Fantasy Advertiser International 52 (1974)
I’ve wanted to create a fanzine for some time now and for the past two weeks I’ve been contacting and contacted by folks in regards to contributing. To celebrate Swamp Thing fandom a number of artists, writers and creative types are pooling our efforts together to create the first international Swamp Thing fanzine. Contributors from more than eight countries will be submitting articles, reviews, interviews and illustrations. It’s going to be a really fun collaboration and something special for all Swamp Thing fans to share. If you are interested in contributing drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you.

In preparation for designing the book, I’ve been doing quite a bit of research so that that it reflects classic fanzines from the 70s and 80s. This fanzine in particular is providing a great deal of inspiration for how the Swampy zine will look. I love the black ink on colored paper for the cover and the black/white content within.

The amazing cover is by Fershid Barucha. It is a great take on Swampy. Besides the cover, I could get into the many reasons why I love the look of this zine but I’ll spare you the artsy/design rant. It’s just a great looking book with details that are quite intriguing. Fantasy Advertiser International was a seminal British comic fanzine. At this time Dez Skinn was the editor.

Shazam! The Battle for Captain Marvel
details and discusses CC Becks’ departure from Shazam!

This hand-written condition code is pretty great.

A large portion of the book focuses on Inside Comix. An article titled, Every Time you Buy a Comic, You’re Being Ripped Off! discusses their inner workings along with advertising opportunities.

The book features a two page, unfinished Barbarian strip. It’s pretty cool.

Man-Con ’74 !

Below is a really cool ad for Berni Wrightson’s Badtime Stories.

Monster Times! Three months after this issue of Fantasy Advertiser International came out, Monster Times featured a special on swamp monsters which featured Swamp Thing. You can find details here.

Battlefield: opinions, good and bad.

IPC should have! IPC Magazines Ltd or The International Publishing Corporation were one of the three largest comics publishers in Britain, along with D.C. Thomson and Marvel UK.

“Frazetta’s Fabulous Females” should have been Charlie’s Angles rivals

I love fan art, good and bad. It always wonderful to see someones interpretation. I’m not referring to the butt featured below.

Along with numerous ads, the book contains a whole bunch of lists from folks looking to buy and sell comics. I’m considering adding a similar section to the Swamp Thing zine. It would be a great way for folks to connect with other fans/collectors and track down the books they want.

Litterbug by Dave Gibbons

back cover: