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!
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