Bear Alley: Comic Cuts

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS

AVAILABLE NOW!
The Bill Kellaway Quartet by Gwyn Evans
Click here for details and payment options.
"The narrative is packed with action and I think readers will have a lot of fun with [Hercules, Esq.] and there are some genuine moments of laugh out loud humour. I can understand why the film rights for this book were snapped up and even today I could envisage it being a very enjoyable one-off TV series." — Cross Examining Crime.
"Although there’s some criminous stuff going on and Bill often finds himself vying against or working with various lawbreakers, the stakes are never really life and death in this book ... There is some slam-bang action, though, as well as a smart, really likable protagonist and a lot of really clever plot twists, but what really makes HERCULES ESQ. work is Evans’s style, which is consistently breezy, fast-paced, and funny." — James Reasoner, Rough Edges.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Comic Cuts - 11 June

Another week of sorting through boxes of stuff. Slowly I'm dismantling my life and looking forward to the day when I can, er... mantle it again. The situation at the moment is that we've still got to find somewhere to live, although we've found one house with strong possibilities about five or six miles away from where we are now. A bit more compact but workable. We're still looking at other places—I'm writing this early Thursday evening because we're away in about 90 minutes to look at another house.

Not finding a place is on the negative side of things. The steady stream of interruptions from people traipsing through the house we're moving from is another negative. On the positive side is, after years of saying "when I get time I'll sort that lot out", I'm finally sorting a load of stuff out. I boxed up my first box of books today—ones that I'm intending to keep—and two boxes of books that I'm selling off. I'm aiming to sell 1,000 books, which is a random guess at how many will have to go so that we can fit into wherever we move. Probably around 10% of my collection, but it does include a lot of larger volumes that I've picked up over the years as reference for articles or introductions I've written; the books then sit in piles or on top of shelves (rather than on the actual shelf itself) just in case I ever need them again. Well, they're being sold off, along with a load of old film magazines that I've probably not looked at since I bought them.

Junking all this accumulated kipple is quite invigorating. Another 5 bin bags of rubbish out this week bringing the total to 35, some magazines sold which raises a bit of much-needed cash (about £150 so far) to pay for the removal men (lowest guesstimate I've heard so far is £800).

And I keep finding things I'd forgotten about... like a copy of the novelisation of Road to Perdition which I missed from the comics' novelisations listing I compiled a few months back. I wonder what else is lurking in the corners of my office?

With so much going on I've been a bit remiss keeping up with any news. The only bit of news that really sprang out at me this past week is that Egmont are releasing a Roy of the Rovers World Cup Special on 16 June, which should be available at all good newsagents and supermarkets. It's a 52-pager with five strips from the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Price £3.99.

Dez Skinn has recently published a nice piece about his time at IPC Magaiznes working on Whizzer & Chips, Cor!! and Buster. Have a root around his website as there's plenty more to read and Dez is always worth reading.

And finally... this week's skateboarding otter (aka our random scan) is a book cover by none other than Carlos Ezquerra. This dates from 1979, part of Ward Lock Educational's graded reading series, and was written by Michael Morpurgo, later (2003-05) Children's Laureate and a multiple award winner for his childrens' books. My thanks to David Roach for sending over the scan.