Yaroslav Horak

Horak died on 24 November 2020 in Sydney, Australia, after a decade-long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Horak then moved to England in 1962, where he also drew adventure stories for D.C. Thomson of Scotland, the scripts being supplied by others. He was the second artist, taking over from John McLusky, for the Daily Express strip James Bond from 1966 to 1977, then for the Sunday Express and the Daily Star from 1977 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1984. In total Horak worked on 33 James Bond comic strips sequences.

Horak also achieved a degree of popularity during the 1960s when he was employed by Fleetway Publications (later IPC Magazines) to contribute art for 11 of their comic books in the War Picture Library and Battle Picture Library series.

Yaroslav Horak (12 June 1927 – 24 November 2020) was an Australian illustrator and comics artist, of ethnic Czech-Russian origin, best known for his work on the newspaper comic strip James Bond.

Horak was born on 12 June 1927 in Harbin, China, the son of a Czech father and Russian mother. In 1939 his family migrated to Sydney, Australia prior to World War II. He began his career as a portrait painter but switched to illustration for the larger Australian magazine publishers. In 1948 Horak’s first accepted comic strips were for Rick Davis (a detective adventure) and The Skyman (a mysterious costumed flyer) in 1948. He then moved to Syd Nicholls’ Publications where he worked on Ray Thorpe (an adventure series) and Ripon – the Man from Outer Space (sci-fi). Horak also did comic strips for a number of other Sydney publishers, before he moved to Melbourne where he drew Brenda Starr for Atlas Publications. In 1954 he created The Mask – The Man of Many Faces and an adaptation of the popular children’s TV program Captain Fortune for Fairfax publications The Sun-Herald between 1957–1962 and Mike Steele – Desert Rider for Woman’s Day magazine.