Comic Cuts - 28 September 2012

Order now and save 10%

I finally managed to get Not Forgotten off to the printer. Tuesday and Wednesday I spent proofing the book and every time I thought I was finished I'd remember something that needed doing. Eleven-thirty on Wednesday night I'd almost managed to upload the file to the printer when I realised I'd left something out. Grrrrr!

But I've now managed to get the files uploaded and ordered a proof copy, so I'm now offering the book for pre-publication order at a 10% discount. This is for a limited time only – orders must be in before the 8th of October to qualify. The turnaround is a bit tight because the next (1941) Sexton Blake Annual will be coming out on the 15th. I'll post details of that one next week.

Our random scans this week begin with the tale of Tereska Torrès, a French refugee during the war who became a member of Charles de Gaulle's Free French forces in London in 1940. Born Tereska Szwarc (her parents being emigre Polish Jews), she married Georges Torrès in 1944, shortly before D-Day. Her husband was killed only a few months later fighting with the French forces in Alsace.

Torrès later married Meyer Levin, who acted as her translator when she began writing. Her first novel, begun when she was aged 17, was published in 1946. She then wrote Women's Barracks, which was published by Gold Medal in 1950 but was not published in her home country until over 50 years later. It became something of a lesbian classic and, in 1953, Harry Fredcove, a salesman, was charged with selling indecent and lewd literature in St. Paul, Minnesota. The court found that the "salacious effect" of the book did not outweigh its literary merit.

Tereska Torrès wrote 16 books in all. She died in Paris on 20 September having recently celebrated her 92nd birthday.

 

One of my favourite comedians, Jeremy Hardy, has published a couple of books over the years, including When Did You Last See Your Father? and My Family. I have the latter and I'm keeping an eye open for the former. However, I did manage to pick this up on Saturday: a collection of scripts from the first series of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation (Methuen, 1993; this paperback edition 1994). In it, Hardy tackles the thorny questions of the day: how to stay alive for as long as you possibly can, how to earn your place in heaven, how to have sex and how to be adult in thought, word and deed.

Now, it might be my imagination, but I'm sure that when 7 (now Radio 4 Extra) repeated these, one of the first series (episode 3?) has always been missing. A mystery that has me mystified! Maybe the book will help me understand why.

And lastly (but not leastly), a contribution from Morgan Wallace which needed quite a bit of cleaning up but which turned out quite nicely.

Next week. Not sure about tomorrow but there should be a little gallery featuring the Mews editions of The Spider, reprints from the old American pulp mags. Beyond that depends on what I can manage over the weekend.