Tag Archives: comic books

The Saturday Comics: The Marvel No-Prize Book and Fumetti Book

5 May

May 5, 2012

As I began last week, Marvel was going a little crazy in the 1980’s. In addition to putting out a bizarre Generic Comic Book, they also put out a Fumetti Book. What is fumetti? It is a photo or series of photos with “funny”  text balloons or captions. Why did Marvel do this? I don’t know but as you will see next week, Marvel’s love affair with photography was just beginning. This comic featured various Marvel staffers in all their black and white glory.

Then there was the No-Prize Book. Marvel, like DC, often ended up with things that made no sense in terms of established continuity or even with a single story. Sometimes even one panel was so screwed up it made no sense. Rather than say “my bad,” Marvel would give out “No-Prizes” to any fans who wrote in and explained away the mistake. Sometimes the reasons were bizarre.  What was the prize? There was no prize. Well, I guess there was. See the envelope below.

 

Next week, more Marvel 1980’s oddities. 

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Saturday Comics: Generic Comic Book

28 Apr

April 28, 2012

The time was 1983 and Marvel Comics was on top of the world. In fact, they put out a series of bizarre comics in the mid-80’s that I will detail  over the next couple of weeks. Each of them sold, and sold well. In this era Marvel could do no wrong and their fanatic Marvel Zombies gobbled up anything Marvel put out, including this thing.

Back before store brands were marketed as niche foods, generic cans and boxes of plain food were all over the aisles of your big chain grocery stores. Marvel, in what appeared to either be a parody, commentary, or an attempt to show that their fans would buy any piece of crap  anything they published, put out the Generic Comic Book. It was so generic that it did not even have creator credits. Check out their house ad that month:

It is probably good that the artist remained anonymous. However, Steve Skeates has claimed the writing credit.

Here are the rest of the details from mycomicshop.com:

22 page Generic Superhero story “A Superhero!”

Characters generic characters.
Genre parody; super-hero

It also claims that Stan Lee edited this issue himself. If only this guy would turn up in the Avengers movie. C’mon Stan! Make it happen!

Next Week: More mid-80’s Marvel.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →