Illustrator Art in Five Easy Pieces

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

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

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.

Images © Modesty Blaise Ltd 2011

Modesty Forbids... Part 4

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

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

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

Mike Nelson © IPC Media 2011

Modesty Forbids...

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