. . . These very dry, cracked, slightly bloody, dusty, bone-thin, scrawny hands. . .
. . . are the very same hands that have touched the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man!
That's right, the over-forty-years-old, first issue where Spidey meets the Fantastic Four, and then the Chameleon! With all the "Try my dynaflex for $1.98 and girls'll throw themselves at you!" ads! With the "Special Message from Spider-Man" where Spidey tells you his address to write letters to! (SPIDER-MAN, THIRD FLOOR, 665 MADISON AVE., N.Y. 21, N.Y.) With the "Magic Art Reproducer" ad that lets you draw a beautiful woman "even if you can't draw a straight line!"
Would you believe, university has this very issue in its Deering McCormick Library "Special Collections"! You have to sign a slip in order to handle the comic, but I'm amazed they let you handle it at all! Here's how I found out.
I've read it before, in black and white, online at Marvel's site, from the reprints that the Chicago Sun-Times did on Sundays, but never before have I read it in its original form. Its intended form.
Its purest form.
In the first story, "Spiderman" is said without the hyphen, but that's corrected in the second story. In the second story, though, Peter's last name is "Palmer"! Peter Palmer, guys!
Most of the ads are aimed at scrawny 12-year-olds, even these little salesmen ads that promise to "turn you into a man!"
They wouldn't let me photocopy anything (duh) but this is the dream guys. This is truly the American Dream.
3 comments:
Wow, that's pretty awesome! Any idea how many other vintage comics are in the collection?
Yeah, the site says there are "thousands of others." The first guy, an undergrad student, donated his collection of 1,100 in 1972. Then, some years later, a Chicago woman donated hers of 1,100 (odd isn't it?) to the collection.
The girl brought in an entire manila folder of the Lee/Ditko issues of Spider-Man, so hopefully that brings some perspective into it!
Next time, I should check if they have Amazing Fantasy #15.
>>The girl brought in an entire manila folder of the Lee/Ditko issues of Spider-Man, so hopefully that brings some perspective into it!<<
Wow. The Indianapolis Children's Museum has a pretty sizeable donated collection that includes the first issue of Wonder Woman(!), but no one's allowed to touch them. :-(
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