Ah, those glorious “annuals.” I
use quotation marks here because their popularity pushed up their publication
faster than yearly.
If regular comics were a ten-cent
treat, the annuals were a quarter miracle.
I had just turned 6 in June 1960 when
I pushed aside the other comics on the newsstand.
Out of my way, Ricky Nelson comics, Beep Beep the Road Runner 6, Girls’ Romances 70 and Tales to Astonish 13 (featuring some
giant monster, no doubt soon to be forgotten, by the name of Groot).
I had eyes only for something new
under the sun, and stared agog at the first Superman
Annual.
I loved Superman, and an 80-age
comic that promised some of the best of his past adventures seemed to be
designed with me personally in mind. Fortunately, hundreds of thousands of
other kids had that same feeling, and plunked down enough hard-wheedled quarters
to make the giants a permanent fixture of the Silver Age.
Within this square-bound beauty
were The Witch of Metropolis from Lois Lane 1 (March-April 1958), The Supergirl from Krypton from Action Comics 252 (May 1959). A Visit from Superman’s Pal from Superboy 55 (March 1957); The Girl in Superman’s Past from Superman 129 (May 1959); The Execution of Krypto from Superboy 67 (Sept. 1958); The Fattest Girl in Metropolis from Lois Lane 5 (Nov.-Dec. 1958); The Super-Brain of Jimmy Olsen from Jimmy Olsen 22 (Aug. 1957); The Super-Key to Fort Superman from Action 241 (June 1958) and a story
called Superman’s First Exploit. It
wasn’t — it was from Superman 106
(July 1956) — but we were too happy to care.
Included, intrigingly, were the
first issue covers of Superman, Superboy,
Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane, then
rarely seen, and a map of Krypton designed by Jerry Siegel. A treasure indeed.
But the second Superman “annual”
appeared on the newsstand a mere six months later, and was even better. The “All-Menace” issue featured
Superman’s battles with Brainiac, Titano, Bizarro, Metallo, the Invulnerable
Enemy and the Thing from 40,000 AD. Tarzan also landed his own Dell Giant late in 1960.
June of 1961 brought the third Superman Annual (“The Strange Lives of
Superman”) and two others that I missed because they sold out instantly — the
first Batman Annual and Secret Origins.
I can vividly remember my shame at
bursting into tears when the news dealer told me Secret Origins had vanished as soon as he’d set it out.
The fourth Superman Annual (“Adventures in Time and Space and on Alien
Worlds”) arrived in November, along with the second Batman Annual (“Action Roles!”)
Over at a company book company
that had not yet even acquired its famous name, Stan Lee took notice. He published
a Strange Tales Annual full of giant
monster stories in July 1962, along with a Millie
the Model Annual. In 1964, Lee published Marvel Tales Annual, a title devoted to reprints of superhero
features then only a year or two old.
My love for these 80-page giants
tempted me to try to bind my favorite comics into volumes — an idea better in
conception than in reality, I’m afraid.
Why do I write these articles and
create these collages? Mostly because these comic books warmed me with an
immense joie de vivre at the dawn of
my life, and I like to rekindle at least a reflection of its radiance here at
sunset.
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