Covers -The Dark Night Detectives

 Thankfully, The Dark Night Detectives was the last book on my desk and I can now concentrate on other comics work.  When you have to fight your own computer to get work done it isn't great.

The cover you see in the post was the third choice.

The first I dumped straight away.

This was the second choice:

and final choice

Normally I go with what the artist designs, however, the type of printing used would make the hand drawn logo look washed out and that isn't very appealing to the eyes.  I would criticise the size of the BTC&B logo used but it had to be that size to cover something up.

Whatever, the book is done now and if you haven't read the previous volume well...

 

A4

Black & White
50 Pages
Price: £8.00 (excl. VAT)

Ships in 3–5 business days
 http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-dark-night-detectives/paperback/product-21975325.html

Its a world where if you stand up for what is right you'll be lucky if its just a beating you get.

A world where people are starving (if poor) and the rich live in luxury.

A world where you have to have birthing Rights.

Where sacrificing someone to the Devil is acceptable -as long as they pay the wages.

A world where if you DO NOT take that bribe you WILL be made an example of.

This shows off Dilworth's skill at writing dark and brooding stories with a hint of satire but just too true to modern life!  It also shows his skill as an artistic story teller and designer.  Some of Ben Dilworth's most provoking and dark work in ages.

The Dark Night Detectives 2: The Ministry of Safety

 

 

A4

28pp

B&W

£5.00

https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/the-dark-night-detectives-no-2-november-2020/paperback/product-7jr8g8.html

Its a world where if you stand up for what is right you'll be lucky if its just a beating you get. A world where people are starving (if poor) and the rich live in luxury. A world where you have to have birthing Rights. Where sacrificing someone to the Devil is acceptable -as long as they pay the wages. A world where if you DO NOT take that bribe you WILL be made an example of. 

This was the dystopian world set up by Ben Dilworth in Small Press publications in the 1980 and some strips in Black Tower books and led on to The Dark Night Detectives: Everything Is Under Control. 

Now Detective Inspector Black and Special Constable (Community Policing) Jones are back and it is still dar, bleak and depressingly familiar in a way.

 The ending will make you ask more than a few questions.

I KNOW What You Are Going To Ask...

 "Just how did you publish a book with no scanners and a failing computer?"

I started trying to scan last Thursday. My Mustek A3 Pro failed me. My Canon scanner failed me. My computer was shutting down and not saving edits. I finallyfinished editing at 16:45 hours and published about 20 minutes ago.

Every page the scanner and computer tried to fight me on and right up to the very last page it was a fight but over 2 decades of using a PC and all types of scanners teaches you skills. There is a reason I am known as "Master of the Mystic Farts"   "Master of the Mystic Scans".  Even now my PC is trying to screw up my typing this brief post.

Buy my books and help me my new equipment (I'm trying that one a "to pay bills and eat" has not worked over the last 10 years...)

I am now going to take a rest and heal my eyes and head!

Out Now -The Masked Marshal: Life by the Gun

A4

B&W 

24pp

£5.00

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.

You Know When I wrote "Walk Away from It"?

 I should have done just that. I finally got the Mustek scanner to work and on preview the pages looked okay. Scanned 24 pages -all looked okay. Saved them.

Now, as I'd starting to edit the page I note that somehow and AFTER scanning the images all had a page length marking that would require me to re-scan all of them (like ****) or take days to clean then them with a computer that constantly shuts down documents on "Save" meaning you have to start editing from step 1 again.

And so I am closing documents and walking away from this. There were just two book to be scanmned and edited and as far as I am concerned they can wait and gather dust. No new scanner + No new PC = No new books. I'm sure you are all quite 'devastated'.

Off to stare at the rain.

Thaddeus Twatt -Two Complete Adventures

 

Thaddeus Twatt Book I -The Fearful Fate of Friggia

A4
B&W
27pp
£4.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/thaddeus-twatt-book-i/paperback/product-15g6rgjr.html

Eccentric scientific genius Professor Thaddeus Twatt has decided to look in on one of his late father’s experiments… ...but then his nephew, Tomas, arrives for the Summer. 

Tomas has been warned that his uncle is a little “odd” but expects to have a carefree holiday in the Somerset countryside. That was his plan. 

In the late 1940s, Twatt’s father, along with other scientists, had created a miniature galaxy in chambers deep beneath the Cheddar countryside. A miniature galaxy into which groups of settlers flew. After decades it seems time to visit the “Twatt-verse” and see how things have gone. 

Tomas thinks it’s all a joke...

until he is miniaturised! 

The duo find the entrance to the mini-verse mined and then their craft crash-lands on the first planet they approach.

 They find what seems to be a barren, frozen world —until captured by a group of survivors and a story is told of betrayal, sabotage and a great “Worm” that devastates cities. 

Are the duo trapped of frozen Friggia forever…?

Thaddeus Twatt Book II -The Jungle Planet

A4
B&W
27pp
£4.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/thaddeus-twatt-book-ii/paperback/product-1ggqrg42.html

Following their escape from the planet Friggia, Twatt and Tomas find what appears to be a jungle planet –complete with rather odd life forms. 

However, as Professor Twatt casually strolls around the Jungle Planet he finds a mine complex using slave labourers —then he sees the crystal-like flying saucer and realises that the impossible has happened…. 

The Crystallids are here! But what are the Crystallids and what is Twatt’s connection to them. Some of the secrets of Professor Twatt’s earlier life could be exposed by a chance encounter with a Crystallid prisoner —a man who knows Twatt...the question is: will Twatt and Tomas live ? 

The complete first story arc from Black Tower Adventure in one book.

Return of the Gods: Twilight of the Super Heroes

 

Paperback, 

A4

Black & White

331 Pages

£20.00

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

List Price: £15.00

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!