The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

“Bear Alley Books has been born out of a desire to put some classic British comic strips back into print. There has been no tradition here for reprinting strips as albums as there is across Europe and, increasingly, in America. Almost none of the strips I remember with great affection from my youth are in print. I’ve had the good fortune to have been involved in many of the reprints that have appeared—The Steel Claw, The Spider, Trigan Empire, Rick Random, the war libraries collections, etc.—but there are dozens of others I’d love to see collected that no major publisher would consider. There are sound commercial reasons for this so you can’t blame them. Still, it’s frustrating.”

Steve Holland, editor, writer, possessor of hugely impressive amounts of knowledge of classic British comics and staunch supporter of those self same classics we all know and love has announced that he has moved from editing collections for other publishers to setting up his own publishing business, Bear Alley Books, with Cursitor Doom and The Phantom Patrol (which I think I first encountered via reprints in some early 2000 AD annuals) down for the first titles, with hopefully more to follow from Steve’s beloved boy’s adventure comics but also, he says on the new Bear Alley Books blog, from our rich heritage of humour titles and girl’s comics. I certainly wish Steve all the best with this – several of us have said many times on here that its a damned shame that more classic British comics simply aren’t reprinted in new collections (as Steve notes there are financial and marketing reasons for this, but there’s still some space and, I am sure, demand).

(cover art to the Phantom Patrol collection, art by Chris Weston, published Bear Alley Books)

Especially as the classic reprint range from the US – inspired in no small part by Fantagraphics’ beautiful Complete Peanuts range combining quality and nostalgia with respect for the source – has increased hugely. There are huge amounts of comics material – some of it inventive and boasting great art – which I think a lot of us would dearly love to read again in a decently produced archive edition. So kudos to Steve and the very best of luck to him.