Having been very enthusiastic recently about the new Wingleader magazine with its lovely landscape format on thick glossy paper, I was equally as pleased with my copy of John Vasco's Bf 110 units in the Battle of Britain ( Vol I) . This really is a lovely piece of work. With one picture per page I thought it looked very impressive and I'm surprised nobody has really done it before.. it really maximises the quality of each image and is great for those all-important details...
Subtitled "Modeller's photographic archive " Volume II - now available to pre-order - is another Wingleader production in A-4 landscape format with, in many instances, a single photo per page. Regular blog readers will recall that John Vasco featured in the first of my author interview series and I quite distinctly recall him saying that he had no more book plans....so never say never I guess.
I asked John about his new Wingleader titles..
" ...I am pleased with Part 1 of the Bf 110 in the Battle of Britain book. Part 2 is with the publishers at the moment, and once final proofing/corrections are done, it should hopefully be out around April-May time -certainly before the middle of the year.
How did the books come about ? I had continued to gather Bf 110 photos and in conversation with Simon Parry I said I could probably do a Bf 110 volume. I then went through what I had and advised them of the likely total of photos, and matters moved on to considering two volumes. So it was a venture to capture every Staffel during the BoB, with the caveat that not every recce unit might feature, as some might only have had one or two Bf 110s, or photos simply did not exist for the period in question. Fernando came in for the profiles...
The landscape format allows for the photos to feature the aircraft larger, rather than smaller had the format been in portrait style. It works well, and I am pleased with the outcome. Volume 2 will be every bit as good as volume 1, with the odd surprise for good measure...
Piotr, the artist who did the cover for Volume 1, has also done the cover for Volume 2. Equally as good!..."
Volume II is currently available to pre-order from the Wingleader site - as a special edition Vol II will have 128 pages. Order both Vol I and II together and get free postage in the UK.
Also on this blog;
The story behind the Luftwaffe book - John Vasco's 'Bombsights over England -Erprobungsgruppe 210 in the Battle of Britain' here