Those of you who do not already have your books, please send me all the money.
Today we'll be discussing a very recent find. I was mining an entirely different vein when a glimpse of something called Willie Lumpkin caught my eye.
I started reading Fantastic Four more than 50 years ago. Willie Lumpkin's been around since WAY back in FF#11.
This guy:
Now, let me point out a couple things right up front.
First, as indicated by that '50 years ago' reference, i'm from a time when 'fandom' meant you and a few kids you knew who traded comics for something new to read. Generally you all shopped at the same one or two places with spinner rack (so they didn't have to waste a lot of space on them comic book things). But, y'know - Billy's big brother went up to Macon where the 5&Dime had TWO spinner racks, and titles we'd only heard of in ads in the books our store ordered. That's an event that was on the scale of the San Diego Comic Con (or whatever it's officially called these days. I haven't been in this century) And that's about the extent of new information we got on what was going on in the world of comics.
There were no magazines, no databases, no connections. If you REALLY felt the need to try to connect beyond that little local tribe, your only option was to write to the fans who got their letters printed, once Stan Lee (he was first, right?) started printing their addresses with the letters.
Second, due to some sociopathic hermit tendencies, disconnection remains my lifestyle, despite attempts at otherwise over the years. (Even APAs - topic for another day)
Combine the two, and this means that there are going to be big gaping gaps in my knowledge. I may well know what's known to me, but my knowledge of ignorance is quite limited. That being the case, it may turn out that some things we discover here in Comics Archeology are actually well known to everybody outside my cave. In those cases, perhaps my ignorance itself will be entertaining in this age of reality tv programs.
So - moving along with the topic at hand - Willie Lumpkin.
I chipped around this new vein and found several dailies and several Sunday strips. Lo and behold - they're about a mailman named Willie Lumpkin.
And it's credited to Lee & DeCarlo! WTF? Was Stan off writing strips in 1960?
I tried to foist this mystery off on someone else, but just a week later, while reading through an old interview with Stan from Oui magazine back in '77 (Great articles, but no - I didn't just buy it for the articles) and near the end this exchange pops up:
Not long after that, i stumbled across* this in an interview from Comic Book Artist #2:
So - Yup!
Another odd bit in the Stan Lee story of which i was unaware. As lost to history as the names of his children. (Seriously - has anyone ever heard them referred to by name? And who's that Lieber guy working on the Netflix Marvel series? Any relation? Argh - more mysteries!)
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*(This is why it's hard for me to get too angry at the Universe enjoying itself so much using me as the punchline to many of its jokes. It makes up for it be dumping things i want to know, and strange things i didn't know i wanted to know, in my path for me to find. I'd never know to look for The Man With The Smallest Penis In Existence And The Electron Microscope Technician Who Loved Him, so the Universe sends those things to me instead.)
Willie Lumpkin breaching worlds from Fantastic Four #11 and Willie Lumpkin dailies (1963&1960)
