365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 340

Pages 1 and 3 from The Mad World of Marveldom #1 (October 1967), featuring a personality profile of The Beast by Greg Kishel and illustrated by Dave Russell These old fanzines are always fun to read, and The Mad World of Marveldom is an interesting and well-done look at the late sixties Marvel fandom, featuring musings and creative writing on Marvel Comics and their characters. Greg Kishel later produced Marvel Mirror, a similar fanzine including writing by Dwight Decker and Tony Isabella. Decker was one of fandom's most prestigious figures at the time, and was later an assistant editor on The Comics Journal during the early 80s. Isabella...well, if you don't know him, hang up your hat! He's the creator of Black Lightning and Black Goliath, and a long-time writer for Marvel, DC, Comico, Innovation, and other comic companies. If you're active in today's online fandom, you may know Isabella as the writer of Tony's Tips, which started in the pages of the Comics Buyer's Guide and later moved online until Tony retired the column in June of 2010.

And if you wanna see their fandom in action, well, here's a trio letters to Mighty Marvel by those three guys! First up, here's Greg Kishel waxing poetic (and getting mucho Stan praise in return!) on the departure of Jane Foster from the life of Thor, in Thor #140:



Here's a long critical letter by Dwight Decker in Captain America #106:



And one of Tony Isabella's many, many letters to Marvel before he became a writer for them, printed in Avengers #57:



Finally, take a look at that "Beast" logo on the cover of The Mad World of Marveldom. It was published five years before Hank McCoy's solo feature in Amazing Adventures, and yet anticipates the furry look of the logo to match its titular character. Now that's good divinin', guys!



While today's plethora of blogs and online commentary give us more news and discussion about our hobby than ever before, I miss the days of the fanzine. We here at a comic blog salute you, Greg Kishel and Company! Write On!