Ink Stains 37: Anomaly 4

If you have read previous installments of Ink Stains, you know that Jan Strnad’s Anomaly delivers! Richard Corben! Robert Kline! Git some! 

Anomaly 4: November 1972
Publisher/Editor: Jan Strnad
The last issue of Anomaly by writer Jan Strnad hits us with the one-two punch of artists Richard Corben and Robert Kline, through two gorgeous color covers, three stories, and a pin-up. Like the excerpt above says, “Oh My Goodness! Look at that!” 

Now, how about that gorgeous Corben cover to start things off, huh? I ask you, in the fanzine world, does it get any better than that?
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I have to warn those two or three fans of my over-the-top praise and sometimes extreme wordiness, that you shall have little of that this time out. My friends, it’s close to Christmas, I have been busy with actual artwork, and there is little time to expound on the obvious virtues of this particular zine! So, I have parsed a plethora of pages (and one pin-up, partner) for you to peruse and pant over!

To start with, the wonderful Richard Corben leads off with a short and funny little ditty of a story seen below. Let’s look! 

Those are some horny little rabbits, I must say! Corben did have a great sense of humor, and when I get around to covering his underground comic, Fantagor, you will definitely see a heaping helping of that. For now, let’s switch visual tracks and take a gander at the mastery of the dinosaur form that Robert Kline exhibits below. 

It’s no wonder that the animation industry snatched Kline up, never to be seen again in fandom or the comic world after the 70s passed us by. He was just too damn good. Below you see a few pages from one of the few full comic stories Kline gave us before exiting in a poof of dried cell paint, Leander and the Fat Queen, written by editor and publisher Jan Strnad. As far as I know, it is by far the longest story Kline ever published in fandom.

Next up is a Corben airbrush and ink tour de force (pardon my french), Encounter at War. Now, those of you with better memories than I will note that this story appears in a previous issue of Anomaly. However, this version has added pages and added story, as the previous version was told with very few words (some of them in an alien hieroglyphic sort of language). Below, you see a few of the newly added pages. I think this might have been the first Corben story I ever saw, and I was completely blown away by the lighting and cinematic quality of the art.

To end the fourth issue of Anomaly​, what better image than one of the most iconic Corben paintings I can think of. This is one that is indelibly etched into my brain, possibly due to those incredibly saturated colors! 

Whenever I would see images like this from Corben, whether in fanzines such as this or other art heavy zines like Infinity (or even more life altering to this young brain, his underground comic work), I would always wonder, “how does he do that?” The saturated colors, the soft tones (airbrush was still new to the world of illustration back in 1972, and certainly new to the world of comic fanzines). And of course, when you add in his mastery of the round three dimensional form and, well...those women...you can see why he stood out so starkly against a black and white (or garishly and simply colored) visual landscape. There was simply no one like him then. Don’t forget to download the pdf to see all the stories completely! There is so much more there!

As I said, this installment of Ink Stains is a bit short in the word department, and I apologize. Thanks this time go out to Kristin Bomba, the poor woman that has to edit all our poorly written columns and make them all pretty-like for youse readers. And of course, thanks go out to you readers, especially those of you that leave comments. The comments make me feel that someone out there actually reads this stuff!

Have a great holiday season, oh fellow fans of the zine! I am outta here! 

Ken Meyer Jr.
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