After last week's excitement everything has been dialed down a notch, although I'm pleased to say that there was a brief moment on Thursday when it shot up to 11 (which, as we all know, is 1 louder) when I finished the final page of Storm. I'm still working on the introduction but that's the bulk of the last collection finished.That's four books (nearly) completed since January (although, I hasten to add, none from a standing start) and I'm hoping that I'll be able to report book five finished some time during March. After that... who knows. I'm hoping to get back onto Eagles Over the Western Front and wrap up those two volumes, which have been on hold since November, due firstly to another job needing my attention and subsequently because I've managed to get hold of another 50 pages of original artwork, all of which needs to be scanned, cleaned-up, lettering repaired and whatnot. Eagles will return to these columns, but I'm not sure when.
Meanwhile, I hope you're enjoying The Prisoner of Zenda, which will continue into next week.
Other than that I've very little news. We got our first five star review for Frank Bellamy's The Story of World War 1 at Amazon. "Book Palace Books are to be commended for the quality of scanning and restoration of these pages, which has enabled a quality of reproduction which would have been unthinkable fifteen years earlier," says reviewer Peter Richardson... and it does my heart good to see the work put into cleaning up the pages recognised. I shall just bask here for a second... ... ... ...that's enough. I don't want to be mistaken for a stranded whale. More about the book here.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that a lot of Amazon links were no longer working; well, I've started repairing them but it's a slow process as some posts have dozens of links. If you find you've been directed to an "address unknown" page, you can always use the search box over to the left.
(* Another page from "Montezuma's Daughter", art by Jesus Blasco, from the Rider Haggard collection I'm working on; artwork © Look and Learn Ltd.)
I'm sure there are two versions of Patrick Nicolle's artwork.He adapted the film version drawing the its star actors;James Mason, Stewert Grainger and Deborah Kerr with great accuracy.
ReplyDeleteI also remember his superb Robin Hood and Dick Turpin.
By the way I found a copy of Chas Pears's Yachting on the Sunshine Coast.
Hi Steve
ReplyDeleteI've just received my copy of the Butterworth/Bellamy book and i'd like to echo that five-star review. I've had part of the series in Look And learn for many years, so I know how good the content, but your burnishing and packaging of it has brought out the best in the material.
A great job of work - you should feel proud.
David Simpson
Blasco was a phenomenal artist, very complete and versatile, very serious about his art and going the extra mile to get things historically accurate whenever the subject required so. I had the pleasure of visiting him a few times shortly after I knew graphic novel was 'it' for me. The amount of things I learnt from him then was (and is) priceless, he took his time as I tried my best to get every drop of knowledge I could from those conversations.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and great blog. Definitely.