In the mid-1960s, thanks to the way that copyright law was set up at the time, Captain America co-creator Joe Simon filed legal paperwork in an opportunity to win back the rights to the Star-Spangled Avenger and the work that he and Jack Kirby and a variety of other hands had performed in the first … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The 1966 Testimony of Jack Kirby
One of my regular stops whenever my family would make a weekend shopping trip to the Smith Haven Mall was one of a number of book sellers. It's hard to imagine today, when finding locations that are devoted to selling nothing but books is a difficult proposition in a lot of places, but in the … Continue reading BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK POCKET BOOKS
Continuing our sequence looking at Marvel's in-house production stats for FANTASTIC FOUR #1--the closest thing that still exists to the original artwork--and studying them up close to see if they can tell us anything about how the book was put together. So let's go! We're moving into the back half of the issue now, a … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: THE STATS OF FANTASTIC FOUR #1, Part 3
Here's another book that came out of my longbox haul of Windfall Comics, costing me, as i repeatedly keep saying, only 33 cents each in 1988. There was always something a bit fascinating and mysterious about these early issues of DAREDEVIL to me--they had a mystique, a sense of a thing not quite being fully … Continue reading WC: DAREDEVIL #6
Here's a second portion of our look at Marvel's archived stats for FANTASTIC FOUR #1, as close to looking at the original artwork as we can get. As with last time, there isn't a whole lot new that's revealed here. But having the ability to get up real close on some of these pages does … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: THE STATS OF FANTASTIC FOUR #1, Part 2
As those who have been following this page for some time are aware, there are a bunch of mysteries wrapped up in FANTASTIC FOUR #1, the seminal publication that kicked off the Marvel revolution in the 1960s. There have been several theories as to how this book may have been put together--whether it was all … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: THE STATS OF FANTASTIC FOUR #1
Here is yet another early and key Marvel book that I wound up with a copy of thanks to my Windfall deal. It was 1988, and I paid 33 cents for a copy of AVENGERS #6. I believe that by this point I had previously read the story contained herein in its reprint in AVENGERS … Continue reading WC: AVENGERS #6
The first and apparently only issue of the Mighty Marvel Messenger was published in the opening months of 1967--it's announced on the Bullpen Bulletins page of Marvel titles cover-dated June 1967--and sent for free to all current members of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. It was a little four-page newsletter fanzine that gave some promotional … Continue reading The Merry Marvel Messenger
DESTROYER DUCK #1 was a stopping point in a much larger saga, one that I'll recount the broad strokes of momentarily. It was also a benefit book published by Eclipse, work on which was provided free by all of the contributors in support of the underlying cause of the book in the first place. It … Continue reading Brand Echh: Destroyer Duck #1
This is another old cover that triggers no nostalgia for me, because I got my copy of CAPTAIN AMERICA #208 out of one of those plastic-wrapped packages of coverless comics sold by my local Drug Store. These were books where the covers had been stripped and returned to the publisher for credit, but the insides … Continue reading CAPTAIN AMERICA #208
The Tom Brevoort Experience 