Blog

Fantasae 1: 1975
Editors/publishers: Ken and Deborah Raney

Hi everyone and welcome to the second installment of Ink Stains for 2024! Every time I realize how long I have done this column, I am amazed. And I don’t have any plans of stopping…sorry!

So, yet another fanzine I did not know existed until recently! And, boy, is Fantasae stuffed with a plethora of great artists from that period! Above you see the front cover by the ubiquitous Stephen Fabian. He really stood out with that croquille board work, echoing the beautiful work of people like Virgil Finlay, but making it his own. He added class to any work he was featured in or on. And the back cover is by Hanther (Christopher Lindberg Hanter, Jr, to be exact), a very clean illustrator I was vaguely aware of due to his Tandra work. The wonderful Lambiek Comiclopedia site says “Christopher Lindbergh Hanther, Jr. grew up in rural Memphis and displayed an early talent in drawing. He moved with his family to Knoxville, Tennessee, but his heart always remained with the farmland and open space. Chris Hanther studied advertising art, after which he served in the air force for a short while. Back in civilian life, he moved to New York and started working for comic publisher Marvel. In 1971, Hanther returned to the country and started developing an epic adventure story, Tandra, which he self-published in the series Critter, first released in 1973. Critter provided him with a platform to distribute his comics, especially Tandra. Over the years, Tandra appeared semi-regularly and acquired a small band of devoted fans. In 1995, Hanther had the oppurtunity to create a website for his comic, and he turned Tandra into a CD-Rom which was released in 2002.” There is a site devoted to him and his work by his cousin that you can see here. You can see Stephen’s site here.

Fantasae is a fanzine different from most others, in that it is composed of poetry by various individuals (including publisher/artist Ken Raney’s wife Deborah), with illustrations from some of fandom’s finest accompanying each entry. I am not going to present the poetry in this column, that is better read in the entirety of the zine in the pdf I will have available at the usual place on my site in the Ink Stains section. But, I will show much of the artwork below. Before I get to that, though, Ken was kind enough to answer a few questions via email that I will intersperse between images.

I usually ask creators when and how they were introduced to comics in general and fandom in particular. Raney address both with “I can remember drawing as far back as second grade. In junior high I bought a box of Marvel comics from and friend and started drawing my own comics. Along the way while collecting comics, I discovered fandom and submitted artwork to fanzines. Some of them even got published.”

Above you see two of the three “Venture bros,” Brent Anderson and Frank Cirocco (Gary Winnick is also featured). Raney mentions, when asked about favorite artists, “Frank Cirocco and Steve Fabian I admired. Of course Krenkle and Jeff Jones, and especially Frazetta.” Below is an image from Clyde Caldwell, who started in fanzines and fashioned a very laudable career in illustration. You can see his site here.

I remember seeing Raney and his cool signature here and there in fandom. He told me that “Deb only worked on Fantasea because I asked her to. I was trying to become a full-time illustrator, so pursued any outlets to show my work. Fanzines were always looking for free art to publish, so they published quite a bit of my work.” He succeeded and below is evidence of the wonderful progress, showing the new book showcasing his work.

Ken has moved into the digital realm now, but below is an example of his zine work, particularly here in this issue of Fantasae.

Of course, there is life after fandom, believe it or not! Below, Ken talks about the post fanzine years.

I had two children’s picture books published in the early 1990s; Stick Horse, Medlicott Press (a division of Simon & Schuster), 1991 and It’s Probably Good Dinosaurs are Extinct, Simon & Schuster, 1993. We publish our books through the imprint of Raney Day Press. We publish Deb’s backlist of 40+ novels, a line of Journals, and some of my books including a retrospective of my art called Visions 2.

Above you see the work of Broc Sears and pre-Usagi Yojimbo work from Stan Sakai.

All in all, a great zine, please get the pdf, so you can also read the wide variety of poetry inside! Below is a current photo of Ken with his book, go check it out! You can see Ken’s website here.

Thanks for dropping by, feel free to leave a comment, check out the pdf on my site at kenmeyerjr.com, where you can access all the columns. Thanks to Ken for his input in this installment. Seeya next month!

Ken Meyer Jr
kenmeyerjr@yahoo.com