Terry Maloney

Apr 10 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

THE brave and idealistic former Communist, whose bushy eyebrows bristled at injustice, was hired by a high- minded vicar to draw pea- green bullies from space, who were reptilian in countenance and psychopathic by nature.

It is difficult to know whether Terry Maloney likened his Venusian Treens, featured in the Eagle comic’s Dan Dare strip, to the evil men on Earth. But their ambitions to dominate others, as guided by the bulbous-headed Mighty Mekon of Mekonta, could be compared to activities down here.

Maloney, the son of a Fleet Street printer, would have remembered the European fascists, who rose in the 1930s. The first opportunity for him to turn political beliefs into action happened during the Spanish Civil War, when Franco’s Falangists were backed by Hitler and Mussolini against the Republicans.

In 1937, when still a student at the Richmond School of Art, Maloney joined the International Brigades, often made up of artists, writers (famously George Orwell) and intellectuals, who sided with the Republicans in what was a prelude to the Second World War.

Determined and tenacious, Maloney joined the British Battalion’s machine-gun unit. He witnessed much slaughter around Gandesa, as the ill- equipped Republicans retreat- ed before a better organised enemy. As news grew worse, Maloney received a letter from his father, which said, "Son, I fear you will not get this while you are still alive".

In August 1938, Maloney received serious shrapnel wounds to his chest during the Battle of Ebro. He returned to London, but continued supporting the cause.

And then came the big war in which he served with the Royal Corps of Signals in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

After demobilisation, he became a commercial artist, working on railway posters and, returning to his passion, for Spain Today magazine, which supported the struggle against Franco.

In 1950, he joined Frank Hampson’s team illustrating Dan Dare for the Eagle, owned by the Reverend Marcus Mor- ris, of Birkdale, near South- port. Maloney, married with three children, then devoted more attention to his other great interest astronomy, writing and illustrating a series of books, including Other Worlds in Space, The Sky is Our Window, and A Dictionary of Astronomy.

In addition to writing and drawing, Maloney, who left the Communist Party in the 1940s, was an editor for several London publishers. He retired to Dorchester.

Terry Maloney, artist; born April 20, 1917, died March 16, 2008.