Comic Cuts — 5 September 2025

I'm keeping busy while I'm waiting on the printed copies of MYTEK THE MIGHTY Volume 3 to arrive, which they should do shortly. I may even have the book ready for release as early as next week.

I'll be handling the distribution myself for this one, rather than rely on the printer to distribute the books. If you're not a regular reader here, some buyers were left waiting for five or six weeks for books to arrive after an equipment failure. Things are better, but still not perfect: while US and European orders seem to be shipping in reasonable time (10-12 days delivery), UK orders (including my own) are taking around 17 days. I'll have to take this into account when I do a restock ahead of the Colchester Comic Swap Meet on October 4th.

Sales of my various books have taken a little uptick now that people have had their holidays and kids are back at school. Most people get paid at the end of the month, so I usually get a few extra sales around this time. I'm still hoping to have three more books out before the end of the year—the two MYTEK books and the AIR ACE COMPANION... and I'll then have another book out within a few months of that, hopefully.

Some days I'm writing like a demon, but other days I grind to a halt thanks to one tiny bit of information that I just can't figure out. This week it was the date of birth of a British artist I wanted to write about. I had a dig around for information on Sunday, thinking that I could write the piece on Monday. I then spent Monday morning using every cell in my brain trying to figure out some basic biographical facts: date and place of birth, name and profession of parents. These are basics that have been drilled into me over the years I've written obituaries for various papers, and I really hate not to have them.

Still no luck. I gave up and got on with some other things.

Tuesday morning I spent another couple of hours attacking the problem from every direction I could figure... and finally cracked it thanks to a couple of tiny clues scattered in interviews. I don't mind admitting that the discovery had me dancing around the room for at least a minute, marveling at my own genius. I then sat down and wrote the information up, which amounted to 70 words in a piece that's likely to be 2,000+ words. And I suspect I've probably spent five or six hours researching those 70 words across three days. But once discovered I then wrote another 1400 words on Tuesday to try and make up for wasted time. I aim to write at least 1,000 words a day. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't and sometimes my brain freezes because I don't have a fact immediately to hand.

Thursday morning: my laptop also freezes... well, not exactly freezes, but the latest Dell update sends it into a frenzy—the screen rapidly blinks on and off—and messes with the desktop. The problem is resolved with a couple of reboots, but I panic and realise that I haven't done a back-up for ages. I'm pleased to say that the various biographies I have been writing over the past couple of weeks and that all-important date of birth are now safely stored on an external hard drive. I'm rather less happy that I have to then spend time carefully moving documents, folders, pictures and PDFs around on the screen so that I can get them back into the order they were previously, otherwise I'll never be able to find anything.

Better get back to it...

Rebellion Releases — 3 September 2025

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF BRITAIN'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL COMIC!

Violent, gritty and unrelenting, Action comic was the brainchild of Pat Mills and Geoff Kemp. Tasked with creating a new anthology comic for the IPC's boys adventure division, the pair rapidly developed a winning formula: reimagining existing story ideas from fresh perspectives and infusing them with a health dose of modern realism.

With strips such as Hookjaw, Dredger, Look Out For Lefty and Blackjack, success was instantaneous but so was the criticism. Many members of the press - including the London Evening Standard, The Sun and the Daily Mail - were quick to denounce the comic, while Mary Whitehouse and the pressure group "Delegates Opposing Violent Education" piled pressure on the IPC board to do something about it.

In less than a year, Action had been pulled from circulation, then returned months later, a sanitised, pale shadow of its former self. But the spark had already been lit. Action had made its mark and became the catalyst for the evolution of the British comics scene, paving the way for 2000 AD and the subsequent British invasion of UK talent into America.

Now, for the first time in decades, Rebellion are collecting Action in a series of new archival editions, containing all of the strips and some of the editorial that created so much infamy back in the 1970s!

With brand-new introductions from Pat Mills, the legendary co-creator, editor, and writer of Action, as well as from series writer Steve MacManus, this is a sensational new release which champions firebrand comics at their most powerful and controversial.

Find out just what the shock and awe was about - featuring the original colour pages as originally published, Volume 1 of Action: Before The Ban collects together the first twelve issues of Action, originally published across 1976.

Available from 25 February 2026 in standard hardback and webshop-exclusive hardback editions, Action: Before The Ban defies the censors and proudly celebrates a landmark series in comics history!

And now, this week's releases...

2000AD Prog 2448
Cover: Karl Richardson.

Judge Dredd: The Wild Man of Brian Eno by Ken Niemand (w), Cam Smith (a), Emilio Lecce (c), Annie Parkhouse (l)
The Raviliouis Pact Part 9 by TC Eglington (w), Steven Austin (a), John Charles (c), Simon Bowland (l)
Nu Earth War Tales: The Survivors Part 2 by Karl Stock (w), Karl Richardson (a), Jim Campbell (l)
Scarlet Traces: Empire of Blood Part 17 by Ian Edginton (w), D'Israeli (a), Annie Parkhouse (l)

Judge Dredd: One-Eyed Jacks by Ken Niemand (w), Ian Richardson, Kieran McKeown, Anna Readman (a)
Rebellion ISBN 978-183786606-9, 3 September 2025, 116pp, £16.99. Available via Amazon.

Mega-City One, 2145 AD. This vast urban hell on the east coast of post-apocalyptic North America is home to over 200 million citizens. Crime is rampant, and stemming the tide of chaos are the Judges. Toughest of them all is Judge Dredd – he is the Law! Dredd and Rico investigate a link between 1970s New York and the twenty-second century after antique items start to turn up in the 'Big Meg.' A trip back to the 'Big Apple' sets Dredd on course to come face-to-face with New York's toughest cop, Jack McBane and an undercover cop with a familiar surname - Eartha Fargo...