I’ll be Damned 4: January 1971
Editor/publisher: Mark Feldman
Mark Feldman has a pretty interesting back story…the best place to read about him (and a ton of other people and events, such as Gary Groth/Fantastic Fanzine, Berni Wrightson, and others in the Maryland/DC/Virginia comics/fanzine scene of the early 70s) is the super book by “The DMV fan project,” primarily Joseph Ball, Tales from the DMV. If you love fandom, you gotta get this book! There is a chapter on Mark and his beginnings, and he was a real go-getter! His goals were to open a great comic book store (he did), start a comic convention (ditto), as well as a high quality fanzine (duh!). This particular issue was done while Mark was a senior in high school! In addition to the three issues (more on that later) of IBD, Mark also published the only issue of Scream Door (affectionally referred to by some as Web of Horror 4, WOH being an above ground horror magazine that lasted 3 great issues, with some unpublished work left over). The story on the numbering (IBD had three issues, numbered 1, 2, and 4) is that Mark thought it would be funny to drive collectors mad, numbering issue 3 with a 4 instead (especially his buddy and EC completist, Bruce Francis). Heck, I only found out about this crazy scheme in the last few months!
At any rate, learn more in the DMV book, for now, let’s get on with this issue. (Go here to get it, if you want.)
After the beautifully rendered cover above, the quality continues inside, with work from some of the biggest and best creatives of the time, including Wrightson, Tom Sutton, Gray Morrow, Dan Adkins, Stephen Hickman, and Frank Brunner. Another day I will profile issue one, which is bigger, and includes interviews with many of these and other superstars.
The first story is a Wrightson beauty entitled Out on a Limb (and he doesn’t mean trees). Filled with many of the standard Wrightson traits (beautiful line work, grotesque physicality, moody shadows, sinuous organic shapes), and it comes complete with an EC shock ending. Check out a few pages below.
Next is the second installment of Tom Sutton’s Pilgrim. Strangely enough, this second part is as manic and filled with visual detail as the first installment was stately and sparse. Below are a few of the five pages.
There are a few pin ups before the next story…check em out.
The last story is the second and last part of Nest Egg, by Stephen Hickman and Dan Adkins (they don’t list who did what, but it looks like Hickman layouts and Adkins inks). Aaaaaaand……
The zine finishes with a pin up by Tom Sutton, seen below, and a back cover by Brunner. Though Feldman only produced 4 fanzines in his short run at publishing, they were humdingers…now, his plans to conquer the worlds of comic cons and comic stores would begin…right outta high school!
Thanks this installment go out to the Galactus/Watcher of the zine world, Manny Maris. Also to the writers of the DMV book, and to the current runner of the Comic Attack site, Gid Freeman, for continuing to fight the battle against crappy service providers! Get the pdf in the Ink Stains section of my site here.
Ken Meyer Jr.
kenmeyerjr@yahoo.com
