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

117 the adventures of a pirate. Then he teamed up with three other artists and between them they undertook a heavy workload, producing adventure comics for boys. The year 1955 saw a great change in his career that was to set him on a road that he would follow for the rest of his life. Two Venetian artists, Rinaldo Dami and Giorgio Bellavitis, were living and working in London, and they found work for him drawing a strip version of a very successful radio series, ‘Journey into Space’, which was to be published in full colour across the centre pages of Express Weekly . Tacconi came to England, lodging with the writer of these stories, Charles Chilton, in a big, detached house at Keston in Kent. It was near the wartime airfield of Biggin Hill, which he visited many times. The Second World War had not been over for long, so the events of the Battle of Britain were still very much in the minds of the men who worked there. Tacconi was fascinated by the stories they told and by the machines they flew and began to explore the possibility of drawing comic strips based on their experiences. Soon he was to begin doing just that in the pages of the weekly Comet and, subsequently, for the digest-size comic book, Air Ace Picture Library . War was a subject hat he would return to time and again throughout his life. “It’s not that I’m in love with war.” he said, “but it is a subject that is of special interest to many people. The Second World War was a part of my life, and the machines and paraphernalia of battle fascinate me—particularly the aeroplanes. They represent an abiding dream of mankind—to fly. I want my All war images © IPC Media All images © IPC Media