Remaining Fanzines and Magazines?

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

Oh , the irony . Let's continue something that was discussed at the MSA Old Home , namely , remaining print comic fanzines - And , for diversity , pro/semi-pro/" pro-zine " comics publications as well .

  CBG remains in business . The Comics Journal has now announced that they will come out annually , with " a 600-page plus " issue .

  I am Facebook friends with Jon B. Cooke but I haven't yet checked to see if his Comic Book Artist has managed to continue recently , post-its Old Home...

  Toomorrows , which indeed has itself a little nook/corner , with The Jack Kirby Collectore , Alter Ego , and Back Issue .

  Now , including the " fan " side too...........

[George]

www.tcj.com/the-comics-journal-no-53-winter-1980/

 

The Journal's book-length interview with Harlan Ellison, from 1980, was an amazing rant. It led to Michael Fleischer's lawsuit against Ellison and Gary Groth, which dragged on until 1987.

 

I could laugh along with Gary when he was making fun of BAD superhero comics, which have always been plentiful. But when he decided ALL superhero comics were worthless dreck, I began to lose interest in his magazine. It's probably been 15 years since I've bought a copy, maybe longer.

[George]

www.tcj.com/the-comics-journal-no-115-1987/

 

Here's the issue with testimony from the Fleischer-Groth case. Great cover!

[ClarkKent_DC]

Lumbering Jack said:

Clark,

As a pre-teen and teen without much connection to fandom or an accessible comic book store, the only comics publication I could find at my local supermarket was Comics Scene, and I wanted more out of it than an extended advertisement for the Superboy TV show. I wanted analysis of comics, their characters and creators. For the most part, Comics Scene did not offer that.

You're right, Wikipedia says that Comics Scene was indeed meant to explore comics in other media rather than the comics themselves. I did not know this at the time it was being published, and was entirely justified with my dissatisfaction.

I've always lived in areas where I could patronize a variety of stores and always saw a number of different publications. I can understand your frustration with the one publication that's available to you not touching on the things you want to see, so I'm not saying you aren't justified in your dissatisfaction.

Your comment just struck me like, say, criticizing, Broadcasting & Cable magazine for not doing enough about actors and celebrities, which it leaves to TV Guide.

[Dave Blanchard]

Definitely check out Hogan's Alley if you aren't already doing so. It's basically an annual, and is devoted to comics (books and strips) and animation, and is just plain wonderful.

[George]

I guess I should plug the good ol' CBG, which puts the spotlight on romance comics in the April issue -- and includes an article by our own Andrew Smith about books reprinting romance stories.

 

[Mr. Silver Age]

I agree that Andrew is in the top two of CBG's writers. It seems to be the last magazine standing to comment on current comics, which apparently is a dying need. I'd say that's too bad, but I don't especially read the current comics news that way, and maybe that space would be better devoted to something else. 

I don't think there's been a new CBA in a number of years by now, unless I missed a third incarnation. TCJ lost me not only when it started reducing circulation and boosting its price and pages, but when most of its coverage went to international cartoonists I had little chance of finding even if I wanted to.

I still love comics magazines and like to keep up with them, but they're getting really expensive. OTOH, so are comics, and I usually get more reading value from the magazines, so it's not a bad deal.

As ED noted, we discussed actual fanzines (as opposed to professionally done magazines) over on the old AMSA board. It may surprise people to know there are still a few out there. Here's the discussion: http://cbgxtra.com/oh-so-speak-your-mind/the-comics-reader.

The Web fills a lot of the purpose of the old zines, but it's just not the same. There's a fair amount of work involved in finding something worth reading on the Internet, but OTOH I can usually find something, which isn't always true with comics magazines. But nothing beats that feeling of picking up the mail and seeing a new zine waiting!

BTW, I liked your tags, ED, but I'm not sure they're really specific to this discussion.

-- MSA

[Doctor Hmmm?]

I agree that Andrew is in the top two of CBG's writers. It seems to be the last magazine standing to comment on current comics, which apparently is a dying need. I'd say that's too bad, but I don't especially read the current comics news that way, and maybe that space would be better devoted to something else. 

Back in The Dinosaur Days, when I first started reading CBG (i.e., circa 1981), it was a weekly newspaper, and I could read everything in it that I was interested in in a couple of days.  When it became a slick paper monthly a few years ago, I mourned the loss of my weekly dose of the "old" CBG, but consoled myself with the thought that longer, more detailed articles meant that any given issue could be rationed over a longer time.

And that was true ... for a while.  But between shrinking page counts and shifts in editorial focus, it once again takes me, tops, two days to read everything I'm interested in.  A few hours of reading a month just isn't as good a deal as a few hours every week.  I don't see myself walking away from CBG after 30 years, but I sure miss what it used to be. 

I will say this ... the proofreading has gotten better lately.  For the first few years of the magazine-style CBG, it was a rare issue that I didn't fling across the room at least once, shouting "Does anybody double-check this before it goes to print?" (I'm kinda tetchy about that.  And overcaffeinated.)

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

The Comics Journal still exists online at tcj.com. No one, and I mean no one, did better or more comprehensive interviews with comics creators than that magazine. And it's 100 greatest comics of the 20th century issue was fantastic...and, yes, a few superhero books made the list. ;)

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...By going into detail about prozines , I rather swayed the bent of this discussion towards them , I suppose .

  I was , sort of , hoping for a listing of presently available print " zine "-level stuff , w/addresses + prices...Perhaps the vintage CBG link , which I haven't read in full , will supply that .

  I also remember a CBG bit about a fanzine called " The Teen Comics Fanzine " , which I think was discussed elsewhere on CBG than that .

  I ordered it , and got it , as well as checking out a seperate-material blog , but said TTCF appears to have gone under .

  There was a time when The Comics Journal advertised itself via Charles Atlas-style comic-strip ads in THE HULK! showing a kid , " I found out about all the new Marvels , and became more popular in school , through subscribing to The Comics Journal " ! Times certainly do change .

  I agree that the TCJ site has lots of good stuff on it - Including the latest one , which has just recently been put into effect , and comprises , essentially , Fantgraphics outsourcing , or four-walling , the management of the TCJ site to another organization/previously existing site , one called Comics Comics , who essentially discontinued Comics Comics and took over the care and management of said TCJ.Com .

  Sadly , however , the new regime pulled the plug entirely on the TCJ.Com message board:-( .

  Yesterday , look-ups in Wikipedia on The Comics Reader , BCC , and RBCC's primary editors G. B. Love and James Van Hise saw only stubs for the last 3 , and only a The Comics Reader sub-heading within the article on the late Jerry bails , no dedicated TCR article itself .

  Around the very early 00s , I saw a Web advertisment/notice and more for a revived version of The Comics Reader , a print version .

  I don't know whether it was ever published .

  I have thought that , in a sense , " classic " comics fanzines of the type that Silver Age fans ( In the sense of a " fan " during the Silver Age , especially . ) lovingly recall were pretty much gone by the time the Eighties really got into motion - That , to the extent thay lasted through the 70s , they didn't really transfer to the Reagan decade in the " classic " form , and I recall that , even during the Nineties , the weekly CBG would have advertisments/reviews for " in the classic fanzine tradition " occasional " old-fashioned "-style zines...

  Comments ?????????

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...This could prove of interest to people here...ZINEWIKI .

http://zinewiki.com !

  Maybe I should give this its own entry , and maybe in the " General " section rather than MSA's section , which in all probability does tend to attract less younger/" general " Legioners ? ?

  Well , regardless .

  This Wiki is an attempt to list all fanzines everywhere , and the " alternative media " in general .

  It tends to be dominated now by zines that are: (1) rather recent and (2) not comics-centered , but that is because those are the people who have posted things there , it remains for comics-oriented zinesters to step up to the plate , as it were , I have seen comics and SF zines listed within this wiki !

[Mr. Silver Age]

said TTCF appears to have gone under .

I promoted that in one of my columns, and I thought it looked promising. But by the time the article came out, the Web site hadn't been updated since the last time I saw it, and later visits showed no more activity, so I stopped looking.

I'm sure fanzines have the same problem as magazines--it's costly to print and mail those issues, and it's harder to find a big enough audience that's interested to make it pay off when so much similar information is available on the Web. I like to support fanzines when I can, both because I like them and I like to see them continue, but I think they're virtually gone by now.

Even the prozines are faltering, from what I see. TwoMorrows keeps raising rates and dropping page counts, although it just added a color form to offset some of that.

I'm actually kind of surprised they don't really have a SA-themed magazine. A/E sometimes covers that, but it's strictly interviews even when it does have something, and Back Issue is considerably more Bronze Age. Maybe (sniff) nobody cares about the poor old SA enough any more to make it work in print.

-- MSA

 

[ClarkKent_DC]

And, of course, Wizard gave up on print distribution just last month ...