This has been a really tough year for me and the West family.
In late November we lost my younger sister, Jacqui, to cancer.
Something like that overshadows everything and also makes you sit and take a hard look at your life and the decisions you are making.
When the person is younger than yourself it also causes you to consider your own mortality.
I'll just leave the year with this photo taken of the two of us many years ago.
The plot is quite a challenging one, where effectively actors appear to be sent to worlds to recreate historical and fictional dramas as a means to give the populace something else to think about rather than how bad their lives were. This predates streaming services and I doubt it would be written in today's world. Back in the 1970s though there were only a few channels and programmes ended at midnight and started again around 8am, so I guess with that context this plot makes some kind of sense.
I didn't really connect with the lead character, Spingarn, which resulted in my not really connecting with the book.
Not sure what else Brian N Ball has written but I think there's where he failed here.
This has got to be one of the strangest Science Fiction books that I've ever read.
The Earth is being invaded by giant beings from a distant planet. During hostilities one of these giants is brought down and killed. Kept in a very large refrigerator the alien is then converted into a vehicle for a couple of very clever and gifted scientists to take the fight back to the alien home world.
Yep. the scientists sit in the creature's head and drive its body, operate its speech and effectively try to come across as one of them.
Oh, they have to learn the language too.
I've read a fair number of books in my time and thought, 'Yes, I could have come up with something a bit like that, just not as well written.' This is not one of those books. I wouldn't have come up with this in a million years.
I'll look out for any other books by Joseph Green in the DAW back catalogue. I'm not sure how he could follow this one tough.
Well, I'm looking after my mother last the moment as she traverses a course of chemo therapy.
I've been subjected to all of those soaps, you know the ones, EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale Farm... errr.. sorry Emmerdale, that I grew up with, and left behind as quickly as I could
My Mum also loves her musicals and growing up I got to enjoy all and any film with Howard Keel and Mario Lanza in them.
So, imagine my joy at seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show come up on the TV listings 😏
Centred on twins, warrior brother and witch sister the story ambles along nicely but the problem I found is that since reading books like this I've read books by the likes of Steven Erikson and Joe Abercombie and I'm afraid this felt very light weight in comparison. The central characters were never as fleshed out or engaging as books written today, I guess there was more novelty in fantasy stories and the book gathered fans based on the story and concepts rather then the writing style or characterisation.
All in all, it was readable and moved along nicely. It didn't however make me want to track down the other six and immerse myself in more of Andre Norton's stories.
When I was growing up I started my reading of fantasy with R E Howard's Conan books and science fiction books by A E Van Vogt and Isaac Asimov.
I still remember picking up my first R E Howard Conan book, the Sphere edition of Conan, when I was 10 years old at a charity event run for the local children's hospital (which was to take out my appendix a few years later)
Every now and then over the coming years I would pick up a book by the DAW publisher.
It allowed me to sample the works of new writers and I loved the yellow spine which made them all look so neat on my shelf.
A few years ago I started coming across DAW books in Charity shops and decided to pick them up with a view to re-reading, or reading them for the first time.
A year or so later it became more about the collecting than the reading but I am working my way, slowly, through them.
Spotted Quantum 10 in my local W H Smiths today.
I always find myself giving posters like this a second look.
Phew.
It would be great to have that comic trilogy finished.
Jemma and I took a trip into London today, with everything going on in my family I hadn't managed to get her any Xmas present(s).
We did our usual Waterstones, GOSH Comics, Foyles (where we also had lunch) and then Forbidden Planet.
Staying at my Mum and Dad's house for the past month has meant I've not had much chance to get out and about. My daughter has been down for the last week or so and we decided to take a day trip to one of our favourite second hand bookstores, in Rochester.
On the train we passed through Whitstable and Jemma reminded my that one of my friends had recently moved there.
Due to family issues I've had to step away from Quantum 11 a bit.
There will be no Peter Thomson episode as I hadn't completed the grey-scaling before I needed to go and help my mother get through her chemo treatment.
Good news however is that WesterNoir is a special crossover with John Higgin's RazorJack and there's a new story from Katie Cunningham called Space Banshee.
We've also decided to have a fresh new cover design but still keep the essence of the great logo from David Morris.
It's been a few weeks since the last Convention of the year and I've been busy with family things and not found time to write up a few words on how it was for me and Time Bomb Comics.
This year I decided to not bother with Premier Inn but got us rooms in a local hotel. I've been annoyed at how much prices for Premier Inn have risen over the last few years. it was a great decision, not only was the hotel well positioned, clean and well staffed, it was where a lot of the comic book professionals were staying. This meant a few pints after the Con with a lot of people we'd got to know over the years and also the opportunity to make some new acquaintances.
This year the Con had an additional hall. Whilst this is great news for anybody going to buy comics it is always going to have an impact on people at the Con trying to make things work financially. With a couple of new books on sale and the WesterNoir figures being launched we did pretty well but not as well as we'd have liked. Also, I spent a bit more myself than I normally do due to the wealth of great looking books available.
Always great to catch up with fellow creatives and feed off of the energy and enthusiasm for the medium. Also great to catch up with regular customers who have kindly supported our efforts over the years.
I've just added our initial convention schedule for 2025 (on the right).
Hope to see some of you at some of them.
Having published Quantum for about 2 years I have found that I really understand cashflow for the first time and how important it is for people to pay bills promptly.
I've always done this as a matter of course with my bills but for the first time, as someone waiting for bills to be paid, I've now got first hand experience of the chain reaction when this doesn't happen.
Sometimes this is due to invoices not being received (ending up in JUNK folders etc), sometimes it's the turnaround at the receiver's end (why does it take weeks to do a funds transfer?) and sometimes it's just people taking their own sweet time to get around to doing so.
Regardless, this means that we can't pay people that we owe, be that printer or creators, when we'd like to. When it comes to the printer it means a delay and when it comes to creators it means that they get a little annoyed and we feel bad.
Yes, we should build these factors into our processes but that's difficult when the comic we produce has a 2 monthly publication schedule.
