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

3 All Images © IPC Media breaking stunts as he took on the forces of occupation. And with William Tell , the comparisons couldn’t have been more obvious, as the occupying forces were the beastly Austrians, complete with black eagle motifs on their surcoats, and the closest thing to Hermann Goering, the aptly corpulent Land Burgher Gessler (portrayed by wibbly, wobbly Willoughby Goddard), leading them to one disaster after another in his attempts to write 'finis' to Tell’s career. I only had to turn my attention from the TV set in the direction of the serried ranks of paperback books that my dad used to immerse himself in, to see lurid covers of World War 2 fighter planes blazing away at each other, camps on 'Blood Island', and men in black, sporting all sorts of nazi regalia, as they attempted to elicit information from scantily dressed females under the glare of their tungsten-powered spotlights. When he wasn’t reading those, the air would be filled with the anaesthetising aromas of Airfix cement, and Humbrol enamel paint as he carefully constructed a 1/72nd Avro Lancaster, and if you’re thinking my family were a bit weird, you only had to spend a few minutes in your school playground to find yourself amidst a mob of deranged boys, who assailed you with “daga, daga, daga neeeooooowwwwwwww daga, daga, daga—you’re dead!” to realize that the whole of the UK was assailed by WorldWar 2 post-traumatic stress disorder. FACING PAGE: A panel from 'Battle Drop', War Picture Library No. 67 and art for a subscription advert for WPL by Gino D'Antonio. ABOVE: The early years of War Picture Library f eatured some truly exhilarating covers by Giorgio De Gaspari.