I've been posting a number of pieces clipped from old issues of THE BUYERS' GUIDE FOR COMIC FANDOM (TBG) and its "successor" (CBG) lately, both here and over at HOORAY FOR WALLY WOOD. I subscribed after seeing an ad in the fanzine GRAPHIC STORY WORLD offering a free lifetime subscription! With my first issue, 1972's # 17, it was announced that they could no longer honor such a deal and would have to start charging. It was still cheap though and I had never in my 14 years had as good a time as I did reading that first issue with all of the ads and the beginnings of the columns and news reporting which would make the tabloid sized weekly newspaper THE rallying point for fandom for years afterwards! It won me over immediately when I finally managed to squeeze the thing out of my tight vertical mailbox and unfold it to see this amazing cover. The art is signed (although cut off here by my scanner) "Janson '72." This was, of course, my very first exposure to Klaus Janson who was here still a few years away from going pro I believe and a decade or more away from his peak years in comics! WOW! I remember sitting down on the steps to read it, not even waiting to get back into my apartment. I remember showing it to my landlady who could not have cared any less! I remember wondering what Jack Kirby thought of this stylish interpretation of two of his NEW GODS characters. I stayed with the paper all though Alan Light's original run and then, during a brief hiatus from my sub, I was sent a free sample copy of the "New" CBG. I re-upped and continued with them until I finally--around age 35--started losing interest in modern comics. I found this cover recently and it all coming rushing back.
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