The CPL Gang was a bundle of fanboys who published their own fanzine titled Contemporary Pictorial Literature or "CPL" for short. The earliest issues of the fanzine are beyond scared, but some of the later issues while rare do exist.
The CPL Gang was made up of Roger Stern, John Byrne, Duffy Vohland, Roger Slifer, Bob Layton and other fans. They were in particular fans of Charlton comics.
Issues #9 and #10 of Contemporary Pictorial Literature were published as a special double issue focused on the Charlton characters and indeed was titled "Charlton Portfolio". I featured some of that issue here.
The "Portfolio" issue is likely the easiest of the run to locate. There were two more issues of CPL before its demise and its creators went off to become professionals. Below is the complete issue #11. As you might note, the Rog-2000 story in this issue is his debut in an actual story and I showcased it along with some other Rog stories in this post earlier this month. The issue also has a lush Alex Toth cover and a wonderful Rich Buckler poster shot of Deathlok. There are great spot illustrations by other pros throughout.
There's lots of other fun stuff in the issue. Enjoy!
Rip, here's a stupid question. How do you start to collect fanzines? Are there some websites I could frequent? Or are they mostly only found at Conventions? I've never seen one for sale, but I guess I've never really looked.
ReplyDeleteJohn
To begin, this issue of CPL is not in my collection, but I do correspond with a guy who gathers these up. How he finds them I don't know, but the internet makes it much more possible than it was in the olden times.
ReplyDeleteThe fanzines I own, I've just found over the course of years of prowling comics stores and others old book shops. I've actually seen many more than I've collected since my interest in such ephemera has only gestated in recent years.
They can be fun to chase though. My current grail is Charlton Bullseye #2.
Rip Off