The Oddest Black Series Figure Ever Found at Target – Plus Funko Minis!

TOY HUNT Jackpot! Walmart & Target Score BIG on LEGO, Funko & CarTuned!

Finding the Best Manga Stores in Tokyo?!

Mothman: America's Notorious Winged Monster | Monstrum

Silvermaigne Re-visited

  Going back to the 1980s.... Silvermaigne's first failed attempt as a comic strip. One person drew the first part but for the "victims scene" used newspaper  photos of road accidents and inked over the figures. As soon as I saw that I said "no" as if you cannot draw four people standing around a blanket covered body you cannot draw a comic. As it  was the artist was a never-hear-from-again.

above art by K Earl

Then another artist and I think his name was Kieron or Karl(?) Earl -I keep telling people to write names and contact details on the back of art!  The first part was drawn and...the artist was never heard from again despite my having sent the script for part 2.   Then we have a page by Terry Ford (who drew Torch of Vengeance  reprinted in Tales of Terror 1).  Ford left comics and after what happened with Space Junk comic I'm not surprised.

Oh...then I found the first page at the bottom of a box. Not a coffin but a box. Honest.

art by Terry Ford

I believe that these are all of the art pages that survived.

They’ve Always Been Dead: The History Of Elementals

Target Toy Hunt WIN! LEGO Clearance, Funko Mystery Minis & New Die‑Cast ...

All Change in Comic Bits 3!

  Realised today as I was editing Comic Bits 3 that the cover needed changing. It's been a few years since CB 2 was published and the material to go into the issue change -a lot has been published in other Black Tower titles.

It took a while but I settled on the new on. Not as dramatic as the Krakos cover (which will be used elsewhere) but I like it.

cover in edit -I like this one as it is bright and cheery and I think that is what comickers need these days!

Real Life Monster Hunters Are More Hardcore Than Fiction | Monstrum

On The Non-Return of the Biogs

 I was just looking into a folder that had art that originally was drawn in the 1990s. It was titled Biog and if anyone out there remembers the return of Dan Dare in 2000AD you will know what that's about. 

Gil Page was Managing Editor at Fleetway and introduced me to the then editor of 2000 AD whose name I cannot remember. It was a long time ago. Gil told the man about an idea I had to bring the biogs back but not in the far future but modern Britain. The editor liked the idea and suggested that I put a script together for a ten part story and then he could see about approving it.

Gil managed to ask Massimo Belardinelli if he would be interested in drawing the strip if it was approved -that was part of his job. Belardinelli apparently said "yes". The problem was that I knew from experience that spending a week or so writing then editing a script could be for nothing. It was not an officially commissioned script and Fleetway did not "do" kill fees so I would be working and there was no guarantee of the project being accepted.

What I did find was that Gil and editors were willing to look at preliminary drawn strips to say "yay" or "nay" to.  I phoned Gil and said that I was doing a lot of scripts for Fantagraphics in the US (do not even ask about that!!) but I could put together a preliminary strip to show story pacing etc. That was fine and for me not sleeping I got to drawing when scripts were finished (I was told that it was quieter than my typing from 0900-2000hrs every day).

Eventually I drew over 30 pages. These are roughs mind you and then I lettered and in those days that meant pasting word balloons onto art pages. Messy but combined it told the story and showed pacing etc.  I took the pages in when I next visited Fleetway and Gil liked them and the editor liked the idea as well as getting Belardinelli to redraw the whole thing (I rather liked that idea myself). Then silence.

After a month I asked whether any progress had been made and I was told that "The editor isn't keen on Belardinelli" and no reason was given. I was told "he has another artist in mind who has already worked for 2000 AD". Fine. I could live with that. I produced a full script with part breakers and handed it to the editor who said it looked "fine".

Silence.

I asked Gil what was going on and he said he would ask the editor to phone me. A week later, and not via the editor himself, I was told that the idea was cancelled for "financial reasons -there's a tight budget". It seems that my 25 pages script was "too expensive". At that time a writer got £35 per page so at 25 pages that would total £875 the other method (the main one) was £35 per printed story page so 35 pages = £1, 225 which the editor did not want to approve and send to Accounts. This is why so many writers jumped ship and started working for American comic companies. Artists got well over £100 per page (depending who and whether b&w or colour it could be £150-200).

Biog never saw print and it shows how badly British comics were being run back then. When I took artists to meet sports comic editor Dave Hunt he was rushed off his feet as he had to do everything because the job of "office boy" no longer existed due to cut backs -it's why foreign artists were used -cheaper.

It was a big mess.

Inside FarleyCon 2025 – The Ultimate Pop Culture & Comic Book Event!

Do NOT Poke Your Eyes -the man is an idiot

 

Completing the work on Johnny Neg -Future Detective 2 took an hour. Going through all of the uploading files took 40 minutes. The actual publishing process took THREE HOURS!!!

In the end I pressed "Revise" and changed the cost of the book for US buyers and then...published in 30 seconds.

I am now looking at having to do a cover for a book and finish some art pages.

Poking your eye is fun ain't it?

Chronos The Watchman

 

A4

B&W
40pp
Price: £7.50 (excl. VAT)
Prints in 3-5 business days

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/chronos-watchman/paperback/product-18941673.html

John Tempus, a world travelling adventurer travels by ship to Gull Island, a desolate place
on which stands an ancient, war-scarred tower, left to him by an uncle he never knew.

An uncle that he soon finds is far from dead.

An uncle who reveals to him a family curse that he cannot avoid. A duty he
will carry out until his death.

John Tempus has now become the next Chronos Watchman and he is all that
stands between our world and that of...

KAOS!

Black Tower: The Attacker

 

 A4

25pp

Black and white

£8.00 UK

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/the-attacker-dark-origins/paperback/product-8458282.html?q=&page=1&pageSize=4

When urban crime seems to be out of check with the police unable to handle every incident and people too scared to even walk along the road what happens?

Do the police give up as resources are over stretched while the public scream for action? How can the police be everywhere: at every location where there is going to be a minor or serious crime? They can't.

Is vigilante action required?

The early 1980s created Attacker could have been anybody. He appeared in a series of no text strips dishing out violence for violence. 42 years later his/her identity is still unknown. With some takes on the character by Ben R Dilworth and a Preview to the Return of the Gods series this is action all the way.

Black Tower: Streamline 2

 

Ben R Dilworth writer/artist

24 pages

A4

Black and white

£8.00 UK

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/streamline-2/paperback/product-yvyd549.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Keenan King aka Streamline of Earth Parallel 669 meets agent Grimes of MI5 in Westminster Abbey for a briefing. A briefing that seems to indicate that the man who helped King and gave him his powers, Dr. Rose, has mass produced the formula used on him.

If the man who helped give him the powers of Streamline has turned rogue for money or other reasons he has to be stopped.

An army of Streamlines would be unstoppable and a threat to not just the UK but the world.

I Promised I Would Show You These Pushead Art Books...

There Really Were Men In White

 During the 1920s Earth faced many challenges but none greater than "extramundanium" (extraterrestrials) threats. United States Freedom of Information request turned up documents and photos showing where the comic series Men In Black may have come from.

Our defenders were in fact US Government sanctioned Men In White!

Would I lie to You??

Some Advice For Those Wanting To Draw Comics

 Let's be very honest here. If you want to become a comic book artist the chances are that you have a 75-80% chance of failing.  

I have told the story before that as an artist and writers agent in the 1990s I would get 40-60 packages a week and on a number of occasions 100 or so. The artwork ranged from unpublishable quality with the artist building up in a covering letter how good he was and how friends and family said he was fast and produced "great work". 

Then you had the artists whose work you looked at and ask WHY they had to resort to having someone try to represent them since their art was of a high quality. Some of those artists I worked hard to get work for and apart from one who said thank you (Jon Haward) there were no thanks and guess what? Not one kept the contract deal we made (I ought to point oput that companies in my experience broke deals all the time and this was because they knew an artist with no money could not afford to hire a lawyer in the US and sue. In the UK...no contracts. Good luck!).

I tried to work out how many of the artists who finally got their break in comics through me are still working. I had an estimated total of 300-360 writers/artists sent me samples and the writers were a big pain at times but I'll get on to that in a moment. Out of 300-360 only 10 got into comics and from what I just found in a search about 5 are still working in the medium. Some found that having to actually draw 20 pages in a month was far too much and too hard a work schedule. Others enjoyed nights or weekends out in the pub and suffered hangovers and were unable to work for a couple days.

If you cannot complete 20 pages in 30 days then you are in the wrong business. Can you produce an issue on time guaranteed? Can you manage to keep up the quality of work? There are DC and Marvel artists that can't😂 and certainly writers who cannot keep to a schedule. It is why both are in a mess and Marvel more so than DC although the problem runs throughout US comics. I was watching a You Tube review last week and the reviewer said they had forgotten about a title until they had seen issue 2 - the first issue was out over a year before!

The one reason I insist that any project is fully drawn before even publishing or offering it around is because of this. I had so many first issues drawn after which the artist either went silent or just said they had gotten out of the "drawing bug"!

I once received a 22 pager, fully drawn and lettered from an artist. I told him it was okay but how long would it take him to finish the script I had sent him over a month earlier?  "You've got it!" was the response. All of the character names were different and one was changed from male (he had to be male for later developments in the story) and since it was based in 1989 why were there hovering cars and Judge Dredd attired cops?? Apparently, he thought that the character sex and name changes worked better and the rest he just added in. After a discussion during which I told him that he had to draw what was in the script and character descriptions he said he was "not happy" to do so. I therefore told him I could not use him let alone represent him. Imagine him being hired from Judge Dredd and turning the character into a leather skirt wearing blonde. 

I had a similar problem with two other artists and I explained that if they got work in comics then they had to stick to a script given them. That is how it worked and even if that was a bit boring doing that work is what paid the bills. Both joined the growing ranks of the "Well, I am going to pursue my own comics and make the big time" team. All vanished.

Some of today's best known names like Bolland, Gibbons and even Mark Millar started out in the Small Press which is unpaying but gives a creator the chance to develop their skills and also build up a portfolio which is essential to prove to an editor/publisher that they have the skills and staying power to do the pro work.  You may well think that if you produce your own small press comic that will do the trick but how long did it take you to draw it all and did you stick to your script?  I was once told by Archie Goodwin at an old UK Comic Art Convention that he had someone who seemed to have the talent and produced his own comic but when given a tester script had changed things and eventually sent the five pages back after a year. "That person never got work in comics" I was told.

Even though I was publishing my own Small Press comics I contributed to Steve Lines' Creepy Crawlies and so on. It put me out of the "comfort zone" and having to produce stories for others. Same with scripts for Marvel UK, Fleetway/Egmont and other companies; I had to work to what they wanted even if it bored the crap out of me -it was paying work.

Today there are no real zines to get your work into whereas up until the early 2000s there were a lot! People want to try their hands at comic work then I give them the chance but make it clear that whereas they OWN their own art not even I get paid (unless there is a sales boom!).  Draw for fun or to develop your skills and, yes, have a goal you want to aim for but never lose sight of the reality: comics can be a nasty, grubby and dishonest business.

Get the experience. Ask questions. Learn.

Horror Films of Kaneto Shindo - Onibaba and Kuroneko // DC Classics

First it was The Return of the Gods and then The Green Skies Followed

 

    "I read the original quote from that German blogger and thought it was a lot of hot air. When Return of the Gods: Twilight of the Super Heroes arrived I thought "thick book" and knew you'd taken it from 96 pages to 360+...it looked impressive. I read through it in two days and -robots, aliens, "gods", super heroes, sorcerers, alien invasions and more and world-wide. And you tell me this was done without a script?! It's the only one I can think of so, yeah, the greatest British super hero graphic novel fits as a description." Pete Clark

"You say this is your final big story? The Green Skies was fantastic and everything laid out into chapters was a great touch!"

David Stephens, Comic Reviews

" 'Holy ******* ****!' was all I could say. I even tried counting the number of characters and how the **** you produced all of this without a script beats me. Return of the Gods: Twilight of the Super Heroes and The Green Skies could only have been better if George Perez had drawn it!"

Dan's Comics

"I have no idea why you are not pushing this even harder. The books Return of the Gods: Twilight of the Super Heroes and The Green Skies I would love to see in German or at least get German fans to read since it has a good number of German heroes in it. Next big comic event over here send me copies and I'll sell them on my table!"

Gerd Hammer, German comics historian and trader

Selected comic readers were also chosen to review copies and, obviously, two of these were people from Hong Kong who I corresponded with on Manhua over the years.

"I just wish someone like Tong Li would publish this in Chinese -I mean there are Chinese heroes in this so why not?"

Wang Xiuying

"There HAS to have been a script and more than one person working on this! Brilliant!"

Mike Wayne, Australian comic dealer

Generally, these comments were all similar and I only quote these as any more would be very egotistical. The books should speak for themselves.

Paperback

A4

Black & White

331 Pages

Price: Reduced to £21.89 

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? 

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

Paperback, 

A4

Black & White

107 Pages

Price: £12.00

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!

A4

B&W

124pp

£15.00

https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/the-green-skies-vol-3-part-1/paperback/product-5j4y7e.html?page=1&pageSize=4

It all began in 1987 and the Black Tower Universe has seen alien attacks, heroes kidnapped to be put into the middle of a war of the gods. 

Despite the deaths and losses the heroes -crime fighters, super powered and members of the magical union have come back but now unaware that alien races are escaping through the Sol system and that a mysterious space fleet is heading towards the inner planets, they find themselves trapped or distracted. 

The Many Eyed One is finally coming. 

The Multiversal Council has quarantined Earth and forbidden any to help. 

The evil has spread and there is treachery striking at the very core of Earth's defenders

A4

B&W

126pp

£15.00

https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/the-green-skies-vol-3-part-ii/paperback/product-nj7wqr.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Following on from events in Green Skies V. 3 Part I the Clone Zone Boyz are increasing in number while those who created them, the Vampirons, continue to plot and await the arrival of their 'God' -The Many Eyed One. 

The Druid finds that his physical and mental state are deteriorating and even the Rev. Merriwether cannot help him. 

Shockingly, the Clone Zone Boyz claims someone close to Merriwether and this leads him to team up with two 'unsavoury' characters. 

In space Krii and Tyn hrrn face a seemingly unstoppable enemy. 

On The Moon the Selenites and representatives of other worlds meet and decide that Johnny Apollo, the Z-Man, is the only one who can lead the counter invasion fleet. 

With the enemy striking Mars and then the Moon things look grim

 A4

B&W

208pp

£16.00

https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/the-green-skies-vol-3-part-iii/paperback/product-kj6r7r.html?page=1&pageSize=4

The gathered Sol Defence fleet is prepared to make its final stand led by Johnny Apollo the Z Man. If it fails to halt the invaders then the doomsday weapon will be detonated and destroy the entire Sol System. 

Meanwhile, unaware of the threat in space, Jack Flash, the Avenger and others prepare for a final show down with the Many Eyed One; a final confrontation they know they do not have the power to win. 

Is this Humanity...the Earths...final day?

woven into The Green Skies is the story of the harbinger of destruction: the story of Varik Dann -The Man Who Walked Through a Door and Into Another World

Varik Dann is but one character as we follow the attempts of heroes and adventurers as well as the military as they try to confront the Clone Zone Boys with no idea of who or what is behind them. And in space the very existence of not just the Earth but the solar system rests on efforts to stop an alien invasion fleet and if it cannot be stopped them there will be no conquest: the entire solar system will be destroyed by a doomsday device.

And now, in no particular order -some more art pages!