EXTRACTS: Illustrators Issue 6 © 2013 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

64 © IPC Media © IPC Media Look at it ’till your bloody eyes pop out!” He then left. End of lesson. According to Coton, that was the best piece of advice he’d ever been given at Goldsmiths! Whatever he thought of the teaching at Goldsmiths, Coton must have felt himself fortunate to be there for he fell deeply in love with a fellow student, Beryl Russell Astbury, whom he described as “the most beautiful thing I ever saw”, and whom he simply adored. Beryl’s passion was design and textiles. She became a very accomplished needle worker, and was to have a Victorian-style nightdress she created exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Coton left Goldsmiths in 1949, and a year later, he married Beryl. The couple went to live with one of their tutors, Valentine McGregor Dunnit, in his enormous house of several storeys in Blackheath. Here they lived ABOVE: Coton’s earliest work for UK publisher Amalgamated Press appeared in their pocket sized Cowboy Comics Library and often required both cover and interior strip work. ABOVE RIGHT: Coton at his work table in 1956 with cat Chosim on shoulder and handle of paint brush, characteristically, in mouth. FACING PAGE: Coton’s love of action drawing did not go unnoticed by editors and he soon found his skills employed within the pages of weekly comics as in this example of ‘Brady’s Aces’ from Tige r.