Saturday, August 31, 2013

Hans W. Priwin

Inspector Hornleigh made his debut in Inspector Hornleigh Investigates as part of the BBC's Monday Night at Seven slot on 31 May 1937. Hornleigh's tales were related in fourteen minute complete stories, with S. J. Warmington playing the Inspector. 43 episodes appeared until 6 June 1938, with a second series of 31 running from 17 October 1938 to 15 May 1939. By the time the third series began on 27 November 1939, its parent show had become Monday Night at Eight; it ran to at least four more episodes. An Inspector Hornleigh story ran in the Radio Times Christmas number (23 December) for 1938, entitled "Hornleigh's Christmas".

The series stood out because each brief episode was rebroadcast in part; as the storyline was repeated, a voice would call 'Stop' to indicate that the vital clue had been reached.

Soon after, the Inspector became the star of his first book. "Inspector Hornleigh's activities on the air have made millions of listeners regard him almost as a real person. In book form, however, the plot that Inspector Hornleigh Investigates is too machine-made to keep up the illusion. The criminals led by the mysterious "Boss"; the secret passage between adjoining flats; the scientific invention, potent for good or ill; the foolhardy heroine—these are stock ingredients, and it says much for Mr. H. W. Priwin's skill that he has managed to make the mixture sufficiently exciting to carry the reader along." (The Times, 2 January 1940)

Hornleigh was already a star of stage and screen. A review of Inspector Hornleigh Investigates appeared in the Guardian on 17 May 1938:

The Observer for 30 October 1938  noted that Twentieth Century-Fox were shooting a movie based on the character at Pinewood studios. "Gordon Harker is to play Hornleigh, and Alistair Sim his assistant, Sergeant Bingham. Eugene Forde, director of three Charlie Chan pictures and associated with eight others, has been brought over from America to direct the film."

There were three Hornleigh pictures in all: Inspector Hornleigh (1939), Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday (1939) and Inspector Hornleigh Goes To It (1941), the latter released in the US as Mail Train.

The films starred Gordon Harker (1885-1967), whose stage career dated back to 1903. Described by Brian McFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Film) as "Lugubrious, shifty, aggressive, occasionally chirpy, Cockney Gordon Harker ... was a cherished fixture in British films for 30 years." He was a regular in British thrillers in the 1930s, including many Edgar Wallace adaptations: The Wrecker, The Squeaker, The Ringer, The Calendar, The Frightened Lady and White Face. He played Sergeant Elk to Jack Hawkins's Captain Gordon in The Frog (1937) and was promoted to the lead, now Inspector Elk, in the sequel Return of the Frog (1938, aka Nobody Home), shortly before taking the lead in the Inspector Hornleigh movies.

His overconfident, fallible but human Hornleigh was accompanied in his adventures by bumbling Sergeant, played by Alistair Sim. The films were surprisingly well reviewed for a series in what was a fairly common genre at that time. The debut film involved an investigation into a murder at a lodging house, during which a plot is uncovered to steal the budget from the Chancellor of the Exchequer before it can be announced. In the second movie, Hornleigh is convinced that a seeming accident is actually a murder. In the third film, Hornleigh is determined to root out fifth columnists but, instead, is assigned to a case of petty pilfering at an army base... only for Hornleigh to stumble upon the spy network.

Harker continued to play leading roles in thrillers such as Once a Crook (1941), Warn That Man (1943) and The Second Mate (1950), as well as comedies such as Things Happen at Night (1947) as well as playing Dr. Doolittle in a TV adaptation of Pygmalion (1948)

Hornleigh's creator was a German Jew, Hans Wolfgang Priwin, who had worked as a radio broadcaster and journalist for many years in Germany.


In 1933, The Evening Independent described how Priwin was to broadcast to stations in the USA on 1 April 1933:
A German Jew living in Berlin will describe present conditions in Germany, especially as they affect the Jewish portion of the population, in an international broadcast to the United States through National Broadcasting company networks tonight.
    The speaker will be Hans W. Priwin, a member of the executive committee of the Association of German National Jews. His address, which will be broadcast over an NBC-WEAF network at 7 o'clock, will come from the studios of the Reichs Rundfunk Gesellschaft in Berlin. It will not be broadcast in Germany.
    Priwin is a radio commentator of wide reputation, and director of a Berlin news agency. He is a member of a Jewish family which has lived in Germany for several centuries.

The New York Times carried the full text of Priwin's speech:

James G. McDonald mentions in his diaries (Advocate for the Doomed: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1932-1935, p.36) on 3 April 1933:
Returned to the hotel to have a second tea with Hans W. Priwin, radio newspaper man. Being a Jew, he had lost all right to work with the German Broadcasting Company and German papers. His tale is just one more.
By 1936, Priwin  was living in Hampstead, London, at 19 Belsize  Crescent (fl.1936), 36 Tudor Close, Belsize Avenue (fl.1936-39) and 84 Hillfield Court, Belsize Avenue (fl.1941). In his early career in radio, he wrote a weekly problem 'What Do You Think?' for Band Waggon.

Hans Wolfgang Priwin of 6 Court Terrace, Rogers Lane, Stoke Poges (fl.1946-47), became a British Citizen on 15 July 1947. By then he was using the name John Peter Priwin and, on 12 January 1948, changed his name by deed poll to John Peter Wynn, giving his address as "Winsden", Elm Close, Farnham Common (fl.1948-49).  

This change of name was reflected in the 1949 telephone book, where J. P. Wynn takes over the house in Farnham Common in 1949. He was married Joan Clark in London in 1953 and subsequently moved to 13 Dorset Street, London W.1 (fl.1952-60) and 37 Dollis Avenue, Finchley N.3 (fl.1961-69).

As J. P. Wynn, he wrote a series of detective tales featuring  Francis De Wolff as Gordon Grantley K.C., who debuted on the Light Programme as 10:15 pm on Friday, 20 August 1948. (Kenneth Williams made his radio debut in two episodes of the series.)

In 1955, John P. Wynn was credited as the author of What Do You Know?, 1,000 general knowledge questions (along with their answers) "by the organizer of the famous B.B.C. Programme of the same name".

What Do You Know? was broadcast on the Light Programme from 1953, the original show a portmanteau of different games, including 'Beat the Experts', in which experts tried to spot deliberate errors in a sketch written about their specialised subject, and 'Ask Me Another', which involved celebrities of the day and the public answering questions. The celebrity contestants were dropped by 1956 and this section became a quiz for the public who battled to become the Brain of Britain, while 'Beat the Expert' became 'Beat the Brains', with the public trying to stump experts with questions. The show folded in 1967 and was relaunched in 1968 as Brain of Britain, with the main quiz element dominating.

Wynn is credited as having set the questions for the show with his producer Joan Clark. In an obituary for "Mycroft" (Ian Gillies), who subsequently set the questions, it was noted that "In 1972 the original Brain of Britain question master Franklin Engelmann died midway through the series and Gillies, as the reigning Top Brain, stepped in to host the remaining programmes. John P. Wynn ... died around this time, and Gillies was asked to stay on to help Clark with the question-setting."

According to his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, Gillies gave up his job in advertising in 1971 as he was "by this stage writing most, if not all, of the questions for Brain of Britain". Wynn had not died but had retired to Ireland with his wife, Joan.

He died at his home at Winsliabh, Skibereen, Ireland, on 20 April 1978, survived by his wife and daughter, Mona.

PUBLICATIONS

Publications as Hans W. Priwin
Kurzwellen-Verkehr. Berlin, Rothgiesser & Diesing, 1928.

Novels as H. W. Priwin
Inspector Hornleigh Investigates. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1939.

Non-fiction as John P. Wynn
What Do You Know? A thousand general knowledge questions and answers. London, G. Bell & Sons, 1955.
Ask Me Another. Seven hundred and fifty general knowledge questions and answers. London, G. Bell & Sons, 1960.
Brain of Britain. A quiz book from the BBC radio programme. London, British Broadcasting Company, 1972.

(* Photograph of the cast of What Do You Know? from the Radio Days website here.)

Friday, August 30, 2013

Comic Cuts - 30 August 2013


And the good news is...

I finally finished Boys' World Ticket to Adventure. I'm waiting on a proof, but I'm reasonably sure that everything will be OK. Of course, one tiny spelling mistake in a single caption and I have to re-upload the whole book and that takes forever as the printer has the slowest ftp connection in the universe.

I was originally hoping to have the book out by 2nd September, but I suspect it will be a few days later. Hopefully everyone who has already ordered will get their copies by the 9th. So that's the "official" release date as far as any date for a book's release is "official" these days.

The book clocked in at a mammoth 208 pages, far bigger than I imagined when I started writing it. This and the Ranger book were supposed to be a couple of titles I could knock out quickly after the two months I spent on Lion, a palate cleanser before I knuckled down to revamping the Valiant index. Just goes to show: when you estimate how long something's going to take, you should double your first guess and then double it again. That might put you in the ball park.

Now that I have Boys' World out of the way—barring the obvious proofing, correcting, printing and distributing—there are a whole bunch of things that I want to do, one of which is to take a couple of days off. I don't work seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day; however, there aren't many days when I'm not to be found in front of the computer for at least a few hours. Saturday is my day off but I often spend some time cleaning up cover scans while I'm listening to the Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo's Film Reviews podcast to see what I'll be missing at the cinema this week. (Every time we go I swear that it will be the last time. A tenner a time for tickets to movies that aren't filling me with thrills, although I did enjoy Elysium last weekend. If you give yourself up to the action and spectacle it's fine; don't think about the plot or the characters and definitely don't think about Jodie Foster's character. It looks great.)

Speaking of going out, I'm still managing to get out for walks every day—one of the reasons why the book has taken so long to write! If you read Bear Alley regularly, you'll know that I started doing a bit of exercise a couple of months ago because I was overweight and it was causing me back pain even if I was just walking to one of the local shops. After a few weeks just building up my stamina, I've been walking roughly three miles a day and have managed to lose over half a stone. But, better than even that, I'm now able to walk a mile without my back screaming and begging me to stop.

I figure it took twenty years to put the weight on, so it's going to take a while to take it off. I'm now on target to have dropped a stone by the end of summer and, while that still makes me "obese" according to the NHS, it's a step or ten in the right direction. And there's no reason to stop exercising at the end of the summer. I just need to find a suitable exercise I can do indoors. I may never get down to the six-pack stomach, but at least I can lose the moobs and jokes like "When Steve enters a room, most of him is still a minute or two away." (It's a joke that needs some work.)

Random scans for today... these are recent purchases from charity shops around town. I trawl through them every Saturday hoping to find something (anything!) but old, pre-decimal paperbacks are increasingly rare. But there's always something worth picking up. For instance, I found the second book in George Mann's Newbury & Hobbes steampunk series of Victorian-era SF/horror. Here are the first two. I shall be keeping a close look-out for the other two, The Immortality Engines and the recently (July) published The Executioner's Heart.

World War Z I picked up just to see what the fuss was about. It's now on the ever-increasing pile of books that I'll get around to one day.

There will be a few more 'What Would You Do?' features next week so you can test your wits against danger. There were occasions when the writers got it wrong, although, in one instance, the advice saved the life of a reader. But you'll have to order your copy of the Boys' World book to find out what happened there. We'll be taking a look at the life of another obscure author over the weekend and catching up with the upcoming releases early next week—I simply didn't have time to update the various lists this week. See you back here soon.

And for those of you waiting for the solution to yesterday's 'What Would You Do? ...


Thursday, August 29, 2013

What Would You Do? episode 3

Here's the answer to yesterday's episode, plus a new 'What Would You Do?'... come back tomorrow for the answer.


A few miles off the British coast, a lone Spitfire limps home after a sortie over France. For it is damaged, and almost out of fuel. Suddenly, German fighters swoop down to attack, forming a loose, line-ahead formation. There is a little cloud below the desperate Briton – but not enough for concealment. The enemy are bound to destroy him, unless... What can he do? You'll find out the answer tomorrow.

(* artwork © IPC Media.)

Commando Issues 4631-4634

Commando issues on sale 29th August 2013

Commando No 4631 – Fatal Mission

Luck had been with the Convict Commandos since they had escaped from the Japanese in 1942. They had carried out the most perilous of missions with little more than bumps and bruises to show for it.
   But luck has a habit of changing suddenly, especially when it is pushed, and it certainly changed for the Convict Commandos as they flew to their next target. They had passed through dangerous skies before, but none quite as dangerous as those over Arnhem.

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Benet
Cover: Benet

Commando No 4632 – Send For Spitfires

“Bandits ahead! Go! Go! Go!”
   Time and again that staccato command unleashed the savage fighting spirit of Britain’s Spitfire pilots, driving them to hurl their machines in slashing attack after attack against the Luftwaffe hordes in the only method of defence that they believed in — attack.
Go! Go! Go!

Introduction

This story is good value for money as there are two themes running through it. First you have a bit of double-dealing treachery and second you have the pilot unsure of his abilities. Both though are very nicely handled.
   Medrano’s art is well up to fleshing out the narrative — neat, precise and with an accomplished use of perspective in the flying scenes.
   But don’t rush to get going, back up and have another look at Ken Barr’s colour-packed cover; it’s worth a second glance.

Calum Laird, Commando Editor

Story: Kellie
Art: Medrano
Cover: Ken Barr
Originally Commando No 83 (Sept 1963)

Commando No 4633 – “Sink The Wagner!”

In 1942, over Canada, the last thing that the pilots of the Fleet Air Arm expected to see was a hostile aircraft. After all, the nearest enemy base was thousands of miles away. But that was exactly what the FAA boys did see — for the Germans had constructed a carrier in secret and sailed it across the Atlantic to attack a vital Canadian port.
   Though outnumbered and outgunned, the Fleet Air Arm Martlet and Swordfish aircraft were not going to go out without a fight, and that hulking German aircraft carrier looked like a good target…

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Vila
Cover: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4634 – The Black Buzzard

Slowly, painfully, the three RAF Hurricanes staggered through the desert sky, desperately striving to reach home and safety.
   The wreck in the middle had a wounded pilot slumped over its controls, as near unconsciousness as makes no difference, and all that held his tattered plane in the air was the wingtips of his comrades’ planes on either side.
   Mile by mile they struggled on, grimly, gallantly — then came the sinister chatter of cannons and machine guns behind them. The Black Buzzard had arrived for a kill…

Introduction

This searing blast from the past bears all the hallmarks of a classic airborne Commando:
   A great script from writer R.A. “Monty” Montague, which in turn, was expertly subbed by Commando staffers.
   Wonderful interior art from virtuoso aircraft illustrator, Jose Maria Jorge.
   A dynamic cover from another aeronautical drawing legend, Ian Kennedy.
All of these elements combine to form a real winner — with aerial thrills and spills galore. In my opinion, The Black Buzzard is the closest to perfection (if that is actually possible) that a single Commando issue can be. This is one to be savoured.  

Scott Montgomery, Deputy Editor

Story: R.A. Montague
Art: J.M. Jorge
Cover: Ian Kennedy
Originally Commando No 897 (December 1974), re-issued as No 2187 (June 1988)



Wednesday, August 28, 2013

What Would You Do? episode 2

Here's the answer to yesterday's 'What Would You Do?'... come back tomorrow for the solution to today's episode.


(* artwork © IPC Media.)

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

What Would You Do? episode 1

For the next few days I'm going to be running some episodes of a cover feature that appeared on Boys' World. Each day I'll publish an episode and publish the solution the following day along with a new episode. See you tomorrow for the answer to today's 'What Would You Do?'

(* artwork © IPC Media.)

Friday, August 23, 2013

Comic Cuts - 23 August 2013


I'm writing this on Thursday afternoon and hopefully by the time you read this the order form for the Boys' World book will be up and working and you will be able to get to it by clicking the link above.

So that means the book's finished, right? Well... my estimate of three days work remaining that I confidently put forward last week proved to be a little optimistic. As it turned out, we nailed down the introductory text around seven o'clock on Wednesday. It wasn't substantially different to an earlier draft I was using to get things started and it didn't take too long to realign the text with the images. I still have a few piddling little jobs to do, but as of this moment I have 180 pages laid out and about ten to do.

This is thirty pages longer than the Ranger. But because we don't have thirty or so pages of comic strips, there's actually about 20,000 words more introductory text. The total is about 50,000 words once you add in the index to the weekly, the listings for the annuals, the creators index, the title index and an appendix revealing the payments made on three issues, which explains why this one has taken quite so long to compile.

I'm confident that I'll have the last few pages wrapped up in the next day or two and then we have to wait for the proofs to come in, so I've set the release date provisionally as 2nd September.

Frank Hampson's former home, Bayford Lodge in Epsom, is up for sale. It has been extensively remodeled over the years and, ironically, the twin attractions of space and light would probably suit a budding artist. Unfortunately, the asking price is £1,425,000, which is so far out of my price range, they may as well be offering to sell Mars or Jupiter.

I was pleased to see quite a few British comic characters appearing in the Guardian's comment thread asking who do you think is the greatest comic book character. From the Beano's Dennis the Menace to Slaine from 2000AD, the number of British characters receiving praise was—at least when I last looked—at least equal to the stars of American comic books. Hopefully the Guardian will compile the information into something a little easier to read than the current comment format.

Elmore Leonard died on Tuesday of complications following a stroke he suffered a few weeks ago and I have only the following to hand—and the first of these was recently sent by Nick Jones, who had been running some pieces on Leonard on his Existential Ennui blog. Leonard wrote a number of westerns before turning to urban crime novels. Two of his westerns are considered classics: Hombre and 3:10 to Yuma, both filmed, the latter twice.

As soon as the book is complete, I'm planning to take a couple of days off to catch my breath before I start work on the next one. So if you don't see any posts over the next few days, you'll know I've got my feet up.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Spy-Smasher Smith

Following on from yesterday's "Spot the Artist" strip, here's another, from the pages of Lion, that has long puzzled me. Anyone know who this is? The style is quite distinctive but it's not one of Lion's regulars.

(* artwork © IPC Media.)

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

N E Spooks

Here's a poser for readers of Bear Alley. Does anyone have any idea who the artist is for this strip, examples of which were found in Boys' World Annual in 1968 and 1969.

 
 
(* artwork © IPC Media.)

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

CLiNT

Launched on a wave of publicity thanks to its celebrity connections, CLiNT tried to mix comics with a lads' mag sensibility at a time when lads' mags were losing favour; sales of the latter had been falling for a decade and circulations were collapsing with double-digit year-on-year drops in the latter half of the 2000s. (Not, I might add, because the Noughties were more prudish than the Nineties, but because of the rise of broadband, making online porn more widely available.)

The publicity centred on the inclusion of stories by Jonathan Ross and Frankie Boyle. Ross's love of comics was widely known and Turf had already received a huge amount of publicity back in April 2010 when the comic was launched in the US. Ross had already announced that he was leaving the BBC, the last episode of his chat-show being broadcast in July.

Boyle was centre-stage on the cover of the first issue alongside Chloë Grace Moretz (Hit Girl) and Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) from the Kick-Ass movie, released in the UK in March 2010. After quitting Mock the Week in 2009, he joined Channel 4 where the 6-episode Tramadol Nights was broadcast  in November / December 2010.

A third star, Jimmy Carr, featured in early issues—interviewed in the first issue, compiling questions for a Q&A feature and, for issue 9, penning his first comic strip, the one-off 'Beat My Score'.

Of the celebrity strips, Ross's Turf was the hands-down winner. This straightforward story of vampires in 1920s New York was beautifully drawn by Tommy Lee Edwards, who had worked with Mark Millar on Marvel 1985 in 2008, the artwork benefiting from CLiNT's magazine-sized pages.

Boyle's 'Rex Royd', co-written by fellow Scot Jim Muir, was a far more cerebral take on superheroes than anyone expected from two comedians. Deliberately obscure and non-linear, the strip suffered an instant negative reaction, based on only the opening 11 pages and never seemed to recover, managing only eight episodes over the whole run of CLiNT's two volumes.

The bulk of the magazine was supplied by Mark Millar, the paper's creator, co-publisher, editor and public champion. Millar had a lengthy CV in comics, beginning with Saviour (featuring a character whose looks were based on those of Jonathan Ross), 2000AD and Crisis before he made his US debut co-writing Swamp Thing. His rise during the 2000s was meteoric: The Authority, Superman: Red Son, Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four, Civil War... but as well as these mainstream successes, Millar also produced his own Millarworld creator-owned material, including Wanted (filmed 2008), Chosen (optioned), War Heroes (optioned) and Kick-Ass, the latter filmed in 2010.

Soon after the release of the Kick-Ass movie, Millar announced that he was planning to launch a new British monthly magazine. He had also inked a deal with Marvel's Icon imprint to produce two titles, Nemesis and Superior, both of them creator-owned and available for publication in his new British title.

CLiNT didn't take off in the way Millar hoped for, although his statement in the debut issue that "I think this mag is going to be massive and maybe change the world in some way, possibly even slightly for the better," was meant ironically. Copies are available on eBay, but the first issue is not "worth millions"; nor were kids "crying out for a monthly like CLiNT," it seems.

Millar made much of his celebrity pals in publicity, but the celebrity content eventually faded away, and whilst much had been made of the magazine championing new talent, very little was on show. Instead, a number of Image Comics' reprints (The Pro, Who Is Jake Ellis?, Officer Downe and Graveyard of Empires) appeared through 2011.

CLiNT suffered from other problems. A feature listed on the cover as 'Huw Edwards' was, in fact, a comic strip titled 'The Driver' which included a photo of the news reader and the legend "Huw Edwards presents". It is easy to see why readers, including the reviewer at Den of Geek, thought Edwards was another celebrity involved in the comic. "Rounding off the strips is CLiNT's own answer to Future Shocks short tales, with Huw Edwards' Space Oddities. Yes, BBC's very own newsreader fronts these self-contained tales..." read the Den of Geek review. It would appear that Edwards was not in the know and any mention of Edwards disappeared from the CLiNT website shortly after issue 1 appeared.

A bigger problem was that CLiNT was displayed haphazardly in newsagents and supermarkets. Was it a lads' mag to be racked with Nuts and Zoo? Was it a comic to be racked with 2000AD? Should it be racked with that other 'adult' comic, Viz? It often found its way onto the top shelf but did itself no favours by parodying its top shelf neighbours with the feature 'Hot Mums', starring fully-clothed women, and oddities like an interview with the actor who dubbed Tom Cruise when his films were released in China.

The name itself may have been damaging to the magazine. It was based on an obscure bit of comic lore that British comics avoided the name CLINT and the word FLICK because, written in capitals and printed on poor paper, they risked the ink overrunning to create the words CUNT and FUCK. SFX, the science fiction magazine, often turned their title into the eye-stopping SEX with a carefully positioned photograph; CLiNT could not do this and, when it almost did—as with the cover for issue 3—one wonders what Quenting Tarantino thought of having his photograph under a headline that, at a distance, said CUNT.

After only a few issues, CLiNT ran into scheduling problems. New issues appeared every six weeks or so rather than monthly. After 15 issues CLiNT was relaunched with a new first issue and a new line-up featuring Millar's Supercrooks (drawn by Superior's Leinil Francis Yu) and The Secret Service (drawn by Dave Gibbons). It also introduced its first genuine original tale in 'Death Sentence' by Monty Nero and artist Mike Dowling (who was also drawing 'Rex Royd', which briefly returned for the relaunch).

Following its relaunch,  CLiNT continued to struggle with its schedule and, after only a few issues, Titan decided to pull the plug. Little effort was made to promote the title after the appearance of issue 6 in February 2013—the magazine's Twitter feed, sporadically active whenever a new issue appeared, failed to mention the publication of issue 7 or 8. Titan eventually issued a press release to Comic Book Resources shortly after shipping the final issue in August 2013.

The final—eighth—issue was, in effect, a magazine-length advert for upcoming Titan Comics titles hoping to benefit from the release of Kick-Ass 2 in cinemas. One survivor from CLiNT remained: 'Death Sentence', taken up by Titan Comics as a standalone title. The last issue of Mark Millar's CLiNT (as the cover title became from issue two) had no Mark Millar comics but did finish on an interview with the title's creator.

Its creators insist that CLiNT succeeded in what it set out to achieve and they are dropping it simply because they are moving on—Millar to further Millarworld titles and movies and Titan to Titan Comics—the simple fact is that CLiNT promised much but delivered little as a British newsstand comic. In time, it is likely to be remembered more for Millar's unequalled talents as a self-publicist than anything... or perhaps as the comic equivalent of a series of Celebrity Big Brother, with readers quite excited by the announced line-up but gradually drifting away as their favourite characters leave the show.

PICTURE STORIES

Kick-Ass 2 (1-15, Sep 2010-2012)
Reprints Kick-Ass 2 1-7 (Marvel/Icon Comics), Dec 2010-May 2012; Art: John Romita Jr.; Script: Mark Millar

Turf (1-10, Sep 2010-2011)
Reprints Turf 1-5 (Image Comics), Apr 2010-Jun 2011; Art: Tommy Lee Edwards; Script: Jonathan Ross.

Rex Royd (1-4, Sep-Dec 2010, 12-13, 2011, 2/1, 2012)
Art: Mike Dowling; Script: Frankie Boyle & Jim Muir / Frankie Boyle.

Nemesis (1-5, 2010-2011)
Reprints Nemesis 1-4 (Marvel/Icon Comics), May-Dec 2010; Art: Steve McNiven; Script: Mark Millar.

American Jesus (2-7, Nov 2010-2011)
Reprints Chosen 1-3 (Image), Jan-Aug 2004; Art: Peter Gross; Script: Mark Millar.

The Pro (5-9, 2011)
Reprints The Pro (Image Comics), 2002; Art: ; Script: Garth Ennis.

Superior (6-15, 2011-2012)
Reprints Superior 1-7 (Marvel/Icon Comics), Dec 2010-Mar 2012 Art: Leinil Francis Yu; Script: Mark Millar.

Who Is Jake Ellis? (8-12, 2011)
Reprints Who Is Jake Ellis? 1-5 (Image Comics), 2011; Art: Tonci Zonjic; Script: Nathan Edmondson.

Officer Downe (10-11, 2011)
Reprints Officer Downe 1-2 (Image Comics), 2011; Art: Chris Burnham; Script: Joe Casey.

Graveyard of Empires (12-15, 2011-2012, 2/3-2/4, 2012)
Reprints Graveyard of Empires 1-4 (Image Comics), 2011-12; Art: Paul Azaceta; Script: Mark Sable.

Supercrooks (15, 2012, 2/1-2/5, Jun 2012-2013)
Reprints Supercrooks 1-4 (Marvel/Icon Comics), May-Oct 2012; Art: Leinil Francis Yu/Gerry Alanguilan (inks); Script: Mark Millar (co-plotter Nacho Vigalondo).

The Secret Service (2/1-2/7, 2012)
Reprints The Secret Service 1-6 (Marvel/Icon Comics), Jun 2012-Jun 2013; Art: Dave Gibbons; Script: Mark Millar.

Death Sentence (2/1-2/8, 2012)
Art: Mike Dowling; Script: Monty Nero.

Hit Girl (2/2-2/7, 2012)
Reprints Hit Girl 1-5 (Marvel/Icon Comics), Aug 2012-Apr 2013; Art: John Romita Jr.; Script: Mark Millar.


ONE-OFF STORIES

The Diner (1, Sep 2010)
Art & Script: Manuel Bracchi.

Emergency Pit-Stop (2, Oct 2010)
Art & Script: Mateus Santolouco.

Fall of the Fortress (3, Nov 2010)
Art & Script: Bruno Letizia.

Best Man (4, Dec 2010)
Art: Des Taylor; Script: Muriel Grey.

Someone Got to Eddie (6)
Art: ?; Script: Ian Rankin.

Treasure (7)
Art & Script: Baskerville.

Beat My Score (9)
Script: Jimmy Carr.

Kick-Ass Comics: The Untold Stories (2/3, 2012)
Art:

Homesick (2/7, 2012)
Art: Martin Stiff; Script: J. P. Rutter.

Chronos Commandos (2/8, Sep 2013)
Art & Script: Stuart Jennett.

Odyssey (2/8, Sep 2013)
Art: Garrie Gastonny; Script: Dave Elliott.

It Came (2/8, Sep 2013)
Art & Script: Dan Boultwood.

Razorjack: Deadfall (2/8, Sep 2013)
Art: John Higgins; Script: John Higgins & Mike Carroll.

(* Note: The stripography is quite probably incomplete as far as one-off stories is concerned and I'm missing a couple of artist/writer credits, so if anyone can help fill the gaps please let me know.)

Monday, August 19, 2013

CLiNT Cover Gallery

 
Clint 1 (available from 2 September 2010) Sep 2010

Clint 2 (available from 30 September 2010) Oct 2010

Clint 3 (available from 38 October 2010) Nov 2010

Clint 4 (available from 2 December 2010) Dec 2010

Clint 5 (available from 27 January 2011)

Clint 6 (available from 3 March 2011)

Clint 7 (available from 14 April 2011)

Clint 8 (available from 19 May 2011)

Clint 9 (available from 30 June 2011)

Clint 10 (available from 18 August 2011)

Clint 11 (available form 6 October 2011)

Clint 12 (available from 24 November 2011)

Clint 13 (available from 5 January 2012)

Clint 14 (available from 16 February 2012)

Clint 15 (available from 29 March 2012)

Clint 2.1 (available from 24 May 2012) Jun 2012

Clint 2.2 (available from 5 July 2012)

Clint 2.3 (available from 16 August 2012)

Clint 2.4 (available from 27 September 2012)

Clint 2.5 (available from 8 November 2012)

Clint 2.6 (available from 14 February 2013)

Clint 2.7 (available from 8 May 2013) May/Jun 2013

Clint 2.8 (available from August 2013) Sep 2013

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS
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