[2][3][4] In 1976, Gary Groth and Michael Catron acquired The Nostalgia Journal, a small competitor of the newspaper adzine The Buyer's Guide for Comics Fandom.

At the time, Groth and Catron were already publishing Sounds Fine, a similarly formatted adzine for record collectors that they had started after producing Rock 'N Roll Expo '75, held during the July 4 weekend in 1975 in Washington, D.C.[citation needed] The publication was relaunched as The New Nostalgia Journal with issue No.

[2] Artist Rich Buckler attempted legal action for a review that called him a plagiarist while printing his panels next to earlier and quite similar Jack Kirby art.

[21][22] The Journal features critical essays, articles on comics history and lengthy interviews, conducted by Gary Groth and others.

[citation needed] According to Rick Cusick, writing in Gauntlet magazine, the Journal's combination of forthright news coverage and critical analysis – although the norm for traditional journalistic enterprises – was in sharp contrast to the affectionate and promotional methods of publications like Comics Buyer's Guide and (later) Wizard.

Harvey, Kenneth Smith, Don Phelps, Robert Boyd, Tom Heintjes, Michael Dean, Tom Spurgeon, Robert Rodi, Gene Phillips, Marilyn Bethke, Cat Yronwode, Heidi MacDonald, Lee Wochner, Bhob Stewart, Arn Saba, Ted White, Bob Levin, Carter Scholz, and Noah Berlatsky.

[33] Harvey Kurtzman had the most entries of any creator, five: his original run on Mad (#8), his "New Trend" EC war comics (#12), the 1959 Jungle Book graphic novel (#26), his Hey Look!

The Village Voice cited the survey's ad hoc criteria: Among the controversial omissions to the Top 100 was Dave Sim's Cerebus series.

[35] Issue #213 included eight pages of responses to, and defenses of the list; Journal columnist R. Fiore wrote "Dave Sim must now think you have a personal vendetta against him", and co-publisher Kim Thompson conceded: "If I had to do it over again, I'd squash together the Hernandez material into two entries [and] put Cerebus and two other things in the vacant spots".

Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns was one well-regarded mainstream superhero project that was considered but ultimately not chosen, according to co-publisher Kim Thompson.