Follow up from my previous post "Apologies"

I was off work on Tuesday morning as I had to take my son for his Flu Immunisation.  That's when I posted my last two blogs - Apologies and M.A.S.K. Comic UK Issue 17.

Not long after I posted these blogs, I noticed an add on a Buy/Sell page on Facebook - someone was selling a Laptop - cheap.  They mentioned that the built-in Wifi wasn't working and that it was running Windows 8.

I viewed that night and bought it for £40.

After a little bit of playing with it - I managed to get the Wifi working.  I knew from experience of my old defunct laptop that there is normally a "Soft" on switch in addition to the physical "Hard" switch! Clearly the seller wasn't too clued up on Laptops to realise this!

I was a bit dubious about Windows 8 being on it when I bought and - and this was well founded as appears to be an unregistered copy.  Although, having a shot of this copy of Windows 8, I'm glad I'm not keeping it - not as user friendly as previous versions of Windows.

I'm well used to XP and our work computers have just been replaced with Windows 7 which I really like - Windows 8, however, unless you have a touchscreen device, is hopeless!

There is a product key for Windows Vista on the laptop so I'm hoping to get this reinstalled on the machine but until then, I've installed Ubuntu - a free Linux operating system.  Haven't quite figured everything out with it yet, but so far I'm impressed with it.

This should allow me to resume my normal blogs - as long as I have the time!  With Christmas coming up it's always a busy time of the year and family is far more important!

Now for a few updates on M.A.S.K.

Trademarks still seem to be an issue in the world of M.A.S.K. just now.  Hasbro and made some inroads into acquiring "M.A.S.K. - Mobile Armored Strike Kommand" and an updated version of the M.A.S.K. Logo.

However, there has been a recent application from a third party to Trademark "V.E.N.O.M. - Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem".  

 The Application has been made by "wetta frederic".  After a bit of research on the Internet, I found that this seems to be some kind of French Comic Book Company.

I'm not sure how this will work out - I have contacted Hasbro to let them know, so I'm not sure if there is anything they can do to stop this.  I also don't know how this will affect my site or the many other M.A.S.K. fan sites that mention V.E.N.O.M. and Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem as we could be seen as being in breach of Trademarks by mentioning these terms.

This would also be problematic for a return of M.A.S.K. if Hasbro own one Trademark and a third party owns the other.  All the meanwhile, I know how Hasbro can obtain all of the M.A.S.K. trademarks back.

I have offered this information to them so I'll need to wait and see.

With this in mind, I'm still looking for help with my bring back M.A.S.K. campaign.  I made a post on the M.A.S.K. Comics Facebook Page a while back that garnered a lot of likes but not very many shares.

I'm keen for all the readers of my blog and Facebook Page to get behind this campaign as a sign of solidarity and support so that Hasbro or any other company who may have rights to M.A.S.K. will make an effort to bring it back.

So, if you haven't already, please go to Bring Back M.A.S.K. Campaign and share your support with our Facebook campaign and let us show Hasbro that we really mean it!  Share it with as many people as you can and make comments to keep this campaign alive and remember to hashtag everything with #assembleMASK #Hasbro

Jason and Wyatt over at the M.A.S.K. Movie site and Erik from Boulder Hill have joined forces once again to bring you scans of the US M.A.S.K. Comic Mini-series.   There are also some reviews with a read-a-long podcast still to come!

After I was approached by someone looking to turn my script into an audiobook - myself and Darren Gregson came up with some ideas for a new M.A.S.K. line - however, with all of the Trademark issues going on surrounding M.A.S.K. not sure how that would work.

Anyway, I hope that you will all hear from me soon now that I have my replacement laptop up and running and is more reliable and quicker than my last one!