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Finding the Best Manga Stores in Tokyo?!

Mothman: America's Notorious Winged Monster | Monstrum

Silvermaigne Re-visited

  Going back to the 1980s.... Silvermaigne's first failed attempt as a comic strip. One person drew the first part but for the "victims scene" used newspaper  photos of road accidents and inked over the figures. As soon as I saw that I said "no" as if you cannot draw four people standing around a blanket covered body you cannot draw a comic. As it  was the artist was a never-hear-from-again.

above art by K Earl

Then another artist and I think his name was Kieron or Karl(?) Earl -I keep telling people to write names and contact details on the back of art!  The first part was drawn and...the artist was never heard from again despite my having sent the script for part 2.   Then we have a page by Terry Ford (who drew Torch of Vengeance  reprinted in Tales of Terror 1).  Ford left comics and after what happened with Space Junk comic I'm not surprised.

Oh...then I found the first page at the bottom of a box. Not a coffin but a box. Honest.

art by Terry Ford

I believe that these are all of the art pages that survived.

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All Change in Comic Bits 3!

  Realised today as I was editing Comic Bits 3 that the cover needed changing. It's been a few years since CB 2 was published and the material to go into the issue change -a lot has been published in other Black Tower titles.

It took a while but I settled on the new on. Not as dramatic as the Krakos cover (which will be used elsewhere) but I like it.

cover in edit -I like this one as it is bright and cheery and I think that is what comickers need these days!

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On The Non-Return of the Biogs

 I was just looking into a folder that had art that originally was drawn in the 1990s. It was titled Biog and if anyone out there remembers the return of Dan Dare in 2000AD you will know what that's about. 

Gil Page was Managing Editor at Fleetway and introduced me to the then editor of 2000 AD whose name I cannot remember. It was a long time ago. Gil told the man about an idea I had to bring the biogs back but not in the far future but modern Britain. The editor liked the idea and suggested that I put a script together for a ten part story and then he could see about approving it.

Gil managed to ask Massimo Belardinelli if he would be interested in drawing the strip if it was approved -that was part of his job. Belardinelli apparently said "yes". The problem was that I knew from experience that spending a week or so writing then editing a script could be for nothing. It was not an officially commissioned script and Fleetway did not "do" kill fees so I would be working and there was no guarantee of the project being accepted.

What I did find was that Gil and editors were willing to look at preliminary drawn strips to say "yay" or "nay" to.  I phoned Gil and said that I was doing a lot of scripts for Fantagraphics in the US (do not even ask about that!!) but I could put together a preliminary strip to show story pacing etc. That was fine and for me not sleeping I got to drawing when scripts were finished (I was told that it was quieter than my typing from 0900-2000hrs every day).

Eventually I drew over 30 pages. These are roughs mind you and then I lettered and in those days that meant pasting word balloons onto art pages. Messy but combined it told the story and showed pacing etc.  I took the pages in when I next visited Fleetway and Gil liked them and the editor liked the idea as well as getting Belardinelli to redraw the whole thing (I rather liked that idea myself). Then silence.

After a month I asked whether any progress had been made and I was told that "The editor isn't keen on Belardinelli" and no reason was given. I was told "he has another artist in mind who has already worked for 2000 AD". Fine. I could live with that. I produced a full script with part breakers and handed it to the editor who said it looked "fine".

Silence.

I asked Gil what was going on and he said he would ask the editor to phone me. A week later, and not via the editor himself, I was told that the idea was cancelled for "financial reasons -there's a tight budget". It seems that my 25 pages script was "too expensive". At that time a writer got £35 per page so at 25 pages that would total £875 the other method (the main one) was £35 per printed story page so 35 pages = £1, 225 which the editor did not want to approve and send to Accounts. This is why so many writers jumped ship and started working for American comic companies. Artists got well over £100 per page (depending who and whether b&w or colour it could be £150-200).

Biog never saw print and it shows how badly British comics were being run back then. When I took artists to meet sports comic editor Dave Hunt he was rushed off his feet as he had to do everything because the job of "office boy" no longer existed due to cut backs -it's why foreign artists were used -cheaper.

It was a big mess.

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Do NOT Poke Your Eyes -the man is an idiot

 

Completing the work on Johnny Neg -Future Detective 2 took an hour. Going through all of the uploading files took 40 minutes. The actual publishing process took THREE HOURS!!!

In the end I pressed "Revise" and changed the cost of the book for US buyers and then...published in 30 seconds.

I am now looking at having to do a cover for a book and finish some art pages.

Poking your eye is fun ain't it?

Chronos The Watchman

 

A4

B&W
40pp
Price: £7.50 (excl. VAT)
Prints in 3-5 business days

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/chronos-watchman/paperback/product-18941673.html

John Tempus, a world travelling adventurer travels by ship to Gull Island, a desolate place
on which stands an ancient, war-scarred tower, left to him by an uncle he never knew.

An uncle that he soon finds is far from dead.

An uncle who reveals to him a family curse that he cannot avoid. A duty he
will carry out until his death.

John Tempus has now become the next Chronos Watchman and he is all that
stands between our world and that of...

KAOS!

Black Tower: The Attacker

 

 A4

25pp

Black and white

£8.00 UK

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/the-attacker-dark-origins/paperback/product-8458282.html?q=&page=1&pageSize=4

When urban crime seems to be out of check with the police unable to handle every incident and people too scared to even walk along the road what happens?

Do the police give up as resources are over stretched while the public scream for action? How can the police be everywhere: at every location where there is going to be a minor or serious crime? They can't.

Is vigilante action required?

The early 1980s created Attacker could have been anybody. He appeared in a series of no text strips dishing out violence for violence. 42 years later his/her identity is still unknown. With some takes on the character by Ben R Dilworth and a Preview to the Return of the Gods series this is action all the way.

Black Tower: Streamline 2

 

Ben R Dilworth writer/artist

24 pages

A4

Black and white

£8.00 UK

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/streamline-2/paperback/product-yvyd549.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Keenan King aka Streamline of Earth Parallel 669 meets agent Grimes of MI5 in Westminster Abbey for a briefing. A briefing that seems to indicate that the man who helped King and gave him his powers, Dr. Rose, has mass produced the formula used on him.

If the man who helped give him the powers of Streamline has turned rogue for money or other reasons he has to be stopped.

An army of Streamlines would be unstoppable and a threat to not just the UK but the world.