SUPERHERO MERCHANDISE was a mail order business run by Ivan Snyder that featured, as the name implies, super hero merchandise of all kinds. Snyder operated out of a storefront in New Jersey, which eventually transformed into the first of a series of HEROES WORLD comic book and merchandise stores in the late 1970s. Snyder had been involved in Marvel’s subscription business before striking out on his own, so he had relationships with a number of players at the Big Two. So this catalog was produced for him by moonlighting members of Marvel’s staff as well as a bunch of freelance artists. Later installments would be shipped out by Snyder to Joe Kubert’s school, which wasn’t far from the hub of Snyder’s operation. Once you were on SUPERHERO MERCHANDISE’s mailing list, it was impossible to get off, and copies of these catalogs showed up in your mailbox with frightening regularity. They were printed as comic books, on the same presses, and they promised all sorts of junky wonders to kids of the 1970s. So here’s the first catalog, with its vintage merchandise and vintage prices, which was released in 1976.
We’ll continue looking at this first Superhero Merchandise catalog in the weeks to come.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Ivan Snyder? I haven’t heard that name in years! I worked in the Heroes World in the Galleria Mall in White Plains, NY during in the mid ‘0s.
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Ivan Snyder? I haven’t heard that name in years! I worked in the Heroes World store in the Galleria Mall in White Plains, NY during in the mid ’80s.
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“…junky wonders…”???
If I had a glove at hand (to hand? In hand?? Of a hand???) I would surely strike you, sir, for that offrontery!
“Glorious wonders”, is more like it!
Anyway, I have this inaugural issue and several of the subsequent releases, not to mention many (but not nearly enough) of the “junky wonders” within.
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There was also a Heroes World in the Nassau Mall in Levittown, NY. It was first regular comic shop, while I was attending Hofstra University a few miles down the road.
I ordered a set of the “comic book savers” from their catalog, but was kind of disappointed. But they did include a cool set of DC and Marvel stickers for decorating them.
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I’ve spoken of that Heroes World outlet here often, it was the first comic shop I ever encountered.
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I went there for a couple of years, then I discovered Fantasy Kingom (http://cartoonacy.blogspot.com/2010/10/wheres-wein.html) which was a little closer. But soon after, I discovered Starwind Comics in Levittown, which was a great, friendly place to hang out on weekends.
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I was there for that Fantasy Kingdom signing you wrote about, as well as the one a week later with Marv and George as well as Len.
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Was that the next week? I remember getting George Perez’s autograph there, but I didn’t remember the events being so close together.
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Yes, I was at both events. Only a week apart, two successive Saturdays.
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And I know now what I didn’t know then, that veteran artist Joe Giella lived only a short walk from Fantasy Kingdom. I’m sorry that he never appeared at any of their events.
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