Comic Cuts

It has been a relatively slow news week elsewhere on the web so I'm grabbing this chance to mention a few projects that will be upcoming from The Book Palace. A couple you will already know about, namely The Thriller Libraries, which is the follow-up to The War Libraries, and Frank Bellamy's King Arthur and His Knights: The Complete Adventures which is the follow-up to the Frank Bellamy's Robin Hood book which snuck out at the ABC Show.

Geoff West has announced four new projects that he's working on: The Art of Warfare (the history of conflict through military illustration), The Art of Piracy (an illustrated history of corsairs, buccaneers, plunderers and freebooters), Drawing from History—about the forgotten art of Fortunino Matania—and, one which I hope will make your ears perk up, The Art of Ron Embleton.

I don't have all the details—and certainly there are no release dates yet for any of these—but I know that Geoff has been working on the Matania volume for some time and the idea of doing something on Embleton has been floating around for a while. After being a vague notion for some time, it has now taken that great step forward from "Wouldn't it be nice to do..." to "Well, we've got to do it now because we've announced it."

The Matania is, as I said, in active production. Beyond that I can't really say anything until all the details are nailed down. Update: According the Geoff, the Art of Warfare is likely to be the first release, followed by The Art of Ron Embleton, although neither book has a release date yet.

What I can say is that I'm still busy on The Mike Western Story. I put together a few test pages a couple of week's ago as it will be the first time I've used this computer and 'In Design' to put together a book. Having proved to myself that I can do it I'm in that weary process of transcribing interviews with some of the folk who worked with Mike over the years; it's taking a little longer than I hoped because I've had to work on a couple of other things at the same time to keep a little cash rolling in. However much I'd love to do this full time, this is definitely a project that's being done for love, not money.

For entertainment I've been working on a second project: an old penny dreadful from the 1870s which I'm hoping to bring back into print. That'll probably be finished before the Mike Western because (a) I've only had to write a couple of short pieces for it and (b) I don't have to source illustrations because someone else did all the hard work. So that's almost finished and hopefully I'll have learned from all the mistakes I made doing it (which were many), which will mean that I won't make them on the Mike Western book!

As a little teaser, below is a pic from Mike's sketchbook; I'm hoping to run a few of these unseen pieces alongside the artwork that many of you will know so that even the most hardcore fan of Mike's work will have something new to look at.

Some bits of news from around the web...

* Adrian Banfield has posted an interview with James Halley, the editor of The Victor at his Victor and Hornet tribute site. Halley worked at D. C. Thomson for four decades (1953-92), working on The Hotspur and Adventure before becoming editor of Victor in 1964, where he remained until its last issue in 1992.

* It's that time of the month again: Dan Dare sales figures for the Virgin Dan Dare comic. After all the fuss over last month's figures--when part of February's reorders were incorporated into the calculations and skewed all the numbers—hopefully this month's will be definitive. Or as definitive as they can be because they only cover orders made through Diamond Distributors US. In the case of DD, that won't be all they're selling as they don't take into account sales via Diamond UK, which for DD should be a significant number (maybe another 20% on top). However, it should offer a reasonably good guide to the magazine's sales trends.

ICv2 has estimated that sales of the February-released issue 4 are 7,885 up from the revised 7,657 figure for January (see link above); the sales have taken up upward bounce, clawing back the small percentage that sales fell between issues 2 and 3. It might be that a retailers are showing a little more confidence in the title after the announcement that issues 1 to 3 are to be re-released as a collection in April.

* Rich Johnson is reporting on Lying in the Gutters that whilst Gary Erskine is to remain as artist for a second volume of Virgin's Dan Dare, due to begin in December, Garth Ennis won't be writing it and his replacement has yet to be assigned. Garth will, however, be doing a panel at the New York ComicCon along with Peter Hampson, son of Dan's creator Frank Hampson.

* Rich also seems to be of the opinion that there may be some other repackagings of old (New) Eagle characters, possibly 'The Computer Warrior'. But likely not from Virgin. The superb reimagining of Dan Dare created by Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes is also likely to be repackaged.

* Talking of Grant Morrison... back in the 1980s he fronted a band called The Fauves and their single, 'Tortured Soul' (co-written by artists Dannie Vallely), has just surfaced on YouTube:



Not to be mistaken for the Australian band of the same name, by the way. (heads up via Lying in the Gutters). A few more of Grant and Dannie's songs can be found at Dannie's Spirophone website.

(* Thriller Comics Library © IPC Media; 'King Arthur' © Look and Learn Magazine Ltd.; Mike's sketch © Mike Western; Superman © DC Comics; The Fauves 'Tortured Soul' probably © Morrison/Vallely, 1988; sorry about the quality of the first two pics—I forgot to ask for scans!)