The Review of The Return Of The Gods:Twilight of the Super Heroes

-The Return Of The Gods:Twilight of the Super Heroes/Cross Earths Caper -January ONLY Discount!

And if you want to know what one of Germany's top comic book bloggers thought about the book (and he HAS read a lot of comics in his time) go to Tales From The Kryptonian:
http://talesfromthekryptonian.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-return-of-return-of-gods.html

With the third part of the trilogy being worked on here is your chance to see the build up to The Green Skies at a discounted cover price!

I -The Return Of The Gods:Twilight of the Super Heroes

Paperback, 

A4

Black & White

331 Pages

Price: Reduced to £20.00 (excl. VAT) That's 331 pages for £20!!!

Prints in 3-5 business days

http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-return-of-the-godstwilight-of-the-super-heroes/paperback/product-22076337.html

It begins slowly.  It always does. It's a deception that everything in the world is as it should be and that never changes.

Earth’s heroes and crime-fighters are going about their daily tasks –fighting a giant robot controlled by a mad scientist’s brain, attackers both human and mystical -even alien high priests of some mysterious cult and their zombie followers and, of course, a ghost and a young genius lost in time. 

Pretty mundane. 

But psychics around the world have been sensing something.  A "something" that sends feelings of sheer terror through their psyches.

There is a huge alien Mother-ship near the Moon. Undetected by deep-space radar and other instruments, only a few on Earth have sensed it and they cannot penetrate the hull but only feel psychic screams and....worse.

And then it begins: strange orange spheres isolate and chase some of Earth’s heroes who then vanish into thin air –are they dead?  An attack by an old foe or foes -?

Black, impenetrable domes cover cities world-wide. 

Then it becomes clear to those within the domes what is going on: Alien invasion of Earth! 

A war between the Dark Old Gods and the pantheons that followed! 

Warriors from Earth’s past having to battle each day and whether they die or not they are back the next day! 

No one suspects the driving force behind the events.  One single evil guiding events.  Events that could cause destruction and chaos throughout the multiverse.

Assaulted on all fronts can Earth’s defenders succeed or will they fail...is this truly the end? 

II-The Cross Earths Caper

 

The Cross-Earths Caper: Part II of the Invasion Earth Trilogy

Preview

Paperback, 

A4

Black & White

107 Pages

List Price: £15.00

Price: £12.75 (excl. VAT)

You Save: £2.25 ( 15% )

Prints in 3-5 business days

 http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-cross-earths-caper/paperback/product-22076318.html

Following the events on Neo Olympus and the Boarman invasion of Earth, many heroes and crime-fighters have withdrawn from activity. Some are trying to recover from injuries while others are fighting the mental scars left by the events.

But things have to go on.  As heroes from other parallels who helped during the recent events return home, members of the Special Globe Guard are shocked at the sudden appearance of Zom of the Zodiac. Never a sign of good things a-coming!

Very soon, a group of heroes mount a rescue mission and find that a quick rescue mission can turn sour equally quickly. As they overcome one challenge the the heroes become lost between parallel Earths and face new threats.

 Sometimes one Earth just is not enough. The complete story published in issues 7-10 of Black Tower Adventure now in...one handy dandy book!

ALL artwork and characters are (c)2018 T. Hooper-Scharf and BTCG

Black Tower Face Book Page

The BTCG Face Book is still there at:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Black-Tower-Comics-Books-136656043030326/posts/?ref=page_internal

So no excuse to not drop by and say "Hello"!

Oh yes. The Books ARE Looking for a New Publisher

Late last year I published these stats:

The following page and word count for the prose books ought to prove how much work went into each:

Some Things Strange & Sinister   330pp   92,979 words

Some More Things Strange & Sinister  322pp  96,931 words

Pursuing The Strange & Weird       240pp  66, 911 words

The Bizarre Legend & Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack   54pp  19,138 words

Red Paper:Canids   202pp  67,261 words

The Girt Dog of Ennerdale  42pp    13,527 words

Strange & Mysterious Beasts   324 pp  70,539 words

UFO Contacts:Looking At The Evidence 530pp  171,972 words

Unidentified –Identified  220pp  73,671 words

Contact! Encounters with Extra Terrestrial Entities?  370pp  140,865 words

The Hooper Interviews  365pp   78,672 words

Total Word Count: 824,555

   Of course that does not include the hundreds of images -some very rare of thought to have been lost 100-120 years ago, illustrations and countless reference and everything is factual -no lies or twisting facts to sell the book like most authors dealing with "World Mysteries".

   Even cutting the price of each book to the barest minimum is not yielding sales and when I started publishing these books in 2009 I was sure that they would sell and that there were genuine enquiring minds out there.  But out of the many, many thousands who have visited this blog alone -no one has purchased a copy of any of the books.

   So, much as it pains me I have to look for an established and paying (I get contacted by so many Vanity publishers it is ridiculous) publisher who can promote these books and sell them.  I am getting too old to mess around any more. As the offer of discounted prices lasts until mid-January I will wait until the 20th and then remove the books from the store front to avoid any problems with possible offers.

India, China, Hong Kong & overseas Comics

I have always prided myself on keeping up-to-date with comics outside the UK.  Years ago it was easy as comic fans could exchange comic book packages.

Then the UK Royal Mail specifically raised its postal rates so high that this became very expensive.  In fact, increased postal rates in the UK drove many small businesses...out of business because mail order was how they operated.  Now the Royal Mail is paying in spades because more people are turning to courier services.

http://www.diamondcomicsindia.in/

Raj Comics http://www.rajcomics.com/

Still private courier services are a little too expensive for comic swops!

Buying from India or Hong Kong or even Singapore was not too bad.  However, in the last couple of years anything other than an item marked "gift" coming into the UK has been taxed -usually more than what you are buying cost -ask anyone into certain crafts or collecting and most will tell you how they have had to stop.  If you have the money try YesAsia!

https://www.yesasia.com/global/en/chinese-comics.html

or Asiapac Books

http://asiapacbooks.com.sg/

So I am so far behind in what comics are published outside the UK now -last year (I think) I did my look at what Russian comics I had including my Russian Tarzan collection and I looked at my Indian comic collection also.

AsiaPac Books, Raj and Diamond Comics -I am out of date by at least 7-8 years!

It's an awful time to be a comic fan!

This URL appears to be blocked in China...hmm, but is it??

Well I just checked and this is what I got. Considering CBO keeps away from politics and it and I have promoted Manhua since the 1980s you might think it would be exempted.  I mean this is ME for goodness sake!! Don't they know who I am???  Unbelievable. I am a leghend. A king of comics and self piss-taker of international proportions!

Yes, in China. And Google restricts access to some of its business services (like YouTube, Gmail, Blogger, Maps) in certain countries or regions, such as Crimea,Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and almost all Arab countries. Somewhere, YouTube is banned and somewhere Gmail.

And for CBO:

Beijing -  hoopercomicart.blogspot.com Not Working in China

Shenzhen -  hoopercomicart.blogspot.com Not Working in China
Inner Mongolia -  hoopercomicart.blogspot.com Not Working in China
Heilongjiang Province -  hoopercomicart.blogspot.com Not Working in China
Yunnan Province -  hoopercomicart.blogspot.com Not Working in China

This URL appears to be blocked in China.

But can we actually say that it IS blocked in China??

Hmm. Yeah, okay. Its blocked.

Bloggers are welcomed into 2019 by a messed up system

I was asked by a fellow blogger what problems I was getting regarding views and stats. This demonstrates and I checked this 3 minutes ago.

Views

Week.........350
Day............350
Month........350

And it has been like that for a while or so and even the world map is blank -it should show grades of green building up to dark green for most views from that country.

Basically, blogger is now providing pointless and useless stats -rather like Google+ is. I had someone check "via the back door" and he says CBO is getting very high views each day but they are not showing -it seems systems not using Google are ignored and so are countries Google seems to have a gripe with. China does not show up at all any more and that started when Google were trying to force the PRCs hand over systems to use.

Views up to 16.30 hrs (UK time) stand at 350 officially but actuality -2,300 views.

I am ticked off that it took from 2011 -2018 to build up over 7 million views and after a year of messing up most of its stats, blogger wipes millions off the total number -exactly what its owner Google did with Google+ and that has driven many bloggers from Google+ and Blogger.

What a mess.

What Books Am I Reading Tonight?

Well, one can only try to sell and promote books 23 hours of the day so I decided to do some reading. Apart from having to check two toy soldier catalogues and finding them not to be a good complete guide as quite a lot was skipped over I decided to browse some trades/graphic novels.

I was reading James Dale Barry's Ball Lightning and Bead Lightning: Extreme Forms of Atmospheric Electricity but, well, comics is comics, right?

The first book was Colour Me Bad: Stress Out, Colour In, Deface, Obliterate  and this has a sizable contribution from Paul Ashley Brown that I had forgotten about.  Probably some of the best pages in the book, in fact.  Also the book can still be found on Amazon.  Worth checking out.


The other book was Love & Rockets The Covers -a present from the aforementioned Mr Brown.  Nice big book and all of those covers collected together are a big treat.

And to that I can add Gilbert Hernandez's Marble Season which I believe was a gift from Mr Northall.

There are other books I am looking at and I may end the day by reading the Planetary Omnibus -which I saw reviewed by former comics blogger Koestenbraunstar and mentioned by Ghost Critic so I was kind of 'forced' to buy it!

What are you reading tonight?

Terry Bave 1931-2018

Russell Bave, the son of Terry Bave has just sent this sad message.  My thoughts go out to Terry's wife, Sheila, and his family:

Hi, it is with a great sadness that I have to announce the passing of Terry Bave of 6th December 2018, after a short illness. He was one of the greats from the golden age of British comics. He was drawing right to the end, completing a wedding anniversary card for his wife in October. He will be sadly missed by his family and comic fans. All the best, Russell Bave.

Above: cropped copy of a photo Terry sent me of himself on the London Eye in the early 2000s (used in Comic Bits No. 1)

Terence H. Bave was born in Bristol in 1931. He left school at the age of fourteen and joined the Post Office Savings Bank as a clerical assistant, while studying one day a week at a continuation school. At the school he met Shiela Newton, who he would later marry in 1952. He joined the Civil Service as a trainee cartographer, and sold his first cartoon to the Colonial Survey Department's in-house magazine. After two years' National Service he returned to the department in 1951, but stepped up his freelance cartooning in a variety of magazines. In the late 50s he left the civil service for a commercial cartography company, then joined a packaging firm as a designer.

In 1967 he submitted his first comics work to Odhams Press' Wham!, and was given the strip "Sammy Shrink" to draw. He later created "Baby Whamster" and "Baby Smasher", and ghosted "The Dolls of St. Dominics" and "Grimly Feendish" for Leo Baxendale. When Odhams merged into IPC, Bave began to work for their humour titles, including Whizzer and Chips ("My and My Shadow", 1969; "Odd-Ball", 1973), Cor!! ("Donovan's Dad", 1970; "The Slimms"), Shiver and Shake ("Webster", "The Desert Fox"), Whoopee! ("Toy Boy", 1974; "Calculator Kid"; "Blabbermouth"; "Willy Worry"), Monster Fun ("Draculass", 1975), Wow! ("Barney's Badges"), Jackpot ("Richie Wraggs", "Full O'Beans"), Krazy ("Scaredy Cat", 1976) and Buster ("Pete's Pop-Up Book", 1984; "Good Guy", 1986), many of the scripts being written by his wife Shiela.

In the 90s he drew for DC Thomson's humour titles, including "Ratz" in The Beano.

On 11 January 2013 he published his autobiography, Cartoons and Comic Strips: Working at the heart of English cartooning Terry had a long, successful career as an artist working on children's comics, such as Whizzer and Chips, Cor!!, Buster, Whoopee, Dandy and Beano. From the heyday of the sixties and seventies, Terry saw the rise, and eventual decline, of creative cartooning for children's comics. His story is not just a tale of one artist, working in creative partnership with his wife Shiela, but the story of comics themselves.

Tempus fugit

Ben R. Dilworth's Silvermaigne:Knight Ghoul Hunter

I created the character but Dilworth's twist ending...!!!

Paperback,

A4

Black & White

42 Pages

Price: £5.00 

Ships in 3–5 business days

 http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/silvermaigneknight-ghoul-hunter/paperback/product-21843686.html

The Silvermaigne line is said to go back to the time of the Ancient Britons. 

Silvermaignes ancestors were part of a druidic clan based in the great forest that is today known as Leigh Woods, overlooking the River Severn entering (today) Bristol. All the members of the tribe had white hair from birth and they were known as the mwng arian (Silver Manes). 

Even the druids bowed to their knowledge of demons, spirits and things of the darkness. 

But at a point several centuries ago the family split and took two paths -one embraced magik for its own fight against evil.  The other renounced the use of personal magik so as not to become tainted and seduced by it.

For the first time Ben Dilworth looks at the latter branch of the Silvermaigne family and what one of them endures to keep the fight Holy! 

Another January Price Discount: Invasion Earth Trilogy I & II-The Return Of The Gods:Twilight of the Super Heroes/Cross Earths Caper

With the third part of the trilogy being worked on here is your chance to see the build up to The Green Skies at a discounted cover price!

I -The Return Of The Gods:Twilight of the Super Heroes

Paperback, 

A4

Black & White

331 Pages

Price: Reduced to £20.00 (excl. VAT) That's 331 pages for £20!!!

Prints in 3-5 business days

http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-return-of-the-godstwilight-of-the-super-heroes/paperback/product-22076337.html

It begins slowly.  It always does. It's a deception that everything in the world is as it should be and that never changes.

Earth’s heroes and crime-fighters are going about their daily tasks –fighting a giant robot controlled by a mad scientist’s brain, attackers both human and mystical -even alien high priests of some mysterious cult and their zombie followers and, of course, a ghost and a young genius lost in time. 

Pretty mundane. 

But psychics around the world have been sensing something.  A "something" that sends feelings of sheer terror through their psyches.

There is a huge alien Mother-ship near the Moon. Undetected by deep-space radar and other instruments, only a few on Earth have sensed it and they cannot penetrate the hull but only feel psychic screams and....worse.

And then it begins: strange orange spheres isolate and chase some of Earth’s heroes who then vanish into thin air –are they dead?  An attack by an old foe or foes -?

Black, impenetrable domes cover cities world-wide. 

Then it becomes clear to those within the domes what is going on: Alien invasion of Earth! 

A war between the Dark Old Gods and the pantheons that followed! 

Warriors from Earth’s past having to battle each day and whether they die or not they are back the next day! 

No one suspects the driving force behind the events.  One single evil guiding events.  Events that could cause destruction and chaos throughout the multiverse.

Assaulted on all fronts can Earth’s defenders succeed or will they fail...is this truly the end? 

II-The Cross Earths Caper

 

The Cross-Earths Caper: Part II of the Invasion Earth Trilogy

Preview

Paperback, 

A4

Black & White

107 Pages

List Price: £15.00

Price: £12.75 (excl. VAT)

You Save: £2.25 ( 15% )

Prints in 3-5 business days

 http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-cross-earths-caper/paperback/product-22076318.html

Following the events on Neo Olympus and the Boarman invasion of Earth, many heroes and crime-fighters have withdrawn from activity. Some are trying to recover from injuries while others are fighting the mental scars left by the events.

But things have to go on.  As heroes from other parallels who helped during the recent events return home, members of the Special Globe Guard are shocked at the sudden appearance of Zom of the Zodiac. Never a sign of good things a-coming!

Very soon, a group of heroes mount a rescue mission and find that a quick rescue mission can turn sour equally quickly. As they overcome one challenge the the heroes become lost between parallel Earths and face new threats.

 Sometimes one Earth just is not enough. The complete story published in issues 7-10 of Black Tower Adventure now in...one handy dandy book!

ALL artwork and characters are (c)2018 T. Hooper-Scharf and BTCG

Oh I So 'Love' Blogger

This morning I noticed two things.

1)  My Google+ stats have been cut without warning

2)  CBO stats appear to have lost over 3 million views overnight.

I had wondered what was going on lately as a few bloggers have reported tech problems and no one at Blogger itself will respond to messages.

When you work hard to get over 7 million views then you know its time to look for a new home if CBO continues.

Annual UK Copyright Notice

 This Is From HM Intellectual Properties Office THE official last word in such matters. I do hope that a certain trouble making little nark takes note.  IPC and Egmont tell me that they agree with this and stand by the legislation.

So if you were a company just purchased a whole lot of material from, say, IPC, hopefully you also got the written permission of the creators -artists and writers or you just have a lot of out of copyright material.

Dry. Boring but then, it can't all be The Mighty Crusaders!

 ************************************************************************
Subject: UK Comic Book copyright query

Hello.
I was wondering whether you could help me re. the above matter.  I am a comics historian/publisher and have, obviously, studied the UK industry for over thirty years now.
Contracts were never signed between creators and comic publishing house such as Fleetway, IPC, Odhams, etc.  The companies changed hands many times over the years with no new deals with creators.  In fact (c) was not even given on many titles.

I was put in contact with a solicitor last year and he sent me the following;

"UK Copyright

Someone was asking what the legal position is in the UK.

The writer and artist own the copyright in the strip jointly, under the Copyright Act 1956 (or the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 in the case of more recent comics), unless there has been a written transfer of their copyright ownership to a third person (such as the Publisher).

This is called Author's copyright. It lasts for the lifetime of the writer and artist, and thereafter for a period of 70 years from the end ofthe year in which the last survivor of them dies.

Each strip within an issue of a comic is thus the copyright property of different people: i.e. the writer and artist who created that particular strip; and so a lot of individuals will have copyright interests in each weekly edition.

 The Publisher has a separate copyright (called Publisher's copyright),which protects the entire published issue of a comic, including its overall typographical layout, not just individual strips within it. This lasts for 25 years from the end of the year in which that issue of the comic was originally published.

This second type of copyright has now expired for any comic with a cover date on or before 31st December 1984.

I was wondering whether you could tell me whether this is correct? The problem is that many now retired creators are wondering where they stand -most get the same (above) responses from solicitors as I had.

Any help in clarification would be very helpful.

My thanks in advance
Terry Hooper

 GOV.UKIP OFFICE RESPONSE

Dear Mr Hooper,
Thank you for your recent enquiry. Although we are unable to provide legal advice regarding specific cases, I hope the following general information is of use to you.

Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, in the case of written (including software and databases) theatrical, musical or artistic (including photographic) works, the author or creator of the work is also the first owner of any copyright in it.  The only exception to this is where the work is made by an employee in the course of his or her employment. In some situations two or more people may be joint authors and joint owners of copyright (as may be the case for instance with a comic strip).

Where a written, theatrical, musical or artistic work, or a film, is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work (subject to any agreement to the contrary).  'In the course of employment' is not defined by the Act but in settling disputes the courts have typically had to decide whether the employee was working under 'contract of service'.

Where a person works under a 'contract for services' he may be considered by the courts to be an independent contractor and his works may then be considered to be commissioned works.  When you ask or commission another person or organisation to create a copyright work for you, the first legal owner of copyright is the person or organisation that created the work and not you the commissioner, unless you otherwise agree it in writing.

Even though the legal owner of copyright is the creator, it is possible that the commissioner may be considered by the courts to be the beneficial owner of copyright and therefore entitled to legal ownership.  This could be where you intend to stop others using or copying the work that has been commissioned for instance a logo designed to be used as your trade mark.

I outline these points since you mention the absence of a formal 'signed' contractual agreement between the creators and comic publishing houses.  In the event of a dispute as to ownership it would therefore be for the courts to decide ownership and/or the nature of the ownership (it may be that there are joint creators [writer and artist] and they may or may not have some rights in the work along with the publisher). Each situation must therefore be considered on its merits.

I would suggest the situation is less clear under the Copyright Act 1956 and you may wish to seek further legal clarification of Section 4 and in particular section 4.(2) in order to ascertain whether this situation could apply to comics.  This section seems to limit the ownership of a work by an employer to the publication in his/her newspaper, periodical or magazine and beyond that the creator would be entitled to any copyright subsisting in the literary, dramatic or artistic work.

In relation to a publisher's rights I was confused as to the 1984 date in relation to typographical arrangement (25 years from publication) but then noticed that you sought this advice last year.  The publisher may also have copyright in the 'compendium' of strips which he has produced as a comic.  His copyright [as well as the individual creators in the absence of any assignment to him] could therefore be infringed if the whole or a substantial part of the comic is reproduced without his permission.

It should be remembered that irrespective of whether the creator or another party own the copyright, then provided the creator died less than 70 years ago the work is still likely to be protected.  This will also be the case in relation to publishers etc where the duration of copyright protection is calculated from death of the employee creator.  Again, where a company changed hands or was bought it would be necessary to consider who then owned the intellectual property rights.  Under both the 1956 [s36(3)] and 1988 [s90(3)] Acts an assignment of copyright is not effective 'unless it is in writing signed by or on behalf of the assignor'.  Each situation should then again be taken on its merits.

I hope this helps. I should emphasise that this information does not represent legal advice but rather seeks to assist you on what issues you might seek further legal clarification.
I hope this response has been some help to you.

Regards,
Copyright Enquiries

2019, Brexit and How Will it Affect Comics?

A small group of xenophobic  people who believed whatever garbage they were told voted Brexit. From that day on it has been a mess and a hole getting deeper and deeper as headless chickens flap around.

So I was asked how this will affect the online store?

Firstly, it will affect the blog as everything is going to be run from Ireland -though blogger has jumped and piggy-backed all over the place in the past. How it will affect the blog -no idea because last time they reorganised it screwed up all the stats to a point that they are now meaninglerss -I think the last total of views for CBO was over 7 million.

Secondly, the online store operates so that a printer and the postal service in YOUR region deals with your order.  No ordering from outside your country.  It means you can order what you want when you want so no change.

For me it may mean having to not just lose money on every sale to the US (who tax everything sold even if printed and posted in the UK because the POD is based in the US and there is no UK equivalent) but also paying tax on books sold in various European Union countries. That may see the online store dropped or restricted to only UK buyers or the business just ending.

One of the reasons for the temporary price reductions was to give anyone interested the chance to buy before anything drastic took place.

So it will not affect customers but for me it could mean "bye-bye".