Of Assistant Editors & Fools
By Sean Kleefeld | Tuesday, April 01, 2008
5 comments
Back in 1983, marvel sent all of its editors off to San Diego for Comic Con International, leaving the House That Jack Built to be run by the assistant editors. An event was made out of it, and the result was the infamous "Assistant Editors' Month" for the books cover-dated January 1984. Many of the comics marvel put out (which I don't believe included limited series) were treated to random acts of silliness -- some books showcased new corner box illustrations (Dazzler), some had wacky stories (Marvel Team-Up), some just added some bizarre filler at the end of an otherwise normal issue (Indiana Jones). But in honor of today being April 1, traditionally known as April Fools Day, I'm presenting the covers from the Assistant Editors' Month comics (only some of which advertised their wackiness with a cover blurb)...
5 comments:
I love how there is that hyper-serious Hulk cover with (General Ross?) pointing a gun to his head and then the "Beware!" stamp over it. And of course, friggin' John Byrne had to be all serious with his stories (Alpha, FF) that month. Bugger.
I have 3 or 4 of these issues, but now that you've done this post, I kinda think I want to collect 'em all!
You have no idea how much I miss Assistant Editor's Month!
Hey, PJ --
You're forgetting that in Alpha Flight, Byrne had Snowbird fighting the embodiment of Winter in a blizzard... that translated as six completely blank pages! ;)
I loved Assistant Editor's Month. The story with the Little Rascal type gang in Iron Man was great. I have a lot of them but now that I see them all together I want to fill in the holes. It makes me nostalgic for that time when it felt like the creators/editors and the fans were all in on something together and it was fun to Make Mine Marvel.
I had more than half of these issues.
1983 was my first SD Comic-Con and I've been to every one since. I took my What If? #34 (the humor issue -- had a two-page spread with self-portraits of all the Marvel editors) and had damn-near everyone sign it, from Shooter on down. Neat to have an autograph by Louise Jones pre-Simonson. Those were the days.
Also remember some dude named Art Adams hanging around the Marvel table, showing his portfolio to everyone. Wonder if anything ever happened with that....
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