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That time Marc Bolan interviewed Stan Lee, ‘nuff said?
09.12.2017
08:21 am
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Marc Bolan loved comic-books. The Beano, The Dandy, The Topper, he read ‘em all and enjoyed the hilarious hijinks of the cheeky school kids contained therein. But he had a particular love for Marvel Comics and their far out superheroes like Silver Surfer and Doctor Strange. Bolan went so far as to even make reference to his favorite comic-book heroes in songs like “Mambo Sun” where he sang:

On a mountain range,
I’m Doctor Strange for you…

Yes, Marc, you are, oh but you are…

So, maybe it was inevitable, fated even, that Bolan would one-day interview legendary Marvel Supremo Stan Lee.

In 1975, Bolan had an occasional stint doing interviews on BBC radio program Today. It was the Beeb’s way of “getting down with the kids” by having a pop star talk to the kind of hip people they would like to interview in the hope this would bring in a younger audience to their flagship news and current affairs show.

That October Stan Lee was in London to launch a new British comic book The Titans. He was also in the Big Smoke to give a “one performance only” at the Roundhouse where he was to talk about “all your favorite Marvel superheroes” followed by the opening of a major exhibition of Marvel Comic’s artwork at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Having Lee in London was too good an opportunity for Bolan to miss, so an interview was arranged…
 
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To get some more skinny on Bolan’s love of Marvel Comics let’s spool forward a year to when Neil Tennant—long before he was one-half of the Pet Shop Boys—interviewed Bolan about his love of Marvel Comics:

“I’ve been into Marvel since 1967.  The Silver Surfer, in particular, was one I liked, Dr. Strange was another.  At that time they were very weird compared to the other comics on the market, though they got more commercial since then and Stan Lee was a great writer.”

“It was nice meeting Stan last year, he was lovely to interview.  Really he’s a hustler, a solid gold easy hustler! That’s just the way Comic guys should be,  he’s got such a lot of energy.”

“We talked about the possibility of me creating a super-hero for him.  something along the lines of Electric Warrior, a twenty-first century Conan.”

“In fact, I don’t like Conan as a character—I think he should be something less of a barbarian, more like one of Michael Moorcock’s characters.  You could make a much better composite character using Moorcock’s Elric, with a bit of the Silver Surfer, a bit of Thor, and create a far more involved character, a character more in touch with now ...”

 
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Bolan as he appeared in his own comic strip ‘The Magic of Marc’ from ‘Jackie’ magazine 1972.
 
More Marc Bolan on Marvel Comics plus his interview with Stan Lee, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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09.12.2017
08:21 am
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‘Blade Runner’: The Marvel Comics adaptation

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Never trust a critic. Most of them know fuck all.

Strange as it may seem now, Ridley Scott’s movie Blade Runner received a decidedly mixed bag of notices upon its first release in June 1982. Some newspapers scribes considered Harison Ford wooden; the voice-over cliched; the storyline way too complex; the whole damn thing butt-numbingly slow and just a tad boring. One broadsheet even described the film as “science fiction pornography,” while the LA Times called it “Blade Crawler” because it moved along so slowly.

But some folks knew the film’s real worth—like Marvel Comics.

In September 1982, Marvel issued a “Super Special” comic book adaptation of Blade Runner. This was quickly followed by a two-part reissue of the comic during October and November of that year. This was when those three little words “Stan Lee presents” guaranteed a real good time and Marvel’s version of Blade Runner fulfilled that promise.

The comic was written by Archie Goodwin with artwork from Al Williamson and Carlos Garzon with Dan Green and Ralph Reese. While movies have time to develop story, plot, and character, and create their own atmosphere, comic books get six panels a page to achieve the same. Marvel’s Blade Runner managed the transposition from screen to page quite successfully. The artists picked up on some of the movie’s most iconic imagery while still managing to add their own take on the Philip K. Dick tale. Williamson offered his own (cheesy) definition of the term “Blade Runner” at the very end of the story:

Blade runner. You’re always movin’ on the edge.

What???

You can read the whole comic here. Click on images below for larger size.
 
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More from Rick Deckard , Roy Batty and co., after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.10.2017
11:19 am
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The Son of Satan: That time Marvel Comics got into the Antichrist

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Three little words can change everything. Think of all the times you’ve said “I love you,” or “I hate you,” or even just asked “How are you?” and then experienced the sometimes dramatic or emotional events that followed.

On April 8, 1966, TIME published three little words on the cover of its magazine that changed lots of things: “Is God Dead?”

No one knew the answer to this question for sure but in a growing secular world, it seemed at least a very real possibility.

With no God, there was a gap in the market, and Satan looked the most likely to fill it. A string of books and movies like Rosemary’s Baby, The Devil Rides Out, and The Exorcist appeared to answer TIME’s question. Satan was no longer the poster boy for drug-addled weirdos, Satan was now big business.

In the early 1970s, Marvel Comics supremo Stan Lee followed the trend for all things horror and the occult. Under Lee, Marvel shifted away from the more traditional good guy superheroes into far darker and more ambiguous characters. In a decade of Vietnam, civil rights battles, bloody assassinations, and growing student protest, web slingers and men in tin suits just didn’t cut it so well with the audience. In came Ghost Rider, The Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, and The Monster of Frankenstein—all produced by a team of talented artists and writers that included Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Mike Ploog, Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Gardner Fox, Marv Wolfman, Joe Maneely and, of course, Stan Lee. His hunch for a shift away from superheroes had been right and these comics sold extremely well.

But Lee had a bigger and even more dangerous idea—if vampires and werewolves sold well then why not go for the big kahuna himself? Lee wanted to do a comic book based on Satan. He wanted the Prince of Darkness to be the comic’s star and hero. He broached the idea with writer Roy Thomas. Thomas had reservations right away. This idea was going to be big trouble and who needs that kinda shit?  But Tomb of Dracula sells. Thomas pointed out that Dracula worked because it was about the team of vampire killers who were in the hunt for the evil Count and not the nasty, rotten bloodsucker himself. A comic just on Satan wouldn’t offer the possibility to develop the narrative or allow for good and evil.

But still, there was something here. Thomas went off and kicked the idea around for a bit. Then he had a simple suggestion that would make Lee’s idea work:

“What if you made it Son of Satan? You could still have Satan as a character, but he’s not the hero.”

Daimon Hellstrom, aka the Son of Satan, first appeared in issue #1 of Ghost Rider, September 1973. Hellstrom was then marketed via the try-out strand Marvel Spotlight from October 1973-October 1975. The readership seemed to dig the great moral dilemmas Daimon faced as a man born of a mortal woman (Virginia Wingate) but was still under the influence of his old man, the great beast.

Daimon’s adventures in Marvel Spotlight led to his own comic Son of Satan in 1975. The high hopes for this vehicle burned quickly, and the title crashed to earth after a mere eight issues in 1977. Tastes had changed. Satan was not as popular. And agents of Christianity claimed Marvel was corrupting the youth of America by encouraging them to worship the devil….quelle surprise...

This may all well be true, but you see for me I’m not sure that’s exactly the case. For although Daimon Hellstrom may have been Satan incarnate, he may have had the birthmark of a pentacle on his chest, and stolen his father’s powerful trident to usurp his evil ways, but the problem, well at least for me, was that the Son of Satan looked kind of lame—he just didn’t look the part. For a kick-off, he was usually bare chested like Sub-Mariner. He also wore yellow knee-high boots and a flighty yellow cape—a bit like Doctor Strange. But that’s nothing to compare with the real deal killer which was that Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan wore spandex. That’s right, Little Lord Satan wore red fucking spandex leggings! How in the name of Zuul did that happen? How could any parent let their child go out of the house dressed like that, let alone the spawn of Satan? No wonder Satan was so pissed off at his goofy progeny….

You can find editions of the whole Son of Satan and Marvel Spotlight on Son of Satan here.
 
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More thigh-bulging Son of Satan stuff, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.02.2017
11:06 am
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African gods and goddesses drawn as ass-kicking Jack Kirby-style superheroes
02.08.2017
01:19 pm
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Oxóssi, a spirit associated with the hunt, forests, animals, and wealth
 
You don’t have to be anthropologist Clifford Geertz to make the connection that the superheroes developed in comic books in the middle of the last century function something like a new American mythology. The Greeks had Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and Aphrodite; the Romans had Mars, Minerva, Janus, and Juno; and the Norse had Thor, Odin, Loki, and Frigg. In America we have Iron Man, Spider-Man, Flash Gordon, and the Silver Surfer (oh, and Thor too, right). Unlike Zeus and Minerva, our mythological heroes are currently drawing millions of people to multiplexes the world over, for whatever that’s worth. Mythology is breaking box office records!

A artist named Hugo Canuto has recently looked to his own African-influenced culture in Brazil to make a similar connection for figures from African mythology, depicting them as ass-kicking superheroes drawn in the style of the legendary Jack Kirby. Many deities of modern-day Afro-Brazilian religions find their roots in the mythologies of Nigeria and Benin, and these covers reflect that, using specifically local, that is to say Portuguese, spellings of the names.

For instance, the water deity Yemo̩ja is rendered here as Yemanjá, as she is known in Brazilian culture. Oshunmare, god of the rainbow, here pops up as Oxumaré. And Oya, a major Orisha governing death and rebirth, can be found here as Iansã, for that is what she is called on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean.
 

Avengers No. 4 (1963)
 
Last year Canuto reworked an iconic early cover of The Avengers to showcase the major Orishas, called Orixas in Portuguese, which are key elemental spirits of the Yoruba religion. So “The Orixas” is the umbrella category, like “The Avengers,” that houses all of the mythological figures that followed.

Interestingly, in the early 1990s, DC Comics had a line based on Yoruba mythology, called Orishas—it was also known as “Gods of Africa” and featured characters such as Eshu, Ogun, Erinle, and Oshunmare. Anybody out there a fan of that series? I don’t remember it.

You can purchase prints of Canuto’s covers on Facebook.
 

The Orixas
 

Yemanjá, major water deity, mother of all 14 Yoruba gods and goddesses
 
Much more after the jump…...

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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02.08.2017
01:19 pm
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Classic Marvel comics covers remixed to showcase old school rap legends
10.06.2016
10:41 am
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A Tribe Called Quest, reworking of Fantastic Four #49 (April 1966), “If This Be Doomsday!”
The Silver Surfer must choose between his master and the Earth

Not long ago an artist going by the name Beddo released a whole bunch of lovingly recreated classic Marvel covers featuring some of the greatest rap artists of the 1980s and 1990s. Beddo says that there are more on the way, and it is devoutly to be hoped that he stands by his word.
 

Notorious B.I.G., reworking of Spider-Man #50 (July 1967), “Spiderman No More!’
First appearance of Kingpin

 
Many more of these great mashups after the jump…...

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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10.06.2016
10:41 am
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Ash from ‘Evil Dead’ fights Marvel Zombies in this ultimate mashup fan film
05.28.2015
09:24 am
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Ash uses a repulser beam on superhero zombies.
 

Slash/Up is a fan-film web-series specializing in unlikely mashup “what if” shorts like Sarah Connor vs. Jason Voorhees.

According to Bloody-Disgusting.com, Slash/Up are “currently hard at work on Ash vs. the DC Dead, which they say ‘is basically a gigantic middle finger to the house of mouse.’”

Ash vs. the DC Dead is a sequel to this short, Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness, which had previously been removed from YouTube.
 

 
Well, for now, it’s back up—so check this out while you can! It’s an extremely well made fan-film, shot for “the cost of a Macbook Pro.”
 

Zombie Iron Man and Zombie Spider-man.
 
Quick, before the angry YouTube gods pull it down again!

 
Via Bloody-Disgusting.com

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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05.28.2015
09:24 am
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That time all those Avengers appeared on ‘Late Night with David Letterman’
05.20.2015
12:51 pm
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It’ll be hard for me to imagine life without David Letterman on the tube. He’s been on late night TV since 1982, and as someone who was a tween during that era I’ve been watching him since probably 1984 or so. In high school he was one of my main heroes, and a lot of what I think I know or appreciate about comedy can be traced back to obsessive late night viewings of Brother Theodore, Pee-wee Herman, Marv Albert, Chris Elliott, Harvey Pekar, Biff Henderson, et al. on the kooky public/secret clubhouse he had going on NBC for quite a while there. At the risk of editorializing, I have found Dave’s CBS show far less essential, to the point that I don’t even really care that much that he’s retiring; the turning point in that process may actually have been the institutionalization of the top ten list, which started out as just another random segment, just like viewer mail. The problem besetting his show post-1988, say, is the same syndrome that has happened to the rest of the late night talk spectrum, which is that watching ultra-prepped actors winkingly play beer pong with Jimmy Fallon (or whomever) has basically no relation to the truly unscripted, fairly snide, and attitudinally aggressive antics that used to occur around 1 a.m. most weeknights during the 1980s.

After Late Night with David Letterman had been around a year or two, a lot of savvier people began referencing it. It felt during this time like renegade entertainment, an unusual commodity that was obscurely about the entertainment industry if not quite of it, and therefore it became a kind of a trope, if you could work “David Letterman” into your story you added a slight buzz of disposable knowingness, much like referencing some of the guests he had on (Pee-wee etc.). In effect, Letterman became a kind of punchline for the smarter set. The idea of John McEnroe or Charlie Brown or Tootsie or Hulk Hogan visiting Letterman’s NBC was a joke in and of itself.

Case in point, issue 239 of the Avengers from Marvel, the January 1984 issue, which trumpeted on its cover, “THE AVENGERS ON LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN!” See? It was mildly ridiculous, as everything that appeared on Late Night was mildly ridiculous.

In the issue, aspiring actor Simon Williams (a.k.a. Wonder Man) gets booked on Late Night, whose producers request a larger cast of Avengers to appear. A few of the reserve Avengers join Wonder Man on the show, not knowing that serial pest Fabian Stankowicz seeks to sabotage their appearance by planting various booby-traps around the set. Eventually Letterman konks Stankowicz on the head with a giant doorknob.

Here are a few images from the issue—if you click on them, you’ll get to see a slightly larger version.
 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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05.20.2015
12:51 pm
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Marvel’s ‘Generic Comic Book’: The only superhero comic you’ll ever need!
05.06.2015
08:31 am
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In the spring of 1984, Marvel Comics published a very strange one-off called Generic Comic Book, which was exactly as advertised: an all white cover to mimic ‘80s generic food labeling, an all white and nameless hero to the same end, completely one-dimensional characters and situations and a heavy reliance on tired tropes… so basically it was any old B-grade comic, only pointedly worse. I discovered it in the bargain comics box of my favorite toy shop, marked below its 60¢ cover price. You would have bought it, too.

The story begins with several pages of expository dialogue and internal monologue. We see right out of the gate that our hero has a girlfriend, but that’s about all that’s right with his crapsack life, and the girlfriend doesn’t even last past the first page. She’s literally put on a bus, never to be seen again. Our hero is broke. He wants to buy a house for himself and his girl, but he lives with his parents and also needs money to—I shit you not—“get little Bobby the operation he so desperately needs.” A professional writer got paid to write that line. I’m not bitter.
 

 

 

Could someone tell the letterist about “to” and “too?”
 
On his way home, our hero’s problems are compounded when he gets mugged by some generic goons. Acting out in frustration, he smashes the Three Mile Island snow-globe (RELEVANT SOCIAL ISSUE YOU GUYS) from his prized collection of glow-in-the-dark crap, setting in motion one of the most admirably preposterous superhero origin stories I’ve ever read: breaking the Three Mile Island snow globe atomically activated all the other iridescent stuff in the room (SEE? SEE? TOTALLY RELEVANT!), giving our hero super strength, super vision, super hearing—and bleaching his hair bright white.
 

If you can’t read whitey’s pin, it says “HEAVY MEAT.” I want to hear that band.
 
This is only the beginning… much, much more after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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05.06.2015
08:31 am
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A Stan Lee action figure because YES!
04.06.2015
06:28 pm
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This 1/6 scale action figure of Stan Lee is a pretty damned good depiction of him if you ask me. It’s a limited-edition and they’re only 1000 of ‘em being made by Das Toyz. So if you must own one, Mr. Lee is $249.99 a pop at Big Bad Toy Store. They’re taking pre-orders now.

The Stan Lee action figure comes with:

Outfit

- Sports jacket
- Black long sleeve sweater
- White dress shirt
- Gray pants
- White shirt
- Belt w/ buckle
- Pair of socks
- Pair of shoes

Accessories

- 2 x interchangeable heads
- 4 x posing hands
- 2 x eye glasses
- 1 x wrist watch
- 2 X rings
- Handkerchief

Excelsior!


 

 

 
via Nerd Approved and Laughing Squid

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.06.2015
06:28 pm
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Post punk icons as classic Marvel Comics superheroes
03.20.2015
10:41 am
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Butcher Billy, the Brazilian designer behind the hilarious “Post/Punk New Wave Superfriends,” which reimagined punk and post punk icons in the guise of Justice League superheroes, has given Marvel Comics their fair turn. Because you NEEDED to see Siouxsie Sioux as Scarlet Witch, Mark Mothersbaugh as Iron Man, John Lydon as Wolverine, and Ian Curtis as Spider-Man. And I needed to finally get a chance to write the phrase MORRISSEY SMASH!
 

 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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03.20.2015
10:41 am
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‘Will the real Stan Lee please stand up?’: Comics icon appears on ‘To Tell the Truth,’ 1971
01.19.2015
02:13 pm
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If you skip past the first fourteen minutes of this edition of To Tell the Truth from 1971, you can bypass some desultory business with a palmistry expert and get to the good stuff—one of the founding figures of modern comic books, Stan Lee! This episode was shot in color, which made it much easier to savor the grooooovy, Laugh-In-inspired decor.

Of course, Stan Lee had an enormous impact on the development of comic books as well as their current dominance in Hollywood. Along with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, Lee created most of the iconic characters whose names adorn the top-grossing movies of the last several years—Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, and so on.

I won’t say which one of the three fellows it is, but I will say that two of the four panelists (Peggy Cass and Bill Cullen)* were able to suss out who the real Stan Lee is.
 

 
via The Untold Story
 
* Blew this detail the first time around. Thanks to herschel for pointing out my mistake.

Posted by Martin Schneider
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01.19.2015
02:13 pm
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12-year-old ‘Game of Thrones’ creator’s Marvel Comics ‘Fantastic Four’ fan mail

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It kind of figures that Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin would be a fan of Marvel Comics’ The Fantastic Four, with its strong main characters, who may often bicker and argue with each other, but always unite to fight various dastardly enemies. The other Marvel characters—with a few exceptions (mainly team-ups like The Avengers, and Thor)—tend to be geeky loners, who have difficulties fitting into society. The Fantastic Four are their own little society, just like all those families in Martin’s Game of Thrones.

In 1961, a 12-year-old George wrote a gushing letter of praise to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for their #17 August issue of The Fantastic Four, which was published in the #20’s letter page:

Dear Stan and Jack,

F.F. #17 was greater than great. Even now I sit in awe of it, trying to do the impossible—that is, describe it. It was absolutely stupendous, the ultimate, utmost! I cannot fathom how you could fit so much action into so few pages. It will live forever as one of the greatest F.F. comics ever printed, ergo, as one of ALL comics. In what other comic mag could you see things like a hero falling down a manhole, a heroine mistaking a toy inventor for a criminal, and the President of the U.S.A. leaving a conference that may determine the fate of the world to put his daughter to bed. The epic story, spectacular and exciting as it is, is not all that made this mag so great. The letter column was top-notch, too. I nearly died when I saw Paul Gambaccini’s letter. You’ve really made him change his tune; that letter was a far cry from the one printed in F.F. #9. Then there’s your cover boast—THE WORLD’S GREATEST COMIC MAGAZINE! Brilliant! You were just about the World’s worst mag when you started, but you set yourself an ideal, and, by gumbo, you achieved it! More than achieved it, in fact—why, if you were only half as good as you are now, you’d still be the world’s best mag!!!

George R. Martin
35 East First st.
Batyonne, N.J.

The Bullpen replied:

We might as well quit while we’re ahead. Thanks for your kind words, George, and now—it’s time for our favorite department—where we talk to you straight from the shoulder———

I wonder if the Paul Gambaccini mentioned in George’s letter is the BBC radio presenter?
 
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Via Neatorama

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.17.2014
09:51 am
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Super yearoes: ‘Mighty Marvel Calendar’ for 1975 syncs up with 2014
01.02.2014
11:41 am
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Chicago-based cartoonist Mark Anderson has your 2014 calendar covered for this year. Apparently the The Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975 matches up perfectly with 2014. Anderson lovingly scanned each month and made it available to the public to print or use as desktop wallpaper. Thank you kindly, sir!

Print ‘em while you can!

Below, a few choice selections from the calendar:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
h/t Laughing Squid

Posted by Tara McGinley
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01.02.2014
11:41 am
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‘Nuff Said: Stan Lee ‘naked’ centerfold, 1983
08.24.2012
01:09 pm
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Well, here’s something you don’t see every day: Stan Lee posing centerfold-style for a whimsical behind-the-scenes of office life at a Marvel Comics photoshoot in 1983.

Photographer Eliot R. Brown, who shot this gem, said of the session, “Stan indeed kept his fire-engine-red bikini briefs on—very business-like, I must add. You’d have thought he did this every day.”

From Sean Howe’s Tumblr:

When Stan Lee visited New York in January 1983, the editorial staff was at the peak of its yuk-yuk, hand-buzzer giddiness. They’d been shooting photos of each other in superhero costumes for some of the covers—several staff members appeared on the cover of the last issue of SPIDER-WOMAN—and now they were putting together a comic that consisted wholly of photos of intra-office hijinks. They wanted to include Stan the Man. Lee, the original ringmaster, jumped at the chance to pose for a nude centerfold. Marvel staffers photographed Lee with an oversize comic book covering his private parts; soon after, they received a call from his assistant in L.A. “Stan is wild,” said the assistant. “He should not have been naked for your centerfold. Please. Don’t.” (A Hulk costume was later superimposed over Lee’s body in postproduction.)

Stan Lee was obviously no Burt Reynolds, but he had nice gams 30 years ago, eh?

Via Nerdcore and Sean Howe Tumblr

Posted by Tara McGinley
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08.24.2012
01:09 pm
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Comic book couture: Marvel Comics-inspired fashion hits the runways
04.30.2012
11:18 pm
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Sydney-based fashion designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales—whose label is called Romance Was Born—showcased their spring / summer 2012/13 collection yesterday at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia.

There’s some debate on the Internet whether or not these designs are Jack Kirby inspired. Maybe the backdrop behind the models?
 
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More after the jump…

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Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.30.2012
11:18 pm
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