Thursday, July 3, 2008

Little Seen 1967 Marvel Comics!

In the 60's, the toy company Kenner released a cheap version of a Viewmaster, called a SEE-A-SHOW. Unlike a Viewmaster, which had a rotating disk with film images embedded in it, the SEE-A-SHOW merely had a thin card you pulled down through the viewer. One is seen here at the left. The images appeared in 3-D, but you needed a fairly strong light source to view it. It's read from bottom to top.

I thought it would be fun to share the ones I recently found in my basement! For your reading convenience, I've assembled the strips into a more traditional configuration. Click to enlarge...

Spider-Man falling down the pit is the most impressive 3-D effect in the bunch.

For its sheer goofiness, this Hulk one might be my favorite.

Super-hero stories don't get much more straight forward than this Thor one!

The Fantastic Four rated a two-parter!


6 comments:

Kevin said...

From now on, I'm ending all of my meetings by saying, "Thus speaks the hammer of thunder."

And when I come out of the bathroom stall, too.

Kerry Callen said...

That makes me laugh.

Jon K said...

Hi, Kerry... I just came across your blog, and found this post, which is very cool!

I have multiple blogs, one of which is "The Give-A-Show Blog" at http://giveashow.blogspot.com , where I've been creating videos of the old Give-A-Show slides as well as related items (such as the See-A-Show stuff). I was wondering if I could get your permission to use your scans for the blog? They'd be appearing on YouTube as well as (eventually) on some of my other blogs, such as the Random Acts of Geekery (at http://waffyjon.blogspot.com), and I would be happy to credit you for providing the pictures.

Thanks in advance,

Jon

Kerry Callen said...

Nice blogs, Jon.

Feel free to use my scans. No need to give me credit. I wish we could credit the original artists. That'd be cool...

Jon K said...

Thanks, Kerry! I appreciate it! I hope you'll continue to check out my blogs!

Unknown said...

"We're pretty sure he kidnapped the president! After him! --No, wait; he fell through a wall. Never mind then." XD

Anyone else notice that they used the exact same drawing of Ben Grimm (with the exception of some slight arm placement changes) in panels 2 & 4, Part 1? XD Hey, whatever makes it easier, I guess!

--If the vertical pictures were right next to each other (rather than having that strip of white down the middle), then we could still get the 3D effect by just unfocussing our eyes/focussing past it until each eye was looking at the respective pic. I don't know if everyone can do this but I find it pretty easy; if people can do it then we wouldn't need the viewer to see them. Cool!