Ace O'Hara ep.13

Comic Cuts - 11 December 2015

A short post this week due to deadlines on Hotel Business. I haven't had much free time this week due to the magazine being pushed back in the schedule to avoid a bottleneck in the production of other magazines at our studio. Unfortunately, it also means I'm at the busiest point of production on this issue just as I need to be commissioning features for the next, which I'm trying to pull ahead on so I don't have to work over Christmas and New Year.

Next week is also going to be a bugger, so don't expect too much of me.

I did get a chance to clean up a few Carl Wilton covers for this week's random scans and I should have a little piece gathering up what few facts I know about Wilton up over the weekend. And maybe a little cover gallery if I get a chance. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

Ace O'Hara ep.12

Ace O'Hara ep.11

Ace O'Hara ep.10

Ace O'Hara ep.9

Ace O'Hara ep.8

Ace O'Hara ep.7

Ace O'Hara ep.6

Illustrators #12

 

The latest issue of Illustrators has landed – with its always satisfying thunk! – on my doormat and it's a very welcome arrival. Editor Peter Richardson always packs a lot into its 96 pages and this issue is no different, with four lengthy articles, all illustrated to stunning effect.

Android Jones and Denis Zilber were names unfamiliar to me, but their work is fascinating. Both have lengthy appreciations which put their artwork in context. Jones' career spans George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic and Nintendo before he founded Massive Black, to bring together talented creators, and ConceptArt.org, widely used by the film and gaming industries to find artists. Nowadays he can be found performing live with a variety of collaborators. You can see the creation of a number of his paintings at Vimeo.

Burning Embrace video at Vimeo

Denis Zilber also works with digital art but has a rather more zany outlook, working in cartoons, book illustration, advertising and animation design. Zilber, via interviewer Diego Cordoba, talks readers through his colourful, madcap imagination.

I'm more at home with Howard Chaykin, having followed his work during my Comic World days... in fact, I'm pretty sure I interviewed him around the time of Power and Glory. He's better known for American Flagg! and Black Kiss (more notorious than popular, as author Thomas Kintner notes), although I think I first got into Chaykin through either his Shadow or Blackhawk mini-series in the 1980s. The article covers a whole heap of other Chaykin goodies.

 

An appreciation of the illustrations of Sidney Sime by Cleaver Patterson sheds light on this forgotten artist whose pen and ink artwork graced many magazines in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, although Sime hoped that his success would come from painting. For a while he was editor (and owner) of The Idler.

Much of Sime's work was fantastic or macabre and it was here that he excelled, working with the likes of Lord Dunsany to create beautiful, grotesque images. After the Great War, Sime, now over fifty, began to find commissions less regular and his interests more abstract.

A brief interview with Ron Murphy rounds out the issue.

For more information about Illustrators and back issues, visit the Book Palace website where you can also find details of their online editions. Issue 13 should include features on Mitch O'Connell, Jeff Miracola, Brooke Boynton Hughes and Sep Scott.

Comic Cuts - 4 December 2015

Went to see Mitch Benn on Sunday. Storm Clodagh had caused the heavens to open and rain was hammering down as we drove to the venue. We arrived to find our friend John, who always turns up early, at the front of a small queue huddling in the doorway of the Colchester Arts Centre. "Doors open" time came and went, the queue grew longer and wetter. Someone ran out to say "He's only just turned up, so we'll let you in as soon as he's done his sound check."

Much muttering about the fact that we'd be happy to hear the sound check as long as it meant we could get out of the rain. The photo above doesn't do the saturation levels any justice.

We went from streaming to gently steaming by the time Mitch came on. This is his Don't Believe A Word tour where he's discussing his personal beliefs and what he finds frustrating in the beliefs of others. So he dips into astrology, homeopathy and religion and tries to disentangle some of the facts from the often fact-free zone that often surrounds these topics. It isn't just a swipe at them: it's well thought out and well argued and handled with a lot more politeness than these kinds of topic usually engender. The songs are sharp, satirical, technically excellent (he's a good musician), catchy and musically varied from Rock to Rumba.

I think the show would make an excellent DVD. Go Faster Stripe have recently released stand up shows by Susan Calman and Miles Jupp as downloads so we know it can be done... why not Mitch Benn? Somebody make this happen!

Continuing the saga of my incredibly dull life, we seem to be in the process of technological revolution here at chez Holland. Following the purchase of a new razor (exciting stuff!) we've lashed out on a hand-held water vac in the hope that we can make some impact on the condensation problem this house has. The porch has suffered from mold ever since we moved in despite attempts to curb the problem—although I now believe I know what the problem is. The bathroom and bedrooms have suffered from condensation on the windows and that has led to a minor but annoying mold problem in the bathroom. Hopefully removing some of the wet from the environment will reduce the mold problem... and give us an excuse to clean the windows more often.

I'm also about to enter the 20th century and become the possessor of a mobile telephone. It's for work. I can't say I'm too happy with the idea—I like the fact that I can be incommunicado for a couple of hours if I want—but I also know it will be useful for work and handy for Mel. As work is paying for it, it's not a top of the range smartphone; in fact, it's just about the cheapest model on the market. The one slightly annoying aspect is that it won't replace my camera, so I'll have to carry both around with me. (Update: In fact, it's an even older, cheaper version of the one I asked for!)

Unfortunately, I spent too much time researching the quality of the camera and then sidelined myself into looking at the quality of my camera and found it wanting. So I bought myself a new camera. I'm still waiting for it to arrive, but if the weather's nice over the weekend I'll give it a test run and post some results next week. Mind you, by the time I've shrunk the picture down so that it's a reasonable size to post in a blog, you're probably not going to notice the difference!

Commando releases fall foul of Facebook security

For those of you who get their notification of new posts to Bear Alley from Facebook, you'll have noticed that I had some problems earlier in the week. I used a service called Networkedblogs to notify Facebook every time a new post was added. Unfortunately, they seem to have switched to a new system called Symphony and from Tuesday my updates were blocked by Facebook. When I tried to send the notifications manually, I received the following: "This message contains content that has been blocked by our security systems".

At first I thought it was something Facebook had done, so I only resolved the problem this morning (Thursday); I managed to post a notification that was previously blocked, so hopefully that's the problem fixed. I'll know more tomorrow morning, although that will be after this blog is posted. (Update: Yes, it works.)

I only have three people following the feed on Networkedblogs, but I thought I should mention the problem. I'll leave the feed up for now, but I might eventually close it down.

Random scans this week are a small selection from the career of Carl Wilton, who was one of Pan's most prolific cover artists for a while. Energetic and versatile, Wilton produced covers for every genre, although nowadays is probably best known among collectors for his covers for Agatha Christie and Leslie Charteris.

 

 

 

 

Next week, we'll be continuing with the adventures of Ace O'Hara. Plus whatever else I can find the time for. I'm very tempted to see what I can find out about Carl Wilton!

Ace O'Hara ep.5

Ace O'Hara ep.4

Commando issues 4867-4870

Commando issues on sale 3 December 2015.

Commando No 4867 – Five Mile Snipers
It was the ultimate insult, being called “Five Mile Snipers” — with a sneering tone this phrase accused artillery gunners of being tucked safely out of harm’s way, a large distance from the front line.
   After a run-in with American Army Ranger officer, Sergeant Stan Wilkins, who was in charge of a battery of 25-pounder guns, certainly resented the implication that he and his new crew were cowards. Stan was determined to disprove this and embarked on a deadly mission to hunt down a group of ruthless German paratroopers…

Story: George Low
Art: Carlos Pino
Cover: Carlos Pino

Commando No 4868 – Floating Fortress
They were Fleet Air Arm pilots on a carrier, Mike Scott, “Frenchy” Lafarge and the giant Red Knight. In the air they made a great team, but then their carrier was damaged, and they were forced to land with empty tanks on a desert island!
   Mike wanted to organise the warlike natives into a private army to fight the Japanese occupying the island.
   Big Red flexed his powerful hands and wanted to carry on his own personal feud against the enemy.
   Poor Frenchy didn’t know who to follow. While they argued and the baffled natives watched — the Japanese were closing in…

Introduction
Going purely by Ken Barr’s wonderfully dynamic cover, you would imagine that you’re in for an air-sea extravaganza — and that’s certainly true of the first 10 pages or so, which are packed with some astonishing aerial action.
   Soon afterwards, however, the story changes gears and becomes instead a taut tale of jungle guerrilla warfare and survival — one that still packs a real punch, half a century after it was first published.–Scott Montgomery, Deputy Editor

Story: Bounds
Art: James
Cover: Ken Barr
Originally Commando No 172 (July 1965), re-issued as No 855 (July 1974)

Commando No 4869 – Into The Fire
After a series of misadventures, US Army mechanic Justice Wade somehow found himself serving with a Soviet Penal Company armoured unit. His Matilda tank was one of a group of vehicles deemed expendable enough to act as decoys to draw the fire of their enemy, fearsome German Panther tanks.
   To make things even more dangerous, Justice had been promoted from mechanic to driver and he had no combat experience. He and his rag-tag crew were thrust into the fire of battle — and there was every chance that they would crash and burn…

Story: Stephen Walsh
Art: Vila
Cover: Janek Matysiak

Commando No 4870 – Point Of No Return
The mission was simple — bomb a Polish refinery making vital cold-weather fuel additives for the German army.
   The target was easy — almost no anti-aircraft defences, as it was too far away for Allied bombers to get there and back.
   This was launched one of the most daring adventures of the war — a game of bluff and double-bluff — as Major Barry Crofton and a small band of Free Polish troops tried to ensure that the bombers would fly home again once their job was done…

Introduction
This is a great example of a “men-on-a-mission” Commando book. Captain Jan Kaminski, a headstrong, borderline insubordinate, Free Polish Forces commander meets his match in no-nonsense M.I.5 operative, Major Barry Crofton. In true Commando style they clash with each other before their mission has even begun.
   Author Alan Hebden knows exactly how to keep the drama and action moving along at a great pace. Ably illustrated by Keith Shone, Point Of No Return is perfectly topped off with a stunning Ian Kennedy cover.–Scott Montgomery, Deputy Editor

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Keith Shone
Cover: Ian Kennedy
Originally Commando No 2358 (March 1990)