Bear Alley: Comic Cuts — 16 January 2026

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, January 16, 2026

Comic Cuts — 16 January 2026

I've had a busy week that has been a mixture of humdrum, frustration and joy. Let's start where we left off last week.

There were new gas pipes being installed last week, the new pipes being pushed through the old pipes from the road and into the house. Our pipe had a right-angled bend in it which caused problems, so we had to have the pipe just outside the front door dug up and removed so that the new pipe could be fed through. This meant digging out the short path between the drive and the front doorstep.

We had our gas off from about 11.00 in the morning until about 5.30 in the afternoon. On Friday the gas went off at 7.00 and was off all day to allow the workmen to connect up the individual pipes to the newly installed main pipeline. It was starting to look like they wouldn't have it done by their evening deadline of 7.00 pm, but shortly before that there was a knock on the door, a guy came in to reconnect the gas, chcck the hob and the boiler and he finished bang on seven o'clock. Unfortunately, he told us, he still had a dozen houses to reconnect, so he was going to be working for another couple of hours.

On Saturday, someone came around to fix the pathway outside our front door. Annoyingly, the removal of a box that opened up to get to the pipe below meant that some of the grass had been dug away, so, rather than the curve the path took to reach the doorstep, the new path was wider and didn't quite reach.

During all this, I was trying to lay out the opening pages of the ACTION book. I mentioned last week that I'd had a notion of how the book was to open before you reach the title page. I also mentioned that it wasn't working as well as I wanted. I came up with a new version on Friday which I wasn't happy with. Took 24 hours off and came to it afresh on Sunday. It still wasn't working. I went at it again on Monday and, finally, I think I've got it.

I was able to lay out some of the opening text pages on Tuesday, but ran into some problems with photos, which (of course) I've left to the last minute. I put out a call on Sunday for some pics of various people, and have subsequently managed to get a few that I like and, more importantly, that I can clear the copyright on (and here I'd like to thank Steve MacManus, Robin Smith, Steve Cook and John Wagner).

Wednesday was Mel's day off, so I thought I'd try to tackle something a little less taxing. Yes, it's tax returns time, and I have long lists of numbers that need adding up. Even a little business like Bear Alley Books requires careful accounting; print costs are high (I've just spent £250 on restocks today!) and postage is another huge cost. But there are fiddly things like, how much I've spent on envelopes; a box of printer labels costs over £20; packaging tape is £1.99+ a roll... it all adds up. And HMRC expect you to add it all up, correctly and accurately!

I didn't get too far. We tried to fix the door step problem ourselves, to put down a couple of paving slabs to at least mean we're not stepping out onto mud, which, if left, will turn into a gassy slope. It isn't the neatest or best of jobs, but hopefully it will do until we can get someone to do a bit more of a professional job.

We also bought a new aerial, because we've had a few problems with the signal breaking up on the TV. When it arrived... how can I put this... I know size shouldn't matter, but this new aerial was about four inches tall with a magnetic base. I thought I'd try it out and connected it up to the TV and blu-ray box and the result was terrible. We're a rural area almost on the coast and the house is in a dip with a steep driveway. We might have some luck if it can be fitted in the attic, but I'm not counting on it. I think we'll need a new, better, digital aerial up on the chimney stack.

I'm happier with a little 6tb hard drive I bought, which is currently whirring away copying all my music. Eventually it will also be used to back up the hard drives of my laptop and PC. I'm always running out of space because every book requires a lot of scanning, and I tend to keep all the original scans just in case something goes wrong. It's surprisingly easy to fill up an external hard drive when you have files of images, files of documents, files of music and sound recordings, files of movies and tv shows taped off the tele, etc., etc. And I add to it daily.

Anyway, it's Thursday again, and I need to get back to work with my spreadsheets and calculator. Wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed the bill isn't too steep!