Comic Cuts

Geoff West at Book Palace Books tells me that copies of Frank Bellamy's Robin Hood: The Complete Adventures are now being distributed. The handful of copies that we had at the recent ABC Show sold out very quickly and I'm pleased to hear that there have been quite a few advance orders for this volume. Geoff tells me he is confident that the book will sell steadily and, once he's recouped the money he's had to pay out on printing and getting the book through customs (a surprisingly costly set of transactions!), he should be able go ahead with the follow-up volume, Frank Bellamy's King Arthur, and other planned titles.

I'm looking forward to getting a copy of the book for my own shelves.

I couldn't resist picking this up while I was in town. I'm only an occasional reader of Commando but you just can't go wrong with a World War I flying story drawn by Jose Jorge... and the cover's by Jorge, too. The guy's one of the best artists working in British comics, certainly the best South American artist still working in the UK. Best comics' artist currently working in the UK? I still think John M. Burns takes some beating. Best British comics' artist working outside the UK? Much harder... I'm not a big follower of superhero comics so I don't see a lot of what's out there. Undoubtedly there are some very good artists—Frank Quitely springs to mind—that I'm missing out on but that's my loss. Someone whose work I've liked for years is Mark Buckingham whose work always impresses me.

What prompted this little thought was the Eagle Awards voting form for strips from 2007—which you can now find online. I was looking at it this morning and thinking how few names I recognised. Ten years ago I'd have known every name on the list and would have been able to make an informed choice; nowadays I don't have a clue.

Maybe they could start a Retro-Eagle Award for old duffers like me. Best artist from fifty years ago, so we'd be voting for strips that appeared in 1957... so, let's see...

Best Artist:
__Leo Baxendale, Frank Bellamy, Paddy Brennan, Frank Hampson, Harry Lindfield, Ken Reid
Best Strip (colour):
__Dan Dare, The Happy Warrior, Jet Morgan, Luck of the Legion, Persia's Lady Mary
Best Strip (b/w):
__Bash Street Kids, Dennis the Menace, Jane, Jeff Hawke, Rick Random, Roger the Dodger, Wulf the Briton
Best New Strip:
__Dixon of Dock Green, Mark Question, Paddy Payne, Olac the Gladiator

Make your vote count!

News from elsewhere...

* The Hipster Dad takes a look at some of the worst advertising you'll ever see for a comic title. The title in question was 2000AD and the adverts appeared in Loaded back in 1997.

* The latest Book and Magazine Collector (May 2008) has another episode in the series 'Great British Comic Artists' by David Ashford & Norman Wright, this one featuring one of my favourites, Philip Mendoza.