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

88 acrylics in fresh ways all the time, recently using them “dry” on a brush and scrubbing them to blur the ground of a composition to enhance the feeling of movement that is so important in so many of his covers. Like most people, I don’t know how he does many of these things, I’m just glad that he does. My memory of those days is that Ian preferred to call in to the office on a Friday but that might be wrong; one thing I do know is that he seldom called in on aThursday morning. That time slot was informally reserved for the visits of our staff interior artist, Gordon Livingstone. Ian and Gordon got on like a house on fire and were hugely entertaining company to be in. I have enjoyed several riotous Christmas lunches with the pair, and our collective visit to the Gordon Highlanders Museum in Aberdeen in 2012 will live long in the memory. Mixing the pair of them when trying to seriously discuss work was something best avoided, though I have no idea if this was a written or unwritten law. Thinking back, I don’t think I ever saw any art for Over recent years Commando has extended its remit to include stories from a wide variety of conflicts and periods, including the First World War, for which Ian displays a particular affinity, with his recent set of covers around the Weekes family's exploits and the cover opposite from 1994 for 'The Family Honour' issue 2805.