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

83 José Ortiz Moya Possibly the hardest working artist in theworld, and themost prolific, whose black and white art put him at the forefront of horror comics, his immense talent encompassed all sort of genres from westerns to sci-fi and everything in between Fewartists can claim theywere good from the very beginning. José Ortiz was one of those rare exceptions, working at the tender age of 16 illustrating the series El Espía ( The Spy ) for Editorial Maga in Spain. The artwork for that series seemed to be done by a seasoned professional and not a mere teenager. Born in Cartagena, in the region of Murcia, Spain, in 1932, José Ortiz Moya moved to Valencia in 1951 where he shared a studio with his brother Leopoldo and other comic book professionals such as Luis Bermejo and Miguel Quesada. Learning the ropes of the trade by working for Maga (a publishing house founded by popular comics artist Manuel Gago) on many western, jungle and adventure series. By the end of the ’50s he began to collaborate for another publisher: Toray, on the series Sigur el Vikingo , where he showed his influence of Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, and drew westerns for the collection Hazañas del Oeste and for publisher Bruguera in Bisonte Extra Ilustrado . From the 1960s onwards he began his long collaboration with the British market through the art agency Bardon Art. He originally started working for the UK in 1957 on romantic series for Love and Life Library , FACING PAGE: Hombre , pen and ink and watercolour (c. 1980s). Perhaps Ortiz’s best known work, Hombre was his own creation. BOTTOM LEFT: The Crow , pen and ink (1970s), kung fu series created for the German market. BOTTOM RIGHT: Photo of José Ortiz during the seventies. At this stage of his career, Ortiz was an artist with an international audience and was achieving a degree of notoriety amongst US comic fans as a regular contributor to the Warren line of horror-themed magazines.