Book Palace Books Wulf - First Reactions

We're starting to receive feedback on all three of the Book Palace Books new releases. Steve Holland has been keeping readers of Bear Alley posted on some of the responses as well as plans for his own Bear Alley Books for which he is now taking pre-orders. As Steve says on his blog, none of these books are exactly going to be gathering the kind of readership that the late Stieg Larsson's books attract, but then the whole beauty of niche market publishing is that you know your readership and you share their enthusiasms. In doing so you make a contract of good faith with them to deliver the kind of book worthy of their time and money.

Never is this requirement more pressing than when publisher and editor go out on a limb to produce a book whose production specs are such that the cost of the book itself will make significant demands on the purse strings of it's target audience.

And never did a book more embody this principle than does Ron Embleton's Wulf the Briton - The Complete Adventures. This book was a joy to work on and was a huge learning curve in terms of all aspects of the production but there comes a moment when you have looked at the last set of proofs, made the final small adjustments and then comes the time to give the red light to the guys in Shenzhen Province to set the presses rolling. Which when one thinks about it for more than a moment is a truly alarming prospect because at this stage there is no going back.

My relief when I finally got to hold one of those very few copies that were air freighted over in early March was palpable, but as I said to Geoff West, who is in many ways the creative force behind BPB, "It doesn't matter really what we think. It's the reaction of the people who have stumped up the readies to buy this book that is really going to count. It's a small world and the opinion of our readership is crucial in this regard."

Well I am pleased, well delighted would be more apt, to say that the reaction we have had has been overwhelming. Despite the high price, people love this book and have been emailing and phoning us up as well as sharing their enthusiasm on discussion groups where it was described on the UK Comics Forum as "The Book of the Century". A slight exaggeration perhaps but very flattering nonetheless.

Here's some of the emails we have received so far:

Dave Gibbons:

Just received the Wulf volume. I'm stunned: I was expecting something wonderful and it exceeded all my expectations!

The repro, the production and the features are all beyond excellent. You should all be very proud of a job very, very well done.

Thanks so much for letting me be a small part of it!

Best

-- Dave


Andrew Skilleter (illustrator and long time friend of Ron Embleton)

Hello Peter,

I meant to mail you yesterday but what with things and going out today it hadn't been done. Just wanted to say my special edition of Wulf has arrived and I am speechless - I am going to reply properly and blog on it  - I never expected anything so original and sumptuous and BIG!  To own this book is a privilege and I know you've worked so hard ...will reply and comment further in a day or two...

Best,

Andrew


David Slinn:

The book itself, Peter, is not only a triumph that does live up to Alan’s (Vince) assessment, and sits very comfortably with your own thoughts on what Alastair achieved with Tomorrow Revisited, but puts the efforts of a particular bête noire well and truly in the shade.  Like Phil Rushton, I’m a bit lost for the right words – but trust you’ll get the picture... ... ...
Will follow this up, when I have absorbed the overall effect of reading it as intended – like a really good book?  For the moment, again many thanks.

David Simpson:

Hi Peter
I'm one of the people who bought your Wulf The Briton book, and I thought that you'd like to know that I'm one very happy customer.  I've read a lot of comic books in my time, plus a lot of collections of old comics, and Wulf is right up there with the best I've read both in content and in the superlative packaging.
I'm not (quite) old enough to have read Wulf first time around (I was born in 1957) but I do have a handful of back issues of Express Weekly, plus a long time liking for Ron Embleton's work.  That's one reason why I bought the book but, truth be told, what prompted me to actually shell out for it were the enthusiasm of a friend of mine, who is just old enough to have read at least the later episodes of Wulf when they came out, and the coverage you gave to it on the Cloud 109 blogsite.  that coverage made it clear that you were going the extra mile (mile?  More like a whole Marathon) to make this a great book.
It is a great book, and I'm so glad I bought it.
Thank you
David Simpson

Alan Stephen:

Received your e-mail from a friend just wanted to thank you for the hard work and dedication put into a book that I'll  enjoy and treasure for a long time - the wonderful Wulf the Briton


Steve Taylor:

Hello Peter,

Just to let you know that today I have received: The Thriller Libraries, Don Lawrence's Westerns AND Wulf the Briton. I will send Geoff a separate Thank You, but I am totally impressed with Wulf - you did great work (which gives me a warm feeling about the McLoughlin venture). The reproduction is super - did you use original artwork?

Andoni from Spain:

Yesterday I have receive my copy of RON EMBLETON'S WULF THE BRITON. It's amazing! Extraordinary beautiful! Big size. Wonderful job with the restoration of the Technicolor. The best comic book of the year.
Now I can rest in peace.
Andoni



In addition to these generous and heart warming emails, we had many phone callers including  David Ashford, Alan Vince and the artist Oliver Frey who all described the book as sumptuous and made particular mention of the sheer size and amazing production values of the book.

But perhaps the most amazing call of all came from Ron Embleton's widow Elizabeth, who was just over the moon with the book and so pleased that Ron's artistry hadn't been forgotten. I think all of us are very firmly of the opinion that artist's of the stature of Ron Embleton will never be forgotten.

 Wulf the Briton © Express Newspapers 2011.

Rupert Bear - A Weird But Compelling Childhhod Icon

Courtesy of Phil Rushton here are some pages from the 1956 Rupert Annual. This is a particularly beautiful example of Alfred Bestall's work. Bestall had inherited the little bear from it's creator Mary Tourtel in 1935, when Tourtel's eyesight started to fail. Bestall was initially taken on a six week trial basis and had to follow the template established by Tourtel as closely as possible. But as time went on he developed the strip into a work of real beauty that easily eclipsed the work of his predecessor.

By the time that this annual appeared Bestall was into his sixties and still working for a relatively modest wage. His work on Rupert required him to provide scripts and artwork for the daily strip that appeared in the Daily Express as well as providing all the work for the annuals, which had first been introduced in 1936 and were a continuing best seller. Prices for these books have steadily risen over the years and a copy of the now very rare first annual in dustjacket will set the collector back a couple of thousand pounds. If you don't believe me click on this link.

Bestall eventually retired from the strip in 1965 but his work is rightly regarded as being the definitive incarnation of Rupert Bear, whose dream like adventures were counterbalanced by a very English middle class gentility. In fact the more one thinks about it the more one can see a certain parallel with the work of Studio Ghibli, where sun drenched meadows attain a dream like intensity and things are never quite as reassuring as they might initially seem.

But enough of my waffle, here are some of those pages and one of my favorite ever endpapers from any Rupert annual.

An interesting aside, but Alfred Bestall was a keen proponent of the art of paper folding - the word origami was unused in the UK at the time these stories appeared. But as you will see there is a weird little character that looks like a man made of paper, which in this case he was. Bestall always contrived to create stories that would allow him to create a folded paper exercise which would be printed in each of the annuals as yet another festive diversion. In fact paper folding became so popular as a result that Bestall was elected President of the British Origami Society after the death of it's founder Robert Harbin.

Rupert Bear © Express Newspapers 2011.

Some Choice Steranko - Tracing Reference Points

Well now I am confuzzlified, after yesterday's posting which was the "shock of the new" via some gentle nudgings from my old friend Simon, today he has sent me some really choice stuff but it's erm...

Yup as I look at it it's definitely old Jaunty Jim Steranko, he of the immaculate Silver Quiff, which is one up on even Mr DoorTree's Fedora. I mean at a pinch you can always go and buy a Fedora but a Silver Quiff requires more follicular muscle than I can currently run to.

But ... and here is the important Beee Yewwww Teeeee as in BUT ... these gorgeous images are from the 1970's, admittedly late 1970's but Godammit Simon!!!

These are falling into comfort zone territory Simon as in your comfort zone. Planet Earth calling Simon ... are you receiving me???

Ahhh ... yes OK I see mmmmm ... these are tracing back Dave Johnson's reference points. Yup I gotcha. You do realize while all this is going on Malcolm Norton is digging and delving for Gilray and Phiz cartoons?

OK I'm off to cultivate some follicles so I can out quiff Jaunty Jim.

Meanwhile enjoy these exquisite artworks by  the one and only James Steranko.

Dave Johnson And Some of the Most Amazing Cover Art Ever

My dear old chum Simon hath been in contact again. He was pleased to see an attempt by your old blogmeister to make some kind of effort at journeying beyond the comfort zone of Embleton, Kennedy, McLoughlin and Commando but postings on Penny Dreadfuls or Penny Bloods, were he thought perhaps a little too retro.

"You  need to occasionally post something a little more contemporary Peter dear boy, otherwise ..." and here Simon paused for effect, " your blog will slowly turn into a bungalow smelling faintly of wee"

Yes, I know what he meant, my mind was cast back to the kind of things the late comics historian, Denis Gifford would get enthused about when he ran a column in the Society of Strip Illustrator's Journal during the 1970's. Looking back on it the 1970's was a veritable golden age of exciting comic art and writing all of which seemed to go over wayyyyy over Denis' head as he posted about artists who were at the peak of their form in the 1930's and all of whom had names like Wilf, Reg, Alf, Bert or Roy. In fact I used to think why doesn't Denis ever want to write about Ron Embleton, Frank Bellamy or Ian Kennedy? The trouble was he knew them, they were part of his generation but because they were his contemporaries they hadn't created the comics of his boyhood. There lay the problem - nostalgia creates it's own "golden age".

So here in the interests of keeping in contact with now as opposed to yesternow is some of the most inventive and bedazzling cover art to ever grace any comic, anytime, anywhere as we look at the art of Dave Johnson one of the rising stars of mainstream comics. It's artists like Johnson who help to pump new life into what can be a very cliche ridden format by honing their artistry and stimulating the viewer with the strength of their ideas.

All images © Marvel Comics 2011 except for Abyssal Plain © Dark Horse Comis 2011.