Finally!
I'm missing the first part, but knew i'd seen it in one of the archives to which i have access. But small and arcane university archives can be torurous to search at times. We're talking internet access that was established before the Web took over the Internet. One had best be familiar with FTP and willing to digitally walk through obtuse data mazes laid out when directory names were limited to eight characters.
But at last, chapter one is here and we may proceed...
Way back at the dawn of the Groovy Age there was a young guy who loved comics.
Actually, there were a lot of guys like that at the time, but we're talking about one in particular who would go on to be one of the writers with the biggest impact of the decades to follow. But back in 1961 he didn't have anyone to draw his stories when he decided to put out his own fanzine.
That didn't stop him. And,
Lo - A League Was Born....
Alter Ego was launched, as many of you already know, by Roy Thomas. CORRECTION/EDIT:
Alter Ego was launched, as many of you already know, by
Jerry Bails, of
Jerry Bails' Collector's Guide fame, with the aid of
Roy Thomas.
It went on to become such a legendary fanzine that it was revived as a professional publication in this century by
Two Morrows. But back in that first issue, Roy was
doing it all drawing it by himself:
A note before we continue. Way back in those days before common access to Xerox copy machines, we had to use mimeograph technology for duplication. This was rather crude, involving preparing your pages backwards, so the master pages had a carbon sheet affixed to the back to create a reverse image of whatever was typed, or drawn, on the front side. That reversed image was then reversed again during duplication and was prone to fairly rapid replicant fading. For large runs, multiple masters often needed to be prepared. Not a terrible thing for a typed page of text, perhaps, but pretty limited for hand drawn artwork.
Also, the pages printed purple. I considered removing the colour data to allow cleaner preparation of these pages, but decided that the purple look was better suited to this post. I could be wrong, but this is what you get for now -
Yep. Even way back then, Roy was already working to bring back some of those Golden Age greats. Eventually that became something of his trademark at DC, while over at Marvel he's perhaps best known for the epic Kree/Skrull war.
Two issues later...
Now we're talking Groovy!
Grass Green drawing Roy Thomas parody of 1963 era
FF?
And an actual printer? Distribution must be growing.
Stay tuned for the return of Grass Green!
pages & covers by Roy Thomas for Alter Ego #s 1, 2 & 3 (1961)
