Joseph Green cover gallery

A rather slim collection for the late Joseph Green, who died in February. Although he began publishing his SF in the UK, only three of his novels had paperback editions over here, although a couple of additional novels appeared in hardback.

The Loafers of Refuge (London, Gollancz, 1965; New York, Ballantine Books, Mar 1965)
Pan Books X651, 1967, 175pp, 3/6. 

Gold the Man (London, Gollancz, Mar 1971; New York, DAW Books, Apr 1972)
Pan Books 0330-23461-7, 224pp, 30p.

Conscience Interplanetary (London, Gollancz, Mar 1972; New York, Doubleday, Jul 1973)
Pan 0330-24209-1, Mar 1975, 219pp, 40p.
---- [2nd imp.] 50p.

The Horde (Laser Books #27, Apr 1976; London, Dennis Dobson, Sep 1979)
(no UK paperback)

Star Probe (London, Millington, Mar 1976)
(no UK paperback)

Spies of Nyscandia (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Aug 2017)
(no UK paperback)

A Murder in the RealWorld (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Mar 2018)
(no UK paperback)

A Lasting Dream of Murder (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Jun 2018)
(no UK paperback)

Three Sons of Bitter Sands (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Mar 2019)
(no UK paperback)

Down Freedom River (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Mar 2020)
(no UK paperback)

The Resistance Revolution Murders (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Jul 2020)
(no UK paperback)

Crystal Coming Home (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, May 2021)
(no UK paperback)

The Assassins for God (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Jun 2023)
(no UK paperback)



COLLECTIONS

An Affair with Genius (London, Gollancz, May 1969)
(no UK paperback)

Running Wild: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (Wildside Press, Sep 2016)
(no UK paperback)

Fantastic Tales of Love and Loss: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Feb 2019)
(no UK paperback)

Otherwise Lost: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Oct 2020)
(no UK paperback)

Space to Move: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (Merritt Island, FL, Greenhouse Scribes, Mar 2021)
(no UK paperback)

Comic Cuts — 27 February 2026

Still waiting on proofs of the ACTION: THE SEVENPENNY NIGHTMARE book as I write this, although it shouldn't be long before I have a copy in my hands.

As mentioned last week, I decided to take a couple of days off and headed into town on Friday for a trawl through the charity shops of Colchester. I came away with a nice little haul of books, some of which may well turn up below. It was, admittedly, a bit of a mixed bag—a couple that fill gaps in author runs, for instance, and even a couple of upgrades, although they weren't bought for that reason... I'd simply forgotten that I already had copies. 

Scanning covers doesn't sound like much of a break from what I've been doing for work, but I actually enjoy the process of cleaning up covers. It's nice to have something that, even if it has creases and is sun-bleached, I can scan and drag into Photoshop and have an improved version of ten minutes later. Sometimes it takes a little longer—I've spent a couple of hours on some old 1950s gangster paperbacks trying to make them look acceptable—but there's an end result not too long after I start the process.

Don't forget, most of the projects I start are a commitment to months of work. I began working on ACTION: THE SEVENPENNY NIGHTMARE back in late October and really got going in early November. And this was meant to be a quick project as I already had a large chunk of the history written. (How that came about I'll explain closer to the book's launch.)

This relatively quick project still took three and a half months to complete (writing and design) and I've still to put any thought into promotion and selling. I will say that it looks good for having copies available for Glasgow on March 21st.

Some projects will take even longer (I'm eyeing the Valiant index as one I want to update soon) as there are more issues and more stories to cover; however, it's not something you can mathematically predict: Valiant's 712 issues won't take eight times as long to cover as Action's 86 issues because there isn't nearly as much interview material available from creators describing their work on Valiant in the way that Action has been covered. 

Imagine facing a blank screen or a blank piece of paper knowing that you've five or six months work ahead of you putting down that first word and that first sentence. It can be daunting... and that's why I can happily sit for half an hour cleaning up scratches and creases and sticker damage with tiny strokes of the mouse in Photoshop. It's relaxing, although it can be demanding if there's a lot of damage, but at the end of a relatively short time you've usually got something presentable and usable and you're not going to go back to it every day for the next five months!

You can see some additional scans have been added to the Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss cover galleries recently and I'll add some more shortly.

After that it was back to work on Monday, scanning some strips for a book I raised the idea for with Rebellion last year. I'll not say what it is until we've signed contracts—which will be some way down the line because the closer I can leave it to publication day, the later I have to pay the licence fees. I've already got the expense of a print run of the new book and various other running costs that are associated with doing a show.

Scanning can get a bit tedious, so I've mixed it up with a bit of indexing of some books that aren't currently in the Fictionmags Index. Reference books... I was looking for an interview with someone the other day and realised I have a load of books but tucked away on shelves and in boxes, so wouldn't it be useful if I knew which books I was looking for? Yes, yes is the answer, so I've spent a couple of days listing contents of books, which itself can be pretty boring, but not when the alternative is scanning page after page after page... 

Keeping me sane is the new album from Big Big Train, a concept piece called Woodcut, which came out three weeks ago. On the same day, the new Solstice live album arrived with a link through to a video of the concert, which Mel and I watched on the Sunday. Absolutely brilliant. We actually appeared briefly in the previous video release which was recorded in Colchester last April. Again, brilliant. I've always thought that the best bands are at their best live. There's an energy and engagement that you just can't get with a studio album, which may have every bell and whistle in perfect harmony but doesn't have the sheer exuberance of a live performance. 

This might be a hang-over from my early listening of rock bands like Deep Purple and UFO, where the live album would bring together their best songs, usually note perfect, backed by the shouts of an ecstatic audience. I loved going to see bands live, usually in London or at festivals (Knebworth, Reading, Donnington) or more locally in Ipswich or Chelmsford (the old Odeon, where the likes of Hawkwind, XTC and Wishbone Ash used to play). Happy days!

(If you bump into me at a show, ask me why I was almost arrested after the Wishbone Ash gig!)

I'll leave you with some random scans from my miscellaneous covers file, not all of them cleaned up, but mostly in good nick. Definitely an odd selection...

Commando 5935-5938

Celebrating International Women’s Day on the 8th March, our next set of Commandos features the explosive fifth story in the Commandos Vs Zombies series written by Commando’s own Georgia Standen Battle. Following this up is the heroic tale of a tenacious nurse in Crete in 1941, written by Hailey Austin and inspired by true events! Issues 5935 – 5938 are on sale today, 26th February. 

5935: Commandos Vs Zombies 5 

After the explosive events on the island, Oberfuhrer Randolph Mensch flew towards his private prisoner-of-war-camp. Housed there were the Soviet and British inmates Mensch used for his vile, mad experiments. 
    Miles away, a small raiding force of British Commandos were on a doomed mission – and they had no idea what was awaiting them at the camp!

Story: Georgia Standen-Battle
Internal Art: Vicente Alcazar
Cover Art: Neil Roberts

5936: The Good Soldier
 
Mario Galasso was a very good type indeed — brave, cool-headed and thoughtful. In battle, he would never ask his men to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. 
    But when he returned to his home village after the war, he was arrested for war crimes! And the trouble was, he seemed to be the only one who knew he was innocent…

Story: Feldwick  
Internal Art: Denis McLoughlin
Cover Art: Ron Brown
First published 1984 as No. 1818

5937: Captured in Crete

The Island of Crete,1941. What did an English Nurse, a Māori soldier, a Cretan monk and a German general all have in common? They were all captured in Crete!
     After German paratroopers descend on the island, the Allied forces, nurses and Cretan people must fight back against the invaders in any way they can. Resistance and soldiers unite, while Nurse Stavros moves over 500 wounded soldiers to a cave and tricks the Germans into feeding them — all inspired by true events!

Story: Hailey Austin
Internal and Cover Art: Carlos Pino

5938: The Two Deserters
 
It wasn’t that Mike Briers had really meant to desert. Not exactly. It was just that Foxy Billings had persuaded him to leave the rest of the lads so that the two of them would have a better chance of escaping the Germans. 
    So how was it that he found himself wearing civilian clothes and fighting for his life on top of a French goods train that was about to be sent to its destruction?

Story: Feldwick  
Internal Art: Blasco 
Cover Art: Jeff Bevan
First published 1982 as No. 1607

Rebellion Releases — 25 February 2026

If you’ve been reading Death of a Judge these past six weeks, you’ve surely been blown away by not just the story – it’s a John Wagner Dredd, of course you’re going to be blown away – but by the artwork on show from Mike Perkins. It’s a Dredd that’s a perfect end to Wagner’s career, and a Dredd made all the more zarjaz due to Perkins’ art, capturing the man and his city perfectly.

For some of you who only read Tharg’s finest, this might well be a first look at his art, as, although his career may have started at the House of Tharg back in the 1990s, he’ss spent many years drawing up a storm for the US since then. So, what better time to chat to him than now as he comes back, as so many do, the the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic? Sit back, relax, and let’s say hello… to Mike Perkins.

To read the interview, head over to the 2000AD website.

When you've finished, come back for the latest Rebellion releases...

2000AD Prog 2471
Cover: Cliff Robinson with Dylan Teague.

JUDGE DREDD // CLIMATE CRISIS by Rob Williams & Ned Hartley (w) PJ Holden (a) Jack Davies (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
HERNE & SHUCK // POWER TRIP by David Barnett (w) Lee Milmore (a) Gary Caldwell (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
JUDGE DEE by Ben Wheatley (w) Simon Coleby (a) Jack Davies (c) Simon Bowland (l)
THARG'S TERROR TALES // FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH by Andi Ewington (w) Mike Walters (a) Rob Steen (l)
THE DISCARDED by Peter Milligan (w) Kieran McKeown (a) Jim Boswell (c) Simon Bowland (l)

Brink Book Six by Dan Abnett & INJ Culbard
Rebellion 978-183786658-8, 25 February 2026, 160pp, £19.99. Available via Amazon.

CONSUMED!
The late 21st century, and through environmental catastrophe and industrial overload Earth has been reduced to a wasteland. Mankind finally evacuated the planet in 2072 and millions were housed in a number of huge deep-space Habitats.
    But after twenty years on these cramped, overcrowded stations life is tense, often spilling over into madness. Sects are rife, and Bridget Kurtis of the Habitat Security Division investigates their reach and influence over the remaining inhabitants of each space-faring vessel – can she stop the encroaching chaos as it works to snuff out the remnants of humanity.

Molly Parkin cover gallery

A bit of a memorial to the late Molly Parkin, who died on January 5th at the age of 93.

Love All (London, Blond & Briggs, 1974; Nash Publishing, 1975)
Star 0352-30080-9, 1975, 190pp, 50p.
---- [2nd imp.] 1977; [3rd imp.] 1979; [4th imp.] 1979; [6th imp.] 1980; [7th imp.] 1984, £1.80.

Up Tight (London, Blond & Briggs, 1975)
Star 0352-29717-9, 1976, 207pp, 60p.
---- [2nd imp.] 1977; [3rd imp.] 1978, 60p.

Full Up (London, Michael Joseph; New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1976)
Sphere 0722-10433-2, 1977, 224pp, 75p. 
---- [2nd imp.] 1979; [3rd imp.] 1981; [4th imp.] 1983; [5th imp.] 1984
Sphere 0722-10576-2 [6th imp.] 1985
---- [7th imp.] 1985, 224pp, £2.25.

Write Up (London, Michael Joseph, 1977)
Sphere, 1978.

Good Golly Ms. Molly, edited by Richard Barber (London, Star, 1978)
Star 0352-30215-1, 1978, 154pp, £1.25. Cover photo by John Timbers

Switchback (London, W. H. Allen, 1978)
Star 0352-30263-1, 1979.
---- [2nd imp.] 1979
---- [3rd imp.] 1982, 154pp, £1.25. 

Fast and Loose (London, W. H. Allen, 1979)
Star 0352-30455-3, 1980, 171pp, 95p. 

Up & Coming (London, W. H. Allen, 1980)
Star 0352-30758-7, 1981.
---- [2nd] 1982
Star 978-0352-30758-3 [3rd] 1985, 159pp, £1.60.

A Bite of the Apple (London, W. H. Allen, 1981)
Star 0352-31035-9, 1982, 165pp, £1.35.

Love Bites (London, W. H. Allen, 1982)
Star 0352-31223-8, 1983

Breast Stroke (London, W. H. Allen, 1983)
Star 0352-31457-5, 1984
---- [2nd imp.] 1987
Star 978-0352-31457-4 [3rd imp.] 1989, 185pp, £2.25.

Comic Cuts — 20 February 2026

I'm writing this a little earlier than normal as I want to take a day off on Thursday, when I would normally be writing. It's only so I can head into nearby Colchester and pick up a few things—nothing exciting: I need a couple of new shirts and it'll be nice to potter around in the charity shops.

I did the layouts for the final pages of the main history for ACTION: THE SEVENPENNY NIGHTMARE on Friday and have spent the last few days working on the various checklists (Action 1st series, Action 2nd series, Summer Specials and Annuals), compiling a creators' index, and doing the layouts at the back end of the book. The final pagination total is 179, which is a little longer than I had planned for (I thought it would be about 160-170), but not so far out that it will make me change my plans to publish in full colour. Yes, an awful lot of pages will be black & white, but with printing its all or nothing. 

The book will be a bit more expensive to print, but I'll absorb the additional cost so the price will be about £25—not much more than the MYTEK books, which were b/w but for which I've had to pay a licence fee to Rebellion, who own the publishing rights. It's the same price as BEYOND THE VOID, the book about Badger Books that was published back in March 2024. I'll do the usual "early bird" discount. I'm aiming to have copies on sale at the Glasgow Comic Swapmeet on March 21st, after which I'll start selling as normal, firstly through Paypal and then through Ebay.

By the time you read this I will have ordered a couple of proof copies to make sure that the colour and printing works correctly as I don't want a repeat of what happened with the first MYTEK books! If I've used a font that's any way out of the normal, it has been converted into a jpg, so it will print properly.

A couple of people require thanks—indeed, they deserve THANKS!—because they have been responsible for the book getting off to the printers on time. Martin Baines is Bear Alley's ever-reliable cover artist. I do quite a few of the designs myself if there is existing artwork, as has been the case with quite a few of the indexes; anything that actually requires artistic talent and skills I pass over to Martin. And the reason the text was ready is because Richard Sheaf turned around the proofing incredibly fast, despite minor distractions like the Winter Olympics and major distractions like work and being away from home.

So, that's it for the moment. 70,000 words of comics' history finally about to see print.

What's next? As I mentioned last year, I'm looking at a couple of reprint titles before cracking on with more comics history. Probably the Valiant index or the War Picture Library Companion. That said, sometimes a piece of research will set me off on a surprising track—this is what happened with ROCKET: THE SPACE-AGE WEEKLY, which took me by surprise. And the book on RANGER wasn't a title I'd planned as the immediate follow-up to BOYS' WORLD. So there's a chance that something might get in the way of my carefully laid plans.

The following day...

So my plans changed when I looked at the weather and discovered that it was going to be raining all morning. I'll go into town on Friday. Instead, I began sorting out a few books on the shelves of my former office (the garage!) in the hope that by using some sort of Escher magic, I can create space out of thin air.

The shelves I was working on had a random selection of paperbacks, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s. By coincidence, one of the first books I stumbled across was Shark Attack by H. David Baldridge, an officer-scientist with the U.S. Navy. It was published on 15 January 1976, almost exactly one month before Hook Jaw began to rip its way through the oceans of Action. 

I mention Gunnar Asch in the Action book as an example of war novels with German heroes that influenced Hellman of Hammer Force. And Linda Lovelace also gets a mention, specifically the book Inside Linda Lovelace. As I've run the cover of that book in The Sevenpenny Nightmare, I'll show off a different title from Lovelace here.

And then there's the Football Factory trilogy about football hooliganism—The Football Factory (1997), Headhunters (1997) and England Away (1998)—and his later novel Human Punk, which begins in 1977. Of course, back in the early 1970s we had Richard Allen writing about Skinheads and Boot Boys and, by 1977, about Mods and Punks in books that mythologised youth cultures. But that's another story entirely.

As you can see, even when I take a day off I can't escape ACTION: THE SEVENPENNY NIGHTMARE!

Rebellion Releases — 18 February 2026

The Thirteenth Floor’s evil AI Max goes worldwide in this anthology of thirteen horror stories set across the globe, featuring the work of James Lovegrove, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, James Goss, and MK Hardy!

Max goes worldwide!

London’s Maxwell Towers have long been under the control of Max – an all-seeing AI intent on punishing wrongdoers and wicked tenants by sending them to the Thirteenth Floor, where unspeakable horrors come to life. Now, Max’s coding has been embedded in computer systems all over the world, and there is no escape from his nightmarish reign.

Featuring thirteen brand-new stories by A. K. Benedict, Angela Slatter, Mason Cross, Una McCormack, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Thana Niveau, James Lovegrove, Derek Farrell, MK Hardy, John Llewellyn Probert, Martyn Waites, Aubrey Wood, and James Goss.

The Thirteenth Floor Anthology is available to order now from the 2000 AD webshop and all good stockists! And Amazon.

And now, this week's releases...

2000AD Prog 2470
Cover: Clint Langley.

JUDGE DREDD // THE FINDER OF LOST THINGS by Ken Niemand (w) Rob Richardson (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
HERNE & SHUCK // POWER TRIP by David Barnett (w) Lee Milmore (a) Gary Caldwell (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
JUDGE DEE by Ben Wheatley (w) Simon Coleby (a) Jack Davies (c) Simon Bowland (l)
FUTURE SHOCKS // ONCE UPON A TIME ON HOLLYWORLD by Ed Whiting (w) Peter Clinton (a) Rob Steen (l)
THE DISCARDED by Peter Milligan (w) Kieran McKeown (a) Jim Boswell (c) Simon Bowland (l)

Judge Dredd Megazine 489
Cover: Dave Taylor.

JUDGE DREDD // HALFWAY HOUSE by Ken Niemand (w) Jake Lynch (a) Matt Soffe (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
MEGATROPOLIS II by Ken Niemand (w) Dave Taylor (a) Jim Campbell (l)
ARMITAGE // DROKK THE RIPPER by Liam Johnson (w) Staz Johnson (a) Quinton Winter (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
TALES FROM THE BLACK MUSEUM // HIS 'N HEARSE by Paul Starkey (w) Brett Parson (a) Simon Bowland (l)
DEPARTMENT K // ...NO MORE by Ned Hartley (w) Mike Walters (a) Simon Bowland (l) 
ROK THE WORLD by John Wagner (w) Dan Cornwell (a) Jim Boswell (c) Rob Steen (l)

Action: Before the Ban Volume 1 by Pat Mills, Geoff Kemp, Kelvin Gosnell, Chris Lowder, Gerry Finley-Day, John Wagner, Ron Carpenter, Ken Armstrong, Steve MacManus, Tom Tully (w) Horacio Altuna, Mike Dorey, Leopoldo Sanchez, Gustavo Trigo, Barrie Mitchell, Ramon Sola, Dudley L. Wynne, Angelo Todaro, Horacio Lalia, Massimo Belardinelli (a)
Rebellion  ‎ 978-183786669-4, 18 February 2026, 384pp, £44.49. Available via Amazon.

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF BRITAIN'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL COMIC!
Violent, gritty and unrelenting, Action comic was the brainchild of Pat Mills and Geoff Kemp. The pair rapidly developed a winning formula: reimagining existing story ideas from fresh perspectives and infusing them with a healthy dose of modern realism. With strips such as Hookjaw, Dredger, Look Out For Lefty and Blackjack, success was instantaneous - but so was the criticism. Press including, The London Evening Standard, The Sun and the Daily Mail were quick to denounce the comic, while Mary Whitehouse piled pressure on the publisher to do something about it.