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The Collector 25: January 1972
Publisher/editor: Bill G. Wilson

Welcome to this slightly late installment of Ink Stains, your fanzine headquarters, homeslice! We were preempted by some malfunctions on the ComicAttack website, but it is fixed now, thank the New Gods! Hope you are having a good July 4th week…here in Santa Ana, California, where fireworks seem an everyday occurrence, I am preparing for the usual brain bursting seige.

This month we all step back onto familiar and welcome territory, Bill G. Wilson’s always awesome The Collector! Issue 25, to be exact. Bill had established his professional look and stable of artists and writers pretty fully by this point. Some of the usual culprits include Bill Black (seen at top), Don Newton, John G. Fantucchio, Ed Romero, Tom Fagan, Dwight Decker, Doug Potter and more. So, let’s stop fooling around and jump into it!

The first article remarks on the death of radio host, Ed King, a favorite of editor Wilson’s. You can read a longer and more detailed chronicle here. Following is The Real Jack Kirby, by David Fryxell and William Reynolds, delving into some symbolism (conspiracy theory like?) that the writers posit The King used, primarily in his New Gods work. A typically svelte illustration by Don Newton graces the article (seen top left).

A very imposing Darkseid pin up by Skip Olson is next (seen above), preceding an article by Tom Fagan entitled Jack Kirby, All Father Man. The article is pretty complete, considering it is only two pages long (another Newton illustration is included here, of The Red Skull).

A fan profile follows, of artist Donald Wong. I remember seeing Donald’s early work, which was pretty standard hero and fantasy stuff, but this article showcases his later work, which entered a cartoony style not far off from the much later stylings of Bone‘s Jeff Smith. You can see a sample at right.

Another installment of the always whimsical and detailed Green Horn from Alan Jim Hanley follows. I think Hanley was way underrated and underreported back then, probably because of his cartoony style. That stuff ain’t easy! Carl Barks gets some coverage in the next article by fandom regular, Dwight Decker, called Funny Animals for a Funny Fanzine. After that are a couple of “fanzine covers that never saw print” by the retrostylish Jim Jones, a sample seen below.

A coquille pencilled pin up by Doug Potter is next up, right before some lengthy coverage by Tom Fagan of The Flying Dutchman (part 3), Death: Thy Color Be Orange. A beautifully clean and colorful (not much interior color in the fanzines, folks) piece by Ed Romero that you can feast your peepers on below.

The letters page follows (as well as answers to a crossword puzzle that appeared earlier in the issue), and then a satirical criticism of the perceived overt professionalism of the current crop of zines by Bob Kirkland. Bob was pining for the earlier days of mimeo zines…me, I was very pleased with the way things were!

Byron Preiss follows with Alternatives for Conventions, then another nice Romero piece appears, as well as a powerful piece by Mike Roberts, in all his Steranko-esque glory, seen below. A few ads, and that about wraps it up!

Always remember that you can download the pdf on my site (kenmeyerjr.com, in the inkstains section), where you can read the articles in their entirety, as well as see all the art that is not posted here.

Thanks to Alan Williams again for selling me some really cool zines. I hope you liked this installment, leave comments, and come back for more next month on the 1st of the month!

Ken Meyer Jr.
kenmeyerjr@yahoo.com