As visitors to this blog are only too aware, your old Blogmeister has been conspicuous by his absence of late. Impervious to pangs of conscience, his keyboard has remained out of action at least as regards the cybernetic activity required to satiate the desires of some of his most loyal readers.Has this man got no conscience?
Well actually he has and I have been feeling varying degrees of guilt but I comfort myself with the thought that it's all for a good cause.
And the good cause is nearly upon us as Illustrators Issue 1 along with The Art of Denis McLoughlin are currently being printed and bound and will be hitting these shores come August.
And I think those of you who want to try this first issue out will agree (well I am hoping fervently that you will agree) Illustrators is going to be an ever better substitute for a daily blog - not to mention The Art of Denis McLoughlin, which finally does this amazing artist the justice he so richly deserves by providing a definitive collection of his work with accompanying text by the late artist along with a wonderful memoire and critical appreciation by his friend and biographer David Ashford.
The book also includes check lists of all those killer diller Bloodhound hardboiled fiction covers along with glowing reproductions of scores of covers most of which have not been seen by more then a few of his most devoted fans. Whilst his Buffalo Bill Annuals might well be reasonably familiar to a lot of collectors, there are few who have seen all his TVB noir paperback covers. Within the pages of this book you will see all of the TVB Paperback covers painted by McLoughlin, along with some really early Bloodhounds. There is discussion of his techniques and reproductions including full size details of some truly stunning originals.
McLoughlin is also the lead feature in the debut issue of Illustrators along with an interview with Ian Kennedy looking back on his over half century of working as one of this country's premier illustrators and comic strip artists, with features on the Spanish artist and doyen of romantic illustration Angel Badia Camps and Parisian artist Cheri Herouard adding further luster to the proceedings. A beautifully instructive essay by Mick Brownfield takes you behind the scenes of one of the artist's most iconic Radio Times Christmas covers.
We have got the most fantastic team of contributors on board and over coming months you can look forward to features by the artist and writer David Roach, writers David Ashford Norman Boyd and Gary Lovisi, ex Fleet Street Art Editor Bryn Havord, the writer and broadcaster Brian Sibley and host of the amazing Carol Day website and David Wright specialist Roger Clark to name but a few.
All in all perhaps not such a bad trade off after all.
We hope you will join us for the ride.
We will be giving you a sneak preview of issue 2 shortly.
This book looks fantastic. I want it badly! The problem is I'm located in the States. Do you know of any distributors of this book or of the Illustrators magazine in the United States, where I can purchase it?
ReplyDeleteHi Randy,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your question. Diamond are handling our US distribution at the moment and there is also the option of being able to subscribe direct to Illustrators:
http://www.bookpalacebooks.com/acatalog/Illustrators.html
Hope this is of some help and many thanks for your enthusiastic comments.
These are Diamond order codes in the latest Previews catalog (July 2012), available in any comics shop:
ReplyDeletePAGE 358
BOOKS & MAGAZINES
ART BOOKS
JUL12 1334 ART OF DENIS MCLOUGHLIN LTD ED HC 10/10/12 SRP: $79.99
PAGE 359
SPOT JUL12 1341 ILLUSTRATORS MAGAZINE #1 10/03/12 SRP: $24.99
P.S.: So I see December is finally the date for Heros, eh? Pinky promise? Set in stone? Don't let us down now...
Hi Tony,
ReplyDeleteYes Heros is definitely happening, contracts have been signed, monies paid and whatever else happens we don't want you to self-combust through disappointment or frustration. So I can assure you that we are devoting a lot of time and effort to ensure that this book is the ultimate statement on Frank Bellamy's Heros the Spartan that readers such as you want and deserve.
Hehe, I know I'm being a total pest but you don't know (or maybe you do) how often the shipping date for this kind of books tend to slide and slide until you end up many months or even years after the day that was initially promised, so you launch preemptive strikes on the blogs of the editors to keep them on their toes... no, you didn't probably know about this last part, until now.
ReplyDeleteWhat you surely know is that as soon as HEROS is a tangible object in my grasping hands, the cycle of pest begins anew with the inevitable inquiry about what's next in the pipeline, in a vain attempt to find out ASAP what the 3rd entry in this line of deluxe classic British reprints initiated with WULF and followed by HEROS will be.
Thank you Peter and Tony for the information, I really appreciate it!
ReplyDelete