Check out this early ’70s Marvel horror comic. Basically, in the early ’70s horror was hot and Marvel quickly threw together a lot of titles for the stands. Books like these were a way for Marvel to reprint their old catalog and maybe print new stuff. Well, one of the reprints in this issue was penned by a young Stan Lee. I’m not sure where the story, “Poor Mister Watkiss”, first appeared but it was probably from the late ’50s. Maybe Journey into Mystery? The story itself is nothing special but I’m guessing Stan liked it enough to put it in Vault of Evil #1 in 1972.

What is special, or funny, is that in the same issue there is a letter from a university thanking Stan for helping kids learn how to read by using Marvel Comics. Wait, that’s not the funny part. The funny part is that in Stan’s horror story the main character, an annoying obnoxious cad, asks a librarian for “some good readin’.” When the librarian offers the man some poetry, the man replies: “I don’t mean that longhair stuff! Do you have any blood-curdlin’ mystery yarns? Y’know, the kind with lot of killin’s, an’ gore and guys gettin’ whammed in the guts…?”

You gotta wonder if Stan put the letter and the story in the same issue on purpose. And if not, it’s funny anyways.

Labels: Stan Lee