Online Art Board Supplies Comic art for the major US companies such as Marvel or DC is drawn on special art board that includes 'blue line' indicators so the artists draw to the correct size proprotional to the final US comic book art size. Artists contracted to the companies are provided with this board, although I am not sure if this is still supplied gratis, as it was in Paul Neary's day as Editorial Director at Marvel UK, or if they have to pay for it. Page measurements apparently vary slightly from company to company, so using ordinary Bristol board and a ruler may be a better option for the aspiring artist than seeking down this specialised board. 2000AD is now published pro to US comic book size. BlueLine There is a type of Bristol board called BlueLine which features these the official comic page measurments printed on it. It's solicited through Previews and, therefore, most comic shops should be able to order it. Some artists don't like it. Bristol Board • Most art supply shops in Belfast sell Bristol board in A3 20 sheet blocks. Art Supplies • Blink Twice The Blink Twice Art Product range sells everything a professional comic artist/aspiring new comer needs to do the job! (Well maybe not everything, but the Blink Twice boys are bigger than me). The initial range includes the Blink Twice Comic Book Board which comes as a pack of 12 sheets; the Blink Twice Sketch Books, whichcome in either Pink or Blue; the Blink Twice Layup Book. All products can be ordered directly through the site at: www.kennel17.co.uk • Great Art Supplies Gerstaecker UK Limited / Great Art, Normandy House, 1 Nether Street, Alton, Hampshire GU34 1EA Telephone Order line 0845 601 5772 (Local call rate) Described as Europe's largest and brightest catalogue for art materials, this company says "Whatever your angle - whether you're an art student, leisure painter, art teacher or professional artist - we're sure that you'll find that we are full of all the supplies you need." They publish a variety of catalogues for each country -- one artist I know orders material from their French rather than UK edition. • London Graphics Company 16-18 Shelton Street, Covent Garden London WC2H 9JL Tel: 020 7759 4500 Fax: 020 7759 4585 London Graphic Centre was established in 1973 as a specialist graphic materials supplier to the London Design and Advertising market. Dip Pens • Hans Presto This Swedish (with English translation) site apparently stocks and sells just about every dip pen ever made. It also has sections on Lettering, Comics and Handwriting. (thanks to artist Kev Hopgood for this one)

CENTURY 21 COLLECTIONS - ON SALE NOW Century 21 Volume 1 Featuring the following Gerry Anderson series-inspired comics: • Fireball XL5 - The Astran Assassination (art by Mike Noble) • Stingray - The Haunting of Station 17 (Ron Embleton) • Stingray - Superjunk (Gerry Embleton) • Thunderbirds: Chain Reaction (Frank Bellamy) • Thunderbirds - The Devil's Crag (Frank Bellamy) • Thunderbirds - Starburst (Brian Lewis) • Lady Penelope - The Luvenium Affair (Frank Langford) • Zero X - Planet of Bones (Mike Noble) • Captain Scarlet - The Football King (Mike Noble) • Captain Scarlet - Leviathan (Don Harley) • Buy Century 21: Classic Comic Strips from the Worlds of Gerry Anderson Volume 1 from Amazon.co.uk Century 21 Volume 2 Feauring... • Fireball XL5 - Giant Ant Invasion (Art by Mike Noble) • Fireball XL5: Planet of Fire (Mike Noble) • Stingray - Monster Weed Menace (Ron Embleton) • Thunderbirds - Curse of the Elastos (Ron Turner) • Thunderbirds - Secret of the Iceberg (Frank Bellamy) • Lady Penelope - The Androids of London Affair (Frank Langford) • Zero X: Prisoners of the Eye Leaves (Mike Noble) • Captain Scarlet - Formicide (Don Harley) • Captain Scarlet - The Beginning of the End (Jim Watson and Mike Noble) • Buy Century 21: Classic Comic Strips from the Worlds of Gerry Andserson Volume 2 from amazon.co.uk

Comics Artists H

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Matt Haley
Official: www.matthaley.com
Matt has drawn a variety of books, covers and pin-ups for several publishers. (See his credits page). "I have been drawing comics for a number of years now, and people keep telling me I'll get faster, but it never seems to happen," he says on his site. "This may seem like career suicide to admit this where editors can see, but, I have to be honest. All I know is my work continues to improve, and I keep challenging myself to get better, and since I'm completely self-taught, I keep having to relearn things. I learn every day."

Gary Hall
Official: nemons.deviantart.com/gallery

I've known Liverpool-based Gary Hall for some years: a terrific artist with a polish to his work borne of plenty of experience in the games industry and elsewhere - check out this hilarious "Mite-Sized Judge John Reid" he drew for me in response to an appeal for art illustrating modern Britain, inspired by news in March 2007 that a Ministry of Justice was on the way here.

Fletcher Hanks
About Fletcher Hanks: www.fletcherhanks.com
Even many serious collectors are unaware of Fletcher Hanks. His work is everything that you want a comic book to be but so rarely is: weird, violent, stupid, fun and breathtakingly beautiful all at once. It's like a memory of a comic book story you read as a kid but are now not certain whether it really existed or not because nothing else has ever lived up to that particular type of thrill. It really existed, alright. And it was written and drawn by a guy you never heard of: Fletcher Hanks.
I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets: The Comics of Fletcher Hanks is a 128 page, full-color book featuring 15 of Fletcher Hanks’ finest stories as well as a comics Afterword by editor, Paul Karasik, that solves the true-life mystery: “Whatever Happened To Fletcher Hanks?”.

Frank Hampson
Creator of Dan Dare: See separate entry for Dan Dare web sites

• The Lost Characters of Frank Hampson
Link: http://www.frankhampson.co.uk

You may not know that the late Frank Hampson created half-a-dozen characters after Dan Dare (not including The Road of Courage, his rendition of the life of Christ).
The site has been designed by Alistair Crompton, author of the Frank Hampson biography The Man Who Drew Tomorrow, and Wakefield Carter. It features partially restored copies of Birney, Raff Royal, Mary Lee, Dawn O'Dare, Monogram, The Chalmers, Modesty Blaise, Bird Boyd and Peter Rock. It also explain where the strips came from, and includes some of the notes Hampson wrote to accompany them.
This site presents these strips for the first time on the Internet. If you see them on other sites, they have been taken from here.

Frank was one of many artist who drew for Ladybird Books. There's more info on his work on those at www.ladybirdflyawayhome.com/pages/hampson.htm

• Titan Books are publishing an ongoing series of Dan Dare strip collections. These include:

• Voyage to Venus Part 1
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Voyage to Venus Part 2
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

The Red Moon Mystery
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Marooned on Mercury
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Operation Saturn Part 1
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Operation Saturn Part 2
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Prisoners of Space
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

The Man From Nowhere
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Rogue Planet
• Buy it from Amazon.com
• Buy it from Amazon.co.uk

Bo Hampton
Official: www.bohampton.com
Bo Hampton graduated from the School of Visual Arts, NYC. He then drew, wrote and painted comics and graphic novels for 15 years, always with a bent toward realism that was fairly uncommon in the medium. Some art highlights from that period are Viking Glory a 96 page graphic novel for D.C., Legend of Sleepy Hollow for Tundra Publishing and Verdilak a horror story co-written and painted for NBM publishing.  He then spent a year  as a professor at Savannah College of Art and Design, helping to develop the original incarnation of their Sequential Arts program before moving into the realms of storyboarding animated shows and TV commercials. TV work includes Extreme Ghostbusters, Superman and Batman.

Mark Harrison
Official: www.2000ad.org/markus
Artist on Durham Red for 2000AD, a stunning talent whose work towers above many other fully painted art strip creators. Mark drew a number of fab covers for Marvel UK's Overkill while I was editing that title back in the 1990s, and drew an unpublished Warheads story written by Dan Abnett, Loose Cannons, which you can read here.

Paul Harrison-Davies
• Paul's ROK Page
• Paul's Blog
Paul Harrison-Davies is a modest but accomplished comics artist popular in British indie circles, whose work has been published in the Mammoth Book of Best New Manga. His upcoming strip for Accent Press' Robots anthology, "MY Robot!" has been adapted into a ROK Comic series. Read a downthetubes interview with Paul

Jon Haward
Official: www.jonhawardart.com
Official Blog: hawardarthouse.blogspot.com

Jon's credits include Macbeth for Classical Comics his own characters, The Hell Crew, co-created with Alan Grant, and strips for Biker Mice From Mars, Dan Dare for the 1980s Eagle, Thunderbirds, 2000AD and Judge Dredd. His work has been reproduced for many countries in Europe and around the world such as Australia, Sweden, America and Canada.

• Read the downthetubes interview with Jon about the Macbeth project and his career in comics
• Read an interview with Jon Haward over on the SpiderFan web site

Erwin Haya
Link: One Sick Individual
Link: www.onesickindividual.com
Artist on online strips such as Action Datsun and more.

Lee Healey
Official: www.freelance-cartoonist.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/leehealey_cartoonist
Lee Healey has been a professional cartoonist for over 16 years. His work has appeared in various magazines and comics, including Viz (Alan Moore said of "Drunken Bakers" --"I think the Drunken Bakers is like Samuel fucking Beckett or something. It's horrible and really funny), Maxim, and The Dandy. Satisfied clients have included, potty-mouth comedian Roy Chubby Brown, the CBBC channel, and Mark Leckey, renowned video artist.

George Herriman
Link: www.georgeherriman.com
The creator of the zenith of comic strip art Krazy Kat, George Joseph Herriman, was born on August 22, 1880, in New Orleans. Between 1901 and 1910, Herriman produced his first, regular strip, Musical Mose, as well as other features like Acrobatic Archie, Professor Otto and His Auto, Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade, Mary's Home from College, and Gooseberry Sprig, for the Pulitzer papers and the prestigious T.C. McClure Syndicate. In 1910, the artist inaugurated The Dingbat Family, later renamed The Family Upstairs, for The New York Evening Journal, which used the bottom part of each panel to narrate the stories of the Dingbats' pet, Krazy Kat, and a mouse named Ignatz.
On July 29, 1910, Ignatz Mouse threw an object at Krazy Kat's head for the first time. Bonking Krazy's brain with a brick, with all its attendant meanings, became the strip's main motif. In 1913, Krazy Kat and Ignatz finally had a strip on their own, while The Family Upstairs folded in 1916.

Jorge Heufemann
Official: http://webs.advance.com.ar/borison/yasici.htm
Artist on the critically-acclaimed Angel in the Woods by Sean Michael Wlson, published by boychild productions. Jorge is Argentinian whose work has been published in several Italian comics.

Fred Hembeck
Official: www.hembeck.com
Brilliant cartoonist who has been satirising US comics and created masses of strips for Marvel down the years. But he creates and writes his own characters too, and delivers The Fred Hembeck Show column on comics to internet users via IGN.com.

John Higgins
Official: www.turmoilcolour.com
John's credits include work for 2000AD, book covers, book illustrations, Dark Horse, DC & Vertigo, Judge Dredd, Marvel, and Magazine Covers -- including a terrific Doctor Who Magazine cover Sylvester McCoy actually posed for by clambering up some scaffolding at Elstree during recording of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy -- much to my astonishment because I was taking the photos!).

Dave Hine
Artist and writer Hine's credits include series as Tao de Moto and Sticky Fingers for 2000AD, Strange Embrace from Active Images, and the much-acclaimed District X and Mutopia from Marvel.
• Buy District X Volume 1 from amazon.co.uk: Click Here
• Buy District X Volume 1 from amazon.com: Click Here
• Buy Strange Embrace from amazon.com: Click Here
• Fanboy Radio interview about Strange Embrace and District X: http://stats5.libsyn.com/podcasts/fanboyradio/fbr_255.mp3

Brian Hitch
Art for Sale: TheArtofComics.com
Brian's credits are numerous but he has recently sprung back to deserved attention with a run on The Authority with Paul Neary, whose work is also on sale from this site.

Burne Hogarth
Biography: www.bpib.com/hogarth.htm
Probably the greatest Tarzan comics artist of them all, Hogarth died in 1996.

Jim Holdaway (1927-1970)
(bio by Dave Westaway, with due acknowldegment to the late Dennis Gifford)

Jim Holdaway was born in Barnes and educated at New Malden Secondary School. A spell at Kingston School of Art was interrupted by two years National Service in the East Surrey Regiment with tours of duty in Italy, Austria and Greece.

In 1948 he returned to art school on an ex-servicemans grant and his first published work around then was adverts for a French shoemaker. In 1950 he joined the Reed Paper Company as a rubber engraver and began taking freelance work. His first comic strips appeared in Scions Gallant Detective in 1952 -- Inspector Haydon and Lex Knight. He had work in the Sports Cartoons range of comics in titles such as Captain Vigour, Dick Hercules, Steve Sampson, Football Comic etc. He also drew 'Escape From Varl' in the short-lived Tit-Bits Sci-Fi series and Cal McCord for Comic Cuts. Swift comic saw his Cliff McCoy, Slicker and Red Rider in 1955/6, with an excursion into full colour with Davy Crockett for the 1955 Mickey Mouse Weekly.
In 1957 he took over art duties on Romeo Brown for the Daily Mirror. The previous artist, Mazure, was leaving to set up his own strip Carmen and Co. and the brief for writing scripts passed to Peter O'Donnell.

With his inventive flair and Holdaways wickedly funny cartoons the strips became instant classics and a fine partnership was born. In 1962 however Mirror management, not being able to see the joke, cancelled the strip suddenly and all original artwork was destroyed - a shortsighted and criminally irresponsible act. However, it's an ill wind - Peter O'Donnell then created Modesty Blaise and took Holdaway with him as artist to the Evening Standard for what was probably the most popular of all British Newspaper Strips.
Jim Holdaway died in February 1970.

Paul J. Holden
Official: www.pauljholden.com
UK artist invloved in the indie comics magazine Bam, whose credits include strips for 2000AD and Warhammer.

Hollow Earth
Official: www.hollowearth.org
Hollow Earth specialise in illustration and digital moving-image work for Commercials, Pop Promos, and the Internet. Represented by Arden Sutherland-Dodd and based at NMI Moving Image in Primrose Hill, London.

Kev Hopgood
Official: www.kevhopgood.co.uk
Artist for 2000AD, Marvel UK and many others -- worked with him myself in the very dim and distant past!

Terry Hooper
Official: www.hooperart.4t.com
Terry Hooper has been writing, drawing, and self-publishing comic books in England for -- well years, with some titles running forover 50 or 60 separate issues. He has also been a key figure in recording British comics history, interviewing comics artists and writers from older as well as newer, and quite well-known British comics titles, as well as maintaining several news groups deciated to different comics and genres.

Greg Horn
Official: www.greghornjuc
Cover artist for Elektra and comic strip work including Marvel Knights Double Shots, due for release Summer 2002.

Tony Hough
Link: www.tonyhough.co.uk
Tony's known mostly for his illustrations for games, such as Warhammer 40,000 and various Fighting Fantasy books. The site include some fab free clip art.

Bill Houston
Link: www.hackmanthedog.com
Blog: www.myspace.com/101waystocheatdeath
Caricatures: www.billhouston.com/caricatures

Published cartoonist behind the highly successful 'Hackman! a dog in a bucket', a canine hero with all the stress and insecurities that a paranoid New Yorker can suffer. His persistent "medical problem" means the continual wearing of his "bucket" and leads to constant visits to a Manhattan pet shrink of dubious repute. His daily adventures give us a rare insight into the mixed up world of our bucket-wearing spaniel.
Bill, who is available for freelance projects, is also working on a new concept which has no publisher yet: '101 ways to cheat Death!'

Hackman, A Dog in a Bucket
The first volume of Hackman strips, including bizarre night-time visits from Rex, the Sirius space alien, who also has a bucket on his head and thinks Hackman must therefore be a world leader.
• Buy 'Hackman, A Dog in a Bucket' from amazon.co.uk
• Buy 'Hackman, A Dog in a Bucket' from amazon.com

Hackman: Love in Buckets
The further adventures of the canine cartoon sensation
• Buy 'Hackman: Love in Buckets' from amazon.co.uk
• Buy 'Hackman: Love in Buckets' from amazon.com

Laura Howell
Link: www.laurahowell.co.uk
Laura is a writer, cartoonist, linguist, bad driver, cynic, wannabe flaneuse and lover of peanut butter flavoured chocolate bars. She's been drawing on and off for as long as she can remember. "I don't know if it's in my blood or in my brain, but nevertheless, I can't seem to quit," she confesses. She's done a lot of comic work, including taking part in Hi8us UK's StripSearch workshops.
Following the retirement of Little Plum from The Beano in 2006, cartoonist Hunt Emerson was commissioned to create a brand new strip. Ratz was the result. Howell was fortunate enough to be brought on board by Hunt as an inker for this strip (working over his pencilled art), and as of September 2006, she's also writing it.

Knockabout's Yesterday's Tomorrows features a terrific collection of Rian's work including his Dan Dare strip, written by Grant Morrison.

Rian Hughes
Official: www.devicefonts.co.uk
Designer and artist Rian's credits include The Science Service (written by me!), Dan Dare (written by Grant Morrison) , design work on science fiction magazine SFX and illustrations for the Radio Times, and plenty more. His site features some nifty fonts you can buy and one free one.

Frank Humphris
Born 31 March 1911 died March 1993
• Frank Humphris on Lambiek: lambiek.net/artists/h/humphris_f.htm
• Info on Frank Humphris on dandare.org: www.dandare.org/eagle/artists/humphris.htm

Blackbow The Cheyenne- original artwork painted and signed by Frank Humphris from The Eagle Vol 16: No. 41 (1966). On the page, Giant tracks lead Blackbow to something evil… This art was sold at auction by ComicPal auctions in 2005 for £193.

Steve Winders wrote of this artists on the Dan Dare Yahoo Group: "Wild west enthusiast and expert Frank Humphris drew Riders of the Range in Eagle from 1952 until it ended in 1962. He got the job after sending some examples of his work to Charles Chilton who wrote the strip.
After Riders of the Range finished he wrote and drew several short factual strips on aspects of the west for Boy's World, Eagle's companion paper, before returning to Eagle in 1963 to draw Blackbow the Cheyenne (taking over from Victor de la Fuente), which he stayed with until Eagle's closure in 1969.
He then worked for several years on Ladybird books, writing and illustrating books about 'Cowboys', 'Indians' and 'The Battle of the Little Big Horn'. A painting of his depicting this battle is on display in the Museum at the battle site.
The Ladybird books of 'Cowboys', 'Indians' and 'Pirates' are all drawn by Frank and can sometimes be found in second hand book shops. Harder to find is the 1990 Hawk Books reprint of two Riders of the Range stories from Eagle: The Cochise Affair, drawn by Jack Adrian and War With The Sioux, drawn by Frank.

Mary Hutchison
Web Link: www.tangerineblue.com
Mary, a contributor to the anthology Beautiful Things from Boychild Productions, works in illustration and design for educational, editorial and publishing projects, for both interactive and print media. Her work incorporates montage as well as digital and drawing techniques.
Illustration commissions include a number of long-running editorial series. She also designs and create interactions and animations using software such as Flash, most recently for e-learning projects.
Published photographic work is stylised, and includes Hell's Kitchen, commissioned for a frightening series of short articles by Anna Burnside on the recipes you'd rather forget…

Ben Hutchings
Official: www.effect.net.au/geeen/
Australian Self publisher of Geeen Comix -- "the best frickin' small press comics ever produced by man!" he says

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