In Memoriam: Terry Maloney

Over on Bear Alley, Steve Holland has just paid tribute to writer and illustrator Terry Maloney, who died on 16 March 2008, aged 90.

In the 1930s, Maloney joined the Communist Party and renounced his Catholic upbringing and the church and volunteered for the International Brigades fighting in the Spanish Civil War in November 1937 and was assigned to the British Battalion's machine-gun company.

Steve recounts how he survived a shrapnel wound to the chest at the battle of the Ebro in August 1938, the last great Republican offensive, having already seen many of his comrades killed fighting around Gandesa. He had earlier encountered the enemy when he inadvertently crossed the lines in search of drinking water but, thinking he was an Italian, Maloney slipped away - minus the company's water bottles - before Franco's troops realised who he was.

Maloney was 'lucky': it's estimated that of the 2,000 soldiers in the British Battalion, 500 were killed and 1,200 were seriously wounded during the conflict.

He also fought in the Second World War and afterwards helped design posters for London Underground and became art editor of Spain Today (originally called first called The Volunteer for Liberty), produced by the International Brigade Association to publicise the repression in Spain under Franco.

He also took up astronomy, which led eventually to work, briefly, in Frank Hampson's studio, working on Dan Dare for the cover of Eagle, then finding work producing a number of book covers paperback science fiction novels before beginning to concentrate on work as a writer/illustrator and editor of books in the mid 1950s. His non fiction work included Other Worlds in Space and The Sky at Night.

• Read Steve's tribute in full...