Comic Cuts

As it's a slow news week, you'll have to put up with me just rambling. So, no change there...

I spent last weekend writing the last couple of pages for the next Trigan Empire book (a look at Trigan City); we got the final page proofs Tuesday and the book is now on its way to the printers. It usually takes around a month so the book, Trigan Empire: The Red Death, should be out around the end of April.

I also spent some time putting together a collection of stories by a guy called Maxwell Scott—but as it consists of two stories the main editorial decision was to put them in chronological order. Yeah, a tough job but somebody's got to do it. This is another little project that I've been thinking about for some time... I think most people know that I'm a fan of old crime novels and old story papers and this combines both passions. Since it's the kind of thing no self-respecting publisher would touch, I've got no other option but to do it myself. I'm under no illusion about this: the audience probably numbers in the single digits but it does mean that me and the three or four other people who might be interested (and know who Maxwell Scott is) can have a book on their shelves if they want.

Hopefully, if the printing tests all work out (and I'm confident that they will), Bear Alley the blog will blossom—in a very small way—into Bear Alley the publisher. Not my first foray into self-publishing but I'm putting cut 'n' paste layouts and photocopying behind me—this time it's proper books.

I've spent most of the week scanning and transcribing—the latter a couple of interviews I did at the end of February for The Mike Western Story. I'm hoping that you'll get to see the results real soon now. I'm hoping that the book on Mike will be one of the first of these self-published projects to appear and, as comics are never far from my thoughts, you can bet there are a few other comic-related projects I'm actively working on. Here's a frame from one of them...

Here's all the news. Really... I couldn't find any more...

* The Carol Day website has posted three more stories since I last linked to it. Wonderful David Wright artwork throughout. Go visit now.

(pics © IPC Media.)