FACE FRONT! LIFT YOUR HEAD! YOU'RE ON THE WINNING TEAM! 'NUFF SAID!

ITEM! You’ve been asking for it! Now you're gonna get it! Never let it be said that your good ol’ Uncle Stan heeds not thy noble requests! For those of you not old enough to have enrolled yourselves into the timeless ranks of the Merry Marvel Marching Society (and let’s face it — if you are old enough to have been a member, you’re probably reading this from the safety of a 401k-funded La-Z-Boy Dreamtime Recliner), here at last is another of our bountiful blasts from the past. If you joined the MMMS circa 1967 or so, you received the following floppy vinyl record with your membership kit... 

“Scream Along With Marvel” featured the official MMMS theme song as well as the Marvel Super Heroes Show theme — both songs with lyrics written by Yours Truly (as if you couldn’t tell by the arresting alliteration and rapturous rhymes) and performed by the Grantray-Lawrence Animation Singers! And rounding the whole package out was comic cover art by the always amazing Marvelous Marie Severin!

Want a little taste of what it was like to be a Merry Marvelite back in the days of Moon-shots and Asian hot-spots? Just click on Honest Irv’s multimedia thingies below, sit back, and prepare yourself for an audacious auditory adventure! And if you've got some shekels to burn, Mile High Comics even has a couple of these baby-boomer bad-boys for sale! Enjoy!

March-A-Long With Marvel

The Marvel Superheroes Have Arrived

Excelsior!

Smiley

MARVELOUS ICONOGRAPHY

ITEM! Time for an art history lesson, True Believers. Before you yawn, yelp or yowl — relax. It’s a Merry Marvel art history lesson! Kick back, get out your MMMS stationary, and take notes, of you wish. Today’s subject: the unsung iconic art of Jack King Kirby and Sturdy Steve Ditko!

The Wikipedias define iconography as “the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing." Looking at all that Silver Age Marvel merchandise yesterday reminded me just how much of a debt we all owe Jolly Jack and Sturdy Steve. Those guys were amazing, and that’s no fantasy! In the normal everyday course of creating comic book art for page rates, these guys created symbolic representations of these characters that were so iconic they were used repeatedly in merchandising until the very images themselves became embedded in all of our collective consciousnesses! That’s quite an accomplishment, Tiger! Quick — what’s the last cover image from recent years that you can remember being used on a poster, t-shirt or toy package?

And as much credit as Yours Truly would like to take for my part in merchandising these characters, I would be remiss in not pointing out that the iconic nature of these images has absolutely nothing to do with wordsmithing — which let’s face it is my speciality. Kirby and Ditko were able to create these iconic images by taking, of all things, guys running around in capes and their PJ’s, and forging them into images that evoke raw power, pathos, and heroism with a single glance. Da Vinci and Michelangelo got nothing on these two.

Thus endeth the lesson, Frantic Ones. You may put your pencils down now!

Excelsior!

Smiley

WE BELONG, WE BELONG, WE BELONG, WE BELONG, TO THE MERRY MARVEL MARCHING SOCIETY!

ITEM! Remember what it was like back in the 1960s to be a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Marvelite with a head full of cosmic wonder all for just 12 cents a pop? Me neither. That was a long, long time ago, pilgrims. But fortunately for those of us with malfunctioning long-term memories, and even those True Believers born in later decades, MMMS member #4278 J. Ballman has come riding to our collective rescue! Check out “The Full-Color Guide to Marvel Silver Age Collectibles from MMMS to Marvelmania” published by Totalmojo Productions, Inc. Before I extoll the virtues of this Marvelous must-have MMMS merchandise guide, let me say: J.B. baby... next time you need a title for one of your bibliophilic books, give your Uncle Stanley a call. I’ll help you come up with a title that comes in somewhere under the Gettysburg Address in length! How’d you get that title anyway— ask Reed Richards while he was gargling the encyclopedia? And they say I’m verbose...

This copious and comprehensive collectors’ compendium (which I shall call the MMMS guide from this point forward) is chock-a-block with complete — and I do mean complete — coverage of every single Merry Marvel merchandise offer, club, t-shirt, toy, joke, puzzle and gumball machine prize offered from 1963-1970. And what a collection of riffs and tifs of Kirby and Ditko art it is. I’d forgotten about half of these items ever existed (Mechanical Marvel Super Hero Tricycle Thor anyone?). J. Ballman does a bang-up job writing about and showing off what must represent years of research and collecting. In fact, you should buy two copies of this book — one for you and one for your best friend! Check with your local comic shop about ordering this baby, or you can always check the ebays. Tell ‘em your Uncle Stan sent yah!

Excelsior!

Smiley

MARVEL'S SWINGIN' PLASTIC PILLOWS

ITEM! Remember these, True Believers? Me neither. Let’s face it... your Uncle Stan’s long-term memory works slightly better than a shot-gunned sieve. But be that as it may, look-see what I found this morning while rummaging around down in my climate-controlled vault at Casa del Lee... a Merry Marvel Marching Society plastic pillow! And they only went for a measly $1.50 way back in 1968. That was about three gallons worth of gas at the time... so in today’s dollars they would only cost about $12-15 buckeroos. What a bargain!

You know we sometimes give the late, great Vinnie Colletta a hard time around these here parts, but you have to give it up to The Prince! I mean do you have any idea how hard it is to ink an inflatable plastic pillow? It takes a mighty light touch, sunshine. Enjoy the "this-offer-clearly-expired 40 years ago" ad below!

Excelsior!

Smiley

NON-RUBBER BABY-BOOMER BUMPER STICKERS

ITEM! For those of you old enough to remember (and please take a much-deserved bow and another lovin' spoonful of Geritol if you are), once upon a tireless time there was a small group of dedicated fans who belonged to a little organization called the Merry Marvel Marching Society. Ah, those were the days. They don’t make frenzied fandom like that anymore, pilgrims. We didn’t have the World Wide Webs way back then, so fans could only express their heartfelt love for all things Marvel by wearing buttons on their bellbottoms and putting stickers on their Volkswagen Buses.

Your Uncle Stan kinda misses those halcyon days of yore, and I’ve decided to do something about it. Announcing all-new versions of the all-time favorite way for Marvelites to stop traffic and generate minor accident reports: MMMS Bumper Stickers, the Next Generation (Marvel Studios Edition). They’re only in the perilous prototype stage right now, pilgrims, but I’ve got my adopted great-grandson, Irving Forbush III, slaving away over his hot l’il laptop producing ready-to-print-out versions even as we blog. Apparently Photoshop will let you Photoshoppingly Photoshop Photoshopish Photoshop files anytime, anywhere. That wasn’t a plug, by the way... Forbushman just bet me I couldn’t use the word Photoshop as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, subject and object, all in the same sentence. You owe me a virgin slo-gin fizz at the airport bar, Irv! See the exemplary examples above for a precious and precocious preview of these must-have auto adornments! As always, your insightful and inspired input is always welcome...

Speaking of Honest Irv, he of the cape and pan-like-helmet and Yours Truly will be flying out for New York later today. He swears that I will be able to use his McBook Pro to keep posting to this blog while we travel, even though I'm all used to the Dell on my desk at home. There’ll be lots to report, so I hope he’s right True Believers! See ya at the show!

Excelsior!

Smiley

FOREVER FORBUSH!

ITEM!  Letters! Hoo-Boy, do we ever get letters here at It’s Always Sunny in Soapbox-land! From time-to-time I’ll try and answer the perkiest of your pen-pal postings via the Electronic Intranets. This one just in from Odense, Denmark (who says this isn’t the Marvel Age of Instant International Inquiries?):

Dear Stan,

You said on your site that the technical assistant helping you with your blog is one Irving Forbush. Since Irving’s first appearance was in Not Brand Echh #1 in 1967, wouldn’t that make him nearly as old, and therefore as computer-illiterate, as you?

Thanks,

RoXr1138

That’s quite a syntaxed non-gender-specific sobriquet you’ve gotten for yourself there, RoXr1138! May I call you RoXy? Any-hoo, RoXy, you’ve asked an excellent question that your Uncle Stanley is only too happy to answer.

Technically, Irving Forbush joined our Merry Marvel Bullpen when we were merely Magazine Management Corporation way back in the mid-50s. His "first appearance” was a creative credit in an early humor magazine of mine called Snafu, where he was listed as founder. And by founder, I meant that he ran out and got us our bagels and lox every morning. But you’re quite correct, Irresistible Irving is only a few years younger than your Uncle Stanley, which places his birth sometime in the middle Pleistocene.

But that was Irving Forbush Sr., who’s now comfortably retired and holding court poolside with a bevy of retired Playboy Bunnies somewhere in Boca Raton, Florida. My affably able assistant these days is his grandson, Irving Fonzworth Forbush III. Li’l Irv the Third started hanging out at the Mighty Marvel Offices way back when he was knee-high to an assistant editor... which came in pretty handy ‘cause he was a little knee-biter back then. He got Roy Thomas so many times the Rascally One started showing up to work in his soccer shin-guards.

Hope that clears up the generational mystery, RoXy. Forbush-Man 3 has not only inherited the cape and pan-like helmet of his grandaddy, he’s taken on the awesome responsibility of making sure that everything you see on this website accurately reflects all that is honest, heartfelt and humble in Yours Truly. Remember culture-lovers, that with great power comes great repost-ability. 

Excelsior!

Smiley