EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 15 © 2016 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

67 LEFT: The best of both worlds. Peff often found that professional models would sometimes adopt slightly overly formal poses as the image at top denotes. He would often restage the shoot, with the lovely Kitty, friends and himself modelling the poses he required (image to immediate left). He would then take the best elements of both photo shoots and blend them into his final artwork as the cover to 'Onionhead', published by Pan Books in 1958, demonstrates. Dramatic images in vibrant colours abounded in these paintings. In ‘The Flying Saucers Have Landed’ he gave us a stark desert scene of alien contact; in ‘Marshal Without Glory’, he shows us the banal evil and hidden depravity of Nazi leader, Herman Goering. War books were popular in this post-war era and Peff did quite a few of them. “When I delivered the finished artwork for ‘The Other Side Of The Hill’ I met the Managing Director (of Panther Books). His parting remark, as he left the Art Director’s office, was ‘Keep him busy’. He did, and illustration after illustration followed. I was enjoying doing every one. Two in particular gave me great pleasure and brought the memories of my boxing years flooding back. The first was the story of my prewar idol, the title , ‘Joe Louis, American’ . He had won the Heavyweight Championship of the World when he knocked out Jim Braddock in round 8 on June 22, 1937. My cover illustration for the book was a painting of him in his sparkling ensemble. “The second title was ‘ Jack Solomons Tells All‘ . He was a top boxing manager and promoter. A painting of Jack Solomons was on the cover, plus two World Champion boxers, Freddie Mills and Randolph Turpin, and British Champion Don Cockell. “Two other titles that merited the Panther Book-of-The- Month Award were ‘ 10 Days to Die‘ , Hitler’s last ten days on earth, and the death of his mistress, Eva Braun. The other, ‘ Gideon Goes To War‘ , told the story of Brigadier Orde Wingate and his men, known as ‘The Chindits’. They were a guerilla force, recruited from British Gurkha and Burmese troops, operating behind the Japanese lines in Burma.” It was in 1956 that Peff began doing cover art for Pan Books . Here he would hit his stride and make his mark in paperback illustration with his cover paintings. He did four wonderful covers for the Pan James Bond books by Ian Fleming: ‘Casino Royale’, ‘Dr. No’, ‘From Russia With Love’ and ‘Moonraker’. He did covers for movie tie-in noir thrillers like ‘Cape Fear’ (aka ‘The Executioners‘) by John D. MacDonald, which showed the stars, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Meanwhile his noir femme fatale cover images for popular crime novels by Peter Text continues on page 70