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Comic Cuts - 8 January 2016

Welcome to the new year. After only a week, last year seems so long ago, probably because Christmas and New Year seem to exist outside the course of normal time. Regular tasks, like my weekly trip into town to go food shopping, get thrown into disarray and it will take me a couple of weeks to settle into 2016.

I had hoped to have my Harry "Iron Mask" Bensley book finished over the Christmas break. It didn't happen but not for laziness reasons... OK, partly for laziness reasons. But also, while I was proofing the text, I found a thread that I needed to tease, namely the background of  Bensley's first wife, Kate. When I did my first round of work, I'd picked up marriage and one or two other certificates relating to Bensley's second wife, but not his first wife.

But now that I come to read the text, it seems a little odd that I'm speculating about her parentage when it will only cost me a tenner to know for sure; her dad's name will be on the marriage certificate, so I've ordered a copy. I've also speculated about her death, which was possibly registered under a different name, so I've ordered that certificate, just to make sure. Hopefully, with those two certificates in hand, I might be able to find her birth certificate.

Unfortunately, all this takes time (certificates can take a week to arrive), so I'm likely to be caught up in the final stages of another issue of Hotel Business when the information arrives. But I might be able to get the book out – or booklet, as it's not that long – in February. And once that's out of the way, I'll hopefully get back to some of the other projects that I want to put some time into.

The photo at the top of the column was taken on the morning of Christmas Eve: sunrise seen through the Colne Barrier. One of the first pictures I took with my new camera, which I bought as a present for myself. It's smaller and faster than the previous camera and it hasn't got a weird, proprietary memory card that couldn't be read by our card reader.

I need to experiment with it, but I think it's an improvement. Jumping up to 20 megapixels hasn't made the difference I imagined it would—the resulting pictures are bigger in size (7mb rather than 4mb) but that's down to pixel density. The canvas size is also slightly bigger, but everything else is down to the quality of the lens, so I can still only zoom in so far and no more. A picture of the moon, for instance, still only results in a white blob with no discernible features.

The pic above, incidentally, is of the town's famous adopted family. Two swans have adopted a goose, and the odd trio can often be seen swimming together. There's a mural of the three of them painted on a wall which I'll have to take a photo of as it's hilarious. The three were recently the subject for a local art exhibition. I haven't been able to find out much about them, but they've been together for a number of years—since 2011, I believe—and while they take the occasional break from each other, the goose shows no sign of flying south for the winter, even when other geese turn up.

Our little picture gallery this week is even more random than usual. Here are a handful of books I've picked up over the past couple of weeks.

More Ace O'Hara next week... I hope you're enjoying this classic yarn!

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Comic Cuts - 1 January 2016

This was going to be the briefest of interruptions to your New Year festivities, but I completely failed to write anything yesterday outside of a couple of e-mails. The computer has been turned off for 99% of the last week while I've entertained (and been entertained by) family and friends. We saw the year in at a friend's and staggered home around 2 o'clock this morning.

As this time of year I always post my Top Ten Selling Bear Alley Books. It has been a slow year for Bear Alley Books as I had to get a job editing a magazine to keep myself afloat financially. I only published one book last year, but that won't be the last you hear from BAB. I do have further titles planned, but they're taking a lot longer to put together and I've found working around the magazine quite difficult. Writing shorter pieces has been easier, some of which have appeared online here on Bear Alley, but I've also written some material for a new book that I'm still plotting out.

Anyway, on with the Bear Alley Books' Top Ten sellers, in the traditional reverse order...

10 London is Stranger Than Fiction
9  Eagles Over the Western Front 2
8  Eagles Over the Western Front 3
7  Boys' World: Ticket to Adventure
6  Lion: King of Picture Story Papers
5  Eagles over the Western Front 1
4  Arena
3 Frontline UK
2  Complete Captain Future
1  Countdown to TV Action

Countdown keeps the top spot for a second year, although there was only one title released in 2015 and it was a thoroughly indulgent collection of fifties strips by one of my favourite artists working in the independent comics of that era, Norman Light. It was a fun book to do, but was never going to be a best-seller... something I've probably said about every book I've written. And I haven't been wrong. I've never troubled the best-seller lists with any of my... what? 50 books? I've stopped counting.

So that's it for 2015. I wish all of you the best for 2016 and I hope you'll keep coming back to Bear Alley to see how I'm getting on. For my part, I'll hopefully have some interesting articles and strips to share over the coming months.

'Till then, Happy New Year.

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Commando issues 4875-4878

Commando issues on sale 31 December 2015.

Commando No 4875 – Deadly Pursuit
Cut off from their unit, Second-Lieutenant Bob Holbeck and Private Vic Jolly were trying to get out of battle-ravaged Malaya for the relative safety of Sumatra.
   Hooking up with a rag-tag group of survivors, they commandeered a Model T Ford pick-up truck and fled.
   In a retreat already fraught with danger, they would also have to escape from the clutches of the Kempeitai — the feared Japanese secret police, and they were hot on their tail.

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Morahin
Cover: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4876 – Night Prowl
Jim Fraser was a born Commando. Tough, dependable, daring. But there came a day when they stripped him of his Commando shoulder flashes and his beloved green beret. They took away his tommy gun and gave him a shovel.
   Almost before he knew it he was transferred to the pick and shovel brigade, the Pioneer Corps. Rough treatment for a fellow who had made just one mistake.
   You can’t win battles leaning on a shovel, but Jim soon had those pioneers chucking away their shovels and desperate to get at Nazi throats.

Introduction
Ken Barr’s fantastically moody cover really sets the scene for this gritty tale of a Commando who is thrown out of his unit and forced to join the Pioneers because of one unfortunate mistake.
   Our hero, Jim Fraser, has undoubtedly been wronged, and the story of how he strives to overcome injustice and hostility is well-written and, in turn, well-illustrated, with dynamic line work by Bielsa.—Scott Montgomery, Deputy Editor

Story: Magee
Art: Bielsa
Cover: Ken Barr
Night Prowl, originally Commando No 188 (November 1965)

Commando No 4877 – Tunnels Of Death
When he was drafted to serve in the Vietnam war, young Joe Wright was nicknamed “Stumpy” because of his small stature. However, his lack of height unexpectedly became an asset.
   Recruited to join the ranks of Rat 6 – the elite “Tunnel Rats” who fought the Vietcong enemy in a labyrinth of claustrophobic caverns, Joe soon discovered that lethal danger lurked beneath the surface as well as above it.

Story: Richard Davis
Art: Olivera
Cover: Janek Matysiak

Commando No 4878 – Polish Pilot
Rounding off this year’s complement of Silver Collection issues is this curio from November 1990. Obviously, the clue is in the title as to what this story is all about. Our eponymous hero, Lieutenant Karl Latek, is an endearing, if slightly eccentric figure — but he is a man who will never give up. His determination to keep fighting the enemy, no matter the cost to his own personal safety, makes his apparent recklessness all the more interesting.—Scott Montgomery, Deputy Editor

Story: Allan Chalmers
Art: Terry Patrick
Cover: Ian Kennedy
Polish Pilot, originally Commando No 2383 (November 1990)

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