Denis McLoughlin biography

Denis McLoughlin (15 April 1918 - 22 April 2002; Bolton, Lancashire, England)

Denis McLoughlin was a British illustrator and artist whose sixty-eight year career bought him little fame. Over the course of his career, McLoughlin produced over a hundred paperback covers, about 550 monthly Bloodhound Detective dust jacket illustrations, numerous Bloodhound Detective Story Magazine and other pulp magazine covers, and over a hundred other book covers. He was best known for his illustrations for British comic books.

Denis McLoughlin was born on 15 April 1918, in Bolton, Lancashire, England, where he still resided at the time of his death, 22 April 2002. Always interested in drawing, McLoughlin credits his artistic influence as film, pulp magazines (particularly the covers), and American comics. In the 1930s he collected American True Detective type magazines and American pulp magazines.

McLoughlin also sought out the work of Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon, Secret Agent Corrigan) who he also calls an influence. On scholarship, in 1932, he attended the Bolton School of Art, which survives today as the Bolton College of Art, but left the same year for employment with Ward & Copley Art Studio of Oxford Road, Manchester. At Ward & Copley from 1932 until about January 1940 when lack of business ended his employment, McLoughlin found himself creating product illustrations for catalogues and newspaper advertisements for 10/- a week.

T.V. Boardman, Ltd., was but one of many London publishing houses turning out both paperback and hardcover books, pulp magazines, and comics. Boardman pioneered British reprinting of American comics. During the week of 16 October 1937, the first issue of a Boardman tabloid comic in the traditional British format, Okay Comics Weekly, arrived at newsagents all over England. The content was mostly American newspaper strips and the first issue sported a cover strip by Will Eisner. Okay lasted only until 26 February 1938, or a total of twenty issues. At about this same time, other British publishers experimented with reprinting American comics and imports of the real thing began to land on British shores. It rapidly became apparent that a significant British market for American comic books existed.

However, the British declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939, immediately halted the official importation of American comics into the United Kingdom although masses of American comics intended for G.I.s began arriving in 1942. Already with a taste for American comics, Thomas Volney Boardman, Sr., made an arrangement with Everett Arnold of Quality Comics to produce British editions of two titles, Feature Comics (#29–33) and Smash Comics (#7–11) all appearing in 1940–1941. Because Boardman needed low priced titles to please his primary outlet, Woolworth's Department Stores, the British editions reprinted only about half the content of the American originals. To use the rest of the pages, Boardman created two additional corresponding titles in the American style, Super Funnies (#29–33) and Mystery Comics (#7–11).

Drafted in March 1940, Denis McLoughlin served with the Royal Artillery's 101st Light Anti-Aircraft and Anti-Tank Regiment (later the 1st Armoured Brigade). He managed to practice his art by painting a rhino insignia on the regiment's vehicles and by painting at least 37 murals of different sizes in various military buildings. His unofficial position of regimental painter gained McLoughlin much greater freedom than the common soldier and allowed him several opportunities to practice his art. In the beginning, he painted officer's portraits for 5/- each. Soon, however, a London publisher, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., offered him work painting book covers at the rate of £5 each. The first of these covers was for Frank Gruber's Navy Colt which appeared in 1943.

Other covers followed for Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. which eventually recommended McLoughlin to Boardman Books. Having no work, however, Boardman passed Denis on to Australian-owned Kangaroo Books.

Boardman's three pence rotogravure series began monthly production in February 1948. Issues were twelve pages long and used both front and back covers as story pages. They were printed in three colours (generally black, white, and red or green) on clay coated paper and saddle-stitched at the spine. In American publishing, they most closely resemble Will Eisner's Spirit Sunday newspaper inserts. Mildly inspired by Alex Raymond, Denis and Colin filled the first seven issues with the adventures of detective Roy Carson and adventure/science fiction hero Swift Morgan alternately. Although titles changed with each issue, numbering remained consistent to the entire series. Issue eight saw the addition of Lennart Ek's Buffalo Bill reprinted from a Swiss source but always repackaged by Denis. Eventually, Denis would create some original Buffalo Bill stories for the series but his involvement with other projects for Boardman caused the reprint content of the rotogravure series to increase. Still holding the rights to material from Quality Comics, Blackhawk (at least sixteen issues) and the Spirit (probably only two issues) were added to the rotation of titles. These reprints were always repackaged by Denis McLoughlin. The twelve-page rotogravure format lasted for 44 issues until October 1951. In February 1953, the series numbering continued but with color covers and black & white interiors until probably sometime in 1954. It seems possible that number 61, featuring Blackhawk, was the last issue. Rebound newsagent returns of the rotogravure series were released as Super Colour Annuals (there were three, 1949–1951).

One reason for McLoughlin's partial withdrawal from the rotogravure series late in 1948 was undoubtedly the introduction of Christmas annuals to the Boardman line under their Popular Press imprint. The first of these, Buffalo Bill Wild West Annual number one, appeared in time for the 1949 Christmas market. The book's production was rushed because T.V. Boardman, Sr., did not decide to proceed with the project until the last minute. Success of the experiment assured that the title would continue and another Buffalo Bill Wild West Annual appeared in time for Christmas every year through the 1961 issue. Given the success of Buffalo Bill, it is hardly surprising that the "Adventure" annual series was soon added to the Popular Press offerings. Both annual series offered a mixture of American comic reprints (mostly from Quality) combined with British original comic stories (almost always by the brothers McLoughlin), text features, puzzles, gags, and games.

After the 1948 issue, each Buffalo Bill Wild West Annual took Denis, who had almost total creative control over the project, about six months to produce. He began with a blank dummy of the Annual and positioned each story and feature to get the layout. T.V. Boardman had to approve each project and a representative of Woolworth's Department Stores, which were the primary outlet for the annuals, had final veto power. McLoughlin obviously lavished his attention on the Buffalo Bill annuals. Here his graphic story-telling reached new heights. As the series progressed the amount of research for each story obviously increased contributing a high degree of realism to the series. By the last few annuals almost all of the stories were based on solid history. "Ghost Towns," for example, in 1958's Buffalo Bill Wild West Annual number ten provides a poignant comment on the passing of the American West with a level of understanding unique for the time and seldom seen in comic book westerns of any period.

Denis McLoughlin had the same creative control over the "adventure" annual series. Unlike the Buffalo Bill annuals, the Adventure series was not numbered. It also tended to contain a much higher percentage of reprinted American material and shows evidence of much less research. The first of these publications was Ajax Adventure Annual which appeared in 1952. The order of the adventure series is probably Ajax Adventure Annual in 1952; Adventure Annual, 1953; New Spaceways Comic Annual No. 1, 1954; Okay Adventure Annual, 1955–1957; Okay Annual of Adventure Stories, 1958–1959; and the First Book of Heroes, c. 1959/60. Both Adventure Annual and New Spaceways Comic Annual feature Roy Carson and Swift Morgan stories. New Spaceways also features a variety of Quality super-hero reprints including Plastic Man and Doll Man and has art by Reed Crandall and Matt Baker, making it, of all the Boardman annuals, the most desirable to collectors in the United States. The First Book of Heroes was designed by McLoughlin but only has one page of his art.

In 1967, McLoughlin went to work for IPC, then the largest comic publisher in the United Kingdom. He took over the art chores on "Saber" (kind of a blonde Tarzan) and also drew "Big Hit Swift" (a cricket strip which McLoughlin detested) for the pages of Tiger. From 20 March to 21 October 1971, McLoughlin illustrated "Fury's Family" about a boy and his menagerie for Lion. McLoughlin then took about two years off from comics to finish the compilation of Wild & Woolly, his encyclopaedia of the American West published by Doubleday in 1974. Although McLoughlin had been promised that he would be able to return to IPC, no stories were made available after the book project was finished.

After sending art samples, McLoughlin found stories to illustrate for the Scottish publishing firm D.C. Thomson and Co., Ltd., in 1974. He has been working for them ever since and contributed to just about all of their adventure titles (all of which are now defunct) including Wizard, Victor, Buddy, Crunch, Bullet, and Scoop. Primarily, however, McLoughlin's work appeared in Wizard. At his height with the company (22 October 1977), five McLoughlin stories graced the pages of two Thomson titles, Wizard and Bullet. Perhaps the best regarded of McLoughlin's strips for Thomson were "Sign of the Shark" featuring x-agent Jake Jeffords, "The Green Lizard" which was a science fiction tale, and "The Shark" featuring the crew of a German E-Boat during World War II. Unfortunately, the days of the traditional British comic story paper were already numbered by the late-1970s and by 1983, most ceased publication. Denis drew two western features for the 1983 Look and Learn Annual before beginning his monthly stint for Thomson's Commando, a 64-page war comic digest which sees four issues released twice a month (96 issues a year). McLoughlin produced about one issue of Commando a month until his death on 22 April 2002.

A handful of collectors recognised his talents and they, thankfully, were vocal in their praise of his talents. Indeed, for such a minor figure in the world of art, Denis McLoughlin has been the subject of a surprising number of booklets in the past, from Francis Hertzberg's duplicated fanzine Illustrated by d. mcloughlin (1978), which he later expanded into the book The Master of Light & Shade (1995), to Dave Nicholson's The Life and Art of Denis McLoughlin (1993) and David Ashford's The Hardboiled Art of Denis McLoughlin (1994).

McLoughlin was a welcome guest at London book fairs, a short, energetic Lancastrian even in his seventies who cheerfully signed books for fans who sought out his illustrations for annuals and hardbacked books from fifty years past. He had a no-nonsense approach to his work; maintaining a 50-60 hour, six-day working week, which he only slowed down in the 1990s.

Denis's hardcore following cherished his work, discussed and dissected it in the pages of magazines in the UK and USA, where Tom Lesser championed his work; in more recent years Matthew Gore brought his work to the attention of a new generation on the internet via his much-visited web-site.

The Art of Denis McLoughlin is the book that Denis deserved. 272 pages of full-colour at long last shows off his artwork the way it should be seen, displayed in a coffee-table-sized book. Early chapters include autobiographical reminiscences by Denis about his early life and work, illustrated with some astonishing photographs of the murals Denis painted during his wartime service. Even as Denis served his time as an ack-ack gunner, he was earning a little on the side drawing covers and joke books for London publishers. It's a delight to see so many of these early books illustrated as they're now extremely scarce.

However, for most people, the centrepiece of the book will be the pages dedicated to Denis's days working for T. V. Boardman. Publisher of the Bloodhound Books line of crime novels, Denis would draw some 700 dustjackets, plus scores of paperback and magazine covers for Boardman between 1945 and 1967. Early books featured fully air-brushed art (around 1957, the colour was reduced to save money) and were mostly in coloured inks, poster colour and coloured pencils – a particularly effective mixture in annuals. Later books were pen and ink drawings, another cost-cutting decision, but McLoughlin was able to get the maximum potential from each medium.

Over the years, his work ranged from fully painted action illustrations to minimalist designs. He was not frightened to experiment with layouts, incorporate photographs or mix realism and metaphor. With his brother Colin and wife Dorothy, Denis often acted out scenes for reference photographs, and all three were the stars of more than one cover. This aspect of Denis's work is explored in the book with photographs juxtaposed with Denis's finished covers.

One must not forget that Denis was also the artist of a series of Buffalo Bill annuals and comic strips; these, too, are covered in depth. There's even a complete early "Roy Carson" strip for you to marvel at.
Source: Steve Holland; Illustration Art Gallery

See our book The Art of Denis McLoughlin about Denis and his extraordinary life and work.
Also illustrators issue 1 for a feature article about Denis McLoughlin.

See DENIS MCLOUGHLIN ART.