IN THE EARLY1960s, I discovered Marvel Comics and dedicated myself to tracking down comics featuring my hero Captain America. At first I was content with scouring the local newsagents looking for ... the spinner rack. Then I looked for kids in the neighbourhood who had Marvel comics that I really wanted and offered them ridiculous trades - three DCs for one Marvel. Okay ... this is a spinner rack in an American store, but we had them in UK newsagents, too. Trouble is they wrecked the condition of the comics - not that we cared much about that back then. But there was another source of US comics beginning to turn up during the Silver Age - second hand shops. At first it was just random shops, often selling bric-a-brac like brass ornaments or other household nonsense, that would have a box of old LP records and comics outside, priced at 3d or 6d. The records outside those second-hand shops would be tut ... terrible stuff I'd never be interested in. No Beatles or Dave Clarke 5 here. ...
THIS TIME, I've asked my old friend and former 2000AD colleague Kid Robson to contribute a guest entry for this blog. We both share a love of early Marvels, especially those written by Stan Lee, and as The Kid had mentioned Droom in one of his earlier comments on this blog, it seemed natural to ask him to offer a few words about Dr Droom and his spiritual successor Dr Strange. Thank you, Kid ... "Twas Steve's idea..." said Stan Lee about Dr. Strange in a letter to Jerry Bails in 1963. However, it's interesting to ponder just what gave Steve the idea to do a strip about a 'Master of Black Magic' (later changed to 'Mystic Arts') in the first place. The origin of Dr Strange wasn't revealed until the character's fourth appearance, in Strange Tales 115 (Jul 1963) - he hadn't appeared in Strange Tales 112 and 113 . It has been speculated that this episode was drawn much later in the series run - perhaps the ninth story, as it's markedly...