Illustrators # 50 (magazine review)

Even editor Diego Cordoba is amazed that they’ve got to fifty issues. This issue has had a slight price rise but also a few more pages to enjoy.

This time he starts off with an interview with artist David Palumbo, one of Julie Bell’s sons, who prefers to work with oils and his work on ‘Magic: The Gathering’ and ‘Marvel Masterpieces’ put him on the map. A rare breed considering that many publishers prefer digital art but, as he says, he scans and sends the work into them. There’s little information on the size of his original paintings. I think some of his paintings are a little raw for detail but the example I chose to show here clearly shows some beautiful detail.

In direct contrast and another interview with Welsh artist Angelo Rinaldi moved from oils to work solely digitally over a decade ago. Obviously, there is a difference in the needs of covers than purely painting. I’m impressed with his paintings of dogs.

I do think Cordoba under-estimates people not knowing who artist Mike Noble (1930-2018) is. From his earliest work in ‘TV21’, the ‘M. Noble’ on his artwork stuck in our heads. I always thought his ‘Fireball XL5’ story ‘The Iceman Of Space’ was one of the finest stories and that’s saying something compared to the others which are just as good. He elevated the TV show to even greater heights. There is much to see here, especially as the samples are from the original artwork. Noble points out that he was a slow artist but when he explains what he did for each double-page art from drawing to inking and colouring with a limited scheme to match the printers, there is a lot of work here done over a week. Apart from ‘TV21’, much of his later work was in ‘Look-In’ and he was very prolific. When he worked in black and white, he invariably used washes to give an extra tone. A review of his work in ‘Illustrators’ is long overdue and has to be the biggest selling point of this issue.

Cordoba also interviews Jean-Pierre Dionnet. No, I didn’t know who he was neither. If I said he was the co-founder of ‘Metal Hurlant’, then that joins the dots. He goes over his history and moving from magazine to magazine until it happened. He already had Philippe Druillet and Mobius and brought in American Rich Corben who was having difficulty setting some of his work in the USA for the opening issues and ‘Metal Hurlant’ quickly bloomed. An interesting read.

A new feature is looking at movie posters. This first one is why is James Bond holding an air pistol instead of a Walther PPK in his hand. It was the only gun available when David Hurn was painting it and assumed it would be corrected later but wasn’t. Thinking objectively here, it probably looked more dramatic with the long gun barrel over his cheek and with Roger Moore, away from him.

Lastly, we see a selection of Ron Embleton’ work with an emphasis on his humour. Visual gags are hard to pull off with groups because you have to be aware of what each character has to be doing in relation to the rest. Embleton was a master of this and a lot to learn from.

Have I given you enough reasons to buy this edition? I can see it selling out.

GF Willmetts

April 2026

(pub: The Book Palace, 2026. 114 page illustrated squarebound magazine. Price: £25.00 (UK), $27.99? (US) via Bud Plant. ISBN: 978-1-913548-03-2. ISSN: 2052-6520)

check out website: www.bookpalace.com and www.illustratorsquarterly.com