CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature) 9/10, 1974
Editor/publisher: Bob Layton
Subtitled “Charlton Portfolio,” CPL 9/10 is a loving tribute to that “little company that could.” Charlton charmingly occupied a niche between Marvel and DC in the 70s especially, and spawned a plethora of great characters, several of which (like Blue Beetle and Peacemaker, seen above) went on to be published by DC at a later date (and one even made it into the Suicide Squad movie and a TV series of his own!). Not only is this of one of my favorite zines, but it contains most of the great artists CPL had in it’s own little bullpen. Artists like Bob Layton of course, being the editor and publisher, but soon to be superstar John Byrne, as well as “lesser” players such as Don Maitz, and established pros such as Jim Aparo, Steve Ditko, and Joe Staton.
On various social media platforms awhile back, Bob referenced his past by saying “C.P.L. was a fanzine that I published in the early 1970s that became a launch pad for the careers of many comic book creators like John Byrne and yours truly. A little known fact is that we were also some of the pioneers of cosplaying. From almost 50 years ago, here’s a rare pic of me, at the Detroit Triple Fan Fare convention in 1973, as a bargain-basement Captain Marvel with an unknown Spider-man cosplayer.”
From an interview by Vincente Garcia for Dolmen magazine you can see here, Bob talks further about his CPL days:
“I met Roger Stern (who worked for a local radio station in Indianapolis) and we began publishing fanzines out of my little apartment. CPL (an overblown title which stands for Contemporary Pictorial Literature) was our main ‘zine. It was an extremely popular fan publication for its day and eventually led us into a working alliance with Charlton Comics, with Sterno [Roger Stern] and I producing and publishing the now-famous Charlton Bullseye magazine.”
And as for Charlton Bullseye…
“At that time in the mid ’70’s, Charlton was struggling to re-establish some sort of footing in the superhero market. Marvel and DC had house fan publications of their own, namely F.O.O.M. and Amazing World of DC Comics. Charlton wanted to establish a fan presence as well, and formed an alliance with our Indianapolis, Indiana-based CPL/Gang to produce the Charlton Bullseye. They gave us unlimited access to unpublished material from their vaults by the likes of Steve Ditko, Jeff Jones and a host of others. While I was producing Bullseye, I began taking on inking work on their anthology books. But I never actually worked in the Charlton offices. I DID, however, live about two blocks away from their Derby, CT. offices.”
So, let’s jump into this issue!
After an editorial page, the Gang jumps right into the hard stuff…pure, uncut Steve Ditko! On Facebook, Bob recently told me this Blue Beetle story was advertised, but never published. Below you can see the cover and a few pages of this 18 page story (get the pdf to see the whole shebang).
Up next is a stylishly written one page article about Sarge Steel (with one of several John Byrne mastheads), complete with a full page character pin up by Dick Giordano, seen below.
Following that is a pin up of Thunderbolt by PAM (Pete Morisi, who always seemed like a suuuuuper simplified Alex Toth to me), then a full page illustration by Frank McLaughlin of Judo Master, which leads into an article by Larry “Doc” Brnicky on Charlton’s entries into the then new and popular Kung Fu craze (From the Mystic East). Yang is also mentioned, see these two below.
The next bit of Charlton coverage is by Layton and Franklin Maynerd, is called The Nuclear Joy Boys (another Byrne logo), and covers a few characters along those lines, such as Captain Atom and E-Man.
A loving tribute to Charlton by Sterno follows (The Charlton Mystique), as well as Charlton’s Odds and Ends by Scott Edelman, and you can see a few of the illustrations below.
The last article, also by Sterno and called Space Cowboy, examines the very niche-y genre of…Space westerns! The last interior piece is by the late Dave Cockrum (seen below)…but there is more than you see here, so get the pdf, folks!
Thanks again to Manny Maris for the zine to scan, and Bob Layton for answering a few questions on social media. Tune in again next month for Bob Know What!
Ken Meyer Jr.
kenmeyerjr@yahoo.com
Thanks for the commentary and for showing us all the beautiful artwork. The Ditko work seems to be on par with his work on Spider-Man.
Charlton has the distinction of being the only comic company with significant national distribution, to accept my artwork. For reasons I will not state now, I pulled a Groucho on them and decided that I did not what to join any club that would accept me as a member. I kept the letter from Bill Pearson though.
I both started and stopped with Charlton on the same comic. It was some war comic I was given as a birthday party giveaway. I might have been eight years old. The colours overlays were not lined up correctly. The drawings of the tanks were less complex than a toy tank. The captions and writing were thin. I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD AND I KNEW THEY WERE HORRIBLE! I never bought one off the stands after that and in some ways I regret it. Many friends have pointed out the quality in some of the books.
Forgive me. Even the graphic design on the covers was hideous. I couldn’t pass up a copy of a Superman comic or an early Marvel in favour of a Charlton.
Yeah, I hear ya, Ron. There was a certain charm in that, though!