Marvel's Assistant Editor's Month

[Bad Wolf]

I do remember it. Most of the comics I read didn't have anything silly with the main story, though they might have had some kind of one-page backup. I think The Saga of Crystar was the only one I had that had anything really off the wall.

Edit: Unless you count Alpha Flight, which had Snowbird fighting a Great Beast in a snowstorm and several pages of blank panels with dialogue and sound effects. I thought it was pretty ingenious, and "funny", but not in the same way some of the other books were.

[tolworthy]

Who could forget it? As a fan of the FF it was a real treat. In the main book we get Byrne involved in the story (and Charlie Brown hidden on the cover), and in the Thing we get this:


As a fan of realism these were absolute gold. No, seriously, bear with me. I like realism, because it makes the amazing stuff seem even more amazing. One of Stan's genius moves was to include Marvel comics as a permanent part of the Marvel Universe. So if we see a story that the usual mental gymnastics can't fix, we just say that the writer embellished it. But the original story (as told to the writer) still happened. It's the old "unreliable narrator" trope, and it works.

Assistant Editors' month was the best month ever for that. Speaking just for the FF of course - I never found the other titles that realistic to begin with. In FF262 we see a big, cosmic story as being half-forgotten by Byrne, and in Thing 7 we see a blatant re-writing of a story to make it more commercial. This is not the first time we saw hints that the editors edit stuff (e.g. see FF10, FF176, etc.), but these are the plainest and best examples.

But if we're talking about annoying gimmicks, what about the silent month?

[MDG]

C'mon... how can you not love that month of Marvel's comics. LOOKIT THOSE KNEES!!!!!!

I love Hembeck, but the funniest thing in one of his collections was when he printed examples of some of the "straight" artwork he did as samples for Marvel and DC.

[GavinR]

I love Fred Hembeck and that issue of Spectacular Spider-Man was fantastic. I have reprint collection of Dateline: @!!?# and I would buy Marvel Age just for his strip in that book. Then there is the Zoot Spunick running gag he drew in DC's 'Mazing Man. The guy really knows how to parody and at the same time celebrate comics. And yes, I also love those knees!!!

[The Confessor]

Can't go wrong with the Marvel Team-Up of Aunt May and Franklin Richards...

Who could forget that Fred Hembeck drew a whole issue of Spectacular Spider-man in his style but written straight? Crazy.

These are the two issues I always think of when it comes to Assistrant Editor's Month. I really enjoyed the Aunt May/Franklin Richards issue, but I've never been a fan of Hembeck's artwork, so his turn on Spectacular Spider-Man just bugged the hell out of me.

I personally liked the Avengers issue where they appeared on Late Night with David Letterman.

Didn't Marvel give that issue DC-style Go-Go checks at the top of the cover?

I'm glad Marvel's Star Wars comic wasn't included in the event.

[Scott Harris]

Didn't Marvel give that issue DC-style Go-Go checks at the top of the cover?

Indeed, they did, complete with faux-60's-DC logo:




And as dan mentioned earlier. Captain America also did as well:




These were both done by the same assistant editor, Mike Carlin.

There's actually an entire blog dedicated to Assistant Editor's Month, which has interviews with some of the editors about the month:

http://assistanteditorsmonth.blogspot.com/

[JKCarrier]

I didn't think much of it at the time, but in retrospect it was refreshing to have a line-wide "event" whose sole purpose was being silly.

[Reptisaurus!]

I didn't think much of it at the time, but in retrospect it was refreshing to have a line-wide "event" whose sole purpose was being silly.

Yeah, pretty much the best line-wide event ever. (Which, coming from me, is like saying "It's the shiniest turd in the entire toilet bowl" but better than nothin'.)

I've been working on a complete set, but I don't want to order over the internet or pay more than a buck a piece, so it might take me a while.

[Shellhead]

By 1984, I was falling out of love with Marvel comics, and Assistant Editor Month didn't help. In hindsight it was better than the late '80s through mid '90s at Marvel, which felt like Assistant Editor Decade.

[Bad Wolf]

I forgot about that Thing issue! Goody Two-Shoes!