Commando Webbing

A new interview with Commando and Dan Dare artist Keith Page has been posted on the official Commando website. In the interview Keith, who is currently working on his 144th Commando issue answers questions posed by Commando readers on his background, his work for the DC Thomson title and offers advice for aspiring artists.

Keith lists his artistic influences as Dan Dare's Frank Hampson, unsurprising for anyone who reads his Dan Dare prequel Rocket Pilot published in Spaceship Away, as well as Joe Colquhoun and Geoff Campion, perhaps best known for their war strips Charley's War and Battler Britton.

As a bonus, at the end of the interview is a breakdown of how Keith creates a Commando cover with the cover to Cold War!, issue 3669, shown as a pencil sketch, the finished artwork and the printed version, as well as being available for download as a PC wallpaper.

October is the traditional time for Commando to put their cover price up and this year the increase is only 5p bringing the cover price to £1.30. The increases in the price of Commando over its long history were covered this time last year on Bear Alley.

If the credit crunch is biting a little too deep for you to be able to afford a copy then the current of the free online e-Commando stories has just been completed on the Commando Mag website. They Flew By Night was originally published as issue 516 in December 1970 and with art by DC Thomson stalwart Gordon Livingstone. While you may not recognise the name, if you read any DC Thomson boy's comic during the 1960s and 1970s you will recognise his style of artwork.

e-Commando They Flew By Night begins here.

The Commando interview with Keith Page is here.

Free Hunt Emerson Comic

Following up the recent downthetubes piece on Hunt Emerson and his work with Phil Stamp Covers, Emerson fans may like to check out the comic that he has produced for the BBC RaW adult literacy campaign.

The 16 page full colour glossy US sized comic is entitled Tips For Storytelling and is written and illustrated by Emerson. The tips for reading stories out loud to children are passed on from one father, Errol, to another, Keith. Errol explains how to involve a young child in the story telling and maintaining their attention. As well as giving tips on reading for adults, the comic effectively provides aspiring humour artists with tips on drawing a wide range of expressions as Errol explains to Keith how funny voices and faces can add to the experience of the story for the child. For that reason alone it is worth looking for a copy.

The BBC RaW Tips For Storytelling comic is available free to UK residents from the BBC RaW website.

Jon Haward Interviewed

Artist Jon Haward, who is busy working on the superb Classical Comics books as the series Art Director, has been interviewed by Terry Hooper over on www.comicbits-online.com.

"The photo of me was taken in Mark Burrell's studio," says Jon. "The portrait of me [titeled “Big Jon and the Bubblegum Gods”] was painted by Mark and is now on show at the Norwich Castle Open Art Show till 23rd November."

The interview talks a lot about Jon's youth and different things i'he's drawn and shows a fair bit of art /different styles. "I guess I adapt as I go along!" Jon told us.

• Read the interview on www.comicbitsonline.com
• Read an earlier downthetubes interview with Jon here

The Art of War

On sale now in all good bookshops is the simply gorgeous The Art of War by David Roach, featuring almost 1000 fabulous full-colour artworks created for the covers of Fleetway/IPC’s classic War, Battle, Air Ace and War at Sea Picture Libraries published from the 1950s to the 1970s.

The beautifully illustrated book comes with a foreword by Top Gear presenter and war comic book aficionado James May.

From the 1950s to the 1970s Fleetway and its successor, IPC, was the world's biggest comic-book publisher and its line of digest-sized Picture Libraries was the jewel in their crown. The most popular and longest lasting titles were War, Battle, Air Ace and War at Sea, which ran for a combined total of over four and a half thousand issues. This is a collection of over 400 of the finest covers, digitally remastered from the original archived artwork in a lavish format with the finest quality reproduction.

Over on the Today's Inspiration blog, David - an artist, illustrator, writer and historian with 20 years experience in the comics industry whose credits include Doctor Who, Batman and Star Wars - has written a series of posts (listed below) tying in with the launch of the book, and this post, "A warehouse full of art - dear God!" by blog owner Lief Peng outlines how, back in 2005, David and Rufus Dayglo uncovered a treasure trove of some 26,000 comic book pages from British girls and boys comics published by IPC, as well as about 10,000 Nursery pages, which they proceeded to catalogue*. Around 1400 war covers had survived, the best of which are in David's books.

"Rufus... has said on several occasions that it was the best summer of his life," David told Lief, "and you can bet the same goes for me - I was in heaven."

David's first post outlines the history of the comic and the art of Giorgio DeGaspari (already a legend in Italy by the time he started work for the UK market), with subsequent posts featuring the work of different artists: Pino Dell’orco, Allessandro Biffignandi, Jordi Penalva (who also drew covers for US titles such as Eerie), and, finally a round up of other artists who worked on the books such as Nino Caroseli, Graham Coton and Ian Kennedy.

• Buy The Art of War from amazon.co.uk

Art of War Features on Today's Inspiration - Direct Links:

• A Warehouse Full of Art
• The Cover Art of British War Comics Day 1 (Overview)
• The Cover Art of British War Comics Day 2 (the art of Pino Dell’orco)
• The Cover Art of British War Comics Day 3 (the art of Allessandro Biffignandi)
• The Cover Art of British War Comics Day 4 (the art of Jordi Penalva)
• The Cover Art of British War Comics Day 5 (the art of various artists)

* Unfortunately, in my opinion, while these war covers have been scanned for posterity, IPC made the decision to sell off the archive before digitally scanning much of it, meaning many of the pages are now scattered across the globe. Given the huge interest in these comics, this seems unwise as it would have made for much higher quality collections of archive Fleetway and IPC comics material and reduced the need for extensive digital restoration work on pages scanned from printed comics.