Bear Alley: Comic Clippings

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS

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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, May 14, 2007

Comic Clippings - 14 May

There seem to be an awful lot of interesting projects going on at the moment which have been pushing Bear Alley onto the back-burner. Not my projects but projects from other people. I'm still tied up with Karl the Viking and the only other thing I've been involved in (and this over a period of months) has been compiling some material for Fumetto, the Italian comics fanzine. Issue 62 will include a special section on Franco Caprioli's work for the UK market which I helped out on. Caprioli was a regular contributor to Ranger and Look and Learn and you can see some of his work at the Look and Learn Picture Library. There's also a piece on Look and Learn in the same issue, which is due out at the end of the month.

One of the reasons I started the blog was to have a home for little bits of research I did for other people as long as it didn't interfere with something they were planning to publish. Lately I seem to be proofing bits of work that will eventually see the light of day elsewhere, everything from a list of comics by Victor de la Fuente to a list of comics by every Italian artist ever to contribute to a British comic (I kid you not). And that's just this evening. Running bits here would be a bit of a cheek but I'm hoping to have my blogging speed back up to normal next month.

One bit of news that didn't make my rundown of upcoming Carlton books: they will also be producing a nice volume of picture library covers in October. The title is Aarrgghh!! It's War: The Best War Comic Cover Art from "War", "Battle", "Air Ace" and "War at Sea" Picture Libraries ("The Art of War" might have been a snappier title). There's an introduction by my good pal David Roach so you can expect some learned words on the subject, plus a foreword by Top Gear's James May. It's 400 pages from Prion (ISBN 1853756334) and is priced £19.99. See Amazon.co.uk.

This weekend was the annual Bristol bash -- the Bristol International Comics Expo. I'm sure you'll find lots of comments, thoughts and blurry memories around the blogsphere. The Forbidden Planet International blog has posted a list of winners for this year's Eagle Awards. Good to see a few British names in there, headed by Warren Ellis (Favourite Comics Writer) whose Nextwave won the Favourite New Comic Book category (and Favourite Comics Villain) and who was also entered in the Roll of Honour. Photos from the show can be found here.

As usual, I'm probably last with the news but here are a few odds and ends I've found these past few days...

Italian artist Mario Cubbino died in Rimini on 2 May 2007 at the age of 77 after suffering ill health for some years. Born in Gorizia on 14 January 1930, Cubbino began his comics career as an assistant to Enzo Dufflocq Magni on Pantera Bionda in 1952 before finding work with the Creazioni D'Ami studio. He began contributing to British comics through D'Ami, making his debut drawing westerns for Thriller Picture Library in 1956. Cubbino moved to London and, between 1957-63, kept up a steady output for British romance weeklies Mirabelle, Marilyn, Roxy and Romeo as well as full-length stories for Love Story Picture Library and True Life Library. After drawing a variety of western, adventure and erotic comics in the 1960s for Italian publishers, he found wider success in the pages of Il Corriere dei Ragazzi in 1973, drawing 'L'Ombra' (by Alfredo Castelli). He later contributed to Corrier Boy, Bliz and numerous stories for Lug. Over the years, Cubbino drew episodes some of Italy's most popular creations, including 'Pecos Bill', 'Dylan Dog' and 'Diabolik'. More details can be found at the French Wikipedia.

Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie got married on Saturday 12 May. Neil Gaiman has the pictures to prove it.

The Self Made Hero manga Shakespeare and the upcoming graphic novels adaptations of Henry V and Macbeth are covered in Gary Eason's article 'Shakespeare gets the comic treatment' at the BBC News website (11 May).