Heros the Spartan—On It's Way!

We have sensibly sat on our hands over the last few weeks before making any further announcements about the eagerly awaited Book Palace Books edition of 'Frank Bellamy's Heros the Spartan'. But I am pleased to be able to say that the problems our printer was experiencing with certain aspects of the production of the leather edition of this monster  book have now been resolved to everybody's satisfaction and barring typhoons, tsunamis, krakens or Somali pirates the container vessel with several palettes of 'Heros' will be arriving on  these shores early next month and is slated to arrive at Book Palace HQ on October 10th.

But while we are on the subject of 'Heros', I thought I would share with you some of the restorative work that went into preparing the scans we made of the original comics ready for publication.

Although the firm of Eric Bemrose who printed the Eagle and all of Bellamy's work on 'Heros' were rightly regarded as being the best in the business when it came to printing photo gravure comics and periodicals, they did slip up from time to time and aside from the ever present problem of out of register colour pages, some of their work towards the latter part of 'Heros' run did suffer a bit as can be seen in these examples, where in the spread that occurs near the start of 'The Axe of Arguth', you can see that the colours have over saturated (particularly the yellow) to the point where a lot of Bellamy's line work is getting obscured by the resultant murk. If you look at the close up head you can see this occurring.

What we had to do was to haul back a bit on the colour and where detail had been lost, carefully select the black line and create a separate layer for the line so that the art could be successfully restored and Bellamy's work seen as he intended it.

Similarly later in the same story there is a sequence where over printing of black has created a rich and dense black as the artist would have intended, but where there is no over printing the black appears greyed out. Again we had to carefully select the affected areas and reintroduce the missing elements to make the black as rich as intended, thereby removing the distracting patchiness which is particularly evident on the detail of Heros in extremis.

I won't bore you by showing you all the stages of the restoration involved in each of the spreads but this epic comic strip is, we believe, worthy of this attention to detail.

Sometimes the best endeavors are worth the extra wait.

Heros The Spartan—Proof Positive!!!

We have now reached that very exciting moment with Book Palace Book's epic 'Heros The Spartan' project, when we finally have a first glimpse at the printed proofs of what the team have been working on for the last eighteen months.

There is a lot of careful checking to be done, but the printed pages are looking nothing short of stunning, with razor sharp repro of the scanned 'Heros' pages looking every bit as vibrant as the day the were first published in the Eagle some fifty years ago.

Next week we should be receiving the mock-ups of the leather slip-cased edition, which crams in an extra 24 pages scanned from the original art in a sumptuous leather binding, but for now our energies are focused on any last minute tweaks that need to be made to ensure that this gi-normous book (each spread of 'Heros' is reproduced at the same size as the comic was printed) is as perfect as it deserves to be.

This had been a tremendous undertaking and we have had a lot of help from dedicated Bellamy collectors from around the globe. The introductory chapters, which feature Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons interview with the great man (many thanks to both Dez and Dave), also include mouthwatering reproductions of key examples of Bellamy artwork, which are largely sourced from high resolution scans and add an extra zing to the whole production.

The location of Bellamy Heros originals was as problematic as can be anticipated with artwork of this vintage. The search was ongoing throughout the eighteen months that this project occupied us and we did manage to unearth a lot of Heros artwork that had remained unseen for decades. One of the spreads high on our list was, of course, the famous massacre of the fifth legion, which was one of the strip's many high spots in terms of artistry. We did locate the spread in question, but the collector had the artwork framed and was extremely reluctant to let us near it, let alone prize it out of it's frame. After a lot of pleading, he did provide us with a photo which captures the main action of the scene and which was good enough to run in the book, we would have loved a razor sharp scan of the entire spread, but we were really pleased to be able to reproduce at least a sizeable chunk of the artwork and at the same time we managed to locate another three spreads which again have added a lot of extra lustre to what is already a very desirable book.

This is without doubt, the most ambitious project that Book Palace Books has invested in, and the production costs reflect this. It is, therefore doubly, heartening to see such a healthy demand from people who are determined to ensure that they don't miss out on what is a very limited print run (600 copies of the regular edition and 120 copies of the numbered leather edition), to the extent that the sheer volume of pre-publication orders we have received have just about cleared our production costs.

So to all of you who have pre-ordered and all of you who have helped in our quest to make this the ultimate tribute to the incredible artistry of Frank Bellamy—a very big thank you.

The  waiting is nearly over!

Of Heros, Illustrators and Sundry Other Doings

Firstly, I must apologize for the overlong absence of a new posting on this dear old blog of mine. But work, work, work - much of which, in a somewhat ironic fashion, emanates from this blog. Insofar as my blogging activities have led me (at the behest of the Svengali - like Geoff West and his assemblage of Elven executives - aka the good people at the Book Palace) to commit my enthusiasms to the printed page.




This is a very circuitous way of saying that the blog has been in a state of inactivity, whilst yours truly races to meet publishing deadlines for illustrators issue 3 and Heros the Spartan. The former is now print ready and with the aid of my talented team, including my associate editor Bryn Havord, who has brought a lifetime's experience of working as an award winning Fleet Street art director and designer to the mix. Before Bryn acquiesced to come on board, I was only hazily aware of the devices and disciplines essential to ensure that readers absorb information in as pleasurable a manner as possible. I thought "widders and orphans" populated the streets of Dickensian London and Midge's dicks were impossible to detect without the aid of an electron microscope - not to mention the dynamics of the running turn - essential to maintaining readership momentum and not just something for the cinder track. Bryn has not only put me straight on these essentials but as art director and associate editor of Woman's Mirror in the 1960s he was also a prime mover and shaker when it came to commissioning many of the artists who were creating a real revival of illustration in the pages of UK and US magazines. Not only does he know a lot of these artists but he is a truly engaging writer, which was one of the things that really hooked me when I discovered some of his postings on Leif Peng's fabulous blog; Today's Inspiration.

Meanwhile as Steve Holland has already flagged up on the Book Palace Blog, issue 2 of illustrators is now out and is regarded by everyone that has got back to us, as even stronger than issue 1, not that we are in any way ashamed of issue 1, as in all these exercises, we are on a steep learning curve and there is always room for improvement, particularly in the early stages of a project such as this.

Heros, I am pleased to say, is now very close to completion, we are just finalizing some of the additional images to be included in the leather edition (second of the two cover images) and adding a few captions to the introductory section of the book - all other work is now complete - phew!!!

Lastly, but by no means leastly, Book Place Books are taking a stand at the Science Museum hosted Works on Paper Art Show, which is running from this Wednesday 31st January from 2.00 pm - 9.00 pm and then from Thursday 11.00 am - 9.00 pm and then Friday 11.00 am - 8.00 pm, Saturday 11.00 am - 6.00 pm and finally Sunday 11.00 am - 6.00 pm. Tickets for two can be obtained free by visiting the Book Palace Website. This show is a real delight and is an essential visit for all collectors and enthusiasts of illustration and artwork for books, comic strips, newspaper strips and all aspects of illustration in it's widest sense.

Heros' Galley Sails Closer...

I've got to the stage where it's no longer worth apologizing for the erratic nature of recent blog postings. Work, work, work... it is a constant imperative, but the good news is much of it is aimed at the very constituency that this blog addresses itself to.

We are busily working on illustrators 3 and 4 and when that isn't taking up my time, there is Book Palace Books forthcoming ultimate Frank Bellamy Heros the Spartan collection, which is starting to take shape.

As we have previously revealed, we took the decision to reproduce the Heros pages the same size as they first appeared in the Eagle comic some fifty years ago. This means that each spread will run over two pages, the binding on this book is such that each spread will open out without information getting lost in the gutter. So to maintain this feel and emphasize the panoramic feel of the book I have designed the whole book to reinforce this cinematic feel.

Here's some spreads to show you what I  mean and also give you a feel for how the book will look. Please note that there are some captions missing and some spreads might well change–but only in a minor way: