Bill Mantlo, a Marvel Comics colorist turned writer who became best known for scripting Micronauts, Rom, Cloak and Dagger, and Alpha Flight, turned 57 today. Well … that may be what the wider world thinks of first when they think of Bill, but what I remember most from the days we worked together back at Marvel was his sense of humor.

Here’s one example—

When I was putting together the December 1974 issue FOOM, Marvel’s fan magazine, I thought it would be fun to run baby pictures of the artists and writers in the news section next to stories about their upcoming projects. I wasn’t going to ask anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do myself, so this image of me appeared at the top of the section:

Many other writers and artists cooperated, and handed in photos such as these, which I will leave unidentified for the moment:

So far so good. But what about Bill?

Oh, he handed me a baby picture, all right … just not quite the one I expected.

The caption I gave to this photo reads: “BILL MANTLO reminds us that you’re only as young as you feel.”

Happy birthday, Bill!

As for those unidentified images up above, those are of five writers and artists who worked for Marvel Comics in the mid-’70s—but I’m leaving it up to you to identify them! (And no fair peeking at the copies of FOOM #8 which I’m sure you all have close at hand!)

Just to give you a hint, here are the names of 13 creators working at Marvel at the time:

Dave Cockrum, Chris Claremont, Steve Gerber, Gil Kane, David Anthony Kraft, Don McGregor, Doug Moench, George Perez, George Roussos, Marie Severin, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman

From that list, can you figure out the five names which go with the unidentified photos above? You can click on the images to see them at a larger size, but until the group mind figures it all out, you won’t find any names there!