PREVIEW

Masters of British Comic Art

David Roach’s beautiful coffee-table book is both a history of British comics and an encyclopaedic exploration of our finest comic artists

Masters of British Comic Art by David Roach

British comics have an extraordinary heritage. Now there’s no excuse for being ignorant of it, with the publication of David Roach’s beautiful coffee-table exploration of the key British artists whose work has graced our comics’ pages since Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress was first published in 1731. Running from here to the “British Invasion” of artists breaking into American comics, which we’ve seen continue in this century, Roach’s colourful history is a fascinating journey through time.

This history takes up the first 140 pages of the book. The remaining 250 pages or so present a full-colour, full-page art encyclopaedia, featuring pages from many of the artists discussed in the first section. With amazing scans of original work, this alone is a treasure to examine.

David Roach is uniquely qualified to produce a book like this, having balanced a career drawing comics himself with an academic interest in the art-form, and an extensive biography of books on the subject.

Masters of British Comic Art will be published by Rebellion on 2 April 2020.

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