EXTRACTS: The Art of Commando (illustrators special) © 2019 The Book Palace (144 PAGES in Full edition)

8 Daggers Drawn! - A Brief History of Commando Peter Richardson turns back the pages as he explores the story of the UK's longest-running series of war comics. ABOVE TOP: A typically lurid Ken Barr cover for Commando 22. ABOVE & ABOVE RIGHT: Jordi Penalva's bravura paintings were a regular feature of Commando from the late '60s through to the '70s.'The Deadly One', issue 529, was reprinted twice—this example is from 2012. FACING PAGE TOP: Ian Kennedy's art has become a mainstay of Commando covers and he continues to deliver powerful and accurate action-packed artwork to this day. FACING PAGE BOTTOM: A cover by one of the newest recruits to Commando , Neil Roberts' paintings are created using a mixture of traditional media and digital technology, but the power and impact remain true to the best traditions of Commando. Commando first hit the new-stands in the summer of 1961. The bold logo featuring a Sykes Fairbairn dagger and the legend Commando War Stories in Pictures immediately made it stand out from its competitors, of which there were many. The banner logo wasn’t the only thing that made it stand apart, there were superb wrap-around paintings featuring muscle hewn guys, teeth clenched and dripping with sweat, that looked like they had leapt straight out of the Mr Universe Finals rather than the ranks of the British Army. The titles were equally lurid; ‘A Guy Needs Guts’, ‘Mercy For None’, ’Red Runs The River’, ‘Hun Bait’, ‘Knife For A Nazi’ — Commando positively oozed testosterone-fuelled energy and was an immediate hit with its young readers. The comic was the brainchild of editor Chic Checkley who, in common with many of his contemporaries, had a long association with DCThomson and was as resourceful as he was visionary. His immediate task in bringing