Bear Alley: Comic Cuts — 10 June 2022

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS

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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 10, 2022

Comic Cuts — 10 June 2022

And I'm back, although I'm planning to keep this brief. I missed last week's episode of this diary column because of the Bank Holiday, which meant we were busy with family and friends. On the Thursday, when I usually write Comic Cuts, I was stuffing myself with a variety of cooked meats and, yes, some salad, at a barbecue on what turned out to be a gorgeously sunny day. Fit for a Queen, you might say.

Although it was a long Bank Holiday, I still had to get some work done, which I was (thankfully) able to finish by Tuesday. Spent Wednesday sorting out some scans for the next book, and yesterday I threw myself into the research for an introduction — which might be the best part of the job. I'd say the research and the writing are on an equal level, because however much fun it is just digging around in comics, reading strips I haven't seen for years (which is why we all got into this comic collecting lark in the first place), there's a huge amount of satisfaction to be had from putting all that information into order so that you can share your enthusiasm for certain stories with others.

Without giving too much away, I was researching a couple of key stories in what I call the 'weird menace' genre of comics. Although the title was usually applied to pulp magazines in the USA (also known as terror pulps or shudder pulps), I didn't pluck the phrase out of thin air — it could be found in the headers and footers of 'The Steel Claw'.

I think of 'The Steel Claw' as the jewel in the weird menace crown, but it had a few predecessors dating back into the 1950s. One that desperately needs to be reprinted is 'Maxwell Hawke' from Buster... come on Rebellion!

I was so engrossed in digging through a bunch of classic old strips — 'Toys of Doom', 'The Shrinker', 'The House of Dollman' and various others — that I completely forgot to write today's column. Thankfully, Mel has the day off, so I'm writing this instead of walking with her to where she catches the bus to work. Very handy!

Now... back to 'Toys of Doom'... what will the evil Toyman get up to next? And why isn't his evil plan being given the hardback treatment from the Treasury of British Comics? We all have our favourites that we'd like to see reprinted, but in my case my collection of Buster is so patchy that I really do need it reprinted so I can read the whole damn story! It was the most revived story in British comics, so it isn't just me.

Time to dive back in!