John Bolton at a book signing, circa 2018.

I just learned that John Bolton turned seventy years old the other day. That would be John Bolton of England. One of the great SFF/horror artists of the last forty years. An artist whom Neil Gaiman felt compelled to make a short film about. That John Bolton. Not the American neocon diplomat.

John Bolton was born in London in 1951. He went on to graduate from East Ham Technical College, whose previous alumni included Barry Windsor-Smith. By the late '70s, John was doing work for various comics companies in the UK, doing illustrations of classic pulp characters like Tarzan and Buck Rogers. That got him noticed by Ralph Macchio at Marvel Comics. Macchio signed up Bolton to illustrate a tale of Kull of Atlantis scripted by Doug Moench. The result was one of the most beloved single issues in all of sword-and-sorcery comics history: Bizarre Adventures #26.

Bizarre Adventures #26 blew away people at the time. Bolton's style, at that point, was a combination of Bernie Wrightson and Frazetta--especially Tarzan and the Castaways--along with a touch of Michael Whelan. Could it get better than that? The story by Moench was also excellent, which added up to an instant classic.

Bolton went on to collaborate with Chris Claremont on S&S/heroic fantasy projects like Marada the She-Wolf and The Black Dragon, both for Marvel/Epic Comics. He also did a great Thor story for Marvel.

In 1989, Bolton decided to shift his focus to doing more horror art, at which point he began working with the newly-founded Dark Horse Comics. This anticipated a similar move by Brom--an artist with a similar style and proclivities--by several years. However, John still did the occasional S&S cover, including Roy Thomas' DHC adaptations of Cormac Mac Art and 'Kings of the Night'.

Around that same time, John began working with Neil Gaiman on the 'Books of Magic' series. Gaiman would film a mock-documentary on Bolton in 2004.

Since the '90s, Bolton has moved further and further into the horror realm, working with Clive Barker as well as on his own horror projects. While I wish him all the best, I would still love to see his renditions of Wagner's Kane, Moorcock's Elric and Campbell's Ryre. His style and philosophical bent suits him well for any of those three.

One can always hope...

Mr. Bolton's website can be found here. A nice overview of his Marvel artwork can be found here.