This is not only a newsfromme encore, it's actually a newsfromme encore encore because I've rerun this item once before. I am rerunning it again because I have an announcement to make and I'll make it after the following recycling…
Long before comic books discovered the mini-series, there was the mini-comic. In 1966, Marvel issued six "comic books" that, depending on the size of your monitor, may have been even smaller than they appear in the above photo. They actually varied a tiny bit in size but were generally under 7/8" in height and a bit less than 1/4" thick with black-and-white interiors. Each was bound along the left ledge with the kind of rubbery glue used to bind a pad of writing paper and featured jokes and an occasional smidgen of story. I dunno who wrote them but some of the art was stats from the comic books and some of the new art was by Marie Severin.
I first heard about them in the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page when they said…well, here. I'll let you read it for yourself:
Upon reading that, I immediately began checking out every vending machine I passed. As a more-or-less Marvel completist, I had to have them. For weeks, the search was fruitless but then one day, my father took us to a White Front department store down in the Crenshaw district…down where white folks never went in '66 unless they wanted to save money buying a washing machine or something of that size. While my parents priced portable room fans, I scoped out the vending machines and sure enough, there was one with with Marvel mini-books therein. Alas, it also had other stuff. You put in a quarter, turned the handle and you got a little plastic egg with a cheapo toy in it — a ring, a balloon, a little top, something of the sort. From what I could estimate as I peered in the glass, the odds seemed like about one in five that you'd get a Marvel mini-book.
I ran off and found a nice snack bar lady who changed three dollar bills (all I had) into twelve quarters. Then I ran back to the machine and began feeding in those quarters. By the time I'd used them all up, I'd scored mini-books of Sgt. Fury, The Hulk and Millie the Model as well as a lot of plastic whistles and other things I didn't want.
In later years in Vegas, I would see grown men and women look almost hypnotized as they pumped quarters and silver dollars into slot machines. I experienced some of that at the White Front that day. By the time my parents had made their purchase, I had squandered every quarter but I had half a set of the Marvel mini-books. To make matters worse, I could see some of the missing ones in their little plastic modules inside the glass dome of the vending machine. They were distributed across the top of the pile and the machine picked from the bottom, so what I was seeking was perhaps unattainable without injecting a few hundred more quarters.
"Let's go," my father called and I headed for the car, defeated. I knew full well I'd never see another vending machine that sold Marvel mini-books; that there would always be that aching void in my life…sigh, weep, moan. Fortunately for me (unfortunately for my parents), the room fan didn't work right so we had to go back a week or so later. I was well-armed with quarters this time and while they exchanged, I gambled some more. My luck wasn't quite as good. I think I went through $5.00 of quarters and got lotsa dupes but came away one mini-book short. I still needed a Captain America.
But sometimes things work out. A week or three later, a new kid showed up at our Saturday afternoon comic book club and he brought along his almost-complete Marvel Mini-Book collection. He had an extra Captain America but no Hulk. I had an extra Hulk but no Captain America. You didn't have to be Monty Hall to close that deal.
At the time, it seemed like I'd spent an awful lot of money to amass that complete set, especially when you compared the cost-per-mini-book to what it then cost to buy a full-sized real Marvel Comic but it was worth it, just to not have to feel unfulfilled and to scratch that all-consuming itch. And if you look at what those mini-books sell for today on the collector market, it wasn't that bad an investment.
Okay. That piece first ran here on March 3, 2004. The update I am now appending takes the form of a press release from Harry N. Abrams books, one of the finest publishers of art books and comic-related material in the country…
Marvel Comics Mini-Books
By Marvel Entertainment
Text by Mark Evanier
Photographer Geoff SpearReprinted for the first time, the world's smallest comic books — originally printed in 1966 and now enlarged to a more readable size — in a seven-book collectable boxed set
In 1966, Marvel printed what the Guinness Book of World Records certified as the world's smallest comic books. Smaller than a postage stamp, and sold in gumball machines across the country, these six books told the quirky origin stories of Marvel's most beloved characters at that time: the Amazing Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor, Captain America, Sergeant Nick Fury, and Millie the Model.
Marvel Comics Mini-Books reproduces facsimile editions of all six books in one affordable box set — along with a seventh book written by Mark Evanier that details the history and creation of these rare, vintage collectables.
Don't get too excited about this yet. It won't be out until May of next year but isn't it kinda wonderful that pumping all those quarters into a gumball-type machine in front of White Front in 1966 led to me getting a job more than a half-century later? When they asked me to do this, how could I say no?
I thought, "Wow, my life is going full-circle and I might actually make back the money I spent to acquire those silly things!" And I would have if they hadn't paid me with a mini-check.