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I loved Strongbow for Ron's marvellous, crisp black and white images, his detail, his strength of line and composition, the brilliant accuracy of his men and horses, and above all his total mastery when it came to capturing power and movement.
My dad and I used to pore over his pages, marvelling at his rendering of horses and men, often frozen in a split second of violent action, but fluid, powerful and graceful nonetheless. Very, very powerful stuff. Now I've had the chance to see more of Ron's work, I have a sneaking feeling that the Strongbow era might have been one of his favorites, because the images he created for it are so complete and so satisfying. Ron captured the spirit of that period so vividly, that it's hard for me to realise that he was also engaged with Biggles (another of my favourites), American Wild West, science fiction and Playboy magazine. What an artist!
Strongbow was only ever a black and white
comic strip. I saw some of Ron Embleton's color work in comics recently when I searched
him on the net, but to be honest, I think black
and white conveys his mastery of comic strip work far more effectively.
Having said that, he also had brilliant control of tone and color, and produced many individual images that are truly breathtaking. It was a real joy recently to find a great body of his work that I previously hadn't known about.
The other thing that drew me to Strongbow was the "Robin Hood" quality of the story.
Sherwood Forest has some deep resonances in our family history, that
I wasn't aware of when I enjoyed these comics as a child.
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