Cinebook Ltd: Michel Vaillant - Legendary Races 3: Disastrous Season

 

Authors: Denis Lapière & Vincent Dutreuil
Age: 12 years and up
Size: 21.7 x 28.7 cm
Number of pages: 64 colour pages
Publication: May 2025

ISBN: 9781800441590

£11.99 incl VAT

1970. The Formula One season is about to begin, and Jean-Pierre Vaillant unveils his new prototype to the two pilots of Team Vaillante – his brother Michel and Steve Warson. He hopes that his radical innovations will give Vaillante an edge against the extremely fierce competition. 

Unfortunately, the 1970 season is going to prove disastrous across the board, and the relentless quest for performance deadly, inciting the drivers to fight for an in-depth reform of racing safety rules …

It must be my age. When I first read this series in the 1970s (in Germany) in Zack I was hooked including the racing sequences. For (I am really old) decades those memories stuck in my mind so that when Cinebook announced that they were publishing the series in English I was excited. This album arrived and I opened it and...nothing.

The speeding cars and onomatopoeia  are all still there but I could not get as excited.  Let me make it very clear that this is NOT a criticism of the book.The well paced and character driven story including that question mark ending -it's all top notch.  The art could not be better! I loved it and it is all very accurate for the period (and I am old enough to recognise the likenesses of certain racers!) and when you add in the fantastic colour work of Isabelle Charly there is nothing to complain about. 

It is a superb book but I just can't put myself in those races any more like I used to as a kid. Rather than race death to the finishing line it's more like "When is the next toilet break?"/ "Hmm.Am I going too fast?" and "that last turn means I no longer need a toilet stop!!" So definitely an age thing😂

Other than an old man moaning I have to admit that the series is just as good as it was "back in the day" (notice they never say which day?). I've read it twice and have looked at the art more than a few times and layouts/design cannot be faulted either. So I do recommend this.

Now I am off to my cardboard box racer to see if I can "hit a ton"!!

Comics For Breakfast: Avengers the Frontier Years!

West Coast Avengers 8 and The Avengers 27 Are Dead Husks -Time For The Cremation?

 Well, I have to say that as of issue 10 (t's on a pre-order) I will drop the current incarnation of West Coast Avengers. At the outset it seemed like it might be interesting but it is a bloody mess.

Art style is now not that good and the fact that they can expend so little into one issue is astonishing.  The less I see of this tile the better.

Which,of course, brings us to the current main Avengers series. I am an Avengers man. I started collecting the series in the 1960s and then the low level of the 1990s hit and after the whole Disassemble crap I almost gave up. This current series is basically solo adventures or one or two Avengers teaming up but, again, they filter so little into each issue that even the art cannot distract from how bad it has become.  

"Masters of Evil" part 3....has dragged this 'story' out as far as it can and it is so badly paced and badly written -the hardcore unstoppable new Masters of Evil are beaten so easily almost as if the writer was stumped to how they could be stopped.

As a kid I would walk a couple miles just to find a newsagent with Marvel -specifically the Avengers- issues and even when comic stores started up but were miles away I would walk from one newsagent to another with little brother Mike and seek out the Avengers issues. Would I bother to do that now? Like hell.

I checked back on some Roy Thomas Avengers stories and they still hold good after all these years but they were well paced, well written and if it was a two parter each issue was crammed with action or characterisation. I read the current issue in less than three minutes. It looks like it is that time when a true Avenger fan needs to consider quitting because buying the series is like burning bank notes.

Any others feel similar?

Black Tower Wilberforce: A Jack's Lot Is Not A Happy One

 

A4
B&W
28 pp
£6,00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/wilberforce/paperback/product-1zkwmp8n.html

Wilberforce—a Sergeant on the Metropolitan Police Detective Force. 

But Wilberforce was no common “Jack” (police officer). Even before working with the famous Chung Ling Soo (The Case Of The Thames Serpent), Wilberforce had “tasted the chin strap” on many tough cases –even a stint in the Army saw him used because of his detective skills. 

Here, Ben R. Dilworth, gives us a sneak peek into Wilberforce’s Case Notes for 1896. 

“A Jack’s lot is not a happy one” and Wilberforce was not just dealing with the ordinary criminals such as the nobblers, rampsmen, smashers, mobsmen, snoozers and skinners…. ...there were the spectres, the satanic followers, vampires and other monsters —things the ordinary copper never usually encountered and often scoffed at the stories of. Wilberforce knew better.

Black Tower Xendragon: The Legacy of Frankenstein

 

A4
19pp
£5.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/xendragon-the-legacy-of-frankenstein/paperback/product-14m92rvv.html

Paranormal investigator Xendragon answers a priest's call for help and travels to Europe. 

The priest is missing. A wereman. A Frankenstein monster. A mad scientist.

 What more needs to be written?

Black Tower Colloquium cum diabolo

 

A4

B&W

12pp

£5.00

https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/colloquium-cum-diabolo/paperback/product-1ggdrvgp.html

As a vital point in the battle raging on Neo Olympus (Return of the Gods:Twilight of The Super Hewroes) two entities who could shift the balance both ways meet...

One of them is the Devil. 

While their truce is active the duo pass the time recounting two stories.

features a superb cover by Richard Anthony Pester

THIS IS N O T ESSENTIAL READING FOR RETURN OF THE GODS BUT A STAND ALONE ILLUSTRATED TEXT BOOK.

Black Tower Tales of Terror III

 

A4
B&W
62pp
£6.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/tales-of-terror-iii/paperback/product-16qnwmd7.html

Each year Black Tower likes to bring you a little bit of extra horror/ghostly goodness in Tales of Terror. 

In the third volume there are contributions by Ben R. Dilworth -Krakos and Merriwether. While Paul Ashley Brown brings us the tales of The Worlds Best Mom and revisits his fear of trees! 

Darron Northall and Danny Jenkins bring us the horrific tale of Bud and Lou Go To Hell while George McQueens The Bat deals out justice and Art Wetherell's one pager is designed to make men wince! 

And Terry Hooper-Scharf finally includes issue 1 of The Paranormals to make this a true horror/ghost fest book!

Black Tower Tales Of Terror No. 2

 

A4
B&W
42pp
£6.00
http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/tales-of-terror-2/paperback/product-12674020.htm

Meet Finlands own mystical hero -Kapteeni Kuolio or, if you prefer English: Captain Gangren!

The Thinker..thinks!

David Gordon brings us the first appearance of Callex -and she's on a quest.

Mark Stafford assks "What is the meaning of This?" Find out.

We also dare to ask what happens if you Marry A Monster From Outer Space?

Terror and fun the Black Tower way!

Learn about the terror of The Machine! by Andrew (Fantomex) Hope and Ben R Dilworth

Black Tower Tales of Terror! (aka Tower Tales of Terror)

 

A4
B&W
72pp
£8.00
https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/tower-tales-of-terror/paperback/product-11921861.html

The main feature,"The Curse Of The McQuilligans", starring Xendragon, leads off this collection of horror, ghostly and twist-in-the-tail stories. 

The classic Torch Of Vengeance is a tale of a wife’s rather Gothic vengeance while Graveyard is a cautionary tale for those curious to look into graves! Demons,time travel and much more.

THE OWL -MASTER OF THE NIGHT

 

A4
B&W
80pp
£8.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/the-owl-master-of-the-night/paperback/product-1vk5e79w.html

A Fan Project. 

The Owl. Created by Frank Thomas in 1940 for Crackajack Funnies:this book contains three Golden Age stories including the rare first appearance of Owl Girl plus the rare 1967 Owl Man and Owl Girl in their own comic. 

Are You An American Independent Comics Publisher?

 I have heard from many who ventured into comic publishing that, despite all the talk of comic

stores being willing to stock Indie titles, very few were willing to.  I have also hear how, at conventions where they spend a lot -a LOT- of money on tables they are pushed out of the way of the main crowds, mainstream comics and toy sellers.

Please, if you are an Indie publisher let me know the problems you have had at events as well as trying to get stores to take your books.  

We all need to help each other out and highlight problems small publishers face.

Thank You

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

 

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!