Thursday 25 January 2018

Have You Ever Made a Fanzine?

Did you ever make your own fanzine?

The worlds of Gerry Anderson have generated many many fanzines and these are fabulously detailed in Dennis Nicholson's Memorabilia Guide, which I'm pleased to have.


The worlds of horror films also generated countless fanzines and these are similarly well catalogued in the newer version of the Monster Magazine and Fanzine Collectors Guide, which I also have on my bookshelf.


I didn't create a fanzine for either of these genres but I did produce a home-made joke and sketch book a bit like a comic circa 1970 ages 10. 

It included copies of gags in the funny pages of Beano and Buster, as well as some of my own made-up stuff. 

Somewhere in the cobwebbed eves of the attic lies this very thing. As for now all I can muster is the name, What a Heap of Laughs.

Have you ever made a fanzine, comic or indeed a magazine proper, either as a kid or maybe even professionally?

4 comments:

  1. Yes, back in 1963 with 'That Was the Week That Was' on TV and Private Eye at the newsagent, satire was in. I started with the encouragement of our English teacher, 'The School Observer'.

    Printed one page at a time on a Gestetner duplicating machine the hand drawn or typed stencils turned out about a hundred copies an issue of which I think numbered five.

    Jokes were rewritten to include misspelt versions of teachers names, and art followed the style of Mad Magazine, that great creative center of the 50's and 60's.

    In order to give the magazine publicity I entered a non contest in Private Eye, the result was published in issue 36 of 3 May, 1963.

    After paying all it's production costs over £5 was raised for OXFAM.

    I'm not sure where being publisher and art director of 'The School Observer' took me but I did go on to art school and a career as a graphic designer.

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    1. Superb TerraN! You were a publishing magnate! Fantastic! Do any of those fanzines survive?

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  2. Back in 1979, we started a comic book which ran for 42 issues over a decade's time

    http://www.saunalahti.fi/~tkokkila/kannus/kannus.htm

    Its humble intention was to give a voice to the flux of budding (also already established) comic book artists in our country. In retrospect, it served its purpose well, as many of the featured artists have since then made a career out of it.

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    1. Amazing Arto! You were part of a phenomenon! Do many copies of the mag still exist?

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