Fantasy Advertiser


Fantasy Advertiser, later abbreviated to FA, was a British fanzine focused on comic books, founded in 1965 by Frank Dobson, the "Godfather of British Fandom." Starting out as an adzine focused on the sale of primarily second-hand comics, it eventually transitioned into a true comics fanzine. FA now operates as a comics webzine.

Publication history

Frank Dobson established Fantasy Advertiser as an adzine — essentially an advertising service for comic collectors. Dobson published 31 issues of Fantasy Advertiser, but when he emigrated to Australia in 1970 he handed the zine on to two contributors, Dez Skinn and Paul McCartney, to continue.
Skinn and McCartney expanded the magazine to include more articles and artwork. Regular contributors included Dave Gibbons, Steve Parkhouse, Paul Neary, Jim Baikie, and Kevin O'Neill. Skinn left in 1976, at which point Dobson returned to publish five more issues in 1978–1979.
Fantasy Advertiser went dormant for a couple of years, until Martin Lock revived it as editor in 1981. Lock handed over the editorial reins to Martin Skidmore in 1985, to focus on his next venture, Harrier Comics.
Skidmore shortened the name to FA — he didn't want it to "sound like a sexual contacts mag," and wanted to move away from the equation of comics with fantasy, expanding coverage of different genres. Skidmore made the magazine more provocative and political.
In 1988 it was taken over by Neptune Distribution/Trident Comics, but was closed in 1991 when Trident went bankrupt.

Online relaunch

In October 2010 Skidmore relaunched FA as an online zine, including reviews, articles, interviews and original comics. FA is now published by Tony Keen, Andrew Moreton, and Will Morgan.

Editors