Bear Alley: Comic Clippings

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The Bill Kellaway Quartet by Gwyn Evans
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"The narrative is packed with action and I think readers will have a lot of fun with [Hercules, Esq.] and there are some genuine moments of laugh out loud humour. I can understand why the film rights for this book were snapped up and even today I could envisage it being a very enjoyable one-off TV series." — Cross Examining Crime.
"Although there’s some criminous stuff going on and Bill often finds himself vying against or working with various lawbreakers, the stakes are never really life and death in this book ... There is some slam-bang action, though, as well as a smart, really likable protagonist and a lot of really clever plot twists, but what really makes HERCULES ESQ. work is Evans’s style, which is consistently breezy, fast-paced, and funny." — James Reasoner, Rough Edges.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Comic Clippings - 21 August 2006

CREATE A SUPERHERO COMPETITION

The Sunday Telegraph ran a feature (20 August) on British superheroes which opened with the query:

Who's this? One-time assistant to the brilliant Professor Barringer, he wore an artificial metal hand, the unfortunate result of a laboratory mishap. Somewhat accident-prone, he was almost electrocuted when another experiment went badly wrong, with the wholly unexpected result that he was rendered invisible - except for his metal hand.

Thereafter, he found he was able to disappear at will by passing an electrical current through it. At first - and who can blame him? - he used this power for criminal activities, but later he became a secret agent and a superhero, working for the Shadow Squad of the British Secret Service, who outfitted his mechanical hand with a variety of secret weapons. During his career, he encountered such bizarre opponents as genius children possessed by electrical aliens, and a madman who would shrink entire towns and hold their populations hostage.

The answer? Louis Crandell, a.k.a. The Steel Claw.

The article, written by Jeremy Clarke, concerns a competition to create a new British superhero set up by Emma Angel of Angel Fancy Dress and includes quotes from David Bishop and Kev Sutherland.

COMPAL AUCTION

The latest COMPAL auction catalogue can be found online here. The British section includes some of the rarities that Malcolm's auctions are becoming well known for, including a number one Beano (in vg+, estimated at between £8,500-9,500), the first issue of Dandy Monster Comic (vfn+, £3,800-4,200), original artwork for 'Desperate Dan', 'The Broons' and 'Oor Wullie' by Dudley Watkins and two pages of 'Young Drake' by Paddy Brennan from The Dandy. There are good runs of The Eagle and TV Century 21, various bound volumes of golden age story papers and comics, 'Dan Dare' artwork from 'Marooned on Mercury' by Harold Johns and Greta Tomlinson, 'Captain Condor' artwork by Keith Watson and lots, lots more.

DAN DARE

John Freeman's Down the Tubes site carries the news that Titan Books are to continue their Dan Dare reprints with new volumes beginning with 'The Man from Nowhere' in April 2007. The first Titan volume, 'Voyage to Venus Book 1', is going back to the printers yet again and there has been an "overwhelming reader demand" for the series to continue. According to Freeman, "Strong sales and a grassroots campaign for new volumes have proven that Dan Dare's popularity remains undimmed."