Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 08:27:04 -0400 From: [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu] (Metroplex) Subject: FTP 540 ==== FIT TO PRINT by catherine yronwode for the week of October 1, 1995 THIS IS FIT TO PRINT NUMBER 540: Sometime around 1980 Jim Shooter and i were discussing upcoming storylines for Red Sonja, and he told me, with that self-confident voice he manages so well, that the plot developments i wanted to see would never happen. "Comics fandom has a regular turnover, he explained. "About every two to two-and-a-half years, a whole new crop comes in and the old fans drop out." This regular turnover of fans, he said, is what keeps the superhero genre fairly static. Furthermore - and here he chuckled a little at my expense - a sure sign of an older fan's readiness to drop out of fandom was that he or she wanted to see "major changes" in the lives of characters. According to Jim, accommodating older fans' requests for the maturation of characters was not in the best interests of the publishers or licensers of super-heroes. Too much change might turn away the next generation of young fans, he said. Better to accept the fact that old fans may complain for a while, but eventually they will drop out of fandom. This continual drop-out of fans was why, he noted, "Aunt May doesn't have to die, and Lois Lane doesn't have to marry Clark Kent." In many ways, Jim was right. There is an ongoing turnover in fandom. In 1980, ideas like that was almost heresy, but in 1995, after many market-study dollars have been spent by the larger publishers to determine the extent and regularity of fan turnover, Jim's off-the-cuff "two to two-and-a-half years" turns out to be right on the money, and Jim looks to have been quite a prophet. Except for one thing. How do you account for folks like me? I started reading newspaper strips in 1954 and bought my first comic book off the racks around the same time. I have gone through periods of intense fanac and periods of utter gafiation (hey, the fact that i even use such old-fashioned terms for "fannish activity" and "getting away from it all" dates me), and Jim Shooter surely knows that i went through my own crazed "Aunt May Must Die" period (only in my case, it was "Red Sonja Must Abjure Her Vow" - which also dates me), but the funny thing is, i am still here. I still read comics. I am still a fan. And, so, it seems, are a lot of us old-timers. Enough of us to merit a book about our past. The book is Bill Schelly's _The Golden Age of Comics Fandom_ (Hamster Press, $11.95) and although i think it might have more accurately been titled _The Golden Age of Ditto and Mimeo Zines_, this 150-page history is an excellent introduction to the weird and wacky world of the atypial fans who have stuck it out in comic-dom for longer than two years. After an introduction to the state of fan-dom before 1960 (rendered partially obsolete by the recent rediscovery of some far earlier hectographed strip-zines than Schelly knew of when working on his book), the stage is set for the kindling of fandom-as-we-know-it, the fandom that Jerry Bails is acknowledged to be the "father" of, and for which _All In Color For A Dime_ proved to be the Holy Writ. The zines of the 1960s were usually produced on mimeo or ditto machines, often with copy counts of under 100. Some were filled with amateur comics art and stories, others presented short interviews with professionals or reviewed crumbling Golden Age treasures. The comics industry was run out of New York at the time, but many of the best zines were published in the wild hinterlands of Michigan, Texas, and California, where fans thought it their democratic right to demand the revival of characters they'd loved as kids. Ronn Foss, Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, Don and Maggie Thompson, "Grass" Green, G. B. Love, Buddy Saunders, Larry Herndon, Howard Keltner, Biljo White, Mike Vosburg, Howard Waldrop, Steve Stiles, Steve Perrin, Bill Spicer, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Bill Black, Marty Greim, Barry Bauman, Don Glut, Bill Dubay, Larry Ivie, Richard Kyle, John Benson - well, the names go on and on, and some are famous now and some are not. This book shows us who they were, at home, in masquerades, as published in their zines, and through recent interviews. Bill Schelly did his homework,too - even i am in the book - although the fact that Bill Dubay kissed me at the 1964 Worldcon somehow escaped notice. ==== Fit to Print appears in print each week in Comics Buyers Guide and is available via e-mail. Tell your friends! To subscribe to Fit to Print via e-mail send a request with the words "Subscribe FtP" in the subject header and your address in the body of the message to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] You will be added to the list and receive the next available issue. Back issues are available. FTP to cerebus.acusd.edu and look in the Comics/About Comics/Comics News/Fit to Print directory. FtP is also available on the World Wide Web at http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~91mithra. Responses are welcome and should be directed to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] Fit to Print is Copyright Cathrine Yronwode. All rights reserved.