The first time I saw Lance Thingmaker‘s hardcover collection of the 1930s fanzine The Fantasy Fan was a Doc Con 2011. Arizona Fan of Bronze J.R. Burgin had brought a copy for the con raffle.
The Fantasy Fan, if you aren’t familiar, ran for 18 issues from September 1933 through February 1935. Dubbed “the fans’ own magazine,” it was one of (if not) the first fanzines devoted to weird and fantasy fiction.
Edited by Charles D. Hornig, The Fantasy Fan featured articles and fiction by such now familiar names as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard and Forrest Ackerman.
The first issue of The Fantasy Fan so impressed Hugo Gernsback that he hired Hornig, who was 17 at the time, as editor of the pulp Wonder Stories.
I didn’t win J.R.’s donated copy of “The Fantasy Fan” collection, so the next week I promptly ordered my own copy.
If you haven’t seen one, Lance’s hardback looks as if it were a bound collection of actual Fantasy Fan issues. He scanned and restored each issue. The covers are printed on the appropriately colored papers, while the interior pages of each issue approximately matches the colors used in the original zine.
(Lance also includes Lovecraft’s complete “Supernatural Horror in Literature” essay, which was being serialized in The Fantasy Fan and was left incomplete when the zine folded.)
“The Fantasy Fan” is clearly a work of love.
A few months afterward, in early 2012, Lance emailed to say he was working on his next project — a collection of the zine Marvel Tales — and was taking pre-orders. I had intended to order a copy, but the next few months became a blur as we made the decision to move from Arizona back to Florida. So intentions fell by the wayside, as they say.
A few weeks ago, I finally emailed Lance and discovered he still had copies of his “Marvel Tales” available. My copy arrived at my doorstep with Saturday’s mail.
“Marvel Tales” includes all five issues of the amateur magazine Marvel Tales (or Marvel Tales of Science and Fantasy, as it was later labeled), which were painstakingly recreated on high-quality paper, just as “The Fantasy Fan” volume. It runs well over 300 pages.
William L. Crawford edited the zine, which ran between May 1934 and Summer 1935. I haven’t had a chance to delve into the book yet, but a quick look through it shows fiction by Lovecraft, Howard, Frank Belknap Long Jr., Harl Vincent, Clifford D. Simak and others.
This isn’t the pulp Marvel Tales, published by Martin Goodman‘s Red Circle group, in 1939 and 1940. (That pulp originally began in 1938 as Marvel Science Stories, then after the Marvel Tales name change, it was known variously as Marvel Stories, Marvel Science Stories and Marvel Science Fiction.)
A four original issues of Marvel Tales is up for sale on eBay for $550. You can save $510 and get the fifth issue if you choose Lance’s shelf-ready “Marvel Tales.”
He still has copies of his little-publicized gem available for $40 (including shipping). Email Lance for more details.
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