Cloud 109

A Thousand and One Nights - Kay Nielson's Postumous Postscript

2012-01-23T23:14:00.000Z

In 1976, a minor publishing event occurred when Pan books visionary editor David Larkin released a paperback edition of Kay Nielson's Illustrations for One Thousand and One Nights. For lovers and connoisseurs of the Golden Age of Picture Book Illustration it was a major event. For although some sixty years earlier, Nielson's exquisite illustrations for East of the Sun and West of the Moon had secured him a lasting claim to fame as one of the prime exponents of early twentieth century romantic illustration, his fame was as fleeting as other illustrators of this genre, such as Edmund Dulac.

By the 1930's times were a' changing and with it the sort of work that an artist of Nielson's undoubted genius, but limited repertoire could command. He eventually accepted an offer from the Disney studio (readers of this blog will recall that Walt's European tour which preceded work on Snow White had seen him snaffle up lots of beautifully illustrated books with a specific intent to infuse his story, background and styling departments with artists that were automatically on message with the visions that Disney had surging through his head).

So Nielson with his wife Ulla following on, left his native Denmark and pledged his troth with the Mouse Factory. He proceeded to work his darndest creating some truly inspirational concept drawings for what would turn into The Night on Bare Mountain and Ave Maria sequences of Fantasia. He continued at the studio with a pile of conceptual work for an adaptation of his fellow Dane, Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid. The project was to be eventually shelved until 1989, when work was commenced in earnest on the film that would signify the moment when the Disney studio having reached a point of near collapse following their disastrous attempt to make a feature length film from Lloyd Alexander's The Black Cauldron, re-emerged as the force it once had been in film making.

However, I digress, Kay Nielson's tenure at the studio was relatively brief and his remaining years were eked out seeking work which was becoming progressively more elusive. But such was the charm and warmth that he and Ulla exuded and such was the generosity of their near neighbors that somehow or other they struggled through in elegant penury until Kay passed away in 1957 at the age of 71 to be followed by his wife a year later.

Before she passed on Ulla gave their friends and neighbors Hildegard and Frederick Monhoff a box of paintings for a book that was never to be published. Despite approaching museums both in the USA and Denmark the Monhoff's could find no one remotely interested in sharing these artworks with the world.

No one that is until the Monhoff's approached Elizabeth and Betty Ballantine who issued the illustrations in an identical format to their highly successful Frank Frazetta collections and as David Larkin had co-editioned the Frazetta books under the Pan imprint it seemed logical for him to co-host the Nielson paintings.

So here they are:

Boot Camp for Artists

2012-01-10T22:11:00.000Z

The number of simply superb Spanish and Italian illustrators and painters, who refined their craft in the UK comics of the 1950s-70s is simply astonishing. In fact the phenomenon was part of the rationale behind a fanzine that I used to print off on a desk top printer some twelve years ago. Achtung Commando! was founded on the principle that there were a lot of people who were into Commando comics who just didn't seem to know that many of the artists they were oohing and ahhing over had worked far and beyond the confines of the pages of the world's longest running pocket library. Similarly, there were devotees of Warren comics that were blissfully unaware that many of the artists whose work they were so captivated by had actually learned their trade working for publications such as Commando and it's Fleetway rivals War, Air Ace and Battle Picture Library.

The little A5 fanzine was printed in full color and hand bound and trimmed with glossy covers, the whole operation crunching through buckets of Epson ink cartridges. Unbelievably, even with the deterrent cover price of £15.00 the little fellas sold well, in fact sales for each issue were well into three figures and there was always demand for back issues. There was a niche market who seemed to enjoy finding out more about Commando and more specifically the people behind the comics. All in all it was a fun project and I got to network with a lot of fellow enthusiasts as well as having the fun of interviewing many of the artists and writers.

I am very much reminded of those days as I work on the last elements of the first volume in Book Palace Books new publishing venture Illustrators, which includes a fascinating interview with Ian Kennedy, who is to many enthusiasts forever associated with Commando, but as the interview and accompanying artwork attest, there is a lot more to be explored. As I cast my mind back to creating that first issue of Achtung Commando!, I remember chatting to the ultimate resource for UK comic historians, Mr David Roach. David as I have mentioned earlier is the man that appears in the credits for many comic and illustration retrospectives, as he is such a passionate researcher of all this material.

David it was who identified one of my all time favorite Commando artists (although he only did perhaps two or three issues). Juan Gonzalez Alacreu (not to be confused with Pepe Gonzales of Vampirella fame), was a consummate draftsman and a man obsessed with light and form. Like many of his contemporaries working in Barcleona's busy studios, he would utilize photos for many of his facial references, but his mastery of form and design enabled him to use such props creatively rather than being restricted by such aids. His fascination with light and capturing it's effect on form, made his work stand out from his contemporaries. He would literally take a scalpel blade to the surface of his work to add reflected light and texture to add further dynamism to his drawings.

Here's some examples from a couple of Commando comics; Dangerous Dawn and Terror Team (both worthy of inclusion on Commando's current list of titles worthy of reprint) from the late 1960's and here are some much more recent examples of his paintings which show the same preoccupations in an albeit much more serene setting.

And while we're about it, here's the latest four issues straight from operational HQ in Bonnie Dundee:

Commando 4459

Invasion Watch

In the early days of the Second World War, men too young, too old or too infirm for the regular services flocked to join Britain’s Home Guard to “do their bit.” Because of this, the units were dismissed as a bit of a joke in some quarters.
If those nay-sayers had listened to the conversation in one Home Guard headquarters on a night in 1940, though, they might have changed their minds. For as the men there shared their stories it became very clear that they had fought, and would fight again. And fight like the demons they were.
Invaders beware!

Script: Mac MacDonald
Art: Carlos Pino
Cover: Carlos Pino

Commando 4460

Warriors!

Fighting men come in all shapes and sizes. They wear different uniforms and follow different flags. But the best of them share one quality. And that one quality marks them out from everyone else as men to be feared and respected in equal measure.
   That’s the quality that marks them out as…

Warriors!

Script: Mac MacDonald
Art: Keith Page
Cover: Keith Page

Commando 4461

Upside Down Ace

Alan Burnett and Colin Harvey flew as the crew of a Boulton Paul Defiant night fighter. They shared the same room and spent almost every second of every day with each other…yet the very air around them seemed to vibrate with the fierce hate they had for each other.

   But, despite their bickering and brawling, they had the highest score of kills in the Group. How they kept it up was their own special secret…

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

The Boulton Paul Defiant was one of many planes which didn’t quite live up to their designers’ hopes. But you’d never guess that from Ian Kennedy’s dynamic cover where, as only he can, he turns the world on its head to create another perfect composition.
   Inside, John Ridgway — in only his second Commando outing —delivers an ideal complement to the cover, his crisp, accurate linework being perfect for aircraft illustration. Being a trained draughtsman is quite an asset.
   The script, by Brunt, gives them him full rein to tell the Defiant’s story while at the same time touching on some of the super-secret “boffins’ war” that went on behind the action in the Second World War.

Upside Down Ace, originally Commando No 572 (August 1971), re-issued as No 1604 (May 1982)

Script: Brunt
Art: John Ridgway
Cover: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4462

Death Of A Wimpey

They found an abandoned plane in the desert, sand almost covering it. The paint was hanging off in shreds, the engines had seen better days and the fuselage was riddled with bullet holes. But it was still a Vickers Wellington bomber…one of the tough, famous Wimpeys. And it could fly — just.
   So the men who found it, three army deserters and a no-good R.A.F. pilot, began to make plans to get back into the war — flying their own private bomber!

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

At the end of October last year at the Dundee Comics Day, two men were honoured for their outstanding contribution to the comics artform. Though they are not related, they share the same surname and, as you can see from this book, they have both worked for Commando.
   I’m talking, of course, about the two Kennedys, Cam and Ian who together have produced the art for this tale. Ian’s cover wonderfully captures a stricken Wellington bomber trying desperately to land, while the characterisation and movement Cam brings to the inside art is outstanding.
…And let’s not forget scriptwriter Ken Gentry without whose contribution this classic Commando story the two Kennedys would never have had the chance to showcase their talents so well.
   By the way, I got to present the awards — how cool is that?

Death of A Wimpey, originally Commando No 469 (April 1970), re-issued as No 1335 (July 1979)

Script: Ken Gentry
Art: Cam Kennedy
Cover: Ian Kennedy

Commando © DC Thomson 2012

A Spooky End To A Spooky Year

2011-12-31T16:08:00.000Z

I have just read of the discovery of what for many fans of films that go bump in the night is something of a holy grail. The preamble to my uncovering this bit of news is that I had determined that whatever else happened today I had to make another blog posting before the year end. To this effect, I decided to do one of my brief updates on my current illustration activities and as this involves a series of books devoted to a team of daring girls who dedicate themselves to unsettling the best laid plans of vampires, ghouls and zombies I was trawling the internet for some examples of the vast hinterland of trash culture that informs these images.

In particular there is one image which is very closely allied to a sequence from Hammer Films Dracula (Horror of Dracula as it was in the US). The sequence in question is toward the climax of the film and is heavily laden with sexual innuendo as Dracula slowly and lasciviously reveals the fangs that are about to render the lovely Mina Holmwood as yet another slave to his malevolent bidding. As he does so there is a subtle tinkling not unlike the shiver of a dozen shards of glass which adds an extra frisson of anticipation to the occasion.

This is what I had in mind when I created this image illustrating a moment when one of the aptly named Spook Squad girls is menaced by a vampire.

But as I checked out various links I discovered that the cartoonist and writer Simon Rowson, aided by his Japanese wife Michiko, had managed to finally track down the least censored print extant of what was Hammer's finest Dracula film. It has long been common knowledge amongst Hammer devotees, that the studio would issue three different cuts of it's films. The UK would have the most heavily edited to conform to the very strict censorship rules that applied, the US would have the next longest and the Japanese whose censors seemed quite liberal in comparison would have the longest versions. It was this image from Warren's comic strip adaptation that gave a clue to what the Japanese might have seen which the rest of the world hadn't that gave added impetus to the hunt for the missing print.

It was down to the superb teamwork and dedication to the project of Simon and Mitchiko who are based in Tokyo, that enabled them to finally locate a partial print of the Japanese cut of the film. The first five reels of the film had been lost in a studio fire in 1984 but reels 6, 7, 8 and 9 still survived and as the most heavily censored scenes, including the climatic disintegration scene occurred towards the end of the film this was indeed a fortuitous outcome. Simon was able to view the last two reels and as well as the disintegration scene including the much speculated close ups of Christopher Lee's face, there were other snippets from the Mina Holmwood seduction scene which were absent from the versions familiar with audiences in the West.

The lost footage is apparently going to be included in a forthcoming UK release of this fabulous film.

Can't wait!

Message For Lovers of Contemporary Art (especially Simon!)

2011-12-21T14:42:00.000Z

Do you remember Jiminy Cricket? Old Jiminy was the little grasshopper character that was appointed Pinocchio's conscience by the Blue Fairy. And every time old Pinoke was going astray, little Jiminy would be whispering in his ear and trying to steer him back onto the road of true righteousness.

Well, I have my own Jiminy Cricket although he is slightly larger than the dear wickle Jiminy, but like Jiminy his word is to be heeded. Simon is a dear friend and occasional cricket... err critic of this blog. Simon has divined that most bloggers have their comfort zones and mine are he reminds me, becoming all too apparent.

I did make an effort yesterday by referencing the work of the little known but singularly gifted Bill Mevin, but as Simon rightly observed I did grab hold of the old comfort blanket by mentioning Ron Embleton, who I have to admit, is something of a recurrent theme in many of my posts.

Counsel for the defense submitted that their client also made mention of J. Arthur Rank, David Hand and British Gaumont (aka Rank Organization), who have never featured in this blog before, but the verdict was pretty damning, and I am for the moment hanging my head in shame.

If fate was kinder I would love to devote one blog posting to Simon's incredible photography. This man who lives in the deepest and darkest part of rural Sussex is without doubt one of the world's greatest glamor photographers and somewhat insanely he has never had an exhibition of his work, I am one of the relatively few people on the planet to have seen these works along with the beautiful women who are so entranced by his work that they offer themselves up as eager subjects for his lens.

But for the moment these amazing works will just have to remain the stuff of legend, whilst I run past you chaps and chappesses the latest issue of Be Street, which has so far managed to avoid mention of Frank Hampson, Ron Embleton, Denis McLoughlin, Ian Kennedy, Carl Barks, Floyd Gottfredson, Al Williamson, Steve Ditko or even Bill Mevin.

But it is super cool with fabulous layouts, some great artists and a short feature on illustration legend Mick Brownfield (a feature on Mick will also be appearing in an upcoming issue of Illustrators), who sent me the details which I am now sharing with you.

Be Street's Facebook Page is here

Be Street'sTumblr is here

And Be Street's Twitter is here

Merry Christmas From Wee Sporty, Bill Boffin and Yours Truly

2011-12-20T18:06:00.000Z

As readers of the recently published Wulf the Briton magnum opus will recall, there was one week in 1959, when Wulf the Briton did not make Express Weekly's front page. This enviable slot had been his regular and unchallenged fiefdom ever since Ron Embleton's masterful development of the strip had threatened to usurp even the pre-eminence of Dan Dare. The week in question was for the issue cover dated December 26th 1959 and by this stage of the game Wulf was on a real roll, with seething rivalries between a breakaway faction of the Brigantes under the leadership of the beautiful and scheming Cartamandua and the remainder of the tribe under the leadership of their king Venutius, cuckolded husband of Cartamandua (although this was never spelled out for obvious reasons) leading to some of the most spectacular battle sequences ever seen in any comic, anytime, anywhere. And if that wasn't enough earlier in the year there had been gladiatorial combat, siege and starvation in the depths of a cruel winter with a vengeful Marius Actus and the 20th legion determined to destroy Wulf and his followers and in the run up to Christmas there had been yet more landings as the forces of Imperial Rome under the command of Agricola set about to bring order to the unruly Brits. But while all that was going on Wulf and his comrades in arms Basta and Greatorix, had their hands full with a bunch of Saxon Vikings who were wreaking havoc on the Northern coasts.

So when my Christmas issue of Express Weekly arrived I was momentarily mystified, but only for a moment as I saw Wulf make his only ever appearance as a truly spectacular, full color double page spread across the center of the comic. The front page was in the meantime reserved for Bill Mevin's Wee Sporty. Mevin it should be mentioned was a highly talented illustrator, whose training had included a stint working under the directorship of David Hand, who (according to who you read) was at one time Walt Disney's creative right hand man. Hand left the studio in 1944 somewhat disillusioned in the wake of the strike that had nearly crippled the studio in 1941 and the resultant unionization. (Hand pictured above second from left in the storyboard discussion photograph) Disney never really forgave Hand for leaving and was firmly of the opinion, despite Hand's denials, that his move was as a result of an approach from the UK's Rank Studio. J. Arthur Rank was a man whose ambitions seemed limitless as regards creating an Albionesque version of Hollywood, complete with stars (under contract to Rank) and epic productions, directed by some of the most exciting home grown talents that would see the studio as a credible force in international cinema.

The inevitable happened and after work on the full length feature Animal Farm was completed and the studio had failed to secure a distribution deal for it's animated cartoons series Animaland and The Musical Paintbox, the J. Arthur beancounters pulled the rug out from under Hand and his studio and for Mevin and a lot of the other talents, they had to ply their skills elsewhere.

For Mevin, the break was something of a blessing in disguise as he was able to develop his own ideas and style rather than expending energy on work which was so heavily Disney influenced (doubtless at J Arthur's behest), that it looked way too dated before it had even been shown to audiences that would inevitably make less than favorable comparisons with the epics being produced in the Mouse Factory.

Mevin's style blossomed and moved with the times and included a lot of TV based cartoon strips for such series as Dr Who, Bugs Bunny, Space Patrol and newspaper work such as the Mevin creation The Soapremes and The Perishers.

I'm also including a couple more Christmas themed pages from the same issue to help with such things as part games. Courtesy of the inimitable Bill Boffin as drawn by Selby Donnison.

Lovely stuff!

News Roundup

2011-12-09T22:48:00.000Z

I've had a lot of visits to this blog over the last twenty four hours and while many of them have been as a result of the interest generated by the news of the upcoming Book Palace Books Heros the Spartan project, there were also a lot following up on the death of Jerry Robinson, who in many ways was the last link to the pivotal moment when US comic books stopped being merely re-packagers of Sunday Newspaper comic sections and turned themselves into the realtors of teen geeks fantasies.

Jerry Robinson for this fan at least was at his best when he provided the panache and draftsmanship to elevate Bob Kane's Batman to one of the best looking comic books on the 1940's newstands. He it was who provided swipes and inspiration to other of Kane's more talented "ghosts", including Dick Sprang. Sprang may have redesigned Batman's waist line as a counterpoint to Robinson's more elegant delineation but he was not averse to copiously swiping a lot of Robinson's poses. I suppose one could make the point that Robinson's poses were heavily influenced by his studio buddy Mort Meskin, but however you cut it, it was Robinson who refined the look of the "golden age" Batman, created the Joker and came up with some of the most iconic covers of the 1940's. The rest of his career may well have been hugely worthy but for me these examples of his art show a young guy afire with enthusiasm and talent and are an achievement that will never be bettered.

Work on Illustrators, Denis McLoughlin and Heros continues apace, we have a lot to juggle with over the next few months and we will be running stuff past you guys from time to time to keep you posted with what we're doing.

In the meantime Commando's fiftieth birthday bash continues with the appearance of issue 1 in it's reprinted guise of Commando 4453.

Here's the information from Calum Laird editor of Commando and the man behind the many innovations and ideas which have made this particular Commando anniversary so succesful:

Hello All,

Here we have it, the second from last Commando raid of our 50th year, 2011.

By a curious coincidence, and one I think he’d have enjoyed, the quartet includes the second from last story created by Norman Adams who sadly died in August this year. Norman was well known to Commando fans for his creation of the Headline Heroes, The Phantom (with Keith Page) and a whole army of others.

Norman is sadly missed by everyone on the Commando Team, past and present, an I’m sure that goes for commando’s readers too.

You can find out more about Norman and his work here…

http://www.commandocomics.com/search?q=adams&page=1

http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary_norman_adams_author_and_journalist_1_1803417

All the best,

Calum

Commando No 4451

Chuck Ballard Goes To War

December, 7th, 1941 — America is left reeling from Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. For the Japanese crew of a Nakajima B5N2 “Kate” torpedo bomber, however, the success is short-lived. After crash-landing on a supposedly deserted island, they are dismayed to find that it is in fact home to a village full of civilians.
   Though the three Japanese airmen do not wish to take innocent lives, their fellow countrymen, responding to their mayday signal, are not so honourable. This may turn out to be their undoing, thanks to the presence of an ex-Marine who is an expert with a hunting rifle…

Script: Norman Adams
Art: Olivera
Cover: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4452

Operation “Loco”

James Bailey was a railwayman like his father before him. In charge of the most powerful steam locomotives he could drive anything, anywhere, any time.
   He was the obvious choice when a special job came in to his depot. Would it be a VIP run to London? Or maybe a vital troop train to the coast?
   How about a Commando raid behind enemy lines?

Script: Mac MacDonald
Art: Keith Page
Cover: Keith Page

Commando No 4453

Walk — Or Die!

THE CORPORAL AND THE COLONEL

CORPORAL TOM GERRARD of the Royal Tank Corps was just an ordinary bolke, easy-going and cheerful.

COLONEL KARL OBERTH of the SS Panzer Corps was a typical Nazi officer, brutal and merciless.

SOMEWHERE on the limitless, scorching inferno of the Western Desert, Fate decided their tank tracks should cross.

HERE THEN is the story of the epic fight put up by Corporal Gerrard and his tank, Matilda, against the might and power of the Panzers and their swaggering Colonel, who thought he could sweep the British off the face of the desert.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

This is where it started, a little over 59 years ago — in the fiery dawn of a desert sunrise and the fertile minds of the team that put the first ever Commando together. We’ve often joked about how they anticipated the dawn of the iPad by making Commando pages just the right size to fit on its screen but reading page 14 I realised they’d anticipated the advent of social media too. Check out what Tom Gerrard has to say about the radio.
   Joking apart, it’s not hard to see why Commando was a success from Day One. With a punchy story from the pen of Eric Castle, strong artwork inside the comic from Garcia and that intriguing cover from the brushes of Ken Barr those first issues fairly leapt from the shelves. The format was right from the very first and endures to this day.
   Probably you weren’t born when this first came out so this is an ideal chance to find out what it was like to one of commando’s first readers. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Walk — Or Die!, originally Commando No 1 (June 1961), re-issued as No 2523 (December 1991)

Script: Eric Castle
Art: Garcia
Cover: Ken Barr

Commando No 4454

Riley’s Rifle

It was a rifle like countless others, standard issue to thousands upon thousands of men in the British Army in two World Wars — a Lee-Enfield No.1 Mark III. Millions of them were made. Some are still in use today.
   But there was something special about this particular rifle — it was as if it had a life of its own, a will of its own. It seemed to want to do things by itself…and what it wanted most was vengeance!

Introduction by George Low, former Commando Editor

No apologies for presenting another story from the fertile mind of Cyril Walker. He just couldn’t stop turning out classic tales to enthral and delight.
This 1975 story is really quite simple, the account of a Lee Enfield rifle with a will of its own and a gipsy curse woven into the fabric of the tale. It’s enthralling and a good example of Cyril at his best. Ian Kennedy did the arresting cover and Galindo drew the exciting black and white illustrations.

Riley’s Rifle, originally Commando No 994 (December 1975), re-issued as No 2347 (February 1990)

Script: Cyril Walker
Art: Galindo
Cover: Ian Kennedy

Coming In 2012

2011-12-08T10:17:00.006Z

Very exciting to say the least...

Comic Page Scans Straight From The Devil's Cauldron

2011-12-05T21:07:00.000Z

Straight from the arid plains of Sub Saharan Africa - or more specifically the bit where the rugged Malcolm Norton sits, with his bush hat pushed back, pipe in clenched jaw, fingers inscribing a mad tarantella over his keyboard as various film scripts, essays and the occasional letter to his boyhood idol Ian Kennedy are swiftly concocted, comes these beautiful scans.

Looking at the tawny hues of these pages you can almost feel the merciless lash from the heat of the inhospitable clime that is slowly rendering these treasured artifacts into close cousins of the dead sea scrolls.

However your task for today, as you gaze in wonderment at these pages is to identify the artists whose work enlivens these adventures from an otherwise lost era.

Three artists in total and all three stalwarts of boy's comics from the golden age of UK weekly comics.

Lipstick on My Collar - Blogging Vs Illustrators

2011-11-28T23:46:00.003Z

The perils of blogging, you start out with the best of intentions - a blog posting everyday. After a while you come to the awful realization that you simply cannot post interesting and engaging topics everyday without treating your blog as an unpaid career and forsaking other activities to ensure that you continue to maintain the (hopefully) high standard you have set yourself.

So then comes the facilitators of daily blogging. In the case of blogs such as this one, where the subject matter is trash culture, you can run serialized comic strips, but the problem is that apart from issues of copyright and the nightmare of possible litigation from unexpected sources ( The Curious Case of Walter Potter and the Stuffed Animals that Bite), there is also the fact that there are already a lot of bloggers providing access to material that would otherwise have faded from the collective consciousness many years ago.

Hence the intermittent postings that have become the norm for this blog.

For which I offer my unreserved apology, especially to Malcolm whose days toiling on the fiery plains of Sewth Efrika are made a mite more tolerable by his attachment to the cybernetic umbilicus of the UK and the many blogs such as this one, that remind him of the warm beer and mist shrouded cobblestones of dear Old Albion. Ah yes Albion (cue Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band playing Eric Coates In Town Tonight) enlivened by it's stoic populace who no matter how hard times may be are always ready to share a cuppa char and a tin of bully beef. I can almost see a tear gently coursing down Malcolm's chiselled features as he peers at his computer screen.

Of course there is another reason for the sporadic nature of my postings and that is the new and soon to be launched Illustrators, issue 1 of which will include an interview with Ian Kennedy along with a really superb feature on the life and work of Denis McLoughlin by his friend and biographer David Ashford. Both of these articles I know will be of some consolation to Malcolm as he toils purposefully in the scorched veldt.

We have in truth some really amazing features coming at you over the next few years, with contributions from artists, designers, agents and biographers, who will add so much more enjoyment to the superbly reproduced (and much of it hitherto unseen for decades) artwork that we will be running in each and every issue of Illustrators.

So in the meantime here's some more samples of work in progress just to get your illustration hungry juices flowing.

More News From Commando HQ and a Couple of Strays

2011-11-24T19:08:00.002Z

Just received this latest update from Calum Laird over at Commando HQ. I can't stress enough just how thrilled I am with their current reprint policy. The reason being that at last they are reprinting a whole slew of titles from the early non PC years, where Huns were Huns, Nips were Nips, teeth were gritted, eyes bugged, everyone was back lit by what appears to have been exploding phosphorous and there was Mercy For None!

So here's some more of those early as well as new titles and some fabulous Ken Barr covers (some of his finest imo) and a sneak preview of some covers which slipped through the wire, including issue 94 Jump or Die with fantastic Barr cover and delicious interior art by Alfredo Sanchez Cortez.

Commando No 4447

Colours Of Courage

The proudest possessions of any regiment are its colours — the flags which it carries into battle. Its history is recorded on these colours, the victories it has won.
   A regiment guards its colours fiercely. To have them captured by the enemy is a terrible thing. But when a man hands over the colours to save his own skin it is a disgrace that brave soldiers can hardly bear think about.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

   If there are two things difficult to get right in a Commando they are French Resistance stories and ghosts. Resistance stories could easily be 63 pages of skulking about avoiding searching German soldiers and ghosts could easily look like normal characters drawn without enough ink.
   Thanks to ace story-teller Cyril Walker, Colours Of Courage cracks along with plenty of action to break up the tension. And Arthur Fleming — an art teacher from Glasgow — manages to skilfully depict a glowing figure despite only having black ink and white paper to work with.
Wrapped in one of Ian Kennedy’s superbly drawn and laid-out covers it’s got all it needs for a cracking Commando.

Colours Of Courage, originally Commando No 1182 (December 1977), re-issued as No 2412 (October 1990)

Story: Cyril Walker
Art: Arthur Fleming
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4448

The Four Scars

Corporal Bill Kirk felt the tiny life-raft rock lazily as the Jap struggled aboard. Both turned to look at the sinking Jap prison-ship they’d been on — Bill a prisoner, the Jap a guard. Then they turned back, to look at each other; and what that Jap read in Bill Kirk’s eyes made him start back in fear.
   But there was no escape for him. With only the vast empty ocean and the sharks circling the raft for witnesses, they grappled in a fight to the finish.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

I’ve mentioned before that I my childhood Commando issues at the back of the garage a few years ago. Some I had to look at again to refresh my memory, but not this one. I don’t know how many times I read and re-read this in the 60s but it must have been a lot because I had almost total recall.
   Ken Barr’s cover with its ethereal hand hovering over the action, Victor de la Fuente’s action-packed, high-energy inside art and Eric Hebden’s crackerjack of a story with its startling twist were just what the doctor ordered in 1965…and are equally so today. I think so anyway and I hope you’ll agree.
   As an aside, Ken Barr used a sheet of transparent plastic sheet with the outline of the hand painted on it to get that ghostly effect. I certainly didn’t know that in 1965.

The Four Scars, originally Commando No 185 (October 1965), re-issued as No 831 (April 1974)

Story: Eric Hebden
Art: Victor de la Fuente
Cover Art: Ken Barr

Commando 4449

Days Of Danger

Simon Katz was a young German and a fervent anti-Nazi. A brilliant mathematician, he escaped Germany by the skin of his teeth and went to work as a code-breaker for the British.
   Not long after, Sergeant Barney Taft also made an escape – from the bullet-strafed beaches of Dunkirk.
   Though they were on the same side, when circumstances threw the pair together, they clashed bitterly. But could they manage to work together against a ruthless enemy? They would have to if they were to survive.

Story: Stephen Walsh
Art: Vila
Cover Art: Nicholas Forder

Commando No 4450

The Nightmare War

Private Franz Bauer, a German Army engineer wounded during the invasion of France, was haunted by the deaths of his comrades in the same battle — wiped out by a mine. When he recovered he threw himself into his new job developing the remote-controlled Borgward IV demolition vehicle, hoping it might save other German lives.

His chance to save thousands of lives would come, but he would be working alongside an unlikely ally — someone who had nightmares every bit as bad as Franz’s.

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Keith Page
Cover Art: Keith Page

All images © DC Thomson 2011

Achtung Achtung!!!

2011-11-09T13:34:00.001Z

Ja, mein old kamerads zer war continues, as Calum Laird at Commando Operational HQ located in the mist shrouded fastness of Dundee reminds me on a regular basis.

So here's the latest Commando quadruplets, including a superb reprinting of the second ever issue of Commando to appear back in 1961, when UK TV broadcasts were still in black and white and Cliff and the Shadows had released The Young Ones. Here's both the 1961 and 2011 editions for comparison.

Commando No 4443

Killer In No-Man’s-Land

As a soldier in the no-man’s-land between your own trenches and the enemy’s in World War One, you expected to get shot at. British soldier Alan Roux and his mates certainly did.
   What they didn’t expect was to have to dodge bullets fired from their own side.

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Vila
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4444

Kings of the Castle

Many strange battles were fought during the 1914-18 war but surely the strangest involved a pair of French regimental policemen, a squad of Australian infantrymen, a bunch of escaped German POWs…and a mediaeval stone tower.

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Keith Page
Cover Art: Keith Page

Commando No 4445

THEY CALLED HIM COWARD!

“BANZAI!”

The powerful Japanese Army was island-hopping its ruthless way down through the South Seas towards Australia. Many a brave Aussie soldier, standing his ground in the green hell of the island jungles, was bulldozed into eternity by the sheer weight of the Nipponese army.
And one Englishman in the Australian army was caught up in the desperate battle.
Bob Palmer he was christened, but COWARD was the name they branded him with. Coward, the word that turns a man into the loneliest being on earth, for what soldier seeks a coward for company?
But there was no craven blood in Bob Palmer’s veins — and he proved he was ready to spill every drop as he blasted Jap after Jap into kingdom come.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

   A classic Commando tale this, a man the victim of a misunderstanding who has to prove his accuser wrong. And with plenty of action along the way to add some spice. That the two men are on the same side but different nationalities hardly matters nor that there’s a third character trying to be a peacemaker between them.
   What does matter is the use of the emotive word Coward in the title and through out the story. It’s one of those loaded words that can’t be spoken except without venom — as amply demonstrated here by Sergeant Fettis.
   Note to the 1961 Commando editor…the word Coward in the title is far too small, make it bigger.

They Called Him Coward, originally Commando No 2 (June 1961), re-issued as No 2531 (January 1992)

Story: Castle
Art: Bonato
Cover Art: Ken Barr

Commando No 4446

MYSTERY IN THE DESERT

It was going to be Captain David Poole’s toughest mission yet. Posing as a German spy he was to feed the Nazis with false information which would lead their forces into a trap.
Everything was going like clockwork until David met up with a certain Australian pilot — and then everything started to go terribly wrong.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

As I recall, Ken Gentry who penned this tale was a South African newspaperman with a sideline in Commando stories. I worked on a few of his over the years. Here he weaves a web of deceit with a double-crossing British agent, a straightforward Aussie pilot and a luckless German commander.
Cecil Rigby who provided the inside art for the story had also worked on newspapers, as a very good caricaturist and he wasn’t bad at Commando either, having been in at the start.
Ian Kennedy, who provided the cover, puts himself in the cockpit of every plane he draws. I hope he made an exception with this one — that looks like a painful crash.

Mystery In The Desert, originally Commando No 1370 (November 1979)

Story: Ken Gentry
Art: Cecil Rigby
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

What Goes Round Comes Around - Roger Brand Revisited

2011-11-07T23:52:00.003Z

About a year and a half ago I made a posting under the title Roger Brand and The Curse of the Green Death. The cautionary tale of the decline and fall of this comics genius was sourced from a variety of accounts and anecdotes and subsequent to it's appearance I have been put right on a variety of factual errors. The first of these to surface was the fact that the splash panel featured in the tale The Haunted Sky was in fact drawn by Dan Adkins, but that was a minor (ish) deviation from the truth as compared to some of the other assertions that I erroneously reinforced from my evidently shaky sources.

What alerted me to this departure from actualite as opposed to the myth that I was unconsciously reinforcing, was a flurry of visits to this post over the weekend and a comment from Michele Wrightson on the posting in question.

Further exploration led me to the most fascinating and revelatory blog on Roger Brand which is an absolute must visit. On the Comics Journal blog and titled A Lousy Week For Woods (Remembering Roger Brand) and brilliantly written by the one and only Kim Deitch it contains photos of both Roger and Michele along with samples of his artwork which adds so much more to the understanding of Roger Brand and his work than my feeble effort did.

However that's not the end of it as Kim's article has acted as a catalyst for what amounts to a collective catharthis as friends and colleagues of Roger Brand, step forward with their own reminiscences of this amazing man.

I would strongly urge anyone remotely interested in Roger Brand's life and work as well as the development of the underground comics scene to check out this incredible posting.

P.S. There is also a Flickr page featuring the work of photographer Clay Geerdes which you can access at this link, where you will find more photos of both Roger and Michele along with many other underground comix artists from the early 1970's.

An Embarrasment of Reprints - Hal Foster's Prince Valiant Rides Again

2011-11-07T10:04:00.010Z

I remember my first sighting of Harold Foster's Prince Valiant. It was on the back of James Warren's Creepy magazine wherein amongst the various goodies that Warren's Captain Company were offering was seven volumes of Prince Valiant published by Hastings House. When a few months later I came across copies of the books in London's newly opened pioneering independent comic and fantasy shop Dark They Were and Golden Eyed, I was indeed impressed with the production values of the books which charted Valiant's adventures from his boyhood to ascendancy as fully fledged Prince, married to the lovely Aleta, who of course is a Princess - of the Misty Isles - no less.

The only thing wrong with these books was that they were presented in the guise of illustrated texts, rather than comic strips. So what you were looking at, beautiful and captivating as the images were, was a bastardized version of Foster's ground breaking strip - you were still not actually looking at the pages as Foster intended, rather you were looking at the pages that Hastings House thought would be more likely to gain the approval of librarians and teachers. The books had been in print since the 1950s in an era where even comics as respectable as Foster's Prince Valiant would have been regarded as unworthy of life between hard covers, so the imperative was evidently that Prince Valiant had to look like a proper illustrated book.

There was by the time (1972) that I was ferreting around in DTWAGE's new arrivals shelve, other incarnations of Foster's masterpiece, in the form of some French softback albums, but the repro on these was just appalling and Woody Gelman's recently published Nostalgia Press reprints of Valiant's early years were not much better, albeit both these publications being in color, whereas the Hastings House books were in black and white.

Something else was definitely required and it was sometime in the late 1970's that an Austrian publisher by name of Heinz Pollischansky published two handsome black and white folios of Prinz Eisenherz. The pages from each strip were housed in a smart looking box, with English text on the front pages and German on a smaller version printed on the reverse of each individual plate. The only slight problem was that the years in question 1954 and 1955 were not quite as captivating as the early years of the strips run, as by now Prince Valiant having plighed his troth with the lovely Aleta was turning into a medieval Dagwood to Aleta's Blondie. In the process much of the dark fantasy which had so characterized the early years of the strip had been lost. More volumes followed in book format but frustratingly they continued on the run from the 1950's, although tantalisingly the first two years of the strips run were also included.

But this wasn't the end of the quest for a format that would accord full justice to Foster's swashbuckler. Nope, just as you were clearing shelf room for Pollischansky's reprints, along comes Rick Norwood, who with admirable dedication to the cause set out to source his prints directly from Foster's original artwork, or failing that high quality proofs so that each year's Valiants would be the optimal best that any enthusiast could hope for. The first volume appeared in 1984 and was truly impressive, however there were a few caveats. The first was the sheer size, Norwood had decided to publish the books the same size as the original Sunday Comic pages, the dimensions of which were so huge that it made extraordinary demands on storage of the books. Forget about clearing shelf space, there seemed no other solution beyond clearing a drawer in an artist's plan chest, and this coupled with the fact that to keep
his soaring costs down each volume was paperbound dictated that even reading the thing was an event that required a certain amount of pre-planning.

However the thing that eventually saw this project run out of steam was the cost of the color separations. Each volume of Norwood's Manuscript Press Edition Prince Valiant's was sourced from optimal quality black and white artwork and then using the pages of the original Sunday Comics as guides, new color separations were created. The cost of this part of the procedure, coupled with his already soaring printing costs and the need to sell enough of each highly priced edition to justify producing a new volume, dragged out the project to the point that only the most dedicated made it to volume three. A very limited edition of 26 copies was produced which contained all three volumes bound together as a way of writing a finis to the project.

Meanwhile an up and coming publisher by name of Fantagraphics Books was publishing the whole series of Prince Valiant in a much more affordable soft cover format. However as regards this reviewer at least I would have much rather spent a fortune on Norwood's epic enterprise than ploughed money into acquiring a set of books that didn't look that much better than a lot of other European editions that were also in print.

So for years my Manuscript editions remained my arbiter of what should be achieved with a reprint of Prince Valiant. That was until a year ago when I received a phone call from my main man in the comics 'hood Mr Geoff West, Chief Svengali and Master of the Universe otherwise known as The Book Palace. In the course of said call he mentioned that he had just taken a delivery of the new edition of Fantagraphics Prince Valiant.

"Yes Geoff, but is it as good as the Manuscript Press editions"?

""No, it's better, a LOT better, wait until you see it!"

And you know what?

He was right!

Check out this link for more information. Volume four covering the years 1943-1944 has just been published.

I am also including a sample from Valiant's first meeting with Morgana Le Fey to show a bit more of what Fantagraphics have achieved with this series. The first sample is from The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Strips and as you can see was shot from a Sunday Comics section with the curse of all comic restorers (I should know after working on The Wulf the Briton project) see through from the strip printed on the reverse side showing through loud and clear. Whereas the Fantagraphics page is scanned from Hal Foster's collection of proofs and what a difference this makes!

For lovers of Foster's unadulterated black and white line work it's also worth mentioning a fabulous Portugese edition of Prince Valiant by publisher Manuel Caldas. Only the first year 1937 has been published in English, but many more years are available in Spanish. Again check out this link for more information and the page above again shows the high fidelity of this edition's repro in comparison to previous efforts.

Waaarrrrggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!! It's All Halllows Eve!!!

2011-10-31T20:07:00.000Z

This is turning into something of a tradition, but every year I find myself creating Halloween masks for friends and family.

Here's this years offerings:

I See a Bad Moon Arising...

2011-10-30T10:25:00.008Z

Yes it's your old gloomeister with a truly apocryphal vision of what could happen if the people that rule the world (allegedly Goldman Sachs) continue in the manner that has brought entire continents to the brink of ruin and Capitalism which is now floating on so much conflated debt finally collapses. This is an all too credible view of how things might unfold when the giant Ponzi scheme that international banking has become finally hits the buffers:

and here's part 2:

Scary stuff huh???

There are several thematic similarities to other shot on a budget, chillers, one in particular being Oscar Romero's Night of the Living Dead, where again there is a real feeling of claustrophobia, which rather than underlining to the viewer that the film makers did not have the sets nor the resources of Cecil B De Mille, actually adds to the feeling of unease.

In both cases we see comfortable Middle America, the land of the comfortable Middle Class beginning to feel less comfortable as it comprehends it's imminent demise. The redeeming factor for viewers of Romero's film is that it is in the final analysis a fantasy, whereas The Economic Collapse sadly is all too close for comfort.

The USA in the immediate post war years was in a constant state of apprehension, which manifested itself in fear of Invaders from Outer Space (remember the proliferation of Flying Saucer sightings throughout the 1950's), The Red Menace (remember Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Senate Enquiry into UnAmerican Activities aka the McCarthy Witch Hunts?). To these you can add on Motorcycle Gangs, Horror Comics, Teenage Dope Fiends, Race Riots, Alcoholism, Kill Crazy Charlie Starkweather and his gal Caril Fugate terminating the lives of eleven people in Nebraska and good old wannabe taxidermist Ed Gein who was so starved of company in his lonely Winsconsin farmhouse that he dug up his recently deceased neighbors and brought them back to his home for company along with some fresher victims when conversation stalled as it inevitably does in such circumstances.

There was of course one horror which dwarfed even these frissons of unease in it's awful magnitude and whereas films such as Invasion of The Body Snatchers or the Mars Attacks series of bubblegum cards created visions of enslavement of the planet by alien forces, the real terror was founded on the cataclysmic final trump of Atomic Warfare.

To this there was no apparent remedy, protection or reassurance - it was going to get you and you had better prepare your soul, because there was absolutely no way of preparing your body unless you were naive enough to attempt the kind of precautions that were so mercilessly exposed in Peter Watkins film The War Game, originally planned for broadcast by the BBC in 1965 until the Powers that Beeb referred the whole thing to the British Home Secretary who then ordered it to be effectively put on ice.

Here's why:

Follow the YouTube channel links for the remaining episodes.

It was of course a theme which had been explored by those comic genius's Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein in stories such as Child of Tomorrow from EC's Weird Fantasy (No 17 although actually No 5 for all you comicologists).

But powerful as Feldstein's treatment of a nuclear apocalypse is in what for 1951 was indeed very strong stuff, it is in the main a look at the post nuclear world of middle America. The real horror wouldn't manifest itself in terms of pulp based trash culture until a chance collaboration between graphic genius Basil Wolverton and the US evangelist and founder of The Plain Truth magazine Herbert Armstrong. As Monte Wolverton describes in the introduction to the recently published The Wolverton Bible his father's working day was such that a lot of his most productive hours in terms of his one off maniacal artistry was spent in the evening working to the accompaniment of the wireless. It was during these hours that he first started listening to the preachings of Armstrong who had secured himself a broadcast slot with one of the nations radios stations. They entered into correspondence and it wasn't long before a deeper relationship had been established. Wolverton found that many of the preacher''s thoughts and concerns addressed issues with which he had been wrestling for much of his teen and adult life. Armstrong aware of Wolverton's immense and unique talents wanted to draft him in to providing artwork for his religious tracts. Wolverton's workload and success, which peaked on the back of his creation of Lena The Hyena as a response to an Al Capp (creator of L'il Abner) sponsored contest to depict the world's ugliest woman, precluded him from being able to avail himself to creating much in the way of work for Armstrong.

It was therefore several years before Wolverton could commit to producing work for Armstrong but when he did the work he produced was epic in quantity, scope and imagination. Amounting to nearly a thousand artworks, Wolverton's illustrations for The Bible were a tour de force, unlike and uninfluenced by any previous attempt to illustrate the Bible.

Great as the images were, the real shock and awe came with the last section when Wolverton unleashed his full power and intensity on the most chilling images yet seen in either an interpretation of the bible or an attempt to illustrate the effects of a nuclear conflagration on cities and people which to his middle American readership would have seemed too close to home to be viewed with the relative detachment such subject matter would normally be accorded.

More, as in 700 plus illustrations along with introductory texts by Grant Geissman and Monte Wolverton, can be seen in The Wolverton Bible published by Fantagraphics books - a very necessary and inspirational addition to your bookshelves.

But Sir I Can't Draw Horses!!!

2011-10-25T09:31:00.000+01:00

When the legendary AP editor Leonard Matthews was looking for an artist to undertake work on a forthcoming series of comics under the title of Cowboy Picture Library, he approached artist Geoff Campion whose punchy and vibrant artwork was just what the visionary editor had in mind for spearheading this new line of monthly pocket libraries.

Bear in mind that this was in 1949 and a moment in time when as an antidote to post war austerity and in an era when even TV was a rarity, the UK was on the cusp of a real renaissance of comics publishing with Hulton's Eagle comic due to launch that following spring.

But for the majority of boy's adventure fiction, especially the sort that Matthews favored, horses rather than space ships were the de rigeur form of transport. In other words, to have any hope of a sustainable career as a Matthews comics artist, you were going to have to engage with equestrianism.

This was something Matthews was very mindful of when with his usual direct manner he retorted to Campions' observation that horses were not something he was comfortable with drawing, "Bloody well learn then!".

Campion was sent off with his first Cowboy Picture Library assignment and a pile of pages by Matthew's most favored Wild West artist, Derek Eyles. Eyles who was born in North London in 1902, had been creating bravura paintings and drawings for the Amalgamated Press since his stunning paintings first started appearing in Chums in the late 1920's.

His earliest paintings were distinguished by a vivid and rumbustious application of paint which was in marked contrast to his later work as these samples demonstrate.

Meanwhile Campion went on to deliver just the kind of cowboy comics that Matthews craved, to the extent that the editorial imprimatur was extended to Campion as fledgling artists were sent on their assignments with samples of Campion's pages to Look and Learn from.

More of Eyles work can be viewed on the Look and Learn website.

The Flamin' Groovies + MIckey Mouse = Sunday Quiz

2011-10-16T21:23:00.002+01:00

Yup, I have come to the conclusion that you guys are having way too easy a time of it. Here I am doing all the work, dreaming up new subjects to post up on this blog and feeling all the time that I am not working at this friggin' blog in the way that my heroes such as Mr Door Tree or Leif Peng do on their awesome and substantive blogs.

So today I am going to get you to work.

It all comes about because of a post I was going to make along the lines of how large corporates (don't you just LOVE them!) are inexorably subverting the internet. I was going to take the example of YouTube, where a lot of crappy stuff that makes TV so unwatchable is now grabbing you by the throat every time you go onto YouTube. I mean YouTube was supposed to be where you access stuff that you COULDN'T access on TV. Well TV execs are now responding somewhat late in the day to the realization that the next generation of viewers they have to cater for gave up on the magic box years ago. As in they are way too busy with Facebook and summoning up videos on YouTube to want to sit down and watch TV with mum and dad thank you. I mean how uncool is that?

So OK we now get TV for losers on YouTube, that I can cope with, we live in a democracy and if people want to watch their crappy soaps on YouTube fine, just so long as I can watch my kind of stuff on YouTube. But hey! What's happening??? All of a sudden stuff is being pulled from YouTube by the big corporations for copyright infringement. Now I can well understand stuff being pulled if it's going to affect artist's royalties, but a lot of the times the artist's rights are just about the furthest thing from the mind of Mega Corps. What they are doing is removing choice.

And here we come to the subject of today's post, The Flamin' Groovies. For it was a particular clip of them on Marc Zermati's YouTube SkyDog Channel that I wanted to revisit. Bear in mind that this clip was from Marc's personal collection, which is unique, he being the man behind a lot of the punk movement in France and in fact released the notorious Iggy and the Stooges album Metallic K.O. as well as hosting the first punk festival at Mount de Marsan in 1976 and it's follow up in 1977. Marc it was who signed the Groovies to his label, his channel is a real event and one of the best things on YouTube for lovers of gritty rock n roll.

So imagine my chagrin when I discovered that this film of the Groovies is no longer available because some suit at a record company had decided that a huge copyright infringement had occurred and in a fit of corporate hubris had flagged up to YouTube, that it must be taken down fourthwith but preferably firstwith. It wouldn't be so bad if you could buy a DVD of the Flamin Groovies, in fact their front man Chris Wilson would love a DVD of their few TV appearances too. But no, now there is now no record of this performance to be accessed. Marc Zermati had the film because he cares about this stuff, corporates don't care but they are extremely litigious and they can flex their muscles fairly effortlessly.

However all is not lost because I discovered a couple of other Flamin' Groovie classics from French TV, doubtless the corporate dinosaurs will have this taken down before too long, while they infest the internet with reruns of X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing, so enjoy one of the all time Groovie classics:

and after that check out this brilliant cover of Chuck Berry's Little Queenie:

And now flex your brains and get the old grey matter doing a few press ups within the dark confines of your skull as I hit you with this question. What is the connection between the Flamin' Groovies and this Mickey Mouse comic???

Commando, Komando and Sonderkommando

2011-10-12T21:11:00.008+01:00

I was the happy recipient of a recent news item from Calum Laird, editor of the UK's longest running and now 50 year old war pocket library. We are of course talking about Commando, which you'll be pleased to hear has an audience well beyond the shores of this green and sceptre'd isle. Yes indeedy, amongst the far flung readership of this long running comic, the people of Estonia have access to tales of derring do which emanate from the sandbagged redoubt of Commando HQ located in Dundee.

So here is the cover of a new four in one selection of Commando stories. I'll hand over to Calum so that he can provide you with more details:
Latest news from Estonia is that a four-in-one Commando selection is about to go on sale.

The stories inside will be:

4163 Raiders Recalled

4171 Raiders On The Rampage

4179 Raiders At The Ready

4187 Raiders — The Reckoning

All four have stories by Ferg Handley, inside art by Keith Page and covers by Ian Kennedy. And, as you’ll all know, they are stories featuring our own special forces team Ramsey’s Raiders.

The fact that in Estonia Commando is called Komando, got me to thinking about several of the truly stunning covers that the great Gino D'Achille created for Commando in the late 1980's, back in the day when Maggie Thatcher was de-regulating the City (what a great idea THAT was!), a bloke called Loads Of Money was popping up all over the place and Terence Trent Darby was outsinging and outdancing Michael Jackson and Prince and being hailed as the biggest thing since Elvis.

It all seems like such a long time ago...

Anyway I digress and regress and am playing with your attention span to the peril of this posting.

So back to Gino D'Achille and his Commando paintings; I gather that the way these covers were supplied was that the paintings were bought in by Thomson's from D'Achille's agent and stories were found after and not before the event. The paintings tend in the main to focus on the beastly Huns as opposed to the doughty Brits. Probably because not only were the teeth of the average Whermacht squaddie in far better shape than his British counterpart, but also their uniforms were infinitely cooler.

Such observations were of course a luxury that the luckless inhabitants of occupied Europe didn't have much time to dwell on, particularly if they had the misfortune to live in Soviet Russia, or Poland where a couple of the photos that D'Achille used as springboards for his paintings originated from.

In the first photo you can see how D'Achille, mindful of not dwelling overlong on the negative aspects of war on the Eastern front, has omitted the dead Russian from the snowbound trench the MG 34 gunners are setting up in. Whereas in the second photo, the artist has sourced his photo from a series of photographs of the razing of Warsaw in 1944 (not to be confused with the suppression of the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto a year earlier). The soldiers who feature in this photograph are from the notorious Dirlewanger Sonderkommando. Named after their founder and leader Oskar Dirlewanger and initially recruited from imprisoned poachers and SS penal battalions. These people were a truly loathsome bunch, even Dirlewanger himself had initially been sprung from jail for the rape of a thirteen year old girl by one of his mentors. Needless to say, they set about their abominable tasks with unholy relish.

Not the sort of stuff to serve up to the younger or more sensitive readers of Commando, the closest that anyone has got to conveying the true horror of what outfits like the Dirlewanger Sonderkommando enacted on their victims is film director Elem Klimov's searingly vivid film Come And See which was released in 1985 and which utilized effects and cinematic techniques that Steven Spielberg would revisit some thirteen years later in the combat sequences of Saving Private Ryan.

Before and After - The Gentle Art of Restoration Revisited

2011-10-04T23:11:00.002+01:00

Just to shed a few tantalizing extra shafts of light on both Illustrators and The Art Of Denis McLoughlin, I must make mention of the amazing work of Mark Terry of Facsimile Dustjackets. Mark who has a real passion for his art and the knowledge and understanding of the medium within which he works has brought his skills to bear on restoring many of the fabulous 'noire' covers that will be illustrating both the feature on Denis McLoughlin in our debut issue of Illustrators and the forthcoming Art of Denis McLoughlin, which will be coming your way from Book Palace Books in 2012.

Here as a taster are a couple of before and afters, from some of those incredibly rare early TV Boardman, McLoughlin designed covers.

For more of Mark's work and information on some truly exquisite reproduction dust jackets I would strongly recommend a visit to his site where you can access some truly iconic cover images, one of the coolest time capsules on the web.

Illustrators Unveiled!

2011-09-26T21:02:00.009+01:00

OK the time has come - the time to stop dickering around and to come straight out with the reason for my somewhat spasmodic postings on this dear old bloggity thing.

So cue drum roll...

Bompity, bompity, bompity, bommmmmbbbbbbbbbbbb ...

Peal of trumpet.

Prrraaaaddddaarrrrpppppppp!!!!

Golden shaft of sunlight.

Falling onto ...

A new publication due to be launched by Book Palace Books next year and it's dedicated to a subject dear to many of us - illustration.

Angelic choir...

Illustrators for that is the name of our new journal is dedicated to spreading the word about some of the most iconic images ever to see print. In the pages of Illustrators you will read about some of the most inspired artists to commit their art to print. These are the people who with brush, pen and pencil were capable of transporting their audiences to the farthest reach of their imaginations. The audiences that many of these artists were catering for were international, their work was collected and admired by readers the length and breadth of Europe and the US. But with the passing of years and the ascendancy of new media, much of this brilliant and inspirational work is falling from the collective conscious.

Illustrators will remedy that by presenting you with a publication that four times a year will guide you through the stories behind these artists, the publishers that commissioned them, the agents that promoted them, the friends and partners that posed for them and the crazy stuff such as the artist who created his incredible covers in an unfurnished bedsit with a parrot for company. All this and more will be revealed in each edition of Illustrators. These features written by some of the most eminent enthusiasts of this oft neglected art form will provide a contextualization to the truly fabulous artwork which we will be presenting you with in each and every issue of Illustrators. Wherever possible we will be bringing you scans of some of the most incredible examples of original artwork by the artists concerned. Early issues of Illustrators will be bringing you the art of Fortunino Matania, Reginald Heade, Chris Foss, John Millar Watt, Luis Garcia, Jordi Penalva, Giorgio De Gaspari and Graham Coton, as well as artists who although equally brilliant are in many ways unknown and unsung. With contributions from writers and artists such as David Roach, David Ashford, Steve Holland, Rian Hughes and Norman Wright as well as access to many of the artists and/ or their agents and their families we aim to provide the most authoritative insight into the stories behind the UK and Europe's most inspired and inspirational artists. Our first issue debuts with a feature on Denis McLoughlin and an interview with the legendary Ian Kennedy looking back on his sixty two years in the business.

We'll keep you posted as we get nearer to publication date but in the meantime here's a taste of things to come (Please note these illustrations are for display purposes only and may be subject to change upon publication):

Rahbinnn Hood, Rahbinn Hood, Rahdin' Threw The Glen

2011-09-22T09:05:00.002+01:00

I can hear it as I type, Dick James singing the song of Robin Hood as Richard Greene pulled back his draw string and unleashed his arrow which hurtled - Pertoingggggg!!!!

Not into the gizzard of some rascally Norman, after all it was Richard Green portraying the Outlaw of Sherwood and being a jolly decent sort of fellow he would only turn the Sheriff of Nottingham's men into pin cushions in extremis. Rather it was the trunk of an old English Oak tree into which the arrow kerzoinked.

The year was 1955 and Lew Grade had gambled a sizeable amount of his resources on producing a TV series which would launch his ATV company into the premier league. Mind you, not that Grade's budgetary commitment was limitless, the tight purse strings plus the even tighter shooting schedule precluded fancy sets, but with the involvement of Hannah Weinstein as producer and some superb scriptwriters including some US wordsmiths whose Hollywood contacts had dried up in the wake of the McCarthy hearings, the series was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Much to the relief of Grade and his backers.

Here's an example of the first episode as it was shown on US TV - sadly minus the talents of Dick James, ousted in favor of a sponsor's endorsement for Wildroot Hair Oil.

The Rahbinn Hood, phenomenon did not go unnoticed by one of Amalgamated Press's most inspired and visionary editors, Leonard Mattthews. He loved swashbuckling films and literature and wanted to exploit the Robin Hood craze which was gripping the nation. He didn't have the rights to the ATV version of the legend, but that didn't matter, he could create stories around the Robin Hood legend as opposed to the Richard Green portrayal.

And anyway, the version of Robin Hood that Leonard Matthews loved was the Errol Flynn version, which was the motif he impressed on artists such as John Millar Watt, surely one of the UK's most underrated illustrators, when he commissioned these images for publication in the late 1950's.

Stop Press - More Commando Coverage in Tomorrow's Telegraph!

2011-09-16T23:18:00.000+01:00

News from Calum Laird at Commando HQ:

There will be a feature on Commando in tomorrow's Telegraph Review section.

Images © DC Thomson 2011

Google and the Golden Gob Iron

2011-09-15T07:46:00.004+01:00

Last month at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Ewan Morrison set out a very bleak thesis on what the internet had to offer writers.

His assessment was that new technology was democratizing the arts but almost as an inverse consequence the returns were shrinking to the point where as he famously put it as regards author's advances, "10k is now the new 50k".

The outlook for unpublished authors was even grimmer, how J.K. Rowling would have made it these days is a moot point.

Anyway if you want to cheer yourselves up here is the article in full.

Part of Morrison's assessment of where this was all leading us was that labor on the internet is provided for free. Nowhere is this more true than blogging, where people are so keen to share their thoughts that they will happily type away for ages with a nice warm glow because they can opine and people will read their opines. Morrison's thesis is that the only people who really are making money off the back of the arts are the ISPs such as Google and Google are the people that were seriously pushing to digitally scan every book ever published to create the ultimate free cyber library. The plans have been ardently resisted and everything is in temporary abeyance but they haven't gone away completely.

But if you look at the arts in general you will pretty much find anything you want out there, labor provided for free by people keen to share their talents and enthusiasms for just the extra buzz of having an audience beyond their bedrooms. YouTube is an exemplar of this phenomenon, there are countless channels set up by bedroom wannabes, who are happy to expend a lot of energy doing Mariah Carey and Lady GaGa re-treads in the hope of perhaps securing the elusive record deal without suffering the angst of standing in front of Simon Cowell. Every street in the land has now got it's own mini recording studio and the results although often dire are all out there to share for free.

But while the serious earners such as Coldplay try to work out clever schemes by which to give away their latest album without forcing themselves to take day jobs, there are other musicians who long ago gave up on that dream and plumped for a solid day job instead. Here's just such an example:

Hakan Ehn is a Swedish engineer, so has got the day job well and truly sorted, but his other passion is playing blues harmonica and his over riding big influence seems to be Little Walter, who although he lived on the edge and eventually died as a result of one brawl too many, was an absolute genius when it came to pushing amplified harmonica to levels hitherto undreamed of in the 1950's. Hakan Ehn has adopted a lot of Walter's love of amplified harp and using a small Roland amplifier occasionally deserts his kitchen with T-Bone steak gently simmering and heads out for the metropolis.

He will then set up his equipment; Roland amp, i-pod with backing track, Shaw mic and Hohner (in this example Golden Melody) Harmonica and unleash full on down and dirty Chicago Blues. Here he is at London's Tottenham Court Road Tube station:

You can see where Hakan's love of finding out how things work comes into play. By using a small amp he can get a nice sense of distortion by over-riding the little amp and he's not averse to tiddling around with the draw holes on his Marine Band harmonicas to get even more out of his playing.

The irony is that without free entertainment on the internet we wouldn't be able to check out artistes like Hakan Ehn, but for artists without back up income, making money out of their art via the new technology the prospects are challenging to say the least.

Blogdom's Silent Service

2011-09-13T21:51:00.003+01:00

This blog posting is respectfully dedicated to one of those unsung heroes of BlogDom, Mr Malcolm Norton. Over the months and years that this blog has grown from being just a chubby cheeked infant to pock marked adolescence, Malcolm has been contributing scans and suggestions for future postings.

It has been because of Malcolm's unstinting work that I have been able to reprise you chaps with early Eric Parker artworks from the Union Jack boy's paper published during those fabulous far away days of flapperdom. It was Malcolm that forwarded scans of penny dreadfuls, his passion for the golden age of British Boy's papers and comics seems boundless. This might be partly because by some weird quirk of fate he is stuck in a zone of endless sun, where even mad dogs retreat to the shade.

Out of the many artists whose work Malcolm enthuses over there is one in particular whose brilliance seems to outshine all other contenders for his unquenchable devotion.

That artist is this man:

and once you have all shared with Malcolm the joy of seeing one of UK comicdom's most talented yet self effacing artists on video you can also check out the latest offerings from the battle scarred offices of the UK's sole remaining publisher of pocket war comics.

Commando's 50th Birthday Bash is certainly the most memorable and best sustained piece of promotion that has been accorded this comic in it's long and distinguished history.

Images © DC Thomson 2011

Commando No 4427

Sons And Fathers

There they stood, back-to-back, Beretta sub-machine guns stuttering as they fought for their lives.
It had been the same many years before as their fathers had battled shoulder-to-shoulder in a heroic but doomed last stand.
Would history repeat itself? Or was there another twist to the tale?

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Vila
Cover: Janek Matysiak

Commando No 4428

The Panther’s Claw.

After a run-in with his boss’s snooty, arrogant son, young Joe Gallagher quit his factory job. He wasn’t bothered, though, he’d wanted to join the Royal Engineers anyway.
   Trouble, however, seemed to follow him wherever he went. But that nothing compared to the danger Joe and his Churchill AVRE crew faced against a ruthless, fanatical Nazi and his squadron of a deadly tanks…

THE PANTHER’S CLAW

Story: Peter Grehan
Art: Morahin
Cover: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4429

Boss Of The Sky

Flight-Lieutenant Alvar Brenner was a real mystery to his fellow fighter pilots in the RAF squadron he flew with. He came from Balkovinia, a country very few of them had even heard of. And when he first went into action with them, he seemed to know every move the German pilots would make — as well as just how their aircraft would perform.
   So they all began to wonder where he’d learned all this…and whether he might just be a Nazi spy planted in their squadron…

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

A couple of years ago, I found a box of my own Commandos lurking at the back of the garage. Goodness knows how many times I’ve moved them from house to house. When I went through them though, I knew there was one missing.
   Like many a Commando reader before me I just could not remember its name so it was a great surprise to stumble into it while looking for something else.
    Re-reading it was not a disappointment. The Wilkinson/Mira combination provided an intriguing plot and crisp, accurate line art. Ken Barr has seldom done a better cover for my money. Hidden treasure indeed.

Boss Of The Sky, originally Commando No 347 (August 1968), re-issued as No 1063 (September 1976)

Story: Wilkinson
Art: Mira
Cover: Ken Barr
First published 1968 No 347

Commando 4430

‘Mad Schultz’ – He Shot The Union jack To Ribbons!

Out of nowhere they appeared, miles behind the front line, falling on undefended convoys like wolves on a flock of sheep. Machine-guns blazed, trucks were blasted to pieces, and men fell in roadside ditches. Then they were gone as swiftly as they come, and yet another British supply column was left a smoking ruin.
   They were German guerrilla fighters, trained killers every one, and they were led by a man as fearless and cunning as any. Captain Schultz was his name — special Nazi commando.
   Soon the question was on every British soldier’s lips…where will Mad Schultz strike next?

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

While we were scouring the Commando archives for the material we needed to put together “Commando: 50 Years a Home For Heroes” the cover of this book was brought out for scanning.
   Now, you have to admit that, whatever else it might be, it’s an eye-catching illustration. So, with the doors to the vaults standing open, I had to reach in for the copy and take it away for a read. I had to, you understand, it would have been dereliction of duty otherwise.
   The hard-hitting Redbridge story lives up to the promise of Ken Barr’s cover and Lopez’s inside artwork has a dark quality which really suits the story even if his touch is a little cartoon-like in places.
   The icing on the cake is that line under the title though, “He Shot The Union Jack To Pieces.” Priceless!

Mad Schultz, originally Commando No 65 (April 1963)

Story: Redbridge
Art: Lopez
Cover: Ken Barr

Blackjacked and Pistol Whipped!

2011-09-11T23:55:00.011+01:00

It was a couple of years ago when this blog was still in it's infancy that I made a posting about the truly bizarre story of Charles Biro and Bob Wood and their creation and editorship of the infamous comic Crime Does Not Pay. The fact that the story of the rise and fall of this comic book sensation had the most bizarre epilogue when Bob Wood, brutally murdered his then partner after an epic drinking spree at an otherwise genteel hotel in New York, added a further twist of salaciousness to the whole story.

I am really thrilled that two years later there is finally a collection of these utterly appalling comics issued by Dark Horse. Wrapped in a truly superb pastiche cover by ace designer Peter Poplaski of the infamous moment in Room 91 at the Irving Hotel, Blackjacked and Pistol Whipped reprises a collection of the best (if best is the right term) of these stories which at times come across like Struwwelpeter for wiseguys. The book focuses on the early years of the series from 1942 to 1948 and wisely avoids the later more anodyne stories as the forces of reproach began to wag their fingers in the direction of Biro and Wood and their indulgent publisher Lev Gleason, who adhering to socialist principles, actually cut his creative team in for a piece of the action (as in profits).

The book is a compelling read, not least because the editors have created a book whose lively design and informative text add greatly to the impact of the book by brilliantly contextualizing the stories they reprise. There is an excellent introduction by Brian Azzarello and Denis Kitchen (who I am honored to say, does occasionally post comments on this blog) also adds a truly revelatory history of the comic and it's hustlers made good editors, Biro and Wood. The comics themselves are crisply and sympathetically restored, so colors and line work are sharp rather than straight scanned with dot screen and browning paper.

The stories themselves lack the nuances of EC's Feldstein and

Craig scripts, and characters are wooden and two dimensional as was standard for mid nineteen forties comics. But where the series comes alive is with the introduction of Mr Crime, who although he predates EC's horror hosts, the Cryptkeeper, the Old Witch and the Vault Keeper, is every bit as powerful and charismatic as the ghoulish threesome. I remember that my first introduction to this character was in Les Daniel's COMIX, which reprinted Baby Face Nelson Vs The U.S.A. (unfortunately not included in this selection). That story had me hooked from the get go and it was Mr Crime that made the tale so compelling.

There are some fascinating examples of early Dick (Frankenstein) Briefer , as well as early Carmine Infantino, plus the relative oldsters such as Fred Guardineer (doyen of early Action and Detective covers). However it is the work of the young and talented rising stars such as George Tuska and Dan Barry that really hit the nerve.

My only slight regret is that more of Biro's covers were not included, there are a few but not enough bearing in mind that Biro's covers were the shop front for this comic and although some of them were undoubtedly crude and poorly composed, others such as the death of Baby Face Nelson are superb in their design and (if this isn't too tasteless in this context) execution.

Execution being the ultimate fate of many of the protagonists of Blackjacked and Pistol Whipped.

The Definitive Barks Collection???

2011-09-06T09:04:00.002+01:00

I, along with many others in the blogosphere, have been enthusing over Fantagraphics newest Disney project. This is to reprint all the Gottfredson Mickey Mouse strips and if that was not enough cause for celebration then the second prong in their intent to share the best Disney comics with as wide an audience as possible their plan to publish all of Carl Barks legendary Duck comics. Starting this autumn/ winter with a collection from the peak of Bark's creative output with stories from the 1948-49 era including such classics as Lost in the Andes and Race to the South Seas. The latter story was hellishly rare as it had only been available as a March of Comics giveaway and until the stories were reprinted firstly by Russ Cochran and Bruce Hamilton and then later by Gladstone, this story used to command premium prices amongst collectors anxious to see one of the pivotal moments in the Gladstone, Donald relationship.

The story was also mega rare because at the time Western publishing had no desire to reprint the thing as some of the islanders depicted seemed to fall into the racial stereotyping quagmire and it wasn't until Oberon in Holland decided in the late 1970's to reprint ALL the Barks classic stories that this tale was dusted off and represented with the aid of genius draftsman Daan Jippes tracing some very shoddy photostats of the original comic.

So in the late 70's and throughout the 80's if you wanted stories like this one or Voodoo Hoodoo which is also appearing in this volume of the Fantagraphics collection you had to teach yourself Dutch and invest in a pile of Dutch Ducks.

So thank goodness for Fantagraphics as for the first time we are going to get the whole series of these stories in affordable format and with a very sympathetic coloring job provided by Rich Tommaso. Fantagraphics have provided a downloadable PDF of the new baby which you can access here.

My only slight (well perhaps more than slight) beef is with the cover image. Their original promo showed a cover which was to all intents and purposes a straight lift (bar lettering and recoloring) of Barks original classic cover design. This might seem lazy and non creative, but it was actually the way to go, designers are functionaries on jobs like this. They are acting as MC's to the main performance and as such they should cleave to the principle that less is more and not try and grab the spotlight themselves by attempting to be too clever and assembling elements of the artist's creation in ways which they were not intended to work. This is precisely what has happened with the new cover design, which falls into the same trap as the earlier Gladstone series by cobbling together portions of Barks' story panels to try and create a new cover image - this just doesn't work. The beauty of using artwork which was designed to fulfill the function of a cover is that it's already designed to do the job you request of it. And it conforms to that most important design principle;

Less is More.

That being said I will say that designer Jacob Covey has done a sterling job in constructing a Barksian feel to all the elements he has assembled and the letter forms look really lovely, neatly complimented by the clean and unfussy color scheme. It's also worth pointing out that Fantagraphics will be including all of Bark's covers, which again gives this collection the edge over it's Gladstone predecessor in terms of completeness.

My only other slight concern at the moment is the interpretation of the simpler palette which typified Western printings treatment of these stories when they first appeared. Light yellow was one of the main colors employed. It added brightness without getting too citric. Full on 100% yellow was used on much smaller areas. In the sample posted on their PDF RichTommaso seems to have drifted into using the full on sherbert hued yellow rather than the more laid back yellow which is required. Hopefully this is just a minor aberration. The rest of the pages look lovely and again as with Prince Valiant (and Book Palace Books Wulf the Briton) they appear to be using that lovely off white matte archival paper to help present the pages in as sympathetic a way as possible.

Can't wait to see the finished product.

In the meantime check out Rich Tommaso's Web of Comics - excellent reading (and viewing!).

Here for your edification is a comparison with the Fantagraphics pages first, followed by the pages from the original Western comic followed lastly by Gladstone's treatment.

Commando's Half Ton Truck Keeps On Rolling

2011-09-01T20:28:00.001+01:00

More on Commando celebrations from Commando HQ as an exhibition of Commando artwork under the title Draw Your Weapons is launched at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, London.

And as promised, here is a run down of the four latest Commandos too hit the shelves:

Commando 4423

MERCY FOR NONE!

Sitting tensely together in the Dakota on their way to the night drop into Occupied Europe, ten hand-picked paratroopers jokingly nicknamed themselves the ten little soldier boys. Fate must have smiled, for it turned out to be a grim and deadly jest.
   One by one, at the hands of the Nazis, they were picked off. One by one, they died the death of heroes…

Mercy For None!

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

They say that gallows humour is the darkest of all. And this story has the blackest stripe of that type of humour running right through it. As the paras at the centre of the action begin to meet their fates, one of their numbers starts to recite a macabre rhyme which can have only one fatal ending.
   Artist Gordon Livingstone, in one of his earliest outings for Commando, enhances the darkness of the tale with generous use of black ink while cover artist Ken Barr leaves you in no doubt that there’s plenty of action waiting inside.
   Classic Commando — you can see, and read, why they were such a runaway hit from Day One.

Originally Commando No 4 (July 1961), re-issued as No 2547 (March 1992)

Story: Castle
Art: Gordon Livingstone
Cover Art: Ken Barr

Commando 4424

TUNNEL OF DOOM

Flat on his stomach on the railway line, Private Andy Morgan crawled forward grimly. It was up to him to stop a Nazi armoured train — and all he had to do it with was one single hand-grenade.
   And what made it even tougher for Andy was that the only two guys with him were the type who would pack up and run if things got dicey.

Introduction by Scott Montgomery, Commando Deputy Editor

In this brilliant tale we meet a couple of ne’er’do’wells who seem to positively revel in their bad attitude and lack of discipline. The aptly named Dodger Harland and Scrounger Dunville are classic Commando characters and it’s not long before they’ve had a bad influence over Andy Morgan, our fledgling hero.
   However, when push comes to shove, perhaps these two aren’t quite what they seem…Redemption is a common Commando theme and this cracking story, with its gritty interior art and a superbly painted cover by Penalva, has an eerily original spin on it.

Originally Commando No 450 (January 1970), re-issued as No 1271 (November 1978)

Story: Allan
Art: Bielsa
Cover Art: Jordi Penalva

Commando No 4425

What do you get if you send a marauding, aristocratic “Toffs Brigade” on a race against time to recover their stolen regimental silver?
   You get a rip-roaring adventure, that’s what!
   And if that’s not enough, don’t forget to add a battered but trusty Bedford QL lorry nicknamed “Queenie”…better known as the

PRIDE OF THE DESERT

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Benet
Cover Art: Benet

Commando 4426

Killer Condor

“Relax, it’s one of ours.” So said the U-boat’s look out as the looming shape of a Focke-Wulf Condor appeared over them.
   Unfortunately the crew of the bomber didn’t seem to realise that the sub was on their side for its lethal payload was soon tumbling down to bring destruction and death to the men below.
   The Killer Condor had struck again but surely at the wrong target…

Story: Mac Macdonald
Art: Carlos Pino
Cover Art: Carlos Pino

All images © DC Thomson 2011

Achtung Commando - (And A Brief History of Repro for Commercial Printing)

2011-08-31T21:06:00.002+01:00

Behold there is a new batch of Commandos due to go on sale tomorrow and for your dear old blogmeister a moment of true nostalgia as the latest of the first twelve issues gets it's third revival.

When in July 1961, I saw the distinctive Ken Barr cover in my weekly Victor Comic I just couldn't believe a comic could look that good. It was the drama of the scene and the British paratrooper falling into the cliff side nest of Nazi gunners with their helmets all aglow with the last rays of the setting sun in the beautifully executed reflections that added so much extra punch to Barr''s work.

When this now historic comic appeared fifty years ago it looked great, it was an example of the wonders of commercial printing. In those days the artist would send in their artwork usually on board and it would be photographed and the transparencies would be the source of the plates used to print his artwork using four runs (sometimes more) which would print a sequence of dots in 1). Cyan 2). Magenta 3). Yellow and 4). Black. By the time Commando number four was printed the whole process was pretty refined and misalignments creating out of register prints were the exception rather than the rule.

Here you can see the results:

Now then let's spin the hands of the clock forward three decades or so and as the pages from the calendar whip past our heads we are in 1992 and here is the same issue again reprinted and as DC Thomson (canny Scots that they are - "och aye wuirrrrrrr nay fools ye ken") have hung onto their original Barr artwork they can now present you with an even sharper example of the painting via digital scanning, which in 1992 means DRUM scanning.

Now drum scanning is good - very good in fact for catching every little nuance that a camera in 1961 would have hinted at rather than reproduced in minute detail.

But ... there is a price to be paid. To get the artwork scanned you have to ever so, ever so, evvverrrr so carefully pull the artwork off it's backing board. In the 1980's illustrators could buy artboard specifically for this purpose - it was called stripper board and you would pull up the corner and then gently roll the corner away from you using a cardboard tube to wrap the thing around. This is what seems to have happened with Barr's painting, only the board he created the picture on was not being as co-operative as the person tasked to perform this operation might have hoped and it looks like the operative placed with this delicate task might had substituted an object of much smaller radius to anchor the paper on as he rolled it off it's board.

Something like a biro perhaps???...

You can almost sense the rivulets of sweat coursing down the operative's brow as Ken Barr's 30 year old gouache started to flake away from the surface leaving this cover as mute testimony to the travails of studio bodging:

Now then we spin the clock hands forward another twenty years and here is the same cover again, in even sharper detail courtesy of further advances in the art of digital scanning and looky looky!

Yup by the hands of some studio whizz kid tiddling around in Photoshop we have a minor restorative miracle.

Not sure about the Green on the Denison smock though...

I'll post more about these comics tomorrow, I've had an email from my dear old mate Malcolm who has gently nudged me in the direction of reducing the gap the blog postings have been prone to.

There are a variety of excuses I can offer you guys, but one of them when it is made a bit more public will I am sure gain your approval.

All images © DC Thomson 2011.

James McConnell - The UK's Very Own Pulp Artist.

2011-08-23T22:44:00.000+01:00

There are some artists where love of their subject matter is accompanied by an equally passionate love of it's iconography.

Such an artist was the Northumberland born James McConnell. Born in 1903 he was a near contemporary of such US artists as Norman Saunders and Hugh Ward and like both those artists he seemed most at home with rugged and doughty heroes in equally rugged landscape, where a man had only his wits, his hoss and his sixguns to keep himself alive.

McConnell who spent much of his early manhood working for a block maker, studied part time at London's St Martin's School of Art until at the age of thirty he was finally able to realize his ambition of becoming a full time commercial artist. Like his US contemporaries Saunders and Ward he would have found a perfect home with the publishers of pulp magazines, but although such outlets were not really viable (or even existent) in 1930's Britain, the burgeoning paperback market was soon to provide regular employment.

Here then are some samples from those early years of McConnell's career before a certain Fleet Street editor by name of Leonard Matthews spied his work and inundated him with as much work as he could handle for a new project which was to eventually become the famed children's weekly Look and Learn.

Louis Raemaekers - The Power to Shock

2011-08-16T10:02:00.001+01:00

It's easy in this age of mass communications and on the spot film crews to overlook just how important illustration was as a means of imparting news of unfolding events at the start of the previous century. In the case of the Dutch artist Louis Raemaekers, his depiction of German military aggression during the First World War was so powerful and so brutal that when the Dutch government was presented with a de facto cease and desist order from Germany, Raemaekers and his family eventually had to settle in London. Dutch neutrality being no guarantee of his safety.

When one compares Raemaekers work with that of the Second World War cartoonist David Low, some twenty years later, one is immediately struck by the sheer savagery of Raemaker's art. Low in comparison seems quite benign.

To get anywhere near a Second World War equivalent of the visceral rage of Raemaekers' work one would need to look at the drawings made by Soviet cartoonists. The equivalence being that in both cases the artists had first hand experience of the horrors of war.

For more information on Louis Raemaekers check out the excellent biography of this great artist on John Adcock's essential Yesterday's Papers blog and once you've soaked up all the information, journey on through the electronic mists of cyberspace to the wonderful ASIFA Animation Blog where more of these incredible drawings are displayed.

Growing Old Disgracefully and One of the Coolest Bands Ever!!!

2011-08-06T18:36:00.001+01:00

As readers of this blog are aware, from time to time I deviate from the world of comics and illustration
and venture into the potentially contentious zone of music. Each time I do I am aware that there is no greater divider of cultural morays than the world of rock and roll. I can well remember the week at Brighton Art College, when towards the end of an altogether very harmonious first year, someone thought with summer looming and final assessments for the year over, it would be really very chilled to have some music.

Enter - The Dansette Record Player.

Enter - Disc(h)ord.

Within a day the studio was polarised. Girls with platform soles (it was the early 1970's folks) tottered over to the infernal machine to pile up a stack of 45s as in revolutions per minute - but not much of a revolution if all you end up with is Gilbert O'Sullivan or David Essex. Over in my corner the Northern contingent would shake their greasy tresses and call for "sum Sabbath" and "there's nowt like a blast of Hawkwind", whilst my mate Dave espying a Beach Boys album tucked under the bri-nylon wing of one the graphic designers, declared that there was no effing way he was going to tolerate listening to a bunch of namby pamby surfers.

So I try not to venture too many opinions on rock - just occasionally as in from time to time.

Part of the problem is that I come from a generation that believes it's music was the best, partly this is a generational phenomena as in everybody believes that theirs was the best music and partly because the art form itself has stuck in a kind of time warp groove for the last fifty plus years. Big bands as in the Glenn Miller era were almost a blink of the eye in comparison.

So people of my generation cleave to their comfort blankets and if you want a reminder of how strong this urge is just look at magazines like Mojo when next you step into your newsagent.

In my opinion this is sadsville. I did have a subscription to Mojo magazine which I ran for several years until I got so bored with their dumbed down crop rotation system of:

Dylan, The Beatles, The Stones, Clapton, Queen, The Clash, Dylan, The Beatles, Zeppelin, that in a fit of hubris I sent the editor a letter to warn him if they didn't mend their ways and talk about happening music I would terminate my subscription. Something along the lines of "if I am in my fifties I don't need the constant reminders thank you". Needless to say no response, so I cancelled the subscription in a mood of self righteous ire. Mercifully before the next issue with a check list of 10 little known facts about Elvis Presley hit the streets.

Pity the poor journos who have to dish up this drivel, I could walk away they can't.

Not that I'm entirely down on old farts making a ruckus. As an example of the wonders of third age rock n' roll check out these madmen - aka The Special Branch, doing a cover of the immortal Dr Feelgood classic, "Going Back Home":

Wonderfully anarchic moment with the Tijuana Tin Sandwich!

But for the most part as with all artistic endeavors I like to face forward, so bands I'm listening to at the moment include this outfit:

Absolutely addictive stuff if your into psych drenched, feedback suffused, mesmeric music:

Another band that falls outside of the mainstream radar and ought to be checked out if they ever play a gig near you.

And in the meantime check out The Crocodiles MySpace for more of this exquisite stuff.

Sci-Fi Meets World War 2

2011-07-26T23:31:00.000+01:00

Ron Turner is rightly regarded as one of the leading illustrators of post war UK science fiction but by the early 1960's work his workload was beginning to ease up just a little bit. Not to the extent that he was going to have to put away his paints and brushes and get a proper job, but perhaps expanding his client base beyond science fiction covers for Scion and Rick Random strips would at least reduce his exposure to that most dread of illustrative phenomena the quite fortnight or even (horror of horrors) the quiet month.

So ever the pragmatist, Turner's work started appearing on the covers of Practical Mechanics and even the outlined and number keyed artworks that were sold as a means of assuaging people's frustrated creativity were soon to feature Turner's artistry. Yup! Astonishing as it may seem Ron Turner contributed designs for Craft Master's Painting by Numbers kits.

Some of them at least were science fiction subjects.

He also contributed a really different take on the classic war pocket library when he provided the interior artwork for issue 177 of Fleetway's Super Detective Library.

Lovely work indeed!

Cover by Nino Caroselli - the rest by Ron Turner.

Images © IPC Media 2011.

More News From Commando HQ and a Teaser From Mr Flake

2011-07-18T22:27:00.000+01:00

As in Mr. Flake your sometime blogmeister. The good news is that the mad surfeit of work is coming to an end and I can devote more time to this much neglected blog. But and here's the even better news, I am working on a project which takes the very generous observation of Mirabilis author Dave Morris, about wishing that some of the subjects that we have covered on this blog over the last two years could be published then wouldn't that be cool or words to that effect.

Well I have an even better thought and that is that wouldn't it be great if several of this countries most energetic ephemera enthusiasts got together to commit their researches to print rather than blogoshere then wouldn't that be even cooler?

Well just such a project is in the works and more will be revealed shortly.

In the meantime, here is a double biller of current and imminent Commando's from Calum Laird and the boys at Commando HQ.

Commando 4407 – They Came By Night

BEACON OF DOOM

Without warning the periscope of a U-boat broke the surface. It turned and focussed on the Locksea Lighthouse. Then, slowly, the glistening, black hull of the submarine came up from the depths.
   No one could deny the courage and cool cheek of the Nazi Commander who had made up his mind to capture this vital link in the guiding of our Atlantic convoys.
   Then, into what was to be the most fantastic episodes of the war, sailed Skipper Jimmy Cleeves and his RAF rescue launch K20.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

Nowadays Commando writers have it tough. In our 50 years, loads of plots have been used, and they have to try really hard to find a new angle on things. Back in 1961, though, when Commando first broke cover, the writers had a very open field to work with.
   So you might think that this sixth story to come out would be very straightforward. If you did, you’d be wrong. It has ships, subs, bombers, recce planes, a lighthouse…and even a carrier pigeon.
   Even when they’ve got it easy, Commando authors just can’t help writing cracking stores.

They Came By Night, originally Commando No 6 (August 1961), re-issued as No 2563 (April 1992)

Story: Couglin
Art: Savi
Cover: Ken Barr

Commando 4408 The Cop Who Went To War

Dave Marley was a policeman ⎯ and proud of it. When the war came, he joined the Military Police and found that a lot of soldiers acted just like the blokes in civvy street who didn’t want to know a copper until they had trouble.
   But now there was more than brawls and bank robbers to think about. There were difficult problems to be tackled with the added danger of shells and bullets crashing all around. Yes, it was a tough job, being a Military policeman…

Introduction by George Low, former Commando Editor

The Military Police do a difficult and dangerous job, and it’s not always appreciated by the common soldier, sailor or airman. In the rough and tumble of war, men fresh from action often don’t take it well when a Redcap gets on their case. How to win the doubters over? Prove that you are as tough and as capable of dealing with the enemy as the front-line fighters are.
   Roger Montague shows this up well in a crisp 1975 script and Ibanez-Igual did his bit with the line artwork. The cover? That’s Ian Kennedy, of course. He draws a mean motorbike as well as the aircraft he’s renowned for.

The Cop Who Went To War, originally Commando No 982 (November 1975), re-issued as No 2323 (November 1989)

Story: RA Montague
Art: Ibanez-Igual
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

Commando 4409 Codename: Houdini

Andor Lakatos and his two younger brothers were a popular circus escapology touring Eastern Europe just before the start of the Second World War. When the Germans invaded of Poland in 1939 the three brothers were caught up in the chaos.
   Andor, in particular, was drawn against his will into wartime espionage, given the codename Houdini after the great escapologist.
   With danger at every corner it seemed unlikely even Andor could escape this murky world of shadows and treachery?

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Rezzonico
Cover Art: Janek Matysiak

Commando 4410 “Talk…Or Die!”

It seemed a straightforward job, risky but straightforward. Flying a helicopter full of gold out of South Vietnam before the advancing North Vietnamese army got their hands on it.
   As an ex Australian Air Force chopper pilot, Brendan Beckett thought the job would give him no real trouble. So how did he come to be tied to a post, knee-deep in rising water? Well, it’s a long story.

Story: Tom Hart
Art Benet
Cover Art: Benet

Commando 4411 Double Vision!

Remember Max Singer and Sid O’Brien and their adventures when they played the dangerous roles as doubles for Adolf Hitler and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in Commando “Seeing Double”?
   Well, they’re back...And in deeper trouble than ever!

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Carlos Pino
Cover Art: Carlos Pino

Commando 4412 Wings Of Warriors

Marc Lebel was a young, hot-headed French Air Force pilot, determined to halt the Nazis. But when his mentor died saving his life, Marc’s thirst for revenge looked like it would be the end of him as well…

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Rezzonico
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

Commando 4413 Revenge Of The Phantom

Major Gunther Stolle of the SS did not believe in ghosts — a brutal thug like him didn’t bother with such nonsense. Even when tough German troops broke and fled, gasping out tales of a phantom tank crew, he still didn’t believe it.
   But soon he was going to know the terrible truth, for the commander of the tank had vowed to hunt him down…even from beyond the grave!

Introduction by George Low, former Commando Editor

They say you can’t beat a good ghost story and here’s the proof. There’s not only a ghostly crew but their tank is a phantom too. The advance up through Italy with British-manned Sherman tanks…plus dastardly nasty Nazis adding to this witch’s brew…chills and excites with every page.
   John Ridgway made the spirit flesh in 1974 and Penalva carried on the theme with a spine-chilling cover. Excellent work from Alan Lomas with the script and it’s a great treat for Halloween…or any other day of the year. Just don’t read this one alone or in the dark…

Originally Commando No 818 (February 1974), re-issued as No 2188 (June 1988)

Story: Alan Lomas
Art: John Ridgway
Cover Art: Jordi Penalva

Commando 4414 Walrus Patrol

They flew their scrapheaps into some mighty strange places

Donald Ducks, Flying Scrapheaps, Rattletraps. Walrus crews got fed up of the names other blokes called their big clumsy Walrus flying-boats.
   Then an RAF desert bomber group asked for fighter support and, to their horror, in lumbered two air-sea rescue Walruses!
   Not until their own bombers were destroyed the day before a big raid did the RAF scoffers find out what those “rattle-traps” could do in the hands of pilots like Bill Donovan and Al Tucker.
   Then “Donovan’s Ducks” took off in a blaze of glory.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

It’s strange what sticks in your mind through the years. When I came to re-read this for the first time since the late 60s, I could clearly recall the picture near the start of the story where the British aircrew were struggling in the water as sharks circled them. It was as good a use of applied tone as ever I’ve seen but that’s no surprise, the man who did it was Gordon Livingstone, an expert.
   His inside art more than does justice to the story, while Ken Barr’s cover depicting two Walruses doing what no Walrus should piques your curiosity so much that you just have to read it. Well, go on then, what are you waiting for?

Originally Commando No 284 (September 1967), re-issued as No 979 (November 1975)

Story: McOwan
Art: Gordon Livingstone
Cover Art: Ken Barr

Images © DC Thomson 2011.

John Millar Watt

2011-07-13T22:18:00.006+01:00

John Millar Watt, was as many of you will be aware, one of the many talents who helped add an artistic flourish to Leonard Matthews Look and Learn magazine when the UK's children's educational weekly was first launched in 1962.

By this stage of his career Millar Watt was heading towards his seventies, but his artwork remained as beguiling as ever. His paintings were fashioned with an almost ethereal, jewel-like application of paint and ink to finely rendered figure-work. The overall effect was often quite haunting and at times just a little unsettling, they were images which remained with the viewer long after the magazine had been set aside.

Millar Watt, was typical of men of that generation insomuch as he had seen a lot of life, having had his art studies interrupted by the Great War, where he appropriately enough served in the Artist's Rifles. Upon returning to civvy street he pursued a successful career in illustration, until in 1921 he almost serendipitously created a comic strip that was to prove such a hit with audiences both at home and in the U.S. that he became enslaved to the life of "Pop" and his family.

Yo can check out some samples of "Pop" on John Adcock's excellent Yesterday's Papers blog.

Watt became shackled to the world of Pop for 28 years before finally giving the old boy his curtain call, by which time he was positively champing at the bit. The year was 1949 and a meeting with Leonard Matthews was to provide the artist with more than enough work to fill the rotund void left by the departed Pop.

Here's some of the work he created for Look and Learn.

Norman Maurer - 2 X 3 = 3D Comics And The 3 Stooges

2011-07-09T12:56:00.000+01:00

Norman Maurer epitomized all that is great about New Yorkers, a lot of chutzpah with a dynamo of drive to back it up. Enough of both of these qualities to get him rubbing shoulders with Charles Biro and Bob Wood where he was instrumental in creating a comic book filler feature that became so popular that it eventually usurped the title's flagship superhero. The comic in question was Daredevil ( the 1940's version and very different to Marvel's Daredevil) yet another of Biro and Wood's comic packages for publisher Lev Gleason (there is a fascinating profile of Gleason to be accessed here) and Maurer's feature went under the memorable title of The Little Wise Guys.

Maurer's association with Biro and Wood continued into the early fifties but with the contraction of the comic book industry as a result of the anti horror and crime comics putsch, he sought out new avenues and as has been previously documented on this blog with the technical expertise of his brother Leonard and artistry of Joe Kubert, he set about creating the first ever 3D comic. The riches that they envisaged never really happened as they had been outmanoeuvred by none other than EC publisher William Gaines who tracked down the holder of the "original" patent, bought it off the elderly gent concerned and then launched litigation in the direction of anyone seeking to produce 3D comics. Maurer and Co. were first in the firing line.

However Maurer had a few more irons in the fire, well at least one which seemed to offer some imminent promise. He had really good showbiz connections, insofar as he was married to the daughter of Moe Howard, one of the Three Stooges and when their contract with Columbia pictures was terminated in 1957, he stepped in and became their manager and effectively revived their career, writing, producing and directing many of their later films and shows as well as introducing them to a new generation of TV viewers via Cambria Studios animated series.

But his energies went further as he was also instrumental in the development of CineMagic, a process of integrating hand drawn effects onto film which was first showcased in the film The Angry Red Planet in 1959. The somewhat underwhelming results can be glimpsed here:

His work in film continued as he developed a rapport with the Hanna-Barbera Studio but he never entirely severed his connections with comics and even during the early 1970's while he was scripting episodes of Scooby Doo he was also contributing the occasional strip to his old friend Joe Kubert's Our Army at War comic.

Here is a sample of his work on one of those infamous Crime Does Not Pay stories from 1948.

Nominate a Commando!

2011-07-03T00:13:00.005+01:00

Over at Commando HQ, editor Calum Laird and his team are canvassing nominations for Commando comics which readers would like to see reprinted. I'm pleased to see that one of my all time favorite stories Man-Trap (Commando No. 184) is already on the list of worthy contenders, and if you have suggestions I would urge you to visit the Commando website and post your suggestions.

Here's another of mine, one of the earliest Commandos and one whose cover was so shocking for it's time that it absolutely commanded your attention. In addition to the powerful Ken Barr cover, the script by retired Major Eric Hebden and artwork by Jose Bielsa made for one of the most memorable comics of this title's first year. It's worth mentioning that although DC Thomson would always supply photographic reference to their artists, the selection of appropriate photos in 1961 just wasn't that great. Hebden's script demanded a certain amount of licence as he described a death's head insignia on the SS men's helmets, but in reality this would have been a collar flash and not helmet decal. The reference that Thomson's seem to have supplied Jose Bielsa looks as if it was sourced from a photograph of Finnish troops who fought against their traditional enemy the Russians as part of the Nazi's allies. The photograph in question shows a group of Finnish troops in 1945 wearing remarkably shoddy looking tunics and German 1942 pattern Stahlhelms (apart from the man on the far right wearing a 1916 pattern helmet) decorated with the somewhat outre Finnish devised skulls used by Bielsa. Barr's cover is a tad more convincing in regard to the uniforms but still way of the mark compared to a photograph of the kind of SS troops that British troops would have encountered as the following photograph depicts.

But don't let this deter you from casting a vote for Commando No. 25 - or any other Commando that takes your fancy for that matter.

It's all part of the fun of this remarkable comics fiftieth birthday celebrations.

All artwork © DC Thomson 2011.

Crime Does Not Pay (Or Does It???)

2011-06-29T14:02:00.000+01:00

Regular visitors to this blog will bear with me I am sure when as I am doing today, I deviate from the world of comics and fantasy art in general to talk of matters which affect us all.

I am not going to bore you with too much introductory blather, but for people like myself who have been completely pissed off and disaffected with the under-reporting of the world's biggest ever financial deceit as it slowly unfolded over the last ten years, Charles Ferguson's film, Inside Job is an absolutely essential piece of viewing. This documentary is brilliantly conceived, Ferguson's technique being to simply allow the power brokers at the heart of this disaster to talk and what they have to say is a devastating indictment of the greed and hubris of a group of people who have literally become a law unto themselves, whilst lesser mortals have to pick up the tab.

Here is a link to the film on YouTube, which I suspect won't be around for much longer. But this film is available via Netflix or LoveFilm or via Amazon as either a DVD or online rental. Buy it and watch it and pass it on.

And as regards U.K. TV which used to be the envy of the world (or so the BBC still regards itself), here is the sort of reporting they could have been doing a few years ago, it might have at least forewarned savers about where not to locate their hard earned pension funds.

and:

Now bear in mind this aired in August of 2007.

There's plenty more financially prescient journalism from Max Keiser, to be accessed via YouTube and the web in general.

Artwork © Sony Pictures Classics

Further Demands on Flexible Friends

2011-06-27T08:57:00.003+01:00

There are so many beautifully realized books devoted to classic comic strips that it is nigh on impossible to keep apace of all of them. But referring back to an earlier posting on this blog about the life and troubled times of Bob Wood and Charles Biro and their excessively lurid Crime Does Not Pay comic, I thought I ought to mention a forthcoming collection from Dark Horse Books.

Titled Blackjacked and Pistol Whipped, the cover for this collection is by the superb designer/ illustrator Peter Poplaski and brilliantly pastiches Charles Biro's luridly mundane cover art as he depicts the moment when Biro's publishing partner Bob Wood murdered his girlfriend in a drunken brawl in room 91 of NYC's Irving Hotel. There is a fascinating article by the legendary publisher Denis Kitchen which accompanies this book and sheds further light on the dodgy dealings and nefarious activities that helped spawn this horrible but nonetheless fascinating line of comics. If the editorial team of
a notorious boozer with a succession of violent and abusive relationships and a hyper driven chancer whose tawdry crime covers were knocked out with a pet monkey on his shoulder seems a little unlikely, then there are further surprises in store as you read about some of the other players in the story of one of the U.S.'s most infamous lines of comics. There are moments when the lives of the men behind this title seem at times to upstage the stories that are re-presented in this excellent book.

Definitely on my list of must have items the book will be published on September 13th.

Aces High

2011-06-24T20:21:00.000+01:00

Here for your delectation are some of the earliest Air Ace Picture Library covers by among others Giorgio De Gaspari, Nino Caroselli and Alessandro Biffingandi. These covers first appeared from January 1960 onwards and were part of the astonishing renaissance of post war pocket libraries, which was due in no small measure to the vision and drive of Leonard Matthews and his launching of Thriller Comics Library and Cowboy Comics Library some ten years earlier.

More details on these extraordinary comics and their stablemates can be read in Volumes 1 and 2 of The Fleetway Libraries Index edited by Steve Holland and available from Book Palace Books.

Commando - A Birthday Looms.

2011-06-21T20:58:00.000+01:00

We've been running news and covers of Commando, the UK's longest running pocket war comic as it celebrates it's 50th birthday. The actual date of the first ever appearance of Commando was the 27th July 1961, when Walk or Die and They Called Him Coward first appeared with covers by Ken Barr, signalling a new and more much US Pulp styled approach top pocket library covers.

So this coming Monday is the old guy's birthday and along with the non alcoholic celebrations that will enliven the Commando HQ in Dundee's Albert Square, there s a special of the comic (No 4404) going under the title of The Misfit Squad which has been specially written for this momentous occasion and long time Commando afficionados will have a lot of fun spotting some of the more cyptic references contained within the story.

Meanwhile Commando's excellent series of early and key issue reprints continues and amongst the latest eight issues to appear is the reprint of The Ship They Couldn't Sink, which for all those sad anoraks like me, I'm also including a scan of the original cover.

And if that isn't enough reason to get excited there is also an upcoming exhibition at The National Army Museum featuring 70 of the very best Commando covers spanning it's 50 year run commencing on September the 1st. A book featuring 50 of the best Commando covers will be published in October.

Commando No 4399

THE SHIP THEY COULDN’T SINK

BADGE OF COURAGE

The mighty German battle-cruiser lay silent in the Atlantic fog, waiting, her guns loaded and ready. And straight into this trap a convoy of heavily-laden merchant ships was sailing.
   On a radar screen the German Captain watched its progress with a grim smile. He was master of their fate and would spare not a single ship.
   But there was a gleam of hope for the convoy — the gleam of the golden badge of the Royal Navy aboard one ship — a tiny ship. But crammed with British fighting courage…

Story: Gray
Inside Art: Ros
Cover Art: Ken Barr

Introduction By Calum Laird, Commando Editor

Ken Barr’s dramatic cover showing a German bomber exploding in mid-air might make you wonder if this really is a sea story, but rest assured that it is. You can almost smell the salt as HMS Sniper smashes her way through the waves to meet her destiny.
   The combination of Gray’s dark story, with the equally dark artwork supplied by Ros, results in a naval adventure par excellence. Right up until the end, you have no idea how the tale will play out for the gallant Royal Naval heroes who have not exactly seen eye-to-eye throughout.
   With crackling action like this, it’s little wonder that Commando became such a hit in the early 60s…I’m just sorry I was slightly too young to read it at the time. I’m glad to have caught up with it now and I’m sure you will be too.

The Ship They Couldn’t Sink, originally Commando No 7 (September 1961), re-issued as No 2571 (June 1992)

Commando 4400

ESCAPE!

Everyone knew Ted Whitmore was yellow. Everything he did proved it. He even got himself and his men captured and put in a prison cage.
   But then things began to happen — things that made his men stare in amazement and the enemy run for their lives!

Story: Cyril Walker
Inside Art: Gordon Livingstone
Cover Art: Gordon Livingstone

Introduction by George Low, former Commando Editor

A coward turns hero in grand style, facing up to the Afrika Korps in the desert against a backdrop of Roman legions from centuries before. It’s helped a lot by the fact that it’s a 1971 double whammy…inside artwork and cover by Gordon Livingstone, one of our legendary artists.
Gordon still has nightmares when he remembers the hundreds of charging desert horsemen he has been “asked” to draw over the years. The script by Cyril Walker is pretty good too, but we expected that of Cyril.

Escape!, originally Commando No 589 (October 1971), re-issued as No 1683 ( March 1983)

Commando No 4401

League Of Nations

During the three-year Korean War, a host of different nationalities were brought together to fight together under the United Nations flag. Generally they put their differences aside and did just that.
   But one group of men thrown together by the conflict didn’t look likely to be able to get along at all…even though their lives depended on it.

Story: Mac MacDonald
Inside Art: Carlos Pino
Cover Art: Carlos Pino

Commando No 4402

BANDIT ARMY

A squad of British Royal Engineers are dropped behind the lines to halt German demolition work in occupied Italy. Unfortunately, they end up miles from their target, deep in the rugged mountains of Calabria.
   To make matters worse, there’s a Waffen SS unit on their tail — and they’re caught in a violent feud between two warring Italian mountain clans!
   The Italians will have put all their differences aside to fight alongside the British against the common enemy…but can they?

Story: Alan Hebden
Inside Art: Olivera
Cover Art: Janek Matysiak

This is one of our digital covers, no pen, ink, paper or paint involved.

Commando 4403

The Defector? — Which side is he on?

Lieutenant Levka Kosilev was a man of principle, a man who would repay a debt of honour. The Russian officer had only survived the dark days of World War II thanks to the actions of a brave American corporal and his squad. He knew how much he owed them.
   Some years later Levka — now an observer with the forces of the North during the Korean War — expectedly found himself in a position to settle the debt. To do so, however, he would have to defect. Could he do it?

Story: Freg Handley
Inside Art: Keith Page
Cover Art: Keith Page

Commando 4404

Misfit Squad

Dave, Brian, Pete and Sid were undoubtedly the worst soldiers their C.O. had ever come across. He doubted they would ever get through their basic training. But Sergeant Rod Black thought differently, he could see something in the four that no one else could.
   And one night in June some 50 years ago he and his misfit squad got the chance to prove him right…or wrong!

Story: Mac MacDonald
Inside Art: Carlos Pino
Cover Art: Carlos Pino

Introduction to the 5oth birthday edition

Lots of things have changed over the last 50 years...the Berlin wall has risen and fallen, the moon now has bootprints on it and the internet has changed the world in a way that could not have been foreseen in June 1961.
   But amongst all these changes, some things have remained unaltered. Take Commando for instance - it's still packed with action and adventure, everyman heroes and villains, and the best comic art still resides on and between its covers.
   To celebrate our 50 years, a special story has been written. And it's got all those qualities that make Commando something special.
   This is that story and the whole Commando team, past, present and future, hopes that you'll enjoy it as much as No1 was enjoyed in June 1961.

Commando 4405

A Stirling Called Satan

It was dead unlucky, that Stirling bomber. Flying low it would catch most of the flak, flying high it was certain to be pounced on by enemy fighters. Every time the crew set off on another mission they wondered if it was going to be their last. Even its number, five-three-five, added up to thirteen…

Story: R.A. Montague
Inside Art: Mira
Cover Art: Keith Walker

Introduction by Mike Stirling, Beano Editor

To pick my favourite issue was a challenging mission, because I’ve enjoyed several lengthy engagements with Commando over the years. I’ve chosen A Stirling Called Satan for several reasons. Most importantly, I remember first encountering it in 1988.
I was fourteen, at secondary school and my favourite subject was history. I loved reading too, so Commando was a natural choice after moving on from The Beano and Roy of the Rovers. Imagine how excited I was when I saw my name on the cover — even if it was connected with Satan himself!
I was so captivated by idea that there was a plane called the “Stirling” that I actually bought, and built, a model kit version. Well, actually two versions; my first attempt at painting it was a disaster.
The story is classic Commando; ordinary guys doing extraordinary things. I always tried to imagine what I’d do in similar situations. I never ran away, but it’s easy to be brave in your imagination. There is a freaky superstitious undertone too — nothing is predictable in a Commando story.
I still enjoy Commando today, even amongst all the fabulous publications I’m privileged to read as part of my job. It just goes to prove that Commando’s brand of action and adventure resonates across ages.

A Stirling Called Satan, originally Commando No 869 (September 1974), re-issued as No 2159 (February 1988)

Commando 4406

Heads You Win Can’t Lose

When Ned Dolan flicked a penny in the air and David Bradford called tails, it looked as though he had signed his own death warrant — for the loser was to become bait for a deadly German sniper. And Dolan had never — but never — lost a toss with this special penny.

Story: Cyril Walker
Inside Art: J. Fuente
Cover Art: Penalva

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

Re-reading this book after so many years, I began to think that I had chosen the wrong book. Sure, Penalva’s cracking cover with its crazy viewpoint was as I remembered it, but I didn’t recall the armoured cars. Then the jeeps arrived and I knew all was well. I even remembered the balloon which began, “fellow footsloggers of the humble infantry…” and the huge fist fight that followed.
   In fact, the punch-ups are almost the signature of Snr Fuente’s inside artwork. He puts so much action and movement into them that they don’t seem like static pictures at all. Later I would work with author Cyril Walker’s material, something I’m sure I acquired a taste for in this tale of double-dealing and double-crossing.

Tails You Win Can’t Lose, originally Commando No 368 (November 1968), re-issued as No 1091 (January 1977).

All images © DC Thomson 2011

A Portal to the Past - Matania's Historical Illustrations

2011-06-18T23:13:00.001+01:00

By the time that Fortunino Matania commenced working for Leonard Matthews Look and Learn magazine, the artist was heading into his eighties with a formidable array of illustrations which illustrated not just significant events of the 20th century but much of the epoch defining moments of earlier years as well.

So here are a few more Matania artworks all shot from the original paintings, courtesy of the Book Palace Art Gallery.

Matania and the Great War

2011-06-15T17:15:00.000+01:00

Fortunino Matania's depiction of the First World War may seem at times highly sanitized and more reminiscent of G.A. Henty than Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but in terms of fulfilling the brief to provide readers of illustrated journals such as The Sphere that were so popular in the early part of the twentieth century with images of a conflict that would seismically reshape that century, his work was without peer.

Here's some more reasons why...

More From Matania

2011-06-13T21:19:00.002+01:00

Some truly stupendous paintings by Fortunino Matania from 1914-1916 when photography, access to the front line and communication systems not to mention the ever present censorship which shackles all war reportage (it's still happening today) effectively prevented up to the minute news coverage of such epoch shaking events as the fall of Belgium and it's sea ports in the first few months of what came to be known as The Great War.

Note in the dps of the fall of Liege, that not only are those beastly Huns looting and pillaging the goodly citizens of Belgium but also they are kicking their dogs as well.

Was there no end to Teutonic perfidy???

As can be gleaned from earlier postings on this wonderful artist, Matania was not only a tremendous draftsman but he also had a truly inventive mind and what the camera couldn't access he could conjure up with pencil, watercolor and ink.

Here then are some more examples of his amazing artistry.

Ron Embleton - The Penthouse Years

2011-06-09T22:49:00.002+01:00

Whilst Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder were working flat out every month to produce a full color and lavishly painted soft porn comic strip titled Little Annie Fanny for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine over in the UK, the one man power house art studio otherwise known as Ron Embleton was having the time of his life, producing all the artwork for Wicked Wanda to a script provided by Frederic Mullaly. As time went on, Embleton characteristically began to provide ideas and eventually scripts for the strip, as with Wulf it was once again becoming another Embleton production.

The strip lasted from 1973 to 1980 and was a truly credible riposte to Kurtzman and Elder's Little Annie Fanny.

Here are some fabulous originals sourced by The Book Palace, see if you can spot the Embleton self portrait in the large artwork.

Giorgio D' Gaspari - More of the Missing Jewels

2011-06-07T21:29:00.001+01:00

More and more of Giorgio D' Gaspari's exquisite art from the golden years of Fleetway pocket libraries is surfacing. D' Gaspari's first UK pocket library covers appeared in Fleetway's Thriller Picture Library. It was almost happenstance that his covers began to dominate the earliest issues of War Picture Library. Happenstance insofar as many of the earliest issues of War Picture Library were originally scheduled as Thriller Picture Library specials, or Battler Britton issues. A case in point being Fight Back to Dunkirk, which was originally to be titled Dunkirk and run in Thriller Picture Library. You can detect some of the Battler Britton issues, The Gallant Few being an interesting case, where Britton was relegated to a mentor'esque role to the young flight sergeant upon whom the story hinges. It has to be stressed that Battler Britton was the sort of chap that would take on the entire Whermacht with nothing more than his bare fists and a line of jolly repartee. This was in jarring contrast to the much more character driven and gritty scripts which became the staple of War Picture Library and it's successors, Battle and Air Ace Picture Libraries. Nowhere is the contrast between the two schools of writing more evident than the Battler Britton script that ended up in Air Ace Picture Library under the title Flash Point, where even the superb artwork of Joe Colquhoun and a cover by Pino Del Lorco failed to elevate this issue from being one of the worst of the entire run of Air Ace comics.

The story was reprinted in the otherwise excellent collection of Air Ace stories edited by none other than Steve Holland titled Aces High and again it's the only truly duff story in the collection, but I suspect that Steve was as beguiled by Joe Colquhoun's peerless artwork as I am, which makes it at least worth skimming through.

Anyway enough of my waffle, here's some more D'Gaspari artwork:

When Deadlines Loom...

2011-06-05T23:25:00.000+01:00

Here is a photograph of a guy and his gal taken, I would hazard a guess, in 1957.

But the location for the photo shoot would have been Bolton, Lancashire - not downtown L.A. in California.

And the man in question isn't some gun totin' crazy, it is in fact the illustrator Denis McLoughlin and his lovely missus Dorothy.

Denis McLoughlin was wrestling with deadlines - so what else was new for the man also referred to as publisher T.V. Boardman's one man art department? He'd just produced fully painted (as in time consuming fully painted) covers for Jack Webb's Bad Blonde and Robert Bloomfield's When Strangers Meet, he was also producing all the artwork for T.V.B's Buffalo Bill Annuals and his schedule was so hectic that he would sometimes find himself having to bat out three covers in a day.

Those deadlines weren't going to go away anytime soon.

So...

instead of using a photo as reference he would occasionally treat the photo as an element of the artwork as in the case of Sam Ross's The Tight Corner.

A pragmatic but nevertheless punchy approach to deadline busting. Illustrators and their wives never looked sharper.

Two Views of the Battle of Agincourt

2011-06-01T08:18:00.003+01:00

I well remember when I were a lad, that there were still homes that afforded shelf space to Cassell's History of England. These ponderous and heavy volumes were historical shelf mates to the Encyclopedia Brittanica and were published in an age where Britain still had an empire and a concomitant patrician sense of ease with itself. Cassell's History of Britain as the title implies, took an unashamedly Anglo centric view of world events, many of which it's namesake had helped shape. The books published in 1871 were aimed directly at a middle class, who had seen their prospects improve on the back of the British Empire and it's ability via an industrialized and increasingly educated work force to exploit the fruits of it's territorial dominions.

Looking at these books nearly a century later, they seemed like the product of another world, created by minds with an entirely different take on the world around them and nowhere was this contrast more acute than in the depiction of the staple element of all good history books - warfare and the depiction of men in action.

Here as an example is the source of one of the engravings that was reproduced in fine black densely crosshatched line on the yellowing pages of Cassell's History of England. I wish that I could show you the actual page, but not having the books themselves and not having any immediate desire to remedy this situation, I present instead the template for the engraving; Sir John Gilbert's painting of the English army on the morning of Agincourt.

Now even allowing for the fact that they've been on the march for weeks and their personal hygiene, let alone depilatory arrangements will have become somewhat compromised even by medieval standards, the men, in Gilbert's painting all look incredibly ancient with those full beards, some of which have turned white on the campaign. They look more like Victorian gentlemen dressed for the part rather than men of action. The symbolism of the ravens rising up en masse as the priest conducts his sermon was of course entirely lost on my nine year old mind.

When it came to action scenes, Cassell's History of Britain sucked on ice.

Unlike Ron Embelton's depiction of the Battle of Agincourt, which for me was everything I could have wished for and more.

More of Ron Embleton's sublime artistry is on show at The Look and Learn website

and his brilliant comic strip Wulf the Briton has been collected together and published in a huge and sumptuous volume (with yours truly editing it - therefore shameless plug) by Book Palace Books.

Fatal Consequence For Femme Fatales

2011-05-29T23:24:00.001+01:00

I was chatting to David Ashford author of the forthcoming Art of Denis Mcloughlin the other day and the subject drifted on to how in Westerns in the forties and fifties, there were two kinds of love interest.

Here's love interest number 1).

Cathy Downs as dependable bride to be Clementine from John Ford's beautiful and elegiac masterpiece; My Darling Clementine.

Trouble is that Clementine's intended is Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) who is in servitude to the demon drink and as a consequence spends the bulk of his hours of consciousness in the local saloon, where the lovely Chihuahua (Linda Darnell) has him well and truly wrapped around her dainty finger.

Chihuahua is the epitome of love interest number 2).

Just look at the contrast.

Yuppity .. you just know that Clemetine is the solid kind of gal that'll be good for child rearing, home making and baking the best ever blueberry pies this side of the Pecos.

Whereas Chihuahua is merely a beautiful flake. Burlesque dancing, singing, performing in revue and drinking with the boys are not skills to be inculcated into right thinking, God fearing wimmen no siree!

So the only solution is for Hollywood to apply it's own morality and ensure that any woman as exciting looking but otherwise devoid of any hint of domesticity as the lovely Chihuahua ends up like this:

But notice how though Chihuahua has taken the bullet meant for old Doc, even in her moment of extremis the old fuddy duddys have stepped in and removed all her make up and swept her fringe off her forehead so that she appears almost as angelic as Cathy Downs.

Apart from the fact that Cathy has trumped Linda by wearing a head scarf reminiscent of Florence Nightingale.

Actually the only people who emit any warmth in this sad scene which always has your poor old blogmeister weeping into his Kleenex are Doc and Chihuahua. Henry Fonda's brilliant portrayal of the Wild West equivalent of Gordon Brown has by this stage of the story awakened Clementine's reforming zeal, Aspberger's lawman being an even bigger challenge than drink sozzled gunslinger.

But the actuarial conclusion of the insurability of love interest number 1). versus love interest number 2). is like a complete no-brainer.

Hot women as in the sort that you could never take home to mother are heading to hell in a handcart.

This code of morality was of course extended into comics.

Here's one of many Will Eisner hotties that were only around for the seven pages that it took to relate a Spirit story.

and here's Ellen Dolan daughter of Commissioner Dolan as the Eisneresque answer to Cathy Downs:

and if you think that's bad just look at the fate of the fabulous looking Annette as lovingly delineated by Denis McLoughlin:

And again note how dull Roy Carson's girl Friday is in comparison.

Ever get the impression that someone's trying to tell you something???

The Spirit © DC Comics 2011

Archive editions of all Will Eisner's Spirit comics are available here.

Blame It On McLoughlin!!!

2011-05-27T18:01:00.001+01:00

OK! OK! I know that postings on this blog have been a bit erratic as of late but counsel for the defense would like to advance the thesis that your old blogmeister has been trying to maintain his illustration practice whilst also working on the book that has been bubbling away for a year or so, namely the definitive look at the life and work of Denis McLoughlin whose 'noir's style cover art has attracted devotees and collectors on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book The Art of Denis McLoughlin to be published next Spring, is written by Denis McLoughlin's good friend and biographer David Ashford as well as containing an account of the artist's life, art and influences written by Denis McLoughlin himself. The book will feature reproductions from the surviving original artwork, "pulls" in high quality print, never before seen photos chronicling the artist's life and page after page of some of the most stunning artwork ever to see print in the 20th century.

So here's some teaser spreads and the current promo that will be going out on the latest Book Palace catalogue.

Latest Commandos and A Classic That Deserves a Reprint

2011-05-25T22:21:00.001+01:00

Calum Laird the editor at Commando HQ has sent me the latest details of the newest editions of this long running, in fact longest running UK pocket war comic.

Included in the line up is one really weird story; Desert Monster with three typically non-conformist Commando types tackling the Afrika Korps with the aid of a strange invention. The sort of script that made Commando so different to it's Fleetway rivals War Picture Library, Battle Picture Library and Air Ace Picture Library.

Here are the first four pages from this story as drawn by Quesada, with some beautiful inking somewhat reminiscent of Matias Alonso.

And to round off this posting and as Commando are now opening up the vaults back to those mythic early years here is some real Spanish bravura art by one of David Roach's favorite artists - Gonzalez created shortly before he commenced working with James Warren creating some of the loveliest ever artworks for Vampirella.

Perhaps we ought to petition Calum and his team to include this masterpiece on their reprint schedule.

All images © DC Thomson 2011.

Commando No 4395

Nightmare In Stalingrad

Take a mission to a city under siege where two armies were locked in a battle to the death. Add in a sadistic and murderous NKVD officer and a mind-control device, powerful enough to turn any man into a fighting fury, and what do you have?
   Just another day at the office for the Convict Commandos…

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Benet
Cover Art: Benet

Did you know you can vote for your favorite bunch of Commando Heroes on our Facebook page? Headline Heroes, Convict Commandos or Ramsey’s Raiders.

Commando No 4396

GUERRILLA ACE

Karl Braun ⎯ a German fighter pilot who hates the Nazi regime ⎯ deserts and stows away on a ship to the Far East. When he gets to the Philippines, though, war has followed him and he finds himself a prisoner at a small jungle airstrip.
   His Australian captors want to hit back at the invading Japanese and hatch a plan to use a battered Avro Anson aircraft as a makeshift bomber. They also have a P40 Tomahawk fighter but no pilot…or do they?

Story: Ferg Handley
Art: Morahin
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4379

DESERT MONSTER

“No, Herr Hauptman, I have not been out in the sun too long. With my own eyes I saw it…it had six sides, as many guns as a pocket-battleship and moved like a great crab at about one hundred kilometres an hour. A tank? No, it wasn’t a tank. It was more like a monster…”
   And after that report from a badly-frightened radio operator came into Nazi HQ, a wave of fear swept the desert. What was the Thing that struck from the shadows like a prehistoric beast? Only four men knew…and they were all listed as dead!

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

It’s strange, I remembered this story very clearly from 40-odd years ago yet it wasn’t until I read it again for its re-issue that it struck me that whoever came up with the idea for the A-Team had been beaten to the punch by decades. Not only do we have the mechanical wizards, we even have a cigar-smoking hero!
   At the age of 11, the creation of The Thing — the Desert Monster — fired my imagination so much that I tried to build a model of one myself. Of course I didn’t manage but that just made the heroes so much the better.
   So, I challenge you have a look at this one and tell me that Lars, Alf, Jack and Tex — created and given form by Messrs Skentleberry and Quesada — aren’t better that their modern counterparts. The A*-Team, that’s them!

Story: Skentleberry
Art: Quesada
Cover Art: Lopez Espi
First Published as No 298 (November 1967)

Commando No 4398

LUCKY LARRIGAN

A truckload of Italians who wanted only one thing — to surrender. They’d had enough of the war, getting shot at by their own side as well as the British, and now they simply wanted out. They would surrender to anyone who would have them.
   But what was that over there, glinting in the sun? A gold pocket-watch, and beside it and English pilot, staked out to die of thirst…

Introduction by Scott Montgomery, Commando Deputy Editor

Commando heroes have had their share of charms and mascots through the decades and, at first glance, this story seems to be about English pilot Ben Larrigan’s lucky gold pocket-watch and whether it’ll see him safely through the war.
   However, a truck-full of cowardly Italian soldiers, desperate to surrender, are the real stars ⎯ especially Gino Coppa, the hyperactive sergeant who refers to himself in the third person and unexpectedly bursts into song with his chums every now and then. He’s a marvellous creation, appearing in a memorable desert adventure.
   We’re lucky that the Commando vaults are full of such gems and I’m lucky to have had the chance to select and share this brilliant tale with you 30 years on.

Story: Cyril Walker
Art: Enriquez
Cover: Ian Kennedy

First Published as No 1528 (July 1981)

More McLoughlin Magic

2011-05-23T22:55:00.000+01:00

As I'm currently editing what promises to be THE definitive work on the master illustrator and designer Denis McLoughlin, I thought I'd share some of the non "noir" elements that will be appearing in The Art Noir of Denis McLoughlin.

His story was shaped by an over riding ambition to create the sort of art that fuelled his dreams, when as a teenager he was working at Ward and Copley producing airbrushed art work of pots and pans for catalogue producers when photography was still sufficiently hit and miss to require copious amounts of air brush retouching if you wanted accurate representations of the contents of the 1930's home. Better therefore not to bother with photography at all and just airbrush all the domestic bric a brac in the first place.

No time wasted retouching, no expenditure on unusable photos - just hand the whole job over to a graphics studio and let them sort it.

Little wonder then that the fifteen year old Denis McLoughlin would skip lunch to wander through Manchester's bustling streets to one of the few outlets that sold these exotic magazines called pulps all the way from the U.S.

So here's one such magazine illustration by Rafael De La Soto and here is Denis's reworking of it some years later - perhaps not his finest ever artwork but fascinating none the less.

Plus some more Mac goodies including a super Buffalo Bill dps and some really vivid use of two colors on another Buffalo Bill artwork.

Lovely stuff indeed!

Once Upon A Time Two Guys ...

2011-05-19T22:17:00.001+01:00

... ended up drawing action strips for a comic about a little blue hedgehog.

The year was 1994 and whilst yours truly found himself drawing a bunch of guys from a video game called Streets of Rage a young artist by name of Jon Haward was drawing the other action strips that rotated around this fortnightly publication otherwise known as Sonic the Comic. Jon's strips were Shinobi and Eternal Champions and it was immediately apparent that here was someone who could invest his work with real punch.

Sadly the action strips were eventually pulled from Sonic, so that more and more of the cute little blue hedgehog could fill the pages of his comic and then eventually the comic itself disappeared. Jon stayed true to his dream and eventually ended up creating the artwork for (imo) the best comic strip adaptation of Macbeth ever. A lot of other readers are evidently of the same opinion as this comic is by far the most successful of Classical Comics impressive range of adaptations and has sales and awards as added endorsement of it's in your face chutzpah.

In between and beyond, Jon has created a lot of other gutsy and vibrant work and he has intriguingly just launched a new blog which for students of comic strips (or graphic novels) will I think find both informative and entertaining. It's devoted to the layouts that he has been busily creating for another Classical Comic adaptation currently in the pipe line. This time it's Hamlet and Jon's new blog not only shows his working drawings but also his thought processes and rationale behind each page he posts up.

You can also check out how the working drawings are being transformed into finished line work at David Lorenzo Riviera's blog.

Well worth a visit to both sites.

Here, as an appetizer, is some of Jon's fantastic artwork.

Illustrator Art in Five Easy Pieces

2011-05-17T21:24:00.001+01:00

Here's one of the many images I am currently churning out for a series of educational books. As I've mentioned before my chosen software these days is Adobe Illustrator. I love the restrictions it places on me and with all art if you can wrestle with the restrictions and use them as a form of creative stimuli you find yourself really having fun with your work.

And bottom line is that you need to have fun to have any chance of coming up with worthwhile solutions to a client's brief.

So here's the image in each of it's layers.

All five of them...

More Vintage Commandos

2011-05-16T15:19:00.000+01:00

Calum Laird and the team at Commando HQ must be doing something right as there has been a surge in subscriptions for Britain's longest running war pocket library. Perhaps it's partially fueled by the imaginative and innovative initiatives such as their direct to iPad subscription service, complimented by their well designed user friendly website.

I'd like to think that it's also because they are reaching back further than they ever have done before for their reprints. As a consequence readers are now seeing some of the very best of the early Commandos and the current offerings are no exception to this rule with Cossack from 1970 with art by the recently departed Victor De La Fuente coupled with a cover by Jordi Penalva and Battling Bradley with some superb artwork by Cortes.

Here's the original comics in all their ancient glory followed by the handsome looking reprints.

There is also the offer of a free copy of the latest Commando giant sized book, Rogue Raiders to all new subscribers - so go and check out their website now!

Commando No 4391

BATTLING BRADLEY

It didn’t matter very much what you gave Ken Bradley, boxer turned paratrooper, to fight with. His bare fists made him a match for a handful of Germans any day.
   But give him a gun, especially a Tommy gun, and he’d take on anything that had a swastika painted on it. Even a tank…or a pill-box! What a man to have a your side.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

A story packed with action centred round a man determined to settle a debt of honour is archetypal Commando fare, isn’t it? If it wasn’t for the sting in the tail this would be a good action story. The twist makes it a great one. One which has stuck in my mind for the years since 1967.
Cortes’ artwork has a darkness about it which lends depth to the story and the cover really sums up what the whole thing’s about. I like to think that Commando’s still about the story values you see here and that someone reading a new tale today will remember it for as long.

Battling Bradley, originally Commando No 252 (March 1967), re-issued as No 923 (April 1975)

Story: Lester
Art: Cortes
Cover Art: Hall

Commando No 4392

COSSACK

For centuries the Cossack horsemen rode to war over the mighty steppes, their sabres red with blood, their savage battle-cries chilling their enemies with fear. But their greatest battles came in the Second World War when they pitted horse and sabre against Nazi tanks and machine guns.
   I was a hard, tough war, even for the Cossacks — so you can guess what it was like for an RAF air-gunner who escaped from a German prison camp and rode with them!

Introduction by George Low, former Commando Editor

An RAF air gunner, just escaped from a German prison camp and riding with a distrustful band of sabre-wielding Cossack warriors, should be enough to get any keen Commando reader reaching for a copy.
A challenging cover from Penalva and inside artwork from the incomparable Victor de la Fuente will more than satisfy the most demanding of fans. Peter Newark wrote the script and he was a master at this type of story which was the sixth to go on sale in 1970.

Cossack, originally Commando No 454 (January 1970), re-issued as No 1275 (December 1978)

Story: Peter Newark
Art: Victor de la Fuente
Cover Art: Penalva

Commando No 4393

Operation Leviathan

When the German onslaught forced France to capitulate in 1940, Frenchmen were forced to choose between co-existing with the invaders by serving the Vichy government or fighting on with the Allies. When Allied ships bombarded the French fleet to prevent it falling into German hands, killing many French sailors in the process, French loyalties were further divided.
   Which way would the crew of the mighty French submarine Leviathan — with her twin eight-inch guns and ability to disappear below the waves — go?

Story: Sean Blair
Art: John Ridgway
Cover Art: John Ridgway

Commando No 4394

FLAK ALLEY

In 1943, Pilot Officer Chris Buckley completed his photo-reconnaissance course and was delighted to be out of a stuffy classroom. Finally he was at the controls of a P51 Mustang.
   As expected, he soon found himself dodging flak in the skies above German-occupied Europe. What he didn’t expect was to be dodging even more flak from his CO ⎯ who was convinced that Chris wasn’t up to the job!

Story: Ferg Handley
Art: Vila
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

Images © DC Thomson 2011.

Modesty Forbids - The Prologue

2011-05-13T21:37:00.008+01:00

There are a few more strange twists and turns to the Modesty Blaise story, but perhaps one of the most fascinating is the fact that that the artist originally nominated for the job was none other than Frank Hampson. Hampson was the choice of Beaverbrook's editor of strip cartoons Kennedy Aitken. Such was the high regard that Hampson's work on Dan Dare had created that to Aitken he seemed like the ideal man for the job. Sadly events of which Aitken was presumably only dimly cognizant were to consign such hopes to the wastebasket of what ifs and might have beens.

The truth was that by 1962 having suffered a series of setbacks precipitated by a sequence of buyouts and takeovers in the corridors of Fleet Street, Hampson was effectively dismissed from his own strip. As a result, sapped of his confidence and in the deepest and darkest of depressions, the artist was one of the least likely contenders to be able to shoulder the arduous task of producing a daily strip to suit the very specific requirements that Peter O'Donnell's script dictated. The artwork that Hampson would have to produce needed to ooze danger laced with liberal quantities of sex and occasional flashes of violence. In all fairness even in Dan Dare's golden age these were elements in Hampson's work that were conspicuous by their absence.

Heading into his mid forties and feeling bitter and disillusioned, Hampson was finding it challenging to say the least to re-engage with the world of illustration. He accepted the brief with a degree of superficial enthusiasm appropriate to such a prestigious commission but once he'd returned home the enormity of the job seemed to sap his will to sit down and produce the work that Aitken and O'Donnell were now anxious to see.

Weeks passed and in the end, feeling he could stall no longer he steeled himself to the task and sat down to produce a series of strips that entirely failed to capture O'Donnell's vision. When Aitken and O'Donnell saw the work they were dismayed, doubtless they would have made vague assurances to Hampson about showing it to a few other souls and getting back to him soon. The fact that Aitken's choice had so badly failed to make the grade did however enable O'Donnell to nominate his own choice for art chores on Modesty Blaise and it was with no hesitation that the writer suggested his old partner from Romeo Brown days, Jim Holdaway.

Thus was Modesty Blaise launched.

Here for comparison are both Hampson's pitch and Holdaway's take on the same story.

More can be gleaned from the excellent The Lost Characters of Frank Hampson website.

Modesty Forbids... Part 4

2011-05-10T08:05:00.001+01:00

The result of Lip's hurried phone call to Barry Coker was that Patrick Wright was chosen as Burns successor. Both agent and artist were not surprisingly extremely pleased at this turn of events, as although the pressures of illustrating a daily strip were immense, the rewards were certainly a lot more generous than IPC or DC Thomson page rates. For Wright this would be a real step up in terms of remuneration.

So whilst John Burns continued to work on Blaise, unbeknownst to him his successor was also producing artwork for the same script, thus allowing Lip and his team to decide at which point Burns work should be terminated and Wright's inserted. As a consequence there were twelve days of Modesty Blaise where both artists were illustrating the same story.

Patrick Wright's work on the story was a marked contrast to all the artists that had preceded him, with an economic use of solid blacks and a complete absence of the half tone hatching favored by both Holdaway and Burns as can be seen by these two tiers of Blaise dailies, the first being Burns work followed by Wright's. In truth the deviation from the Holdaway imprimatur might have been too much for O'Donnell and after only one and a half stories suddenly there were no more Blaise scripts for Wright to artwork. It was then down to Barry Coker to phone Lip to receive the bad news - this being the way that such brutal decisions are effected in Fleet Street - easier to be the conveyor of good news rather than the devastating blow to self confidence as well as standard of living that such a rejection creates.

The next artist to be selected was the New Zealand artist Neville Colvin and Colvin it has to be said was in many ways the closest to Holdaway that O'Donnell could have hoped for. When Neville Colvin accepted the Blaise brief he was in his early sixties and still at the top of his game with a lovely dynamic style of drawing perfectly suited to the demands of O'Donnell, who in fact had collaborated with him some years earlier on an abortive project to create a Modesty Blaise Sunday strip.

Colvin continued on the strip until 1986 when at the age of 68, with a total of 1.902 Blaise dailies to his credit he effectively retired from the strip and pretty much retired from drawing. Here are some samples of his work and more can be read about this fascinating artist at a site dedicated to the artist.

Images © Modesty Blaise Ltd 2011

Modesty Forbids... Part 3

2011-05-08T11:02:00.001+01:00

Having tarried over Patrick Wright's superb war comics, it is time to return to the convoluted narrative of dark doings in Fleet Street and Ms Modesty Blaise. Modesty Blaise must rank as one of the best U.K. newspaper strips ever. The combination of Peter O'Donnell's script and Jim Holdaway's stylish and dynamic artwork was truly a marriage made in heaven, but Holdaway's sudden and premature death in 1970 robbed O'Donnell of not only a great friend but also, as he saw it, the best artist for Modesty Blaise. Whilst Patrick Wright was working long hours on modestly paid work for IPC and DC Thomson, a succession of strip artists at the top pf their game had tried to fill the Holdaway void. Enric-Badia Romero made a sterling effort for eight years, but feeling that he wanted to carve out a more distinctive niche for himself rather than being forever caste as the inheritor of Holdaway's mantle he left the strip to develop his own character Axa with scripter Donne Avenell. John M Burns then picked up the baton after being selected by Beaverbrook Newspaper Group editor Gerald Lip. Burns, whose work on Wrath of the Gods some fifteen years earlier had undergone something of a transformation from OK'ish to truly superb had according to some observers achieved this renaissance by the artist immersing himself in the study of Holdaway's use of line and strong sense of design and layout. Burns proceeded to turn in some really first rate work on O'Donnell's scripts.

But whilst Lip and O'Donnell might have been pleased with Burns work, there were other players to be considered and Lip received a call from one of them. Charles Wintour was the editor of the Evening Standard and in terms of influence and patronage, one of Fleet Street's big beasts - essentially what he said was that he wanted Burns off the strip a.s.a.p. The reasons for this have been mulled over, but it seems that there was not a problem regarding the quality of his work on Modesty Blaise. Whatever the reason, Wintour was implacable saying telling Lip, "I want this artist out of my newspaper!"

As Lip re-engaged with the vexatious task of trying to secure yet another artist who would match the expectations of O'Donnell, Wintour, and numerous other vested interests, not least of which was the strip's readership, he did what a lot of other harried editors in such a bind have done, he picked up the phone and made a call to Barry Coker of the Bardon Art Agency.

More tomorrow...

Images © Modesty Blaise Ltd 2011

and many thanks to the Comic Art Fans site for sourcing these images.

Modesty Forbids... Part 2

2011-05-05T22:34:00.001+01:00

Crow's comment on yesterday's posting regarding just how Patrick Wright's war comics artwork was ever so slightly too real when it came to the dishing out of ultra-violence does remind me of a delightful anecdote he related concerning his tenure on Mike Nelson, one of the most violent World War 2 strips ever devised for eight year olds. As Patrick related, "Battle Action was edited by a lovely man called Dave Hunt who wasn't at all comfortable with working on war comics, his one ambition was to edit Roy of the Rovers. Anyway, I recall being hauled in for a briefing by Gerry Finley Day (the scripter) who turned up late complete with girlfriend wearing the skimpiest of negligees, the couple looking like they had only recently been roused from bed. As I recall the story involved a mad Japanese scientist implanting an explosive device into the skulls of some allied generals, the whole lot being timed to explode simultaneously. The explosion occurred at the start of an episode and required a large splash panel and I do remember putting an awful lot of work into that one.It looked great when it was finished with bits and pieces flying everywhere.

I eventually got a phone call from a very dejected Dave Hunt saying, "Patrick, I'm sorry but that jaw bone is just going to have to go."

Here's some more examples of Wright's Commando work and a photograph of the collection of militaria he had amassed at the tender age of seventeen taken by older brother Nicky and modeled by some familiar Geordies. The guns actually fired live rounds in those days - deactivated weaponry being a relatively recent phenomenon in response to increasingly tight gun regulation.

Commando © DC Thomson 2011

Modesty Forbids...

2011-05-04T21:49:00.000+01:00

I remember years ago before Lisbeth Salandar was even a twinkle in Stieg Larsson's eye, I was talking with my good friend Patrick Wright about his own encounter with a raven haired girl with Eastern European blood coursing through her veins and a lethal approach to neutralizing opponents.

Patrick had been working for several years with his London agent Barry Coker of Bardon Art, supplying artwork for Battle Picture Weekly and Commando and injecting each page with such manic attention to detail that deadlines were blown more often than met and cushions had to be placed over the phone so that he could work without being too unnerved by calls from angry clients. Such was Patrick's dedication to the cause that he even drew his first Commando comic on CS10 board until the staff at DC Thomson told him not to waste his money as they really didn't have the space to store a ton of board - paper would do very nicely - thank you!

The artist would frequently be so "bloody knackered" as he put it, that his wife would have to deliver the artwork to Coker's office while he caught up with some desperately needed sleep. Keith Davis, Coker's assistant on one such occasion shook his head in amazement as he looked at the work, calling other people in the office over to have a look and enthusing over the quality of the draftsmanship, saying, "It's just a pity that it's such a waste of time".

If any illustrator was deserving of a break it was Patrick Wright and unbeknownst to him in the at times truly Machiavellian world of Fleet Street, opportunity was about to come a knocking.

More tomorrow...

The Eagle © IPC Media 2011

Commando © DC Thomson 2011

More Commandos From Waaaaaaaayyy Back When.

2011-05-02T07:57:00.000+01:00

Just had a heads up from editor Calum Laird that the following four Commandos are roaming the shelves of your nearest news vendor or failing that there's always Commando's very own website where you can buy, subscribe or even download to your iPad these little gems.

As it's Commando's fiftieth anniversary the reprints of those early issues continue (let's hope they continue AFTER the bunting has come down). We're back to issue 8 with Red Runs the River and yet another knockout Ken Barr cover. I'm running the original alongside so you can see what a superb job the Commando team have made in not tampering too much with the feel and power of the original comic - even down to the lettering. There's a lot to be said for hand drawn lettering and this cover is yet another example of why.

Also noteworthy is the inclusion of a story by Spanish artist Rafael Auraleon, who really makes the most of the moody text to spirit up some dark and dense artwork. Yet another of the Selecciones Illustrados artists on Josep Toutain's impressive roster, Auraleon went on to become one of James Warren's most prolific artists, where his work spanned all of Warren's horror magazines but Vampirella was where his work most frequently appeared.

Auraleon left the comics field shortly after James Warren's publishing empire folded and some years later in a fit of depression Rafael Auraleon committed suicide. His amazing work is a lasting legacy and is still poured over by comic aficionados to this day.

The images with the overlay are from an artwork originally created for Creepy No. 51, currently on sale at the Lewis Wayne Gallery.

Creepy © New Comic Company LLC 2011.

Commando 4387

Blood Money

If there was one thing the Convict Commandos — Jelly Jakes, Smiler Dawson, Titch Mooney — liked, it was easy money. Unfortunately the money their leader Guy Tenby had them chasing wasn’t easy, it was very difficult indeed. For it was in Nazi-Occupied Norway and the Nazis didn’t want them to get anywhere near it.

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Benet
Cover Art: Benet

Commando 4388

REBELLION IN THE RAJ — FERRET’S MUTINY

He’s back ⎯ as you’ve never seen him before!
   Veteran war reporter Fred “Ferret” McGlone celebrates his landmark 100th birthday in style — and reminisces about his earliest days as a roving newshound on the shady, cobbled back streets of Victorian London.
   Naturally, that’s only the half of it. What about Ferret’s thrilling adventures on the high seas? Or his dangerous despatches from the front line chaos at the heart of the British Empire in India?
   Get the inside scoop on this cracking story — a Commando exclusive, of course. It’s one you won’t want to miss!

Story: Norman Adams
Art: Keith Page
Cover Art: Keith Page

Commando 4389

RED RUNS THE RIVER

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

The early batch of Commando stories contained a fair few jungle tales — complete with fanatical enemies. But this one isn’t quite like the others as the fanatic is on the British side. He’s a fighting mad Irishman determined to settle a score with the Japanese, and any Japanese will do.
The trouble is that his own side need to keep him out of the fighting as he’s too valuable to lose.
Eric Hebden weaves a classic Commando here, ably backed up by Auraleon and Ken Barr.

Red Runs The River, originally Commando No 8 (September 1961), re-issued as No 2579 (July 1992)

MASSACRE AFTER MOON-RISE

Many and fearsome are the perils that can beset a man on a swift-flowing river after dark.
   Japanese river patrols knew all these dangers, but armed to the teeth they feared none of them.
   Then, one dark night, there glided into that gleaming river a new menace that was to strike terror into every Jap soldier…a swimming Irishman with hatred in his heart and a Commando knife between his teeth.

Story: Eric Hebden
Art: Auraleon
Cover Art: Ken Barr

First Published 1961 No 8

Commando 4390

PARATROOPER

Introduction by Scott Montgomery, Deputy Editor

I’d love to tell you how I remembered this story’s memorable characters, well-thought-out, men-on-a-mission plot and action-packed finale from the day I first read it. I’d love to…but, to be honest, the thing I remembered most vividly from reading “Paratrooper” in 1980 was the awesome sight of British soldiers whizzing around occupied France on cool little motorbikes.
As a child I recall wanting to have a go on one of those dinky Wellbikes. Thirty years on, re-discovering this great tale has been a wonderful trip down memory lane (but sadly, not on a Wellbike). And, yes, I still want to have a go on one.

Paratrooper, originally Commando No 1402 (March 1980), re-issued as No 2740 (March 1994)

PARATROOPER

They floated out of the sky into the fields of enemy-occupied France. For this crack team of British paratroopers it was the moment of truth.
   Dropped miles from their objective, a handful of determined men on their special Wellbikes set off to complete their mission. The odds against them were incredible but they had no alternatives. The fight was on…

Story: R.A. Montague
Art: Blasco
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

Commando © DC Thomson 2011.