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

58 In 1954, when he finished his studies, he set to work with Averardo Ciriello, a renowned movie-poster artist. After apprenticing with Ciriello, Biffignandi was asked to join the Favalli studio, a studio that specialized in movie posters (at the time, most movie posters, whether foreign or native productions, were painted by hand). At Favalli, Biffignandi was asked to replace artist Renato Fratini who had to leave for his military service. At the Favalli studio Biffignandi learned to work from photo references, which he wasn’t too keen to do, but it taught him a great lesson on painting human figures. In 1960, Fratini, whom Biffignandi had met briefly while working for the Favalli studio, was moving to London and asked Biffignandi to come along too. However, when Biffignandi arrived at London he was turned away by British customs and had to head back home. Fratini then suggested he go to Milan and work for the Dami studio, an art agency that had connections with Fleetway in England among others. Once in Milan, Biffignandi worked for the newspaper Corriere della Sera , and began his career as an illustrator, mainly doing illustrations of animals in Corriere dei Piccoli . Though inexperienced as an illustrator, Biffignandi preferred it to working on movie posters, precisely for the liberty of creating images and not depending on photographs that he had to render as close as possible to the actual source. Nevertheless, it was while doing movie posters that his figurative art came Text continued from page 55 TOP LEFT: 'Decision at Dawn', cover to Battle Picture Library No. 184 (1964), tempera. TOP RIGHT: 'Due North to Death', cover to War Picture Library No. 282 (1965), tempera. FACING PAGE: 'Brothers in Arms', cover to War Picture Library No. 260 (1964), tempera. Biffignandi specialized in action-oriented covers with guns and canons blazing, making him a constant favourite for the war comic covers Fleetway published during the 1950s-’60s. All Images © IPC Media