I've mentioned how Marvel's early efforts to build a fan base included regularly featuring pin-up pages in their comics. I don't know what the general reaction was to these, but we loved them in our little group. Jack Kirby posters for our walls? How could people not love them! And since this was back in the days before copiers - not even black & white xeroxes were available to the average person - we cut those pages out and hung 'em on the wall. Sometimes we'd buy extra copies, but we'd cut them up, too. Eventually, i took to tracing - and then drawing - my own posters, thus sparing a few comics from the blade.
The Annuals were a great place for them in the first few years. After that, they'd built up enough history to start running reprints instead of new feature pages and the pin-ups went away. Of course, that's probably around the time they started selling posters. Purely coincidence, surely.
We already looked at the pin-ups of Marvel's First Family that ran in issues 3, 4, 5, & 10 of the Fantastic Four - let's look at a few more so you can see why we destroyed so many comics in those days.
While Ben got the first mini-poster, Johnny was most popular, getting three more after his debut pin-up. So popular, in fact, that he had three posters before Sue got her first:
At least by the time the 2nd Annual came out, Sue had moved up to 2nd billing with her page. As with Ben, this was her only other solo pin-up:
And while Ben only got one more, Alicia got one, too:
Of course, they all got together for a Family Portrait:
And there were Special Feature pages:
So many comics destroyed...
all art by Jack Kirby from Fantastic Four #s 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, and Annuals #s 1 & 2 (1962-1964)
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