The Comic Reader

• 1. Introduction

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  The Comic Reader was many things over its twenty-three-year run: a single-page news-sheet, a teen-edited fanzine, a digest-sized industry bible. But when it debuted in October 1961, it solved a problem that had no solution. Comics fans in that era had no way to find out what was coming to the newsstands, no way to learn the names of the writers and artists who made the stories they loved. Credits simply were not printed. TCR, as its readers called it, changed that. It was the first regularly published comics industry news fanzine, and it ran from 1961 all the way to 1984, passing through the hands of a string of editors and eventually earning the informal title of "the TV Guide of the comics industry". The questions worth asking are how a single-page newsletter from 1961 became an institution, who kept it alive through collapses and revivals, and why a rival publisher would later describe stealing its audience as a deliberate act.

• 2. On the Drawing Board

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  Jerry Bails, later known as the "Father of Comics Fandom", launched On the Drawing Board in October 1961 to track upcoming releases in professional comics. The publication grew out of his existing fanzine Alter Ego, where it had run for three issues as a column. When it broke free as a standalone project, the first true standalone issue carried the designation #4, since the column's appearances in Alter Ego counted as issues #1 through #3.

  On the 7th of October 1961, that standalone issue arrived: a single-page news-sheet. Comics fandom historian Bill Schelly captured what that moment meant to readers. Fans suddenly had a way to see what was arriving on newsstands, and in some cases they could learn the actual names of writers and artists at a time when such credits were not routinely given. Interest centered on DC Comics, particularly the revival of Hawkman, but readers also tracked the entry of other companies into costumed-hero territory: Archie Comics, Gold Key, Charlton, and Marvel were all being watched.

  The March 1962 issue, #8, brought a name change. On the Drawing Board became The Comic Reader, though the old name was kept alive as the title of the news section inside. That same year, the publication was named the official bulletin of the Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors, a designation that gave it both institutional weight and a readership that identified with organized fandom.

• 3. A Fanzine in Constant Motion

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  In January 1964, Bails announced a merger with another of his fanzines, The Comicollector, to be edited by Bill White. A death in White's family stopped that plan before it started. Florida-based publisher G. B. Love stepped in, offering to absorb The Comic Reader into his own fanzine, Rocket's Blast. The ACBFC board voted no. TCR would survive as a standalone publication.

  A New Mexico-based enthusiast named Glen Johnson took over editorial duties in mid-1964. Johnson passed the title along to a succession of editors, among them Derrill Rothermich, who moved the fanzine to offset printing in late 1965. By 1968, issue #65, Mark Hanerfeld was in charge. Within a year, the schedule had become erratic. Hanerfeld was also serving as executive secretary of the ACBFC, and the combined workload proved too much. The ACBFC itself went defunct in mid-1969. By early 1970, despite having won a 1969 Alley Award for Best Unlimited Reproduction Fanzine, TCR had stopped publishing entirely.

  The fanzine had survived a near-merger, an organizational collapse, and a rotating cast of editors. That it had won awards while struggling to maintain a basic publication schedule suggests both the genuine loyalty of its readers and the fragile infrastructure that sustained early comics fandom.

• 4. The Levitz Years

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  In early 1971, a New York teenager named Paul Levitz bought the dormant property and brought The Comic Reader back to life with issue #78. He merged it with a zine he had co-published with Paul Kupperberg, called Etcetera, and from issues #78 through #89 the combined publication was called Etcetera & The Comic Reader. After issue #90 the two titles separated again.

  Under Levitz, TCR became something it had not previously been: a monthly publication with a consistent format. Issues typically ran 16 pages and featured illustrated covers. As circulation grew, the fanzine was able to draw professional artists to those covers, including Jack Kirby, Rich Buckler, Walt Simonson, and Howard Chaykin. The publication won two Best Fanzine Comic Fan Art Awards during this stretch.

  Issue #99, dated July 1973, carried TCR's first color cover. That same year, the staff produced the program booklet for the 1973 Comic Art Convention and published the ballots for the 1973 Goethe Awards, which recognized comics published in 1972.

  Levitz's editorial work on TCR opened doors at DC Comics. He eventually joined the company and worked there for over 35 years in a wide variety of roles, a trajectory that started with a teenager reviving a dormant newsletter from his home in New York.

• 5. Street Enterprises and the Final Chapter

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  In November 1973, with issue #101, a Wisconsin-based outfit called Street Enterprises took over the title. Mike Tiefenbacher became editor. Under Street Enterprises, TCR shifted to digest size, a format change that deepened the resemblance to a trade publication and sharpened the "TV Guide of the comics industry" comparison its readers already used.

  The magazine expanded its reach by licensing its U.S. comics news material to the British fan press. Two outlets in particular carried this material: Richard Burton's Comic Media News and Martin Lock's BEM.

  In early 1979, Street Enterprises was forced to wind down another of its titles, The Menomonee Falls Gazette. Many of the comic strips that had run in The Gazette were moved over to TCR, shifting the magazine's character further toward a general comics publication.

  The competitive pressure that ended TCR arrived in 1981, when Fantagraphics Books launched Amazing Heroes. Long-time Fantagraphics co-publisher Kim Thompson described the intent plainly: "If you want to look at it cynically, we set out to steal The Comic Reader's cheese. Which we did." The Comic Reader published its final issue, #219, in September 1984.

• 6. A Launching Pad for Creators

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  TCR's pages were not only a source of industry news. They served as early publishing ground for people who would later become professional comics creators. The fanzine attracted contributors from fandom who were working as amateurs, and some of those contributors built careers from the work they did there.

  Among the names who passed through TCR: Paul Kupperberg, Tony Isabella, Byron Preiss, Neal Pozner, Don Rosa, Carl Gafford, and Doug Hazlewood. Rosa contributed a recurring strip called "Captain Kentucky." Fred Hembeck ran a strip called "Dateline @!!?#". Jim Engel contributed both "Dick Duck, Duck Dick" and, with Chuck Fiala, "Fandom Confidential". Fiala also created "Bullet Crow" and "Fowl of Fortune"; the "Bullet Crow" strips were later reprinted in two issues published by Eclipse Comics in 1987.

  The fanzine's role as a training ground was inseparable from its role as a news source. Readers who wanted to know who was drawing Hawkman were reading the same pages where future professionals were practicing the craft. That overlap between the informed fan and the aspiring creator shaped what TCR was from its first issues through its last.