Here's the second portion of SECRETS BEHIND THE COMICS, editor Stan Lee's self-published pamphlet which purported to give the inside story on how comic books were made. Even in 1947--and this applied to virtually all of the publishing house of the period, not just Timely--the Editor was the Key Man. This section does give us … Continue reading Secrets Behind the Comics 2
This was yet another back issue that I picked up during my first trip to the Batcave, the very first full-on comic book specialty store that I had ever been in. I was drawn to this issue for a single, specific reason: somewhere in my travels, I had learned that this issue reprinted the 1950s … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #20
While I was at the Batcave, that comic book shop adjacent to the South Shore Mall, I took the opportunity to pick up a small number of back issues in addition to a bunch of new books. The place had a wide selection of older books, and many of them were chewed up a little … Continue reading BHOC: DAREDEVIL #22
In 1947, still more than a decade before the Marvel revolution that would forever change the comic book industry and make his name a household word, Stan Lee toiled in obscurity at the editor of Martin Goodman's Timely Comics. It was a safe postwar job to go back to, but not one with a lot … Continue reading Secrets Behind the Comics 1
Over the years, DC Comics (mostly while still operating under the name National) would occasionally buy out the rights to characters and titles from other publishers who had either gone out of business or were about to. This is how the original Captain Marvel and his family, Plastic Man, G.I. COMBAT, YOUNG ROMANCE, the Blackhawks … Continue reading 5BC: Five Characters Marvel “Adopted”
As I did last week, here's another important vintage Marvel-related article which I'm posting in response to all of the conversation concerning Abraham Riesman's new biography of Stan Lee, TRUE BELIEVER. This piece, which ran in the January 9, 1966 issue of the New York Herald Tribune Sunday magazine devoted to the new comic book … Continue reading Super-Heroes With Super Problems
And so we come to the third and final story that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby adapted in the 1960s from one that Kirby with his then-partner Joe Simon had first produced for the inaugural issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS in late 1940. It should probably be stated right up front that according to the … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Simon: Captain America Before and After 3
I picked up this issue of MARVEL TALES on my regular weekly run to the 7-11 on Thursday, the day when new comic books would be released, as I'd worked out earlier in my travels. These runs were a regular ritual by this point, something that it took extraordinary circumstances to prevent me from doing. … Continue reading BHOC: MARVEL TALES #92
Continuing on in our compare-and-contrast between a story originally produced by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for the inaugural issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS, cover-dated March 1941, and it's Marvel Age remake, this one in the pages of TALES OF SUSPENSE #64. The prior issue had featured Cap's origin, and so as to cut down … Continue reading Lee & Kirby & Simon: Captain America Before and After 2
This was another comic book that I came into possession of through swapping with my buddy Donald Sims, and it was an acquisition of some great interest. In general, for me during this period, any comic book with a 20 cent price tag seemed old somehow, vintage--even though I had started reading during the last … Continue reading BHOC: X-MEN #87
The Tom Brevoort Experience 