It is odd to think that, apart from the United States, the Ukraine and Russia as well as Bulgaria provide more hits to CBO than the UK. True the UK rarely beats views from France or Germany but I have been told repeatedly that if I offered comic scans more UK comic 'fans' would visit.Really? Go away.
Scanarama or spacevoucherhoax Yahoo groups offer scans. As do other Yahoo groups. This is a -for now- comic blog.
I have noticed that I no longer get requests to scan new books I get for review and offer them here. It might be the very brusque reply I send to those requests. As someone who has had his work scanned and offered illegally over the internet for over a decade (in fact, it's more than that!) I know how soul destroying that is. When you see people (the, uh, 'comic fans') have downloaded your book over 300,000 times (if you've been on CBO you know which books -clue above) and you get not a single penny you realise that these are not comic fans but leeches. Do they download and read and say "I'll actually buy physical copies of this to support the creators"? Like hell.
Apparently, and I really did not want to read this first thing in the morning, combining all the illegal downloads of my Eros books alone the figure comes to 2 million. I'm sure that myself, artist David Gordon or Art Wetherall's family would have been happy to see £1/$1 for each download.
The company that published the books has no interest in chasing these crooks or even officially reporting them. That, sadly, is the Creators lot in comics or elsewhere: you get bled dry and dumped.
It is why I NEVER allow downloadable versions of my books -why make it easy for scum. Let them buy a copy and do all the work.
And if all those people visiting CBO from outside the UK can be made to realise just what comic creators face then maybe they can avoid the trap themselves.
Or maybe they come here for a bit of light reading and don't need a miserable old man moaning on!
But THANK YOU for all of you who do pop by.
No Terry, it wasn't just the high heels, but really, you shouldn't have tried booking in under the name of Maeve, on all fours and with the spiked collar and your rendition of 'The Time Warp' really spooked them.
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