#132: S181 The Trick Stealer From 6 Feb 2000 to 28 May 2000

I am so bored with all the discussions going on regarding stealing links, copyright issues, fights getting personal and so on. If I hear from KFS I will ask them to please provide me a copy of all the stories published and only then I will shut this blog if they persist as these stories are not available for me to read even in libraries. Speaking of Libraries I will have another post about this later. This story was provided to me by Magnus, many thanks to him for scanning and making them available. He has promised me more later.
Enjoy the story. I liked this story.
Thanks to Imageshack so that we can read online. No need for download links, hahahahahaha so much for the PM blog.













Where Is the Download Link ????
It is up to you now.....hahahahahaha What do you think PM/Manish/Anyone and what are you going to do now?????? LMAO

Have a burning question inside me, Can you help?

Thought of putting this question as a comment. Decided to make it a post, as many people may not wish to see or read comments (such as the Invisible Thief/PM/MANISH SRIVASTAV??(don't know him/her/it)/anybody else.

I am about to begin a post thanking the Invisible Thief (he/she/it). I hope people are not going to be angry at me. I do not want any curse on me please.

Thanks to PM/MANISH SRIVASTAV/Anybody (he/she/it) for exposing our vulnerability that is the willingness to share our comic treasures freely which we all love and we do that by spending our time and resources. None of us are compensated for what we do. It can also be a thankless job if people don't take a couple of minutes to comment when it takes a couple of hours to scan and post it. Why are we doing it? I don't like what I am about to say, I am thinking we should all stop sharing our treasure (ease of providing download links) to the rest of the world.
Guess what, eventually somebody will sell these scans in some format or another and it may already be happening. I am beginning to understand the value of private comic sharing clubs now.Some folks pay money for providing an FTP server and owner of the group provides access to the team. The server costs are shared by all for a nominal annual fee.

Why not create such a team? The only problem is who takes the initiative and how commited can that team be? The last one I joined did not have many Mandrake fans and they had no material to scan. The group was primarily devoted to Phantom & other characters. I will not name the group publicly but you know who. The owner is one of the greatest Phans I have come across and I will always remember his efforts.

Luckily Indrajal comic fans are plenty and have the material for scanning. Now that Indrajal comics are almost done, where do I find a team having interest in Mandrake scans?
At least, I have a few books and good contributors. That was the reason I started this blog to get Mandrake Fans come together and build the library with time. I did not expect thieving minds to take away the download links and post them elsewhere (without my consent)

Sure, scanning a comic can be considered plagiarism if and only if I am using the story as a template to create a new version or any story using those characters and if I sell that story and make some money without giving any to King Features. I do not think we are falling into that category. I hope somebody who knows more can enlighten us.

In that aspect, the blog from now on will need to just talk about the comic or the story and all sharing has to be off limits to such blogs that the Invisible Thief or people like him wants to gain from us. Let me know if this will be the right approach. I am sorry for the genuine comic fan but there are other ways.

My question to the Invisible Thief is he/she/it created the blog for people who come to just download and later may sell it he/she/it is making it even more easier, WHY?
Unless he/she/it is one among them.

The Good The Bad and The Ugly by Ennio Morricone

Many of you have read what has been happening. It does not mean the end of this blog.
People like PM has shown his true colors. Isn't it? It does not matter to me. The aim of this project has not changed. I have different ways of tackling the links issue. While myself and other friends are working out the logistics, this is a good break time for me to consolidate my contributors scans and organize them.

There is a saying in Kannada (Nayi boghaladare, deva loka hallayatha?) means some dog barks, is the heaven affected? You are what you are, PM.

Also, it brings me to share some music that I happened to find on my hard drives. The movie is one of my favorites and although I have seen it 20 times it is forever refreshing.
Now let's see if he wants to post these links as well.... (I could care much less for his blogging)

Better yet I have a great project for him if he is interested. Why not go to each and every comic blog or site in the world and compile a universal comics listing and compile a global comics list that includes the language, the scans if available and where available, the resolution quality, location of the physical comic, who the publisher is, when it was published, and much more information and you get the idea. If you don't email me. Have this all loaded in a searchable database that every comic fan (an avid reader like you) would love to access and read. This can give you a life besides going after compiling download links from a few blogs. What do you say, avid reader, I hope you understand what I am saying that is GET A LIFE AND USE SOME COMMON SENSE TO COME UP WITH YOUR OWN IDEA FOR BLOGGING.

The Good part is we are all united against PM the link stealer. The Bad part is PM and his cheap concept of stealing links from existing blogs, the UGLY part is all other fans are affected by his actions. At least thanks for the warning, because forewarned is forearmed. Remember that quote from Indrajal comics? He is like the Trick Stealer the Sunday Mandrake story which I enjoyed, will provide later on.

I am ready for the weekend I hope everyone will have some peace and quiet.
Time to enjoy some music that I love and would like to share.

Ennio Morricone - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly - Expanded
01 - Il Buono, Il Cattivo, Il Brutto (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly) (Main Title)
02 - Il Tramonto (The Sundown)
03 - Sentenza
04 - Fuga A Cavallo
05 - Il Ponte Di Corde
06 - Il Forte (The Strong)
07 - Inseguimento
08 - Il Deserto (The Desert)
09 - La Carrozza Dei Fantasmi (The Carriage Of The Spirits)
10 - La Missione San Antonio
11 - Padre Ramirez
12 - Marcetta (Marcia)
13 - La Storia De Un Soldato (The Story Of A Soldier)
14 - Il Treno Militare
15 - Fine Di Una Spia
16 - Il Bandito Monco
17 - Due Contro Cinque
18 - Marcetta Senza Speranza (Marcia Without Hope)
19 - Morte Di Un Soldato (The Death Of A Soldier)
20 - L'estasi Dell'oro (The Ecstasy Of Gold)
21 - Il Triello [The Trio) (Main Title)

No More Download Links...Sorry Readers I hope you will agree with what I am about to do

It is been painful to hear that an Invisible Thief has been lurking from the past couple of days maybe a few months went into his planning on how to steal from comic blogs and eventually kill them. If you read my last post did I not give you a hint that I will reveal it later. So here comes the Invisible Thief AKA Peeyoush Mishra who has had plenty of comments for his "great work" of stealing download links and putting them in his blog for which a great deal of effort goes in. He may be reading it and playing aloof. I would like to let him know a little history first. This effort of providing comics online is not done with any compensation of any kind, it is done purely out of love for reading the comics we all grew up with.
It used to be so hard to afford a comic given that pocket money/allowance which we got was in limited quantity and was never enough to buy as many as we could. Eventually, we would borrow/exchange from friends and build our collection of comics.
I remember at one time I had about 200 comics mostly Phantom & Mandrake, but in the process of moving houses, changing schools, my collection vanished and now have a few left. I got hooked on to reading online comics with the one and only blog that offered it, you guessed it, The Comic Project, it was so much fun trying to be the first one to comment and a healthy discussion of current events, comic storyline, sports, etc. I came across Misraji ("The Pioneer Ajay Mishra") in reading his scans and wanted to get in touch with him someday. Eventually we crossed our paths and I am forever greatful for all his efforts in making them available to people like me who had no Indrajals while in the US. Then came the ICC blog which was a daily ritual to visit during lunch time to get more of Indrajals. At that point I saw there was no site dedicated for Mandrake Comic strips and hence started this project. I have been very lucky to come across several contributors and friends with similiar interests and it has taken a long time to build a community that is actively involved in pursuit of acquiring as many dailies and sundays we can find. Mandrake comic strips have not been as popular and readily available as compared to the Phantom because of the fan base and more publishers willing to publish those strips.
I then started hunting what I could find and even started buying on EBay, again was lucky to get a considerable set of books, some of which I have scanned and posted. In the process of building this fan community I came across a few contributors who came forward to provide me scans for this project, whom I would not have come across if this blog did not exist. The end result is we have all been enjoying reading various sundays & dailies stories & Indrajals. I have also gotten in contact with new friends who have a similar liking. It's been an enjoyable ride until now.

Now comes Invisible Thief AKA Peeyoush Mishra who intends to put only the download links of any comics he finds from the different blogs hosting Indrajal comics and strips into his blog attempting to create a mirror because he is too lazy to go to each blog and read about a comic or strip and then download it from that blog. To me, it means he does not value the efforts taken by the owner of the comic or strip to scan each page, perform some cleanup to make it more readable/enjoyable, upload files and finally provide a download link. It is like taking the icing out of the cake. I have emailed him and left comments on his "blog" and have no respnses.

So, to conclude, am not going to provide any download links on the blog as it does not justify the time and true efforts of the contributors and myself from now on. I can be reached by email you all know and is listed on the blog. Please contact me and I will provide you depending on whether I can trust you to not deliver the link to the Invisible Thief. I knew this would happen sooner or later as there are these folks who just want to download the strip and move on without any consideration to thank and appreciate the efforts taken by the scanner and the blogger.

Mandrake The Magician: #131: Indrajal Comic Vol 22 No 29 The Invisible Thief

Mandrake The Magician: #131: Indrajal Comic Vol 22 No 29 The Invisible Thief

#131: Indrajal Comic Vol 22 No 29 The Invisible Thief

Presenting another marvellous set of high quality scans from Ajay Mishra, this time the invisible thief. Never know when you may encounter him, matter of fact he may be hiding behind you....
Will reveal who it may be later. For now, enjoy the comic. Many thanks to Ajay Mishra for his relentless effort to scan all Indrajals and move on to other projects. I had always hoped I would someday see high quality scans of this comic.










Download V22N29-1985-Mandrake-The Invisible Thief