Those Who Walk Away, or, The Man with the Getaway Face, or, Free Agent, or, Rogue Male

Interesting start to the year. Actually, interesting end to last year, too – and really I suppose the start of this year was simply an extension, a culmination in a way, of events from the tail end of last year. You'll recall, I'm sure – because I know the minutiae of my life is of supreme fascination to you – how towards the end of 2014 the Lewes-based book publisher I'd been working for as editorial director, Ilex, had been bought by a bigger, London-based book publisher, and myself and seven colleagues were suddenly required to commute two-plus hours daily to the capital (travel costs paid, it must be acknowledged, by the bigger, London-based book publisher) instead of, in my case – living as I do in Lewes – walking to work in fifteen minutes. And that was still the case come January... right up to the point three weeks ago when I took voluntary redundancy.

My reasons for doing so were varied. Partly it was that two-plus hours commute (or rather, four-plus hours total per day); partly it was London itself (I discovered that my feelings about the place had remained pretty much unchanged in the six-and-a-half years since I'd moved away); partly it was the job, and how it was shaking out; and partly it was home life, and how I was barely getting to see my daughter. But essentially, what it boiled down to was that after nearly seven years at Ilex, it was time to go (past time, perhaps).

And so now I'm freelance again, something I haven't been, fully, for, ooh, getting on for twenty years (I started out as a freelance music journalist in 1992). I've taken on some work already – development for a graphic novel project which may or may not come to anything, some editorial stuff – but I'm looking for more, so if you have a project and you reckon I can be of some use, drop me a line on this email address:

existentialennui@gmail.com

Not to blow my own trumpet or anything – although that is, I guess, to an extent, the purpose of this post – but when I was working on my CV the other week I was struck by just how much experience I have in so many different fields of publishing – fiction, non-fiction, illustrated non-fiction, graphic novels, comics, magazines, music journalism, licensed publishing, TV/film/pop culture tie-ins, children's books – and at so many levels: writer, editor, managing editor, editorial director. By way of illustration, you can see some of the books and graphic novels and novels I've managed or edited – and in some cases commissioned, plotted, written for and even, in one instance, part-illustrated (that fine art degree comes in handy sometimes) – over the past dozen years, both at Ilex and at Titan Books, dotted about this post – and those are just the ones I have to hand.

And then there's Existential Ennui, which I think – I hope – demonstrates I can at least string a sentence together (on occasion), and have a certain amount of knowledge in fields other than those in which I've worked, i.e. thrillers, crime fiction, spy fiction and so forth. With everything that's been going on recently I've not been able to devote much time to this 'ere blog (and none whatsoever to The Violent World of Parker blog; sorry about that, Trent), but I've no intention of abandoning it, especially not now, when the bloody thing might finally come in handy. Or not; we shall see. But even if Existential Ennui proves next to useless as a means of securing paid work, I shall persevere. I mean, otherwise, what am I going to do with all these first editions and signed editions and uncorrected proofs of books by Victor Canning and Gavin Lyall and Anthony Price and Patricia Highsmith and Donald E. Westlake and P. M. Hubbard and Kingsley Amis and Adam Hall and Donald MacKenzie and Manning O'Brine and Desmond Cory I haven't yet blogged about...?

Hayley Campbell's The Art of Neil Gaiman and Eddie Campbell's How to Be an Artist: Signed First Editions (and a Launch Party)

NB: Linked in this Friday's Forgotten Books roundup, 18/7/14.

Well it would've been remiss of me, I feel, having spent three or four years editing Hayley Campbell's fine illustrated biography The Art of Neil Gaiman – which publishes in the UK this week from The Ilex Press – not to get Hayley to sign and inscribe a copy to me. Which is precisely what I did at the book's launch party at Gosh! Comics in London on Friday:

The cock, by the way, was a request – kind of; Hayley had mentioned to me that she'd drawn one in a friend's copy of the book ("Three pubes per ball," she noted. "Classic") so naturally I demanded she do one for me as well. And a fine specimen it is too.

My copy of The Art of Neil Gaiman was just one among many that Hayley signed at the launch; Gosh! photographer Mauricio Molizane de Souza took some pictures of Hayley in action:

and of the crowd in general:

No idea who that gesticulating idiot in the flowery shirt in the background is, but partially hidden behind Hayley is Amazing15's Martin Stiff, who designed the book (the other half of Amazing15, Marcus Scudamore, can be seen far left looking faintly suicidal at having to listen to the aforementioned flowery-shirted idiot), while talking to Hayley is Pádraig Ó Méalóid, who gave notes on Hayley's manuscript, and to his right erstwhile Ilex commissioning editor Tim Pilcher, whose idea the book was. Also at the launch were these folk:

On the right Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote the foreword to the book, and in the middle Hayley's dad, cartoonist Eddie Campbell, whose collaboration with Neil Gaiman, The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains – a performance of which I caught at the Barbican the Friday before (Hayley did a brief Q&A onstage with her dad and Neil at the end) – features in the book. I've mentioned Eddie in passing on Existential Ennui once or twice before; he's one of the most important cartoonists this country has produced (although he emigrated to Australia thirty years ago), indeed one of the most important to ever have worked in the medium. He's probably best known for From Hell, his collaboration with Alan Moore, but his own comics are as good and in many cases even better, drawing on his own life (literally) to create a beguiling mix of autobiography and philosophy. My favorite of his works is How to Be an Artist (The King Canute crowd runs it a close second), which was originally serialized in the anthology comic Dee Vee in the late-1990s and then collected and expanded into this edition:

which was published under Eddie's own eponymous imprint in 2001. It's a rich, wry, affecting take on how a person might choose to become an artist – in this case a comics one – commit to live as an artist and try to make a living as an artist (or not, as the case may be) and how fate has a habit of intervening in all of those things when you least expect it. But more than that it's an evocation of a particular time and scene, one that I still recall vividly and with great fondness: the British comics scene of the 1980s and early 1990s, especially the bit that grew out of the Fast Fiction/Escape small press scene, which Eddie was a part of. I first encountered Eddie's work in various small press anthologies – not least Fast Fiction and Escape – in the mid-1980s (when I was in my mid-teens) bought from the Fast Fiction table at the Westminster Comic Mart, and that formative aspect of his career weaves through the narrative of How to Be an Artist, for me lending the enterprise an additional sentimental appeal.

Anyway, knowing that Eddie was going to be at the launch party for Hayley's book I took along my copy of How to Be an Artist in the hope that Eddie might sign it. In the event he did more than that:

He drew a portrait of himself as well, opposite the similar portrait of a much younger Eddie Campbell on the facing page. It perhaps doesn't have quite the same impact as Hayley's cock, but I shall treasure it equally.

Gosh! Comics launch photos © Mauricio Molizane de Souza.

Reblogged: The Extraordinarily Long Life of Hayley Campbell's The Art of Neil Gaiman (Ilex Press, 2014)

NB: This post first appeared at the Ilex Press blog – earlier today, in fact. I'm re-posting it here for posterity and because I figured it might be of interest to one or two Existential Ennui readers. And thank you to Patti Nase Abbott for linking from this Friday's Forgotten Books roundup.

When you're editing illustrated books, the production lives of the books that you work on can vary dramatically. Some books fly by seemingly in the blink of an eye: the author starts work, they deliver the material, it gets checked/edited/designed/proofread etc. and the book goes off to print, all in the space of a couple of months (I'm looking at you, Jake Spicer's Draw Cats in 15 Minutes). Other books have a slightly more sensible production life – typically about about a year in illustrated book circles, from when the book is green-lit to when it hits the warehouse. Still others require a longer lead time – books like Gary Spencer Millidge's Alan Moore: Storyteller, say, or Helen McCarthy's The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga – books where the amount of research required, not just in terms of the text but in sourcing images as well, necessitates a schedule longer than twelve months.

And then there's Hayley Campbell's The Art of Neil Gaiman.

The original idea for Hayley's book, which is just about to publish in the UK (it's been out in the States from Harper Design for a month or so), dates back to 2010. Ilex had published the aforementioned The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga in 2009, and Alan Moore: Storyteller was heading for publication in 2011, and we were pondering which other creators of a similar stature and with a similar background in comics – but who had like Tezuka and Moore made an indelible mark on the wider cultural stage – we could biographise in a similarly visual manner. Naturally Neil Gaiman was at the top of our list. How Hayley came on board as author Hayley herself reveals in this interview with Pádraig Ó Méalóid, and erstwhile Ilex commissioning editor (and British comics legend) Tim Pilcher details the origins of the book over at his blog, so there's little point in my going over the same ground here. Suffice it to say that The Art of Neil Gaiman was eventually green-lit as a project in spring 2011.

Three years later, it finally exists as a printed book.

I must admit I struggle to think of another book that I've edited in my ten-plus years in book publishing that's taken quite the length of time that The Art of Neil Gaiman has. (Matter of fact, it's taken longer than the entire lives of some of the magazines I edited in my prior ten-plus years in magazine publishing.) The reasons for that are many and varied, but a good many of them were to do with the number of people involved. There was Hayley, obviously, and her agent; Neil and his agent; a variety of folk at HarperCollins in the US, including Neil's editor over there; DC Comics and sundry other image rights-holders; Ilex's executive publisher, Roly Allen; and on the creative team copyeditor Jennifer Eiss, editors Ellie Wilson and Rachel Silverlight, art director Julie Weir and designers Amazing15. Add in Ilex's repro and production departments and our press and publicity officer Emily Owen and you have quite the cast list.

Editing books is never plain sailing, but with that number of hands on deck the waters around The Art of Neil Gaiman were bound to be choppier than normal (if I can mix my nautical metaphors). Before Hayley could even start writing the contract with both her and Neil had to be agreed. Then Hayley had to pin Neil down – never a simple task; he's forever flying round the world – in order to interview him extensively and raid his attic for visuals (and oh, the stuff she found up there...). Then once she'd delivered her manuscript the fun really started. There were discussions and deliberations about the first draft of the manuscript; further discussions and deliberations about the second draft of the manuscript; yet more discussions and deliberations over the copyedit of the manuscript; and another round of discussions and deliberations over the second copyedit of the manuscript. Then the book went to design, and there were even more discussions and deliberations.

Tempers frayed at various junctures. There were differences of opinion, disagreements, miscommunications, misinterpretations. Each of us at one time or another was frustrated or exasperated. I myself had an epic email meltdown towards the end of 2013 (one which I rather regret now – sorry everyone). But there was also excitement and anticipation: we all knew we had something special on our hands, and we all wanted it to be the best it could be. It was just how to achieve that that we didn't always see eye to eye (to eye to eye) on.

I'd be lying if I said it was an entirely joyous experience. But what all of the above speaks to, I think, is the passion that all concerned had – have – for the book. We all cared. Throughout the many ups and downs over those three or four years, while in the background governments fell and coalitions rose and economies crumbled and began to rebuild (and on a personal note I became a dad and learned to drive), we never lost sight of the fact that The Art of Neil Gaiman had the potential to be a brilliant book. That it has turned out to be just that is testament to the hard work that everyone put into it – not least Hayley, who has crafted and curated a remarkable document, a funny, moving, visually arresting insight into Neil's creative life. But more than that, I believe our collective passion for the project is reflected in the finished article. You can see it on every lovingly designed page, read it in Hayley's finely honed text; hell, I reckon you can even smell it if you hold the book up to your nose, although that might simply be the sweet, sweet smell of printer's ink.

In total The Art of Neil Gaiman ate up something like a tenth of my life (to date). In Hayley's case it was more like a seventh. Others involved in the process have lived with it for almost as long. Measured simply in those terms, our commitment to the book is self-evident.

Hayley will doubtless go on to write other books – The Art of Neil Gaiman was her first as author, but it won't be her last – but I'm fairly confident she'll never experience anything quite like this one again.

I'm not sure I will either.

London's Gosh! Comics will be hosting the launch party for The Art of Neil Gaiman tonight, Friday 11 July, at 7pm. Hayley will be there signing books, and I'll be lurking in a corner somewhere. Perhaps I'll see you there.

And the Winners Are...

...drum roll please... oh, wait, hang on, I haven't said what these winners are winning yet, or how they've won it. They have, of course, won this:

The Art of Movie Storyboards, a splendid new illustrated book written and researched by Fionnuala Halligan and published by The Ilex Press – where, lest we forget, I work – and Chronicle Books. I had three copies to give away to anyone who could answer the question which 1939 novel was Fritz Lang's Man Hunt – one of the films whose storyboards are featured in the book – based on – answer being Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male, or as a number of American entrants pointed out, Man Hunt, that being the US title of the book, a fact I had forgotten when I concocted the question, and which rather made a mockery of the whole enterprise. BUT NEVER MIND. The point is that there was a competition to win one of three copies of The Art of Movie Storyboards, and three of you have done just that. And those winners are... reprise drum roll please...

Matthew Keeley, Kelly Robinson and Mark Brockbank!

Congratulations to all three of you. Your copies of The Art of Movie Storyboards will be winging their way towards you at the earliest opportunity, i.e. when it stops raining and I can pop over the road to the other office and grab some copies. (Although Matthew, you'll need to email me your address in order for me to send you your book.) Commiserations to those who didn't win, but you could always, if you so desired, buy the book – it's readily available from the likes of Amazon UK and US – and thus contribute, in a roundabout fashion, in as much as an undisclosed proportion of my Ilex wages go towards the many secondhand books you see littering this blog, to the upkeep of Existential Ennui. Ithangyew.

WIN!!! Brand New Illustrated Book The Art of Movie Storyboards!

NB: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED.

As trailed at the end of last week, it's competition time! Woo! I've only run competitions on Existential Ennui twice before, so you know I'd have to have something pretty darn special to give away in order for me to use up valuable blogging time and energy on such an endeavour. And indeed I do – in fact I can personally vouch for the excellence of the prize, as I had a hand in its creation.

There are three copies of this up for grabs:

The Art of Movie Storyboards, published this week by The Ilex Press in the UK and next week by Chronicle Books in the US (where it's going under the title of simply Movie Storyboards). Written and researched by Fionnuala Halligan, it's a great big 240-page hardback exploring the rich history of movie storyboards, from early pioneers like William Cameron Menzies (Gone with the Wind, Spellbound), Saul Bass (The Birds, Psycho), Hein Heckroth and Ivor Beddoes (The Red Shoes) to modern day artists like Temple Clark (Cold Mountain, The Invisible Woman), Jane Clark (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and David Allcock (Anna Karenina). In amongst those are storyboards from such film classics as, deep breath, Spellbound, Rebel Without a Cause, Spartacus, West Side Story, The Longest Day, To Kill a Mockingbird, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, The Crow, Brazil, Caravaggio, Animal Farm, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Oldboy, Pan's Labyrinth and Gladiator.

As I say, I can testify to all this because I edited the book, in my day job capacity as managing editor at Ilex – although I should further point out that any credit should go to author Fionnuala and picture editor Katie Greenwood, who between them managed to source and secure artwork from all of the above films, plus more besides (no easy task, let me assure you). Still, it was nice to be involved in the process – slavering over the scans of Akira Kurosawa's gorgeous painted storyboards for Ran when they arrived; poring over Martin Scorsese's own simple but fascinating boards for "Sugar Ray 3", an entire fight sequence from Raging Bull; puzzling over whether we'd got the order right for the sequences from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Pather Panchali (we did – I think) – and I can take some satisfaction in having played a minor part in the creation of such a splendid tome.

And having sung its praises so thoroughly, the least I can do is tell you how you can get your hands on a copy (aside from purchasing one, obviously). To be in with a chance of winning one of the three copies I have to give away, answer this question correctly: above you can see Wiard B. Ihnen's evocative storyboards for Fritz Lang's 1941 film Man Hunt, but which 1939 novel is the film based on? As a clue, I've blogged about the book multiple times on Existential Ennui – in fact, you could say its author is a household name round these parts.

Answers, along with your name and address, should be emailed under the subject line "Movie Storyboards" to:

existentialennui@gmail.com

The competition closes Sunday 20 October at midnight EST; all entries will go into the nearest available receptacle to be drawn at the start of the following week, with the winners announced shortly thereafter. The giveaway is open to pretty much everyone – whether based in the UK, the US, Australia, Belgium, wherever – although it's probably best if no one related to me enters (I'm looking at you, Edie). Don't forget you can read more about the book here:

Ilex Press: The Art of Movie Storyboards

read a Q&A with the author here:

Q&A Time with Fionnuala Halligan

get an idea of what Total Film think of the book here:

'Pure Eye Candy' – Total Film

and buy the thing here and here. Good luck!

Competition Time... Competition Time...

A wee announcement before the weekend: next week I'll be running that rarest of beasts on Existential Ennui, a competition. Up for grabs will be three copies of this:

The Art of Movie Storyboards by Fionnuala Halligan, soon to be published in the UK by The Ilex Press, and in the US under the title of simply Movie Storyboards by Chronicle Books. It's a splendid 240-page 10" x 11" hardback beast of a thing, featuring little-seen storyboard art from over forty of the greatest films ever made, including Gone with the Wind, Psycho, Rebel Without a Cause, The Red Shoes, To Kill a Mockingbird, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Brazil, Ran, Oldboy, Pan's Labyrinth... well, you get the idea. It is, by any estimation, a sumptuous visual feast, but it's also a darn good read, with enlightening info on the films and the storyboards and commentary from the artists. I know all this for a fact because I edited the thing, in my capacity as managing editor at Ilex, and I'm immensely pleased with how it turned out; there's been a copy on my desk for a while now, which every now and then I pause from my chores to fondle lovingly. (The book, not the desk. That would be weird.)

You can read more about The Art of Movie Storyboards by heading here:

Ilex Press: The Art of Movie Storyboards

and there's a Q&A with the author, Finn, here:

Q&A Time with Fionnuala Halligan

I'll be back next week with details of how you can win a copy, plus maybe some musings on how the book came together. (And in the meantime, and if you haven't already, why not go read this week's Existential Ennui posts, on my most recent permanent page, the Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery; Richard Stark's Parker crime novel Run Lethal; and Tom Clancy, who passed away earlier this week.)

The Harvey Award-Nominated Alan Moore: Storyteller by Gary Spencer Millidge (Ilex Press, 2011): Signed and Dedicated Edition

Following on from that signed first edition of Jack Higgins's The Eagle Has Landed, I thought we could take a look at some of the other signed books I've acquired since this series of posts ended in September 2011 (although there have been one or two – actually make that three or four... or even five – signed editions in the interim). And let's begin with a book in which I myself had a hand, and which has recently been nominated for a Harvey Award:

Namely, Alan Moore: Storyteller, by Gary Spencer Millidge, a terrific tome which I edited it in my capacity as managing editor at Ilex Press in Lewes. I blogged about it in July of last year when it was published, but later that month we held a signing for the book at Gosh Comics in London (which moved premises shortly after; it's now on Soho's Berwick Street), attended by both Gary and Alan – and indeed by a few Ilex staffers, myself included. Under those circumstances, it would have been remiss off me not to get a copy signed for myself, which is precisely what I did:

Splendid stuff. As I mentioned above, Alan Moore: Storyteller was nominated for a Harvey Award a couple of weeks ago, the winners of said awards to be announced at the Baltimore Comic-Con on 8 September. Previously Ilex won a Harvey for Helen McCarthy's The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, and I reckon we're in with a shout of bagging another one for Alan Moore: Storyteller – assuming, of course, comics professionals – the ballot is only open to those who work within the comics industry – get off their bums and vote for the damn thing (needless to say, if you're a comics professional, I'd be eternally grateful if you could head to the Harvey Awards website and vote for the book before the ballot closes on 17 August).

Gary has blogged about how much it means to him to be nominated, to which I'd add that it means quite a lot to me too, for reasons I outlined in a post on the Ilex blog last year. I was fairly pleased with what I wrote back then, so, rather than go over the same ground again, I figured I might as well republish that post here on Existential Ennui, not only for posterity's sake but because it accurately – albeit somewhat prolixly – summarizes the impact Moore and his work has had on my life and, perhaps, gives some small indication of the passion and commitment that went into Alan Moore: Storyteller (not least from Gary). You can read the piece in full below, and I'll be back in a bit with some more signed editions – graphic novels, appropriately enough – and a Westlake Score-and-review...

. . . . . . . . . .

Alan Moore: Storyteller: A Dream of Flying

NB: Originally published on the Ilex Press blog, July 2011.

You might have noticed over the past few months that we’ve been blogging fairly relentlessly – incessantly, even – about a certain book named Alan Moore: Storyteller. We’ve posted an excerpt from fantasy legend Michael Moorcock’s foreword to the book; added a link to the book’s author, Gary Spencer Millidge’s own thoughts on Storyteller, and posted a series of clips of Mr. Millidge in conversation with Ilex’s own Tim Pilcher at May’s Bristol Comic Expo; got very excited about the internet buzz that’s been building on the book; got even more excited about the imminent signing session for the book at London’s Gosh! comic shop; and even, courtesy of Ilex’s Vasiliki Machaira, presented a quite startling art installation created out of proofs of the thing. And those are just some of the Moore missives we’ve posted in the run-up to publication this week; take a saunter through the rest of this blog for further entries.

The reason there’s been so much frantic Alan Moore activity on the Ilex blog is because, quite simply, Alan Moore: Storyteller is an extraordinary work, and an important book not just for Ilex but for the comics field in general. It’s the most comprehensive, most sumptuously illustrated authorized biography yet published on Alan Moore’s life and career. You’ll be able to see that for yourselves as it hits bookshop shelves and online retailers this week – both in the UK and, via Rizzoli, the US – and I could spend an eternity extolling its virtues, such as the surprising and intriguing CD of songs and performances by Moore and friends that accompanies the book; or the never-before-seen, unpublished V for Vendetta script included as a double-gatefold; or the little-seen, legendary Big Numbers chart, which details how that groundbreaking uncompleted series would have played out over its full twelve issues; or the behind-the-scenes family snaps and notebooks and sketches that Mr. Moore kindly made available to Gary; or, indeed, Gary’s words, which, with the aid of copious quotes from Alan, paint a vivid picture of the man behind such towering achievements as Watchmen, Lost Girls and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

But rather than do that, to celebrate the publication of Alan Moore: Storyteller, I thought I’d do something that readers of my personal books blog, Existential Ennui, have become more than familiar with; something that I find eminently easy to do; something, in fact – some would say ad infinitum, perhaps even ad nauseum – I never seem to tire of doing: I thought I’d talk about myself.

See, the publication of Alan Moore: Storyteller is, for me, the culmination of a decades-long love affair with Alan Moore’s comics. It’s a fascination that began nearly thirty years ago, in March 1982, when, without any kind of fanfare, a comics magazine called Warrior appeared in British newsagents. I can still recall the exact newsagent in which I purchased that first issue of Warrior: it was on Elmers End Road in Beckenham, south London; I think it’s still there – the newsagent, I mean, not the single copy of Warrior #1 that was sitting on its magazine racks; I bought that. With so many milestones in the comics medium since then – a good number penned by Mr. Moore himself – it’s easy to forget how revolutionary that first black-and-white issue of Warrior seemed. But revolutionary it was: an anthology comics title in the best tradition of British comics publishing, but quite unlike any seen before.

The garish cover of Warrior #1 was exciting enough. Drawn by Steve Dillon, it featured a cyborg with what looked like a meat cleaver on one arm; an incredibly sexy woman wielding a gigantic futuristic rifle; and a sidebar promising a sword-brandishing priest, a bizarre Guy Fawkes lookalike and a silhouetted superhero. Under that cover I was soon thrilling to the adventures of Axel Pressbutton and Laser Eraser, Father Shandor, Demon Stalker and Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s peerless V for Vendetta. I’d never seen anything like these comics tales, and was shaken to my twelve-year-old core by the mature, complex writing and artwork on display.

But the story that really blew my tiny young mind was the lead one, a short tale entitled “A Dream of Flying”. Written by Moore and illustrated by Garry Leach, in just eight pages it detailed the rebirth of a superhero of whom I’d never even heard. In the story, a tired, middle-aged newspaper journalist, Mike Moran, plagued by headaches and by unlikely dreams of being a super-powered hero, goes to cover the opening of a nuclear power plant in the Lake District. The event is hijacked by terrorists, and in the midst of the ensuing chaos Moran remembers a word he’s been trying to recall, a word that, for some reason, holds a strange significance for him. Uttering the word – “kimota” – he’s transformed in a blinding flash of light and a crack of thunder into a young, muscled man possessed of incredible abilities and dressed in a form-hugging costume. Besting the terrorists with a clap of his hands, he bursts through the roof of the facility and rockets into space, shouting out his now-remembered name: “I’m Marvelman… I’m back!”

What was remarkable about this story was how real it all seemed. To a twelve-year-old kid raised on the larger-than-life, bombastic adventures of Spider-Man, Moore’s naturalistic dialogue and poetic captions and Leach’s meticulous, wonderfully authentic artwork were a revelation. Prior to reading that first instalment of Marvelman – eventually published in colour as Miracleman in the States – the edgiest comics I’d come across were those contained in the weekly sci-fi anthology 2000 AD. Indeed, I’d doubtless already read some of Moore’s other work in that title, without his name having properly registered.

But “A Dream of Flying” was something else. The first page of the story, showing the terrorists driving towards the nuclear plant in a lorry, remains for me the single page that paved the way to discovering a more grown-up, more nuanced style of comics storytelling. Essentially, all that first page of “A Dream of Flying” is is two blokes bantering in the cab of a truck. But more than the visual spectacle that followed, more than the bullets bouncing off Marvelman’s raised hand, moreso even than the image of him circling the Earth at the close of the episode, for me that one page opened up the possibilites of the comics form: just two men, talking rubbish, the one a bit alarmed by the other, in a manner that was all the more astonishing for how low key and… ordinary it was.

Alan Moore would go on to craft infinitely more elegant stretches of dialogue, countless sentences and scenes that, examined with an older, more critical eye, far surpass the nascent, occasionally awkward stylings of his debut episode of Marvelman. But “A Dream of Flying” – and particularly that first page – will always be special to me. Despite the fact that it was a story about a superhero, it was my gateway to comics that weren’t about superheroes – comics like Fast Fiction, or Escape, or Eightball, or such future Moore masterpieces as Swamp Thing and From Hell – and a doorway to the names behind those comics, to creators who had little to do with the superhero genre: Eddie Campbell, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware; hundreds of others. It was the story that would, in time, lead to me working in the comics and graphic novels industry myself – first at Titan Books, now at Ilex – and then eventually, inexorably, to my editing Alan Moore: Storyteller, a book of which I am immensely proud.

Whether Alan Moore: Storyteller would have appeared if I hadn’t come to work at Ilex, I really couldn’t say. (Yeah, OK Tim: it probably would have.) But what I can say for certain is that without Alan Moore and Garry Leach’s “A Dream of Flying”, I wouldn’t have ended up editing Alan Moore: Storyteller. And so in a way – at least for me – a near-thirty year circle is now…

…complete.

The Ilex Gift Giveaway: The Three Winners!

As is now traditional with my competitions (well, I've done it once before, anyway): drum roll, please! It's time to unveil the winners of my magnificent Ilex Gift giveaway!

To recap: two weeks ago I gave you all, you lucky Existential Ennui readers, you, the chance to win an, if I do say so myself, impressive amount of swag, courtesy of Lewes-based publisher Ilex Press and their new imprint, Ilex Gift. The haul comprised:

6 x Little Books:
• Little Book of Vintage Romance 
• Little Book of Vintage Sci-Fi 
• Little Book of Vintage Combat 
• Little Book of Vintage Crime 
• Little Book of Vintage Sauciness 
• Little Book of Vintage Horror 

2 x Journals:
• Lovelorn Journal
• Tales of Terror Journal 

2 x Postcard Books:
• Lovelorn: 30 Postcards
• Tales of Terror: 30 Postcards 

1 x Magnet Pack
• Lovelorn: 16 Classic Romance Comic Magnets 

each, for three Existential Ennui readers. Well with the competition now closed, and the entries all deposited in a fetching chapeau, I can now reveal which three winners were drawn from that hat. They are:

Dan Lester, Leeds, UK
Mark Bennett, Brighton, UK
Karl A. Russell, Widnes, UK

Well done to all three of you! Your prizes will be winging their way to you shortly. Thank you to everyone who took part – there were quite a lot of you – and don't despair if you didn't win: the Ilex Gift range will be available in all good bookshops soon!

Ilex Gift Giveaway! WIN! Classic Comics Journals, Postcard Books, Little Books and a Magnet Set!

NB: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

It's giveaway time on Existential Ennui! Woo-hoo! And unlike the last competition I ran, where American readers could win Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie merchandise, this time the giveaway is open to all Existential Ennui readers across the globe: US, UK, European, Australian – you name it. (Go on: tell me where you're reading this post from in the comments; I dare you.) And even better, there's no daft question to answer!

I've got quite the haul of swag this time, too, all courtesy of Ilex Gift, the newly launched gift (er, obviously) line of Ilex Press, the Lewes-based publisher where I work. Shameless self-promotion? You betcha! But who cares when the prizes on offer are so numerous and splendorous.

Here's what you can win: 

THREE lucky readers will each receive:

6 x Little Books:

• Little Book of Vintage Romance 
• Little Book of Vintage Sci-Fi 
• Little Book of Vintage Combat 
• Little Book of Vintage Crime 
• Little Book of Vintage Sauciness 
• Little Book of Vintage Horror
Each bijou book contains classic 1950s comic strips, original adverts, short stories and more besides, plus an introductory essay about the source material. (Counter pack not included, I'm afraid.)

2 x Journals:

• Lovelorn Journal
• Tales of Terror Journal
Featuring quirky quotes from '50s romance and horror comics on lined, gridded and blank paper, and a pocket in the back for keeping ephemera, souvenirs and letters.

2 x Postcard Books:

• Lovelorn: 30 Postcards
• Tales of Terror: 30 Postcards
Each of the 30 postcards – or rather, 60 postcards, seeing as there are two sets – sports a classic romance or horror comic book cover, with artist and publication info on the back, all wrapped in a fold-out die-cut cover.

1 x Magnet Pack:

• Lovelorn: 16 Classic Romance Comic Magnets
Kitsch and kooky romance comic covers to slap on your fridge, plus a booklet revealing the stories behind the covers.

That all adds up to a not-to-be-sniffed-at £76 – or US$120 – worth of swag!

So how do you enter? Simple! Just email your name and address (or leave a comment on this post, although you'll still need to send your address in) using the subject line "I WANT TO WIN THE ILEX GIFT STUFF" to:

existentialennui@gmail.com

The competition closes Thursday 29 March at midnight EST – giving you just under two weeks to enter – with all entries going into Ilex Gift supremo Tim Pilcher's vintage RAF pilot's hat, from which the three winners will be drawn. And I'll be announcing those winners (barring mishaps) on Friday 30 March. Good luck! Oh, and the Ilex Gift range will be widely available online and at all fine book emporiums from next month, so follow the above links for more info.

Next on Existential Ennui: Geoffrey Household...

The Banksy of Book Publishing: Echo and The Underground Graffiti Sketchbook (The Ilex Press, 2011)

(NB: This post also appears on the blog for The Ilex Press, the Lewes-based illustrated and pop culture publisher of which I'm managing editor. I'm cross-posting it here partly for posterity and partly because I've got nowt else to post today.)

By and large, Ilex's authors are an agreeable, accommodating bunch, always willing to speak to the press or make themselves available for oversubscribed signing sessions. But there is one Ilex author who shuns the spotlight; who exists in a shadowy world of half-truths and obfuscation, his identity shrouded in mystery. That author is "Echo", the man (or possibly woman; who can tell? I've only ever communicated with him/her via email) behind the recently published The Underground Graffiti Sketchbook.

If you're not familiar with this particular tome, it is, in essence, and as its title suggests, a sketchbook, comprising over fifty line-drawings of classic Metropolitan Line and Hammersmith & City Line – or "Big Met" and "Little Met" – train carriages, which fold out to a great big long tube train and on which aspiring graffiti artists can scrawl their tags and designs for masterpieces. There are a few sample pieces to get you started, along with a couple of characters. But there's also an essay detailing the history of British graffiti, from the mid-1980s until the present day, written by a man (or woman...) who was there: the aforementioned Echo.

Little is known about Echo, but many and legion are the tales of his graffiti career. There's the time he was chased down a train line in the dead of night by the transport police, their torches bobbing towards him as he pelted alongside the live rail, eventually tumbling down a bank and scrambling over a barbed wire fence to make his escape. There's the occasion he had to hide in a bush to elude a squad car, and the time he was stopped by a couple of coppers whilst carrying a bag full of spray-paint.

But I think my favourite Echo story dates from early in his career, and concerns a piece he and his crew spray-painted one night on a pristine whitewashed brick wall. The location was scouted out by a member of the crew, who at that time was infatuated with a then-popular pop princess. Unwisely perhaps (they were all very young), Echo and the rest of the crew agreed to do a piece dedicated to this pop waif on the wall their crewmember had found. Come nightfall, the crew gained access over a back fence from an alley backing onto a terrace of suburban homes, so Echo had no idea what the building – a 1960s brutalist Bauhaus affair – was. The piece was completed in a few hours (Echo did the character, his particular speciality), and that was that.

Cut to a few days later, and Echo decides to go and check out the piece in situ. Retracing his steps down the back alley, he's met by the glorious sight of the crew's slightly embarrassing spray-painted shrine to a pop star. But there, in front of the wall, are what looks to be hundreds of uniformed schoolgirls, engaged in lunchtime games of hopscotch and huddled in conspiratorial groups in a tarmacked playground. The wall, it turns out, was propping up the roof of a girls' comprehensive. To this day, Echo isn't sure whether that made the piece even more embarrassing or strangely apposite.

Echo is mulling over a further book detailing further episodes from his graffiti career, but in the meantime, you can read his appreciation of the UK graffiti scene in The Underground Graffiti Sketchbook, and doodle your own pieces on its pristine train-carriage pages.

Which is certainly better than writing on the wall of a girls' school...

Alan Moore: Storyteller by Gary Spencer Millidge (Ilex Press, 2011)

It's not often that I devote a blog post to one of the books I've worked on in my day job as managing editor of illustrated books publisher Ilex Press, but when a book turns out as splendidly as this one has, and when I know that book might be of interest to my small and doubtless ever-dwindling readership, well... I think a post is justified:

This is the UK hardback first edition of Alan Moore: Storyteller, published this very week by The Ilex Press (published simultaneously in the US by Rizzoli), with a cover design concept by the incomparable Chip Kidd, and beautifully designed overall by the supremely talented Simon Goggin, overseen by Ilex Press' doyenne of art direction, Julie Weir. Written by comics aficionado, cartoonist (he created the comic book/graphic novel series Strangehaven), designer (he also penned Ilex's essential Comic Book Design) and friend of Alan Moore, Gary Spencer Millidge, it's an authorized, highly illustrated, 300-plus page biography of Moore's life and work.

It is, if I do say so myself – I edited the thing, with the able assistance of Ilex Press' unflappable senior editor, Ellie Wilson (and with the gently guiding voices of Ilex's Tim Pilcher, Roly Allen and Ilex publisher Alastair Campbell – no, not that Alastair Campbell – in the background) – a bloody amazing book. Not only are Gary's words revealing and insightful; not only does it boast copious quotes from Mr. Moore; not only does it feature such little-seen rarities as an unpublished V for Vendetta script, the legendary Big Numbers chart detailing all twelve issues of that never-completed series, a cornucopia of family snaps, notebook pages and sketches kindly provided by Mr. Moore himself, and lots more besides; but it also comes accompanied by a splendid CD, whereupon you'll find a selection of incredibly scarce songs and performances by Alan Moore and friends, all lovingly mastered by longtime Moore collaborator Gary Lloyd.

I'm not going to bang on at length about the book here on Existential Ennui; I posted a prolix, meandering, self-serving missive about it on the Ilex Press blog yesterday, in which I largely, as is my wont, talked about myself, so go read that if you have a day to spare. Instead I'll restrict myself here to noting that, like another Ilex volume I blogged about last year, The Art of Osamu Tezuka, God of Manga, I'm really rather proud of Alan Moore: Storyteller. Having been a huge fan of Alan Moore's work for getting on for three-quarters of my life, I can happily report this the hefty volume is everything I, and therefore by extension any self-respecting Moore fan, could possibly want in a book about Alan Moore.

Anyway. Do please go read my Ilex Press post on the book; despite my disparaging remarks above, I'm actually quite pleased with that essay (I may even steal it back and post it on here). And should you feel so inclined, you could, if you haven't already, glance at my other Ilex blog posts, such as this one on Richard Stark's The Hunter as featured in 500 Essential Cult Books; or this one on Sci-Fi Art: A Pocket History; or even this one on 500 Essential Cult Movies, featuring The Night of the Hunter. And then I'll meet you back here for the next post, for which I'll be staying on a comics tip in order to discuss deadpan Norwegian cartoonist Jason...