The issue kicks off with an interview with Cuban (but now living in Montreal) artist Antonio Javier Caparo. Kaparo (as he signs his work) has worked widely as an illustrator of children's novels, as well as working in animation and film as a concept and background artist. Inspired by local and Russian artists, he studied at the Institute of Design in Havana when he discovered the works of Boris Vallejo, Chris Foss, Syd Mead and others in the pages of Masters of Fantasy Art in the Institute's library. After spending most of the Nineties doing graphic design, he moved into digital illustration and book covers, specialising in fantasy and science fiction, but has also illustrated history projects and retellings of Shakespeare.
Kaparo makes an interesting point when he says that digital art is still in its early stages, with things changing greatly over the past thirty years. "[W]e frequently see people who lost their files due to changes, but I visualise a future where digital supports are going to be so good that continuous change won't be necessary so frequently and transferring files from a previous format to a new one will be easier with time." I was thinking the other day about NFTs and how many older digital images are trapped on a floppy disc that nobody can access. (This was prompted by a problem I had translating a very old file from Word Star to Word. I had a programme to do it, but had completely forgotten how to use it. It took half an hour of Googling to find some instructions!)
Russ Heath was a master of realism. Growing up in New Jersey, he read the four colour funny pages, and began drawing his own comic strips at school. By the age of 16 he was already working professionally on Captain Aero Comics during summer breaks before being drafted. Finding work after the War in advertising agencies, he began drawing comics again during lulls and, in 1947, joined the Timely Bullpen, drawing western, war and romance comics.
In 1954 he began working for DC, drawing mainly war comics. He didn't like superhero comics, but some of his work had fantastic elements (e.g 'Sea Devils') and he later assisted Harvey Kurtzman with 'Little Annie Fanny' for Playboy. His work also encompassed humour (for Cracked, Frantic!, National Lampoon, etc.) and horror (for Warren Magazines).
George Gross began painting for pulp magazines and made his name with images of muscular men in ripped shirts and leggy blondes in danger. His earliest work ranged through westerns and detective pulps but settled famously on Jungle Stories, featuring the Ki-Gor, although the covers tended to feature Ki-Gor's shapely companion, Helene.
With the demise of the pulps, Gross turned to men's magazines and paperback covers, chiefly westerns, but returning to his pulp roots in 1972 with a series of covers for 'The Avenger', reprinting stories from the 1940s. For these he used Steve Holland (not that one) as a model, who was also James Bama's model for Doc Savage. Gross also produced covers for more men's adventure paperbacks, including Don Pendleton's The Executioner and the Nick Carter series.
The issue concludes with a look at the work of Arturo Del Castillo, the Argentinian best known here in the UK for 'The Three Musketeers' and various westerns. It is a measure of his talent that his fame in the UK is out of proportion with the number of stories that appeared, dotted around the pages of Top Spot, Film Fun, Knockout, Lion, Ranger, Look and Learn, etc. Using some original art pages adds greatly to this all-too-brief feature.
For more information on Illustrators and back issues, visit the Book Palace website, where you can also find details of their online editions, and news of upcoming issues. Issue 38 will be a John Watkiss special, comic and film concept artist. The issue will be introduced by Neil Gaiman.
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