Rocket's Blast Comicollector
Entry updated 25 March 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US photocopied Comics Fanzine/Semiprozine published on good-quality paper. Published by the Science Fiction and Comics Fan Association. Editors included G B Love and James Van Hise. 125 issues for 1964 to 1983, numbered #29-#153. Publication was monthly to 1978; thereafter nominally bimonthly but increasingly erratic from 1979.
This began with the 1962 merger of two Fanzines – The Rocket's Blast edited by G B Love (1939-2001) and The Comicollector edited by Jerry Bails (1933-2006) – as The Rocket's Blast and the Comicollector (April 1964), numbered #29 for continuity with The Rocket's Blast; the shorter form Rocket's Blast Comicollector was adopted circa #50 in 1966, while readers often called it simply RBCC. This publication was for many years the only real source for information on the Comics field for US fans, particularly those trying to locate back issues before comics shops became widespread. Love was a long-time fan of both comics and sf, and featured considerable sf coverage; contributors included Howard Waldrop in the late 1960s. Van Hise became editor and publisher with #113 (September 1974), adding new columns and expanding Cinema coverage with such films as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Star Wars (1977) and Alien (1979). Among further contributors of importance in the field were Vaughn Bodē, Roy G Krenkel, Joe Kubert (1926-2012) and Jan Strnad. By the late 1970s, however, the prevalence of comic shops and competition from such better-funded modern publications as Comics Buyer's Guide combined to drain away advertisers and readers, leading to the magazine's demise with #153 in 1983. Van Hise unsuccessfully revived it for another four issues 2002-2003. In its heyday Rocket's Blast Comicollector was the focal point of US comics Fandom and its importance should not be forgotten. [GSt/DRL]
previous versions of this entry