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Post by gothos on Nov 22, 2015 13:35:40 GMT -5
I mentioned somewhere on the boards that I used to contribute to the JOURNAL in the 70s and 80s, but I never had any delusions that reviews, essays or editorials sold the magazine. It was those big furshlugginer interviews.
It helped that the fan-culture was primed for that sort of intensive detail-oriented stuff, thanks in part to the DM. But if there's one thing that I think has been a real contribution to comics studies, it's those humongous masses of personal and professional data.
Was anyone here a fan of the JOURNAL interviews in the day? I'd speculate that their bulkiness doesn't always play quite as well on the Internet.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Nov 22, 2015 15:26:00 GMT -5
Well. I began to read it when it was first named The Nostalgia Journal. Pretty much read it cover to cover from about issue #25 or so till about # 150. Gary Groth's disparaging opinions on superheroes and the American comics scene got tiring so I finally gave it up for other fanzines. Now that I'm an older and wiser curmudgeon, I find I agree with Gary more than in the past. A steady diet of superhero reading is stultifying to the brain.
But to your question, I wasn't a "fan" of the Journal or its interviews. I was a fan of its subject matter. I did get some big big chuckles with the Harlan Ellison interview and the subsequent lawsuits. |
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Post by gothos on Nov 22, 2015 15:45:58 GMT -5
The political magazine GAUNTLET devoted a major issue to talking about all the things that contributed to the Groth-Ellison feud, talking about a lot of the people involved behind the scenes-- SF writer Charles Platt, Peter David, and of course Michael Fleischer. Almost as much fun as the Ellison interview itself.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Nov 25, 2015 17:33:24 GMT -5
As soon as I got heavily into comics back in 91-92, I started to read the journal. Loved those ITWs, barely read the reviews. Most of the interviews had great re-reading potential. I remember reading an ITW of Mignola where he just came off as an unsecure clueless creator, but re-reading it a few years later when Hellboy became that big franchise, it had a very different meaning, and he mostly came off as humble, almost too much  |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 25, 2015 18:55:49 GMT -5
I bought it for years but I was a late starter... 2004 or 2005-ish? to the end. And I'll always grab back issues when I find 'em.
I honestly like reading *about* comics as much as I like reading comics, and I generally really enjoyed the Journal. The Gil Kane and Art Speigelman interviews (that might have run simultaneously!) are two of my very favorites.
Although sometimes creators I really dig are weak interviews. Roger Langdrige was boring, boring, boring.
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Post by hondobrode on Nov 28, 2015 9:45:35 GMT -5
The Journal was my first big step into fandom with a huge Frank Miller / Daredevil issue that also covered Wally Wood's suicide.
Suddenly, thanks to Bud Plant and The Buyer's Guide For Comics Fandom, the whole world of fandom opened before me, and I, like Reptisaurus!, love reading about comics and the business and creators, as much as comics themselves.
Yes, Gary Groth was tiring at times, but mostly correct. Like almost all of us, I still loves me some superheroes, but, I've learned a lot from both The Comics Journal and one of my all-time favorite zines, Amazing Heroes.
BTW, FWIW, for $ 30/year, you can have unlimited digital access to TCJ.
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Post by Spike-X on Nov 30, 2015 4:31:57 GMT -5
Yeah, I dug the interviews a lot. And the magazine in general, for the most part. Although I was much fonder of its brattier younger sibling, Amazing Heroes.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2015 9:27:17 GMT -5
The Journal was my first big step into fandom with a huge Frank Miller / Daredevil issue that also covered Wally Wood's suicide. Looking back, that would've been one of the last issues in my subscription, if not the very last. Nearly 3 1/2 decades later I'm surprised I stuck with the mag that long, since I'd stopped buying comics some 3 years earlier. My first issue, The Nostalgia Journal #6, showed up out of the blue in my post office box one day. They obviously got my name & address from some mailing list, though offhand I have no idea of the source, since for some reason I never bought any of the high-profile zines like Comics Reader or RBCC Comicollector. Well, I take that back, sort of -- The Journal, out of Canada, I subbed to starting around '75 after seeing it advertised in a Marvel classified. Not a big player, but also not particularly obscure, either. No doubt that's the answer to that. Back then TNJ came out of Lewisville, Texas, on newsprint. Copy-to-ad ratio was probably 1:10, if that. |
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Post by hondobrode on Nov 30, 2015 15:19:15 GMT -5
Yeah, it was more of an ad-zine. I've seen those originals.
The Buyer's Guide For Comics Fandom was about the same.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2015 15:21:19 GMT -5
The Buyer's Guide -- another high-profile zine I never bought a single copy of back in the day, for reasons that escape me. I bought my fair share of more obscure zines.
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