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Anyone who’s gradually taken on caring responsibilities for an aging relative knows only too well the impact it has on their own life – driving a coach and horses through any sense of work/life balance (or life/work balance as I’ve always weighted that cliché). Such has been the case for me over the past few years, which is why the there’s been a paucity of any new material going up on here to update you on progress towards completing From Cents to Pence!, and although you might be expecting bad news from that opening sentence, that’s not at all the case.
Yes, forward movement has been frustratingly much slower of late (for me, never mind for you!), but more positively things are still moving in the right direction, so much so that I’m now circling round the latter few chapters devoted to the present Panini era of Marvel in Britain and can definitely see an end in sight this year.
Why post this news now? Well, the eagle-eyed amongst you may well have spotted my by-line in the new edition of Doctor Who Magazine – their mega #600 celebration, no less – where I offered up a last-minute history piece that was accepted, taking pride of place below their feature on the making of the cover.
Squint closely, and you might just spot a few covers from my own collection – the Panini archives missing some twenty-odd issues, doubtless removed for reference purposes, and then absent-mindedly never returned – which I was more than happy to loan them to create what must be the most unusual littering of any Tardis set ever built. Thanks to Jason and Mike for allowing me the chance to play a very small part in acknowledging the scope and longevity of Dez Skinn’s most long-lasting contribution to Marvel’s continuing British invasion.
When I have more news on the book, you can be sure it’ll be posted here, although when that might be is impossible to pin down. As I mention in DWM #600, it’s really only the Doctor Who material that needs resolving now in the final chapters, along with some fine-tuning to bring things up to date in the final chapter.
Call me daft, but, having split apart a couple of the Panini chapters into smaller chunks since I last posted a chapter summary on here, at 60 chapters the resulting reordering seems a neater, more-rounded amount, than the previous 59 chapter spread.
Outside of the book, I’ve also been continuing to accrue material for the revived re:VOX magazine, and out of an interview feature with Richard Burgess set to appear in the next edition of Blitzed magazine due in March, Richard was so keen to continue catching up after our previous chat back in 2010, that they’ll be enough additional material (alongside some offcuts that couldn’t be squeezed into that magazine) for a separate feature for a future re:VOX too.
And with the likelihood that a 40th anniversary edition of Lament will be the next deluxe Ultravox boxset this year, and with a confirmed new art book from John Foxx via Rocket 88 due out in the first half of the year too, there’s still plenty of other things still to cover.
So far, so good for 2024!
More news when I have it, so for now, do take care one and all.
