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That’s right, our lovely neighbors to the north had their own great zines!
Hailing from Toronto is Comic and Crypt 6!

Comic and Crypt 6: 1972
Main editors: Mark Sigal and David Rubin

I vaguely remember the name, Comic and Crypt, but unfortunately, I never owned any issues of this substantial fanzine from Canada. Luckily, Greg Turner has come through again, and loaned me this zine, full of variety and substance, as well as some great art. They sure do seem to be an official big deal, what with having 4 editors and 4 layout artists!

After the cover by the always incredibly professional Ken Barr, a title page, and a contents page, they dive right into the main subject, the Neal Adams interview. I noticed on close inspection that Emanuel Maris was one of the interview team (and associate editor of this zine)…Emanuel was another kindly contributor to the cause of Ink Stains, helping me with an issue of GASLight 10. In fact, Emanuel was a big part of the staff and of fandom in general. He mentioned via email that

I was part of the ‘interview team’, actually lead questioner, for the well-known Infantino/Kirby three-way interview in C&C #5. Unfortunately the original cassettes for the 3 plus hours we spent in Carmine’s office were lost, only about 20 plus minutes of edits were printed in the issue. Through my NYC friend Marc Bilgrey, I met Mark Sigal when I went to Toronto. As a result, I wound up running the dealer’s room for January 1972 CosmiCon in Toronto, where I got to be good friends with Steranko, that lasts ’til this day. As result of that I did some work for a few issues of Jim’s Comixscene. I also ran dealer’s room for Seuling’s JulyCon (NY CAC) in ’72 and ’73. Beside hanging out at DC afternoons after high school from 71-73, I also worked at the Monster Times from almost the 1st issue ’til the last issue. I also edited & published the program for Creation Con (Jan ’74 with the Chaykin cover) that caused Warren to withdraw the Heidi Saha magazine from sales.

The Adams interview is a nice size (5 pages) with photos and spots by Neal, as well as art by the “staff.” We all know how large Adams loomed in the comic world around this time, both in his art and in his advocacy for artist rights. Along with the aforementioned Adams sketches, there are a couple of pieces by Bill Payne (see the Vision piece above). Bill is an artist I had not seen or heard of before, but who contributes some really nice work here.

After the Adams interview, we are treated to another page of Alan Hanley’s homage to simpler times, this time featuring Captain Marvel (see below). Superman is featured in A Return to Greatness, by Bruce Kalnins. Kalnins covers some then current issues that reflected more realistic storylines, following somewhat in the vein of Marvel’s revolutionary humanistic approach to comic heroes.

A bit of fan fantasy fiction follows (much too much alliteration by this artist-writer), The Amulet of Dhol, written by David Rubin and illustrated by Bob Inwood (a fraction of one illustration is in the banner at the top of the page, while another full one is below).

“Captain” George Henderson (seen at right) is profiled and interviewed next. Henderson had a large presence in the Canadian comic scene back then, what with his comic store (Memory Lane), his gallery, and his fanzines, Captain George’s Whizzbang, Captain George’s Penny Dreadful, and Comic World (later retitled Captain George Presents). The latter zine was damaged somewhat by a lawsuit brought by King Features (Henderson reprinted many classic comic strips), which put Henderson in a terrible financial state. I was actually surprised to read Henderson also wrote some stories for various Warren magazines (he had a short career as what he called a “soft porn” author after getting out of the armed services, prior to the fanzine work). You can see a few nice articles on Henderson here and here.

Inside King Kong follows, by Don Daynard, covering the early RKO feature, and adorned with various illustrations and photos, including the Vincent Marchesano piece below. The article includes portions from the shooting script of the film. The excised unclothed Fay Wray scene is discussed and illustrated as well.

After the King, we jump to Ronn Sutton and a portfolio of his work. You can see a few pieces below from this four page segment. You can also see Sutton’s more recent work on his site here. Ron was nice enough to answer a few questions from me via email. Thus, a mini artist profile!

I always read comics from when I was a little kid. In 1966 I was 13 years old and hooked on Marvel comics. Within a few years I had a huge collection that I eventually sold. At some point I decided I wanted to an artist, not a collector. One “aha!” moment I had was when I bought Flash Gordon #1 by Al Williamson at the corner store. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but I realized that there was something different about this work. Similarly when I discovered Berni Wrightson’s work with his two NightMaster stories for DC Showcase, his portfolios in Larry Ivie’s Monsters & Heroes and the fanzine Spa Fon. I carried those NightMaster comics with me everywhere for the longest time.

I don’t recall the first fanzine I saw. I published my own very briefly in 1968 or so called Whirlwind. It lasted five or six issues. A combination of mimeograph and ditto. You can imagine. Gary Groth and Tony Isabella were contributors. I had work published in Comic & Crypt, Fright & Fantasy, Bakka Magazine, Media 5, Fantastic Fanzine, Omnifan, Shazam! The Wonderful World of Comics, Creative Adventure, The Comics Reader, Creative Adventure, Comic Crusader, Always Comes Twilight, and plenty more I guess. I met Gene Day through fanzines and we were close friends until his unforeseen death.

When I asked Ronn about his adventures trying to become a professional comic book artist, he said

I moved into Berni Wrightson’s apartment in 1972 and slept on his living room couch for several months. The day I arrived he had just completed the full-pager of the werewolf in Swamp Thing (issue 4?). This was in Saugerties, NY. I spent a lot of weekends with Jeff Jones who lived in nearby Woodstock NY. I modeled for Jeff a number of times, including all the characters in two stories he drew (“Deja Vu” and “Death” in Spasm) as well as at least one painting. I was ghosting pencil pages for Howie Chaykin’s Sword of Sorcery #3. Berni and I inked about 2/3 of the issue. One of the pages I ghost-penciled has my initials hidden in a sword handle.

All artists have their influences and heroes. Ronn cites “…certainly Wrightson and Jeff Jones. The fact that I sign my work with a symbol instead of my name is an obvious influence from Jeff. I lost interest in superheroes very early on, so I liked horror artists, war artists, westerns, sci-fi, etc. My favorites now are Al Williamson, Gray Morrow, Alberto Giolitti, Wally Wood, Alex Raymond. After I returned from living with Wrightson, and later Steve Skeates, in upstate New York, I worked informally and periodically at Captain George’s store.”

Ronn went on to work on several titles for various companies during his career.

Certainly the biggest deal was that I pencilled stories for Elvira, Mistress of the Dark for Claypool Comics for nine years. (My partner Janet Hetherington scripted it for six years). I’m very proud of those, and had a lot of fun drawing for that series.I strictly penciled (except for one single story that I got to ink myself). Hilary Barta inked the last several Elvira stories I drew.  I’ve done a real variety of subject matter…four 30-page romance comics, some history comics, a 96 page graphic novel called “Lucifers Sword MC: Life & Death in an Outlaw Motorcycle Club” that was scripted by Phil Cross (a 40+ year member of the Hells Angels). I’ve drawn adaptations of Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe stories. I recently had a Gothic Romance strip published. Almost no superhero stuff. My main project at the moment is penciling, inking & hand-lettering a weekly online comic strip adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1915 novel The Man-Eater. I’m enjoying it immensely. I’ve also been adapting a Leigh Brackett story called “Citadel of Lost Ships” into a graphic novel. It was originally published in the March 1943 issue of the pulp magazine Planet Stories.

George Beahm covers the short lived genius of Vaughn Bode in the next article (specifically his Sunpot strip), illustrated by Bode’s charming and subversive characters and style. Following that is the letters page. You can see a bit of Bode, and then a Lil Annie Fannie piece by artist Ray Pepin (below).

Cosmicon is covered next by Ron Kasman. This was a science fiction/film/comicon, and had some pretty impressive guests, including Jim Steranko and director Alan Renais. Also on hand for a panel were Howard Chaykin, Gray Morrow, Adams, Alan Weiss, Berni Wrightson, and Russ Heath. You can see a few pictures below from the event.

A thank you page follows and then it is over. But…I really want to show you a gorgeous piece by Payne from the back cover. His handling of shadow patterns and fabric remind of the best of realistic artists such as Don Newton. Ronn has high praise for Payne and some background info.

Bill Payne was a Toronto comic strip artist. He wrote and drew a daily strip called The Giants which was an informative history strip impeccably drawn. I contacted him in 1968 or ’69. he was a big fan of newspaper strips and hadn’t seen a comic book since he as a kid. I got him interested in comic books and he drew stories for The Witching Hour, House of Mystery, etc plus one story for Skywald. The Vision drawing [mentioned and seen above] was part of a poster I commissioned from him for Cosmicon. The original art for back cover of Batman below hangs framed in my home (I own the Ken Barr sepia piece [at top] that was the C&C front cover (incidentally it’s inscribed to me but that was edited out on the cover). Bill Payne and I worked on a few things together. He later went on to be an all-night blues-&-jazz radio dj for a number of years. He then went into animation. I freelanced with him at Lightbox Studios back around 1992. I’ve been unable to locate him in recent years.

There is more to see in the pdf, which will be accessible from my website. Thanks again to Greg Turner for loaning me this from his fabulous collection…he will be a huge boon for this column in the future! Also thanks to Ronn Sutton for making himself available.

Keep in mind you can always request certain zines to be covered, or loan me scans or zines from your own collection. And, as always, I hope you will take the time too comment below…and sharing is always appreciated as well!

Ken Meyer Jr.
kenmeyerjr@yahoo.com