Marvel Comics Mini Books

Howdy folks!  And welcome to another Fabulous Find!  This week I’m going back into my 1960’s Marvel stuff and pulled out a couple of Marvel mini books from 1966.  There were six books in the series, based on their Marvel Comic counterparts, but I’ve only managed to secure two of the six mini books for my collection.  Take a look:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These tiny comic books were published by Marvel Comics in 1966 and were sold in gumball machines.  They were announced by Stan Lee in the Marvel Bullpen Bulletin for the July and August 1966 issues, if you want to go back and check for your self.  In the first announcement, Stan said there would be over ten million, that’s right, 10,000,000, of this tiny comics!  So they are still out there to be found and collected, even almost fifty years later!

Here’s what the six Marvel mini books look like:

 

As you can see, the six books were; The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, Sgt. Nick Fury, Millie the Model and Captain America.

The six books were each printed in six different colors, so if you choose to, you’d have to have thirty-six books to complete the total collection, that’s six books, in each of the six different colors!  Another fun fact is that these mini books are listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest comics ever created!

And just because I’m such a geek/nerd, here’s a picture of the backs of the mini books, as well:

I don’t have a picture of the books in a gumball machine, but I do have a picture of the header card that would have been displayed on the gumball machine.

Another cool fact, most people are not aware of, is that the Spider-Man mini book features the very first inter-company Marvel DC Comics cross-over!  Yep, a certain Superguy makes a cameo guest appearance in Spidey’s mini book!

Of the mini books, the Spider-Man book is the most sought after, maybe for the above cross-over and the Millie the Model mini book is likely the most rare and hardest to find.  Most young comic book fans in 1966 were boys, and I’m sure that they were none to happy to get a Millie the Model mini book in their gumball and were likely to toss it aside and not save it for posterity!

And before I leave you, I’ll even show you the contents of the Spider-Man mini book.  The issue retells Spidey’s origin and explains his powers.  Then Spidey foils a robbery, only to have the loot confiscated by that certain Superguy from DC Comics!  Wow, Spider-Man never could catch a break back in the sixties!

Well, that’s all for this edition of Greg Turner‘s Fabulous Finds!  I hope you enjoyed and will check back next week for a new RETRO REVIEW and come back in two weeks for another Fabulous Find.  Till then … be seeing you …