This past week I was called upon to do some work on the upcoming AUGUST 1961 Omnibus that Marvel is going to be releasing as part of the 60th Anniversary of the publication of FANTASTIC FOUR #1. The massive book will collect all of the other Marvel titles that were also on sale on or … Continue reading Lee & Kirby: The Cover to FANTASTIC FOUR #1
The early days of the Marvel Age of Comics, it must be said, were a pretty ramshackle and fly-by-night period. For all that these comics in general have come to be regarded as timeless masterpieces in certain circles today, at the time they were being produced, they were still largely no more than a way … Continue reading Lee & Heck & Hartley: The Misguided Mix-Up of TALES OF SUSPENSE #67 & #68
I picked up this issue of TALES OF SUSPENSE during that selfsame first visit to The Batcave, the comic book specialty shop located just off of the South Shore Mall, the first ever genuine comic book shop that I had been to. And I bought it for a singular reason: its age. I could tell … Continue reading BHOC: TALES OF SUSPENSE #30
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
The Tom Brevoort Experience 