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Luis Angel Dominguez

 Anyone able to give more info on this artist, especially the year he died?  Thanks

Luis Angel Dominguez is an Argentinian artist, who has worked a lot for American horror and mystery comic books in the 1960s and 1970s. He has made comics in his native country since the 1940s. He has cooperated with the writer Hector German Oesterheld on 'Scout River' in 1956. He also worked on comics like Patoruzito and Pancho Lopez. He did his first US works in the early 1960s, contributing to 'The Wonders of Aladdin' (Dell) and 'The World Around Us' (Gilberton).

Between 1963 and 1970 has was affiliated with the Union Studio in Latin America. He did back-up features for Charlton and drew for many of the company's 1960s war and western titles, such as 'Cheyenne Kid', 'Fightin' Marines', 'Billy the Kid' and 'Outlaws of the West'. From 1967 through the late 1970s, he did a lot of work for Gold Key titles like 'Ripley's Believe it or Not', 'Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery', 'Grimm's Ghost Stories', 'The Twilight Zone' and 'UFO Flying Saucers'. Then in the 1970s, he also began working for DC, illustrating for 'House of Mystery', 'House of Secrets', 'The Witching Hour' and 'Jonah Hex'. He additionally contributed to the horror publications of Skywald and Warren.

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I Get Asked The Oddest Things

 Two chats recently and both around the same subject so as I am currently in between things I'll not answer as much as explain.  Steve (from a comic site I will not mention -nothing bad ):

"You are the biggest Independent publisher of black and white comics and graphic novels so why are you never at any events in Bristol?"  

 Well, I'll explain. I was asked to be at one Bristol event in recent years. Here is how it was pitched to me after a lot of ego stroking (which is wasted on me):

"You publish so much and you've been going since the 1980s so you are a Bristol institution and we would like you to come to our event to sell your books as a featured guest"

Sounded fine. Then...."the table will cost £250 and it's 6 by 3"  So I said I was honored they were going to pay that much for a table for me.  "uh...no. You'd need to pay for the table" -obviously they had never heard sarcasm before. So, no, I did not attend.  

Another for which I applied for a table got me this response: "You publish niche black and white books as well as proper books but we can't see you fitting in at the event".  Ahem, "proper books" they mean the wildlife and world mystery books and they could have said "prose" but what the heck. Small Press events I rarely get invited to since at two I was told that my titles looked "too high end and professional".

Yes, Black Tower has been going since 1984 (although I put stuff out in 1983) and I am the largest publisher of black and white Independent comics, comic albums and graphic novels BUT that gets me no favours.  I cannot and would never demand a table at an event but think about this: you have to sell £250+ of books to cover the table costs alone which means no profit. Big profit for the organisers but not the seller.  If I travel to sell then there is the table cost and travelling, food and overnight stay to cover. NO ONE sells that many books at an event -which is why most sellers are hobbyists who do not think about making money.

There. 

Cinebook Ltd: Amazonia 1 - Episode 1 and 2

 

Authors: LEO & Rodolphe; illustrated by Bertrand Marchal
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 48 colour pages
Publication: April 2024

£7.99 inc VAT

 ISBN: 9781800441316
 

Brazil, 1949. A photographer crawls into a mission deep in the Amazonian rainforest and dies. On one of his films is an extraordinary shot: a man with skin white as snow and an elongated cranium. Deformed human … or extra-terrestrial being? Kathy Austin, having reluctantly become the specialist in such situations, is immediately sent by the crown to investigate. But the British aren’t the only ones with an interest in the bizarre creature …

Authors: LEO & Rodolphe; illustrated by Bertrand Marchal
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 48 colour pages
Publication: August 2024
 £7.99 incl VAT

ISBN: 9781800441408

On the trail of the bizarre, potentially alien creature photographed in Brazil, Kathy Austin has reached the isolated mission where the photographer died. Unfortunately, the road forward leads into the heart of the rainforest and the territory of extremely hostile natives. Continuing will be difficult and dangerous, especially as she appears to be followed by a number of people including two suspicious Germans … and the Brazilian Navy! 

It may seem that I am late on these reviews but the books were listed and sold out on some sites by the time my review copies arrived. So, I am still reviewing as received.

The art in these two volumes is excellent and exactly what one comes to expect in these series and Marchal does an excellent job and Sebastien Bouet on colours just adds even more.  Leo and Rodolphe are as good as ever on script, dialogue and overall story telling.  The tall guy with the big head...Alien or something else?  We are kept guessing.

I do have a problem with this type of series, though.  Volumes 1 and 2 arrived together so the story draws you in but...how long before volume 3?  We know there are 5 volumes in this story but the important thing is delays between books as that can kill the buzz you get and in the past long delays have meant that my aged brain has to be back and read previous volumes to remember why someone wants to kill someone else.

And as I have mentioned volumes did you know Kathy Austin, the heroine of this series, and a British secret agent, has tackled the weird before?  Oh yes; in the 5 volume Kenya and 5 volume Namibia series.

It's good old fashioned adventure combined with spies and science fiction -the type of story that the late John Creasey used to write in his Z5 Dr Palfrey series from the 1940s on (he also created The Baron, Gideon of the Yard (developed into TV series) and many others). I would recommend Kenya and Namibia and as Amazonia are the continuing adventures of Austin...yeah, buy them and see how good comics are made.

2024 (another ) Avengers Annual 1

 

Let's be brief.

No. Thanos does NOT fight alongside the Avengers.  

The only Avengers in this book are Thor and Captain Marvel who are literally there for filling and making this an 'Avengers' title.  

The rest of the Avengers are all stuck on their "easier to get to world emergencies space city" because transporters are out.  Yes, the only Avengers in the entire Marvel Universe (in which every hero or anti hero is a standby or active roster Avengers) are stuck in space until they tell Thor in the last panel "We can beam down now". It is that lame.

This is, as it becomes very obvious and at warp speed, an Infinity Watch Preview. WTF are the Infinity Watch? I could not give a toss. Every single member of, no doubt, "Marvels latest sensation", were so badly characterised and acting like petty teenagers with dialogue that at times made the 1960s MLJ Mighty Crusaders comics look like Shakespeare writing at his best (no, William Shakespeare did not write for MLJ -Archie Comics- in the 1960s). 

 All I could think was that these were badly written throw-away characters for the plot and when they were being killed off I uttered the words "best move to date" but, of course, they all came back in the end.

I did use the word "plot" back there.  That made it seem that someone had sat down and written a good story.  They had not. No characterisation, no real action that was worthwhile and no Avengers (well, just two).  I even started asking myself whether the writer had ever seen or read anything with Thanos in before.

In recent years Avengers annuals have mostly all been number 1s (well of course they have because Marvel assumes that everyone buying comics is so dumb they cannot count beyond 1).

I have all the Avengers Silver and Bronze ages annuals as well as King Size and do you know what is in them?   Avengers (it sort of went with the title). Also, characterisation, plot and good dialogue. And they had fun and action in them.  Okay, modern writers (as we shall call them) get their literary education through TV, You Tube and movies. They obviously do not read books or anything that teaches them the basics.  The old writers got inspiration from movies but their major influences were literature. They read the classics, they read mythology and they were highly literate and good at what they did. Kirby was massively influenced by mythology and as he pointed out several times, Lee was a classics guy and the Thing joking about the words Reed Richards used was basically an in-joke (Lee being Richards and Kirby being Ben Grimm).

What we have with the 2024 Avengers annual is something with no merit or value. And this is what Marvel has done to its once proud flag ship title (with Fantastic Four fairing a little better).

The actual monthly Avengers title goes from fairly readable to piss poor and ....Marvel doesn't care. They are all getting pay cheques so can sit back and be lazy. This current book, as an annual, would never have even gotten through as a rough draft in the good days of creative Marvel.

Those days are gone.

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Pierre Christin 1938 - 2024

 

The Magnificent World of Toys Year One Marathon

Cinebook Ltd Newsletter 201 - September 2024

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Dear Reader, As September draws to a close, allow us to take you on several wildly different yet equally exciting journeys! Let’s begin with a trip back to the 50s, for another ‘classic’ adventure of Buck Danny. It’s got strange airplane prototypes, it’s got dastardly Nazis, it’s got plenty of air, sea and ground action, lots of derring-do, and even a beautiful spy. What more could you want, hmm? Next up is Emilie’s Inheritance, and this one takes us to 1920’s Ireland … or is it 19th century Ireland? Or even much earlier than that? Well, you’ll have to read to figure it out … and know that when you venture out on the moors of Eire, you never quite know where or when you’ll end up – as Emilie herself is about to find out! Finally, Yakari meets new friends in a family of Pronghorns, the American antelope. As the young Sioux discovers their lives and their ways, he’ll have his chance to show his mettle and help save the day, as usual. September with Cinebook – something for everyone! Buck Danny Classics 7 André Le Bras, Frédéric Zumbiehl & Frédéric Marniquet Sea Dart/font> 1953. Buck, Sonny and Tumb have been sent to the Patuxent River Flight Test Centre to help design and test the Sea Dart, a seaplane jet. Meanwhile, a former SS general previously in command of Nazi special projects, Hans Kammler, has been spotted in Argentina by an American agent … Read more Emilie’s Inheritance 2 Florence Magnin Maeve After a less than restful night spent in the Tinker camp, Emilie finally enters the estate she’s inherited. There, she soon meets the residents – half caretakers, half parasites, and all extremely strange … Yakari 22 Derib & Job Yakari and the Pronghorns On a lovely spring day, Yakari happens upon Quiet Rock, the tribe’s elder, busy admiring a Pronghorn – an American antelope. The young Sioux then spends a few days with the Pronghorn’s family, learning about their everyday … Read more Lucky Luke 83 Trouble Brewing North-American readers, to locate a comic book shop near you that stocks or can order these titles and many more, use this handy Read more   Or, if you're a retailer yourself, please go to: Read more Yakari 22 Yakari and the Pronghorns

HEXAGON COMICS The Partisans #3: War’s End

HEXAGON COMICS USA ICTOBER 2024 RELEASE:

Hexagon Comics USA now offers a growing catalog of translations of selected titles from the library of a 70-year-old French comics publisher.

You can order our books from our website at www.hexagoncomics.com or through amazon.

Retailers can purchase the books directly from us at a 40% discount from our website or from distributor Ingram. Contact us at jm@hexagoncomics.com

THE PARTISANS : WAR'S END

7x10 squarebound comic,

 48 pages 

b&w
ISBN-13: 978-1-64932-333-0. 

US$10.95

Cover: Luciano Bernasconi

• THE FIRST DAY 

Story: J.-M. Lofficier; Art: Mario Guevara 

• THE LAST DAY 

Story: Thierry Mornet; Dialogues: J.-M. Lofficier; Art: Luciano Bernasconi '

Spring 1945. The end of the Second World War is near... Paris has just been liberated... The Germans are retreating everywhere... The Americans are coming... However, there is still time for some desperate missions, such as stopping a last train of Jewish children from being taken by the Nazis to the death camps! The Guardian of the Republic and Marianne, Baroud and Princess Sadko of the Partisans, will each face incredible obstacles in order to halt this abominable project. And their success will only come at the price of the blood shed for some of them... But while one war is about to end, another, perhaps even more violent and merciless one, is already beginning...

 
These two sagas from the last days of the Second World War have been created by Thierry Mornet & Luciano Bernasconi, and Jean-Marc Lofficier & Mario Guevara.

Avengers 18...Can't ev en use it for toilet paper

 

Avengers 17 set it all up. After events in Heroes Reborn where the Earth Hyperion knew was a fake one, he was ...ticked off.  So he heads at the speed of light toward Earth to wreak vengeance (no it doesn't make sense since...just bear with me).  The Avengers are on high alert as they ponder how to stop one of the most powerful beings -and they note they have known "many Hyperions" in the past (though that screws up so many reboots).

Issue 18...talking heads....talking heads....talking heads...talking heads and yak yak yak about how they can only really delay Hyperion (I missed something somewhere as there is now a Wakandan Galactic Empire????).

Hyperion blasts past Pluto at near light speed so the Avengers t6alk and get some vibranium missiles ready (it is his Kryptonite apparently) and...yak yak yak...someone needs to explain to writer Jed MacKay what light speed is: It would take roughly 4 hours and 19 minutes to reach Pluto from Earth traveling at the speed of light. The speed of light is approximately 299,792 kilometers per second (km/s). The average distance between Earth and Pluto is about 4.67 billion kilometers.

So it looks like Earth is screwed but then a doorway o another parallel is opened and Hyperion is told by some synthetic thingy that the Earth there was devastated and has no heroes and only he can help them now. Crisis over.

That cover was "an imaginary battle scene" as they used to say on all the old toy soldier adverts.

Total rubbish and waste of paper and ink and the most "meh" story in a long time. Silver and Bronze ages Marvel Comics had far more complicated and interesting stories and this is just modern time wasting bilge. What was the point? Oh, don't worry the reboot will ignore it all as The Squirrel Girl Interstellar Empire is established.

I once did a story where a giant robot was running amok -heroes falling left, right and centre and it was unstoppable...until someone found the "off" switch on its back. Anti-climax but there was a battle and story.  

Marvel is just not "it" any more

THE BIG TOY COLLECTION TOUR! - Behind The Collector with @ke-yothecollector