Listeners may remember that, a couple of years ago, I was extremely lucky to be able to chat with the son of the late and legendary artist Bob Haberfield. Ben was a great guest and it was slightly surreal for me to have the opportunity to talk to someone so close to the man whose imagery, quite frankly, blew my fucking mind as a kid.

There are plenty of book and album covers that I pored over as a lad, but a handful of paperbacks published by Mayflower in the late 60s and early 70s struck such a chord with me that I can visualise them in almost their entire detail 40 plus years later. That may be bollocks of course, as I was only yesterday admiring my framed print of the cover art to The Knight of the Swords that hangs on our kitchen and I spotted yet new details that I’d never observed before.

Nevertheless, they are imprinted upon my psyche in the way that very few other pieces of art are.

Imagine my delight then, when a package arrived this week care of John Davey at Jayde Design – a most wonderful delivery. The marvellous two-book slipcase set of Bob Haberfield: The Man and His Art. It only seems yesterday when Dave and I talked to Ben and he trailed this upcoming project – a celebration of Bob’s life, legacy and incredible, unforgettable work.

Here is the press blurb:

“There were few endeavours – as readers will discover in these volumes – to which Bob Haberfield could not turn his creative hand.

An extremely accomplished musician and singer, he rejected the lure of a career on stage in favour of more solitary pursuits as an artist. He went on to make a reasonable living in that field, and remains best known for his often astonishing book-cover artworks, particularly those painted for titles by fantasy and science fiction author Michael Moorcock.

In time, however, he would struggle to reconcile his limitless artistic ambitions with the constraints of work-for-hire, no matter how extraordinary and wide-ranging the results. Other demons, too, would affect both his output and his relationship to it, added to which his strongly held Buddhist beliefs felt at odds with a monetary wealth that he neither sought nor wanted.

So there are two discrete elements to Bob Haberfield: the man, and his art. Even that separation is by no means clear-cut, but it does allow for a logical distinction between these two complementary volumes.

To quote Ben Haberfield, Bob’s son, Volume I: The Man focuses almost exclusively on “a catalogue of his drawings and paintings … These images are an expression of who he truly was. This is his legacy. The catalogue he made is his own selection of those images and this book is that selection”.

Volume II: His Art features painstakingly curated — deemed the best — examples of Bob Haberfield’s many book & magazine covers and record sleeves, as well as other artworks created across a staggering range of subjects and media.

Each volume also includes a number of essays by family, friends, peers and admirers of Bob Haberfield… both the man and his art. “

I’m extraordinarily grateful to John for sending this over, because it really is a beauty. You may have come across Jayde Design’s James Cawthorn books in the past (and if you haven’t, get them), and this is another great example of John’s dedication not only to his subject matter, but to ensuring it is presented in the best way possible. Fortunately, as we heard from Ben, most of the original pieces are in his possession so the scans and the heavy gloss paper stock (is that even the right terminology? I HAVE NO IDEA) make sure that these glorious pieces can be fully appreciated in the two outsized paperbacks.

It’s not just the art that is remarkable here though, it’s also the glimpse of Bob as a bloke, a person for whom talent was no protection from self-doubt and personal demons. Mike’s contribution in volume two is revealing in terms of how Bob was an enigma in many ways to even the people whose work he would elevate and propel forth from book shelves into the hands of a hypnotised and often bewildered readership. I was one of those readers, although in my case the vivid, psychedelic art was projecting itself into my cortex from Pops’s coffee table initially, then much later from the packed shelves of Crystal Books on Spring Bank and still, to this day, second hand book shops up and down the country.

For all fans of Bob, and any fan of genre paperbacks and the people behind them, this is essential. Not only a gorgeous pair of coffee table tomes, but an insight into the life of one of the greatest to ever do it. A wider look at the bewildering scope and range of his massively prodigious output, an examination of the melancholia of choices and change, and a reflection on how we all negotiate pathways, faith, illusion and reconciliation.

For more on Bob follow @bobhaberfield.art on Instagram.

The art included was compiled by Ben, with additions by John Davey and John Guy Collick, and it will be available to buy from 28th July via the Bob Haberfield Web Shop.

Pre-orders are available direct from Jayde Design at jaydedesign.com

Mid-July has been and gone and we’re headed to the latter part of the summer already. Where does it all go?

The last pod was Phil’s Choice, a wee diversion once again from the Moorcock, but we’ve had some really nice feedback, particularly from Glenn, Steve and Clarky.

Glenn reminded us of the value of conversation and comradely diversion when things are tough…

Steve picked up some spooky inspiration for his gaming output…

And Clarky prompted us to get on and watch William Girdler’s Day of the Animals, the film he directed in between Grizzly and The Manitou… and it is simply an incredible piece of 70s eco-horror/disaster fiction that happens to include a shirtless, raving Leslie Nielson going full-foaming psychotic Alpha and wrestling a bear. Because of the ozone layer!

Incredible.

Thanks chaps.

I had a wee side conversation with Steve too, about talking Corum and Hawkmoon from a gaming persepctive. After all, it has been a while since our last RPG-centric episode. A couple of days later, I was reading 80s Stormbringer adventure The Octagon of Chaos on the bog and I instantly had opinions. It occcured to me that there is a lot of MM-themed gaming output out there that we could cover in a similar way to how we do our re-read podcasts. Simply delve into a specific publication and yak about it. I threw that idea out on the Discord and a couple of folks said that would be of interest. Jim pointed out that some of them are quite hard to get now, so hearing more about them via the pod would be appealing.

So I think we’ll do just that. I have just about all (if not all) of the Chaosium products, including the D20 version, plus the Mongoose releases and the aforementioned supplement by Theatre of the Mind Enterprises, so that should provide plenty of fodder. I will, of course, be looking for co-hosts for some of these – folks that have the publications in question to hand. Steve will be one, our old mucker Dave Dempster is running Moorcockian games currently, as is his wont, so I’ll see if he’s interested in a comeback. There will be others over time and as the Moonbeam Roads converge.

More on that soon.

As we’ll be in August in a couple of months, the Halloween poll will be landing too, so look out for that.

Otherwise, it’s been a strange week.

After only being in the pub with him for my birthday just a couple of weeks ago, STIMBOTCLASSIC is up against the forces of entropy once more. As a result, we’ve had to bump our recording of Phoenix in Obsidian back a week, but we will get there. There may be a wee delay in the next pod upload as a result though. We’d got pretty close recently to one release per fortnight for a sustained period, but that may slip slightly for a while. We’ll see how things progress.

I’m typing this out on a Sunday morning before we leave our hotel. An old favourite. It’s a 7 out of 10 at best but there’s always been something about it I’ve liked, tired as it is. It’s the impression it gives of once having been some kind of old 1960s or 70s institute out of a Christopher Priest novel. It has a vibe.

Like Professor Millar once worked here.

And did unspeakable things.

It’s our summer holiday special – and it was Phil’s Choice. She reminded me that we had such a great time with The Devils of D-Day and the film of Masterton’s novel The Manitou that we should read Graham Masterton’s Revenge of the Manitou.

So we did… and we’re going to talk about it.

And watch Grizzly.

JOIN US!

Welcome to the 24th May 2025! It’s raining here in the hills of West Yorkshire, but our outlook is sunny. We’re 112 episodes deep into our now five and a half year journey into podcasting and, despite still running into persistent technical goofs with technology, microphones and set-ups, we’re still having a bloody good time. That’s a major bonus, as time remains the enemy when it comes to getting more episodes out the door and I’m getting even worse at reading in bed (three pages and I’m snoring is generally the pattern these days).

Covering Slade’s banger of a movie last time out was a treat and, having talked about Hawk the Slayer recently and covering the films of The Final Programme and The Land That Time Forgot before that, we will probably do a bit more in that direction. Provided of course they have a good novelisation to go along with them, and that they have some kind of resonance that goes beyond, “Yeah, good film that.” It will have to be something that fits into that bracket much like Moorcock. Films that made our brains tick.

On films, I mentioned Privilege on the Slade in Flame episode, but I think I said it was a Pete Walker film. It was in fact Pete Watkins’s first feature film, the guy who had previously directed docudramas Culloden and The War Game for the BBC and would go on to make the incredible Punishment Park in 1971. If you haven’t seen that, seek it out. It’s a beast of a film that is more resonant now than ever.

I suspect my slip was Freudian, because I’m a big Pete Walker mark. Inseminoid has lived rent free in my head since Dad rented it on Betamax in the early 80s and it beat Alien into my psyche by a couple of years at least. It was also responsible for my Stephanie Beacham awakening. As it happens, Inseminoid has a novelisation. Published by NEL. And it’s fucking terrible. And it’s the most one-shit bookiest one-shit book you could hope to find. So maybe we’ll do it at some point. One for the Halloween poll perhaps…?

[Editor’s note* – thanks Ben for pointing out that Norman J Warren directed Inseminoid, I blame the Anchor Bay coffin box sets for mashing them all up in my head.]

*there is no editor, just me

Zardoz

The Keep

The Wild Geese

Krull

Who Dares Wins

Performance

Rollerball (although I did talk Rollerball quite a bit with Andy Nette on one of our older episodes so maybe that’s already covered)

OK, some of these are actually film adaptations of existing novels, but whatever. WE MAKE THE RULES.

Anyway, this is something for the future. In the meantime we have more Moorcock on the way with The Sundered Worlds, the conclusions of The Runestaff, The King of the Swords and Phoenix in Obsidian and some other bits n bobs like the New Worlds collections that I’ve been picking up over the last few years.

I’m also feeling the pull to talk about some more Moorcock RPG action, like the two Hawkmoon games that we’ve had over the years (the English language ones anyway, much as I’d love to read the French one it’s beyond my capabilities) and the Darcsyde Corum supplement for Elric!

We’ll see.

Anyway, thanks for reading and sticking with us on our voyage. More thoughts soon via a new Weetabix File.