Comic Cuts

I took the weekend off to set up a website for my mum's family tree project; it's a private site but, to be perfectly frank, I really can't imagine anyone else being interested in the various branches of our family. I only mention it because it was one of those "little" jobs that I'd been meaning to get around to that turned out to be a major chore. Enthusiasm kept me going until Sunday afternoon when I managed to wipe out a file which had all the information on about 60 family members. That's when I discovered that I didn't have a back-up.

Always back up your files!

The last couple of days have been spent working on the last of the books I've been contracted to do by Carlton and which I should be wrapping up shortly. Once they're in the bag and everyone's happy with them I'll let you know what they are.

Although I was MIA over the weekend, I have posted a couple of odds and ends that might not have been noticed. We've cracked one of the mysteries surrounding Western writer Hal Dunning and located his date of death; and I added a couple of additional annuals to the little gallery of Playbox Annual. One interesting thing about many of the annuals from before the war is that they were issued in transparent wrappers; and around 1940 they switched to illustrated paper dust jackets. This didn't last long as the paper shortage began to bite very quickly after World War II started. Probably only interesting to hardcore collectors and comics nerds, here are a couple of examples... you can see the unadorned Playbox covers at the above link.

Some brief bits of news from a quick dig around various blogs...

* Jeremy Briggs has posted news of a two-volume Collectors' Edition of Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy's Kidnapped graphic novel. As well as a hardback edition of the book there's a second book entitled Creating The Graphic Novel, which looks behind the scenes of how Kidnapped was put together, heavily illustrated with Kennedy's original pencils and pre-production art. The price is likely to be hefty, around £50 or so. (via Down the Tubes Blog)

* You can read all about Alan Grant's interview at the Edinburgh Lectures at the Forbidden Planet International Blog.

* Peter Gray is running a series of covers from the British humour comic Jackpot at the moment -- only one missing from the first 50 so far. And there are more covers, this time for Wizard over at Paul Winsall's Wizard Comic blog.

* Lew Stringer has been busy, posting a three part series on how various Marvel Comics appeared in the UK long before the advent of Marvel UK (now Panini UK): 'The Road to Marvel UK' part 1, part 2, part 3. Lew also reviews The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics published by Robinson.

(* Playbox Annual covers © IPC Media.)