The History Of Official Marvel Fan Clubs

Hi. Which Marvel fan club turned out to be a grift? Well, I suppose you’re going to have to watch the video to find out.

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CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Stan Lee And Fandom (An Introduction)
02:14 - The Merry Marvel Marching Society (MMMS)
06:43 - Marvelmania International
09:57 - Friends Of Ol’ Marvel (FOOM)
13:34 - Afterwards And An Ending
15:08 - Credits
15:45 - The Voices Of Marvel
20:49 - Scream Along With Marvel

SOURCES:
Merry Marvel Marching Society Song:
Stan Lee On The Merry Marvel Marching Society:
The Voices Of Marvel:
American Comic Book Chronicles: 1965-1969 by John Well. TwoMorrows Publishing. 2014.
Fabulous Flo Steinberg by Jim Salicrup. Comics Interview #17. November 1984.
Marvel Heroes Create Fresh ‘Human’ Interest. The Scranton Tribune. October 01, 1967.
How I Became A Young, Zingy, With-It Guy by Mark Evanier. October 31, 2001.
Mark Evanier Interview by Ken Jones. The Comics Journal #112. November 1986.

#marvelcomics #stanlee #marvel #jackkirby #steveditko #comicbooks #comics #fanclub #silverage #silveragecomics #bronzeage #bronzeagecomics #captainamerica #spiderman #thehulk #fantasticfour

[juliiju]

I can't express how much I love old Marvel. You had the feeling that they weren't this indistructible international empire, but rather a comic book printer.

[carloscrecelius]

Proud member of the Mighty Marvel Marching Society right here!

[calicokarl]

Does the old Marvel opening song live rent free in anyone else's head? It regularly bubbles up to the surface for me and I used to often sing the "he's a sulky, over-bulky, kinda hulky superhero..." line to my aging dog :D

[FemboyCatGaming]

My fav line about the voices of marvel comes from Kirby:
"The scene was followed by a theme song, “The Merry Marvel Marching Song, ” performed by a marching band and choir. Notably absent from the record was Ditko, who declined to participate—as Kirby put it in his recounting of the incident, “Steve was much smarter than we were about those things.” "
-True Believer: Andrew Rileman

[erincollins]

That record is a treasure! Thanks so much for tracking it down and uploading it.

[wernersiegmund]

In One Piece Eiichiro Oda that while on a very smaller scale has the same feeling. It called The SBS which in english is called I’m Taking Questions it has a similar feeling to what these were like.

[joeldavidchevallier]

Born in 76, a child squarely of the 80s, the Marvel my father grew up with fascinated me. He had a few small boxes of all Marvel’s first books (I sold X-men number one to a local shop for less than 100 dollars for money to buy new books in the early 90s…one of my life’s greatest regrets still) some Marching Society gear and 3-4 black light posters. I think what hooked me was the vision Stan crafted…the lore around the office itself. Feeling some proto-parasocial relationship with Flo Steinberg was just a bit left of center for a kid in my neck of the South at the time. When other kids were playing ball (take your pick) I could usually be found nearby waiting for my friends to finish reading Sgt Fury, or one of the great 2 hero splits of the 60s like Tales to Astonish. The smell of the old paper was intoxicating. My dad eventually found me with his books and was pretty gracious considering the value of them even at the time. I was the one who, after all, put them in bags and boards…even if I shoved them into old binders and carried them around in the steam of the late Louisiana summer. He tried to ween me off his old stash and onto newer book. Stans’ publishing propaganda sold me squarely on the silver, and later, golden age of books, due to my exposure to his era of the hobby at the critical moments when I was learning to read and use a pencil. I remain hooked on them still. (And admittedly an aggravating alliterative tick has been hard to kick out of my own personal writing.). -MMM!JDC.

[AdahnFlorence]

Aw darn, the opening got copyright claimed.

[RodrigoGarcia-zeem]

The Marvel Fandom is a really interesting topic, as it could easily be argued that it helped promoting Superhero Comics as a medium. Without it, i think there wouldn't be that many superhero fans nowadays. Great Video as always.

[gregorio]

Love whenever these topics are covered, sometimes the history is more fascinating, and harder to find, than individual stories.

[scottpawlowski]

This is very cool. I was a FOOM member with the subscription back in the 70s. Never heard these recordings tho I'd heard about them!

[WCBs]

Jim Steranko told me a very interesting story about that fan club

[rackstraw]

20:17 No Larry Lieber? Guess Stan couldn't talk his brother into appearing on the album.

[theMADmanLittleMD]

Man your voice is so soothing, I could fall asleep to it but I don't want to.
Thanks for continuously making great videos and calming me down.

[EpicFantasyRPGOfficial]

I was a FOOM member as a kid. It came with a lot of stuff. Paper stuff mostly but yeah it was a big envelope full of goodies :)

[christopherulichney]

This was a wonderful look at a bygone era. I'm a sucker for everything behind the scenes of Marvel and DC, so this was right in my wheelhouse. The recordings were the perfect icing on the cake for this video. Keep up the good work.

[gavinmarks]

I wonder if anyone has ever been to "CAPTAIN AMERICA'S" in Ireland? It's a legitimately licenced restaurant since the 70's, even bands like U2 performed there when they first started out. There's 2 in Dublin, the original on Grafften ST, one in Talllagh, and one in Cork.

[Nikifanta]

This is one of your best yet. As someone who would've been too young to experience this as it happened, this is a wonderful piece of history.
Thank you SBP!

[aVerveQuest]

From Fantastic Four to Stripperella it's amazing how time... It's a stark reminder of how an artist can go from being way ahead of their time to far behind it.
Few escape this, with Salman Rushdie Tom Waits Johnny Cash Leonard Cohen and John Irving being the few I can think of off the top of my head

[ctbinary]

FOOM ended just as a young 7 year old Owl was getting into Marvel Comics but I did subscribe to Marvel Age for a while in the 80s. That was nothing more than an expanded Bullpen Bulletins but it was fun. Thanks for including copies of the old records. They are a great time capsule to an exciting time in comic book history