70 Years of Marvel Comics

2009 - It's Marvel Comics' 70th anniversary!

This is a great little magazine, which I didn't know existed until I happened to see it on the racks in a bookstore--a 100-page(!), full-color, glossy magazine all about Marvel and its history. I had to pick it up.

Filled from cover to cover with articles and graphics, it features chronological histories of the various decades, starting in 1939 with the publication of Marvel Comics #1. In addition to these histories (breezily written), there are great little sidebars, like "70 Years of Marvel Monsters", "70 Years of Stan Catchphrases!", and a continuing feature like "70 Years of Costume Chic":

The true "Marvel Age of Comics" starts in 1961, with the publication of Fantastic Four #1. There are photos of the various Bullpen members, plus the artists who drew the stories.

There's a great article about 60s Marvel toys:

...this is a great article, and it comes with quotes from our pal, Brian Heiler. Cool! I could've read twenty more pages.

There are also features on the editors of the Marvel Masterworks series, and the Handbook to the Marvel Universe, giving us a glimpse on the inner workings of how these series are compiled.

After a section on Marvel in the 90s, there are some sketch pages from artists the magazine calls "Young Guns '09", like Marko Djurdjevic:

There are interviews with some Marvel execs (one, with Senior VP of Sales and Publishing David Gabriel, has him talking about how Marvel wants to experiment more with different formats--music to my ears), and "70 Years of Marvel Theme Songs."

The magazine ends with two Golden Age reprints, one from Marvel Mystery Comics #2 by Bill Everett:

...and the last from Captain America Comics #10, by Simon and Kirby:

I was really charmed by the inclusion of these stories, because they're clearly not the most commercial choices--nice to see instead of the umpteenth Spidey and X-Men reprints, they went with something way more Old School.

All told, a thoroughly entertaining magazine, well organized and laid out. The magazine celebrates Marvel in fine style, but also doesn't shy away from some of the more...curious decisions the company has occasionally made. It also has a nice sense of humor, making it a very fun read.

I'd love to see DC do something like this for their next anniversary!

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Well, that wraps up our week of new posts. I enjoyed digging through these musty old magazines again, and by the time you read this I will have gone to yet another comic con, so who knows? I might have some mags to talk about...