Comic Clippings - 8 October

Just a few brief notes tonight as I've spent all day in front of the computer and it's about time I switched screens and watched the TV instead... or maybe read a book. Anything but sitting here in the office!

I've spent most of the day writing an introduction to the Fleetway War Libraries book I'm doing with David Roach which is now pretty much as complete as it's going to get. My attitude has always been to get lists out into the public domain as soon as they're reasonably complete; we could waste years trying to dot every 'i' and cross every 't', during which time the mass of information we've been able to compile will sit on my computer, of no use to anyone but ourselves. The beauty of producing the book now is that, in these days of the internet, if we do have any corrections or additions to make, we can very easily distribute them... maybe via this very blog or a dedicated site or whatever.

So, that's what I've been up to. What about everyone else?

• Having mentioned Massimo Belardinelli a couple of weeks ago, a Yahoo group dedicated to his work briefly appeared a couple of days ago under the name themassimobellandinelligroup which introduced itself thus: "Massimo Bellardinelli is a GENIUS! And a vastly under-rated genius." The link worked on Friday but, having accrued 35 members, now seems to have disappeared despite still appearing in the groups listings if you do a search for Bellardinelli (note misspelling). No idea what's going on.
• UPDATE: Richard Sheaf (Comments below) informs me that the group is now back up and running and can be found here.
  

• A memorial tribute to the late Tom Frame appears in the centre pages of the latest issue of 2000AD. If you've not picked up a copy yet, the picture can be found at the 2000AD web site.
  

• The superlative Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History web site has just uploaded a Thunderbirds Extra with a ton of fascinating features. Of all the sites dedicated to British comics in one way or another, this is by far the best. Fabulous interviews with Alan Willow and Brian Woodford and lots, lots, more.

• Last Sunday's Sunday Times (1 October 2006) opened a review of Janet Street-Porter's book Fall Out with the words "Janet Street-Porter had the great good fortune to be born with looks that were exactly right for her era. When she left home in 1967, her resemblance to Plug in The Beano's Bash Street Kids was, for the first time ever, enormously fashionable."

• The 24 Hour Comics Day (Friday/Saturday/Sunday due to different time zones around the world) was a great success as far as I can tell. I wasn't able to follow events very closely but I have just spotted some photographs from ComICA and there is an ongoing commentary of events as they happened throughout the day at the 24 Hour Comics Day blog.

• Another David Lloyd interview, this time at the Fractal Matter blog (2 October 2006).

(* And that's me done for the evening...)