On August 12 Argentinian artist Francisco Solano Lopez passed away. I’ve written, at considerable length, about how much I loved the work he did for the British publisher Fleetway in the 60′s and 70′s but the truth I’ve been a fan of his more adult material for years. And I’m not just talking about the sexually explicit Adults Only Young Witches series. There was also the incredibly dark political graphic novel Anna or Razorguts, a science fiction action/adventure series that flirted with many of the same themes in Young Witches.

One of the things that all these mature works have in common with his earlier work intended for kids done for Fleetway was they were all drawn in the exact same style, as you’ll soon see.

Kelly’s Eye concerned Tim Kelly, a man who traveled to South America to claim his Uncle’s inheritance but instead after saving an old man he was given The Eye of Zoltec. This magical gimcrack bestowed upon him the power of indestructibility and although not a superhero in the American sense of the word, like any proper British boys adventure hero of the time he elected to use the power of The Eye to battle evil. Initially his adventures were pretty standard South of the Border stuff but fantasy and science fiction elements were soon added and things got increasingly weird and creepy. In my opinion they reached their apex during a long sequence where Kelly battled really disturbing looking, nearly indestructible outer space plant things.

While going through a pile of the British weekly Knockout when I came across an ad promoting the first appearance of Kelly’s Eye.

Thanks to the 1967 Valiant Annual you’re able to read Tim Kelly’s first adventure.

I’ve included this story from the 1966 Valiant Annual because it’s about as odd as Kelly’s Eye got — though you’d be surprised at just how often the exact same sort of thing happened to 50′s American jungle girls.

And finally, fairly late in his career Tim Kelly began a series of adventures through time thanks to the Time Clock, the invention of eccentric super scientist Dr. Diamond. Any resemblance to the first incarnation of Doctor Who and his Tardis was most likely absolutely intentional. At first Dr. Diamond was depicted as being a bit mad and perfectly comfortable with putting Kelly into extreme danger if it suited his purposes. Over the years Diamond mellowed, a little, into the adorable elf seen in this rare color Kelly’s Eye story from the 1974 Valiant Annual.