Blah Blah Blog – Cats, Nuts and Comics

A post from my legendary Marvel.com blog of years ago, in which I learned that a stupid cartoon I had once drawn was part of the inspiration for Chris Giarusso’s fun Mini-Marvels series.

Cats, Nuts and Comics

September 30, 2008 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General

There’s been all sorts of excitement around these parts since I returned from the Baltimore Convention.

It began this morning with a stray cat that Cory Levine and Aubrey Sitterson found abandoned by the side of the road. Casting about for a home for this proud feline, they prevailed upon Steve Wacker to open his family’s doors to the little wunderkind. Cory brought the cat in this morning, and it was thereafter trailed by a bevy of cooing editors, assistants and interns, who couldn’t get enough of its cuteness. Turned the office into Grand Central Station for a few hours until Wacker’s family arrived to take the little beastie home.

Later in the day, my former assistant Greatest Assistant Gregg Schigiel sent along a scan of the attached little cartoon drawings. I saw Gregg in Baltimore, where he was set up at a table along with Mini Marvels’ Chris Giarusso and former bullpenner and Skullboy Army creator Jacob Chabot. During the brief conversation, it came out that part of the inspiration for Chris’s Mini Marvels cartoons had been this drawing I had done ten or twelve years ago, that I didn’t remember at all. So here that is.

Lastly, at the very end of the day, Cory Sedlmeier stopped by to show off his newest prize: an actual copy of MARVEL COMICS #1 from 1939. As part of our big 70th Anniversary plans, we’re going to be doing a number of reprints and reimaginings of MARVEL #1, and so there was a need to lay hands on an actual copy of this incredibly rare book. (We paid five figures for this copy, that’s all I’m saying.) This particular issue was a file copy that had been kept in a bound volume by one of the operators of Funnies Inc., the packaging house that actually produced the contents of MARVEL #1 for Martin Goodman to publish, so it’s got an extra-special pedigree to it. And it’s one of the rarer first printings with the October cover date. (MARVEL COMICS was an experiment on the part of pulp publisher Martin Goodman, a new field to move his money into. Initially, he did a very conservative print run of something like 70,000 copies. When his advance men told him that they had all sold out in a week, he went back for a larger second printing more in the neighborhood of 700,000 copies. Those second printings carry a November cover month.)

More later.

Tom B

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