Coming Soon: TFMSR 026: Marvel Annuals …

If you’re joining us for the first time because you somehow stumbled into—or willingly attended—my Comic-Con 2023 Tales From My Spinner Rack LIVE! panel—or if you’re a regular reader—please note that I’m taking a week or two off to recover from Comic-Con 2023, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek of our next few posts. In August, Spinner Rack will be all about the Marvel annuals of the 1960s in four new posts: Part One will focus on the annuals from 1962 and 1963, including an introduction that looks into the history of larger format comics; part two on 1964 and 1965; part three on 1966 and 1967; and part four on 1968 and a little beyond, as the annuals cease to contain copious amounts of new material and become more and more reprint-oriented.

Those years from 1962 through 1968 had summers that were magical for kids like me. The Marvel annuals contained special stories and features, and for a couple of years, were all-new, featuring 72 big pages of something truly special. I’ve often wished that Marvel would just print trade paperback reprints collecting all the Marvel annuals by title: All six Fantastic Four Annuals in one volume, all five Amazing Spider-Mans, etc. And while you can read the annuals in their correct chronological order in Marvel’s Epic Collections, Masterworks, and Omnibuses, just the annuals would be a great addition to anyone’s library, especially if you spent those long, languid summer months of June, July, and August haunting the newsstand to pick up these absolute gems. I’ve been loving Marvel’s omnibus collections, August 1961, June 1962, and July 1963 (soon to be joined by February 1964), which reprint all the issues of a particularly historic month for Marvel, including—respectively—the months Fantastic Four #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, and Avengers and X-Men #1 all came out. Hmmm … maybe a reprint project for the annuals should be by year, also.

1960s summers will always mean two very fond things to me: Our yearly Atlantic City vacation and these wonderful Marvel annuals. Join me, won’t you, as we take yet another trip down memory lane for a look at the Marvel annuals of the 1960s, the pinnacle of the Marvel Age of Comics!