ITEM: A couple more books have found their way onto my groaning bookshelves. A mere one hundred people will own this hardback edition. I’m sure many more will grab the paperback. A quick glance reveals that the logo was designed by Todd Klein. The book was printed in Canada. And there is a vast Bibliography at the back. Scarily I seem to own much of the weird and wonderful stuff in that list (although all my 2000ADs and Sounds newspapers were burnt in the great cull of ‘86 !!). I don’t have any of the Discography though, and I wasn’t aware that Alan produced some artwork for the 1982 B.J and the Bear Annual !! Now might be the time for the completists out there to snap up one from their local Charity Shop/eBay whilst they are still 25p each ??
Although, unlike some people, I don’t believe it to be the centre of the Universe with all ley-lines converging there, I do think that some magic has emanated from Northampton over the last 30 years.
ITEM: Here is another book limited to 100 copies. However this is more probably to do with the steep cover price. And the fact that they will be hard-pressed to find 100 people like me that are actually still interested in what must be the most obscure comics on the planet !!
This book is all about the long-forgotten British comics of the 1950s from the small publishers who tried to copy the American comics of the day in both size and format. These pale imitation super heroes were sometimes entertaining but more often just plain rubbish. But looking back through the prism of time fascinating all the same. At 464 pages this work is a labour of love by compiler Mike Higgs. Yes the very same guy who wrote and drew the unique and funny “The Cloak” back in Odhams “Pow” comic in the 1960s. What I’d like next Mike would be a collection of “The Cloak”. How about it ??
