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#1219373 2015-09-16 6:54 AM
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I've recently been on a John Bolton kick, particularly enjoying his earliest work for British magazines from 1977-1981, and his earliest U.S. work, circa 1981-1985.



If you've never read BIZARRE ADVENTURES 26 (Kull: "Demon in a Silvered Glass", 55 pages, May 1981) you're really depriving yourself. This was his first U.S. work, after editor Ralph Macchio read an 8-page artist profile of Bolton in COMICS JOURNAL 55 (April 1980) and immediately commissioned Bolton to do a story for Marvel.
In his opening editorial, Macchio describes Bolton as an unknown artist who's work is "material worthy of Frazetta or Wrightson in peak form", and I doubt anyone who looks at it would disagree.

Here's the first 15 pages of the 55-page story.

Some of the early British stories that preceded it are in JOHN BOLTON: HALLS OF HORROR miniseries 1 and 2 (1985, in color from Eclipse, reprinting black-and-white HOUSE OF HAMMER magazine stories from the 1977-1981 period).

And in the first issue of the U.K.-published WARRIOR magazine (1982-1984), that also features serialized stories of Alan Moore's "Marvelman" (later re-released, post-lawsuit, as "Miracleman" by Eclipse in 1985).

Other early Bolton work includes EPIC ILLUSTRATED 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 22, 23, 24, and 25. (1981-1984)
The Marada stories in 10-12 (black-and white) and 22-23 (in color). The stories in 10-12 were later collected completely, with color added, as Marvel Graphic Novel 21 in May 1986.

Also shorter anthology stories in TWISTED TALES 4, 6, and 7 (1983-1984)
Plus ALIEN WORLDS 5 (1983), and ALIEN WORLDS 3-D 1 (1984)

And a nice 14-page Thor story in BIZARRE ADVENTURES 32 (August 1982).


Bolton's pen-and-ink work on the later 6-issue BLACK KNIGHT miniseries (1985, Epic Comics), marks a slight decline in Bolton's work, and is not as labored over as his more sporadic earlier efforts. And his later painted art and covers, while arguably more technically perfect and photorealistic, are for me not as beautiful and uniquely Bolton as these earlier works.




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The title page from BIZARRE ADVENTURES 26.

Along with many other sample pages of Bolton's early work.




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Someone read my mind posting this topic, showing plenty of full size Bolton pages from HALLS OF HORROR,, EPIC ILLUSTRATED, BIZARRE ADVENTURES and WARRIOR magazines.

Wonder Boy #1219376 2015-09-16 9:42 AM
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All this and a UN Ambassador. He's a talented guy.

the G-man #1219378 2015-09-16 11:04 PM
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He also won the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance twice, in 1990 and 1992.


Son of Mxy #1219390 2015-09-18 4:03 AM
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Short Round


"My friends have always been the best of me." -Doctor Who

"Well,whenever I'm confused,I just check my underwear. It holds most answers to life's questions." Abe Simpson

I can tell by the position of the sun in the sky, that is time for us to go. Until next time, I am Lothar of the Hill People!
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That's some nice artowrk.


"My friends have always been the best of me." -Doctor Who

"Well,whenever I'm confused,I just check my underwear. It holds most answers to life's questions." Abe Simpson

I can tell by the position of the sun in the sky, that is time for us to go. Until next time, I am Lothar of the Hill People!
Son of Mxy #1219394 2015-09-19 6:52 AM
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 Originally Posted By: the G-man
All this and a UN Ambassador. He's a talented guy.


 Originally Posted By: Son of Mxy
He also won the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance twice, in 1990 and 1992.


\:lol\:
Somehow I didn't see these coming. But I should have because, well... this is, after all, RKMB.






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 Originally Posted By: Lothar of The Hill People
Short Round


Sorry I dropped the ball, I've been busy the last few days.

As far as I've been able to detect, Bolton's earliest work was a 2-page "Bionic Woman" feature in the weekly (?) tv/popular culture British magazine LOOK-IN. The "Bionic Woman" series ran for about 2 years in the magazine, from 1976-1978. About 60 episodes, and about 120 pages total, where Bolton developed his craft, and even colored the feature.

Here's a sample page.


Bolton also did a few horror stories for the British HOUSE OF HAMMER (later retitled HOUSE OF HORROR) magazine, published by Dez Skinn. The same guy who edited and published WARRIOR magazine, an anthology magazine that featured several of Alan Moore's earliest series work, such as Marvelman (published in the U.S. as MIRACLEMAN), and V FOR VENDETTA (both discontinued when Moore was hired in early 1984 to do SWAMP THING for DC, and both those early series were concluded by Moore later. Including a few single-issue Bolton collaborations in WARRIOR with a writer named Steve Moore (not Alan).

Most of the early 10" X 12"-size issues of HOUSE OF HORROR had very small print runs of about 1000 copies.
Far easier to find with better printing and in color in Eclipse's 7" X 10" comic size JOHN BOLTON: HALLS OF HORROR 1 and 2.
Which collect 5 of the 9 stories Bolton did for the magazine.




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A beautiful page from the 6-page story "Father Shandor: Demon Stalker", from HOUSE OF HAMMER magazine 8, April 1977.
Reprinted later in WARRIOR magazine 1, in March 1982.

And later again in color, in JOHN BOLTON: HALLS OF HORROR 2, in 1985.

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I just discovered and purchased a hardcover book titled LET'S PLAY CHESS, by Anthony Hansford (1980) that is loaded with painted illustrations by John Bolton.

I now see that this wraparound cover for JOHN BOLTON: HALLS OF HORROR 2...



...is one of those illustrations, recycled.

Wonder Boy #1219692 2015-12-09 4:25 AM
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From this site...



An attempt to index the more obscure British fan publications, reveals a page or two of Bolton work. This one appears to be a pinup or cover for a NIGHTRAVEN series that ran in British magazines. Marvel collected and reprinted some Nightraven material as a graphic novel in 1990, with only the last of 7 chapters by Bolton (chapters 1-6 by David Lloyd). Not great storywise, but still nice to see Bolton do a 1940's noir-era pulp adventure type character.



This page was not included in the Marvel graphic novel. I've seen at least one other Nightraven story page that wasn't collected, and like much of Bolton's work prior to 1980, isn't indexed anywhere. So there might be a lot more Bolton chapters on the series.

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Another Bolton NIGHTRAVEN page, this page was in Marvel's 1990 graphic novel collected reprint of the British serial.

And here's a Bolton version of the Hulk, in a 3-page HULK WEEKLY (March 21, 1979) serial for Marvel's British publications. Possibly one episode, or a whole series of Bolton HULK stories. This particular one was reprinted (in color) in MARVEL SUPER ACTION 27, Jan 1981 (along with a Barry Windsor Smith AVENGERS story, AVENGERS 66, July 1969)
And page 3 of the same HULK WEEKLY story.

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Just in time for Halloween, a page from Bolton's "Werewolf" story in HAMMER'S HOUSE OF HORROR, also reprinted in color in Eclipse's 1985 2-issue reprint JOHN BOLTON'S HALLS OF HORROR 1.




You can view 6 pages (of 15) at this link:

https://cinebeats.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/comic-book-of-the-week-curse-of-the-werewolf/

Reprinted in color in the two-issue BOLTON: HALLS OF HORROR Eclipse series.

The full Bolton stories for "Werewolf" and from other HOUSE OF HAMMER and HALLS OF HORROR magazines also linked here in my below posts.



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Here's a Wolverine story by Bolton, a sampling of Bolton's backup-story run in Marvel's CLASSIC X-MEN 1-35, usually 13 pages per issue, his longest series.

While the pages in this issue (# 25) look good, this is my least favorite Bolton series, generally rushed and stilted and heavyhanded storytelling by both Claremont and Bolton, generally poorly colored, and most of the leading reprint stories have 2 pages omitted and are edited to the point of butchery. The backups are the only new material.

Two of these serialized stories were reprinted (issues 12 and 19) in MAGNETO #0: TWISTING OF A SOUL, the most laughably silly title I've ever seen on a comic book.


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I just found a site that has scans of the complete series of the British HOUSE OF HAMMER magazine:

https://archive.org/details/HOUSEOFHAMMER

Issues 1-18 are HOUSE OF HAMMER. Apparently for copyright reasons after Hammer films went out of business, the magazine title changed after that.
HAMMER'S HOUSE OF HORROR for issue 19.
And HALLS OF HORROR for the remaining issues 20-30.

The magazine's run was further complicated by cancellation after issue 23 (1-23 ran from 1976-1978).
Issues 24-30 ran from 1982-1984.

Bolton stories are in issues :
4 "Curse of the Leopard Men" 5 pages, Feb 1977
6 "Dracula: Prince of Darkness" 15p, March 1977 (also r in DRACULA COMICS SPECIAL 1, April 1984, also at the above site)
8 "Father Shandor, Demon Stalker" 6p, April 1977 (also r in WARRIOR 1, March 1982)
10 "The Werewolf" 15p. July 1977 [a k a, Vol 2 No 1]
14 Where Monsters Roamed" One Million B.C. movie adaptation 15p, Nov 1977 [a k a, Vol 2 No 2]
16 "River of Corpses..." (Father Shandor, part 2) 6p, Jan 1978 [Vol 2 No 4] (also r in WARRIOR 2, April 1982)
21 "The Devil's Dark Destiny" (Father Shandor, part 3) 6p, June 1978 [Vol 2 No 9] (also r in WARRIOR 3, July 1982)
25 "The Monster Cabaret" 12p, 1982 [Vol 3 No 1]
26 "The Monster Club" 8p, 1983 [Vol 3 No 2]


It was editor Dezz Skinn who archived the above scans, so it's a legitimate site. From what I've read elsewhere, these magazines are extremely rare, less than 5,000 copies each for most of them, so this is a great public service.
Mostly articles and photos of horror films, but aside from the Bolton work, these magazines are 52 pages each, and about 18 per issue are comics stories. And most of the artists are on a par with Bolton in quality.

I thought Grimm might enjoy the articles too.


Dezz Skinn was the editor and driving force behind WARRIOR (1982-1984), that introduced Alan Moore's MARVELMAN, and V FOR VENDETTA series, that he left to do SWAMP THING. Both series were initially left unfinished, and Moore concluded them after finishing his SWAMP THING run. It was published in a 10" X 12" British magazine size.

I have a complete run of WARRIOR.
I only have one issue of HOUSE OF HAMMER (issue 8). The early issues are quite pricey in their original form.


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I made a nice find of rare Bolton material from the 1970's, before he did work in the U.S.
One particularly hard to find, his work on PLANET OF THE APES ANNUAL hardcovers, from 1975-1977, given the fanbase looking for anything apes-related.

Here's a link to the 1977 ANNUAL.

In particular the double-page spread on the inside cover.

And 3 comic book stories:

There are also Bolton illustrations accompanying text stories, but these are the three comics stories. Bolton's work in the other
PLANET OF THE APES 1976 ANNUAL
and
PLANET OF THE APES 1975 ANNUAL are illustrations accompanying text stories, and title pages. But nice early work.
It's surprising it took till 1980 for someone at Marvel to notice Bolton's talent!


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There was also a brief NEW AVENGERS British TV series in 1976-1977.

Here's one of the two stories from the NEW AVENGERS 1977 ANNUAL

"Fangs For The Memory", a complete 8-page Bolton story. Nicely colored as well.

There's a second 6 page comics story by Bolton in that annual, "Hypno-Twist", at this second blog that shows both stories.
The full book also has text stories with Bolton illustrations.

There's a NEW AVENGERS 1978 ANNUAL I don't have, that I don't know the contents of. I recall in my search it had Bolton illustrations, but not comics stories.


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 Quote:
There was also a brief NEW AVENGERS British TV series in 1976-1977.


I vaguely remember that being rebroadcast over here. Wasn't the female character played by the blonde from AbFab?

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Yes. Joanna Lumley, who also starred in the series Absolutely Fabulous.


I never saw the NEW AVENGERS TV series, only the earlier version with Emma Peel. In my area, I don't recall this new series ever getting aired. Although it only ran for 26 episodes.


I feel like I've seen it though, from all the still photos in the Annual I cited above. I'd wager the Bolton stories are a faithful representation of the series and characters.

What's your opinion of the Bolton work I linked?
I think it's really nice art, much nicer than I would have expected for this stage of his career.


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Here's a link that describes the BIONIC WOMAN comic strip that ran about 2 year by Bolton, in the British entertainment magazine LOOK-IN.
With some more linked representative samples. 2 pages per week, in a weekly magazine, for roughly 2 years.

I'd love to see a collection of these. Probably the most Bolton pages ever published in one volume, if released.



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From Comic Book artist to national security advisor. Very impressive. ;\)

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A BIONIC WOMAN collected hardcover might be anticlimactic at this point.







A series Bolton did for LOOK IN maagazine in Britain from 7 August 1976- 19 May 1979. A weekly feature, 2 pages per issue, about 120 pages total.


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Probably Bolton's best-known work, at least early on, was his Marada series in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 10-12 (black and white), and later 22-23 (in color), for Marvel.
It began as a Red Sonja series, and because of copyright problems evolved into a creator owned series.

EPIC 10-12 were later reprinted as a MARADA graphic novel in 1984, with color added in the stories.







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Above page from the first Marada story in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 10, in 1982.

Below page from EPIC 12.




Along with the Kull "Demon In A Silvered Glass" story in BIZARRE ADVENTURES 26, I'd rank this among Bolton's very best work.



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A Buck Rogers page by Bolton dated 1979, at a time when Bolton was doing a lot of material for hardcover British annual books for a range of TV-based characters and series. This is one Annual I'm unfamiliar with, and I probably have more of them than anyone else in North America.

Bolton's art here harkens back to Frazetta's Buck Rogers covers of the 1950's for FAMOUS FUNNIES 209-216 (I have a Russ Cochran oversize portfolio of the Frazetta covers, circa 1975). About a year before he did Kull "Demon in a Silvered Glass" in BIZARRE ADVENTURES 26, his first U.S. work. But as you can see from all the examples I've posted above, Bolton was already doing some very sophisticated work. And much of it on old pulp and S F characters he (and we) all grew up with. It must have been a heck of a lot of fun for him. Inspired work.


I've never been disappointed with Bolton's contributions to any of these albums.



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In the British-published LOOK-IN, the same magazine Bolton did a "Bionic Woman" series-based weekly 2-page comic strip from 1976-1978, This "Buck Rogers in the 25th century" comic strip:

http://bronzeageofblogs.blogspot.com/2009/03/look-in-presents-buck-rogers-in-25th.html

The art on this particular strip isn't Bolton (artist Arthur Ranson, who later did two beautiful issues of BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT 52-53), though on a par with Bolton in its detail.
It makes me think the 1979 Buck Rogers page could have been for LOOK-IN. But my first instinct is it was for one of the Brown-Watson hardcover British annual issues.



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From looking online, that Buck Rogers pin-up by Bolton appears to have been done as the cover for a fanzine rather than for a British annual.

A nice page, regardless.

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Much as I love the Bolton MARADA work in collected color form...







...there's definitely something to be said for the same work in its original black-and-white form. As it originally appeared in EPIC ILLUSTRATED issues 10-12, in 1982.







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