The Comic Reader

A lively fanzine-turned-comic from TCR Publications, The Comic Reader ran for eleven issues between 1971 and 1973, offering fans a mix of news, interviews, and original art. Most frequently written and drawn by Carl Gafford, with additional art from Alan Kupperberg and Dick Giordano, it captured the grassroots energy of early-1970s fandom. This series matters as a snapshot of the pre-direct market era, when passionate readers produced their own publications to celebrate and critique the medium.