Alter Ego (magazine)

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Alter Ego
Raleigh, NC
LanguageEnglish

Alter Ego is an American magazine devoted to

Golden Age and Silver Age of Comic Books
.

It was founded as a

Raleigh, NC.[2]

Volume 1

Alter Ego #1 (1961). Cover art by Roy Thomas.

Alter-Ego supported the superhero revivals of the era that Jerry Bails dubbed "The Second Heroic Age of Comics", popularly known as the Silver Age of Comic Books. DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz encouraged Bails and collaborator Roy Thomas, who would eventually become Marvel Comics editor-in-chief.

Bails contacted readers whose letters had appeared in DC's The Brave and the Bold #35, the first comic book to print readers' full mailing addresses in its letter column.[3] Some of those readers were active in other fandoms, and helped spread word-of-mouth about Alter Ego. Schwartz loaned Bails his copies of the comics and science fiction fanzine Xero, and Bails wrote to everyone in their letter column as well. Soon, Bails was receiving two or three responses daily from people interested in subscribing.[4]

The first issue of Alter Ego appeared in March 1961. Bails' wife Sondra typed out the contents, and the lettering was done with plastic lettering guides.[4] The 22-page issue featured three JSA-related articles, two columns, and an amateur comic strip:

Alter Ego also sponsored the

Alley Awards, a series of comic book awards that lasted until the end of the 1960s. By the awards' third year, the number of ballots received had become so overwhelming that Bails called for a fan get-together at which votes could be tabulated by group effort. This gathering of Midwestern fans, held in March 1964 at Bails' Detroit, Michigan-area home of Bails, was dubbed the "Alley Tally", and its success provided inspiration for the organizing of comic book conventions that began soon afterward.[4]

The original run of Alter Ego lasted 11 issues, spread over 17 years. 10 issues were released between 1961 and 1969, with issue #11 following nine years later, in 1978. Bails edited and published the first four issues before turning it over to fan-artist Ronn Foss (and, initially, Foss' wife Myra and his friend Grass Green) who edited issues #5-6. Thomas edited a further four issues, and issue #11 almost a decade later in collaboration with Mike Friedrich.[5]

Some material from the original Alter-Ego was collected into

ISBN 0-9645669-2-3
.

Volume 2

In 1997, at a reunion of comics fans,

ISBN 978-1-893905-59-7
.

Volume 3

Alter Ego became its own magazine again in 1999, again with Thomas as editor, and formatted as a

glossy magazine. It is published by TwoMorrows Publishing. FCA, the Fawcett Collectors of America fanzine, is published as part of Alter Ego. Schelly has contributed a series of Comic Fandom Archive
articles to nearly every issue, as well as a column that usually focuses on notable fans of the 1960s and 1970s.

Awards

In 2007, Alter Ego was nominated for an

Eisner Award
for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Publication.

References

  1. ^ "A Brief History of Alter Ego". Bill Schelly. Retrieved February 22, 2017.
  2. ^ "Contact Us". TwoMorrows Publishing. Retrieved February 22, 2017.
  3. ^ Bails, Jerry G., "America's Four-color Pastime..." in Spicer, Bill, The Guidebook to Comics Fandom, Summer 1965
  4. ^ a b c d Schelly, Bill. The Golden Age of Comic Fandom (Hamster Press 1995).
  5. ^ Roy Thomas, "The Altered Ego: An editorial of sorts" in Alter Ego: The Comic Book Artist Collection (TwoMorrows 2001), p. 7
  6. ^ Alter Ego (vol. 2) #1

External links

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