Father Shandor, Demon Stalker

One of the great Hammer movies, Dracula Prince Of Darkness was on the Horror Channel the other night, featuring the mighty Andrew Keir as rifle-toting, vampire slaying priest Father Shandor.
Keir completely steals the movie from Christopher Lee ( who doesn't even get any dialogue ) and effete fop Francis Matthews, who basically spends the whole movie saying: Ooh, let's spend the night in this spooky castle, what larks...!

Father Shandor isn't in the movie nearly enough, but his finest moment comes early on when he enters the archetypal Transylvanian inn, stands in front of the fireplace, lifts his cassock and spends what seems like an hour telling all and sundry how great it is to warm his arse at every available opportunity. It's a scene that was clearly made up the night before by Keir and the production crew in a pub in Elstree, after a whisky or several.
No wonder Dez Skinn gave the not-so-good Father his own strip in House Of Hammer. Ok, Shandor's not quite as cool as Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, plus they never teamed up ( or swapped business cards for that matter ), but The Father was drawn by John Bolton AND went from HOH to Warrior, so he had a pretty good innings. Just read the dialogue in Keir's fantastic, bellowing voice.

John Bolton's Planet Of The Apes

Here's some cracking work from near the beginning of John Bolton's career. Over here, we first noticed Boisterous Bolton in the pages of Look-In, his near photographic art making The Bionic Woman an unmissable two pages of weekly excellence. When he made it to the big leagues with Kull: Demon In A Silvered Glass for Marvel, we could delight in crowing that we'd been into his stuff for ages.

In between, John did work like this, the 1976 Planet Of The Apes annual, chock full of black, white and blue illos, as well as one full-colour strip.

I got this annual for Xmas that year, along with a brilliant Galen mask that moved along with your jaw when you did your best Roddy McDowell impression. Planet Of The Apes was huge in our house, lemme tell ya.
Here's a selection.