Book Palace Books

King Solomon's Mines

2012-01-31T22:04:00.002Z

One of the upcoming titles from Book Palace Books is Adventure Stories of H. Rider Haggard, a collection of three of Haggard's most famous tales. One of the three tales that we have yet to feature here is C. L. Doughty's "King Solomon's Mines".

Doughty has just been the subject of a new book, Pages from History, which will shortly be available to buy directly from The Book Palace. Whilst this concentrates on Doughty's historical illustrations and strips, "King Solomon's Mines" is a superb example of one of his later literary adaptations. A follower in the footsteps of the classic adventure illustrators like H. M. Brock, Doughty proved himself a worthy successor when he became one of the chief adaptors of classic novels for Look and Learn in the 1970s.

The strip has been scanned from original artwork and the lettering restored for this reprint and, as a tease, here is the opening episode of the 32-page adaptation, one of the best adaptations of the story I have seen.

(* artwork © Look and Learn Ltd.)

Treats for 2012

2011-12-31T10:03:00.002Z

Well, the cat has been well and truly let out of the bag. Book Palace Books are to publish Heros the Spartan in 2012. The book will collect together all of the Frank Bellamy episodes of the strip in a deluxe hardback... and if you've seen the Book Palace's Wulf the Briton you'll have some clue as to what we mean by deluxe.

Price and publication date are still to be worked out — the pages have to be carefully restored and every effort is being put into tracking down as much of Bellamy's original artwork as possible. We will, of course, keep you up to date with any news as it arrives.

In the meantime, let's not forget that we have a few other projects up our collective sleeves, not least of which is Illustrators magazine, which should debut in the Spring of 2012. Each issue will be a gorgeous collection of some of the best artwork you'll ever see, with extensive features on the likes of Fortunino Matania, John Millar Watt, Chris Foss, Giorgio De Garpari, Denis McLoughlin and Ian Kennedy, to name just a tiny handful.

And then there are books. David Ashford was kept busy in 2011 penning The Art Noir of Denis McLoughlin, which will be the ultimate collection of McLoughlin's gorgeous covers for T. V. Boardman. And my own humble contribution to these upcoming treats is Adventure Stories of H. Rider Haggard, a collection of three strips by Jesus Blasco, Mike Hubbard and C. L. Doughty.

Something, we hope, for everyone.

Happy New Year!

There Came...

2011-12-13T23:36:00.000Z

A Once Mighty Empire

2011-12-12T08:11:00.002Z

Conspired Against...

2011-12-11T13:23:00.004Z

And the Very Elements Themselves...

2011-12-10T14:57:00.000Z

When the Forces of Darkness...

2011-12-09T07:41:00.003Z

Coming In 2012

2011-12-08T10:15:00.001Z

Kelman D. Frost

2011-11-30T08:08:00.001Z

At the tail end of the recent reprint of Wells Fargo and Pony Express published by Book Palace Books, we published short biographical sketches of the author and artist. Don Lawrence shouldn't need any introduction to fans of British comics but the author, Kelman Frost, might not be a name familiar to many.

He was the author of a number of books for children — forty according to one source, although only sixteen are known for sure — but his main output over many years was uncredited. He was one of the haldful of anonymous authors who filled the pages of D. C. Thomson's boys' story papers. Alongside the likes of Gilbert Dalton and Reginald George Thomas, he filled the pages of Adventure, Rover and Wizard with an endless stream of stories and, latterly, comic strips.

Altogether, Frost estimated that he had written almost 70 million words of fiction, refuelling his imagination with trips to Europe and North Africa. It was not unusual for him to have two series of stories — and occasionally as many as four series — running alongside each other in the same paper. At the height of their sales, Frost was reaching as many as five million readers a week through Thomson's titles alone.

Frost wrote some wildly imaginative stories. He penned tales about 'The Electric Shadow' for Adventure, related many of the schoolboy highjinks at 'Red Circle School' in Rover, revealed 'The Truth About Wilson' and reported on the exploits of 'The Wolf of Kabul' for Wizard. Over the years he also wrote stories featuring many other famous Thomson characters: 'Mogyn the Mighty', 'Strang the Terrible', 'Black Bob' and 'The Red Macgregor'.

Frost also turned his pen to writing comic scripts, although his full output is unlikely ever to be known. His earliest known work was the adventures of 'Don Conquest' for Mickey Mouse Weekly, which ran from 1954 to 1957, although it seems likely that his main comic output was probably for The Hotspur, relaunched as a comic (The New Hotspuri) in 1959.

Frost, whose full name was Christopher Kelman Delgity Frost, was born in Plumstead, Kent, in 1899 and died at his hom in Bournemouth in 1972. His writing career spanned some fifty-seven years, having begun as a junior reporter with the North Wilts Herald at the age of 16. His first fiction began appearing soon after, written in the trenches whilst he served with the London Rifle Brigade. From 1922 he was able to write full time and for the next fifty years entertained children the length and breadth of the country with his action-filled stories.

The Wells Fargo/Pony Express is available from Book Palace Books.

Illustrators - Work in Progress

2011-11-29T07:23:00.000Z

( The following post has been unashamedly cribbed from my Cloud 109 Blog, but just to cut down on incipient RSI, I have cut and pasted it to the Book Palace Blog as it's content would certainly seem to validate this stratagem.)

The perils of blogging, you start out with the best of intentions - a blog posting everyday. After a while you come to the awful realization that you simply cannot post interesting and engaging topics everyday without treating you blog as an unpaid career and forsaking other activities to ensure that you continue to maintain the (hopefully) high standard you have set yourself.

So then comes the facilitators of daily blogging. In the case of blogs such as this one, where the subject matter is trash culture, you can run serialized comic strips, but the problem is that apart from issues of copyright and the nightmare of possible litigation from unexpected sources ( The Curious Case of Walter Potter and the Stuffed Animals that Bite), there is also the fact that there are already a lot of bloggers providing access to material that would otherwise have faded from the collective consciousness many years ago.

Hence the intermittent postings that have become the norm for this blog.

For which I offer my unreserved apology, especially to Malcolm whose days toiling on the fiery plains of Sewth Efrika are made a mite more tolerable by his attachment to the cybernetic umbilicus of the UK and the many blogs such as this one, that remind him of the warm beer and mist shrouded cobblestones of dear Old Albion. Ah yes Albion (cue Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band playing Eric Coates In Town Tonight) enlivened by it's stoic populace who no matter how hard times may be are always ready to share a cuppa char and a tin of bully beef. I can almost see a tear gently coursing down Malcolm's chiselled features as he peers at his computer screen.

Of course there is another reason for the sporadic nature of my postings and that is the new and soon to be launched Illustrators, issue 1 of which will include an interview with Ian Kennedy along with a really superb feature on the life and work of Denis McLoughlin by his friend and biographer David Ashford. Both of these articles I know will be of some consolation to Malcolm as he toils purposefully in the scorched veldt.

We have in truth some really amazing features coming at you over the next few years, with contributions from artists, designers, agents and biographers, who will add so much more enjoyment to the superbly reproduced (and much of it hitherto unseen for decades) artwork that we will be running in each and every issue of Illustrators.

So in the meantime here's some more samples of work in progress just to get your illustration hungry juices flowing.

Sep E. Scott - reused covers part 2

2011-10-30T07:32:00.001Z

Continuing our look at the reprinted Robin Hood cover art by Sep E. Scott. The original Thriller versions of these images can be found in our index, The Thriller Libraries.

Buster Adventure Library 22 (reprints TPL 222)

Buster Adventure Library 24 (reprints TPL 202)

Buster Adventure Library 26 (reprints TPL 186)

Buster Adventure Library 28 (reprints Robin Hood Annual 1958)

Buster Adventure Library 32 (reprints TPL 182)

Buster Adventure Library 36 (reprints TPL 170)

(* My thanks to Roger Green for providing the original scans.)

Before and After - The Gentle Art of Restoration Revisited

2011-10-04T23:14:00.000+01:00

Just to shed a few tantalizing extra shafts of light on both Illustrators and The Art Of Denis McLoughlin, I must make mention of the amazing work of Mark Terry of Facsimile Dustjackets. Mark who has a real passion for his art and the knowledge and understanding of the medium within which he works has brought his skills to bear on restoring many of the fabulous 'noire' covers that will be illustrating both the feature on Denis McLoughlin in our debut issue of Illustrators and the forthcoming Art of Denis McLoughlin, which will be coming your way from Book Palace Books in 2012.

Here as a taster are a couple of before and afters, from some of those incredibly rare early TV Boardman, McLoughlin designed covers.

For more of Mark's work and information on some truly exquisite reproduction dust jackets I would strongly recommend a visit to his site where you can access some truly iconic cover images, one of the coolest time capsules on the web.

Illustrators Unveiled!

2011-09-26T20:42:00.009+01:00

OK the time has come - the time to stop dickering around and to come straight out with it, there is a new publication due to be launched by Book Palace Books next year and it's dedicated to a subject dear to many of us - illustration.

Illustrators for that is the name of our new journal is dedicated to spreading the word about some of the most iconic images ever to see print. In the pages of Illustrators you will read about some of the most inspired artists to commit their art to print. These are the people who with brush, pen and pencil were capable of transporting their audiences to the farthest reach of their imaginations. The audiences that many of these artists were catering for were international, their work was collected and admired by readers the length and breadth of Europe and the US. But with the passing of years and the ascendancy of new media, much of this brilliant and inspirational work is falling from the collective conscious.

Illustrators will remedy that by presenting you with a publication that four times a year will guide you through the stories behind these artists, the publishers that commissioned them, the agents that promoted them, the friends and partners that posed for them and the crazy stuff such as the artist who created his incredible covers in an unfurnished bedsit with a parrot for company. All this and more will be revealed in each edition of Illustrators. These features written by some of the most eminent enthusiasts of this oft neglected art form will provide a contextualization to the truly fabulous artwork which we will be presenting you with in each and every issue of Illustrators. Wherever possible we will be bringing you scans of some of the most incredible examples of original artwork by the artists concerned. Early issues of Illustrators will be bringing you the art of Fortunino Matania, Reginald Heade, Chris Foss, John Millar Watt, Luis Garcia, Jordi Penalva, Giorgio De Gaspari and Graham Coton, as well as artists who although equally brilliant are in many ways unknown and unsung. With contributions from writers and artists such as David Roach, David Ashford, Steve Holland, Rian Hughes and Norman Wright as well as access to many of the artists and/ or their agents and their families we aim to provide the most authoritative insight into the stories behind the UK and Europe's most inspired and inspirational artists. Our first issue debuts with a feature on Denis McLoughlin and an interview with the legendary Ian Kennedy looking back on his sixty two years in the business.

We'll keep you posted as we get nearer to publication date but in the meantime here's a taste of things to come (Please note these illustrations are for display purposes only and may be subject to change upon publication):

Sep E. Scott - reused covers

2011-09-01T00:09:00.002+01:00

Sep E. Scott was one of the finest artists used by Thriller Picture Library and it is no surprise that his work - much of it on the Robin Hood series - was reprinted. We published a complete run of Thriller covers in The Thriller Libraries index, so we have some reprints from Buster Adventure Library here for you delectation and delight.

Buster Adventure Library 4 (reprints TPL 198)

Buster Adventure Library 10 (reprints TPL 77)

Buster Adventure Library 12 (reprints Robin Hood Annual 1958)

Buster Adventure Library 14 (reprints TPL 236)

Buster Adventure Library 18 (reprints TPL 106)

Buster Adventure Library 20 (reprints TPL 166)

Cowboy cover reprints

2011-08-31T10:23:00.002+01:00

In The Thriller Libraries we were able to index the mysterious and very scarce Australian cowboy comics for the very first time. These comic book titles were published by the Amalgamated Press, written, drawn and edited in the UK for exclusive printing in Australia in an attempt to recapture some of the market the A.P. had lost during and immediately after the war. Many of the stories were subsequently reprinted in Cowboy Comics, the first British comic pocket library.

A great many covers were also reused by Cowboy Comics but with variations. Take, for instance, Kit Carson issue 17, published in April 1951; the same cover was used on Cowboy Comics issue 30 in June 1951 but with coloured in an entirely different way to take advantage - I believe - of the better printing process used on the British Cowboy Comics.

The cover artist was Geoff Campion, who would have supplied a black & white image in the first instance; the colour separations were handled by someone else, probably Kay Ivens who was, at one time, Edward Holmes' secretary - Holmes being the editor of both the Australian A.P. comics and Cowboy Comics. Kay Ivens later left comics to become a nurse, but what happened to her after that is unknown.

Geoff Campion, a master of dynamic action scenes, clearly thought he'd captured a moment in this scene and reused roughly the same image for a Billy the Kid cover story in Sun in 1952.

(* Artwork © IPC Media)

The Thriller Libraries: corrections and additions

2011-07-31T08:36:00.001+01:00

In a book the size of The Thriller Libraries, a number of errors are almost certain to creep in and, the moment you complete the book, new information is bound to come to light. I'm pleased to say that the number of errors spotted has been minimal, but it is worth setting up a column so that when anything turns up, there will be somewhere to post the information.

p.21. The picture labelled Cowboy Picture Library 346 is, in fact, Western Library 59 (see image at the top of this column). The artist is James E. McConnell.

p.25. The caption "Cecil Doughty's bright and dynamic original painting of Dick Turpin for the cover of Thriller Picture Library 223" should read "Stephen Chapman's bright and dynamic...". Chapman is correctly credited with the cover on p.175.

p.245. The scriptwriting credits for issues 137 and 139 have been mixed up. 137 is by Harry Harrison and 139 is by Conrad Frost/Barry Coker.

p.275. Unknown Artist [B] has been identified as Emilio Frejo. Frejo is, therefore, the artist of issues 455 (p.124) and 467 (p.125) of Cowboy Picture Library.

Thriller Index bonus

2011-06-30T09:12:00.033+01:00

Above is an original painting that we didn't have room for in The Thriller Index. The artist is Giorgio De Gaspari, one of the regular cover artists on Cowboy Picture Library between September 1958 and May 1960. Infamously, De Gaspari was asked to produce a Kit Carson cover featuring Kit by a rock in the desert with a sandy background. Rather than paint one in, De Gaspari sent his wife to the seaside by taxi to collect buckets of sand; this involved a major round-trip as Milan, where he was based, was nowhere near the ocean.

When the artwork arrived, the editors marvelled at the artist's genius... then peeled off the real sand that he had glued to the page as the machinery involved in the printing process would not have taken kindly to bits of sand falling off the artwork.

I have my suspicions that the artwork in question was either the piece above, from issue 321, September 1959, or issue 325 (October 1959), both of which have sandy backgrounds.

H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quartermain

2011-05-31T17:45:00.000+01:00

A book that has been waiting in the wings for some time at Book Palace Books is the collection of H. Rider Haggard stories - King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain and Montezuma's Daughter - which should be amongst the next set of releases.

Above you'll see the opening page of Mike Hubbard's superb adaptation of Allan Quatermain, both the original processed scan and the finished, cleaned-up artwork which has also been relettered in the style of the original as it appeared in Ranger. The only change I made was to lower the lettering on the final panel, which began over the picture on the printed version.

It's a fantastic strip... and one that's going to look great when the book appears. We'll be running a few more teasers over the coming months, just to whet your appetite.

The Art of Denis McLoughlin

2011-05-27T18:06:00.000+01:00

Just to bring you up to date on the book that has been bubbling away for a year or so, namely the definitive look at the life and work of Denis McLoughlin whose 'noir's style cover art has attracted devotees and collectors on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book The Art of Denis McLoughlin to be published next Spring, is written by Denis McLoughlin's good friend and biographer David Ashford as well as containing an account of the artist's life, art and influences written by Denis McLoughlin himself. The book will feature reproductions from the surviving original artwork, "pulls" in high quality print, never before seen photos chronicling the artist's life and page after page of some of the most stunning artwork ever to see print in the 20th century.

So here's some teaser spreads and the current promo that will be going out in the latest Book Palace catalogue.

Wulf The Briton - First Reactions

2011-04-18T18:39:00.005+01:00

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 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.

Flickr For Publishing

2011-04-13T23:47:00.000+01:00

Steve Holland has kindly asked me to share the occasional thought apropos of all the activities that are ongoing with Book Palace Books. "What me?" I protested, "look Steve old bean, I am snowed under with work, I've got my own blog to do, plus day job, plus working on the definitive Denis McLoughlin book". At this point Steve pushed back his Homburg and lit a cigarette. "Tell me about it buddy', he drawled laconically, "you me and Barney McGrew, we all got a million and one jobs to do". I looked past Steve's shoulder and saw the silhouette of the head honcho Mr Geoff West, the man with the green visor and the cigar stub jutting from his set jaw and resigned myself to the task in hand.

Why am I writing in this strange idiom I asked myself as you dear reader, if you have stayed with us this far, are doubtless asking? Well as intimated above I am working on editing what I think will be a truly fantastic and definitive book on the art of Denis McLoughlin and he did create covers for a lot of hardboiled fiction. And if you read enough of this stuff you and are of a suggestible nature you will end up thinking talking and writing like this - sad but true.

The text for this book has been written by Denis McLoughlin's friend and biographer David Ashford and also includes a mini autobiography by the artist himself. The text is first class and i just have to ensure that the rest of the book does David's biography justice.

My task vis a vis the Mcloughlin book is, as stated previously - editing and reformatting, but it also includes such fun tasks as designing the thing so that it has a real dynamic. The sort of book that you pick up and it just welcomes you in, which in the case of Denis McLoughlin is relatively easy to achieve as his work at it's best is just totally seductive.

The book will be a lot less expensive than the recent Wulf the Briton extravaganza, quite simply because the work we are showcasing is relatively small scale and even Denis McLoughlin's Boardman hardbacks are all A5 size, so we are not immediately into the economies of scale dictated by attempting a same size reprint of a UK broadsheet comic. Consequently this book will be about the size of the Fleetway Indexes and will not be nearly as expensive to produce as the Wulf book.

But, and this dear reader is where you come in, my work also includes sourcing really amazing imagery which we can use to add further visual flair to this illustrative extravaganza. What I really need at the moment is (ideally high grade) material to source, particularly in the case of the Boardman paperbacks and hardback hard boiled fiction. We have some but we need more and if you can help out this would be great. So if by any chance you do have any material of this nature which you can scan, do let me know and also if you have, by some miracle McLoughlin original artwork for the Boardman Hardboiled fiction covers we would be forever in your debt.

In fact any original cover and color artwork would be great, we have some but more would be wonderful.

I have set up a Flickr gallery devoted to Denis McLoughlin's "Noir" covers which is located here

Here just as a taster are a few of the early paperback covers which show McLoughlin at his most powerful both in terms of design and handling of subject matter. One of the really useful aspects of Flickr is in the way that it shows account holders what the most popular images they have uploaded are. Brilliant from my point of view and also for publishers in general yet another way to network.

Which is what you need to do these days to really share projects such as this with an audience that is definitely out there - they just need cultivating and Flickr provides yet another way to facilitate this.

P.S. I have received an amazing and overwhelming response via emails, phone calls, forums and twitter to the Wulf book, I'll (immodestly) post about this very shortly.

Size matters!

2011-04-11T11:39:00.000+01:00

After a madcap week, copies of the latest releases from Book Palace Books are now arriving in the hands of readers who pre-ordered copies... and some are going to be in for a surprise!

It isn't until you have all three titles together that you realise just how massive the Wulf the Briton book is. Look at the picture above... while it looks pretty spectacular in its gorgeous red livery, you don't quite get full effect of the dimensions of the book.

I'd already seen copies of the Wells Fargo and Thriller Libraries books, both of which are oversized hardbacks, but even they were dwarfed by Wulf.

To get the full effect, you need something for comparison... say a bog standard paperback novel. Something like this...

Wulf is a giant of a book, with the artwork printed at the same size as it originally appeared in Express Weekly. It's huge. I'd be doing the other two books a disservice if I didn't say that you should have all three on your shelves... but for Wulf you may just need new a whole new bookcase!

Shipping Report 6

2011-03-28T07:46:00.000+01:00

Our ship has come in... well, to Southampton at least. OOCL Hamburg docked at 5.47 Sunday afternoon. Next stop, Felixstowe and unloading 10 palettes of books bound for Crystal Palace.

Shipping Report 5

2011-03-26T21:34:00.000Z

The final leg of the journey... the OOCL Hamburg entered the English Channel today and this was its position as of mid-day.

Shipping Report 4

2011-03-22T11:12:00.000Z

Latest news on OOCL Hamburg is that, as of Sunday, she had passed through the Suez Canal, sailed past Port Said, and was making her way along the north coast of Africa in the Mediterranean. Her last known position was just north of the port of Damietta (aka Domyat). It's now only a week before she's due to dock in the UK. Woohoo!

Shipping Report 3

2011-03-15T12:26:00.000Z

As of Monday, the OOCL Hamburg was making good speed through the Arabian Sea, heading towards the Gulf of Aden.

Shipping Report 2

2011-03-07T08:26:00.001Z

The OOCL Hamburg was last reported as heading southwest through the South China Sea at 20 knots. She was in Taiwan last Tuesday and the expected route will take her to Singapore and then up through the Malacca Strait, which separates Malaysia from the island of Sumatra. From there its into the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal and into the Indian Ocean.

We'll post more updates as soon as we hear anything.

Shipping Report 1

2011-03-02T08:23:00.000Z

And the good news is... the latest batch of Book Palace Books is not only printed but is currently on the high seas and heading our way. The books were loaded aboard the cargo ship OOCL (that's Orient Overseas Container Line) Hamburg a couple of days ago and the Hamburg is currently in the South China Seas after leaving Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, in the early hours of Wednesday, 4 March.

Arnold Beauvais

2011-02-28T22:11:00.000Z

One of the names that crops up regularly in our upcoming Thriller Index is that of Arnold Beauvais. He was the main artist for Super Detective Library, contributing from almost the beginning—his first cover appearing on issue 7 (July 1953) and his last on issue 112 (September 1957). In all he produced 89 covers for Super Detective, almost half the total for that paper's 188 issue-run and included an uninterrupted run between issues 14 and 49 (October 1953 to March 1955).

Sadly, it seems that none of his covers have survived the years and we could find no examples of original artwork to include in The Thriller Index. To redress the balance a little, as his work on Super Detective Library certainly deserves some recognition, here's a little background on Beauvais, illustrated with some of his covers.

Arnold Victor Beauvais was the third child of Charles Henri Beauvais, a talented painter born in Marseille in 1860 or 1861 (not 1864 as some record). After training in Paris, Charles came to England where, in 1882, he married Emily Annie Corfield in Dartford, Kent. Charles and Annie went on to have six children: Daisy (1882-1980), Raoul Ernest Jules (1884- ), Arnold Victor, Reginald Louis (1888-1921), Charles Frederick (1895-1960) and Delphine Henriette (1905-1991). Charles certainly encouraged his children's artistic talents: Daisy was listed as an artist (sculpture) in census records and Charles Frederick Beauvais became an industrial designer, working in the car industry in England and Australia before setting up his own company.

The Beauvais family was raised in Lewisham and Streatham, their father working as an artist and lithographer from home. Arnold, born in Catford on 13 April 1886, began working in his father's studio at the age of 14 whilst studying art during the evenings at Bolt Court Art School, Fleet Street.

In 1903, Charles returned to France, taking his whole family with him. In Marseilles he opened a commercial art studio. Arnold, meanwhile, spent sixteen months studying in Paris before joining his father's studio.

Charles died in Marseilles in 1909, aged only 48 (some sources say 1911), and Arnold took over the management of the studio for the next few years. He returned to England in 1913, renting a studio in Chancery Lane, and produced artwork for a wide range of clients, including J. Lyons, R.K.O. Radio Pictures, Black & White Whisky, Warner Bros., Walt Disney Co., Youngers Scotch Ales and many others. His illustrations and cartoons appeared in adverts, on film posters, in magazines and on jigsaw puzzles.

His most famous advertising campaign was probably the 'Where's George?—Gone to Lyonch' campaign for Lyons' Teashops in the mid- to late-1930s. The catchphrase caught on and was often used wherever anyone was missing; it even inspired a film starring comedian Sydney Howard which, lacking a character called George, is better known nowadays as Hope of his Side (1935).

Beauvais was so successful in his career that it allowed him not only to paint for pleasure but to indulge in his other hobby, singing. He made his debut as the King in Prince Ferelon; or, The Princess's Suitors at the Florence Etinger School of Opera in November 1919 and then played Sarastro in The Magic Flute at the Old Vic (1920); his other appearances at the Old Vic included Ferrando in Il Trovatore (1922?), King Mark in Tristan and Isolde (1923), the King in Fete Galante (1924) and Aida (1925) and a soldier in Carmen for the Old Vic's reopening in 1928, as well as appearing in Figaro later that year. Beauvais also performed in Don Giovanni at the Coliseum (1924) and in performances of Rigaletto, Lohengrin, Faust and others. Beauvais also designed a famous poster in 1921 when the Old Vic, in Waterloo Road, London, appealed for £30,000 in donations to bring the theatre up to safety regulations.

He also sang on the radio in its early days of broadcasting from Savoy Hill and made several recordings for Columbia.

The work he produced for film distribution companies included posters for many famous films, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Swiss Family Robinson, Ip in Arms and all the subsequent Danny Kaye films. He regularly painted posters for Walt Disney, including Snow White, Bambi, Treasure Island, Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Hans Anderson, Peter Pan and a host of Disney's nature films. The success of the films meant that this work was often used to illustrate the associated "book of the film" titles that were produced by Colllins.

His involvement with the film world began in the mid-1930s and lasted for two decades, during which time he also produced a highly successful series of caricatures of famous film stars for the magazine Film Weekly, using an air-brush technique that was little used at the time.

Beauvais was also teacher at the Bolt Court Art School, his old alma mater, in the 1930s. He was also a member of the London Sketch Club from 1929; he was elected President in 1936 and was subsequently a Life Member.

His association with Super Detective Library slowed down from 1956, in which year Beauvais reduced his commercial commitments in order to concentrate on oil paintings. In around 1959, he began colouring a two-page spread in the nursery comic Jack and Jill which was drawn primarily by Walter Booth; the spread, entitled 'There Was an Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe' depicted various scenes of what the children got up to; Beauvais took over the strip in 1960 when it was renamed 'The Children Who Lived in the Shoe' and continued the panoramic illustrations for about a year. He was later able to give up commercial work entirely but continued to paint purely for pleasure.

Beauvais was married in 1922 to Dorothy Agnes Baines at Hampstead, with whom he had three children: Yvonne Gladys (1923-1980), Daphne D. (1926- ) and Thomas C. V. (1932- ). Dorothy died in 1935 and Beauvais remarried in 1939 to Ella May K. Gosling at Staines, with whom he had Walter John (1942-1998), who was also a widely exhibited painter, and Clive R. (1945- ).

Arnold Beauvais died in Surrey on 22 April 1984, aged 97.

(* Super Detective Library © IPC Media.)

News from Book Palace Books

2011-01-28T11:12:00.000Z

We're pleased to announce that the latest batch of Book Palace Books are now in the hands of our printers and will be released as soon as they're shipped to the UK. There have been a number of delays that have caused a slight slippage with the schedules. It started in December with the proofs... it took longer than expected to get a sample of the Wulf the Briton leather slipcase and this delayed the proofing of the book; there was a second delay because the proofs sent were not on the paper requested, which meant a second set of proofs on the correct paper had to be shipped across from Hong Kong.

Peter Richardson, who has put the Wulf book together, made some corrections to some of the colour pages, ironing out small defects and making some further colour correction.

Hopefully you'll applaud our efforts at quality control and save your boos and hisses for the postal delivery company who refused to do any pick-ups in the area Peter lives during the snowy weather.

Once the proofs were returned to China, the printer insisted on sending out a second set of proofs on the pages that had been corrected; these were duly signed off. One bit of good news is that the delay has meant some additional scans from original artwork have been included in the Wulf book

Even after the proofs were returned, a further additional page surfaced courtesy of Paul Stephenson of PS Books. As a special thanks to those of you who have pre-ordered the book, the first 200 copies will therefore have an additional print, the same dimensions as the original Express Weekly comic, of this stunning piece of original Ron Embleton artwork depicting Wulf and his companions in the thrall of Viking invaders.

As many of you will be aware, Chinese New Year begins on 3 February and the celebrations last for 15 days during which time many businesses close down or are working with skeleton staff. For us this means that our books will not ship until the end of February and their arrival in the UK is expected at the end of March. It usually takes 2-3 days to clear customs and ship from the port to the Book Palace warehouse in Crystal Palace, so we are expecting copies to arrive around 31 March.

With this in mind, the pre-publication discounts for anyone ordering the books has been extended. For more details visit the Book Palace Books webpage.

As I'm involved in two of the books and straining at the leash to see the third, I can appreciate the frustration felt by everyone at all the delays. We're all looking forward to getting our hands on the books and I'm convinced that, thanks to the efforts everyone has put in, they will be well worth the wait.

The Thriller Libraries Index Story

2010-12-29T00:33:00.000Z

The Thriller Libraries Index Story

By Steve Holland

Original hand-lettered cover art for volume 1 of the first (1991) edition by Ali Cottee, based on James E. McConnell's cover for TPL 22

With the publication of The Thriller Libraries Index only a few weeks away, I thought I'd take this opportunity - as Christmas is always a time for casting backward looks into the past - to reveal a little about the history of the book. So imagine a slightly wavy effect, getting stronger and stronger and...

We're back in 1983!

An exciting year for me: I had my first article published that year and completed my first book (although the latter took some years to appear); I was also rediscovering my love for comics via the Association of Comics Enthusiasts (A.C.E.) which was run by Denis Gifford. I had discovered this wonderful club back in the late 1970s when helping Phil Harbottle and his search for stories by British science fiction writer John Russell Fearn. Phil was based in Newcastle and I was based in Chelmsford and had far easier access to the British Library. There were certain magazines that Phil believed Fearn had contributed to and I was able to rediscover some of Fearn's more obscure stories amongst the dustier tomes held by the library, some of which probably hadn't been looked at since they were deposited back in the 1940s. Phil compiled a listing of Fearn's contributions for various Gerald G. Swan magazines for Denis in 1979 and I was given a co-credit, the first time I saw my name in print.

Original hand-lettered title page of the same volume. You can see how much Tippex it took to clean up the photocopied panel of artwork.

Back to 1983. Because I was now a bone fide contributor to the A.C.E. newsletter thanks to my articles "The Paperback Connection: Comics Artists and Publishers" and "Gerald G. Swan: A Brief Guide to his Publications" (exciting stuff!), Denis said I could have a free advert in the newsletter. As I didn't have anything to sell, I thought I'd ask whether anyone had any old pocket libraries as I was interested in compiling a list of them.

The little box ad was published in January 1984 and I got one response from a chap called John Allen-Clarke who phoned the number I'd given only to discover that I was out of the country - my first ever holiday abroad, cycling in Holland with a mate of mine who ended up in hospital with appendicitis! But that's another story.

The contact with John led to starting up many of the indexes that were published in the 1990s as I scoured his collection for information. In the 1980s I also contacted like-minded collectors who were interested in gathering info. or were willing to share information they had already put together, which led to some of the earliest comprehensive listings of British comics; I think we were beaten to the punch by Ray Moore's The Beano Diaries, which came out in 1990, and some fairly solid listings had appeared in various magazines over the years. But I like to think we - because I was rarely compiling these things on my own - did a good and comprehensive job on some of the best titles that appeared in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

Original copyright page

Bryan Whitworth was publishing a fanzine called The Illustrated Comics Journal, which I became involved with around 1990 and it was to Bryan that I mentioned that I had a number of lists that the merry band of indexers had been compiling over the previous couple of years. Bryan was interested in publishing them and I was interested in getting the information out to the wider world, so it seemed a match made in heaven.

Over the winter months of 1990/91 - 20 years ago - we put the finishing touches to the first of these indexes cover the first 150 issues of The Thriller Library. Looking back at it now, the resulting volume looks a bit amateurish. Although the text was laid out on a computer - which I supplied on a 3 1/4 inch floppy disc (remember those?) - the end product was still a photocopied booklet, so while we were able to reproduce every cover, they were photocopied in b/w and reduced in size to create master pages which were themselves photocopied to create the finished booklets. The picture reproduction was awful!

As each copy was individually hand-made by Bryan, the various indexes produced worked out very expensive. Yet they sold reasonably well - for what they were - and over the years I've been asked whether I have copies for sale. I think the authors - I usually worked in tandem with David Ashford and Ray Moore - only ever got one or two copies apiece.

Twenty years on I'm very happy to say that we're only weeks away from seeing printed copies of the new Thriller Libraries Index. Not only does it radically update the original Thriller Index but it also includes revisions for the Super Detective Library and Cowboy Comics volumes that followed Thriller in 1992 and 1993 respectively. Twenty years on we know a lot more about the artists and even the authors of these old libraries and the complexities of their publication. For the first time the history of these libraries can be found and followed in a single volume, from their origins in comic books designed for the Australian market all the way through to the spin-off annuals and books.

What I'm particularly proud of is that we've managed to gather together the widest possible selection of original artwork, as well as complete sets of cover images for everything indexed. That's over 1,000 images in total, with much of the original artwork reproduced one cover to the page. The book is full colour throughout and I'm confident our printers in Hong Kong will make it one of the best-looking books we've produced.

I'm looking forward to having copies of the book finally in my hands. I hope you are, too.

Proofs

2010-11-30T12:19:00.001Z

We're getting closer and closer to publication. I'm pleased to say that proofs for all three of the upcoming Book Palace Books' releases have arrived, been checked, corrections made and proofs returned. Peter Richardson has covered the arrival of the proofs for Wulf the Briton with great excitement over on his blog, saying: "To say this book has been a labor of love would be something of an understatement, but when Book Palace Books received a ginormous box of the printer's proofs to this volume the excitement was palpable. The book is costly but the results I think will justify the price, which even for the signed and lettered ultra-deluxe edition is still less expensive than buying a piece of Wulf artwork (if you can find one) or attempting to buy the complete run of Express Weeklys showcasing Ron Embleton's amazing artistry on this strip."

As Peter has stated, the scanning and retouching of the artwork for this volume has been painstaking and Peter has rescanned and reworked a number of pages that he was less than happy with to make sure the final volume will be as perfect as humanly possible. He's not the only one to do this... we did a run-off of the Wells Fargo pages a month or so ago and decided some of the pages were looking a little washed out in comparison with other pages due to the way we had to do the scanning (the strip started as straight line work and subsequently switched to line and wash). The problem was quickly sorted out, as were a few last minute corrections to the Thriller Index. I've also seen a print out of Wells Fargo on the paper the printer in Hong Kong was able to source and it looks fantastic.

Which means that the books have now been cleared for publication. As printing and shipping will take around six weeks it looks like the books will be appearing mid or late January, which should give you a chance to let the turkey sandwiches and mince pies settle before you try lifting that massive leatherbound copy of Wulf.

Wulf the Briton

2010-10-25T05:03:00.002+01:00

The final details of the Book Palace Books reprint of Ron Embleton's Wulf the Briton have been finalised and we're pleased to announce a special offer on the book: anyone pre-ordering the hardcover or leatherbound slipcase edition can, for a limited time only, get a substantial discount.

Here are the details...

At last, all of Ron Embleton's Wulf the Briton stories from Express Weekly and the Annuals in large format, gloriously reproduced in colour to the highest standard.

Wulf the Briton was without doubt Ron Embleton's comic masterpiece after he took over the strip - which was a single page cover feature on Express Weekly - in 1957.

The workload that Embleton undertook with Wulf was formidable. In comparison to Frank Hampson, who had a studio and assistants to help meet the weekly Dan Dare deadlines, Embleton just had himself to draw, letter and paint the feature. However Embleton was unfazed by such considerations and within a few months he was also writing the strip and steering it in a much more historically credible direction, as well as adding an extra page to the strip!

Ron Embelton's Wulf the Briton
DELUXE HARDCOVER EDITION LIMITED TO 400 COPIES WORLDWIDE

Available December 2010
Artist: Ron Embleton
Author: Ron Embleton
Publisher: Book Palace Books
Publication Date: December 2010
First Edition.
Pages: 352 pages
Size: 11" x 14" (270mm x 360mm)
Format: Hard Cover. 400 numbered copies worldwide
Illustrations: Full Colour
ISBN: 9781907081132
Price RRP £125

Special PRE-Publication Price £95 ALL PRE PAID ORDERS SAVE £30.
For a limited period we are offering a SPECIAL discounted price of £95 per book. Only ONE copy per customer.

Ron Embelton's Wulf the Briton
DELUXE LEATHERBOUND AND LEATHER SLIPCASED EDITION LIMITED TO 100 COPIES with an extra 24 pages showing original Wulf art.

Artist: Ron Embleton
Author: Ron Embleton
Publisher: Book Palace Books
Publication Date: December 2010
First Edition.
Pages: 376 pages
Size: 11" x 14" (270mm x 360mm)
Format: Leatherbound book and Leather slipcase. 100 Numbered copies worldwide
Illustrations: Full Colour
ISBN: 9781907081149
Price RRP £325

Special PRE-Publication Price £250 ALL PRE PAID ORDERS SAVE £75.
For a limited period we are offering a SPECIAL discounted price of £250 per book. Only ONE copy per customer.
Deluxe Leatherbound in leather slipcase edition limited to just 100 NUMBERED copies with an extra 24 pages showing original Wulf art.

Ron Embelton's Wulf the Briton
DELUXE LEATHERBOUND AND SLIPCASED EDITION LIMITED TO 26 LETTERED COPIES with an extra 24 pages showing original Wulf art plus original art reproduction of the famous battle scene, scanned from the original art

Artist: Ron Embleton
Author: Ron Embleton
Publisher: Book Palace Books
Publication Date: December 2010
First Edition.
Pages: 376 pages
Size: 11" x 14" (270mm x 360mm)
Format: Leatherbound book and Leather slipcase. 26 Lettered copies worldwide
Illustrations: Full Colour
ISBN: 9781907081156
PRICE RRP £350

Note only a fraction of these 26 copies are available to the public. Only ONE copy per customer.
Deluxe Leatherbound in leather slipcase edition limited to only 26 LETTERED copies with an extra 24 pages showing original Wulf art and a reproduction of the original art for the famous battle scene, scanned from the original art.

The Don Lawrence Westerns

2010-10-18T05:03:00.003+01:00

You'll find full publishing info. for the latest book from Book Palace. The Don Lawrence Westerns contains the complete run of two classic Don Lawrence strips never previously reprinted in English, and only partly reprinted elsewhere in the world. And all customers who pre-order the book will receive a free, numbered, limited edition colour print by Lawrence.

Here are the details...

The Don Lawrence Westerns
Limited edition
Artist: Don Lawrence
Author: Kelman D. Frost
Publisher: Book Palace Books
Publication Date: December 2010
Pages: 208 pages
Size: 220mm x 297mm
Format: Hard cover
Illustrations: B&W
ISBN: 9781907081064
Price RRP £25

Wells Fargo and Pony Express—all the exploits of the men driving and protecting the mail stages and their passengers. Wyatt Earp rode shotgun for Wells Fargo in Arizona, Wild Bill Hickok was a coach driver for the Pony Express and even Apache leader Cochise worked as a woodcutter for the Overland Mail.

This is a limited edition hard cover strictly limited to 700 copies worldwide.

For a limited period for ALL pre paid orders we are giving away a FREE numbered limited edition full colour print of a western bar scene by Don Lawrence (illustrated above). This is a numbered high quality print of just 150 copies. These are available while stocks last.

The Thriller Index

2010-10-11T05:03:00.002+01:00

Full publication information for volume 2 of the Fleetway Picture Library Index are now in.

The book is in a similar size and format to the previous War Libraries volume but—and it's a BIG but—the Thriller Libraries will be bigger, at 284 pages, and is printed in full colour throughout.

Here are the full details...

The Fleetway Picture Library Index Volume 2
The Thriller Libraires
Artist: Various
Author: Compiled by David Ashford and Steve Holland
Publisher: Book Palace Books
Publication Date: December 2010
Pages: 284 pages
Size: 185mm x 250mm
Format: Flexi Cover
Illustrations: Full Colour
ISBN: 978-1-907081-05-7
Price RRP £30

This eagerly waited book is the second in a series of 3 volumes chronicling the full credits of all Fleetway Picture Libraries and contains a complete index of artists and writers for Thriller Picture Library, Cowboy Picture Library and Super Detective Library.

Every issue is covered as well as the Robin Hood, Kit Carson and Buck Jones Annuals, as well as full credits for all Australian editions and many other associated comics. Packed with colour illustrations of every cover as well as reproductions of cover and interior original art, by Sep. E. Scott, John Millar Watt, Patrick Nicolle, Alex Raymond, Ron Turner, Derek Eyles, Cecil Doughty, H. M. Brock, Eric Parker, Carlos Roume, Arturo del Castillo, Jesus Blasco, Ferdinando Tacconi, and many more.

Included in this volume is an unprecedented number of reproductions of original cover art and interior art pages, never before seen.

Years of research have gone into producing this definitive, luxurious guide to these legendary British comics. A TRUE collector's treasure.

More on Wulf the Briton

2010-08-31T11:36:00.000+01:00

Here's a treat for everyone waiting on Book Palace's Wulf the Briton reprint: above is the cover for the limited leather-bound edition.

Peter Richardson, the man behind all the hard work on the book, has been keeping fans updated on his Cloud 109 blog where he announced on Sunday that he had finally finished work on the book and had mailed off all the designs to Book Palace.

To reiterate some of Peter's comments, the final book will be printed at the same size as the original Express Weekly pages, approximately 36 x 26 cm. The book will run to 352 pages, including the complete run of Ron Embleton's strip covering the period May 1957 to September 1960 in the weekly and all four Wulf 8-pagers from the Express Annual. Peter has written an introduction, an afterword and commentaries to each story and the book will include additionally a foreword by Dave Gibbons and a reminiscence by Alan Vince.

As well as the regular edition there will be a limited (to 126 copies) leather-bound, gold-embossed edition in a slipcase which will feature 16 additional pages containing samples of 8 original pieces of Embeton's artwork; for each page there is also a detail printed at the same size as the original artwork.

Peter has presented a few spreads from his introduction at the link above, but to give you a sample, here's one of the best pages ever to appear in any comic, anywhere.

Wulf update

2010-08-20T09:30:00.001+01:00

Book Palace Books have just announced that the much-anticipated Wulf the Briton reprint will be available as a deluxe leather bound edition in a leather slipcase, limited to 126 copies as well as a deluxe hardcover.

See the Book Palace What's New page for the latest titles available.

Wulf, Wells Fargo and the Thriller Libraries Index: News from Book Palace Books

2010-08-17T23:21:00.002+01:00

If things are going well, book publishing can be as graceful as a swan—serene on the surface and going like the clappers below the surface.

While there hasn't been much in the way of news from Book Palace Books over the past couple of months, we have been working steadily towards getting our next batch of titles finished and off to the printers. Followers of the Bear Alley blog will have had some advance warning of various books that are in the works. Two of the books I've been working on are now almost completed: Wells Fargo and The Thriller Libraries Index.

Wells Fargo collects together the complete run of two lost Don Lawrence strips: "Wells Fargo" and "Pony Express", originally published in 1958-61. When "Wells Fargo" began, Lawrence had been learning his trade drawing Marvelman and a variety of Western strips for Mick Anglo's Gower Studios. Quitting in 1957, Lawrence quickly found work elsewhere, with Odhams' Zip and Amalgamated Press's Sun. He spent almost two years drawing Western strips almost exclusively before finding a new niche drawing historical adventure strips "Olac the Gladiator" (for Tiger) and "Karl the Viking" (for Lion).

Lawrence was growing as an artist during the run of "Wells Fargo", honing the talent that would eventually earn him the chance to paint "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire".

As well as Lawrence's fabulous artwork, the book also includes a detailed history of Wells Fargo and the Pony Express. The exploits of the men driving and protecting the mail stages and their passengers are an integral part of Western lore, as famous as many of the names that created the legends of the Wild West—Wyatt Earp rode shotgun for Wells Fargo in Arizona, Wild Bill Hickok was a coach driver for the Pony Express and even Apache leader Cochise worked as a woodcutter for the Overland Mail.

When it came to adventure, stories of cowboys and indians were hard to beat and the WIld West was the last wild frontier. Lawrence and scriptwriter Kelman D. Frost created two of the most entertaining comic strips of the era, capturing the excitement and exhilaration of the Wild West.

Second on the list of upcoming books is the long-awaited Thriller Libraries Index, companion of the War Libraries Index. The latest volume gathers together information on some of the most collectable comics ever published in the UK, Thriller Comics, Cowboy Comics and Super Detective Library. Over the past few years we have been working like crazy to identify artists and writers on these popular titles, thoroughly overhauling the original lists that appeared almost twenty years ago.

The exciting news as far as we're concerned is that the book will be published in full colour throughout and will feature every cover for all three series. The book also includes checklists of the almost impossible to find Australian comic books that pre-dated the pocket libraries here in the UK and a range of spin-off annuals and books, including the Robin Hood, Kit Carson's Cowboy Annual, Buck Jones Annual and the two hardcover Battler Britton collections.

We have also gathered together the largest collection of original artwork illustrations which will also feature in the book. This is one book that both David and I are going to be very proud to have our names on!

And finally, for this round of titles, there's Wulf the Briton. This must be one of the most eagerly awaited books of the year. Gathering together the complete strip as drawn by Ron Embleton, the 300+ pages of astonishing action will be printed at the original size of Express Weekly, offering the best reproduction possible for this classic series.

The book will be available in hardcover and in a very limited edition leather bound edition. Both will feature an introduction by Peter Richardson and a foreword by Dave Gibbons.

News of this epic adventure's reappearance has already generated a lot of excitement. Peter has been keeping readers up-to-date on his progress via his Cloud 109 blog and we've just heard that our printers have tracked down the ivory paper we want for the book to make the strips look the best they can possibly be.

All three books are due for publication at the end of the year, so start saving your pennies.

Book Palace Books

2010-06-15T12:02:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the new Book Palace Books blog!

Some of you will already know The Book Palace, which has been dealing in comics, books and original artwork for the past thirty years. Book Palace Books was launched in 2005 to publish The Modesty Blaise Companion, a comprehensive compendium of information on Peter O'Donnell's famous strip. In 2007, publisher Geoff West and designer Stuart Williams were joined by editor Steve Holland to republish some of the finest but forgotten strips from British comics. Beginning with Frank Bellamy's Robin Hood and Frank Bellamy's King Arthur, Book Palace Books set a high standard for quality, which they have continued with the recent publication of Frank Bellamy's Complete Swift Stories and Frank Bellamy's Story of World War 1, the latter available in both softcover and signed, limited edition hardcover.

Book Palace Books also took over the publication of the third volume of Robert E. Howard's Complete Conan of Cimmeria (available in a leatherbound, signed, limited edition, a signed, limited edition hardcover in slipcase and a signed, limited edition hardcover in slipcase with additional preliminary drawings).

We are currently working on our next group of titles, which will include the long-lost Wells Fargo and Pony Express strips by Don Lawrence, a collection of classic adaptations of H. Rider Haggard and the long-awaited Thriller Libraries Index, a companion to the War Libraries Index published in 2008.

Here at the Book Palace Books blog we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news and also cover some of the artists and artwork that is on offer through Book Palace and the Illustration Art Gallery.