The Arm of Diving

On a recent trip to St. John's in the Red Sea, one of my fellow divers was sporting the tattoo you can see below. I think it's a really effective design and particularly like the use of the blue ink. The artist is Jimmy Derbyshire who owns the Darkside studio in Hull. Thanks to Brent for letting me photograph his arm!

 

The Art of Pearl Diving

Pearl is one of Filmy's Girls, a series of pin-up style resin model kits produced by Marc Havican and his talented team of artists. I think it's pretty obvious why I'm featuring this particular kit! It's a really fun design and I love the attention to detail on the scuba gear. Kudos to artist Simon Eckert and sculptor Roberto Von Behr. There are many more photos of Pearl and the company's other models on their Facebook page.

(Click for larger images)

 

The Art of Escaping!

I must apologise for the lack of updates to The Art of Diving recently. Hopefully new posts should start to appear regularly again.

Here's a quickie to start with, from the pages of Express Weekly number 76, March 1956. This shows how submariners would escape from a stricken submarine. On the right you can see the SETT (Submarine Escape Training Tower), located in Portsmouth, which had opened in 1954. When I started diving this was a popular novelty dive for recreational divers but sadly I never got a chance to visit (my initial training had been at the nearby Horsea Island dive centre (the Defence Diving School) which is no longer open to the public). Submarine escape training ceased in 2009. 

(Click for larger image)

 

The Smarter-than-average Art of Diving

Courtesy of the excellent Mark Kausler's CatBlog, here's a Yogi Bear Sunday page from 18th of February 1962. This is probably the work of Gene Hazelton and/or Harvey Eisenberg although the strip was credited to Hanna and Barbera. This is the full version of the strip but notice how the story still works without the first three panels. A lot of papers would have only printed the bottom two tiers to save space (click for larger image).

 

The Edible Art of Diving.

Crumbs! Here's something a little different - some scuba themed cakes.

This marvellous example was recently presented to the staff at Wraysbury dive centre by one of their students.

Unknown.

This one is by Home May'de Cakes

Cake Central

Sophieisticakes

Pink Cake Box

 

Two of a Kind - Nick Carter, Killmaster!

Nick Carter, Killmaster appeared in more than 250 books published from 1964-1990. Carter, Agent N3 of AXE, was based on a pulp detective character of the same name. The name also served as a pseudonym for the various ghost-writers who wrote the books.

Number 44, first published 1969. Artist unknown.

Number 55, first published 1970, art by Gray Morrow. (Thanks to Chris for the scan - click for larger version).       

Gray Morrow (1934-2001) had a long career in comics, newspaper strips and books but is probably best known for his magazine work for the likes of Warren, Marvel and Heavy Metal.

Two of a Kind - Bas Banning and the Spanish Galleon

Work has been really hectic so I haven't had a chance to update the blog as much as I'd like. Here's a quick Two of a Kind featuring two editions of Bas Banning and the Spanish Galleon. Dutch schoolboy Bas, an aspiring journalist, originally appeared in 12 novels published between 1956 and 1962. Billed as the "Exciting adventures of an ordinary boy", this was the fifth in the series. A. Van Aadernburg was the pseudonym of publisher and author Herman Pijfers.

The first cover is a hardback from 1957. The book contained illustrations by J Giling but I don't know if he was responsible for this cover with a rather scared-looking shark!

 This 1973 paperback edition has a cover by Herson.

As a bonus, here's one of Herson's interior illustrations.

As an additional bonus, here's a cover from an omnibus edition that also contained The Car Smugglers and The Tour de France.