This all started out as a rather simple post but things escalate! Read, enjoy and comment!
There is very little information online regarding Zine Zone/Zine Zone International or its Small Press and Independent mail order business, nor of its successor Comic Bits. Even my own existence in British comics is non-existent on the internet. What are termed the "British Comics Mafia" (I used to think that was a joke for a long time) seem to try to delete any mention -I know two people who tried several times to place Wikipedia entries on myself and comics/Small Press but each was deleted after "complaints".
However, what cannot be deleted are items on my work in Amazing Heroes and Comics F/X, I exclude the mention of The Comics Journal as I have never seen the issue so cannot comment. I even wrote a regular page for Comics F/X -"Tel's From The Crypt". But I was not just part of the spear head of the "British Small Press Explosion" into the United States.
I was also very active in writing and communicating with Small Pressers in what was then West Germany and even East Germany where there was an illegal underground exchange of Small Press comics -German and English. See how old I am? My badge of honour is that I was on a list of "persons to be detained and questioned" by the East German VoPos (Volks Polizei)!
Not sure how they might have greeted the lovely cover by American creator Donna Barr who was interviewed in this issue along with Roberta Gregory, Canadian Colin Upton and some Bristol rogue Paul Brown (aka: Paul Ashley Brown)...and some German creators.
In my collection of Small Press publications I have, obviously, a large number from Germany. Heiki Anacher's Plop! Although Heiki later left the zine it was taken over by Andreas Alt. From 3 DM to 3 Euro...hmm.
Above the 2007 edition of Plop! and the 1986 edition -both showcase new talent and genres of stripwork.
Now I may be wrong but I'm quite sure that Jo 84 was publishing Spruhende Phantasie while doing his national service in the German Army. He was still around a few years back but not in good health. Hopefully he is better now. Spruhende Phantasie was one of those German zines that it was always a pleasure to receive and look through.
Above: Jo 84 in Spruhende Phantasie nr. 9 and below the cover of that July,1989 issue!
And I helped to push German publications to a wider audience -oddly, back in the pre-internet days far more people were willing to look at foreign language comics than they are today. Certainly, despite so many having been 'borrowed' from me by visiting Small Pressers, I have a large number that would take all day to scan and some of these were available via Zine Zone's mail order service.
Another publication that was a joy to receive was Georg K. Berres' Zebra. Below is the Ad sheet that was included with ZZI 13. Interestingly, rather like the bulky Previews Comic (a new talent showcase) I got Forbidden Planet in London to put copies on sale. They sold. And as with Previews Comic the store refused to pay out the sales money. Crooks from top to bottom.
I had thought that Zebra was the first publication I had seen the work of Rudolph Perez and Martin Frei in (both were interviewed in ZZI 13). However, I have a copy of Lippe published by Andreas Anger (1985/86) in which both contribute strips Frei with "Diamanten" and Perez with (still my favourite) "Die Ruckkehr von Jack The Ripper"
Perez is still working in comics but online -I think!- and every link I follow seems to get me nowhere. Now there is modern tech and communication for you!
Below is a Perez cover for Gringo Comics Kurzer Prozess and I think this one is from the early 2000s. I lost contact with a lot of the old Zinesters such as EmdE, Helge "Herod" Korda and so on after one of my numerous address changes-I was keeping one step ahead of the Vopos! :-)
Martin Frei did some work on a comic adaption of the very popular cop/detective show Schimanski that starred the late Götz George who died in 2016 -http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/gotz-george-dead-at-77.html
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Frei later produced covers for Kurzer Prozess though I have no idea, as with Perez, what he contributed strip-wise. And below -the man himself!
In case you never noticed in that photograph, Frei is signing copies of his detective book Kommissar Eisele...or did you notice?
Somewhere....I use the term "somewhere" because this is Room Oblivion and things are in boxes or tucked away in other places for safety...are one or two colour postcards that Hannes sent me with a letter back in the day -we old folk say "back in the day" because we really do not want to think how many years ago it really was!
I will need to try to find them.
Below -I have no idea where I got this from or where it is but that's Hannes signing or drawing and I doubt that it was that long ago.
Trawling the internet to see what I can find I came across this piece. Again I have no idea what from or when but it is lovely to look at!
As for this....I love it!
Of course, Hannes has a book out...I assume that it is still available and I have seen some pages online and it is stylish.
Zebra was always printed on a lovely thick paper and this added to the overall feel of the issues and the printing worked well whether it was Frei's precise line-work or Perez's free style...or even Neubauer's particular style.
Let's look at some of the covers. I know I have others but this post has already taken a few hours with scanning and so forth!
From 1988 I also happen to have the red covered A5 Dummy.That was the brain-child of Joachim Ullmer and while corresponding with him I urged him to copyright the whole crash test dummy idea but he wasn't interested. I hope he never kicked himself a few years later when the crash test dummy toy craze hit!
Creators in Germany were doing the same as creators in the UK -experimenting with formats and genres as well as art styles. A great day for German comics came in 1989 when a certain suave and angry bearded English-German comicker saw his super hero team published in Watcher....oh. That was me! :-P
Oddly, the cover was drawn by American Dave Fontaine and I have no idea what happened to him -he contributed quite a bit of art to Watcher and via Zine Zone so did a few British zinesters.
Tobias Schwarz published a German language music theme comic titled Crash and things were a little complicated as Roland Altermatt was also involved in publishing -he was based in the town of Muttenz (Switzerland) and Tobias was in Krozingen (Germany). I think there was only one issue but based on the international pricing on the cover they hoped for a much larger readership.
Nice back cover advert, too.
This post started out as a look at some issues of Zebra but not all my posts go as planned! I have many German zines and the idea of looking at all of them and the amount of scanning that would be involved (I can find no internet presence for any of these publications) makes me faint.
Now, apart from the zines there are the Independent publishers such as Editions Quasimodo, Zwerchfell Verlag and so on. All catalogues but absolutely not scanned yet and when I last spoke to some German comic folk I was told some of the books I have are very rare and "worth a good few Euro"...I do not have comics to sell, however.
Maybe one day. And if you are one of the artists or zine publishers mentioned then please get in touch as it would be interesting to see what happened since the 1980s!
And if you publish a German comic, fanzine or whatever -send a copy and I'll review it.
hoopercomicsuk@yahoo.com
Tschuss!
However, what cannot be deleted are items on my work in Amazing Heroes and Comics F/X, I exclude the mention of The Comics Journal as I have never seen the issue so cannot comment. I even wrote a regular page for Comics F/X -"Tel's From The Crypt". But I was not just part of the spear head of the "British Small Press Explosion" into the United States.
I was also very active in writing and communicating with Small Pressers in what was then West Germany and even East Germany where there was an illegal underground exchange of Small Press comics -German and English. See how old I am? My badge of honour is that I was on a list of "persons to be detained and questioned" by the East German VoPos (Volks Polizei)!
Not sure how they might have greeted the lovely cover by American creator Donna Barr who was interviewed in this issue along with Roberta Gregory, Canadian Colin Upton and some Bristol rogue Paul Brown (aka: Paul Ashley Brown)...and some German creators.
In my collection of Small Press publications I have, obviously, a large number from Germany. Heiki Anacher's Plop! Although Heiki later left the zine it was taken over by Andreas Alt. From 3 DM to 3 Euro...hmm.
Now I may be wrong but I'm quite sure that Jo 84 was publishing Spruhende Phantasie while doing his national service in the German Army. He was still around a few years back but not in good health. Hopefully he is better now. Spruhende Phantasie was one of those German zines that it was always a pleasure to receive and look through.
Below is the back page advert from Zine Zone International 13
Another publication that was a joy to receive was Georg K. Berres' Zebra. Below is the Ad sheet that was included with ZZI 13. Interestingly, rather like the bulky Previews Comic (a new talent showcase) I got Forbidden Planet in London to put copies on sale. They sold. And as with Previews Comic the store refused to pay out the sales money. Crooks from top to bottom.
I had thought that Zebra was the first publication I had seen the work of Rudolph Perez and Martin Frei in (both were interviewed in ZZI 13). However, I have a copy of Lippe published by Andreas Anger (1985/86) in which both contribute strips Frei with "Diamanten" and Perez with (still my favourite) "Die Ruckkehr von Jack The Ripper"
Perez is still working in comics but online -I think!- and every link I follow seems to get me nowhere. Now there is modern tech and communication for you!
Below is a Perez cover for Gringo Comics Kurzer Prozess and I think this one is from the early 2000s. I lost contact with a lot of the old Zinesters such as EmdE, Helge "Herod" Korda and so on after one of my numerous address changes-I was keeping one step ahead of the Vopos! :-)
Martin Frei did some work on a comic adaption of the very popular cop/detective show Schimanski that starred the late Götz George who died in 2016 -http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/gotz-george-dead-at-77.html
999999999999
Another artist, with a much different style, was Hannes Neubauer. Loved this cover to Zebra nr. 9!
Somewhere....I use the term "somewhere" because this is Room Oblivion and things are in boxes or tucked away in other places for safety...are one or two colour postcards that Hannes sent me with a letter back in the day -we old folk say "back in the day" because we really do not want to think how many years ago it really was!
I will need to try to find them.
Below -I have no idea where I got this from or where it is but that's Hannes signing or drawing and I doubt that it was that long ago.
Trawling the internet to see what I can find I came across this piece. Again I have no idea what from or when but it is lovely to look at!
As for this....I love it!
Of course, Hannes has a book out...I assume that it is still available and I have seen some pages online and it is stylish.
Zebra was always printed on a lovely thick paper and this added to the overall feel of the issues and the printing worked well whether it was Frei's precise line-work or Perez's free style...or even Neubauer's particular style.
Let's look at some of the covers. I know I have others but this post has already taken a few hours with scanning and so forth!
From 1988 I also happen to have the red covered A5 Dummy.That was the brain-child of Joachim Ullmer and while corresponding with him I urged him to copyright the whole crash test dummy idea but he wasn't interested. I hope he never kicked himself a few years later when the crash test dummy toy craze hit!
Creators in Germany were doing the same as creators in the UK -experimenting with formats and genres as well as art styles. A great day for German comics came in 1989 when a certain suave and angry bearded English-German comicker saw his super hero team published in Watcher....oh. That was me! :-P
Tobias Schwarz published a German language music theme comic titled Crash and things were a little complicated as Roland Altermatt was also involved in publishing -he was based in the town of Muttenz (Switzerland) and Tobias was in Krozingen (Germany). I think there was only one issue but based on the international pricing on the cover they hoped for a much larger readership.
Nice back cover advert, too.
This post started out as a look at some issues of Zebra but not all my posts go as planned! I have many German zines and the idea of looking at all of them and the amount of scanning that would be involved (I can find no internet presence for any of these publications) makes me faint.
Now, apart from the zines there are the Independent publishers such as Editions Quasimodo, Zwerchfell Verlag and so on. All catalogues but absolutely not scanned yet and when I last spoke to some German comic folk I was told some of the books I have are very rare and "worth a good few Euro"...I do not have comics to sell, however.
Maybe one day. And if you are one of the artists or zine publishers mentioned then please get in touch as it would be interesting to see what happened since the 1980s!
And if you publish a German comic, fanzine or whatever -send a copy and I'll review it.
hoopercomicsuk@yahoo.com
Tschuss!
Thanks for this post, Terry. Had not seen or heard of any of those publications.
ReplyDeleteWell,my nostalgia and happy memories! fun
ReplyDelete