Ink Stains 179: YSG 21

Yancy Street Gazette 21, 9/1968
Publisher: Yancy Street Gang
​Editors: Steve Zeigler, John Hoecker

The Yancy Street Gazette was one of those long running zines that I somehow missed out on way back when. Who knows why, because they had many of the same contributors as my favorite zines of the day, including in this issue, Dave Cockrum and Al Grinage. Al was, to me, sort of like the Vinnie Colletta of the fanzine scene...someone who didn't necessarily have the flashy style of, say, Fantucchio, but was consistent and very prolific. I remember his work in early issues of Fantastic Fanzine, for example, and there were many others. Above you can see his Marvel-ous cover, as well as a Hulk spot to the left!


​The Yancy Street Gang was similar to the later CPL gang, composed of several young fans that would work together on projects, usually containing a few artists and writers. In the YSG case, those individuals were  Steve Zeigler; Jan Bertholf; and Amy, Jane, and John Hoecker - all of whom were in high school when they created the most popular Marvel fanzine of the 1960s and whose Marvel fan club ranked second in membership only to Marvel’s own MMMS fan club at the time, as stated in the wonderful book covering elements of fandom, Tales From the DMV (you can get it here...for some dumb reason, I have lost my copy). There is also a very nice article on a fandom reunion event at SDCC on the Fantucchio site here.

So, let's jump into issue 21, the final issue. It seems apropos I mentioned Colletta above, since the editorial touts several of their interview "gets;" Don Heck, Colletta, and, in this issue, Werner Roth...several artists who were sometimes the objects of derision for their lack of a cool style, but who were fast and dependable. This issue starts off with the Club News section, then follows with a con report on the Gateway Con II.

One of the main things that drew me to YSG was the inclusion of several illustrations by fan fave, Dave Cockrum. He contributes several spot illustrations sprinkled throughout this half size zine. Below you can see two of them (the Iceman adorns the Roth interview), as well as a full page illustration.

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After those two articles are pieces by Marvel bigwig Roy Thomas (View From the Bullpen) and future Marvel staffer Mark Evanier (There's no Plot like an Old Plot). The Werner Roth interview follows, and then Ann Henry contributes Superman Married?, followed by Dave himself giving us The Trials and Tribulations of a Comiccollector, complete with the masthead art seen below.

On the Corner of Yancy Street by fandom stalwart, Tony Isabella follows (sort of a general question answering column), then the letters page (It's Clobbering Time), a short fanzine review page and then they are outta here! The back cover is a pin up by Roth, seen below.

So far, it seems the Comic Attack site is still having provider problems so, for now at least, I will keep posting monthly columns here on my site. It is a bit of a pain, and I cannot do everything I can do here that I can do in Wordpress there...but, that's the way the columnist mumbles! Thanks once again goes out to my own personal zine guru, the mighty Manny Maris! Don't forget, you can get the whole zine as a pdf from the main Ink Stains section on this site. Leave comments if you like, they are always welcome!

Ken Meyer Jr.
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