Comic Cuts — 16 May 2025

It has been a long time coming, but the contract is signed, the license fee paid, and I'm waiting on a final set of proof copies — MYTEK THE MIGHTY is coming soon!

The reason for the slight delay is down to me rushing to get things done and not doing them right. Enthusiasm got the better of me and, while I was fixing a small detail on the covers, I forgot that I also needed to extend the artwork a smidge because the logo — deliberately kept large (he is Mytek THE MIGHTY after all) — was very close to the trim line. I thought I'd get away with it, forgetting that there can be a small amount of movement on the printing presses.

The long and the short of it is that I spent Wednesday redoing the covers because the printed proofs came back with the logo right on the edge. You would think that, after forty odd books I'd have learned to be more careful... but clearly not.

Anyway, the problem will be solved. I'll have another set of proofs done just to double check and, once they're OK, I'll start taking orders. There will be the usual discount for early orders, which I'll announce here, on the Bear Alley Books page and on Facebook, which is my only social media platform, so you'll all know about it. 

The plan is to put out the first two books together, as one extremely long story-line had to be split over the two volumes and I didn't think it fair to make people wait. Once the first two have had a couple of months on sale, I'll do volume three and, a couple of months after that, I'll do volume four. They'll all be priced at £23.00, although you may see some variation depending on where they're sold (direct via PayPal, on Ebay or on Amazon) because of the differing charges and how they charge for postage & packing (Amazon, for instance, charges a fixed rate of £2.80, but it actually costs £3.39 + 41p for the envelope + 4p for the label = £3.84). I'm getting in some book wraps that will keep the books safe on their journey. A bit more expensive than the usual envelope but worth the expense.

I've had the same thoughts too often in the past couple of weeks. I wanted to get a card reader for use at shows and I'd heard about one a year or so ago that only cost £20. Well, it had doubled in price over the past year, but I wasn't sure that it was cost effective if I couldn't log into local secure WiFi. So I went for the next model up, which included a charging bay and a better data package, and the cost quintupled once you added VAT. And I'm still not set up, because it's taking longer to verify who I am than it did for the card reader to arrive all the way from the Netherlands!

I had the same kind of problem with a t-shirt I wanted printed up. When I released BEYOND THE VOID back in March 2024, I decided to print up a t-shirt for the Paperback & Pulp Book Fair at Bloomsbury where I was planning to sell copies. It went down well I was planning to get one done for the November fair and the launch of DREAMING OF UTOPIA, but I ran out of time. So I planned ahead for this launch and... well, I went a bit mad, deciding I'd order a shirt that had both front and back printing, which I had to send off for rather than having it printed locally, adding postage. So the price ballooned from £18 to £32. I hope it's worth it.

It'll be on display at the Paperback & Pulp Book Fair at Bloomsbury on Sunday, 25 May, which I'll be attending. If you want copies of any of my books, let me know and I'll bring them along, otherwise I'm not planning to be carrying huge bagfuls of stock — I still have some rotator cuff problems and not-very-flexible ligaments from a year ago, so I'm only have a handful with me.

What I need is a job like my dentist. Three minutes I was in his room and half that time was getting the chair to the right height. After prodding my gums with a sharp probe for a minute, he tells me my teeth are fine and to keep on doing what I'm doing. On the way out they charge me £27.40 and tell me I need to come back in six months. That's a rate of about £550 an hour. Three years ago I figured he was earning £150 an hour, which means prices have soared or my teeth have improved so much it takes him less time to look at them.

I'll be showing them off tonight — smiling and laughing — as we're going to see Angela Barnes tonight. We're also off to the seaside for the day next week. Let's hope the nice weather holds.

This week's header is by Chris Foss. I've been writing a bit about the Battle for Britain as part of the AIR ACE COMPANION, so this seemed apt as I'm about to mention some of the books that helped fuel the demand for Air Ace, including Reach for the Skies by Paul Brickhill, the story of Douglas Bader who was...? Anyone? The editor of the comic ROCKET, of course. Oh, and a very famous WW2 pilot.

Rebellion Releases — 14 May 2025

Following on from the success of Sugar Jones, The Haunting of Jilly Johnson is a masterclass in 1970 supernatural gothic comic storytelling, drawn with immense style by Rafael Busom Clua!

From the very first night in her new flat, Jilly Johnson is haunted by nightmares and calls out the name of a man who Jilly does not know. Spooked by a fortune teller, and by what she sees as the flat itself sending her messages, she becomes determined to find out more about the previous tenants, and the accident that led to the death of one of them.

And then in The Island of Stones, two English tourists on holiday on a Greek island meet a modern master sculptor, known for his stone statues of the human form, and discover the secret of his success – the head of Medusa. This story acts as a showcase for Rafael Busom Clua, who initially caught the reader’s eye with his incredibly stylish work on Sugar Jones, and is perfect for fans of both 1970s fashion and frights alike!

The Haunting of Jilly Johnson is out now!

And now, this week's releases...

2000AD Prog 2432
Cover: D'Israeli.

JUDGE DREDD // NO PLACE LIKE HOME by Dan Abnett (w) Rob Richardson (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
ROGUE TROOPER // TIDES OF WAR by Andi Ewington (w) Paul Marshall (a) Pippa Bowland (c) Jim Campbell (l)
GHOSTED // BOOK ONE by Guy Adams (w) Megan Huang (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SILVER // PERFIDIOUS by Mike Carroll (w) Joe Currie (a) Simon Bowland (l)
New! SCARLET TRACES // EMPIRE OF BLOOD by Ian Edginton (w) D'Israeli (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

Comic Cuts — 9 May 2025

A week of ups and downs... but thankfully mostly ups.

On the downside, my new DVD drive is on its way back to the supplier. I've used an external drive on my laptop for many years — I used to watch films and TV shows on DVD at lunchtime and just before bed and had pretty much worn out a couple of drives. I've had one sitting by me since I moved office, but I've only used it for copying CDs (albums) onto the laptop (a) so as not to damage the CD by constant playing, and (b) because the drive was on its last legs. So I've used it a half-dozen times (I stream many albums, but buy only from my favourite bands, like Frost*, Big Big Train, Solstice, etc.) but I knew it needed replacing.

Because of the work on the Air Ace Companion, I dug out an old... hang on, let me rewind a bit... after two days fruitless searching for a specific DVD onto which I had burned an old film, I fortunately stumbled onto it (and some other I didn't know I'd misplaced). That's how that story actually goes. Anyway... I managed to copy the film (which I'll come back to in a minute) and thought it might be an opportunity to copy some others. So I copied about three discs worth.

Now, I've got a thousand discs, recorded off of old video tapes and off the TV, so I thought that, if I do a couple of every day, I could start transferring these old discs into something my PC could read. So, the next day I stick in a disc and the drive won't read it. Try another... same result. Try one of the discs it was happy to read yesterday... same result. The drive has finally given up the ghost.

So I ordered a new one online and it arrived a couple of days later. It worked fine and I transferred a couple of discs. On Wednesday, I plugged it in to transfer a few more and there was a terrific rattling sound. I couldn't get the disc to open I cut the power by yanking the power cable out of the laptop. Plugged it back in and quickly hit the 'open' button. Out popped the DVD and the spindle it had been sitting on, which had come loose.

Which is why I'm waiting on yet another external DVD drive after returning the damaged one. Different make, and hopefully a bit more robust.

On the upside, I've cleaned up something like 250 illustrations for the book—can we fit them all in, is the question now—and I've worked out what I think will be the line-up of biographical pieces that will appear in the book, which will include Juan Abellan, Victor Hugo Arias, Nino Caroselli, Graham Coton, Pino Dell'orco, Ferdinando Fernandez, Ian Kennedy, F. Solano Lopez, Julio Cesar Medrano, Marvello Ralli, George Stokes, Alan Willow and Juan Zanotto.

(And if you're thinking, "Well, where's Gino D'Antonio and Giorgio De Gaspari and all the other big names?"—this is just the first volume. I'm planning a War and Battle Companion that will cover some of the other titles and will have essays on many more artists and writers.)

There's an introduction which covers the history and introduces a lot more contributors. I'm still finding out new information and even this week I spent most of a morning trying to track down information on a one-off cover contributor who doesn't seem to have painted or drawn anything related to comics—so that's a morning that resulted in, I think, two sentences in the introduction, where you'll discover the name and, more importantly, be able to look at the cover he painted!

(I'm counting that as a downside. I love doing the research for these books, but sometimes the results are a bit thin.)

I almost forgot to say why I was looking for a film on that missing DVD. It was shot back in 1960 by an art bodger on Air Ace and included some shots of the staff. I've taken some screen grabs, so you'll be able to meet some of the behind-the-scenes folk who put the popular pocket library together, including editor Arthur Bouchier. As the film was shot on 8mm, then transferred at some point onto video and then to a DVD and now onto my computer, they're not great, but (at this moment in time) they're the only images I have.

Other bits of good news: the Netflix adaptation of El Eternauta was as good as I'd hoped it would be; Daredevil: Born Again is building up to a stunning climax... we only have a couple of episodes left; and we're looking forward to Andor; Mel went to see Thunderbolts and reckoned it to be very entertaining; I'm about to start the third season of Reacher, which I'm looking forward to; after that, the second season of Silo; and Mel and I are looking forward to the start of Poker Face season two, so there's some good TV coming up.

I've saved the best news to last: the contract for volumes one and two of Mytek the Mighty are signed. I'm just waiting on a second set of proofs to make sure that the few corrections I had to make have taken and that the printing is consistent. So they're due with me next week (at least they should be... but I'm remembering the problems I had with an order last November) and if I'm happy with the results, I'll start taking orders and the books should be released by the end of the month.

It's always good to end these columns on a happy note... and this week I'm very happy!

Commando 5851-5854

This year’s VE Day – always a special day here at Commando – marks 80 years since the end of the Second World War in Europe. To celebrate, we’ve got some extra special VE Day themed issues full of the usual action and derring-do you’ve come to expect! Issues 5851-5854 will go on sale from today, Thursday 8th May 2025!

5851 War-Torn! 

In 1939, war was declared, sparking six years of devastation known as World War Two. Two brothers, Michel and Hans Weber were torn apart by the conflict — separated and on opposite sides of the fighting, with one in Germany and the other in Canada. They had started the war as brothers — would they end it as enemies, or could their bond survive?
   Here's an issue that takes the concept of sibling rivalry to extremes! Think the argument over who gets the top bunk times a million - here’s hoping they can put their differences aside before Sunday lunch at mum’s.

Story: Ferg Handley
Art: Jaume Forns
Cover: Keith Burns

5852 The Last Days of the War

A Wehrmacht captain, a German scientist and an RAF pilot. This unlikely combination was thrown together in the crumbling ruins of a defeated Germany by a common aim — survival.
    If they could get to Allied territory, they’d be safe. But with vengeful SS men hot on their heels, their chances were very slim.
    Germany in the final days of WW2 is always fertile ground for storytelling. The uncertainty, the conflict, the evocative war-torn landscapes, it’s all here in this outstanding story from CG Walker!

Story: CG Walker
Art: Nebot
Cover: Jeff Bevan
First Published 1984 as No. 1854

5853 For You the War is Over

Germany, 1945. The end of the war is near. Commando Sergeant Alfred Millin and his comrades are forced to battle their way through what remains of the bitter German forces. Millin worries what awaits him when the fighting is over — will he be pulled back into his criminal past?
    Andrew Knighton’s brilliant script explores the difficult prospect of returning to life after war, and why that might not be so thrilling an idea for some. The legendary Mike Donaldson, of The Broons and Oor Wullie fame, does a stellar job with interior and exterior art in his Commando debut!

Story: Andrew Knighton
Art: Mike Donaldson
Cover: Mike Donaldson

5854 Steer for Action

From the first day of war in 1939, the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the countries opposed to Hitler’s Germany knew that it would be a long, bloody struggle before the Nazis were toppled to defeat. They couldn’t know then that the day of victory would come in May 1945, and for those six years of savage war, Clive Sterling, Royal Navy, would sail hostile seas and face deadly danger almost every day in that fight for freedom.
    We’re taking to the hostile seas to face deadly danger in this final issue of our special VE Day set! With both cover and interior art from Gordon C Livingstone and an outstanding script by Ian Clark, it’s definitely not one to miss.

Story: Ian Clark
Art: Gordon C Livingstone
Cover: Gordon C Livingstone
First published 1995 as No. 2857

Rebellion Releases — 7 May 2025

Whatever the weather, the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 2025 is filled with stories to supercharge your Summer! Featuring 48 pages of high-octane action and adventure from across the Galaxy, this year’s edition of the bestseller features the return of classic characters, alongside some of the most exciting new Thrillers this side of Nu-Earth!

Judge Dredd heads off on his hols thanks to writer Al Ewing, making his long-awaited return to Mega-City One after thrilling readers around the world on series like Immortal Hulk and Absolute Green Lantern! We’re sure it’ll be a nice and peaceful trip for him, and certainly nothing horrific will happen which will require the full force of the Law to be upheld!

Dredd’s followed through spaceport security by the return of Strontium Dog Johnny Alpha and his team of intergalactic bounty hunters! Best pack a few extra time grenades and make sure you’ve brought a spare charger for the Electro-Nux, because trouble always follows Johnny, Wulf, and the Search/Destroy Agency!

This packed issue also checks in Cyd Finlea for a one-off The Out story by creators Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison – if anyone knows about getting away from it all, it’s galactic photojournalist Cyd: nobody has gone further “Out” of the known universe than she has!

We’ve a brand new Future Shock from the team of Andi Ewington and Nick Dyer to get you panicking ahead of your own holiday this year… and this special is rounded out by the return of all-round gentleman and occult detective Ampney Crucis to the Galaxy’s Greatest for the first time in… what, a decade? Where the deuce has he been? Only Ian Edginton and D’Israeli know!

With five electric stories to get you crackling with Thrill-Power this summer, The 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special is an adventure into the unknown which you can’t afford to miss! All this and a truly zarjaz cover from Chris Weston? Seatbelts on, universal passports in hand, Earthlets – let’s go!

At only £4.99 for 48 pages of interstellar action, the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 2025 will be out on 16 July from all good newsagents and comic book stores, as well as the 2000 AD app and webshop!

And now, this week's releases...

2000AD 2431
Cover: Cliff Robinson / Dylan Teague.

JUDGE DREDD // NO PLACE LIKE HOME by Dan Abnett (w) Rob Richardson (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
ROGUE TROOPER // TIDES OF WAR by Andi Ewington (w) Paul Marshall (a) Pippa Bowland (c) Jim Campbell (l)
GHOSTED // BOOK ONE by Guy Adams (w) Megan Huang (a) Simon Bowland (l)
FUTURE SHOCKS // THE TAKEOVER by James Peaty (w) Cam Smith (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
SILVER // PERFIDIOUS by Mike Carroll (w) Joe Currie (a) Simon Bowland (l)

The Haunting of Jilly Johnson by Rafael Busóm Clúa
Rebellion ISBN 978-183786539-0, 7 May 2025, 80pp, £14.99. Available via Amazon.

From the very first night in her new flat, Jilly Johnson is haunted by nightmares and calls out the name of a man who Jilly does not know. Spooked by a fortune teller, and by what she sees as the flat itself sending her messages, she becomes determined to find out more about the previous tenants, and the accident that led to the death of one of them.
    And then in 'The Island of Stones', two English tourists on holiday on a Greek island meet a modern master sculptor, known for his stone statues of the human form, and discover the secret of his success – the head of Medusa?

• 13 May. Congratulations to Jamie Smart, whose Bunny vs Monkey was the joint winner in the Audiobook Fiction section of the Bookseller's British Book Awards. "Jamie Smart also takes the crown in this category for Bolinda's “breathtaking” audio adaptation of his anarchic comic book, Bunny vs Monkey. The iconic duo are brought to life by voiceover artist Ciaran Saward, who infuses his narration with all the energy and verve of Smart’s text. Our judges were blown away by the “effort, skill and detail” to transform Smart’s comic into an audiobook, declaring it a "fantastic” triumph of ingenuity. Bolinda collaborated closely with Smart to distil the essence of his comic panels into key sounds and phrases that would capture both the action and the characters’ personalities in audio format. The result is an immersive audio experience that successfully translates the joy and chaos of the print edition."
• 6 May. Alan Moore is interviewed by smoky man about writing, magic, politics... everything you'd expect from an Alan Moore interview. "If I understand the subject correctly, magic begins hundreds of thousands of years ago with some clumsiness involving a potato."
• 1 May. An interview with Dandy and Beano artist Andy Fanton on the  eve of him attending Portsmouth Comic Con. "It’s still wild to me that anyone would be traveling to see me! I don’t feel particularly legendary on a day-to-day business, unless we’re talking about legends being old and ancient, in which case bang on!"
• 30 Apr. The modernist aesthetic of Tove Jansson's Moomin comic strip. "As Elina Drucker has documented, Jansson was among a number of Nordic authors of formally innovative experimental picture books, including Egon Møller-Nielsen and Egon Mathiesen. For these artists, picture books presented an opportunity to test the boundaries between media."
• 29 Apr. Just when you thought the whole Diamond Comic Distributors Chapter 11 saga could have no more twists, Alliance filed a notice that they were "terminating the previously executed Asset Purchase Agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of Diamond." No reason was given. Diamond had previously made it clear they preferred the offer from another source, Universal Distribution and Ad Populum, and that offer has now [see here] be taken up. Meanwhile, a trustee in Diamond's bankruptcy case has filed a motion asking the judge to convert the case to a Chapter 7 liquidation or dismiss the Chapter 11 case. And. just to add to the chaos, Alliance is now suing  Diamond for fraud and deception, saying they hid the fact that an agreement to distribute product from Wizards of the Coast was about to end.
  
• 22 Apr. Titan Comics is asking for clarity over their contract with Diamond Comic Distributors, who have recently been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and have now been purchased by Alliance Entertainment. Rich Johnson has the details.
  
• 21 Apr. Neil Gaiman is suing Caroline Wallner, one of his accusers in recent sexual assault allegations, over breaking her NDA relating to a payment Gaiman made to her (reportedly $275,000) in exchange for her silence about his alleged misconduct.
• 17 Apr. Comicbook Couples Counseling Podcast has a special guest to help it celebrate Superman's 87th birthday. It's Grant Morrison. "We're positively chuffed to chat Superman with Grant Morrison. We discuss their approach to the character in All-Star Superman and how it differs from the version they wrote in JLA, Action Comics, Final Crisis, and other stories." (audio, 1h 19m)
• 16 Apr. The sale price being asked for a Frank Quitely Superman cover is causing some argument over the value of art. Nick Pitarra argues: "I think this All-Star Superman trade cover not only says it all, it ends the conversation. When Grant and Vin wrapped their acclaimed run, Vin drew one final image—crystallizing their story and Superman forever. This image."
• 16 Apr. Anderson Entertainment have announced a timeline for the 60th anniversary celebrations for Thunderbirds, which includes two volumes collecting the entirety of the comic strip that appeared in TV Century 21, with restored artwork and additional features. Thunderbirds Comic Anthology Volume 1 will be available to pre-order in June with Volume 2 following in October. A series under the title Thunderbirds: Hidden Dangers, will begin in September, telling new stories in various formats, including novels and comic strips.
• 15 Apr. The world's oldest comic, the Glasgow Looking-Glass, has its 200th anniversary celebrated in a new exhibition at the Mitchell Library between 1 May and 31 July. John Freeman's report also covers news of a Kickstarter for a New Glasgow Looking-Glass comic.

A Lilliput Magazine Anthology, edited by Chris Harte

Chris Harte was responsible for a history and bibliography of Lilliput, the famous pocket magazine that ran from 1937 to 1960. He has now edited two anthologies collecting some of the best stories and writing from the magazine.

The first volume covers the first ten years, 1937 to 1946 and includes work from an incredible range of authors, from Ernest Hemingway to George Bernard Shaw. There's an informative introduction about the how Lilliput came to exist and the background of its creator and first editor, Stefan Lorant. How it was put together by Lorant with the aid of Alison Blair and photographer Zoltan Glass is itself a fascinating story, expanded upon in Harte's History and Bibliography, which is still available.

The stories include some relatively well-known pieces, like Karol Capek's 'The Fortune-Teller', first published in 1929 about a woman who is taken to court after giving a card reading to a policeman's wife, but for the most part the stories are obscure and little known.

Some of the bigger names include journalist and novelist John Brophy, MP and campaigner George Lansbury, literary critic V. S. Pritchett, crime and science fiction novelist Margot Bennett and Hornblower-creator C. S. Forester. Forty-nine short pieces in all.

Volume two contains seventy-one pieces and is almost 100 pages longer, filled with the same mix of stories and features by names you'll know and others that are now obscured by time. Claud Cockburn, Bill Naughton, Hector Bolitho, Patrick Campbell, Paul Tabori, Richard Gordon, Eric Ambler and Dennis Bardens (probably the only Lilliput author I have a letter from). Maurice Richardson, who debuted in the earlier volume with one feature, here has fourteen, including the story of the Rev. Harold Davidson, nicknamed the prostitutes padre, who died in the jaws of a lion in 1937. Richardson had an important part to play in slowing the magazine's decline, a reliable hand while editors came and went during the 1950s.

These two volumes are a fascinating trip into history, charting the changing attitudes of a period that covered war, austerity, affluence and the emergence of terms ranging from "crumpet" to "the establishment". Social history aside, they are also great books to have on your bedside table as you can dip in whenever sleep eludes you.

Lilliput Magazine: A History and Bibliography by Chris Harte. Sports History Publishing ISBN 978-189801018-0, 3 June 2024, 362pp, £29.95. Available via Amazon.
A Lilliput Magazine Anthology by Chris Harte. Sports History Publishing ISBN 978-189801019-7, November 1924, 164pp, £14.95. Available via Amazon.
A Second Lilliput Magazine Anthology by Chris Harte. Sports History Publishing ISBN 978-189801021-0, April 2025, 258pp, £14.95. Available via Amazon.

Comic Cuts — 2 May 2025

It's very easy to get distracted when I'm researching and that has been hammered home this week thanks to the days I have spent re-reading old correspondence and just stumbling over little bits of information that has nothing to do with what I'm meant to be writing about—namely the Air Ace Picture Library.

Apart from a lot of gossip that I can for the most part ignore (some is too good not to repeat, so you'll be getting to hear some of it when the book is out), there's the occasional fact chucked in as an aside that I just have to go and look into.

For instance, I knew that best-selling author Minette Walters used to write romance novelettes when she worked at Fleetway prior to writing her first crime novel (The Ice Storm, 1992), but a little further digging proved that she'd worked at the firm between 1972 and 1977. She wrote her first romantic story in, I believe, 1973 as a way to show her contributors at Woman's Weekly Library how to combine romance, character, plot and suspense to make a first-rate 30,000-word romance. Writing hospital romances, she went on to pen 35 novelettes under about ten different pen-names, as well as short stories and serials. I don't think the pen-names have ever been revealed.

Lane Meddick

Something else I didn't know: Julian Clary used to work on the Underground as a guard on the District Line, and my correspondent recalls hearing him announce over the tannoy, "Oh, do mind the doors!"

Here's another: the actor Lane Meddick was actually Leonard John Meddick, a wartime Spitfire pilot who became an actor and sometimes writer for the War libraries. I managed to get this screen-grab of him in an uncredited role in Carrington V.C. (a.k.a. Court Martial in the US, 1954).

When the DIY magazine Easy: The His and Hers Do-It-Yourself Weekly was merged with another DIY mag, Homemaker in 1969, there was an idea at IPC to replace it with a boys' magazine containing a mix of stories, sport and some simple DIY ideas called Scope. Four of the staff from Easy were put on it, including deputy editor Denis Gray (who apparently later emigrated to New Zealand), two sub-editor, Susan and a guy whose name I don't know, and art editor Laurie Shrimpton.

The idea got as far as a dummy issue being printed, but after some consideration by management, the idea was scrapped and Scope never saw the light of day.

Last one for now: I'd heard that a young girl who worked at Fleetway was murdered and it took a while to track down the story, which I was sure had grown more lurid in the retelling. Not the case... it was as tragic as rumoured.

"One girl used to come from Old Fleetway across the bridge to outside our War Pic rooms to get tea," recalled Roy McAdorey in 2006. "One morning on the underground on my way in to work, I read a news item about a “glamorous red-head” getting killed in a lover’s tiff. Got to work to discover it was this girl who used to get tea from Florrie’s trolley."

The girl was Carol Ann Lester-Smith and the Evening News broke the story on 16 November 1964 under the headline "Girl, 18, Killed Then CID Keep Vigil" with a sub-heading "Friend And Father Hurt In Stabbing".

Detectives were waiting by the bedsides of two stabbed men, hoping to interview them about the death the previous night of 18-year-old Carol Lester-Smith outside her home in Kingsley Road, Wimbledon, the paper reported. The two men were 52-year-old Sidney Lester-Smith, the girl's father, and a friend, Godfrey Hodgett, a week shy of his 21st birthday. "Red-haired Carol started work with a magazine house a few months ago and hoped to make a career in journalism," said the paper. The next day, the Daily Mirror claimed that she "had worked in London for two years as a £10-a-week editorial assistant with Fleetway Publications."

The two hospitalised men survived, but by then it was clear to detectives that one was not a victim. Geoffrey Hodgetts was taken from hospital on November 27th and appeared at a special court at Wimbledon where he was charged with murder.

The court case took place in December, revealing more details. Hodgetts, a Post Office engineer, had been dating Carol, but she—two years younger—thought she was too young to marry or tie herself to an engagement. Hodgetts, besotted with Carol, had, a few days before, threatened to kill himself; as she tidied her desk ahead of the weekend, she had ominously remarked that "If you don't see me on Monday, you'll know I'm dead", according to the Mirror.

On Sunday, shortly before 10 pm, her father opened the front door and welcomed Hodgetts in, only for Hodgetts to stab him with a double-edged knife. He tried to defend himself with a broom, and the noise attracted Carol from upstairs. Running down the stairs, she attempted to grab Hodgetts from behind. Her father dropped the broom and also struggled with Hodgetts.

Carol ran out of the house to get help, and Hodgetts, leaving her father lying on the floor, chased her down and attacked her. When her father reached the street, he saw Carol slumped against the door of a house opposite, Hodgetts still striking at her with the knife.

Hodgetts then stood up, held the knife against his stomach, and ran against a wall, twice before collapsing.

Pleading not guilty to murder, he instead pleaded guilty with diminished responsibility to manslaughter and was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey in January 1965.

With a company as huge as Fleetway Publications in the Sixties there are bound to be a enough stories over the years to fill a tabloid.

So, to the news... and it's good. The contract for Mytek the Mighty volumes 1 and 2 has been signed and I can now get going with the last few steps towards getting it into the hands of readers. Expect more news over the next couple of weeks.

I spent much of yesterday trying to match images to issue numbers as I have a large number of photos of original artwork from the war libraries that have yet to be matched with an issue number. I managed to track down quite a few yesterday, but there are still many more to go. Wish me luck!