I remember one of the first fanzines we got was Comicollector #4. Some fanzines, like Comiccollector contained ads for people selling old comics, and some, like comics fandom pioneers Don and Maggie Thompson, reported on current comics news in an era when publications sent via the US Mail moved much faster than anything else. Some fanzines were devoted to original stories and art, and cartoonists like Richard “Grass” Green, Biljo White, and Ronn Foss turned out almost-pro level comics. Many featured historical articles about comics, and I learned a lot about the Golden Age before I even saw some of the actual comics of that era. The fanzines were a time of unbridled creativity, where people (mainly young men, some just teenagers) openly embraced comics, a medium that they were most likely embarrassed to be seen reading in public. Some crossed over to become comics creators, like Roy Thomas, Bernie Wrightson, and Don Newton. They had “superstar” creators, both writers and artists, like Biljo White, GB Love, Bill Schelly, Martin Greim, Don and Maggie Thompson.

They had exotic titles like Rocket’s Blast, Komix Illustrated, Batmania, Sense of Wonder, Comic Crusader, and Alter Ego, to name a few. My brother, who was 8+ years older than me, dutifully taped quarters to index cards and sent them off in the mail along with a SASE and months later, some kind of fanzine arrived. These publications were often amateurish and horribly printed, but still had a certain … shall we say, naive charm? … about them. Current comic books had letter columns and included on those pages were addresses of comics fans who published fanzines. That decade was also the spawning ground for comics fandom and conventions.

Other than the first decade of comics in America, there would never be another one as creative and ground-breaking as the 1960s. Soon a whole new aspect of comics would be introduced: the underground comix era. The Marvel Age of Comics moved into hyper-drive, with the team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at their creative zenith, the return of John Romita and John Buscema to the Marvel fold, the introduction of new artists like Jim Steranko and Neal Adams, the addition of writers Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich and Denny O’Neil, all combining to bring superhero comics to a new level. The swinging sixties swung forward, and we (my brother and I) kept buying comics. Above: The Exhibit Hall at the 1972 New York Comic Art Convention at the Statler-Hilton Hotel.

Rocket blast comic collector fanzine