Comic Cuts - 14 August 2020

Yes, it's another one of those pesky videos with some news of our latest releases. Check out the covers in our sidebar to the right, click on the links and get your books at the special offer price of 10% off.

After a few weeks off, Comic Cuts returns. Same old presenter, same old dodgy quality, but some actual news of our newly released Longbow volumes and about future Bear Alley publications.

Comic Cuts - 17 July 2020

There's news of the finalized pagination for the Longbow volumes in this, the last Video Comic Cuts for at least a couple of weeks while I get down to work on the next Bear Alley Books project. If you don't know what that is, you've not been watching these videos.

All my books continue to be available from Bear Alley Books and Comic Cuts will return to it's former written format at Bear Alley next week.

Comic Cuts - 10 July 2020

Here's the latest video chat with news of how the Longbow books are progressing, plus what you can expect to see from the next Bear Alley Books project.

A quick note to say that the Rocket book got a very nice review in the latest issue of Eagle Times which I think I'm going to pull a quote from: "Great value for money ... an entertaining and informative read, which should appeal to any enthusiast of 1950s British comics." What can I say... of you don't yet have a copy and you're an enthusiast of British comics, you can buy a copy of this great value for money title at the Bear Alley Books website.

Comic Cuts - 3 July 2020

The latest Comic Cuts video has the latest news on our two-volume Longbow reprint and a look at who might have been writing the stories.

I'm pleased to reveal the covers to our latest books, which will be released within the next few weeks.

A quick update on a couple of kickstarter projects we've previously mentioned.

The Kickstarter for the ComicScene The History of Comics volumes can be found here. As I write this, the target has just been reached -- £5,309 pledged and the target was £5,280. There's still 27 days to go, but don't leave it to the last minute.

And another that has shot past its target is Ben Cullis' Kickstarter for the second issue of The 77. With ten days to go, the total pledged is almost two and a half times the goal. You can see how well the magazine is doing by following this link, where you, too, can not only put in a pledge for issue two but pick one of the dozens of rewards on offer, from scripts to sketches.

Congratulations to both of these projects.

Comic Cuts - 26 June 2020

News on the pagination, price and contents of the new Longbow books from Bear Alley, plus details of some of our future publications. As always you can find more information on our books at the Bear Alley Books web page, but watch the video to find out the name of my favourite artist.

The book mentioned in the video is The Don Lawrence Westerns, which contains reprints of Tales of Wells Fargo and Pony Express and is still available, although in limited numbers. The book also had a quite attractive German edition. Don is, of course, one of twelve artists of Longbow, the others being Geoff Campion, Keith Shone, Jesus Blasco, Juan Gonzalez Alacreu, R. Charles Roylance, Francisco Cueto, Gerry Haylock, Frank Humphris, Cesar Lopez, Rodney Sutton and Martin Salvador... hopefully something to everyone's tastes!

Comic Cuts - 19 June 2020

Computer woes, a short history of my thirty years trying to put together a Who's Who of British Comics, and why the letter 'S' is so important to the upcoming Longbow books.

Here are the two pages from 1992 that were written for inclusion in The Comic Book Price Guide For Great Britain. Plans were afoot to greatly expand the fourth (1992/93) edition but even with 600 pages compared to the previous edition's 386, there was enough room to include artist bios.

The Blasco piece was recycled from an article written for a fanzine follow-up to to my Mike Western Story (1990) while the other entries were written especially. I think this illustrates one of the problems of doing a Who's Who—a single title like Commando has 140 artists and 180 writers, plus 100 artists who painted covers (although there will be some overlap with artists of internal pages), but that's probably 380 entries required for that title alone. There's almost no overlap with any pre-war titles and most humour titles, and little overlap with Eagle or 2000AD. You can begin to see why I believe a comprehensive record of the creators of British comics and story papers is a multi-volume project.

Comic Cuts - 12 June 2020

This week we reveal the cover to volume two of Longbow, the forthcoming book from Bear Alley and take a brief look at a couple of Kickstarter projects that have just launched, or are just about to be launched.

From Saturday the 13th you can help Ben Cullis put together the second issue of The 77. I don't have full details at the time of writing, but you can find out more by following this link to where the kickstarter will launch [UPDATE: Now launched and open until 12 July].

Tony Foster's The State of Independents Yearbook 2020 is also issue 14 of his ComicScene magazine. Issue 13 (celebrating the 70th anniversary of Eagle and Dan Dare) will be available in comic shops from June 15th, but distribution into newsagents is being delayed until at least August 13th. All upcoming titles and back issues can be obtained from the ComicScene online store.

The Kickstarter for the ComicScene The History of Comics volumes can be found here.

Comic Cuts - 5 June 2020

This week's Comic Cuts video has a cover reveal of the first volume of Bear Alley's next book, due out later this month, and the story of how we ended up looking after a stray dog (don't worry, the story has a happy ending).

You'll hear the story in the video, but here are a couple of pics of our doggy pal, Hamish.

The 77 - An interview with Ben Cullis

Here is the longer version of the interview I did with The 77 editor Ben Cullis, part of which was included in Friday's Comic Cuts column. I've re-edited that section slightly to incorporate a few images, which was my plan all along.

My thanks to Ben for taking the time to chat. Technology – or in my case the limits of the technology available to me – got the better of us on a couple of occasions, but I think this has worked out OK.. Enough for me to consider doing another video interview in the future.

Comic Cuts - 22 May 2020

This week's comic cuts video is a bit different – we have our first video interview with The 77 editor and publisher Ben Cullis, in which he discusses the Kickstarter campaign that launched the comic and what plans he has for the future of the title.

There will be a longer version of the interview posted over the weekend in which Ben discusses his plans for a second title – Blaze – based on the fictional comic created by Steve (Tharg) MacManus in his novel The Sheerglam Conspiracy.

For more on The 77 visit the website or you can find the latest news on Twitter (@77Comic) or Instagram (@the77comic). You can order a copy from Get My Comics.

Comic Cuts - 17 April 2020

Comic Cuts - 10 April 2020

Bryan and Mary Talbot

Bryan and Mary Talbot's talk from this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Simon Bisley - Shock of Green

If you ever wondered what it would be like to watch Simon Bisley painting, this is the movie for you. Shock of Green is nearly two hours long, so settle back with some beer and two, maybe three tubes of Pringles, and click play.