Hi anons, let try out a new type of storytime. As most probably know, the Marvel Universe proper debuted in August 1961 with the release of Fantatic Four #1... but that was of course not the only comic book Marvel was publishing at the time.
During the 1950s, Marvel, then known as "Timely" or "Atlas" (they didn't really market their books under a specific label and had a ton of different publishing labels) was publishing an absolute ton of titles, but in 1957 Martin Goodman in his infinite wisdom decided it would be a good idea to shut down his distribution company and have his books distributed by American News Distribution instead. American News Distribution went bankrupt very soon after signing their deal with Marvel, and a scrambling Goodman had to settle for having his books distributed by the DC Comics-owned Independent News instead. Independent News limited Marvel to only 8 comics a month, so Goodman ended up canceling pretty much his entire line of comics and change the few titles he had left to bimonthly books so he'd at least get 16 different titles on the shelves. This is known as the Atlas Implosion and was a pretty significant milestone in Marvel history.
In 1960, Goodman eventually managed to talk his way into getting 10 books a months, and in 1961 he had just managed to argue forth an increase to 11, which in actuality ended up being alternating months of 10 and 12 books each. August 1961 was the first of these 12-book months, and one of the new bimonthly books he added to his lineup was of course Fantastic Four.
But why don't we take a look at EVERYTHING he was publishing at the time? These 10 and 12 book months are pretty easy to split up into 5 and 6 books per thread, so this time we'll take a look at half the books from November 1961.
Marvel Comics of November 1961, part 1
Previous threads
August 1961, part 1 August 1961, part 2 September 1961, part 1 September 1961, part 2 October 1961, part 1 October 1961, part 2
Marvel published 5 books on November 2nd, this thread we'll take a look at those. Since everything was either monthly or bimonthly, these are the same titles we got in the first week of September:
Amazing Adult Fantasy #9
Big change this month, as all the books get their price bumped up from 10c to 12c. That surely had to hurt a lot of kids' budgets.
"The Terror of Tim Boo Baa"
by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
"The Man Who Captured Death!"
by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
To be fair, you have to have a very high iq to understand tim boo ba
"I Come From the Black Void"
by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
First time we see that note on the bottom of the page in Amazing Adult Fantasy. Stan wants to make sure everyone sees it.
"The Spirit of Swami River"
by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
So which of these are you looking forward to the most?
"The Genie Lives"
by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
This twist ending is just overthinking it. Nobody would believe some random guy claiming to be an alien no matter what day it is.
It's a poorly chosen cover for a book that prides itself on being for more mature readers, but the Tim Boo Ba story is genuinely a solid story about relativism. I quite like it.
Gunsmoke Western #68
Kid Colt Outlaw: "The Anatomy of a Gun Fight!"
by Stan Lee and Jack Keller
Once again, Gunsmoke Western gives us a single short Kid Colt story followed by a series of standalone western tales.
