Comic Cuts — 19 November 2021

I've been keeping myself busy over the past two weeks writing about the artists who contributed some of the most popular strips to Action, based on my little poll last week. Since many of them were Argentinean and Spanish, I've spent an awful lot of time on Google Translate and digging around the far corners of the www for information and interviews.

I'm now starting to get somewhere, having finished sketches on Horacio Altuna, Horacio Lalia, Ramon Sola and Felix Carrion. Only one to go, and that's Mike Dorey, who is not only British but, I'm glad to say, still around and still active. Then it's back to the main narrative. Oh, and I'll probably be putting up another little poll on Facebook to measure the popularity of later strips.

With the addition of the biographical sketches, I'm now 500 words shy of hitting 30,000 words. And there's still a long way to go, so this will definitely now be a two-parter. Until I finish the main narrative, I don't know where the break will occur, but probably around the point where the first issue was released, which is four chapters and a prologue into the main narrative; add the sketches and we're looking at over 20,000 words, so there will be a good chunk of reading material.

I'm also hoping to have some great-looking artwork, with scans taken from original art boards. A fine collection has found its way to south-central France and has yet to emerge from packing cases, but I'm hoping to see some scans shortly. I guess this would be a good place to put out a call to anyone else who might have original artwork... get in touch. You'll find my e-mail address top left, under the photo of a remarkably young-looking me. I really should update it.

It has been a remarkably quiet week, with no major hiccups. I'm taking a couple of trips out next week to get punctured. On Tuesday I'm getting a flu jab at the local surgery and on Wednesday it's off to a pharmacy a few miles away to get a Covid booster. I might also take a day off to head into Colchester for some early Christmas shopping. So if next week's column is short of news, you'll know why.

Mind you, I don't have much to add here today. Now that I know I'm going to be dosed up with vaccines I'm looking forward to Christmas, especially after the let-down last year. I'm still not sure how long it will take to hustle BAM! into the shape I want it to be in. The Action history is a huge step in the right direction. I think I will now have something that will be of interest to a broader audience rather than when I had to hand  when I did my colour test a year ago, which was very much a magazine aimed at an audience of one — me! Hopefully now it will be you and me. That's doubled the audience already!