I can remember exactly where I was when Avengers #1 and X-Men #1 went on sale, because it was the same day, I only had 12 cents on me, and could therefore only buy one.

I had to choose between them. Can you feel my pain? Imagine my horror?

It was 1963, and I was 8 years old. I was in Joe and Morty’s Brooklyn candy store on Avenue P a few blocks off Ocean Parkway. I visited there nearly every day, not just for comics, but to stay fueled on egg creams and cherry lime rickeys, and to pick up those unfiltered Lucky Strikes my mother needed.

In any case, though I’m 100% certain where I encountered those issues, I can’t say for sure when I encountered them. Only that it wasn’t September 10. Because school had not begun, it was still summer, and in any case, though both books were cover-dated September, comics always went on sale in advance of their cover dates, that date only being an indication to the retailer when comics should come off sale.

And yet … (more…)

Remember that 5-page Thanos story I wrote way back when dinosaurs still walked the Earth? The one that, surprisingly, ended up being part of Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day promotion last April?

Well, a digital copy is available as a free download right now through both the Marvel app (if you’ve got it) or simply via the company’s site.

I have no idea how long the offer will last, so if you want to check out the sort of thing I was writing in 1977, without having to haunt comics shops in search of a copy of Logan’s Run #6, then now’s your chance.

While I was over at my sister-in-law’s house Sunday night, I happened to notice a stack of old comics on the coffee table and picked up this one—Detective Comics #350 (April 1966)—because who could resist a Batman drawn by Joe Kubert or those Go-Go Checks?

The house ads in the issue were as much fun as the stories (which is often the case), and I was particularly intrigued by this one, in which DC claimed it sold “twice as many comics as any other competitor” and “almost as many as all other comics combined.” (more…)

Earlier this week I shared a photo taken in high school which shows me wearing a tutu and a black-and-white sequined bra—a photo which once seen cannot be unseen and therefore deserves some kind of trigger warning before you click.

While flipping through old albums in search of that photo, I came across a couple of other images which feature an equally unrecognizable while also bizarre younger me. These were taken when I worked in the Marvel Bullpen, and were used in the fake ad below which appeared in an issue of Crazy magazine.

Behold!

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Next Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, which means that if you wander into a comics shop on May 4, 2013, you might just walk out with a comic book written … by me!

But how is that possible? I haven’t written any comics in decades. How could I possibly have anything in a comic handed out on Free Comic Book Day?

Blame Thanos!

Bill Hall of The Daily Kirby let me know today (beating out Marvel Comics, who’s yet to alert me) that my back-up story from Logan’s Run #6, which starred Thanos and Drax the Destroyer, will be reprinted in Infinity, Marvel’s giveaway for Free Comic Book Day. All because Thanos is now a big deal due to his appearance at the end of The Avengers movie.

The freebie is described as follows: (more…)

As Irene and I walked south down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue Saturday, I happened to look to the left at just the right moment to spot the Hulk looking back—because this print by artist Doug Bloodworth was hanging in a gallery window.

Here’s a clearer version of the piece, with the image not obscured by the glare of the street lights.

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Back when I was on staff at Marvel Comics and writing the Bullpen Bulletins pages (well, all of it save Stan’s Soapbox), I kept a suggestion box on my desk in which people could drop notes with things they thought worthy of mention.

One day, I opened the box to find this card from Mirthful Marie Severin …

Oh, Marie … I love you!

Sean Howe posted a moving Fred Hembeck strip today over at his Marvel Comics: The Untold Story Tumblr. It seems to have been originally published in 1986 on the occasion of Marvel’s 25th anniversary, but it’s still relevant 27 years later.

And yeah … I know that, and you know that … but I don’t think they know that.

I used to have a pretty decent Silver Age comic book collection—that is, until working in the business burned me out on comics altogether. Eventually, I couldn’t bear to look at them, and sold all save a few of the more valuable ones, which I hung onto in a safe deposit box purely for investment purposes.

But as I’ve mentioned here before, there’s one comic I later regret letting go of—a comic I wasn’t even sure of the title and issue number of at first—but which thanks to one of you I learned was Tales of Suspense #69.

And thanks to Claudio Piccinini, who located and kindly sent me a copy, Tales of Suspense #69 is mine again. (more…)

Remember the Merry Marvel Marching Society mystery I asked for your help in solving two months back? The one about how I’d thought my name had appeared as an M.M.M.S. member in an issue of Tales from Suspense which featured Titanium Man on the cover, though one of you thought my name was actually published in Strange Tales instead?

Well, it turned out I was right all along!

According to Claudio Piccinini, my named appeared (along with 24 other M.M.M.S. members) in Tales of Suspense #69 (September 1965), which featured the first appearance of Titanium Man. I would have been 10 years old.

Mystery solved!