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Monday, 31 October 2016
I Notice, Once AGAIN.....
That views of the Black Tower books posting have sky-rocketed. I can only assume that people like looking because, I'm guessing here, like the last couple times this will not result in any sales!
Oh the life of a publisher.
Oh the life of a publisher.
You CANNOT Suppress The Iron Warrior....but blogger has a good try!
Was this post really from January? I thought it was more recent but why worry about it?
Yep, Blogger screwed up images so thanks for pointing that out. Here it is complete.
This can be said to be true when it comes to the Iron Warrior.
I can onloy find one source with any information on the character up to 1990 and that is the late Denis Gifford’sEncyclopedia of Comic Characters [Longman,London,1987]. In the entry for The Iron Warrior,Gifford writes:
“..the most violent and bloodiest strip ever seen in British comics to this time,and for several decades to come. Rodney Dearth,seeking the Jewels of Junius,arrives at the site of the Temple of Sloth in Central Africa,accompanied by his robot,the Iron Warrior. Captured by a White Princess,he summons the Warrior (‘wavelength 60,impulse 400′). Crying ‘I come Master!’ and also ‘Ahrrr! Whoo-roo! Roar!’,the Warrior’s built-in chopper slices up the Sloths,cuts up a giant crocodile,and pulls the head off an outsize eagle.”
And from this we get entries in the Internationalheroes site (which appears to be vanishing bit-by-bit these days):
“A robot controlled by Rodney Dearth, who used it to hunt treasure with him in Africa.
The Warrior isn’t really a hero, as it kills anyone who threatens its master, whose own goals are far from altruistic.”
Hmm. But then we get,at the League for Extraordinary Gentlemen fan site:
“The Surrogate League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
When the government decided to form the Worral’s League they based it very closely on Mina’s first League, “When in 1946 it was apparent that Miss Murray and her colleagues had deserted our employ by going missing in America, MI5 elected to replace the group with surrogates in an attempt to recreate the impact of the 1898 ensemble…”
The Iron Warrior is a robot built by Rodney Dearth, Dearth was not a hero and had a more villainous overtone. He would command the Warrior to do various illegal things, including kill people, but mainly Dearth used him to hunt for treasure in Africa.”
YAAAR! RRRAHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Oh. I do beg your pardon. Had a bit of an “Iron Warrior” moment there.
Seriously, I hate this whole “we know nothing about the character but it seems it was a killer controlled by a killer so let’s write that” crap.
“…Dearth was not a hero and had a more villainous overtone. He would command the Warrior to do various illegal things, including kill people.”
Dearth was not a villain or scheming killer. Anyone read any old boys adventure books or H. Ryder Haggard? By applying what the League page and Internationalheroes entry has written then we have to re-classify Alan Quartermaine as a cold blooded villain. In fact,up until more politically correct times,most heroes would need to be re-classed according to this methodology. Biggles takes on arch villain proportions. Even Indiana Jones would be classed as out-doing the Nazis considering how many deaths he’s caused directly or indirectly. Think on that.
Let’s get a little bit of perspective here. Sit down kiddies because if you’ve not watched any films made between 1920 to…well…now,and if you’ve not read any history on the British Empire or American Imperialism (“Hey,Japan:we’ve gun ships and troops harbored offshore now do business with us ‘voluntarily’ or we’ll make you!”) -in fact any empire or power!- you may be shocked.
Most sea-faring nations such as Spain,Italy,England,France etc.,sent out exploratory ships/fleets to seek out new lands and new treasures and subdue the local population by any means including genocide [keep some alive for slaves,of course]. The Ashante were great at being slavers and made a lot of money out of it. It’s a two-way thing you see -are black african slavers villains? Hey,slavery still exists today (and in the West).
But these Europeans were brave hero-explorers. Anyone hear of a little group called the Conquistadores? Dutch East India Company? The British East India Company -all had their private armies to,uh,”smooth things through”.
Ever read King Solomon’s Mines?
In comparison,Dearth was a limp-wristed liberal! Hmm. If you were a British soldier at Rourke’s Drift with Zulu warriors rushing toward you would you throw down your rifle and wave -”Hello! I’m really against all this imperialism stuff -care for tea and a chat?” Mind you, in Zulu Dawn, Denholm Elliott’s character more or less did just that -and was killed straight away!
Whichever city you lived in -London, Berlin, Paris- you would hear stories of strange lands,lost treasures and much more. The urge to follow those tales continue to this very day. If a chap was on his uppers and the old estate was falling to bits and,to be frank,the family coffers had been emptied long ago it was disgrace and destitution -but if you could find the “lost treasure” or anything worth a few quid you were saved!
I know that it is wrong to just go marching in,putting down the “locals” and stealing things that belong to them,whether they want to exploit it themselves or not –hey, I’m still for the UK returning the Elgin Marbles and all those Egyptian artefacts we,uh,borrowed!
The context is that this was a totally different world. Officers and troopers posing for photographs of themselves resting their feet on a heap of natives heads should have been totally unacceptable even in the 19th century but it happened -apparently “fun” hunts were organised with horse-riding officers carrying “pig-stickers” but I get a feeling the natives involved weren’t having too much fun!
A white man would have his weapons because, even if a peaceful person, not all native persons were friendly in return (read some history). I could write on the subject all day but it wouldn’t help.
The point is that we know,in the Iron Warrior strip,only that Dearth arrives in Africa with his creation. If attacked he defended himself. In volume 3 of the Black Tower Gold Collection,I published such a strip. Dearth is exploring an area when a local priest stirs things up -Dearth is attacked and,though he could easily do so,he does not set about killing everyone. In fact, he does fend off an attack by rushing straight at the warriors but then tries to use cunning to defeat the witch doctor.
Once the threat is sorted, Dearth goes on his way. The one thing we see is that the Iron Warrior is far from some type of remote-controlled killer doing its master’s bidding. It’s what would today be called a controlled vehicle or “power suit”.
Or we assumed that is all it was. However, I have a little collection of IW strips and, sadly, "The Iron Warrior" is the only title you'll see -no story title. But at times Dearth talks to the IW -you think a little like a person alone will converse with a dog or cat -fair enough. No. There are points when IW seems to almost -almost- be 'sentient' in some way. And that vocaliser that I have only ever seen once after all this time -an interface of sorts?
And I've mentioned Dearth using the IW in his attempt to get rid of a wily evil witch-doctor. At that point Dearth could have called the tribal lands his and plundered them: who could have stopped him -The King's African Rifles?? A strip I titled "Native Problems...Again" sees Dearth help natives when a an unscrupulous white treasure hunter moves into lands of "The People of The Mist" -he's so downright benevolent I was almost ill. In another strip a cave has a carved out god's head at the entrance that is used by an evil white miner to rob the local tribe. Dearth stops this and utters the words ....
Dearth could have had all the treasure and power any white supremacist/unscrupulous killer with a "super weapon" would want several times over. He just continues on with his travels. He's not telling natives to "remember the white man is superior" or claiming territory for Great Britain.
For all intents and purposes Dearth was an adventurer who was out to look into mysteries and travel "where no European had gone before". He get’s inside the Iron Warrior and operates controls and fires his weapons from here. He also operates the axe-wielding arm. Guessing at Dearth’s height the Iron Warrior has to be around 3-4 metres tall [10-12 feet]. It is still nothing more than a kind of hostile environment suit -almost similar to later [better designed] deep water suits. Here is something else that is very basic but it is how I vizualise the IW and it is colour.
You see, if Dearth built the Iron Warrior then he was an engineer. He'd know about metal decay- rust, etc., from sea (salt) water, heat and all types of weather. So, just leaving it as metallic grey seems logically daft (I'm writing about a man running about Africa in a giant iron power suit so let's jump to something logical!). Now, one of my first jobs was at Swiftact Tools and I helped another fellow spray-paint crane cabs and lots of other things with red oxide/lead paint. It protected and allowed a coat of another colour to be sprayed over it by a customer. But the Red Lead protected the metal and welding joints (it was a primer). That was this colour:
In one strip I even have Dearth giving the Iron Warrior a paint over. The axe I always see as plain steel. Yeah, big industrial boy, I am. Loves a big, heavy chopper (:-/)
What Denis Gifford wrote I have to take to be accurate -he did have a massive collection of comics, so I’m guessingthat there was a remote control device and, it seems, a vocaliser of sorts. That writ, continuity was never a great strong point in comics back then. Even the Iron Warrior seemed to vary in size at times.
Yes,the strip was violent to a degree but you have to recall that in early Tarzan films there were people being killed violently and arrows sticking out of heads. However, the idea that the Iron Warrior was constantly chopping people up seems to be based on that one panel from Denis's Encyclopedia.
Do not think that, based on what people who have a narrow view of a character write, and most of them have never (obviously) read any Iron Warrior strips, that Dearth and the Iron Warrior were just deadly killers. They weren’t. They were not "mercenaries for hire". Dearth was not hoarding huge treasures but seemed rather, uh, "socialistic" -at Amalgamated Press or Thomson, Dearth would probably have had the natives swear loyalty to the Crown!
One day, the story will be told of Dearth's last great African adventure before he took off for South America (it's all planned).
And let's not forget that Ben Dilworth has returned the character of Dearth and the Iron Warrior to a time of fun adventuring without the need of a "modern reboot"! Even I've had a go.
Now, back to Big Bong!
Yep, Blogger screwed up images so thanks for pointing that out. Here it is complete.
The Iron Warrior -A Hero or A Villain?
It occurs to me that, today, a lot of comickers who have no real knowledge of UK Golden Age characters will make things up or make bad guesses based on what they might have seen.
This can be said to be true when it comes to the Iron Warrior.
I can onloy find one source with any information on the character up to 1990 and that is the late Denis Gifford’sEncyclopedia of Comic Characters [Longman,London,1987]. In the entry for The Iron Warrior,Gifford writes:
“..the most violent and bloodiest strip ever seen in British comics to this time,and for several decades to come. Rodney Dearth,seeking the Jewels of Junius,arrives at the site of the Temple of Sloth in Central Africa,accompanied by his robot,the Iron Warrior. Captured by a White Princess,he summons the Warrior (‘wavelength 60,impulse 400′). Crying ‘I come Master!’ and also ‘Ahrrr! Whoo-roo! Roar!’,the Warrior’s built-in chopper slices up the Sloths,cuts up a giant crocodile,and pulls the head off an outsize eagle.”
And from this we get entries in the Internationalheroes site (which appears to be vanishing bit-by-bit these days):
“A robot controlled by Rodney Dearth, who used it to hunt treasure with him in Africa.
The Warrior isn’t really a hero, as it kills anyone who threatens its master, whose own goals are far from altruistic.”
Hmm. But then we get,at the League for Extraordinary Gentlemen fan site:
When the government decided to form the Worral’s League they based it very closely on Mina’s first League, “When in 1946 it was apparent that Miss Murray and her colleagues had deserted our employ by going missing in America, MI5 elected to replace the group with surrogates in an attempt to recreate the impact of the 1898 ensemble…”
- The Invisible Man (Peter Brady) = The Invisible Man (Hawley Griffin)
- Prof James Gray = Nemo (both submarine builders, Nemo even inspired Gray in League V2)
- Worrals = Mina (female leads experienced in death)
- Wolf of Kabul = Quatermain (both in the great white hunter tradition, they even both wear pith helmets)
- The Iron Warrior = Hyde (both really killers pressed into service).
The Iron Warrior is a robot built by Rodney Dearth, Dearth was not a hero and had a more villainous overtone. He would command the Warrior to do various illegal things, including kill people, but mainly Dearth used him to hunt for treasure in Africa.”
YAAAR! RRRAHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Oh. I do beg your pardon. Had a bit of an “Iron Warrior” moment there.
Seriously, I hate this whole “we know nothing about the character but it seems it was a killer controlled by a killer so let’s write that” crap.
“…Dearth was not a hero and had a more villainous overtone. He would command the Warrior to do various illegal things, including kill people.”
Dearth was not a villain or scheming killer. Anyone read any old boys adventure books or H. Ryder Haggard? By applying what the League page and Internationalheroes entry has written then we have to re-classify Alan Quartermaine as a cold blooded villain. In fact,up until more politically correct times,most heroes would need to be re-classed according to this methodology. Biggles takes on arch villain proportions. Even Indiana Jones would be classed as out-doing the Nazis considering how many deaths he’s caused directly or indirectly. Think on that.
Let’s get a little bit of perspective here. Sit down kiddies because if you’ve not watched any films made between 1920 to…well…now,and if you’ve not read any history on the British Empire or American Imperialism (“Hey,Japan:we’ve gun ships and troops harbored offshore now do business with us ‘voluntarily’ or we’ll make you!”) -in fact any empire or power!- you may be shocked.
Most sea-faring nations such as Spain,Italy,England,France etc.,sent out exploratory ships/fleets to seek out new lands and new treasures and subdue the local population by any means including genocide [keep some alive for slaves,of course]. The Ashante were great at being slavers and made a lot of money out of it. It’s a two-way thing you see -are black african slavers villains? Hey,slavery still exists today (and in the West).
But these Europeans were brave hero-explorers. Anyone hear of a little group called the Conquistadores? Dutch East India Company? The British East India Company -all had their private armies to,uh,”smooth things through”.
Ever read King Solomon’s Mines?
In comparison,Dearth was a limp-wristed liberal! Hmm. If you were a British soldier at Rourke’s Drift with Zulu warriors rushing toward you would you throw down your rifle and wave -”Hello! I’m really against all this imperialism stuff -care for tea and a chat?” Mind you, in Zulu Dawn, Denholm Elliott’s character more or less did just that -and was killed straight away!
Whichever city you lived in -London, Berlin, Paris- you would hear stories of strange lands,lost treasures and much more. The urge to follow those tales continue to this very day. If a chap was on his uppers and the old estate was falling to bits and,to be frank,the family coffers had been emptied long ago it was disgrace and destitution -but if you could find the “lost treasure” or anything worth a few quid you were saved!
I know that it is wrong to just go marching in,putting down the “locals” and stealing things that belong to them,whether they want to exploit it themselves or not –hey, I’m still for the UK returning the Elgin Marbles and all those Egyptian artefacts we,uh,borrowed!
The context is that this was a totally different world. Officers and troopers posing for photographs of themselves resting their feet on a heap of natives heads should have been totally unacceptable even in the 19th century but it happened -apparently “fun” hunts were organised with horse-riding officers carrying “pig-stickers” but I get a feeling the natives involved weren’t having too much fun!
A white man would have his weapons because, even if a peaceful person, not all native persons were friendly in return (read some history). I could write on the subject all day but it wouldn’t help.
The point is that we know,in the Iron Warrior strip,only that Dearth arrives in Africa with his creation. If attacked he defended himself. In volume 3 of the Black Tower Gold Collection,I published such a strip. Dearth is exploring an area when a local priest stirs things up -Dearth is attacked and,though he could easily do so,he does not set about killing everyone. In fact, he does fend off an attack by rushing straight at the warriors but then tries to use cunning to defeat the witch doctor.
Once the threat is sorted, Dearth goes on his way. The one thing we see is that the Iron Warrior is far from some type of remote-controlled killer doing its master’s bidding. It’s what would today be called a controlled vehicle or “power suit”.
Or we assumed that is all it was. However, I have a little collection of IW strips and, sadly, "The Iron Warrior" is the only title you'll see -no story title. But at times Dearth talks to the IW -you think a little like a person alone will converse with a dog or cat -fair enough. No. There are points when IW seems to almost -almost- be 'sentient' in some way. And that vocaliser that I have only ever seen once after all this time -an interface of sorts?
And I've mentioned Dearth using the IW in his attempt to get rid of a wily evil witch-doctor. At that point Dearth could have called the tribal lands his and plundered them: who could have stopped him -The King's African Rifles?? A strip I titled "Native Problems...Again" sees Dearth help natives when a an unscrupulous white treasure hunter moves into lands of "The People of The Mist" -he's so downright benevolent I was almost ill. In another strip a cave has a carved out god's head at the entrance that is used by an evil white miner to rob the local tribe. Dearth stops this and utters the words ....
Dearth could have had all the treasure and power any white supremacist/unscrupulous killer with a "super weapon" would want several times over. He just continues on with his travels. He's not telling natives to "remember the white man is superior" or claiming territory for Great Britain.
For all intents and purposes Dearth was an adventurer who was out to look into mysteries and travel "where no European had gone before". He get’s inside the Iron Warrior and operates controls and fires his weapons from here. He also operates the axe-wielding arm. Guessing at Dearth’s height the Iron Warrior has to be around 3-4 metres tall [10-12 feet]. It is still nothing more than a kind of hostile environment suit -almost similar to later [better designed] deep water suits. Here is something else that is very basic but it is how I vizualise the IW and it is colour.
You see, if Dearth built the Iron Warrior then he was an engineer. He'd know about metal decay- rust, etc., from sea (salt) water, heat and all types of weather. So, just leaving it as metallic grey seems logically daft (I'm writing about a man running about Africa in a giant iron power suit so let's jump to something logical!). Now, one of my first jobs was at Swiftact Tools and I helped another fellow spray-paint crane cabs and lots of other things with red oxide/lead paint. It protected and allowed a coat of another colour to be sprayed over it by a customer. But the Red Lead protected the metal and welding joints (it was a primer). That was this colour:
You could get a lightly redder colouration and even Royal Mail post boxes used to be painted with Red Lead -but this was the stuff and, boy, did you need a full face mask!!
The other common lead paint colour was green. Local authorities used it on railings, urinals and even work sheds, etc because it was all-weather and hard as nails. Colour:
What Denis Gifford wrote I have to take to be accurate -he did have a massive collection of comics, so I’m guessingthat there was a remote control device and, it seems, a vocaliser of sorts. That writ, continuity was never a great strong point in comics back then. Even the Iron Warrior seemed to vary in size at times.
Yes,the strip was violent to a degree but you have to recall that in early Tarzan films there were people being killed violently and arrows sticking out of heads. However, the idea that the Iron Warrior was constantly chopping people up seems to be based on that one panel from Denis's Encyclopedia.
Do not think that, based on what people who have a narrow view of a character write, and most of them have never (obviously) read any Iron Warrior strips, that Dearth and the Iron Warrior were just deadly killers. They weren’t. They were not "mercenaries for hire". Dearth was not hoarding huge treasures but seemed rather, uh, "socialistic" -at Amalgamated Press or Thomson, Dearth would probably have had the natives swear loyalty to the Crown!
One day, the story will be told of Dearth's last great African adventure before he took off for South America (it's all planned).
And let's not forget that Ben Dilworth has returned the character of Dearth and the Iron Warrior to a time of fun adventuring without the need of a "modern reboot"! Even I've had a go.
Now, back to Big Bong!
A Happy Creepy Scary All Hallows Eve! (videos and More!)
As we look up and see the green tint to the sky getting darker, time for the Agents to relax and have an All Hallows Eve (Halloween) break.
Incidentally, the RCMP have reported incursions of Octopoid like creatures in and around Manitoba. There are also reported incursions near Hull, in the UK (don't they have enough problems with the werewolves?) and Kiel, Germany. Unsubstantiated reported from near to Lake Ogopogo.
Could be a busy week if these are Octopoids from Dimension Gamma 2!
In the meantime, a song that always has the agents giggling....
Bobby Pickett "Monster Mash"
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
Die Monster Die!
Claudia Kane -Einstein -we need a musical interlude!
It! The Curse of the Golem
Island of the Burning Damned
The Earth Dies Screaming
The Legend Of The Werewolf
The Stone Tapes
Quatermass And The Pit TV
Island of Terror
STORMCLOUDS - Nightmares In The Sky.
Goliath and the Vampires
The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake
And finally, and why not -The killer shrews (1959)
Sunday, 30 October 2016
You Seriously CANNOT Buy These Type Of Books These Days...well, you can actually....
T-Shirts, Mugs, Caps, Comics and more -Black Tower Stores
All Black Tower comic albums (that is A4 format) are in black & white. Once you've had black and white you won't go back to colour, baby.
BTCG has specialised in presenting original material covering super heroes, crime, adventure, sci fi, horror as well as illustrated prose -not to mention ground breaking books on "world mysteries" and wildlife. Oh, and even a huge book of interviews with comic creators and publishers.
All the books are, naturally, available for overseas licence -but we cannot translate work: that will be up to any licensed publisher.
What follows is a brief glimpse at some books but you can visit the online store to see more details and books at:
To contact me please check out "About" at the top of the page -thanks!
BTCG has specialised in presenting original material covering super heroes, crime, adventure, sci fi, horror as well as illustrated prose -not to mention ground breaking books on "world mysteries" and wildlife. Oh, and even a huge book of interviews with comic creators and publishers.
All the books are, naturally, available for overseas licence -but we cannot translate work: that will be up to any licensed publisher.
What follows is a brief glimpse at some books but you can visit the online store to see more details and books at:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hoopercomicsuk
You can also find some on Amazon and other sources but they do not make me much money so, come on, buy from the online store and remember that at least these books will be collectibles!
To contact me please check out "About" at the top of the page -thanks!
The Hooper Interviews!
To celebrate, at the time of publication, over 25 years of interviewing comic creators -writers, artists and publishers- this 365 pages book was produced.
Interviewees included Yishan Li, Marv Wolfman, Dave Ryan, John Cooper, Mike Western, Donna Barr, Roberta Gregory, Sonia Leong, Emma Vieceli, Pekka A. Manninen, Alan Class, Karen Rubins, Kate Glasheen, Ron Fortier, Jon Haward, Franco Francavilla, Rick Geary, Tania Del Rio, The Etherington Brothers, Olivier Cadic (Cinebook the 9th Art), Holly Golightly and MANY others.
Profusely illustrated with art and photographs!
Reduced in price until October to £16.80 -an odd price but it's what the printer and lulu.com earn -I get zilch!
http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-hooper-interviews/paperback/product-22078000.html
****************************************************************************
Black Tower Comics began in 1984 as a Small Press publisher of A5 (US -Digest size) titles such as Adventure,Presents,Windows and Hanley's Garage. Then came the news, reviews, previews and interviews publication backed up by the mart and mail order service -Zine Zone (later Zine Zone International).
In 2009, with the innovation in publishing of Print On Demand (POD), Black Tower jumped in head first!
One of the first titles to see print in the new comic album format (A4) was The Bat Triumphant! This saw the complete story, begun in Black Tower Adventure vol. 1. William A. Ward's long lost 1940s character once again saw print as he fought a host of enemies in an attempt to reclaim his homeland.
And while The Bat may have fought fist and nail to reclaim his homeland, another 1940s Ward creation, Krakos the Egyptian, seemed far from willing to claim a new Egyptian Empire as promised to him by the Gods. Tackling a number of foes and even encountering the Many-Eyed One, Krakos turned his back on the gods and the final panel of Krakos -Sands Of Terror, delivered a true twist!
Of course, the flag-ship title had to return! And so Black Tower Adventure -eventually reaching new heights when the legendary Ben Dilworth jumped on board! Volume 2 consisted of ten issues. Just look at these covers....
And, with something like 40 years worth of files and investigation reports could all that much delving into UFOs, lake and sea creatures and many other mysteries not result in a book or two...or three? Some Things Strange & Sinister, Some More Things Strange & Sinister as well as Pursuing The Strange and Weird: A Naturalist's Viewpoint set a precedence.
Whereas for decades those involved in "UFOlogy", "Cryptozoology" and "Forteana" declared many mysteries, that photographs were lost "to history" and so on, these three books swiped away the false claims. Alleged lost photographs -found. 'Mysteries' solved by doing actual research work and reading the sources -something others had never done.
And, of course, mention natural history and Black Tower Books broke new ground with that in The Red Paper: Canids.
But not all the prose books covered mysteries and wildlife.
And if there is one thing "Herr Professor" loves it is discovering and presenting long lost UK Golden Age (1939-1951) comic strips and characters from publishers such as Gerald Swan, Foldes, Denis M. Reader, Cartoon Art Productions and others.
Scanned and restored as best as can be considering the poor print quality of the rationing years -especially red, orange, yellow, blue and purple ink printing!
Ace Hart The Atomic Man! The Tornado! TNT Tom! Dene Vernon! Acromaid! Cat-Girl! Bring 'Em Back Hank! Robert Lovett:Back From The Dead and so many other action heroes and humour strip characters -William A. Ward, Jock McCaill and a host of known and unknown creators contribute -either in single volume " Black Tower Gold" albums or all six collected into the 400+ pager -The Ultimate British Golden Age Collection!
Another great love is Centaur Comics from the United States. Right at the very start of the American Golden Age of Comics Centaur had creators who were ahead of the others! Before Plastic Man there was Plymo! Before The Human Bomb there was TNT Todd! Before Green Arrow and waaaaaaay before Hawkeye there was the mysterious red hooded archer called The Arrow! And, to just break your comic mind world there was even a Black Panther -decades before Kirby came up with his character of the same name.
The Eye Sees All. The Owl. The Iron Skull. Amazing Man. The King of Darkness. The Invisible Terror. The Blue Lady. The Shark. Mini Midget & Kitty. Mighty Man. Super Anne. The company may have been short-lived but it's characters -oh boy!
The two volume Centaur Heroes Collection has been compiled into one sweet 140 page comic collection!
Horror. Ghost stories. The twist-in-the tale. Did you think that a publisher who is a big horror comic/film fan would ignore these?
Nope. Each year since 2010, BTCG has published a Tales Of Terror anthology album and 2014s included some fun and spooky lost Swan Comic strips. I mean how can you go wrong -even Ben Dilworth is in these!
The Church Of England has it's own basher of dark forces in the Reverend Merriwether -"God's Demon0-Thumper" as the press billed him. From an ancient Egyptian demon to a village of the damned and Varney the Vampyre, werwolves and a final confrontation with Satan himself -Merriwether pulls no punches and offers no compromise. And in those last few seconds between life and death, Merriwether's mind recalls past cases -thanks to Ben Dilworththe Tall Man of Osaka.
Merriwether: God's Demon Thumper and Merriwether: The Test Of Satan are available as individual comic albums or in one swanky book The Collected Merriwether: God's Demon Thumper.
Oh, did I forget to mention Dene Vernon -British comics' first investigator of the supernatural and strange mysteries? I did? Unbelievable since Gavin Stuart Ross drew the 1948 based Dene Vernon: The Thing Below!
Dene Vernon From The Burning Heart To The Thing From Below
Firstly,his proper credit was “Dene Vernon. Ghost Investigator”. In the 1930s and 1940s the work of ghost investigators such as Harry Price [despite what people write about his work at Borley Rectory] and the great Elliott O’Donnell could be found reported on in national newspapers as well as on radio.
If they could inspire me as a teen to get involved in this type of work imagine the effect on everyday folk in the pre-TV era and before all the faking of Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures as well as others.
But Amalgamated Press and D.C. Thomson were too “clean” to touch this type of subject unless it was a “real hoot” in a humour strip.
Gerald Swan changed all that. His comics introduced a whole group of paranormal/occult types fromKrakos The Egyptian to Robert Lovett:Back From The Dead [all subjects of Black Tower collections]. Vernon’s appearance in Thrill Comics No.1,April,1940,marked the very first truly supernatural strip series in British Comics.
Tall,lean with a high forehead and thinning hair,Vernon bore a resemblance to the young Harry Price in a way. However,his cases seem to have been pure O’Donnell and in case you are asking who O’Donnell is I give you Wikipedia's somewhat weak entry on the man:
Elliott O’Donnell (February 27, 1872 – May 8, 1965) was an Irish author known primarily for his books about ghosts. He claimed to have seen a ghost, described as an elemental figured covered with spots, when he was five years old. He also claimed to have been strangled by a mysterious phantom in Dublin.
But Amalgamated Press and D.C. Thomson were too “clean” to touch this type of subject unless it was a “real hoot” in a humour strip.
Gerald Swan changed all that. His comics introduced a whole group of paranormal/occult types fromKrakos The Egyptian to Robert Lovett:Back From The Dead [all subjects of Black Tower collections]. Vernon’s appearance in Thrill Comics No.1,April,1940,marked the very first truly supernatural strip series in British Comics.
Tall,lean with a high forehead and thinning hair,Vernon bore a resemblance to the young Harry Price in a way. However,his cases seem to have been pure O’Donnell and in case you are asking who O’Donnell is I give you Wikipedia's somewhat weak entry on the man:
Elliott O’Donnell (February 27, 1872 – May 8, 1965) was an Irish author known primarily for his books about ghosts. He claimed to have seen a ghost, described as an elemental figured covered with spots, when he was five years old. He also claimed to have been strangled by a mysterious phantom in Dublin.
He claimed descent from Irish chieftains of ancient times, including Niall of the Nine Hostages (the King Arthur of Irish folklore) and Red Hugh, who fought the English in the sixteenth century. O’Donnell was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, England, and Queen’s Service Academy, Dublin, Ireland.
In later life he became a ghost hunter, but first he traveled in America, working on a range in Oregon and becoming a policeman during the Chicago Railway Strike of 1894. Returning to England, he worked as a schoolmaster and trained for the theater. He served in the British army in World War I, and later acted on stage and in movies.
His first book, written in his spare time, was a psychic thriller titled For Satan’s Sake (1904). From this point onward, he became a writer. He wrote several popular novels but specialized in what were claimed as true stories of ghosts and hauntings. These were immensely popular, but his flamboyant style and amazing stories suggest that he embroidered fact with a romantic flair for fiction.
As he became known as an authority on the supernatural, he was called upon as a ghost hunter. He also lectured and broadcast (radio and television) on the paranormal in Britain and the United States. In addition to his more than 50 books, he wrote scores of articles and stories for national newspapers and magazines. He claimed “I have investigated, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other people and the press, many cases of reputed hauntings. I believe in ghosts but am not a spiritualist.”
Remember that bit about being strangled by a ghost [not unique in the lore itself]. This is what Denis Gifford wrote about Vernon’s first adventure:
“..Vernon spends the night in a haunted bedroom where a weary wanderer was found on the floor. ‘A gasp of horror came as they gazed on the terror-distorted features of the dead traveller!’ Vernon saves Dick from being throttled by a grinning black monster,chained by its neck since 1785. But he had to burn the house down to do it.”
You know, I am quite sure that there is a similar O’Donnell story -though he never burns places down!
The creator of the strip was Jock McCail who also drew oriental detective Ah Wong for Swan’s New Funnies [1940-1949], Darrell King Of The Secret Service in Thrill Comics [1940-48],New Funnies [1949] and Slick Fun [1950]. McCail also drew Get-Your-Man-Gilligan, a Western strip for the Amalgamated Press title Jolly between 1938-39.
Dene Vernon ran as a strip between 1940-1946 so must have been popular -as many of the Swan horror strips were.
It would be nice to put together a complete Dene Vernon book at some point but these old British comics are very rare to get hold of either as printed items or scans!
But, in 2011, Vernon featured in his first adventure since 1946. Yes, post-war Britain was the setting for…
DENE VERNON -THE THING FROM BELOW!
A4
B&W
54 pages
£8.00
hehehehehe er, Sorry.
But maybe an appearance in Black Tower Super Heroes before that? I can't really say -I don't want to spoil the fun!!
Remember the name, though: Dene Vernon!
And did you know Ross also drew the two adventures of Victorian mystery man Chung Ling Soo? Chung Ling Soo: The Curse Of The Jade Dragon and Chung Ling Soo: The Case Of The Thames Serpent were two cracking tales of magic, adventure, murder and deception -still available as single comic albums or collected together to form The Adventures Of Chung Ling Soo!
Chung Ling Soo: The Curse Of The Jade Dragon
Terry Hooper-Scharf (W) Gavin Stuart Ross (A)
A4
B&W
30 pages
£6.00
Prints in 3-5 business days
Chung Ling Soo. World's greatest conjurer and said to be an American stage magician in disguise. Or was he?
In this story,Chung Ling Soo is called in by Scotland Yard to investigate a gruesome series of deaths -all amongst a party who discovered a Jade Dragon statuette in China
Is the statuette cursed -and can Chung stop any other deaths?
The Case Of The Thames Serpent
A4
54 pages
B&W
£6.00
Prints in 3-5 business days
Victorian conjurer and man of mystery and deception, Chung Ling Soo has been marked for death by a Chinese Tong that never fails to get its man. Will Chung be able to escape death long enough to solve bizarre murders in London 'd dockland as well as sightings of a sea serpent in the Thames ?
And who is the Dragon Lord and how do his murderous plans fit into things?
The second in the Chung Ling Soo Man Of Mystery series
That scene still gives me chills. But Chung Ling Soo is dead. He is dead -right? But if he was in the cab with Wilberforce HOW could he be the driver and.....buy the book and find out! :-P
Both books are available as single albums but ....
The Case Book Of Chung Ling Soo
mWriter: Terry Hooper-Scharf
Artist: Gavin Stuart Ross
Paperback
A4
84 Pages
Black & white
Price: £8.00 Ships in 3–5 business days
To many he was simply a stage magician. Others knew the truth –such as Scotland Yard and the very secret Q Bureau.
From a seemingly cursed jade statue bringing gruesome and violent death to those who found it years before to a plot by a Chinese supremacist group hoping to strike and bring terror and destruction to the heart of the British Empire and seemingly unstoppable Tong assassins and an evil warlord willing to betray and murder even his own allies–this is Chung Ling Soo's world.
Sergeant Wilberforce of Scotland Yard was the closest thing to a friend the Magician had yet even he was perpetually stumped by him...and his deaths!
Ben Dilworth is no slouch either! Chung Ling Soo's police "counter-foil" isnone other than old London "Jack" (police man) Inspector Wilberforce and when Dilworth says "Here's a Wilberforce one-off: PUBLISH IT!" you do not argue!
And did you know you can be a Gold Master of Japanese Haiku? Well, neither did I -but guess what? Ben Dilworth is such a master and his Osaka Brutal features his Haiku in English!
Old saleman that he is, Dilworth just keeps on going. He produced Aesop's Fables -a darker version of the childrens tales and then went on to write two well illustrated prose albums looking at spirits and demons -Dilworth's Japanese Yokai and Dilworth'sWestern Yokai. Osaka and the Yokai books were combined with Aesop's Fables into the one volume The Collected Ben R. Dilworth -though the single volumes are also still available.
Horror comics yes but also some nice illustrated prose from Dilworth in...Dilworth's Horror & Ghost Stories but for the connoisseur those stories were collected together with the Phantom Detective comic strips into The Complete Phantom Detective!
Ben R. Dilworth
black & White
A4
Paperback,
36 Pages
Price: £6.00 (excl. VAT)
Ships in 3–5 business days
Murdering Ghouls. Satanic Masses. Demonic Possession. Werewolves. Poltergeists. Vampires. To many of the uninitiated these are just “things that go bump in the night” -TV or film fantasy.
In the Victorian era, The Phantom Detective used his decades of occult study to help those in danger from these “things” and he paid the ultimate price…. ….
Yet he continues to help and to observe as best he can for now he is a true...
PHANTOM DETECTIVE!
From one of the UK's most under -rated comic creators, Ben R. Dilworth, comes new life breathed into and a new slant given to the adventures of the former mortal who has become one of the Watchers -forbidden to act even to save a life from supernatural forces. Except "rules are there to be broken or at the very least stretched until you can see through them!"
The much anticipated collection from the co-creator of Peter Wisdom and artist of Mark Millar's The Shadowmen!
And could anyone forget the sensational Iron Warrior Versus Big Bong:When Giants Fought? But add to that the various Iron Warrior strips from Adventure and you get The Iron Warrior Collection -When Giants Fought! In the 1940s, William A. Ward's creation was to be the most graphically violent comic strip seen until the 1970s. That is some legacy. It continues....with a touch of fun!
In case you are wondering, yes, obviously there are super heroes. Mix in ancient pantheons of gods, giant robot, alien invasion, Lovecraftian dark ones and so much more that the book runs to over 320 pages then you have part 1 of Terry Hooper-Scharf'sInvasion Earth Trilogy" or as it is titled Return Of The Gods: Twilight Of The Super Heroes! And epic ending with the words: "Dr Morg has killed us all" -and if you have never read the mind altering counter actuality that is The Dr Morg Trilogy you may be saying "What? Who-?"
And part 2 of the trilogy The Cross Earths Caper ought to get you in the mood for 2015's big 31st Anniversary third part of the trilogy The Green Skies.
If you pass the ESTC (Epileptic Seizure Test Cover) on Dr Morg well, you are fit and healthy enough to read it and to check out all the Black Tower Comics and Books at the online store -see why we are the UKs largest publisher of Independent Comics!
Currently working on a few more Men t-shirts but also including designs for Women t-shirts.
Yes, now the Black Tower T-shirt online store is open!
https://shop.spreadshirt.net/Blacktower/men?noCache=true
Yes, now the Black Tower T-shirt online store is open!
https://shop.spreadshirt.net/Blacktower/men?noCache=true
