Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Frank Bellamy's Robin Hood

A Bear Alley exclusive: this is the cover for Frank Bellamy's Robin Hood: The Complete Adventures to be published early next year. I went through the proofs of the book this morning and it's looking very good, with a 4-page, 3,500 word introduction and a 2-page bonus feature on how the strip was bowdlerised when it was reprinted in Treasure with a variety of sample panels to illustrate. The main strip -- every single episode of 'Robin Hood and His Merry Men' and 'Robin Hood and Maid Marian' -- runs to 134 pages. Even at that relatively early stage of his career, Frank Bellamy's work was remarkably confident and detailed; if you've never had a chance to see the strip before you're going to be amazed.

I'm now waiting on a few minor corrections and there will be a no doubt be a few tweaks required from everyone else involved but the main work from a production point of view is done. With Christmas so close I doubt if much is going to get done before the festive season and a few decisions about format still need to be made but the book should be at the printers in January. The released date depends on how quickly the printers can turn it around, of course, but March would be a good guess. Hopefully your wallets will have recovered from Christmas by then.

2 comments:

  1. great to see the cover and i can't wait to buy this next year ,classic character ,classic artist.

    best
    jon haward

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  2. It's a little early to say when it will happen but we're hoping to do the King Arthur strip as a follow-up. All depends on how well the Robin Hood book does, so keep your fingers crosssed and tell your friends they all have to buy copies.

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