By today's standards, the RBCC was little more than an adzine. For those not familiar with the vernacular, I'll explain: a fanzine features articles and creative content produced by fans, focusing on a specific area of interest. In the case of RBCC, that field of interest was comic books. An adzine is something more specific: a fanzine that devotes a significant portion of its contents to advertisements spotlighting products related to that field of interest. In the case of RBCC, the ads included both ads for other fanzines and lots of ads for back-issue contents from such advertisers as Howard Rogofsky, Robert Bell, and Stan's Magazine Exchange, among others.
Today, when the internet makes almost anything instantly findable and purchaseable for a sufficiently high investment, it may seem impossible to believe that something like back issue comic books could be hard to find. But remember, this was a time when there was no internet, no eBay, no instantly accessible venue for free listings of available merchandise. Before I got my first issue of RBCC, I had no idea that there were people who sold back issue comic books from the 1940s to the present--and in fact, there were dealers who made a living selling those back issues. If I wanted to find an old comic, I had to try to work out a trade with my friends, scour used-comic-book sections at stores like Coosa Valley Book Shop or Croker's, or write to Marvel Comics and get a dittoed list of what office copies they had available and hope that the list included the books I was looking for (yes, at that time, it was possible to order comics from Marvel--and I did so quite frequently!).
And then I opened that envelope, flipped through the pages of RBCC #38, and my comic book collecting world was turned upside down.
Pretty much any comic book I wanted (bear in mind that the comics I wanted were primarily books from the late 1950s to the then-present 1965... a period of six or seen years) could be had for the right price. Even better, comic books I had never dreamed I would see--comic books from the Golden Age--could be had for a few dollars each.
It was both liberating and exasperating. Here was a source for all the comics I wanted... but the cost of those comics was beyond my budget. A copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 for $8? Preposterous! A Tales to Astonish #27 for $6? Who could afford to pay the equivalent cost of almost fifty comics for one book?
The articles were interesting, of course, and I read every word and perused every piece of fan art. I was inspired to create my own art, in fact, and to create my own characters (most of whom were derivatives of characters I enjoyed--Marvel gave us Dr. Doom, so I created Doctor Dread; later, they offered Galactus, so I countered with Univus). But it was really those ads that fascinated me.
They also confused me.
Howard Rogofsky, perhaps the highest-priced source for comics in the pages of RBCC, had a habit of routinely listing future issues of ucpoming comics. Why not? He knew he'd get them--and if someone wished to pay fifty cents plus shipping for the issue of Batman that wouldn't be out for two more months, then he'd gladly take the money, hold it, and mail you that issue when it came out. I didn't know that, however; I assumed that if he listed those issues, he actually had them in stock right then (okay, I was naive...). I also learned the hard way that Rogofsky's grading was, to say the least, rather generous. He routinely listed books as VG-F (very good to fine) that would scarcely qualify as good by today's standards--and he didn't seem to consider tape or ink marks as detrimental to condition.
But he seemed to have almost everything, and his books seeemed to sell fast. Each issue of RBCC had an ad from Rogofsky, and each month, many of those rare books would drop off the list. So I started looking at those Golden Age books, trying to find books that I could afford.
Golden Age Captain America? Couldn't afford 'em. All Star Comics? Out of my price range. Even 1950's EC's were too expensive for me.
But Sensation Comics was in my budget. I could get 1945 and 1946 issues of Sensation for $1 and $2 each. Oh, the best they had to offer was Wonder Woman and Wilcat stories, but still--it was a Golden Age Comic!
So every couple of months, I'd save up a few bucks, order a few fill-in Marvel and DC comics--and I'd add an issue of Sensation. (I only fell for the "order a future issue" trick one time, and felt really foolish when I learned that he didn't have the book. Thankfully, he was willing to let me cancel that order and apply the half-dollar to my next order of back issues.)
I felt like I had discovered a secret marketplace. My comics buying habits were about to change, and collecting took on a whole new scope. I had no idea that those fanzines would soon inspire me to do my own fanzines... and that would, eventually, give birth to a store newsletter that eventually metamorphosed into Comic Shop News...
If memory serves, the first artist who's style I became aware of was Jim Aparo. Not coincidentally, he was also my first 'favorite' artist. I much preferred Aparo's Batman in Brave & Bold to the Irv Novick art that was appearing in Batman and Detective. I think the next one was Neal Adams.
ReplyDeleteOnce I discovered Marvel comics about 1974, believe it or not, my favorite for a long time was Sal Buscema. Actually I still like Sal a lot. Then I discovered Jack Kirby and, as you know, he remains my all time favorite. But my reaction to Wally Wood was much the same as yours.