EXTRACTS: The Art of Commando (illustrators special) © 2019 The Book Palace (144 PAGES in Full edition)

86 to chip in or clear up some query. Despite the seemingly rigid and hierarchical nature of the office set-up you, as a sub, were treated as an equal – and the one with (in theory) the fullest knowledge of “your” story. What I hadn’t realised until recently was that Ian’s début as a Commando artist coincided with his first use of acrylic paints. He began using them like water colours but soon developed his own methods, which I won’t even try to describe. What I do know is that by using the acrylics to build up successive layers of colour, he was able to produce a vibrancy and intensity of colour that he could not have done with watercolours (he assures me!). This vividness lends itself wonderfully to reproduction, as the final covers retained their “brightness” all the way through the process. Always experimenting he uses the Ian's debut cover for Commando 453, 'Seek and Strike', published in 1970. FACING PAGE: Cover for 'Last Ditch Defenders', Commando 2601, published September 1992. Text continued from page 81