EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 10 © 2015 Book Palace Books (96 PAGES in Full edition)

7 would fill drawing books with renditions of monsters and dinosaurs. It was these drawings, which would act as the first of a series of seminal springboards to his eventual career path. It was when Stout was in 5th Grade that his teacher noticed the boy drawing rather than listening to the lesson. Upon inspecting the results of the young artist’s labours, the teacher was mightily impressed with the dinosaur that Stout had rendered. This resulted in him receiving extra homework assignments making studies of human anatomy, which was to provide the necessary bedrock of understanding to be able to apply his craft to all manner of future assignments. His formal art training began when he enrolled at the Chouinard Art Institute in 1967. The institute, located in downtown Los Angeles, had strong ties with the Walt Disney studio and it was under the aegis of Walt and Roy Disney that it eventually merged with the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to become the California Institute of Arts. Chouinard was not only forward thinking in so far as it offered studies in animation with Disney’s legendary 'Nine Old Men' as instructors and lecturers, but it also encouraged its students to take on commercial assignments in lieu of homework. As a consequence, by the time Stout hit his third year at Chouinard, all his assignments were for paying clients—making his transition to a busy freelance illustrator seamless. As Stout comments, “1968, I count that the start of my career, as that was the first time I was able to support myself from my art”. At that time he won a competition to design a cover for a magazine called Coven 13 . As its name implies, Coven 13 was a publication dedicated to the dark arts and a perfect platform for Stout’s predilections. Not that he was in any way overly precious about compromising his artistic identity—in fact far from it—he was eager to work to briefs outside of his immediate comfort zone and worked on the first US advertising campaign for Toyota and a series of posters for Taco Bell , which he FACING PAGE: The hand coloured cover for 'Monsters Sketchbook 4', based on Jack Davis's classic cover for Creepy No. 1. THIS PAGE: Both Stout's 'Nosferatu' poster and his 'Monsters Sketchbook Five' were enthusiastically received on the 2014 convention circuit.