Comic Cuts — 11 September 2026

Good news, everybody! The imaginary progress bar attached to the latest Bear Alley Books' title has reached 100%. On Wednesday I sent the files to our printer and should receive a proof copy in 8-10 days, hopefully sooner. I have some proofing to do, but hopefully I've already caught any errors. If everything works out, I should have the book on sale at the Colchester Swap Meet at the Baptist Church on 10 October. I'll be offering the usual advance order discount to everyone who can't make it to the capital of Roman Britain.

I always wait until contracts have been signed before announcing titles, and hopefully that will be done within the next week or so and I'll be able to show off the cover. Then I knuckle down to the second volume of this set which I'm hoping will be out in November. Before Christmas, anyway. The gap just helps me to spread costs a little.

I've had my nose so tightly to the grindstone that I haven't really done anything other than laying out the pages for the new book. There has been one good bit of news: on Saturday, sales of ACTION: THE SEVENPENNY NIGHTMARE suddenly took off. Normally I sell a book or two every day across the whole selection of Bear Alley titles. Between about seven and ten in the evening I sold nine books, eight of them copies of Action. On Sunday I sold another five copies of Action, on Monday two and on Wednesday one.

Now, this was after a bit of a drought on sales of the book, which sold well in its first two months (March/April) and has been steadily selling since, but only at a rate of a couple per week. Someone, somewhere must have mentioned it, but all I can find is one mention on Facebook. I'm not exactly across all social media!

I'm certainly not complaining. I was a bit worried that I was about to run out of copies and had to promptly put in an order with the printer to restock. I need copies for the Swap Meet anyway, but I'm hoping that there might be another little run on the title, as I think it's one of the best things I've written and I'm especially proud of the way it looks as well as the way it reads. Took me ages to design, but it was worth the time and effort, I think. 

Saturday was also the annual Invasion: Colchester, which saw a record crowd packing their way into the town centre like sardines in a tin. After a while it became almost impossible to take photos without someone pushing past you, ducking in front of you (but still managing to ruin a shot), or you ended up simply taking photos of other people's kids. Thanks to Mel, I managed to put together a collection of reasonable photos for the blog on Sunday, which you can find by scrolling down (or clicking here, if you've arrived from Facebook).

Rather than ramble on, I'll post a few random cover scans. I should be able to reveal the title of the new book next week. 

Commando 5991-5994

This week's Commando features a murder mystery on the Korean front lines, and a nerve-wracking tale from the skies of the Cold War. Issues 5991-5994 are on sale today, Thursday September 10th. 

5991: Murder on the 38th Parallel

The devious Captain Jeff Webster thinks he’s gotten away with murder — after all, what’s one more fragged body on the battlefields of North Korea? But he didn’t count on a friendly, tenacious and infuriating military policeman to hound him at every turn. Maybe it’s not as easy as he expected to get away with… Murder on the 38th Parallel.

Story: Dominic Teague
Internal Art: Giovanni Fabiano
Cover Art: Marco Bianchini

5992: Band of Heroes

The two parachutists made their landing safely on the soil of Occupied France. Eagerly, they waited for the welcoming words from the French Resistance. But the first they heard were pure Cockney, and from a middle aged Englishman in First World War uniform! 
    That surprise was only the first of many when fighting alongside Jimmy Robinson and his tough bunch of veterans.

Story: R A Montague
Internal Art: Fleming
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
First published 1977 as No.1109

5993: Rules of Engagement

In 1951, still bitter from missing action in World War Two, Flight Lieutenant Eric Hewson was flying Gloster Meteor F.8 jets over West Germany when the opportunity to finally see real action with the USAF in Korea arose. That was until the offer was given to his buddy, Flight Lieutenant Nick Greene. 
     When Greene returned to Germany, swaggering with combat stories, tensions rose between the men — but there were bigger threats in the skies than missed glory.

Story: Steve Taylor
Internal Art: Jaume Forns
Cover Art: Neil Roberts

5994: The Tank-Men
 
Sergeant Fred Manning was no stranger to action, and when he was posted to command a Sherman tank in the Allied advance through Germany, he thought his previous experiences would stand him in good stead. But all his fighting had taken place in the battles which had raged across the deserts of North Africa. He would soon learn that this was to be a very different kind of war…

Story: RA Montague
Internal Art: Gordon C Livingstone
Cover Art: Marco Bianchini
First published 1980 as No. 1390

Rebellion Releases — 9 September 2026

The essential Judge Dredd graphic novel series – this is the ultimate introduction to the Lawman of the Future!

The Essential Judge Dredd line returns in March 2027 to celebrate fifty years since the Iconic Lawman first screeched into action on the pages of 2000 AD. Created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, Judge Dredd is Judge, Jury and Executioner, empowered to deliver on-the-spot sentences to those breaking the Law – even if the sentence is death!

The Essential Judge Dredd collects his greatest stories in self-contained volumes, ideal for first time readers who want to experience the ultimate thrill-rush of life on the streets of Mega-City One. From America to Necropolis; from The Apocalypse War to Judgement Day: these are the best way to step into Dredd’s boots and experience his most awesome adventures.

Essential Judge Dredd: Titan sends the Lawman off-world as he heads to the desolated planet of Titan, home to a Mega-Prison housing the toughest criminals of all: disgraced ex-Judges who have been stripped of their badge for breaking the Law and locked away forever. From the creative team of Rob Williams (Suicide Squad) and Henry Flint (Shakara), Titan is a modern Thriller presented in full colour which never relents as things go from bad to apocalyptic for Dredd!

When he receives a message that something has gone wrong on Titan and they’ve lost contact with the prison-planet, Dredd must team up with SHS Judge Gerhart – who has a personal grudge against Dredd that could wreck the mission before it even begins. A modern classic storyline, Titan spirals gloriously out of control and straight into the storyline Enceladus, which brings disaster to Titan and Mega-City One – and is also included in this volume!

Get the whole story in one easy format – if you want to see Judge Dredd at its most brutal, this is the collection to start with!

Includes the stories:

    Titan
    Fit
    Enceladus: New Life
    Enceladus: Old Life
    Melt

And now, this week's release...

2000AD Prog 2499
Cover: INJ Culbard.

JUDGE DREDD // THE OUBLIETTE by Ken Niemand (w) Dan Cornwell (a) Chris Blythe (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
FUTURE SHOCK: A SERIAL KILLER ALPHABET by James Lovegrove (w) Paul Marshall (a) Jack Davies (c) Rob Steen (l)
BRINK // THE CALL OF THE VOID by Dan Abnett (w) INJ Culbard (a) Simon Bowland (l)

Invasion Colchester 2026 (5 September 2026)

If this is the first weekend in September, it must be time for Colchester to be invaded by cars, celebrities and cos-players of all ages. It grows every year, raising money for charity and adding a few tens of thousands of feet to the streets of the town centre, which has, frankly, been suffering for years, with some big names (Woolworths, Debenhams, Marks & Spencers, et al) disappearing and small businesses being driven out of business by out-of-town shopping parks. For one day a year that trend is reversed — and hopefully shoppers will remember how many good stores, charity shops, pubs, restaurants and coffee houses there are in the town alongside bigger attractions like the Castle. The shops that remain know how good Invasion Colchester is for business — you only have to look at the support they give on the day.

We arrived nice and early as I wanted to get around the charity shops and buy some socks (life as a high-flying author/publisher is incredibly glamorous). I didn't find much in the way of second-hand books, but at least my footwear isn't so holey now that it could start its own religion.

Starting at 11, by 11.30 trying to get through the crowds was like wading through a tar pit. But between Mel and myself we managed to get a few fun photos. Enjoy!

A huge thanks to Kerrie Williams, who organises this event every year. Here she is, being interviewed ...

Also spotted on the mean streets of Colchester , friend of Bear Alley Books Keith Burns was painting live, with the finished artwork to be auctioned and the money donated to charity.

This was taken just as he was starting. Thankfully, Karl Kennedy (another Invasion Colchester organiser) snapped this shot of the artwork later in the day. He tells me that this is not the finished piece, but Keith will complete it once he gets home.

There were, as always, dozens of cars on display, but you will have seen most of them before. Click on the label below and it will take you back in time to Invasions of years past.

Comic Cuts — 4 September 2026

Again, the imaginary progress bar showing how the next book is going took another jump towards being filled, although it did stutter, fall back a tiny amount, pause... before moving forward again. The stutter was caused by a logo that we wanted to use that I couldn't open on my old PC because the version of the programme I had was so ancient.

I'm not likely to be updating it any time soon because said programme is part of a suite that was purchased back in the early 2000s; the people who make it have now stopped selling their product and now only allow subscriptions. Since I don't use it for months at a time while I'm writing books, I don't want to subscribe. I'd prefer to buy it outright. Or buy the bits that I use outright.

My old PC is air-gapped, to make sure that it doesn't receive any unwanted updates or viruses. Microsoft stopped sending virus updates for Windows 10 some while back, so it might be vulnerable to attack. As I only use it for design work on my books and nothing else, I'm hoping that it will last for many years to come.

The old PC does have about 20gb of emails on it. And earlier this week I had 10gb of emails on my laptop, half of them unwanted.

The sorry saga began last Wednesday when I went online to read my emails and found one from my email provider which said "7-Day Alert" and told me to "Make sure you're all set for the switch." Well, that was the first I was aware that there was a switch due, and there were all kinds of scary bullet-points: 

• Before your migration, please download any folders of documents you want to keep.
• When you open your email client after moving to Professional Email powered by Titan, you may see your email redownload.

Um... I didn't have an "email client". For years I've gone online to read my mail. Online I had all my mails neatly moved to folders so I could track down book orders from people, book orders I had processed and book orders that had been completed; there was various folders of correspondence and payments; there was work related stuff and loads more. There were almost 10,000 messages — 5.1gb of mail.

So on Saturday, a friend came around and put Thunderbird on my laptop. This is actually the same email "client" that I had on my old PC, so at least I knew what to expect and how to use it. We went down the pub and left it downloading a few thousand emails.

It was only the next day that I realised it had only downloaded the inbox and none of the folders, so I spent the next couple of days moving messages in folders on the webmail server to the webmail inbox, so that Thunderbird downloaded them. I then had to go through the downloaded messages and move them into newly created folders. I moved the last of them on Monday — so much for having a day off!

On Tuesday I received a "24-Hour Alert", which told me pretty much the same thing as the earlier message. And on Wednesday a "10-Minute Alert" telling me to close or send any open emails I was working on. "If you're using an email client on your phone or computer, you won't need to reconfigure your settings."

Remember the warning about "you may see your email redownload"? That's precisely what happened. 9,494 messages re-downloaded, landing on the 3,350 messages I had still to move into folders. The 6,000+ messages I had carefully moved into folders were now duplicated in my inbox, leaving me with 13,000 messages that needed to be sorted out.

As you can imagine, I wasn't best pleased. I have managed to get that down to 7,104 messages, so I've about 3,750 more to find and delete. And every time I open Thunderbird, I get four or five random old messages download, not all of which I can immediately trace and delete. Mostly they're from 2022 for some reason.

When I'm not wasting my time, I have been making some small progress with the next set of books, sorting out cover images and thinking about what I can do with the internal pages. While pondering, I've taken the opportunity to clean up a few old book covers that will be used when I do my next book about old paperbacks, although quite when that will be I don't know.

Talking of book covers, here are a few SF books I've picked up in the wild recently. Nothing too exciting, although I was very pleased to find the John Sladek with its Chris Foss cover. This was picked up from a local second-hand bookshop. The final two were Ebay purchases, but the rest I found around town.