Back Issue #100 by TwoMorrows Publishing

100-Page 100th Issue featuring Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom!

r 2017

0 0 1 . o N $9.95

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Alan Light Remembers The Buyer’s Guide • Bob Rozakis’ DC Comicmobile Memories Robert Overstreet Interview • Behind the Scenes of 100 Issues of BI! 1

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Plus: histories of Super DC Con ’76 • The Comic Reader • FOOM Amazing World of DC Comics • Charlton Bullseye • Squa Tront Tront & more!

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

Go to www.twomorrows.com for other issues, and an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with all the issues at HALF-PRICE!

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“Comics Magazines of the ’70s and ’80s!” From Savage Tales to Epic Illustrated, KIRBY’s “Speak-Out Series,” EISNER’s Spirit magazine, Unpublished PAUL GULACY, MICHAEL USLAN on the Shadow magazine you didn’t see, plus B&Ws from Atlas/Seaboard, Charlton, Skywald, and Warren. Featuring work by NEAL ADAMS, JOHN BOLTON, ARCHIE GOODWIN, DOUG MOENCH, EARL NOREM, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover by GRAY MORROW!

“Bronze Age Adaptations!” The Shadow, Korak: Son of Tarzan, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Hole, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Worlds Unknown, and Marvel’s 1980s movie adaptations. Plus: PAUL KUPPERBERG surveys prose adaptations of comics! With work by JACK KIRBY, DENNY O’NEIL, FRANK ROBBINS, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, FRANK THORNE, MICHAEL USLAN, and sporting an alternate Kaluta cover produced for DC’s Shadow series!

“Eighties Ladies!” MILLER & SIENKIEWICZ’s Elektra: Assassin, Dazzler, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Lady Quark, DAN MISHKIN’s Wonder Woman, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS and ADAM KUBERT’s Jezebel Jade, Somerset Holmes, and a look back at Marvel’s Dakota North! Featuring the work of BRUCE JONES, JOHN ROMITA JR., ROGER STERN, and many more, plus a previously unpublished cover by SIENKIEWICZ.

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BACK ISSUE #93

BACK ISSUE #94

BACK ISSUE #95

“All-Jerks Issue!” Guy Gardner, Namor in the Bronze Age, J. Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson, DC’s Biggest Blowhards, the Heckler, Obnoxio the Clown, and Archie’s “pal” Reggie Mantle! Featuring the work of (non-jerks) RICH BUCKLER, KURT BUSIEK, JOHN BYRNE, STEVE ENGLEHART, KEITH GIFFEN, ALAN KUPPERBERG, and many more. Cover-featuring KEVIN MAGUIRE’s iconic Batman/Guy Gardner “One Punch”!

“Bronze Age Halloween!” The Swamp Thing revival of 1982, Swamp Thing in Hollywood, Phantom Stranger team-ups, KUPPERBERG & MIGNOLA’s Phantom Stranger miniseries, DC’s The Witching Hour, the Living Mummy, and an index of Marvel’s 1970s’ horror anthologies! Featuring the work of RICH BUCKLER, ANDY MANGELS, VAL MAYERIK, MARTIN PASKO, MICHAEL USLAN, TOM YEATES, and many more. Cover by YEATES.

“All-Captains Issue!” Bronze Age histories of Shazam! (Captain Marvel) and Captain MarVell, Captain Carrot, Captain Storm and the Losers, Captain Universe, and Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. Featuring C. C. BECK, PAT BRODERICK, JACK KIRBY, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, DON NEWTON, BOB OKSNER, SCOTT SHAW!, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, and more. Cover painting by DAVE COCKRUM!

“Indie Super-Heroes!” NEAL ADAMS Ms. Mystic interview, Continuity Comics, BILL BLACK Captain Paragon interview, Justice Machine history, STEVEN GRANT/NORM BREYFOGLE Whisper “Pro2Pro” interview, and the ’80s revivals of Mighty Crusaders and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Featuring BUCKLER, DEODATO, ELLIS, GRINDBERG, GUSTOVICH, ISABELLA, REINHOLD, ORDWAY, PÉREZ, and more. Cover by NEAL ADAMS!

“Creatures of the Night!” Moon Knight’s DOUG MOENCH and BILL SIENKIEWICZ in a Pro2Pro interview, Ghost Rider, Night Nurse, Eclipso in the Bronze Age, I…Vampire, interviews with Batman writer MIKE W. BARR and Marvel’s Nightcat, JACQUELINE TAVAREZ. Featuring work by BOB BUDIANSKY, J. M. DeMATTEIS, DAVE SIMONS, ROGER STERN, TOM SUTTON, JEAN THOMAS, and more. SIENKIEWICZ and KLAUS JANSON cover!

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“Marvel Fanfare Issue!” Behind the scenes of the ‘80s anthology series with AL MILGROM, interviews and art by ARTHUR ADAMS, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, STEVE ENGLEHART, MICHAEL GOLDEN, ROGER McKENZIE, FRANK MILLER, DOUG MOENCH, ANN NOCENTI, GEORGE PÉREZ, MARSHALL ROGERS, PAUL SMITH, KEN STEACY, CHARLES VESS, and more! Cover by SANDY PLUNKETT and GLENN WHITMORE.

“Bird People!” Hawkman in the Bronze Age, JIM STARLIN’s Superman/Hawkgirl team-up, TIM TRUMAN’s Hawkworld, Hawk and Dove, Penguin history, Blue Falcon & Dynomutt, Condorman, and CHUCK DIXON and SCOTT McDANIEL’s Nightwing. With GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, GREG GULER, RICHARD HOWELL, TONY ISABELLA, KARL KESEL, ROB LIEFELD, DENNY O’NEIL, and others! Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ.

“DC in the ‘80s!” From the experimental to the fan faves: Behind-the-scenes looks at SECRET ORIGINS, ACTION COMICS WEEKLY, DC CHALLENGE, THRILLER, ELECTRIC WARRIOR, and SUN DEVILS. Featuring JIM BAIKIE, MARK EVANIER, DAN JURGENS, DOUG MOENCH, MARTIN PASKO, TREVOR VON EEDEN, and others! Featuring a mind-numbing Nightwing cover by ROMEO TANGHAL!

“BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES’ 25th ANNIVERSARY!” Looks back at the influential cartoon series. Plus: episode guide, Harley Quinn history, DC’s Batman Adventures and Animated Universe comic books, and tribute to artist MIKE PAROBECK. Featuring KEVIN ALTIERI, RICK BURCHETT, PAUL DINI, GERARD JONES, MARTIN PASKO, DAN RIBA, TY TEMPLETON, BRUCE TIMM, and others! BRUCE TIMM cover!

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Volume 1, Number 100 October 2017 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Bob Layton Robert Barrett Paul Levitz Jerry Boyd Alan Light Gary Brown Marvel Comics Bob Budiansky Luigi Novi John Clark Robert Overstreet DC Comics Bob Rozakis Jim DeLorenzo Jerry Sinkovec Sean Dulaney Doug Smith Scott Edelman Maggie Thompson Jim Engel Mike Tiefenbacher Mark Evanier J.C. Vaughn Stephan Friedt John Wells Gemstone Publishing, Inc. Jay Williams John Workman Grand Comics Database Robert Greenberger Chris Guffy Jack C. Harris P.C. Hamerlinck Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Heritage Comics Auctions Roger Hill Tony Isabella David Anthony Kraft Paul Kupperberg

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BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 FLASHBACK: The Birth of the Comic-Book News-zines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 John Wells chronicles the development of The Comic Reader and other early fanzines FLASHBACK: Squa Tront . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 A look at the best of EC fanzines INTERVIEW: Robert Overstreet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 Revealed: the semi-secret origins of The Comic Book Price Guide… plus a Don Newton salute OFF MY CHEST: The History of The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 Fanzine pioneer Alan Light shares his experiences in publishing FLASHBACK: The FCA Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 Shazam! The long-running Fawcett Collectors of America zine FLASHBACK: FOOM: Friends of Ol’ Marvel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 An overview and oral history of Mighty Marvel’s fanzine OFF MY CHEST: My DC Comicmobile Memories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Guest columnist Bob Rozakis drives us through his summer of hawking comics FLASHBACK: The Amazing World of DC Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Former Junior Woodchucks reunite for an issue-by-issue examination of DC’s “prozine” BACKSTAGE PASS: Super DC Con ’76: We Were There . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Anecdotes and photographs of DC’s Bicentennial-year celebration of fandom and Superman FLASHBACK: The CPL Gang and Charlton Bullseye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 Bob Layton fills us in on the Bronze Age’s Charlton portfolios and fanzines PRINCE STREET NEWS: Bronze Baby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 It wouldn’t be a celebration without a Karl Heitmueller, Jr. cartoon! INTERVIEW: BACK ISSUE’s editor, Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Bob Greenberger chats with your friendly neighborhood Euryman about BI and his editing and writing career BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 Reader reactions BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Eight-issue subscriptions: $73 Standard US, $116 International, $31 Digital. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2017 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing except Prince Street News, TM & © Karl Heitmueller, Jr. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 1

richard j. fowlks by M

michael kronenberg

glenn whitmore

ichael Eury

Welcome to BACK ISSUE #100. I’m thrilled to have reached this milestone. Some magazines about comics have come and gone during the past 14 years we’ve been in print, and with reboots and cancellations, there aren’t many current comic books with triple-digit issue numbers. But BI is still going strong. Largely, that’s thanks to you, our readers. You appreciate our diverse, occasionally quirky mix of nostalgia and oral histories and our blend of articles, from the breezy look back to the in-depth examination. Some of you have been here since #1, others have joined us along the way, and others come and go depending upon an issue’s theme, but however often you join us, we’re thankful for your support. Our capable writers are also responsible for our longevity. We count DC diehards, Marvel zombies, indie experts, toy geeks, and art collectors among our talent pool. Their knowledge of and enthusiasm for comic books and comic media of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s has kept this magazine fresh. My sincere gratitude goes out to everyone who has contributed to BACK ISSUE since our November 2003 launch. Another factor in our success is the creative community. We routinely contact comics and animation writers, artists, and editors, as well as celebrities who have played or voiced comics characters, and ask them questions about work they produced decades ago. In most cases these great friends of BACK ISSUE step up and are willing to dust off their memories (and files) to participate in our features. Thank you not only for making comics history, but for helping us chronicle it. Lastly, the BI editorial team is responsible for this publication’s quality. While their efforts largely go unheralded outside of a masthead acknowledgment, I’d like to take a moment to introduce to you the fabulous folks, freelancers all, who work with ye ed (also a freelancer) in putting together this magazine. BI’s designer, Richard J. Fowlks, was bitten by a radioactive keyboard and mouse, granting him the proportionate speed and strength of a graphic designer, and giving him incredible reflexes to meet deadlines in a single bound. In his mild-mannered alter ego he is a photo retoucher, husband, and father. Check out every episode of his action-packed adventures at rjf-ImageDesign.com. Cover designer Michael Kronenberg is a graphic designer/artist whose clients include the Film Noir Foundation, Marvel Comics, TwoMorrows Publishing, and Gemstone Publishing, among others. His awardwinning designs are in magazines and books about movies, comics, music, and sports. His fine art is in numerous public and private collections. Along with Michael Eury, Kronenberg wrote the Batman historical book The Batcave Companion. Frequent cover colorist Glenn Whitmore is a 30-year veteran of the comics industry, adding his hues both manually and digitally to projects for varied publishers like DC, Archie, Dark Horse, Spongebob, Captain Action, Sitcomics, and, of course, TwoMorrows. Glenn colored every regular issue of Superman between 1988 and 1999 and has the distinction of being the colorist on The Death of Superman, The Death of Archie, The Wedding of Superman, and The Wedding of Archie. He is also the self-publisher his own project called Captain Clockwork.

rob smentek

By day, BACK ISSUE’s proofreader, Rob Smentek, is a mild-mannered editorial professional, but by night, he roams the streets as Grammar Man, removing extraneous apostrophes and fixing typos with his magical red pen. Rob’s been with the BI family since issue #46 and also works on Comic Book Creator, Alter Ego, and other TwoMorrows projects. I’d also like to give a shout-out to John Trumbull, a frequent BI contributing writer as well as a cartoonist and standup comedian, for his diligence in monitoring BI’s always-buzzing Facebook group as its co-administrator (with yours truly… although John does the heavy lifting). John’s put out more fires than Smokey the Bear and helps BI’s Facebook page maintain the positive tone of this magazine.

john trumbull

Our earlier members of the BI team—Robert Clark, David Hamilton, and Tom Ziuko—may no longer be a part of the magazine, but have contributed to our success. And lastly, a BIG thank-you to TwoMorrows publisher John Morrow for bringing me on board to edit this magazine. What a fun and rewarding job this is. Here’s to another 100 issues (at least)!

2 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom

by J o h n

Wells

Fanzine Centennial The Comic Reader, and its 100th issue (Aug.–Sept. 1973). Front and back cover art by Jack Kirby, whose 100th birthday we also celebrate this year. Unless otherwise noted, images accompanying this article are courtesy of John Wells. TCR © Street Enterprises. Superman, Shazam!/Captain Marvel, and Batman TM & © DC Comics. Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

In a world flooded with details on forthcoming comic books and where even the mainstream press routinely spoil upcoming plot developments, it’s hard to imagine there was ever a time when such a thing wasn’t just uncommon, but nonexistent. Like so many things in fandom, the roots of the phenomenon can be traced to the legendary Jerry Bails.

#8 (Mar. 1962) and “the official newsletter of the Academy of ComicBook Fans & Collectors” (ACBFC) as of TCR #20 (Oct. 8, 1963). Truthfully, though, the publication had grown beyond the newsletter stage, now averaging nine stapled pages per issue versus the two it had started out with. Two years into its existence, issue #20 added, TCR had a circulation of 1,000: 800 subscribers and FANZINES ON THE DRAWING BOARD 200 industry professionals. An assistant professor at Detroit’s Wayne State University, By that point, TCR was reporting on all industry Bails was an enthusiastic supporter of DC editor Julius news—albeit with an emphasis on series that were part Schwartz’s revivals of his childhood heroes like the Flash of the Second Heroic Age—and Bails stressed that and Green Lantern. In February 1961, the 27-year-old the zine would refrain from editorial comment in its approached Schwartz directly to inquire about capacity as ACBFC newsletter. “It is hoped,” he wrote publishing a simple Justice League of America newsletter in issue #20, “that this policy will encourage pro-editors for like-minded fans but came away from the meeting to continue to feed their latest news releases to TCR for the earliest possible distribution to Comicdom.” with plans for a more expansive “fanzine” with fellow Bails’ own involvement with the zine was about to fan Roy Thomas. Bails printed off copies of Alter-Ego #1 on a spirit-duplication machine that March, but his cease, though. In issue #22 (Jan. 1964), he announced jerry bails thoughts about a newsletter hadn’t gone away. plans to merge TCR and his ad-oriented newsletter Included within AE #1 were two pages of news on The Comicollector into a single entity under the editorship of famed Missouri fan Biljo White. Tragically, upcoming DC superhero titles—most of them Courtesy of John Wells, via Inter-fan.org. White was forced to back out of the deal when his mother died Schwartz-edited—under the title of “On the Drawing Board.” The newsletter idea was too strong to contain, though, and Bails unexpectedly. Instead, G. B. Love took charge of the ad-zine, fusing it spun it off in October 1961 with On the Drawing Board #4 (its first three with his own fanzine as The Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector (RBCC). AE appearances included in the tally). As a point of clarification about With TCR in limbo, Love also published comics news in RBCC #29 and its subject matter, OTDB became The Comic Reader effective with issue 30 as the ACBFC decided the fate of their newsletter. Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 3

Early News-zines (top left) The Comic Reader #19 (Sept. 9, 1963), from editor Jerry Bails. (top right) TCR #34 (Feb. 1965), from editor Glen D. Johnson. Art by Russ Manning. (bottom) TCR’s first color cover, by Howard Keltner. Scans from Gary Brown’s collection. The Ray TM & © DC Comics. The Comic Reader © Street Enterprises. Magnus, Robot Fighter TM & © Dynamite Entertainment.

After three issues published strictly to communicate with the Academy’s executive board, New Mexico-based member Glen D. Johnson agreed to succeed Jerry Bails effective with issue #26, and The Comic Reader was back in business. On Johnson’s watch, the zine flourished, with the news section now accompanied by columns (like the “Ego Crusher” fanzine reviews) and artwork. Fans began contributing periodic cover art with issue #29 and pro pieces by the likes of Russ Manning and Steve Ditko were also published during the Johnson era. There was a fine line between fair use and copyright infringement, though, and Johnson naively crossed it. Fan writer-artist Bill DuBay had been doing a series of comics short stories (“Picto-Origins”) that recreated the debuts of vintage superheroes and that was fine when it came to dormant characters like Blue Bolt. His piece on the Sub-Mariner in TCR #39 (July 1965) drew a quick cease-and-desist from Marvel Comics, though, and DC issued a preemptive demand that a forthcoming piece on Plastic Man not be published. The news was delivered in issue #47 by Derrill Rothermich, who succeeded Johnson with TCR #42. There was a clear line of demarcation between the two editors as the fanzine shifted from purple Ditto printing with its inconsistent quality to sharp offset reproduction. Although the improved look was a benefit, the change was ultimately motivated by the fact that Ditto masters were only good for about 250 copies and TCR’s circulation exceeded that. Even in 1965 terms, the accompanying price increase from 25¢ to 30¢ seemed modest, and Rothermich admitted that “I am going to [lose] money on almost every issue, including this one.” Like most of his brethren, he was in the fanzine game for love, not money. Rothermich was inundated with fan art—more than he could possibly use—but the surplus assured a higher quality of pieces in the zine including fine covers by Alan Hutchinson and Doug Potter. TCR #45 (Jan. 1966) even featured the first—and, for many years, only— color cover in the title’s history for Howard Keltner’s drawing of the Ray. Hero histories and articles were a regular presence, too, and the Fox—a superhero creation of fan Ronn Foss—appeared in issues #45–47. 4 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom

The rationale for Hanerfeld publishing OTDB directly There was a sense on the part of the ACBFC board that the zine had lost sight of its reason for being, and from New York was driven entirely by a desire to rush the scaled-down issue #48 reemphasized its primary comic-book news to fans as quickly as possible without focus: delivering comic-book news. Reiterating that routing through the post office to St. Louis. Embodying point, the zine was renamed On the Drawing Board the newsletter concept, the zine eschewed cover art but (OTDB)—a title that had been maintained all along on did pepper each issue with spot art by pros. the news section—and renumbered as Volume Two, In an historic development for comics news-zines, Number One. In subsequent issues, the indicia would Hanerfeld used his new job as a staffer at National Periodical often reference the original TCR numbering, as well. Publications (DC Comics) to acquire black-and-white The primary responsibilities for the zine shifted to cover stats of upcoming issues. Issue #68 (July 1968) St. Louis, Missouri’s, Gateway Comic Book Fan Club and its improved on that with the debut of an actual list of all of DC’s coming comics from August through president, Robert Schoenfeld. Rothermich remained mid-September with on-sale dates! as co-editor on issues #49 and 50, but the local draft board had other plans for the young No sooner had the fanzine been man and he left for the Army in mid-1966. renamed The Comic Reader with issue News coverage never wavered during #69 (Sept. 1968), its monthly schedule the transition thanks to its New Yorkfell apart, with increasingly scattered based correspondent Dave Kaler, who’d issues thereafter. When TCR #74 recently gone pro at Charlton Comics. (Oct. 1969) returned after a fiveOTDB briefly reverted to Ditto before month hiatus, some fans were a merciful return to sharp offset with issue surely dismayed to find Alley #53 (Oct. 1966) when Gateway club Awards results but no actual news. member Ray Fisher took charge of the Hanerfeld successfully resumed a zine’s printing. Schoenfeld and Kaler monthly schedule for issues each wrote editorials for the edition, the #75–77 (Nov. 1969–Jan. 1970), mark hanerfeld but afterward The Comic Reader latter citing the recent deaths of writer/ seemed to be gone for good. editor Ed Herron and comic-strip scripter of John Wells, via Mark Evanier’s Gus Edson to illustrate the point that Courtesy newsfromme.com. fans needed to start digging into the A NEWFANGLED FANZINE medium’s history before its founding creators were all gone. Luckily, another publication was already in place to fill “Will Jerry Robinson’s contributions to the Batman strip the void. The Ohio-based husband-and-wife team of be lost forever once he’s gone?” Kaler asked. “Will Bill Don and Maggie Thompson were comics fandom royalty Finger’s long career as the writer and creator of many in the 1960s who represented two of its most literate, strips pass into oblivion with his death? […] The real scholarly members. By 1967, the Thompsons had superheroes are the artists and writers and editors and published several fanzines themselves, but their latest they won’t always be there to ask about their lives in project was modeled on newsletters in science-fiction the comics. We have to wake up today or we may find fandom that updated subscribers on the life events of the past forever lost to us! Or, worse yet, persons only fans themselves. The Thompsons envisioned Newfangles casually interested in comics may be producing the as serving the same purpose for comic-book fandom and books we should be researching and writing right now!” released its modest two-page first edition in March 1967. In its own way, On the Drawing Board was contributing to the preservation of comic history, not simply reporting coming attractions but including occasional letters from industry pros. Editor Bill Harris—a strong supporter of fandom since his days with Gold Key earlier in the 1960s— offered inside information to OTDB about the 1966 King Comics line, detailing its ill-fated distribution experiment in issue #59 (Apr. 1967) and delivering a frank assessment of the imprint’s future in issue #64 (Jan. 1968).

“A TURNING POINT”

On the Drawing Board #64 also marked what Bob Schoenfeld described as “a turning point” in the fanzine’s history. Citing health reasons, Dave Kaler resigned as both ACBFC executive secretary and OTDB’s news reporter but hand-picked New York-based fan Mark Hanerfeld to succeed him as the latter. Convinced that the Academy of Comic-Book Fans & Collectors had outlived its usefulness, Schoenfeld and Hanerfeld declared that the organization would simply be dissolved and the fanzine would no longer be affiliated with it. In an initially bewildering turn of events, Schoenfeld and Hanerfeld each published entirely different versions of the next issue. The idea was to split the zine into two publications: a classic newsletter using the On the Drawing Board name and an article/review publication that reclaimed the Comic Reader name. Adding to the confusion was the fact that each edition still called itself OTDB on the cover, with Schoenfeld’s volume alternately identified as The Comic Reader #66 inside. Even that wasn’t quite right, since—maintaining the original numbering—it should actually have been issue #65.

Mr. and Mrs. Fandom Don and Maggie Thompson with the Inkpot Awards they received for “Fandom Projects/ Service” at August 1976’s San Diego Comicon.

Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 5

New book by MICHAEL EURY, editor of

HERO-A-GO-GO!

Welcome to the CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, good guys beat bad guys with a pun and a punch, and Batman shook a mean cape. HERO-A-GO-GO celebrates the camp craze of the Swinging Sixties, when just about everyone—the teens of Riverdale, an ant and a squirrel, even the President of the United States—was a super-hero or a secret agent. BACK ISSUE magazine and former DC Comics editor MICHAEL EURY takes you through that coolest cultural phenomenon with this all-new collection of nostalgic essays, histories, and theme song lyrics of classic 1960s characters like CAPTAIN ACTION, HERBIE THE FAT FURY, CAPTAIN NICE, ATOM ANT, SCOOTER, ACG’s NEMESIS, DELL’S SUPER-FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, the “Split!” CAPTAIN MARVEL, and others! Featuring interviews with BILL MUMY (Lost in Space), BOB HOLIDAY (It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman), RALPH BAKSHI (The Mighty Heroes, SpiderMan), DEAN TORRENCE (Jan and Dean Meet Batman), RAMONA FRADON (Metamorpho), DICK DeBARTOLO (Captain Klutz), TONY TALLARICO (The Great Society Comic Book), VINCE GARGIULO (Palisades Park historian), JOE SINNOTT (The Beatles comic book), JOSE DELBO (The Monkees comic book), and many more!

(272-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-073-1 • NOW SHIPPING!

TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History.

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C . Va u g h n

by J .

When Robert M. Overstreet first produced The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, it was in many regards the logical culmination of collecting habits and skills he had honed since childhood. It was also the start of an entirely new career. With his calm, studious approach—frequently punctuated by moments of excited smiles at some new discovery— Overstreet first released his Guide to fandom and the marketplace in 1970. Not only did its success warrant a second printing, it also meant he had to update the prices and produce a second edition, something he hadn’t contemplated when he started. Still very active with the Guide today—he continues to handle all the pricing himself—Overstreet talked with J.C. Vaughn, Gemstone Publishing’s vice-president of publishing, with whom he’s worked for about 22 years (Vaughn previously freelanced for Overstreet Publications prior to its acquisition by Steve Geppi’s Gemstone). – J.C. Vaughn

Sometimes the seeds of something big are planted very early. That was the case with Bob Overstreet. Known to literally hundreds of thousands of readers as the author of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, he not only started with comics early in life, he started with them early each day. “I read comic books in the late ’40s. One of my favorite comics was Fox and the Crow. I would have Kix cereal in the morning and I would read my Fox and the Crow comics eating Kix. My older brother Jerry had more comic books than I did. And we always had comic books around the house.” J.C. VAUGHN: You mentioned Fox and the Crow. Were funny animals your favorite? ROBERT OVERSTREET: With my brother’s comics I remember Captain Marvel, Daredevil (the ’40s Daredevil, that is). It was a mixed bag of superhero and funny animal, but I mainly remember reading the Fox

Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 21

Young Bob Overstreet (top) A ’60s-era self-portrait of the man whose name would soon be synonymous with collecting comic books. Courtesy of J.C. Vaughn. (bottom) Front and back covers to Overstreet’s very first Guide, and (middle) our interview subject holding two editions of that 1970 classic. Art © Robert Overstreet. Guide © Gemstone Publishing, Inc.

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and the Crow comics. I really enjoyed those at that time, but my favorite superhero was the Gleason Daredevil [the Golden Age character from Lev Gleason Publications]. At 11 years old in 1949, I was Daredevil! I had handwalked power lines across the street, could jump my own height, and pole-vaulted across ditches. VAUGHN: What was your family background? Did your dad have a furniture business? OVERSTREET: Dad was in the furniture business. He owned his own store. He worked in the coalmines back in the 1930s in West Virginia. That’s where I was born. Then he went to work for Sterchi’s, which was a big furniture chain rooted out of Knoxville, Tennessee. They transferred him to Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1944. VAUGHN: And that’s when you moved there? OVERSTREET: Yes. And then he opened his own store after he’d been there a while. Before he opened the store, though, he left Sterchi’s and went to work for the newspaper. He became publisher of the Cleveland newspaper between 1948 and 1952. In ’52 he opened his own furniture store. He kept that for ten years and then he sold it. He didn’t do well with it. I don’t know if he ever showed a profit. Then he sold it and went back to West Virginia in the early ’60s. VAUGHN: How old were you when you hit the ECs? OVERSTREET: I was 13. VAUGHN: How did you discover them? OVERSTREET: I met Landon Chesney when I was in the eighth grade. LC was very intelligent and he collected ECs. He collected them seriously. He loved the art, and he was a great artist himself. I was always interested in art, so when I met him he introduced me to EC Comics. He was an early member of the EC Fan-Addict Club. His number was 47. And he also introduced me to the idea of collecting comic books. I never thought about collecting them before that. He was a really interesting person. He collected comics, and was interested in magic. He did a lot of artwork. He was interested in theater. He could imitate almost anybody. In high school he was in theater. He enjoyed that. I would take him to high school parties with me and he’d be the entertainment for the party because he could imitate Jimmy Stewart, or Jerry Lewis, or Peter Fontaine, or just about anybody famous. He was really good at it. He was a natural. VAUGHN: Did you guys meet other collectors at that point? OVERSTREET: We were the two comic-book collectors in the town. We had friends that had comic books, but we were the only ones who were serious about it. We were always seeking EC comics to complete our sets, and so we discovered a few EC comics from our friends, but not many. VAUGHN: Once you started getting really diligent about tracking down all the ECs, how did you start meeting other collectors? OVERSTREET: Back in the early ’50s, I also collected coins. I always bought the Red Book when it came out each year. [Editor’s note: Not to be confused with Redbook Magazine, Red Book is a long-running price guide for coin collectors.] Back in those days, you could still go through change and find a lot of rare coins in it. It wasn’t a big investment, other than time. So I went to the bank and they would give me the parking meter money, and I would go through it looking for rare coins. And then I would count the coins and roll them for the bank. VAUGHN: So you traded your services for the chance to cherry-pick coins from the bank? OVERSTREET: Right. I found a lot of rare coins. I put together complete sets of almost all the rare 20thCentury coins. I would even find Indian Head Pennies or Barber coins going back to the 1800s. [Editor’s note: Barber coins were named after their designer, created

as dimes, quarters, and half dollars by the Mint from 1892 to 1915.] Buffalo Nickels were very common and Jefferson Nickels were very easy to get, even the rare Jefferson 1950 “D” Nickel. I found at least a roll or two of them. I sold them to coin dealers for $2.50 a piece and I was paying 5¢ each. I was really into coins. We would have a Red Book party when the Red Book came out each year there in Cleveland. There was a coin dealer, and we would all get together when the Red Books arrived. We really looked forward to that. This background was pretty important, I think. At the same time, I was really into EC comics and trying to locate the back issues, other collectors, dealers, or anyone that had a source for those comics. Pretty early on we met two other collectors in Tennessee. One was Billy Hoover, who lived in Manchester, Tennessee, and he had a comic-book mail-order business. He sent out price lists of comic books and he collected EC, Disney, Westerns… VAUGHN: Was he one of the earliest dealers? OVERSTREET: He was an early one. He collected all the Westerns, some superheroes… he loved the Disneys, he loved Barks, and he loved the ECs. I think his name was on the EC Bulletin that they put out in the early ’50s. So we wrote to him, and he wasn’t that far away from us, so we started corresponding with him. He was also an artist and loved drawing comics. We met him through the mail and then drove over and actually met him in person. He was the first person I bought back-issue ECs from. He would type his lists up on tissue paper, on toilet paper, on paper bags, whatever paper he had available. It was weird. I still remember ordering a stack of ECs from him and waiting on that package. VAUGHN: Were these ones you hadn’t seen or just upgrading the copies you already had? OVERSTREET: I had never seen them. VAUGHN: You must have been really excited then. OVERSTREET: I would have dreams about what might be on the covers. We had never seen these early ECs. VAUGHN: Did they live up to your expectations? OVERSTREET: Oh, yeah, they were fantastic. They were all early ones. He packaged them in a shoebox and put it in the mail. When the box arrived it didn’t survive very well in the postal system. The comics were loose inside the box. There were gaping holes in the box. Probably the comics were damaged, but back in those days you were just happy to have a copy if it was complete, even if today it would be considered VG or whatever. VAUGHN: How long before you started wanting really good copies? OVERSTREET: It was long after that. In Tennessee, old comic books were very hard to find. We went to Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and it seemed like nobody had old comic books. There were very few collectors we knew of in the South. We also met Harry Thomas, another collector, from Sweetwater, Tennessee. He collected superhero comics. We collected the ECs almost exclusively. So Harry introduced us to the superheroes and to the fact that a lot of people around the country collected them. We had a lot of arguments about which were the best. [laughter] We would always argue that ECs were aimed at an older audience and they were better than the superheroes, which were aimed at a younger audience. I remember when we first met Harry, he had a few Golden Age comics. And we had never seen any Golden Age comics—there were no used bookstores with them for sale, no one we traded with had them, you just didn’t see them in Tennessee. So he brought down a little stack of Golden Age comics. I bought from him an All-Star and a Green Lantern #18, the Christmas cover, and he kind of introduced me to the other types

of comics outside of EC. I was desperately trying to put an EC collection together, but funds were limited and that’s all I could afford. In the mid-1960s, while working for Hiwassee Land Company, the forestry division to Bowater Southern Paper Corp., an ad auctioning Golden Age comic books appeared in one of the fanzines. It was placed by an antique dealer in Spring City, Tennessee, which is where our company had a branch office. In the next couple of weeks, I was there with a Bowater accountant on a business trip. I couldn’t remember the name of the antique dealer, but soon got their address. It was unbelievable! The dealer took us down to the basement where there was a chest of drawers packed full of comic books and a full-size bed with stacks of comic books. The auction did well with many of the books sold. One of the famous early fans, Jerry Bails, had bid on the All Star #3, among others. I asked the dealer if she had any of the EC comics. She pulled out the top drawer and said, “You mean like these?” There was Weird Science #12/1 and several other early ECs. I was literally blown away. I asked the accountant with me if he had some money? He said, “Yes, I’ve got you covered.” (Thinking you should be able to buy comics for a few cents each). I asked her, “How much?” She said, “I want $1.00 each.” The dealer told me that one of the bidders didn’t come through, which was a nice stack of early Golden Age books such as Batman #9, Captain Marvel #2, Green Hornet #1, Superman #6, and others. We didn’t have enough money to pay for them then, so I had to come back that night with the money. VAUGHN: At what point did you figure out what you thought you wanted to do for a career? OVERSTREET: At that time, I was very interested in astronomy. I was grinding telescope lenses, making telescopes. I had friends in the community, older friends, and one guy owned a machine shop. He was very interested in science and geology. He had has own laboratory in his home. I’d go over and visit him every week. He made me a telescope mount and made my rack and pinion gear at his machine shop. I bought the kit for the mirror and ground my own mirror. It took me two years to grind that mirror. I was learning about how to do that. That was another hobby of mine. I thought that when I grew up I wanted to be an astronomer. I never thought of anything else. I was

Rising Star on All Stars, Ducking for Cover (left) Then-newcomer Don Newton (see sidebar) illo’ed this amazing Justice Society cover for The Comic Book Price Guide #4 (1974). (right) Disney Duck artist extraordinaire Carl Barks’ gorgeous interpretation of Looney Tunes’ Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny graced the cover of Guide #7 (1977), shown here in its hardcover form. © Gemstone Publishing, Inc. JSA characters TM & © DC Comics. Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig TM & © Warner Bros.

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As a 15-year-old kid in 1968, I would help out my dad and uncle on weekend mornings by cleaning their neighborhood tavern in small-town Rapids City, Illinois. I would also sort empty smelly beer bottles that had been sent down a chute to the basement the night before. I worked three hours every Saturday and Sunday morning, and Dad paid me $12.00. I used the money to buy comic books. I bought most of them at Ben Franklin five-and-dime store in East Moline, Illinois. At the time, comics cost 12¢. Once in a while, the store would have a shopping cart piled high with all sorts of comics that had the titles mysteriously sliced off—and those were just a nickel! (I didn’t know then that what the store was doing was illegal, tearing off and returning the top third of a cover to get a full refund on unsold copies from the distributor and then selling the comics, which were supposed to have been destroyed.) One day in September of 1968, I spent the full 12¢ for the latest issue of Adventure Comics, #374. Inside was an article headlined “The Wonderful World of Comics” that told about something called comics fandom and explained that “fanzines” were amateur fan magazines about comics. The article recommended a fanzine by the name of Comic Crusader, for 25¢. When it arrived in the mail I was hooked, and my life took a dramatic change. I still have that issue of Adventure Comics #374 and that issue of Comic Crusader #3, in a single musty old box of souvenirs from my 15 years in comics fandom. alan light Soon after learning that fanzines existed, it occurred to me, “I could do that!” I wanted to join in. My first attempts, Comic Cavalier and then All Dynamic (“All” came from my initials, Alan Lloyd Light), are laughably crude when looked at now. But they were necessary steps that led to a publication that endured a very long time, indeed—Comics Buyer’s Guide. After losing about $100, which was a lot of money to a kid working hard to earn $12 a week, I decided to try going for a wider audience and maybe even the chance to break even or make a profit. A profit on a fanzine was unheard of in those days and was in fact considered anti-fan. It was very much frowned on. The idea I had at the still-a-kid age of 18 was to publish a tabloid-format newspaper for comic-book fans. It might have a little advertising, but it would be mainly news. In what would turn out later to be an interesting coincidence, the people I contacted back in 1970 to help me with my new idea were Don and Maggie Thompson. Why the Thompsons? They were celebrities in comic-book fandom. They both went way back to the earliest days. They were “connected.” They knew everyone who was important in comics. Don and Maggie had been publishing a mimeographed fanzine called Newfangles,

Uncle Sam Wants You… …to identify these star-spangled stalwarts from the Golden Age on the cover of The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom #1 (Mar. 1971). Cover by fan artist John G. Fantucchio. In the inset photo, the young publisher holds the original cover art for the issue. Characters © their respective copyright holders.

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by A l a n

Light

which contained the latest news about comics gathered straight from their comics-famous friends. Don and Maggie had just announced their decision to stop publishing Newfangles. They were ceasing publication because the effort and expense of publishing had become too great. Contacting them made perfect sense. Here I was with the idea of a fandom newspaper, but no way to collect news for it. Here they were, knowing all the latest news, but no longer wanting the drudge work and expense of maintaining a subscription list, printing issues, and mailing them out. It seemed like a good match to me at the time. So I wrote the Thompsons a letter, something like, “I will take over all of the work if you will gather the news for me.” A win-win situation, I thought. What could go wrong? Well, the big-name fans took the time to politely write back to this guy who had written to them out of the blue to say that they couldn’t help gather any news. They were exhausted and wanted a break. Oh. Without their help—without their news-gathering ability—I couldn’t proceed with my original idea, so I modified it. It would still be newspaper-sized but contain all advertisements instead. The idea, which I called The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom (named after a local free shopper that came in the mail all the time called The Big River Buyer’s Guide), would still be a tabloid 11” x 17” newspaper, but would now be entirely devoted to advertising—the heck with needing someone to collect news—and best of all, the advertisers would design the content themselves! I would send the issues out for free—just like that local shopper I got in the mail all the time. To get addresses of comic-book collectors I combed the pages of existing fanzines and comic books. In those days it was common for comics to publish letters to the editor along with the full mailing addresses of the writers. I also placed ads offering free subscriptions in the major fanzines of the day, including the biggest one of all, the RBCC [Rocket’s

Blast-Comicollector], an adzine published by Gordon B. Love of Miami, Florida. “G. B.,” as he was known, was the most famous fan publisher at the time, and he published RBCC despite the added hardship of having cerebral palsy, which required him to type one letter at a time using a pencil in his fist. (He passed away January 17, 2001, at age 61). My ad in RBCC offered every reader a free subscription to The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom. I remember holding my breath to see if G. B. would publish my ad, since I was an obvious competitor. The ad was critical to my success. If he had rejected it, TBG would likely never succeeded. But he printed it (a mistake, I vowed, I would never make myself), enabling me to obtain virtually his entire subscription list. I called my new company DynaPubs (short for Dynamic Publications). One of the most famous fan artists of the day, John G. Fantucchio, designed the company logo and also drew the first issue’s cover. At the top, he had written, of his own volition, “Daring – Original – Inevitable First Issue.” So there I was in 1971, in my living room, with my mom and dad and grandmother and sister, surrounded by a mountain of copies of the first issue of TBG, using a wet sponge to stick labels onto about 3,000 copies. Not in our wildest dreams would we have believed the publication would last 42 years. TBG went from bimonthly, to monthly, to twice-monthly, to weekly in very short order. By issue #77 (Mar. 1, 1975), the issue was 100 pages with over 7,000 subscribers. By issue #87 (July 18, 1975), the issues were so big that I decided to make the publication weekly, and even so the first issue was 72 tabloid-sized 11” x 17” pages. By issue #200 (Sept. 16, 1977), circulation topped 10,000 subscribers and a normal weekly issue was 80 pages or more. It was not uncommon for a weekly issue to have over 100 tabloid-sized pages.

DynaPubs HQ (top left) DynaPubs’ original headquarters, Alan Light’s home, on the Mississippi River; it’s since been demolished and replaced by condos. (bottom left) Addressing an issue of TBG, March 1974. (top right) The DynaPubs office, 1976. All photos in this article are courtesy of Alan Light. (bottom right) Dan Adkins provided cover art for these early issues of TBG, #3 and 6. © Krause Publications.

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It was a wistful, sentimental longing of a certain red-suited hero from his youth that drove Bernie McCarty, a Chicago-area newspaper sportswriter, college football enthusiast, jazz records connoisseur, and someone who appreciated sipping a good martini, to selfproduce and publish a ’70s fanzine about his bestremembered comic books that left such a lasting impression on him as a child. But our story really begins in the mid-’60s, where Illinois comic-book collector Joe Sarno began organizing meetings down in his basement of his house once a month with other Chicago-area comics fans. McCarty, still a fan of the comics he grew up reading during the Golden Age, learned of Sarno’s basement bashes and, at his first meeting, made friends with two other avid collectors, Ken Pierce and Frank Craft, who also resided in Bernie’s suburban hometown of Park Forest South, Illinois. Attending that first meeting was the first step towards McCarty becoming a fanzine publisher. By the late-’60s, Sarno’s basement get-togethers became so overcrowded that the gatherings were moved inside a northside Chicago bank! Eventually, these once-a-month Sunday meetings outgrew to yet another venue before Sarno and friends organized their first comic convention in 1970. At the time, in the pre-Price Guide era, collector trading and selling were still wide open and based on wants, not on monetary value. Two years later, McCarty, with Pierce, Craft, and newcomer Chuck Agner, organized the Old Time Comic Book Club of Illinois (complete with membership cards), which held mini-conventions in a large ballroom at the downtown Chicago YMCA Hotel. Pierce (who had just become a book publisher), and later Craft, were in charge of the conventions. (Both Craft and Sarno would eventually open up their own comic-book shops in Chicagoland.) In early 1972, while still an active member of the Old Time Comic Book Club, Bernie met popular fanzine artist Alan “Jim” Hanley—a fan of the original Captain Marvel who had created many of his own comic books, with characters based on old Fawcett and Golden Age heroes. One Sunday afternoon, Bernie met up with Hanley at the artist’s studio apartment in Chicago. There, at Hanley’s drawing board, the two came up with concepts to revive the old Captain Marvel Club, which both men had been members of during their comic-book-reading childhoods. Their optimistic notions quickly faded, but it was Hanley’s enthusiasm that afternoon that stuck with Bernie, and which inspired him to launch a newsletter-style fanzine entitled Fawcett Collectors of America (FCA) in March 1973—its release date unintentionally closely coinciding with DC’s Captain Marvel revival in Shazam! just a couple of months earlier. The fanzine was just four pages of want-sell-trade lists for comic collectors to peruse. By issue #2 (June 1973) the zine

The Big Red Cheese’s Big Green Zine Fawcett Collectors of America #1 (Mar. 1973). Note editor Bernie McCarty’s inset photo. All images in this article are courtesy of P.C. Hamerlinck. Characters TM & © DC Comics.

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b y P.

C. Hamerlinck

had expanded to eight pages, and subsequent issues stayed that way. McCarty originally assumed that Fawcett collectors simply wanted to buy and swap old comics, and perhaps communicate or correspond with other like-minded fans— many who were now middle-aged, respectable citizens and parents (whom Dr. Frederic Wertham and other comics critics assured us would grow up into perverts and criminals) who loved the same comics that others did when they were kids—thereby McCarty devoted the early issues to that end. The title of the fanzine itself was a step toward that unification. But FCA subscribers were opened up to a whole new world when fervent fans such as Matt Lage and Dan Fabrizio surfaced and began contributing articles to the zine, including informative interviews with writers, artists, and editors, and profiling various old Fawcett titles. Other fans could now learn more about those who were at the helm producing their favorite comics. Names such as C. C. Beck, Otto Binder, Kurt Schaffenberger, and others soon became, as McCarty once put it, “real human beings, not mysterious gods of my childhood.” Only a couple of seminal works—including Alter Ego, All In Color for a Dime, and Steranko’s History of Comics vol. 2—had previously shed light to those hungry to know more about Fawcett. FCA was infrequently published, to put it delicately. Basically, a new issue would only be published when McCarty had accumulated enough extra cash to do so. Due to FCA’s first incarnation being given away essentially for free (although donations and selfaddressed stamped envelopes were cheerfully accepted), the circulation quickly climbed to over 500 copies per issue. However, after issue #11, FCA experienced a longer than usual hiatus. The lapse continued for over a year: “In limbo,” McCarty explained, “due to rising production costs.” And then, lightning struck again. Captain Marvel co-creator and chief artist C. C. Beck, who had previously just been contributing letters of comments to the zine, stepped forward and decided it c. c. beck might be fun to get involved. Beck took over as editor, renaming the zine FCA/SOB (Some Opinionated Bastards) #1—yet still also retaining McCarty’s original numbering. FCA/SOB went to a regular bimonthly schedule for the first time ever, and paid subscriptions of a paltry fee were solicited. Delightful cartoons by Beck were highlighted throughout the publication, in contrast with his conservative viewpoints and often dogmatic editorializing and assertive essays on comics and art. Beck was determined to illicit strong reactions from readers, even if that meant getting them riled up a bit. While Beck had strong convictions on what constituted true comic art, and astute opinions to match them, he also realized that if he was going to take on being an editor (ironically, he always loathed editors, except for his Fawcett editors), he was bent on brewing up some mischievous fun with the role. By contrast, in person, Beck was elf-like in appearance—kind-hearted, soft-spoken, often chuckling —quite unlike his exaggerated published alter-ego persona which often painted him as a raging old, out-of-touch, unreasonable cranky curmudgeon. FCA’s potent new direction as “SOB” Say (Big Red) Cheese! was perhaps predestined, from early reports in McCarty’s FCA (top) Under editor C. C. Beck, the zine became FCA/SOB. of Beck’s involvement, disdain, and ensuing complications with DC Comics. Beck treatises, such as “The Destruction Beck also provided the main cover art for this issue, FCA/SOB #3 of Creativity,” “We Were Considered a Bunch of Idiots,” (Aug. 1980), also issue #14 of FCA. (bottom) C. C. Beck and and “What Really Killed the Golden Age,” set the stage for the publication’s direction. While Beck’s openness with Bernie McCarty, as cartooned by Beck in 1980. his opinions was outrageous to many readers during his Shazam!/Captain Marvel TM & © DC Comics. Captain Klutz TM & © Don Martin. Art © C. C. Beck estate. vivacious tenure as editor, FCA/SOB’s biggest reader reaction Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 37

In 1972–1973, Marvel Comics was in full swing in popularity, and DC was close behind. Fans were enamored with the art of Bernie Wrightson and Barry [Windsor-]Smith… the writings of Roy Thomas, Denny O’Neil, and Len Wein… and comics like Conan the Barbarian, Swamp Thing, and Green Lantern/ Green Arrow… Comic fandom was running full speed with fanproduced periodicals like The Comic Reader and The Menomonee Falls Gazette. The Buyer’s Guide to Comic Fandom, a weekly advertising/article fanzine, had two years under its belt. Some of us had been members of the M.M.M.S.— Merry Marvel Marching Society (1964–1969)— and Marvelmania International (1969–1971). We read every letters column and devoured “Stan’s Soapbox” column every month… When we saw the ads and blurbs for a new Marvelcentric fan group called F.O.O.M. (herewith FOOM)— or Friends Of Ol’ Marvel—in the comics, we sent away our $3.00 for a four-issue subscription, or $4.00 for the subscription and a membership kit. I went for everything, kit and all! I wasn’t disappointed. The influence of each FOOM editor creates a natural grouping of the issues published, so I’ll approach the history with that in mind.

THE JIM STERANKO ISSUES: #1–4

Just about anybody who has read comics from the 1960s to the current day has heard of Jim Steranko… or just “Steranko.” Jim is a professional illusionist (magician), a musician, and a recognized comic-book artist starting with his work for Harvey Comics’ “Harvey Thrillers” series in the 1960s and later for his work on an influential run on Marvel’s Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America, and other series and covers. His iconic covers for the paperback series of The Shadow pulp-story reprints and for Leigh Brackett’s John Starr series are well known. His role as a comics historian and accomplished publisher add to the résumé—his History of Comics volumes and Mediascene magazine are well remembered. And with FOOM… he started it all. Issue #1 (Spring 1973) When the first issue arrived, there was Smilin’ Stan’s face on the cover and a typical Stan’s Soapbox speech that included: “Here, clutched within your frantic fingers, is the first of many such magnificent magazines which you will receive—an endless bounty of all that is best, all that is noblest, all that most truly symbolizes the soul and spirit of we who follow Foom!” Jim Steranko wrote about the origin of the magazine with his editorial in the first issue: “I dropped in at the Marvel [B]ullpen to rap with Stan about the current comic scene when the subject came up. Stan mentioned that he was thinking

Make Room… for FOOM! Stan the Man hogs the cover of the Jim Steranko-edited-and-designed FOOM #1 (Spring 1973). TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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by S t e p h a n

Friedt

seriously about initiating a new Marvel Comics club. It had occurred to him, he revealed, at one of his college lecture engagements. “‘FOOM.’ he told them, ‘is the name the new organization.’ “‘FOOM?’ I asked! “‘Friends of Ol’ Marvel,’ he explained. “…Suddenly at a lightning pace, we began exchanging ideas about the new club: it would be Marvel-based, not leased out like the previous one. Projects would be developed exclusively for the Marvel fan—colorful, exciting, and informative projects like none that had ever come before. In the heat of enthusiasm, I volunteered my services as designer, writer, and comic historian to the cause. We shook hands on it.” The first issue was devoted to the Fantastic Four. It included an article about the series by Ed Noonchester and a checklist to FF issues #1–132. Editor Steranko produced several new illustrations for this issue. Biographies (with photos) of Stan Lee, John Buscema, Roy Thomas, Joe Sinnott, and Gerry Conway were included, along with games, puzzles, previews of upcoming Marvel issues, and merchandise ads. Issue #2 (Summer 1973) The second issue highlighted the Hulk, with a spectacular Steranko cover illustration. It included a short Hulk article by Martin Greim and checklist for the six issues of the original Hulk series, Hulk’s run in Tales to Astonish #60–101, and Incredible Hulk #102–165. FOOM #2 also included a forward by Stan Lee, behind-the-scenes photos of the Marvel Bullpen in action, an interview of Roy Thomas by Dwight R. Decker concerning the new phenomenon of Conan, fan-art contest pages including submissions by future stars Steve Rude and Trevor Von Eeden, and the usual fun, games, previews, and advertisements for Marvel merchandise. The back cover was a stunning Mike Ploog illustration of Frankenstein. Issue #3 (Fall 1973) Issue #3 featured Spider-Man, with a Steranko infinity cover. Contents: a Spider-Man article by Bob Cosgrove and Martin Greim, a checklist covering Amazing Spider-Man #1–125, ASM Annuals #1–9, and Marvel Team-Up #1–13; short bios of Spider-artists John Romita, Sr., Gil Kane, and Frank Giacoia; and fan-art pages submissions by future pros Grant Miehm and Tom Lyle. It also featured the winner of the fan-art superhero contest with Michael Barreiro’s winning entry “Humus Sapiens,” plus the usual games, previews, and house ads. Sal Buscema provided an Avengers back cover.

Calling All Friends Of Ol’ Marvel! (top left) This FOOM membership ad appeared in 1973 Marvel comics. (top right) Here’s what your FOOM membership packet contained, including that scrumptiously super Steranko poster. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). (bottom) Covers to FOOM #2–4, edited by Jim Steranko. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Issue #4 (Winter 1973) The fourth issue, Steranko’s last, featured Dr. Doom with a Jack Kirby front cover, a Dr. Doom article by Gabriel Coco, Ph.D., and a centerfold featuring a board game designed by Steranko featuring Dr. Doom and other Marvel villains. This issue featured several new Steranko illustrations, a Steranko bio, and a one-page text mystery story by Steranko. There was a one-page report by Bruce Cardozo about a planned, independently produced Spider-Man movie, a Marie Severin Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 41

The Isabella Issues (bottom) One of the last illos by Rich Buckler (who died 5-19-17), commissioned by Jim McCaffrey and drawn in January 2017, recreating the artist’s cover to (inset) FOOM #5. (top) Issues #6 and 7. (right) Mailing label allocation, as seen on #1’s back cover. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

self-portrait, a lettercol including a missive from future Marvel writer/editor Ralph Macchio, more fan art, and the usual games, previews of Marvel comics, and house ads. Jack Kirby provided the art for the back cover. Up to this point, Steranko had been doing practically everything editorially (with the assistance of Ken Bruzenak), and it got to the point of being too much time for too little money. His comic work as an artist was worth more of his time, and his work as a paperback cover illustrator was even more lucrative. So Jim left FOOM and Marvel took the project in-house.

THE TONY ISABELLA ISSUES: #5–7

Tony Isabella was the next to hold the editorial reins. Tony had come up through fandom to be picked by Roy Thomas to be an assistant editor at Marvel. That quickly led to Tony’s position overseeing the Marvel UK line and as an editor of the black-and-white magazine line. Tony wrote for many of Marvel’s titles, from Ghost Rider to Luke Cage, and from Hero for Hire to Captain America. Tony created Black Goliath for Marvel and Black Lightning for DC, and co-created the character Misty Knight and the team The Champions. I talked to Tony Isabella about the FOOM transition: STEPHAN FRIEDT: How did you get picked for the job? Did Steranko recommend you… hence your “Thank you” in your first editorial? TONY ISABELLA: I was picked to be the new editor because I was the obvious choice. Besides having very recent roots in comics fandom, I was working in Sol Brodsky’s department and this magazine fell into his bailiwick. As for my thanking Jim, I confess that was a secret sarcastic dig. Jim and I were having disagreements back then, though we patched things up long ago. He had nothing to do with my getting the job. FRIEDT: Tell me what was it like working with FOOM contributors Mark Evanier, Marie Severin, Rich Buckler, Doug Moench, and the rest of your beginning crew? ISABELLA: I didn’t actually have a “crew” for FOOM. I would beg and coerce and sometimes actually pay people to do stuff for the mag. Mark Evanier was one of my oldest and therefore most forgiving friends, and I was somewhat close to Rich Buckler. Marie Severin was the darling of anyone with the sense to recognize she was more capable than 99% of the Marvel Bullpen. Doug Moench wrote a lot of stuff for me on the black-and-whites, so we had a good working relationship. Honestly, I was doing so many things for Marvel— supervising the British weeklies, editing some of the black-and-whites, helping out with the color comics, writing some comic books, and doing special projects 42 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom

for Stan Lee and Sol Brodsky—that FOOM has mostly slipped from my memory. An amusing sidebar: The normally unflappable Jim Warren (publisher of Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, and other fine magazines) tried to hire me away from Marvel in the middle of all this. I liked Jim, so I sat down with him in his office. He actually gulped when I rattled off everything I was doing at Marvel… and he wanted to pay me just as much to edit just one or two magazines for him. It was a terrific offer, but I loved Marvel too much. Issue #5 (Spring 1974) Ben Grimm (the Thing of the Fantastic Four) was featured in this “Thing of the Year” issue with a Rich Buckler/Joe Sinnott front cover. Included was an uncredited article about the Thing, bios of Rich Buckler and Steve Gerber, a Deathlok article by Doug Moench, fan art by Ken Steacy and John Byrne, and a “Recommended Reading” column by Chris Claremont. Byrne and Duffy Vohland provided the Mantis back cover. FRIEDT: Your “Thing of the Year” issue… what prompted you to use that theme? ISABELLA: I was always looking for interesting articles/ ideas/themes. My best guess—since I don’t actually remember my reasoning at the time—was that I had that great piece of art and wanted to figure out something different to do with it for the cover. After that, it was a no-brainer to have a Thing article inside the issue. Here’s a question for the fans and pros out there. Who wrote that Thing article? It’s not signed. It could’ve been me, though, if I did write it, I’m sure I’d have signed it. It could have been someone else. I can’t remember. FRIEDT: This issue had the first “Irving Forbush Awards.” What was the seed behind them, and what kind of response did you get? ISABELLA: Memory fails me. It might have been in the works before I became editor. The part where it says the character who wins one of the polls would get a featured role in Avengers is not something I would have printed if it hadn’t been approved by [editor-in-chief] Roy Thomas. As for response, I don’t remember seeing it.

Not the Kind of Girl… …you take home to Mother. (top) Satana, that is, as played by Angelique Trouvere, with FOOM editor Tony Isabella. (bottom) Original art to the back cover of FOOM #5 (Spring 1974), featuring Mantis as illo’ed by John Byrne and Duffy Vohland. TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Issue #6 (Summer 1974) The Avengers issue, part one of two. This issue included illustrations by Dave Cockrum, Rick Hoberg, and Billy Graham (un-inked pencils from Jungle Action #12); part one of a two-part “interview” with Jarvis, the Avengers mansion butler; a cartoon page by Stan Lee and Marie Severin; and Roy Thomas talking about the upcoming “Man-Gods from Beyond the Stars.” FRIEDT: The Jarvis issue. What were your thoughts behind that as a subject? ISABELLA: I wanted something different and came up with the idea of an extended Jarvis interview, à la the interviews in Playboy. I hired Roger Stern to write it, with some Marie Severin headshots and a bunch of Dave Cockrum illustrations. I thought and still think it was the best thing I ever did in FOOM. Issue #7 (Fall 1974) The Avengers issue, part two of two. This issue featured illustrations by Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, and Mike Ploog; part two of the “interview” with Avengers butler Jarvis; one page of headshots of Bullpen members at the 1974 Comic Art Convention; and five pages of photos from a softball game featuring Marvel staffers and guests, collectively providing photos of Cockrum, Gerry Conway, Steve Gerber, Jim Steranko, Tony Isabella, Len Wein, Stan Lee, Marv Wolfman, Jack Abel, Vince Colletta, Glynis Wein, Roy Thomas, Al Milgrom, Michael Kaluta, and Roger Slifer. Also included was a page of cartoons by Stan Lee and Marie Severin. Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 43

by B

ob Rozakis

Comicmobile photo © DC Comics.

About a month after I started working at DC Comics back in the summer of 1973, I arrived at the office one morning and was confronted by vice president/production Manager Sol Harrison. “What are you doing here?” he asked. Startled, I replied, “I work here.” “I know that. You’re supposed to be in New Jersey, picking up the Comicmobile.” Yes, the Comicmobile, that fabled vehicle of comics history that many have heard of but few have seen (and even fewer have actually purchased anything from). For those of you who are unfamiliar with it: It was Sol’s idea that if kids living in the suburbs couldn’t get to the old “mom and pop stores” that sold comics, we should bring the comics to them. So he leased a big blue van, had “The DC Comicmobile” painted on it, with plastered superhero stickers. Then he stocked it with leftover comics from the DC library and, at the start of the Memorial Day weekend, sent Michael Uslan (much later the executive producer of the Batman and Swamp Thing movies, among lots of other things) out on the streets of New Jersey to sell them. When it was time for Michael to leave for Indiana for his impending wedding, Sol decided that I should take the Comicmobile to Long Island. I knew I was supposed to pick it up, but Michael and I had worked it out that I would do so the following day.

Sol, however, did not agree. Midge Bregman, his secretary, handed me money for train fare, told me what little town in the Garden State I was taking the train to, and shooed me out of the office. They did give me time to make my one phone call—to tell my parents I would not be coming home from work that night! Michael met me with the Comicmobile and we spent the afternoon and evening riding around, ringing the bells and selling comics at local parks, beaches, and in front of other places potential customers were gathered. He had a “lovely assistant” named Robin Burke working with him and, frankly, I think she attracted more than one father of small children over to be persuaded into buying a few comic books. “Sol was the Philo Farnsworth of comics,” remembers Uslan. He was always looking for different ways to get comic books into the hands of kids. He made the first deal with Phil Seuling, which opened the door for the direct-market distribution of comics. He tried vending machines. He made the deal with 7-11 to put 60 different DC characters on plastic Slurpee cups, looking to create greater recognition of the characters.” And so Michael was not that surprised when Sol first told him about the Comicmobile, “except the part where he told me I was going to drive it!” I slept at Michael’s parents’ home that night. They were as surprised to have an overnight guest as I had been when I learned from Sol I was

52 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom

rporation.

going to be one. And the next morning, after going over what was in our “inventory” and how to keep track of the money, Michael was off to Indiana to get married and I was on the road back to Long Island. Those of you who are unfamiliar with the roads of the New York metropolitan area probably don’t know that commercial vehicles are not allowed on the parkways, only on expressways and turnpikes. Much of the direct route between Michael’s home and mine involved the Garden State Parkway and the Belt Parkway. The Comicmobile, decked out with all its superhero decals and such, was most assuredly a commercial vehicle. So, in those days long before anyone had ever dreamed of a GPS, armed with only a Mobil gas station map of New Jersey, I had to abandon the route I knew for other highways and byways. While driving across Manhattan, I spotted a college friend standing on a street corner, and he was quite startled to see me. Our paths have never crossed again and, to this day, I’m convinced he thought my job in the comic-book industry was delivering them to stores. And when I finally arrived home and parked the garish-looking van in front of the house, my father’s first comment was, “I sent you to college for four years so you could drive a comic-book truck?” I did become more familiar with the route from Long Island to New Jersey during my tenure. Once a week, I had to drive to a distribution warehouse in the Garden State to pick up bundles of new books. On the way through Manhattan, I would stop at the DC office and get additional titles from the DC library. One of those visits resulted in Joe Orlando trying to have me arrested. I was in the library filling a box with books when Joe walked in. He did not know who I was and immediately went to Sol and said, “Some kid is stealing books from the library. We better call security!” Sol followed him back, saw it was me, and said, “That’s not a kid—that’s Rozakis.” The hardest part about driving the Comicmobile on Long Island had to be getting a vendor’s license for each of the townships I would be working in. Each town—Hempstead, North Hempstead, Oyster Bay, and Huntington—had its own set of requirements and its own set of rules. They did have one basic rule in common, one that we had not anticipated. Once licensed, Michael had had it fairly easy in his area of New Jersey (Ocean Township, Belmar, and Bradley Beach, to be specific); he was able to drive to a local park or beach and set up shop in the parking lot. The powers-that-be on Long Island were nowhere near as liberal. I was prohibited from bringing the Comicmobile anywhere near beaches, parks, schools, and pretty much any other place kids might be. Instead, I was reduced to driving up and down individual streets, holding a set of bells out the window and ringing them vigorously. (Since DC had only leased the van, there was no way Sol was going to have the bells mounted

on it.) To be honest, there were some days when it seemed like I was the only person alive while driving up and down streets devoid of any kids. Sometimes, even when there were kids outside, they weren’t potential customers. As those of you who have lived in areas that were served by an ice cream man might guess, I was often mistaken for someone selling Popsicles and Klondike Bars. There was, in fact, one little boy who would demand a Creamsicle every Thursday when I showed up. And all he ever had to pay for it was a nickel. I don’t recall what an ice cream bar cost in those days, but it was certainly more than 5¢. There was only one occasion when I was able to bring the Comicmobile to a gathering of kids. My future wife Laurie was one of the day-camp counselors at a nearby elementary school. I wore a Superman T-shirt and she dressed in a Wonder Woman costume that had been made and borrowed from DC colorist Liz Berube, and we performed a brief skit as the two heroes. We were not, however, allowed to sell anything, so I gave away flyers and free comics and told the kids to watch for me on their home streets. (The photo recording the event, taken by Laurie’s father, continues to haunt us 40-plus years later.) Over the six weeks that I drove the Comicmobile, I did eventually develop something of a regular clientele. A few of the customers would request specific issues that I could often find among the leftovers in the DC library. For them, having the Comicmobile come by was the answer to a fanboy’s dreams. One of them in my hometown of Elmont, New York, was Bob Buethe,

Super Friends Laurie and Bob Rozakis join forces as Wonder Woman and Superman in this oft-seen but beloved Comicmobile shot. Photo by Bob’s father-in-law, W. J. Neu, who wasn’t credited with this image’s original publication in Amazing World of DC Comics. © DC Comics.

Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 53

As a teenaged, diehard DC Comics fan in 1974, I was frenzied by the DC house ads selling the publisher’s self-produced “prozine,” The Amazing World of DC Comics (AWODCC). I willingly mutilated a comic book (>gasp!<) by clipping an order form, sending it and a check for $1.50 to a post-office box at faraway Radio City Station in the fabled city of New York. Once the magazine arrived, it was devoured, cover to cover… and why wouldn’t it be? Here, between crisp cardboard-stock covers, was a window into my favorite comics company, a tasty blend of DC news, comic-book and comic-media history, rare art and stories, and behind-the-scenes data. Truly, this was an “amazing world,” one I continued to visit throughout the next few years through a total of 17 issues (18, counting the AWODCC Special Edition), each of which became dog-eared after multiple readings. Before we revisit DC’s ultimate fanzine, let’s detour back one year to its precursor, The Amazing World of Superman, Metropolis Edition (inset), a 64page one-shot tabloid published in 1973 to inaugurate a Superman-themed amusement park in Metropolis, Illinois. (The park never made it past the drawing board, but Metropolis has remained the “home of Superman” and is the site of an annual Superman Celebration featuring a gathering of comic creators, media stars, and fans of the Big Red S.) While its format was different from the magazine-sized AWODCC that would follow the next year, The Amazing World of Superman was a prototype for the prozine through its use of its logo—the words “Amazing World of” within a globe (a logo also used decades later for the autobiography The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino)—and its inclusion of a lavishly illustrated article “How a Comic Magazine is Created,” the type of feature which would soon become a staple of AWODCC.

THE JUNIOR WOODCHUCKS

Young fans like me who feverishly pored over their copy of The Amazing World of DC Comics #1 (July–Aug. 1974) discovered that this 48-page black-and-white publication was produced by… young fans like (and not much older than) me. These were the “Junior Woodchucks,” comic fans who were turning pro—right before our very eyes, through the production of this publication (and other DC work). Overseeing the process was the senior advisor of the Woodchucks, DC vice president/production manager Sol Harrison, the man behind such “Solly’s Follies” as the DC Comicmobile and a Junior Bullpen Program. AWODCC all started one day when Sol rounded up those young staffers for a meeting. “I remember that Sol told me to gather up my compatriots for a discussion about a new project,” former Woodchuck Bob Rozakis recalls. “I went and found Paul Levitz, Carl Gafford, Steve Mitchell, Guy Lillian, and Allan Asherman and said, ‘Sol wants to have a meeting of the Junior Woodchucks.’ And that’s how the name was born.” But as former Woodchuck Allan Asherman tells BI, Harrison had a DC fanzine in mind before rallying together the troops for that meeting. “My earliest memory of the magazine was before we were told anything about it,” Asherman says. “Sol knew that my B.A. was in journalism, that I had been Long Island University’s delegate to the CBS Workshop program in the late 1960s, and had therefore worked in the CBS TV newsroom. Sol called me into his office one day to discuss the possibility of a magazine written and edited by the DC junior staffers, so that those of us with writing experience could encourage and work with those who hadn’t. My next memory of the magazine was being at our first staff meeting, but I do not recall any details at all about that meeting, except that it took place and I was there.”

DC Behind the Scenes The Amazing World of DC Comics #1 (July–Aug. 1974), with cover art by DC’s head honcho Carmine Infantino. TM & © DC Comics. Characters © DC, except The Shadow © Condé Nast and Tarzan © ERB, Inc.

58 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom

by M

ichael Eury

The Young Turks and The Senior Woodchuck (left) DC’s fans-turnedpro new staffers—the Junior Woodchucks— and their bios, from Amazing World #1. (top right) Woodchuck advisor Sol Harrison, photographed in 1977 by Jack Adler. Courtesy of Bob Rozakis. (bottom right) Page 1 of “Murder, Inc.!,” produced by Jack Kirby for the unpublished black-and-white magazine In the Days of the Mob #2 but presented in AWODCC #1. TM & © DC Comics.

Woodchuck Carl Gafford volunteered to serve as AWODCC #1’s managing editor, with contributing editors (and fellow Woodchucks) Asherman, Levitz, Lillian, Mitchell, and Rozakis pitching in. Gafford reveals to BACK ISSUE that Harrison originally had a different title in mind for this DC prozine. “Sol wanted to call it Fanzine, and not use the DC initials in the name at all,” he says. “We said DC’s initials were a major selling point.” Bob Rozakis adds, “I don’t recall who came up with the [AWODCC] name, but I think we came to a consensus after a discussion of possible ones.” Readers accustomed to a slick Murphy Anderson or Joe Giella inking line over the pencils of Carmine Infantino may have been taken aback by AWODCC #1’s cover, a sketchy but magnificent rendering by Infantino— then DC’s publisher—of DC characters he had illustrated over the years. Above the logo appeared headshots of DC’s most popular characters, although over time the characters shown would rotate. The issue’s contents featured Guy H. Lillian III’s interview with Joe Kubert, a sevenpage “Direct Currents” column announcing forthcoming comics and listing contents for two months’ worth of titles, Carl Gafford’s article about the recently aired pre-Lynda Carter Wonder Woman TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby, Allan Asherman’s history of television’s The Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves, a “Meet the Woodchucks” page with photos and bios, a centerspread unveiling Michael Kaluta’s unused cover for DC’s The Shadow #5 (which we repurposed as the cover of BACK ISSUE #89), Asherman’s “Remembering” two-pager which presented a look back at Sol Harrison’s roots, a memorial to the recently deceased Bill Finger (the first time many readers had heard of this talented but tragic Batman co-creator), a page of DC office gag cartoons by Sergio Aragonés, Bob Rozakis’ two-page lettercol of kids’ funny letters to DC characters, E. Nelson’s Bridwell’s one-page “Yesteryear” time capsule, a ten-page crime comic story by Jack Kirby intended for the unpublished In the Days of the Mob #2, Paul Levitz’s inaugural installment of the “How a Comic is Created” instructional series, Steve Mitchell’s episode guide for the Fleischer Studios’ Superman animated shorts of

the ’40s, a DC word-search puzzle by Rozakis, and a couple of pinups. For the Bronze Age baby coming of age, AWODCC #1 presented more DC lore than one could ever dream of finding elsewhere. Could these Woodchucks keep the momentum going? A next-issue blurb promised an interview with Julius Schwartz, “the dean of comic book editors.” Looked like another winner was in store!

AS THE WORLD TURNS

AWODCC #2 (Sept.–Oct. 1974) followed, with a cheery Kurt Schaffenberger cover spotlighting young DC scribes Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin, who were interviewed together inside (no, BACK ISSUE didn’t create the “Pro2Pro” concept) by Guy Lillian. What? No Julie Schwartz interview? (We’ll learn the reason in a moment…) Schaffenberger’s caricatures of Bates and Maggin were dead-on, even capturing their personalities in their reactions to the league of DC heroes gathered around them. These characters were reviewing script pages, and for fun, Kurt threw himself in, peeking around one of Superman’s broad shoulders. Stars from Cary’s and Elliot’s DC features were present—Superman, Lois Lane, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, members of the Shazam! family, and the Legion’s Karate Kid—but one unidentifiable character, whose body and most of his face is obstructed by Superman, always gave me pause. If he were taller, it might be Jim Shooter sneaking in for a cameo, but my theory, from the character’s hairstyle, is that it’s Mon-El of the Legion of Super-Heroes. “It’s Mon-El,” confirms Bob Rozakis. Rozakis was now co-editor of AWODCC, which wasn’t in the original plan for the magazine. “I didn’t give up the full editorial title; it was taken from me,” admits Carl Gafford. “There was a lot of concern that the zine might not make it past a first issue. When they gave us the green light, they assigned someone to manage the editorial portion and gave me just the production. Besides doing all the paste-ups, I did the color separations for the front and back covers.” Issue #2’s “Amazing World of Editorials,” by Rozakis, revealed the aforementioned story of the magazine’s genesis and announced the

Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 59

Jack C. Harris ruminates, “The only ‘weakness’ I see (in retrospect) was the inclusion of the current comics on sale when the issues were published. I think this dates them; without those pages, I think the issues would stand up better as timeless, historic texts.” And whatever happened to that oft-promised Bob Kanigher interview? Was it ever actually conducted? According to Rozakis, “I don’t think the interview ever happened. Kanigher was a prickly guy and didn’t want to have much to do with us ‘kids.’ I vaguely recall Marty Pasko once asking him a question and Kanigher replied, ‘What’s your name? Do you work here?’ ” Actually, as Cary Burkett discloses, there were attempts to get the Kanigher feature off the ground. “I remember the Kanigher spotlight I hoped to do very well,” Burkett says. “I interviewed Kanigher several times for the article I hoped to write. I was a very green interviewer, and Kanigher had a tendency to ramble. I couldn’t keep him on topic, and I couldn’t nail down specific answers to different questions. After several interviews (which were a lot of fun, by the way), I felt as if I had no cohesive or trustworthy narrative about his work in comics.”

WORLDVIEW

Still, looking back four decades later, the one-time Woodchucks fondly recall their days within Amazing World’s orbit. Paul Levitz contends, “It was a wonderful ride, and we got a few good pieces of history done with the interviews and articles. Even salvaged a few things from the files that would have vanished, like that ‘missing’ Legion page [#9]. And a group of young people who would do a lot of interesting work in the field got to grow. Not a bad benefit.” Allan Asherman says, “What I do remember is the elation I felt at being a part of DC Comics and being asked to be on the staff of an official company magazine written for comics fans. I recall thinking it was like a dream, to be paid for working on a magazine that would be as much fun to prepare as a fanzine but would actually have more significance, being sponsored and approved by the company, which would also be giving us access to interview and schmooze with our resident legendary writers, artists, and other creators, and to examine and write about parts of the company’s history unknown outside DC Comics.” Bob Rozakis maintains, “The biggest plus was that it gave us ‘kids’ our own piece of DC history. That we had access not only to the staff and freelancers, but also to the files from years past, gave us a unique perspective that could not be duplicated by outsiders. We were pretty much left alone to decide the contents and who we wanted to interview, so it really was our magazine.” According to Jack C. Harris, “The greatest strength of Amazing World of DC Comics was the enthusiasm of the contributors. We loved what we were writing about. No one was ‘assigned’ anything; was all came forward with our own ideas about what we wanted to research and present. ‘Labor of love’ was an understatement.” Michael Uslan believes, “The greatest strength of Amazing World of DC Comics was definitely the Woodchucks. We were all great pals, went to lunch together often, socialized on weekends, and had true camaraderie built on a foundation of our love for comic books and comic-book history. We were the ones lucky enough to be working at DC Comics in the first generation of fanboys that were allowed to turn pro. We had access to the executives, to the editors, to the artists and writers, to the production people, many of whom were there at the beginning in the 1930s and 1940s. Our knowledge of the history of comics came straight from the horses’ mouths. Our love for comics and DC rears its head and every single issue of AWODCC.” We’ll give the final word on AWODCC to Paul Levitz, the Woodchuck who ascended to the company’s top post: “Who’d have thought anyone would still be thinking of it four decades later?!” An amazing world of gratitude to Woodchucks Allan Asherman, Cary Burkett, Carl Gafford, Jack C. Harris, Paul Levitz, Bob Rozakis, and Michael Uslan for taking the time to share their memories.

68 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom

Let me state right up front that I was not lucky enough to be included in the “We” in this article’s title. I was a freshman at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, when DC Comics hosted its own comic-con from February 27–29 of the Bicentennial year—New York City was too far away for this pimple-faced dorm-dweller. The notion of my favorite publisher hosting its own fan gathering was almost mind-blowing enough to tempt me to skip class for a couple of days for a road trip north… too bad as a frosh I wasn’t allowed to have a car on campus, else I might have made the trek in my ’70 Ford Maverick. by M i c h a e l E u r y But as an avid, life-long DC reader and a proud owner of the convention booklet, The Amazing World of DC Comics Special Edition #1 Celebrating the Super DC Con ’76, I’ve wondered in the 40-plus years since what it was like to have attended that momentous event. Barring the intervention of a wielder of a time machine (where’s Rip Hunter when you need him?), the closest I’ll ever get to Super DC Con ’76 is to live vicariously through the experiences of some of those who were there. I expect that most of you are like me and were not there—sheesh, some of you weren’t even born yet—so join me as we look back at Super DC Con ’76. Before we hear from the people who were there, it’s important to frame our perspective in the pop culture of the ’70s. Today, fans have one-day comic-cons to choose from almost every weekend of the year, in major metropolitan areas and smaller suburban regions. Mega-shows like San Diego Comic-Con International and New York Comic-Con earn worldwide entertainment headlines. But in the Bicentennial year of 1976, when the USA was gearing up for its sizzling fireworks shows that Fourth of July, comic-cons were still uncommon for most fans. A dozen years had passed since the first comic-book convention, the New York Comicon of 1964, an affair organized phil seuling by young fan Bernie Bubnis, abetted by fellow fans Ron Fradkin, Art Tripp, and Ethan Roberts. By ’76, a few comic-cons had trickled into existence, relatively new events consigned to a handful of major cities, discounting the flea market-like book- and comicswaps you might find around college campuses. Convention pioneer Phil Seuling, a teacher from Brooklyn who provided refreshments at Bubnis’ inaugural New York Comicon, had grown the concept into his Comic Art Conventions, explosions of fandemonium occurring in Manhattan each Independence Day weekend, dating back to 1968. Seuling had started to branch out with brand-centric shows, including a Famous Monsters (of Filmland) Convention in 1974, and Marvel Comics even launched its own short-lived annual convention in 1975 (which we’ll cover in a future issue). This growing mania made the time right for a DC convention, and so Phil Seuling joined forces with DC Comics president Sol Harrison to organize a DC con. 1976 was a leap year, and back in the Bronze Age, February 29th was also Superman’s birthday (according to DC lore-keeper E. Nelson Bridwell). And so, Super DC Con ’76 doubled as the Man of Steel’s birthday party—complete with a Super Birthday Cake (as well as a bountiful supply of Twinkies, courtesy of one of DC’s major advertisers of the day). Anyone who’s ever organized a convention will tell you it’s a tough job, and members of DC’s staff (mostly its “Junior Woodchucks” newbies) moonlighted by coordinating most of the event’s duties: Paul Levitz co-managed the con with Phil Seuling’s then-girlfriend and Gal Friday, Jonni Levas, and Jenette Kahn, fresh on the job as DC’s new publisher, managed publicity, with additional DC personnel handling other The Convention Booklet responsibilities (this was long before comics publishers had marketing This Special Edition of Amazing World of DC Comics teams dedicated to conventions). Levitz and his fellow Woodchucks produced the con booklet, the aforementioned AWODCC Special Edition (AWODCC) doubled as Super DC Con ’76’s program #1, whose contents were explored in the previous article. One can only guide. There’s an error on this cover… can you spot it? imagine how the burden of orchestrating a convention amplified the routine chaos found in DC’s helter-skelter editorial and production Keeping reading for details! environments, but no one could have anticipated the biggest event TM & © DC Comics. disruptor since the FF’s rogues’ gallery crashed Reed and Sue’s wedding… Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 69

Double Your Pleasure

by J a y

Williams

The Don Newton/ Bob Layton wraparound cover for The Charlton Portfolio/ CPL #9/10 (1974), signed by CPL Gang members Layton and Roger Stern. From the collection of Jay Williams. Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Peacemaker, Judomaster TM & © DC Comics. E-Man TM & © Nick Cuti and Joe Staton. Other characters © their respective copyright holders.

You have learned elsewhere in this issue about the rise of prozines in the 1970s. Now you will learn the story behind how Charlton Comics decided that it needed its own prozine, a publication that would be called The Charlton Bullseye. For those who are not familiar with Charlton, they were a single-source supplier of cheap comic books operating out of Derby, Connecticut. They paid artists and writers less than DC and Marvel, they printed their comics on worn-out old presses used to print cereal boxes and sheet music, they had their own their own tractor-trailer trucks, and did their own distribution. You would know that you were holding a Charlton comic by its poor print quality. That’s why Bob Layton refers to the company as “the three-legged dog of comics.”

his collection, so he had to find some way to sell those extra comics and decided to publish what was known as an “adzine,” which was nothing more than a list of his comics for sale. But he had to have a unique name for that list. According to Robert, “I was trying to come up with a name that represented what comics were about.” After much thought, he came up with Contemporary Pictorial Literature. Because that was such a mouthful, it very quickly became known as CPL. Robert purchased an ad in Alan Light’s The Buyer’s Guide to Comics Fandom, known to most comic fans as TBG. So CPL was in business, being run out of Robert’s apartment. He even published his return address on the cover: Robert Layton, 41010 Mallway Drive, Apartment A, Indianapolis, Indiana. Yes, “Robert” is the man you know today as the famous Iron Man artist, Bob Layton. CPL #1–2 were pure adzines, mimeographed CONTEMPORARY PICTORIAL LITERATURE sheets with amateurish drawings of comic characters #1–4: AN ADZINE by young Bob Layton on the front covers. Layton tells BACK ISSUE, “I am sure someone will come up with a To understand how The Charlton Bullseye came into copy of those covers and embarrass the crap out of me being, we need to go back to 1973. In the city of once they read this article.” The first issue has a Indianapolis was a young comic-book collector by the drawing of Luke Cage, and to the best of Bob’s name of Robert. When he was four years old, he wanted recollections, maybe Doc Savage was on CPL #2. to know more about the comic books he looked at. bob layton On the back cover of CPL #3 (1973) was the cover of In Robert’s words, “My curiosity was so piqued” that © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. CPL #1 (1973) with a drawing of Luke Cage. (I was he asked his sister to teach him to read so that he could read the word balloons himself. He learned to read so early that Robert unable to verify what was on the cover of CPL #2, as that is not one of ended up skipping a grade in school, graduating high school at age 17. the issues I have in my collection.) With the exception of CPL #9/10, the format of CPL #3–12 was 8.5” x Knowing that he was not college material, Robert decided to self-educate himself in the art of writing so he could attempt to become a comic-book 5.5”, stapled in the middle. Heavier paper and later, cardstock, was used writer. At the same time he was into collecting comics, but distribution for the covers. All issues had black-and-white interiors and all the covers was so bad that the only way he knew to be guaranteed to be able to get were black and white except for the cover of #12, which was in color. the comics he collected was to approach Koch magazine and comic With CPL #3, some articles began to appear. This issue was published distributors and buy directly from them. Robert thought he had to buy in or around May 1973 since the cover had a Bob Layton drawing of ten copies of each, so he did. Robert only needed one of each comic for Killraven of “War of the Worlds” fame, who first appeared in Marvel’s 74 • BACK ISSUE • Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom

Amazing Adventures #18 (cover-dated May 1973 but going on sale in late February of that year), and also contained a review of that issue along with the top ten sellers for April 1973 in the Indianapolis area. Other features: the first installment of “The Indy Bomber” with reviews of comics and more, and a letters column which contained a letter from Stewart Lehman, who wrote, “I saw your ad in the Buyer’s Guide #33. I do not have very many fanzines because I am new to the comic world. Your ad sounded great and I hope the fanzine is as good!” Layton’s response: “I would like to make it clear to everyone that C.P.L. is NOT (my emphasis) a true fanzine. Our primary interest is to sell comics. We allow the items of interest to appear in order to make buying a comic catalog a worthy investment. We are NOT (again my emphasis) a fan magazine.” Good thing Bob isn’t a prophet, because soon that statement would not be true. Issue #3’s centerfold contained another illustration with six comic characters including Iron Man, which was probably Bob’s first published drawing of the Armored Avenger. CPL #3 and 4 were 20 pages each. CPL #3 contained nine pages of comics for sale. In CPL #4, the page count of comics for sale dropped to six pages.

By now the CPL Gang was bringing in contributions from creative people such as Tony Isabella, Don Maitz, Michael Uslan, and Steven Grant. A turning point in the lives of the CPL Gang came in early 1974 when convention pioneer Phil Seuling of Sea Gate Distributors contacted Bob Layton about making CPL a more professional publication. Phil, along with Bud Plant on the West Coast, was the connection between fan artists and professional artists. Phil and Bud agreed to pay for the CPL print runs and split the runs between them to then sell to comic shops. This allowed CPL #7 and 8 to have a slicker look. Notable in CPL #7 were three full-page John Byrne illustrations: a drawing of the Question, a Spider-Man drawing with the shadow of Batman falling over him, and a Nightshade drawing. The first and last were inked by Duffy Vohland. In 1971, George Wildman took over as the editor at Charlton Comics. His associate was Nicola “Nick” Cuti. In September 1973, Charlton changed its logo from a white capital “C” with Charlton Comics written across it to what became known as the “bullseye” logo, which was red, white, blue, and black with the words “Charlton Comics Group” written across the bullseye.

CONTEMPORARY PICTORIAL LITERATURE #5–8: THE GANG ARRIVES

Then CPL #5 arrived, and the content changed drastically due to Bob meeting Roger Stern. Sterno, as Bob calls him, worked at a local Indianapolis radio station and was a regular purchaser of TBG. Stern thought he was the only comic-book fan in Indianapolis. When he saw Bob’s phone number in the TBG ads, he called Bob and said, “We have to get together.” Roger knew other collectors from other states like Duffy Vohland and Roger Slifer. Stern then said, “I know this fan artist from Canada by the name of John Byrne.” It was Stern’s idea to create a fanzine. “I thought it was a good idea, as I was looking for somewhere to publish my art,” Layton says. “Back then there was no venue to publish comic art except in a fanzine. Duffy had contacts at Marvel and put the word out that we were converting CPL from an adzine to a fanzine.” So Layton, Stern, Vohland, and Slifer put together CPL #5, and the CPL Gang was born. While the zine retained CPL’s 20-page format, the ads were reduced to four pages, printed on pink paper and stuffed into the center. Issue #5’s cover by Neal Adams and Duffy Vohland was a quantum improvement over the covers of CPL #1–4. Page 2 contained a Blue Beetle drawing that was to be plate #1 of a Charlton poster portfolio by Byrne and Vohland. The editorial on page 4 announced: “Big changes are on their way, if you could not tell already. CPL #5 showcases the work of Canadian artist, John L. Byrne. The centerfold was done by Berni[e] Wrightson.” Scattered throughout the issue (and future issues) were little drawings Byrne cut out of his sketchbook and sent to be pasted in. The CPL Gang sent 25 copies to Marvel and 25 copies to DC to any editor they had contact with, and apparently a few copies to Charlton. CPL #6 added art from Dan Atkins, Joe Sinnott, Don Newton, and Mike Royer. Page 19 contained Captain Atom art by Byrne and Vohland. But the main thing of note, on pages 4 and 21, was the first two appearances of a robot drawn by John Byrne. Stern and Layton decided to make the robot the CPL Gang’s mascot and have him be the one who replied to fan letters. They decided the robot needed a name— Why not one more Roger?—so they named him Rog 2000 (sometimes Rog-2000 or ROG 2000). Bob then lettered “Rog 2000” across the front of the robot on page 4, and the rest is history. There has long been a debate as to how Rog 2000’s name is pronounced. Is it Rog like in “bog” or Rog like in Roger? Bob Layton says since the robot was Roger #3, it was always been pronounced as “raj” in Roger.

Raw Talent (top and center) Examples of Bob Layton’s early artwork. (bottom) Covers by Neal Adams and John Byrne, both with Duffy Vohland inks. Luke Cage, Killraven, Iron Man, Warlock © Marvel. Deadman, Swamp Thing, Demon, Blue Beetle © DC. Doc Savage © Condé Nast.

Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 75

REED CRANDALL Illustrator of the Comics

From the 1940s to the ’70s, REED CRANDALL brought a unique and masterful style to American comic art. Using an illustrator’s approach on everything he touched, Crandall gained a reputation as the “artist’s artist” through his skillful interpretations of Golden Age super-heroes DOLL MAN, THE RAY, and BLACKHAWK (his signature character); horror and sci-fi for the legendary EC COMICS line; Warren Publishing’s CREEPY, EERIE, and BLAZING COMBAT; the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS and EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS characters; and even FLASH GORDON for King Features. Comic art historian ROGER HILL has compiled a complete and extensive history of Crandall’s life and career, from his early years and major successes, through his tragic decline and passing in 1982. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER includes NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PHOTOS, a wealth of RARE AND UNPUBLISHED ARTWORK, and over EIGHTY THOUSAND WORDS of insight into one of the true illustrators of the comics.

(256-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-077-9 • NOW SHIPPING!

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Follow-up to Mark Voger’s smash hit MONSTER MASH!

From WOODSTOCK to THE BANANA SPLITS, from SGT. PEPPER to H.R. PUFNSTUF, from ALTAMONT to THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, GROOVY is a far-out trip to the era of lava lamps and love beads. This profusely illustrated HARDCOVER BOOK, in PSYCHEDELIC COLOR, features interviews with icons of grooviness such as PETER MAX, BRIAN WILSON, PETER FONDA, MELANIE, DAVID CASSIDY, members of the JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, CREAM, THE DOORS, THE COWSILLS and VANILLA FUDGE; and cast members of groovy TV shows like THE MONKEES, LAUGH-IN and THE BRADY BUNCH. GROOVY revisits the era’s ROCK FESTIVALS, MOVIES, ART—even COMICS and CARTOONS, from the 1968 ‘mod’ WONDER WOMAN to R. CRUMB. A color-saturated pop-culture history written and designed by MARK VOGER (author of the acclaimed book MONSTER MASH), GROOVY is one trip that doesn’t require dangerous chemicals!

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TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com

I can’t recall the exact moment Michael Eury entered my life, but I am a better man for it. When we lured Michael from Comico the Comic Company to DC Comics in 1989, he was a sea of calm in a manic ocean called Editorial. He brought knowledge and enthusiasm to his assignments and was a welcome voice of reason when things got stressful. He has, since then, gone on the do many wonderful things but none more important, perhaps, than editing BACK ISSUE, which has furthered our understanding of comics history for 100 issues, with many more to come. I had, at one point, pitched the idea of interviewing him for his own magazine, and when he was done blushing demurred until plans for the centennial started to take shape. We had a very lengthy phone call in the late fall of 2016 and in early 2017 we edited, tightened, and refined the conversation so it was less mutual gushing and focused more on the magazine and its legacy. – Robert Greenberger

conducted by

R o b e r t G r e e n b e r g e yr transcribed by Sean

Dulane

BOB GREENBERGER: We’re going to talk about your life, your writing, and the magazine. And we’re going to start with the magazine, because we’re celebrating the centennial issue. MICHAEL EURY: Hard to believe, isn’t it? GREENBERGER: Yeah. So, I was reading the introduction from John Morrow in #1 and he talks about how he saw a void in publishing when Comic Book Artist left TwoMorrows, and when he conceived of the project to fill that gap, he said you were the perfect guy to edit this. Why do you think he picked you? EURY: Well, we had developed a good working relationship from the first two books that I did for John, the Captain Action history followed by the Dick Giordano biography. John and I just got along well… and I met deadlines [laughter], and delivered when and what I promised. These are obviously important things, but they are things that sometimes folks can’t deliver, so between that and my passion for comics of the Bronze Age, I guess I was his go-to guy. GREENBERGER: When he pitched you the idea for the magazine, what did you see the magazine as being? michael eury EURY: John started with some great ideas. He came to me with a some of the departments such as “Greatest Stories Never Told”—which immediately jazzed me—and “Off My Chest,” “Rough Stuff,” and “Beyond Capes” [non-superhero comics]. I wanted to create some kind of thematic format right from the get-go, to help keep me interested, to help keep readers interested, and to help there be some structure. I didn’t want there to be random content each issue, because I felt that might actually make the magazine, in the long run—and maybe even in the short term—kind of boring. So the thematic structure came to mind right when I sat down to start brainstorming what could be in the magazine. And I think overall, that has been a success, because here we are, 100 issues strong. I’ve already planned up to well over a year-plus beyond that. I even know exactly what I’m going to do for issue #109… GREENBERGER: Which, by the way, you realize that scares the rest of us that you are that planned ahead. EURY: [laughs] The thing is, I don’t reveal details to our writers until I really want them to be out. I don’t have the time to spend hours working on something that won’t see print for a few years, but still I have a long-term, sometimes fluid, game plan. I’m actually looking ahead to try to do a few things that tie in to larger media events that are pertinent to readers of the Bronze Age. I will go ahead and say issue #109—which will come out in November of 2018—is a Superman: The Movie 40th Anniversary issue. GREENBERGER: Gosh, that makes perfect sense. And I certainly hope Warner puts Superman back out in theaters, even for a short run, to remind us we can “Believe a Man Can Fly.” EURY: I’d love to see it on the big screen again.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby! BACK ISSUE #1, released in November 2003. Main cover art by George Pérez. Batman TM & © DC Comics. Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Bronze Age Fanzines and Fandom• BACK ISSUE • 83