EXTRACTS: British War Comics Illustrators Special © 2018 The Book Palace (144 PAGES in Full edition)

21 All Images © IPC Media As popular as these covers were, De Gaspari achieved a certain fame and notoriety by painting covers of a totally different genre: war comics for the British market. Working at the time as a children’s book cover artist, De Gaspari was contacted by Rinaldo and Piero Dami, creators of the Dami Studio, and through them began producing work for Fleetway in the UK in the late '50s. De Gaspari’s first cover in Britain was for the Sexton Blake Library in 1958. Afterwards he illustrated many covers for the different pocket library comics Fleetway published. Starting with issue No.1, he illustrated 32 of the first 48 covers in this series between 1958 and 1960. During the following years his work became less frequent, but until 1961 his work appeared regularly in Fleetway's other war-oriented titles such as Air Ace Picture Library , and the debut issue of Battle Picture Library . However, by the mid-60s his work appeared less frequently in the British market, though some of his art could be seen on covers and interior illustrations of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books . De Gaspari’s work was gestural in its dynamic application of paint, which Text continues on page 29