952. His first work was the series 'Capiango', about soldiers in the Northwest of Argentina, that was published in the montly magazine Superhombre. Since the 1960s, Salinas was mainly working for European publishers. He was drawing for British girls' titles in the 1960s and 1970s, including stories like 'Sandra' for Tina (1964) and 'Moira, Slave Girl of Rome' in Sandie (1976). He additionally contributed to the Thriller Picture Library.

He was however mainly working for Eura Editoriale in Italy, starting with a 'Spartacus' comic in 1961 and later on stories like 'Continente nero' and 'Legione straniera' for Skorpio. He ghosted his father's 'Cisco Kid' comic for a while in 1968. Salinas eventually returned to Argentina where he made illustrations and comics for Editorial Atlántida, Editorial Columba and Editorial García Ferré.

He is best known as the first artist of 'Dago', a story about a 16th century Venetian nobleman turned mercenary, written by Paraguayan writer Robin Wood and first published in the Argentine magazine Nippur Magnum in 1980. It was also published by Eura in Italy between 1983 and 1986. Salinas and Wood also cooperated on a 'Dracula' comic story.

Salinas has also made illustrations for Look and Learn in London as well as paintings of horses. A knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, Albert Salinas died in January 2005, apparently from a shooting accident.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Alberto Salinas art
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Balliol Salmon biography

Balliol Salmon biography

Balliol Salmon (1868 - 1953)
Balliol Salmon was a celebrated artist who was "The Graphic" magazine's resident illustrator of Society subjects.

Salmon was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", the seminal collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918, including Fortunino Matania.

Balliol Salmon art
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Alf Saporito biography

Alf Saporito biography

Alf Saporito
Alf Saporito was a comics artist who worked on titles including Buster, Shiver and Shake, Cor!!, Krazy Comic, Monster Fun and Jinty, on numerous strips including Do-it-Yourself Dot, Gums, Gus Gorilla, Micky Mimic and Charlie Williams (!)

He also illustrated Look and Learn magazine and drew several covers for MAD magazine UK during the 1970s.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Peter Sarson biography

Peter Sarson biography

Peter Sarson
Peter Sarson has produced graphic cutaways for many armoured vehicle publications, and is regarded as one of the world's great illustrators of military vehicles. Peter lives and works in Dorset.

Peter Sarson is also a published author and an illustrator of children's books and young adult books.

Published credits of Peter Sarson include Nuclear Warfare (Modern Military Techniques), Submarines (Modern Military Techniques), Bombers.
Source: Osprey Publishing
Peter Sarson art
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Val Sassoon biography

Val Sassoon biography

Val Sassoon (Active 1980s; UK)
Not much is known about this artist who painted a number of book covers for publishers such as Puffin, Souvenir Press and Magnet during the 1980s.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
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Francois Schuiten biography

Francois Schuiten biography

Francois Schuiten (born 26 April 1956; Belgium)
Baron François Schuiten is a Belgian comic book artist. He is best known for drawing the series Les Cités Obscures.

François Schuiten was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1956. His father, Robert Schuiten, and his mother, Marie-Madeleine De Maeyer, were both architects. He has five brothers and sisters, one of whom is also an architect.

During his studies at the Saint-Luc Institute in Brussels (1975–1977), he met Claude Renard, who led the comics department at the school. Together they created several books. Schuiten's brother Luc also worked with him several times as a writer for the series Terres Creuses.

Schuiten published his first comic on 3 May 1973, consisting of 5 black and white pages in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote; four years later he was published in the more experimental magazine Métal Hurlant.

His love of architecture became apparent in the series Cities of the Fantastic, an evocation of fantastic, partly imaginary cities that he created with his friend Benoît Peeters from 1983 for the Belgian monthly comics magazine (À Suivre). Every story focuses on one city or building, and further explores a world where architects, urbanists, and ultimately "urbatects", are the leading powers and architecture is the driving force behind society. Styles explored in the series include stalinistic and fascist architecture in La Fièvre d'Urbicande, skyscrapers in Brüsel, but also the gothic cathedrals in La Tour. This fascination with architecture and the possible and impossible cities it can generate is further explored in The Gates of the Possible, a weekly series Schuiten created for the newspapers Le Soir and De Morgen in 2005.

Inspired by artists and scientists alike, Schuiten's work can be considered to mix the mysterious worlds of René Magritte, the early scientific fantasies of Jules Verne, the graphical worlds of M. C. Escher and Gustave Doré, and the architectural visions of Victor Horta and Étienne-Louis Boullée. The creative synergy between Schuiten's work and the books of Jules Verne culminated in 1994 when he was asked to illustrate and design a cover for the publication of Verne's rediscovered book Paris in the Twentieth Century.

He also collaborated with Maurice Benayoun on the computer graphics series Quarxs, and worked as a production designer for a few movies: Gwendoline by Just Jaeckin, Mr. Nobody and Toto le héros by Jaco Van Dormael, Taxandria by Raoul Servais, The Golden Compass by Chris Weitz and Mars et Avril by Martin Villeneuve. He is currently working with Benoît Sokal and Martin Villeneuve on the script of Aquarica, a film that will use CGI and motion capture technology.

As a scenographer, he designed the metro stations of Porte de Hal in Brussels and Arts et Métiers in Paris, and a mural in Brussels. In 2000, he designed the scenography for A planet of visions, one of the main pavilions of the Hannover World's Fair, which attracted more than five million visitors. In 2004-2005, a large exhibition was held in Leuven, The Gates of Utopia, showing different aspects of his work. He also created the interior of the Belgian pavilion at the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan with the painter Alexandre Obolensky. François Schuiten has also designed 15 Belgian stamps.

Schuiten together with Peeters also helped to save and subsequently restore the Maison Autrique, the first house designed by Art Nouveau architect Victor Horta.

François Schuiten married Monique Toussaint in 1980; they have four children. From biographical notes on WikiPedia.
Francois Schuiten art
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Mark Schultz biography

Mark Schultz biography

Mark Schultz (born 7 June 1955; Philadelphia, USA)
Mark Schultz is an American writer and illustrator of books and comics. His most widely-recognized work is his self-created and owned comic book series, Xenozoic Tales, about a post-apocalyptic world where dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures coexist with humans. He is also the current writer of the Prince Valiant comic strip.

Schultz was born just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but raised near Pittsburgh. At the age of six he discovered both comics and classic adventure films, his early favorites including Tarzan and King Kong. As a teenager he was further inspired by such fantasy authors as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard and the artists who had illustrated their work, including Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, and Al Williamson.

He enrolled in Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in 1973 and graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting. From there, he embarked upon a career in advertising illustration, bolstered by such odd jobs as working as a security guard, but he found this work unsatisfying.

In the early 1980s, Schultz became interested in the burgeoning underground comics scene, which allowed independent artists to publish stories outside the traditional assembly-line approach of the mainstream comics industry. He also became attracted to the art of the classic stories published by EC Comics in the 1950s. At one point, he took the few boxes of 1960s and early 1970s Marvel and DC comic books he owned to a local comic book store and traded them for a large collection of EC Comics. From then on, he began to hone his illustration style to emulate that of classic EC artists.

Schultz's first published comics work was on a story called "The Sea King," featuring Robert E. Howard's character King Kull, which appeared in Savage Sword of Conan #132, published by Marvel Comics. Schultz inked over pencils by Val Semeiks. Schultz did not actively pursue further work from Marvel, however, as he was more interested in developing and publishing comics based on his own concepts.

Throughout the early 1980s, Schultz would germinate the ideas which would eventually bear fruit as Xenozoic Tales. The characters and stories he created were set in a future time period he dubbed the "Xenozoic Age," in which an unspecified cataclysm had all but wiped out modern human society. The survivors emerged from their underground bunkers to find a world transformed, where prehistoric creatures had once again become the dominant life forms on Earth.

The first story set in the Xenozoic Age that Schultz completed was "Mammoth Pitfall," but it would not see publication until Xenozoic Tales #2. The first to be published was "Xenozoic!", which ran in the anthology title Death Rattle #8, published in December 1986 by Kitchen Sink Press.

Since Xenozoic Tales, Schultz has written comics series for a number of publishers, including Dark Horse and DC. Typically these are stories based on company-owned or licensed characters, rather than his own original work.

Schultz created the underwater adventure comics series SubHuman, published by Dark Horse comics.

In 2002, Schultz contributed a number of illustrations to Conan the Cimmerian: Volume 1, a new reprinting of the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard, published by Wandering Star Books. The book has since been reprinted in paperback by Del Rey as The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. He was also interviewed by Durwin Talon for Panel Discussions, a nonfiction book about the developing movement in sequential art and narrative literature, along with, Will Eisner, Walter Simonson and Mike Mignola.

Since November 1, 2004, he has been the writer for the long-running comic strip, Prince Valiant, originally created by Hal Foster. He also wrote the two-issue intercompany crossover Superman & Batman vs. Aliens & Predator.

In 2009, he was announced by Dan Didio as the writer of the up-coming The Spirit series, spinning-off of the First Wave limited series, that is intended to create a new universe of non-superpowered characters like Doc Savage, Batman, Black Canary, the Blackhawks, Wildcat, The Avenger, Rima the Jungle Girl and others. Schultz will only write the first two issues of The Spirit.

Schultz is influenced by commercial illustrators of the early 20th Century, including Howard Pyle and Joseph Clement Coll.

Schultz has been awarded five Harvey Awards, two Eisners, an Inkpot, a Spectrum, and three Haxturs (from the Salon Del Internacional Comic del Principado de Austurias).
Source: Wikipedia
Mark Schultz art
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Septimus Scott biography

Septimus Scott biography

Septimus Edwin Scott (1879 - 1965)
In the course of a long and varied career, Sep Scott exhibited in the Royal Academy and was a member of the Royal Watercolour Society. He became a book illustrator and one of the highest paid and respected of all British poster artists. Towards the end of his life, during a period when his style had gone somewhat out of vogue, he began working for Leonard Matthews and his trio of comics, Knockout, Sun and Thriller Comics Library.

At first, Scott was used for picture strips, drawing all the adventures of the pirate hunter, Captain Flame, and proving to be a natural born strip artist. Then, when Matthews took over Thriller Comics Library, Scott began to paint the covers. He drew scores of full colour cover paintings, which would, as Leonard Matthews commented, "grace the walls of any stately home", and were, in all probability, largely responsible for the success of the Library and the fact that these comics are so valued today amongst collectors.

Scott also drew a number of short Robin Hood strips for the Library and some fine full-length adventure picture stories including Jane Eyre (no. 31), Pride of the Ring (no. 53), Secret Operator (no. 73) and the splendidly atmospheric, The Dark Shadows of London (no. 156). For a short period, he also painted the occasional cover - and back page - for Comet and Sun and also contributed some paintings for the first Buck Jones Annual (colour plates as well as the cover) and the covers for both issues of the Billy the Kid Book of Picture Stories. Toward the end of his life, Sep Scott drew occasionally for Look and LearnBiography extract courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

For a Sep Scott feature article see illustrators issue 13 and enjoy more of his great art in PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition and in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics CLASH OF BLADES collection.

Septimus Scott art
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Henry Seabright biography

Henry Seabright biography

Henry Seabright
Henry Seabright was a magazine and children's book illustrator who contributed to The Strand and the Reader's Digest Condensed Books series.

Seabright also contributed to Bible Story during the 1960s and the comic Playhour where he drew a comic strip adaptation of E. Nesbit's novel Five Children and It.
Source: Wikipedia
Henry Seabright art
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Eustaquio Segrelles biography

Eustaquio Segrelles biography

Eustaquio Segrelles del Pilar
Eustaquio Segrelles is a Spanish (watercolor) painter and comic artist. He began his career in Valencia as an assistant to Eduardo Vaño in doing Roberto Alcázar. It was for the publishing house Maga where he created his best known comic, Los Imbatibos (1963). He also made episodes of other series, including Aquiles, La Cuadrilla and Johnny Pacífico. For the collection Joyas Literarias Juveniles he made a comic adaptation of Nuevas Aventuras de Dick Turpin in 1973. He is a cousin of comic artist Vicente Segrelles.
Eustaquio Segrelles art
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Maurice Sendak biography

Maurice Sendak biography

Maurice Bernard Sendak (10 June 1928 - 8 May 2012)
Maurice Sendak was an American illustrator and renowned writer of children's books. He became widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1963. Born to Polish-Jewish parents, his childhood was affected by the death of many of his family members during the Holocaust. Sendak also wrote works such as In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and illustrated more than 80 books by other authors including the Little Bear books by Else Holmelund Minarik.

Later in his career Sendak collaborated with Carole King on the musical Really Rosie and has done much other work for TV, Opera and the stage.

Sendak gained international acclaim after writing and illustrating Where the Wild Things Are. It features Max, a boy who "rages against his mother for being sent to bed without any supper". The book's depictions of fanged monsters concerned some parents when it was first published, as his characters were somewhat grotesque in appearance. Before Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak was best known for illustrating Else Holmelund Minarik's Little Bear series of books.

Sendak later recounted the reaction of a fan:
" A little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children's letters – sometimes very hastily – but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, 'Dear Jim: I loved your card.' Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said: 'Jim loved your card so much he ate it.' That to me was one of the highest compliments I've ever received. He didn't care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it. "

When Sendak saw a manuscript of Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories, the first children's book by Isaac Bashevis Singer, he offered to illustrate the book. It was first published in 1966 and received a Newbery Honor. Sendak was delighted and enthusiastic about the collaboration. He once wryly remarked that his parents were "finally" impressed by their youngest child when he collaborated with Singer.

His book In the Night Kitchen, originally issued in 1970, has often been subjected to censorship for its drawings of a young boy prancing naked through the story. The book has been challenged in several American states including Illinois, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Texas.

His 1981 book Outside Over There is the story of a girl, Ida, and her sibling jealousy and responsibility. Her father is away and so Ida is left to watch her baby sister, much to her dismay. Her sister is kidnapped by goblins and Ida must go off on a magical adventure to rescue her. At first, she is not really eager to get her sister and nearly passes her sister right by when she becomes absorbed in the magic of the quest. In the end, she rescues her baby sister, destroys the goblins, and returns home committed to caring for her sister until her father returns home.

Sendak was an early member of the National Board of Advisors of the Children's Television Workshop during the development stages of the Sesame Street television series. He also adapted his book Bumble Ardy into an animated sequence for the series, with Jim Henson as the voice of Bumble Ardy. He wrote and designed three other animated stories for the series: Seven Monsters (which never aired), Up & Down, and Broom Adventures.

Sendak produced an animated television production based on his work titled Really Rosie, featuring the voice of Carole King, which was broadcast in 1975 and is available on video (usually as part of video compilations of his work). An album of the songs was also produced. He contributed the opening segment to Simple Gifts, a Christmas collection of six animated shorts shown on PBS TV in 1977 and later issued on VHS in 1993. He adapted his book Where the Wild Things Are for the stage in 1979.

Additionally, he designed sets for many operas and ballets, including the award-winning (1983) Pacific Northwest Ballet production of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, Glyndebourne Festival Opera's productions of Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges (1982), Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges and L'heure espagnole (1987) and Oliver Knussen's adaptation of Sendak's own Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life (1985), Houston Grand Opera's productions of Mozart's The Magic Flute (1981) and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel (1997), Los Angeles County Music Center's 1990 production of Mozart's Idomeneo, and the New York City Opera's productions of Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen (1981), and Mozart's The Goose of Cairo (1984).

In 1993 Sendak published the picture book, We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy. Later in the 1990s, Sendak approached playwright Tony Kushner to write a new English version of the Czech composer Hans Krása's children's Holocaust opera Brundibár. Kushner wrote the text for Sendak's illustrated book of the same name, published in 2003. The book was named one of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Illustrated Books of 2003.

In 2003, Chicago Opera Theatre produced Sendak and Kushner's adaptation of Brundibár. In 2005, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, in collaboration with Yale Repertory Theatre and Broadway's New Victory Theater, produced a substantially reworked version of the Sendak-Kushner adaptation.

In 2004 Sendak worked with the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra in Boston on their project Pincus and the Pig: A Klezmer Tale. This Klezmer version of Sergei Prokofiev's famous musical story for children, Peter and the Wolf featured Maurice Sendak as the narrator. He also illustrated the cover art.

Sendak also created the children's television program Seven Little Monsters.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery and Wikipedia
Maurice Sendak art
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Paolo Serpieri biography

Paolo Serpieri biography

Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri (born February 29, 1944; Italy)
Paolo Serpieri is an Italian comic book writer and illustrator, noted for his works of highly detailed renderings of the human form, particularly erotic images of women. He is best known for his work on the Druuna erotic science fiction series.

Born in Venice, Serpieri moved to Rome in his youth to study painting and architecture at the Fine Art Academy in Rome under Renato Guttuso, and began his career as a painter in 1966, but in 1975 he shifted his focus to comics when he took on work from Italian comics magazine Lanciostory. A big fan of the American Old West, Serpieri co-created L'Histoire du Far-West ("The Story of the West"), a Western series about the history of the Old West, with writer Raffaele Ambrosio, which was published in the magazines Lancio Story and Skorpio. Some of the titles were L'Indiana Bianca (The White Indian) and L'Uomo di Medicina (Medicine Man).

Beginning in 1980 Serpieri worked on collections like Découvrir la Bible, as well as short stories for magazines such as L'Eternauta, Il Fumetto and Orient-Express.

In 1985, he published Morbus Gravis, the first work of the Druuna saga. The series is noteworthy for featuring realistic and explicit content including graphic violence and sex. These books have been very successful, selling more than a million copies in twelve languages. The English language translations are published by Heavy Metal.

Due to the interest in this series, Serpieri has also published numerous sketchbooks, such as Obsession, Druuna X, Druuna X 2, Croquis, Serpieri Sketchbook, Serpieri Sketchbook 2 and The Sweet Smell of Woman. Serpieri's highly detailed portrayals of well-endowed heroines have earned him the distinction of "Master of the Ass".

Serpieri is also credited with design work on the 3-D video game Druuna: Morbus Gravis, based on his heroine. From biographical notes on Wikipedia.
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Seth biography

Seth biography

Gregory Gallant (born 16 September 1962; Clinton, Ontario, Canada)
Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant, a Canadian cartoonist and writer best known for his series Palookaville and his mock-autobiographical graphic novel It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken.

His drawing style is noted for being strongly influenced by the classic cartoonists of The New Yorker. His work is highly nostalgic, especially for the early-to-mid-20th Century period, and of Southern Ontario. His work also shows a great depth and breadth of knowledge of the history of comics and cartooning.

He is the subject of the 2014 documentary film Seth's Dominion, which received the grand prize for best animated feature at the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival.

Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. He currently lives in Guelph, Ontario, with his wife Tania and two cats.

Seth's first published comics work was providing the artwork to the Vortex Comics series Mister X, shortly after Los Bros Hernandez left. He left after issue #13, and went into illustration for a few years. In 1990, he began his own series, Palooka-ville, which was one of the first series to be published by Montréal, Canada-based Drawn and Quarterly. It became part of a miniature boom in non-genre alternative comics from Canada in the 1990s. Seth, Chester Brown, and Joe Matt not only also began their own semi-autobiographical series at the same time, but were friends and sometimes depicted each other in their stories. Palooka-Ville began as a low-key chronicle of the artist's daily life but moved on to longer and more ambitious stories, including what was later collected as the graphic novel It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken.

He is also a magazine illustrator and book designer, perhaps best known for his work designing the complete collection of Charles M. Schulz's classic comic strip Peanuts. The books, released by Fantagraphics Books in 25 separate volumes (so far) combine Seth's signature aesthetic with Schulz's minimalistic comic creation. Similarly, he is designing the Collected Doug Wright, and the John Stanley Library.

He provided the artwork of Aimee Mann's 2001 album Lost in Space.

Clyde Fans, the story of two brothers whose trade in electric fans suffers and eventually goes out of business from the failure to adapt to the rise of air conditioning, was serialized in Palooka-ville. Seth's short graphic novel Wimbledon Green, about an eccentric comic-book collector, was published in November 2005.

In April 2006, Penguin Classics released the revised Portable Dorothy Parker, with a jacket and French flaps designed and illustrated by Seth. He said, "It’s fun when you care about the project, definitely. In fact, I’ve been a commercial illustrator for years, besides being a cartoonist, and that's not fun. That's like the kind of thing, I find, you're just selling style in a way."

From September 2006 to March 25, 2007, Seth serialized a graphic novel titled George Sprott (1894–1975), for the Funny Pages section of the New York Times Magazine. Selections from George Sprott were featured in Best American Comics 2009. In the liner notes of that publication, Seth announced he was expanding Sprott into a book, filling in gaps that were cut to meet the restraints given by NYTM. The book was published by Drawn & Quarterly in May 2009.

Seth's affection for early- and mid-20th century popular culture and his relative disdain for pop culture since then is a recurrent theme in his work, both in terms of the characters (who are often nostalgic for the period) and his artistic style. Although, as a teenager, he was a vocal fan of mainstream superhero comics; he even had a couple of fan letters published.

Seth's artwork has landed on the cover of The New Yorker three times, which he said was a professional milestone he was happy to achieve.

Seth worked with children's novelist Lemony Snicket in his ongoing series The Wrong Questions, starting with Book One: Who Could That Be At This Hour? released October 23, 2012.
Source: Wikipedia
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John Severin biography

John Severin biography

John Powers Severin (26 December 1921 – 12 February 2012; New Jersey, USA)
John Severin was an American comic book artist noted for his distinctive work with EC Comics, primarily on the war comics Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat; for Marvel Comics, especially its war and Western comics; and for his 45-year stint with the satirical magazine Cracked. He was one of the founding cartoonists of Mad in 1952.

Severin was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2003.

John Severin was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was a teenager in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York City, when he began drawing professionally. While attending high school, he contributed cartoons to The Hobo News, receiving payment of one dollar per cartoon.

Severin recalled in 1999: " I was sometimes selling 19 or 20 of them a week. Not every week, naturally. But I didn't have to get a regular job to carry me through high school. It was almost every week—not every week—but almost every week. I didn't have to get a job. I hated to work, I'll tell you. I didn't have to get a job then, because I was in high school. "

He attended the High School of Music & Art in New York City, together with future EC Comics and Mad artists Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Al Jaffee and Al Feldstein. After graduating from the High School of Music & Art in 1940, he worked as an apprentice machinist and then enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II.

In a 1980 interview, Severin recalled his start as a professional artist:

I had decided to exhibit some paintings of mine in a High School of Music and Art exhibition for the alumni. Charlie Stern was in charge of it, so I went to see him at his studio. He was the "Charles" of the Charles William Harvey Studio, the other two being William Elder and Harvey Kurtzman. They asked me if I'd like to rent space with them there. I did, and started working with them. When Charlie left... I became the third man, but they didn't want to change it to John William Harvey Studio, so they left the name... Harvey was doing comics, Willie and Charlie were doing advertising stuff, and I just joined in... I did design work, logos for toy boxes, logos for candy boxes, cards to be included in the candy boxes.

Inspired by the quick money Kurtzman would make in-between advertising assignments with one-page "Hey Look!" gags for editor Stan Lee at Timely Comics, Severin worked up comics samples inked by Elder. In late 1947, he recalled, the writer-artist-editor team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at Crestwood Publications "gave us our first job."

Since it was not standard practice to credit comics creators during this era, a comprehensive list of his early work is difficult to ascertain. Author and historian Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr., based on Severin's description of "a crime story about a boy and a girl who killed somebody... I think it was their stepfather. They lived on a farm, or out in the suburbs," believes that first Severin/Elder story was the eight-page "The Clue of the Horoscope" in Headline Comics #32 (cover-dated Nov. 1948), from the Crestwood-affiliated Prize Comics. The standard reference Grand Comics Database has no credits for that story, and lists Severin's first confirmed work in comics as two stories published the same month: the ten-page Boy Commandos adventure "The Triumph of William Tell" in DC Comics' Boy Commandos #30; and the eight-page Western story "Grinning Hole in the Wall" in Prize Comics' Prize Comics Western vol. 7, #5 (each Dec. 1948), both of which he penciled and the latter of which he also inked.

Through 1955, Severin drew a large number of stories for the latter title and other Western series from Prize, and as penciler, he co-created with an unknown writer the long-running Native American feature "American Eagle" in Prize Comics Western vol. 9, #6 (Jan. 1951), inked by his high-school classmate turned fellow pro Will Elder.

Around this time, Severin did his first confirmed work for two publishers with whom he would long be associated, Marvel Comics and EC Comics. For the future Marvel Comics, he penciled the seven-page romance comic story "My Heart Had No Faith" in Timely Comics' Actual Romances #1 (Oct. 1949).

For EC Comics, he broke in with the seven-page "War Story" in Two-Fisted Tales #19 (Feb. 1951), continuing to work in tandem with his friend Elder as his inker, notably on science fiction and war stories. Severin drew stories for both Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat. When Kurtzman dropped the war comics to devote more time to Mad, Severin became sole artist on Two-Fisted Tales for four issues and scripted some stories. He also illustrated stories written by his friend Colin Dawkins and future Mad art director John Putnam. Severin and Dawkins were the uncredited co-editors of Two-Fisted Tales #36–39.

Severin and Elder eventually split as a team at EC. They both were in the group of the five original artists who launched editor Harvey Kurtzman's landmark satiric comic book Mad, along with Kurtzman, Wally Wood and Jack Davis. Severin appeared in nine of Mad's first ten issues, drawing ten pieces between 1952 and 1954.

According to accounts by both Severin and Kurtzman, the two had a falling out over art criticisms Kurtzman made during this period. It was Kurtzman who suggested that Severin ink with a pen as opposed to brush inking. Though Severin eventually took this advice in his later work, he was annoyed at Kurtzman at the time, for this and other remarks, and refused further work with him. Kurtzman insisted on doing the layouts for all the artists, which some resented, including Severin.

His ability to draw people of different nationalities convincingly was highly admired by his peers, as was his eye for authentic details. Upon Severin's death, writer Mark Evanier remembered, "Jack Kirby used to say that when he had to research some historical costume or weapon for a story, it was just as good to use a John Severin drawing as it was to find a photo of the real thing. They don't make 'em like that anymore."

Following the cancellation of EC's comic book line in the wake of the Comics Code in the mid-1950s, Severin began working for Atlas Comics, the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics. Sergeant Barney Barker, drawn by Severin, was Atlas' answer to Sgt. Bilko.

Artist and colorist Stan Goldberg, a company colleague recalled in 2005: "I was in the [company's artist room known as the] Bullpen with a lot of well-known artists who worked up there at that time. We had our Bullpen up there until about 1958 or 1959. [sic; the Bullpen staff was let go in 1957] The guys... who actually worked nine-to-five and put in a regular day, and not the freelance guys who'd come in a drop off their work... were almost a hall-of-fame group of people. There was John Severin. Bill Everett. Carl Burgos. There was the all-time great Joe Maneely... We all worked together, all the colorists and correction guys, the letterers and artists... We had a great time."

After Atlas transitioned to become Marvel Comics in the 1960s, Severin did extensive work as penciler, inker or both on such series as The Incredible Hulk, Conan the Barbarian, and Captain Savage. Herb Trimpe, the primary Hulk penciler during this period comics fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books, said in 2009, "I was kind of thrilled when John Severin inked me, because I liked his work for EC comics, and he was one of my idols." As inker, Severin teamed with penciler Dick Ayers on an acclaimed run of the World War II series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, beginning with #44 (July 1967). In the 1970s, he collaborated with his sister, artist Marie Severin, on Marvel's sword and sorcery series, King Kull.

During this time he was by far the most prolific contributor to the satiric Cracked magazine, drawing television and movie parodies along with other features, including most of the magazine's covers.

For Warren Publishing in the 1970s, he drew for the black-and-white comics magazines Blazing Combat and Creepy. Severin also contributed to Topps' line of bubble gum trading cards. He was one of the artists on Joe Kubert's self-published Sojourn series in 1977. His 1980s work for Marvel included The 'Nam, What The--?!, and Semper Fi.

Circa 2000, writer Jeff Mariotte recalled in 2002, Severin phoned Scott Dunbier, a group editor at DC Comics' WildStorm imprint, "and said he was looking to do comics again" after working primarily for Cracked at the time. "I happened to pass by Scott's office as he hung up the phone, and he sounded kind of awestruck as he told me that John Severin wanted to do something with us. I said something like, 'Gee, a Desperadoes story by Severin would be great,'" referring to Mariotte's Western miniseries for DC. "Scott agreed. We needed to hurry, before he was snapped up by someone else, so I went home and worked up a proposal overnight. We had sent him, right after that first call, copies of the original Desperadoes books. That was followed up by the proposal, the next day. He liked what he saw and wanted to play along." This led to Severin drawing the sequel miniseries Desperadoes: Quiet of The Grave.

He went on to illustrate the controversial 2003 Marvel limited series The Rawhide Kid, a lighthearted parallel universe Western that reimagined the outlaw hero as a kitschy though still formidably gunslinging gay man. Severin, who had drawn the character for Atlas in the 1950s, refuted rumors that he had not known of the subject matter, saying at the time of the premiere issue's release, "The Rawhide Kid is rather effeminate in this story. It may be quite a blow to some of the old fans of Rawhide Kid. But it's a lot of fun, and he's still a tough hombre." Also in the 2000s, Severin contributed to Marvel's The Punisher; DC Comics' Suicide Squad, American Century, Caper, and Bat Lash; and Dark Horse Comics' Conan, B.P.R.D. and Witchfinder.

Severin's family members working in the publishing and entertainment fields include his sister Marie Severin, a comic book artist, who was the colorist for EC's comics; his son John Severin, Jr., the head of Bubblehead Publishing; his daughter, Ruth Larenas, a producer for that company; and his grandson, John Severin III, a music producer and recording engineer.

Severin died at his home in Denver, Colorado, on February 12, 2012 at the age of 90. His wife of 60 years, Michelina, survived him, as did his comics-artist sister Marie Severin and six children.
Source: Wikipedia
John Severin art
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Charles Sheldon biography

Charles Sheldon biography

Charles Sheldon (1889 - 1961)
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Gilbert Shelton biography

Gilbert Shelton biography

Gilbert Shelton (born 31 May 1940; Houston, Texas)
Gilbert Shelton is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the iconic underground characters The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, and Wonder Wart-Hog.

Shelton was born in Houston, Texas. He graduated from Lamar High School in Houston. He attended Washington and Lee University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his bachelor's degree in the social sciences in 1961. His early cartoons were published in the University of Texas' humor magazine The Texas Ranger.

Directly after graduation, Shelton moved to New York City and got a job editing automotive magazines, where he would sneak his drawings into print. Early work of his was published in Warren Publishing's Help! The idea for the character of Wonder Wart-Hog, a porcine parody of Superman, came to him in 1961. The following year, Shelton moved back to Texas to enroll in graduate school and get a student deferment from the draft. The first two Wonder Wart-Hog stories appeared in Bacchanal, a short-lived college humor magazine, in the spring of 1962. That same year, he published (in zine form) Frank Stack's The Adventures of Jesus, one of the first underground comix; Stack wrote and drew the comic strip under the name Foolbert Sturgeon.

Shelton then became editor of The Texas Ranger and published more Wonder Wart-Hog stories.

After switching from graduate school to art school (where he befriended singer Janis Joplin) for two years, he was finally drafted, but Army doctors declared him medically unfit after he admitted to taking psychedelic drugs. After this, in 1964 and 1965, he spent some time in Cleveland, where his girlfriend Pat Brown (another UT alum) was going to the Cleveland Institute of Art. He applied for a job at the Cleveland-based American Greeting Card Company (where a fellow underground comic artist Robert Crumb had worked) but was turned down.

The period of 1965–1968 was an itinerant one for Shelton: he moved to New York to work for the underground East Village Other, and to Los Angeles to work for the Los Angeles Free Press. Around this time Shelton became art director for the Vulcan Gas Company, a rock music venue in Austin, Texas, where he worked with Jim Franklin. He created a number of posters in the style of contemporary California poster artists such as Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin. After a year of this, he moved to San Francisco in 1968, hopeful that being closer to the action would enable him to do more poster work; as it turned out, he finally got his break in the world of underground comix.

That same year, Millar Publishing Company, who had been publishing regular Wonder Wart-Hog stories since 1966, published two issues of Wonder Wart-Hog. 140,000 copies of each were printed, but distributors did not pick up the magazine, and only 40,000 of each were sold.

In 1968 Shelton self-publlished Feds 'n' Heads, a collection of strips first published in the Austin underground paper The Rag (Feds 'n' Head was later re-issued multiple times by the Print Mint), Feds 'n' Heads featured Wonder Wart-Hog and what became his most famous strip, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Shelton created a spin-off strip, Fat Freddy's Cat in 1969, when he also co-founded Rip Off Press with three fellow "expatriate" Texans: Fred Todd, Dave Moriaty, and cartoonist Jack Jackson.

Shelton was also a regular contributor to Zap Comix and other underground titles, including Bijou Funnies, Yellow Dog, Arcade, The Rip Off Review of Western Culture, and Anarchy Comics

He did the cover art for the 1973 album Doug Sahm and Band, as well as The Grateful Dead's 1978 album, Shakedown Street.

He also illustrated the cover of the early classic computer magazine compilation The Best of Creative Computing Volume 2 in 1977.

His most recent work, in collaboration with French cartoonist Pic, is Not Quite Dead, which appeared in Rip Off Comix #25 (Rip Off Press, Winter 1989) and in six Not Quite Dead comic books. A new Wonder Wart-Hog story appeared in Zap Comix #15 (Last Gasp, 2005), as well as The Complete Zap boxed set (Fantagraphics, 2014) which contained Zap #16; and a new Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers story appeared in Zap #16 as well. The Freak Brothers' antics are reportedly being turned into a Broadway musical, after a stop motion animated film, titled Grass Roots, fell through.

Fifty Freakin' Years with the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers was published in 2017, containing new strips by Shelton, as well as his written introduction.

In 1966 Shelton formed the Gilbert Shelton Ensemble and released a 45 record on ESP Records, "If I Was A Hells Angel" b/w "Southern Stock Car Man."

Since moving to France, Shelton has become part of a rhythm and blues group, the Blum Brothers, featuring Shelton on vocals and piano. The band features fellow cartoonist musician Bruno Blum. The Blum Brothers played regularly at the Jockomo, a New Orleans-style bar in the 11th arrondissement of Paris.

Shelton and his wife, literary agent Lora Fountain, left San Francisco in 1979. They were residents of Barcelona, Spain, in 1980–1981 and moved to France in 1984.
Source: Wikipedia
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Claude Shepperson biography

Claude Shepperson biography

Claude Allin Shepperson (1867 - 1921; Beckenham, Kent, UK)
Claude A. Shepperson was a British artist, born in 1867 and departed this life in 1921, just a few years after a tour of duty as a war artist (nearing the age of 50) in World War I.

As a man and an artist, Claude Shepperson was praised for his charm and refinement, and he remains best known for the elongated elegance of his female type, the ‘Shepperson Girl’. Nevertheless, his artistic accomplishments were wide-ranging, and included painting, printmaking and illustration.

Claude Shepperson was born in Beckenham, Kent, on 25 October 1867. Educated privately, he spent the years 1880-82 at Weymouth College. Though first studying law, he turned to art, and spent two years in Paris. On his return to London, he took classes at Heatherley’s (1891), and received help from Sir Frank Short. He soon began to exhibit landscapes and social scenes in a variety of media at leading societies in London and the provinces. Later, he concentrated on etching and lithography and, through his work as a printmaker, he made the acquaintance of the artists, George Soper and his daughter, Eileen.

In the 1890s, Shepperson illustrated books and periodicals in an elegant manner often reminiscent of the American, Edwin Austin Abbey. However, his contributions to Gresham’s Imperial Edition of Dickens, and especially his illustrations to A Christmas Carol and The Haunted Man, in the early twentieth century, show his ability to create darker atmospherics.

Most of his humorous work appeared in Punch, between 1905-20, with an increasing emphasis on fashionable society. His fellow literary contributor to Punch, E V Lucas, considered him to be the finest illustrator of his day. A member of the London Sketch Club, he acted as a tutor for Percy Bradshaw’s Press Art School and was one of the 20 select contributors to Bradshaw's seminal "The Art of The Illustrator" published in 1918.

Living for many years at 18 Kensington Court Place, Shepperson died at his studio in Mulberry Walk, Chelsea, on 30 December 1921. He was the subject of a memorial show at the Leicester Galleries in the following year.

His work is represented in the collections of the British Museum, Tate and the V&A.
Source: Chris Beetles

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Claude Shepperson art
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Masamune Shirow biography

Masamune Shirow biography

Masamune Shirow (Masanori Ota) (23 November 1961; Kobe, Japan)
Masamune Shirow is the pen name of Masanori Ota, based on a famous swordsmith, Masamune. He is best known for the manga Ghost in the Shell, which has since been turned into two theatrical anime movies, two anime TV series, an anime TV movie, and several video games. Shirow is also known for creating erotic art.

Born in the Hyôgo Prefecture capital city of Kobe, he studied oil painting at Osaka University of Arts. While in college, he developed an interest in manga, which led him to create his own complete work, Black Magic, which was published in the manga fanzine Atlas. His work caught the eye of Seishinsha President Harumichi Aoki, who offered to publish him.

The result was Appleseed, a full volume of densely plotted drama taking place in an ambiguous future. The story was a sensation, and won the 1986 Seiun Award for Best Manga. After a professional reprint of Black Magic and a second volume of Appleseed, he released Dominion in 1986. Two more volumes of Appleseed followed before he began work on Ghost in the Shell.

In 2007, he collaborated again with Production I.G to co-create the original concept for the anime television series Shinreigari/Ghost Hound, Production I.G's 20th year anniversary project.

A further original collaboration with Production I.G began airing in April, 2008, titled Real Drive.

Shirow is a world-famous illustrator. Indeed, for a time, he was more popular outside of Japan than inside. He was chosen as an early author to bring to the West because of many stylistic similarities between his work and traditional American comics.

Ghost in the Shell is a famous anime in the West based on his work, hence his popularity. Many people mistake him for the creator of the original anime movie, but he had no major role in its production. Mamoru Oshii directed both movies, which were adaptations of several chapters of the original manga put to film. However, he did play a role in the development of the anime TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
Source: Wikipedia
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Jean Sidobre biography

Jean Sidobre biography

Georges Lévis "Jean Sidobre" (7 August 1924 - 31 March 1988; Toulouse, France)
Georges Lévis, also known as Jean Sidobre, was a designer and writer of adult French comics and a book illustrator. His early works are signed as Sylvia Sinclair. At first he illustrated many children's books under his birth name before devoting himself to creating erotic work.

Georges Lévis (Jean Sidobre) was born in Toulouse. He studied Fine Arts and began a career as an illustrator at the end of the Second World War under the pseudonym Sinclair. He began with drawings in magazines and newspapers then turned to the illustration of children's books under the name Jean Sidobre.

He took the pseudonym G. Lévis (Drawings: "G. Levis" texts: "From my Age" ) in 1977 to create erotic comics, while continuing his work as an illustrator for Youth (until 1986). He died on 31 March 1988 in Mesnil-Saint-Denis.

Under the name of Jean Sidobre, he was also the illustrator of the French edition of the Famous Five and other children books.
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Bill Sienkiewicz biography

Bill Sienkiewicz biography

Boleslav Felix Robert "Bill" Sienkiewicz (born 3 May 1958; Pennsylvania, USA)
Bill Sienkiewicz (pronounced sin-KEV-itch) is an Eisner Award-winning American artist and writer best known for his comic book work, primarily for Marvel Comics' The New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin. Sienkiewicz often utilizes oil painting, collage, mimeograph and other forms generally uncommon in comic books.

Sienkiewicz was born May 3, 1958, in Blakely, Pennsylvania. When he was five years old, he moved with his family to Hainesville, New Jersey, where he attended elementary and secondary school.

Sienkiewicz began drawing "when (he) was about four or five", and continued doing and learning about art throughout his childhood. His early comic-book influences include artist Curt Swan Superman comics, and artist Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four.

Sienkiewicz attended the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts in Newark, New Jersey.

After art school, he showed a portfolio of his work to DC Comics' art director Vince Colletta, which led to his breaking into the field at age 19. The artist recalled in 1985, "They didn't have any work for me, but that didn't bother me. I just figured that if comics didn't work out I'd have done advertising or illustration. Vinnie called [renowned comics and advertising artist] Neal Adams, who put me in touch with [Marvel Comics editor-in-chief] Jim Shooter. Soon after that I was drawing Moon Knight, in The Hulk [black-and-white comics] magazine". His art style was heavily influenced by Neal Adams.

Sienkiewicz continued as artist of the Moon Knight color comics series, starting with the first issue (November 1980). Four years later, after a stint as artist on the Fantastic Four, he became the artist on Marvel's X-Men spin-off New Mutants, beginning with issue No. 18 (August 1984), producing cover paintings and character designs. From this period on, Sienkiewicz's art evolved into a much more expressionistic style, and he began experimenting with paint, collage, and mixed media. He illustrated New Mutants from 1984–1985.

Sienkiewicz produced covers for a range of Marvel titles, including Rom, Dazzler, The Mighty Thor, Return of the Jedi and The Transformers, and drew the comic adaptation of Dune.

Sienkiewicz's own first writing credit was for the painted story "Slow Dancer" in Epic Illustrated in 1986. Sienkiewicz both wrote and illustrated the 1988 miniseries Stray Toasters, an idiosyncratic work published by Epic Comics about a criminal psychologist investigating a series of murders.

His first major interior work for DC Comics was contributing to Batman #400 (October 1986).

He illustrated the 1986–87 eight-issue limited series Elektra: Assassin written by Frank Miller. Miller and Sienkiewicz crafted the Daredevil: Love and War graphic novel as well. After which, he collaborated with writer Andrew Helfer on the first six issues of DC Comics' The Shadow series. In 1988, he contributed to the Brought to Light graphic novel with writer Alan Moore. In 1990, Sienkiewicz and Moore published the first two issues of the uncompleted series Big Numbers. Sienkiewicz painted the Classics Illustrated adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick.

Sienkiewicz was the subject of a 2008 full-length documentary/interview produced by Woodcrest Productions, The Creator Chronicles: Bill Sienkiewicz.

In 2007, Sienkiewicz penciled 30 Days of Night: Beyond Barrow. In 2008, Sienkiewicz illustrated a story for The Nightmare Factory - Volume 2 graphic novel. That same year, he inked the Reign in Hell limited series for DC. In 2010-2012, he inked several issues of Neal Adams' Batman: Odyssey project for DC Comics.

In addition to his work in comics, Sienkiewicz has also worked in numerous other media, especially in the music and trading card industries. His artwork has been published in magazines including Entertainment Weekly and Spin Magazine. In 1998, he collaborated with writer Martin I. Green to produce the children's book Santa, My Life & Times.

In 1989, Sienkiewicz painted the art for the "Friendly Dictators" card set published by Eclipse Comics which portrayed various foreign leaders such as Mobutu Sese Seko, Ferdinand Marcos, and Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Sienkiewicz has illustrated cards for the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game. In 2004, Sienkiewicz contributed to card art for VS System, a collectible card game published by Upper Deck Entertainment.

In 1995, Sienkiewicz illustrated the Martin I. Green biography of Jimi Hendrix, Voodoo Child: The Illustrated Legend of Jimi Hendrix. The following year he provided the artwork for the Bruce Cockburn album The Charity of Night, and went on to provide album covers for RZA's Bobby Digital in Stereo (1998) and EPMD's Business as Usual (1990).

Sienkiewicz has also worked on character design for animation. His work on the television series Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? received two Emmy Award nominations in 1995 and 1996.

In 2006, Sienkiewicz designed the layout and art for The Venture Bros. season one DVD set. He also designed the cover art for the season three DVD and Blu-ray set. Still in 2006, Sienkiewicz teamed with Neal Adams to create art for former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters. Their artwork was utilized as video projections for live performances of Waters' song "Leaving Beirut".
Source: Wikipedia
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Ellis Silas biography

Ellis Silas biography

Ellis Luciano Silas (13 July 1885 - 2 May 1972; London, Middlesex, England)
Ellis Silas, artist, was born in London, son of Louis Ferdinand Silas, artist and designer, and his wife Letizia Sara, née Paggi, an opera singer. He was educated by private tutors, then worked in his father's studio and studied under the well-known artist Walter Sickert. His main interest became marine art and he painted in English coastal towns before sailing for Australia in 1907. He spent time painting in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide before settling in Perth.

When war was declared in 1914 Silas, who had served for three years in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, enlisted on 16 October through a strong sense of patriotism, but with grave doubts about his ability to be a successful soldier. He joined the 16th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, as a private and was made a signaller, although his preferred duty was as a medical orderly. After sailing for Egypt in December, the battalion trained at Heliopolis. Silas found army life extremely distasteful but conscientiously practised signalling and continued sketching and painting whenever he was able. On the evening of 25 April 1915 his unit landed at Gallipoli. Silas served with distinction at Pope's Hill, Quinn's Post and Bloody Angle and recorded his experiences in a detailed diary and sketchbook. Constant duty at the front took its toll and on 28 May he was evacuated from Gallipoli suffering from neurasthenia; after signalling almost continuously for several days he had been found unconscious and delirious and later developed enteric fever. He convalesced in Egypt and England before being discharged from the A.I.F., medically unfit, on 17 August 1916. His book, Crusading at Anzac, based on his diary and sketchbook, was published in 1916.

Silas remained in London while awaiting return passage to Australia, executing works depicting his war experiences, three of which were purchased for the Australian War Memorial collection. These were 'The Roll Call', 'The Attack of the 4th Brigade, A.I.F., at Bloody Angle', and 'Digging in at Quinn's Post or The End of a Great Day'. He was one of only three artists to record Australian participation at Gallipoli from first-hand experience and the only one of these to paint battle scenes. He returned to Australia in 1921 and lived in Sydney, working as a commercial artist and contributing articles and cartoons to the Bulletin. In 1922 he travelled to the Trobriand Islands to paint; here he lived in a native village and made a collection of local artefacts, now in the Museum of Mankind, London. His book, A Primitive Arcadia, based on these years, was published in 1926.

In 1925 Silas returned to England and continued to work as a marine artist. A large canvas depicting the First Dutch War, 'The Price of Glory', which he had begun in Perth before enlisting, caused a minor sensation at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1934. This work is now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England. He also illustrated books, designed posters and was commissioned by shipping companies to execute works to hang in their ocean liners.

On 23 August 1927 Silas married Ethel Florence Detheridge, known as Daphne, at St Clement Danes Church, London; they had no children. Survived by his wife, he died in London on 2 May 1972.
Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography
Ellis Silas art
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Dave Sim biography

Dave Sim biography

Dave Sim (born 17 May 1956; Hamilton, Ontario)
Dave Sim created 'Cerebus the Aardvark', a rare example of a parody that outlasted the thing originally parodied (namely, 'Conan the Barbarian'). 'Cerebus the Aardvark', is the longest self-published comic series ever done. Well-drawn and humorously plotted, Cerebus has earned Sim a solid cult status since he started the series in 1977. The series has been regularly reprinted in fat volumes of more than 500 pages, published by Aardvark-Vanaheim, Sim's company that was run by his wife Deni Loubert. Sim completed his 'Cerebus' saga in 2004.

Sim was born in Hamilton, Ontario, but raised in Kitchener since he was two. A comics fan since early childhood, he published a fanzine called Comic Art News and Reviews, in which he interviewed famous artists. Prior to 'Cerebus', he did a newspaper strip called 'The Beavers' in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, as well as some contributions to fanzines. The meter or so 'Cerebus' collections that now form Sim's oeuvre have made Sim - who typically refuses to let any publishing house earn his money - the king of self-published comics. For those ambitious enough to follow in his footsteps, Sim wrote the classic 'Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing'.

In 2006, Sim began publishing an online comic book biography of Canadian actress Siu Ta, called 'Siu Ta, So Far'. In 2008, he published 'Judenhass', his personal reflection on the Holocaust. Another new project by Sim in 2008 was 'Glamourpuss', a comic book related to women's fashion.
Source: Lambiek

http://www.tcj.com/?s=dave+sim

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Joe Simon biography

Joe Simon biography

Joseph Henry Simon (11 October 1915 - 14 December 2011; Rochester, New York, USA)
Joe Simon was one of the most important artists of the Golden Age of American Comic Books. He was born Joseph Henry Simon into a Jewish family of partially British descent in Rochester, New York. Young Hymie Simon (as he was called by then) had his first jobs as art director of the Benjamin Franklin High School college newspaper and as an assistant with the Rochester Journal-American.

By 1934, Joe Simon worked as a sports illustrator and cartoonist with the Syracuse Journal in Syracuse, New York. Simon moved to New York City at the age of 23, where he did freelance work for Paramount Pictures and Macfadden Publications. He did his first comic book art through comics packager Funnies Inc., creating characters like 'Fiery Mask' for Timely's Daring Mystery Comics and 'Blue Bolt' for Novelty Press in 1940.

His star started to rise when he teamed up with Jack Kirby, with whom he created many classic characters during a period of about 15 years. It is said that they brought anatomy back into comic books, drawing explosive panels with magically stretched muscles and dynamic action. Their best known creation is 'Captain America', Timely's real American hero who was fighting nazi's even before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Simon was one of the earliest editors with Timely, but eventually left the company. Simon and Kirby produced the first issue of 'Captain Marvel Adventures' for Fawcett in 1941 before joining National Periodicals (the future DC Comics). They revamped 'The Sandman' and created new characters like 'Manhunter'. They also created features like 'Boy Commandos' in the eponymous title and 'Newsboy Legion' in Star-Spangled Comics.

Joe Simon was with the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II and while in service, he created a true-life Coast Guard comic, that was published by DC and syndicated to Sunday papers under the title 'True Comics'. After the War, Simon and Kirby launched their own Prize Comics imprint with Crestwood Publications. They set up new titles like 'Boys' Ranch', and did early attempts at horror ('Black Magic') and romance comics ('Young Romance').

Between 1953 and 1955 the duo had their own Mainline studios, through which they published titles like 'Police Trap', 'Bullseye: Western Scout', 'Fox Hole' and 'Young Love'. By the mid 1950s, Simon and Kirby split up as good friends. Joe Simon started to focus on advertising art, scriptwriting and editorial work. He created new superheros like 'The Shield' and 'The Fly' for Archie Comics in the late 1950s.

Joe Simon was mainly busy with producing promotional comics for the advertising agency Burstein and Newman during the 1960s. He also founded the satirical magazine Sick in 1960. Simon was also involved in the launch of Harvey Comics' original superhero line, and even worked with Jack Kirby again. In the 2000s, Simon turned to painting and marketing reproductions of his early comic book covers. After a long and illustrious career, Joe Simon passed away after a brief illness on 14 December 2011.
Source: Lambiek
Joe Simon art
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R W Smethurst biography

R W Smethurst biography

R W Smethurst
British artist and illustrator renowned for his pulp paperback and comic book cover illustrations in the 1950s and 1960s.
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Ron Smith biography

Ron Smith biography

Ron Smith (born 1924; UK)
Ron Smith is a notable artist of the futuristic 'Judge Dredd' comic series. He started his career in 1949 with 'Deed A Day Danny', originally created by A.J. Kelly. His 'Dredd' comics stand out for the sharp detailed drawings. Through his artwork and the writing of John Wagner and Alan Grant, many 'Dredd' classics saw the light of day, such as 'Unamerican Graffiti'.

Along with John Wagner, Smith produced the original 'Judge Dredd' daily for The Star newspaper. Smith's other credits include Rogue 'Trooper', 'Nick Jolly', 'Red Star Robinson' and 'King Cobra'.
Source: Lambiek
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Barry Windsor Smith biography

Barry Windsor Smith biography

Barry Windsor Smith
One of the superstars of the comics industry, he was born in London and travelled to America in 1968 to get work with Marvel Comics. Much influenced by Jack Kirby, his early work was on X-Men 53 and two Daredevil issues. Starting work on a brand new title Conan the Barbarian, he developed his own unique style. Conan became highly acclaimed critically and an award-winning best seller but, disillusioned with the editorial restrictions imposed by Marvel at the time, he left after issue 24.
Founding his own publishing company Gorblimey Press, he published a series of his own limited edition prints, lithographs and portfolios. During this period away from comics, Smith joined with Mike Kaluta, Jeff Jones and Bernie Wrightson in a loose association producing lithographs and prints from The Studio, culminating in the book of the same name.

Returning to the comics field in 1985 Smith drew the Machine Man mini series, X-Men and the Weapon X story. Leaving Marvel again, he helped to put Valiant on the map with the origin to Solar Man of the Atom and Archer & Armstrong.In 1993 he left Valiant due to contractual differences and moved to Malibu to create Rune. Since the demise of Valiant he continues to work in comics and has produced two volumes of his autobiography (Opus 1 and Opus 2, both available here) featuring many of his superb paintings. Nearly all of his prints and portfolios are now long out of print and much sought after by collectors.
Barry Windsor Smith art

See also our selection of BARRY WINDSOR SMITH ART BOOKS.
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Harry Smith biography

Harry Smith biography

Henry Lawson Smith (1917 - 1975)
Harry Smith was the creator of the very popular daily newspaper strip 'Billy the Bee' that first appeared in the Evening Gazette on Teesside between 1954 and 1964 and was syndicated by the London Evening Standard.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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John S Smith biography

John S Smith biography

John Stephen Smith (1921 - 2010)
John started drawing from an early age and went to art school just prior to World War II when he was called up and joined the Royal Navy. He served on the Cruiser HMS Niagara on the Malta and Russian convoys.

After the war he continued his art studies and career. His work has been commissioned by most shipping companies and railway companies and his art has been used by many leading publishers in the UK and USA.
John S Smith art
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Reg Smythe biography

Reg Smythe biography

Reg Smythe (1917 - 1998)
Born in Hartlepool, the son of a boat builder. He left school at 14 and worked as a butcher's delivery boy, joined the Northumberland Fusiliers in 1936, submitting cartoons to Cairo magazines during the war. He worked as a post office telephone clerk before freelancing as a cartoonist for the Daily Mirror in 1954.

Influenced by his mentor Leslie Harding ("Styx") he produced a regular feature Laughter at Work before creating Andy Capp in 1957. Syndicated worldwide to 1400 newspapers in 31 countries, read by 175 million people in 13 languages, the strip based on the flat-capped Northerner has become an institution.
Reg Smythe art
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Eileen Soper biography

Eileen Soper biography

Eileen Soper (Enfield, Middlesex, 26 March 1905 - 18 March 1990; England)
Eileen Alice Soper was an etcher and illustrator of children's and wildlife books. She produced a series of etchings, mainly of children playing, and illustrated books for other writers, notably for Enid Blyton and Elizabeth Gould, and wrote and illustrated her own children's book.

Some of her illustrations of children and animals were used in a china series for children by Paragon China in the 1930s. Later in life she concentrated on writing and illustrating wildlife books. She was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) and was elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (RMS) in 1972.

Eileen showed early promise as an artist and two of her etchings were shown in the Royal Academy in London at the age of 15 after she showed three prints at an exhibition organised by the International Society of Printmakers in California. She continued to produce around 180 etchings mostly of children at play into the early 1930s. Queen Mary bought two of her etchings, among them 'Flying Swings' in 1924. Her work was popular and well received and shown in the UK and the USA.

Today Eileen Soper is best known for her collaboration with Enid Blyton, most notably all of the Famous Five books.

Eileen Soper also published her own children's books in the 1940s, a book of poetry and from the 1950s on worked mostly on her wildlife illustrations of British wildlife around her house in Welwyn.
Eileen Soper art
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Hajime Sorayama biography

Hajime Sorayama biography

Hajime Sorayama (born 22 February 1947; Imabari, Japan)
Hajime Sorayama is a Japanese illustrator, known for his precisely detailed, erotic hand painted portrayals of women and feminine robots.

Hajime Sorayama was born in 1947 in Imabari, Ehime prefecture, Japan. He received his basic education at Imabari Kita High School. In 1965 he was admitted to the Shikoku Gakuin University, where he began to study Greek and English literature. In 1967, after the publication of his first work, Pink Journal, he transferred to Tokyo's Chuo Art School where he began to study art.

Sorayama graduated in 1968 at the age of 21, and gained an appointment in an advertising agency. He became a freelance illustrator in 1972. In 1978 he drew his first robot. He resides in Tokyo.

Sorayama's work Sexy Robot, published by Genko-sha in 1983, made his organic robotic forms famous around the world. For the work, he used ideas from pin-up art, which in the book then appear as chrome-plated gynoids in suggestive poses. His next book, Pin-up (Graphic-sha, 1984), continue in the same line. A number of his other works similarly revolve around figures in suggestive poses, including highly realistic depictions in latex and leather. His pinups appeared monthly for in the pages of Penthouse magazine and Playboy TV made a special show on Soryama arts.

In 1985 Sorayama published the video Illustration Video, his first work apart from the books of illustrations. This includes works in the movies Brain Dead (1992), Timecop (1994) and Space Trucker (1995), design of trading cards, limited edition prints, CD Roms, art exhibitions and the initial industrial design for Sony's AIBO robotic pet, as well as the cover art for Aerosmith's 2001 album Just Push Play.

The period from 2000 to 2012 included Sorayama's organic design of Sony AIBO robotic pet dog co-winning (with Sony) Japan's Grand Prize of best design awards (the highest design award conferred by Japan); Sorayama's Sony AIBO robotic pet design was placed into the permanent collections of MOMA and the Smithsonian Institute Museum; MOMA's published book Objects of Design by Paola Antonelli included Sorayama's and Sony's AIBO along with other noteworthy designs where form and function combine in harmony. AIBO is the first ever artificially intelligent robot pet and is watershed project of Sony's Dr. Doi that features Sorayama creativity and is part of special studies at Carnegie Mellon University and other academic institutions. AIBO is the first artificial intelligent ("AI") being/pet and robot for people's companionship. The NIKE "White Dunk Project" included Sorayama arts within 25 most inspiring Japanese artists.

Sorayama released his new book Master Works in early 2010, followed by another erotica book, "Vibrant Vixens" in May 2013. He worked with movie makers in Hollywood on fantasy science fiction projects, including a movie about Penthouse. During 2012 to 2013 Sorayama worked on 3 notable new projects with American fashion designer Marc Ecko. In 2013 to 2014 a tribute art book entitled "Star Wars Art Concept" found famous moviemaker George Lucas engaging Sorayama to create a spread of Twi'lek and droid fantasy Star Wars figures at about the time Lucas' firm LucasFilm was sold to Disney.
Source: Wikipedia
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Lancelot Speed biography

Lancelot Speed biography

Lancelot Speed (13 June 1860 - 31 December 1931)
Lancelot Speed was a coastal painter and a British illustrator of books in the Victorian era, usually of a fantastical or romantic nature. He is probably most well known for his illustrations for Andrew Lang's fairy story books. Speed is credited as the designer of the 1916 silent film version of the novel She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard, which he illustrated.

Speed was born in London, the youngest son of William Speed, a Queen's Counsel of the Middle Temple. He attended Rugby School. He was admitted to and matriculated from there in Easter 1881. He was admitted to Clare College, Cambridge, on 27 January 1881, matriculated that Easter, and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1885.

Speed had no formal art training, but became an illustrator working primarily in black and white. Process engraving particularly suited his fine lines, and he was one of the earlier illustrators to benefit from the new technology.

He lived and worked at Southend-on-Sea, England in the latter part of his life.

He was also the director of several early British silent films.

The Wonderful Adventures of Pip, Squeak and Wilfred series
The Wonderful Adventures Of Pip, Squeak And Wilfred
Pip And Wilfred Detectives
Wilfred's Wonderful Adventures
Over The Edge Of The World
Popski's Early Life
The Castaways
The Six-Armed Image
Trouble In The Nursery
Ups And Downs
Wilfred's Nightmare

Lancelot Speed's cartoon work is the source of the nickname for the colourful commander of the World War II Special Forces unit "Popski's Private Army". Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Peniakoff, DSO MC, a Belgian of White Russian descent, was called "Popski" by Bill Kennedy Shaw, the Intelligence Officer of the Long Range Desert Group because his signallers had trouble with the spelling of his surname. Peniakoff earned early notoriety (and his MC) with his behind-the-lines raids to blow up German petrol dumps, transported there and back, in some exasperation, by the LRDG

In the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred adventures before the start of World War II, there were two hairy characters: one was a scheming, plotting, bomb-throwing Bolshevik, and the other was his dog. The mad Russian was called "Professor Wtzkoffski" and the dog was called "Popski". These cartoon characters in the Daily Mirror were well known to all the soldiers, and in his best-selling book about his small irregular unit, "Popski" said, "...I was delighted with my nickname...".

Speed died at Deal, Kent on 31 December 1931 and was buried at Knowlton, Kent, England.
Source: Wikipedia
Lancelot Speed art
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Geoff Squire biography

Geoff Squire biography

Geoffrey William Squire (28 May 1896 - 1989; London, UK)
The talented British artist Geoffrey Squire was born in Camberwell, South London and educated at Watford Grammar School and Regent Street Polytechnic in London.

Squire served in both Belgium and France during WWI, and worked as a commercial illustrator between the wars and was a member of the Society of Artists in Commerce.

He began working in British comics during the 1950s and 1960s. Early examples of his works have been found for the Thriller Picture Library series between 1954-58 and his works for Playhour and Jack & Jill magazine are well documented and include "Norman Gnome" (1957-60) for Playhour, and "Chalky the Blackboard Boy" (1961-65) for Jack and Jill.

He was one of the main artists on 'Wink and Blink the Playful Puppies' in 1956-58 but perennial favourites are the stories he drew featuring Norman Gnome, including 'The Story of Father Christmas', that appeared in 1957, followed by 'Norman Gnome Gets Rich' in 1959 and 'When Norman Gnome Became a King' in 1960. Squire's Norman Gnome character was humourous, irreverent and satirical, yet appealed to readers of all ages. These were fully painted, funny and filled with little details that make them worth going back to a second and third time.
Illustration Art Gallery
Geoff Squire art
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Jim Starlin biography

Jim Starlin biography

James P. "Jim" Starlin (born 9 October 1949; Detroit, Michigan, USA)
James P. "Jim" Starlin is an American comic book writer and artist. With a career dating back to the early 1970s, he is best known for "cosmic" tales and space opera; for revamping the Marvel Comics characters Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock; and for creating or co-creating the Marvel characters Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu.

After writing and drawing stories for a number of fan publications, Jim Starlin got his break into comics in 1972, working for Roy Thomas and John Romita at Marvel Comics. Brought in by fellow artist Rich Buckler, Starlin was part of the generation of artists and writers who grew up as fans of Silver Age Marvel Comics. At a Steve Ditko-focused panel at the 2008 Comic-Con International, Starlin said, "Everything I learned about storytelling was due to him or Kirby. Ditko did the best layouts."

Starlin's first job for Marvel was as a finisher on pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. He then drew three issues of Iron Man, that introduced the characters Thanos and Drax the Destroyer. He was then given the chance to draw an issue (#25) of the "cosmic" title Captain Marvel. Starlin took over as plotter the following issue, and began developing an elaborate story arc centered on the villainous Thanos, and spread across a number of Marvel titles. Starlin left Captain Marvel one issue after concluding his Thanos saga.

Concurrently in the mid-1970s, Starlin contributed a cache of stories to the independently published science-fiction anthology Star Reach. Here he developed his ideas of God, death, and infinity, free of the restrictions of mainstream comics publishers' self-censorship arm, the Comics Code Authority. Starlin also drew "The Secret of Skull River", inked by frequent collaborator Al Milgrom, for Savage Tales #5 (July 1974).

After working on Captain Marvel, Starlin and writer Steve Englehart co-created the character Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, though they only worked on the early issues of the series. Starlin then took over the title Warlock, starring a genetically engineered being created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 1960s and re-imagined by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in the 1970s as a Jesus Christ-like figure on an alternate Earth. Envisioning the character as philosophical and existentially tortured, Starlin wrote and drew a complex space opera with theological and psychological themes. Warlock confronted the militaristic Universal Church of Truth, eventually revealed to be created and led by an evil evolution of his future–past self, known as Magus. Starlin ultimately incorporated Thanos into this story. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "In a brief stint with Marvel, which included work on two characters [Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock] that had previously never quite made their mark, Starlin managed to build a considerable cult following."

In Fall 1978, Starlin, Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson, and Val Mayerik formed Upstart Associates, a shared studio space on West 29th Street in New York City. The membership of the studio changed over time.

Death and suicide are recurring themes in Starlin's work: Personifications of Death appeared in his Captain Marvel series and in a fill-in story for Ghost Rider; Warlock commits suicide by killing his future self; and suicide is a theme in a story he plotted and drew for The Rampaging Hulk magazine.

Starlin occasionally worked for Marvel's chief competitor DC Comics and drew stories for Legion of Super-Heroes and the "Batman" feature in Detective Comics in the late 1970s. He co-created the supervillain Mongul with writer Len Wein in DC Comics Presents #27 (Nov. 1980).

The new decade found Starlin creating an expansive story titled "the Metamorphosis Odyssey", which introduced the character of Vanth Dreadstar in Epic Illustrated #3. From its beginning in Epic Illustrated, the initial story was painted in monochromatic grays, eventually added to with other tones, and finally becoming full color. The storyline was further developed in The Price and Marvel Graphic Novel #3 and eventually the long-running Dreadstar comic book, published first by Epic Comics, and then by First Comics.

Starlin was given the opportunity to produce a one-shot story in which to kill off a main character. The Death of Captain Marvel became the first graphic novel published by Marvel itself.

Starlin and Bernie Wrightson produced Heroes for Hope, a 1985 one-shot designed to raise money for African famine relief and recovery. Published in the form of a comics "jam," the book featured an all-star lineup of comics creators as well as a few notable authors from outside the comic book industry, such as Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Harlan Ellison, and Edward Bryant.

In 1986, he and Wrightson produced a second benefit comic for famine relief. Heroes Against Hunger featuring Superman and Batman was published by DC and like the earlier Marvel benefit project featured many top comics creators. Starlin became the writer of Batman and one of his first storylines for the title was "Ten Nights of The Beast" in issues #417 - 420 (March - June 1988) which introduced the KGBeast. Starlin then wrote the four-issue miniseries Batman: The Cult (Aug.-Nov. 1988) drawn by Wrightson. and the storyline "Batman: A Death in the Family", in Batman #426-429 (Dec. 1988 – Jan. 1989), in which Jason Todd, the second of Batman's Robin sidekicks, was killed. The death was decided by fans, as DC Comics set up a hotline for readers to vote on as to whether or not Jason Todd should survive a potentially fatal situation.

Other projects for DC included writing The Weird drawn by Wrightson and Cosmic Odyssey drawn by Mike Mignola. Starlin wrote and drew Gilgamesh II in 1989 before returning to Marvel. For DC he also created Hardcore Station in 1998.

Back at Marvel, Starlin began scripting a revival of the Silver Surfer series. As had become his Marvel norm, he introduced his creation Thanos into the story arc, which led to The Infinity Gauntlet miniseries and its crossover storyline. Here, Starlin brought back Adam Warlock, whom he had killed years earlier in his concluding Warlock story in Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 in 1977. The Infinity Gauntlet proved successful and was followed by the sequel miniseries Infinity War and Infinity Crusade.

In 2003, Starlin wrote and drew the Marvel Comics miniseries Marvel: The End. The series starred Thanos and a multitude of Marvel characters, and subsequently, Starlin was assigned an eponymous Thanos series. Starlin then worked for independent companies, creating Cosmic Guard (later renamed Kid Cosmos) published by Devil's Due and then Dynamite Entertainment in 2006.

Starlin returned to DC and, with artist Shane Davis, wrote the miniseries Mystery in Space vol. 2, featuring Captain Comet and Starlin's earlier creation, the Weird. In 2007–2008, he worked on the DC miniseries Death of the New Gods and Rann-Thanagar Holy War, as well as a Hawkman tie-in that became the latest of many stories to have altered the character's origins over the previous two decades. He also wrote the eight-issue miniseries Strange Adventures.

In 2013, Starlin became the writer of Stormwatch, one of the series of the The New 52 line, beginning with issue #19.

Starlin co-wrote four novels with his wife Daina Graziunas (whom he married in October 1980): Among Madmen (1990, Roc Books), Lady El (1992, Roc Books), Thinning the Predators (1996, Warner Books; paperback edition entitled Predators); and Pawns (1989, serialized in comic book Dreadstar #42-54).
Source: Wikipedia
Jim Starlin art
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Joe Staton biography

Joe Staton biography

Joe Staton (born 19 January 1948; USA)
Joe Staton began his career at Charlton Comics in 1971, where his most notable work was the creation of 'E-Man' with Nicola Cuti in 1973. His art was also present in 1970s Marvel and Warren titles (he inked Sal Buscema's 'Hulk' stories), but he is best known for his work for DC Comics. He was initially hired to work on the revival of 'Justice League of America' in All Star Comics, but he also did spin-offs starring 'Power Girl' and 'The Huntress'.

He subsequently had runs on 'Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes' and 'Green Lantern', the latter with writer Marv Wolfman. He had a break from DC in the 1980s, when he served as art editor for First Comics for a period of three years. He returned to DC to turn 'Green Lantern' into 'Green Lantern Corps' with Steve Englehart, with whom he also made 'Millennium' in 1988.

Staton has worked on many other DC titles, such as 'Guy Gardner', 'The Huntress', 'The New Guardians' and the 4 issue miniseries 'Superman & Bugs Bunny' (2000). Since the late 2000s he is mainly involved in drawing DC's 'Scooby Doo' titles, as well as 'Femme Noir' for Ape Entertainment. He has also worked on other cartoon-related serials, such as 'Archie Super-Teens', 'Casper the Friendly Ghost' and 'Richie Rich'. As from March 2011 Staton and writer Mike Curtis succeeded Dick Locher and Jim Brozman as the new team for the 'Dick Tracy' strip for Tribune Media Services.
Source: Lambiek
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G R Stefano biography

G R Stefano biography

G R Stefano
Unfortunately not much is known about this accomplished artist who illustrated British Annuals during the 1980s.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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James Steranko biography

James Steranko biography

James F. "Jim" Steranko (born 5 November 1938; Pennsylvania, USA)
Jim Steranko is an American graphic artist, comic book writer/artist, historian, magician, publisher and film production illustrator.

His most famous comic book work was with the 1960s superspy feature "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." in Marvel Comics' Strange Tales and in the subsequent eponymous series. Steranko earned lasting acclaim for his innovations in sequential art during the Silver Age of Comic Books, particularly his infusion of surrealism, op art, and graphic design into the medium. His work has been published in many countries and his influence on the field has remained strong since his comics heyday. He went on to create book covers, become a comics historian who published a pioneering two-volume history of the birth and early years of comic books, and to create conceptual art and character designs for films including Raiders of the Lost Ark and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

He was inducted into the comic-book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.

Steranko was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. According to Steranko's authorized biography, his grandparents emigrated from Ukraine to settle in the anthracite coal-mining region of eastern Pennsylvania. Steranko's father, one of nine siblings, began working in the mines at age 10, and as an adult became a tinsmith. Steranko later said his father and uncles "would bootleg coal – they would go up into a mountain and open up a shaft." One of three children, all boys, Steranko spent his early childhood during the American Great Depression living in a three-room house with a tar-paper roof and outhouse toilet facilities. He slept on a couch in the nominal living room until he was more than 10 years old. Steranko's father and five uncles showed musical inclination, performing in a band that played on Reading radio in the 1930s.

Steranko recalled beginning school at age 4. Later, "Because my father had tuberculosis (and I tested positive), I began third grade at what was called an 'open-window' school, a facility across the city that had a healthy program for kids with special problems. I was bused to school for four years, then dropped into standard junior high." There, being smaller and younger than his classmates, he found himself a target for bullies and young gang-members until he studied boxing and self-defense at the local YMCA and began to successfully fight back. His youngest brother was born when Steranko was 14, "severing even the minimal interaction between me and my parents."

Steranko had begun drawing while very young, opening and flattening envelopes from the mail to use as sketch paper. Despite his father's denigration of Steranko's artistic talent, and the boy's ambition to become an architect, Steranko paid for his art supplies by collecting discarded soda bottles for the bottle deposit and bundled old newspapers to sell to scrap-paper dealers. He studied the Sunday comic strip art of Milton Caniff, Alex Raymond, Hal Foster, and Chester Gould, as well as the characters of Walt Disney and Superman, provided in "boxes of comics" brought to him by an uncle. Radio programs, Saturday movie matinées and serials, and other popular culture also influenced him.

Steranko in 1978 described some influences and their impact on his creative philosophy: "Early influences were Chester Gould's [comic strip] Dick Tracy (not particularly in my drawing style but in subject matter and an approach to drama), Hal Foster, and Frank Robbins' (comic strip) Johnny Hazard. I still think Robbins is one of the greatest storytellers of all time. Fans seem to have a lot less of an opinion of Robbins for some reason, just because they're more enamored of lines. Fans seem to think that the more lines that go into a drawing the better it is. Actually, the opposite is generally true. The fewer lines you can put into a drawing the quicker it reads, and the simpler it is. Alex Toth is one of the few guys who can simplify an illustration to a minimum of lines with a maximum of impact. "

By his account, Steranko learned stage magic using paraphernalia from his father's stage magician act, and in his teens spent several summers working with circuses and carnivals, working his way up to sideshow performer as a fire-eater and in acts involving a bed of nails and sleight-of-hand. At school, he competed on the gymnastics team, on the rings and parallel bars, and later took up boxing and, under swordmaster Dan Phillips in New York City, fencing. At 17, Steranko and another teenage boy were arrested for a string of burglaries and car thefts in Pennsylvania.

Up through his early 20s, Steranko performed as an illusionist, escape artist, close-up magician in nightclubs, and musician, having played in drum and bugle corps in his teens before forming his own bands during the early days of rock and roll. Steranko, whose first band, in 1956, was called The Lancers, did not perform under his own name, claiming he used pseudonyms to help protect himself from enemies. He also claims to have put the first go-go girls onstage. The seminal rock and roll group Bill Haley and his Comets was based in nearby Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Steranko, who played a Jazzmaster guitar, often performed in the same local venues, sometimes on the same bill, and became friendly with Haley guitarist Frank Beecher, who became a musical influence. By the late 1960s, Steranko was a member of a New York City magicians' group, the Witchdoctor's Club.

Comics historian Mark Evanier notes that the influential comic-book creator Jack Kirby, who "based some of his characters ... on people in his life or in the news", was "inspired" to create the escape artist character Mister Miracle "by an earlier career of writer-artist Jim Steranko".

During the day, Steranko made his living as an artist for a printing company in his hometown of Reading, designing and drawing pamphlets and flyers for local dance clubs and the like. He moved on after five years to join an advertising agency, where he designed ads and drew products ranging from "baby carriages to beer cans". Interested in writing and drawing for comic books, he visited DC Comics as a fan and was treated to a tour of the office by editor Julius Schwartz, who gave Steranko a copy of a script featuring the science-fiction adventurer Adam Strange. Steranko recalled in 2003, "It was the first full script I'd ever seen, complete with panel descriptions and dialogue. I learned a lot from it and eventually went on to create a few comics of my own."

He initially entered the comics industry in 1957, not long out of high school, working for a short time inking pencil art by Vince Colletta and Matt Baker in Colletta's New York City studio before returning to Reading. In 1966, he landed assignments at Harvey Comics under editor Joe Simon, who as one writer described was "trying to create a line of super heroes within a publishing company that had specialized in anthropomorphic animals." Here Steranko created and wrote the characters Spyman, Magicmaster and the Gladiator for the company's short-lived superhero line, Harvey Thriller. His first published comics art came in Spyman #1 (Sept. 1966), for which he wrote the 20-page story "The Birth of a Hero" and penciled the first page, which included a diagram of a robotic hand that was reprinted as an inset on artist George Tuska's cover.

Steranko also approached Marvel Comics in 1966. He met with editor Stan Lee, who had Steranko ink a two-page Jack Kirby sample of typical art for the superspy feature "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.". Steranko self-published it in 1970 in the limited-edition "Steranko Portfolio One"; it appeared again 30 years later in slightly altered form in the 2000 trade-paperback collection Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. This led to Lee's assigning him the Nick Fury feature in Strange Tales, a "split book" that shared each issue with another feature.

Lee and Kirby had initiated the 12-page "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." feature in Strange Tales #135 (Aug. 1965), with Kirby supplying such inventive and enduring gadgets and hardware as the Helicarrier – an airborne aircraft carrier – as well as LMDs (Life Model Decoys) and even automobile airbags. Marvel's all-purpose terrorist organization HYDRA was introduced here as well.

"Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." soon became one of the creative zeniths of the Silver Age, and one of comics' most groundbreaking, innovative and acclaimed features. Wrote Les Daniels, in his Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, "Even the dullest of readers could sense that something new was happening. ... With each passing issue Steranko's efforts became more and more innovative. Entire pages would be devoted to photocollages of drawings that ignored panel boundaries and instead worked together on planes of depth. The first pages ... became incredible production numbers similar in design to the San Francisco rock concert poster of the period". Writer-artist Larry Hama, in an introduction to Nick Fury collection, said Steranko "combined the figurative dynamism of Jack Kirby with modern design concepts", and recostumed Fury from suits and ties to "a form-fitting bodysuit with numerous zippers and pockets, like a Wally Wood spacesuit revamped by Pierre Cardin. The women were clad in form-fitting black leather a la Emma Peel in the Avengers TV show. The graphic influences of Peter Max, Op Art and Andy Warhol were embedded into the design of the pages – and the pages were designed as a whole, not just as a series of panels. All this, executed in a crisp, hard-edged style, seething with drama and anatomical tension."

Steranko introduced or popularized in comics such art movements of the day as psychedelia and op art, drawing specifically on the "aesthetic of Salvador Dalí," with inspiration from Richard M. Powers, ultimately synthesizing a style he termed "Zap Art." A.M. Viturtia notes Steranko drew on the James Bond novels, and claims that the influence went both ways: "Although Steranko was primarily influenced by spy movies, after Nick Fury came on the comics scene, the directors of those same movies began to borrow heavily from Steranko himself!"

Steranko's Marvel work became a benchmark of '60s pop culture, combining the traditional comic book art styles of Wally Wood and Jack Kirby with the surrealism of Richard Powers and Salvador Dalí. Steeped in cinematic techniques picked up from that medium's masters, Jim synthesized ... an approach different from anything being done in mainstream comics, though it did include one standard attraction: lots of females in skintight, sexy costumes. Countess Valentina (Val) Allegro De Fontaine [sic; "Valentina Allegra di Fontaine"] made her debut in Strange Tales #159 (Aug. 1967) by flooring Nick Fury during a training session, proving that she could take care of herself! She looked like a character who had just stepped out of a James Bond poster.

Captain America #111 (March 1969): Steranko's signature surrealism. Inking by Joe Sinnott.
She and Steranko's other skintight leather-clad version of Bond girls pushed what was allowable under the Comics Code at the time. One example is a silent, one-page seduction sequence with the Countess in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2, described by Robin Green in Rolling Stone:

So one panel had the stereo in Fury's apartment to show there was music playing, cigarettes in the ash tray in one, there was a sequence of intercut shots where she moved closer to him, much more intimately, there was a kiss, there was a rose, and then there was one panel with the telephone off the hook, which the comic book code (sic; "Comics Code") made him put back on. ... The last panel on that page had Nick and his old lady kneeling, with their arms around each other, and that was entirely too much for the Code, so the panel was replaced with a picture of a gun in its holster.

When reprinted in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Who Is Scorpio? (Marvel Enterprises, 2001; ISBN 0-7851-0766-5), however, Steranko's original final panel was reinserted: In a black-and-white long shot with screentone shading, the couple is beginning to embrace, with Fury standing and the Countess on one knee, getting up. Another reprinting, in Marvel Masterworks: Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Volume 2 (Marvel Publishing, 2009; ISBN 978-0-7851-3503-6), used the published final panel, although the appendix included the original art, showing the page as initially drawn. Each instance uses Steranko's original telephone panel, not the redrawn published version.

Fury's adventures continued in his own series, for which Steranko contributed four 20-page stories: "Who is Scorpio?" (issue #1); "So Shall Ye Reap...Death" (#2), inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest; "Dark Moon Rise, Hell Hound Kill" (#3), a Hound of the Baskervilles homage, replete with a Peter Cushing manqué; and the spy-fi sequel "What Ever Happened to Scorpio?" (#5).

Steranko also had short runs on X-Men (#50–51, Nov.-Dec. 1968), for which he designed a new cover logo, and Captain America (#110–111, 113, Feb.-March, May 1969). Steranko introduced the Madame Hydra character in his brief Captain America run.

Steranko went on to write and draw a horror story that precipitated a breakup with Marvel. Though that seven-page tale, "At the Stroke of Midnight", published in Tower of Shadows #1 (Sept. 1969), would go on to win a 1969 Alley Award, editor Lee, who had already rejected Steranko's cover for that issue, clashed with Steranko over panel design, dialog, and the story title, initially "The Lurking Fear at Shadow House". According to Steranko at a 2006 panel and elsewhere, Lee disliked or did not understand the homage to horror author H. P. Lovecraft, and devised his own title for the story. After much conflict, Steranko either quit or was fired. Lee phoned him about a month later, after the two had cooled down.

Summing up this initial stint in comics, Steranko said in 1979:
"I was getting the top pay at Marvel, along with Kirby and John Buscema, and I felt privileged to be considered in their class. Both of them were better comic artists. But working at Marvel was also a serious cut in pay compared to my advertising work. My life was hectic then. I worked as the art director for an ad agency in the afternoon, played in a rock band at night, and worked on my comic book pages early in the morning. It's a peculiar thing, but the more I learned about storytelling, the slower I became. Eventually I had to stop playing in the band; later I left the agency. There were plenty of hassles with Stan Lee, of course. I felt that if I was good enough to work for them, then they should accept my work without a lot of maddening editorial changes. But now, I think I may have been wrong. After all, Marvel was paying the tab. Stan is a great editor. He stresses storytelling and really knows the comics business, probably better than anyone else."

Steranko returned briefly to Marvel, contributing a romance story ("My Heart Broke in Hollywood", Our Love Story #5, Feb. 1970) and becoming the cover artist for 15 comics beginning with Doc Savage #2–3, Shanna the She-Devil #1–2, and Supernatural Thrillers #1–2 (each successively cover-dated Dec. 1972 and Feb. 1973), and ending with the reprint comic Nick Fury and his Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 (April 1973).

Steranko then branched into other areas of publishing, including most notably book-cover illustration. Lacking any experience as a painter, his decision to effectively quit comics in 1969 led him to "an artist friend who earned his living as a painter", from whom Steranko obtained an "hour-long lecture", and the suggestion that he work in acrylics rather than oils, for the sake of speed. From these inauspicious beginnings, he compiled a portfolio of half a dozen paintings ("two Westerns, two pin-up girls, two gothic horror and one sword-and-sorcery") and met with Lancer Books' art director Howard Winters, to whom he immediately sold his fantasy piece. This led to a career illustrating dozens of paperback covers, popularly including those of Pyramid Books' reissues of the 1930s pulp novels of The Shadow. When DC Comics gained the comic book publishing rights to The Shadow, they contacted Steranko to work on the new series but ultimately chose Dennis O'Neil and Michael Kaluta to produce the title instead.

Steranko also formed his own publishing company, Supergraphics, in 1969, and the following year worked with writer-entrepreneur Byron Preiss on an anti-drug comic book, The Block, distributed to elementary schools nationwide. In 1970 and 1972, Supergraphics published two tabloid-sized volumes entitled The Steranko History of Comics, a planned six-volume history of the American comics industry, though no subsequent volumes have appeared. Written by Steranko, with hundreds of black-and-white cover reproductions as well as a complete reprint of one The Spirit story by Will Eisner, it included some of the first and in some cases only interviews with numerous creators from the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books.

Supergraphics projects included the proposed Talon the Timeless, illustrations of which appeared in a portfolio published in witzend magazine #5, and a pinup girl calendar, "The Supergirls", consisting of 12 illustrations of sexy superheroines in costumes recalling such superheroes as Captain America and Green Lantern. Through Supergraphics he also published the magazine Comixscene, which premiered with a December 1972 cover date as a folded-tabloid periodical on stiff, non-glossy paper, reporting on the comics field. It evolved in stages into Mediascene (beginning with issue #7, Dec. 1973) and ultimately into Prevue (beginning with #41, Aug. 1980), a general-interest, standard format, popular culture magazine, running through 1994.

Steranko wrote, drew, and produced the illustrated novel Chandler: Red Tide in 1976, for Byron Preiss Visual Publications / Pyramid Books. Aside from occasional covers and pinup illustrations, he has rarely worked in comics since, although he did illustrate a serialized comics adaptation of the Peter Hyams 1981 sci-fi thriller Outland for Heavy Metal magazine. His only major work for DC Comics appeared in Superman #400 (Oct. 1984), the 10-page story "The Exile at the Edge of Eternity," which he wrote, drew, colored and lettered. A 1997 attempt to negotiate Steranko's return to S.H.I.E.L.D. did not bear fruit. In 2008, he worked with Radical Comics, doing covers, character and logo designs for its Hercules: The Thracian Wars title and Ryder on the Storm. In 2012, he did poster art for RZG Comics, and a variant cover for DC's Before Watchmen: Rorschach #1.

For the movie industry, Steranko has done sketches for movie posters, and was a conceptual artist on Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), doing production designs for the film and designing the character of Indiana Jones. He also served in a similar capacity as "project conceptualist" on Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and wrote the episode "The Ties That Bind" of the DC Comics animated TV series Justice League Unlimited.

In a joint venture with Marvel Comics and Diamond Comic Distributors, Vanguard Productions in 2002 sponsored Steranko's "The Spirit of America" benefit print, created to fund an art scholarship "for victims of anti-American terrorism".
Source: Wikipedia
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Dave Stevens biography

Dave Stevens biography

Dave Stevens (1955 - 2008, USA)
Born in California, his first work in comics was a back up feature in Starslayer called Rocketeer, a character and theme nostalgic for the 1940s. Subsequently made into a full length feature film by Disney, it propelled Stevens into the limelight. Never a prolific artist, he takes great care to produce fascinating art, and his superb portrayals of cheesecake are justly admired.

Enjoy more of his art in PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.

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Glenn Steward biography

Glenn Steward biography

Glenn Steward; UK
Glenn Steward joined an animation studio after leaving school and, over the years, was involved with studio production, newspapers and publishing. For eleven years he was the art editor of Sporting Cyclist; as Steward was himself a keen racing cyclist.

He has also taken on many private commissions, travelling to America once a year to meet people who wanted portraits, pictures of their houses, pets and other subjects. Steward once told Simon Marsh-Devine, "In 1981 I had so many commissions to tackle that I was virtually unaware of the recession taking place on the home market."

Steward's career as a book cover artist began in 1957 when he signed up to the John Martin & Artists agency. For the next six years he was kept very busy working for various firms, including Digit Books (1957) and Panther (1958) and, primarily, Pan Books, for whom he produced most of his 150 paperback covers over a period of six years, although he continued to work for Pan until at least 1968.

Marsh-Devine notes that Steward's work included many in a cartoon-like style, virtually unique on paperbacks. You can see from the list below how diverse his output was. Most of his covers were produced at speed but that does not equate with low quality. He told Simon, "Natural speed was important in keeping the spontaneity alive. To linger over the finished product could so often produce a laboured effort." Steward was still working at the time Simon was researching his thesis (1994).

Books illustrated by Glenn Steward:
The Six Bad Boys by Enid Blyton. London, Lutterworth Press, 1951.
The Seventh Child by Diana Hardman. London, George G. Harrap & Co., 1959.
Dicing with Death by Peter Lewis. London, Daily Mirror Newspapers, 1961.
Seashores by Sheina Marshall & Andrew Orr. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1965.
The Camberwick Green Pancake Race. Packet Upsets the Band by Nora Britton. London, Purnell, 1968.
Micky Murphy's Car. Roger Varley Runs Into Trouble by Nora Britton. London, Purnell, 1968.
Freshwater Fishing by Colin Camble; illus. with Roger Hall & Sam Peffer. Feltham, Hamlyn, 1972.
Deer by Alfred Leutscher; illus. with Peter McGinn. London, F. Watts, 1973.
National Heraldry of the World by Geoffrey Briggs; illus. with B. L. Ainsworth & Carol Kane. London, Dent, 1973.
Riding by Christine Keir. London, Granada, 1983.
Tricks of the Light and its Practical Uses by Judy Allen. London, Piccadilly, 1985.
She-Ra and the Golden Goose by John Grant. Loughborough, Ladybird, 1986.
She-Ra Princess of Power by John Grant. Loughborough, Ladybird, 1986.
Suspicion Stalks the Moor by Josephine Pullein-Thompson. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1986.
Autobot Hostage by John Grant. Loughborough, Ladybird, 1988.
Deceptions Underground by John Grant. Loughborough, Ladybird, 1988.
The Animals of Farthing Wood. Sticker and activity book by Colin Dann; adapted by Clare Dannatt. London, Red Fox, 1993.
A Daring Escape! The Animals of Farthing Wood: A sticker storybook by Colin Dann; adapted by Sue Mongredien. London, Red Fox, 1995.
The Night of the Storm. The Animals of Farthing Wood: A sticker storybook by Colin Dann; adapted by Sue Mongredien. London, Red Fox, 1995.
More Adventures from Black Pony Inn by Christine Pullein-Thompson (contains Prince at Black Pony Inn, Catastrophe at Black Pony Inn, Good Deeds at Black Pony Inn). London, Award, 1999.
Source: Simon Marsh-Devine
Glenn Steward art
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Andrew Stock biography

Andrew Stock biography

Andrew Stock
Andrew Stock is the President of the Society of Wildlife Artists and is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE) and is a highly accomplished watercolourist.
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John Stokes biography

John Stokes biography

John Stokes
John Stokes is a British comics artist who has largely worked for IPC and Marvel UK and is best known for his work on Fishboy.

John Stokes has been active in the British comics field since the 1960s. He drew 'Fishboy' with text by Scott Goodall in Buster from 1968 to 1975. He worked for Marvel UK in the late 1970s and the 1980s. There, he drew 'Black Knight' for Hulk Weekly and for the UK line of the 'Transformers' comics. He has contributed to 2000AD and to such books as 'American Century: Hollywood Babylon' and 'The Sandman Presents: Taller Tales' at Vertigo. He worked as an inker on various titles, and pencilled 'Warrior of Waverly Street'.

Stokes got into the comics industry thanks to his brother George Stokes who already worked for IPC. He lived in India until the age of 8 or 9 and when he returned to England the first comic work he saw was that of his brother and colleagues, as well the Eagle which launched around the same time.

This sparked a lifelong interest in comics and he moved from drawing comics in his spare time at school, to trying not to draw comics at art school (where they discouraged his interest), to doing it professionally, starting in the early 1960s. He worked, largely uncredited (as was the way at the time), for IPC for 16 years where, among other things, he drew all 360 installments of Fishboy as well as a number of other Buster titles.

From 1964 to 1967, he also drew the strip 'Britain in Chains' (later editions were entitled 'The Battle for Britain') for Lion; the strip was later reprinted (with a truncated ending) in Smash! between 1969 and 1971.

Then, in the late seventies, he was recruited by Dez Skinn to go and work for Marvel UK, initially on The House of Hammer and then on to Black Knight and Doctor Who. In the early to mid-eighties he also worked for other British comics like Warrior and 2000 AD.

Following the success of the British Invasion he got more work with DC Comics and Marvel in the early to mid-nineties. In more recent years he has done inking work for DC's imprint Vertigo on The Invisibles with Grant Morrison, who he had worked with previously at Marvel and 2000 AD. He has also returned to 2000 AD after a 15 year hiatus to do more inking work.

Influences include Frank Hampson and Frank Bellamy.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia & Wikipedia
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William Stout biography

William Stout biography

William Stout (born 18 September 1949; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)
William Stout is an American fantasy artist and illustrator with a specialization in paleontological art. His paintings have been shown in over seventy exhibitions, including twelve one-man shows. He has worked on over thirty feature films, doing everything from storyboard art to production design. He has designed theme parks and has worked in radio with the Firesign Theatre.

William Stout was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on the way to Los Angeles in 1949. At seventeen he won a full California State Scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute (California Institute of the Arts) where he obtained his Bachelor's Degree.

Stout began his professional career as an illustrator for comic books and graphic novels, with his first job coming in 1968 with the cover for the first issue of the pulp magazine Coven 13. In 1971 he worked as Russ Manning's assistant on Manning's Tarzan of the Apes Sunday and daily newspaper comic strips. In 1972, Stout worked for Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder on Playboy's "Little Annie Fanny".

In 1973 Stout began drawing album covers for the Trademark of Quality bootleg record label. He created over 30 sleeves for the label, including the Rolling Stones' All-Meat Music (his first), the Yardbirds' Golden Eggs and More Golden Eggs, and the Who's Who's Zoo and Tales from the Who. He became associated with the Firesign Theatre, and designed his first official album sleeve, In the Next World, You're on Your Own, in 1974.

From 1975 to 1977 Stout worked as art director for the rock magazine Bomp! During this time, he became one of the first American contributors to Heavy Metal magazine. He continued to work occasionally designing posters and album sleeves. These included the poster for Rock 'n' Roll High School featuring the Ramones in 1979, the controversial cover for the compilation album Beatlesongs in 1981, and the cover for The Smithereens Play Tommy in 2009.

In 1977 Stout painted his first movie poster, for Ralph Bakshi's film Wizards. During his career, Stout has worked on the advertising for over 120 films.

In 1978, with Buck Rogers, Stout began his film production design career. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Stout and fellow illustrator Richard Hescox ran a Los Angeles art studio, working on such projects as the storyboards for Raiders of the Lost Ark and pop singer Michael Jackson's video "Thriller". Fellow cartoonist Dave Stevens worked for a time in the same studio.

Stout has worked on over thirty feature films, including both Conan films, First Blood, The Hitcher, and Invaders From Mars. He also production designed the Masters of the Universe film.

Stout wrote The Warrior and the Sorceress for Roger Corman, and a never-produced dinosaur feature for Jim Henson. For Industrial Light & Magic in 1996, he designed "Edgar" (the big bug in Men in Black). Stout was the key character designer for the computer-animated feature Dinosaur (released in 2000). Stout worked as the conceptual designer for The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, and key designer for Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Recent film work includes Christopher Nolan's film The Prestige and creature design for Frank Darabont's & Stephen King's The Mist. He is slated to work on del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness as well as a proposed John Carter of Mars film.

In 1981 Bantam Books published Stout's landmark masterwork The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era (recently updated and re-published as The New Dinosaurs). In 1983, Stout was among those who illustrated Ray Bradbury's Dinosaur Tales. In 1984 he illustrated The Little Blue Brontosaurus, which was a 1984 Children's Choice Award recipient and the basis for the 1988 animated feature The Land Before Time.

In 1986, as a result of his paleontological reconstruction work, eleven Stout paintings were selected for inclusion in the traveling exhibition "Dinosaurs Past and Present," an important group show depicting the history of paleoart. The six-year tour included (among others) the Smithsonian Institution, British Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History.

In 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios chose Stout to design a prime-time animated series of Jurassic Park.

Also in 1993 Comic Images released William Stout's Lost Worlds, the first of three trading card sets.

In January 1989, Stout traveled to Antarctica and Patagonia. His experiences there eventually resulted in the one-man show "Dinosaurs, Penguins and Whales — The Wildlife of Antarctica." The exhibition was part of Stout's effort to alert and inform the public of the complex beauty of Antarctica, and to work as part of the international effort to make Antarctica the first "World Park." "Dinosaurs, Penguins and Whales" evolved into a forthcoming book, Lost Worlds: Modern and Prehistoric Life in Antarctica, the first visual overview of life in Antarctica.

In August 1991 Stout received a grant from the National Science Foundation to participate in their Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. For three months during the 1992-1993 austral summer, Stout was based at McMurdo Station and Palmer Station. He made several dives beneath the ice, climbed the active volcano Mt. Erebus, camped in the dry valleys, and produced over one hundred painted studies as he carefully observed Antarctica's wildlife. Shortly thereafter, Stout drove over one thousand miles through central southern Chile, documenting the rare prehistoric forests there for inclusion in his Lost Worlds book.

In 1994 Stout painted two murals for the Houston Museum of Natural Science depicting "Life Before The Dinosaurs." In early 1998 Stout completed three Cretaceous murals and supervised two full-sized dinosaur sculptures for Disney's Animal Kingdom.

In 2007, Stout completed twelve large murals depicting the prehistoric life of San Diego for the San Diego Natural History Museum.

In addition, Stout's murals and paintings are on permanent display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Orton Geological Museum, The Museum of the Rockies, and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

Beginning in 1987, Stout worked for Walt Disney Imagineering for a year and a half as a conceptualist, designer, and producer for Euro Disneyland, Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Walt Disney World. In 1989 he was hired by Lucasfilm/Industrial Light and Magic as conceptualist and chief designer for their first foray into themed entertainment centers. In 1991 Stout conceived and designed ZZ Top's Recycler tour. In 1994 Stout continued theme park attraction creation and design for MCA/Universal's Islands of Adventure. In late 1995, Steven Spielberg chose Stout as his senior concept designer for GameWorks, a Sega/Universal/DreamWorks SKG joint project. For two years Stout and his team oversaw the concepts, design, and execution of the first three GameWorks facilities in Seattle, Washington; Tempe, Arizona; and Ontario, California). Stout worked in 1998-1999 as the lead designer for Kansas City's Wonderful World of Oz theme park (which unfortunately was never developed). He was also a designer for the Michael Jackson's private Neverland Ranch theme park.

In 2001, Stout illustrated Richard Matheson's first children's book, Abu & The 7 Marvels, which won many awards. The Stout-illustrated book The Emerald Wand of Oz was released in 2005, followed by Trouble Under Oz in 2006. Stout's own publishing company, Terra Nova Press, has published thirty-four books on art and the history of art.

In 2013, he prepared and illustrated Legends of the Blues, a book comprising portraits of classic blues musicians, intended as a sequel to fellow cartoonist Robert Crumb's book Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country.

Stout is currently painting twelve large murals depicting the prehistoric life of San Diego for the San Diego Natural History Museum. The first seven murals debuted to the public in 2006. The remaining five will be completed in 2007. In addition to the San Diego Natural History Museum, William Stout's murals and paintings are on permanent display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Walt Disney's Animal Kingdom, the Orton Geological Museum, The Museum of the Rockies and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science.

William Stout resides in Pasadena, California with his perfect wife; they are occasionally visited by their two brilliant sons.
Source: Wikipedia


See illustrators issue 10 for a William Stout feature article.
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Michael Strand biography

Michael Strand biography

Michael Strand (Most active 1970s)
Not much is known about this accomplished and prolific comic strip artist. He is known to have drawn complete episodes for the following comic strips:
Stingray (TV Century 21, 1965)
Lady Penelope (Lady Penelope Annual, 1970)
Careful She Bites (Princess Tina, 1970s)
Thunderbirds (Thunderbirds Annual, 1971)
The Protectors (The Protectors Annual, 1974)
The Stranger of the Sea (June Book, 1977)
Stingray (Stingray Special, 1983)
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Michael Strand art
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Lew Stringer biography

Lew Stringer biography

Lew Stringer (born 22 March 1959)
Lew Stringer is a freelance comic artist ad scriptwriter.

Stringer began his career from the late 1970s with a series of fanzines, many featuring his popular Brickman character; these were read by several pro creators (including Kevin O'Neill, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) who encouraged Stringer to try comics as a profession and Stringer recalls that "Alan Moore actually introduced me to one of the editors at Marvel UK - Bernie Jaye who was editor on The Daredevils".

He sold his first professional cartoon to Marvel UK (the British branch of Marvel Comics) in 1983 where it appeared in The Daredevils comic, after which he worked for a short time as art assistant to the cartoonist Mike Higgs (creator of Moonbird and The Cloak). Since then Stringer has freelanced for numerous British comics for various companies and audiences.

His best remembered creations are Tom Thug and Pete and His Pimple for Oink! comic (1986), which outlasted that comic and continued into Buster comic, and Combat Colin the halfwit hero who featured in Action Force and The Transformers comics. Prior to Colin joining Transformers, Stringer had written another, similarly slapstick, strip Robo-Capers for that title. Robo-Capers was replaced by Combat Colin when the reprints of American G.I. Joe strips were added to the Transformers comic. Robo-Capers returned for a single story, which featured Colin and his sidekick, in Issue #200. After a change of editorial direction in 1991, Marvel UK handed the rights of Combat Colin to Stringer and he has used him in small-press titles, such as the Combat Colin Special and Yampy Tales. On September 30, 2012, Combat Colin returned in an all new story for the launch of new David Lloyd's new online comic Aces Weekly.

Stringer has also worked as a writer on CiTV Tellytots; was one of the main writers on Sonic the Comic, where he created several fan-favourite characters and stories; and has been a long time artist/writer for Viz comic and many other publications. He has written Toxic!'s Team TOXIC! strip since the first issue (and drawn it since issue 15); this proved popular enough with the readers to gain two pages an issue and lead to other comic strips being brought in. In October 2012 reprints of Team Toxic began to appear in the magazine but brand new stories are set to appear from January 2014.

He broke into the international market in 1997 creating the Suburban Satanists for the Norwegian comic Geek. From 1999 to 2007 those characters appeared in the Swedish comic book Herman Hedning.

In April 2005, Active Images published a collection - Brickman Begins - of all of Stringer's Brickman strips since 1979. In 2006, a brand new Brickman series began in the American comic book Elephantmen, published by Image Comics, and in 2007, Combat Colin became a guest star in the strip. Brickman seems to be Stringer's most enduring character. The series concluded in Elephantmen No.24 in 2009. Stringer is considering reprinting all 20 episodes in a self-published comic entitled Brickman Returns.

He began freelancing for The Beano in 2007, drawing a Fred's Bed story for the Christmas issue and a one-off Ivy the Terrible strip for an issue in 2008. In October 2008 Stringer became the artist on a new strip, Super School which is about five superhero children and their non-superpowered teacher. He started drawing for The Dandy after its revamp in October 2010, providing the illustrations for Postman Prat and Kid Cops and writing and drawing The Dark Newt.

In 2014 Lew announced that he would be contributing a regular new cartoon strip to Doctor Who Magazine.

Lew currently draws Rasher and Joe King for The Beano.
Source: Wikipedia
Lew Stringer art
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Sidney Strube biography

Sidney Strube biography

Sidney Conrad Strube (30 December 1892 - 4 March 1956; London, UK)
Sidney Strube (pronounced "Stroobee") was born in Bishopsgate, London, the son of Conrad Frederick Strube, a German-born wine merchant who kept the Coach and Horses pub in Charing Cross Road.

Strube studied at St Martin's School of Art, and then began work as a junior draughtsman with a furnishing company. In 1910, after working in an advertising agency drawing electrical equipment, he attended the John Hassall School of Art. A General Election cartoon in the Daily Express inspired him to draw cartoons, and Hassall encouraged him to submit caricatures to the Conservative & Unionist magazine. After four were accepted he had further work published in Bystander, Evening Times and The Throne and Country.

Strube was described as "a short, sturdy, blue-eyed, clean-shaven young man with a pipe between his teeth and a trick of astringent repartee". His work was increasingly popular with Daily Express readers. The key, he told an interviewer in 1920, was sincerity: "Treat things lightly if you can, but if a crisis is really serious you must handle it with dignity. The public always know if a chap is sincere in his ideas and work."

He worked in indian ink on board, but first produced roughs to show the editor. "For every cartoon that appears", it was noted in 1923, "there are generally five or six 'also rans' lying around faintly traced in pencil on drawing boards."

Strube never allowed malice to enter his cartoons, and was known familiarly as "George", from his habit of addressing others by this name - although his son really was called George. He was made a Freeman of the City of London, and was a member of the London Sketch Club and the Savage. In April 1955 Strube was still doing advertising work for Guinness, but he died at his home in Golders Green on 4 March 1956, after suffering from heart trouble for many years.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery; British Cartoon Archive
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George E Studdy biography

George E Studdy biography

George Ernest Studdy (23 June 1878 - 25 July 1948; Davenport, UK)
George E Studdy was a British commercial artist. He is best remembered for his creation of Bonzo the dog, a cute fictional character in the early 1920s that first appeared in The Sketch Magazine.

He was the second of three children of Ernest and Constance Studdy. George pursued his education at Dulwich College in London while living with his aunt.

He was the eldest son of the family and was expected to pursue a career in the military just like his father, who was a lieutenant. George Studdy enrolled in preparatory school but had an unfortunate pitchfork accident which badly injured his foot. Unable to start his career in the army, he became an engineer's apprentice and then joined a stockbroker to make ends meet, a job which he quit after three years.

He had always dreamed of going back to school, so with £100 given to him from his aunt, he attended night classes at the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London to study drawing as well as studying animal anatomy at Calderon's Animal School.

After art school, he shared a studio with several friends from art school while working to complete a portfolio. He was able to sell a few of his sketches to local newspapers and magazines. A few newspapers later commissioned Studdy to draw action scenes to go along with articles on the Boer War.

In 1900, as Studdy's sketches started to gain popularity, Comic Cuts, Boys Own and Pick-Me-Up began to publish Studdy's sketches regularly. It was about this time that he started his long relationship with Valentine & Sons postcards of Dundee. One of the first set they published was a series of six sketches called "The Evolution of the Motor Car".

In 1912, Studdy married his French sweetheart, Blanche Landrin. That same year he signed a contract with The Sketch to produce a weekly full-page drawing.

When war broke out, he was commissioned by Gaumont to produce a series of short films called Studdy’s War Studies. Studdy later introduced Bonzo into his sketches.

His Bonzo character was a chubby little white pup with sparse black spots, a stubby tail and big blue eyes. Bonzo became the inspiration for much commercial merchandise, such as cuddly and mechanical toys, ashtrays, pincushions, trinket boxes, car mascots, jigsaw puzzles, books, calendars, candies, and a profusion of postcards.

Bonzo's massive popularity allowed Studdy and his wife to live a very comfortable life until he died in 1948.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
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Edmund J Sullivan biography

Edmund J Sullivan biography

Edmund Joseph Sullivan (1869 - 1933)
Edmund Joseph Sullivan, usually known as E. J. Sullivan, was a British book illustrator who worked in a style which merged the British tradition of illustration from the 1860s with aspects of Art Nouveau.

Sullivan was the son of an artist. He, however, decided to concentrate on the emerging field of graphic design and book illustration, which was flourishing at the end of the nineteenth century. Sullivan worked at the Daily Graphic from the age of nineteen, moving to the Pall Mall Magazine in 1893. During this period he produced standard news and portrait illustrations, but began to work on illustrations to literature at the Magazine. He soon graduated to the more prestigious role of book illustrator, producing illustrations for editions of Lavengro and the plays School for Scandal and The Rivals. Sullivan's style is comparable to that of Aubrey Beardsley, but is more romantic than Beardley's acerbic manner.

He also illustrated The Compleat Angler and Tom Brown's Schooldays. By the end of the decade Sullivan's designs were in high demand, leading to the publication of his most ambitious work, an illustrated edition of Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, published in 1898. This contains 79 illustrations ranging from emblems to full page pictures. Sullivan adapted his style to use the faux-Rococo techniques he had developed in his play-illustrations in order to combine them with bizarre images of strange fantastical figures, drawing on the genre of the grotesque. Sullivan later also illustrated Carlyle's The French Revolution, though his work was far less varied than for Sartor Resartus. He used the same combination of Rococo and Grotesque to emphasise the violence erupting into the decorative world of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's court.

He served as a President of the Art Workers' Guild in 1931 and taught illustration at Goldsmiths' School of Art.

Later books include The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, first published in 1913 and in many subsequent editions. Here, among many fanciful and beautiful black-and-white drawings, he used images of skeletons and animated pots. One such skeleton image was appropriated by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley for a Grateful Dead poster in 1966, and album cover in 1971.

Sullivan also used his skills of satire in 1916 in a collection of wartime designs called the Kaiser's Garland, which attack Prussian militarism.

Sullivan was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.
Source: Wikipedia

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Edmund J Sullivan art
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David Sutherland biography

David Sutherland biography

David Sutherland (UK)
Long associated with The Beano, David Sutherland took over responsibility for the Bash Street Kids in 1963 and created the popular strip Billy the Cat. Sutherland took over Biffo the Bear following the death of Dudley Watkins in 1969, followed by Dennis The Menace in 1970. David retired from Dennis in 1998, after 27 years, and continued to draw the Summer Specials and Annuals, as well as the occasional strip, for the comic.
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Arthur Suydam biography

Arthur Suydam biography

Arthur Suydam (born 1953; USA)
Arthur Suydam is an American comic book artist and musician. He has done artwork for magazines including Heavy Metal, Epic Illustrated and National Lampoon, while his comic book work includes Batman, Conan, Tarzan, Predator, Aliens, Death Dealer, and Marvel Zombies.

Suydam has contributed work to many publications, including Heavy Metal, House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Penthouse Comix, Epic Illustrated and National Lampoon, as well as international sci-fi and comic anthologies. His own projects include Arthur Suydam: The Art of the Barbarian, Skin Deep, The Alien Encounters Poster Book, Visions: The Art of Arthur Suydam, Mudwogs, Mudwogs II, Bedtime Stories for the Incarcerated, Libby in the Lost World and The Adventures of Cholly and Flytrap

Arthur Suydam's comic book work includes such titles as Batman, Conan, Tarzan, Predator, Aliens and Death Dealer. Recently, his work has primarily been on covers, including Marvel Zombies, Ghost Rider, Hellstorm, Moon Knight, Wolverine, Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness, and Raise the Dead.

Suydam also created the box art for the game Touch the Dead, and provided the cover art to the Mickey Spillane (with Max Allan Collins) novel Dead Street. He has also done cover artwork for the horror punk band the Misfits, including their 2009 single "Land of the Dead" and 2011 album The Devil's Rain.
Arthur Suydam art
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Joost Swarte biography

Joost Swarte biography

Joost Swarte (born 24 December 1947; Heemstede, The Netherlands)
Joost Swarte is a Dutch cartoonist and graphic designer. He is best known for his ligne claire or clear line style of drawing, and in fact coined the term.

Comic series and characters by Swarte include Katoen en Pinbal, Jopo de Pojo, Anton Makassar, Dr Ben Cine and Niet Zo, Maar Zo- Passi, Messa. He is however more famous for his numerous drawings, stamps, posters, cards, LP and CD covers, and for his magazine covers (most noteworthy the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland, the Belgian magazine HUMO and the Italian architecture magazine Abitare.)

International recognition started around 1980 when Swarte took part for the first time in the international comic show Salon International de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême (France). His work has been translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian and German. Swarte, Hors Serie, a survey of his work, was published by Futuropolis (Paris) in 1984.

In 1985, he founded the publishing house Oog & Blik with Hansje Joustra. Joost published his own comics and silkscreens, as well as books by other cartoonists and a large number of Dutch translations of foreign comics.

In 1992 Swarte initiated the Stripdagen, a biennial international comic event held in Haarlem.

In recent years, Swarte has created many illustrations for the New Yorker magazine. In 2007 Swarte, a former scout, designed the Dutch 2007 Europa stamp with the subject one hundred years of scouting.

Swarte has produced a restored collection of almost all of his comics work (excluding the several hundred pages of the "Katoen en Pinbal" children's series), an English-language version of which will be released in late 2011 by Fantagraphics Books under the title Is This All There Is?.

Apart from comics and graphic design, Swarte has also designed furniture, leaded and stained glass windows, murals and other objects. For his hometown Haarlem he designed a theatre building (De Toneelschuur) that was built in cooperation with Mecanoo Architects.
Source: Wikipedia
Joost Swarte art
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Ferdinando Tacconi biography

Ferdinando Tacconi biography

Ferdinando Tacconi (1922 - 11 May 2006, Italy)
Of all the European artists to contribute to British comics in the 1950s and '60s, two stand out as being the most popular: Jesus Blasco and Ferdinando Tacconi. Although Tacconi became known as a really first-rate War strip artist, it was for his superb rendition of the famous Charles Chilton radio serial, Journey Into Space in Express Weekly (in which all the main characters were based on actual likeness of the radio actors) which first brought him to prominence here.

Born in Milan, Tacconi has had two great interests in life, both of which he has been able to indulge throughout his career: drawing and aeroplanes. His first comic strip, published in 1947, was not typical of the work he was to pursue later, being a story of Morgan il Pirata. In the mid 1950s, Tacconi began working for British comics. Besides his work for Express Weekly, he drew the war strips, War Eagle and Commando One for Comet and Battler Britton for Sun as well as scores of War libraries. His work was wide-ranging and included a great amount of full colour work, both strips and covers, for Look and Learn.

His most famous European strip is Gli Aristocratici ("The Gentlemen") which features a group of bowler-hatted English crime fighters in London's "Swinging Sixties". In 1989, he wrote and drew, together with Gino D'Antonio, an eight volume series of books on the Second World War. Tacconi continued to produce high quality artwork for the adult comics market in Italy. Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

Enjoy more of his art in BRITISH WAR COMICS (Studio Dami) illustrators  Special Edition and in our Fleetway Picture Library Classics collection AIR WAR STORIES.

Ferdinando Tacconi art
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Bryan Talbot biography

Bryan Talbot biography

Bryan Talbot (born 24 February 1952; Wigan, UK)
Bryan Talbot is a British comic book artist and writer, best known as the creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and its sequel Heart of Empire. He collaborated with his wife, Mary M. Talbot to produce Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, which won the 2012 Costa biography award.

Bryan Talbot was born in Wigan, Lancashire on 24 February 1952. He attended Wigan Grammar School, the Wigan School of Art, and Harris College in Preston, Lancashire, from which he graduated with a degree in Graphic Design.

Talbot began his comics work in the underground comix scene of the late 1960s. In 1969 his first work appeared as illustrations in Mallorn, the British Tolkien Society magazine, followed in 1972 by a weekly strip in his college newspaper. He continued in the scene after leaving college, producing Brainstorm Comix, the first three of which formed The Chester P. Hackenbush Trilogy, a character reworked by Alan Moore as Chester Williams for Swamp Thing.

Talbot started The Adventures of Luther Arkwright in 1978. It was originally published in Near Myths and continued on over the years in other publications. It was eventually collected into one volume by Dark Horse Comics. Along with When the Wind Blows it is one of the first British graphic novels. In the early to mid-eighties he provide art for some of 2000 AD's flagship serials, producing three series of Nemesis the Warlock, as well as occasional strips for Judge Dredd. His The Tale of One Bad Rat deals with recovery from childhood sexual abuse.

Talbot moved to the American market in the 1990s, principally for DC Comics, on titles such as Hellblazer, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, and Dead Boy Detectives. Talbot collaborated with Neil Gaiman on The Sandman and provided art for the "Fables & Reflections", "A Game of You", and "Worlds' End" story arcs. He drew The Nazz limited series which was written by Tom Veitch and worked with Tom's brother Rick Veitch on Teknophage, one of a number of mini-series he drew for Tekno Comix. Talbot has illustrated cards for the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game. He has illustrated Bill Willingham's Fables, as well as returning to the Luther Arkwright universe with Heart of Empire.

In 2006, he announced the graphic novel Metronome, an existential, textless erotically-charged visual poem, written under the pseudonym Véronique Tanaka. He admitted that he was the author in 2009. Talbot turned down an offer to appear in character as Tanaka for an in-store signing of the work.

In 2007 he released Alice in Sunderland, which documents the connections between Lewis Carroll, Alice Liddell, and the Sunderland and Wearside area. He wrote and drew the layouts for Cherubs!, which he describes as "an irreverent fast-paced supernatural comedy-adventure."

His upcoming work includes a sequel to 2009's Grandville, which Talbot says is "a detective steampunk thriller" and Paul Gravett calls it "an inspired reimagining of some of the first French anthropomorphic caricatures". It is planned as the first in a series of four or five graphic novels.
Source: Wikipedia
Bryan Talbot art
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Harold Tamblyn-Watts biography

Harold Tamblyn-Watts biography

Harold Tamblyn-Watts (5 May 1900 - November 1999; Yorkshire, UK)
Harold William Tamblyn-Watts was born in Settle, Yorkshire, UK.

Harold was educated at Southend School of Art and worked as Studio Manager for the Emmett Group in 1935-48. He exhibited watercolours and illustrated numerous books, especially nature and animal books for young children.

He lived in Shirley, Croydon, Surrey, where he died in November 1999. He was survived by a son, Graham. He was predeceased by his wife, May, and a second son, Stuart.

Tamblyn-Watts, who served in both World Wars, earned a brief local infamy in Shirley when a neighbour complained about his bagpipe playing and he had to practice on Shirley Hills; the incident was reported in a national daily newspaper.

During a long and fruitful career he drew both the Gerry Anderson's creation 'Supercar' and 'On The Danger Trail with Grahame Dangerfield' for TV Comic.

'Katie Country Mouse' was one feature he painted for Jack and Jill the pre-school comic. He was also known for his spot illustrations for various Eagle and Girl annuals. Outside the comics field he had a reputation as a skilled wildlife artist.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Harold Tamblyn-Watts art
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Eric Tansley biography

Eric Tansley biography

Eric Arthur James Tansley (6 May 1916 - 27 July 1979; Gillingham, Kent, UK)
Eric Tansley is a bit of a mystery artist. He wrote and illustrated two books on birds soon after the war, Birds of the Field and Woodland (1948) and Birds of the Hill, Moor and Marsh (1950) and illustrated many books ranging from nature studies to a history of the Wild West.

In the 1950s his illustrations appeared in a number of novels published by Blackie & Son and Thomas Nelson & Sons. He was still illustrating books in the 1970s, his last known work appearing in 1975 when he wrote and illustrated Fishing.

Eric Tansley was born in Gillingham, Kent, on 6 May 1916. He was living in London in 1950 and subsequently migrated south over time from South Croydon, East Grinstead, Brighton, Pagham, and finally Isle of Wight (1975/78). He died on the Isle of Wight and was buried at Bembridge Cemetery. Tansley was married to (1) Evelyn M. Griffin in 1939 and (2) June Tansley (nee Wilkinson) in 1959. He had one daughter by his first marriage.
Source: Steve Holland
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Jacques Tardi biography

Jacques Tardi biography

Jacques Tardi (born 30 August 1946; Valence, Drôme, France)
Jacques Tardi is without a doubt one of the most important artists of his generation. He invented a new variation within the clear line style and in this way inspired many artists. Tardi's expressionistic style is perfect for his stories about World War I and about the underworld of the city. Tardi is the father of "the new realism" and a master in depicting both the old city of Paris as the awful life in the trenches of the Big War.

After studying fine arts in Lyon and decorative arts in Paris, Tardi joined Pilote magazine in 1970. He started out illustrating several short stories written by Jean Giraud and Serge De Beketch, before he drew the political fiction story 'Rumeurs sur le Rouergue' (text by Pierre Christin). He also worked in the western genre for Record ('Blue Jackett', 'Cheval Gris'). For Dargaud, he produced 'Le Démon des Glaces' and 'La Véritable Histoire du Soldat Inconnu'. He expanded his activities in 1975, and drew for Libération, Charlie Mensuel and L'Écho des Savanes. Several of his short stories were collected in the album 'Mouh-Mouh' in 1979.

For Métal Hurlant, Tardi created 'Polonius' with writer Picaret in 1976. That same year, he began his famous turn-of-the-century mystery serial 'Adèle Blanc-Sec' in the daily Sud-Ouest. Tardi made 8 installments of the series with long hiatuses until 1998 and a ninth story appeared in 2007. French director and producer Luc Besson started working on a trilogy of movies based on the books, and the first was released in 2010.

Tardi also began 'Griffu' (text by Jean-Patrick Manchette) in B.D. and 'Ici Même' (text by Jean-Claude Forest) in À Suivre. For the latter, he adapted Léo Malet's novel character 'Nestor Burma' to comics.

Tardi's books on World War I have become classics, like his most famous work, 'C'était la Guerre des Tranchées', which strikingly portrayed the disillusionment of the war. In the early 1980s, he produced such titles as 'Tueur de Cafards', 'Jeux pour Mourir', 'Le Trou d'Obus', 'Mines de Plomb' and 'Chiures de Gomme'. He also became an illustrator of books by Céline and he wrote his first novel in 1990.

In the 1990s, Tardi began painting and drew several portfolios. He continued his comics work with 'Le Cochon Enchanté' (based on a Rumanian tale), 'Le Sens de la Houppelande', 'L'Enfant de l'Absente', and 'Sodome et Virginie'. He teamed up with Michel Boujut to create several cinematographic stories for Charlie-Hebdo from 1993.

He also created the radio series 'Le Perroquet des Batignolles' with Boujet. Although Tardi has repeatedly said that he hates drawing the modern world, his work 'La Debauche', scripted by Daniel Pennac, is a colorful satire of late twentieth-century Paris. In 2001, Tardi and writer Jean Vautrin created 'Le Cri du Peuple' about the rebellion of the Communards, of which four books were published by Futuropois between 2001 and 2004. Tardi then continued to make comic adaptations of Jean-Patrick Manchette novels for Les Humanoïdes Associés, including 'Le Petit Bleu de la Côte Ouest' (2005), 'La Position du tireur couché' (2010) and 'Ô dingos, ô châteaux!' (2011). In 2012 he told the story of his father, a French soldier who spent about five years in a German prisoner camp during World War II, in the graphic novel 'Moi René Tardi, prisonnier de guerre au Stalag IIB'.

In 2010 a feature film called 'Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec' was released, made with close cooperation of Tardi. Fantagraphics picked up Tardi's classic comic in the same year for publication in the US.
Source: Lambiek
Jacques Tardi art
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Geoff Taylor biography

Geoff Taylor biography

Geoff Taylor (born 1946, England)
Born in Lancaster, England, Geoff worked as an "Adman" for 5 years before turning to illustration and bookcover art. His first commission was in 1976 for Counter Clock World by Philip K. Dick. In turn this has led to him doing covers for some of the top Science Fiction and Fantasy writers of our time, including Jack Vance, Isaac Asimov, M.K Wren, David & Leigh Eddings, Raymond E. Feist, Jane Welch, Katharine Kerr, Robert Holdstock, Juliet E McKenna and J.R.R Tolkien. He was one of the illustrators for Jeff Wayne's legendary War of the Worlds album.

Since 1994 Geoff has added to some of the rich imagery of Games Workshop Warhammer World, who are probably one of the largest hobby war games companies in the world. Their monthly magazine White Dwarf sells 250,000 copies worldwide!

Reflecting his passion for painting and photographing wildlife, Geoff has published several fine art prints of wolves including The Last Wolf, based on a local story of the supposedly last wolf in England, reputedly killed at Humphrey Head, Cumbria in the 14th Century.
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David Templeton biography

David Templeton biography

David Templeton (b. 1947; Nottinghamshire, UK)
David Templeton was born in 1947 in Nottinghamshire, England. His interest in art became apparent when he completed a 22ft long plasticine snake at the age of just 4 years old.

He proceeded to study at Leeds College of Art between the influential years of 1967 to 1970.

Following his studies, he became a Professor of Art and taught in Cambridge (England) before leaving the UK in the late 1970s to travel around Europe.

He did not return to the UK, instead choosing to settle in the small picturesque mountain village of Deià (Mallorca, Spain). Shortly after arrival in Deià, Templeton formed the Pa Amb Oli rock band with Tomás and Juan Graves, the sons of renowned writer Robert Graves.

Inspired by the more celebrated Renaissance painters, Michelangelo, Raphael and Boticelli, Templeton studied figurative painting for many years. He remains drawn more to working in pastel and pencil teaching privately to this day at his studio in Deià.

A great deal of his work remains inspired by impressionists Lautrec, Van Gogh and Cézanne as well as 20th Century masters Matisse, Picasso and Schiele.
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
David Templeton art
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Gustaf Tenggren biography

Gustaf Tenggren biography

Gustaf Adolf Tenggren (3 November 1896 - 9 April 1970)
Gustaf Tenggren was a Swedish-American illustrator known for his Arthur Rackham-influenced fairy-tale style and use of silhouetted figures with caricatured faces. Tenggren was a chief illustrator for The Walt Disney Company in the late 1930s, in what has been called the Golden Age of American animation, when animated feature films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Bambi and Pinocchio were produced.

Gustaf Tenggren was born in 1896 in Magra parish (now part of Alingsås Municipality), in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. In 1913 he received a scholarship to study painting at Valand, the art school in Gothenburg, Sweden. Tenggren's early schooling and artistic influences were solidly grounded in Scandinavian techniques, motifs and myths; he worked with illustrating in the popular Swedish folklore and fairy tales annual Bland Tomtar och Troll ("Among Gnomes and Trolls"), where he succeeded illustrator John Bauer.

After his first exhibition in 1920, Tenggren emigrated to the U.S. where he joined his sister in Cleveland, Ohio. Moving to New York City in 1922, he made a name for himself in magazine illustration and advertising, while continuing to illustrate children's books.

In the 1920s, while continuing to illustrate a large number of children's books, Tenggren worked consistently in advertising up until the Great Depression; in 1936, he was hired by Walt Disney Productions, to work as a chief illustrator with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Tenggren was not only a concept artist on this movie, but he did much of the illustrations for the non-animated tie-ins to the film, most notably the serialized version of Snow White which was featured in two successive issues of Good Housekeeping Magazine just prior to the film's release. He later worked with productions such as Bambi and Pinocchio, as well as backgrounds and atmospheres of films such as The Ugly Duckling and The Old Mill.

Although the name Gustaf Tenggren remains relatively unknown, his work is widely recognized, both for the Disney films and his work in the Little Golden Books. After his death, much of his non-Disney art was donated to the University of Minnesota to be included in the Kerlan Collection, a special library focusing on children's literature.

In memory of Gustaf Tenggren, a 9-meter (30 ft) bronze sculpture of Pinocchio, designed by the American pop artist Jim Dine, has been erected in downtown Borås, a city south of Tenggren's birthplace. The statue was erected on a tiered pedestal at the beginning of Allégatan, a main street in the center of Borås at the start of the Borås Festival of the Arts on May 16, 2008.
Source: Wikipedia
Gustaf Tenggren art
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Sir John Tenniel biography

Sir John Tenniel biography

Sir John Tenniel (28 February 1820 - 25 February 1914; Bayswater, London, UK)
Sir John Tenniel was an English illustrator, graphic humorist and political cartoonist prominent in the second half of the 19th century. He was knighted for artistic achievements in 1893.

Tenniel is remembered mainly as the principal political cartoonist for Punch magazine for over 50 years and for his illustrations to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871).

Tenniel was born in Bayswater, West London, to John Baptist Tenniel, a fencing and dancing master of Huguenot descent, and Eliza Maria Tenniel. Tenniel had five siblings; two brothers and three sisters. One sister, Mary, was later to marry Thomas Goodwin Green, owner of the pottery that produced Cornishware. Tenniel was a quiet and introverted person, both as a boy and as an adult. He was content to remain firmly out of the limelight and seemed unaffected by competition or change. His biographer Rodney Engen wrote that Tenniel's "life and career was that of the supreme gentlemanly outside, living on the edge of respectability."

In 1840, Tenniel, while practising fencing, received a serious eye wound from his father's foil, which had accidentally lost its protective tip. Over the years, Tenniel gradually lost sight in his right eye; he never told his father of the severity of the wound, as he did not wish to upset him further.

In spite of a tendency towards high art, Tenniel was already known and appreciated as a humorist. His early companionship with Charles Keene fostered his talent for scholarly caricature.

Tenniel became a student of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1842 by probation; he was admitted because he had made enough copies of classical sculptures to fill the necessary admission portfolio. So it was here that Tenniel returned to his earlier independent education.

While Tenniel's more formal training at the Royal Academy and other institutions was beneficial in nurturing his artistic ambitions, it failed to Tenniel's mind because he disagreed with the school's teaching methods, and so he set about educating himself. He studied classical sculptures through painting. However, he was frustrated in this because he lacked instruction in drawing. Tenniel would draw the classical statues at London's Townley Gallery, copy illustrations from books of costumes and armour in the British Museum, and draw animals from the zoo in Regent's Park, as well as actors from London theatres, which he drew from the pits. These studies taught Tenniel to love detail, yet he became impatient in his work and was happiest when he could draw from memory. Though he was blessed with a photographic memory, it undermined his early formal training and restricted his artistic ambitions.

Another "formal" means of training was Tenniel's participation in an artists' group, free from the rules of the Academy that were stifling him. In the mid-1840s he joined the Artist's Society or Clipstone Street Life Academy, and it could be said that Tenniel first emerged there as a satirical draughtsman.

Tenniel's first book illustration was for Samuel Carter Hall's The Book of British Ballads, in 1842. While engaged with his first book illustrations, various contests were taking place in London, as a way in which the government could combat the growing Germanic Nazarenes style and promote a truly national English school of art. Tenniel planned to enter the 1845 House of Lords competition amongst artists to win the opportunity to design the mural decoration of the new Palace of Westminster. Despite missing the deadline, he submitted a 16-foot (4.9 m) cartoon, An Allegory of Justice, to a competition for designs for the mural decoration of the new Palace of Westminster. For this he received a £200 premium and a commission to paint a fresco in the Upper Waiting Hall (or Hall of Poets) in the House of Lords.

Despite the thousands of political cartoons and hundreds of illustrative works attributed to him, much of Tenniel's fame stems from his illustrations for Alice. Tenniel drew 92 drawings for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (London: Macmillan, 1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (London: Macmillan, 1871).

Lewis Carroll originally illustrated Wonderland himself, but his artistic abilities were limited. Engraver Orlando Jewitt, who had worked for Carroll in 1859 and reviewed Carroll's drawings for Wonderland, suggested that he employ a professional. Carroll was a regular reader of Punch and therefore familiar with Tenniel, who in 1865 had long talks with Carroll before illustrating the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The first print run of 2,000 was sold in the United States, rather than England, because Tenniel objected to the print quality. A new edition was released in December 1865, carrying an 1866 date, and became an instant best-seller, increasing Tenniel's fame. His drawings for both books have become some of the most famous literary illustrations.

After 1872, when the Carroll projects were finished, Tenniel largely abandoned literary illustration. Carroll did later approach Tenniel to undertake another project for him. To this Tenniel replied: "It is a curious fact that with Looking-Glass the faculty of making drawings for book illustrations departed from me, and... I have done nothing in that direction since."
Source: Wikipedia
Sir John Tenniel art
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Bert Thomas biography

Bert Thomas biography

Herbert Samuel "Bert" Thomas MBE (13 October 1883 - 6 September 1966)
Bert Thomas was a political cartoonist contributing to Punch magazine and the creator of well-known British propaganda posters during the First and Second World Wars.

Thomas joined Punch in 1905 and contributed until 1935. During the First World War he was in the Artists Rifles.

Thomas' political cartoons started to be included in gallery exhibitions as artistic caricatures as early as 1913, in an exhibition on the Strand by the Society of Humorous Art and in 1916 his cartoon against the Clyde strikers with the Kaiser saying "pass friend" to a striker was a featured exhibit in an exhibition of war cartoons in the Graves Galleries on Pall Mall.

In 1918 he became nationally known for his cartoon "Arf a mo, Kaiser", drawn in ten minutes for the Smokes for Tommy Weekly Dispatch campaign. The cartoon raised nearly a quarter of a million pounds towards "comforts" (tobacco and cigarettes) for front line troops and the image was re-drawn and used during the Second World War with the caption "Arf a mo, 'itler". The Germans banned the "Arf a mo, 'itler" cartoon and to ensure British prisoners did not have their comfort parcels confiscated, he created a variation with the caption "Are we downhearted?"

Thomas was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

He was made MBE in the 1918 Birthday Honours.

Thomas died at his home at 33 Inverness Terrace, Bayswater, London, on 6 September 1966, from a stroke. He was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

The sculptor Ivor Thomas (1873–1913) was his brother and his son Peter also drew cartoons for Punch.
Source: Wikipedia and Illustration Art Gallery

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Bert Thomas art
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Simon Thorpe biography

Simon Thorpe biography

Simon Thorpe, UK
Simon's portraiture featured on the set of James Bond The World is Not Enough, and he has published work based on Stargate and Star Trek amongst many credits. Look out for his work in the Harry Potter movies, in which he painted many distinguished Wizards' and Witches' (moving) portraits!
Simon Thorpe art
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Len Thurston biography

Len Thurston biography

Len Thurston (12 February 1934 - 10 March 2015)
There are few readers of popular culture who have not seen Len Thurston's work - instantly recognisable for his technical brilliance and depiction of period, romance and character - but few would know his name.

Len Thurston was a British artist and noted illustrator for book covers and national magazines during the second half of the 20th century. His work appeared regularly in Woman and Woman's Own, Woman's Realm, TV Times and Radio Times.

His passion for painting was sparked as a young boy when he attended South East Technical College of Art, where he studied carpentry and woodwork, along with art. It was this formative time that turned a talented young boy into a skilled practitioner.

He started his career as a lettering artist enjoying the precision and technical demands of the discipline. He worked at IPC Magazines in Holborn, publishers of Woman and Woman's Own, rising to Art Editor for the Group before he left in 1968 to pursue a freelance career and, from that point on, he never stopped working.

He had started illustrating under the pseudonym Harold Walter during the 1960s and had built up a strong client base of authors and publishers. In the 1970s, in his heyday, he was producing two large paintings a week, using oils and acrylic on board. He worked solidly on book jackets and magazine illustrations for the Readers Digest and Woman's' Weekly Library Series, as well as, on advertising posters turning his hand to stylised sixties imagery using bright, flat colours. But it is the romance and period scenes he painted for which he is remembered, created for authors, such as, Catherine Cookson, Josephine Cox, Margaret Kaufman, Jane Carrick and Freda Lightfoot.

The images he created evoked a time and a place; he captured the spirit of the stories' eponymous heroine and the charm of a recent past. As an artist, he was assured and knew exactly what he wanted to achieve using the same group of models to interpret the author's story; they became friends and regular visitors to the family home. Among these models and the most recognisable was Gary Myers, the original Milk Tray Man.

Thurston's paintings illustrated the book covers and instalments of best-selling authors, including Jeffrey Archer, Dick Francis and Agatha Christie; Archer himself requested Len Thurston paint the cover for some of his most famous work.

He turned his talents to portraiture, too, and was commissioned by the TV Times and Radio Times, to paint six portraits of popular television stars, including the cast of Coronation Street, commencing in August 1970 with the indomitable Ena Sharples. It was to Len Thurston the Radio Times turned again for one of their most memorable front covers featuring Charles and Diana.

Len Thurston was one of a circle of fellow illustrators and artists working in the artistically productive decades 1950s, 60s and 70s. He was highly respected in his circle and John Heseltine, Jerry Fancett, Eric Earnshaw, Fred Laurent and Walter Wyles, were frequent visitors to the family home. He exhibited with his fellow artist, John Heseltine, and had numerous successful solo exhibitions of his work.

Thurston officially retired in 2001, but never stopped painting until, in 2004, he developed a shake in his hand which, although indiscernible to others, made him feel frustrated as an artist and unhappy with the work he was producing. His son and eldest child, Paul, recalls his Father's sadness and the moment he simply chose to 'drop painting overnight'.

Thurston had spent his childhood in Southfields, Wimbledon, and, at the age of 23, married his wife, Kathleen, on 14th September, 1957; they lived in Crowborough, East Sussex, for a short time and Camberley in Surrey, where they stayed for 15 years. In 1980, he moved with his family to Seaford, East Sussex, an area he remembered fondly from the time he spent there as a child evacuee during World War II. It was here, on 10th March 2015, that he died of bowel cancer leaving Kathleen, his wife of nearly 60 years, and his four children Paul, Louise, Emma and Robert.

Before Len Thurston died he destroyed work that he felt was 'not good enough', but much still survives and occasionally comes up for sale at Private Auctions. His large-scale paintings in acrylic and oil, others oil paintings on card, are sought-after works; each inscribed 'Len Thurston' in pencil on verso, together with detailed title information. They are a fine legacy of an exceptionally talented artist.
Source: Illustration Art Stuff
Len Thurston art
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Jean-Paul Tibbles biography

Jean-Paul Tibbles biography

Jean-Paul Tibbles (born 1958; Aylesbury, Bucks, UK)
Jean-Paul Tibbles is an English illustrator who has illustrated many American Girl series books. He currently lives in the United Kingdom. Jean-Paul Tibbles has illustrated most of the Historical Character Mysteries and all of Josefina's Books.

Jean-Paul Tibbles studied at Eastbourne College of Art. His work has previously been seen in the Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 1988 and 1989.

He has exhibited in the annual exhibitions of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (2001–12) and the Portrait Society of America International Competition (2002–7) winning the Grand Prize in 2008.
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William Timym biography

William Timym biography

William Timym (1901 - 1990)
William Timym, MBE, was an artist whose best known work is probably the Bleep and Booster cartoons for the BBC's Blue Peter.

Timym (pronounced Tim) was Austrian, grew up in Vienna and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He moved to England in 1938 because of the Nazi occupation of Austria and during the Second World War produced a number of works for the Ministry of Information.

He became a naturalised British citizen in April 1949.

He was also a bronze sculptor and created many realistic (rather than stylised) wildlife sculptures. These include a statue of Blue Peter's dog Petra, a lion bust at Gloucester's Nature in Art museum, a lifesize Sumatran white rhino at Howletts Wild Animal Park in Canterbury and a 15 ft elephant fountain at Saint Louis Zoo. Other cartoons he produced include Bengo the Boxer puppy and "Wuff, Snuff and Tuff".
Source: Wikipedia
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Ron Tiner biography

Ron Tiner biography

Ronald Charles Tickner; Sittingbourne, Kent, UK
Ron Tiner is a British author and illustrator of books and comics, known for the book Figure Drawing Without A Model (published by F&W Media International), sequential narrative illustration work such as Hellblazer and 2000 AD (comics), and illustrations for a number of classic fictions. He was born in Borden, near Sittingbourne, Kent.

For financial reasons he was unable to attend art college, so originally followed a career in telecommunications. At age 25 he turned to teaching art in schools, producing Comics art in various genres including SF under the pseudonym Ron Tiner (which name he now uses for all purposes) to conceal his identity from employers and students alike; his first professional commission was drawing the strip "Spring-Heeled Jack" for the comic Hotspur.

Ron Tiner's first regularly published work was for the DC Thompson publication The Hotspur from 1976 to 1980 and the IPC publication Battle Action. He went on to become a prolific illustrator of sequential narrative artwork (or graphic storytelling) for comics and magazines for children and adults, throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

He provided illustrations for books in the 1990s and early 2000s, including work for classic texts for both Oxford University Press and Penguin.

He has also authored his own books on illustrating, including Figure Drawing Without a Model, Drawing From Your Imagination, one on fellow artist John Harris (artist) Mass: The Art of John Harris and The Encyclopaedia of Fantasy & Science Fiction Art Techniques (co-authored with John Grant (author).

He also lectured in illustration and sequential narrative and for Swindon College from 1997 to 2005.

Ron Tiner's comic illustration (mostly uncredited) included work for:

The Hotspur
Spring-heeled Jack (1976-1977)
Black Jack the Footpad (1978-1979)
The Red Sands of Roga (1978-1979)
Slaves of Vasala (1980)
Action
School for Survivors (1976)
Battle Action
Major Eazy (1978)
HMS Nightshade (1979 – 1981) (In collaboration with Mike Western)
Rat Pack (1979)
Dispatch Rider (1980)
Clash of the Guards (1982)
Powerman
The Black Star (1976-1977)
Powerman (1978)
Judy
Mary Doone's Diary (1982-1983)
Peretti Publications
The Pickle at Trafalgar - 2005
Tammy
Linda’s Fox (1981)
Jinty
Suzy
Star of the Silver Pool (1983)
The House on Witch Hill (1982-1983)
Oink!
The Hog of the Baskervilles (1989)
King Solomon’s Swines (1989)
Fiesta Comic STRIP
Fanny Hill (1988-1990)
Arabian Nights (1990)
Brain Damage
The Striker Wore Pink Knickers (1989)
Match Weekly
Canon (1983-1985)
2000AD
Future Shocks (1979, 1980 & 1981)
Starlord
Hellblazer
Nos. 24, 25, 27, 28 & 29 (1989)

Other publications in which illustrations have been published include:
Punch (magazine) (1996-1997)
Rex (1995)
Financial Times (1994)
The Daily Telegraph (2009)

During his career he has worked with a number of other British and European comic artists and writers such as Alan Moore, Jamie Delano, Kev Walker and Mark Buckingham, and the late author John Grant.

Aside from sequential narrative illustration, Tiner received commissions for book illustrations, increasing in number during the decline of the British comic industry. These included contrasting styles of work for Usborne's abridged illustrated versions of The Tales of Robin Hood and Dr Jeckyll And Mr Hyde (both 1995).

For Oxford University Press his work has included further classics such as:
John Buchan's The 39 Steps (2000)
Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd (2002)
C.S. Forester's The African Queen (2004)
Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (1997)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes & the Duke's Son, 2002).
Operation Terror

Published by Penguin:
Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal (1999)
Washington Irving's Rip van Winkle (2000)

Published by Smith Settle
Gumboot Practice (1989)
Dales Law (1990)
A Haunt of Rare souls (1990)
Behind the Brass Plate (1993)

He also adapted six of Enid Blyton's Secret Seven stories in the 1980s as graphic narratives for Gutenburghus's Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine<Actinic:Variable Name = '3'/>. He also provided illustrations for Grant's The Far Enough Window, published by Bewrite Books in 2002 (ISBN 978-1904224792).
Bibliography

As sole author his works include:
Figure Drawing Without a Model (published by David and Charles ISBN 978-0715329320)
Drawing From Your Imagination (published by David and Charles ISBN 978-0715329252)
Mass: The Art of John Harris (published by Paper Tiger, ISBN 978-1855858312)

He has worked on a number of projects with the author John Grant, including as a contributing editor on The Encycolpaedia of Fantasy and The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction (both published by Orbit Publications), and The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction & Fantasy Art Techniques (published by Quarto Publishing.

In 1997 Ron Tiner developed a course on the theory and practice of "Narrative & Sequential Illustration" for The University of Swindon, which he delivered from 1997 to 2005. Of that, Tiner said, I'd always wanted to be a film-maker as a boy and I think I saw comics in that way – like films on paper, where you ‘see’ the story as much as hear it. To achieve this, films use all sorts of visual devices to draw you in and maintain the narrative, a judicious use of close-ups and longshots, varied “camera” angles, high and low viewpoints and so forth. I wanted to achieve that effect in my comics.
Source: Wikitia & Illustration Art Gallery
Ron Tiner art
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Trini Tinturé biography

Trini Tinturé biography

Trinidad Tinturé Navarro (born 1938; Catalonia, Spain)
The self-taught Catalan artist Trini Tinturé draws mainly girls comics. She moved from her native Lleida to Barcelona to begin her artistic career. Starting in the 1960s, she did some advertising jobs, and cooperated on such children's and teenagers' publications as Piluchi, Mercedis, Mari Luz and 17 Años.

She joined the publishing house Bruguera, where she drew for Celia and Sissi. For the latter, she created the character 'Emma es Encantadora' with writer Francisco Pérez Navarro.

She also took on a large projects for foreign publications and through Bardon Art Studios she has drawn for several British and Scottish publications. In Jurtz, she drew the 'Oh, Tinker!' series, and for Twinkle, she created the little lamb 'Curly'.

When the publishing house Bruguera folded, Tinturé began a collaboration with the German girls' magazine Biggi, for which she illustrated the title comic. She also became a regular contributor to the Dutch magazine Tina, drawing the 'Micky' and 'Siska' series. Also for Holland, she contributed to Penny.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Trini Tinturé art
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James Joseph Jacques Tissot biography

James Joseph Jacques Tissot biography

James Jacques Joseph Tissot (15 October 1836 - 8 August 1902; Nantes, France)
Jacques Joseph Tissot was a French painter and illustrator. He was a successful painter of fashionable, modern scenes and society life in Paris before moving to London in 1871. A friend and mentor of the Impressionist painter Edgar Degas, Tissot also painted scenes and figures from the Bible.

Jacques Tissot was born in the city of Nantes in France and spent his early childhood there. His father, Marcel Théodore Tissot, was a successful drapery merchant. His mother, Marie Durand, assisted her husband in the family business and designed hats. A devout Catholic, Tissot's mother instilled pious devotion in the future artist from a very young age. Tissot's youth spent in Nantes likely contributed to his frequent depiction of shipping vessels and boats in his later works. The involvement of his parents in the fashion industry is believed to have been an influence on his painting style, as he depicted women's clothing in fine detail. By the time Tissot was 17, he knew he wanted to pursue painting as a career. His father opposed this, preferring his son to follow a business profession, but the young Tissot gained his mother's support for his chosen vocation. Around this time, he began using the given name of James. By 1854 he was commonly known as James Tissot; he may have adopted it because of his increasing interest in everything English.

In 1856 or 1857, Tissot travelled to Paris to pursue an education in art. While staying with a friend of his mother, painter Jules-Élie Delaunay, Tissot enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to study in the studios of Hippolyte Flandrin and Louis Lamothe. Both were successful Lyonnaise painters who moved to Paris to study under Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Lamothe provided the majority of Tissot's studio education, and the young artist studied on his own by copying works at the Louvre, as did most other artists of the time in their early years. Around this time, Tissot also made the acquaintance of the American James McNeill Whistler, and French painters Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet.

In 1859, Tissot exhibited in the Paris Salon for the first time. He showed five paintings of scenes from the Middle Ages, many depicting scenes from Goethe's Faust. These works show the influence in his work of the Belgian painter Henri Leys (Jan August Hendrik Leys), whom Tissot had met in Antwerp earlier that same year. Other influences include the works of the German painters Peter von Cornelius and Moritz Retzsch. After Tissot had first exhibited at the Salon and before he had been awarded a medal, the French government paid 5,000 francs for his depiction of The Meeting of Faust and Marguerite in 1860, with the painting being exhibited at the Salon the following year, together with a portrait and other paintings.

Tissot's painting Walk in the Snow appeared at the 1862 International Exhibition in London; the next year three paintings by Tissot were displayed at the London gallery of Ernest Gambart.

In about 1863, Tissot suddenly shifted his focus from the medieval style to the depiction of modern life through portraits. During this period, Tissot gained high critical acclaim, and quickly became a success as an artist. Like contemporaries such as Alfred Stevens and Claude Monet, Tissot also explored Japonisme in his pictures. Degas painted a portrait of Tissot from these years (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), in which he is sitting below a Japanese screen hanging on the wall.

Tissot fought in the Franco-Prussian War as part of the improvised defence of Paris, joining two companies of the Garde Nationale and later as part of the Paris Commune. His 1870 painting La Partie Carrée (The Foursome) evoked the period of the French revolution. Either because of the radical political associations related to the Paris Commune (which he was believed to have joined mostly to protect his own belongings rather than for shared ideology), or because of better opportunities, he left Paris for London in 1871. During this period, Seymour Haden helped him to learn etching techniques. Having already worked as a caricaturist for Thomas Gibson Bowles, the owner of the magazine Vanity Fair, as well as exhibited at the Royal Academy, Tissot arrived with established social and artistic connections in London. Tissot used the name Coïdé in Vanity Fair from 1869 to 1873.

Tissot quickly developed his reputation as a painter of elegantly dressed women shown in scenes of fashionable life. By 1872 Tissot had bought a house in St John's Wood, an area of London very popular with artists at the time. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists, "in 1874 Edmond de Goncourt wrote sarcastically that he had 'a studio with a waiting room where, at all times, there is iced champagne at the disposal of visitors'".

He gained membership of The Arts Club in 1873.

Paintings by Tissot appealed greatly to wealthy British industrialists during the second half of the 19th century. During 1872 he earned 94,515 francs, an income normally only enjoyed by those in the echelons of the upper classes.

In 1874, Degas asked him to join them in the first exhibition organized by the artists who became known as the Impressionists, but Tissot refused. He continued to be close to these artists, however. Berthe Morisot visited him in London in 1874, and he travelled to Venice with Édouard Manet at about the same time. He regularly saw Whistler, who influenced Tissot's Thames river scenes.

In 1875 or 1876, Tissot met Kathleen Newton, a divorcee who became the painter's companion and frequent model. He composed an etching of her in 1876 entitled Portrait of Mrs N., more commonly titled La frileuse.<Actinic:Variable Name = '2'/> She gave birth to a son, Cecil George Newton in 1876, who is believed to be Tissot's son. She moved into Tissot's household in St. John's Wood in 1876 and lived with him until her death in the late stages of consumption in 1882. Tissot frequently referred to these years with Newton as the happiest of his life, a time when he was able to live out his dream of a family life.

After Kathleen Newton's death, Tissot returned to Paris. A major exhibition of his work took place in 1885 at the Galerie Sedelmeyer, where he showed 15 large paintings in a series called La Femme à Paris. Unlike the scenes of fashionable women he painted in London, these paintings represent different types and classes of women, shown in professional and social scenes. The works also show the widespread influence of Japanese prints, as he used unexpected angles and framing and dimensions from that tradition. Tissot was among many Western artists and designers influenced at the time by Japanese art, fashion and aesthetics.

In 1885, Tissot had a revival of his Catholic faith, which led him to spend the rest of his life making paintings about biblical events. Many of his artist friends were skeptical about his conversion, which coincided with the French Catholic revival, a reaction against the secular attitude of the French Third Republic. Moving away from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism that aimed to create art that reflected a changing, modern world, Tissot returned to traditional, representational styles and narratives in his watercolors. To assist in his completion of biblical illustrations, Tissot traveled to the Middle East in 1886, 1889, and 1896 to make studies of the landscape and people. His series of 365 gouache illustrations showing the life of Christ were shown to critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences in Paris (1894–1895), London (1896) and New York (1898–1899), before being bought by the Brooklyn Museum in 1900.<Actinic:Variable Name = '17'/> They were published in a French edition in 1896–1897 and in an English one in 1897–1898, bringing Tissot vast wealth and fame. During July 1894, Tissot was awarded the Legion of Honour, France's most prestigious medal.

Tissot spent the last years of his life working on paintings of subjects from the Old Testament. Although he never completed the series, he exhibited 80 of these paintings in Paris in 1901 and engravings after them were published in 1904.
Source: Wikipedia; Illustration Art Gallery
James Joseph Jacques Tissot art
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Bill Titcombe biography

Bill Titcombe biography

Bill Titcombe
A very prolific and talented comic strip artist with many styles, Bill Titcombe has been illustrating children's comics since the late 1950s. Bill's work captured the essence of many of our favourite TV and film characters into comic strips that today still delight the eye with their clean lines and bright colours.

One of Bill's longest contracts was with the TV Comic weekly, where he often had as many as four different strips on the go at once.

The Telegoons, one of Bill's earlier comic strips, far exceeded the norm for a TV series tie-in, in that it outlived the television original by more than two years; witness Eccles, the original goon, as drawn by Bill Titcombe.

Over the years, Bill Titcombe has worked on more than 60 different comic strips, including Inspector Gadget, Scooby Doo and Woody Woodpecker.
Bill Titcombe art
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Adrian Tomine biography

Adrian Tomine biography

Adrian Tomine (born 31 May 1974; California, USA)
Adrian Tomine, a popular contemporary cartoonist, is best known for his ongoing comic book series Optic Nerve and his illustrations in The New Yorker.

Adrian Tomine was born in Sacramento, California. His parents divorced when he was two years old. His father is Dr. Chris Tomine, Ph.D. and Professor Emeritus Environmental Engineering at California State University Sacramento's Department of Civil Engineering. His mother is Dr. Satsuki Ina, Ph.D. and Professor Emeritus at California State University Sacramento's School of Education. Tomine is fourth-generation Japanese American, and both of his parents spent part of their childhoods in Japanese internment camps in the U.S. during World War II. He also has a brother, Dylan, who is eight years his senior.

After his parents divorced, Tomine moved frequently, accompanying his mother to Fresno, Oregon, Germany, and Belgium, while spending summers with his father in Sacramento. He attended high school at Rio Americano in Sacramento, where he started writing, drawing and self-publishing his comic Optic Nerve. Tomine has continued producing Optic Nerve as a regular comic book series for Drawn & Quarterly; the most recent issue was published July, 2013.

As a young child, Tomine enjoyed Spider-Man and Indiana Jones comics. In an interview, Tomine said that "something about the medium just transfixed me at an early age" and that his influences include Jaime Hernandez and Daniel Clowes. He is also a fan of contemporary Chris Ware. In addition to writing graphic novels such as Summer Blonde and Shortcomings. Tomine regularly works in commercial illustration. He has done several covers and illustrations for The New Yorker; his first was "Missed Connection".

Tomine graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in English Literature. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York with his wife Sarah Brennan, a longtime New Yorker. On October 31, 2009, Tomine and Brennan welcomed their first child, Nora Emiko Tomine.

Tomine began publishing his work when he was still a teenager; he was mainly self-published, but was also published in mainstream publications like Pulse while still in high school. While his early work was greeted with much acclaim, he faced severe backlash around the time when he made the jump to professional publication, and the letters pages of his modern comics typically feature several highly critical letters in which he is accused of creating "trendy" or "emo" characters. He is often compared to his friend Dan Clowes for his signature clean-line style; in fact, he is sometimes accused of ripping off Clowes' style.In an interview published in The Comics Journal #205, Tomine addressed many of these criticisms and discussed his influences in detail, admitting that he was strongly influenced by Clowes but perhaps even more so by Jaime Hernandez. The cover of his Journal issue featured a self-parody of sorts, featuring a sequence in which a hipster girl says to the reader, "I'm so cute! I love coffee, and indie rock! But... I'm sad. Can you relate?"

In an interview published on the Drawn and Quarterly website, Tomine discussed printing critical letters in his book: "I imagine most cartoonists receive some negative mail. I just thought it was fair (and entertaining) to allow a range of reactions to be heard. And as for my response, it really varies: some criticism I dismiss completely, and some I take to heart."

Most of Tomine's early works rarely mentioned racial issues, and most of his characters appeared to be Caucasian. Tomine, who is Asian American, drew himself in many of his early strips, but did not make his ethnicity clear (he often drew his glasses as being opaque, so his eyes couldn't be seen). In later works, he has explored racial issues more directly, such as in his latest graphic novel Shortcomings.

In the '90s, Tomine made an appearance on The Jane Pratt Show, which he documented in Optic Nerve.

Optic Nerve was originally self-published in mini-comic format by Tomine himself, and distributed to local comics shops in his area. Most of the stories were later compiled into a single edition, titled "32 Stories: The Complete Optic Nerve Mini-Comics," published by Drawn and Quarterly.

Optic Nerve is the ongoing series of comics by Tomine that were originally self-published and are currently published by Drawn and Quarterly. Originally, the self-published comics were in "mini-comic" format, consisting of seven issues (most of them later republished in 32 Stories). After Drawn and Quarterly became the publisher, the comics were published at standard size, and the issue numbering was restarted, making the first Drawn & Quarterly published issue to be numbered #1. These comics range from a few pages per story to the 32-page standard in later issues. Issues 1-4 included several stories each and were collected in Sleepwalk and Other Stories, and issues 5-8 included one story each and were collected in Summer Blonde. Issues 9-11 were compiled into a graphic novel titled Shortcomings, released in September 2007.

Tomine has worked on several albums, including liner notes and album art for Eels' Electro-Shock Blues, "Last Stop: This Town", "Cancer for the Cure", and End Times, as well as The Softies' album "It's Love" and The Crabs's "What Were Flames Now Smolder".
Source: Wikipedia
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Sergio Toppi biography

Sergio Toppi biography

Sergio Toppi (11 October 1932 – 21 August 2012; Italy)
Sergio Toppi was an Italian illustrator. Born in Milan, Toppi made his debut in the illustration world working for the renowned Italian publisher UTET, and collaborated to several advertisement campaigns.

In 1966 he finished his first comic strip for Il Corriere dei Piccoli ("The Children's Gazette"), written by Carlo Triberti. The character was the Mago Zurlì ("Zurli Wizard"). For the same title Toppi produced numerous war stories .

Subsequently Toppi worked mainly for one-shot titles, with the exception of the eccentric Collezionista ("Collector") of 1984. He produced adventure/historical titles for CEPIM's Un uomo un'avventura and, for the French publisher Larrousse, some episodes of Histoire de France en bandes dessinées and La Découverte du Monde.

Later he collaborated with Il Corriere dei Ragazzi ("The Boys' Gazette"), and the Messaggero dei Ragazzi, the comics title of a popular Rome's newspaper, with historically set stories.

Toppi's works appeared on a host of titles in Italy and abroad: an incomplete list could include Linus, Corto Maltese, Sgt. Kirk and Il Giornalino in Italy. His strips were collected in several books. He last worked with the French publisher Mosquito, with which he made 22 books since 1994.
Source: Wikipedia
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Aldo Torchio biography

Aldo Torchio biography

Aldo Torchio (17 September 1925 - 30 May 1999; Cremona, Italy)
Aldo Torchio was born in Cremona. He attended the Leone XIII school in Milan and began drawing for Italian educational publications in 1948. Between 1951 and 1953 he worked for Cino Del Duca in Paris, and illustrated comic versions of famous novels for the French market. In Italy, he drew covers and comic stories for Domenica del Corriere and Grand Hotel.

In 1951, he took over art duties on 'Il Cavaliere Ideale' from Alvaro Mairani in Il Intrepido. He was succeeded by Gino Pallotti. Also for Intrepido, he drew covers as well as 'Bufalo Bill' (1956) and for Intrepido Sport, he made 'Jene 2' in 1991. In the 1980s he drew comics for Il Monello.
Source: Lambiek
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Patricia Tourret biography

Patricia Tourret biography

Patricia M Tourret (born 1929; London)
Pat Tourret was born in London in the first quarter of 1929, the eldest of four daughters of Gaston Tourret and his wife Phyllis, née Evans. She was educated at Harrow Art School before becoming a freelance illustrator.

She created, together with writer Jenny Butterworth, the daily strip Tiffany Jones about the adventures of a model, in the Daily Sketch and Daily Mail from 1964 to 1977, This strip, about a modern and independent young model, who is aware of her own beauty, was one of the very few strips in England drawn by a woman and was syndicated worldwide and spawned a 1973 film starring Anouska Hempel.

She also drew for British girls' comics, including Girl and Boyfriend, in the early 1960s, and has illustrated children's books and educational books. Her sisters Gwen and Shirley are also illustrators and comics artists.
Source: Wikipedia
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Frederick Henry Townsend biography

Frederick Henry Townsend biography

Frederick Henry Townsend (26 February 1868 - 11 December 1920; London)
Frederick Henry Townsend was born in London on 26th February 1868. He studied at Lambeth School of Art where other students included Leonard Raven-Hill and Arthur Rackham. One of his first jobs was to illustrate two stories by Oscar Wilde that appeared in Court & Society Review.

Townsend contributed to several newspapers and magazine including Punch Magazine, The Daily Graphic, The Tatler, The Idler, The Pall Mall Gazette, The Strand Magazine, News Chronicle and Illustrated London News. Books illustrated by Townsend included Maid Marian (1895), Jane Eyre (1896), Shirley (1897), A Tale of Two Cities (1897), The Scarlet Letter (1897) and Rob Roy (1897).

In 1905 Townsend became the first Art Editor of Punch Magazine. He also contributed cartoons to the magazine and illustrated the "Parliamentary Sketches". According to Mark Bryant Townsend "used models and drew roughs in pencil on chalk-surface paper, than transferred these in pen and ink on to Bristol Board."

Townsend was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", a celebrated collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.

During the First World War he served in the Special Constabulary. He also produced several patriotic cartoons including the famous No Thoroughfare after the German invasion of Belgium.

Frederick Henry Townsend died while playing golf on 11th December 1920. He was replaced by his brother-in-law, Frank Reynolds as Punch's Art Editor.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Spartacus Educational

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Frederick Henry Townsend art
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Mike Tregenza biography

Mike Tregenza biography

Mike Tregenza
Little is known about Mike Tregenza. He was an illustrator of educational books for children in the 1970s, contributing a number of titles to the 'Picture Panorama of the World' series published by Owlet Books (1977) as well as books on space travel and the planets. The earliest book I have spotted was written and illustrated by Tregenza in 1974, entitled Espionage.

He also produced book jackets and an excellent set of illustrations for a series on the history of the submarine for Look and Learn in the Spring of 1981.
Source: Steve Holland (Bear Alley)
Mike Tregenza art
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Stuart Tresilian biography

Stuart Tresilian biography

Cecil Stuart Tresilian (born 1891; Bristol, UK)
Tresilian is the illustrator of Enid Blyton's popular Adventure series.

Cecil Stuart Tresilian was born in Bristol and studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art, where he taught for a time (instructing students that include the famous Charles Keeping). Later he was accepted to study at the Royal College of Art.

Notably, During World War I he was a prisoner of war in a German camp, drawing throughout his incarceration. These drawings are now exhibited in the Imperial War Museum.

Tresilian is very well-known in the art world. He was Brother of the Art Workers' Guild (and Master in 1960) and a member of SGA and also its President from 1962-5. He also wrote a textbook - Human anatomy for art students (Chapman & Hall, 1961). In the 1930s and early 1940s, Tresilian provided illustrations to many magazines, including The Wide World Magazine, Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, Zoo, The Passing Show, The Wide World Magazine and Britannia and Eve.

Stuart Tresilian was an accomplished graphic artist and book illustrator, and famously illustrated Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and associated works. His characters for these books were based on drawings from the London Zoo. He also illustrated Biggles in Borneo by Captain WE Johns, as well as several lesser titles by various authors.

Book illustrations by Stuart Tresilian include: The Island of Adventure; The Circus of Adventure; interior illustration from The River of Adventure; Biggles in Borneo; Interior illustration from Biggles in Borneo; The Jungle Book, The Second Jungle Book, Cover art of All The Mowgli Stories, Interior illustration from All The Mowgli Stories (note the similarity between this and the cover of The Jungle Book.
Source: http://www.heathersblytonpages.com/blytonillustrators-t-z.html#Tresilian
Stuart Tresilian art
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Paul Trevillion biography

Paul Trevillion biography

Paul Trevillion (born 11 March 1934; London, UK)
Paul Trevillion is a British comic/sports artist, whose career spans fifty years.

Born in Tottenham, north London, Trevillion produced artwork for publications like Eagle and TV Century 21 while still at school. From the 1960s to the 1980s, Trevillion devised and illustrated pieces for Daily Mirror, Daily Express, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph and The Times, and in 2006 revived his cult football cartoon You Are The Ref - made famous by football magazine Shoot! in the 1970s - for The Observer. A book collecting 50 years of You Are The Ref was published in October 2006. From August 2008, You Are The Ref appeared online at guardian.co.uk.

Trevillion, who spent much of the 1960s in the US working with Mark McCormack at IMG for some of the world's biggest brands, is the author and illustrator of over 20 books which have sold worldwide. He also illustrated the famous Gary Player Golf Class which appeared in over 300 newspapers worldwide.

He has met and drawn some of sport's biggest names, including Pelé, Bobby Moore, George Best, Franz Beckenbauer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Sugar Ray Robinson and Oscar De La Hoya. As a young man, he also met and drew British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Trevillion's career away from his art has been rich and, at times, bizarre. He worked as a stand-up comedian, supporting the likes of Norman Wisdom and Bob Monkhouse, had a record deal, was crowned world speed-kissing champion, and invented a split-handed golf putting technique. He was also the inspiration behind an attempt to boost Leeds United's image in the 1970s. Hired by Don Revie in 1972, his ideas included wearing numbered sock tags (which were subsequently thrown into the crowd as souvenirs) and synchronised warm-ups.

In 2008 Trevillion was interviewed in the award-winning documentary Roy, about the life and times of Roy of the Rovers: a character Trevillion illustrated in the 1950s. The film was shown at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2011 Trevillion was short-listed for the prestigious Sports Journalists' Association Cartoonist of the Year Award. Marking this feat at the age of 75, his long-time colleague Norman Giller commented in a tribute on the SJA website: "To describe Paul as a cartoonist is to trivialize a career dedicated to producing outstanding art."
Source: Wikipedia
Paul Trevillion art
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Giorgio Trevisan biography

Giorgio Trevisan biography

Giorgio Trevisan (born 13 October 1934; Merano, Italy)
Giorgio Trevisan, painter and illustrator, was born in Merano (near Bolzano, Italy). After graduating in Classics in 1957, and after several professional jobs he started to work for the Creazoni Dami Studio in Milan, drawing the series Cherry Brandy, and after that was given the opportunity to work on some of the war strips for Amalgamated Press. In 1959 he began to work for the Corriere dei Ragazzi and, as a result of his moving to Este, near Padova, with the Messaggero di Sant'Antonio.

Between 1970 and 1975 he illustrated the Life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, with which he gained the Primo Premio della Stampa Cristiana d'Europa. In the same year he collaborated with the Corriere Boy designing fantasties written from Milo Milani. From 1980 he worked on the series Ken Parker and Julia.

Trevisan's UK work started with his collaboration with Rinaldo 'Roy' Dami, where he drew several war stories for Fleetway during the late 1950s and early sixties, including Battle Picture Library (Nos. 46, 57), War Picture Library (Nos. 175, 277, 287) and became one of the many artists that worked on Battler Britton. However, even when Dami had moved on to other pastures Trevisan continued to work for the UK market, and primarily Amalgamated Press/Fleetway.

In 1964 he drew HMS Outcast for Hurricane, in 1966 he was producing some episodes of Trelawney of the Guards for the Lion comic, this was later renamed Trelawney's Mob with artwork by original Trelawney artist Victor de la Fuente and Jose Ortiz, as well as the rather weird strip The Flying Fortress (1978) and in the meantime he also did work for various Treasure Annuals. During the late 1960s he worked on some of The Spider stories for Fleetway Stupendous Library as well as some of the war stories in the Fleetway Front Line Series.

During this period Trevisan also illustrated several adaptations of children's novels, including The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and A Dog of Flanders by English author Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramée), as well as fairy tales such as the Ugly Duckling.

Amongst his non-UK work, Hannibal is regarded as one of his best ever strips. This was the story of the great general and Trevisan's line work is absolutely wonderful.

He also worked on the French comic series Yataca (Aventures & Voyages) nos. 1-209, these being both original stories and UK reprints by Trevisan, Joe Colqhoun, Denis McLoughlin, Josep Subirats, Victor Peon, Garcia Quiros, Annibale Casabianca.

For l'Eternauta, towards the end of the 1980s, Trevisan brought Sherlock Holmes back to life, but with all the respect and care that someone with his love for history could do. In total there were six adventures of Holmes, scripts by Giancarlo Berardi and designed by Trevisan. Berardi's scripts take nothing away from Conan Doyle's originals, whilst Trevisan's chiaroscura allows the reader to slip into the atmosphere of film, and his reconstructions of London are meticulous and evocative.
Source: dandare.info and Illustration Art Gallery

See more on the fascinating Studio Dami  Italian illustration agency run by Rinaldo 'Roy' Dami.

Giorgio Trevisan art
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Warren Tufts biography

Warren Tufts biography

Chester "Warren" Tufts (12 December 1925 - 7 June 1982; USA)
Warren Tufts was an American comic strip and comic book artist-writer best known for his syndicated Western adventure strip Casey Ruggles which ran from 1949 to 1954.

Tufts entered the comic strip industry when the story strip, his preferred form, was already in decline. As a result of that and his eventual falling out with United Features Syndicate, he never enjoyed the fame and fortune of the more successful comic strip creators, such as Hal Foster and Milton Caniff. Nonetheless, his work has received considerable praise from critics such as Bill Blackbeard.

In 1949, Warren Tufts created the comic strip Casey Ruggles, set against the backdrop of the Old West. Distributed by United Features, it initially appeared only in the Sunday comics, but when the lushly illustrated story became popular, a daily strip was added. Because Tufts was a perfectionist who often worked 80-hour weeks, he had trouble meeting deadlines, even though he had help from numerous assistants and ghosts: Nick Cardy, Ruben Moreira, Al Plastino and Alex Toth.

As Casey Ruggles' popularity grew, Tufts received an offer from a major television studio to produce a Casey Ruggles TV show. However, United Features nixed the offer on the grounds that a TV show would make the strip less popular. In anger, Tufts left United Features in 1954, and Casey Ruggles ended shortly afterward, as the replacement artist, Al Carreño, apparently could not maintain reader interest. Tufts' contract with the syndicate required that they be given first refusal on his next strip, so he created The Lone Spaceman, which he was sure they would refuse. They did. He then created, wrote, drew and self-syndicated one of the last and, in the judgment of many critics, one of the most beautiful full-page comic strips, Lance.

However, the job of not only writing and drawing but also traveling around the country from city to city to sell the strip proved daunting, and in 1960, Tufts left the comic strip field. He drew some comic books for Gold Key Comics, including Korak, Son of Tarzan, The Pink Panther, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan and Wagon Train, but the fast pace and low pay of the comic book industry at that time kept him from doing his best work.

He also drew an adult comic book, Jack and the Beanstalk, and wrote and illustrated a serialized story for Sports Flying magazine.

On TV, he lent his voice, lips and artistic talents to Cambria Studios' production of the Syncro-Vox series Captain Fathom (1965), and is credited as story director on Hanna-Barbera's ABC Saturday Superstar Movie (1972) and Challenge of the Super Friends (1978). He also played the character Gator in the "Dos Pinos" episode of the TV series The Westerner (1960).

Tufts' hobby was building and flying private airplanes. He was killed when one of his airplanes crashed in 1982.
Source: Wikipedia
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John Turner biography

John Turner biography

John Turner
John Turner illustrated beautiful sets of pictures to accompany Enid Blyton's Bible Stories - Old Testament (Macmillan, 1949) and Bible Stories - Old Testament (Macmillan, 1952-53).

In 1957 and 1960, Macmillan used the full-colour plates from the original set and included them in smaller books alongside Blyton's abridged text. They were published as Old Testament Picture Books (volumes 1 and 2) and New Testament Picture Books (volumes 1 and 2).

It is evident that Macmillan also used many of these stunning full-colour plates depicting Biblical scenes as part of their wide-ranging series of Educational Posters in the 1960s.

Turner also illustrated The Secret of the Desert by Coutts Brisbane (Nelson, 1943). It is described as "the thrilling story of an attempted Japanese invasion of Australia", obviously very different to the Biblical paintings he had done for Blyton.
Source: http://www.heathersblytonpages.com/blytonillustrators-t-z.html#Turner & The Illustration Art Gallery
John Turner art
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Ron Turner biography

Ron Turner biography

Rowland "Ron" Turner (1922 - 1998, England)
Perhaps the most imaginative of all British sci-fi artists, Ron Turner is mostly renowned for the series of marvellous futuristic covers he did for Scion and Tit Bits paperbacks in the early 1950s; his ground-breaking strip work for the Tit Bits Science Fiction Comics, for which he wrote the scripts; his Space Ace strips for Atlas' Lone Star Magazine and, in the late 1950s, the Rick Random strips in Amalgamated Press' Super Detective Library. Although he only drew two Thriller Comics Libraries, these Jet Ace Logan adventures - Times Five (no. 418) and Power from Beyond (no. 442) - are amongst the most collected of the later issues because of his brilliant artwork.

Ron Turner was born in Norwich but grew up in Romford and became a trainee artist at an early age at Odhams studios in London. In 1939, he began contributing to Odhams' Modern Wonder but it was not until after the War that he drew his first picture strips: for Scion's series of Big comics. When Scion entered the paperback market in the early 1950s, it was logical for them to offer Turner their science fiction covers to paint - and Turner the science fiction master was on his way to lasting fame. Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.

Enjoy more of Ron's storytelling art in our Fleetway Classics comic strip collections JET-ACE LOGAN, RICK RANDOM and JOHN STEEL SPECIAL AGENT.

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Simon Turvey biography

Simon Turvey biography

Simon Turvey
Simon Turvey is a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists. His work appears in many British bird books.
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Albert Uderzo biography

Albert Uderzo biography

Alberto Aleandro Uderzo (born 25 April 1927; Marne, France)
Albert Uderzo is a French comic book artist and scriptwriter. He is best known for his work on the Astérix series, but also drew other comics such as Oumpah-pah, also in collaboration with René Goscinny.

Uderzo was born Alberto Aleandro Uderzo in Fismes (Marne, France), to parents, Silvio and Iria, who had recently immigrated from Italy. His name comes from the Italian village called Oderzo (formerly called Uderzo), where his family tree can be traced. His childhood ambitions were to become an aircraft mechanic, despite his talents in art at an early age.

Uderzo obtained French citizenship in 1934, and during World War II, the teenaged Uderzo left Paris and spent a year in Brittany, where he worked on a farm and helped with his father's furniture business. He loved Brittany, both for its scenery and its people. Many years later, when the time came to choose a location for Asterix's village, Goscinny left the decision entirely to Uderzo, only stipulating that it should be near the sea in case the characters needed to travel by boat. Uderzo had no hesitation in choosing Brittany.

Uderzo began a successful career as an artist in Paris after the war in 1945, with creations such as Flamberge and also Clopinard, a small one-legged old man who triumphs against the odds. From 1947 to 1948 he created some other comics, such as Belloy and Arys Buck.

Throughout some more creations and travelling for the next few years, he eventually met René Goscinny in 1951. The two men quickly became good friends, and decided to work together in 1952 at the newly opened Paris office of the Belgian company, World Press. Their first creations were the characters Oumpah-pah, Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior. In 1958 they adapted Oumpah-pah for serial publication in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tintin, though it ran only until 1962. In 1959 Goscinny and Uderzo became editor and artistic director (respectively) of Pilote magazine, a new venture aimed at older children. The magazine's first issue introduced Astérix to the French world, and it was an instant hit. During this period Uderzo also collaborated with Jean-Michel Charlier on the realistic series Michel Tanguy, later named Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure.

Astérix was serialised in Pilote, but in 1961 the first album Astérix le gaulois (Asterix the Gaul) was published as an individual album. By 1967, the comic had become so popular that both decided to completely dedicate their time to the series. After Goscinny's death in 1977, Uderzo continued to write and illustrate the books on his own, though at a significantly slower pace (averaging one album every three to five years compared to two albums a year when working with Goscinny). The cover credits still read "Goscinny and Uderzo".

Uderzo married Ada Milani in 1953 and has one child, daughter Sylvie Uderzo (b. 1956). According to The Book of Asterix the Gaul, it was speculated that Uderzo had based the characters Panacea and Zaza on Ada and Sylvie respectively, though this has been denied by Uderzo. When Uderzo sold his share of Editions Albert René to Hachette Livre, Sylvie accused him in a column in Le Monde, that with this action it was "as if the gates of the Gaulish village had been thrown open to the Roman Empire". Sylvie owns 40% of Editions Albert René, while the remaining 60%, previously owned by Uderzo and by Goscinny's daughter, is currently owned by Hachette Livre.

Uderzo has a brother, Marcel, also a cartoonist. Asterix and the Falling Sky was dedicated to his late brother Bruno (1920–2004).
Source: Wikipedia
Albert Uderzo art
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Clive Uptton biography

Clive Uptton biography

Clive Uptton (12 March 1911 – 11 February 2006; UK)
Clive Uptton, a widely regarded British illustrator and painter of landscapes and portraits, was born in Islington, London, the son of Clive Upton, who worked for Swain's, the engravers, as a touch-up artist and later for the Daily Mail newspaper.

Clive Upton was educated at Brentwood Grammar School and Southend Art School before moving to London to attend Central Art School and, later, Heatherley's School of Art. He began contributing professionally at the age of 19 before graduating from Central Art School.

When he noticed another artist named Upton was working for the Evening Standard, he added a second "t" to his surname so that their work was not confused.

From his studio in Cheapside, Uptton contributed illustrations to most of the major magazines of the day, including the Strand Magazine, Tit-Bits, Good Housekeeping, John Bull and The Sphere.

Between 1940 and 1942, Uptton was the political cartoonist of the Daily Sketch and Sunday Graphic; during the war he also worked for the Ministry of Information producing cartoons and posters.

After the war he had a varied career as an illustrator and painter, and created many illustrations for the popular magazine Look and Learn during the 1960s and 1970s. He was a member of the Chelsea Arts Club, the Savage, and the London Sketch Club.

Clive Uptton lived in west London where he died shortly before his 95th birthday. Based on article in Wikipedia.
Clive Uptton art
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William Vance biography

William Vance biography

William Vance (born 8 September 1935, Belgium)
William Vance is the pen-name under which William van Cutsem worked for many years, his distinctive, realistic style finding favour across Europe, although, until recent years, his work was little known in the UK, a situation that has begun to change thanks to the reprinting of the series XIII, eleven volumes of which have appeared in the UK since May 2010.

Born in Anderlecht, near Brussels, Belgium, on 8 September 1935, Van Cutsem performed his military service in 1955-56 before studying art for three years at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, graduating with a First in drawing. He worked in advertising before making an impression with his comics in the pages of Journal de Tintin, at first, from 1962, with complete short stories, many of them historicals written by Yves Duval, and then with the character Howard Flynn, a young British naval officer, also written by Duval. The stories were collected in three albums in 1966-69.

In 1965-68, he drew the western strip Ringo, but it was with his next two strips that he found his biggest success to date. Bruno Brazil, published in Tintin from 1967, featured the exploits of an elite group of American secret service agents known as the Cayman Commandos, whose hair-raising exploits appeared in a number of short stories before their first full-length serial, "Le requin qui mourut deux fois" ("The Shark who Died Twice"), collected in album form in 1969. Written by Michel (Greg) Regnier under the pen-name Louis Albert, a further eight albums appeared between 1970 and 1977, plus the collection Dossier Bruno Brazil; in 1995, La Lombard published a final volume, La Fin...!??.

Parallel to this, Vance met even greater success as the artist of Bob Morane. The strip was based on a series of adventure novels by Belgian novelist Henri Vernes (Charles-Henri Dewisme) which ran to over 200 titles. Morane's adventures were adapted into comic strips in the pages of Femmes d'Aujourn'hui, beginning in 1959; they subsequently moved to Pilote, drawn by Gerald Forton who was succeeded by William Vance in 1967. The first series by Vance (Operation "Chevalier Noir") was reprinted as an album by Dargaud in 1969, the first of 18 series — serialised in Pilote and Tintin — that Vance would illustrated over the next decade. In 1979, he left the strip in the hands of his former assistant, his brother-in-law Felicisimo Coria, who continues to draw the strip to this day.

Vance launched a number of new series in the 1970s, Ramiro, set in medieval Spain, which ran for ten albums, Roderic, which lasted only two, and Bruce J. Hawker, another series about a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, which ran to seven volumes.

In 1984, Jean Van Hamme approached him with the idea for XIII, the violent, contemporary action story of a man who awakes with no memory of his past (it was inspired by Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel, The Bourne Identity). Serialised in Spirou, the series has inspired video games and two television series (one starring Val Kilmer). Set in America, the story follows XIII — named after a tattoo he finds on his collarbone — as he sets about discovering who he is and before long finds himself being hunted by assassins and the FBI and involved in a plot to kill the President.

In 1991, Vance took over the artwork for Jean (Moebius) Giraud's Marshall Blueberry, but produced only two albums; another brief series was XHIG-C3 — Le vasisseau rebell, which proved to be a one-off. However, "XIII" continued with increasing success through the 1990s and early 2000s until Vance and Jean Van Hamme brought the series to an end after 19 volumes (one drawn by Jean Giraud), the final volume bringing the story full circle and revealing the true identity of XIII.

In 2005, Vance was awarded the Bronzen Adhemar by the Flemish Ministry of Culture for his work on "Bob Morhane" and "XIII". In October 2009 he was made an Honorary Citizen of the City of Brussels by Mayor Freddy Thielemans. Vance, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease, announced in 2010 that he was retiring from drawing comics. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Bert Vandeput biography

Bert Vandeput biography

Albert Edward Vandeput (9 May 1915 - 1972; London, UK)
Born in Wandsworth, London, Albert Vandeput (or Van De Put) was an artist of Dutch origins. He attended the Royal Academy and then became the art and sports master at St. Francis Xavier College in Liverpool from 1939 to 1950. He settled in north Wales in 1948.

He was doing his first comic work in the early 1950s, doing several 'Roy of the Rovers' stories, as well as 'Mystery Ice-Ace of the Arrows' (1958-59), for Amalgamated's Tiger.

In the 1960s he worked for DC Thomson. He made many sports comics for the publisher, including "Dozy Danny - Football Star in the Making", "The Team of the Doomed", "Brampton Keys", "Limp-Along Leslie", "Wilson the Wonder Athlete" and "The Wolf of Kabul" for The Hotspur, and "Come Away the United", "Jake's Giant Killers", "The Team that Jack Built" and "Gorgeous Gus" for The Victor. He also drew "Brian's Brain" for Odhams Press' Smash.

He died in the fourth quarter of 1972. His younger brother Dave was a letterer for the Amalgamated Press, Fleetway and IPC.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia and Illustration Art Gallery
Bert Vandeput art
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Gerritt Vandersyde biography

Gerritt Vandersyde biography

Alfred Gerritt Vandersyde (9 January 1898 - 10 November 1970; born London, UK)
The curiously named Gerritt Vandersyde was a British artist of remarkable talent whose work appeared in advertising and on prints that were widely distributed through Boots and Woolworths stores. One of his prints has gained a small measure of fame as it was briefly featured in the background of Stanley Kubrik's A Clockwork Orange. The picture, a portrait entitled Nina, was a commercial success, although Vandersyde is said to have had little business sense and sold the copyright on many of his most commercially popular paintings for only a few pounds.

Alfred Gerritt Vandersyde was born in Camberwell, London, on 9 January 1898, the son of Gerrit Willem Vandersyde, who (along with his younger sister) had been bought to England in the 1860s. Gerrit Willem had married Caroline Bell in 1888 and had seven children (six of them boys), Alfred being the fifth child.

Alfred was raised in Enfield and volunteered for the army at the outbreak of the First World War. He lied about his age in order to join the Army Service Corps. He was drafted to the Medical Corps, driving carriages for medics and caring for the horses, and served in Mesopotamia.

In 1918 he married Grace Collings in Hackney and had two children, Basil (b.1921) and Derek (b.1923). He was married a second time in 1942 to Dorothy Ellen Wood in Wandsworth and had two daughters, Wendy (b.1943) and Gillian (b.1947). The family lived at 4 Hepworth Road, Streatham, S.W.16, which is where Alfred died following a sudden heart attack on 10 November 1970.

Gerritt Vandersyde, as he signed his work, was tall (over 6' 4"). His advertising work included popular images for Ovaltine whilst his illustrations appeared in the London Illustrated News. In the 1960s he illustrated stories for books and for the magazine Once Upon a Time, drawing covers and illustrations on a range of subjects from young children to flamingos. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Charles Vess biography

Charles Vess biography

Charles Vess (born 10 June 1951; USA)
Charles Vess is an American fantasy artist and comic-book illustrator who has specialized in the illustration of myths and fairy tales. His influences include British "Golden Age" book illustrator Arthur Rackham, Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, and comic-strip artist Hal Foster, among others. Vess has won several awards for his illustrations.

Charles Vess began drawing comic art as a child. He graduated with a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 1974. While at VCU, Vess' comics appeared in the Fan Free Funnies, a comic tabloid published by the student newspaper. His first professional position was as a commercial animator for Candy Apple Productions in Richmond, Virginia, which he held for approximately two years.

In 1976 he moved to New York City and became a freelance illustrator. He contributed illustrations to publications including Heavy Metal, Klutz Press (now an imprint of Scholastic Press), and National Lampoon. One notable publication from this early period was The Horns of Elfland (ISBN 0-915822-25-3) published by Archival Press in 1979, which Vess wrote and illustrated.

From 1980-82 Vess worked as an art instructor at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. During that period, his work appeared in one of the first major museum exhibitions of science fiction and fantasy art, held at the New Britain Museum of American Art in 1980.

By the late 1980s Vess had found a niche in the world of fantasy comic art with publications such as The Raven Banner: A Tale of Asgard written by Alan Zelenetz and published by Marvel Comics in 1985, The Book of Night, published by Dark Horse Comics in 1987, and "The Warriors Three Saga" in Marvel Fanfare #34-37, 1987-88. He painted the cover of the debut issue of Web of Spider-Man (April 1985), wrote and drew a backup story in The Amazing Spider-Man #277 (June 1986), and creafted the Spider-Man: Spirits of the Earth graphic novel (1990). In 1991 he illustrated the official comic-book adaptation of Steven Spielberg’s Hook and had an eleven issue run (#129-139) as cover artist of Swamp Thing by DC Comics in 1993.

In 1990, Vess began one of his best-known collaborations to date, with writer Neil Gaiman. He illustrated "The Land of Summer's Twilight", one of the four episodes in the original The Books of Magic mini-series, and worked on three issues of Gaiman’s critically acclaimed The Sandman series. Sandman #19 ("A Midsummer Night's Dream") is a meta-fictional adaptation of Shakespeare's play. In 1991, that issue won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, the only comic book to hold the honor, as award organizers subsequently amended the rules to specifically exclude comics. Vess contributed eight drawings for a prose-based inset that appeared in Sandman #62 ("The Kindly Ones: 6") and illustrated the final issue of the series, Sandman #75, a second Shakespeare adaptation ("The Tempest"). He drew the covers for the Books of Faerie spin-off series Molly's Story (1999).

Between 1997 and 1998 the collaboration between Vess and Gaiman continued in the four-part series Stardust, a prose novella to which Vess contributed 175 paintings. The series was collected and published in trade paperback form by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. Stardust won an Alex Award from the American Library Association. It received a Mythopoeic Award, and Vess was given the 1999 World Fantasy Award for Best Artist for his work on the series.

In 1999, Vess's own Green Man Press produced a portfolio as a benefit for his wife Karen, injured in a car accident, titled A Fall of Stardust, which contained two chapbooks and a series of art plates.

Between 2004 and 2007 Vess adapted a poem by Neil Gaiman into a children's book, Blueberry Girl, published by HarperCollins in 2009.

Beginning in 1995 Vess self-published a biannual series of comics entitled The Book of Ballads and Sagas through his Green Man Press. In this series Vess illustrated adaptations of traditional Scottish and English ballads written by a variety of contributors, including Emma Bull, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Sharyn McCrumb, Jeff Smith, and Jane Yolen. Issues 1-4 were collected and published as Ballads in 1997. The work was reprinted as a hardback by Tor Books in 2004 with additional material, including an introduction by Terri Windling.

Vess has illustrated a series of anthologies edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, published by Viking Press. They are: The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest (2002), The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm (2004), and The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales (2007).

Probably his most productive collaboration is with longtime friend and writer Charles de Lint. The pair have worked together on at least half a dozen publications, including Seven Wild Sisters (Subterranean Press, 2002) and related projects A Circle of Cats (Viking, 2003), and Medicine Road (Subterranean Press, 2005, as well as a later edition by Tachyon Publications, 2009), along with others mentioned above. In 2004 Vess did both a color cover and front page illustration and additional black and white interior illustrations for a 20th anniversary (signed, limited) edition of Moonheart, by de Lint (Subterranean Press).

In a 2004 interview, Vess cited among many artistic influences, beginning with the 19th-century British book illustrator Arthur Rackham, saying:
" I discovered his work while I was still in college and immediately fell completely in love with it. His art, unlike a lot of other artists that I discovered at the same time (Maxfield Parrish, Frank Frazetta, etc.) I've never grown tired of. I always find myself learning new things every time I study it. But there are many others that have influenced me, among them: the Swedish illustrator John Bauer, Howard Pyle, the 19th-century German illustrator Hermann Vogel, Alphonse Mucha (the father of Art Nouveau), Willy Pogany, Kay Nielsen, W. H. Robinson, Hal Foster and Alfred Bestall (the British illustrator of the long running Rupert Bear series). Among the living I count Michael Kaluta, Alan Lee, Brian Froud, Lizebeth Zwerger and Terri Windling. "
Source: Wikipedia
Charles Vess art
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Vet biography

Vet biography

Vet
A distinguished and very accomplished artist and illustrator in his own right, "Vet" delights in re-creating classic pulp magazine, book and comic covers and illustrations.
Vet art
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Francisco Díaz Villagrasa biography

Francisco Díaz Villagrasa biography

Francisco Díaz Villagrasa (1927 - 3 October 2010)
Francisco Díaz Villagrasa was a Spanish comic artist who worked for Editorial Bruguera, where he worked on such titles as 'El Sheriff King' (1965, together with Victor Mora), 'El Capitan Trueno, 'Rayo, piloto de pruebas', 'Pitágoras Slim', 'Brigada Especial', 'Historia de los deportes', 'El Halcón de Meisemburg', 'El puente de Silver Gun', 'La diligencia perdida' and 'La cimitarra de Buda'.
Francisco Díaz Villagrasa art
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Keith Waite biography

Keith Waite biography

Keith Roy Waite (19 March 1927 - 10 April 2014; Ipswich, UK)
Keith Waite (born 1927 in New Plymouth, New Zealand and died 2014 in Ipswich, United Kingdom) was a New Zealand-born editorial cartoonist. He has been referred to as one of the 'greatest-ever social and political cartoonists' in Britain.

At the age of nine, Waite won a newspaper cartoon competition. He has been quoted as saying "I just knew from an early age that I wanted to be a cartoonist". His interest in art continued and he attended Elam School of Fine Arts, as well as Auckland Teacher Training College. After teaching for a year, he returned to Elam while working as a free-lance cartoonist for the Taranaki Daily News, the Auckland Weekly News and the New Zealand Herald. He took up a position at the Otago Daily Times as a staff cartoonist in 1949.

In 1951, Waite moved to the United Kingdom contributing to a number of publications including the Sunday Times, the Glasgow Daily Record, The Scottish Daily News, Punch (1952-1964), and Men Only magazine. Between 1957 and 1964 he worked as the chief political cartoonist for the Daily Sketch in London, producing up to three cartoons a day. He continued to work for London-based publications, including the Sun (1964–69), the Daily Mirror (1969–85), the Sunday Mirror (1970–80) and the City Diary of The Times (1987-1997). He was made Cartoonist of the Year in 1963 by the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia
George Wakefield art
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George Wakefield biography

George Wakefield biography

George Wakefield (13 November 1887 - 12 May 1942; UK)
Better known as Bill or Billy Wakefield, George William Wakefield was one of the stalwarts of the Amalgamated Press story papers and comics of the early 20th century.

Born in Hoxton, London, on 13 November 1887, he was the son of George Thomas Wakefield, a house decorator, and his wife Maria (nee Thorpe), who worked as a charwoman. He was baptized at St Leonard's, Shoreditch on 11 December 1887. Bill grew up in Bethnal Green, his family including a younger sister, Nellie, and was educated locally before winning a scholarship to the Camberwell School of arts and Crafts.

Wakefield began submitting cartoons of Edwardian papers and sold his first to Ally Sloper's Half Holiday in 1906; from 1907 he began appearing regularly in Scraps and other papers published by James Henderson. His earliest comic strip, "Baron de Cuff and the Hon. Samuel Shiney" appeared in The Comic Companion (a supplement of You and I magazine) in 1908, followed by Tap Room Tales in Scraps.

Until he was established, Wakefield was also a part-time boxer: big (5' 8 1/2", 158 pounds) and thickset he fought amateur heavyweight matches and exhibitions at funfairs. Despite his size and ham-like fists, his speciality soon began to develop: young, sweet but sexy girls for serials in the saucy magazine Photo Bits. Introduced to Frederick Caldwell of the Amalgamated Press, Wakefield found himself drawing flappers for Caldwell's story paper Fun & Fiction ("Gertie Goodsort and her Little Sister Sue"), Merry & Bright ("Gertie and Gladys"), Firefly ("Gertie Gladeyes") and The Favourite Comic ("Flossie and Phyllis, the Fascinating Flappers"). At the same time he was drawing cherub-faced young lads for The Penny Wonder in 1912.

Wakefield married Anne Beatrice Cordwell in 1908 and began raising a family in Stoke Newington with the birth of Poppy Marie (later Bott, 1909-1996) and Terence George (1911-1989).

During the Great War, Wakefield enlisted in February 1916 to serve with the 6th Battalion City of London Rifles and was mobilized in June. However, he was discharged in November 1917 suffering from chronic gastritis and duodenal ulcers — a condition he had suffered from prior to his war service — which would require hospital treatment. He returned to drawing comics with Carrie the Girl Chaplin in Merry & Bright.

In 1918, he began a long association with The Boys' Friend illustrating the Rookwood stories of Owen Conquest (Charles Hamilton) until 1926. It was, however, in the pages of Film Fun that he made his greatest mark, his talents for capturing a likeness without turning it into a caricature setting the style for Fred Cordwell's new paper when it was launched in 1920. Wakefield's contributions featuring stars of the silent movies ranged from child star Baby Marie Osborne to comedian Ben Turpin. The paper proved so popular that Kinema Comic was launched four months later, with Wakefield contributing Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Larry Semon and Walter Forde to the new title.

Apart from a number of sportsmen given similar treatment in the pages of the short-run Sports Fun, and The Jolly Rover strip for the cover of My Favourite, Wakefield's main output continued to be for Film Fun, where he drew the comical adventures of Jackie Coogan, Wesley Barry and Grock (Charles Adrien Wettach), the "king of clowns", before achieving his most long-lasting success drawing the adventures of Laurel and Hardy, which he drew from 1930 until his death.

Other sets in Film Fun in the 1930s included Joe E. Brown, Wheeler and Woolsey, Shirley Temple, George Formby, Max Miller and Lupino Lane. Wakefield also drew story paper headings for Bullseye and Surprise, contributed complete dramatic adaptations of movies to the early issues of Film Picture Stories and humour strips "Chubby and Chirpy" and "The Flighty Pranks Freddie Flip and Uncle Bunkle" to Sparkler and "Teacher Trotter" to Comic Cuts.

Wakefield died in Norwich Hospital in Norfolk on 12 May 1942, aged 54. His influence on the style of British comics was profound, with artists on Film Fun — then the best-selling comic in the UK — told to work in his style. Some of his sets, including "Laurel and Hardy", were continued after his death by his son, Terry. Abridged from biographical notes by Steve Holland.
George Wakefield art
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Reed Waller biography

Reed Waller biography

Reed Waller (born 3 August 1949; USA)
Reed Waller is an American comic book artist best known for his work on Omaha the Cat Dancer, together with Kate Worley.

Omaha originated as an "adult comic strip" in an "obscure local publication" before evolving into a nationally distributed comic-book series. Four pages into issue #2, Waller suffered writer's block, and after some months, his then-girlfriend and songwriting partner Kate Worley offered "a few tentative suggestions about directions for the storyline, new characters, anything she could think of that might help...." At Waller's invitation, Worley became the series' scripter.

In 1988 Diamond Comics Distributors refused to distribute the title to stores (before backing down), and in 1989 a comics bindery refused to put together an Omaha collection. In 1991 the New Zealand Indecent Publications Tribunal ruled that since the series depicted sexuality in the context of ongoing emotional relationships between the characters in a mature and realistic way, it was not indecent.

In 1991, Waller was diagnosed with colon cancer. In early 2004, Waller and Worley had moved beyond their disagreement, and were collaborating to finish the hanging storyline. However, Worley's death interrupted that work. Her widower, Jim Vance, using her notes, took her place. The title was acquired by NBM Publishing, and resumed publication as of November 2005 with the new work being serialized in the magazine Sizzle.
Reed Waller art
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Myron Waldman biography

Myron Waldman biography

Myron Waldman (23 April 1908 - 4 February 2006; USA)
Myron Waldman was an American animator and illustrator who worked on dozens of cartoons featuring some of the most celebrated characters in animation, including Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman and Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on 23 April 1908, he graduated from the Pratt Institute and was hired as an inker and fill-in artist by the Fleischer Studios in 1930. At that time, the Times Square studio was considered the pre-eminent animation workshop in the US, although its status was soon to be challenged by Walt Disney.

Waldman was promoted to animator for the 1931 Screen Songs cartoon By the Light of the Silvery Moon. His second short, Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie (1932) featured the proto-Betty Boop, then a character with dog-like features and floppy ears. Betty was originally an anthropomorphised poodle (voiced by Mae Questel), based on singer Helen Kane, but was given human features in the cartoon "Any Rags" (1932), although her development owed as much to her animators, including Waldman, as it did to brothers Max and David Fleischer. Waldman's other early successes included episodes of the Color Classics series, which was launched as a rival to Disney's Silly Symphonies in 1934. He was head animator on two cartoons nominated for Academy Awards: Educated Fish (1937) and Hunky and Spunky (1939).

Waldman remained with the Fleischers when the studio was moved to Miami and worked on the modestly successful Gulliver's Travels feature film. He was one of the principal animators for the Fleischers' Popeye the Sailor colour series and, in 1941, was principal animator on Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy.

After a disastrous second feature film, the Fleischers regrouped back in New York as Famous Studios, under the control of Paramount, which Waldman joined after serving three years in the US Army. Here he worked on numerous shorts featuring Baby Huey, Herman and Katnip, Little Lulu and Casper the Friendly Ghost. He also had a sideline drawing comics, including Happy the Humbug in 1940 and one of the first graphic novels, Eve: A Pictorial Love Story in 1943.

He left Famous in 1957 to become animation director of Hal Seeger productions where he helped revive the Out of the Inkwell series, starring Betty Boop and Koko the Clown, and worked on the Milton the Monster TV series until his retirement in 1968.

According to a New York Times obituary, "In later years he travelled and lectured, creating paintings for galleries and working on a musical feature that never came to fruition. In the 1990s he was honored with retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, the American Museum of the Moving Image and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art." He was rewarded with the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Award in 1986 and the Winsor McCay Award for his lifetime achievements in animation in 1997.

Waldman, who lived in Wantagh, New York, died of congestive heart failure at New Island Hospital in Bethpage, NY, on 4 February 2006, aged 97. He was survived by his wife, Rosalie, who was an animation checker at the Fleischer Studio in the early 1940s; two sons and three grandchildren also survived him. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Myron Waldman art
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Brian Walker biography

Brian Walker biography

Brian Walker (22 March 1926 - 15 May 2020; Brislington, Somerset, UK)
Brian Walker was a British cartoonist and illustrator whose work appeared across a span of 50 years in comics such as The Beano, The Dandy and Whizzer and Chips, in humour-led publications such as Punch, serious magazines such as the Countryman, and in more than 80 books.

Born in Brislington, Somerset, Brian was the son of Harry Walker, who ran a scale-making business, and his wife, Annie (nee Long), a teacher. In 1939 the family moved across the county to Simonsbath on Exmoor, where Brian went to Minehead school. He was first encouraged to pursue an artistic career by the renowned painter of horses, Sir Alfred Munnings, who lived nearby, and after completing a correspondence course for press artists he began to study art at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol.

At the age of sixteen, Brian Walker applied for an art job at the Bristol Evening World. He drew war maps and gag cartoons. After service in the Royal Air Force in an RAF photo reconnaissance unit from 1944 to 1947, Ward returned to the Bristol College of Art where in 1949 he gained diplomas in illustration and design.

In the early 1950s, after a 2,000-mile cycling tour of Europe, he submitted illustrated articles of his travels to Cycling Weekly magazine, which led to commissions from Farmers Weekly and Punch. In 1952 he moved to, and restored, a cottage at Hinton Blewett in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, which became his home and studio for the rest of his life.

In 1967, he illustrated the humorous book 'How To Be A Motorist And Stay Happy'. The Scottish publishing house D.C. Thomson offered Walker trial work on several strips. He drew the popular series 'I Spy' in Sparky for almost three years.

A friend introduced him to the D.C. Thomson rival Amalgamated Press (IPC), for which he drew 'Three Story Stan' in Whizzer & Chips, 'Fun Fear' in Whoopee!, 'Plane Jane' and 'Fright School' in Buster, among others. His most popular work was 'Scream Inn' (1973-1979), which he drew in Shiver & Shake for about six years. After that, Walker produced 'Box-a-Tricks' in Buster and 'Ar Little Uns' in the Bristol Evening Post. In the 1980s, he returned to the comics of D.C. Thomson.

In the 1960s boys' weekly comics still flourished, and they provided Brian with his bread and butter. Working initially for the DC Thompson publishing stable, he drew, among others, the Smasher strip in the Dandy (734 pages) and the I Spy strip in Sparky (228 pages), before moving on to Scream Inn for IPC's Whoopee comic (556 pages).

As technical and social changes shrank the comics market, he picked up his connection with the Countryman, which used him to illustrate its articles on rural issues and history, as well as short stories. Among the books that he illustrated were How To Be a Motorist and Stay Happy by George Haines, Landscape With Solitary Figure by Colin Willock, and A Countryman’s Lot by Max Hardcastle.

His association with the Countryman was particularly strong, and from 1970 onwards there was rarely an issue to which he did not contribute. Known for being quick, versatile and brilliantly effective at delivering on his brief, he was always much in demand. As result he reckoned to have drawn 5,400 pages’ worth of comic strips and illustrations by the time he retired in 2009.

From 1964 until 2008 - an incredible 45 years - Brian would travel to Bradford on Avon every year to do the illustration for the Moulton Bikes Christmas Card. These beautifully drawn cards would often depict local scenes, notable Moulton achievements and, in later years, Toby the cat.

Brian kept working into his 80s, but finally stopped when the onset of Alzheimer’s in 2009 began to affect his memory. Brian reckoned to have drawn 5,400 pages' worth of comic strips and illustrations across his career.

A keen cyclist throughout his life, he had for many years played the tuba, which he had been taught by Acker Bilk, whom he had met when he had booked him to play a gig for the Stanton Drew Labour party in the 50s. Brian later played the tuba in Bilk’s Chew Valley Jazz Band across Somerset, as well as with the Wurzels singer Adge Cutler and, on occasion, with the Wurzels themselves. He also played sousaphone in amateur jazz groups around Bath and Bristol.

In 1961 Brian married Rosemary Beer, a laboratory assistant. She survives him, along with his two daughters, me and Sarah, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Brian Walker art
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Gerald Walker biography

Gerald Walker biography

Gerald Walker (born 28 October 1951; Iowa City, USA)
Gerald Walker was born in Iowa City, IA on October 28, 1951. In 1978, after a tour of duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Truman State University in Kirksville, MO with a B.A. in Fine arts. Since then, he has supported himself by accepting personal and institutional painting commissions, including a series of university presidential portraits for both Truman State University and the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, as well as three murals for the city of Kirksville and numerous other portraits and landscape work, some of which are sold in a gallery in Rogers, AK.

Gerald's influences are as eclectic as his body of work. Rembrandt, the Impressionists, and the Brandywyne school of illustration are mainstream influences. Science fantasy artists who influenced his work include Frank Frazetta, Kelly Freas, John Schoenherr, and Michael Whelan. Gerald grew up immersed in DC's Silver Age comics and maintains a large comic collection to this day.

As expected, the comic artists of the time stimulated his artistic growth. The chief comic art influences include Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Jack Kirby, Al Williamson, and Wally Wood. Gerald believes that, while Dick Sprang had an almost folk art approach to his craft, he captured the mystique of Batman as well as anyone. He currently admires Mike Mignola's work.
Source: Gerald Walker
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Mark Evan Walker biography

Mark Evan Walker biography

Mark Evan Walker (born 1956, USA)
This Texas-born artist was a stage designer and scenic artist before becoming an illustrator in the late eighties. His career has included murals and fine art, advertising, story boards for commercials and films, illustration for books, comics, magazines and newspapers. Look for his graphic novel Fishhead in the near future. He is proud of his long association with Ellery Queen, the world's oldest Mystery Magazine. We are pleased to present some of the forty pulp illustrations Mark has produced for EQ. All are handsomely matted, and each comes with the original Ellery Queen edition in which the illustration appeared.
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Ivy Lilian Wallace biography

Ivy Lilian Wallace biography

Ivy Lilian (aka Lillian) Wallace (7 October 1915 - 13 March 2006; UK)
British artist, actress and authoress, best known for writing the Pookie series of illustrated children's stories.

She was born in Grimsby. She started drawing as a child with the encouragement of her parents, who recognised her talents and thought that she might become an artist. However when she left school, she joined Felixstowe Repertory theatre as an actress. When the Second World War broke out she joined the British film industry to make educational films. Later in the War she moved to doing support work for the police and it was while working for them that she first thought of Pookie, the winged rabbit.

While working in a police station during the war, manning a police switchboard, she doodled a picture of a fairy sitting on a toadstool with a little rabbit in front. She then decided that fairies were "two a penny" and so rubbed out the fairy and gave the rabbit wings. After naming the rabbit Pookie she wrote a story about him: "This is the story of Pookie, a little white furry rabbit, with soft, floppity ears, big blue eyes and the most lovable rabbit smile in the world," were the opening lines.

So confident was she that in 1946 Ivy took a train from Grimsby to London and arrived at the offices of the publishers Collins without a prior appointment. But the response was less than encouraging and she returned home crestfallen, leaving her manuscript behind.

A few weeks later she was contacted by William Hope Collins and asked to attend the Glasgow office where the Children's book section was based. Not only did William accept the book he also fell in love with its author. Their relationship met with strong disapproval because William was married with children. But in 1950 Ivy and William were married and went to live near Biggar in the Scottish borders. They had two daughters, Heather (b.1952) and Cherry (b.1956). She gave up writing upon the death of her husband in 1967 and Collins eventually stopped publishing the books. However they were revived in 1994 when Ivy and her daughters re-printed the stories for their own publishing company.

In 1997 Ivy Wallace was the subject of a documentary on BBC Scotland and an exhibition of her drawings was held in Glasgow during that same year. In addition to the Pookie books she wrote two other series, one of which, The Animal Shelf, was later adapted for television and released as 13 animated episodes.
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William A Ward biography

William A Ward biography

William A Ward (fl. 1930s - 1950s; UK)
William Ward was a British animator and comic book artist, best-known for drawing the British 'Donald Duck' serials and his work for Gerald Swan comic books. He worked as a cartoonist until the late 1930s.

By then, he was hired by Odhams Press to draw a series of continuing 'Donald Duck' comics for Mickey Mouse Weekly.

Besides the dailies by Al Taliaferro and the early Italian comics, these stories are among the first comic appearances of the character. Ward's first story is even considered the first Duck adventure comic ever. He drew twelve serials between 1937 and 1940, and gave Donald co-stars like the girl Donna (from the short) and the Scottish sailor Mac (an original character). His stories had strange and wildly imaginative settings like the Wild West, the Arabian Nights, 5000 fathoms under the sea, the moon and the planet Venus.

Ward then began an association with Gerald Swan, who had started publishing comic books in 1938. He worked for many of the Swan titles throughout the 1940s and first half of the 1950s, including Thrill Comics, Fresh Fun, Tropical Funnies, Extra Fun and Knockout. Like in his Duck-stories, he showcased a talent for widely imaginative stories, with an oddball sense of humor, that sometimes seemed more suited for a mature audience.

His work was furthermore very varied, from stories with funny characters like 'Sheriff Fox', the Popeye-like 'Binnacle Bill', 'Scrounger', 'Sir Gallivant', 'Flip and Fatty' and 'Willie the Wizard', to hardboiled adventure serials like 'The Iron Warrior', 'Hurrican Hurry', 'Krakos the Egyptian' and 'Dr. Satani - Crime Chemist'. William Ward apparently passed away in Essex in 1958.
Source: Lambiek
William A Ward art
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Chris Ware biography

Chris Ware biography

Franklin Christenson Ware (born 28 December 1967; Nebraska, USA)
Chris Ware is an American comic book artist and cartoonist, notable for his Acme Novelty Library series and the graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth and Building Stories. His works explore themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression. His works tend to use a vivid colour palette and are full of realistic, meticulous detail. His lettering and images are often elaborate and sometimes evoke the ragtime era or another early 20th-century American design style.

Ware often refers to himself in the publicity for his work in self-effacing, even withering tones. He is considered by some critics and fellow notable illustrators and writers, such as Dave Eggers, to be among the best currently working in the medium; Canadian graphic-novelist Seth has said, "Chris really changed the playing field. After him, a lot of (cartoonists) really started to scramble and go, 'Holy (expletive), I think I have to try harder.'"

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Ware resides in the Chicago area of Illinois. His earliest published strips appeared in the late 1980s on the comics page of The Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to numerous daily strips under different titles, Ware also had a weekly satirical science fiction serial in the paper titled Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future. This was eventually published in 1988 as a prestige format comic book from Eclipse Comics, and its publication even led to a brief correspondence between Ware and Timothy Leary. Now embarrassed by the book, which he considers amateurish and naive, Ware is reportedly purchasing and destroying all remaining copies.

While still a sophomore at UT, Ware came to the attention of Art Spiegelman, who invited Ware to contribute to RAW, the influential anthology magazine Spiegelman was co-editing with Françoise Mouly. Ware has acknowledged that being included in the prestigious RAW gave him confidence and inspired him to explore printing techniques and self-publishing. His Fantagraphics series Acme Novelty Library defied comics publishing conventions with every issue. The series featured a combination of new material as well as reprints of work Ware had done for the Texan (such as Quimby the Mouse) and the Chicago weekly paper Newcity. Ware's work appeared originally in Newcity before he moved on to his current "home", the Chicago Reader. Beginning with the 16th issue of Acme Novelty Library, Ware is self-publishing his work, while maintaining a relationship with Fantagraphics for distribution and storage. This is an interesting return to Ware's early career, when he self-published such books as Lonely Comics and Stories as well as miniature digests of stories based on Quimby the Mouse and an unnamed potato-like creature.

In recent years he has also been involved in editing (and designing) several books and book series, including the new reprint series of Gasoline Alley from Drawn and Quarterly; Walt and Skeezix, the on-going reprint of Krazy Kat by Fantagraphics; and the 13th volume of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, which is devoted to comics. He was the editor of The Best American Comics 2007, the second installment devoted to comics in the Best American series.

In 2007, Ware curated an exhibition for the Phoenix Art Museum focused on the non-comic work of five contemporary cartoonists. The exhibition, titled "UnInked: Paintings, Sculpture and Graphic Works by Five Cartoonists", ran from April 21 through August 19. Ware also edited and designed the catalog for the exhibition.

Ware's art reflects early 20th-century American styles of cartooning and graphic design, shifting through formats from traditional comic panels to faux advertisements and cut-out toys. Stylistic influences include advertising graphics from that same era; newspaper strip cartoonists Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland) and Frank King (Gasoline Alley); Charles Schulz's post-WWII strip Peanuts and the cover designs of ragtime-era sheet music. Ware has spoken about finding inspiration in the work of artist Joseph Cornell and cites Richard McGuire's strip Here as a major influence on his use of non-linear narratives. Ware has said of his own style:

I arrived at my way of "working" as a way of visually approximating what I feel the tone of fiction to be in prose versus the tone one might use to write biography; I would never do a biographical story using the deliberately synthetic way of cartooning I use to write fiction. I try to use the rules of typography to govern the way that I "draw", which keeps me at a sensible distance from the story as well as being a visual analog to the way we remember and conceptualize the world. I figured out this way of working by learning from and looking at artists I admired and whom I thought came closest to getting at what seemed to me to be the "essence" of comics, which is fundamentally the weird process of reading pictures, not just looking at them. I see the black outlines of cartoons as visual approximations of the way we remember general ideas, and I try to use naturalistic color underneath them to simultaneously suggest a perceptual experience, which I think is more or less the way we actually experience the world as adults; we don't really "see" anymore after a certain age, we spend our time naming and categorizing and identifying and figuring how everything all fits together. Unfortunately, as a result, I guess sometimes readers get a chilled or antiseptic sensation from it, which is certainly not intentional, and is something I admit as a failure, but is also something I can't completely change at the moment.

Although his precise, geometrical layouts may appear to some to be computer-generated, Ware works almost exclusively with manual drawing tools such as paper and ink, rulers and T-squares. He does, however, sometimes use photocopies and transparencies, and he employs a computer to color his strips.

Quimby the Mouse was an early character for Ware and something of a breakthrough. Rendered in the style of an early animation character like Felix the Cat, Quimby the Mouse is perhaps Ware's most autobiographical character. Quimby's relationship with a cat head named Sparky is by turns conflict-ridden and loving, and thus intended to reflect all human relationships. While Quimby exhibits mobility, Sparky remains immobile and helpless, subject to all the indignities Quimby visits upon him. Quimby also acts as a narrator for Ware's reminiscences of his youth, in particular his relationship with his grandmother. Quimby was presented in a series of smaller panels than most comics, almost providing the illusion of motion à la a zoetrope. In fact, Ware once designed a zoetrope to be cut out and constructed by the reader in order to watch a Quimby "silent movie". Ware's ingenuity is neatly shown in this willingness to break from the confines of the page. Quimby the Mouse appears in the logo of a Chicago-based bookstore "Quimby's", although their shared name was originally a coincidence.

Ware's Rusty Brown is ostensibly about an action-figure-collecting manchild and his somewhat-troubled childhood, but which, in Ware's fashion, diverges into multiple storylines about Brown's father's early life in the 1950s as a science fiction writer (Acme Novelty Library #19) and his best friend Chalky White's adult home life.

Ware's Building Stories first appeared as a monthly strip in Nest Magazine. Installments later appeared in a number of publications, including The New Yorker, Kramer's Ergot, and most notably, the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Building Stories appeared weekly in the New York Times Magazine from September 18, 2005 until April 16, 2006. A full chapter was published in Acme Novelty Library, number 18. The entire narrative was published as a boxed set of books by Pantheon in October 2012.

Ware is an ardent collector of ragtime paraphernalia and occasionally publishes a journal devoted to the music titled The Ragtime Ephemeralist. He also plays the banjo and piano. The influence of the music and the graphics of its era can be seen in Ware's work, especially in regard to logos and layout. Ware has designed album covers and posters for such ragtime performers as the Et Cetera String Band, Virginia Tichenor, Reginald R. Robinson, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and Guido Nielsen.

He has also designed covers and posters for non-ragtime performers such as Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire and 5ive Style. In October 2005 Ware designed the elaborate cover art for Penguin Books' new edition of Voltaire's Candide.

Ware was commissioned by Chip Kidd to design the inner machinations of the bird on the cover of Haruki Murakami's novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

In 2003-04, Ware worked with Ira Glass of This American Life and Chicago historian Tim Samuelson to illustrate and design Lost Buildings about Samuelson and the preservation of Chicago's old buildings, particularly Louis Sullivan's buildings. Originally produced for a live "Lost in America" stage show in 2003, Lost Buildings was later published as a book and DVD. In 2007-08, he produced animations for the This American Life television series on Showtime and also contributed to the show as a color consultant. Ware created poster art for Tamara Jenkins' film The Savages (2007).

Dave Eggers commissioned Ware to design the mural for the facade of San Francisco literacy project 826 Valencia. The mural depicts "the parallel development of humans and their efforts at and motivations for communication, spoken and written." The 3.9m x 6m mural was applied by artisans to Ware’s specifications. Describing the work, Ware said "I didn’t want it to make anyone 'feel good', especially in that typically muralistic 'hands across the water' sort of way,"..."I especially wanted it to be something that people living in the neighbourhood could look at day after day and hopefully not tire of too quickly. I really hoped whomever might happen to come across it would find something that showed a respect for their intelligence, and didn’t force-feed them any 'message'."

In 2010, Ware designed the cover for Fortune magazine's "Fortune 500" issue, but it was rejected. Ware had mentioned the work at a panel at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo on April 16, as first noted in an April 20 blog post by Matthew J. Brady. The cover, featuring the circle-shaped humans common in Ware's more broadly socially satirical comic-strips, turned the numbers 500 into skyscrapers looming over the continental United States. On the roofs, corporate bosses drink, dance, and sun themselves as a helicopter drops a shovelful of money down for them. Below, among signs reading "Credit Default Swap Flea Market," "Greenspan Lube Pro," and "401K Cemetery," a helicopter scoops money out of the US Treasury with a shovel, cars pile up in Detroit, and flag-waving citizens party around a boiling tea kettle in the shape of an elephant. In the Gulf of Mexico, homes are sinking, while hooded prisoners sit in Guantanamo, a "Factory of Exploitation" keeps going in Mexico, China is tossing American dollars into the Pacific, and the roof of bankrupted Greece's Treasury has blown off. A spokesperson for the magazine only said that, as is their practice, they had commissioned a number of possible covers from different artists, including Ware. Brady wrote in his blog that Ware said at the panel he "accepted the job because it would be like doing the [cover for the] 1929 issue of the magazine".

In 2011, Ware created the poster for the U.S. release of the 2010 Palme d'Or winning film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Describing the poster, Ware said "I wanted to get at both the transcendent solemnity of the film while keeping some sense of its loose, very unpretentious accessibility... This being a poster, however—and even worse, me not really being a designer—I realized it also had to be somewhat punchy and strange, so as to draw viewers in and pique their curiosity without, hopefully, insulting their intelligence.
Source: Wikipedia
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Donald Watson biography

Donald Watson biography

Donald Watson
Donald Watson, born 1918, is well known for his lovely bird paintings.
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Charles Clixby Watson biography

Charles Clixby Watson biography

Charles Clixby Watson (1906 - 1964; Brixton, London, UK)
Born in Brixton, London, Charles Clixby Watson (often known as Clixby Watson) studied art at St Martin's School of Art (1920 - 1924) and Goldsmith's (1926 -1927). He then worked abroad before returning to the UK to paint English landscapes.

He worked regularly for the BBC Radio Times, Good Housekeeping and is known for his many advertising posters as well as magazine covers, including John Bull magazine, Ditty Box (a magazine dubbed 'the sailor's mag' produced by HMSO for the Admiralty from July 1944 to January 1949), and Pall Mall and Nash magazines.

He was also known as a children's book illustrator, including 'Constable Todd and the Tomatoes' written by C. V. Burgess (Dolphin Books, Paperback, Jan. 1958) and 'Jumbo Spencer' by Helen Cresswell (Brockhampton Press, London, 1963).
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
Charles Clixby Watson art
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Jim Watson biography

Jim Watson biography

Jim Watson (born ?1933; UK)
British comic artist Jim Watson was an artist for TV Century 21 during the 1960s, drawing features like 'Thunderbirds' and 'Captain Scarlet'.

In the 1970s he was a contributor to the war titles Battle Picture Weekly (IPC) and Warlord (DC Thomson) and True War.

He was also present in 2000AD magazine, for which he created 'Colony Earth' in 1978.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
Jim Watson art
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John Watson biography

John Watson biography

John Watson (born 1970s; Blackpool, England)
John Watson was born in the 1970s in Blackpool, England. He is one of the few remaining comic book artists who specialises in painting in oils, and has done a number of notable cover runs for both Marvel and DC comics, most recently painting all the covers for the Marvel Apes series and for the second year running, the Triple-A Baseball covers. He has also illustrated a number of trading cards.

Watson studied Fine Art at the Cheltenham & Gloucester college. He notes Norman Rockwell as an influence alongside more conventional comicbook influences such as Alex Toth, Nick Cardy, Neal Adams and George Pérez.

A comicbook fan since childhood, his official website says "When I was 12, I realised that being a millionaire, having a cave under the house and fighting crime wasn't going to happen, so I began to concentrate on 'drawing comics' instead."

John also specialises in custom commissions featuring comic book superheroes and villains.
Source: Wikipedia & http://johnwatsoncomicart.blogspot.co.uk/
John Watson art
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Keith Watson biography

Keith Watson biography

Keith Watson (1 February 1935 – 9 April 1994; UK)
Keith Watson was a British comics artist most famous for his work on Dan Dare and TV Century 21.

Watson joined the studio team of Frank Hampson working on the Dan Dare strip in Eagle in 1958. After Hampson left the strip the following year, Watson worked on Captain Condor for the rival Lion (comic). He later returned to Dan Dare, becoming the sole artist. In the 1970s he also worked on other Eagle strips such as 'Benny Hill' as well as 'True War'.

Watson worked on the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons strip in TV Century 21.

During the 1970s, he worked for Dutch comics (Roel Dijkstra).

In 1989, he revived the original Dare for the new Eagle comic, which until then had been publishing tales of a descendent.

He died from cancer aged 59.
Source: Wikipedia & Illustration Art Gallery
Keith Watson art
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Tony Weare biography

Tony Weare biography

Tony Weare (1 January 1912 – 2 December 1994; UK)
Tony Weare was a British comics artist best known for drawing Matt Marriott, a daily Western strip written by Jim Edgar, which ran in The Evening News from 1955 to 1977.

Tony Weare was born at Wincanton, Somerset and studied drawing at the Bournemouth School of Art but became a trooper in a cavalry regiment where he developed a love of horses. As well as Matt Marriott, he also worked at Mickey Mouse Weekly, where he worked on "Billy Brave", "Pride of the Circus", "Savage Splendour", and "Robin Alone". He illustrated "The Colditz Story" for Junior Express and was voted Serious Strip Cartoonist of the Year, 1961. In the 1980s he drew "Rookwood" for Look and Learn magazine and a few sequences in Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta, at the invitation of Lloyd, an admirer of his work.

David Lloyd wrote about him:
" Tony was one of just a very few strip artists here and in the US whose creative identities owed nothing to the heritage of stylisation which influenced many other newspaper adventure strip creators—he was primarily an illustrator who just happened to love drawing strips. . . . He also had a superb command of light and shade, which promoted the impression that he was drawing something he could see in front of him, rather than something he'd built up from his imagination. "
From biographical notes on Wikipedia.
Tony Weare art
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Claire Wendling biography

Claire Wendling biography

Claire Wendling (born 6 December 1967; France)
Claire Wendling is a French artist whose graphic novels, illustrations and prints have proved hugely popular in Europe and the USA during the past twenty years. Born in Montpellier, France, she studied for a BA in art and philosophy before enrolling at L'école des Beaux Arts d'Angoulême in 1989, During her final year she won the Alph'Art future prize at the Angoulême comics festival. That same year she began working for the French publisher Delacourt, contributing to the anthologies The Children of the Nile and Entrechats.

Her first graphic novel, Les lumières de l'Amalou [Lights of Amalou], written by Christopher Gibelin, was published in 1990. The second volume of the series won the Press Award at Angoulême in 1991 and she was further rewarded as Best Young Illustrator at Angoulême the following year for her covers for Player One magazine. In 1993 she illustrated a series of stamps, under the title 'le plaisir d'écrire' [the pleasure of writing] for the French Post Office and, in 1995, was one of the first illustrators invited by the CNBDI, Angoulême's museum of graphic art, to produce an image in the cement of the museum's forecourt.

With the completion of the Lights of Amalou series (five volumes published 1990-96), Wendling's next release was the graphic novel Iguana Bay (1996). She was then hired by Warner Brothers to work on their film The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot and other projects, but spent only eight months with the Los Angeles-based animation studio before frustration over creative constraints led her to quit and return to France, where she continued her work on graphic novels, game design — she was involved in the designs for the computer game Alone in the Dark IV (2000) — and illustration. Her books include Desk (1999), Drawers (2001) and Daisies: Affogato all'Amarena (2010) as well as producing illustrations for various book projects, including the short story collection Sales petits contes [Dirty Little Stories], written by Yann (1997), Aphrodite (2000) and Vampires (2001). Numerous portfolios of her work have also been published.
Claire Wendling art

See BOOKS featuring Claire Wendling.
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Mike Western biography

Mike Western biography

Mike Western (born 1925)
Although Mike Western only did one full-length strip for the Thriller Picture Library it is an excellent example of his work. Western is probably best known for his two aviation series - Johnny Wingco in Knockout and Biggles in Express Weekly (taking over from Ron Embleton). He had no formal art training but began work at the age of 14 as an apprentice in the photographic studio of the Amalgamated Press process works in Southwark.

After the War, Western worked in an animation studio run by the Rank Organisation before starting work in 1952 for Associated Press, drawing the World War II secret agent, Captain Phantom in Knockout. Mike Western became one of the major strip artists of the A.P. and his work can be found in practically every one of their comics which features adventure strips, from Film Fun to Valiant and from Buster to Battle Action. Biography courtesy of David Ashford and Norman Wright.
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Brian White biography

Brian White biography

Brian White (4 April 1902 - November 1984; UK)
Brian "H.B." White was a British cartoonist, creating 'The Nipper' for the Daily Mail between 1933 and 1947. His newspaper strips "Keyhole Kate" and "Double Trouble" ran in London's Evening Standard.

Early in his career he forged links with Sid Griffiths, who had developed Jerry the Tyke and brought in White who had been one of the team of animators on the 1924 film of George E. Studdy's character Bonzo the dog. They latterly formed the company Griffiths and White in 1929, working from an office in the Charing Cross Road, London, initially producing animated advertisements for Superads where Carl Giles was first employed. Griffiths and White continued throughout the 1930s, eventually working at Anson Dyer's Anglia Films Stroud-based studio which was later taken over by Halas & Batchelor for the development of Animal Farm.

In collaboration with cousin Harold White, B&H Publications produced George Bernard Shaw Through The Camera in 1948.

Brian White worked for a year in 1952/3 on the first feature cartoon (75 minutes) Animal Farm, based on George Orwell's novel of the same name. An associate here was Sid Griffiths, with whom he had first collaborated 30 years earlier.

He is the grandfather of British sculptor Jon Edgar. Brian White died at Rustington, West Sussex in 1984.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia
Brian White art
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Doris White biography

Doris White biography

Doris E White
Not much is written about Doris White. She was a significant comic book writer and illustrator for Sooty, Pinky and Perky and Toby the Terrier comics and Annuals during the 1960s and 1970s.

Doris White also drew a number of Noddy stories and 'Doris White' was also the name of the owner of Link Studios - an art agency that represented many major artists who supplied material for British comics throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

" Toby the Terrier appeared in colour on the cover and two inside pages of most issues of the comic, enjoying magical adventures that owed a lot to the style of Alfred Bestall's Rupert stories. And like Rupert's mythical home of Nutwood, Toby also inhabited a very old-fashioned version of the English countyside where fields were still ploughed by horses - though modern devices such as cassette tape recorders were also in evidence from time to time (at least they were modern in 1978!).

Because of its 'old world' feel I must admit that I'd always assumed Toby was reprinted from somewhere or other, in the same way that Leonard Matthews later repackaged old Bestall stories in the Rupert comic he produced for Marvel during the 1980s. Having failed to find any earlier appearances of the character either on TV or in books or comics, however, I've come to the conclusion that he must have been a brand new creation after all. What's more, even though none of the stories carry any artist byline, Denis Gifford's Encyclopedia of Comic Characters attributes it to one 'Doris White' - an artist whose only previous credit seems to be for a series called 'Tales of Tootle Town' which appeared in the Amalgamated Press's Playtime way back in 1929!

It's fascinating to think that Toby might have been the brainchild of this important but little-known figure in the history of comics, whose protégés had included prominent figures such as John Burns. Could this have represented a treasured idea that she'd nurtured for many years, constantly putting her own ambition on the back burner as she promoted the careers of others … until retirement finally gave her an opportunity to produce something that was uniquely her own? " -- Phil Rushton
Source: Illustration Art Gallery; Phil Rushton
Doris White art
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Fred White biography

Fred White biography

Fred White
Fred White drew a number of Gulliver Guinea-Pig strips in Playhour, along with fellow star artists Gordon Hutchings, Philip Mendoza, Ron Embleton and Jesus Blasco.
Fred White art
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Michael White biography

Michael White biography

Michael White
Mike White has had a career in comics that has lasted almost forty years. Interested in drawing comics, he began sending samples off to companies before moving to London and visiting agencies. His earliest work appeared from Micron in around 1963/64 in their schoolgirls' libraries. As White recalls, the company would accept artwork from artists who were still learning their craft and he is not especially proud of these early efforts.

White first major strip was Jackaroo Joe for Valiant in 1965-66 and his talents for adopting the styles of other artists led him to working in the style of Mike Western in Champion where he took over the artwork for School for Spacemen. Other strips for Fleetway in the late 1960s/early 1970s include The Lords of Lilliput Island, Cannonball Craig, The Team Terry Kept in a Box, Whiz-Along Wheeler, The Test Match Terrors; at the same time he was working for D. C. Thomson, usually working on one-off strips rather than series.

White was a regular on Action in 1976, filling in on episodes of 'The Running Man' and 'Death Game 1990' before taking on the series 'Hell's Highway'. In the revised Action he drew 'Hellman of Hammer Force'.

He then found regular work in 2000AD, drawing many episodes of Tharg's Future Shocks, Ro-Jaws Robo Tales and Tharg's Time Twisters. He notably drew the Abelard Snazz stories written by Alan Moore and stories by Steve Moore and Grant Morrison. He drew a run of The Mean Arena in 1981-82, written by Tom Tully. He teamed up with Tully again to draw Sintek in Tiger in 1982-84.

He continued to draw for D. C. Thomson, his strips including 'Deep Sea Danny's Iron Fish' and 'Roul the Warrior' in Buddy and We Are United in Champ.

After drawing Dexter's Dozen for Roy of the Rovers, he took over the lead strip and drew 'Roy' for six years. During White's tenure, Roy broke the record for the most goals scored in league and cup games when, in May 1992, he scored his 436th goal.

White was convinced that comics were not going to last and began requesting that his agents find him illustration work and by the time the boys' adventure comic ground to an end, White was already established. In recent years he has drawn illustrations for historical educational books published by various firms, amongst them Thalamus, Templar and Miles Kelley Publishing.

He continues to draw comics, most recently for Commando, having drawn his first cover in 1997 and his first interior artwork in 2003. His latest story appeared in March 2011. Taken from biographical notes by Steve Holland.

Enjoy more Michael White art in our PIRATES! illustrators  Special Edition.

Michael White art
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George Whitelaw biography

George Whitelaw biography

George Whitelaw (22 June 1887 - 19 September 1957; Kirkintilloch, Scotland)
George Whitelaw, the son of Dr. William Whitelaw, Medical Officer of Health for the district, was born in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, on 22nd June 1887. He studied under Maurice Greiffenhagen RA at the Glasgow School of Art and at the age of 17 joined the staff of the Glasgow Evening News as a cartoonist. During the First World War Whitelaw served in the Tank Corps.

After the Armistice Whitelaw worked for Punch Magazine. The critic, Percy V. Bradshaw, called him "a first-class draughtsman... with a splendid sense of character and unerring feeling for composition."

In 1938 replaced Will Dyson as staff cartoonist on the The Daily Herald and he held the position throughout the Second World War. He was replaced by David Low in 1949.

George Whitelaw died on 19th September 1957.

George Whitelaw contributed greatly to the British satirical response to the Second World War, working alongside contemporaries such as HM Bateman, Cyril Bird (Fougasse) and Sir David Low.
Source: Spartacus Educational
George Whitelaw art
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Ogden Whitney biography

Ogden Whitney biography

Ogden Whitney (1918 - 197?; Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)
Ogden Whitney was a comic artist from the Golden Age of American comics. Throughout the 1940s, he illustrated numerous stories for such comic books as A-1 Comics and Big Shot Comics. For both B&I and The American Comics Group, he illustrated numerous war stories, such as 'Soldier of Fortune' and 'Operation Peril', as well as science-fiction comics ('Adventures into the Unknown', 'Forbidden Worlds') and romantic love stories ('Romantic Adventures', 'Wedding Bells').

His most famous work however, came with the creation of 'Herbie', a fat boy addicted to lollipops, but with undefined and unexplained super powers. 'Herbie' first appeared in the sci-fi/horror feature Forbidden Worlds in 1958, and got its own feature in 1964. Other famous work of Whitney was on the 'Skyman' character.

In the later stages of his career, Whitney drew for Tower Comics on series like 'T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents' and 'NoMan', and for Marvel on 'The Two-Gun Kid'. Ogden Whitney stood out for his beautiful automobiles and alluringly luscious women.

Ogden Whitney died in the early 1970s.
Source: Lambiek Comiclopedia
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Geoffrey Whittam biography

Geoffrey Whittam biography

Geoffrey William Whittam (16 December 1916 - 1983)
Geoffrey Whittam was born in Woolston, near Southampton, and educated at Taunton School, Southampton. Whittam studied art at Southampton School of Art. Before the war he worked for the Post Office (1935-39), and served in the Royal Navy for six years during WW2. On his release, he worked in advertising in London whilst studying at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (1946-49).

His first commissions were illustrations for the Radio Times, which led him to freelance work. He has worked mainly as a children’s book illustrator in pen, but has also produced dust jackets and colour illustrations to magazines, visualised buildings from plans and designed posters. He has also written a number of educational books, including The Whale Hunters (1954), Fur Hunting and Fur Farming (1957), Lumbering in Canada (1957), Farming on the Canadian Prairies (1959), The Zambezi (1961), The Rhine (1962), Canals and Waterways (1968).

Whittam also drew for comics in the 1960s and 1970s, including strips for Hurricane, Mandy, Princess and Victor (including at least one series starring Matt Braddock) as well as illustrations for annuals.

Whittam lived in Surrey and died in 1983.
Source: Bear Alley; Illustration Art Gallery
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Michael Whittlesea biography

Michael Whittlesea biography

Michael Whittlesea (born 6 June 1938; England)
Born in London on 6 June 1938, Michael Whittlesea was educated at Harrow School of art before beginning a career in publishing.

Whittlesea was a regular book cover artist in the 1960s and 1970s working for Heinemann, Newnes, Young World, Macdonald and Oxford University Press amongst others. He was a regular contributor to World of Wonder and Speed and Power in the 1970s, for the latter producing a series of stunning paintings based on the science fiction stories of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov in 1974-75. In the early 1980s, he illustrated the Make Science Magic series for Purnell.

Although he was painting whilst working commercially, he did not begin exhibiting until 1985 when his work appeared in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. In that same year he was elected a member of both the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour and the New English Art Club, and won the Painter Stainers Award. In 1989 he was Ken Howard's Artist of Choice for an exhibition at the Art's Club, Dover Street, London and Tom Coates' Choice at the Mall Gallery in 1991. In 1991 he was a prize-winner at the Singer/Friedland/Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition, where he had been selected on a number of occasions. In 1998 he was commissioned to paint the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship.

Many further exhibitions have followed at the Royal Academy, Bankside Gallery, Mall Gallery, Langham Fine Art, Alresford Gallery, Royal West of England Academy, Royal College of Art, Chelsea Arts Club, Richard Hagen Gallery, Lennox Gallery and RONA Gallery. In 2002, he won the Jans Ondaatje Rolls Award for Drawing at the NEAC Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London.

Whittlesea has also written two books: The Complete Book of Drawing (Michael Beazley, 1983; reprinted in 1992 as The Complete Step-by-Step Drawing Course) and The Complete Watercolour Course (Windward, 1987; reprinted in 1992 as The Complete Step-by-Step Watercolour Course).

He has said of his work: "I use oil or watercolours for painting and pastels and charcoal to draw. I work on primed canvas or good watercolour paper using a variety of hog hair and sable brushes. I have a very traditional way of working. I often work on 6 or more paintings at a time and I draw regularly and work from paintings. Drawings can be around for years before I think of using them in a painting...

"I still find painting a very difficult activity. Its unpredictable. At the start of each day. I am not sure that anything good will result and I have given up on achieving a style. Whatever develop, happens. There is no clear idea or vision of how a picture will look."
From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Michael Whittlesea art
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Kent Williams biography

Kent Williams biography

Kent Robert Williams (born 1962; North Carolina, USA)
Kent Williams is an American painter and graphic novel artist. Born in New Bern, North Carolina, he attended the Pratt Institute in New York City and graduated in 1984.

Williams, a consummate draftsman and painter, has realized his work through various other artistic channels as well: that of the illustrated word and the graphic novel (including The Fountain with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky), printmaking, photography, design, architecture, and film.

Williams' approach to his subjects is often subjective and intense. Whether through multi-figured compositional complexity and suggestive narrative, or with the straightforward lone human form, there is often autobiographical narrative at play. Favorite models, friends, and the artist himself all play a role in the human story of his paintings.

From 1983 to 1985, Kent Williams was a regular contributor to Marvel Comics' Epic Illustrated. He collaborated with writer J. M. DeMatteis on Blood: A Tale in 1987 and with writers Walt and Louise Simonson and co-artist Jon J Muth on Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown the following year. Williams was the regular cover artist for Vertigo's Hellblazer in 1990–1991.

A selection of his works on paper, Kent Williams: Drawings & Monotypes, was published in 1991, and Koan: Paintings by Jon J Muth & Kent Williams, was published in 2001. His monograph, Kent Williams, Amalgam: Paintings & Drawings, 1992-2007, with text by Edward Lucie-Smith and Julia Morton, is the most comprehensive collection of Williams' work to date.

Comics historian Les Daniels noted that Williams' "impressionistic painting style is an example of the new look that DC's Vertigo line brought to comics". Williams drew the "Fear of Falling" short story for Vertigo Preview #1 (1993) which featured the Sandman and was written by Neil Gaiman. In 2006 he illustrated a graphic novel adaptation of The Fountain from the script by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky.

He was a visiting instructor at the Pratt Institute, and has taught at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco; East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Valencia, California.

Williams lives in Los Angeles and teaches painting at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. In addition, he is an MFA mentor faculty at the Laguna College of Art and Design. He has two sons, Kerig Sun and Ian Kai.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery & Wikipedia
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Matthew Williams biography

Matthew Williams biography

Matthew Williams; UK
Matthew Williams lives and works in the UK, and has been a practicing illustrator since leaving Falmouth College Of Arts in 1995.

During this time he has recieved 1st prize for the winsor&newton category for best illustration in the AOI competition. His client list whilst being with The Organisation has included- Penguin, Puffin, A&C Black, TES Educational, Hodder & Staugton, Redline Educational.

Mainly illustrating childrens books and natural history, both inside and cover work, the majority of Matthews illustrations have been created with Alkyds (fast drying oils) and more recently using digital media (painter,photoshop).
Source: The Illustration Art Gallery
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Peter George Williams biography

Peter George Williams biography

Peter George Williams (born 27 January 1937, UK)
Pete Williams is one of a seemingly thriving group of cartoonists from Merseyside who have filled the pages of our national newspapers with fun and humour over the years, amongst them Bill Tidy, Albert Rusling and Bill Stott whose works were celebrated alongside Williams at an exhibition at Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, in 1978.

Peter George Williams was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, on 27 January 1937, the eldest son of George H. Williams and his wife Margaret (nee Watterson). He had no formal training as an artist but sold cartoons widely for over forty years, his work appearing in magazines and newspapers both in the UK and abroad. The Dictionary of British Cartoonists and Caricaturists notes contributions to Punch, Private Eye, Daily Mail, Spectator, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Star, People, Men Only and Mayfair. He was rewarded for his work with numerous awards, including the Berol Cartoonist of the Year in 1987, Waddingtons International Cartoon Awards in 1988 and awards in Belgium and Japan. Exhibitions of his work have been held in the Colchester Gallery, Essex, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, and the Library Theatre, Manchester.

Alongside his lengthy career as a cartoonist, Williams was also a part-time art teacher at the Alice Elliott and Watergate Schools in Liverpool.

Williams' younger brother, Mike, also became a cartoonist, selling his first cartoons to Punch in 1967. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Pete Williams art
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Robert Williams biography

Robert Williams biography

Robert L Williams (born 2 March 1943, USA)
Robert Williams is recognized as a fine artist, despite the terminology he and others have applied to his work as "lowbrow art". Williams has explained how the term came to be when, as an underground comix artist working on Zap Comix, Gilbert Shelton — a fellow ZAP Comix contributor and part-owner of underground publishing company Rip-Off Press — suggested collecting Williams paintings into book form. Williams tells the story that "No other publishing company anywhere would dare to undertake such an unorthodox project. It was decided at that time, since no authorized art institutions would recognize this form of art, to call my book The Lowbrow Art of Robt. Williams."

Robert L. Williams was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 2 March 1943, the son of Robert Wandell Williams and his wife Betty Jane (nee Spink). Williams's father owned a drive-in restaurant in Montgomery, Alabama, popular with hot-rodders, which instilled an early fascination with cars in the young Robert. Williams had a generally delinquent childhood, involved in high jinx and gangs and was expelled from school in 9th grade.

At the age of 20, he travelled to Los Angeles and studied art at the Los Angeles City College, working on The Collegiate, the school paper. Here he met Suzanne Chorna, whom he married in 1964. After briefly attending The Chouinart Art Institute, Williams worked as a designer before joining the studio of Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth, custom car builder and creator of Rat Fink, an icon amongst hot-rodders.

In 1968 he joined the close-knit group of underground artists known as the ZAP Comix Collective, creating the character Coochy Cooty in ZAP Comix. At the same time he was also producing paintings and prints under the banner 'Super Cartoon'; much of this early work was subsequently collected in The Lowbrow Art of Robt. Williams (1979). During the early years of punk rock, Williams' Zombie Mystery Paintings proved popular with underground clubs and avant-garde galleries and were later collected (1986), where Robert Crumb, in his introduction, described them as "vivid American nightmares — a gaudy carnival midway of our seething, barbaric collective subconscious ... coarse, crude, yeah, ugly even ... they are also intense mind-boggling, eyeball feasts, revelations, visions, captured dreams."

Williams subsequent paintings (often signed Robt. Wms.) became more detailed and are often characterised by their vividly coloured psychedelic visuals incorporating realistic or comic vignettes His work has been further collected in Visual Addiction (1989), Views from a Tortured Libido (1993), Malicious Resplendence (1997), Hysteria in Remission (2002), Through Prehensile Eyes (2005) and other titles. Williams has also painted album covers, notably for Guns N' Roses, t-shirts, shoes, prints and posters. He has staged a number of one-man shows at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, including Conceptual Realism (2009).

Williams received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Beyond Eden Fair in 2010. He has been involved in the publishing of a number of publications promoting 'lowbrow' art, including ART? Alternatives and Juxtapoz. An essayist and lecturer, he was the subject of the 2010 documentary film Robert Williams Mr Bitchin. Now a highly respected and much sought after painter his paintings have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Al Williamson biography

Al Williamson biography

Alfonso Williamson (21 March 1931 - 12 June 2010, New York, USA)
Alfonso Williamson was an American cartoonist, comic book artist and illustrator specializing in adventure, Western and science fiction/fantasy.

Born in New York City, he spent much of his early childhood in Bogotá, Colombia before moving back to the United States at the age of 12. In his youth, Williamson developed an interest in comic strips, particularly Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon. He took art classes at Burne Hogarth's Cartoonists and Illustrators School, there befriending future cartoonists Wally Wood and Roy Krenkel, who introduced him to the work of illustrators who had influenced adventure strips. Before long, he was working professionally in the comics industry. His most notable works include his science-fiction/heroic-fantasy art for EC Comics in the 1950s, on titles including Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.

In the 1960s, he gained recognition for continuing Raymond's illustrative tradition with his work on the Flash Gordon comic-book series, and was a seminal contributor to the Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazines Creepy and Eerie. Williamson spent most of the 1970s working on his own credited strip, another Raymond creation, Secret Agent X-9. The following decade, he became known for his work adapting Star Wars films to comic books and newspaper strips. From the mid-1980s to 2003, he was primarily active as an inker, mainly on Marvel Comics superhero titles starring such characters as Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Spider-Girl.

Williamson is known for his collaborations with a group of artists including Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, Angelo Torres, and George Woodbridge, which was affectionately known as the "Fleagle Gang". Williamson has been cited as a stylistic influence on a number of younger artists, and encouraged many, helping such newcomers as Bernie Wrightson and Michael Kaluta enter the profession. He has won several industry awards, and six career-retrospective books about him have been published since 1998. Living in Pennsylvania with his wife Corina, Williamson retired in his seventies.

Williamson was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2000. Source: Wikipedia.
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Alan Willow biography

Alan Willow biography

Alan Willow
Alan Willow: From being a kid, I always loved comics. In fact I've still got some I did when I was about eight years old! After I left school, I managed to get a job with Sydney Jordan Associates. I was really lucky - I worked up in their studio off Shoe Lane in Fleet Street. I made the tea, fetched Cokes, and did a bit of artwork while watching them drawing. I would practice, and they would help me out and guide me. They had some really good artists - George Stokes, who had a western strip in a newspaper, and Gary Keane, who did a strip called 'How Things Work' or something - information strips and sports stuff. That was my grounding, and when I was good enough to go freelance, I did work for Mick Anglo - who I knew - and illustrated the Green Hornet strip in TV Tornado for a short while, becoming famous for one of the worst bits of artwork that anyone has ever seen! I was quite young, and my drawing was really terrible. I worked for IPC Magazines on a freelance basis, and the picture libraries - I did Air Ace mostly, a lot of covers and sometimes the insides. I was never a very good figure artist, I was better at doing mechanical stuff, machines and aeroplanes and things like that. I also worked for D.C. Thomson as well, on Victor. Then I moved up to Leeds, and got a job in a studio doing licensed characters for t-shirts, chocolate boxes - Easter and Christmas ranges. I went freelance again, and worked for Bassetts the confectioners, for sixteen years, again I did a lot of their Easter and Christmas ranges - Dangermouse, Mr Men, Hanna Barbera characters, and Disney. I designed a lot of packaging for them and that was my main work during that period. I worked for another packaging company, Magna.

I worked for IPC Magazines on a freelance basis, and the picture libraries - I did Air Ace mostly, a lot of covers and sometimes the insides. I was never a very good figure artist, I was better at doing mechanical stuff, machines and aeroplanes and things like that. I also worked for D.C. Thomson as well, on Victor.

The cover of Front-line Combat No.1, published in 1959. Alan Willow comments, 'This was done for L.Miller & Co. and was the the very first job I ever had published. I did the front cover, all the inside illustrative work and wrote all the stories. Even though it only ran for three or four issues I was very proud of it... being around 18 at the time! I still have a printed copy of No. 1. I was paid the princely sum of £50 for each complete issue... crap money, even for those days!'

Alan Willow is best known for the the text illustrations in several early Doctor Who Target novelisations. But a few years before this, he painted most of the covers for TV21 & Joe 90 from late 1969, until the Star Trek strip replaced these on the front page in the summer of 1970.

More recently, Alan Willow has been the brains behind the Mission File pull-out competition sections in the Redan Thunderbirds magazine - coming up with the original idea of a theme, and planning out the concept for other illustrators to finish.

A confirmed comic and SF fan himself, Alan Willow kindly spoke to the Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History recently about his work. As his own introduction states, 'I have always had a love of comics for as long as I can remember... the first comic that had a massive influence on me was the Eagle. I have spent almost all of my working life as an illustrator in comics, packaging design and kid's games. I worked a lot on licensed characters. For the last six years I have worked in schools helping children with special needs, and still doing some freelance artwork as well. I started the Mission pull outs from the very beginning, and did every issue until the reprints started. In a way I was glad it ended as after almost 6 years I was beginning to run out of ideas. Yes, it's amazing coming back to Thunderbirds after all this time...'
Source: http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Interviews/AlanWillow.htm
Alan Willow art
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Andrew Wilson biography

Andrew Wilson biography

Andrew J Wilson (UK)
One of the centrepieces of the girls' comic Princess was the strip 'The Happy Days'. This hugely popular strip was the combined work of Mike & Jenny Butterworth on scripts and Andrew Wilson on art. The light-hearted family adventures of the strip's heroine, Sue Day, carried the strip through the amalgamation of Princess with Tina in 1967 and eventually it ran for 13 years before finally coming to an end in 1973.

For nearly the whole run, the artist was Andrew J. Wilson whose loose, flowing style is not to be mistaken for the other Sue Day artist, whose work – stylistically similar to the artwork of W. Bryce-Hamilton – appeared in the Princess Picture Library and who occasionally filled-in for Wilson on the main weekly strip.

Wilson's only other known strip for Princess Tina was 'Lassie Come Home'. After the adventures of the Day family came to an end, he disappears from view – probably to D. C. Thomson's girls' papers – before reappearing briefly at Fleetway drawing adventure strips for Buster, where he took over 'The Runaways' from Joe Colquhoun. 'The Byrds of Paradise Island' (1978-80) and 'Johnny's Journey' (1980) are his last known work. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Andrew Wilson art
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Colin Wilson biography

Colin Wilson biography

Colin Wilson (born 31 October 1949; New Zealand)
Although primarily known in the UK as a 2000AD artist, it would be fair to say that Colin Wilson probably has one of the broadest fan bases of any artistic contributor to Britain's longest running boys' weekly. Whilst many artists have found popularity in America, Wilson turned east and gained a strong following for his work in Europe before working in the USA.

Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 31 October 1949, Wilson attended Christchurch School of Art in 1967-68 before working as a commercial illustrator in advertising. He began contributing illustrations to a science fiction fanzine which led to an attempt in 1977 to edit his own comics fanzine, Strips, with the idea of promoting his own work (e.g. The Chronicles of Spandau, The Sound of Thunder) but which became a showcase for many other local talents. In 1979, he was one of the creators involved in the ecology-themed The Adventures of Captain Sunshine published in Simply Living.

Wilson moved to London in 1980 and found work on 2000AD, drawing Judge Dredd and various Future Shocks before becoming the regular artist on Rogue Trooper. Whilst still drawing the latter, he moved to Paris and spent six months approaching French publishers with a science fiction series he had created. He found a publisher in Jacques Glénat, who produced the series in three volumes — Rael (1984), Mantell (1986) and Alia (1989), the latter with writer Thierry Smolderen — under the overall title Dans l'Ombre du Soleil.

Wilson also took over the adventures of La Jeunesse de Blueberry (Young Blueberry) from artist Jean Giraud, drawing six albums: Les démons du Missouri (1985), Terreur sur le Kansas (1987), Le raid infernal (1987), written by Blueberry creator Jean-Michel Charlier, followed by three volumes scripted by François Corteggiani, La pousuite impitoyable (1992), Trois hommes pour Atlanta (1993) and Le prix du sang (1994). He also collaborated with Corteggiani on two volumes of Thunderhawks (1992-94).

Wilson returned to 2000AD and became an irregular contributor in 1998-2005, drawing Tor Cyan and Rain Dogs as well as further episodes of 'Judge Dredd'. He also began contributing to American comics with Point Blank (2002-03), written by Ed Brubaker and went on to draw Losers (2005), Battler Britton (2006) and Star Wars (various series, 2007-09).

He continued to also draw the dark crime noir series Du plomb dans la tête (Bullet to the Head) for French publishers Casterman, with three volumes — Les Petits poissons, Les Gros poissons and Du bordel dans l'aquarium — published in 2004-06. The series was optioned in 2008 and, at the time of writing, is in production under the title Headshot with Sylvester Stallone starring and Walter Hill directing.

Wilson continues to work on both sides of the Atlantic, his most recent work includes a collection of sketches, , published in France (2010), an issue of Gears of War (Wildstorm) and Jour J: Qui a Tué le Président? (2011), an alternative history tale built around the Kennedy assassination written by Fred Duval & Jean-Pierre Pécau. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Gahan Wilson biography

Gahan Wilson biography

Gahan Wilson (born 18 February 1930; USA)
Gahan Wilson is an American cartoonist, best known for his work in Playboy and The New Yorker. A 2009 collection celebrating Wilson's Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons ran to 3 volumes and 942 pages. A master of the fanciful and macabre, Wilson has also contributed regularly to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Collier's and National Lampoon, which ran his comic strip Nuts.

Born in Evanston, Illinois on 18 February 1930, Wilson was the only child of a successful executive in a steel company and a talented artist in a Chicago advertising firm. He has described his upbringing as dysfunctional due to his parents' alcoholism, although he was also encouraged to draw. From an early age his drawings featured elements of horror and he became a fan of Chester Gould's 'Dick Tracy', with its many grotesque characters, and 'Little Orphan Annie' by Harold Gray. Radio also played an important part in his childhood love of the mysterious and macabre, as did Hollywood. Through a family friend he was able to visit Hollywood studios in the 1940s.

Wilson attended a number of commercial art studios whilst in High School and studied fine art at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was briefly in the Air Force but a bad leg excluded him from active duty. He then moved to Greenwich Village, selling cartoons to the major weekly magazines Collier's and Look.

Wilson attempted approach to Harvey Kurtzman following the launch of Trump resulted accidentally in his introduction to Hugh Hefner. He had spotted a Chicago address in Trump and visited the offices when he returned to Chicago to visit his parents over Christmas. Trump was, in fact, edited in New York, but Wilson found himself introduced to Hefner who began running his colour cartoons in Playboy in the mid-1950s.

Although best known for his single panel cartoons, Wilson produced Nuts for National Lampoon as a response to Charles Schultz's 'Peanuts' where children would philosophise about any subject; 'Nuts' was Wilson's response of what it was really like to be a little child. Wilson ended the strip when he discovered it was being sold abroad, although he did subsequently return to the paper. Wilson also produced a syndicated weekly strip under the title 'Gahan Wilson's Sunday Funnies'.

Wilson's first collection of cartoons appeared in 1965 as Gahan Wilson's Graveside Manner and was followed by many other books, including collections of short stories and novels for both adults and children. He was also a film reviewer for The Twilight Zone Magazine, a book reviewer for Realms of Fantasy and designed a computer game, Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House.

Wilson's cartoons have earned him a number of awards, including World Fantasy Convention Award in 1981, the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 and the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 from the National Cartoonists Society. He has also been President of the Cartoonist Guild. He was the subject of a documentary directed by Steven-Charles Jaffe entitled Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Maurice Wilson biography

Maurice Wilson biography

Maurice Charles John Wilson (15 March 1914 - November 1987; UK)
Born in London on 15 March 1914, Maurice Wilson was best known as a wildlife artist whose work appeared in dozens of books and on cards given away with Brooke Bond tea. He was educated at the Hastings School of Art (under Philip Cole) and the Royal Academy Schools (under Malcolm Osborne and Robert Austin) and later taught anatomical and plant drawing. He worked with members of the Natural History Museum in reconstructing the look of dinosaurs from fossils and his work in this area was much respected, inspiring books such as A History of Primates (1949), Fossil Amphibian and Reptiles (1954), Fossil Birds (1958) and Human Evolution: An Illustrated Guide (1989).

Wilson wrote and illustrated Just Monkeys (1937). After the war he illustrated dozens of books, including Dogs (1946), Coastal Craft (1947), Zoo Animals (1948), A Guide to Earth History (1956), Birds and Beasts (1956), Mermaids and Mastadons: A Book of Unnatural History (1957), Elephants (1958), Animals We Know (1959), Fables from Aesop (1961), Donkey Work (1962), A World of Animals (1962), Animals (1964), Animals of the Arctic (1964), Birds (1965), The Origins of Man (1968), First Interest on the Farm (1969), A Long Time Ago (1969-70), Patch by Helen Griffiths (1970), Man, Civilzation and Conquest (1971), China Long Ago (1972), First Interest in the Wider World (1972), Double Trouble by Doreen Tovey (1972), Making the Horse Laugh by Doreen Tovey (1974), The Earliest Farmers and the First Cities (1974), The Quzzer Book About People (1975), Oh Those Cats by Frances Mann (1975), A Quorum of Cats: An Anthology ed. Elizabeth Lee (1976), Bambi by Felix Salten (1976), Prehistoric Animals (1976), A Closer Look at Arctic Lands (1976), Prehistoric Animals (1976), A Closer Look at Plains Indians (1977), A Closer Look at Eskimos (1977), Ponies (1977), Birds of Prey (1978), A Closer Look at Amazonian Indians (1978), A Closer Look at the Bedouin (1978), Cats in the Belfry by Doreen Tovey (1978), Horses (1979), Lions and Tigers (1979), A Closer Look at Aboriginies (1979), Birds (1979), A Comfort of Cats by Doreen Tovey (1979), A Closer Look at Grasslands (1979), Lifeclass (1980), The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (1983), The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (1984), All the Mowgli Stories by Rudyard Kipling (1984), Lions and Tigers (1985) and Deserts (1986).

Wilson's autobiography, The Wartime Adventures of B Squadron 'Corpse' (1997), was publishing posthumously, relating how he joined the 11th Battalion Royal Tank Regiment in 1941 and spent much of the war in a Matilda tank, weathering sandstorms in the Middle East, taking part in the landings at Walcheren and in the 'CDL' experiment which involved placing blindingly bright carbon arc lamps in the turrets of tanks to create a wall of light when the tanks were lined up—an idea that was never used in battle.

Many of his illustrations were produced to accompany displays at the Natural History Museum and many can be found in the Natural History Museum's Collection.

Wilson lived in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where he died in November 1987. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Bruce Windo biography

Bruce Windo biography

Bruce Carrington Windo (born 20 March 1920; England)
Bruce Windo was born in Kent on 20 March 1920, his birth registered in Strood, although he was probably born in nearby Meopham where his father was the head schoolmaster at Meopham Primary School between 1902 and 1934. Percy Carrington Windo had been born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, in 1871, and married Emily Martin in Bristol in 1895; Percy was a school master in Bath, Avon, but, as his family grew, moved to Singleton, Sussex, where he ran Bay School.

Soon after, Percy and his family moved to Meopham, near Gravesend, Kent, and lived at The School House. Emily died in 1906, at the early age of 39, and Percy married Gertrude Mabel Melling two years later, who had been an organist in Singleton when Percy and Emily were at Bay School.

Percy is said to have been "very talented at handicrafts and drawing and his pupils craftwork reached a high standard." He also served as Parish Clerk. He died in Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1955, aged 83; his wife, Gertrude, died in Eastbourne in 1968, aged 93. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Gerry Wood biography

Gerry Wood biography

Gerry Wood (born 1938; UK)
Although his name is recognised amongst British comic fans, little is known about British artist Gerry Wood. He is probably best known as an illustrator, working in the 1970s in World of Wonder, Look and Learn and Speed and Power, which culminated in 1977 with his taking over the artwork for what was, by then, entitled More Adventures of the Trigan Empire.

Wood (born in 1938) shares his name with another artist who drew recruitment posters during the Great War and advertising illustrations in the 1930s for Dunlop tyres.

Wood seems to have begun working at Fleetway Publications in the early 1960s for Battle Picture Library, then drawing for Air Ace and Micron's Combat Picture Library. His book illustrations include Sky Carnival by W. F. Hallstead (1969). He returned to Air Ace in 1970 before producing his first comic strip in colour, 'A Leap Into the Future' for the early issues of World of Wonder.

Later work included a pull-out poster for Battle Picture Weekly in 1976 and the cover for Trillions by Nicholas Fisk (1983). There is probably a great deal of unknown work by Wood; where he signed work it was with a small and easily missed 'G. WOOD' in caps and work is credited to Gerald Wood.

He contributed heavily to Look and Learn, Treasure and Speed & Power in the 1970s, drawing mostly historical, military and transport subjects. He took over the artwork for the Trigan Empire in 1977 and continued the adventures until both it and Look and Learn came to an end in 1982. A later job was to draw a pull-out poster for Battle Picture Weekly in 1976.

He continued to illustrate educational books following the demise of Look and Learn, including Pyramids by Anne Millard (1989), Roman Fort (1996) and Ancient African Towns (1998) both by Fiona Macdonald.

More recently, Wood's artwork was used for the backing of a set of ten stamps celebrating the 75th anniversary of the first flight of the Spitfire.

See also our DON LAWRENCE BOOKS including The Trigan Empire and Storm and our catalogue THE ART OF THE TRIGAN EMPIRE featuring the art of all the Trigan Artists including Gerry Wood.

Enjoy our ORIGINAL TRIGAN EMPIRE ART by Don Lawrence, Ron Embleton, Oliver Frey, Philip Corke, Miguel Quesada and Gerry Wood.

Gerry Wood art
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Lawson Wood biography

Lawson Wood biography

Clarence Lawson Wood (23 August 1878 - 26 October 1957)
Lawson Wood, sometimes Clarence Lawson Wood, was an English painter, illustrator and designer known for humorous depictions of cavemen and dinosaurs, policemen, and animals, especially a chimpanzee called Gran'pop, whose annuals circulated around the world. Wood was decorated by the French for his gallantry at Vimy Ridge during World War I. He was deeply concerned with animal welfare and was awarded membership in the Royal Zoological Society in 1934. His animal designs were reproduced as wooden toys and he established a sanctuary for aged creatures. In his later years, he was a recluse and died in Devon in 1957.

Lawson Wood was born on 23 August 1878 in Highgate, London, the son of landscape artist Pinhorn Wood, and the grandson of architectural artist L.J. Wood. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, Heatherley's School of Fine Art and Frank Calderon's School of Animal Painting.

In 1896, he was employed with periodical publisher C. Arthur Pearson Ltd. In 1902, he married Charlotte Forge. From the age of 24 he pursued a successful freelance career and was published in The Graphic, The Strand Magazine, Punch, The Illustrated London News, and Boys Own Paper. He illustrated a number of books including Louis Tracy's The Invaders in 1901 for Pearson.

By 1906, he was recognized for his humorous style, especially for his depictions of stone-age humans and dinosaurs. His standing among artists was made obvious when he was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw to launch The Art of the Illustrator, a collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists.

Wood was a member of the London Sketch Club, and a close friend of fellow member Tom Browne whose influence is clearly seen in his work. He was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and exhibited with Walker's Galleries, Brook Street Art Gallery, and the Royal Academy.

During World War I, Wood served as an officer in the Kite Balloon Wing of the Royal Flying Corps, and was responsible for spotting planes from a hot-air ballon. The duty was dangerous, and Wood was decorated by the French for his action over Vimy Ridge. Wood's patriotic designs were published by Dobson Molle & Co.

After the war, his animal designs were published by Inter-Art and Valentine, and his bird, animal, and human designs were reproduced as a line of wooden toys known as "The Lawson Woodies". In 1934, he was awarded a fellowship of the Royal Zoological Society for his work with animals and his concerns about their welfare. He established his own sanctuary for aged creatures. The ape Gran'pop brought Wood fame abroad and the Gran'pop's Annuals were circulated around the world. An animated film was planned around Wood's characters and designs at Ub Iwerks' Hollywood studio but was scuttled with the outbreak of World War II.

His books include The Bow-Wow Book (1912), Rummy Tales (1920), The Noo-Zoo Tales (1922), Jolly Rhymes (1926), Fun Fair (1931), The Old Nursery Rhymes (1933), The Bedtime Picture Book (1943), Meddlesome Monkeys (1946), Mischief Makers (1946), and others.

Wood was a recluse during his later years and dwelt in a 15th-century medieval manor house he moved brick by brick from Sussex to the Kent border. He died in Devon on 26 October 1957 at the age of 79.
Source: Wikipedia

Enjoy our Lawson Wood feature article in illustrators  issue 29.

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Lawson Wood art
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Kenneth J Wood biography

Kenneth J Wood biography

Kenneth J. Wood (UK)
Kenneth J. Wood was a popular nature artist who was especially know for his detailed paintings of birds.

Little seems to have been published about Wood. He was a keen falconer and member of the British Falconers' Club and is remembered fondly by many in those circles. At some point in his career he lived in a caravan near Findon, West Sussex. He was the Hon Secretary of the Society of Wildlife Artists from 1983 until the 1990s. He died suddenly whilst still young: taken ill whilst hawking, he was diagnosed with cancer. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Stanley L Wood biography

Stanley L Wood biography

Stanley Llewellyn Wood (1867 - 1 March 1928; UK)
Stanley L. Wood was a hugely popular contributor to magazines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, chiefly remembered for his depictions of the wild west which graced many a boy's story paper. It was the perfect match of subject and talent as Wood was superb at depicting horses in action; He spent some of his teen years in Kansas and he returned to America in 1888 when he was sent to South Dakota by The Illustrated London News. An authenticity infused his illustrations — whether a realistic painting or a cartoon — and his colour plates of the wild west in Boy's Own Paper and Chums have helped keep their respective annuals collectable.

Stanley Llewellyn Wood was born in Maindee, near Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1867, the son of Stanley James Wood, a cement manufacturer, and his wife Charlotte (nee Atkins). He grew up in Christchurch, Monmouthshire, and travelled with his family to America at the age of 12, where his father had bought a ranch in Indian territory in Kansas. Legend has it that the bodies of the former owners, who had been murdered by a raiding party of braves, were buried in the garden. Soon after James Stanley Wood’s death, the house was surrounded by Ute Indians and, to scare them away, Charlotte had her children put on riding boots and spurs and they tramped up and down the stairs and from room to room, making as much noise as possible. The ruse worked and, believing the house to be heavily occupied, the natives retreated.

Charlotte and her family returned to St. Pancras, London and Wood went on to become a prolific illustrator of newspapers and magazines, including Black and White, Cassell’s Magazine, The Graphic, The Harmsworth Magazine, The Idler, The London Magazine, The Pall Mall Magazine, Pearson’s Magazine, The Penny Magazine, The Sporting and Dramatic News, The Strand Magazine, Wide World Magazine, The Windsor Magazine and Young England. Wood’s magazine and book illustrations included works by Cutcliffe Hyne (Captain Kettle), Dr. Nokola by Guy Boothby and Don Q. by Hesketh Pritchard. As a painter he also exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Wood married Mary Elizabeth Jenkins in Fulham on 21 February 1899. They had three children: Stanley Montague, Henry Lawrence and Jack Steward. The family lived in Palmers Green, Middlesex, where Wood died on 1 March 1928, aged 61. He had been ill for some weeks and, although he could not raise himself from his bed unaided, insisted that he continue working on his final illustration – for a 'Kettle' story – with his wife and son supporting him. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Wally Wood biography

Wally Wood biography

Wallace "Wally" Allan Wood (17 June 1927 - 2 November 1981; Minnesota, USA)
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work on EC Comics's Mad and Marvel's Daredevil. He was one of Mad's founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he claimed to dislike. Within the comics community, he was also known as Woody, a name he sometimes used as a signature.

In addition to Wood's hundreds of comic book pages, he illustrated for books and magazines while also working in a variety of other areas ¨C advertising; packaging and product illustrations; gag cartoons; record album covers; posters; syndicated comic strips; and trading cards, including work on Topps' landmark Mars Attacks set.

EC publisher William Gaines once stated, "Wally may have been our most troubled artist... I'm not suggesting any connection, but he may have been our most brilliant".

He was the inaugural inductee into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1989, and was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992.

Wally Wood was born in Menahga, Minnesota, and he began reading and drawing comics at an early age. He was strongly influenced by the art styles of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, Hal Foster's Prince Valiant, Will Eisner's The Spirit and especially Roy Crane's Wash Tubbs. Recalling his childhood, Wood said that his dream at age six, about finding a magic pencil that could draw anything, foretold his future as an artist. Wood graduated from high school in 1944, signed on with the United States Merchant Marine at the close of World War II and enlisted in the U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division in 1946. He went from training at Fort Benning, Georgia, to occupied Japan, where he was assigned to the island of Hokkaid¨­.

In 1947, at age 20, Wood enrolled in the Minneapolis School of Art but only lasted one term. Arriving in New York City with his brother Glenn and mother, after his military discharge in July 1948, Wood found employment at Bickford's restaurant as a busboy. During his time off he carried his thick portfolio of drawings all over midtown Manhattan, visiting every publisher he could find. He briefly attended the Hogarth School of Art but dropped out after one semester.

By October, after being rejected by every company he visited, Wood met fellow artist John Severin in the waiting room of a small publisher. After the two shared their experiences attempting to find work, Severin invited Wood to visit his studio, the Charles William Harvey Studio, where Wood met Charlie Stern, Harvey Kurtzman (who was working for Timely/Marvel) and Will Elder. At this studio Wood learned that Will Eisner was looking for a Spirit background artist. He immediately visited Eisner and was hired on the spot.

Over the next year, Wood also became an assistant to George Wunder, who had taken over the Milton Caniff strip Terry and the Pirates. Wood cited his "first job on my own" as Chief Ob-stacle, a continuing series of strips for a 1949 political newsletter. He entered the comic book field by lettering, as he recalled in 1981: "The first professional job was lettering for Fox romance comics in 1948. This lasted about a year. I also started doing backgrounds, then inking. Most of it was the romance stuff. For complete pages, it was $5 a page... Twice a week, I would ink ten pages in one day".

Artists' representative Renaldo Epworth helped Wood land his early comic-book assignments, making it unclear if that connection led to Wood's lettering or to his comics-art debut, the ten-page story "The Tip Off Woman" (sic) in the Fox Comics Western Women Outlaws No. 4 (cover-dated January 1949, on sale late 1948). Wood's next known comic-book art did not appear until Fox's My Confession No. 7 (August 1949), at which time he began working almost continuously on the company's similar My Experience, My Secret Life, My Love Story and My True Love: Thrilling Confession Stories. His first signed work is believed to be in My Confession #8 (October 1949), with the name "Woody" half-hidden on a theater marquee. He penciled and inked two stories in that issue: "I Was Unwanted" (nine pages) and "My Tarnished Reputation" (ten pages).

Wood began at EC co-penciling and co-inking with Harry Harrison the story "Too Busy For Love" (Modern Love #5), and fully penciling the lead story, "I Was Just a Playtime Cowgirl", in Saddle Romances No. 11 (April 1950), inked by Harrison.

Working from a Manhattan studio at West 64th Street and Columbus Avenue, Wood began to attract attention in 1950 with his highly detailed and imaginative science-fiction artwork for EC and Avon Comics, some in collaboration with Joe Orlando. During this period, he drew in a wide variety of subjects and genres, including adventure, romance (which he really didn't care for) war and horror; message stories (for EC's Shock SuspenStories); and eventually satirical humor for writer/editor Harvey Kurtzman in Mad including a satire of the lawsuit Superman's publisher DC filed against Captain Marvel's publisher Fawcett called "Superduperman!" battling Captain Marbles.

Wood was instrumental in convincing EC publisher William Gaines to start a line of science fiction comics, Weird Science and Weird Fantasy (later combined under the single title Weird Science-Fantasy). Wood penciled and inked several dozen EC science fiction stories, many considered classics. Wood also had frequent entries in Two-Fisted Tales and Tales from the Crypt, as well as the later EC titles Valor, Piracy, and Aces High.

Working over scripts and pencil breakdowns by Jules Feiffer, the 25-year-old Wood drew two months of Will Eisner's classic, Sunday-supplement newspaper comic book The Spirit, on the 1952 story arc "The Spirit in Outer Space". Eisner, Wood recalled, paid him "about $30 a week for lettering and backgrounds on The Spirit. Sometimes he paid $40 when I did the drawings, too".

Feiffer, in 2010, recalled Wood's studio, "which was at that time in the very slummy Upper West Side (of Manhattan) in the 1960s, years before it was (the) Lincoln Center area. It was a cartoonist and science-fiction writers' ghetto ¨C just a huge room where the walls were knocked down, dark, smelly, roach-infested, and all these cartoonists and writers bent over their tables. One was [science-fiction writer] Harry Harrison."

Between 1957 and 1967, Wood produced both covers and interiors for more than 60 issues of the science-fiction digest Galaxy Science Fiction, illustrating such authors as Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Jack Finney, C.M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, Robert Sheckley, Clifford D. Simak and Jack Vance. He painted six covers for Galaxy Science Fiction Novels between 1952 and 1958. His gag cartoons appeared in the men's magazines Dude, Gent and Nugget. He inked the first eight months of the 1958¨C1961 syndicated comic strip Sky Masters of the Space Force, penciled by Jack Kirby.

Wood expanded into book illustrations, including for the picture-cover editions (though not the dust-jacket editions) of titles in the 1959 Aladdin Books reissues of Bobbs Merrill's 1947 "Childhood of Famous Americans" series.

Wood additionally did art and stories for comic-book companies large and small ¨C from Marvel (and its 1950s iteration Atlas Comics), DC (including House of Mystery and Jack Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown), and Warren (Creepy and Eerie), to such smaller firms as Avon (Strange Worlds), Charlton (War and Attack, Jungle Jim), Fox (Martin Kane, Private Eye), Gold Key (M.A.R.S. Patrol Total War, Fantastic Voyage), Harvey (Unearthly Spectaculars), King Comics (Jungle Jim), Atlas/Seaboard (The Destructor), Youthful Comics (Capt. Science) and the toy company Wham-O (Wham-O Giant Comics). In 1965, Wood, Len Brown, and possibly Larry Ivie created T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for Tower Comics. He wrote and drew the 1967 syndicated Christmas comic strip, Bucky's Christmas Caper. During the 1960s, Wood did many trading cards and humor products for Topps Chewing Gum, including concept roughs for Topps' famed 1962 Mars Attacks cards prior to the final art by Bob Powell and Norman Saunders.

For Marvel during the Silver Age of Comic Books, Wood's work as penciler-inker of Daredevil #5¨C8 and inker over Bob Powell of issues #9-11 established the title character's distinctive red costume (in issue #7; see cover at left). Wood and Stan Lee introduced the Stilt-Man in Daredevil #8 (June 1965). When Daredevil guest-starred in Fantastic Four #39¨C40, Wood inked that character, over Jack Kirby pencils, on the covers and throughout the interior.

Wood penciled and inked the first four 10-page installments of the company's "Dr. Doom" feature in Astonishing Tales #1¨C4 (Aug. 1970-Feb. 1971), and both wrote and drew anthological horror/suspense tales in Tower of Shadows #5¨C8 (May¨CNov. 1970), as well as sporadic other work.

In circles concerned with copyright and intellectual property issues, Wood is known as the artist of the unsigned satirical Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, which first appeared in Paul Krassner's magazine The Realist. The poster depicts a number of copyrighted Disney characters in various unsavory activities (including sex acts and drug use), with huge dollar signs radiating from Cinderella's Castle. Wood himself, as late as 1981, when asked who did that drawing, said only,"I'd rather not say anything about that! It was the most pirated drawing in history! Everyone was printing copies of that. I understand some people got busted for selling it. I always thought Disney stuff was pretty sexy... Snow White, etc." Disney took no legal action against either Krassner or The Realist but did sue a publisher of a "blacklight" version of the poster, who used the image without Krassner's permission. The case was settled out of court.

At DC Comics, he and Jim Shooter launched the Captain Action comic book series in 1968. The following year, Wood briefly served as inker of the Superboy series. Discovering from Roy Thomas that Jack Kirby had returned to DC in 1970, Wood called editor Joe Orlando in an attempt to get the assignment to ink Kirby's new work, but that role was already filled by Vince Colletta. That same year, Wood was a ghost artist for an episode of Prince Valiant. Wood worked on various series for DC between 1975 and 1977, producing several covers for Plop! and inking the pencil artwork of Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby on Stalker and The Sandman respectively.

He worked on the Hercules Unbound series as well, providing inks for Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Walt Simonson. Wood penciled and inked All Star Comics and contributed to the creation of Power Girl by exaggerating the size of her breasts. Active with the 1970s Academy of Comic Book Arts, Wood contributed to several editions of the annual ACBA Sketchbook. In one of his final assignments, Wood returned to a character he helped define, inking Frank Miller's cover of Daredevil #164 (May 1980). His last known mainstream credit was inking Wonder Woman #269 (July 1980).

Over several decades, numerous artists worked at the Wood Studio. Associates and assistants included Dan Adkins, Richard Bassford, Howard Chaykin, Tony Coleman, Nick Cuti, Leo and Diane Dillon, Larry Hama, Russ Jones, Wayne Howard, Paul Kirchner, Joe Orlando, Bill Pearson, Al Sirois, Ralph Reese, Bhob Stewart, Tatjana Wood, and Mike Zeck.

In 1966, Wood launched the independent magazine witzend (originally to be titled "et cetera", a name which had to be withdrawn when Wood was told another magazine had already used this) one of the first alternative comics, a decade before Mike Friedrich's Star Reach or Flo Steinberg's Big Apple Comix for which Wood drew the cover and contributed a story. Wood offered his fellow professionals the opportunity to contribute illustrations and graphic stories that detoured from the usual conventions of the comics industry. After the fourth issue, Wood turned witzend over to Bill Pearson, who continued as editor and publisher through the 1970s and into the 1980s. Wood additionally collected his feature Sally Forth, published in the U.S. servicemen's periodicals Military News and Overseas Weekly from 1968¨C1974, in a series of four oversize (10"x12") magazines. Pearson, from 1993¨C95, reformatted the strips into a series of comics published by Eros Comix, an imprint of Fantagraphics Books, which in 1998 collected the entire run into a single 160-page volume.

In 1969, Wood created another seminal independent comic, Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon, intended for his "Sally Forth" military readership as indicated in the ads and indicia. Artists Steve Ditko and Ralph Reese and writer Ron Whyte are credited with primary writer-artist Wood on three features: "Cannon", "The Misfits", and "Dragonella". A second magazine-format issue was published in 1976 by Wood and CPL Gang Publications. Larry Hama, one of Wood's assistants, said, "I did script about three Sally Forth stories and a few of the Cannon's. I wrote the main Sally Forth story in the first reprint book, which is actually dedicated to me, mostly because I lent Woody the money to publish it".

In 1980 and 1981, Wood did two issues of a completely pornographic comic book, titled Gang Bang. It featured two sexually explicit Sally Forth stories, and sexually explicit versions of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, titled So White and the Six Dorks; Terry and The Pirates, titled Perry and the Privates; Prince Valiant, titled Prince Violate; Superman and Wonder Woman, titled Stuporman Meets Blunder Woman; Flash Gordon, titled Flasher Gordon; and Tarzan titled Starzan.

Wood struggled to be as efficient as possible in his often low-paying work-for-hire. Over time he created a series of layout techniques sketched on pieces of paper which he taped up near his drawing table. These "visual notes," collected on three pages, reminded Wood (and select assistants he showed the pages to) of various layouts and compositional techniques to keep his pages dynamic and interesting. (In the same vein, Wood also taped up another note to himself: "Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.")

In 1980, Wood's original, three-page, 24 panel (not 22) version of "Panels" was published with the proper copyright notice in The Wallace Wood Sketchbook (Crouch/Wood 1980). Around 1981, Wood's ex-assistant Larry Hama, by then an editor at Marvel Comics, pasted up photocopies of Wood's copyrighted drawings on a single page, which Hama titled "Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work!!" (It was subtitled, "Or some interesting ways to get some variety into those boring panels where some dumb writer has a bunch of lame characters sitting around and talking for page after page!") Hama left out 2 of the original 24 panels as his photocopies were too faint to make out some of the lightest sketches. Hama distributed Wood's "elegantly simple primer to basic storytelling" to artists in the Marvel bullpen, who in turn passed them on to their friends and associates. Eventually, "22 Panels" made the rounds of just about every cartoonist or aspiring comic book artist in the industry and achieved its own iconic status.

In 2006, writer/artist Joel Johnson bought the Larry Hama paste-up of photocopies at auction and made it available for wide distribution on the Internet. In 2010 Anne Lukeman of Kill Vampire Lincoln Productions produced a short film adapting the "22 Panels That Always Work" into a film noir-style experimental piece called 22 Frames That Always Work. Artist Rafael Kayanan created a revised version of "22 Panels" that used actual art from published Wood comics to illustrate each frame.

In 2006, cartoonist and publisher Cheese Hasselberger created "Cheese's 22 Panels That Never Work," featuring bizarre situations and generally poor storytelling techniques. In July 2012, Cerebus TV producer Max Southall brought together materials and released a documentary that featured Dave Sim's homage to Wally Wood and a focus on his 22 Panels, including a tribute that features a creation using the motif of one of them, depicting Daredevil and Wood himself, in Wally Wood style ¨C and the Wally Wood Estate's official print of the panels.

Wood was married three times. His first marriage was to artist Tatjana Wood, who later did extensive work as a comic-book colorist. Their marriage ended in the late 1960s. His second marriage, to Marilyn Silver, also ended in divorce.

For much of his adult life, Wood suffered from chronic, unexplainable headaches. In the 1970s, following bouts with alcoholism, Wood suffered from kidney failure. A stroke in 1978 caused a loss of vision in one eye. Faced with declining health and career prospects, he committed suicide by gunshot in Los Angeles, California three years later. Toward the end of his life, an embittered Wood would say, according to one biography, "If I had it all to do over again, I'd cut off my hands."

In 1972, EC editor Harvey Kurtzman, who worked closely with Wood during the 1950s, said: " Wally had a tension in him, an intensity that he locked away in an internal steam boiler. I think it ate away his insides, and the work really used him up. I think he delivered some of the finest work that was ever drawn, and I think it's to his credit that he put so much intensity into his work at great sacrifice to himself. "
Source: Wikipedia
Wally Wood art
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Edward Woodfall biography

Edward Woodfall biography

Edward Woodfall (UK)
Edward Woodfall is a mystey artist of whom I can find no trace. The single known piece of artwork is dated 1906, and a check in census records for 1901 reveals only a single person of that name, and he was a 57-year-old domestic servant — a gardener — working in Huyton with Roby, Lancaster.

Three birth records might be relevant: Edward Woodfall, born 1846 in St. Saviour, Southwark; Francis Edward Tidd Woodfall, born 1847 in Thame; and Edward Woodfall, born 1866 in Kensington, London. Of these, the older Edward died in 1869, aged 22; Francis Woodfall became a clerk on the stock exchange; and the younger Edward Woodfall emigrated to America in around 1886 where he worked as a carpenter. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Patrick Woodroffe biography

Patrick Woodroffe biography

Patrick Woodroffe (born 1940, UK)
Patrick's unique art style is unmistakable. His vivid use of colour, his painstaking fine detailed work and infinite patience which goes into each of his creations. His enchanting characters and strange creatures are set together with a fairy tale innocence in surrealistic scenes of rich colours. He became a full time artist and illustrator in 1972 with the increasing demand for his paintings and book covers. He has held numerous exhibitions and his work attracts serious collectors often at leading auction house such as Sotheby's. His work has been collected in numerous books notably Mythopoekin, Hallelujah Anyway and The Second Earth. Born in Yorkshire, Patrick has lived in Cornwall since 1964.
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Peter Woolcock biography

Peter Woolcock biography

Peter Woolcock
Peter Woolcock has had two careers in art: firstly as a comic strip artist best known for his work in nursery comics; and secondly as a political cartoonist.

Peter Woolcock was born and raised in Argentina, and worked his passage on a cargo boat to England in 1953 in order to find work as an artist. He went from interview to interview and eventually arrived at the doors of the Amalgamated Press, where, he says, he was seen by the wrong man. Five months later he was persuaded to try them again and was immediately offered work by Leonard Matthews.

He created the frog character Anthony Rowley (named after the Frog who went a-wooing), but the name was changed and, as The Funny Tales of Freddie Frog it began appearing in Jack and Jill in 1954. Woolcock was to draw the strip — with a break in the late 1950s/early 1960s — until 1969. This was not his longest-running strip. In 1955, he drew the hugely popular The Wind in the Willows for Playhour which came to an end a year later. Woolcock revived the character of Mr. Toad in Harold Hare's Own Paper in 1959, and continued to draw that character for Harold Hare's Own and Playhour for 25 years. (Woolcock had drawn an earlier, similar character called Toby Toad for Playhour.)

Woolcock was kept incredibly busy for 38 years, his strips and illustrations appearing in Tiny Tots, Film Fun, Look and Learn, Treasure, Disneyland Magazine, Toby, Dickory Dock and Storyland. He retired from drawing strips in 1987.

His books published during the same period include Animal ABC (1980), One, Two, Three: A Book of Numbers by Leonard Matthews (1981), Big and Small: A Book of Opposites by Leonard Matthews (1981), Busy People: A Book of Work and Play by Leonard Matthews (1982), Busy Days: A Book of Time by Leonard Matthews (1982), ABC: A Book of Words (1982) and Rain or Shine: A Book of the Weather (1983).

Woolcock has lived in England, Spain and, since 1981, in Bermuda where, since 1983, he has become one of the island's leading humour and political cartoonists. Some of his early work has been exhibited at the Bermudan National Gallery and many of his cartoons for the Royal Gazette have been collected in the annual Peter Woolcock's Woppened for many years, the 23rd collection appearing in 2011. He has also illustrated children's books, including The Turtle Who Ate a Balloon (2007) and The Adventures of Bermuda's Toad with One Eye (2008). From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Peter Woolcock art
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Steve Woron biography

Steve Woron biography

Steve Woron (born 14 January 1958; USA)
Steve Woron is an American artist best known for his female fantasy art featuring vampires, witches, warriors and mermaids. He was one of the early popularisers of 'good girl art' published through the comics distribution networks. Although they seem to dominate the comics' industry today, the kind of vampires and vixens Woron was drawing were less ubiquitous in the late 1980s. He was one of the first artists to tap into the nostalgia craze for Bettie Page as a pin-up icon in the 1990s, publishing two issues of Betty Page: The 50's Rage in 1993 (reprinted 1996 and 2001).

Steven J. Woron was born in Connecticut on 14 January 1958, the son of Alexander J. Woros and his wife Irene (nee Dabros). He received a BA in Fine Art from the University of Hartford Art School and subsequently taught in High School and privately as well as spending two years as a commercial illustrator as well as 'ghosting' for a famous New York commercial artist.

He attended his first comics' convention in 1978 and launched Spectrum Comics in 1982, producing four comic books, including the 4-issue The Survivors (1983-84) which he both wrote and drew; a year later, he launched The Illustration Studio. From 1984 he was the senior creative artist for a national printing company before turning freelance in 1987, when he began self-publishing prints and portfolios of exotic and erotic fantasy artwork.

He has since gone on to produce trading cards, t-shirts, jackets and other formats. His publications from Illustration Studio include The Art of Steve Woron (1991), The Complete Steve Woron Checklist (1991) and The Steve Woron Treasury (1992) and the comic book format Woron's World (1993-94). As well as illustrations, Woron is also a popular photographer of swimsuit models.

Woron was married Darla Addley, who has also been involved in the comics industry, in 1981 (divorced 1992); he married Laurie Maynard in 1993. He now lives in Vernon, Rockville, Connecticut. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Steve Woron art
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John Worsley biography

John Worsley biography

John Worsley (16 February 1919 - 3 October 2000; UK)
John Worsley spent the early years of his life in Kenya before returning to England to be educated at Brighton College and Goldsmiths. He joined the RNVR on the outbreak of WW2 and served in the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean, including Sicily and the Salerno Landings, and was the youngest Official War Artist, and only serving Naval officer, appointed by Sir Kenneth Clark (later Lord Clark of "Civilisation"). Examples of Worsley's wartime work may be found in The Imperial War Museum and The Maritime Museum in London.

Worsley was taken prisoner in Yugoslavia in 1943 and spent the rest of the War as a POW in Germany. Using materials from Red Cross parcels and papier-maché made from a German propaganda newspaper, Worsley created the successful escape dummy "Albert RN", whose exploits were subsequently developed into a stage play and film, starring Anthony Steel as Worsley. The dummy made for the film is on display at The Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth.

After the War, John Worsley illustrated PC49 for The Eagle comic and, by the early 1970s, he was an acclaimed illustrator of children's stories for television (Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, The Little Grey Men) when the camera panned over his pictures while the story was told in voice-over. This innovative approach to children's television was the link in the chain between an actor reading a story and computer derived presentations. He also illustrated several classic children's books (Heidi, Black Beauty, Robinson Crusoe).

Worsley developed a "cabaret turn", devised when a POW, of drawing someone from a description, and turned it into a successful tool for police witnesses to translate a sighting of a criminal into an identifiable likeness, a technique which bridged the gap between the old "photofit" images and computer technology.

The Scotland Yard Museum boasts probably the largest single collection of Worsley's work!

The son of a serving Naval officer, John Worsley never lost his love of the sea, and his extensive post-War travels took him to North America, Asia, The Middle East, Africa and Europe. He was President of The Royal Society of Marine Artists for several years and the official artist for Sir Peter de Savary's two attempts to recapture the America's Cup.

John Worsley was an outstanding drafstmen, arguably one of the finest of the 20th century, and examples of his work may be seen in The Imperial War Museum and The Maritime Museum in London as well as many provincial galleries, including the former Royal Yacht Britannia in Greenock and the WW2 Experience Museum in Leeds.

Private collectors include HM The Queen, HM the late Queen Mother, The Royal Family of Dubai, the Saudi Royal Family, the Royal Zoological Society, HSBC Bank, The Savage Club and Brighton College as well as Sir Edward Heath, June Mendoza RA, Virginia McKenna and Sir Peter de Savary. From Bear Alley blog by Steve Holland.

See more on the fascinating history of Worsley's action-packed life from Bear Alley.
John Worsley art
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David Wright biography

David Wright biography

David Wright (12 December 1912 – 25 May 1967; UK)
David Wright was a British illustrator who drew a series of "lovelies" that epitomised female glamour during World War II. He also created the Carol Day cartoon strip for the Daily Mail in 1956, creating a soap opera style of comic strip that paralleled similar work in the USA.

However, it is his series of 169 illustrations for The Sketch magazine (from 1941 to 1951) that became most popular. In the 1950s he continued drawing in a similar style for Men Only.

Wright started work at his uncle's studio after leaving school, later becoming the fashion illustrator for a number of women's magazines. He was commissioned in 1941 to draw a series of glamorous women for The Sketch, most of whom were modelled on his wife Esme.

The illustrations established him as one of the most popular pin-up artists during World War II. Also during the war he worked as a driving instructor for the armed forces in Abersoch, Wales, which left him plenty of time to continue his illustration work.
From biographical notes on Wikipedia.



See illustrators issue 2 for TWO David Wright feature articles including Carol Day !
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Larry Wright biography

Larry Wright biography

Larry Wright (2 February 1940 - 21 May 2017; USA)
Larry Wright gew up in Detroit, Michigan and has been drawing comics since he was a child. He studied Chinese, and was sent to Okinawa as an interpreter during his army service. There, he drew the strip 'Uncle Milton' for the Okinawa Morning Star. After his service, he stayed in Okinawa and became editor of this newspaper. In 1965, he started working for The Detroit Free Press, and twelve years later he launched his daily strip 'Wright Angles' in The Detroit News. One of the characters from this strip, a cat, became the inspiration for the comic 'Kit 'N' Carlyle'. Another daily strip he created is 'Motley'. Larry Wright became president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in 1994, works as assistant Graphics Editor for The Detroit News and lives in Allen Park with his wife Naoko.
Larry Wright art
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Louise Wright biography

Louise Wright biography

Louise Wright (Active early 1900s; UK)
Louise Wright was a leading British fashion artist in the early 20th Century.

Louise Wright was chosen by art instructor Percy V. Bradshaw as one of the artists to illustrate "The Art of the Illustrator", the seminal collection of twenty portfolios demonstrating six stages of a single painting or drawing by twenty different artists and published in 1918.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

See our original copies of The Art of the Illustrator published by Percy V Bradshaw in 1918.

Louise Wright art
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Paul Wright biography

Paul Wright biography

Paul Wright (Born 1947; North Wales)
An accomplished painter and illustrator, Paul was born in North Wales and studied at West Surrey College of Art and Design 1962-67. Paul is also a college lecturer.

" Since 1969 I have worked as a freelance illustrator/painter mainly in the publishing field but also in advertising, editorial design, package design, brochures, posters, and television ('Timewatch and 'Jackanory') as well as working in animation and undertaking private commissions. I have also produced paintings for calendars including three special editions for BP Marine PLC.

As well as my commissioned work I have had the pleasure of serving on several judging panels including The Association of Illustrators Awards and have exhibited in various competitions and publishing exhibitions. In I989 I won the award for the best book jacket of the year at the Association of Illustrators annual exhibition. My work has also involved me in giving lectures on my work at seminars on illustration at various conferences including the 'Real World' seminars at the Chartered Society of Industrial Artists and Designers in I991 and I994 and at the writers conference at Southampton University in I993. I have worked for many different clients and have taken part in illustration and publishing research in New York City in 1986 and 1991. I have also exhibited my paintings at many different venues including London, the provinces, and the U.S.A. My work has involved me in the use of several different mediums including acrylics, oils, watercolour, tempera, conte and charcoal pastel, and oil crayons, coloured pencils, pen and ink, pen and wash, airbrush and mixed media.


Since I began my free-lance career, I have carried numerous commissions for the following companies:

Penguin Books. Puffin Books. Warner Books. Armada Lions. Hamish Hamilton. Abacus Books. Harper Collins. Macmillan's Granada Books. Pan Books. Century Hutchinsons. Evens Educational Books. Mandarin Books. Mandolin Puzzler, Oxford University Press, Eversheds Calendars. Secker and Warburg. Pitoh Advertising. Yellow Hammer Designs. Young and Rubicam. Grisewood and Demsey. Saatchi & Saatchi. First Impressions, McIvor Brookes. Headline Books. Marshall Cavendish. Marshall Editions. Toucan Books. Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Michael Joseph. Logos Trust. Octopus Books. Hamlyn Books. Dorling Kindersley. Octopus Books. Hamlyn Books. Central Office of Information. Radio Times. B.B.C Publications. Faber& Faber. Tandem Books. Quartet Books. Royal Navy. Petogram. Mitsubishi Shipbuilders. ICI. Victor Gollancz. Barclays Bank. Per Magna Lund (Norway)). Souvenir Press. Jonathan Cape. Maunsells Design Unit. Chatto & Windus. B.P. Marine. P&O Shipping. Gaia Books. D.H.S.S. Help the Aged. Kingfisher Books. David Bennett Books. Larouse Books. Littlebrowns. Raben and Sjogren Bokforlag (Sweden). B.B.C Television. High Eagle Animation. Grand Slam Animation. John Murray. T.V.C Animation. Diverse Animation. Zoo Films. Orion Publishing.

I have been commissioned for works by the following companies in the U.S.A:

Berkley Publishing. Putnams. Viking Books. Zebra Books. Ballentynes. Bantam Books. Avon Books. Time Life Books. Readers Digest.

In June 1997 I was the guest of H.M.S. CHATHAM during her tour as the headquarters ship during the handover of Hong Kong to China. I was commissioned by the Ships Officers and Crew to paint the scene of H.M.S.CHATHAM and H.M.Y. BRITTANIA in Victoria Harbour. I was also responsible for the production of 300 limited edition prints on behalf of the ship's company. Some of these were presented to notables taking part in the ceremony including H.R.H. Prince of Wales and Governor Patton.

I have illustrated books by the following authors:

Alistair Maclean. Hammond Innes. C.S. Forrester. Dudley Pope. Karen Blixen. Brian Callison. Nicholas Monserrat. Douglas Reeman. Herman Wouk. Ludovic Kennedy. D.A. Raynor. Captain Marryat. Antoine de St. Exupery. Patrick O'Brien. Anthony Trew. Alexander McKee. Colin Thubron. Dorothy L Sayers. J.G. Ballard. Rose Macauley. Adam Kennedy. Christopher Hope. Dervla Murphy. Barbara Pym. Ted Hughes. June Knox Moore. Lord Carver. "
Source: Illustration Art Gallery
Paul Wright art
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Patrick Wright biography

Patrick Wright biography

Patrick Wright; UK
The son of artist David Wright and his wife Esme M. (née Little), born in Abersoch, North Wales, educated at Barrow Hills Prep School and St George's College, Weybridge. Patrick Wright began his career as a comic strip artist in the early 1970s drawing the adventures of Emma Faren for Princess Tina, working through Bardon Art. He continued working in comics throughout the 1970s, including a year's work on “Modesty Blaise” for the Evening Standard.

Besides Modesty, he is probably best known for his war strips, which include issues of Commando, the Mike Nelson series in Battle Picture Weekly, beginning with 'Day of the Eagle' in 1975 and 'Hitler Lives' in The Crunch in 1979.

In 1981 he switched to humorous cartooning, publishing his first book, Walkies (Heinemann) in 1982. His other books are A Tale of Two Mothers-in-Law (Heinemann, 1983), Health and Efficiency (Heinemann, 1984), Affairs of the Heart (Heinemann, 1985), Off the Rails (Newton Abbot, David & Charles, 1985), Off the Road (Newton Abbot, David & Charles, 1988), Worthless Pursuits (Penguin, 1992), 101 Uses for a John Major (with Peter Richardson, Deutsch, 1993), 101 Further Uses for a John Major (Deutsch, 1994), Not Inconsiderable: Being the Life and Times of John Major (Deutsch, 1996). He has also worked extensively in all aspects of advertising, has illustrated books and has contributed cartoons to Private Eye.
Source: From biographical notes by Steve Holland

Patrick Wright art

Some of the most regularly requested art has been Patrick Wright's fabulous pen and ink artwork for Modesty Blaise, written by Peter O'Donnell.

We have original signed Modesty Blaise newspaper strips by JOHN M BURNS, NEVILLE COLVIN, JIM HOLDAWAY, PATRICK WRIGHT and ROMERO or click to see ALL Modesty artwork in stock and enjoy our highly collectable BOOKS ABOUT MODESTY BLAISE including our latest Expanded Edition of The Modesty Blaise Companion.
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Bernie Wrightson biography

Bernie Wrightson biography

Bernie (or Berni) Albert Wrightson (27 October 1948 - 18 March 2017, USA)
A fan of the EC comics of the 1950s, Bernie Wrightson started his comic career in 1969. His early work was for DC on such titles as Nightmaster and House of Secrets. While working at DC, along with Len Wein he created the hughly popular Swamp Thing. Although an award winning comic creation he left DC to work for Warren on Creepy and Eerie magazines, where his black and white atmospheric pencils and inks were seen at their best.

During the 1970s he joined Barry Windsor-Smith, Mike Kaluta and Jeff Jones in The Studio where they produced and published their own lithographs and portfolios, culminating in the release of the book The Studio. In 1977/78 he produced his most stunning work, a series of black & white illustrations for the Mary Shelley classic novel Frankenstein. This was followed by illustrations for Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf and Creepshow. More recently he has returned to comics on Batman and his own creation Captain Stern. The book A Look Back is still the best book ever produced on the career of a comic artist.

The "Captain Sternn" segment of the animated film Heavy Metal is based on a character created by Wrightson (first appearing in the June 1980 issue of Heavy Metal magazine). The Freakshow graphic novel, written by Bruce Jones and illustrated (via pen, brush, and ink with watercolors) by Wrightson, was published in Spain in 1982 and serialized in Heavy Metal magazine in the early 1980s.

In 1982 Bernie Wrightson illustrated the comic book adaptation of the Stephen King-penned horror film Creepshow. This led to several other collaborations with King, including illustrations for the novella "Cycle of the Werewolf", the restored edition of King's apocalyptic horror epic, The Stand, and Wolves of the Calla, the fifth installment of King's Dark Tower series. He would later illustrate the cover for TV Guide magazine's April 26 – May 2, 1997, issue, illustrating the TV miniseries of King's The Shining.

During production on the 1984 film Ghostbusters, Wrightson was among the artists hired by associate producer Michael C. Gross to provide concept art envisioning the ghosts and other psychic phenomena encountered by that film's characters. The artwork he contributed included images of the "escapees" from the Ghostbusters' electrically-powered ghost storage facility, which run amok after the facility's electricity is turned off.

Jim Starlin and Wrightson produced Heroes for Hope, a 1985 one-shot designed to raise money for African famine relief and recovery. Published in the form of a "comic jam", the book featured an all-star lineup of comics creators as well as a few notable authors from outside the comic book industry, such as Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Harlan Ellison, and Edward Bryant. In 1986, Wrightson and writer Susan K. Putney collaborated on the Spider-Man: Hooky graphic novel. That same year saw Wrightson and Starlin produce a second benefit comic, Heroes Against Hunger featuring Superman and Batman which was published by DC and like the earlier Marvel project featured many top comics creators. Starlin and Wrightson collaborated on two miniseries in 1988, The Weird and Batman: The Cult, as well as Marvel Graphic Novel #29 (featuring the Hulk and the Thing) and Punisher P.O.V. for Marvel.

Wrightson brought back his Captain Sternn character in 1993 for the Captain Sternn: Running Out of Time miniseries, published by Kitchen Sink Press. In 1997, Wrightson and Ron Marz collaborated on Batman/Aliens, a crossover between the Batman and Aliens franchises. Wrightson again worked with Punisher for the Punisher: Purgatory limited series from 1998 to 1999. The series was unusual for incorporating supernatural elements in a Punisher story.

He illustrated and contributed album covers for a number of bands and musical artists, including Meat Loaf. Wrightson did concept art for film and television, working on productions including The Faculty, Galaxy Quest, Spider-Man, The Mist, Land of the Dead, and Serenity. In 2012, Wrightson collaborated with Steve Niles on Frankenstein Alive, Alive! published by IDW Publishing, for which he won a National Cartoonists Society's award.

Wrightson's first wife Michele Wrightson was involved in underground comix, contributing stories to such publications as It Ain't Me, Babe, Wimmen's Comix, and Arcade. She died in 2015. Wrightson and Michelle had two sons together, John and Jeffrey. Wrightson lived with his second wife Liz Wrightson and his stepson Thomas Adamson in Austin, Texas.

Wrightson and his wife announced in January 2017 that he was retiring due to having limited body function after multiple brain surgeries. He died on March 18, 2017, at the age of 68. The next day, Liz Wrightson confirmed that his death followed a long diagnosis with brain cancer. "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life", the April 2, 2017, season 7 finale of the TV series The Walking Dead, was dedicated to Wrightson's memory.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

Enjoy Bernie Wrightson in THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WARREN MAGAZINES illustrators  Special Edition.

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George Wunder biography

George Wunder biography

George Wunder (24 April 1912 - 13 December 1987; USA)
George Wunder is most fondly remembered today as the artist of 'Terry and the Pirates', which he took over from Milton Caniff and made his own for 26 years. At its peak, 'Terry' was syndicated in more than 300 papers.

Born in Manhattan on 24 April 1912, the son of Gus Wunder (a florist) and his wife May, George S. Wunder grew up in Kingston, New York. His interest in comics was sparked early and he took correspondence courses – including the International Correspondence School art class – in order to become a professional artist. At the age of 24 he found work at the Associated Press, where he worked alongside famed illustrator Noel Sickles and sports cartoonist Tom Paprocki.

His earliest cartoons appeared in editorial features and strips such as 'Can Hitler Beat the Russian Jinx?' whilst at Associated. He enlisted in the US Army in March 1943 and was released in February 1946 with the rank of Sergeant. Returning to A.P., he drew the factual strip 'See For Yourself' in 1946.

In 1946, Caniff left 'Terry and the Pirates' and – according to Caniff – a hundred artists applied for the job of replacing him. Wunder's submissions were approved by the Tribune-News Syndicate and his first strip appeared on 30 December 1946. Wunder, although recognised as a skilled artist in his own rights, could never replace a unique talent like Caniff and his artwork. His artwork was highly detailed, but some critics consider his characters to all look essentially the same and complain that the stories lacked Caniff's humour.

Wunder drew both the daily and Sunday editions of the strip and was assisted at various times by George Evans, Lee Elias, Russ Heath, Fred Kida, Don Sherwood, Frank Springer and Wally Wood. When Wunder took over the strip, Terry had joined the US Air Force and there he remained throughout the next two and a half decades despite military-themed strips falling in popularity during the Vietnam War. 'Terry and the Pirates' was still carried by around 100 newspapers when, in 1973, Wunder announced his retirement. At the time, Wunder commented: "It's a strip I've enjoyed doing, but on the other hand, it has been, oh, a chore. The sheer mechanics of producing that much work week in and week out ties you down."

With Wunder's departure, the strip came to an end, the last panels appearing on 25 February 1973, Wunder admitting that "the fighter pilot is no longer the glamorous, reckless defender of the free world against all comers. He's now the cold-blooded professional dropping napalm on women and children." His work promoting the Air Force was recognised by the Air Force itself, who awarded the cartoonist their Exceptional Service Award in 1963. Wunder, a member of the Illustrators Club and the National Cartoonists Society, was awarded the latter's Silver T-Square Award in 1970.

In the 1950s, Wunder drew a number of promotional comics featuring Terry for Canada Dry. In the 1970s he wrote and illustrated a number of books on American military history.

Wunder was married to Mildred (nee Smith) and lived in Sherman, Connecticut. He died on 13 December 1987 at New Milford Hospital following a heart attack. aged 75, survived by Mildred and his younger sister, Beatrice Bogert. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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Colin Wyatt biography

Colin Wyatt biography

Colin Wyatt (born 14 January 1939; UK)
Colin Wyatt was born in Rainham, Essex, on 14 January 1939, and began making extra pocket money as a young boy by drawing popular comic characters in chalk on pavements and selling drawings to his schoolfriends. On leaving school in 1954 he began working in a shipping office in London. He applied for a job with the Amalgamated Press, joining them in 1957 as an art assistant on Tiny Tots.

Wyatt worked for almost twenty years on the nursery comics Jack & Jill and Playhour, a period slightly interrupted by National Service for which he spent 27 hours with the R.A.F. His first solo strip 'Harry on His Own', featured Harry Hamster from one of the popular strips in Playhour, 'The Wonderful tales of Willow Wood'. He also drew episodes of 'Teddy and Cuddly' and 'Chalky the Blackboard Boy' in the 1960s as well as colouring 'Num Num and His Funny Family'. In 1965, he created a humour page, 'Peter Panda's Page', for Purnell's Parents magazine which ran until 1967.

In 1971, Wyatt began working on IPC's Disney titles, producing covers and posters for annuals, monthlies and weeklies, also illustrating most of the free gift inserts for Disney comics. Wyatt was even invited to Disney's Burbank, California, studios to see what happened behind the scenes.

In 1975 he took a radical change in direction when he began working on Action and then 2000AD, where he became art editor in 1978. During this period he was also drawing 'The Gingerbread Boy' for Playhour.

Wyatt turned freelance in 1980 and has worked on a variety of projects since, illustrating numerous annuals and books, including Victoria Has a Surprise Party by Angela Rippon (1983). He was the visual creator of The Poddington Peas, created by Paul Needs for a series of books in 1986. It was turned into an animated feature for the BBC, who broadcast 13 episodes in 1989. An attempt to revive the series in 3D in 2009 fell by the wayside.

As well as working on well know characters such as Sooty and Sweep, The Flintstones, The Muppet Babies, Danger Mouse, Bananas in Pyjamas, Digimon, The Care Bears, Noddy and Thomas the Tank Engine, he has also produced artwork for plates, cards, puzzles and other merchandise.

Wyatt has recently written, illustrated and published his own series of books featuring a team of superheroic animals known as the Jet Set, who will come to the aid of any wild animals in trouble. The books, all published in 2011, include A Cry for Help, Footprints in the Snow!, A Home of Their Own! and Making a Splash!. Profits from the books raised money for the Born Free Foundation animal charity. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
Colin Wyatt art
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Kathy Wyatt biography

Kathy Wyatt biography

Kathy Wyatt
With a background in anatomy and traditional drawing skills, Kathy specialises in figurative illustration, in particular fashion and storyboard – though her work spans a wide subject area and many disciplines.

Using a dynamic combination of colour and the ‘inspired mark’, her work is fluid and her images filled with a feminine flair that attracts commissions from film, advertising and editorial clientele.

Her talent has been put to diverse good use by such as Clairol, Muller Rice, Radiohead, The Magic Roundabout (animation film) and Heaven chocolate.
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N C Wyeth biography

N C Wyeth biography

Newell Convers Wyeth (22 October 1882 - 19 October 1945; USA)
N. C. Wyeth was an American painter noted for his illustrations of classic novels, painted in a realistic style. Over the years he produced over 3,000 paintings for some 112 books. He illustrated 25 of the Scribner Classics line, including the debut novel Treasure Island, which were best-sellers

Newell Convers Wyeth was born in Needham, Massachusetts, on 22 October 1882, his talent for art encouraged by his mother, who was acquainted with literary giants of the day, Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

By the age of 12, Wyeth was painting superb watercolours. He attended the Mechanics Arts School, the Massachusetts Normal Arts School, and the Eric Paper School of Art. At the latter he learned illustration under George Loftus Noves and Charles W. Reed.

Wyeth was accepted at Howard Pyle’s School of Art in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1902 where his exuberant personality and talent made him a standout student. Pyle is considered the father of American illustration and emphasised visiting historical sites and the use of props and costumes, designed to stimulate the imagination as well as make the action and costumes appear authentic.

Wyeth’s first professional commission – a bucking bronco – appeared on the cover of Saturday Evening Post on 21 February 1903. When the paper commissioned him to illustrated a Western story, Pyle urged Wyeth to head out to the Wild West. In Colorado, Wyeth worked alongside professional cowboys, doing chores around the ranch and rounding up cattle. He visited Native American sites and worked as a mail courier after his money was stolen. A second trip two years later resulted in the beginnings of a collection of authentic artefacts.

Wyeth's famous illustrations to the classics included Treasure Island (1911), Kidnapped (1913), Robin Hood (1917), The Last of the Mohicans (1919), Robinson Crusoe (1920), Rip Van Winkle (1921), The White Company (1922) and The Yearling (1939). His illustrations also included paintings of rural life, book illustrations that encompassed countless topics and magazine illustrations for periodicals, including Century, Harper's, Ladies Home Journal, McClure’s, Outing, The Popular Magazine and Scribner's. He also drew posters, calendars and advertising for clients including Lucky Strike and Coca-Cola, and painted murals and portraits.

His enormous success did not make him particularly happy and he complained bitterly about the commercialism on which he was dependent, yet it allowed him to buy an old captain’s house in Port Clyde, Maine, in the 1930s where he took his family for holidays and where he painted seascapes. In 1941 he was elected to the National Academy.

He was married to Carolyn Bockius and settled in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, in 1908. The couple had five children, four of whom – Henrietta Wyeth Hurd (1907-1997), Carolyn Wyeth (1909-1994), Ann Wyeth McCoy (1915-2005) and Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) – went on to become artists; another son, Nathaniel C. Wyeth (1911-1990), was the inventor of the plastic bottles commonly used for drinks.

Wyeth's life ended in tragedy on 19 October 1945, aged 62. It was his habit to take his 3-year-old grandson, Newell (the son of his youngest child, Nathaniel), on his morning errands and the two were together in Wyeth's Ford Station Wagon when it stalled on a railway crossing. They were both killed instantly when the car was struck by a freight train. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.

See our selection of N C WYETH BOOKS and the features in illustrators  issue 23 and Pirates! illustrators  Special Edition.

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Iain Wyllie biography

Iain Wyllie biography

Iain Wyllie; Northern Ireland
Iain Wyllie is one of Britain's leading - and most prolific - aviation cover artists. A native of Northern Ireland, he trained as a naval draughtsman, and spent many years working in this capacity.

Iain chose to become a full-time aviation artist in the late 1980s, and has been responsible for creating over 60 cover artworks for Osprey's hugely successful Aircraft of the Aces and Combat Aircraft series since 1994. His artwork is synonymous with originality of subject, intricate detail and technical accuracy.
Source: Osprey Publishing
Iain Wyllie art
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Michael Zeck biography

Michael Zeck biography

Michael Zeck (born 6 September 1949; USA)
Michael John Zeck was born in Greenville, Pennsylvania, on 6 September 1949, the son of Michael and Kathryn Jean Zeck. His first encounter with comics was during a bout of illness when he read Western comics in hospital following a tonsillectomy. He subsequently became obsessed with superhero comics – especially following the introduction of Spider-Man in 1962 – and spent more time in school drawing than with his education. This was noticed by a teacher who encouraged his artistic talents. He attended the Ringling School of Art in 1967. After graduating he worked at the Migrant Education Center in Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota, Florida.

He began his comics career in 1974, producing spot illustrations for text stories in Charlton Comics' line of animated titles, which then led to work on their horror titles.

In 1977 he started working for Marvel Comics, filling-in on issues of Master of Kung Fu before taking over the title in 1978. He went on to work on such titles as Aquaman, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Green Lantern, G.I. Joe, Lobo and Deathstroke, The Terminator and spent three years working on Captain America.

Zeck was the artist of Marvel's Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars in 1984-85, written by Jim Shooter and inked by Bob Layton, based on the Mattel line of toys. The 12-issue mini-series crossed over into numerous Marvel titles, including Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Captain America, The Damned, Fantastic Four, Thor and Uncanny X-Men, making it comics' first major crossover event.

He is probably best known for his 1987 story Kraven's Last Hunt written by J. M. DeMatteis in Spider-Man titles, and the 1986 Punisher mini-series written by Steven Grant, collected as Circle of Blood. He has also produced many covers for comics.

Zeck was married in 1988 to Shelli Jo Rissinger; in 1992 to Angelita Zeck; they divorced in 2003 and Zeck married again, to Sheryll Cortez, in 2004. Zeck has lived in New Haven, Connecticut, and currently lives in the Orlando area of Florida. From biographical notes by Steve Holland.
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