Fanzine 75, 76, 77
Editor: James Pack, publisher: Lance Studio
It appears I have been laboring under a terrible misconception all these years in regard to James Pack’s group of fanzines (or my memory is just terrible…well, that much I know already). For some reason, as I pulled these out to do as a group, I thought I was covering the entire output of this zine. I realized while looking through one of the house ads that there are several more! Maybe someday I will have them in my hands and review ’em. At any rate, you see three covers above clearly stating which year they came out. Cover artists are Larry Nibert on the left (who published his own zine, Epitaph, one issue covered here), and James Pack on the covers of the other two. Let’s get on with it!
Above you see what was probably the primary reason I bought these zines, that being the art of Mitch Sonoda. His work shines so brightly compared to everyone else in the zine, it is almost a disservice to the other artists involved! Granted, there are spots here and there that don’t work, but it is really polished for fanzine work. The title is really well done and I have a feeling Mitch wanted to be a typographer, or very least, was a huge Roger Dean fan (as well as probably a Neal Adams follower, judging by the style of his illustrations). You will also see his work in the issue of Epitaph linked above.
Following Sonoda’s story (oh, by the way, keen eyes will note that Mitch’s name is misspelled on the cover) is a short poem (with a nice graphic treatment) by David Yetter, who it appears, is the other half of “Lance Studios” along with James Pack.
After a page of ads is a nice pin up by Larrys Blake and Nibert, seen below.
What follows is a page of pretty bad humor (with pretty bad art), appropriately called You Call This Humor? Maybe James Pack was just being very clever, so the fairly bad quality of the preceding strip would contrast with his following strip Captain Cannibas (to be honest, I don’t know if the misspelling is intentional or not). James’ art is passable, but again, he is in the same zine as Sonoda, so there you go. But, as I always stress, these are fanzines, usually done by very young people who are relatively new to art, so I try to cut ’em some slack. See a page below.
More prose follows by David Yetter, Fire as Cold as Ice. Now, I should have read that sucker, but the very ill informed decision to have the story ALL IN CAPS made it a little difficult. That font and treatment appears elsewhere in the zine, so I guess the guys had not taken typography 101 after all! I do applaud the group for putting prose and poetry at all in a fanzine, it did not happen often. Two illustrations by Larry Nibert follow, the second of which (and back cover) you can see below. The Byrne is strong in this one!
OK, onward to (vol 2 number 3) Fanzine ’76. There are a few continuing columns that start off this issue, Inside Fanzine ’76 and Just Rappin’ (the latter by both Yetter and Pack). Yetter then branches out with the first of a two part short story entitled Time Again to Know. Virgins is next, a short strip by Larry Nibert and Steve Bissette. I am not sure who did what, but it looks like Larry pencilled it and Steve inked it. See if you can figure it out below!
OK, I doubt anyone got the answer right…I certainly would not have! Through email, Steve filled me in, telling me that “I penciled the monsters only. Larry inked everything in the story. I penciled and inked the monsters of the back cover portrait.”
I am very fortunate that Stephen allowed me to ask a few questions via email to include here…thanks, Steve! I first asked him about his initial contact with fandom in general, to which he replied
My fanzine experience was as a reader, and it was horror/sf/fantasy film fandom, not comics fandom, that initially sparked my interest, and the first mail-orders and subscriptions.
I’d read about genre fanzines and a few comic fanzines in newsstand magazines Castle of Frankenstein and the “Graveyard Examiner” section of Warren magazines (Famous Monsters of Filmland, Creepy, Eerie), but didn’t begin actively ordering zines until my junior high and high school years (pre-1973).
I was initially a reader-only, and my favorite fanzines were definitely Sam Calvin and Ernest Farino’s FXRH (I was a lifelong Ray Harryhausen fan), Greg Shoemaker’s Japanese Fantasy Film Journal (Toho and Japanese daikaiju-eiga and genre films, including anime), and Richard Klemensen’s Little Shoppe of Horrors (Hammer Films).
Prior to Kubert School, as a shy and lowly Vermont teenager, I very nervously submitted my first-ever art contributions to Greg Shoemaker, and he published one of my drawings (of the Manster) in JFFJ, and that was the first. I contributed a back cover drawing to Crypt of Horror, which was published, and it all started there. I suspect the zine you’re writing about—Fanzine 76—might have been my first published comics fanzine submission.
As for how he ended up in this fanzine, he went on…
My tastes were pretty eclectic, once I was bitten by the bug. I confess that the genre film zines remained my staples, as a reader—FXRH, JFFJ, Little Shoppe of Horrors, Black Oracle, Gore Creatures (Gary Svehla), Cinefantastique (which became a slick newsstand magazine), Photon (the cream of the crop, always!)—and those are the ones I’ve held on to in my collection, or tried to recover when lost from the collection (i.e., loaned issues, never returned).
Of the 1970s comic fandom publications, Rocket’s Blast Comics Collector was the one I ended up contributing artwork and even a couple comics stories to, and I still occasionally order ebay items from Jim Van Hise, so we’ve sort-of stayed in touch over the years as a result. RBCC ended up publishing some work I’m still pretty proud of. Just prior to the 1980s, my attempt to contribute to fanzines ended unhappily (Craig Yoe lost a couple irreplacable submissions; Jim Van Hise solicited and paid for a number of illustrations for a book project, but the originals were never returned), so I didn’t continue down that path. Besides, by 1980, my professional path was working out, and freelancing is a tough mistress in the best of circumstances. Earning income, however meager, from my work became the priority, but I must say my fanzine work was critical to landing some of the pro jobs.
I am always interested in how fandom affects us all. Steve was no different, enthusiastic in his memories and friendships. When I asked if he made any lifelong friends in fandom, he declared
Yes, most definitely! I’ve stayed in touch with folks like Ted Rypel and Richard Klemensen over the decades, though we’re not friends per se—pen pals and peers, I reckon, would be fair to say, though I’ve great affection for Ted and Richard, and just included Richard and LSoH in one of my pro prose works (with Richard’s kind permission). My closest friends from the 1970s fanzine years, though, are long gone, and the closest (Fred Greenberg, who was a Kubert School classmate) up and vanished in the 1980s; I miss Fred.
The most lasting and closest fancentric friendships came later in life, when Chas Balun welcomed my writing for his then-new zine Deep Red and I began writing for my very dear friends Tim and Donna Lucas for Video Watchdog (a fanzine I had a hand in convincing Tim and Donna to pursue and self-publish). Chas really opened the door for me as a writer, and out of that period I became very close to Chas (who sadly passed away some years back). Lasting, lifelong from then-to-now relationships with friends like Tim and Donna, Charles Kilgore (a nom de plume), Craig Ledbetter, Kim Newman, Tim Paxton, Eric Sulev, and many others blossomed from the fanzine connections, and those continue to the present day.
As a matter of fact, I still contribute regularly to two zines my pal Tim Paxton edited and/or co-founded—Monster! and Weng’s Chop—beginning with the second issue of each run/revival, right up to the present (Weng’s Chop #12 just arrived in the mail this week, with my lengthy article on Hallmark Releasing out of Boston). Through Tim, I’ve continued to work with folks like Tony Strauss and Brian Harris and others, so the work continues, the connections continue, into my 60s.
In fact, it was the reviews, interviews, and articles I’d written for Deep Red, Video Watchdog, Ecco, and Euro-Trash Cinema that directly led to the invitation to write the novella Aliens: Tribes for Dark Horse, and that project won me my one and only Stoker Award (Horror Writers Association, then the Horror Writers of America, for ‘Best Novella’). More recently, an article published in Monster! spawned the forthcoming book I authored for Neil Snowdon’s Electric Dreamhouse UK imprint, the Midnight Movie Monograph David Cronenberg’s THE BROOD (due out January 2020; Electric Dreamhouse/PS Publications). The connection with Neil Snowdon was made through my expanding an article I’d originally written for Tim and Donna’s Video Watchdog for a book Neil edited for PS Publications, We Are the Martians: The Legacy of Nigel Kneale (2017). So you see, I pretty much owe my entire writing career, non-fiction and fiction, to the fanzine work and connections.
As an artist, the early fanzine works definitely got my work and my name ‘out there’ and help land some of those early freelance jobs. It also was integral to building my portfolio, which got me work, and there’s no way I can summarize how critical it was to see my work in print, and how seeing every single piece in print changed and refined my work for the better.
Jesse James (that’s right) follows with a couple pages of poetry, Of Love and None (illustrated by Pack). The letters page (…and, a cry came back) follows and then the super stylish Mitch Sonoda makes his appearance. Again, really nice title lettering, as seen below. And….zip a tone!
Yetter comments on the state of filmic science fiction in Candidly Speaking…, then there are a few ads, followed by James Pack’s How to Kill a Martian Cat. I pulled a few of the better pages for you to see below.
Moving on to the third entry in our zine-o-rama, initially we are treated to the two continuing columns (Inside Fanzine ’77 and Just Rappin’), and then a nice twist ending of a story by Pack and Steve Karmele called Food. Steve does try a bit too hard to impress with some crazy panel shapes and page layouts, but it works for the most part. You be the judge!
Part two of David Yetter’s short story, Time Again to Know follows (illustrated again by Pack, I think). Ads and letters follow, and then Captain Cannibas vs Alkohol bursts onto the pages, written and lettered by Pack, but illustrated by the loose knit bullpen of this zine. Silly but fun…check it out.
A Song for a Siren follows…not credited, but it looks like Pack’s work. The first page has a nice Wally Wood-ish opening panel you can see below.
A strange sf story follows (strange in that there is no title for example) written by Pack and seemingly mostly illustrated by Sonoda, though credited to Heliographics. Some nice visuals in this one.
Larry Nibert provides the back cover and there you have it! Again, I hope to get the other issues at some point to see what I missed.
Thanks this time out go to the wonderful and erudite Stephen Bissette! In fact, below you can find out more about what Steve is up to lately.
This past two weeks alone, I’ve had some new work and old work pop up in print—The Absolute Swamp Thing Volume 1 (DC/Vertigo), Weng’s Chop #12 (via Amazon self-publishing), Deep Red #2 (via online only, FantaCo Enterprises), Brainworm #5 (published/edited by Kat Ghastly, who is one of my students at the Center for Cartoon Studies, where I’ve been teaching since summer 2005)—and as I mentioned, my Midnight Movie Monograph volume David Cronenberg’s THE BROOD (670 pages!) will be out shortly (I just delivered the signed author signature sheets to the publisher in the UK, and THE BROOD co-stars Art Hindle and Cindy Hinds Alarie just received their signature sheets for the book, so hopefully they’re signing those right now).
Keeping busy, and lots of new work coming out all the time, but you never know where. I self-published a first volume of Cryptid Cinema in late 2017, and have two followup volumes in the works for next year. I’ve two sketchbooks coming out at some point in early 2020, entitled Thoughtful Creatures and Brooding Creatures. Those won’t be in comics or book shops, they’ll be available via online venues (like Amazon), more than likely.
I’m still doing new work all the time, but as to where to get it—well, good luck! With the publishing arena so fragmented these days, most of it ends up being available online, but I am absolutely dedicated to doing work for print, in book form and in zines, still.
Teaching is my bread-and-butter, my day-job, and has been since 2005. You also never know how things will pan out: just worked all summer long on a project that won’t see print after all, so you never know. I’ve a number of projects in the works, including some that almost saw print but didn’t reach fruition, for a variety of reasons, but amid all that, I still get new work out fairly regularly nevertheless.
Online, I still frequent some social media platforms, and I post artwork regularly on my Facebook page (daily). I no longer maintain a website or online journal; I may return to that, whatever venues still exist, after I retired from teaching, down the road. The blogs I posted to daily, then weekly, for a decade (2005-2015) are still archived online: srbissette.com and my earlier http://srbissette.blogspot.com are still in reach, for the time being.
Thanks for stopping by and reminiscing with me about those days far in the past, when the post office ruled! Remember to go to my site and get the pdfs, so you can see it all.
Ken Meyer Jr.
kenmeyerjr@yahoo.com
