Ink Stains 192: Wonderful World of Comix 4/5

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Wonderful World of Comix 4-5: Fall 1970
Publisher/editor: Neal Pozner


Hello and welcome to the new installment of your friendly neighborhood fanzine column, Ink Stains! Today we go inside another issue of Neal Pozner's great little half zine zine, The Wonderful World of Comix. It was around this time that you started to realize Neal meant bizness! He ups the ante in art, columns, and page count, starting with the fully rendered John Buscema viking on the cover, seen above.
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Jumping right into the interior content, after the editorial page, we are treated to an interview with veteran, Syd Shores. Sadly, other than (I assume), the caricature of Shores, there isn't any of his art accompanying the interview. The interviewer mentions some painted work and other art that they saw while in Shores' house, but no pictures of any of it, darn it! Shores was one of those stalwarts that, as a kid, I never really properly appreciated (along with others like Kirby, Trimpe, Swan, etc). We DO get to see some early Klaus Janson along with the article, as you can see at left. I keep trying to get that Janson interview, but with no success!

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Next up is a lengthy roundtable discussion of the comic code. Some intelligent and insightful comments are made by the participants, including Dr. Frederic Wertham, Duffy Vohland, Syd Shores, Mike Sekowsky, and Tony Isabella. A typically energetic spot illustration by Dave Russell (seen at right) adorns the article.

​Following the comic code article is Gordon Matthews ...Moralities of War, which focuses on a few issues of Star Spangled War Stories, featuring Enemy Ace, and dwells on, well...the moralities of war as they are depicted by the characters in this comic.

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A sequential story of 2 pages follows, featuring Pozner and John McLaughlin's Duplicate Man, which you can check out below.

Neal and buddies Bill Wilson (of The Collector), Bill's mom, and Vohland next take us on a tour of the DC offices, complete with a diagram of the office layout. Man, I would have been beside myself to be a part of that (or a Marvel tour). There is a simple but expert Neal Adams sketch you can see that came along with the article.

An article on Dr. McCoy, from the original Star Trek, by Pozner (along with an illo by Neal) is next, and then, the fan fave column, Duffy's Tavern appears. Duffy bemoans the fact (in his opinion) that Marvel was falling behind DC in quality around that time, partially due to a policy to not have continued stories, and a plethora of reprints. Mini fan mogul, Bill Black, contributes an illustration of Black Bolt to the article.

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There is another Pro-file, that being an interview with Joe Orlando. A nifty DD illustration by Klaus Janson is part of the article (at right), along with work by others. Conveniently, immediately following that is Meet the Fan, featuring Janson himself.

Sadly, there is no general artist listing in this issue, so there are several illustrations that I cannot identify the artist of, but the work that IS signed that you can see in the PDF include Frank McLaughlin, Al Williamson, Mike Royer, and Joe Sinnott. Below, you can see the back cover by Gray Morrow.

And another column comes to a close! Don't forget to view the pdf, if you want to see the zine in its entirety! Thanks for dropping by, and please feel free to leave a comment. Don't forget also, if you have any zines you want to donate, or scan for me, I am always grateful for that!

Oh, by the way, the TBG you can access for this column is issue 4, and in addition, this link will show you the early days of TBG, behind the scenes, by Alan Light himself! https://www.flickr.com/photos/alan-light/albums/72157594258122660/

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Ken Meyer Jr.
[email protected]