R F Outcault

R. F. Outcault was the creator of The Yellow Kid, often cited as "the hero of the first true comic strip" (to quote The World Encyclopedia of Comics, ed. Maurice Horn). The Yellow Kid was a fad that lasted only briefly but proved culturally significant and left enough ephemeral detritus behind that he was not forgotten.

Richard Felton Outcault was born in Lancaster, Ohio, on 14 January 1863, the son of Jesse Pugh Outcalt (1833-1910), a cabinet maker who owned a furniture business, and his wife Catherine Ann (nee Davis). He was born with the surname Outcalt and known to his family and friends as Dick.

Dick Outcalt showed an early talent for drawing. At school in Lancaster he would sketch teachers and scholars in class. At the age of 15 he travelled to Cincinnati and enrolled in the McMicken University's School of Design where he studied for three years. Returning to Lancaster, his father established him with a studio and he became a portrait painter. This did not particularly suit his talents as he preferred to produce more humorous drawings. Instead, he found work as a painter with the Hall Safe and Lock Company in Cincinnati.

At the same time, he used his talents to produce illustrations for local newspapers and worked on the Cincinnati Graphic and later on the Cincinnati Enquirer as a cub reporter. It was a story he wrote and illustrated for the Enquirer about an exhibition of the work of Thomas A. Edison that brought him to the attention of the famous inventor. Edison needed a technical illustrator for the 1888 Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley and Middle Atlantic States, which was to be held in Cincinnati that year, and hired Outcalt. Impressed by the drawings, Edison employed Outcalt as a technical illustrator at his West Orange, New Jersey, headquarters and sent him to Paris to prepare for the Exposition Universelle, held between May and October 1889. Whilst in Paris, Outcalt — by now signing himself Outcault — found time to study art in Paris's Latin Quarter and developed the habit of wearing a beret and cape.

Outcault returned to New York to work on the staff of Electrical Magazine, owned by one of Edison's friends. In Lancaster he married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Jane ("Mamie") Martin, the 20-year-old daughter of a local banker, on 25 December 1890. The newly married couple settled in Flushing, New York, and Outcault began freelancing cartoons and jokes to Truth, Judge and Life magazines where they were well received. It was here that he developed the style and characteristics that would make his name; his cartoons were highly detailed and many featured the street kids who lived in the slum tenements of New York. Eventually, Outcault settled on one location for his cartoons, Hogan's Alley.

Outcault was hired in 1894 to produce technical illustrations for the New York World, but continued to sell cartoons. It was in the pages of Truth that he introduced a bald, snaggle-toothed young character in a nightshirt on 2 June 1894. The background character appeared three more times over the next ten months. This fourth cartoon, originally published on 9 February 1895, was reprinted in the New York World and Outcault began producing new cartoons for the paper. From 5 May 1895, Outcault's cartoons began to expand in size and appear in colour and the bald little kid — his nightshirt blue in that first colour cartoon — developed from a background character on the sidelines of the cartoon and began to feature more prominently.

On 5 January 1896 the kid's nightshirt became yellow for the first time and, whilst the character was never named, he was from then on referred to as the Yellow Kid. Over the next few months the silent Kid began to issue irreverent messages to his readers on his nightshirt, usually commenting on the subject of the day's cartoon. The growing popularity of the character — a 'type' that Outcault would see around the slums on his newspaper assignments — earned him the notice of advertisers; the bright yellow shirt proved an attractive billboard and before long there was a great deal of Yellow Kid merchandise available, ranging from buttons to booze.

The growth in popularity of the Kid coincided with a newspaper war that raged between the New York World, published by Joseph Pulitzer and the New York Journal, founded by William Randolph Hearst, who raided the World for some of its best artists and writers, including Outcault. Outcault's final cartoon in the New York World appeared on 17 May 1896... but it was not the end for the characters of Hogan's Alley, as the page was continued by George B. Luks.

Hearst, meanwhile, advertised heavily that the New York Journal was now the home of the Yellow Kid, appearing in the Sunday colour supplement each week in a series of full-page panels under the title "McFadden's Row of Flats". The war between the Journal and the World was still in full force and stories became more and more sensational in the battle for readers — to the point where stories were of dubious veracity. To distinguish between the two papers, Hearst's was often referred to as the Yellow Kid Paper, but at that time both papers were featuring the Yellow Kid, who was still appearing in Hogan's Alley in the World. Because of this, the two were inexorably linked and as early as 1897, the New York Press was referring negatively to the "yellow journalism" of the two papers.

One apparent myth regarding the Kid is that Hearst and Pulitzer went to court over ownership of the character. According to Richard D. Olson, "The weak link in the myth is the court decision—there doesn't appear to be any record of such a decision, and I know a lot of people who have looked for it." Elsewhere, we learn that Outcault tried to apply for copyright of "The Yellow Dugan Kid" in September 1896, but due to an irregularity in his application, copyright protection was never granted.

The lack of control he could exercise over his creation led Outcault to abandon the Yellow Kid. Hearst employed him as the editor of the comic page of the New York Evening Journal where he created "Casey's Corner" and "The Huckleberry Volunteers", the Yellow Kid occasionally popping up in both strips. Outcault left Hearst to create "Poor Li'l Mose" for the New York Herald in 1901 and, around the same time, produced "Shakespeare in Possumville" for Judge.

However, it was his next creation, "Buster Brown", launched in the New York Herald on 4 May 1902, that put Outcault back in the public eye. The main character was a young child of wealthy parents who dressed him like Little Lord Fauntleroy; however, Buster Brown was actually a practical joker, breaking windows or playing pranks which usually ends with him receiving a 'licking' from his mother.

The character again proved very popular and Outcault was again tempted by money to take the strip to Hearst's New York Journal. "Buster Brown" was continued in the Herald by other artists until 1911; Outcault, meanwhile, launched his own nameless version in the Journal, which would run until 1921 (with reprints continuing to appear in some papers as late as 1926). In this instance, Outcault made sure he retained all the merchandising rights to the character and benefited from the countless spin-offs into advertising and theatre. Outcault rapidly became a rich man and as early as 1905 was earning more from selling clothing and merchandise than he was from the syndication of the comic strip.

In 1909, he set up the Outcault Advertising Company to exploit the success of his creations, although he continued to draw the Sunday (now nameless) Buster Brown strip until 1921. He retired, passing control of the Outcault Company to his son, Richard F. Outcault Jr., who became its new president.

Outcault concentrated on painting for the next few years, exhibiting widely. He also reprinted volumes of his Yellow Kid and Buster Brown comics. In the summer of 1928 he fell suddenly ill and died on 28 September at the age of 65.

Examples of Outcault's artwork can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

Olivia (Olivia De Bernardinis)

Olivia has described herself as "a painter of women, sexualized, surreal women. People always ask me how I got into the business. What they really want to know is why I am such an anomaly, Which I'm not ... I think its strange that women aren't known for this genre, since it is ours to know."

Her first book was introduced by Hugh Hefner, who noted, "Male artists tend to do the predictable in erotica. Olivia surprises. She works with patterns — from the natural to the quasi-natural, from the intricate traceries of lingerie to the startling lines of a tattoo. None of the women in this collection are simply nude: They are contained by lace, by metal, by satin, by leather. Beneath the designs, beneath the artifice is the feminine form."

Born in Long Beach, California, on 29 November 1948, Olivia Amanda De Bernardinis grew up primarily on the the east coast. She began drawing at the age of three or four, developing an early interest in drawing a Barbie-like character based, she says, on her mother. After attending the New York School of Visual Arts (1968-70), she worked at numerous bars and clubs as a waitress or barmaid whilst she began producing artwork — minimalist designs, some of which were exhibited at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in the early 1970s.

From around 1974, she began drawing for adult magazines and established herself as a leading erotic artist, publishing the first of numerous portfolios and illustrations for Playboy in 1984. She married Joel Beren in 1979, a photographer who also acts of agent for Olivia's paintings, which were sold and licensed through their own companies O Card Company and Ozone Productions. They moved to Malibu, California, in 1987, where they continue to live and work.

Olivia's books have included Let Them Eat Cheesecake: The Art of Olivia (1993), Second Slice: The Art of Olivia II (1997), Cheesecake Chronicles Vol. 1 (2000), American Geisha: The Art of Olivia III (2003), Bettie Page by Olivia (2006) and Malibu Cheesecake (2011). As well as producing prints, calendars and note cards, she recently collaborated on a limited edition print which featured a poem by Neil Gaiman.

Artwork by Olivia can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

Giorgio Olivetti

Giorgio Olivetti was born in Bologna on 20 April 1908. Little seems to be known about his career outside of his work on cinema posters. One imagines that he began his professional career as an artist in the 1920s, although the earliest work I have been able to trace dates from 1942, a film poster promoting the release of Il Bacio della Pantera [Cat People] starring Simone Simon.

From thereon, Olivetti produced a steady stream of film posters starring everyone from Charlie Chaplin (Luci della Ribalta [The Great Dictator], 1952) to John Wayne (A Cavalieri dei Nord Ovest [She Wore a Yellow Ribbon], 1949; La battaglia di Alamo [The Alamo],1960). His posters include La foresta Incantata [The Enchanted Forest], 1945; Forza Bruta [Brute Force], 1947; Singapore, 1948; L'Ambiziosa [Payment on Demand], 1951; Seduzione mortale [Angel Face], 1952, Rancho Notorious, 1952; Il Forestiero [The Million Pound Note], 1953; Vortice, 1953; Vera Cruz, 1954; La Ragazza del Secolo [It Should Happen to You], 1954; Riccardo III, 1955; Tempesta sul Nilo [Storm Over the Nile], 1955; Il Cacciatore di Indiani [The Indian Fighter], 1955; Quado la citta dorme [While the City Sleeps], 1956; Trapezio [Trapeze], 1956; L'Alibi era perfetto [Beyond a Reasonable Doubt], 1956; Una Strega in Paradiso [Bell, Book and Candle], 1958; A qualcuno piace caldo [Some Like It Hot], 1959; La dolce vita, 1959; Un maledetto imbroglio, 1959; Il Mattatore (aka Love and Larceny), 1960; Viva L'Italia, 1961; I cannoni di Navarone [The Guns of Navaronne], 1961; Il conquistatore di Corinto, 1961; Invito ad una Sparatoria [Invitation to a Gunfighter], 1964; Una Pistola per Ringo, 1965; Io, io, io... e gli altri, 1965; Doringo [The Glory Guys], 1965; Gambit, 1966; A Sud-Ovest di Sonora [The Appaloosa], 1966; I Professionisti [The Professionals], 1966; Casino Royale, 1967; Emmanuelle, 1969.

In Italy, he also illustrated covers for Films in Anteprima [Filmes in Review] (1947) and at least one calendar (Calendario di Frate Indovino, 1965). Beginning in the late 1950s, in common with a number of leading Italian cinema poster artists, Olivetti worked briefly for British publishers in the late 1950s, producing cover illustrations for the Sexton Blake Library (1958-59) and True Life Library (1960) via Cosmopolitan Artists. An illustration featuring Joan of Arc appeared in an early issue of Look and Learn in 1962.

Examples of Giorgio Olivetti's work for be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

David Nockels

David Nockels was a prolific contributor to magazines and books, specialising in nature, animals and the environment. His illustrations began appearing in Look and Learn in around 1967 and he was also a regular contributor to World of Wonder in the early 1970s, at which time he was living in Shooter's Hill and also acting as an occasional agent.

David Nockels contributed illustrations to many books on wildlife subjects between 1967-79, amongst the many titles he contributed to including Arthur by Ernest Dudley (1970) and the Atlas series from Heinemann (Atlas of Wildlife, Atlas of Plant Life, Atlas of the Sea, 1972-74); Young World Productions, Hamlyn, Bodley Head, Salamandar and Ward Lock also published his work.

In 1980 he began working for Methuen Children's Books and wrote and illustrated a series of pop-up books entitled 'Animals in Action' (1981) as well as two children's story books, Hungry Little Chimpanzee and Little Lost Duckling, both published in 1982. Nockels also wrote and illustrated the 'Naughty Pets Board Book' series for Deans International (1985), which included the titles as Percy and Katie in Trouble, Billie and Bertie at the Seaside, Bobby and Tom have a Feast and Beckie and Jamie on the Farm.

Examples of David Nockels' artwork can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

Kevin Nowlan

American artist Kevin Nowlan has been active in the comics' fan press since the early 1980s. Born in Chandron, Nebraska, on 7 February 1958, Kevin C. Nowlan graduated from High School and attended the Salina, Kansas Area Vocational-Technical School, where he learned the basics of art, layout and design. After two years he took a job with a local printing firm creating and designing brochures, letter headings and adverts.

He submitted illustrations to The Comics Journal and was commissioned by editor Gary Groth to produce a number of covers, beginning with an X-Men cover for issue 68 (November 1981); Nowlan went on to produce covers and spot illustrations for both The Comics Journal and Amazing Heroes (including a fully-painted Supergirl cover for the latter) over the next couple of years.

His work was noticed by inker Terry Austin and Nowlan found himself pencilling a fill-in issue of Doctor Strange  (#57) before taking over Moon Knight from Bill Sienkiewicz. This proved to be a disaster and a he quit after only three-and-a-half issues; however, the work proved popular and he was offered more work with Marvel (Daredevil, a Nightcrawler or Long Shot mini-series) and by DC (Star Trek, a Batman graphic novel, an Aquaman mini-series), all of which he turned down. Instead, he drew strips for National Lampoon and concentrated on posters and covers for the major comics' publishers, which allowed him to draw strips such as "Grimwood's Daughter" (a back-up strip in Dalgoda) for Fantagraphics.

He has subsequently worked for both DC and Marvel, drawing The Outsiders and Green Lantern Corps for the former and New Mutants for the latter. Complaints from readers that he had made the Mutants too cartoony, led to Nowlan working primarily as an inker from 1988. In this role he has continued to work for Marvel, DC. Wildstorm and Image. Some of the highlights of this work includes Batman: Sword of Azrael (1992), Aliens: Salvation (1993), Superman vs. Aliens (1995) and Superman: Distant Fires (1997). In 1999, he began drawing the adventures of young boy-genius "Jack B. Quick" for Alan Moore's Tomorrow Stories.

More recently he has been involved in the Batman Confidential series and "Metal Man" in DC's weekly Wednesday Comics, inking the pencils of José Luis García-López, and the one-shot Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish (2011), written by Mike Mignola.

Nowlan was the subject of Eric Nolen-Weatherington's collection, Modern Masters Volume 4, published by Twomorrows Publishing in 2004. He lives in Kansas with his wife, Deanne.


Examples of Kevin Nowlan's artwork can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

Alexander Oliphant

Alexander George Oliphant was a Scottish artist, born on 2 May 1911, who was exhibiting paintings in the 1930s at which time he was living in Grangemouth. Oliphant was living in London (at 30 Bedford Chambers, Piazza, City of London) at least as early as 1945 and moved to 9 Graham Terrace, Westminster around 1948, then 23 St George's Court, Brompton Road, South Kensington, around 1949.

For at least a decade [1952-62], Oliphant had a studio at 4 Cavaye Studios, Cavaye Place, Kensington SW10. Around 1962, he moved to 55 Crompton Court, Brompton Road, South Kensington, SW3, where he was to live until his death in the autumn of 1971, aged 60.

He contributed to Eagle Annual, Daily Mirror Book for Boys, and was the artist who illustrated 'Sea Change', Richard Armstrong's award-winning novel, and the series "Sink the Scharnhorst!", in Ranger in 1965-66. He was subsequently a prolific contributor of Second World War illustrations to the early issues of World of Wonder shortly before his death.

He was married to Thora M. Goldsmith (nee Clee), the former wife of William L. Goldsmith, in Paddington in 1947. Thora, born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, in 1911, died in London in 1968, aged 56.

You can find original artwork by Alexander Oliphant for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.

José Ortiz

Of all the Spanish artists who found themselves working for British publishers during the British comics' boom of the 1950s-1960s, José Ortiz was one of the longest survivors. Such is his longevity, that he has fans for each of the decades he worked in the UK: those who grew up in the 1960s will remember his as the artist of countless war libraries  as well as UFO Agent and its sequel Smokeman in Eagle; fans in the 1970s are more likely to remember his work in nursery or girls comics or his eight month run as the artist of "The Persuaders" in TV Action; in the 1980s he helped relaunch the Eagle with fantasies "The Tower King" and "The Fifth Horseman" and went on to draw the long-running horror series "The Thirteenth Floor" and various tales of the genetically-adapted warrior "Rogue Trooper".

At the same time, Ortiz is widely recognised as one of the masters of comic art in his native Spain as the artist of "Hombre" and "Burton y Cyb" and one of the most popular contributors to the American horror magazines published by James Warren.

Born José Ortiz Moya in Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, on 1 September 1932, the son of a painter of watercolours, he was the younger brother of Leopoldo Ortiz by almost exactly two years, but the two progressed through the comics industry almost in parallel during the 1950s. After winning a competition held by Chicos magazine, at the age of 16 Ortiz began working for Manuel Gago's Editorial Maga publishing company on the series El Espia [The Spy] in 1951, which he signed Zitro (Ortiz backwards). Gago was the hugely popular creator of "El Guerrero del Antifaz" [The Warrior Mask] and had moved to Valencia, where the strip was published by Juan Bautista Sorianos' Editorial Valencia. Ortiz and others — Leopoldo Ortiz and Luis Bermejo amongst them — joined Gago, Miguel Quesada and Pastor Eduardo Vañó in Valencia, helping to establish what has become known as the Escuela Valenciana or Valencian school of art.

Ortiz worked extensively for Editorial Maga for the next decade, working on El Capitan Don Nadie [Captain Don Nobody] (1952), El Principe Pablo [Prince Paul] (covers only, 1953-54), Coleccion Comandos (1954), Sebastián Vargas (1954), Don Barry, El Terremoto [Dan Barry, Earthquake] (1954), Balin (1955), Pantera Negra [Black Panther] (1956), El duque negro [The Black Duke] (1957), Apache (1958), Bengala (1959) and Johnny Fogata (1960). Of these, Ortiz was probably best-known for the western adventures of Don Barry, which ran for 76 issues and 3 'annuals' in 1954-57; Ortiz also drew the first 31 issues of another popular western, Johnny Fogata.

By the late 1950s, Ortiz was also establishing himself with other publishers, such as Toray, with such strips as Sigur el Wikingo [Sigur the Viking] and stories of the wild west in the anthology Hazañas del Oeste; for Bruguera he produced stories for Bisonte Extra Ilustrada, distributed almost exclusively in Argentina, and adaptations for Colección Historias such as "Los Viajes de Gulliver" [Gulliver's Travels] and "Las Cruzadas" [The Crusades].

Ortiz had made his British debut in 1957 with "In Love's Trap" in D. C. Thomson's early romantic pocket library Love and Life; other early sales to Thriller Picture Library and Top Spot followed, but it was 1960 before he established himself as a regular in Ted Bensberg's war libraries department, producing three dozen stories for War, Battle, War at Sea and Air Ace libraries between 1960-67. In 1962-63 he drew the short-lived "Caroline Baker, Barrister-at-Law" for the Daily Express, preparing for the task of illustrating the adventures of a female lawyer by coming to the UK and making sketches at a magistrate's court.

In 1964, Ortiz took over the character of John Brody for Boys' World and produced "The Green Men" in colour on the rear page for seven weeks. He later took over the adventures of "UFO Agent" Major Grant in the original Eagle, which, exploiting the popularity for American superheroes that followed the appearance of the Batman TV show, became the superhero "Smokeman", then, when that bubble burst within the year, became a member of the C.I.D. When "Grant (C.I.D.)" came to an end, Ortiz continued to work for Eagle on the aerial pirates yarn, "Sky Buccaneers".

Ortiz also found work in the pages of Lion where he drew "Trelawny's Mob", "The Phantom Viking" and "The 10,000 Disasters of Dort" over the next couple of years. However, he found himself in something of a backwater after that, drawing one-off romantic stories for Valentine and Romeo and illustrations and fairy tales for Once Upon a Time. He briefly resurged in the pages of TV Action drawing "The Persuaders" and was drawing for D. C. Thomson's Diana nad Warlord when the opportunity came to work for James Warren's magazines in the USA.

Ortiz's agent, Josep Toutain of Selecciones Illustrades, created  for publication in Spain and in the US in the early 1970s and - like many of his contemporaries - Ortiz saw the American market as a way of escaping the strictures of the British comics' market and earn a better return for his efforts. With James Warren's horror comics Vampirella, Eerie and others, he found the market he was looking for and, as David Roach records in The Warren Companion, "At Warren he embraced the 'new look' with relish to produce a succession of superbly-drawn stories such as "Coffin", "Jackass", and his masterpiece, "The Apocalypse" (which ran in Eerie #62-65). This looked like it wasn't so much inked as feverishly scratched out of a morass of black ink and seething textures." He was named Warren's Best All Around Artist in 1974.


Although Ortiz could not maintain this intensity, he became Warren's most prolific artist, contributing 119 strips to the Warren magazines, abandoning the UK market but maintaining a presence in Spain and Europe with strips such as "El Cuervo" for Kung-Fu (1976), "Los Grandes Mitos del Oeste" [Great Myths of the West] (1978) and El Nuevo Tarzan (1979-81).

As the Warren magazines lost circulation, Ortiz found a new market in Spain where new comics aimed at an older audience such as Cimoc, for which Ortiz teamed up with Antonio Segura on the western series "Hombre" in 1981. In 1983 he teamed up with his nephew Leopoldo Sanchez who, with writer Mariano Hispano,was co-founder of Ediciones Metropol; Ortiz contributed a number of strips to their three titles, Metropol, Mocambo and KO Comics, including "Hombre" in the latter. Although Ediciones Metropol lasted only a year, Ortiz was able to concentrate on contributing strips to the new adult comics published by Toutain Editor, such as "Las mil caras de Jack el Destripador" [Jack the Ripper] (1984) for Creepy, and Norma Editorial. In 1987 he created, with Segura, "Burton y Cyb" for Zona 84 (and, later, Comix Internacional) and "Morgan", which debuted as "Ives" in Metropol before being revived in Cimoc.

During the same period, Ortiz was a regular presence in Eagle in Britain, producing the sole comic strip for the newly relaunched boys' photo-weekly. The paper soon became a more regular comic, for which Ortiz continued to contribute "The Amstor Computer", "News Team" and the long-running "The Thirteenth Floor", which debuted in Scream! in 1984 and continued in Eagle & Scream! until 1987.

Ortiz also contributed to 2000AD, mostly illustrating "Rogue Trooper", but also single episodes of "The Helltrekkers" and "Judge Dredd" (1987). His last strips in the UK were "Kid Cops" for Eagle (1988) nad "Kitten Magee" in WildCat and the merged Eagle & WildCat (1988-89). Contemporarily, he also briefly worked on Sabre for Eclipse and a number of stories appeared in Heavy Metal.

In the early 1990s Ortiz drew "Bud O'Brien" (for Torpedo) and "Ozone" (for L'Eternauta), and contributed two volumes to a lavish collection of books from Planeta-Deagostini with the overall title Tales of the New World: #2 La civilización Inca: Los Hijos del Sol (1991) and #25 Orígenes del hombre Americano: Los Primeros (1992).

For the majority of the 1990s and 2000, Ortiz has worked for Sergio Bonelli on the famous Italian western Tex. He has also drawn episodes of "Ken Parker" and "Magico Vento" for their respective titles.

In 1998, Ortiz was awarded the Parparajote de Oro by the Asociación de Amigos del Tebeo de la Región de Murcia.

Examples of Jose Ortiz's artwork can be found for sale at the Illustration Art Gallery.