Comic Cuts

The Don Lawrence Collection has had to delay some publications of late, including a couple I've been involved with -- the next volume of the Trigan Empire Collection and the collected Karl the Viking. The reason has been the work involved in putting together the latest, 23rd, volume of Storm. This is the first volume following the death of Don Lawrence, who illustrated the previous 22 volumes and has been a long time in the making. Following Don's death, Don Lawrence Collection bought all the rights to Storm and found two artists who, between them, could produce artwork in the style that Don had established for the series.

With Martin Lodewijk writing, Romano Molenaar and Jorg de Vos began work on the new volume in 2005 and the new story (which continues directly on from the previous volumes) was serialised in Myx Magazine earlier this year. The album is now out and anyone wishing to see how well the new art team have done can pick up 'De Naval van de Dubbele God' from the Worlds of Don Lawrence website at a very reasonable 6.95 Euros (about £4.85). Imagine that: a 48-page full colour album for under a fiver.

It's in Dutch, of course, but I'm sure there will eventually be a translation as part of the Storm: The Collection series which I've been helping out with for the past few years. We've produced seven volumes to date, collecting the first 14 Storm albums. With the tenth album, Storm really went into overdrive when Martin Lodewijk (who had co-created the series but had only written one of the first nine books) took over the writing full-time. He rebooted the series by shifting the action across the universe to the mysterious Pandarve system. The subsequent books are hugely imaginative SF adventures which, until now, have only appeared sporadically in English: the first Pandarve volume appeared from Titan some years ago; one book was translated for the short-lived Marvel comic, Strip, and two further books were translated for Heavy Metal. (The translations in the Collection books went back to the original Dutch text, by the way, and are newly translated.)

On with the news...

* Nick Abadzis is interviewed about his Laika graphic novel at Playback:stl by J. Bowers (16 October). (link via Journalista)

* Warren Ellis has a short story in Forbes Magazine (15 October). (link via Journalista)

* A sneak peek at the next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book by Alan Moore and Kev O'Neill, The Black Dossier, appeared on the Entertainment Weekly website EW.com. (link via Journalista)

* "Billy the Cat vs. General Jumbo", the story by Kev F. Sutherland and Nigel Dobbyn in this year's Beano Annual has been given the trailer treatment by Kev F. (link via Lying in the Gutters)

Tim Sharman

It's always good to hear from people who have been involved in the comics and magazines that are the main occupation of Bear Alley. The other day I had a note out of the blue from somebody in Warsaw who stumbled across the blog while he was doing a little midnight research. Journalists do that kind of thing.

Tim Sharman was a contributor to Look and Learn back in the 1980s, writing articles for half a dozen issues on the subject of eastern Europe ("including Istanbul, if I recall") for whom he described as "a lovely old-fashioned editor of a lovely old-fashioned paper." I'm sure Jack Parker would be happy to receive the compliment. So, not being shy about being forward, I asked Tim to let me know something about his career ... and here's the result.

Tim -- Timothy John Sharman -- was born in Sussex. He studied Mechanical Engineering and spent several years in the machine tool industry followed by active management experience in Marketing and Advertising plus eight years in music management and record production, all based in London. This was followed by several years working for the BBC as a specialist journalist covering business, education and other issues. As he journolist he has contributed many articles to newspapers and magazines, including The Times, Sunday Times, Geographical Magazine, etc. He has made many radio and television broadcasts and has had his photographs published around the world.

He is also the author of 12 books about Central Europe. He first visited Poland in 1980 doing research for a UK publishing programme which entailed a six month journey, alone and on foot, from the Baltic coast of Poland to Istanbul. He has resided in Poland since 1993 and from 1998 to 2002 worked as a special advisor to the Polish Minister of Labour, writing speeches and liaising between the ministry and foreign investors, organizing conferences and meetings within the programme of the Ministry of Labour's 'Social Dialogue Centre' in Warsaw. He has published more than 30 management books as well as articles for Gazeta Bankowa, Businessman and Newsweek magazines and interviewing international business leaders for radio and TV. His most recent book was about US Congress money invested in Poland.

Tim's wife is Polish and he has twin sons studying at Warsaw Economic University.

Inevitably, our conversation got around to comics, on which subject Tim recalled, "I grew up as a 1940s Beano and Dandy man, moving on to that seemingly forgotten old reliable, The Boy's Own Paper. Wish I had managed to hang on to all mine, but I have lost a lot more than that over the years. One never-to-be-fogotten, life scarring experience which will resonate with you -- aged about twelve, in bed sick, after lights-out, mother catches me reading Hotspur under the blankets with the proverbial torch (black EverReady from a bike), grabs said paper, strides to bedroom window and flings the comic out into the dark. Into the rain! Such moments linger..."

Books
We Live in Poland, with Ewa Donica. Hove, Wayland, Apr 1985; New York, Bookwright Press, 1985.
We Live in East Germany. Hove, Wayland, Aug 1985; New York, Bookwright Press, 1986.
The Rise of Solidarity. Hove, Wayland, Jun 1986; Vera Beach, FL, Rourke Enterprises, 1987.
Explore Sussex: The Coast, Countryside and Heritage [photographs], by David Arscott. Newbury, Local Heritage Books, 1986.
Poland: A Picture Memory. London, Columbus, May 1988; New York, Crescent Books, Mar 1991.
Hungary: A Picture Memory. London, Magna Books, 1990; New York, Crescent Books, Mar 1991.
Budapest: City Guide. London, Collins, 1991.
Prague: A Pitkin Guide with a map. Andover, Pitkin Pictorials, Apr 1992.
Germany: A Picture Memory [photographs], with others. London, Magna Books, Jun 1993.
The Castle of Prague and Its Treasures. London, Flint River Press, Nov 1994.

(* My thanks to Tim for sharing some memories with the world.)

Juan Espacio

Here are a few more covers for Juan Espacio, based, I suspect, mostly on illustrations from Ron Turner episodes of Rick Random. Some of the images look awfully familiar.

But it wasn't just Macabich redrawing covers: here's another one by an artist who signs himself Jorge Fondoliso(?) from the same series.

Juan Espacio seems to have been a regular character, although I'm not certain to any degree how many stories he featured in or whether he was part of an anthology series (Aventuras Ilustradas Ferma) that also included other characters (much the same as in the UK originals).

I do know that some British series were syndicated into Spain by Bardon Art as I was told this by Barry Coker a couple of years ago. He also mentioned that there was some difficulties because of trade restrictions. I've speculated that there may have been some technical difficulty with the printing process that might have forced Macabich to create new colour covers; however, there may equally have been a political dimension which resulted in Spanish pocket library artwork being imported from Spain for reprinting in the UK (by Pearson/Newnes) and British artwork being exported to Spain in payment. Weirder things have happened.

Juan Espacio
Published by Ediciones Ferma, c.1958
07 Juan Espacio y El Misterio de los Sabios de Sparecidos
12 Sabotaje en el Espacio [see cover above]
17 Mision Peligrosa
21 Juan Espacio y Los Piratas del Espacio
28 El Misterio del Mundo Glacial
33 Juan Espacio y El Planeta del Terror
40 Juan Espacio y el Misterio del Mundo Robot

(* Images found around the net -- the best of the above were found at the blog of Juan Navarro.)

The copying of covers wasn't limited to Super Detective Library. This little thread started when Jose Manuel Ruiz dropped me a line asking about a couple of covers he'd spotted on Spanish comics which reprinted Battler Britton covers from Thriller Picture Library. Tommy Batalla translates as "Battler Tommy" or possibly "Battling Tommy"... Tommy being a slang term for British soldier popular in the First World War (see Wikipedia for various explanations of its origins).

Tommy Batalla also appeared in another Ferma series, Hombres Valientes which also included reprints of Dick Daring from Thriller.

(* Thanks to Jose for the scans.)

Comic Cuts - 14 October

I'm just back from seeing Run, Fatboy, Run which would have been a lot better if the movie hadn't been been so closely modelled on Rocky and Simon Pegg so closely modelled on me, for, indeed, I am that heavy smoking, unfit, commitment-shy mess of a human being.

However, I draw the line at lazy, which I hope I'm not. And the good news... the first draft of the next index -- to be entitled The Thriller Libraries -- was finished this afternoon. I still need to go through it with a fine toothcomb to check for errors but it's essentially all there. 21,000 words. Some of them good.

Just to show you how far we go to bring you new information, I've just been talking to a guy in Spain about a series of Spanish pocket libraries that reprinted some material from the British libraries. Jose has just begun picking up some of the later issues of Thriller Picture Library and had noticed that some of the covers to Spanish comics in his collection bore a remarkable resemblance to some from the TPL. It seems that swipes were quite common as it reminded me of one I'd spotted a while ago...

The Super Detective cover was by James McConnell (a rare excursion into SF) and the issue of 'Juan Espacio' cover was by Jorge Macabich. Odd that Macabich would be swiping as he was a more than capable artist who drew many episodes featuring the Kansas Kid in Cowboy Comics Library.

With the introduction almost out of the way, the next step is to get to grips with some of the additional material we will be including (various related annuals and books, for instance) which I'll be cracking on with over the next week or so. Also seeing if we can resolve some of those niggling mystery artists that we've still to identify.

Not much in the way of news from elsewhere as I've not had time to look. However, I do think I've been a bit remiss in not mentioning Alex Fitch's Panel Borders podcasts. If you've not heard them, Alex does a show on Resonance FM called 'I'm Ready For My Closeup' which covers a broad range of visual media subjects, including comics. He also does the podcast-only 'Panel Borders' show which has, over the past few months, included interviews with Steve Yeowell, Glenn Fabry, John McCrea, a two-parter with David Hine and Frazer Irving, David Brawn (of HarperCollins) and a two-parter with Andrzej Klimowski (author of the 'silent graphic novels' The Depository and The Secret).

Panel Borders is now being broadcast at 5 pm on Resonance FM on Thursdays as part of a segment called Strip! if you want to catch it live, but if you're lazy like me (damn!) you'll catch the podcast, which you can find on Alex's 'I'm Ready For My Closeup' webpage. The latest show has been an hour-long interview with Leah Moore and John Reppion and, on Monday (15 October, 4.30pm), will be a repeat of an interview with Neil Gaiman about adapting Stardust for the big screen and various other topics.

Alex told me recently that he's planning to stock up on interviews this weekend at the Birmingham show so there should be plenty to look forward to.

* Just spotted a notice on the Forbidden Planet International blog that Knockabout are doing a limited edition hardback of From Hell by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell. As my softcover edition is once more out on loan and starting to show a few signs of stress from being lent out so often I'm thinking I need this book. I notice the softcover edition from Knockabout seems to be doing very well from Amazon.co.uk.

* More on Robin Hood from Steve Flanagan's Gad, Sir! Comics! blog where he notes some comments by the late Angus Allan about his time writing 'Robin of Sherwood' for Look-In and how he was requested to... lose the bows and arrows to make the strip less violent.

* A tribute comic to the old Fleetway horror title Scream! is in the works and the title is looking for artists according to this message from assistant editor John Owens.

* Neil Gaiman writes about Stardust in 'Happily ever after' for The Guardian (13 October)

* The Observer has been running a competition to create a comic strip short story with the winners just announced (The Observer, 14 October). I've not been able to find the winner posted but the article has led to some discussion about graphic novels on Robert McCrum's Observer Books blog.

The Professionals

(* Another feature from Jeremy Briggs, this one covering the topic of a little-known comic strip TV tie-in...)

THE PROFESSIONALS

On a similar note to the piece on The Moon Stallion, here is another little known comic strip associated with a television series, although not a telefantasy one this time. While it was made by Avengers Mark One Productions, the people behind The New Avengers, The Professionals was a much grittier series than its predecessor, being broadcast at a later time of night. While it did have seven annuals published to tie in with it, it never seemed like a typical subject for a strip in a children’s comic.

The main reference book on the series entitled simply The Complete Professionals by Dave Rogers does contain a short listing of Professionals merchandise but lists no comic strips. For that matter neither does the officially sanctioned fan website in its much more detailed merchandise section.

In 1981 D C Thomson created a comic magazine called Tops as an equivalent to the much better known Look-In. Like Look-In, Tops was a mixture of TV, film and pop music related comic strips, articles and pin ups and was, initially at least, aimed at both boys and girls. The first issue was dated 10 October 1981 and in addition to The Professionals included comic strips of Little and Large and Adam Ant, a strip entitled 'The Horse That Came From The Sea' based on the book 'Khazan' by Joyce Stranger , a school photostrip called 'The Witch Of Westwood High', and a home front World War Two strip entitled 'Kid’s Army'.

The Professionals strip began in Tops issue 1 as three pages of black and white art telling a complete story each week. The art did bear reasonable likenesses of Lewis Collins as Bodie, Martin Shaw as Doyle, the late Gordon Jackson as their boss Cowley, and even their Ford Capri car which to many fans is the fourth Professional.

The strip must have been popular enough with the readers for multi-part stories were soon introduced allowing a little more depth to be added to the plots and by issue 15 one page of colour had been added. In addition to the comic strip there were features on the series actors and at least one painted centrespread.

Tops would change its name to TV Tops over the course of its two year life with The Professionals still being featured into its second year. However while advertising itself as ‘Tops For Guys’n’Girls’ in its early days the only other D C Thomson publications it advertised were girl’s titles such as Jackie, Blue Jeans and Patches. One would assume that it became more even more “For Girls” towards the end of its run as the title that it was amalgamated into was Suzy. The last TV Tops issue was dated 28 January 1984.

Of course Tops wasn’t the only comic that had a Professionals strip in the early 1980s. It may have been a one-off but the UK version of MAD did cover the men from CI5 as well, with 'The Not So Professionals' appeared in issue 232 in August 1981. This black and white five page strip was written by Neil Bailey with art by Dave Stoten, who also produced the painted cover. The story, such as it is, involves our heroes chasing an assassin while discussing the more repetitive aspect of the series. Featuring chases followed by pauses before bursting into rooms, it had cameos by Eddie Shoestring, a BBC detective of the time, Shaw Taylor from Police 5, and Paul Daniels who wanted to assassinate Terry Wogan(!), plus a nod to the real series heritage with Steed and Purdey from The New Avengers.

Comic Cuts

After the success of the book signing on Sunday, David Roach and I will be appearing at the ICA as part of the Comics Britannia Rule! day on Sunday, 4 November, at 4 pm. This is a Q&A event so we need lots of people along to fill an hour with questions -- long questions with short answers would be ideal for those of us who get a little stage-fright. We're the warm-up act before the main show, starting 5.30, where you'll get to see Pat Mills grilling Gerry Finley-Day about 'Slave Girls of War Orphan Farm'.

Some news items I've spotted this evening...

* The Forbidden Planet International blog is reporting that Bryan Talbot's Alice in Suderland has sold 10,000 copies since it was published in April and is about to go into its third printing.

* Steve Flanagan recalls Jane, the short-lived live-action TV show with cartoon backgrounds which wonderfully evoked the old war-time Norman Pett comic strip. Even better, he points readers to YouTube where someone has posted the first five-episode series (albeit from a video recording with Danish subtitles). Hopefully (if the embedding works) you should see the first episode below. If not, follow the links: episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4, episode 5.



* Spaceship Away publisher Rod Barzilay gets a nice write-up in the Western Daily Press (9 October) which reveals that his start-up costs for the magazine were £21,000.

* Mike Conroy has written a response to questions raised by Irish comics fan Mike Kinsella about the current problems being faced by Comics International which has only managed three issues in ten months. Mike's letter and Mike's reply can be found at the Forbidden Planet International blog.

* BBC Magazines have launched a Robin Hood fortnightly magazine. Lew Stringer is less than impressed by its busy layout and dumbed-down photo strip. "The presentation is incredibly simplistic, with as little dialogue as possible within word balloons that have tails which annoyingly touch the characters' mouths. (A no-no in lettering.) As if that wasn't dumbed-down enough, each photo panel is not only numbered but features cartoon arrows between each panel to instruct the reader which direction to follow," reports Lew. "What's has happened to children's comics, or to children for that matter, for publications to be so dumbed-down?" he asks.

Well, it's not the children, as they're quite capable of reading a comic from cover to cover without wild layouts or numbers on the panels or arrows pointing the way. And that only leaves the publishers and their editors who seem to think that kids today are incapable of reading a comic.

Rupert Auction

The Rupert Auction last Friday generated a huge response and the various lots sold for a total of over £100,000, including £23,000 and £22,000 for two copies of the 1973 annual with a brown-faced Rupert. (The previous record was £16,000.)

The story behind this rarity is an odd one. Rupert was traditionally drawn with a brown face on covers of the annual Rupert books. In the strips, he always had a white face and, with the 1973 annual, Bestall had produced the traditional brown-faced cover. 12-15 proof copies were produced with Bestall's cover intact.

However, between proofing and printing, somebody in the production department of the Daily Express changed the colour of Rupert's face and boots so that they became white on the rest of the print-run which, at the time, was over 100,000 copies.

Ahead of the auction, Amy Brenan, assistant auctioneer and valuer at Dukes (pictured above), estimated that the total sale could amount to £50,000.

Info. from Dorset Echo (14 September), Daily Express (8 October).

ABC Show Book Signing

David Roach (left) and I, signing books at the ABC show today. I'll write more later once I've had a couple of cups of coffee.

I'm back -- caffeine levels have been restored to something approaching normal and there's quite a lot to cover.

After the usual Sunday transport fiasco of replacement bus services and not being able to get into Liverpool Street, I managed to get to the Royal National around 10.45 -- and hour and a quarter before the doors opened. Geoff and the rest of the Book Palace staff had made an excellent job of setting up our signing. David Roach (artist, author, artist-spotter extraordinaire) and I were both at the show to sign heaps of books including copies of our War Libraries index, and some solo projects: David's Aarrgghh! It's War and my own Unleash Hell and Death or Glory.

The backdrop of original Fleetway war libraries artwork (above) made for the perfect setting, although the sheer number of books (below) was a bit daunting. And that's just the War Libraries. We also made space for copies of all four of the Carlton Commando reprints since our little area had something of a war theme, although nobody took us up on our offer to forge George Low's signature.

With the doors open at twelve we went into action and spent the next two and a half hours chatting to anyone who cared to chat, signing books and generally having a whale of a time. Our table became something of a focus for people showing off artwork that they had brought along or had bought at the show: in the photo below you can see David with some pages by the incredible Jordi Penalva.

There were some very pleasant surprises, too. We've been trying to locate any original artwork we can for the Thriller, Cowboy and Super Detective libraries for inclusion in our next book -- and I was very pleased to meet up with Mick Harvey, John Lawrence and Chris Street who have helped out in the past and have all offered to help out again with the present volume. Over the years we've got to know most of the big collectors but every now and then -- today, to be precise -- something unexpected turns up. Like this Sep. E. Scott cover from Thriller which appeared out of the blue today.

What was even more of a surprise was that on the back of the artwork you could see Sep. E. Scott had been roughing out ideas for his next cover, The Children of the New Forest, as can be seen below.

Apart from the odd surprise (and I'll take that kind of surprise any day!), it was nice to see some old friends -- at least one (Roger Berry) busy finding goodies that will be included in the third volume of the libraries series -- and bump into folk who have been a tremendous help with advice and information over the years (Phil Rushton springs to mind). A lot of the research carried out into British comics is done by a small but dedicated band of people sharing information. You only have to look in the acknowledgments to the indexes to see that they haven't been solo projects. I take a lot of the plaudits because (a) I'm shameless and (b) pretty good at organising information, but without that flow of information from a dozen different collectors these indexes wouldn't exist. Today was one of those good karma days when I get to say thank you.

The signing wasn't the only thing going on that focused on British comics: Brian Clarke and his team took over another table and presented the second issue of Crikey!, currently the only fanzine that covers a wide range of British comics -- that's not to denigrate Eagle Times or Spaceship Away but it's nice to have something else out there that will cover The Broons, The Daleks, Terry Bave, Our Ernie, Lady Penelope and a host of etceteras. I've yet to read the whole thing but what I did read on the train on the way home was excellent. I was amongst the complainers that the first issue dedicated too much space to people reminiscing about the titles they'd read as kids -- which is fine as long as it's a part of the magazine, not the whole magazine. Well, issue two has achieved a far greater balance with ten different contributors this time round and more promised for the third issue (in January). Subscriptions to the magazine are available, £15.96 for 4 issues -- from Brian Clarke, 4 Hillsborough Drive, Unsworth, Bury BL9 8LE or you can subscribe via the website.

A couple of new projects were announced at the Show. First up, Peter Richardson, editor of the magazine Achtung! Commando -- you can guess which British comic that's dedicated to -- is working on a guide to the whole series, all 4,000+ issues, which will be published in the same format as our War Libraries book. Given Peter's dedication to Commando and wideranging interviews with many of the editors, artists and writers who have worked on the title, I'm sure it will live up to the book's subtitle: "The ultimate guide to Commando comics".

Last, but by no means least, we can announce that we're also working on The Complete Frank Bellamy Robin Hood. This is a Look and Learn/Book Palace project that has been in the works for a while now (it takes time to scan and clean up that many pages!). The book will reprint the whole of Bellamy's long run of 'Robin Hood and His Merry Men' and 'Robin Hood and Maid Marian' for 15 months in 1956-57 in the pages of Swift. Not, I may add, the abridged version that later appeared in Treasure in the 1960s. This is the complete run.

Both books will be out in 2008; when we have a more precise date I'll let you know. If we get a good tail wind, one or other of them might even be out in time for the next ABC Show and we can do this signing malarky all over again.

Milton Jones

Not long back from seeing Milton Jones at Colchester Arts Centre -- based at a deconsecrated church in the centre of Colchester. Most comedians make some reference to the setting but one of the first gags out of Jones' mouth is that, somewhere, there's a very confused vicar standing in a newly built Arts Centre. The audience warmed to him immediately and stayed with him for the next hour and a half as he rolled out one-liner after one-liner; only two jokes require more than a few seconds to set up and both involve a slight musical interlude; one joke is all set-up (about people arriving late) with no pay-off at all. Come to think of it, one of the longer jokes doesn't actually have a punch line.

This kind of routine burns through jokes at a tremendous rate and it's mostly based around word-play (getting an Action Man for Christmas that, when he pulled the string, said "20, 20, 20, 30, 30, 35..." -- he'd got Auction Man instead), or giving a twist to your expectations of what the punchline might be; you'd expect a lot of groans but the audience was howling with laughter. And if you didn't think much of one joke, there was another 30 seconds later, and another, and another...

It's an excellent show, no politics, no swearing -- just off the wall gags that can leap from the everyday to the surreal in a sentence. If you want a taste of the kind of thing he does, try to catch The Very World of Milton Jones on BBC7 next time it comes round or Another Case of Milton Jones which is currently being repeated on Mondays (11.00 pm) on Radio 4. His style might not be to everyone's taste but it definitely tickled the funnybone of Colchester this evening.

Comics Merchandise

(* Jeremy Briggs ponder on...)

The Most Obscure Piece of Comics Merchandise?

The photo of the Blackpool illumination of "Come On, Steve!", and the little toy of (a rather unrecognisable) Moonie From The Moon some time back got me thinking about what the most obscure comics tie-in or piece of merchandise might be. Here is my contender.

In the late 1960s Triang produced a series of toys under the generic title of SpaceX. These were in the main based on real research aircraft and NASA inspired designs for future spaceships and planetary probes. Some of the toys were small and some were large thereby covering all price ranges from pocket money up to birthday or Christmas presents. One of the box sets, SpaceX Superset 1 from 1969, included a little orange plastic spaceship called Space Patrol 1.

Now taking a big side step, in its first two years the Gerry Anderson comic TV Century 21 had a single page, full colour comic strip of Doctor Who's The Daleks on its back page. Originally illustrated by Richard Jennings, by issue 49 the strip had been handed over to Ron Turner and while his highly stylised art may have not have always been accurate enough for some Doctor Who fans in later years, he created some truly magnificent art in his time on the strip. In issue 92 dated 22 October 2066, which of course was really 1966, the Daleks capture the spaceship Guardian in their Magnetrap and force it to land on Skaro.

Could the designers of the British SpaceX toys have been referencing the TV21 Dalek comic strip for ideas? Those readers who remember the Project Sword in Solo comic and later in TV21, and in its own annual, would recognise some of the other SpaceX toys.

Taking a further side step, the toy and comic strip spaceships bear more than a passing resemblance to the Lockheed YF-12A interceptor version of the awesome SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. In reality only three YF-12As were manufactured as development aircraft for the US Air Force and were eventually passed over to NASA, but that didn't stop Sydney Jordan including some in RAF markings at the start of the Jeff Hawke story 'A Foreign Body' in the Daily Express on 31 August 1964.

Comic Cuts - 6 September

A little bonus news round-up...

* Alan Moore is interviewed in this week's Sunday Telegraph (7 September) by Susanna Clarke. "Alan Moore is a peculiarly unsung triumph of British culture..." she says. Not among comic fans, Susanna; we've been out here singing his praises for twenty-five years. Sadly, it was to a packed audience of ourselves.

* Sychronicity at work: yesterday I mentioned Joking Apart and today's Daily Telegraph has a feature about Robert Bathurst whose latest role is playing Alex, from the Telegraph cartoon, at the Arts Theatre, London, from 11 October.

Comic Cuts - 5 September

A week ago I was wondering whether I'd find any time at all to post anything. I needn't have worried it seems as I've not done too badly, albeit with a little help from Jeremy, who has been a busy lad on behalf of Bear Alley of late. I still have a couple of pieces he's written in hand which will be appearing over the next couple of days.

Why so busy? Well, Look and Learn always takes up the bulk of the day one way or another, either working on the Picture Gallery or, as I've been doing the last couple of days, putting together material for future projects. Then there's the next volume of the Fleetway Index series. The introduction runs to around 16,000 words so far and there's still a little way to go. I've most of the information mapped out but I've been talking to various people, fine-tuning the information and making sure it's correct, and digging through old interviews trying to tease out as much as I can so that the introduction, whilst maybe not being the definitive word, has as much new information as possible. It's rather sad that Angus Allan died recently as he had been a fine source of scurrilous tales of what went on behind the scenes: how one of the sub-editors was fired for losing artwork, or how one of the artists. slightly the worse for drink, managed to lose his own artwork...

Then there's the usual daily flood of enquiries, which can sometimes take a few hours to answer, watching the TV, which I don't do that much because so much of it is utter rubbish, and occasionally going out. This weekend I'm off to see comedian Milton Jones on Saturday and on Sunday it's the ABC Show at the Royal National. David Roach and I will be signing some books if you care to come along.

Having Jeremy fill-in a little has given me the time to read (or look) through a couple of magazines that have arrived this week. New issues of Eagle Times and Fumetto are always welcome arrivals.

The Autumn issue of Eagle Times leads with the continuing revelations by Alan Vince of obscure and occasionally unseen pieces of Frank Hampson artwork including, in this issue, unfinished drawings from Hampson's Ladybird Book about Winston Churchill which would, on this evidence, have looked stunning had it been published.

Other highlights this issue are David Gould's speculations on the authorship of 'Operation Saturn', Will Grenham's trip round Wiltshire in search of real locations of Jack O'Lantern, Will Grenham's article asking 'Whatever Happened to Harold Johns?' and the conclusion of Steve Winders' look at 'Keith Watson's Dan Dare'. This issue was rather more satisfying than the last two and not just because Bear Alley gets a mention. Subscriptions are £22 for four issues from Keith Howard, 25A Station Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 2UA (or £26 overseas, in sterling please).

Fumetto no. 63 makes me wish my Italian was better as I can barely read the damn thing. But I like the pictures and there are features on artists whose names I recognise, including Hugo Pratt and Dino Battaglia and articles by people I know, including Luigi Marcianò, Alberto Becattini (on Chic Young) and Paolo Gallinari, all talented writers of impeccable taste. Subscriptions cost 100 Euros from ANAFI, via Emilia Ospizio, 102 - 42100 Reggio Emilia, Italia.

The same publisher has been producing a series of reprint booklets for some time now and I'm pleased to say that one of the latest features a return home for one of Italy's finest artists, Franco Caprioli. Caprioli worked for various titles in the UK, including Ranger, Lion and Look and Learn and we were able to arrange a reprinting of the 1970 L&L strip 'The Legend of Beowulf' or La Leggende di Beowulf. This is its first Italian appearance, as far as I'm aware, so I'm pleased I had the opportunity to write the book's introduction. I've yet to see a copy of the book itself, but the latest titles in the series are advertised in the current Fumetto, price 25 Euros (not sure what the p&p would be outside Italy).

Here's a few bits of news...

* Nick Abadzis is the subject of the latest Inkstuds podcast, talking about his graphic novel about Laika, the dog who was launched into space in Sputnik-2 on 3 November 1957. He was also interviewed on The World. Can't find a link to the actual broadcast but some of Nick's interview can be found here. Nick was recently the guest blogger at First Second, where he talked about where he gets his ideas from. (Inkstuds link via Journalista)

* Neil Gaiman's collection, Fragile Things, won the British Fantasy Award. Can't remember if I mentioned this before. I'm a bit late with this as the awards were handed out at Fantasycon 2007 in September. Still, it gives me an excuse to link to the Forbidden Planet International blog review of Stardust where Joe reveals that we're in for a treat.

* Richard Johnston's Lying in the Gutters reports that Ian Gibson has recently quite drawing 'Robo-Hunter' for 2000AD. Richard points readers to a thread on the 2000AD message board that has clearly had some personal correspondence from Gibson removed. However, Gibson has confirmed elsewhere that he has not only quit 'Robo-Hunter' but 2000AD entirely.

* If you're wondering what Dez Skinn has been up to since selling Comics International, wonder no more: he's been developing 'Big Ben, The Man With No Time For Crime' as a kid's animated TV show and putting together Comic Art Now, a 200-page "comic art directory" for HarperCollins (US) and ILEX (UK) with samples of artwork from 100 artists working in the US, UK, Brazil, Sweden, Manila, Tokyo. Singapore, Bulgaria... The criteria, says Dez, is quality and, unlike some art directories, artists don't get charged to be included. The book is due in Spring 2008.

* Various sites have reported the death of Manfred Sommer (above), the Spanish artist of 'El Tigre' and 'Frank Cappa'. More information (unfortunately in Spanish) can be found here and here (the latter is a PDF file). Sommer worked for the UK via the Spanish Selecciones Illustrades agency, drawing war and romance strips and covers. Below is an example from War Picture Library no. 144 (1962).

* John Freeman notes (on the Down the Tubes blog) that Dennis the Menace is to star in a new animated series from the BBC. The show is in pre-production and will air on CBBC in the autumn of 2009. The interesting thing is that D C Thomson themselves will be more heavily involved and are also promoting a couple of other new animation shows, Marvo the Wonder Chicken an Wendy (which is a co-venture with another comics publisher, Egmont).

* Steven Moffat, who has written some of my favourite TV of late is writing scripts to three Tintin movies. I've been a fan of Moffat's since Joking Apart (the first season of which is now available on DVD; the show also has its very own website) and his abilities to create creepy, menacing tales is beyond doubt (Doctor Who, Jekyll). Combine that with his talents for characterisation and dialogue (visible even in his earliest writing for Press Gang) and I think you've got a writer in whose hands Tintin should be safe as long as there isn't too much interference from above. This news comes in the same week they announce a new Wallace & Gromit TV episode for 2008. And Spooks is back on the TV on Tuesday the 16th October. Nothing to do with comics but you'll know where I am if nothing gets posted on Tuesdays.

* The Birmingham International Comics Show 2007 is being held next weekend (13th and 14th). If you want to catch up on some of the press releases to find out what's going on, follow this link.

Blue Steel -- The Vulcan's Weapon

(* A sequel to Jeremy Briggs' piece on the Vulcan...)

BLUE STEEL - THE VULCAN’S WEAPON

As a sequel to the piece on the Vulcan bomber in the various comics and picture books, here is a little more information on the Vulcan’s Blue Steel weapon.

The Blue Steel stand-off weapon was a large missile, so large in fact that it didn't completely fit into the bomb-bays of either its Vulcan or the Victor carrier aircraft. To describe it simply it was an early version of a cruise missile which was carried to within 150 miles of the target where the missile was dropped from the aircraft’s bomb bay. The Blue Steel’s rocket motor lit and propelled it at supersonic speed to its designated target. This meant that the bomber could “stand-off” from the target outside of the immediate air defences, therefore in theory making it safer for the aircraft and its crew. The Royal Air Force had 53 operational Blue Steels which were used as part of Britain’s nuclear deterrent from 1963 until 1970 when the Royal Navy's new Resolution-class submarines with their Polaris missiles took over the duty.

Inevitably, since the Vulcan bomber was featured in so many children’s books, its very obvious main weapon was also featured. The Ladybird book with the most about the Vulcan was The Airman In The Royal Air Force from their People At Work series. Written by I and J Haverhand and illustrated almost photographically by John Berry, the picture of the Vulcan in flight shows the plane from below with the Blue Steel semi-recessed in its bomb bay.

Since this Ladybird book was about all the trades of the RAF it also showed fitters working on the Blue Steel’s twin chamber Stentor rocket engine designed and manufactured by Armstrong Siddeley. This was a very accurate representation as can be seen by comparing it to this photo of a Stentor on display at the National Museum Of Flight.

Like the Vulcan the Blue Steel also featured in the Collin’s Orbit Books. Rather than being in one of the three Planes titles, the missile made it into Rockets and Spacecraft Book One where it is shown immediately after being dropped from the Vulcan’s bomb bay with its rockets lighting.

Yet consider the incongruity in describing this weapon in any picture book for children. After all the Blue Steel was designed for one reason, to carry a nuclear weapon to the Soviet Union where it would kill people - a lot of people. The Red Snow nuclear warhead, which each Blue Steel carried, was rated at 1.1 megatons which was 70 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Rather than end on that depressing note let me instead leave you with an illustration of a Blue Steel launch from the 1963 Eagle Annual. Wilf Hardy painted this lovely picture and you will notice that instead of being white like all the rest of the ones featured here, this Blue Steel is actually blue. The illustration depicts a test flight of one of the prototype missiles. Fitted with the less powerful Double Spectre rocket engine, it would have had nothing more explosive in its nose than data recording equipment.

Paperback Fanatic

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s surrounded by books; my Dad was a voracious reader of crime novels and Westerns and I could always find a discarded James Hadley Chase or John Creasey laying around if I had nothing else to read; my Nan read Agatha Christie and lots of historical romances -- I borrowed the former and left the latter behind after a couple of Jean Plaidy's failed to ignite my enthusiasm for the genre.

Since most of my pocket money was being spent on comics (Valiant, TV 21 and others at various times), my saviour as far as paperbacks was concerned was the Chelmsford second hand market where, for 5p or 10p a book, you could buy Richard Allen, Petra Christian, Timothy Lea and a whole host of other authors who rode in on the paperback boom of the 1970s.

Paperback Forum revels in that era's cheap and tawdry paperbacks. New English Library, Sphere and Futura all feature heavily along with the American titles published by Pinnacle who seemed to be the American equivalent, churning out genre titles as quickly as their British counterparts. The articles are a mixed bag, lots on horror titles (which I think is editor Justin Marriott's favourite area) but also on kung-fu books, war novels, articles about artists and literary smut merchants like Paul Tabori. Issue 4 has an interview with Robert Lory, author of the Dracula and Horror Scope series.

The two published issues -- confusingly numbered 3 and 4 -- have 32 and 36 pages respectively, with dozens of cover reproductions. Justin appears to have had two other magazines prior to this: The Paperback Dungeon (which I never saw) and Pulp Mania (which I think I did, although it's lost from sight). I think the numbering continues from Paperback Dungeon, although that's just a guess based on the fact that he mentions the possibility of a Pulp Mania #2 in the editorial of Paperback Fanatic #3.

Ordering details can be found at the Vault of Evil website.