Preview: More Hugo Pratt Lost Work Coming From The War Picture Library In ‘The Iron Fist’

Another perfect collection of lost Hugo Pratt artworks from the archives – beautifully illustrated war stories from the War Picture Library.

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A few years before the maestro Hugo Pratt created Corto Maltese, his incredible artistry appeared in Britain’s War Picture Library. This work was long considered lost to the comics world before Rebellion and The Treasury of British Comics acquired huge comic archives from many companies in British comics history and set about organising, discovering, and republishing some gems of Brit comics history. And these War Picture Library volumes have been one of the finest examples of what a worthwhile project it is.

Imagine if this sort of brilliance from Hugo Pratt, one of the acknowledged masters of comics, had never been seen again?

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Thankfully there’s now five gorgeous hardback volumes of his work from the War Picture Library available – frankly, just that makes the work of the Treasury worthwhile.

As for this latest, it’s the same beautifully restored hardback format, measuring 24.6×17.8, so bigger than the original A5 size these Picture Library mini comics were published in. But it keeps the two-panels per page format, meaning there’s plenty of room to see all the beautiful linework of Pratt in all its perfect detail

As with most of the stories we’ve seen, the three tales in here, from 1959, 1960, and 1962, are simple things, minor war tales perhaps, full of the sort of gung-ho excitement and daring-do you’d expect.

Although, having said that, there’s still something enticing about these stories, flawed though they may be they’re still a lot of fun, examples of the sorts of storytelling kids in the post-war years were reading. But with the way Pratt draws them, there’s so much energy and excitement coming through the art that you simply can’t do anything other than be excited by it all.

But make no mistake about it, this one’s for fans of Pratt – just take a look again at the size of the cover credits if you’re in any doubt. An there’s so much to adore in here, in the artwork of a master. You know, art like this…

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Yes, every page, with it’s big two-panel layout, has something quite beautiful on it – this is a book, like all the rest in the series, both for fans of Pratt, fans of war comics, or simply those of us who just love seeing work this good finally brought into the world once more.

This volume opens with The Iron Fist, telling the tale of a tank crew in battles from El Alamein to the D-Day landings, first in the lightweight Sherman that proved no match for the German tanks and anti-tank weaponry and then in ‘Goliath’, a bigger breed designed to be the match for the German armour. After that, the remaining two tales tale us first to to Italy in 1944 and the terrors of the Cassino and its seemingly impregnable Monastery Hill in Strongpoint and then to Egypt and the Australian sappers, the diggers from Down Under, in The Big Arena.

As beautiful as the hardbacks are, these are books where digital has an added bonus, being able to zoom in to see all that magnificent linework of Pratt, going tighter and tighter to see just how every line played such an important part, how every tiny mark contributes towards that greater, gorgeous whole.

Take that panel above – there’s a joy in being able to go closer and closer and seeing just what Pratt does with every single mark, veering into abstraction almost…

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There’s something so incredible about seeing Pratt’s marks on the page, those big bold lines, each contributing to the whole so effortlessly and seamlessly. Gorgeous.

And then there’s the way he uses the stark black and white to incredible impact throughout, really making use of both blacks and negative space in pieces such as this…

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Oh, and just one little extra example of the perfect artwork before I show you the full preview. Remember what I was saying about the beauty of Pratt’s artwork really elevating the story and making it genuinely exciting, edge of the seat stuff? Well this section from The Iron Fist is exactly what I mean about being drawn into the tale, as the Goliath, running on fumes has to traverse the Tara Depression, a region of quicksand covered just by a thin layer of mud.

It’s all heart-in-mouth stuff and you simply can’t help but get involved…

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There you go – you see what I mean? The absolute brilliance of Pratt’s artwork just drags you into the thing, doesn’t it? You can feel every bit of tension and fear, every moment of slow progress. Damn, it’s just a superb sequence in a book absolutely full of them.

WAR PICTURE LIBRARY: THE IRON FIST 

Written by Val Holding, W. Howard Baker and A. Carney Allan,

Art by Hugo Pratt

Published by The Treasury of British Comics on 29 May 2024

Okay then, now a good preview of all three brilliant tales for you…