Well, almost forgot this one as I never got any info as promised but, for you interest…
EXHIBITORS
We have over 40 incredible artists, writers and makers exhibiting and selling their work at BCZF 2013. You can read about them all on this page.
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Well, almost forgot this one as I never got any info as promised but, for you interest…
EXHIBITORS
We have over 40 incredible artists, writers and makers exhibiting and selling their work at BCZF 2013. You can read about them all on this page.
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When I first saw this on You Tube I thought: “Here we go -more obnoxious fan boys!”
Was I right?
No.
I came away from watching this wishing I could recapture my old enthusiasm from before I became a jaded old hack. The fellas in this documentary are quite genuine -there is no pretence here. And what is more this video is high quality.
My question has to be: WHY has no TV company picked this up to broadcast??
This is well worth watching so, please, check it out.
Dexter has upset Danny Trejo, Sarah Connor however is wondering why she has Walter White’s head on her lap…..come see them tomorrow https://www.facebook.com/events/380949995343094/
Top Postings:
Hits from….
United States 585
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United Kingdom 161
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Germany 80
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China 45
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France 38
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Russia 30
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Vietnam 29
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Italy 18
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Singapore 17
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Sweden 14
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Oh dear gods will I never learn?
I’m in comics so I guess the answer is “No. Never. Dumb-ass!”
Stransky & Labatt have produced some short, illustrated text stories and were due to produce some comic strips. However, there appear to have been some “difficulties” (nothing to do with me) so I have no idea what will appear.
The text stories will still be appearing in Tales Of Terror or/and Black Tower Super Heroes so they should last a while.
The other major set back is that, due to circumstances well beyond his control, Black Towers main contributing talent (no, not me), Ben R. Dilworth is taking a break from comic work. Again, there is a good inventory of his work but it leaves the new D-Gruppe project in limbo.
Two big kicks to the head but this isn’t the first and probably will not be the last time this happens -we’re talking about comics after all.
So, I’ll plod on with D-Gruppe and wish Ben a very speedy recovery back to normal, every day life and comics. Take it easy, mate.
And me? I’m off to have an editorial breakdown!
I was asked by Ekki what plans I had for D-Gruppe following the mini series and 2012 Annual -all events taking place before The Return of the Gods graphic novel?
Well, the important thing for me was to get the old stories that have been lying around for a couple decades, and which establish D-Gruppe, out in print first. The whole Revenge Of The Ice Queen followed by the Zeitgeist saga established a great deal and led into two main books: The Trial and, of course, The Return of the Gods: Twilight of the Super Heroes.
The Trial was originally published in the mid-1990s in four parts though it had been intended to serialise it before in the comic project JAG 2000 (long story). In this story, which I am NOT going to go into details of because it is currently being re-lettered (originally hand lettered but that is too poor a quality to offer readers today), the D-Gruppe members are seen inter-acting with the UK heroes and, in fact, the UK heroes travel to Germany to help D-Gruppe and heroes first glimpsed in the Zeit Geist story.
But important changes to BT characters took place in this story -how did Wavell get that huge facial scar we see in Return? How did Tech-Man get replaced by Rachel Flynn? Even the ending links all the D-Gruppe storylines to Return.
The Trial should be out as a graphic novel in December of this year (2013).
Hopefully, the very -very- long delayed appearance of Task Force Germany will have taken place before then. The first story should have appeared in 1994 but there were delays -initially Art Wetherell was to draw the book but had to opt out and a couple other artists stepped in but there were problems.
Back in 1982 I was sending project proposals, character sketches and so on to Marvel Comics. At that point i saw working for my all time favourite comic as the star to aim for. What a dim-wit! Anyway, I wanted to develop the silent character, The Attacker, and I thought Marvel might go for a comic in which everything was visual -no caption boxes, speech balloons, etc.. The character was shortish and wore a skin-tight black costume with large white eye-holes.
I was a little shocked when I saw the black costumed Spider-man emerge a couple years later. But that’s comics. The other character I tried to convince Epic Comics (part of Marvel) was really “great” -the creator owned line had started up in 1982 so I got straight to it. Marvel had rejected The Attacker -“no comic fan is going to buy a comic where you never find out the characters real identity and there is no text!” but -BUT- surely a Lutheran priest (later changed to Catholic) that has some kind of strange, all-black creature linked to him would be a winner?
No.
Considering what they were publishing I thought to feedback of “too dark” was just ridiculous. A year or so later came…Venom.
So the character who started out as German, had to be changed to an American reverted back to German. But there is a problem. If someone is the artist of a book and they have asked to work on your script -your characters- all and good. But, oh no, artists can be an odd lot.
“Yeah, I see him as a Nazi who was in charge of a concentration camp and was sent to Hell and he now hunts and kills Nazies(sic)” was how one artist saw it. He even re-wrote everything to conform to his idea.
My response? “NO! You have the character details and you can choreograph action scenes freely BUT the story and the character ARE the story and the character”
And the response? “I can’t see it going anywhere the way you’ve written it. If we go with my idea I think this would be a sure hit!”
We parted company. Never heard of the man again.
Then another approached me having seen my sketch and idea on a German comic forum -for the life of me I cannot recall what forum but I did get about a lot! “Love the script!” he wrote.
A month later I got pages through and a letter. “I think this works better than your idea. I see him as a Catholic priest, a paedophile who was also a drunk and embezzler. To cleanse his soul he makes a deal with lucifer….”
Oh dear.
Then the pages of a character that looked exactly like Venom. This was not the look I had wanted or explained. Neither was there a scene anywhere in my script showing a terrified little girl on a bed as the priest disrobed!! I explained what the whole idea of the character was and that the whole story of the priest-amorph came out over the planned four issues in a big climax in Koln Cathedral.
“But that’s lame”, I was told, “the way I see it you have got to show people this guy is a ****** ****! Then you build on that. I can’t see it work your way.”
We parted company. I ought to point out that not only did the artist want to re-write everything and change character appearances and names but he also wanted that “Nazi element. Everyone knows Germans were Nazis!”
This is something I have come across over and over again in the last couple decades. I allways allow artists freedom to draw action scenes so long as the result fits in with the actual story/script -unless they really do need that action written for them. But I can think off-hand of fifteen artists I’ve worked with who have decided to re-write (badly) and make changes. Where are they now?
So, I decided that amorph and priest would become a part of the Task Force Germany team. Sadly, after a couple more stops and starts nothing came of it until now.
Leere (emptyness/blankness/void) was another problem. I tried explaining that the character is not an invisible man and neither is he wearing a mask like the old Charlton Question character. You can see a vague “something” where the head is. But you could also see slightly through him. Clothes are the only solid texture on him/it/her.
There are several characters like this in Black Tower -a link I wanted to explore by now. Characters such as Nemesis (a Belgian character) and No Face from The Paranormals (published in Tales Of Terror 3.
Above -the new and more violent Owl and below -Ollie the Owlcraft!
But there were newer characters independent of previous stories such as Adam Ewigkeit who had a very brief cameo in issue 2 of D-Gruppe, Herrc Spinne, Der Racher, Tom Katze und Kätzchen…well, the D-Gruppe world would be well populated.
All the rough sketches I’ve now found so I’m hoping that the new characters will appear fairly soon and we have to remember that some of D-Gruppe, including Kopfmann its leader, vanished into space during the Return Of The Gods story. Where are they? Will they return?
Guess.
“The Days Of Darkness” story should have been told by now but I’m planning and D-Gruppe will quite literally be shaken to the core by what happens.
And there is planned a couple of brief glimpses at the D-Gruppe of a darker Earth Parallel (EP667) -from which readers have already seen a far more different Link character.
All with Ben Dilworth on board so that the original team is back together! Had Bastei actually published D-Gruppe and had that title continued we’d now be over twenty years into continuity! Curse you Bastei!!!
Below, a glimpse of D-Gruppe EP667 courtesy of Ben Dilworth.
There was also the question of getting a permanent design for a D-Gruppe flier-transport so a quirky design was this one….
As a final note on characters to have been introduced I have only two rough pages left featuring a character rejected by Eros Comix because “its more humour not porn” -Devilina. Independent of any D-Gruppe or Task Force Germany, Devilina would be a character popping up all over the place as well as in solo adventures.
Now, this posting is getting rather long but I hope it has shown that D-Gruppe was by no means a
small idea that never developed!
In fact, in 2014 it is planned to go all-out on the German side of Black Tower in a final “Do or Die” push so keep watching these pages.
All images, characters, designs (except the stealth aircraft!) are (c) 2013 Terry Hooper-Scharf and Black Tower Comics & Books
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