Ragnarok 2: 1972
Publishers/editors: Mark Collins and David Simons
Heyyyyyy, nice to be back! The gap seems a bit longer this time, due to an extremely busy few weeks for me (3 weekend events in a row, one of them being in Germany). I wish I had some expert input from some of the principals involved, but just did not have enough time this installment. However, you can see tons of great input from the two editors on issue 3 here. Please remember, it always does my heart good to see comments, so I don’t think I am typing away here in some cave in Donothaveanindoorbathroomistan! Onward.
Above you see a bang up cover, full of sketchy power, by the great Marie Severin. She is the subject of an interview we will get to later. I gotta admit, I did not appreciate her when I was younger as I should have. Compared to her brother John, she just seemed a bit pedestrian (though I would not have been smart enough then to use that word) and cartoony. But, I did wise up! And of course, her work on Not Brand Ecch was so charming and fun! The principal artist for this issue, however, seems to be one Eric Harrison. He provides several full page pin ups and many spots. He definitely has enthusiasm and some fun compositions, but the work is held back somewhat by a somewhat unheroic sense of proportions (short version: his heads are way too big). You can see one of the better ones to the left. I applaud his enthusiasm!
The editorial content starts with…well, the editorial! After that, George Schwartz does Three in One, covering an issue of Feature Comics, which introduced, you guessed it, three characters. You will see that the editors could have benefitted from someone who had a sense of page design…it gets a bit chaotic visually, with columns being continued from one page to another in uneven little blocks and little direction. But hey, it is a FANzine, after all. Neal Pozner (Wonderful World of Comics) contributes a short column (Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Fandom), then David Simons chimes in on the rising cost of comics while citing some of his favorite bargain book stores in What do you Mean, $3 for Avengers 25?
A letters column follows, and is of note because the then very un-famous Gene Klein appears (who became the VERY famous Gene Simmons of Kiss). Jeffrey Wasserman chimes in with Horror Comes to Archie Comics. Following Jeffrey is Tom Fagan covering King Con, 5 days of comic heaven in New York City. Below you will see a series of photos from the con…they are the typically fuzzy black and white reproductions, but still give us a glimpse into those bygone days when cons were not so blatantly commercial. I just wish they would have listed who was in costume, as it is usually someone we know!
Speaking of cons, Liam O’Connor is up next with What if They Gave a Con and Nobody Came? Next up is the Marie Severin interview. Marie is one of those interview subjects that really give you a fun reading experience. Her humor and giving nature always come through in any interview I have seen. There are a few images you might have seen in other zines (like FOOM, for example). I actually did not know she started at EC as a teenager!
I realize, looking back, how wonderful her work was at Marvel. Boy, was I a doofus! Marie Severin was beloved by her peers and many people much smarter than I…it is a long interview and well worth your time. Get the pdf to read it all! Following the interview is a general article by Steve Jenkins titled The Comix Media (stuffed with various Roy Krenkel sketches…it cannot be a fanzine if there are no Krenkel sketches!), and then Monster Times editor Joe Brancatelli laments the then current state of comics (lots of that going around at the time, it seems) called The Last Hurrah. There are various spot illustrations throughout the issue that you can see in the pdf…below is the back cover by fandom stalwart, Mark Ammerman, and following that, an incredibly beautiful (as usual) poster by Dennis Fujitake (and pin up sent with the zine).
Well, folks, that about wraps up this installment of Ink Stains. I hope you were entertained (ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED???) and find the time to view the whole pdf and leave a few comments. Thanks yet again to Mighty Manny Maris for providing the actual zine for me to scan. Manny is a prince in Jersey gangster clothing!
What is up next month? Who knows? Feel free to make suggestions and come back then!
Ken Meyer Jr.
kenmeyerjr@yahoo.com
Hey, nice! You’ve done it again, Ken–and this time you gave me a bit of press, too. The back cover of Ragnarok 2 is the only Ammerman art ever to grace a classic fanzine in COLOR… I think editor Mark Collins added the colors to that piece, as well as the front cover sketch by Marie Severin (Mark is on Facebook, so we could ask him.) There’s a crazy New York Comic Con story related to that back cover that I’ll share here if I can find the time (and if I can remember it correctly!)
This issue of Ragnarok is also in the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center (https://kirbymuseum.org) because of the Jack Kirby info (and photos) in Tom Fagan’s comic convention article.
And it’s fun, Ken, to hear myself dubbed a “fandom stalwart”. If I couldn’t be a BNF, I might as well be a FS.
I was another who didn’t appreciate Marie Severin in her time at Marvel. On the one hand I had no idea how good an artist had to be to be able to draw like her. On the other hand some of her work was barely passable– I read over her Dr. Strange from Strange Tales about a year ago. She was the least of the Dr. Strange artists over the first 1500 pages of the character. And, sadly, there was nothing at all attractive about her work on it. I think of the people who were coming into their own then and they all had a bit of pizzazz but for poor Marie. Had she been around to draw, say, early Thor, early Human Torch, the back up mystery/SF stories from Tales to Astonish, Strange Tales, Journey into Mystery or Tales of Suspense, she would have fit right in– even been one of the better artists. But Marvel’s timing did not do her justice.
The only cosplayer I recognize is the same one we all recognize (especially Manny)– Heidi Saha. She would be collecting social security by now. She could weigh 400 pounds. Her name came up on a message board a few years ago. One of the contributors said that his job was chasing down people and that he was certain he could find her. I stated that he should just let her live in peace. I assume he did not search her out.
And it is nice to see the photos of Phil Seuling. Someone should write a book on his life.
“THROUGH THE WALL, BABY!”
I have a mountain of respect for the work of sister (Marie) and brother (John) Severin. I probably owe more to John Severin’s lines (and faces) than any other comic artist I have emulated through the years. But I love Marie’s friendly style, its cartoon bent even on the most serious of subjects—and all those colors that brought to light and life the lines of so many other artists.
I wish I had known her. When she passed away in 2018, I was very sad—sad for the great loss to comicdom, and sad for myself because I had hoped to communicate with her one day. But the closest I ever got was sharing a fanzine cover with her once upon a time (“back in ‘72”, as Bob Seger used to sing): she (on the front cover) with her Hulk stomping through a wall, and I (on the back) with Dr. Fate taking the more ethereal route through a wall. That was Mark Collins’ and Dave Simons’ RAGNAROK #2 (now in the Jack Kirby Museum because of some Kirby-related content on the inside) and featured here in Ken Myer’s latest episode of INK SPOTS.
I drew the Dr. Fate piece in my sophomore year at Kutztown State College, where I was majoring in Advertising Art (not because I wanted to use my art to sell things, but because that major was loaded with illustration courses that I hoped would get me closer to my lifelong dream of becoming a DC comic book artist.) 1972 was also the year I turned over the editor/publisher reins of Comic Courier to Mike Graycar. I was tired of the pressure to produce yet another issue of a fanzine that I had very little time for amidst the academic and social demands of “higher education” (and, frankly, I was a bit too high a bit too often!)—but I still loved to draw. So, draw I did—and scattered the art far and wide (via the United States Postal Service.) That year was probably my last truly inter-active year in Fandom. I published another zine in 1974 (The Wonderful World of the Wild and Wicked West) and laid out an entire second issue (in creative partnership with the same Dave Simons who co-edited RAGNAROK #2)… but that first issue was a rather tired and self-indulgent publication, and the second edition (which was actually a B+ effort by some very talented comic creators) never saw print. Then, for many decades, I bid Fandom “adieu!”
But “back in ‘72”, (or maybe it was ’73, since RAGNAROK #2 couldn’t have yet been available at the ’72 NY Con) that Dr. Fate cover was responsible (so I am told) for the destruction of property at the New York Comic Art Convention. My con memories are fuzzy—mostly (I think) because those events were so BIG, and I was always nervous around so many people, and usually just plain LOST (unable to find the right room for the right event or the right people I was supposed to meet for lunch, or my own hotel room in case I just wanted to go lie down!) So I don’t remember who told me this story, or who was involved in the act of vicarious vandalism, but the punch line (or rather the “kick line”) is that some fat-footed fan imbibed the power of Dr. Fate by staring at my inspirational illustration, got carried away in the spirit of fantasy, and KICKED A DOOR DOWN in one of the hotel bedrooms while shouting “Through the wall, baby!” Yep, that’s what I was told. Made me feel like it was MY fault!
So, thanks again, Ken, for stirring the (murky) memories with yet another installment of INK STAINS. Keep kickin’ (but be careful what you kick.)
And, thanks to the Manster (Manny Maris) for providing Ken with this issue of RAGNAROK!
Ink STAINS, Mark, Ink STAINS!