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Friday, 7 February 2025
Sunday, 26 January 2025
Black Tower Gold - British Golden Age Comics Collected Into Single Volumes plus!
Going by what people are asking now IF you can find the comics reprinted in these collections, just the comics in the first volume would cost you around £200/.$210. The complete collection -for which in a number of instances there are absolutely no copies being sold- would cost you around £500+
Which means you get some rare gems to see for more than cut price!
For the first time in 60 years some of the lost gems of the British Golden Age of Comics are reprinted!
A4
Paperback
B&W
68 pp
The second collection of British 1940s comic strips featuring Maxwell The Mighty, Slicksure, Iron Boy,Alfie, Ace Hart and more.
A4
Paperback
B&W
68 pages
This is the third volume in Black Tower Comics’ collection of Golden Age British comic strips that have not seen print for 50-60 years!
A4
Paperback
B&W
86 pages
The fourth volume of this series features some great finds of the lost era of British comics:
William McCail’s 1940 classic is reprinted for the first time in 80 years.
A4
Paperback
B&W
35 pages
Yes! Now at issue 6 and bringing you more lost strips of the British Golden Age of Comics.There's a collection of strips featuring non other than TNT Tom and one of the weirdest UKGA characters -the Iron Boy.
Ever heard of Ingy Roob? Or his pet "Stretchy"? You will have if you read this issue.How about Dennis M. Readers Cat Girl?
Two other UK comics are reprinted in full, both from 1946 and the only issues ever published:Lucky Dice and The Fudge.
Black Tower -keeping UK comics history alive!
A4
Paperback
B&W
405 pages
Features....
and MANY others!
Plus text features defining The Ages OF British Comics (Platignum, Gold, Silver), the artist William A. Ward and more.
If you knew nothing about British comics of the Platinum, Golden and Silver Ages then once you buy and read this book you'll be a goddam comic intellectual dinosaur! Yipes!
All in that beautiful Iron Warrior cover exclusively drawn for Black Tower by that meta-gargantuoso talented Ben R. Dilworth!
I sold my family to be able to get this book out! Help me buy them back by purchasing your very own
whizz-o copy today!
William Harry Archibald Chasemore
William Harry Archibald Chasemore, (1844-1905) who signed his work with a simple A.C., was a self-taught cartoonist born in Fulham, London in 1844.
He was the pre-eminent cartoonist on Judy through its long run and his distinctive work appeared in boys’ story papers and comic papers until just past the turn of the century.
Much of his earliest work consisted of cartoons for puzzle pages done in partnership with Charles Henry Ross.
Tom Browne
Tom Browne - The man who established the British comic style for the
next 50 years, was born in
His first work appeared in James Henderson's Scraps when he was
18 years old (1888) and was entitled He Knew How To Do It. He was paid
30 shillings (£1.50) for it which equated to six months wages for one nights
work! As soon as his apprenticeship was done, Tom moved down to Blackheath in
Tom modelled his work on Phil May who simplified his sketching to its bare
essentials. He would strip away all the overloaded cross-hatching that was so
beloved by the Victorian periodicals such as Punch, and produce just clear
lines. This was perfect for the cut-priced publications with their low-quality
newsprint paper, ill-etched blocks and cheap, near grey, ink.
All of Tom's early work were one-off sequences, but gradually the idea of
series characters crept in. His first was Squashington Flats in Comic
Cuts (1895), followed by the double-act that made his name and fame, Weary
Willie and Tired Tim (1896).
These World Famous Tramps shot the circulation of Illustrated Chips
up to 600,000 copies a week and Tom became very much, a man in demand. He created
a pair of cyclists in the guise of Airy Alf and Bouncing Billy for The
Big Budget (1897) and drew the front cover of Dan Leno's Comic Journal.
For six months Tom drew five front pages of six panels each, every week. It
earned him £150 pound a week but it seriously exhausted him and by 1900 Tom
left comics to do other things.
He did paintings, posters and he was responsible for many of the famous
Bamforths saucy seaside postcards from the early Edwardian age. He was also a
very keen cyclist, as were many people from the late Victorian age, and he made
several bicycle trips around the world where his drawn adventures appeared in
newspapers, including the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1906. This hobby was most
probably the reason while Airy Alf and Bouncing Billy were always seen
on this mode of transport in their early adventures.
Sadly, in 1910, Browne
underwent an internal operation and tragically died soon afterwards at the early
age of just 39.
A brief overview of his work is given here:-
Comic Cuts - Squashington Flats (1895), Billy Buster The Steam Engine
(1896), Don Quixote de Tintogs (1898)
Illustrated Chips - Weary Willie & Tired Tim (1896), The Rajah
(1897), Little Willy And Tiny Tim (1898)
Big Budget - Airy Alf & Bouncing Billy(1897), Wackington
School(1897)
Comic Home Journal - Lanky Larry & Bloated Bill (1897)
Dan Leno's Comic Journal - Dan Leno (1898)
Halfpenny Comic - Mr Stanley Deadstone & Co. (1898)
Funny Wonder - Plumduff Island (1899)