Bear Alley: Comic Cuts — 30 June 2023

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 30, 2023

Comic Cuts — 30 June 2023

The failure of Dolmen Editorial to pay money owed on work dating back over a year has left me in a somewhat perilous position. As most of you know, I use freelance work to pay for the time it takes to write the books I publish through Bear Alley Books. It's a system that has worked reasonably well for many years but one that, thanks to Dolmen not paying their debts and ignoring my emails, has now broken down.

Quite where that leaves me I have yet to figure out. With rent, bills and food all skyrocketing, this couldn't have come at a worse time. All I can do is try to work my way out of a hole that was not of my making, so this is going to be brief because I have been pulling some long shifts in front of the computer trying to get a new project together so I have something to show people before the end of July.

I can quickly update two projects: I have the new motorbiking book designed and back with the author; this week I've started on some minor revisions, mostly adding a few more photos, and I'll be working on captions next week. The Trials of Hank Janson text is done and I have dug out a couple of pictures that I want to include—it'll be a regular paperback, so there won't be many illustrations, but I'm thinking I might scatter a few images around.

Project three is under wraps, but it's a revamping of another old publication that will be more of a bookazine than a book, if my plans work out. I have been working on it flat out since Monday, revising old text, writing new text, compiling bibliographies and I'd be having a whale of a time if I was doing it through choice and not through necessity because I'm broke. I'm not as young as I used to be.

A quick note to end on. If you're contacting me using a gmail account, I'm having problems replying because gmail are being overzealous about blocking ISPs over spam. Until I fix this, there may be a delay in response times because I have to get Mel to post my replies and she already has enough on her plate.

(* The image at our column's head is from a Sexton Blake Library by Hugh Clevely. But not painted by Eric R. Parker. There are a handful of covers by other artists around this period (1953)... but who? I'll post the whole cover below.)