Comic Cuts - 2 March 2012

March already and I don't have the next Bear Alley Books book finished! Blame it on a couple of false starts with some other notions I've had for projects that I would like to run alongside the next book. I think I've got things sorted out now, but it cost me a couple of weekends, which has pushed everything back a fortnight. Not that I had a set deadline, but I'm keen to keep things moving along.

I'm also trying to negotiate a couple of other publications and make some more plans for a couple of other books along the lines of the recent Pages from History. But it all takes time and I have to earn enough to pay the rent as well, so until a millionaire benefactor (mysterious or otherwise) comes along and offers me a regular wage to turn my little publishing hobby into a full-time job, the schedule will remain irregular at best.

Above is another illustration from the upcoming book on Gwyn Evans. I'm tempted to add another story to the line-up but I'll have to see how that goes as I don't want to make this an expensive book and I'm still in the process of gathering together illustrations.

Random scans this week are a mixed bag from the 1930s and 1940s, a couple of them from the collection of Morgan Wallace. The first is a Newnes Adventure Library from 1933, an anonymously-written tale featuring Norman Steele, detective; next up, two contrasting paperbacks from the 1940s, the first a slim, pulp format yarn from Irish publisher C. Morris & Co., of Dublin reprinting Isabel Waitt's Death a la King, the second a scarce crime novel by the indefatigable John Russell Fearn from Paget. Lastly, we have Mellifont All-Western Library from, er, Mellifont, another Irish publisher... I'm not 100% sure when this dates from, although there were at least six monthly issues. My best guess is 1953, although it could just be late 1952. I've never heard of cover artist Michael Gallivan.

Next week: As promised, and after last week's concentration on book covers, there should be another batch of illustrations from the pages of World of Wonder to keep things varied. I can't recall precisely what's in the latest batch, but I do remember there being illustrations from the Embletons (both Ron and Gerry) and Angus McBride amongst the goodies that will appear during the week. After that, I'm tempted to run another Bill Baker comic strip adaptation as we haven't had one since last November... how the time flies when you're having fun!