EXTRACTS: PIRATE TALES Fleetway Picture Library Classics © 2020 Book Palace Books * 272 PAGES IN FULL EDITION

9 Introduction PIRATE TALES To what I imagine was something of a surprise to the artist, John Millar Watt was approached by Leonard Matthews, editor of the Amalgamated Press’ Thriller Comics Library (soon to become Thriller Picture Library ), to contribute historical adventure strips to his publication. ‘The Fortunes of Captain Blood’, published in October 1956, became Millar Watt’s very first adventure strip. Not only did he draw all sixty-four pages of the comic but he also painted the cover. The strip is characteristically vigorously drawn with a great sense of movement, eminently suitable for a tale of piratical action. This quality is particularly effective in the crowd scenes, where many scores of rampaging pirates are depicted roaring through the town, hell-bent on rapine and pillage. His second full-length strip, ‘The Three Musketeers and the Prince of Peril’ is another fine piece of work, brimming with period detail and the atmosphere of 17th century France. It is a pity that he drew only one more strip for the Library and that was the thirteen page adventure, ‘Robin Hood and the Giant Catapult’, which was again full of rich period detail. I say it must have been a surprise to Millar Watt to have been invited to draw such adventures because previously the only picture strip he had drawn featured the humorous antics of a rotund, rather downtrodden, businessman and family man, simply known as ‘Pop’. He had depicted this character, which appeared in the newspaper, The Daily Sketch for almost thirty years and it had become one of the most famous cartoon characters ever to appear in a British newspaper. With their wit, strong visual humour and familiar, everyday situations, the ‘Pop’ strips rapidly gained almost world-wide popularity, being syndicated in the United States, Canada and India. We owe a debt of gratitude to Leonard Matthews for his astuteness in spotting Millar Watt’s potential as an adventure strip artist. John Millar Watt was born in Gurrock on the Clyde on October 14, 1895. He showed artistic promise from an early age and later studied metalwork and jewellery at the Sir John Cass Institute and then anatomy under Henry Stabler. Moving to London he joined the Mather & Crowther advertising agency as an apprentice in the art department while at the same time attending evening classes at Westminster School of Art. The First World War interrupted Millar Watt’s artistic ambitions and in 1915 he joined the Artists’ Rifles, finding himself engaged in some of the most brutal conflicts of the War, including the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Vimy Ridge where he was gassed. After his discharge, in 1919, he spent a brief period of study at the Slade School of Art before returning to Mather & Crowther. During his spare time, he began to supplement his salary by taking on freelance work, contributing sporting cartoons to the Daily Chronicle and illustrations to the prestigious quality monthly, The Sphere . He was beginning to find his feet in the world of commercial art but it was as a result of his creation of the cartoon character, ‘Pop’, that his career as an illustrator became assured. The three decades or so of the ever-present deadlines of a daily strip eventually began to take its toll and Millar Watt decided to leave the Daily Sketch and ‘Pop’ was taken over by another artist. John Millar Watt had long been accepted as an illustrator of stature and, while working on ‘Pop’, had also found time to paint covers for such respected magazines as The Illustrated London News , Holly Leaves and The Sphere . With the latter he enjoyed a long-term working relationship that lasted for almost forty years, with his outstanding full-colour cover paintings gracing many Christmas issues from the twenties to the sixties. He was also much sought after for advertising campaigns, notably for Ben Truman beer and Shell Oil. And then, in the mid 1950s, he changed direction again. He began to work for the Amalgamated Press. Apart from the three strips he drew for the Thriller Picture Library , Millar Watt also painted a series of impressive watercolour cover paintings for the monthly, featuring Robin Hood and Dick Turpin, all of which have a certain jewel- JOHN MILLARWATT