Gafford began his professional career at DC Comics as an assistant proofreader in the production department in March 1973, and was promoted to full proofreader at the end of the year with the retirement of Gerta Gattel. Gafford started coloring feature pages in the production department, eventually doing regular freelance coloring beginning with "Justice League of America" #115. He was promoted to assistant production manager in August 1974 and began work on DC's in-house fanzine, "The Amazing World of DC Comics", doing editing, writing, production work and color separations.