Between last week's exciting trips to the pub(s) and next week's trips to Colchester, Southend and Stoke, I've had a dull but productive week. Yes, it's back to the back-breaking job of cleaning up artwork.
Not back-breaking really, but I hunch up and I'm making delicate movements with the mouse to paint out splashes of ink and using cut and paste to fill gaps in panel borders and fix damage to lettering, and that means stresses across the shoulders and neck. Do that for a couple of hours and you'll understand why I'm so slow putting books of reprinted comics together.
But we're getting close to announcing the next title. The contract is now signed off and I have two forwards in the works, and the cover will hopefully be here at the weekend or soon after. Once I have everything in place, I'll be doing the usual reveal and will start taking orders as soon as possible.
The artwork I'm working on is for the book—or rather two books—after that. I'll need to write some introductions for those, which will be a nice break.
The last writing I did was for PIRATES!, my history of wartime and post-war independent comic publishers. I reached the end of what I'm calling "Book 1' at the weekend, although there's at least a couple of bits I still need to write. I've clocked off with 42,000 words written. Still a long way to go.
With a couple of reprints under my belt, I'll be happy to get back to the next index, which is likely to be Valiant, as that's already partly written; I actually wrote some of it back in 2019, ahead of writing the opening sections of the Action book that I completed earlier this year—ACTION THE SEVENPENNY NIGHTMARE. (In fact, the opening of the Valiant history was originally written back in 2009... but that's another story entirely.)
Cleaning up the artwork for the latest batch of comic reprints has been made manageable thanks to Youtube. All the artwork clean-up and design work for Bear Alley Books is done on my old PC, which is now getting on for 20 years old. But that frees up the laptop that I usually use for writing (this, for instance), and Youtube is absolutely full of wonderful music.
I'm a huge Rush fan, but I've never had a chance to see them live, other than on DVD. Technically that means I've seen them play in Rio de Janeiro, on their 30th anniversary tour, on the Snakes & Ladders tour, and on their 40th anniversary tour, and elsewhere. Of course, like others I thought that Neil Peart's death meant I'd never get to see them play again, even on screen.
Well, they're back, baby! Celebrating their 50th (plus) anniversary with a huge tour, aided by a new drummer and a keyboard player. But it's still Rush! And thanks to Youtube, I've watched two full gigs that they performed in Los Angeles's Kia Forum on June 6th and June 9th. Utterly wonderful to watch.
I know some folk don't agree with people recording gigs, but fans are going to be buying the inevitable Blu-ray that'll eventually come out. I know I will. But in the meantime, forget the football—I'll be following Rush vicariously right up to the end of the tour in April 2027.
No comments:
Post a Comment