Murry Chrizmuss t'yus all....

...watch it -gran's been at the port an' she's gonna do "Knees Up Mother Brown"...she's showing her bloomers again!!!

The Bat Triumphant! Krakos the Egyptian t The Atomic Man! The Tornado! TNT Tom!

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:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hoopercomicsuk

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!


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!

On Creating Golden Age UK Reprints, The Criticisms and More!

This site has had over 25,000 views since it began in 2011 and let's face it that is a decent figure for a blog looking at British Golden Age Comics. There is not that much interest in the UK in this period unless you are dealing with Beano, Dandy or something like The Eagle.

The original Golden Age comic experts were, of course, the late Denis Gifford and the still very much alive Alan Clark. Their work has been cribbed by so many of the new 'experts' who feel safe knowing only old farts like me are going to know and who cares about old farts?

I mention this as I noticed quite a bit of what I have published -things I found out after a lot of research and were not known about- have been used as "personal finds" by these new experts.  But you expect it because these people have egoes and want to be seen as the experts.

I also found that Golden Age scans I placed on my Yahoo! groups for members were used on other sites and the uploader listed "original scan source unknown".  Really?  Even the 'hidden' marks I put in panels are there because these people tend to remove my British Comics Book Archive notice from the bottom of pages.

I get a laugh occasionally. On several occasions I have had people on UK comic groups (that I tend never to go on any more) or even privately email me to ask if I gave them credit for "their" scan used in one of my Golden Age reprint books -because I mentioned that particular strip or material was included.  They get quite annoyed.

Let me make it clear: people like Denis Ray in the United States initially helped with some scans of UK GA strips they had. Now those people are credited.  They have real names. There are very sound legal reasons why a name such as "Biggy56" (made up as an example) cannot be credited as a source. I offered to send a copy of the book -NO!!!! No way were giving their real names let alone addresses out....this is comic fan stuff not dark criminal or espionage activity.  I doubt MI5 are waiting to send in Slicksure when they identify you.  So that material was never included.  Also, these people never purchased a copy of my book in question so are going by the title of what I have used.

I am 60 years old now and have been reading comics since I was around 5 years old. British, German, American, Chinese, Hong Kong, Russian...I have a lot of comics.  If you ever saw the photos of Room Oblivion on Comic Bits Online you would know that -the photos in this link are from 2015 and things have expanded since then!!
http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/order-in-room-oblivion-not-cross-over.html

The thing is I have spent money...please do not ask me how much as it really hurts! But I have spent a "fair bit" on building up a small collection of British Golden and early Silver Ages comics.  The photo below is of my collection of Swan annuals...I think there are a couple Bonzo annuals there as well.

I am an idiot. I clean up and edit, sometimes re-letter or repair at 800x so it isn't noticeable and it can take a couple weeks hard work to get something like the single Collection volumes ready for uploading.  I know these Golden Age books are not going to make me money so why do I do it?

Well, the late Brian "Bib" Edwards (who was drawing and creating Steam Punk before the term was even coined) told me that the Ultimate Collection brought back memories and showed real fun comics.  I'm glad he got and read the book.

There are people out there interested in comic book history or who love comics and want to see what they were like back in the 1940s and 1950s. If a couple people get some escapism from the books then good enough.

I said I was an idiot...right?

You do have complaints from people who have not, again, purchased a copy of a reprint book. They see a low res scan used when promoting a book.  These are people that do not edit 60-70 year old comics!

Somewhere on this blog is an article about editing Golden Age comics and what it entails...http://britishgoldenagecomics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/editing-british-golden-age-comics.html

Colour printing was often poor quality because the Second World War restricted ink and paper usage so while US comics remained full colour with a lot of pages we Brits grinned and beard it. Look at Cast Iron Chris above.  A nightmare. Scan and get the artwork to look good in black and white but...you then have to get the colour text to be readable.  Three pages of one strip took me two weeks of off and on working to get it to look good and be read!

"The text aint great on Back From The Dead" yelped someone who saw the non-published pages. Artists wrote and drew and lettered their own stories.  That was the British method.  Some had a good text hand...some didn't.

William McCail could have good text or rushed.  The fact that the paper and print quality was often shabby did not help. http://britishgoldenagecomics.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/william-billbilly-mccail-31st-march1902.html  The Back From The Dead was worked on for weeks. I then found another original copy (then stolen!) and found that all the problems were in every copy. A couple of fellow old farts who had owned copies confirmed this.  So trhe Black Tower version is better than the original!

I also had three people tell me that they would not by the Golden Age books if they were a mixture of humour and action.  "I'm only interested in super heroes" declared one...who I doubt would have bought a copy anyway!

Then there was the question of "non PC" material.  Let's get the record straight here. These Golden Age books are designed to reprint long lost comics of the 1940s. Artists drew how they drew and I am not going to censor history -like the morons who insisted that the famous photograph of Isambard Kingdom Brunel smoking a cigar in the 1800s be photoshopped...and it was. No longer a cigar present on many copies you see.

I almost fell into this trap.  Black people were drawn in a cartoon style.  Now, British comic strips were not known by that term back then. They were called "comic sets" because the art was cut onto wood blocks put together to make a set.  Shaded areas often consisted of very clear, precise lines for the ink to follow.  You had a solid black area then no problem. Large eyes and big white lips were used because they had to show up in the solid black. You will see in more serious art styles of the time that Black or even characters from India have their skin colour indicated by fine lines.  There were also some "black" characters in British comics who were smarter and out-witted the "white" characters.

But then I realised that the PC/"this is racist" faction were being very deceptive.  They were using "smoke and mirrors" to prove their argument.  I looked at the strips and then realized something. They were making us focus on the "black" characters and how they were portrayed which got the liberal knee-jerk reaction they wanted.  However, what about the squinty, bulging eyed, big nose and often downright ridiculous looking "white" characters. I realised that if you took the PC point of view then the portrayal of "whites" was also racist.  But hang on...the animals and even the backgrounds were ridiculously distorted from realistic.  Cartoony.

This argument, however, never satisfies the extreme PC mob.  But people have to realise that you cannot literally censor history because you do not like something in it.  I explained all this to one critic who, again, had never purchased one of my books and was assuming I reprinted these specific strips (I had not).  Apparently that just proved I was excusing my racist leanings -which made him look a bigger fool as he knew nothing of my family!

Above - a lovely strip but a nightmare from hell to make publishable in black and white. And that is where I get further criticism over.  "Why aren't you reprinting in colour?" Well, it works this way: if the Ultimate Collection is 405 pages and black and white throughout it costs me "£x" to print and you can buy it for £25.00. Now, if I add just one colour page then every b&w page is counted as full colour -it's how it works. Mad, I know but I'm stuck with that.  So it costs me over twice the amount a b&w book does and your price as a buyer? £50.00.  Believe me I wish I could print colour!

Trouble is that no one takes into account that I need to find and buy the  old books/comics. I need to select the strips to re-publish and do all the work of cleaning up, repairing tears or masking out sellotape and foxing. All the work I mention in that Editing post link.  That is money, time and a lot of effort and I have been told that the Ultimate Collection should properly priced at £45.00 -to me that is insane. I'd sooner take a loss at £25.00!   But the 68 pp single Black Tower Gold volumes are £8.00 a copy and rather than delete them from the online store I left them so people could see if they wanted to invest in a big collection.

But the books are not just there to reprint.  Volume 1 also includes the Defining the Ages of British Comic Books, though that has been up-dated since.  There are articles and information I have found on some of the old comic creators because not all signed their work.  Embarrassment at "drawing comics", job on the side while working for other larger, low page rate publishers  -the reasons vary but it means so many creators are 'lost' to us.

Since I tried to start the BCBA -British Comic Book Archive- in the 1990s I met constant negativity from some UK comic 'fans' who only consider the Thomson or Amalgamated Press comics as worthwhile and Swan and the other small publishers as "nothing special". I do laugh when I point out this attitude and there is the almost high pitched voice denying any such thing was said -but I keep all my emails and conversations!

A few people have jumped in the help but the BCBA is basically what I have and by that I mean in my collection or scanned.  Comics do not get respect in the UK.  However, I plod on and have managed to identify creators and make many finds not listed by even the legendary Mr Gifford. I also help a lot of collectors identify their books, strips and much more.  And I don't get paid for that either.

The work continues but with books not selling the idea of another volume of Golden Age reprints I cannot even think about.  Yet I have a lot of material left.

I do not yet possess a copy of any issue of Triumph featuring Superman! But let's not get off topic. What about all the material I still have?

I decided that what I needed to do was mix GA along with Public Domain Silver Age strips and contemporary ones -make a mix for everyone!  So was born Black Tower Super Heroes. First issue has not sold and Nos.2-8 have not yet been published, though they are complete and print ready. And all are 80 pagers.

Being a small publisher is not easy, especially when your books are not selling!  But I'm hoping one day someone somewhere might find them and appreciate all the work!

Until then it's hoping that the books are discovered before the store gets shut down -which is a possibility since if books do not sell why bother maintaining an online store?

There you have it, a very long few words covering quite a bit.  Any questions -you know where the comments section is.  Keep enjoying comics!

Yahoo groups with LOTS of covers and more

BCBA

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/britishcomicsarchivesI/info

Britcomics

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/britcomics/info

Golden Age Books

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!

The five separate volumes range from 68pp to 96pp each.  For well over 5 years they have been ridiculously priced at £6.00 ($8.00) which meant there was nothing in the way of profit or compensating for the amount of time and work put into each. And guess what? Absolutely no copies sold.  For that reason I have had to price them (still cheap) adequately so that they are each £8.00 ($10.00).  That still means you are getting better quality reproductions for far less money than an 8 pager or 12 pager comic from this period that may be moldy, torn or almost unreadable.

This is business.



Volume 1: http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/black-tower-british-gold-collection-1/paperback/product-12183527.html

Volume 2: http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/black-tower-british-gold-collection-2/paperback/product-12183569.html

Volume 3: http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/black-tower-british-gold-collection-3/paperback/product-12183586.html

Volume 4: http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/uk-gold-collection-4/paperback/product-12184087.html

Volume 5: http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/black-tower-gold-5back-from-the-dead/paperback/product-12184231.html

The Ultimate British Comics Gold Collection

Ed. Terry Hooper-Scharf

A4

405 pages

Black & White

Perfect bound paperback

Price: £25.00

Ships in 3-5 business days.
 http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-ultimate-british-comics-gold-collection/paperback/product-22041282.html

Combining volumes 1-6 (still available as individual issues but that works out far more expensive) of the BT Golden Age British Comics Collections (minus adverts) this is the ultimate for any Golden Age collector or historian or just plain comic lover.

Features....

Ace Hart

TNT Tom

Electrogirl 

Wonderman 

The Phantom Raider

Captain Comet 

Acro Maid

Phantom Maid

Dene Vernon

The Iron Boy

The Boy Fish

Professor Atom

The Tornado

Powerman

Wonder Boy

Slicksure

Masterman 

Dane Jerrus

Alfie

Tiny Tod

Maxwell The Mighty 

Back From The Dead

Zeno At The Earth's Core

Colonel Mastiff

Ally Sloper

Super Injun

Super Porker  (oo-er, no, Madam, ooh),

Tiger Man

King Of The Clouds

Captain Comet 

and MANY others!

Plus text features defining The Ages OF British Comics (Platignum, Gold, Silver), the artist William A. Ward and more.

If you knew nothing about British comics of the Platinum, Golden and Silver Ages then once you buy and read this book you'll be a goddam omic intellectual dinosaur! Yipes!

All in that beautiful Iron Warrior cover exclusively drawn for Black Tower by that meta-gargantuoso talented Ben R. Dilworth!

I sold my family to be able to get this book out! Help me buy them back by purchasing your very own 

whizz-o copy today!

The UK Golden Age Reprints WILL Continue

I am not sure how or who started the rumour and confusion but I have made it perfectly clear that Black Tower will continue its publishing of UK Golden Age strips.

In fact here is the post about this: http://britishgoldenagecomics.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/black-tower-super-heroes-snippet-on.html

Also you will notice the new blog header.

The only person -the only person- who decides and details what Black Tower publishes is me.  No one has inside information or has talked to me about these projects.  Even the contents of each issue are only known to me.

You have a question ask me.

On Fandom And Little Cliques..and sharing!

I have said before that I put a lot of work, time and effort and money into collecting British Platinum (1796-1938) and Golden (1939-1949) Ages comics and story papers. Not just because I like them and love discovering new things and identifying creators where ever possible, but because I want to share.

I know that it is a very -very- small group in the UK but why shouldn't they get a chance to see the comics I have discovered?  Most of those I know who are interested cannot find or afford the price of the comics  and even when fairly priced it is finding the comics.  So I do the work and publish the collected Gold books or the complete collection which works out cheaper.

I will never ever make my money back!  But I never thought that I would. Unlike in, say, the United States where, were even a 350+pp b&w collection of US Golden Age available then it would sell to real fans or collectors, in the UK...obviously not. I won't even go into why as I have done so before and the lack of interest was overwhelming.

But the books are there for anyone really interested in UK comics of those periods.  There was the British Golden Age and UK Golden Age Heroes & Comics blogs.  The first has had 23, 834 views since it was set up in 2011. The second has had 6, 112 views since set up in 2013.

the Yahoo! British Comic Books Archives group was set up on 31st January, 2007 and has thousands of images over several album pages and a lot of interesting posts.  It has 55 members -and the majority are not even in the UK.

Sales of the Collected book, and I need to point out that not one of the slimmer volumes has ever sold...3 copies.  Once you take into account what I finally receive financially, those three sales do not even pay for one of the comics I purchased to go in it.

Now, in the old fanzine days it was common to find fans sharing photocopies of old comics (none of us had scanners or internet until the 1990s!) or swapping information. Initially, fans started to do the same thing over the internet but that more or less stopped years ago now. There are books fans are looking for and we know other 'fans' have copies.  Will they scan and share? No.  Why? "Because no one else here has a copy so it's mine and I'm not sharing!"  And that was actually said on one of my Yahoo group members.  These people tend to like to steal the work I have done and add it to sites so they get credit but simply state "original scanner unknown"....I guess the scans just appeared miraculously on their computers then?

When I have used material in a book scanned and sent to me by someone I name them.  But I do not credit people using silly, anonymous internet names.  And I have made it clear that I cannot (there are very sounds legal reasons why no one ever should) credit "anonymous" or some internet name.  Why on earth are these people scared to take credit for their scan work?

That adds something else to the mix.  Groups where scanners of Silver Age UK comics go into all their scanning details (which is pointless) and call themselves "comic editors".  Weird.  They are scanners and not comic editors!

And...allowing 95% of members on their groups to be anonymous is fine.  After all, MI5 would love to track them down  -seriously, you are on a fecking comic 'fan' group so why do you need a different internet name on that and 4-5 other groups??  The world's security services are not after you for reading comics.  Unless it's so there is no come back on them when they take part in petty sniping at other members? It's why I left those groups.

But, that anonymity....you offer scans over the internet on your groups but then get angry (and "angry" does not really cover it!) when someone has compiled all of those scans into a collection on CD to sell on Ebay.  Screeching -"Without given credit to me!" and "Profiting from group scans and contributing nothing back!" but this is the very funny part of it: they "all" want to know who this person is (I was actually accused once but that stopped as soon as I asked them to repeat the remark and get sued, stupid little infants) but how can you when you let all these people join anonymously? Any how could this person contribute back to the group?

Financially? Oh, well, how do they know this person has NOT contributed scans (I suspect he has and I think I know who he is and it is quite obvious unless you are a "comics editor" on a Yahoo group!)?  Who gets money?  And best of all is the idea that, somehow, their copyright and editing work has been infringed upon.  Firstly, a scanner has no copyright claim.  You offer a free scan on the internet it gets used....tell me about it...sob sob...just two of my Eros books have been illegally downloaded by the millions. I don't lose sleep over it or bleat on.

And now the "elite Platinum 'comics' clique".  I ask about certain characters or titles.  "Oh yes. That is in the (my) collection".  Any chance of a scan?  "I am rather busy.  Ask me in a couple months" and the one I always laugh at: "Oh, I had no idea that one had not been catalogued.  I've had that for years."  Seriously, this is what I call "a load of old bull crap".  So you are one of this studious elite and read everything there for years but this just slipped by?  You never knew?  Rather, you do not have a copy because other than that line nothing else is contributed.  Scan and you will solve all the problems and answer all the questions but no, just the  "Oh, I had no idea that one had not been catalogued.  I've had that for years." End of story.

And don't get me started on the fella (in the US) who joined my Face Book Golden Age group to find out WHO from his group was a member and banned them and very rudely told me I was banned from his group, too!

This is not fandom. It's rather like, when you were a kid and played "conkers" and there was always some lad claiming he had a "Twentier" (smashed 20 other conkers in a game) but would never produce it or bring it to a game. Or a "Hundredsy" marble -same thing.  If they are true fans they share for the love of the comics medium.  My collection was always open to be read (and sadly I paid the price for that) by other fans.  share and you get to talk about the characters, comic or creator -it IS fun.

But I see it with comic people from Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany and even France: most have no knowledge of comics prior to the 1980s.  Almost as though comics appeared in the 1980s and there was nothing before.  Worse are the snooty comic 'experts' who say with 100% confidence "France has always had more eye brow comics -never super heroes!"  And I, CBO, have shown that this is just an ignorant statement based on no knowledge.  "Germany never had comics during World War 2 -the Nazis forbade them!"  Same thing.  Proven false.

We need a good fanzine in the UK -most countries do- and we also need to get real, genuine comic fans to chat.  I say that with a 100% failure rate at the Golden Age blogs and on CBO comments are rare enough.

It seems to be more about snooty cliques or little cliques following bully boys in the UK.  On my Yahoo! groups you can join and use a pseudonym on the group BUT I need to know who you really are because I learnt the lessons.

think about it -what has your experience as a comic fan been like and what do you miss or feel is needed?