Comic Cuts

The new porch—a vast improvement over what it looked like a few weeks ago...

The last couple of days have been awful from a work point of view. The building work reached the stage where the roof over my office was being replaced and I defy anyone to concentrate with people thumping around just over their head. It was so distracting that I actually got around to doing some more tidying up of boxes which earns me nothing in cash but maybe a few brownie points with the people I rent the house with.

I did manage to get a few bits 'n' bobs written over the weekend and finished off one of the essays for the War Comics book on Monday (they're only short little things). One more to go. The Trigan intros. are 75% done for volume 1; I'm still waiting on a few things before I can get cracking on the other volume. Instead of work I've managed to squeeze in a couple of things I've been meaning to do for a while, including the checklist of Commando authors, posted Tuesday. Hopefully I'll find the time to put together a few more of these in the future, including listings for War and Battle Picture Library. The one complaint we had regarding the The War Libraries index was that there was no creators index. The book was already long (at 196 pages) and any additional lists would have pushed the price up on an already expensive volume.

A box of books landed on the new porch floor today which I'll be reviewing and discussing over the next few days. The box included copies of my own books from Carlton, including an advance copy of High Noon, which I'm really pleased with. My favourite of the volumes so far. Scoot down the page a little bit to take a look at the contents.

I'm hoping that we'll have a few copies of High Noon for sale at the ABC Show on Sunday. If you've never visited, it's a comic fair held at the Royal National Hotel in Southampton Way, a short walk from Russell Street underground station (and a slightly longer walk from Holborn). The show is actually two shows in one: The London ABC Show is a British comics offshoot in its own room linked to The National Collectors Marketplace, which is primarily American but with a fair number of tables dealing in both UK and USA comics and artwork.

I'll be on hand to sign whatever anyone wants me to sign (except blank cheques). We'll have copies of the brand new Frank Bellamy's King Arthur and His Knights book, which we've had flown in especially, plus the new Art of the Trigan Empire catalogue. We have a stock of Carlton's new releases (I'm told that Geoff may even have a small number of copies of the Rick Random—Space Detective book, which I'm looking forward to seeing).

Since I'm not much of an attraction myself, Norman Wright and David Ashford will also be on hand to sign copies of their Masters of Fun & Thrills book (see here for a few more details).

For further information and directions how to get to the show, follow this link.

Books aside, I received a couple of other goodies today. Unique Comic Collectables have produced calendars for Commando and Starblazer for 2009.

The monthly images were selected by editors from the two series, Calum Laird and Bill McLoughlin and both are definitely fans of Ian Kennedy, who dominates both calendars. In Starblazer he shares space with only one other artist (Colin MacNeil). The Commando has something of a wider selection, including artwork by Chaco, Jeff Bevan, Keith Page, Gordon Livingstone and Jose Maria Jorge.

The calendars are backed with a thick card sheet which I think helped them survive the rigours of the British postal system—my copies arrived without being bent, spindled or mutilated. There's enough space to jot down notes in the actual calendar, although I suspect these will be bought by fans of the artwork for their wall and not by anyone who needs a date planner.

(* King Arthur & His Knights © Look and Learn Magazine Ltd.; Commando & Starblazer © D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd.)