My brothers and I grew up in the seventies. It was a time before computer games and personal computers.  Oh, there was Atari; but Pong got boring after a half-an-hour, and if you played it any longer it had a hypnotizing effect. Then towards the end of the seventies they installed Space Invaders , Asteroids and Galaxian arcade games at the local fish-and-chip shops. However, a weekly allowance of fifty cents bought us two and half goes at it, or alternatively, an extremely large bag of mixed confectionery - the confectionery usually won out . Thus, many of our recreational hours were spent reading Asterix or Tintin. These books were great reading and I still enjoy them today.

Nevertheless, one of my favourite cartoon books, back then, was Patatrac. It was a wonderful book with no words, just humorous cartoon drawings by Jean Jacques Loup; the popular French jigsaw artist. I would spend hours with my head in this book, studying Loup’s work, and then I would pick up pencil and paper and try to copy his drawings. The book Patatrac was and still is an inspiration for me.

I  believe patatras means ‘crash’ in French, and Patatrac is full of drawings of train, plane and automobile crashes - or collisions of sort; so the word patatrac may be a verb conjugation of patatras. However I may well be wrong as I never studied the French language.

The drawings by Loup are highly detailed and very clever. Each drawing is spread over two pages and carries a theme. Below are a number of examples taken from Patatrac. These are only snippets, so keep in the mind the full drawings are much larger. Take time to look at the detail in each drawing. Loup is a genius. His colouring work is brilliant and I imagine was accomplished without the aid of computer graphics programs.

Below is the full drawing, spanning two pages, however the detail is hard to see at this size. Although, I would like to have shown it larger I do not wish to encroach upon Loup’s copyright or intellectual property. The binding in the middle of the copy of the book I scanned is worn.

There are ten drawings in Patatrac; each is highly detailed and some of them quite complex. It is evident that Loup did plenty of research before putting pencil to paper. The most detailed drawing from Patatrac, - I believe - is the collision of the Spanish Galleons. I have included a snippet of this drawing below.

Patatrac was published in 1975 and I believe it is now out of print. I have searched many online second-hand bookstores for this publication and prices range from US $20.00 for a poor quality copy up to US $120.00 for a copy in good condition. It seems the book is becoming somewhat of a rarity. These samples above were scanned from the copy that my mother owns. She kept it after all these years, bless her.

I recommend this book to anyone who has an appreciation for highly detailed and humorous cartoon drawings. Good luck trying to get hold of Patatrac in mint condition. I hope one day they release it again for publishing.

Loup’s jigsaws are still available today and are equally as impressive.

Paul J Duffield

Dungeons, dragons, ogres and adventure fantasy was a passion of mine in my teens. Not just drawing the stuff, but reading about it and everything to do with it. It was the eighties and my favourite  magazine was  called Dragon.  If you were in to role-playing games back then, such as Dungeons and Dragons, then you would remember that Dragon was the only magazine worth reading, in fact I think it still exists today in an online form. The magazine was a must for me each month, and I would set out to the gaming store to purchase my copy. I would then spend hours reading up on the latest spells and characters, however, there was one article that I loved the most - it was a comic strip called Wormy. Even after my interest in Dungeons and Dragons waned, I still bought the magazine just to read Wormy.

Wormy was written and drawn by Dave Trampier. To this day I have never seen anything like it. The comic strip was pure genius. David’s drawings of ogres and trolls were brilliant and the characters each had plenty of personality. His colouring was earthy and realistic and his elaborate rune drawings were mesmerizing. The one scene that stands out in my mind was the tavern scene were trolls and all sorts of creatures were drinking and playing poker. Take note of the woody rustic hues that David used. His colouring was extraordinary considering that it was done by hand in time before computer aided graphics were available.

There has been much hearsay about David and what he is up to now-a-days. I hope at some stage David’s Wormy cartoon is published as a hardcover book. Below is an example of his brilliant rune art.

I sure wish I had kept many of those Dragon magazines, purely for the artwork sake.

Paul J Duffield.

I often scan online comic websites, such as Webcomics Nation or Online Comics , in search of comics that stand out against the typical manga style, teenage-angst stories or the ’seen it before’ super hero themes and lycanthrope/vampire strips . One comic series that stands out is Sunrise by John W. Allie, an adventure strip set in the the airship age we never had.

John’s comic is a breath of fresh in the current quagmire of online comic strip clutter. It steers away from the typical aggressive/biffo/no brainer style cartoon and focuses more on character interplay and plot development. John has his own style of drawing and has rendered his artwork in a different style for each episode, although I believe he is looking to formalise the style at some stage. Sunrise, which is nearing the end of its third episode, is an adventure comic which runs at least once a week.  Its storyline is divided into separate “issues” which are 20 plus pages long.

The comic follows the adventures of the crew of the airship RAS Akhenaten. John’s strip has been running since February 2008 and in John’s words ‘It draws inspiration from sources as diverse as Herge’s Adventures of Tintin and Star Trek.’ On reading Sunrise it becomes evident that John spends a lot of time researching before he puts pen to paper.

The artwork for Sunrise covers are all in full colour and each of the pages is drawn in high quality black and white. Below are some sample pages of John’s fantastic black and white art. Each of the first three issues of Sunrise was accomplished with a different style of rendering - testimony to John’s versatility and creative abilities. Issue 1 rendering is on the right, issue 2 on the left and issue 3 in the centre.

John promotes and welcomes feedback on his comics which are also available for purchase in harcopy at Lulu. He also provides informative accompanying material on his site such as the a Dramatis Personae, a Behind The Scenes page and more.

Sunrise is a great read for those who prefer an intelligent adventure comic which minimises the  hundrum biffo and puts plenty of energy back into the character development.

Paul J Duffield.

I recently stumbled across the most fascinating online comic. It goes by the name of ‘Set To Sea’ and is drawn by Drew Weing who currently resides in Athens. Weing is pronounced with a long “i,” like “wine,” with an “g” on the end.

Set To Sea by Drew Weing

What is great about this comic is the artist’s ability to convey feeling and empathy without much written word. Drew has fabulous skills with black and white art, and it appears that there is nothing he cannot draw in detail. The drawings he has done of sailing ships and old buildings, of reflections in the water and large icebergs are absolutely brilliant.

His comic is updated regularly and I look forward to seeing where the story takes us next.

An example of Drew’s brilliant black and white drawings.

When it comes to drawing out-of-this-world foliage, plants and creatures then nobody does it better than G.L. Nelson. I have been following his online comic ‘The Sargeant and Professor Skeary Winslow” for some time now. What first captured my attention about this masterpiece was the brilliantly drawn foliage and insects. In fact, Nelson draws these so well that is hard to believe that they are make-believe species.

Not only is his drawing very good but the colour work, shading and perspectives are all great too. The story line that is evolving is quite intriguing and there is plenty of action. Nelson does not confine himself to standard layout either but uses unique border shapes to add interest to his comic.

What is it about I hear you ask? The rugged and disciplined Sergeant Aloysius Ackerby and the unconventional professor Skeary Winslow are strangers to each other until they find themselves lost together in an alien dimension and caught up in action, adventure and intrigue.

I fully recommed you checking out his work at:
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/imagikraft/the_sergeant_and_skeary_winslow/series.php

You will not be dissapointed.

Okay, this is a slight aside to what I normally write about, that being cartoons and comics, however when I come across great illustrations I think it is worth giving them a mention. So here we go: When it comes to books about absent minded professor’s who invent zany contraptions then Professor Branestawm takes the cake. The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm was written by Norman Hunter and first published in 1933. The sequel to this was Professor Branestawm’s Treasure Hunt, published in 1937. Then Norman took a break from writing Professor Branestawm books until later in his life. In 1970 he published the third book The Peculiar Triumph of Professor Branestawm which was followed by another ten books, the last being published in 1983.

The characters and stories in these books are fantastic and I spent many days reading these books as a child. However, although the stories were great, it was in fact the illustrations that really caught my attention. The books were filled with drawings of the professor’s crazy inventions.

Different artists illustrated the books, however I believe the best drawings were those of W. Heath Robinson who was known for drawing fantastic rickety contraptions. In fact, The original book contained seventy-six illustrations by W. Heath Robinson.

I wish I had kept a full set of these novels, just so I could look back upon the great illustrations of contraptions and inventions. Other artists who illustrated the Professor Branestawm books, that I am aware of, were James Arnold, George Worsley Adamson and Derek Cousins.

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