Shipping Report 5

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

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

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

Shipping Report 2

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

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

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

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.