Black Tower Comics: Johnny Neg

 

Writer/Artist:Ben R Dilworth
Characters created by Terry Hooper-Scharf
A4
B&W
40pp
£7.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/johnny-neg-no-1-july-2020/paperback/product-vmv2ev.html


Ben Dilworth gives his own spin on the character Johnny Neg: a hard-boiled detective in a unique universe. 

What does a detective sound like in a place where everything can -and has- happened? A decadent place where the end of the world is assured to occur? 

1984 meets the Apocalypse on steroids! 

Text stories include: "Let's Talk It Over", "BrainDrainer", "Stamp" and "StokeHeadDead" 

Strips include: "Mutoids", "Home", "Mob Rools", "Love Robot", "Suicide Balls" and "The Ghost Bar" 

And for added delectation --there is a GoBo insert (you DO know who GoBo is, right?

Black Tower Comics: The Masked Marshal: Life by the Gun

 

A4

B&W 

24pp

£7.00

https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/the-masked-marshal-no-1-november-2020/paperback/product-nj2geg.html

 It's the Wild West and one man, his identity hidden by a mask, has been made a United States Marshal with a remit to travel where ever he needs to and an even more secret remit: rid the West of the outlaws and killers and make it safe for American citizens -use any and all methods.

 The toll A Life By The Gun will take is unknown to the Masked Marshal but is inevitable. 

Ben Dilworth guides Stransky & Labbat to bring us stories of gun law: 

Bad Law 

Bushwackers 

The Old Man of the River 

Snowball 

Clayton Gang 

Some times even hitching up your horse while you take a drink can lead to death.

Black Tower Comics: The Masked Marshal & Friends

 

A4

B&W

18pp

£7.00

https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/the-masked-marshal-and-friends-no-1/paperback/product-7jpnzd.html

 He rode the Wild West dispensing two gun justice and wore a mask. Driven by the need to exact justice and bring law to the West, the Masked Marshal had no idea the cost he would eventually pay. 

In this comic the Marshal is joined by other popular Black Tower characters such as The Iron Warrior, The Clock, The Owl and the Purple Hood. 

Dilworth, Stransky and Labatt producing more action and fun

Hexagon Comics: Ben Leonard, Lord of Light #1: The Immortals

 

story & art by Guido Zamperoni, 

cover by Alfredo Macall.

7x10 squarebound comic, 

88 pages b&w
ISBN-13: 978-1-64932-287-6. 

US$12.95.

https://www.hexagoncomics.com/shop-ben-leonard-lord-of-light-1-the-immortals.html

Twenty-five year-old Ben Leonard, a journalist working for the newspaper The Globe, suddenly discovers that he is the reincarnation of the mythical Egyptian sun-god Râ, the Lord of Light and King of Heliopolis, a legendary “lost city” of mysterious Immortals, which once gave rise to the Ancient Egyptians’ pantheon.

Murdered by his evil and jealous brother Set, Râ’s soul was hidden inside a mortal body for millennia by the powers of the wise Thô, to await the time for him to rise again.

Having now recovered his true identity and powers, Ben’s awesome task is to defeat Set and free the Immortals of Heliopolis whom the villainous Set has turned to stone.

His only allies in this tremendous battle are his two colleagues, journalists Pip and Lucy.

Ben Leonard made his first appearance in 1971 in Kiwi magazine. It was the creation of Milanese artist Guido Zamperoni who I believe worked almost exclusively in French comics.

Guido (Gy Zam)  Zamperoni (1912-2003)

Love the cover. The cover is the thing that should make the  person who sees it want to buy the book.  Macall produces some great covert art.  Many comic greats (yes, America, Europe had comic greats, too!) drew their inspiration from movies or pulp literature. Kirby was a great movie fan and you can see that in his costume designs.  Was Zamperoni influenced by H. Rider Haggard's  1886 novel She: A History of Adventure? Or even the Hammer films based on that character? We will never know and it is why I think interviewing creators is so important.

The story here is well paced with good characters.  The art is lovely black and white goodness and is on a par with his work on Lys Noir and Frisco Bill -though I have not seen near enough of either of those!  This is a book you can sit back with and relax and enjoy some high adventure and action. I hope the second book  (The Giants) is to follow. Really, I think these black and white comics show just how much the United States missed out (the UK had a burgeoning b&w comics market until the 1980s).

Please remember that if you want to buy this or any Hexagon comic to do so via the company's website as that way they get all the sales money and that means they can keep on publishing more titles!

Black Tower Comics: Journey of the ID: The Dr Morg Trilogy

 I just found the intended original title for this book:

The Meta Catatonic Neo Orwellian Linguistic Experimentation of Dr Morg

Wonder why I never went with that?

A4
B&W
52pp
£6.00
https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/journey-of-the-idthe-dr-morg-trilogy/paperback/product-22705545.html

Metapsychophysics meets comics. Its the next natural evolutionary step in comic books! For the first time all three parts of the highly acclaimed Dr. Morg Trilogy are combined into one volume:

WORDS WITHIN WORLDS,

AFTER ORWELL and the final explosive 

THE DEATH OF DR. MORG!

MARVEL'S BLOOD HUNT | Official Event Trailer | Marvel Comics

Make Mine Marvel...uh, Class!

 

According to the Marvel data base, which should know -right?

"Alan Class Publishing was a small British publishing company owned by Alan Class (obviously) which between 1959 and 1989 published approximately 1455 comics under 26 different titles, most of them squarebound anthologies reprinting material from numerous American publishers including Timely Comics, Atlas Comics (1950s), Charlton Comics, Red Circle, Fawcett, Archie, King Features, ACG and Marvel.

A huge amount of material by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and countless pre-Marvel short stories by Stan Lee were reprinted (some of them several times over in different books), notably in six long running core titles: Astounding Stories, Sinister Tales, Suspense, Creepy Worlds, Uncanny Tales and Secrets of the Unknown, but also in shorter lived titles including Blazing Trails, Journey into Danger, Secrets of the Underworld and the somewhat misleadingly titled Uncensored Love(!) None of the books were dated (a deliberate ploy to extend their shelf life), and unsolds were returned to Class only to be reissued a few months later, typically in the school holidays.

Most issues featured a more or less random selection of material, often including stories from several different publishers in one book (issues of Suspense, for instance, featuring both Spider-Man and Archie's Fly-Man) though short, one-off science fiction or horror stories tended to be the preferred fare, and where characters such as Nick Fury, Thor, the Jaguar or Captain Atom appeared, it was invariably in single stories, no storylines being continued from one issue to the next.

In 1963, Class bought the rights to the back catalogue of L. Miller & Son, publishers of Marvelman, but by the late sixties they had lost the rights to reprint material from most of the larger publishers (including Marvel) and were sued by King Features for reprinting their copyrighted material without permission.

Unlicensed reprints continued to appear however, including Marvel material, since the company was so small (and, of course, not based in the US) that they pretty much went unnoticed most of the time, eventually ceasing to trade in 1989 purely because Class could not compete with the rising number of specialist comic shops."

Now, if you've read my Alan Class interview you will note that this Marvel data base, shall we say "borrows"?, information that only came tolight in that interview. Since it is known Marvel (via Marvel UK) got heavy handed and after the rights were withdrawn, because Marvel was now publishing in the UK, there were no illegal reprints.

But Marvel is Marvel. Or, rather, Di$ney is Marvel so they can re-write any history.

And, we've discussed before how "fools and their money" are regularly tricked by Ebay dealers into buying "First Edition" Fantastic Four and "First Silver Age Iron Man appearance".  Lies.  Let me also point out that I have three UK comic titles in which both those stories feature.  Spend your money on the Masterworks or if you really want a black and white version the Essentials books.

Now, I really should know but I only have a passing knowledge on the Timely/Atlas/Marvel monster books. So, please forgive me if I've added a monster reprint here that is not from that company. Ditko and Kirby worked for so many -especially Kirby- it gets hard trying to keep track.

The Avengers reprints ran up to, at least, as far as I am aware, around Avengers #77. Certainly you will find "The Coming Of The Vision" with that iconic cover -I have that one, too.  These Class titles were great value for money because, unlike UK weeklies such as Pow!, Fantastic, Terrific and others where a single US issue could be split up into 3-4 parts, in a Class book you got the whole issue!

POW! was 7d and there were 12d to 1/- so two weekly issues was 1/- 2d and as you might have to get four issues that was 2/- 4d against Class' 1/- for the full story!   And Fantastic and Terrific were 9d each so you work that out!  Class won pennies down!

Your parents/'grand parents taking you on holiday or for a day at the beach saw the slim 7d comic and the 1/- thick comic and they knew, too, which would keep you occupied more!

These Class books were completely different than a weekly from Thomson or Fleetway. Talking to Fleetway/IPC management who were about at this time they all say that they "never got" why kids would bother with a "cheap reprint" over their titles.  They had, of course, British heroes and even super heroes but the lack of understanding what kids wanted meant they treated Class and the comics as a passing fad or something to be ignored.

But Class outlasted them to an extent!

Look at these covers.  Don't get me wrong because I know there were many great British comic covers, but look at these!  I mean -Titano!  And -WHAT??!- The Avengers fighting the X-Men! (this was back when the X-Men and Avengers meant something even to British kids).

 Just look at the Astounding cover featuring the X-Men. This confused some of us who might not have known the X-Men had changed costume -though some of us lucky enough had caught their adventures in Fantastic so were in the know.

 The Avengers.  Time travel. This comic or Pow!......ooh. Let me think!!

If there is one reason why Marvel took off more in the UK it was because kids had a basic or good knowledge because of the Class Comics.  I will not go into how I picked up Fantastic Four 1-5 and X-Men 1-7 from a junk shop in St. Werburgh's or what happened to them.  I'm still in trauma 40 years later and not over what they would be worth.

As I've written before, the UK had no real comic shops so the local tobacconist-newsagent was the main source of any US comics if you could find them.  Those and junk shops because somnewhere amongst the old crockery, three piece suites and paperbacks you knew there would be a tatty box with comics in. At 2d or 3d a time who was going to argue?

There are many other Marvel reprints the covers of which are not here -I have some of them but both my A4 and A3 scanners are not working.  So apologies but maybe, one day, and up-date?