Comic Bits 3 -A Treasure Trove of Lost, Found and Forgotten!

 

A4

Colour/BW

80pp

£10.00 UK

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/comic-bits-no-3-2026/paperback/product-q6wqden.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Comic Bits is the only journal dealing with the Platinum, Golden, Dark and Silver Ages of British comics and the creators involved.

This edition looks at the number of British "Bat men" -characters lost to time. The Bat by William McCail stars in his only ever appearance

We take a look at Tom Browne and Oliver Veal recognised as creators of what became the "British style" for over 100 years.

Prolific creator Terry Bave and his wife Sheila give us a glimpse of working in Silver age weekly comics.

Then there three rarities: the first is the origin of T.N.T. Tom a true star of Swan comics. Secondly we have the other star of Swan in Dene Vernon -Ghost Investigator. His very first pouting from 1940.

Third...well, a massive shock was the discovery of a super heroine not mentioned in any sources and this one off appearance drawn by E. H. Banger (we look at his career in this issue as well) -after 60 years Wanda the Wonder Girl is revealed!

Comic strips from some of the greats of British comics add extra zing to this issue.

Why miss out!

DeviantArt -should I go or should I stay?

 I have to say that after almost two decades on Deviantart and 18K+ views I was thinking of just seeing what their Core Membership entailed. But then... I read that a lawsuit had been taken out against DeviantArt:

"The lawsuit, which also named Stability AI and Midjourney as defendants, alleged that the companies misused copyrighted works to train generative AI models without consent or compensation"

Still open apparently but when I looked around I found that I had a lot of pushes from DeviantArt to create better or "dream art" by using AI.  My stance has always been that if you do AI art for fun -no problem. But if you produce it to put real artists out of work -no.

I could produce cover after cover using AI and it would save me the time and effort but 😡that!

The problem is that the majority of DC and Marvel as well as Image etc artists all work on computers so produce digital art. There is no pencil, pen/brush or paper involved and even lettering put humans out of business a long time ago -people who were skilled. Yes, I DO use a very basic program to do my lettering because my hands are not in a state to do the work. Moebius once4 told me that the artist must letter their own work as it is part of the process. I showed him my own lettering and he nodded and smiled.  An ant stepping in ink and lettering for me would make it more legible. If I used scripts and had the money I'd pay a letterer.  Big companies can afford to pay skilled letterers. 

Colouring art is also carried out using a digital process -no brush, ink or paint and we can all issue a big "sigh" if we want.

"NO AI!" declares Marvel, DC, etc. Uh, that is very double standard. If you cannot produce art by AI on your computer then you should NOT be having creators use a computer to draw, colour or letter. It's all being a little virtue signalling and hypocritical but then this is comics and companies are as crooked now as they ever were and if they could get away with using AI art to make comics and therefore not pay real artists they would. It just needs the right pushing point and it will happen.

So do I do what many -many- creators have done and walk away from DeviantArt?  I have invested a lot of years, time and energy and endured all of the changes and technical problems to just close down the account which, I ought to add, in 20 years has brought me only one offer of work (my "chance" to draw a 150pp graphic novel for nothing).

Will The Old Fella Appear in 2026?

 

 One of the characters I want to bring back to a modern audience is "the old fella" who is a pretty (very) obscure character but with a lot of potential. 

  Just who he is you better hope I live long enough to present him as no one gets a freebie any more and don't try to offer this one a rubber £10 note!

And I sincerely apologise to him for stating he might be a tad smelly. He is a gentleman and takes grooming seriously!  

He may be old but he has one hell of a punch!

Do I Have a Dream Team?

 Someone said "You always ask people for their "dream team" of British heroes but what about yours?"

Oh, babies: I have a dream team of US Golden Age characters and story ideas (I got rid of scripts years ago) that I submitted to Marvel, DC, Image, ONI, etc etc).  

As for a British team...oh come on. I have a Platinum, Golden and Silver ages British teams -as in Cross Earths Caper and The Society for the Suppression of Criminal Activity with characters from the early 1900s and, yes, I have had loose alliances between characters from the Penny Bloods/Penny Dreadfuls.   

How many will appear in future? Who knows because I already have too many projects that will never be drawn. 

 But oh those obscure and forgotten characters...all bouncing about in my head.

He's Old (very old). He's smelly (I would not say that to his face) Who is He?

  Well, if I live long enough I have this British Golden Age character's story all set up. I really need artists willing to draw for the experience or not sleep for 5 years and just draw!

(c)2025 BTCG

The Frankenstein Monster in Stahlia?!

 One bit of fun I had in between bouts of "I'm dying!" when it came to drawing The Bat Triumphant was the way that "old foes"  popped up.  Being a rather central European and ancient duch with mountains and forests and many old ruined castles it was almost inevitable that the Frankenstein Monster would turn up in the 1930s.

It was a bit of a shock for The Bat to find he had not destroyed it decades earlier!

How The Clock Cover Came About

  I had Ben Dilworth's superb comic work and unfortunately, thanks to the process used by my printer, the cover that was sent could not be used. I was left with the option of not publishing, just adding the occasional strip to an existing anthology (The Clock did appear on the front cover of the final issue (vol. 2 no. 10) of Adventure which featured a Dilworth illo colourised by my brother, Mike.

(c)2025 BTCF

I hate doing covers! But I suck it up and get to work. Apparently, I am told, the various book covers stand out and are "unique" in not just having fight scenes on them.  So I tried one idea. Threw it out. Brilliant idea next and....threw it out. Another idea seemed to be perfect. Can you guess what happened? Yup, threw it out!

There I sat looking at a rough outline sketch (by "outline" I actually mean pencilled outline) and I thought keeping that clean white background would be nice. At that point my black and white artist brain kicked in and I left The Clock as a silhouette against a white background..with some bullet holes (we all knew it was heading that way).

(c)2025 BTCG

Completed I went away and made some coffee (NOT instant. NEVER instant!!!) came back to the image and threw it to one side. It wouldn't work. I tried another design. Nope. How about that silhouette in a darkened alleyway with trash cans over turned and bullets whizzing (giggle)  by.

No.

I looked at that illo and again and said something rude and it became the final cover!  

Still don't think it did justice to the interior art but if you have a book you need a cover -right?

all art (c)2025 Ben R. Dilworth (except the cover I did!)