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Friday, 19 December 2025
Hexagon Comics Kabur #11: The Mountains of the Moon
KABUR #11: THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON by Jean-Marc Lofficier, art by José Luis Ruiz Perez, Moacir Muniz, Mario Guevara, Roberto Castro; cover by Mario Guevara.
7x10 squarebound comic,
76 pages b&w
ISBN-13: TBA.
US$12.95
https://www.hexagoncomics.com/shop-kabur-11-the-mountains-of-the-moon.html
33. THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by José Luis Ruiz Pérez.
THE SEA SERPENT story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Moacir Muniz
THE JUSTICE OF KABUR story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Mario Guevara.
THE STAR PRINCE story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Roberto Castro.
PIN-UPS
The last obstacle Kabur must cross on his way to Arkhanal are the fearsome Mountains of the Moon, home to a race of savage wolf-men. But these are engaged in a merciless war against the once-peaceful Stone Men, led by a wild creature known as Zhagrid… Will the Prince of Thule thwart the diabolical plans of his sworn enemy, Selinor Psah, before he finds the one he has been looking for…
Plus three "TALES OF KABUR" recounting heretofore untold adventures of our hero and his friends.
There is something about black and white artwork that it has to be done correctly and the black needs to balance out with the white -which sounds odd but true. The DC Showcase and Marvel Essentials collections all showed just how good b&w art is -often looking better than the published colour work.
Now, the stories in this comic are going to be solid and well paced. I've not found one yet that has failed in that aspect. But comics (much to the annoyance of some "super star" writers) is a visual medium. This book proves how true that is.
José Luis Ruiz Perez turns in more excellent work and his style is a treat to look at. Moacir Muniz has now put him on my list of artists to keep an eye on -lovely work; the splash page and art that follows shows that he could well become a master of horror comics! Mario Guevara's work in this issue I think is possibly his best to date and I've actually gone through those pages a few times. Roberto Castro also turns in some great pages.
The art, story and characters just pull you in and I have no idea why I was surprised (I may be getting old). I think that added colour would have detracted from the art (and made the book far more expensive). All of this behind an eye catching cover -this is a good way to celebrate Kabur's 50th!
Cinebook Ltd Newsletter 216 - December 2025
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Thursday, 18 December 2025
It WAS The Golden Age of the British Small Press
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Wednesday, 17 December 2025
Cinebook Ltd XIII 27 - Spaso House
Authors: Yves Sente & Youri Jigounov
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 48 colour pages
Captured in Cuba as he was trying to exfiltrate a Russian hacker on behalf of Janet Fitzsimmons (the woman who controls him through a chip in his head and secretly runs the entire US government), XIII is taken to Moscow, where he once operated for a faction of the KGB. Caught in a deadly power struggle between Russian intelligence services, he must discover what happened during a decades-old mission … of which he has no memory!
Artwork is perfectly fine. No problem with it at all. Same goes for the story which is well enough paced and the right amount of "passive" and action scenes. When the original series ended it did so cleanly and it was a series I read through more than once and I still do not think that it can be beaten.
However, I do wonder whether this type of thing has run its course? It's a problem with comics, movies and TV that there is a success and no new ideas around so "Hey -that XIII series was very popular and got good reviews so let's keep flogging it!" And that is the impression I get here. I read it and think back almost immediately to the first series and that this does not compare. If it had been The XIII Legacy looking at what happens to another agent who has memory loss then it might have worked with a clever twist to the agent finding out about the first (XIII) one.
Of course, my opinion means nothing and so all I can do is ask how long the series can drag on when fans thought it was all over a long time ago?
I also know that there will be fans of the series out there and THEY are the ones who count because THEY pay for the books and their likes and continued support keeps things rolling on. Maybe this year I am the Scrooge of Comics Christmas?
Hexagon Comics Kabur #10: The Hounds of Kyros
KABUR #10: THE HOUNDS OF KYROS by Jean-Marc Lofficier, Roy Thomas; art by José Luis Ruiz Pérez, Luciano Bernasconi, Miguel Angel Yzaguirre; cover by José Luis Ruiz Perez.
7x10 squarebound comic,
76 pages b&w
ISBN-13: 978-1-64932-394-1.
US$12.95
https://www.hexagoncomics.com/shop-kabur-10-the-hounds-of-kyros.html
32. THE HOUNDS OF KYROS story by Roy Thomas & Jean-Marc Lofficier, dialogue by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by José Luis Ruiz Pérez.
EPILOG: AND YET IT MOVES story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Miguel Angel Yzaguirre.
BAO IN VENLANA story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Luciano Bernasconi.SKETCHBOOK by José Luis Ruiz Pérez.
As Kabur approaches the Mountains of the Moon, he witnesses a strange metal fortress fall from the sky, destroying a nearby village... With the help of several travelers he must then face the terrifying creature that emerges from the ship, accompanied by two fearsome hounds... Fortunately, in this desperate fight, Kabur will be able to rely on another extraordinary visitor, also from the stars...
This 48-page saga by Roy Thomas, Jean-Marc Lofficier and José Luis Ruiz Pérez is supplemented by an Epilog by Miguel Angel Yzaguirre and a tbonus ale recounting an heretofore untold adventure of Bao by Luciano Bernasconi.
I love looking through a well drawn black and white comic and the artists on this book are well worth studying. The stories are all well written (Roy Thomas writes one!) and the action well paced. I like the blend of barbarian and sci fi and Homicron looks really good in this incarnation and I don't think I've seen the character drawn like this before (but my mind is a porridge filled with over 5 decades of comic characters so who knows!).
Nice to see an old hand like Bernasconi drawing a comic strip and that can only be topped by José Luis Ruiz Pérez sketchbook pages. Quite honestly you cannot go wrong with this book and I got far more enjoyment out of it than I do the current Avengers run at Marvel -a series I have followed since the 1960s.
I'm hoping Hexagon books get good sales but it deserves to get them. If you have not tried a Hexagon book before 😲 then try this one and if you don't find it a fun read well...why are you here?!
You can order via the Hexagon link provided and at least that way you know the money from sale goes straight to the company.
Info Uploaded. Next Reading and then Reviews!
😳 Right, I have just uploaded the details of 12 books to review that all turned up at the same time and just as the severe eye strain hit and then my older brother passed away.
I will start read later on (it's 14.40hrs UK) and the first reviews should appear tomorrow and as this is Hexagon Comics character Kabur's 50th I'll start with one of the four books featuring him.
My mother always kept saying that if I carried on doing it I'd go blind but I never realised she meant reading comics!!
My apologies to Cinebook Ltd and Hexagon Comics for the delay.
Tuesday, 16 December 2025
Working For The Small Press -What's It Worth?
I was thinking how things have changed over the years. Back in the 1980s/1990s, if I had a zine that was short of 3-4 pages I'd knock out a letter and send it off to other zine publishers/creators.
Within a week I could guarantee having enough material to fill 2-3 zines. And, if contacted by other zine publishers looking for material, well, yes, I'd send something to them.
At no point did anyone ask "How much are you paying?" It was simple fun -contributors got a copy of the zine their work was in. Again, no one asked: "If you make anything out of this what's my cut?"
We were selling our "end product" for 25 pence. 50 pence. 75 pence or, and, I tried and succeeded in never crossing this particular price barrier myself, £1.00. Yes, £1.00 which back then was 50 cents? So, buy my zines and you got a lot of pages for little money. I try to keep doing that still.
Although, via Zine Zone mail order or marts you could sell quite a few zines -in fact, it's odd but you would guarantee at least doing fairly well sales-wise back then where as now the attitude and expectation is that selling one or two books is a good day! In fact, zine publishers reported that they did far better sales-wise with Zine Zone than they did with Fast Fiction (which saw ZZ as a competitor though we never considered there to be any rivalry).
"Hey -I made £2.00!" Not bad -snicker- now to divide that up between 10 contributors! Seriously, no one expected to make big money because it was all for fun. Also, a lot of the creators of the 1980s who made it into comics as writers or artists all started in the Small Press -it was seen as a place where you could hone your skills. It is interesting to note that a few of these creators when asked how they got started in comics tend to gloss over any mention of the Small Press! It all seems to be "I started writing/drawing and used every opportunity to hone that skill and then DC/Marvel saw my work" I think that is actually shameful.
People ask me how I got started I'll tell them. Putting together a school magazine (Greenway Boys School, Bristol, 1972) titled Starkers -The Magazine That Tells The Naked Truth which was a title suggested by our Deputy Head, Mr Wright. Getting everything together, drawing, typing on the stencils for the Gestetner copier and then....getting banned by the Head because one of the secretaries complained about the title (yes, there was more to it because I was seen as an "H-dropping" pain-in-the-ass by the snobbish head and his school kid cronies).
Then I got work with a printer. I then started working with the early photocopiers. I wrote articles on everything from nature to astronomy and history and then I decided I wanted to get into publishing so I got friendly with those folk as well as editors and distributors and even stupidly spent money buying rights to certain characters/publications (see one of my previous big posts -they are there somewhere).
Putting all of this together helped in making dummy copies of proposed titles to submit to publishers. Some of those titles, such as Preview Comic got a few people into permanent comics work both in the UK and US. Then there were scripts for London Editions, Fleetway/Egmont, Marvel UK and so on. And even while doing my comic work (and the officially unofficial other job) I was writing comic articles for publications such as Comics FX and other publications promoting comics and particularly the Small Press which has never gotten even 2% of the publicity 'real comics' do.
Today, obviously and I never ever do this any other way, all art is (c) the artist. If the contributor wrote and drew something then it is all (c) the creator. Even if I lost out I made sure contributors got something. But then you hit the big problems.
You learn, quite by accident, that an artist you have written a script for and who then with no explanation break all contact, are actually trying to sell the strip with a couple of character name changes. When found out and contacted over this there is either silence or "Oh, I thought you'd left comics" -right. Then you have the artist who wants to have full control over the end product which includes changes made "to make it better" and believe me I have had artists change characters names, sex and even whole chunks of story because they feel they know better. That just is not on. The writer writes and the artist draws -perhaps making an odd change to make action flow.
I have had one artist ask me to draw character sketches because he just could not understand what I meant by stating the right hand side of a characters body was all robot while the left was wholly human. Another had to have a sketch when I described a central tower in a city had, at the very top, a clock face on each of the four sides...?
Then you get an email out of the blue "I don't want this published unless I get a 60% royalty deal, a page fee and creative rights" hmmm. Or, you publish after putting a lot of work into a book and the artist then says he doesn't want to be associated with it because it might affect his work prospects with Marvel or DC???
You will also get artists who email every single week asking about sales. "You can't be doing enough to promote the book!" And then there are the artists who complete books and simply vanish. They no longer answer emails and so the book HAS to be withdrawn. Or the families of people you have worked with....don't even get me started on that.
There are no huge profits in Small Press publishing and Independent comics will not make you rich! So, as a publisher you have to make decisions that affect your output. Books are withdrawn. Decisions are made so that you no longer have to rely on other creators and all the problems associated with them.
Black Tower no longer accepts proposals from creators. Everything is in-house and there are only two creators...and a very large selection of books to buy. No distractions or problems other than those you get normally as the UK largest Independent comics publisher.
The small Press rely far less on collaborations these days. There are some but more and more it's an individual thing with the creator writing, drawing and publishing the book. No profit no problem. A profit -nice.
I think the anthology titles of old with any number of contributors will eventually vanish because unlike the doing -it -for- fun days where publishing was smooth and creators did not scream out "I'm a star! Pay me!"
If you ask what money you are going to get out of the Small Press as an artist or writer then the true answer is that you'll be lucky to make any. And the proof is there if you don't believe me: publish yourself and see all the 'joys' first hand!



