Alpha-Omega

APAs that require members to submit multiple copies of their contribution (commonly called “apazines”) usually set a limit to the number of members and run a waiting list if this becomes necessary. In many cases people on the waiting list are permitted to contribute to mailings and may receive excess apazines provided by the members.

The first comics APA was started by Jerry Bails in 1964 in the United States. Called CAPA-alpha (sometimes abbreviated to K-a) it grew to its present limit of 40 members. It has become the archetype for most subsequent comics APAs. Its members have included Dwight Decker, Mark Evanier, Carl Gafford, Fred Patten, Richard and Wendy Pini, Roy Thomas, Dan Alderson, Rick Norwood, Don Markstein, and Don and Maggie Thompson. Michael Barrier‘s animation fanzine Funnyworld began as a CAPA-alpha contribution.

Decker and Gafford were also founding members of the minicomics co-op the United Fanzine Organization. The difference in a co-op and an APA is that an APA is helmed by a central mailer, to whom the members send copies of their publications. The central mailer then compiles all the books into one large volume, which is then mailed out to the membership in “mailings” (called “bundles” by a few APAs). In a co-op, however, there is no central mailer; the members distribute their own works, and are linked by a group newsletter, a group symbol that appears on each member work, and a group checklist in every “member zine.”

The first European comics APA was called PAPA and launched by a group of comics fans in January 1978. Soon renamed BAPA (for “British APA”), it celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2003, but folded the following summer.

The APA model was picked up by artists in the 1980s. Groups of artists contributed elements of combined duplicated artworks that omitted the conversational elements of the fandom-based APAs (these pieces are sometimes called “assembly art”). During this same period, a group of British science fiction and comics fans also set up a short-lived “tape APA”, contributing music and spoken word to a central anthology.

The latest innovation is a digital distribution, e-APA. Copies of past “mailings” are archived at the online resource eFanzines.

Mark’s Remarks:

Freazie and I met years before as members of an Amateur Press Association (APA) called Alpha-Omega. Freazie read one of my submissions entitled Razor’s Edge, a synopsis for a new book I was working on, and maybe even the first chapter, I don’t recall right now. Freazie loved it and called me up. We hit it off and began working together on Razor’s Edge. Freazie was penciling and rewriting it to fit the comic book format. I inked his work and we began submitting the pages to Alpha-Omega. These were fun days and we learned a lot.

Even though Alpha-Omega was a comic book APA, what really set it apart from all the rest was it was a Christian APA. I think it may have been the first Christian Comics APA, but I can’t say for sure on that fact. What that meant was we tried to do comics, art, stories and articles about comics from a Christian viewpoint. I started as a contributor in Mailing Issue #2 of A-O and later, around Mailing Issue #52, I think it was, I became the Central Mailer. I served in that capacity for 2 years, which was the normal term for the CM. A-O was great for me and prepared me for not only my chosen career in comics work but also provided training in how to be a professional Commercial Artist. I look back at those years now and realize God used those times to train me. My time in A-O lasted until Mailing Issue #69 when I decided that with my full-time Graphic Art job, producing Comic Books and being a husband and father, I had too much on my plate to continue with A-O. In a way, in 1996 when I left A-O, it was as if I had graduated art school. As it turned out, that was the closest to attending art school I would ever get.

My time with Dimension Graphics, Magi Graphics and Legacy Comics happened while I was serving in A-O. Freazie and I started publishing Small Press comics under the name of Magi Graphics. Freazie wrote and penciled  and I inked and did my art/printing production work to publish Capt. Testament. Capt. T featured many of the characters from the Humants. Capt. T led us to publishing a few issues of The Herald for Small Press which later grew into the independent Legacy Comics’ title The Humants. We worked on those characters in the small press until about 1990, then we began planning to move into the Independent Comics market. which is where Legacy Comics began and that brings us full circle to Mega Comics Group and this web site. More to come!

Onward! Mark

(Sources: Wikipedia, and Mark’s memory, such as it is and mailings 2 through 6 of Alpha Omega. ) 

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Archives Spotlight

Archive’s Spotlight is designed to look at all which has come before and add new comments as well. This posting we are reviewing Project New Man 3 Page 17-19!

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Project: New Man #3 – Page 17-19– Once again we have made more changes in the art mainly in the backgrounds and specifically in the simulated  Duo-Shade tones used to produce the black and white pages of Project: NewMan #3. As usual, since beginning these revisions we are posting a couple of examples here which show what it looked like before and results after the adjustments. In all cases we have found the originals were too dark and in most cases the tones were not consistent due to either old chemistry in the developer for the original dartboards or else some flow in the dartboards themselves.

We are showing you two examples here but you can see 3 pages have been updated as you go from page 17 through 19. In the case of page 19 there was no background halftones originally. If you got to the current page 20 you can see what we mean. Those were the first pages by Chris Torres and Mark Poe which were reproduced straight form the original inked art with no additional halftones. The scans of pages 19 through 32 for Project NewMan # 3 were of better quality than the old Duo-Shade boards from the previous chapter.

The original digital scans of these pages were done 10 years or more back. Adobe Photoshop and some of the other programs we use to clean up the images and add the effects, make corrections and changes has evolved a lot in that time. We can do a lot more with it now than we could 10 years ago. It sure beats the old school way we did these pages back in the early ’90’s!

Check back next week for more pages in PNM #3 as we continue updating these books for printing with Ka-Blam Comic Book Printing and digital sales at IndyPlanet as well as DriveThru Comics.

Remember, we have digital editions at IndyPlanet and DriveThru Comics RIGHT NOW! You can still download Project: NewMan #1 and Humants # 1 for absolutely FREE! Project: NewMan # 2 and Humants # 2 can be downloaded now, for immediate gratification, for a mere 99ç each! And if you want actual hard copy prints the Indyplanet will sale those to you for only $2.99 each! And we also have Mega Tales #1 featuring the debut of the other long ago project Mark and Greg Legat did called Tess, The Living Tesseract.

What are you waiting for? Go grab some Mega Comics Group / Legacy Comics  right now! Check out the cover link to the left here which will take you to Indy Planet. Here’s the link if you had rather got to DriveThru Comics.

CU Next Week!

Fair Use reference to intellectual property of other companies are intended for historical and informational accuracy only. Mega Comics Group™ or Mega Graphics, LLC™ does not represent or have any relationship to any other company or entity or their intellectual property unless otherwise clearly noted. Mega Tales™ and © 2010 Mega Graphics LLC, unless otherwise noted herein.  Project: New Man™ and  Humants™ and © 2010 Freazie White, Jr. D.B.A. Legacy Comics. Tess, the Living Tesseract™ and © Stephen Greg Legat and Mark Poe. All rights reserved. Mega Graphics LLC, licensor.