|
FOOM was Marvel Comics' self-produced fan magazine of the mid-1970s, following the canceled Marvelmania and preceding Marvel Age. Running 22 quarterly issues (Feb. 1973 - Fall 1978), it was initially designed and edited by celebrated comic book writer-artist Jim Steranko.
FOOM, though spelled without periods in both indicia and cover treatments, is an acronym for "Friends of Ol' Marvel".[1] Steranko, in his first-issue introduction, wrote that he had "dropped in at the Marvel bullpen to rap with [publisher] Stan Lee about the current comic scene", and that Lee told him about plans to start an in-house fan club. EC Comics had had its "EC Fan-Addict" club in the 1950s, and Marvel the Merry Marvel Marching Society beginning 1964; after the MMMS had run its course by 1969, Marvel licensed a small company in Culver City, California to produce the fanzine/product catalog Marvelmania, which lasted a year. Steranko, writing that he nostalgically "recalled the days of radio, with all the clubs and super-premiums that were perpetually offered over the air", volunteered "my services as a designer, writer and comic historian". Ken Bruzenak served as associate editor, with Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas as consulting editor and Ed Noonchester, Joel Thingvall and Gary Brown as staff. |
|