Comic Cuts — 2 September 2022

It's autumn already (well, meteorological autumn, which runs from September through November) but I feel that summer and autumn have been overlapping for some while, with leaves already turning brown and falling. We have two pine trees in the front garden and there is already a bed of rust-coloured pine needles beneath them that you wouldn't expect to see until October.

I think it probably has to do with the extreme heat we have had recently, the leaves turning brown to slow down the drawing up of water from the ground and the roots which is then lost through evaporation from the leaves, a process known as transpiration. (I knew my O-level in botany would come in useful one day!)

I've had something of a chaotic week, moving from one book straight on to another. With the scans for Patty's World nearly all sorted (I'm waiting on one episode), I switched to working on the text for a book I am publishing on behalf of a friend know to my Uncle through the motorcycling world (Uncle John being a former motorcycle racer). I dislike the term "vanity project", so let's call it a non-commercial project, but whether you're a global best-seller or you flog a few copies to friends and family, a book still needs to be edited, proofed, illustrated and designed, and will take just as long to do whether you sell 1 copy or 1,000.

So I'm copy-editing the book at the moment. The file has the title 'Book X' but George, the author, has given it the title Without Let Or Hindrance, a phrase you'll recognise if you've ever looked at your passport beyond a worried glance at the photo. The book relates a trip taken around the world by bike, so there's a lot of passport action, visas, transit visas, carnets and customs documents. Hopefully I'll have a first pass finished by next week and can get the MS back to George for his approval and some additional work.

At the same time I am trying to help sort out a potential five minutes-or-less on TV on a cooking show that you really wouldn't expect me to be involved with. I was only approached on Tuesday and we're still trying to iron out the details because the latest detail I heard was that they wanted to film the piece in a restaurant in Chester (just south of Liverpool), a trip involving four trains and 4½+ hours of travel (plus another 4½+ hours to get back home). I came up with what I thought was is an excellent alternative, but I think they have their hearts set on Chester. This would have been the first TV thing I've done since The One Show. [UPDATE: I've found someone who will do a fantastic job... hopefully they can work everything out and we'll get to see a leading comic creator appearing on BBC2's Great British Menu.]

I'm planning another trip to the beach next week. Keep your fingers crossed that the weather holds.

I'm posting a few random scans of paperbacks picked up recently from here and there. The one immediately below is the inside front cover of James Herbert's Once paperback, which has a die-cut hole in the front (as can also be seen below). The others are just a random selection.