When Doc Banner gets that funny look in his eye, RUN!
This was the terrific envelope that contained the membership kit for Marvel Comics known as FOOM. It was the welcome gift that accompanied a one year/four issue subscription to FOOM magazine which was a black and white magazine sized pamphlet with a two or three color cover that ran a behind-the-scenes look of the Mighty Marvel Bullpen. I don’t think there’s been a magazine since that I looked forward to with such anticipation. I remember checking the mailbox obsessively to see if it had arrived. Being that it was only a quarterly publication, that first year was pretty tough especially on our poor mailbox.
I recently rifled through my comics searching for my old issues of FOOM. I was desperately trying to find issue #13 that featured Daredevil on the cover and had some beautiful Gene Colan drawings unencumbered by color. The ones that really resonated with me were the drawings set in an office with Matt Murdock, Karen Page and Foggy Nelson simply discussing the day’s business. They were glorious and Colan really put his all into them capturing for me the personality of the characters as well as a sense of time and place. It was a law office in New York in the afternoon. Scores of artists have drawn Daredevil swinging over the city or battling it out with various villains. Very few besides Gene Colan made that law office interesting or a place worth visiting to the reader.
I have to find that issue of FOOM! Or buy the essential Daredevil edtions.
I did find issues 14 and 15.
They were fun. #14 had some terrific John Severin drawings of Kull the Conqueror in it. The Howard the Duck issue had a bombastic Gene Colan cover and a drawing within that has always stuck with me.
It was a drawing that went across a two-page spread with Howard bursting through a door on the right page to confront this character on the left page known as Teen Angel. The drawing of Howard was nothing special, but I liked the bad guy. I always loved the idea of a greaser, 1950s super-villain wielding a switchblade. The can of beer and the stubbed out Lucky cigarette on the table have been ricocheting around my brain for years. This greaser type of guy has turned up in my own work more than once either consciously or unconsciously (HERE’s an example.) The drawing is credited to Wenzel and Vohland, and I’m not all that familiar with their careers or output. I just love this drawing.
I’ll keep digging in the hopes that my missing FOOMs turn up. Maybe they’re with the issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland I can’t find.
See more of the FOOM membership kit HERE.
