This Marvel house ad announced the coming of an actual book—as in to be sold in real bookstores—called Origins of Marvel Comics. This hit Marvel fans like me right in the gut. You see, at that time, actual book collections of comics weren’t available in bookstores or anywhere. Outside of Jules Ffeifer’s Great Comic Book Heroes, or perhaps Steranko’s History of Comics, or reprints of Dick Tracy, Peanuts, and Little Orphan Annie, superheroes were really scarce. And I know. I looked for them every week!
Stan Lee would reveal the secrets behind creating the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk, etc., and reprint their first appearances with the best printing we had ever seen to that point. I waited months until this finally appeared in the bookstore. I think when it did finally come out, Stan appeared on the Today Show, which my Mother took note of. Yeah, comics were finally legit! Well, not really, until years later with the Spider-Man and X-Men movies.
The bottom half of this ad features a collectible I wish I still had: the Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975. That one had great illustrations by Romita, Starlin, Ploog, and others. Anyone have scans of this calendar? Nuff said
Giant Size Geek - Astonishing Blog of Comics and Science Fiction!
