Another installment of our popular feature where we showcase vintage photographs of popular comic book creators from days gone by. This is sometimes known as "Stan Lee and friends" given how often Lee was photographed over the years. Mark Gruenwald and Nel Yomtov at a convention in the late 1980s Renee Witterstaetter at a party … Continue reading Comics Creators in the Wild 11
Wrapping up our look at the first SUPERHERO MERCHANDISE catalog that was put together by Ivan Snyder for his mail order operation that eventually transformed into HEROES WORLD. This is the section that transitioned more into published work, books on comics and back issues and the like. And it's worth pointing out that, in 1976, … Continue reading SUPERHERO MERCHANDISE Catalog, Part Three
Here's the second part of our look at the first SUPERHERO MERCHANDISE catalog, put together for entrepreneur Ivan Snyder by several moonlighting freelancers from Marvel and available through the mail. SUPERHERO MERCHANDISE eventually transformed into being HEROES WORLD, an outlet of which was the very first comic book store that I ever encountered, so I … Continue reading SUPERHERO MERCHANDISE Catalog #1, Part Two
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 … Continue reading SUPERHERO MERCHANDISE Catalog #1
I'm fairly certain that I came across these documents at Scott Edelman's blog. In any case, Scott was one of those who found these documents preserved in the back of a drawer in the Marvel offices and hung onto them. Around 1966, as Marvel was beginning to make its first faltering in-roads into other media, … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: THE CHARACTER WRITE-UPS OF STAN LEE
I'm pretty certain that I scavenged this from over at Scott Edelman's blog from a number of years ago. Both Scott and his wife Irene had been on staff at Marvel in the 1970s and had saved an assortment of various memos and bits of paraphernalia. Every so often, Scott would come across one of … Continue reading GIANT-SIZE MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION #1 and the Cover Notes of Stan Lee
You know the drill by this point, right? It's old pictures of comic book creators from back in the day! Bob Layton at a convention, 1980s. Me, Tom Brevoort, and Jack Kirby at a New York convention, 1990. I had only been at Marvel for six months. A trio of photos of Joe Sinnott from … Continue reading Comics Creators in the Wild 6
This was another book that came to me in trade from my buddy Donald Sims. It was released during that period when Marvel was focused hot and heavy in coming up with monster/suspense series similar in approach to their super hero offerings, an effort that only had mixed results. The lead character who debuts here, … Continue reading BHOC: DEAD OF NIGHT #11
I bought this issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA on my regular weekly trip to the 7-11 on New Comics Thursday, as I had the previous two issues. As we'll see, this was a bit of a patchwork issue, the result of pages not being completed in time for the prior one. Marvel was having shipping difficulties … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #221
In 1978, CAPTAIN AMERICA was a series in a bit of trouble. After Jack Kirby's much-heralded return to the series a few years earlier ran its course, not quite capturing the classic Marvel flavor that was hoped for, a succession of different creators came on to helm the series, often on an almost ad hoc … Continue reading BHOC: CAPTAIN AMERICA #220
The Tom Brevoort Experience 