It's a Fanzine! (2009) comic books 2009

Gene Kehoe's It's a Fanzine is one of the very few bonafide comic book fanzines around these days. Originally begun in 1980, the theme of this landmark 50th issue is the "Forgotten Fifties" and is a celebration of comics mostly from the '50s and mostly forgotten. Quite a few interesting pieces in this 72-page collection. Particularly interesting to me are the features that focus on fanzine history such as a roundtable discussion with Jerry Bails, Biljo White, Howard Keltner and Rick Weingroff (reprinted from Larry Herndon's Hero #4, 1964); the first installment of the Comics Fanzine Index (pre-1972 only, this issue covers A-C and includes a handful of cover scans); and a detailed checklist for The Comic Reader which helps make some sense of that fanzine's complicated publishing history. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. You'll also find lots of obscure comics trivia, a four-page Scribby story by Sheldon Mayer, a look at EC Comics' Confessions Illustrated, humorous quotes from old fanzines, Atlas' Spaceman comic from the '50s (dig that Joe Maneely artwork!), "The Charlton Giants of 1958" (including a checklist), early Jimmy Olsen stories, a letters column and even more. Contributors include John G. Pierce, John Wells, Gary Cooper, Rob Imes, Gary D. Robinson, Mike Leuszler and editor Gene Kehoe. If you have an appreciation for comic books and fanzines of days past it's probably a given that you'll enjoy this as well. Gene says the next issue will be out sometime later this year and I'm sure a few more orders would help facilitate that! -- Review by Rick Bradford Cover price $5.00.