ALAN CLASS COMICS

Indie Comic Creator interview with Terry Hooper-Scharf

2026-06-08T06:21:38.307-07:00

Name: Terry Hooper-Scharf
City: Bristol, UK
Comics: Wow –so many. Check out his online store

https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=Terry+Hooper&page=1&pageSize=10&adult_audience_rating=00&sortBy=PRODUCT_SALES_90_DAYS

QRD – How old were you when you first got into comics and did you always stick with them or did you come back to them?

Terry – Ohhhhh boy. You realise that I am very, very old, right? I used to have comics bought for me by my grandfather, Bill. Being in the UK and the 1960s we are talking British weekly comics. I began reading comics at the age of 5 years. Comics that I enjoyed ranged from Bimbo, Beezer, Topper, Lion, and so many others. When my family moved to Germany, my reading, naturally, had to change and I began reading comics from companies such as Carlsen, Disney, and Germany’s biggest publisher of European comics, Bastei.

Below:That's me (about 10 years old) older brother Peter and Lassie the dog in Sevier St., St. Werburgh's my then comics stomping ground.

So that’s 50+ straight years of reading comics.

QRD – What was the first comic book you ever bought?

Terry – When I got my weekly pocket money (allowance) it was not much. The family were typical working class so money was short. However, with money I could decide what I wanted to buy and read. I purchased UK reprints of the Dell Tarzan series, UK black & whites such as The Purple Hood and The Adventures of Mark Tyme, but what was the very first comic? That was over 40 years ago. I really cannot remember!

QRD – How old were you when you put out your first comic?

Terry – Long story short. I put together a school magazine titled Starkers -- The Magazine That Tells The Naked Truth. The title came from the deputy head teacher and it was supposed to have cartoons, jokes, and a comic strip. Apparently one of the school secretaries who had to prepare all the pages for print objected to the title and the head teacher banned the mag. I had to wait until 1984 for Black Tower Adventure (volume 1) #1to be completed and printed!

QRD – What decade do you think produced the best comics?

Terry – The Golden Age period of the 1930s-1940s laid out all the groundwork and things got stunted in the 1950s thanks to idiots like Wertham. The 1960s I would say is a time when things took off more and publishers developed more originality. In the UK we had a long history of anti-heroes in comics (check out the Yahoo group Britcomics where you will find images and info galore). The Spider was a master criminal with a crime organisation, but he also helped out the law later on so you were never sure which way he might turn next.

And the Bat by William Ward might be considered a freedom fighter or a terrorist (depending the side you were on) as he fought to liberate his country, Stahlia. We also, in the UK, had a long history of occult characters -- Dene Vernon who tackled violent ghosts, demons, cults and even aliens and subterranean foes in the 1940s-1950s. Too long winded?

I’d have to say 1960s because the UK did see all these new characters appear & some were quite risky (we never had a Comics Code Authority), but then Marvel gave comics a creative kick in the ass. 1960s.

Above: Terry along with an Alien friend at the 2011 Bristol Comic Expo

QRD – Why comics instead of just writing or drawing?

Terry – I do all. I write and draw comics and publish them -- I also wrote for Marvel UK and other companies -- but I also write as a comics journalist, but also on specialist subjects such as wildlife, but also about the strange and weird things I’ve investigated over 35 years. So I get to do all these things. Love it. Prose books on factual subjects are harder as you have to include lots of research references and notes. Now I do my comic journalism online!

QRD – Do you see mini-comics and indie comics as paths to mainstream comics or as their own unique media?

Terry – Not any more. A lot of the creators who are well known these days and who started in comics in the 1970s all began by contributing to fanzines as writers or artists and that gave them the experience they needed -- that applies in the UK and US.

Today, companies such as Marvel and DC are very restrictive about bringing in new talent and Dark Horse and Image can cherry-pick what they want. With print-on-demand most people like the creative freedom: you can write and draw what you want and publish it -- no editor or moneyman saying, “Well, okay… but maybe if you changed…” You also sell your own books -- whether for fun or to get the experience and feedback and make a few extra dollars -- YOU get all the money not a small percentage.

Below: The 2011 Big Draw event where I went to see how Paul Ashley Brown was getting on and ended up with about twenty youngsters teaching them how to draw spiders, worms and stuff in general.

In the UK the entire comic scene now is small press and indie comics and a lot of those involved in the small press have never even read a comic book. It isn’t the same feel now and I think it’s easier to produce your own comic and try to get it to a company editor and see if they publish creator owned books because Marvel and DC do not.

It’s your choice which path you take, Grasshopper!

QRD – How many copies of your comic do you print in your first run?

Terry – I never discuss print runs. It is not important. Sales are. In the old UK comic days editors would tell you “We have a 120,000 copies print run!” or, later, a 60,000 print run. But that was print run not sales and when Fleetway still owned 2000 AD the editor and publisher told me “We have a 60,000 print run…it has a “cult” following,” which meant that the minimum number of copies a printer would handle was 60,000 but actual sales were maybe a quarter or half that -- and I may be being very kind with those figures!

Print On Demand means that you do not have to store thousands of copies of books -- just the original art! With an online store or via Amazon or one of the other outlets who sell Black Tower Comics, what happens is that someone orders a book that goes through to the print company who process the book and send it out. That simple. For comic events you order as many as you think you might be able to sell -- so I have two big boxes here full of books for the next event. Print runs mean nothing now.

QRD – How much do you think comics should cost?

Terry – Are we talking Marvel and DC? They charge what they want and make up an excuse as to cover prices (read Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics The Untold Story!).

If you mean small pressers & indie publishers… there are a number of factors. First is that, unlike mega big corporations like DC or Disney/Marvel, small publishers cannot call the shots on cost of printing. We have to go by what the deal is we get offered. With print-on-demand black & white comics are cheaper. If you had a 24 page b&w comic but decided to add 4 colour pages your cost goes up. Printers charge so much per colour page but with print-on-demand all the pages, even if they are black and white, are charged as colour pages so your cover price has to reflect that.

You then, if you are buying in copies to sell at events or via mail order, you have to cost based on how much per copy and then add in postage of the books to you and then what it will cost to mail out a book someone orders from you. Publishers get a small discount, so if you add together cost of postage of items to you, table costs and then divide it by the number of books you have to sell you ought to at least make some profit on each book. I dealt with this in more detail in an online article: http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/uk-comic-events-hate-me-for-who-i-am.html

I do not think there can be a standard cover price -- that went out the window when producing your own comics got easier.

QRD – How many books do you produce a year and how many would you like to?

Terry – I don’t go by a schedule. For instance, Ben R. Dilworth, who drew Mark Millar’s The Shadowmenback in the 1980s (Ben also co-created Peter Wisdom with Warren Ellis), sent me a completely drawn 28 page comic. I read through it. I then scanned and edited it and published it. Small pressers and indie comics do not get picked up by Diamond and we do not appear inPreviews and store owners really do not give a flying crap about us or our books -- they will when the mainstream industry implodes, which probably is not that far off and, as with the “black and white comics explosion” of the 1980s that saved all their businesses, oh they’ll love our books then.

But at the moment scheduling a book to be ready by such-and-such an event is done by many, however, we are our own bosses and so we can make our own schedule. At the moment, the online store lists 85 books -- these are prose books, comic albums of 24-70 pages, collected editions, and so on. These have all been produced since I went to print-on-demand in 2009, so if you want a statistic that breaks down to 12.25 books per year! I have enough material to continue publishing for a long while!

QRD – Do you think stories should be serialized or delivered as complete works?

Terry – I was brought up with British weekly comics so a series would run 2 or 3 or 4 pages in a comic each week. You might have to buy 12 comics to get a full story. We never had monthly US comics in the UK, just the occasional copies that found their way here, so The Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc., were serialised. So when I found colour Marvel and DC comics it was like “Wow -- it’s all in one book!”

I think indie comics have the choice of a trade or serialised. I have always said that I would never publish or start publishing a comic until I had every part in my possession. The reason is simple: I collect all sorts of odd comics from companies and people going back to the 1960s and you find part 1… part 2… and that is it. With the internet, IF you can find reference to those titles you can find out what happened, but a lot were just cancelled -- never sold many copies or whatever. So you have two parts of a series that goes nowhere.

Below: rough page for Heroes Of India

If you have parts 1-4 of a series, then you have no real problem. I, like many other comic fans, wasted so much money getting into and buying a series that, “Don just didn’t want to draw comics any more so that was it,” which is an excuse from a moron. I think that if you are going to ask someone to buy your comic, then you owe it to them to make sure there is a complete series or else you are just making a fast buck and running off.

Black Tower Adventure had series divided into parts such as Return Of The Gods: Twilight Of The Super Heroes. But I knew there were people who would only want to buy the super hero series or the fantasy series, but did not want the rest. Whereas others wanted the whole contents as a series of books. So, the various strips were taken and put into collections – Return came to 135 pages, but I then expanded that so the book came to over 300 pages -- but was still cheaper than buying all the issues with the original story parts.

Other books I bring out as a single book. A fairly priced book packed with goodies. To me it made more sense. People might buy a book so they can read a story from start to finish (we do NOT have ads in our books). Paid for and there to read over and over if they wish. For those who like the anthology title I began publishing Black Tower Super Heroes so they can still enjoy that “part works” experience.

It is up to individual publishers and as a rule I go for all in one book.

Below: Rough page for an Indian publisher: Heroes of India

QRD – How are comic strips different than comic books and which medium do you prefer?

Terry – That’s confusing. You need to define what you mean. Comics are comic strips -- Love and Rockets is a book with a comic strip by Jaime, another by Gilbert, and maybe one by Mario. Anthologies are made up of a series of comic strips. Monthly comics such as from DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and Image are single stories or a main story with a back-up strip. In either case I like them -- I’m a comicker! If you mean as in a newspaper comic strip, then I do not buy newspapers but I used to enjoy Garth, Axa, and a few of the other old newspaper classics.

QRD – How long is it from when you start a comic until it’s printed?

Terry – Again, it depends on how you work. When I worked for Eros Comix on Two Hot Girls and Maeve I would sit down and, in the case of the former title, I would type up the script for four issues starting from 8 a.m. and working til about 2 a.m. and then that would go to the artist -- Art Wetherell -- and to Eros’s editor and once the editor approved, I had to wait for it to be drawn and the publisher to print it (I had no say in anything after the script!) and that took six months?

Now, if I want to sit down and draw a comic (I do not use scripts for myself, so it’s straight to work) of, say, 24 pages; then I would do that in two weeks -- pencilled, inked, and lettered and then publishing it would take a day so it can be that fast. These days, as no one is paying me, I can take a few days off.

QRD – What do you do better with your comics now than when you first started?

Terry – I draw better than 40+ years ago when I was trying to work in comic publishing or as a scriptwriter. I don’t use the computer for any part of the creative process other than lettering, which in my case is heaven -- my lettering was bloody awful. Making a PDF is the main use of the computer after that, so I’d guess lettering and drawing.

Below: Krakos The Egyptian

QRD – Do you do thumbnails?

Terry – No. Never have done. I just draw straight to paper and if it fails dismally I chuck that out and start again.

QRD – At what size do you draw?

Terry – A3 which is twice the size of the printed book -- our standard size is A4. A3 measures 29.7 x 42.0cm or 11.69 x 16.53 inches and A4 measures 21.0 x 29.7cm, 8.27 x 11.69 inches.

QRD – What kind of pens do you use?

Terry – I use a variety. As a jobbing artist you have to use what is best & achieves good results at the cheapest cost to you because those pens are coming out of your pay-cheque! At the moment I am using Uni Pin Fine Line pens with tip sizes from 0.05, 0.1, 0.2 up to 0.8. I’ll also use other fibre tip pens and to speed up work I’ll not use a brush and ink for large areas of solid black, but a thick tipped permanent marker. I still use brush and ink for some work and I also use hard bristle toothbrushes for ink spray effects -- a very old technique used by artists going way back.

I did a post on Comic Bits Online on this a couple years back:

http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/berol-uni-ball-and-rotring-tikky.html

QRD – What does your workstation look like?

Terry – HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…oh, you’re being serious? Well if you are a working artist and deal with paper, pens, brushes, ink, and glue -- yes, I still use cut and paste -- then your “work station” is going to look like a bomb hit it. I have a photo if you need to see the “tidy” area? Most artists you’ll see Facebook posts from reading: “Took hours, but the room that looked like a hurricane hit it is now tidy. Now back to work so it will all be a mess by tomorrow!”

It’s how it goes. You work and things mount up. I make hot cups of coffee put it on the desk and start work then remember the coffee… with now has ice on it! Artists tend to live in degrees of mess, filth and total chaos -- people know where I work is called Room Oblivion.

QRD – At what point in the artistic process do you work digitally?

Terry – I use my digits (I am so clever at times) all the time. No, as I wrote above, I letter my computer and then the scanner to make the PDF. I prefer the ink stains on my hands and fingers and the smell of paper and crisp ink. Digital is a rude word.

QRD – What do you think of digital comics and webcomics?

Terry – I work too much, so I’ve only seen a few web comics such as the enchanting Donna Barr’s Desert Peach After Dead (which I highly recommend http://afterdead.thecomicseries.com/)…. web comics are okay if you like them, but I really am the sort of person that will not read comics via the computer. I love books and comics in print.

QRD – Do you prefer working in color or black and white?

Terry – Black and white. For UK weekly comics the format was 79% black and white. I have done some colour, but I prefer black and white -- you see the old Marvel Essential or DC Showcase Presents titles where the art is in black & white and it looks superb. Colour is okay, but hides a lot.

QRD – How many different people should work on a comic and what should their jobs be?

Terry – One. Seriously? If someone can write & draw their own comic and do the covers, then just one. If it’s a writer who cannot draw, then there has to be an artist… who generally does pencils and does not letter… see, we old school were taught to pencil, ink & sometimes letter (mine was too bad) and these days I get looks of shock when I say I pencil, ink, letter by computer, and if I colour a cover I use inks or paints. They keep calling it “old school”, but you had to know your job. “Ken has fallen and broken a finger -- we need pencils fast!” so no problem. “Hey, Ron just got diabetes in his inking fingers!” No problem. You had to be a jack-of-all-trades.

So number of people on a comic varies -- as does any profit from sales when it needs sharing.

QRD – How do you find collaborators?

Terry – I don’t. Not any more. I used to get one artist after another contact me and, quite literally, beg for a script (I used to be a creators agent from 1985-1995) and a project to work on. I used to go through every aspect of a project with them and I got the commitment to draw the series, which would be completed and more sellable to a publisher. I wrote so many scripts that I still find them and can’t remember them. But I also have a huge box full of part or full issue art that was done before the artist either changed their minds because they had no idea how hard it is to draw a comic or they were simply “play-at-being-comic-artists”.

In 2009 I stopped doing scripts for other people -- unless it was a publisher paying. Someone who shall remain nameless, but went on to do work at Marvel, kept pestering for a script. I relented and wrote one and sent it to him. “I’ve changed my mind,” he then wrote back.

There are only two people I’ve cooperated with as writer -- Gavin Stuart Ross, who drew the Chung Ling Soo and Dene Vernon books and Ben R. Dilworth who I have worked on-and-off with since the 1980s. A superb and vastly under-rated artist.

QRD – How tight do you think a script should be as far as telling the artist what to draw?

Terry – I tend to write tight scripts when it comes to dialogue and descriptions of scenes but I always allow an artist I work with a certain amount of a free hand. If action involves something taking place that is important to the plot, I’ll write that tightly; but action scenes apart from “the two fighting move from the castle keep down onto a steep winding stairway” I leave drawing the action scenes to the artist --they have to draw it!

I have, however, several times, had to write a tight script, but also provide art breakdowns and even character illos for artists. You need to be flexible and if you are a good writer or know how artists work then you should be fine!

Below:art by Dean Willetts but colour work by Terry Hooper-Scharf see:http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/it-was-cosmic-fulcrum.html

QRD – Do you think it’s important to have a full story arc completely written before starting to draw?

Terry – Absolutely! As I wrote above, you absolutely must have that story completely written because artists may need to do research work on things like weaponry, uniforms -- if that is needed I have a big stack of those books so I’ll include references -- or even vehicles or locations mentioned. The artist also needs to see the complete script from start to finish because if she/he sees script #1 then something may be drawn in a certain way, but script #3 gives a description that makes the previous interpretation wrong -- it can happen for various reasons.

An example: I was in a meeting with about twenty artists and writers and we were told the theme of an anthology book. We all had to write our own chapters, but we all had to have an old airship somewhere in the background. I asked, “What type of airship --there are many different types and we all need to be producing the same thing in our individual chapters?” Without hesitation the editor waved his hand and said “We’ll sort that out after all the chapters are in!” Now that made no sense. He should have decided the type of airship and supplied a copy illo to each of us, but he was saying “draw it all and you can change the airship to what I decide later” -- and this was on a tight deadline. A lot of people who have never worked in comics like to pretend they are "editors"*

So full story and all the reference the artist will need.

QRD – What comic book person would you be most flattered to be compared to?

Terry – I seriously cannot answer that. It’s been said over-&-over that I have no ego to speak of. With comics I do the work that needs doing. My artistic influences come from all over -- Europe, the United States, UK artists and even the Spanish artists that worked for the UK industry. We should -- should -- have our own individual style as writers to a degree, but as artists definitely our own styles.

I think it utter egotism and arrogance to say or write “I’m more a Sal Buscema type artist” or “Well, I like to think I draw more like Gene Colan”. I’ve had young artists say, “I’m going for a Dave Gibbons look to the art,” or a Finch style and I say, “NO! Draw in your own style & unless it is essential to the book you are working on, develop your own style!”

I would never, ever compare myself to another comics creator.

QRD – What do your friends and family think of your comics?

Terry – Well, my main supporters were my grandparents, who are long dead now but they used to encourage me to draw and -- to my utter embarrassment -- tell people how good I was. My parents are dead and what’s left of my family I never get feedback from about my comics.

I think artists or writers who have partners who support them and realise being a creative person you need to concentrate and be left alone a lot of the time and you’ll be very messy, miss meals, or leave them til they are cold -- and still want to live with them -- they are very lucky.

QRD – What do you think of superheroes?

Terry – Real life ones or in comics? I’ve met some of the “real life” UK superheroes and they are lovely, but I wouldn’t trust them to cross the road. Comic book super heroes I love. I’ve been collecting The Avengers andFantastic Four & Justice League & so on since the 1960s (no new Marvel or DC, though). So long as people remember that super heroes are not all comics are about, then no problem -- there are many great indie titles out there covering many genres. People need to realise that and support indie publishers.

QRD – Marvel or DC?

Terry – Up until about 2005 I was a Marvelite from age 6, so a lot of my life invested in Marvel comics and characters. I did read JLS -- loved the JLA/JSA team ups, read quite a lot of 1980s DC books. Over all it used to be Marvel.

QRD – What comic characters other than your own would you like to work with?

Terry – Only if the original characters not the rebooted & rebooted & rebooted ones… uh, I was going to say JSA since Avengers will never happen (like JSA would!). Hmm. I have to say a good few of the old US Golden Age characters -- not Timely or National. So much potential there. Or the more obscure Marvel characters like Wood God and so on.

QRD – Ideally would you self-publish?

Terry – I do.

QRD – What conventions do you try to attend and why?

Terry – Conventions in the UK tend to have the same old guests, exhibitors, & creators which is stale. I’d like to, one year, go over to Europe for a couple conventions -- maybe Erlangen in Germany. Not to forget the Netherlands. I would certainly love to go to a couple of small US comic conventions… but money!

QRD – How do you feel about doing work for anthologies?

Terry – Done that all my life. For other people, if I get paid I love them!

QRD – What do you do to promote your books?

Terry – Wow. YouTube videos, postings on Comic Bits Online (almost 2 million views so far and 2-3000 views a day to which you can add almost 2 million on Google+) and Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook -- I have Yahoo groups I post to and various blogs, so I do a lot!!

QRD – Do you think your comics are well suited to comic shops or would sell better elsewhere?

Terry – Comic shops are not interested. It doesn’t matter if there are super heroes, horror, or whatever. They are indie, black and white and NOT DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, or Image. Shops don’t care, so I no longer consider them.

QRD – What other medium would you like to see some of your comics made into (television, film, games, action figures, etc.)?

Terry – I wrote scripts for a couple of UK TV series but they never came to be as it was at the time how TV was run changed –de-regulization. I worked with an animator in South America on a project called The Paranormals, but I think that studio went bust. Not lucky, am I? I think an animated series where gradually a rotating cast of characters could be used. TV -- well, how many British or European live action shows are there? It’s very unlikely but a bit of fantasy now and then helps!

QRD – Do you consider yourself a comic collector or a comic reader or both?

Terry – I read comics & I try to find missing back issues and whereas I cannot afford issues 1-60 of Marvel’sThe Avengers, it doesn’t matter as the Masterworks editions fill in the gaps. It isn’t about value, bagging, boarding & boxing or even having comics graded.

I know people who have 4, 6, or even 10 (TEN!) copies of one comic; not because it is important, but because they want to get a better and better grade that gets graded, slabbed in plastic and hidden in a box somewhere. Until I was in my late 40s I had no permanent home, now I can sort things out & when I finish current projects I intend to sit back and read The Avengers from #1 up to the end of volume 1 -- 400… no, 502(?) comics.

When I slip this mortal coil, all the books will be sold off or dumped, so I enjoy reading them without the collectors mania -- I have the complete Silver Age Sub-Mariner series now & it’s lovely to read.

QRD – What do you see as the most viable mediums for comics distribution 10 years from now?

Terry – Well, hopefully, Diamond’s monopoly will be shattered. It tends to make the rules which are: “You WILL buy what makes US money!” It does not care for the small press or indie publishers. In the UK it has the monopoly as all other distributors have been forced out (monopolies are supposed to be illegal in Europe). Basically, most store owners do not either.

I think that, so long as postal services do not get any more expensive, comic buyers for indies & small press will do business online unless some distributor comes in and treats us fairly without robbing us -- and they can get stores to treat these books with respect. I would like to see that, but will it happen?

QRD – What would you like to see more people doing with comics?

Terry – Making more for youngsters, to get the next generation of comic readers in. Not Marvel or DC, but indie publishers need to be trying to do this, but most want to publish exactly what they want -- “Ain’t our business to bring in new kid readers!” But it is. In the UK there are far more small press events organised locally, but they tend to all be people who know people & friends -- almost little cliques. These could do a lot more to bring readers in; but, as I wrote, most small pressers have never read comics. At one event no one knew who Jack Kirby was. No one knew of Steve Ditko. John Byrne? No. Stan Lee…”Oh, that old guy fromThe Big Bang Theory!”

We need to get comics -- free comics -- to groups who help kids from poor families because a comic can provide hours of escapism, maybe even be a way out of poverty by encouraging these kids to create comics. Hold free comic open days (not Free Comic Book Day ) to encourage families to get into the medium. Comics could do so much for kids -- and adults -- but everything at the moment seems to be self, self, self and “let’s grab those dollars!”
That would make comics a very soul-less medium.

QRD – Anything else?

Terry – Yes. Please buy my books. Make me rich. Other than that, enjoy reading and making comics.

********************************************************************

*As the chapter I did out raged the, uh, "editor" because I wrote, pencilled and inked it (!) and it involved my Zero Heroes, it and another (rejected by the same person) are adapted and going into Black Tower Super Heroes -all inter-linked into The Green Skies and another story!

Update

2026-04-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, this page is still active and gets a lot of views. The big problem is that there are no comments or feedback and those are necessary for the blog to continue as I think I've exhausted looks at various aspects of the publisher.

If I am missing anything let me know!

The Amazing World of Alan Class

2025-07-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

A4
B&W
24pp
£7.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-amazing-world-of-alan-class/paperback/product-1rgkeq5p.html

Marvel, Timely, Atlas, Charlton, ACG, MLJ/Archie Dennis the Menace (US) -one man published them all. Alan Class. Who? Class is legendary for bringing black and white reprints of US comics to a country starved of the medium thanks to a certain war!

From 1959-1989 Suspense, Sinister, Astounding and Uncanny gave us a comic fix for a few pennies. Learn more about the man and how Class Comics came about in the long awaited print version of Terry Hooper's exclusive interview!

Blog Needs Updating?

2025-07-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

Blogger lost this page at one point but I got it back but it certainly needs updating so when I can I'll get down to that!

Why Not? Covers! Covers! Covers!

2025-03-07T08:58:00.000-08:00

Found an old CD with a lot of Class covers on it so I thought save them here as well.

Enjoy and pilfer as usual.

Black Tower Comics & Books

2023-07-17T10:19:00.002-07:00

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

MY Comics are MY Comics

2021-10-12T05:43:00.004-07:00

It seems that people are obsessed with MY comic collection.

Not sure why but someone just watched or read (it seemed a bit unclear which) something I had done about my Class collection in particular. Apparently "That makes it a key issue!" regarding the story in one edition of Suspense. No. Class Comics could be hit or miss when it came to printing quality as the intention was to get the comics printed off as cheaply as possible to make the biggest profit. I have two copies of one particular number and one is nice and crisp while the other is not so clear and has a tad of 'fading' (not actual fading but where the printer was low on ink.

A Class Comic cannot be seen as a "key issue" for the very simple reason that Alan never published original material and so everything was simply black and white reprints. I have seen reprintsm and in bad condition, Uncanny Tales 64 featuring the first appearance of the Vision going for £250 and later for £500. You can pick up good quality origanl Marvel Comics Avengers #57 in full colour for less than that -someone purchased a copy for £150 in the U. S. recently. This is not a rare or "key" issue and if I go by what comic pundits push I have a book worth around £500!  Yeah, gimme that and you can have the book!

The above issue of Creepy Worlds #68 was being sold for £650 as it was "key" and featured "an early appearance by Kang" -or Kang The Conqueror as we formally address him. It does not. I have the story in Marvel Collectors Item Classics as well as the Class version. Kang does not appear in the book and the seller obviously (accidentally or deliberately) mixed up Kang's Rama Tut incarnation mixed up with a "mad pharoah"!  Pay £650 if you want but try getting your money back when you find out the error -sadly, many buy these books and do not open up the bagged comic but keep them as "investments" 😂😂

Creepy Worlds #34 I saw listed a year ago as "a key issue" and it was not in good condition and had a smudgy cover -£1000.99 (that "99p" must have been added as a joke -comic vanished after four months but never sold on Ebay.

I do not put all of my comics in Mylar bags with acid free backing boards -if you can afford to do that then good luck to you. When I see and hear people hold up a comic sealed in its little Mylar tomb "I got this for $75/£75 and I think -character- appears in three panels but not sure what his connection is in the storyline" I utter certain rude words. "Not sure who the writer and artist are" -more rude words because they HAVE the book in hand but simply swapped it from one comic bag to a dearer one and never looked inside or read the book. The book is in front ofbthem and how do they check the contents and details? By fumbling for a few minutes for the Overstreet Price Guide!

This is, I know, controversial but I buy and read All my comics. I never use a price guide and I never give my own price estimate for a book because it is a waste of time. I value a title at £300 because it features a "yellow and black" costume Daredevil adventure. So someone is going to give me £300 without quibble? No. 

I have a full run of the Marvel UK Avengers weekly and, again, the printing quality varies and I knew the printer involved and the print price was low and the story from one U.S. full colour Avengers comic could be split up as a b&w 3-parter.  "First Dr Strange appearance!" says one seller but it's a b&w UK reprint of a comic strip published 20+ years before in the U.S.

The Avengers #5 Marvel Comics UK (1973) First UK appearance of Kang for £100 +p&p..never 
sold. Wonder why?

I buy comics to read and because I like the various art styles and designs and I do not look at it after an unboxing and say 
"Yeah. I'll say a good 8.9 so value probably around the £200 mark" -what crassness. My Class collection,
I just decided, is worth somewhere areound the £6000 / $6000 mark.  Now, give me that amount and you can have them 
(collect of course!).

The things that immediately make me stop watching a video on You Tube are "Comics predicteto rise in value this year" (because they never do unless it is the You Tuber using another name to
sell them on Ebay (they have been caught out at that game so many times) or "How I value my 
comics" -which is pointless because, as noted above, you can call your own price based on YOUR own criteria but
are they going to be bought at YOUR price by someone and when the grader states "I'll never sell them" what is the point?

My comics are My comics and when I die they will probably be burnt or dumped in a bin. Fact. So just ****** enjoy your comics and let me enjoy mine
and we'll live happier lives.

Still Here

2021-09-30T11:55:00.002-07:00

Hoopers Vlog 27 March, 2015: Alan Class Comics

2019-06-19T07:18:00.001-07:00

On Fandom And Little Cliques..and sharing!

2017-05-28T09:52:00.001-07:00

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.

February, 2005...38 members and the Class magazine I bought out...2 copies sold.

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?

Alan Class Interview 7th June 2015

2016-10-12T14:13:00.001-07:00

The Phantom & Mandrake At Class Comics

2016-04-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician are amongst the legends of comic characters. Whereas the Phantom was published for a long time as a title by Charlton Comics, King Comics and in the UK by Top Sellers -two colour comic albums and one(?) hardback annual- and in the 1990s, briefly, by Wolf Publishing his adventures are mainly known, again, through Class Comics.

Mandrake, on the other hand, has not, as far as I can remember, had a comic presence in the UK other than in Class Comics. I'm sure someone can correct me if I am wrong!

THE following is for those seeking Mandrake and/or Phantom stories published by Class. Info from the Phantom Deepwoods site at:~

http://www.deepwoods.org/alan_class.html

Issue	Price	Pages	Cover	Phantom Story	Reprint of
Creepy Worlds
86	1'-	68	Mandrake #3	The Magic Ivory Cage
87	1'-	68	Mandrake #4	The Girl Phantom
89	1'-	68	King #25	The Cold Fire Worshippers
94	1'-	68	King #23 Les Gray	Delilah
98	1'-	68	King #27	The Story of Hero
160	15p	68	Mandrake #4	The Girl Phantom	87
193	20p	50	Mandrake #4	The Girl Phantom	87
197	20p	48	Mandrake #3	The Magic Ivory Cage	86
231	25p	48	King #25	The Cold Fire Worshippers	89
234	30p	44	King #23	Delilah	94
Secrets of the Unknown
85	1'-	68	King #19	The Astronaut and the Pirates The Masked Emissary
86	1'-	68	King #20	The Adventures of the Girl Phantom The Invisible Demon
88	1'-	68	King #24	Riddle of the Witch (Girl Phantom)
237	30p	48	King #19	The Astronaut and the Pirates The Masked Emissary	237
244	30p	68	King #20	The Adventures of the Girl Phantom The Invisible Demon	86
Sinister Tales
69	1'-	68	Mandrake #1	SOS Phantom
71	1'-	68	King #22	The Secret of Magic Mountain
74	1'-	68	Mandrake #2	The Pirate Raiders
142	10p	50	Mandrake #2	The Pirate Raiders	74
173	20p	50	Mandrake #2	The Pirate Raiders	74
177	20p	50	Mandrake #1	SOS Phantom	69
Suspense
80	1'-	68	King #18	The Treasure of the Skull Cave
87	1'-	68	King #26	The Lost City of Yiango The Pearl Raiders
230	55p	100	King #26	The Lost City of Yiango The Pearl Raiders	87
234	55p	100	King #18	The Treasure of the Skull Cave	80
Uncanny Tales
181	55p	100	King #21	The Terror Tiger The Treasure of Bengali Bay

But now, of course, the cover gallery of some of those issues!

Enjoy.

Make Mine Marvel...uh, Class!

2016-04-20T10:55:00.001-07:00

According to the Marvel data base, which should know -right?

"Alan Class Publishing was a small British publishing company owned by Alan Class (obviously) which between 1959 and 1989 published approximately 1455 comics under 26 different titles, most of them squarebound anthologies reprinting material from numerous American publishers including Timely Comics, Atlas Comics (1950s), Charlton Comics, Red Circle, Fawcett, Archie, King Features, ACG and Marvel.

A huge amount of material by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and countless pre-Marvel short stories by Stan Lee were reprinted (some of them several times over in different books), notably in six long running core titles: Astounding Stories, Sinister Tales, Suspense, Creepy Worlds, Uncanny Tales and Secrets of the Unknown, but also in shorter lived titles including Blazing Trails, Journey into Danger, Secrets of the Underworld and the somewhat misleadingly titled Uncensored Love(!) None of the books were dated (a deliberate ploy to extend their shelf life), and unsolds were returned to Class only to be reissued a few months later, typically in the school holidays.

Most issues featured a more or less random selection of material, often including stories from several different publishers in one book (issues of Suspense, for instance, featuring both Spider-Man and Archie's Fly-Man) though short, one-off science fiction or horror stories tended to be the preferred fare, and where characters such as Nick Fury, Thor, the Jaguar or Captain Atom appeared, it was invariably in single stories, no storylines being continued from one issue to the next.

In 1963, Class bought the rights to the back catalogue of L. Miller & Son, publishers of Marvelman, but by the late sixties they had lost the rights to reprint material from most of the larger publishers (including Marvel) and were sued by King Features for reprinting their copyrighted material without permission.

Unlicensed reprints continued to appear however, including Marvel material, since the company was so small (and, of course, not based in the US) that they pretty much went unnoticed most of the time, eventually ceasing to trade in 1989 purely because Class could not compete with the rising number of specialist comic shops."

Now, if you've read my Alan Class interview you will note that this Marvel data base, shall we say "borrows"?, information that only came tolight in that interview. Since it is known Marvel (via Marvel UK) got heavy handed and after the rights were withdrawn, because Marvel was now publishing in the UK, there were no illegal reprints.

But Marvel is Marvel. Or, rather, Di$ney is Marvel so they can re-write any history.

And, we've discussed before how "fools and their money" are regularly tricked by Ebay dealers into buying "First Edition" Fantastic Four and "First Silver Age Iron Man appearance". Lies. Let me also point out that I have three UK comic titles in which both those stories feature. Spend your money on the Masterworks or if you really want a black and white version the Essentials books.

Now, I really should know but I only have a passing knowledge on the Timely/Atlas/Marvel monster books. So, please forgive me if I've added a monster reprint here that is not from that company. Ditko and Kirby worked for so many -especially Kirby- it gets hard trying to keep track.

The Avengers reprints ran up to, at least, as far as I am aware, around Avengers #77. Certainly you will find "The Coming Of The Vision" with that iconic cover -I have that one, too. These Class titles were great value for money because, unlike UK weeklies such as Pow!, Fantastic, Terrific and others where a single US issue could be split up into 3-4 parts, in a Class book you got the whole issue!

POW! was 7d and there were 12d to 1/- so two weekly issues was 1/- 2d and as you might have to get four issues that was 2/- 4d against Class' 1/- for the full story! And Fantastic and Terrific were 9d each so you work that out! Class won pennies down!

Your parents/'grand parents taking you on holiday or for a day at the beach saw the slim 7d comic and the 1/- thick comic and they knew, too, which would keep you occupied more!

These Class books were completely different than a weekly from Thomson or Fleetway. Talking to Fleetway/IPC management who were about at this time they all say that they "never got" why kids would bother with a "cheap reprint" over their titles. They had, of course, British heroes and even super heroes but the lack of understanding what kids wanted meant they treated Class and the comics as a passing fad or something to be ignored.

But Class outlasted them to an extent!

Look at these covers. Don't get me wrong because I know there were many great British comic covers, but look at these! I mean -Titano! And -WHAT??!- The Avengers fighting the X-Men! (this was back when the X-Men and Avengers meant something even to British kids).

Just look at the Astounding cover featuring the X-Men. This confused some of us who might not have known the X-Men had changed costume -though some of us lucky enough had caught their adventures in Fantastic so were in the know.

The Avengers. Time travel. This comic or Pow!......ooh. Let me think!!

If there is one reason why Marvel took off more in the UK it was because kids had a basic or good knowledge because of the Class Comics. I will not go into how I picked up Fantastic Four 1-5 and X-Men 1-7 from a junk shop in St. Werburgh's or what happened to them. I'm still in trauma 40 years later and not over what they would be worth.

As I've written before, the UK had no real comic shops so the local tobacconist-newsagent was the main source of any US comics if you could find them. Those and junk shops because somnewhere amongst the old crockery, three piece suites and paperbacks you knew there would be a tatty box with comics in. At 2d or 3d a time who was going to argue?

There are many other Marvel reprints the covers of which are not here -I have some of them but both my A4 and A3 scanners are not working. So apologies but maybe, one day, and up-date?

The Amazing World Of Alan Class

2016-04-16T13:50:00.003-07:00

Now those of you who have visited this site will know about the following paperback -a 24pp magazine looking at the work of Alan Class and my interview with him.

Hey -I set up the first Alan Class tribute website and yahoo group on the net (and people are still stealing info from it).

Sadly, despite all the "likes" and responses this has sold lousily. I think 2 copies since it was published. The interview is available in The Hooper Interviews book but that's sold like...well, let's just say not many people seem interested in interviews with comic creators!

Hopefully, later in 2016, I can get to work on expanding this magazine but I write "hopefully" because the big project I wanted to work on is...secret!

But if you are a Class fan this ought to interest you.

Paperback

B&W

24 pages

Price: £5.00

Ships in 3–5 business days

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hoopercomicsuk?searchTerms=The+Amazing+World+Of+Alan+Class

Marvel, Timely, Atlas, Charlton, ACG, MLJ/Archie Dennis the Menace (US) -one man published them all. Alan Class. Who? Class is legendary for bringing black and white reprints of US comics to a country starved of the medium thanks to a certain war! From 1959-1989 Suspence, Sinister, Astounding and Uncanny gave us a comic fix for a few pennies. Learn more about the man and how Class Comics came about in the long awaited print version of Terry Hooper's exclusive interview!

Hey, Hipsters -It's Like The MLJ Guys At Class! Groovy.

2016-04-16T04:49:00.008-07:00

These are just some of the Class Radio City/Archie reprints. Remember they are all in black and white and printing quality could be a bit hit-and-miss. One of the printers told me that "You had to print such-and-such a number of copies. Toward the end of the print run things might not be as pristine as when they started!"

But Class reprinted Fly-Man/Fly stories, The Jaguar, The Mighty Crusaders from issue #1 -in fact, all the MLJ heroes could be found in various Class titles.

What I like is that the actual comic covers used in the US were reproduced so if you knew anything about these Archie Comics you knew what you were getting.

It's fair to say that until the early 1970s I had not seen any of the Archie heroes -the reason Class Comics existed was because we never had comic shops and newsagents got whatever comics got to the UK, mainly as "bulk" so finding a Fly-Man comic in a shop would be a rarity and might -might- be one of a very few in your part of the country.

When I walked into the Bristol Book Centre on Gloucester Road, Bristol, run by a rather "eccentric" American lady and former opera singer (I never asked), there were a row of cardboard boxes on a table as you entered. I'd gone in mainly to try to find Fu Manchu, Doc Savage or other pulp books. When I saw what was in the boxes I forgot about them!

But up to that time I had not seen many of the Archie characters in colour and some were new to me. But, as with a lot of Marvel comics, these Class issues gave us Brit Kids a glimpse into a comics world we had never heard of. We had seen and read Superman, Batman, we had seen Spider-Man, The Avengers in Odhams comic titles but these...

I'm just sorry the cover scans are not great on some of these but once I get to trying to catalogue the collection I have I hope to get better scans as well as more on the contents.

And believe me, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to Class and Archie/MLJ hero reprints (Gerald Swan had reprinted Archie Andrews, Jughead et al in the 1940s/1950s).

So apologies for the meagre offerings but "one day"........

I actually forgot that Rick Offenberger at the Mighty Crusaders Network http://www.mightycrusaders.net/uk.htm gave this list of Class reprints of Archie MLJ hero comics:

Amazing Stories of

SUSPENSE

85 3 Fly stories with cover

86 1 Fly story, 1 Shield story

88 2 Fly stories with cover, and 1 Flygirl story

90 3 Jaguar stories with cover

90 1 Steel Sterling story with cover, and 1 Fox story

97 3 Fly & Flygirl stories

100 1 Jaguar story

105 1 Fly story with cover

217 1 Fly story

224 3 Jaguar stories with cover

235 1 Fly story, and 1 Shield story

Amazing Stories

SINISTER TALES

76 1 Fly story by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby

84 2 Fly stories, and 1 Flygirl story

89 1 Mighty Crusaders, 1 Fly, and 1 Jaguar story

91 1 Fly story, and 1 Jaguar story

93 1 Jaguar story

94 1 Fly-Man, 1 Black Hood, 1 Shield, and 1 Jaguar story

220 2 Jaguar stories with cover, and 1 Fly story

Amazing Tales

CREEPY WORLDS

100 2 Jaguar stories, and 1 Fly story

105 2 Fly story, 1 Flygirl story, and 1 Jaguar story

107 1 Fly story

109 2 Fly stories, and 2 Jaguar stories

113 1 Fly story, and 1 Web story

165 2 Fly stories with cover

169 1 Jaguar story

243 3 Jaguar stories, and 1 Fly story

Strange Suspense stories

ASTOUNDING STORIES

52 3 Fly stories with cover

55 1 Fly story, 1 Mr. Justice story, and 1 Black Hood story

60 1 Fly story

64 2 Fly stories with cover, 1 Flygirl, and 2 Jaguar stories

70 3 Jaguar stories with cover

71 3 Jaguar stories

94 2 Shield stories, and 1 Fly story

96 3 Fly stories with cover

115 3 Jaguar stories, and 1 Fly story

117 1 Jaguar story with cover

120 1 Fly

121 2 Jaguar stories with cover

122 1 Black Hood story, 1 Mr. Justice story, and 1 Fly story

124 3 Jaguar story with cover

125 1 Fly story

126 1 Shield, 1 Black Hood, and 1 Fly by Simon & Kirby

130 1 Fly story, and 1 Flygirl story

144 2 Jaguar stories with cover, 1 Fly story

146 1 Jaguar story

161 1 Fly story, and 1 Flygirl story

186 2 Black Hood stories

189 1 Fly story

Strange Suspense stories

UNCANNY TALES

95 1 Fly story by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby

121 1 Fly story by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby

123 2 Shadow stories with cover

126 1 Black Hood story with cover, and 1 Mighty Crusaders

155 1 Fly story

156 1 Mighty Crusaders story

Strange Tale of Suspense

SECRETS of the UNKNOWN

94 1 Shield and Web story with cover, and 2 Fly stories

98 1 Mighty Crusaders story

104 3 Jaguar stories with cover

106 1 Fly story, and 1 Jaguar story

111 1 Fly story with cover, 1 Shield story, and 1 Web story

230 1 Shadow story, and 1 Fly story

247 1 Mighty Crusaders story, and 1 Fly story

If you want to find out more about these characters I'd highly recommend the MCN!

Class Comic Scans

2016-04-11T02:55:00.002-07:00

Pete Wilson has been kind enough to add a few Class Comic scans to the Face Book page so you can see what it's all about!

THANKS Pete.

Sorting Through The Covers...

2016-04-03T06:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've been going through the cover scans which means I can tell which Class comic had Marvel or MLJ(Archie) super heroes in.

But although I can spot the odd character and story from the Timely/Atlas/Marvel eras I'm no expert -Ditko and Kirby worked for other companies so saying "That's Marvel!" because of a Kirby cover....no.

For that reason I am only going to concentrate on the super heroes, which most people seem interested in anyway.

So watch out for these post titles:

Hey, Hipsters -It's Like The MLJ Guys At Class! Groovy.

Make Mine Marvel...At Class!

Fandom ain't completely dead yet!

Face Book Page Now Up-Dated!

2016-04-01T12:09:00.001-07:00

There are now around 300 images uploaded to the Alan Class Face Book page which will act as a good back-up to the Yahoo Group and this blog.

Yes, you need to join the FB page but I can't allow a public one where anyone hops in and out as the last time I did that I had to close the page down because of trolls, spammers and worse trouble-makers. The page is for fans or interested people and avoiding negativity that's out there in UK comics.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1067682026607328/

Original Full Colour Comic -£5. Black And White Reprint -£20!

2016-04-01T05:35:00.001-07:00

Well, so much for a company that knows its comics: just under £10 on Ebay:

OUT OF THIS WORLD VOL:1 # 4 - VERY GOOD/FINE - ALAN CLASS

It says "T & P" which anyone with a knowledge of British comics will tell you stands for Thorpe & Porter, the Leicestershire based publisher and distributor.
Nothing to do with Alan Class

Now, this one had me laughing. It's a VERY dark image that always makes me suspicious because there is no reason for this today. £20 + £2 p&p. I'll get on to why I laughed in a few lines.

Look at the damaged spine. These books were printed for as little as possible so what an old fan will tell you is that the glue hardens and becomes crystalised over the years. No way of repairing that and here it looks like the book has not been properly stored because the spine should NOT be facing the viewer. Now look along the outside ege of the cover and those tears and cover curl make this book around £3.00 IF you wanted it.

So why did I laugh? Well I am a BIG fan of the 1960s Archie/MLJ super hero comics. And this is the cover of Mighty Crusaders #4 -my all time favourite and I have written about it on CBO:
http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/i-love-em-return-of-too-many-super.html

And THIS is how the cover should look -even on the Class b&w reprint:

Bright and colourful as it should be. And I purchased Fine to Near Mint copies of Mighty Crusaders 2-7 from the United States and with p&p at £23.00. I purchased a The Fly #2 for £1.50 in the UK. So, one tatty old, black and white reprint will cost as much as a set of the original full colour versions.

The other thing you have to watch out for are copies from the United States. They appear on Ebay UK for incredible amounts -£35, £45, £55 and even higher. To that you need to addpostage which is high.

Any old British comic is being sold off as "Vintage rare Alan Class 1960s" and I can only assume that if someone looks at the cover and sees "T&P" or "L. Miller & Co." and thinks "Alan Class!" they are about five Lego bricks short of building the Tower of London.

"1960s" is also used -when the cover price reads 50p. There are also claims of "1970s? Class Comic".

On 15th February,1971 -known as "Decimal Day"- the United Kingdom moved from Pounds, Shillings and Denarius. Or £ S(/-) and d (penny). So, as Alan Class never -never- dated his comics for reasons given in his interview. So, someone claims "This is a 1975 issue" -NO. Even those who say "It IS a 1972 comic because I bought it then!" -No. One newsagent told me that he had a batch of Class Comics in 1975 and took them off the rack, put them back on the rack, took them off and eventually sold the last one in 1980. THAT is how it worked.

The simplest way of telling how old Class Comics are is simple. Class Comics began as 68 pagers that contained a mix of comic stories from US companies but not in colour but reproduced in black and white with colour covers that were sold for 1/-. Now 1/- ceased to exist after February, 1971 and became 5 pence. So early 1971-1972 would be 5p but then came price increases -6p, 8p, 10p, 15p and toward the end 55p.

Any title carrying a "p" price is 1971 onward. Dealers should know this if they are from the UK but they craftily add that question mark so they can plead innocence: "Well, I did say '1960s?' because I wasn't sure"

Have a look at these prices:

So we go from 1971/72 at 6p, later 8p and then leap ahead to 25p and the final, 1980s 55p.

There are a LOT of copies of these books out there but you have to be aware that dealers see the chance of ripping you off then they will. Class Comic fans are a small group. We are almost...well, we ARE a "comics minority"!

People think this means the comics are going to be worth a small fortune but, no.

If you want to start collecting Class Comics do it because you like the look of them and what is in them. These comics should never ever cost 3-5 (or more) times what the original full colour comic costs. That is just idiotic.

Now, enough of this. I need to get my material together for a postings we'll enjoy!

When A Comic Has The Company Name On The Cover....

2016-04-01T03:59:00.001-07:00

I think I am winning the challenge of spot the most ridiculous prices on Ebay for a Class Comic.

From the United States

The Avengers #4 1965 1st Silver Age Captain America UK edition alan class RARE

£834.90
+ £10.62 postage

"Rare" is odd because "Nobby97" purchased a copy from a real dealer for £5.00 and two days later spotted another, better copy for £3.00.

Also, that damage around the edge of the cover might not look much but to a collector you've devalued the price. Also II: the cover is moldy or badly stained -look by Thor's head.

Going by this my German version of this story from the 1970s plus my Marvel Avengers Weekly with the story must be worth a few grand. Anyone -?

And can anyone spot the moron 1st Class mistake (or lie)?

A "Rare" Alan Class Comic. Okay...so WHY does it say blatantly on the cover "L. Miller & Co"???

And the seller wants £834.90 (almost $2000) and you have to pay postage!

Scum con-men.

I REALLY Hope That This Is A Gag That Someone Is Running...

2016-03-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

This one is almost comedic. It has been re-listed and re-listed over and over. I first saw it early last year. No one is buying.

Does the seller drop the price? No. They INCREASE it every time.

WHY will no one buy this comic for £30????

Well

£29.99
+ £1.55 P&P

Don't Forget the Face Book Page...

2016-03-30T10:42:00.001-07:00

Not much going on at the Alan Class Face Book page as there is still the problem that all the images are on the Yahoo group but Yahoo does NOT permit even group owners to download their own images!!!

So it'll take a while as I try to scan more stuff.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1067682026607328/

Marvel and Class or MLJ and Class....?

2016-03-28T14:36:00.002-07:00

Although I, obviously, have to base anything on my own copies, I had two thoughts for post subjects:

(1) Archie/MLJ comics reprinted in Class titles and
(2) Marvel comics reprinted in Class titles.

Now, as you'll know if you've ever checked out CBO, I love the old characters such as The Fly, the Black Hood et al. However, I was a Marvelite from an early age (about 6 or 7) -though no more. So, I may well have to toss a coin to see which goes first!

The Future!

2015-11-16T13:08:00.001-08:00

At the moment a few things ARE being planned but I try not to say too much "in case".

The Alan Class interview will be featured in Comic Bits the printed fanzine I am working on -it was featured in The Hooper Interviews but the fanzine should have colour pages but more on that later!

A Query -Can Anyone Help?

2015-11-02T11:49:00.004-08:00

"Can anyone can tell me which Class title and issue (pre-decimal 1/-) had my two favourite stories ? The Dreamer, about a terminally ill man visited by aliens who cure him so that he can be a peace ambassador, and a Mysterious Traveler story where he rescues Laika the first dog in space, saying, "Sometimes I am forced to intervene"."