Comic Cuts - 21 May

Some bad news came our way this week: it looks like we are going to be moving soon. We've been given notice that our landlord wants to sell the house we've been in for the past 15 years, so things are likely to be horribly disrupted over the next couple of months. I'm hoping to keep Bear Alley on an even keel but at the moment I haven't a clue where I'm going to be or what kind of internet access I'll have. If things get a bit patchy or I go suddenly quiet, don't panic. We'll be working behind the scenes to get everything sorted and BA will be back. I enjoy writing these columns too much to give up now.

So... we're a little shell-shocked but things will sort themselves out. Work has to continue, so I got the week off to a good start by completing work on the H. Rider Haggard book, making a few corrections that had come to light and giving the introduction a little rewrite. Some of the week was also dedicated to sorting out a huge pile of bound volumes and annuals -- around 200 in total -- that belong to Look and Learn so they can head off to their new home next week.

Last couple of days I've been working on another project that I've been promising myself I'd do at the first opportunity I had; while I'm between projects (I'm still waiting on the second half of Storm volume 12), this was the perfect time... then the bombshell dropped and now I'm not convinced I'm going to get it finished before the chaos hits. We shall just have to wait and see... maybe I'll have more news next week.

Talking of news...

Jon Haward dropped me a note to say that The Tempest, the latest of his books to be published by Classical Comics (reviewed here), won a Bronze Medal and the IPPY Awards. Jon continues, "Just to let you know issue 4 of Wasted is out with my Buddha stuff in it, plus a Robin Hood spoof I drew from an Alan Grant script. I drew it as a tribute in the style of Ken Reid and Robert Nixon." You can see the title panel above.

Any of you with spare cash in your pockets might want to take a look at eBay where Just Imagination Memorabilia of Reading are selling a copy of the debut issue of D. C. Thomson's The Magic Comic from 1939. The starting price is £1,799 for the copy which was previously in a bound volume and has some minor wear and tear. It will be interesting to see how much this one eventually goes for.

It's a bumper time for collectors of Magic as issues 2, 3 and 4 are listed in the latest COMPAL auction. Number 2 is estimated at a far more reasonable £200-250 but I'll bet pounds to pennies it goes for more. They also have a copy of the very first Beano Book with an estimate of £1,500-2,000 and plenty of other goodies.

Less expensive are the 12" Dan Dare figure which are apparently out now from Day2Day Trading. You can see the figure at the top of the column.

Next week we'll have the last few episodes of Cliff McCoy and I should have the regular update of the recent releases and upcoming releases columns plus whatever else I can slip in and almost certainly more news on the Big Move.