EXTRACTS: Brian Bolland (illustrators special issue) © 2019 Book Palace Books (144 PAGES in Full edition)

90 Holding a special place of honour amongst Brian's childhood comic collection was his copy of Showcase No. 4 featuring the debut of the Silver Age Flash . Whereas Green Lantern was the fiefdom of Gil Kane, The Flash was very much the preserve of Carmine Infantino. Both artists' work was grounded in a profound understanding of anatomy and a classical approach to drawing in contrast to the stylistic one-offs such as Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko heading up Marvel's superheroes. Brian's covers for The Flash captured the light-hearted charm of the original stories, but nevertheless contained his own idiosyncratic take on the Flash and his world. Then the inks applied with a Windsor & Newton number 3 brush. If I was working in colour I’d use acrylic inks to produce washes and so on. Often I’d be masking out areas with Frisk Film and airbrushing areas of the drawing – such as flesh. I’d be wearing a mask so the acrylic didn’t end up lining my lungs and I’d be holding my breath anyway in case my hand slipped or a coagulated lump of dried up ink got squirted out of the nozzle onto the hitherto perfect skin of Wonder Woman or someone. But that’s not the end of it! The coloured ink would cloud the black inked line, especially the yellow, which had a chalky consistency. I’d then have to laboriously go over all the black ink line, effectively drawing the damned thing for the fourth time – draining any life out of the thing or any pleasure in creating it. PR: Do you use the computer much for your work and, if so, do you have any particular software that you favour? BB: I use a computer entirely for my work. I have a Batman key, a Judge Dredd key and a Tank Girl key etc on my keyboard. I just hit one of those and it draws it for me! Text continues on page 96 Flash © 1935-2019 DC Comics