Comic Cuts - 12 February 2010

Where's Don? If you can spot Don Lawrence and Martin Lodewijk in this picture you'll win nothing at all but can bask in the satisfaction that you know what they look like. But what important bits of information have you forgotten just you can retain that memory of their features? Where are your car keys? When was your wife's birthday? Oh, boy... are you in trouble!

Book Bits

I said last week that I was hoping to have a third book finished by today... well, I'm writing this in the wee hours of Friday morning, just after midnight and earlier today put the finishing touches to Storm—The Collection Volume 10, which contains two of the original Dutch albums, The Return of the Red Prince and The Von Neumann Machine. For those of you keeping an eye on my output, that's another 22,100 words in the last couple of weeks. So in the first six weeks of 2010 my total output has reached 60,500 words, 35,000 of which I'll get some form of payment for. Mind you, the output figures are still more impressive than my income figure. I'm only just keeping ahead of the bills.

Next up for me: scanning the original artwork for Montezuma's Daughter. I should be starting that today and I'll post some examples next week. They're gorgeous! Then it's back to Storm for Storm—The Collection Volume 11. Hopefully I'll be able to switch from artwork to writing for a while because too much of one or the other can make life a bit boring. Anyone who thinks that being a freelancer working from home is any different from working in an office is wrong, wrong, WRONG! It's just like any other job but with a shorter journey time to and from work. There are still deadlines, good days and bad days, and there's no getting away from work at 5:30.

Blog Bits

I spotted a problem with some of my Amazon links last Saturday and spent most of the evening trying to fix as many as I could. I suspect there are still going to be many links that aren't working properly, mostly links I posted in 2008 and earlier; some will take you to the Amazon home page, whilst others take you to an error message. If you find this happening, your best bet is to use the Amazon search box over there on the left.

'Coral Island' comes to an end Monday morning and I've yet to figure out what I'm doing next. Tuesday I'll post the sixth and final episode of the Comics Spin-Off and Tie-In novels listing—a long time coming but hopefully worth the wait. Wednesday... well, we'll just have to wait and see because I don't have a clue.

Other Bits

Following on from the launch of the recent Beezer's Golden Years site, another D. C. Thomson title has its own dedicated blog in the shape of Champ Comic—We Are United run by Kev T.

Those nice folk at Random House have sent over the publicity material for the first three books to spin off from the much-missed The DFC. I was quite critical last year about the delay in getting collections from the comic published—I still think that getting books into shops would have boosted subscriptions for the comic had they appeared while The DFC was running. I'll shut up about that from now on... it's now a whole different venture, so let's keep looking forward rather than back.

You can see a preview of the three books at the Random House website (requires Flash and javascript to be enabled for those of a technical bent) but here are all the details fit to print...

Imagine a Bogart and Bacall movie recast with Laurel and Hardy. Dressed in dog suits.
__That's not really quite what Good Dog, Bad Dog is like but still, imagine.
__Good Dog, Bad Dog, meanwhile, is a knockabout crime noir adventure comedy full of slapstick humour, terrible puns and exciting action. it stars canine detectives Kirk Bergman and Duncan McBoo fighting crime in their home city of Muttropolis as they tackle villains such as evil Wah Wah Johnson and thuggish Pug Ugly, trade lines with femme fatale Fifi La Confiture and occasionally disguise themselves in unconvincing beards.
__It's daft exciting fun and it's got milkshakes in it: what more could you want?

Good Dog, Bad Dog Book 1 by Dave Shelton. David Fickling Books ISBN 978-0385619250, 4 March 2010, £9.99 h/c.

The world of MeZolith awaits.
__10,000 years ago, the Kansa tribe live on the western shores of the North Sea Basin, where danger is never far away. Each season brings new adventure, each hunt has its risks, and each grim encounter with the neighbouring tribe is fraught with threats. Poika, a boy on the verge of manhood, must play his part and trust the strength and wisdom of his elders. This is a tale of beasts and beauty, man, magic and... horror.

Mezolith Book 1 by Ben Haggarty & Adam Brockbank. David Fickling Books ISBN 978-0385618267, 1 April 2010, £9.99 h/c.

They tell a prophecy of our homelands being crushed by a falling sky. That fate has been a shadow over our people ever since. The end has begun... in my lifetime.
__Bekka and her people are facing the end of times. They must do all in their power to save themselves from the fate they believe is theirs. But destiny is like a tightly coiled snake. Which Bekka must unfurl without getting bitten...

The Spider Moon Book 1 by Kate Brown. David Fickling Books ISBN 978-0385618274, 29 April 2010, £9.99 h/c.

Give 'em your support and hopefully we'll being seeing more from the DFC crew.

And, finally...

Twenty-five years ago Alastair Crompton wrote the excellent The Man Who Drew Tomorrow, the biography of one of Britain's greatest comics' artists, Frank Hampson. Now, just in time to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the creation of Eagle and Hampson's famous creation, Dan Dare, Alastair has written a new biography of Hampson. Tomorrow Revisited is a thorough revision of the earlier book and packed to the gills with artwork taken from original boards and including some of Hampson's 'lost' work, in book form for the first time.

Check out the advert above for further details of the various editions that will be appearing when the book arrives in April. I've invited Alastair to pen a short piece about the book which I'll post next week. In the meantime, the publishers are offering a discount for orders placed before 30 April, so now would be the time to start thinking about picking up a copy. You can order the book via the PS Publishing website.

(* Our column header is the unadulterated opening page of 'The Return of the Red Prince', volume 19 of the Storm series and now newly translated for Storm--The Collection Volume 10. Artwork by Don Lawrence, missing text by Martin Lodewijk © Don Lawrence Collection / Lis Lawrence / Martin Lodewijk.)