Some Original Dave Gibbons Watchmen Sketches

Here are some recent arrivals to the Little Shop, and though I'm always open to offers, I've yet to decide if I actually want to sell these, as they're rather marvellous.

The Comedian, Doctor Manhattan and Rorschach, as drawn by Watchmen co-creator and all-round lovely gent Dave Gibbons, at the UKAC comics convention in the mid-90s.

Hurm!

UPDATE: SIGH. IT TURNS OUT I WAS HAD. CONFIRMATION FROM AN IMPECCABLE SOURCE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.

A Feast of Philip José Farmer

A shelfload of vintage paperbacks by Philip José Farmer came in this week, with a selection of titles from most areas of his work: the 'mainstream' sci-fi fantasy of the Riverworld series, the early literary mash-ups of his 'Wold Newton' books – combining historical and fictional characters into a massive conspiracy melange long before the likes of Alan Moore and Kim Newman did it (though to be fair they did tip their hats to Farmer) – to novels which can only really be described as full-on extreme weirdo erotica. Strangely enough, it's some of those latter ones which have already sold...

One of the 'classic' characters Farmer played with in fiction is Doc Savage. His novel Escape From Loki, a paperback original from 1991 (now out of print and increasingly scarce) is billed on the front cover as 'the first all-new Doc Savage adventure since 1949!' Not quite true, as from 1969 onwards Farmer wrote several books featuring the thinly disguised 'Doc Caliban'. Given that these novels, beginning with A Feast Unknown, feature industrial sized doses of X-rated goings-on, it's amazing that Farmer was later invited to write an 'approved' version of the character by Doc Savage's rights holders. (He also wrote the 'biography' Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life.) Caliban's half-brother 'Lord Grandrith' is another thinly disguised pulp character, and it's even more amazing, considering the tight hold that the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate keeps over their creation, that Farmer also wrote a licensed Tarzan novel.

Here's a selection of the covers. Included below is art by some real greats, including Boris Vallejo, Howard Chaykin and one painted by Jim Burns, who was obviously a *really* big fan of the young Sigourney Weaver...

Saying Happy Birthday to Batman With Some Rare Brian Bolland Art

Batman is 75 *exactly* today, according to geek news hub Bleeding Cool, which has been looking at old copyright entries at the US Library of Congress.

Why is he so many people's favourite superhero? (He is mine.) I'd argue it's because he *doesn't* have superpowers. He's one of us. Plus, you know, chicks dig the car. Is it no coincidence that Batman and the similarly 'human' Iron Man have the two most successful movie franchises? Discuss.

There are a fair few Batman graphic novels on the shelves at Withnail Books, though three which always disappear fast if I ever have copies are Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke (not least because I recommend them to customers asking where to start).

The last of these has been dismissed as 'just another Batman story' by its writer, the legendary bearded contrarian Alan Moore, but it is of course far more than that, a brief but devastating tale which continues to influence the 'modern' Batman on the page and on screen - there's more than a flavour of it in Christopher Nolan's second Bat-film, for example.

Brian Bolland's exquisitely precise art is an equally important part of The Killing Joke's longevity: he draws an arguably definitive Batman and a hands-down, no-argument-brooked definitive Joker.

As a birthday treat then, here's a bumper selection of some familiar, and some not-so familiar Bolland art, as shared by lucky fans showing off their collections of originals at the endlessly browsable comicartfans.com. There are convention sketches, private commissions (comicartfans is a great place to see pieces like this, which would otherwise never see the light of day) and original Killing Joke pages, some in preliminary form. It's all great stuff.