When I was a kid, my family would tend to take long driving vacations to one end of the country or another during the summer.
This was the time period of "Discover the USA" campaigns by the auto industry and gas industry to "See the USA".
But for me, I remember this most vividly by three things:
1) Standard Oil Company would give away perferated sheets of post cards that you could separate and mail from any point along your trip or from home. The picture postcards promoted sights like Yellowstone, Half Dome and Mt. Rushmore. I still have a few. Most were used up as QSL cards when I had a brief flurtation with Ham Radio in 1973.
2) I recall driving with my family from Michigan, across Ontario, and swinging through Niagra Falls and somewhat into Albany and maybe the New England states, on our way to NYC. My dad, the driver, would arrange these trips as a combination travelling sales call upon his clients and businesses, and in exchange for the use of the company car, the company would pay for his lodging and travel expenses (gas, car, a meal or two) in order that he would personally pay a visit to the client and try to get more orders. The family basically traveled with him "for free".
While sitting in the back of the station wagon during the trip to NYC, I remember talking my dad into buying me a copy of Tales of Suspense #93, which featured Cap fighting Modoc and Iron Man taking on the villainous "Half Face". That should nail down the month for you. It fixes it in time for me. I believe I also had a copy of Thor #143 "Who is Replicus" on that trip as well, but I'm not sure that it wasn' #144, the only Jack Kirby Thor that was actually Bill Everett filling in. I also had a copy of Strange Tales where Cap and Nick Fury battled the Big Black-out of NYC also.
(**Mike's Amazing World of Marvel & Kang's Time Platform tells me this was June of 1967.)
3) And most importantly, Captain Marvel had come out, and my sister had bought me a copy of the FF t-shirt for Christmas. So I wore it and I carried an old Thermos bottle that I was convinced looked a lot like Captain Marvel's brief case. I carried these as we walked up the steps to go see Marvel Comics at 625 Madison Avenue. You can imagine my thrill to mount the steps and come face to face with a glass window, where a bored jewish or Bronx secretary informed me that Stan Lee and jack Kirby weren't there. They worked from home. No, there were no tours of the Bullpen. I was disappointed, but didn't let on. I was checkmated at the door, and couldn't think what to do.
I think my mother was standing next to me and she leaned forward to ask if there was anything to see or anyone we could talk with. She dropped the fact that we were from Michigan, near Detroit and had come a long long ways. It didn't do any good. The woman wouldn't budge. There was nothing she could do for us.
Disappointed, we turned and walked down the steep steps again, down to the street level, where we waited for a few minutes until my father had circled the block for the second time and picked us up. He just didn't want to pay to park the car, cause he knew New York rates for everything were sky high.
He didn't have to ask how it went, he could see it on my face.
We just drove further and later that day, we got to go to the Statue of Liberty. I was amazed at all the graffiti that was on the walls inside her crown, and asked for a pen to sign in as well. My sister was appalled, saying "Fools Names and Fools Faces often appear in public places." My dad gave me a ball point pen and told me to go ahead. It would hardly make a mess of anything...the walls, windows, railings and steps were already COVERED with scrawls. It was just one more pen marking. Even my sister joined in then, and then we walked down the spiral staircase again.
So that was my highlight of the trip to NYC. I got to be rejected by a woman who was probably Flo Steinberg at the door of Marvel Comics' offices and I got to sign my name in the Statue of Liberty.
I never understood why fans always spoke so glowingly of Flo. She didn't do anything for me. Oh, she send me several blue postcards, acknoledging my letters to the comics company, and twice, I receive a "No Prize" envelope from them. They remain my most treasured possessions of my youth. But was she kind or friendly at the door of Marvel Comics? No way. Even my sister remarked that the gal was frosty towards me, and not very welcoming at all. My Dad simply commented that most New Yorkers were like that. They probably turned hundreds away each day. He said it was most likely a place of work and not a place for kids at all.
And that's how I remember her.
How about you?
Replies
Flo left Marvel in 1968, when she said the amount of work answering fan mail and keeping up with Marvel's popularity was too overwhelming for her. So you probably caught her on a day when only Stan was around (and might've been busy), or she could've been having a bad day. It's surprising she wasn't nicer with your mom with you, though.
Stan did give the impression of a wild and crazy place that didn't usually live up to kids' expectations, although it apparently was way more fun than DC's offices (that's a low bar). A lot of kids did show up there, and some have talked about the tour (such as it was) that they got. By then, I would've expected they might've had a handout to give kids, although that probably would have encourage more of their friends to show up later.
Too bad nobody was walking in or out with assignments just then!
-- MSA
I think it may have been an issue of ALTER EGO that did a feature on Flo some years ago. One of the things I learned was that, for a few years, after leaving Marvel, she worked for Jim Warren.
In February 1971, my Mom decided it would be okay for my brother and me to play hooky from school for 2 days, and go to New York City. It's nuts, but it happened! Among other things, it was my 2nd (and so far, last) time at the Statue of Liberty. What a change from the first time we were there, a few years earlier, in July. NO crowds, and COOL. You could have cooked inside before, and the lines almost never seemed to move.
On our 2nd day, I think the last place we stopped was the offices of Warren Publishing. We wanted to buy some back-issues. I don't recall if anyone actually asked if anyone who worked on any of the magazines were there, but if we did, I'm sure nobody was in. But this very nice woman took my Mom's order and brought out about 6 old issues of FAMOUS MONSTERS, all in MINT condition. We were happy.
Decades later, I realized that woman may have been Flo Steinberg!
6 or 7 years later, I wound up playing hooky from WORK for a day, to go to NYC to visit the Marvel Offices. Stupidly, I didn't bother to call for an appointment! After waiting in the lobby for about 10-15 minutes, they sent out this guy who might be described as a "long haired weirdo" to talk with me, look at my work, and give me some advice. It was Ed Hannigan. Just before I was about to leave, he must have given it some thought, and asked me if I'd like to see the offices. Of course! And so, despite my own incompetence, I got a guided tour of the Marvel Offices-- which were exactly as Marie Severin had drawn them in that one piece she did for F.O.O.M. magazine. In the late 70's, there actually was a small "bullpen" in one area, where the (then-uncredited) assistant editors worked. I'm not sure who was there that day, but it might have included Roger Stern, before he went freelance.
At the far end from the front door, was John Romita's corner office. I got to see him working at his drawing board! He was working on the SPIDER-MAN newspaper strip. I'd met him before (briefly) at the 2nd "Marvel Con" in NYC, I think he remembered me because of a comment I'd made while he was taking questions from an audience. This time, I told him I wished he was working on the Spider-Man comic-book, as to me, that was the "real" Spider-Man.
I often wonder how my life might have gone if there hadn't been so much CHAOS in my family for so many years, and if I'd grown up in a more caring, nurturing, encouragine environment, instead of one where everything I cared about was discouraged in the most nasty, viscious manner imaginable.
I'm not sure I would have recognised anyone walking in or out, unless they were dressed as Spider-man (too early for that) or carrying oversized artboards face-out so I could recognise which comic it was and therefore, who they might be.
Mr. Silver Age said:
I too went up to the Marvel offices. It was 1966 and I got similar treatment to Kirk. I was disappointed of course but I didn't feel she was being harsh or anything.
Then a few years ago I was in NY and went to a slide talk that Trina Robbins was doing. So I got there a bit before, and I was talking to Trina and then she turns and goes, "oh there's my friend Flo." and I looked and there was this little Jewish woman coming towards us and Trina went over and started talking to her. I didn't think all that much about it but something was gnawing at the back of my mind. Then suddenly somebody yells, "oh my god, it's Fabulous Flo!" and instantly she became the center of attention because it was indeed THE Fabulous Flo. I spoke to her a bit and she was very nice.
Andy
It wasn't that we were treated badly or rudely. It was just there was no welcome...and I didn't know what to expect. We had done no advance research...we just showed up on our vacation.
I have heard from a lot of people how nice she was. I just didn't get to experience it. Maybe if I had lived in NYC or was "local" I would have anticipated or understood more.
My father, while he never understood those "funny books", did have some insight into New Yorkers. And once, when describing the comic publishing interests to someone else, he referred to the creators as "Jewish men in New York City"... which I didn't understand at the time, but it really was apparantly an accurate description. I am still surprised that he would know or surmise this. Perhaps he had done some research or had a friend in the business world ask some questions about what it was that was fascinating his son so much. But we never discussed it. For my father, the comic books and the Sunday funnies were the same thing... He frequently would refer to that color section of comics on Sunday as the "funny papers".
Flo left Marvel in 1968, when she said the amount of work answering fan mail and keeping up with Marvel's popularity was too overwhelming for her.
I think we have to cut Flo a little slack here. However many visitors she had to deal with she still had all her other work to do.
In 1967 (I'm pretty sure) I received a postcard from Roy Thomas. I was initially thrilled, until I realized he was taking me to task for writing such long letters, saying that if too many people wrote letters that long they wouldn't have time to produce comics. I realize they had a lot of work to do, but don't read the %*#@ letter if you don't have time. I was old enough that it didn't hurt me as much as piss me off, but I've never forgotten it.
I think in today's world of PR and modern technology where a wrong word, slip of the tongue, misunderstandings and offhand comments can be global in an instant this attitude is fairly unheard of - or at least very rare. I would have regarded the Marvel offices strictly as working environments anyway and not tourist attractions. Kids can be annoying.
Oddly enough, I got a note jotted on a famous blue post card from Marvel to please double space my letters to them, as it is so much easier to read. I didn't know who sent it (probably Flo) but I took it to heart!
Richard Willis said:
Considering how many letters they were getting that were hand-written, that's kind of funny. But I suppose if kids WERE typing letters, there's no reason they couldn't double-space them and make them easier. And I'll bet that typewritten letters were longer than hand-written ones, which might've been easier to then set up. But it's interesting they took the time to write that on the card.
I got a standard postcard from Julie for the only letter I ever wrote, which was to Hawkman. I don't know that I still have that card around, but I'll bet it's in a box somewhere. I wouldn't have thrown it out!
-- MSA
I visited DC's office once sometime in the mid 1990s, but since I actually had an appointment, the receptionist didn't try to shoo me away (my wearing a suit also helped, as I was attending a technology conference down the street). My visit to DC actually was to meet a couple DC guys I knew for lunch, but mostly we talked baseball (all three of us were in a baseball APA at the time). These would be the legendary Bob Rozakis and Bob Greenberger. I remember BobRo showed me the room where DC kept all its back issues, but it kind of just looked like a bunch of file cabinets, not the stuff of which dreams were made.
When I was letterhacking in the 1970s, I got a bunch of postcards and letters from various DC editors, which I'm sure I have stashed away somewhere in my basement: Paul Levitz, Tony Isabella, Martin Pasko, Jack C. Harris, E. Nelson Bridwell, etc. None of them ever asked me to double-space, though.
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