Terror in the Tall Tower

Here's a cover created by Denis McLoughlin from 1974. Love this: it's such a classic pulp image... See here for Ian Kennedy's version from the reprint collection in the eighties.

The Hotspur annual 1976

Ron Smith provides a cover depicting Nick Jolly, an 18th century highwayman, who's transported into the 20th century by an 'amazing Time Ray, which had also transformed his trusty mare, Bess, into a jet-propelled horse of steel'. Apparently....

No, this isn't the original art. For some reason I thought it'd be interesting to see it sans text, so I did a little PShop jiggery-pokery. Yep, I don't get out much.....

Terror in the Tall Tower

A giant octopus living in an old abandoned skyscraper in New York-yay!!
This is Ian Kennedy's cover for a reprint edition from 1980. See here for a peek at an original cover from the first run of this series

2000AD

Brian Lewis draws Judge Dredd. Not the best rendition of Joe Dredd.

"Why the long face Joe?"
"Heavy dentures-creep!"

But only one of a handful of jobs BL contributed to 2000AD and Starlord before he died. I'm unsure how BL would have been received by the editors of 2000AD at the time: whether they thought him too old school to fit into the new comic that was trying to break from tradition.

Valiant Annual 1965

Art by Ron Embleton.

The Kachin Killers

Cover by Ian Kennedy for Warlord dated, October 3rd 1981. A nice Kennedy illustration marred by the fact that it's printed on news print, and the ink has been absorbed into the paper and has spread a little, leaving a slightly out of focus image...

The Daily Mirror Book of Garth

Printed in 1974. I think it's safe to say that Frank Bellamy was one of the finest artists of his generation. His colour strip work was both dynamic and exciting to read. Most famous for his work in Eagle (Dan Dare, Heros the Spartan; Fraser of Africa, the life story of Winston Churchill) and TV21 (Thunderbirds) in the sixties he later took over the long-running Garth strip that appeared in the Daily Mirror newspaper. This cover is from a collection of the Garth daily strips. Go here for more info.

Battle Picture Weekly

More Geoff Campion goodness. Going through my collection, I'd forgotten that initially, Battle had been printed on a better stock than the usual newsprint. The paper is white and holds ink very well. Non of the ink spread and muddiness of newsprint. The colours are quite vibrant and really give the comic a sheen that would have made it stand out amongst it's companions on the shelves in the shops. I'm assuming that this type of paper was more expensive than newsprint and after Battle had grabbed the kids attention, it was down-graded to a cheaper alternative? Interestingly enough the stock did change again back to the good stuff a couple of times during Battle's run.

Tiger McTaggert

Art by Ian Kennedy. I'd put IK up there with Geoff Campion for the amount of covers produced during his career. In fact I would think that he's drawn/painted the most comic covers of any artist working in British comics. IK is one of my favourites, he has a clear, crisp, appealing style.
Go here for more Kennedy art and interviews.