Here is some artwork from Purita Campos

[RuthB]

This is the current artwork of Pura Campos, showing the new older Patty (well, Esther, now her thirteen year old daughter is called Patty):



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[Tonibunny]

It's fabulous artwork Ruth! Thanks for putting these pics up

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Striking artwork, Ruth...more of the same, please!

[philcom55]

Wonderful! Purita has always had a special talent for making her characters appear to live and breathe (especially the female ones! ). Also she seems to have an amazing fashion sense that makes me think she could have had an equally successful career in textile design or advertising. Do you know if she uses models?

Looking through my copies of Princess Tina from 1970 and 1971 it seems clear that there was a deliberate editorial policy of bringing the cover illustrations more up to date for a modern readership which coincided with Purita being hired as the main cover artist. As far as I can tell her first cover was dated 9th May 1970, though her familiar signature didn't appear until the following week (and there was another cover artist with a rather similar style who sometimes signed her (or his) self as 'Ortega').

As a matter of interest Ruth, do you know if Purita drew many other strips for British comics apart from Patty? The only example I've found so far is a short story called 'Speedwell's Lucky Mascot' which appeared in the issue of Princess Tina dated 29th May 1971.

- Phil R.

[RuthB]

Sorry I did not answer back sooner, I did not see your query and then I went in holydays.
To answer you, yes she was actually working in fashion desing -kind of- with her mother. She even had at one stage a clothes boutique.
She doesn't use models but... she takes pictures of some movements or positions of the body and so on. For example, in the New Adventures, there is a scene where a bold suitor of Esther(Patty) try to get a hold of her while she leaves his car and he is kind of leaning to the passanger door with his lips kind of pouted. Her husbund was pictured doing that gesture in the car, XDDDD.
Also there is another one of her tidying up her shoelaces for an equal scene in the comic. I suppose most artists work the same way to ensure proportion and muscles are perfectly composed.
She did many works for the British market, mainly short love stories and she did a strip for Melanie Mag called Life with the Logans that I have never seen, I am afraid. Never got to see any Melanie magazine at all...

[philcom55]

Thanks Ruth. To be honest I've never heard of a British magazine called Melanie - could it have been Mirabelle (or New Mirabelle ) instead? I think that eventually combined with Pink which had already inherited Patty's World by then.

Here's a scan of the cover to Princess Tina for 9th May 1970 by the way - it's not signed but if it is by Purita as I think then I'm pretty sure it would have been her first cover for that title:



- Phil Rushton

[Peter Gray]

What a great colourful painted cover.she sure likes doing freckles.very cute..

[RuthB]

No, I am sure it is Melanie. It was a very short lived publication.

[philcom55]

What a great colourful painted cover.

Yes. I love the way she often incorporates colourful patterns into her covers to give them a vibrant, semi-abstract effect. Also, the fact that the early ones were actually produced during the tail-end of what ABBA famously called "the time of the Flower Power" embues them with a special period charm for me. Here's the cover from the following week, which was the first to include her signature:



- Phil Rushton

[RuthB]

Oh, please, keep them comin, I haven't see any of this! XDDD

[philcom55]

No problem Ruth! Incidentally, one difficulty I have with identifying Purita's unsigned covers is the fact that there were one or two other artists from the same period with almost identical styles. Here's an example with the signature 'Ortega' in the bottom right corner - given the Spanish sounding name and the similar style I can't help but wonder if they were operating from the same studio. Have you come across this artist (or Maria Paschal) before?



- Phil Rushton

[RuthB]

No, this is the work of her husband, Paco Ortega (Francisco Ortega), Paco is short for Francisco.

I know this because I brought it to her (I have this issue) and she confirmed it.

[RuthB]

Oh, and about Maria Pascual, she's still working. Wonderful, wonderful artist and person. I didn't know she was known outside Spain, glad to hear it, then.

[philcom55]

Yay! Another 'Mystery Artist' identified!

- Phil Rushton

[RuthB]

Ortega did has well the comic adaptation of Julio Verne The Green Ray. He is a very very nice man, oh the stories he tells!! Is a shame that he's loosing his sight, I supose that is what comes with age!