EXTRACTS: Pirates! Illustrators Special Edition © 2020 The Book Palace (128 PAGES in Full edition)

125 Paul Hardy (1862-1942). Born into a family of artists, Hardy con‐ tributed illustrations to numerous magazines, including The Strand Magazine , as well as a great number of children’s adventure books and editions of classic novels, drawing countless illustrations for stories set ineveryperiodof history.Hebecame thepremier costume artist for Chums magazine, noted particularly for his illustrations for pirate stories. Reginald C. W. Heade (1901-1957). Mostly known as perhaps the greatest of the ‘saucy pin-up’ style of cover artist, Heade’s early work was contributing the covers to the magazines, Brittania and Eve and dustjackets for hardback novels. After theWar he began painting his racy covers to theHank Jansonnovels and similar paperback public‐ ations. In the late ’40s, however, he began working on adventure strips for Knockout and later painted three splendid covers for the Thriller Comics Library . James. E. McConnell (1903-1995). Noted for his top quality paperback and book jacket work, McConnell never turned his hand to picture strips but contributed the majority of the covers for the Amalgamated Press’ all-text Western Library ; a great many of the later covers for their Cowboy Comics Library ; a fair number for the Thriller Comics Library and the majority of the later issues of the Super Detective Library . Towards the end of his career he began con‐ tributing paintings of the highest quality to the educational weekly, LookandLearn .An incredibly fastworker, it is said that he frequently completed a cover painting and the rough for another painting in the same day. Edward Mortelmans (1915-2008). Working in watercolour and black and white line drawings, Mortelmans is best known for his il‐ lustrations to books for children and young adults. He painted the covers for a number of the Four Square paperback editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels, including ‘The Son of Tarzan’, ‘The Beasts of Tarzan’ and ‘Lost on Venus’. Among his magazine work were covers for the American pulpmagazine, Argosy . Patrick Nicolle (1907-1995). Nicolle was a founder member of the Arms and Armour Society and his many illustrations and strips for comics express his life-long passion for British history. He drew many historical adventure strips for Comet and Sun , most notably ‘Under the Golden Dragon’, about the Norman Conquest, as well as Robin Hood strips for the Thriller Comics Library and Ginger Tom/ Firebrand strips for Knockout . Nicolle illustrated countless historical articles and series for Look and Learn as well as painting a full-colour strip version of ConanDoyle's novel, ‘Sir Nigel’. Eric Robert Parker (1898-1974). From the outset his artistic output was prolific andhisworkcanbe seen inawide varietyof publications throughout the 1920s and ’30s. For over three decades Parker con‐ tributed hundreds of cover paintings and interior black andwhite il‐ lustrations for the various periodicals devoted to the annals of the popular fictional detective, Sexton Blake. His first strip work was for Knockout , notably for a long series of adaptations of adventure classics, such as ‘The Three Musketeers’. He drew a half dozen strip stories for the ThrillerComics Library and laterworked for the educa‐ tional magazine, Look and Learn . Septimus Edwin Scott (18769-1965). Scott enjoyed a long and variedcareer as apainter of landscapes andportraiture, as abookand magazine illustrator, and as one of the country’s most successful poster artists at a time when Poster Art was at the height of its pop‐ ularity. He was nearly seventy years of age when the editor of Knockout approached him to procure his services as a strip artist. The resulting seven serials featuring ‘Captain Flame’ were the result. Scott drew five full-length strips for the Thriller Comics Library . He also painted over a hundred covers for the picture libraries as well as covers and colour plates for Kit Carson’s Cowboy Annual , Billy the Kid’s Book of Picture Stories and the RobinHood Annual . Sidney Herbert Sime (1865-1941). Born in Manchester in abject poverty, Sime worked for five years down the mines before studying at the Liverpool School of Art where he won several awards. Sime quickly became famous for his fantastic and satirical illustrations for the magazines, Pick-Me-Up , The Pall Mall Gazette and The Idler . After receiving an inheritance fromhis uncle, he bought up The Idler only to sell it two years later. In 1904, Sime was approached by Irish writer, LordDunsany, to illustrate the latter’s first book, ‘TheGods of Pegana’. This began amost successful associationbetweenwriter and illustrator that was to last for the rest of Sime’s life. John Millar Watt (1895-1975). In 1921, he created a daily strip character for The Daily Sketch called ‘Pop’, a rotund, downtrodden, businessman and family man who kept the nation laughing for almost thirty years. In 1949 he began painting covers for magazines suchas The IllustratedLondonNews , HollyLeaves and The Sphere , for which he worked for almost forty years. In the mid-1950s, he changed direction and began working for the comics of the Amal‐ gamated Press. During the 1960s he began illustrating historical series for a quartet of quality children’s magazines, Princess , Once UponATime , Look and Learn and Ranger , for the latter producing a memorable full-colour painted strip version of ‘Treasure Island’. Michael White (?-2003). Better known as ‘Mike’ White, he had a career in comics that lasted over forty years. He began working in the early ’60s. Among his better known comics work he did ‘The RunningMan’and‘Hell’sHighway’for Action in1976,andfor 2000AD he drew episodes of ‘Tharg’s Future Shocks’, ‘Ro-Jaws Robo Tales’ and ‘Tharg’s Time Twisters’. He took over the popular ‘Roy of the Rogers’ strip for six years. Convinced that comic books wouldn’t last, he switched to illustration.