EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 22 © 2018 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

49 Matías Alonso An artist whose densely rich style of drawing brings to mind Burne Hogarth on steroids, Alonso's entrée into UK comics was via his friend and champion, Luis Bermejo, but his work had a strength all its own. LEFT: Judge Dredd , pen and ink and watercolour (1993). Perhaps the best known British comic book character, it has since become a movie (two times) and is still being published. Alonso’s tongue-in-cheek styling adding a touch of black humour to the series. © IPC Media As most Spanish comic book artists working during the 1950s, Matías Alonso was already a professional whilst still in his teens. Born on February 24, 1935 in Valle de Trápaga in the province of Biscay, Spain, Alonso showed an aptitude for painting and drawing from an early age. And like most children his age, he grew up reading comic books. After finishing school, he turned down an apprenticeship in industrial engineering, preferring instead to work as a comic book artist. At age 17 he sent some samples of his work to Grafidea, a small publishing comic book company located in Barcelona, and they immediately hired him. Back in those days, the Spanish weekly comics were published as 8-page booklets in a landscape format with colour covers and black and white interior art, and sold for one peseta. For Grafidea in 1955, Alonso worked on the series ‘El Charro Temerario’ (the word “charro” being used in Mexico to describe their equivalents of the North American cowboys, so the title would translate as ‘The Reckless Cowboy’). This series would form part of a trilogy that Alonso continued with ‘La Capitana’ (‘The Female Captain’), and ‘El Amuleto Verde’ (‘The Green Amulet’), the latter being less exciting and violent than the previous two parts, although for ‘La Capitana’ Alonso received an award for the high-quality of his drawings. In 1957 he also added the new series ‘Luis Valiente’. By 1959 Alonso felt more confident with his work and contacted another publisher: Valenciana, a more prodigious publishing house than Grafidea. For Valenciana he worked on Hazañas de la Juventud Audaz (Feats of the Brave Youth) with the science-fiction series ‘La Saga de los Aznar’ based on the work of Spanish writer Pascual Enguídanos Usach, writing under the pseudonym of George H. White. Years later, G. H. White’s work was recognized as the best European science-fiction series during the 1978 European Science Fiction Convention held in Brussels. Later that year, and thanks to the success of the Aznar saga, Alonso moved to Valencia where he contacted the group of artists who were based in the city: Luis Bermejo, the Quesada brothers, Emilio Frejo Abregón, Alfredo