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Introduction to SENSE OF WONDER by Roy Thomas

Proof? You want proof that participating in comic book fandom can change a person's life? Here I am. Exhibit A. Working on the amateur comics fanzine Alter Ego (beginning in early 1961) led to my being hired in 1965 by Mort Weisinger to move from Missouri to New York City to become his assistant editor on DC Comics' Superman titles. Sure, I jumped ship after two weeks to work for Marvel Comics for the next fifteen years, but it's highly unlikely I'd ever have been offered a job by Stan Lee, with whom I'd exchanged only a letter or two, if Mort hadn't brought me to New York.

Thus, my activity in what Bill Schelly called in another tome The Golden Age of Comic Fandom sent my life in quite a different direction from the one for which it had previously seemed destined.

Although Bill came to comics fandom later than I did, and not as a college student and (soon) high school English teacher, but at a much younger age, on the cutting edge of adolescence, it's clear from reading Sense of Wonder that comics and fandom had a similarly transforming effect on him. That's why he sat down and wrote it, and I'm glad he did. Not just for the story's own sake - though it's a good tale, well told, and reads as entertainingly as many a work of fiction - but because, at least in terms of fandom, there is a sort of crazy universality about it.

For, Bill's story, though naturally couched in the special circumstances of his own life, undoubtedly has much in common with those of many other comics fans who came both before and after him. That's what makes his book so readable. There will be few fans who will not, at some point in these two hundred-plus pages, suddenly undergo a "shock of recognition," and abruptly say to himself, "He did that? He felt that? Hey, you know what? So did I!"

That happened to me even when I was only glancing cursorily over the book. For instance, Bill relates how, when he saw an unfamiliar super-hero (perhaps Biljo White's The Eye) on the cover of one of the first fanzines he received, he wondered if perhaps there were "regional comic book companies" whose comics were different from the ones he saw in Pittsburgh.

I had had a not dissimilar experience in 1948, at age seven or eight, while on a trip with my parents. I bought a copy of All-Star Comics #42 at an Illinois newsstand, and was startled to see The Atom in a new and totally unfamiliar costume, while even Hawkman's birdlike helmet had been replaced by a simple yellow cowl with a red hawk drawn on it. Did Illinois, I wondered, get a different version of All-Star than Missouri did? I didn't know the answer to that question until I got back home to Jackson, MO, and discovered the exact same All-Star on sale at local drugstores. Bill speaks of being somewhat intimidated by the writing of the BNFs (Big Name Fans, to steal a term from science fiction fandom). It's amusing to think that I was one of those BNFs, and that later I even contributed, albeit unintentionally, to one of his early fanzines, when he printed a letter I had written on behalf of Stan in 1966. In the early days, I was every bit as intimidated as Bill could have been. Jerry Bails (who founded, then gave me the title of co-editor of Alter Ego) awed me partly just by being a college prof (in something called "natural science"), even if he was only a few years older than I. But I also remember reading and re-reading early fanzine articles by Don Thompson and Richard Kyle (in Xero), and by Rick Weingroff and Tom Fagan, because these guys were clearly good. Real good. Were they better than I was? I had no way to judge. I did pretty well in the Alley polls, but I was still insecure about my writing (and rightly so, glancing back at it now).

I'm envious of Bill when he writes about the people with whom he worked, side by side, on his early fanzines, guys like Richard Shields and Marshall Lanz and others. Jerry Bails was hundreds of miles away in Michigan, even fellow Missourian Biljo White was a city (and a two- or three-hour drive) away. Except for some logistical help now and then from Gary Friedrich (who would later have a decade-long career of his own in comics), I was totally dependent on the U.S. mails and the very occasional phone call for any contact with other fandom types. The several high school teachers with whom I shared apartments during this time simply rolled their eyes when they saw me drawing the Bestest League of America or pasting down columns of camera-ready copy or laboriously counting the letters in a line so I could retype it and justify it.

See what I mean? If you were involved in comics fandom of the 1960s, merely reading about Bill's fannish experiences will instantly start your mind recalling your own. You'll remember the ways in which what happened to him was like what happened to you - and the ways in which it varied.

Maybe in your case you never published a fanzine but only read them; if so, you'll still recognize some of the names in this book, and you'll learn what was going on at the other end of that Great Postal Chain of Being.

Maybe you came in long after the great early days of the comics fanzines were over, and you wonder why people can get so nostalgic over it; read Bill's book and you'll know why.

Maybe your own interest in comics even led to a long (or brief) professional career in comics or a related field; if so, you'll share Bill's pain at coming so close to the brass ring.

In the end, remembering the fun I had working with Bill on our 1997 collection Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine, which dealt with the eleven 1961-78 issues of the main fanzine with which I was associated - and now reading Bill's own Sense of Wonder - I find myself realizing that there are literally hundreds of other stories out there, waiting to be told.
But it isn't enough simply to have a story. One must also be able to tell that story well, and interestingly, performing a delicate balancing-act somewhere between literature and history.

Bill Schelly, with his unique qualifications as both a comics fandom historian and a good writer, period, has set a high mark for those who come after.

Roy Thomas
St. Matthews, South Carolina