History

Wow, we've linked to some amazing LIFE Magazine photo galleries before, but here is a doozy:MAD Magazine: A Semi-Secret History with photos of MAD founder Bill Gaines from the files of current editor John Ficarra. LIFE made a few images available, but each is accompanied by Ficarra's commentary on the site with even more history and insight.

Thanks to his "pack-ratty" mother, Jim Shooter's two Merry Marvel Marching Society kits from the '60s are intact and in mint condition. The first one included the record with the amazing Bullpen greetings from Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Flo Steinberg, and so on.

The notorious 1990 Comics Journal interview with Jack Kirby is now online in its entirety, and you can see what made it notorious. The 71-year-old Kirby was not shy about asserting his place in the creation of comics' best known characters and at the expense of his collaborators.

If you didn't get enough of '90s style hairdos in yesterday video epic, via Very Fine / Near Mint, another classic '90s video of a retailer roundtable on the cable access show The Chronic Rift. Three NYC-area retailers discuss advance reorders and the impending marriage of Superman. Of the stores mentioned, only Hanley's of Staten Island is still around.

What was the world of comics like in 1994? This edition of the KCET nightly news show LIFE AND TIMES will give you the answer: much like today except there was a lot more hair and a lot less respect.

Before he designed the Thunder God whose movie opens tomorrow, Jack Kirby had designed two previous characters named Thor, and over at the Kirby Museum they look back at the Sandman version and the Tales of the Unexpected version. We've seen THOR btw and will have a full review tomorrow. Short version: entertaining but 3D sucks.

Via Robot 6, word that Heritage is auctioning off an early strip by Charles Schulz that would appear to be part of a developmental period between Lil' Folks and Peanuts, which launched in 1950.

Via Robot 6, word that Heritage is auctioning off an early strip by Charles Schulz that would appear to be part of a developmental period between Lil' Folks and Peanuts, which launched in 1950.

Comic strip historian and pioneer Bill Blackbeard has died at age 84, it has been reported. Blackbeard had been in a nursing home for some years, and passed away on March 10th. As the outpourings of appreciations have shown, Blackbeard was, perhaps more than any other individual, responsible for the emergence of comic strips and (by extension) comic books as a legitimate source of art to be treasured and preserved on an institutional level.

What is the greatest convention moment of all time? It might just be described in this post!

Before there was an internet, they put it all in one magazine!

Before there was an internet, they put it all in one magazine!