Bear Alley: Comic Cuts - 1 January 2016

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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, January 01, 2016

Comic Cuts - 1 January 2016

This was going to be the briefest of interruptions to your New Year festivities, but I completely failed to write anything yesterday outside of a couple of e-mails. The computer has been turned off for 99% of the last week while I've entertained (and been entertained by) family and friends. We saw the year in at a friend's and staggered home around 2 o'clock this morning.

As this time of year I always post my Top Ten Selling Bear Alley Books. It has been a slow year for Bear Alley Books as I had to get a job editing a magazine to keep myself afloat financially. I only published one book last year, but that won't be the last you hear from BAB. I do have further titles planned, but they're taking a lot longer to put together and I've found working around the magazine quite difficult. Writing shorter pieces has been easier, some of which have appeared online here on Bear Alley, but I've also written some material for a new book that I'm still plotting out.

Anyway, on with the Bear Alley Books' Top Ten sellers, in the traditional reverse order...

10 London is Stranger Than Fiction
9 Eagles Over the Western Front 2
8 Eagles Over the Western Front 3
7 Boys' World: Ticket to Adventure
6 Lion: King of Picture Story Papers
5 Eagles over the Western Front 1
4 Arena
3 Frontline UK
2 Complete Captain Future
1 Countdown to TV Action

Countdown keeps the top spot for a second year, although there was only one title released in 2015 and it was a thoroughly indulgent collection of fifties strips by one of my favourite artists working in the independent comics of that era, Norman Light. It was a fun book to do, but was never going to be a best-seller... something I've probably said about every book I've written. And I haven't been wrong. I've never troubled the best-seller lists with any of my... what? 50 books? I've stopped counting.

So that's it for 2015. I wish all of you the best for 2016 and I hope you'll keep coming back to Bear Alley to see how I'm getting on. For my part, I'll hopefully have some interesting articles and strips to share over the coming months.

'Till then, Happy New Year.