While some copies of the MYTEK THE MIGHTY books have escaped into the real world, there was a problem with the printer this week, described as "equipment failure" which has since been fixed but which has caused a backlog for orders placed on or after 6th July. All I can do is apologise; I've been told that the problem has been fixed, but the backlog will take a little while to get through.
It does mean that I'm extending the early bird offer to save some cost off the cover price for a bit longer as the books are still not available on the usual platforms yet. I'll keep the offer open until the end of the month.
I'm progressing well with the AIR ACE COMPANION, which hit 120 pages earlier this week and still a couple of pieces to go. The checklist of issues has expanded to 20 pages, which I'm going to have a look at to see if I can save some space. The reason is that Air Ace published 545 issues, and I'm looking forward to future volumes. I was casually talking about doing War and Battle picture libraries as a single volume—Air Ace started as a separate title to War, with different staff, while Battle was launched from the same office as War, so I link them together—but I'm beginning to realise that might be impractical as the two titles had over 3,800 issues between them, which enlarges the checklists and the creator index greatly to over 150 pages.
It's looking like I'll have to do the books as a pair, with maybe an introduction covering the history of both in one volume and additional biographical sketches in the second. I'm looking forward to the latter as there are some of the great names in comics that I'd love to cover, people like Gino D'Antonio, Jose Ortiz (his brother appears in Air Ace), Victor de la Fuente and Hugo Pratt, about whom I've never written before.
That'll keep me busy for some while...
Back in April I mentioned (actually dedicated a whole column, with photos) that we had been to see the band Solstice at the Colchester Arts Centre. Now comes the surprise news that the whole show is to be made available to download from the band's website and from Bandcamp. Clann Live: The Colchester Gathering is to be made available from 1 August as a digital download.
We spotted the cameras the moment we walked into the venue, and I asked whether we would see any of the concert on Youtube, as the band often release songs. I was told at the time that the band would look at the footage and decide what they wanted to do with it... and clearly they liked it!
The release is apparantly the whole 1hr 45 mins concert, unabridged, so you'll be able to see the birthday cake handout and the puppet hedgehog appearance. Will you see me? Yes you will. The band released one of the songs ('Plunk') on Youtube recently and it's from that concert. And right at the end, the camera pans around and you can see me and Mel just as the credits come up at around the 7m 37s mark. There we are in the lower left hand corner of the screengrab.
I get the feeling that the first watch through will just be me looking out for myself. But after that I'll be able to enjoy the music as it was an incredible evening. Oh, and Jess Holland (in the above credits), no relation; our bit of the Holland 'clan' has no vocal talent at all.
Mention of Youtube reminds me that there is some very good paperback content appearing at the moment. Jules Burt is the king of paperback videos as he has been a long-time collector of Penguins, Pans and the like, with a particular interest in Agatha Christie and others. He has been doing videos for about six years, I believe, so he's got it down to a slick, professional performance, although you can still see his enthusiasm bubble through. His channel is well worth a look, and you might consider subscribing to his member's only channel.
A recent addition has been Mick Cocksedge's channel, in which Mick takes viewers through his collections of various publishers that have so far included Banner Books, World Distributors' Quarter Books, Paladin Press' Yankee Books, Scion, and Red Seal. Again, Mick is hugely enthusiastic and you can't help but get carried along as each new cover is revealed.
If you want to explore further into the world of vlogging about paperbacks, you could do worse than Phil Harbottle's 77 videos about 1950s British SF, with a special emphasis on Phil's trio of interests, John Russell Fearn, E.C. (Ted) Tubb and artist Ron Turner. I'll also mention Gary Lovisi, publisher of Gryphon Books, who occasionally discusses old British paperbacks that he's picked up along the way.
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