EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 9 © 2014 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

65 All images © IPC Media For most admirers of British illustration, the name of Eric Parker immediately brings tomind the famous fictional detective, SextonBlake.This is understandable as, for over three decades, Eric Parker was responsible for nearly all the illustrations and cover paintings for the various journals that chronicled the annals of the detective who has been described as ‘Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street Rival’. What is often forgotten is that Eric Parker also produced a vast body of work that lay totally outside the genre of detective fiction. Amazingly prolific and possessing a dynamic visual imagination, Parker became one of the most popular of all illustrators of magazines and comics, emerging in the latter field as one of the first really successful picture Eric R. Parker David Ashford and Norman Wright share with us the fascinating story behind the life and career of Sexton Blake’s premier illustrator. Energy and economy of line were the defining ingredients of an Eric Parker illustration as these images from Union Jack’ s Sexton Blake serials attest.