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Wild & Woolly: An Encyclopedia of the Old West

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After a career that touched eight decades, British illustrator/author Denis McLoughlin gained a degree of long overdue recognition for his hard-boiled detective illustrations that graced book covers produced primarily for the London publishing house of T.V. Boardman, Ltd. (Boardman Books). It is this work, no doubt, with which McLoughlin will always be most strongly associated. Bio-bibliographer David Ashford claims for McLoughlin, "In the history of British Illustration there is no one who can be reasonably compared to him. He does not fit anywhere into the British tradition." Ashford concludes that when it comes to hard-boiled illustration, McLoughlin is simply the best.

McLoughlin always had a love for the American West. He gathered artifacts and information which he used in the occasional Western book jacket illustration for Boardman Books. However, in 1948, Christmas annuals were introduced to the Boardman line under their Popular Press imprint. The first of these, Buffalo Bill Wild West Annual number one, appeared in time for the 1948 Christmas market. Success of the experiment assured that the title would continue and another Buffalo Bill Wild West Annual appeared in time for Christmas every year through the 1961 issue. After the 1948 issue, each Buffalo Bill Wild West Annual took Denis, who had almost total creative control over the project, about six months to produce. McLoughlin obviously lavished his attention on the Buffalo Bill annuals. Here his graphic story-telling reached new heights. As the series progressed the amount of research for each story obviously increased contributing a high degree of realism to the series. By the last few annuals almost all of the stories were based on solid history. "Ghost Towns," for example, in 1958's Buffalo Bill Wild West Annual number ten provides a poignent comment on the passing of the American West with a level of understanding unique for the time and seldom seen in comic book westerns of any period.

Beginning in late-1971, McLoughlin then took about two years off from comics to finish the compilation of Wild & Woolly, his encyclopedia of the American West published by Doubleday in 1974. Wild and Woolly consisted of hundreds of Western facts drawn together over the years and used primarily in the Buffalo Bill Annuals. Sadly, there are no McLoughlin illustrations in the volume.

Denis McLoughlin died suddenly on April 22, 2002. He was 84.