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Merry Xmas from Norman
My xmas present from Norman Wright just arrived. Lovely copy of Biggles in the Underworld. Copy #155 in the short print run.
What's rarer than a Norman Wright numbered hardback?
Due to copyright Norman Wright only publishes 300 numbered copies of titles in the glossy hardbacks. Luckily my "pimp" keeps me fed with these rare editions.
However have heard that there is an even rarer instance available. From Stuart:
I have just purchased a copy of Biggles and the Deep Blue Sea (very exciting) but it is NOT a numbered copy, rather it was a 'complimentary' copy of which 25 were produced and given away by Mr Wright - e.g. to those who had proof-read the book and to family etc. In place of a number written in by hand, it reads 'comp' short for complimentary.
As Stuart states, if we assume this is the pattern for all the books, then each title has a bonus 25 copies floating out there. Who'll be the first to collect them all?
Norman brings in the Camel
The wonders of another Norman Wright release have been delivered. This time we've the Camel Squadron. A glorious addition to the shelf, not least for the original illustrations included throughout.
Batch of covers thanks to a reader
Enormous thanks to Stuart, for shipping me images of covers from a few gaps in my collection. All the artwork added this weekend comes from his fine stock (biased towards cheap paperbacks - like mine own).
Thanks Stuart!
Norman gives us the Gun Runners
It's that favourite time of year for a lucky few of us, a parcel of the latest edition from Norman Wright. This time it was Biggles and the Gun Runners, again with a beautiful dustjacket from Andrew Skilleter. Another worthy addition to the shelf. Now let's see how long it is before one of these appears on eBay.
Love your work Zaggle!
Very amusing review of Biggles Investigates from a "Zaggle". Hope you can review a few more in the same tone. Worth a read, and a giggle.
Cutest Biggles portrait ever?
Just got a copy of the Scottie Paperback of Biggles Follows On (thanks BBiggles). Most interesting for the cover image. Biggles looking like he's needing to rush back to finish his homework.
Which makes me wonder, which/where is the best image of Biggles?
Biggles club - now we know what the badge is for
Thanks to Andy I've discovered the history behind the Biggles badge uncovered on eBay a while back (see earlier news for details). Turns it out it was part of a promotion for the Biggles TV series. And Andy's got the welcome letter (signed by Biggles himself!) and the membership card to prove it.
Who will be the first to translate the secret message on the card?
Norman weaves his magic again
Another day, another parcel from Blighty with a great Norman Wright re-issue of a classic Biggles volume. This time it's The Camels are Coming. Stepped up a level this time with a colour frontispiece, and fantastic reproductions of the artwork from the original publications. Even includes some of the trainspotting-level details of variances between issues.
Something special: handwritten letter from W.E. Johns explaining why the Biggles books
I've been contacted by a Biggles fan reluctantly selling a handwritten letter from the Captain himself, in which he answers a fan's query about his rationale in writing our favourite adventures:
Dear Mr Wilson, a letter such as yours would gratify any author. I am glad you enjoy my books and it was most kind of you to go to the trouble of writing to me so.You seem to have seen between the lines what I am trying to do, which is to teach boys to use their heads and persuade them that such fundamental virtues as courage, integrity and fair play pay off in the long run. In other words, to keep the flag flying.
During my career as a soldier and air pilot for 20 years I met many 'aussies'. We talked the same language and I always got on well with them.
My best wishes to Peter. Sincerely yours W.E. (Bill to you) Johns.
Dated 24 November 1963 the letter comes with a Biggles flyer, also signed, and the original handwritten envelope.
What a fantastic item for any collector's shelf. If interested in purchasing contact the seller, Scott Raymond, to discuss: scott_raymond (at) hotmail.com. Or if wanting to phone him, email me (yabs (at) isambard.com.au) and I'll pass on a phone number.
ePUB #3: Plane that Disappeared
The third ePUB is now available. Download Biggles and the Plane that Disappeared (246Kb) and let me know what you think.
Didn't get enough time to jazz up as much as I wanted. But the night is still young.....
Is it just me, or is bottom falling out of eBay market?
Just picked up a couple of relative bargains at eBay. First editions (not the Hamiltons!) at very decent prices.
Ignoring the vain attempts to flog the new Norman's at $1000+, it looks like now is a good time to go (online) shopping.
ePUBs are coming
Am spending my time at work building content for the Apple iPad. What better way to practice than by converting some Biggles books to EBooks. Managed to find the text to three books in the yahoo group. So far two are now ready for perusal:
- Deep Blue Sea (168KB)
- Looks Back (614KB, includes illustrations)
To use just download and drag into iTunes. You'll then be able to open and read from within iBooks on the iPad or iPhone (IOS4 only).
Next (and only one unless someone has source files for other tiles) will be Plane that Disappeared. But I'll wait on publishing that one until I fathom how to add footnotes and links to make these books sing. Imagine reading about a Sopwith Camel and being able to click on the mention to view a quick video of one in action. All possible with the technology we have.
Anyway enjoy these first two. Let me know what you think..
Corner of Kent and Market
Amazing the things you see when wandering around Sydney. On my way to a meeting and discovered this gem hanging in the foyer area for an office building.
Anyone have any views on the model and/or whether real or not. The frame looks too intricate to be a mockup?.
- full shot
- front-on, with motorbike for scale
- from the rear (perfect firing position - although perhaps a little close)
- looking in from the street
Apologies for picture quality; only armed with the iPhone at the time.
Biggles Learns to Fly
The new Norman Wright has arrived (or at least my copy has).
Next Norman Wright
Feel a little like a scoop reporter. Thanks to CraigMiles, one of the regulars, the news is that the next Norman Wright title will be Biggles Learns to Fly. As for Biggles in France, the edition will reflect the original illustrations and text from Modern Boy.
ETA is early 2010. Here's hoping the GBP stays in the financial toilet until then so us Australians can buy these books in bulk :-)
Biggles the read-along book
Via Boing Boing have found out about one chap's intention to collate all the Read-Along Adventures in a single site. Complete with the original audio and flash-based perusal of the pages.
Of interest to us here because one of the titles is Biggles. Although, sadly that's one he's still after.
So watch this space. And either wait for Biggles to appear. Or if you've got a copy, send it in!
Wings of War reaches WW2
Just added pictures of the latest set of Wings of War miniatures; now we're into WW2. A while new set of planes Biggles has flown (or flown against).
Disappointingly these are to a different scale to the WW1 aircraft (1:200 vs. 1:144). Which means you can't put the Spitfire up against the Camel and compare.
Cinebooks getting comical
Wonders of the USD exchange rate means Amazon is getting a little more business from me. Just collected a new comic edition of Spitfire Parade by cinebooks. Essentially the same as the Red Fox edition. But what's good is the list of coming titles on the back. Look out for 'Biggles of 266' in the same format. Plus a third in the 'Biggles Recounts...' series.
Norman Wright does it again
Just got my new Norman Wright (Scores a Bull). Another gorgeous print, but I must admit it does not have the glamour since it's a title I've already got. Hopefully next we'll get some more of the obscure story collections and stuff I've got buckley's of obtaining without his help.
I did hear rumours of a coffee table book of his artwork. How fantastic would that be!
how good does Biggles look in Canada?
Thanks to Kim at Caerwen Books (thoth@iinet.net.au) for sending me some scans of the Canadian editions. Interestingly different to the British covers.
Greetings CraigMiles (and all other reviewers)
Wow! Turn my back for 5 minutes to follow my present obsession with Wings of War miniatures, and the review section has gone crazy. I'm loving reading comments from a whole new bunch of contributors.
However reviews are coming in so fast I've had to change the review display code to accommodate. Hopefully now going to see what comments have been left won't leave your poor computer hanging for too long.
Wings of War catalogue now on YABS
Sorry. I know Wings of War has little to do with Biggles. But the game is great and the models are gorgeous. So I've added some pages under the Miscellenea to catalogue the game options. In particular check out the list of all the available miniature aircraft. And then tell me you don't want to collect a few of them.
Beautiful WW1 aviation artwork
Came across this fantastic site by an illustrator called Mark Miller. And it's fantastic because his specialised subject is WW1 aviation. You should see some of the gorgeous pictures he has of the early planes.
'Wings of War' trumps 'Ace of Aces'
Almost a year ago I posted a news story about a WW1 dogfighting game (Ace of Aces) I'd come across that put you in the cockpit of a camel (or fokker) and go up against the enemy.
Sadly that's out of print (so good luck on eBay). But the good news is I've found another similar game that is in production. It's called Wings of War, and captures your moves on a series of cards. Like Ace of Aces it allows you to play either side, and play with more than 2 in the dogfight. However what's probably best about it for me is it has been released with a series of fantastic miniature models of the aircraft in the battles. They are gorgeous, and while designed for use in the game (you can adjust their altitude/position to match your game state) they look darn pretty on the shelf.
Check out a decent game shop, or Amazon, for details. For example, here are links in the UK store to the WW1 Aces game (there are several games up to and including WW2, even found a fan-made Star Wars variant) and the gorgeous Camel model for WW1.
Update: Could not resist and just picked up the Famous Aces set and two models (Albatross and a Camel) from the games shop on Pitt St in Sydney. In the first dogfight my 8 year old daughter shot my Albatross to pieces, even while her Camel was on fire! All this from a couple of packs of cards!!.
Definitely tempted to extend the collection now with some more models. However looking for cheaper sources. With the current exchange rate the US is looking good, if I can find a decent postage quote.
Norman Wright again
Norman Wright is currently taking orders for his next Biggles publication. Sadly I've placed my order but completely forgotten what title it is he is publishing (Looks Back maybe?).
Update: Title is Scores a Bull. Delivery in August.
If interested in the Wright collections, talk to your nearest book pimp :-)
iYABS is now an official iPhone app!
I've now officially submitted iYABS to the iPhone application store (web edition) and its been published! Not sure what that really means - hopefully users can now search the store and find it - but it's fun to know this little site now has its own special place on the iPhone.
You can browse the web app store to see this new gem. But be quick - it won't be a featured new app (right on the home page!) for very long.
Update: Long gone from the featured page, but here's the link to see iYabs in the store.
Bertie is #1!!
Congratulations to Bertie. Sometime in the past days he has submitted his 65th review, overtaking my total of 64 reviews. He's now our top reviewer.
Keep 'em coming Bertie. And in the meantime, we'll all go and see how our top 10 compares with yours.
Norman Wright does it again
Another day, another fantastic edition from Norman. My copy of 'Biggles in France' just arrived. And it's as gorgeous as the others from the Wright stable.
Although having read that Abebooks article about prices, I'm kicking myself for not ordering another copy!
AbeBooks article on Biggles (including spectacular prices!)
Interesting article on AbeBooks about Biggles. It includes the top 10 (by price) sales on the site. Peculiar list with some spectacular prices for editions you would not have expected. Deep Blue Sea in there obviously, but the Norman Wright print of Homework taking out positions #4 through #6?
Now with added eBay
When you browse to any of the title descriptions you'll see there's a new section available: auctions. This page automagically retrieves current eBay auctions for the selected title from Australia, the UK or the USA. You can peruse the list within YABS and click on any entry to go and view (and bid?) in eBay.
Hopefully this will be useful, either to keep an eye on missing editions, or to see just what your first edition is going for these days.
Note, I also intended to show some auction history details for each title. However available details (without significant cost) are minimal. I'll see what I can do.....
Update: After investigation discovered that the only anaylsis figures I can use are (a) for the US only and (b) aggregated. The latter is the bigger problem since you cannot be confident the prices reflect the edition(s) you're interested in. So will skip analysis for a while, or perhaps start collating my own stats......
YABS now for the iPhone!
I used to think you weren't a real site unless you had an RSS feed. Well now I think you're incomplete unless available on the iPhone. And now YABS has passed that mark too.
If you have an iPhone, please check out iYABS (http://yabs.isambard.com.au/m/) to browse titles, editions, characters and props in a more usable manner. And yes, sorry for the completely non-creative name.
I built iYABs mainly to provide a way to quickly check what edition I'm looking at when uncovering copies in bookshops. Let me know how well it achieves that aim, or what else would be useful to make available to our little Apple sidekick.
RSS feed now available for site updates
You can now choose to subscribe to a news feed or an updates feed (or both!). The updates covers all titles (including reviews), editions, characters and props. Yet to include changes in the miscellany - tricky because that content is handmade.
Red Baron
Someone was kind enough to add a comment to my Red Baron movie snippet on youtube. And while in there I noticed a trailer for a brand new Red Baron movie. The shots/effects from the dogfights look absolutely stunning (although the IMDB review is not so good). However looks good enough to warrant a watch for that Biggles aviation experience. See how it compares with Flyboys, another recent WW1 aviation adventure.
News via RSS
These days you cannot consider yourself a real site unless you've got an RSS feed. So YABS has now got one. At the moment it only covers news items. However give me some free time and I'll extend it so that you can automagically get notified whenever an update is made to the site.
Exportable edition list
Just added a link to each title edition list (like this one) that exports that list in a shorter (more printable) format. Could be handy if wanting to print an edition list to take to the bookshop. Or just to tick off your own copies against.
Had to take a punt on what kinds of details/format would work. Let me know if wanting anything else on this export list.
Biggles Looks Back
Just received a copy of Biggles Look Back, the latest release from Norman Wright. Another fine addition to the collection; wonder what he'll think of publishing next?
Biggles auction
If you happen to be in the Netherlands on the 18 October (or anywhere in Europe really - it's a small place!), there's a mega auction being held by the International Biggles Association (IBA). For those of unable to come up with a decent excuse for the trip, you can place postal/email bids.
Intrigued? Visit their site: http://www.biggles.nl/en/ for all details, including a catalogue.
Red Baron - the movie
Just uploaded a neat little film snippet taken (fair use - honest) from a movie I have on the Red Baron. Shows some great archival footage of dogfights, pilots and the baron himself.
All I can say is, he looks so young!
Site design #2
You may notice the site looks a little different!
Had been meaning to add a search function to the site for a while. However once I started I realised I needed to recreate the header to provide a space for it. And one thing led to another. And here we are....
Have tried to test most elements but please email me if I missed something in the translation. I did notice, ironically, the search engine is not working right as its index is needing a refresh. Might take a few days to get around to us unless I can find a reset button.
Camel vs. Fokker - the card game
You might find this link amusing. It's Camel vs. Fokker as a card game. Take to the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel and duel away against your colleague the Fokker. Not technically a Biggles item, hence not listed elsewhere on the site. Still looks like something worth a trawl on eBay for.
Update: Mentioned this game at the Biggles yahoo group and it turned up some additional details on the game. The collector's guide in particular shows nearly 20 different variants and editions for was obviously a pretty popular way to pass the time.
Now showing Canadian editions
Added details for Canadian publications (in English) as gleaned from Collecting Books and Magazines. To see what's listed, do an edition search for country = Canada.
Now showing Australian editions
If at first you cannot find an edition you're after, just add another set of editions to be searching for. That's my current motto, so today updated YABS to list all the Australian editions identified at
Collecting Books and Magazines. And that's only because the list was surprisingly short: only 11 editions;
although I've already increased that number since I appear to have a couple of 2nd editions, and because I came across The Silver Jacket magazine (from Australia) when reviewing serials.
Images now appear in list of site updates
Not that you probably noticed, but until today the list of updates shown on the Home page did not include details of any new images added to the database. That's now been rectified; any new artwork added in the past month is now included in the update count. Now all that's excluded are any updates within the miscellanea section. Will get back to you on that one....
Boy's Own Papers
Just broke my (recent) cardinal rule of starting to collect new Biggles's "genres". Unfortunately a
couple of Boy's Own Papers were too tempting so have been added to the collection. They're great, not just for the Biggles content,
but also for the other articles, advertisements and the like they contain. Fascinating stuff!
With the help of Daniel Tangri I've now added a miscellany topic for serials/magazines to start recording details of them all. And to provide a public demonstration of how far I've got to go for the set!
Cards anyone?
Just took delivery of the Biggles card game. Beautiful collection of miniature illustrations from Stead. Now just to work out which picture comes from which book.
Biggles Air Ace
Norman Wright is fair pumping out the new editions these past months. Just received my copies of Air Ace and it's another glorious piece of work. Even better, not only does it crack the 100th title, it also identifies a few more story volumes I need to seek out to add to the miscellany. Only have one of the listed volumes in the list so far. Poor show old chap.
eBay delivers
Few items arrived from eBay so duly added to the catalogue. Apart from a couple of extra editions, including a lovely Children's Book Club edition of Biggles Goes Home, came across a beautiful collection of bookmarks based on first edition covers. The things you collect when you can't get the books!
Title list updates
Updated the title list to add a few bonus options for browsing the list. Use the new tabs to access a list by location the story is set, or by the decade the book the first was published in.
Adding these required a few check-ups on the database so let me know if anything went awry. And stay tuned for another list to come - this one by era (WW1 vs Between the Wars, etc).
Adventure book pieces
Added images of the game pieces for the adventure books. Most are lifesize so should work if wanting to use to play a pieceless book. Else mail me and I'll send full size replicas to you.
Edition lists complete? Sometimes
Had a couple of visitors recently ask questions about whether some of the edition lists are complete. In honesty not all are. Still working through them. But in the meantime I've added a flag to each title to show whether (I think) the (UK) edition list is complete. Which explains why suddenly I've got a lot of titles listed as updated recently.
Thanks reviewers
Reviewers, love your work. So much so I've tried to promote it still further. The Home page now shows a table of the top 10 reviewers (based on number of reviews) along with a list of your top 3 rated titles. See if your picks match the others. And if you agree with anyone else's selection, click their name (here, or when reading reviews for a title) to see a list of all reviews from that person.
Biggles badge
Now this is intriguing. A Biggles badge appeared on eBay. Unfortunately I missed out. But am very much intrigued as to what it's history is. Anyone have any clues as to where this item comes from? If so, please let me know.
Deep Blue Sea
The Norman Wright edition of Deep Blue Sea has just arrived. And looks great alongside the earlier copy of
Biggles Does Some Homework.
Pity the story is not as good as the publication!
STOP PRESS! Copy of this same book just went up on eBay and sold for GBP152.50 (that's nearly $350 down under!). So glad I bought 10 copies - just kidding.
Series explained
Just added a topic listing/explaining the different series used to group published editions. Currently just provides a list with descriptions and links to appropriate items in the catalogue. Eventually will include sample covers for each so you can see at a glance what each series looks like.
Spam
Been a few people adding their reviews to the site recently. Welcome and cheers to you all (especially you redbirdpete - love your work). However also attracting some spam too. Which means we must be successful I guess? Or the spammers have dramatically mis-calculated the audience. I'll keep reviewing to remove the cr*p but apologies if you come across it in your travels through the site.
Miscellany now includes movie snippets
Finished the first pass through the miscellaneous. Highlights include details (including trailers!) for both the movie and the videogame of the movie. Both worth a laugh, which you can then follow with a very cheesy 80s music video from the film soundtrack.
Miscellany
As an early birthday present to myself (don't ask how old) I've started to publish details of the miscellanous stuff, other than the titles, where Biggles appears. Eventually cover everything from comic books to jigsaw puzzles. Work in progress but first topics (collected works, stories in other books, and comics) are hopefully worth a read.
Art competition
Through the wonders of Google I've come across an online competition to photoshop
existing Biggles illustrations to add a touch of humour. And some of them are hilarious. Definitely worth a visit. Click on the thumbnail to see one of the entries, click here to visit the competition and see all the entries.
Homework (the nice kind)
Just received my copy of the new edition of Biggles Does Some Homework. And it's gorgeous. Be interesting to see how many other titles Mr Wright gets permission to release in such a beautiful manner.