Tom Bird Where Are You Now?

T. Bird, T. W. Bird, Tom Bird and finally Thomas Bird are all the ways in which the same artist labelled himself in the 

early 1970's.

There are very few pages of his art out there and what there is can be hard to find.  He contributed to the fourth issue of Promethean Enterprises, The Berkley Con Booklet and Underground Comics too : Spaced Out, Yellow Dog #21, Barbarians #2 and a complete issue of Barbarian Killer Funnies.

Other than those examples, I have no idea of who he was or why, after showing some promise, he simply disappeared from the scene.  The work is competent and well executed, generally of a higher standard than many of the, relatively unknown, cartoonists with whom he shared space in the anthology titles.

It would be interesting to know if he was, as many were at that time, an art school student, or perhaps a working commercial artist who moon-lighted as an underground cartoonist.

In some respects, his contribution to the undergrounds and fanzines of the day, place him in the company of another personal favourite, Robert (Bob) Kline.

The biggest difference is that I know what happened to Bob, he went into animation and earned a living at it.

Here are a couple of samples of T. Bird's art and one or two of Bob Kline's.

Barbarian Killer Funnies

T. Bird

Spaced Out

Front Cover

T. Bird

Spaced Out 

Back Cover

T. Bird

Illustrations for the 

Berkeley Con

Program

RBCC #66 Illustration

Bob Kline

RBCC #78 Cover

Bob Kline

High Adventure 

a Wraparound Cover 

but I could only find this image on-line!

If anyone has any information about the elusive Mr. Bird,

I would be very happy to hear it.

Cartoonist & Illustrator Brian Lewis Quatermass House of Hammer #8 & #9

The Quatermass science fiction stories, written for the BBC in the 1950's were some of the best of their time.

These days, they come across as rather quaint and slightly old fashioned, especially since the central character is such a striking example of a very British ideal; the calm, self-controlled professional.

Brian Lewis did a lovely job of capturing the atmosphere of the original TV series

and managed to pack in all the likenesses of the actors too!

I often wonder where all of the original art for these strips are today, it would be a great shame if they were left to moulder in some forgotten corner.

So, I hope you enjoy this instalment of the Brian Lewis Archives.

Cartoonist & Illustrator Brian Lewis Malvoisin's Mirror

This time, the story is from House of Hammer #6

and while it may be short, it shows the range of Brian's illustrative talents off to good effect.

I was always very taken by the frame that circled the mirror, even more so as an eighteen year old!  Brian always managed to draw women that appealed to me and I would love to know what happened to these original pages.

Someone that I used to know, Dave Holmes of the Magic Labyrinth in Leicester, had a couple of Brian Lewis originals, back in the late Seventies and I always coveted them.  One was of a knight and his betrothed beneath a tree, which I think probably came from an illustrated children's book and the other was one of Brian's Adult Illustrations from an illustrated erotic story.

The knight and his betrothed were fully painted and lovely to look at, the design was almost akin to a stained glass window.

The erotic illustration was in pencil and truly beautiful to behold.  Brian had managed to create an image, that at first glance looked like a crowd surging against the railing in an arena but on closer inspection, proved to be of two women being "taken"from behind, by the men pressed against them.

I wonder if Dave still has them.