The Downfall

Emile Zola was a French naturalist writer whose novels and plays were firmly based in social realism and social idealism.

American illustrator and writer LOU CAMERON attended the California School of Fine Arts. He was active as a comic book artist in the 1950s. He was a versatile artist for Gilberton's 'Classics Illustrated' series. drawing comic adaptations of novels by Herbert George Wells, Ann S. Stephans, Alexandre Dumas, Emile Zola and Robert Louis Stevenson.

He was furthermore a contributor to the mystery titles published by Atlas, including Astonishing Comics, Journey into Mystery, Uncanny Tales and Journey Into Unknown Worlds. He illustrated stories in the same genre for DC titles like House of Mystery, House of Secrets and Tales of the Unexpected, as well as Ace Periodicals' Baffling Mysteries, Web of Mystery and Hand of Fate. He additionally did horror stories for St. John Publishing and romance and western features for Story Comics. In 1951 and 1952 he did a syndicated feature called 'So It Sesms'.

During the same period, Cameron was active as a pulp book illustrator. From 1957 he focused on his work has a writer, which he has done under his own name but also as Julie Cameron, Dagmar, Mary Manning and Ramsay Thorne. Among his many (mainly suspense, war and western) novels are 'Beyond the Scarlet Door', 'The Amphorae Pirates', 'Belle of Fort Smith' and 'The Dirty War of Sgt. Slade', as well as the 'Stringer' western series.