Rover cover artists

[Lew Stringer]

I bought a few issues of Rover last week, just because I thought the cover art was striking and really well composed. I don't know who the various artists were though as they're uncredited of course and I'm not too familiar with the style of Thomson story paper artists. Can anyone identify them? I think two might be by Ron Smith but I'm not sure. The six covers are on my blog:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/ ... -1965.html

[philcom55]

The last one - '4 Challenges from Z Island' - is definitely by the amazing Ian Mackay.

- Phil R.

[Lew Stringer]

The last one - '4 Challenges from Z Island' - is definitely by the amazing Ian Mackay.

- Phil R.

Thanks Phil! That's a new name to me.

[Kashgar]

Hi Lew,

1,3,4,and 6 are all Ian Mackay. The other two are Jeff Bevan.

[Lew Stringer]

Hi Lew,

1,3,4,and 6 are all Ian Mackay. The other two are Jeff Bevan.

Thanks Ray, that's excellent. I'll update that blog post later.

[colcool007]

Hi Lew,

1,3,4,and 6 are all Ian Mackay. The other two are Jeff Bevan.

OK, I could have sworn that one of those covers was Ron Smith. Please educate me, o learned one.

Seriously, I would have put money on that April 1965 cover being a Ron Smith.

[Kashgar]

Hi Col,

Jeff Bevan's work can look remarkably like Ron Smith's at times but I wouldn't have said deceptively so. Jeff Bevan has a grainier, rougher line to his work than Ron Smith which, to me, makes them quite distiguishable from one other.
Just as a matter of interest the only 'Rover & Wizard' covers drawn by Ron Smith were the following 1963 14/12-28/12. 1964 18/1, 8/2, 2/5 and 30/5. He did however draw most of the covers for the previous 'Rover & Adventure' amalgamation. Details of which I will post shortly

[Kashgar]

As promised, here is the list of dates for Ron Smith's 'Rover & Adventure' cover illustrations -
1961 28/1 - 30/12 all but the first issue in other words.
1962 6/1 - 14/4, 28/4 - 7/7, 21/7 - 15/9, 29/9 - 3/11, 17/11, 24/11, 8/12, 15,/12.
29/12.
1963 5/1/ - 23/2, 16/3 - 27/4, 11/5 - 1/6, 15/6 - 13/7, 3/8, 17/8 - 14/9, 5/10.

[philcom55]

It seems to me that, along with block header illustrations, the sort of covers represented in Lew's blog involve a unique form of visual storytelling that acts as a kind of 'teaser' for the reader - setting out the basic premise of a tale and highlighting a key point of the drama, while suggesting that any comfortable resolution is all-but impossible. The trick is to make you so eager to find out 'what happens next' that you HAVE to buy the comic and read the associated story. There are some fantastic examples of these reproduced in Derek and Ray's latest book 'This Was The Wizard'.