Peerless Power of Comics!

Sol Brodsky was a long time artist, inker and production man at Marvel comics. Writer/Editor Stan Lee relied on his right hand man to make sure the trains ran on time but the entrepreneurial Brodsky also worked on outside projects including the Big Boy Restaurant promotional comics and editing the initial issues of Cracked magazine. When he was offered an opportunity to co-publish/edit a line of comic books and magazines with Hershel Waldman, who had published/packaged comics in the past, he left his production job with Lee's blessing. The new venture, entitled Skywald Publishing Corp. (for Sol BrodSKY and Israel WALDman) awaited. Through his contacts in the comics industry Brodsky knew many freelancers he could offer additional work. Some came directly from Marvel, including writer Gary Friedrich; artists Dick Ayers, Don Heck, Syd Shores, John Tartaglione, Frank Giacoia, Tom Palmer and letterers Sam Rosen and Jean Izzo. One important member of that entourage was Bill Everett. Ever...

Fifty years ago comic book stores didn’t exist. Instead, you could saunter over to the neighborhood newsstand, candy store, luncheonette or various other establishments to purchase the latest comics. If you followed any of Marvel’s output, letters pages and house ads would have announced the upcoming Annuals which appeared every spring/summer, a time chosen specifically to coincide with children being off from school. The reasoning was that they'd have a few extra quarters to spend while taking a family vacation or sitting under a tree with a coke on a lazy afternoon. In that long ago summer of 1965 Amazing Spider-Man Annual # 2  leaped off the racks, falling into the hands and back pockets of many a youth.  The understated simplicity of Ditko’s cover included what would become an iconic Spider-Man image; the full-figure pose was used as the corner symbol on the monthly Amazing Spider-Man title years after he was gone. The bold coloring, likely by Stan Goldberg, compliments ...

Memory is often unreliable, and piecing together a moment from forty five years ago can be a struggle. I'm confident that it was a weekday when I stopped in a luncheonette with my Mother after shopping on Knickerbocker Avenue. I grew up in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn and candy stores, newsstands and luncheonette's were familiar sights. Staring at me from a spinner rack filled with paperbacks was a brightly colored book sporting a Superman logo, bat-symbol and familiar comic book "sound effects" lettering, the title in bold red: All In Color For a Dime .  I don’t recall the particulars, maybe I had recently received money from relatives, since I find it hard to believe I cajoled my Mother to part with a whopping one dollar and fifty cents – a considerable sum to give a 10 year old – especially since finances were tight in our household. Somehow or other I left that store with a book that I still have in my possession – one which began my lifelong interest in the h...