[crashryan]

The recent flood of Skywald horror mag postings has raised questions about the imported artists who worked for these magazines. In this thread I'll offer what I've found about them. I hope others will add their own info.

SOSTRES = Ferran Sostres. Spain. Born 1936. Prolific artist of comic strips and paintings. Bio pasted from Lambiek: "Catalan artist Ferran Sostres opened his own studio in Barcelona in 1957, after graduating in graphic arts and further training with painter Josep Maria Baixas. Although his comics mainly appeared in foreign markets he published Bible adaptations in the Spanish collection H?roes B?blicos circa 1960. Ferran Sostres was one of the Spanish agency artists who contributed their work to the British market in the 1960s. His British works were frequently war stories for magazines Commando and Combat Picture Library, but he also participated in the detective series "John Steel", which he drew for Thriller Picture Library, and in the SF series "Zero-X", which he drew for T.V. 21. In addition he contributed to girl's magazines such as Diana and Jackie, drawing series like "Emergency Nurse Gwen." During the first half of the 1970s he contributed several horror stories to the US publisher Skywald. They appeared in Psycho, Nightmare and Scream and most of them were written by Al Hewetson. After that Ferran Sostres focused on his painting and illustration works."

Sostres entered advertising in the 1990s, illustrating ads for countless products. In 1991-1992 the Catalan Department of Culture and Sports chose him to illustrate a series of sports-themed paintings that became part of an educational campaign.

His bio on Tebeosfera: https://www.tebeosfera.com/autores/sostres_ferran.html

ZESAR = Cesar Alvarez Ca?ete. Spain. Born 1938. From Tebeosfera: "C?sar ?lvarez began drawing comics in the late 1960s for Bruguera, debuting in 1963 in Sissi and shortly thereafter in Heidi, but he worked mainly for foreign markets after he joined [Josep Toutain's studio] Selecciones Ilustradas. He began to provide illustrations and comics for the British market (Spellbound) and for the United States. For America, as he was an artist in training as late as 1972, his work was destined for the horror magazines of Skywald. He contributed illustrations and comics to these magazines (at times mistakenly credited as his compatriot C?sar L?pez), notably his work for Scream and his participation in the Nosferatu series." Later in the 70s Zesar appeared in Warren's Vampirella. Around 2010 he drew four issues of Bonelli's Martin Mystere.

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/a/alvarez-canete_cesar.htm

MAELO CINTRON was not an imported artist at all, but a Bronx native of Puerto Rican descent. I've found precious little about him. In an article for TwoMorrows' The Tomb Alan Hewetson describes hiring Cintron during his (Hewetson's) early days as Skywald's editor. The article mainly consists of Hewetson patting himself on the back for creating the series "The Human Gargoyles," which Cintron illustrated, and gives little information on Cintron's later career. In the early 1990s Cintron provided nice cover paintings for several Star Trek novels. In 1992 he adapted into comic book form two Robert E Howard "spicy" stories under the title Songs of Bastards, for Conquest Press. I haven't been able to find anything on him past that date. Does anyone out there know something?

CESAR LOPEZ = C?sar L?pez Vera. (1933-1989). Spain. As this artist often signed himself "Cesar" while Cesar Alvarez Ca?ete signed himself "Zesar," it's easy to see how their Skywald credits sometimes got mixed up. Born in Madrid in 1933,  C?sar L?pez studied art in France. He returned to Madrid and began doing advertising art. In the late 1950s he started drawing comics for Toray (Jim Hurac?n, Haza?as B?licas, Haza?as del Oeste). He then worked for an agency that shopped artwork for the French imprint Imperia. He illustrated literary adaptations which Toray later translated into Spanish. He also provided art for a Viking adventure series, ?gan, which was a big hit in France. In the early 70s he joined the Selecciones Ilustradas studio. It was here that he drew stories for Skywald. In the 1980s he drew comics for the Spanish market and helped start a cartoonist's professional association, PAHE (Panorama Actual de la Historieta Espa?ola) which apparently fizzled out. He passed away in 1989 at the age of 56. (Information from Tebeosfera.)

That's all for now...more to come.

[crashryan]

SKYWALD IMPORT ARTISTS, Part 2

NOTE: Until I figure out how to display special non-English characters like accent marks, I will avoid using them. For now names with accents or tildes will be spelt wrong.

PUIGAGUT = Jaime Puigagut Mas?? The only online info about this artist comes from an illustated blog about Spanish comics artists, https://ilustradoresehistorietistasespaol.blogspot.com. [Note there is no "N" in "espanol" in the address.] The site displays two Skywald pages in Spanish translation and gives the artist's name as Jaime Puigagut Mas. There is no biographical information beyond the label "Barcelons." This suggests Mas was another artist working through Selecciones Ilustradas. The same blog displayed another Skywald page with the name Paul Puig Agut. This is almost surely the same artist. Skywald also credited him as John Puigagut.

CARDONA = Jose Maria Cardona Blasi. Spain. Born 1946. Cardona is another Spanish artist who spent a great part of his career working for overseas markets through Toutain's Selleciones Ilustradas shop. He started out in 1970 drawing romances for D.C. Thompson. Soon he switched to American horror. His work appeared both at Skywald and at Warren, sometimes under the name Andy Crandon. Closer to home he worked on such series as the digests Carabina Slim and Davy Crockett in France, and Gigantik for the German magazine Zack! In 1983 he took over Jose Ortiz' series Perla which ran in one of the new independent magazines, Metropol. He illustrated a history of Galicia for the Nona Art shop and worked on the series Kung Fu for the magazine Shi Kai. On this job he worked in a studio started by Martin Salvador, Cesar, and Amador--all familiar names to American b&w horror readers.

At the end of the 1980s Cardona changed directions completely and began working on Disney funny-animal characters for Egmont. He drew other Disney projects for Hachette in the 90s and later for Sanoma in the Netherlands. Cardona also drew comics versions of animated TV shows like Rugrats and Theodore, working through Barcelona agencies Comicon and Comicup. (Info found at Tebeosfera).

Cardona's Lambiek page: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/cardona_jose.htm

BOADA = Sebastian Boada Puigdomenech. Spain. Born 1935. I found no biographical info on this artist, but Tebeosfera lists dozens of cover paintings for various publishers beginning in 1960 and ending in 1977. He painted many Skywald covers. I also found credit for a 1975 cover for Marvel's Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction. I found a picture of the artist in which he's an old man--he'd be around 85 today--still painting. Unfortunately the blog is dead and all links but the picture are broken. One remaining bit of text suggests that Boada worked for "The Agency A.L.I." in 1961. I'll follow up on this. I've found no data on Boada later than 1977.

[profh0011]

CESAR LOPEZ = Cesar Lopez Vera

I believe he did Skywald's 20th (and final) POE adaptation.  the one that was NEVER published, because Skywald went belly-up just before it would have been.

I've been trying to find info on that for several years now.  WAS it ever published anywhere-- by anyone?  (And if not, why not?)  It must have been a long one... it was "ARTHUR GORDON PYM", Poe's only novel.

[crashryan]

I don't think the Pym adaptation was published, Prof. Spanish translations of Skywald strips appeared in Ibero Mundial's Dossier Negro. I haven't yet found references to Skywald reprints in other countries. Tebeosfera has a list of Cesar's strips in DN and Pym isn't among them. This doesn't mean there couldn't be errors. For instance they indicate his Dossier Negro stories appeared in Spain beginning in 1968 when in fact the Skywald black-and-whites didn't launch until late 1970 / early 1971 (January 71 cover date on Psycho #1). Speculation: if Cesar finished Pym but Skywald folded before stats were sent to Spain, then the art was lost somewhere in the USA. I don't know who if anyone acquired the original Skywald b&w art; do you?