Someone told me that they could not find this post. Neither could I until I left Blogger and searched Google. What a surprise.
As an aside I noted a news item from 2018 stating that Marvel Comics had just introduced its first Chinese super hero. Black Tower had its first Chinese super heroes and team back in 1985 with the Phoenix Team appearing in 1987.
Oh, Marvel.....you are so slow!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have no remembrance of this item from Downthetubes in 2011:
http://downthetubescomics.blogspot.com/p/classic-british-comics-collected.html
In fact, the link it gives takes you to a page for Japanese real estate trouble lawmaker. Almost poetic in a way.
Anyway, this is how the Downthetubes post reads:
BLACK TOWER
The Black Tower Gold Collection - the brainchild of Terry Hooper, who edits the ComicBitsOnline web site- covers the forgotten British Golden Age (1939-1951).
Terry uses lulu.com to publish the collections.
"While people have continued writing and talking about the Beano and Dandy from this period it seems that no one is really interested in the comics of the other companies," feels Terry, "Gerald Swan and Swan Comics, Secret Service Comics, Soloway, Cartoon Art Productions and others.
"This period saw the creation of Britains first occult detective, Dene Vernon (soon to feature in a new book of his own) not to mention Robert Lovett in Back From The Dead. Some may have heard of the British super-man Ace Hart (even if his continuity is a bit odd), but there was Wonder Man, Bring ‘Em Back Hank (a sort of time-travelling Tomb Raider); TNT Tom, given super powers by aliens he rescued. Tiger Man, who got cat-like powers after fighting a tiger… in Africa. The axe-wielding Iron Warrior – one of the bloodiest strips in British comics up until Action.
"There are also Cat Girl, Phantom Maid, Skybolt Kid, Speed Gale, The Phantom Raider, Streamline, Super Stooge and many others including some humour strips.
"The strips were printed in orange, red, purple, blue and even green and considering the throw-away attitude the quality was not perfect," Terry notes. "In some cases it has taken a month of work to remove sellotape repairs, foxing and just plain decayed pages. Quality ranges from high to medium - but then, if you are interested in this period or a comic historian these collections are about the only place you’ll find the strips and cover prices are low (ignoring all the work put into the books).
"They are a labour of love and definitely not big money-makers!
"The Iron Warrior, Krakos the Egyptian as well as The Bat have all returned in new stories but if you want to see British super heroes and crime-fighters as they appeared in the 1940s up to 1950 then these books are for you."
Wow. How could any true comics fan ignore that? Uh...they did. I know -unbelievable, right?
If you do a standard internet search then you'll be led to believe that the only British (ie. Welsh, Scottish, Irish (North of Ireland) and English) super heroes were created by Marvel Comics...and a few later quirky ones by DC. It is why I posted the feature The Ultimate Improbability Of The British Super Hero -recently updated:
http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2017/04/yes-return-of-improbability-of-british.html
Forget the odd -rare- stupid You Tube or blog post in which someone who has little imagination tells you how silly British super heroes seem to be. Oh, also, according to Geordie on one of my Yahoo groups, ignore the five blogs or so that have blatantly ripped off what I have written as well as the images (to be fair it is hard to find images of genuine British super heroes) they have used from CBO.
These are the same people -the comics 'intelligencia'- who will tell you that France and Europe "NEVER!" had super hero comics. These days I could point them to the posts on when Vulcan became (in Germany) Kobra or all those European reprints from the early 1960s on of Mytek the Mighty, Steel Claw, Kelly's Eye, Leopard from Lime Street and many, many more. The same people who tell you -as 'experts'- that Germany "NEVER!" (yes, they do tend to shout it at you) had comics from the 1930s to 1940s -I first posted on that subject in 2012, then 2013 and 2015 before updating it again:
http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2016/11/german-comic-book-history-there-were.html
As an aside I noted a news item from 2018 stating that Marvel Comics had just introduced its first Chinese super hero. Black Tower had its first Chinese super heroes and team back in 1985 with the Phoenix Team appearing in 1987.
Oh, Marvel.....you are so slow!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have no remembrance of this item from Downthetubes in 2011:
http://downthetubescomics.blogspot.com/p/classic-british-comics-collected.html
In fact, the link it gives takes you to a page for Japanese real estate trouble lawmaker. Almost poetic in a way.
Anyway, this is how the Downthetubes post reads:
 |
| Black Tower Adventure Volume 1 |
The Black Tower Gold Collection - the brainchild of Terry Hooper, who edits the ComicBitsOnline web site- covers the forgotten British Golden Age (1939-1951).
Terry uses lulu.com to publish the collections.
"While people have continued writing and talking about the Beano and Dandy from this period it seems that no one is really interested in the comics of the other companies," feels Terry, "Gerald Swan and Swan Comics, Secret Service Comics, Soloway, Cartoon Art Productions and others.
"This period saw the creation of Britains first occult detective, Dene Vernon (soon to feature in a new book of his own) not to mention Robert Lovett in Back From The Dead. Some may have heard of the British super-man Ace Hart (even if his continuity is a bit odd), but there was Wonder Man, Bring ‘Em Back Hank (a sort of time-travelling Tomb Raider); TNT Tom, given super powers by aliens he rescued. Tiger Man, who got cat-like powers after fighting a tiger… in Africa. The axe-wielding Iron Warrior – one of the bloodiest strips in British comics up until Action.
"There are also Cat Girl, Phantom Maid, Skybolt Kid, Speed Gale, The Phantom Raider, Streamline, Super Stooge and many others including some humour strips.
"The strips were printed in orange, red, purple, blue and even green and considering the throw-away attitude the quality was not perfect," Terry notes. "In some cases it has taken a month of work to remove sellotape repairs, foxing and just plain decayed pages. Quality ranges from high to medium - but then, if you are interested in this period or a comic historian these collections are about the only place you’ll find the strips and cover prices are low (ignoring all the work put into the books).
"They are a labour of love and definitely not big money-makers!
"The Iron Warrior, Krakos the Egyptian as well as The Bat have all returned in new stories but if you want to see British super heroes and crime-fighters as they appeared in the 1940s up to 1950 then these books are for you."
Wow. How could any true comics fan ignore that? Uh...they did. I know -unbelievable, right?
If you do a standard internet search then you'll be led to believe that the only British (ie. Welsh, Scottish, Irish (North of Ireland) and English) super heroes were created by Marvel Comics...and a few later quirky ones by DC. It is why I posted the feature The Ultimate Improbability Of The British Super Hero -recently updated:
http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2017/04/yes-return-of-improbability-of-british.html
Forget the odd -rare- stupid You Tube or blog post in which someone who has little imagination tells you how silly British super heroes seem to be. Oh, also, according to Geordie on one of my Yahoo groups, ignore the five blogs or so that have blatantly ripped off what I have written as well as the images (to be fair it is hard to find images of genuine British super heroes) they have used from CBO.
These are the same people -the comics 'intelligencia'- who will tell you that France and Europe "NEVER!" had super hero comics. These days I could point them to the posts on when Vulcan became (in Germany) Kobra or all those European reprints from the early 1960s on of Mytek the Mighty, Steel Claw, Kelly's Eye, Leopard from Lime Street and many, many more. The same people who tell you -as 'experts'- that Germany "NEVER!" (yes, they do tend to shout it at you) had comics from the 1930s to 1940s -I first posted on that subject in 2012, then 2013 and 2015 before updating it again:
http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2016/11/german-comic-book-history-there-were.html
Hey, anyone remember Pete Cannon? A teacher cum vigilante? The Avenger? He appeared in 26 (?) issues of the new Eagle comic starting with issue 259 on 7th March,1987.
Where did the character go? What happened? The threat of legal action is what happened as it was one step too far as far as I was concerned. My Avenger character had been around (published) since 1984 and at one point he took to riding around on a motorbike to patrol and the similarities were very striking and when I visited Gil Page the Managing Editor I took the pages with me pointing out that he had copies of the pages in question. Mike Western told me that he had never seen those pages. Gil later got in touch to say that "there might have been a mix0up as an editor had "picked up the file by mistake".
No more Fleetway Avenger.
When I wrote about D-Gruppe (created in the 1960s and still Germany's only super hero team) I pointed out that folk tales and much more could be incorporated to give it a distinct German feel. Super heroes without the skyscrapers. The same applies to the UK and most other countries -American folklore originated from all over Europe via people looking for a new life there. German, Irish, Dutch, French...it goes on but all the folklore went with those emigres.
With the UK there is no need for the skyscraper settings. I mean, really, what idiot decided that you could only have super heroes if your country had skyscrapers? Does that mean that the Philippines, Malaysia and any non-US country cannot have them? If so, someone had better inform them because they do have super heroes!
Turning old British characters into uninspiring flops that "have" to be rebooted and feature in what are the same old same old stories we've seen in US comics for three decades now is NOT going to make them hip, cool or whatever other gibbering hipster term you want to use. The whole reason these characters were so popular is that they were British in setting, speech and stories. NOT American clones.
When I first published Black Tower comics as a Small Press effort there were gay, Asian, black, Chinese, Japanese and other people represented. That was in 1984 and when I tried to interest Fleetway and that Scottish company whose name must not be spoken in black and asian characters there was an outright "no" from Scotland while Fleetway's response was a wishy-washy "Well, I don't think those characters would be interesting to readers as we don't have many ethnic readers".
Yes: "ethnic readers". I did control myself and point out that "ethnics" I went to school with had read weekly comics and there were plenty of "ethnics" reading comics then. I also pointed out that whatever the background they were British -their "ethnic" backgrounds and folklore should provide story inspiration.
No. "It doesn't work like that. Mainly white kids read comics". Well, that attitude and the morons who got into comics in the UK is what sealed the fate of the 'industry'. What was it that Scottish company came up with -Dreadlock Holmes??
Yes: "ethnic readers". I did control myself and point out that "ethnics" I went to school with had read weekly comics and there were plenty of "ethnics" reading comics then. I also pointed out that whatever the background they were British -their "ethnic" backgrounds and folklore should provide story inspiration.
No. "It doesn't work like that. Mainly white kids read comics". Well, that attitude and the morons who got into comics in the UK is what sealed the fate of the 'industry'. What was it that Scottish company came up with -Dreadlock Holmes??
For comics to be healthy and sell they HAVE to reflect those people in society who read them and the racist and sexist attitudes of the 'nice guys' (usually hidden when talking to someone face-to-face) in what were British comics have to be washed away.,
I would always tell anyone who wants to get into comics to forget it. There are too many negatives. If you are determined to draw or create comics then do so as a self publisher and for goodness sake ignore the UK comic forums and media like contageous leprosy.
Where did we begin? Oh, UK Golden Age comics. They are still there as single volumes or a huge trade.
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