Latest Issue of Illustrators Journal now available

Illustrators journal celebrates the finest magazine, book and comics illustrators published in the UK and Europe featuring fabulous artwork in every issue, much of which is taken from scans of the original art. It gives readers the stories behind the artists with features written by some of the most eminent enthusiasts of this oft neglected art form.

Features inside Illustrators issue 3 include:

Fortunino Matania: Peter Richardson writes about the talented and versatile artist who plunged his audience into the heart of historical events in magazines such as The Sphere and Look and Learn.

Andy Virgil: Bryn Havord writes about one of New York's leading illustrators who Havord commissioned to work for many British women’s magazines.

Peter Maddocks: Bryn Havord covers the life and times of the Fleet Street cartoonist who created Four D Jones for the Daily Express.

Told in Pictures: Former Micron editor Keith Chapman shows that there is much more to the pocket library than meets the eye as he remembers his time working for the publisher of such titles as Combat Picture Library and Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine.

The Studio: featuring the art of the influential American illustrator Bernie Fuchs.

Illustrators issue 3 is a 96 page, softcover book available directly from Book Palace Books who have an e-preview on their website.

• There are more details and illustrations from Illustrators as well as ordering details on the Book Palace Books website.

• Illustrators editor Peter Richardson was interviewed on downthetubes here.

"Carol Day' artist David Wright features in illustrators Issue 2

The latest issue of illustrators, the heavily illustrated art quarterly celebrating the finest European illustration of the 20th Century, is now available.

illustrators Issue 2 features two major articles on the artwork of David Wright – Peter Richardson looks at Wright's elegant, painted pin-up art (soon to be seen in Sirens: The Pin-Up Art Of David Wright from Titan Books) while Roger Clark gives his appreciation of Wright’s long running black and white line drawn Daily Mail newspaper strip, Carol Day (reprints of which are now available as an e-book from Amazon UK for Kindle and iPad).

 

This issue also includes articles on the historical illustrations of Cecil Doughty by David Ashford, the animal art of Raymond Sheppard by Norman Boyd, and the paperback and film poster art of Renato Fratini by David Roach. 

There is also an image gallery of the Fleetway Super Library covers of Jordi Penalva while John Watkiss discusses his Walking Dead concept artwork.

illustrators issue 2 costs £15 (or £55 for a 4 issue subscription to the title) and many of the artwork images included in its 96 pages are taken from scans of the original art boards.

illustrators 2 is available direct from the Book Palace Books website.



For a sneak peek of illustrators issue 2 click here.

illustrators editor Peter Richardson was interviewed about the magazine on downthetubes here.

• Several Carol Day adventures are available for Kindle, here's links to a few which will take you to the rest: 

• Carol Day - Lance Hallam - Kindle edition

• Carol Day - The Changeling

• Carol Day - Dangerous Currents

Comics Talk: Six Questions For illustrators Editor Peter Richardson

Artist Peter Richardson is the editor of the new quarterly journal, illustrators, covering British and European comic, newspaper and magazine artists which is published by London's Book Palace Books.

Peter spoke to Jeremy Briggs about the publication, how it came about and his plans for future issues.

downthetubes: Where did the initial idea for illustrators come from?
Peter Richardson: Geoff West, the Svengali-like genius behind Book Palace Books, was the man that initially mooted the idea. I had produced a hefty volume for Book Palace Books devoted to Ron Embleton's Wulf the Briton and was also working on a book devoted to the art of Denis McLoughlin and I think that Geoff began to get excited at the thought of producing a quarterly journal devoted to the best of UK and European illustration over the last 150 years.

The rationale was that there was an evident yawning gap in the market, which in a way was underlined by Dan Zimmer's Illustration quarterly, which is largely confined to great American illustrators. We wanted to produce a journal with equally stunning content, sharing the great UK and European illustrators with an international readership.

DTT: What is your background and how did you get involved with illustrators?
Peter: I have been working as a freelance illustrator all my adult life and have worked in a wide variety of media. I've taught illustration and generally been able to immerse myself totally in a job I find immensely rewarding. I got involved with illustrators because I've known Geoff for many years. I had started buying books and comics from him in the late 1970s but we got to know each other in the early 1990s when we would meet for lunch in some trendy London eatery and compare notes on various aspects of trash culture. These meetings reached their nadir when, on one occasion, the waitress had to ask us if we wouldn't mind moving our Swoppets off the table so that she could serve our food.

So we have known each other a long time and when I started blogging a few years ago I think that also acted as a catalyst for my publishing activities with Book Palace Books. illustrators itself has been in development for well over a year. There has been a phenomenal amount of work involved in getting this publication to a point where we felt confident enough to go to press!

DTT: What is the format of the journal and what sort of subjects will it be covering?
Peter: The format of the publication is crucial and we’ve devoted a lot of time into getting it right. This involved a certain amount of trial and error and running page layouts past a variety of people, several of whom included designers, typographers and art directors, including our associate editor Bryn Havord, who was a visionary and influential Fleet Street art director, in order to get the thing just as we wanted. The most important thing to bear in mind with a production like this is that less is more. If as a reader you are overly aware of the design of each spread then you are not getting the full impact of the artwork. Our style is simple and clean with dynamic layouts and easy to read typography, providing an enjoyable and stimulating experience for the reader.

The subject matter is as it says on the tin, illustrators. The fact that our remit is so definite, and the material we can focus on so infinite, allows us to be very creative in terms of what we present. In issue 1 we feature the art of Denis McLoughlin with a beautifully written and compelling profile by his friend and biographer, David Ashford. It features some superb reproductions of McLoughlin’s hard-boiled fiction covers, as well as a lot of his western themed work, much of it scanned from the original boards. In addition we have an interview with Ian Kennedy, who will need no introduction to your readers. He relates some fascinating experiences of working as one of the UK's premier comic strip and fantasy artists with both IPC and DC Thomson (with whom he continues to work as Commando cover artist extraordinaire). In addition we have a terrific feature by David Roach on the work of Angel Badia Camps, a Spanish illustrator who did much to revolutionise the romance pulp fiction artwork of the '60s and '70s. Mick Brownfield takes us through the process of creating a Christmas cover for Radio Times and the issue rounds off with a look at the work of Cheri Herouard, again penned by David Roach, who presents us with some of this Parisian artist's best ‘good girl’ art of the 1910s and 1920s.

Moving on to issue 2 we have a really superb feature on David Wright, covering his life and art and featuring some stunning examples of his pin up art for the Daily Sketch, as well as the story behind his creation of Carol Day, which is often cited as one of the greatest newspaper strips you have never seen! It really was a work of genius and we are able, with the help of collectors and enthusiasts such as Roger Clark, to present the very best examples of Wright’s art many scanned from the original boards. We also have features on the fabulous adventure and wildlife art of Raymond Sheppard and there's a fascinating look at the life and work of historical and boy's adventure illustrator, Cecil Doughty, whose work really blossomed on the back of the post war revival in children’s book and periodical publishing. There’s a look at the work of Renato Fratini who created some truly jaw dropping artwork during the 1960s and early 1970s for covers and film posters, including From Russia With Love.

Issue 3 will include the work of one of the most remarkable illustrators ever in terms of sheer draughtsmanship, vision and powerful storytelling. I am referring to the work of Fortunino Matania who started his professional career at the age of 14 and went on to become one of the greatest historical artists the world has ever seen. In addition, he was also one of the greatest reportage artists, sharing trenches with soldiers on the Western Front during the 1914-1918 War as well as covering events such as the Coronation of King Edward VIII - which he had to draw to a tight deadline from memory as not only were cameras not allowed within the confines of Westminster Abbey for such occasions but neither were pencils and sketch books!

Issue 4 will feature the work of Michael Johnson who was one of the premier UK illustrators of the 1960s and has been honing and refining his craft ever since. He was part of that incredibly exciting era when it was still possible for illustrators to earn a small fortune working with visionary art directors. Our associate editor Bryn Havord, who was one of those art directors, will be penning this piece. On top of that we have a long and fascinating interview with Mick Brownfield, who has to be one of the standout talents as well as one of the most consistently high profile UK illustrators for at least the last forty years.

DTT: Who will be writing for it and will the use of original artwork continue in future issues?
Peter: We are very lucky as we have a really great roster of writers who we are adding to as illustrators gathers momentum. I have mentioned the two Davids; Ashford and Roach, both of whom have written some excellent features for us, and Bryn Havord, who was an award-winning Fleet Street art director who commissioned many of the movers and shakers who will be appearing over the coming years in this publication. We have Luci Gosling of the Mary Evans Picture Library who is going to be working with us as well as Brian Sibley, Rian Hughes and several other writers who we are currently sounding out, as well as your good self Jeremy.

Our editorial directive is that the writers should reveal their own personal passions for the artist’s work and try to bring their subject to life. This, of course, requires research, sometimes interviews with the artist if possible and with other interested parties, but we are keen to present to the reader not simply a dry and ultimately dull list of publications with attendant dates but writing that attempts to bring life and vitality to the artists and their work.

The use of original artwork and/or top quality tear sheets is an essential for a publication of this magnitude. In addition to sourcing the optimum best artwork, there is a certain amount of non-intrusive restoration involved in cleaning up old and degraded printed samples so that in each and every case we can present the artist's work at its very best. No effort is spared and the use, where possible, of original artwork is an essential part of our editorial directive. At which juncture I must mention the incredible amount of friendly and unstinting assistance we have had from collectors and galleries all of whom have provided superb scans of artwork, which will now, thanks to illustrators, be reaching a far wider audience.

DTT: In addition to illustrators, what other titles are available from Book Palace Books?
Peter: There are a whole host of really rather tasty titles which you can check out on their website at: http://www.bookpalacebooks.com/

The most recent books include the already mentioned The Art of Denis McLoughlin, which was a real labour of love. During the course of assembling all the material for this book we managed to access material that had been rescued from an old garden shed by a member of the family, shortly after the artist's death. These included many of his working drawings for the murals he produced for the Woolwich Barracks, which was subsequently destroyed by a V1 rocket in 1944. These artworks have never had a public airing before. Aside from that we have literally hundreds of covers from his hard-boiled fiction work for TV Boardman, including for the first time ever complete indexes of his covers and all the hard-boiled paperback covers, many of which are scanned from printer’s proofs. There are also reproductions of his Buffalo Bill Annual artworks, many of which have been scanned from the surviving boards, plus superb scans of his Boardman comic work from publisher’s proofs given to David Ashford by the artist. This book is something that we are all exceptionally proud of, our only regret being that Denis himself won’t be around to see it. He was a really lovely guy and it would have been so rewarding for everyone concerned if he could have had a copy of this defining retrospective of his work.

We are also working full tilt on a major project which has the working title of Frank Bellamy's Complete Heros the Spartan, it's a companion volume to the already published Ron Embleton's Complete Wulf the Briton and like Wulf will come in a regular as well as limited collector's edition. As with Wulf, we are putting a lot of time and effort into the restorations as well as sourcing some fabulous examples of original artwork in order to add that really necessary degree of contextualisation to this long overdue publishing project.

DTT: The high quality format of illustrators means a high cover price. How would you go about selling it to someone who is not yet convinced about buying it?
Peter: Well, it is a lot of money if you compare it to a copy of a certain weekly celeb magazine which retails for £3.95. But here's where what we are producing begins to define itself as something more than ephemera. A yearly subscription to such a publication is around £75.00, whereas illustrators is only £55.00 in the UK. With the former it has a finite shelf life, something that you will be wrapping the household rubbish in after a couple of weeks. illustrators on the other hand is not ephemeral. It's a reference tool and in many cases will be the only defining source of information on a given artist's life and work. With 96 pages, square back binding, and state of the art printing, each issue of illustrators is more of a book than a magazine. It will build into a reference work dedicated to some of the greatest artists the world has ever seen. If you then compare it to some high end art journals you will then see that we are actually less expensive than most of our contemporaries.

It's also worth mentioning that illustrators will not be drowning in a sea of advertising! The advertising we do carry is aimed very specifically at our readership, stuff that we find exciting and of interest and we feel sure that our readers will too. Whilst on the subject - and this is where it gets even more exciting for people involved with the world of illustration - illustrators offers people (be they artists, galleries, agents, art colleges, image libraries, you name it) the chance to promote their services for an incredibly low price via our directory listings page and the QR code on the front of each issue, which enables readers to access each advertiser’s website via their smart phone.

Individual issues of illustrators are available at £15 plus postage and four issue subscriptions are available for £55 post free.

An e-preview copy of illustrators issue 1 is available here.

There are more details of illustrators journal and how to purchase copies on the illustrators website which includes links to various artists and comics websites, original artwork sales sites and art supplies sites.

There are more details of Peter Richardson's own art on his personal website and Cloud 109 blog.

Illustrators: A New Quarterly Journal About Brit and Euro Artists

In the last few years London's Illustration Art Gallery have been releasing a series of books about, and reprinting older, British comics via their Book Palace Books imprint. These include The Modesty Blaise Companion reference book, a series of reprints from Swift, Eagle's junior brother, including Robin Hood and King Arthur and His Knights both with art by Frank Bellamy, as well as what is perhaps the most impressive British comics reprint book ever, Wulf The Briton: The Complete Adventures, which reprinted every Wulf strip from Express Weekly, with fully painted art by Ron Embleton, in their full original tabloid size along with every annual strip.

The next publication from Book Palace Books is Illustrators, a new quarterly journal that will cover British and European comic and magazine artists. Illustrators will be a high quality, 96 page, approx A4 size, glossy colour magazine edited by Peter Richardson and featuring articles by the likes of artists Rian Hughes and David Roach, and comics historians David Ashford, Steve Holland and Norman Wright.

The first issue of Illustrators will focus on two British artists who worked extensively for both Amalgamated Press/IPC and DC Thomson throughout their careers, Denis McLoughlin and Ian Kennedy. Denis McLoughlin is perhaps best known for his novel covers and annuals for publisher TV Boardman, which included a twelve year run on the Buffalo Bill annual, while Ian Kennedy began at DC Thomson in the 1950s before he went freelance for a career that included everything from Commando and Starblazer for DC Thomson, Dan Dare and Judge Dredd for IPC and Blake's 7 for Marvel UK. Denis McLoughlin is no longer with us, his life ended in tragic circumstances in 2002, while Ian Kennedy most certainly is and with new work by him still regularly appearing on the cover of Commando he gives Illustrators a major interview. Also included will be articles on the art of Badia Camps and the 1960s art of Cherie Herouard , while modern artist Mick Brownfield will tell the story behind his 2009 Christmas Radio Times cover.

Future issues will cover artists as diverse as Graham Coton, Giorgio De Gaspari, Luis Garcia, Reginald Heade, Chris Foss, Fortunino Matania, John Millar Watt, Jordi Penalva and L Ashwell Wood.

Illustrators will cost £15 per issue plus P&P while a four issue subscription will cost £55 delivered. The first issue is due to be released during summer 2012 and is now available for pre-order.

There are more details of Illustrators including further sample pages and layouts at both the Illustration Art gallery website and the Book Palace website, while editor Peter Richardson discusses his work on the title on the Book Place Books blog.

Classic British strip Wulf The Briton to be collected

There's some great news for fans of cracking British comics artist Ron Embleton with the announcement of an impending collection of his superb comicstrip, Wulf the Briton, from Book Palace Books - fronted by an introduction from Dave Gibbons.

Longtime fan of the strip Peter Richardson is the brains behind this exciting project, a collection of strips first published in Express Weekly.

Set largely in Roman Britain, the comic ran for three years before Express (latterly TV Express) Weekly and is considered one of the UK's finest 'classic' comic strips.

Embleton took over the strip in 1959, and the workload he was shouldered with on Wulf was formidable. In comparison to Frank Hampson, who had a studio and assistants to help meet the weekly Dan Dare deadlines, Embleton just had himself to draw, letter and paint the feature.

Embleton was, however, unfazed by such considerations and within a few months he was also writing the strip and steering it in a much more historically credible direction as well as adding an extra page to the strip.

"As a result of my weekly blog postings [about Wulf] earlier in the year I had an approach from Geoff West CEO of Book Palace Books to enquire whether I would be interested in editing a collection of all Ron Embleton's Wulf the Briton stories," Peter reveals on the Cloud 109 blog. "As this was the comic above all others that totally captured my imagination as a child and as no one has ever attempted to do this before, I jumped at the chance.

"The intervening months have been a whirlwind of Wulf activity, involving meetings with the people at Express Newspapers, talking to people who were close to Ron, seeking out material which would help shed light on the creation of this epic strip and uncovering hitherto unseen by all but a few, original Wulf boards."

Carefully restored, the collection, which will be introduced by top artist Dave Gibbons, who describes the upcoming book as "a classic UK comic art must-have", will run to 300 plus pages of art, plus all the annuals, plus any other piece of Wulf artwork generated by Ron.

"It really is a gargantuan project," says Peter.

The collected Wulf the Briton will come in two different editions: a regular edition and a very limited leather bound and slip cased edition of just 100 copies. "The slipcased edition will feature some absolutely stonking pages shot from the original artwork, much of it only recently unearthed and not having done the rounds of the collector' s circuit and in absolutely pristine condition.

"The pages will be printed at the same size the comic was published so there has been very careful work done to ensure that there is no loss of Embleton's brushwork, we want owning this book to be as pleasurable as having an entire run of the original comics but with the added convenience of being all bound together in a durable format."

"Wulf the Briton was without doubt Ron Embleton's comic masterpiece," feels Peter, talking about the strip earlier in the year. "He took over the strip - a single page cover feature on Express Weekly in 1957. As a result of Embleton's artistic input it went from being an OK'ish main feature to at least, aesthetically speaking, a rival to Frank Hampson's Dan Dare."

It's clear that Peter and everyone involved have put a lot of hours into getting this project right (and more hours to come), delivering the material in the kind of format that fans of such British classic comics material crave. We eagerly await news on a publication date.

• David has posted some 'teaser images' of the project over on his Cloud 109 blog