Illustrator Detectives

[LWhistorian]

That is excellent; it would certainly be good to know that we have found at least one of these 7 people. Even if we only confirm that some of the others we contacted are different people with the same names, that will limit the search somewhat since there can't be too many illustrators with a given name.

[outspaced]

Well . . . unsubstantiated and unconfirmed rumours abound that more than one have been contacted. I can't say any more--it's all a bit hush-hush at the moment--but I can certainly say that it'll be worth keeping an eye on this thread, and that the list of MIA illustrators might need editing down very soon . . .

EDIT: Oh my! There is certainly some good news on the way.

[LWhistorian]

Well this is sounding pretty good then. I think I will do some more searching once I found out the results of the current batch of contact letters so that I don't spend time tooking for anyone who may have been found.

Edit: I am not sure how the search goes for Cyril Julien but it seems he is still doing work for 2000 AD. This was just released last month:

www.2000ad.org/thrillpower/dcshimura.html

Sure, his contact information is not there but the publisher may pass a note along...

I don't know if anyone followed up on Zipp's earlier lead though so this may be redundant. Though by comparing this to Zipp's post, it looks like this graphic novel was released 4 days after Zipp posted that earlier information so he had the misfortune of searching for the guy about a week too soon.

Edit 2: I decided to go searching for Jane again. This does not help much but it gets us within 10 years anyway(as her last book was published in 1990). This is not a new book but it is apparently a reprint or new edition of a book she worked on in the late 80s and it dates from 1995. I admit that I don't know much about the publishing industry but I would think that the company might have some contact with the illustrator just to inform them that a reprint was being issued. However, after 10 years, any contact information is likely to be outdated but it is an improvement over what we had so I wanted to post it here for reference.

Edit 3: I had to take down the link since her name was in the url and the site altered it to [thingy]. It was her Crazy Cooking book and it was republished in 1995 by Sheridan Book Company. The author was Juliet Bawden and Jane was the illustrator.

If you want to find the link I used, do a Yahoo search for Jane Lay[thingy](obviously not in this form) and artist. One of the first links should take you to Albris and that will show the book with a couple different publication dates.

This link may work better:

dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=355920490

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Hmm . . . looking at the Cyril Julien link, it would appear that the book is a reprint of work he did in the 90s, which may or may not be a good sign. But he's probably still working for 2000AD, so it's a direct link.

The abebooks link works fine (thanks! ) From that I did a Google search for "Sheriden Book Company" and found this link:

www.kingbook54.org/Catalogues/Crafts%20and%20Hobbies.html

She "designed and illustrated" Crazy Painting in 1995 (1st Ed.) for the same company, apparently. It sounds like a tenuous chance, but if we could turn up an address we could write them asking for any contact information?

I'm just about to send you a PM about this, so don't miss it!

[LWhistorian]

Thanks for the PM. I started looking for Jane again since it just strikes me as odd that someone could vanish like that.

I did find a Jane L who works in the medical field but the descriptionon this page makes it sound like that is the only thing she did in her career so I don't think she is the one we need. This will take you to another link that has some biographical information. It does not acomplish much but there can't be that many people with her name, so we can try to narrow down the possibilities a bit.

www.nefca.ca/conf-old-apr00.html


I know the information on Jane is a stretch since it from ten years ago but it is better than the fifteen year gap we had before. If nothing else, the company may have information up to the late 90s that we could use to track her down step by step(am I the only one having flashbacks to "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?).

This appears to be the Sheridan company we are looking for but if you read their history, they seem to have made a hobby of changing their name:

www.sheridan.com/about_us.html

Within that site, I found a link to Sheridan Books, so I think that is probably the specific entity witin the larger company that we are looking for:

www.sheridanbooks.com/

I am still looking for a search page. If they have something that lists their books, we can verify that this is the right company before contacting them. So I will edit this if I find anything.

The problem seems to be that the company(if it is the same one) changed from publishing books to serving as a publisher for others a few years ago. I have found a bunch of stuff on what to do if I want them to publish something for me but I have not found a catalogue of what they published before they shifted the focus of their company.

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Interesting. I would rule out the medical Jane L since she's Canadian and went into Radiotherapy. I can't see that it would be the same person.

I also found Sheridan.com, but I don't think it's the same as The Sheridan Book Company. I would guess the one JL did work for was based in the UK, whereas the website company is completely US-based (they appear to have no UK premesis). If you search for Sheridan Book Company on ABEBooks, many of the title descriptions mention "London, England" directly before or after the publishers' details. Is there any site that lists all companies in a country and allows you to search for a contact address? I assume there are . . . but I don't know of one. Hmm.

[LWhistorian]

Yeah, you are probably right. It just feels odd to plug in "Sheridan Book Company" into a search engine and not get any links directly to a publisher. I see many things that they published though most of these appear to be from 1993-1995(Just in scanning the search results, I have spotted a few that appear to be from earlier on but that does not really matter since we need to know what they are doing now). It is possible that our one lead went out of business in the late 90s.

Can someone who has the Magnamund Companion tell me if there is any biographical information on her in the book? I know that the books would give about a paragraph each on Dever and Chalk so I am just wondering if it said anything about her. If we can figure out roughly how old she was at the time of publication, that may explain what happened. She is from the UK though, right?

If so, here is a Jane from the UK. There is nothing to tell us if this is the one we want(The way I found her was to enter her name and then UK into the search engine to try and eliminate references to the Canadian Jane).

www.esu.org/contact/national/eastbourne.asp

There is another Jane from the UK who runs a site that sells sports bras. I really don't think this is her but her picture is on the site. I am including this indirect link so that you can see it mentions that a Jane L started the site.

www.springfieldstriders.org.uk/ladies.htm

Of the two, the first would seem to be a better fit but I will keep looking.

[Zipp]

My Companion doesn't even have a paragraph on Dever or Chalk. Nor even the names of the other artists.

[outspaced]

The only mention of the artists appears on the (c) page.

I noticed the same thing about Sheridan--that many of the books are from the mid-90s and no later. I certainly hope they still exist in one form or another.

Jane Layc0ck starting a sportsbra company . . . ? It's all a bit D1ck Emery isn't it!

I guess either of those persons could be the Jane L we're looking for (though it would be a bizarre twist of fate). I wouldn't like to be the one trying to contact either of them, though! How difficult can one woman be to find!?

Any luck with Richard Hooks at all?

[Thomas Wolmer]

outspaced said:

How difficult can one woman be to find!?

Some people spend their whole life trying to find the right woman, without succeeding...

Er. Yeah. Oh, and great job you guys are doing here, too.

(Damn you Simon, you have mentioned some certain good news but there's still not a word, not even on the vonunteers' mailing list. How long are you going to keep us all on tentehooks? )

[LWhistorian]

outspaced said:

Any luck with Richard Hooks at all?

I have not spent too much time looking for him in the past few days but I have been thinking about how to get better search results. Anyone who has tried to find him has probably seen numerous sites that use hooks has a verb rather than as a last name. "Richard hooks up with a French couple" is one example I kept running into.

So, my advice for anyone looking for him is to go to the advanced search options of whatever search engine you are using and tell the thing to exclude anything containing "hooks up." That should leave you with a better chance of finding something. I just wish I could find a case-specific feature so that I could just get "Hooks" rather than "hooks."

If the revised search turns anything up, I will be sure to post it but for anyone else intending to look for him, I strongly suggest that you try to limit the searching using my idea or something similar or else you will waste time going through pages upon pages of "Richard hooks up with"

[outspaced]

Well, fudge.

The Sheridan Book Company folded on October 17th 2000.

wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/378189c084c7b442cb283ede51bb51e4//compdetails

[This is a UK governmental department website, and as such is only available 7AM - Midnight (GMT) Mon - Sat. Select "Dissolved names" and then search for Sheridan Book Company.]

Dammit!

Anyone want to try contacting either of the two Jane Layc0cks mentioned above? Because this lead has unfortunately died.

[LWhistorian]

I will look into this later today but I have an idea on how to find Jane. You will notice that many of the books Jane illustrated were written by Juliet Bawden. I checked and she was writing books until at least 2002, so it may be easier to find her. True, she only worked with Jane in the 1980s but since they did collaborate on several books, maybe they kept in touch. I know it is just a shot in the dark but it may be worth a shot. I really don't know why Bawden's last book is listed as 2002 but if we can find her, it may indirectly lead to Jane.

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587284863/qid=1106589372/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-9753276-6248810?v=glance&s=books

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/184000133X/qid=1106589372/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-9753276-6248810?v=glance&s=books

Edit: That was fast... I have a fax number for Bawden. It iis from 2002 so I am not sure if it is still current. It is kind of sad that I found more current information on Bawden in 5 minutes than I did on Jane in hours of searching...

dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac026/Master127.shtml

[Doomy]

Peter Lyon seems to have been removed from the list. Was my information helpful?

[outspaced]

Doomy said:

Peter Lyon seems to have been removed from the list. Was my information helpful?

Oh yes. Yes it was! ;D Thank you for your time and searching ability.

Official Announcement

Mr Lyon recently E-mailed one of Project Aon's members saying:

I would be happy for you to use versions of my images as part of the project.

Similarly, the contact information for Rob Adams and Graham Round proved equally successful, and both are happy for Project Aon to use their work. Good news, innit? That's why the initial list has been updated, and also why we're so obsessed with finding Mr Hooks and Ms Layc0ck right now.