Last week, while digging out a Marie Severin illustration with which to wish Chris Claremont a happy 58th birthday, I came across another drawing which brought back the old days, and a photo, too, all three from the pages of the June 1975 issue of Marvel Comics’ own fan magazine, FOOM.

I was the editor of FOOM back then, and issue #10 was an X-Men special, in honor of the relaunch which had occurred just a few months earlier in the pages of Giant-Sized X-Men #1. I filled that issue of FOOM with many articles and drawings about the mutant supergroup, including this Paty Cockrum illustration of Marvel Bullpenners as members of the original X-Men.

The piece, which appeared on one of the issue’s two editorial pages, shows Duffy Vohland as The Angel, me as the Beast (and yes, that’s an accurate depiction of my coiffure back then), Stan Lee as Professor X, Marv Wolfman as Iceman, Len Wein as Cyclops, and Paty as Marvel Girl.

You’re probably familiar with all of us in the artwork above save for Duffy Vohland, who isn’t much remembered by many outside of the industry these days, but without whom I’d never have gotten a job at Marvel in the first place. Though I’d been a convention-attending fan for years before I was hired by Marvel Comics, Duffy was the one who urged me to apply for an open position editing the company’s British line, when I’d previously avoided trying to make a living at something I loved, not wanting to mix business and pleasure. (I’ll leave further details of that ambivalence for some other time.)

You can read Paul Kupperberg’s remembrance of Duffy here, which coincidentally turns out to be illustrated by a photo of Duffy which had been printed in that same issue of FOOM, since he was a Contributing Editor. (That “huge gold-and-silver embroidered blue velvet shoulder bag” Paul mentions? I had one, too, purchased at an Indian shop around the corner from Marvel’s Madison Avenue offices. What can I say? The ’70s were a another country … )

The issue also contained a photo of me with Marv and Len up in Toronto on a panel at Cosmic Con, published as part of a five-page photo feature of Bullpenners at conventions, most of them taken at Marvel Con. I wish I could remember who was sitting to next to me on the right with only an ear visible, but uncovering his identity will have to be up to someone with a far better memory … or a better collection of old con program books.

That hair, the fact that I’m wearing a dashiki, and also the shepherd’s crook you see leaning against the table (carried with me on the plane from New York to Toronto), are further proof of how different life was in the ’70s. I trust that the Aughts will look just as freaky a couple of decades from now.