Bear Alley: Comic Cuts

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The Bill Kellaway Quartet by Gwyn Evans
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"The narrative is packed with action and I think readers will have a lot of fun with [Hercules, Esq.] and there are some genuine moments of laugh out loud humour. I can understand why the film rights for this book were snapped up and even today I could envisage it being a very enjoyable one-off TV series." — Cross Examining Crime.
"Although there’s some criminous stuff going on and Bill often finds himself vying against or working with various lawbreakers, the stakes are never really life and death in this book ... There is some slam-bang action, though, as well as a smart, really likable protagonist and a lot of really clever plot twists, but what really makes HERCULES ESQ. work is Evans’s style, which is consistently breezy, fast-paced, and funny." — James Reasoner, Rough Edges.

Friday, June 06, 2014

Comic Cuts - 6 June 2014

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. After soaring past page 100 of the Countdown to TV Action index layouts early in the week, I get the feeling that the main introduction is going to run to about 140 pages and the finished book somewhere in the region of 170 pages. Ballpark figures. The good news is that I should be able to compile the back end of the book a bit quicker than I've managed with the front.

One last thing that I need: if anyone has a copy of the Thunderbirds Annual 1972, I need a scan of the cover. It's the one below. Drop me a line at my usual e-mail address, which you can find below the photo at top left.

Below is a lengthy interview (1 hour 25 mins) with Neil Gaiman and Tori Amos. It was filmed at the Conference Centre of the British Library on Friday, 16 May, the event hosted by Paul Gravett and John Harris Dunning.

Random scans this week are three from Jon Ronson, writer of the recent Frank movie based loosely on Frank Sidebottom (Chris Sievey). Ronson is an interesting writer and documentary-maker who is probably best-known for his book The Men Who Stare at Goats, about the US Army's attempts to harness psychic powers for military use. It was filmed with George Clooney and Ewan McGregor in 2009.

Talking of Frank Sidebottom, the Kickstarter project to raise money for Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story shot past its £20,000 target to hit a final figure of just over £48,500. The extra money should allow the film's director, Steve Sullivan, the chance to license some of Frank's old TV material for the movie. Having only really come across Frank as a comic/comic strip character, I would love to know more about the man behind the papier mache mask.

Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001)
Picador 0330-37546-6, 2002.
---- [9th imp.] n.d., 328pp, £7.99. Cover photo by Julia Hember

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004)
Picador 978-0330-37548-1, 2005.
---- [10th imp.] n.d., 277pp, £7.99.

Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries (2012)
Picador 978-1447-22391-7, 2012.
---- [2nd imp.] n.d., 471pp, £8.99. Cover design by crushed.co.uk

With the design work on the book coming to a climax, I'm not convinced I'll be able to keep up the pace and post every day on Bear Alley. But I do have material already lined up for the weekend, including a look at the mysterious penny blood publisher William Caffyn and a Jack Campbell cover gallery. I'm thinking about Ladybird books for next week, but only if I can get some scans done.