Thanks for kicking off August 1967, Prince Hal . 

I'm breaking this entry into two parts. Part 1, I was still on vacation with my family, and that's where I got Lois Lane #78, the conclusion to the story begun in #76 (#77 was a Giant LL issue filled with reprints). 

A really strong memory is that I was bothered by Lois's face on the cover; it just didn't look right to me. The cover here is by Swan of course,  but back then I didn't know the names of the artists or even grasp the fact that the interior artist didn't necessarily do the cover.  I was so used to Schaffenberger's Lois, so her face here just looked off to me. 

Part 2

Late August, vacation was over and we're back home in the city. I should note I'd watched the daily Marvel Superheroes cartoons for about a year (except for the Sub-Mariner cartoons on Fridays; I think my family would go out instead so I usually missed Subby's shows). Anyway, thanks to the cartoons I was familiar with Cap, the Hulk, Iron Man and Thor, even though I hadn't read any actual Marvel comics at that point. 

During the summer of 1967, while on vacation I saw a Cap episode that featuired the Kooky Quartet. I'd learn later on it was adapted from Avengers #18, "When the Commissar Commands!" The roster intrigued me--Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. 

Around that time there were also newspaper ads and TV commercials for two new Saturday cartoon shows that would begin in September--Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. So I was eager to find, and finally read, a Marvel comic or two!

At the end of August, when we were back home from vacation, my mother took us to a neighborhood candy store that we didn't normally frequent. As a treat we could buy comic books. Here's what my mother bought us (one for me, one for my sister but both were really mine!). My first Marvels! To this day I still remember that camped little candy store and how excited I was to finally find some Marvels. 

 
Coincidentally both issues were great jumping-on points for me as a new reader, as storylines/arcs had just concluded an issue before for each of these series. However past events and relationships were referred to in these issues, so I  felt as if I was reading chapters in a novel or larger serialized work. This was in stark contrast to the DCs I'd read, where usually each issue could stand on its own (except for the 2-part continued stories of course). I also remember being surprised that the Avengers team consisted not only of Cap, Wanda, Pietro and Hawkeye (as I'd seen on TV), but also the Wasp and Goliath, plus Iron Man and Thor appeared in #45, along with Hercules (and the Black Widow appeared in one panel). I loved the idea that this was a big team. 

Right, I know it's Klein and I suppose I should have mentioned him as well as Swan, esp. since the Lois facial features are what bothered me the most about that cover. Superman in profile looked close enough to Schaffenberger's version but Lois--with  that smaller head and those small features--really gave me pause back then. I wanted Kurt's cartoony-er and loonier-looking Lois!     

Fwiw as I became more familiar with comics and artists, Klein was my favorite inker for Swan and J. Buscema.

September, 1967

Somehow I find a copy of this title --



-- after years of only hearing about it.

It featured three of the most pathetic (in the original sense of the word), frighteningly ugly creatures I had ever seen, some excellent art --

 
-- and the story made me a DP fan for life.

These three books came out that year. Can't be sure when I bought them, but I associate them with the fall. I was deep into Conan that year and the next.

  

I don't recognise anything from September 1967 but I do from the month that just passed, August:

Avengers #45
Fantastic Four Annual #5
Thor #145 & 146

and possibly Action Comics #355 - I remember that cover but it could be that it just struck me from seeing it on the rack in a store somewhere because I'm not sure I ever read it. The story synopsis doesn't ring a bell at all.


The Marvel issues would have been possibly the very first I ever read of those series, since I don't see anything earlier that I remember reading. I would have been very young, just 5 years old. But I remember these covers and even bits of the stories quite distinctly, especially the Thors and the FF. Of course I've read them all since in back issues so I could be confusing those memories with that first experience, but I'm pretty sure I recall some bits of that first time - not understanding a lot of what was going on, for example!

I wasn't yet around, but the explosive popularity of Conan in the late 60s with the release of the Ace paperbacks in the US is what led to Roy wanting to bring Conan to Marvel and what persuaded Stan and the publisher to shell out for the Conan license. The late 60s saw a surge in popularity for fantasy fiction in general and sword and sorcery stuff in particular, fueled by Conan and Tolkien for the most part, but also things like Moorcock, Eisner, etc. in bookstores. Marvel was chasing a trend in other mediums when it got the Conan license, so it's not surprising that folks new of Conan before the Marvel series, especially readers active in the sci-fi fantasy scene as well as comics (and those two fields had a lot more in common in the late 60s/early 70s than they do now).

-M