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Two Stan Lee interviews name Leo Edwards as influence The following is an excerpt from an interview and between the two most prominent creative forces working at Marvel Comics in the early 1970s; the legendary Stan "the man" Lee and "Rascally" Roy Thomas. Stan Lee credits Leo Edwards' Chatter Box as influence for Marvel Bullpen Bulletins. Stan the Man and Roy the Boy Roy Thomas: When you started those letter columns with that friendly tone, were you inspired by the EC letters pages? Stan Lee: No. You know what inspired me? When I was a kid, there used to be these hardcover book series like The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Tom Sturdy, but nobody ever heard of the one I read: Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott. I think Poppy was a friend of Jerry Todd's who was spun off into his own series. They were not periodicals or magazine but real books. At the end of each book, there were letters pages where the writer, Leo Edwards, would write a little message to the readers and print some of their letters with answers. He had a very informal style, and the books themselves were wonderful because they were adventure stories. But unlike The Hardy Boys and the others, there was a tremendous amount of humor—the way I tried to do with Spider-Man and some others. I was a big fan of these books, and I loved the fact that they had letters and commentary by the author. Leo Edwards was the only guy that did that. Maybe I remembered the warm, friendly feeling of those letters. [From Comic Book Artist #2, Summer 1998, TwoMorrows Publishing. Read the entire interview here.] Scintillating Stan Lee ZZ: Stan, a lot of us grew up reading your comics and watching your TV shows. When you were a kid, what was your favorite form of entertainment? SL: When I was a kid they used to have these 50-cent hardcover books like The Hardy Boys, Don Sturdy, Tom Swift, and Bomba the Jungle Boy. And then there was a group that nobody had ever heard of called Jerry Todd, and another one by the same author called Poppy Ott. They were my favorite adventure stories because they also had a lot of humor in them. At the end of the book -- and I had never seen this before on a hard cover book -- the author had pages where he would talk to the reader and he would print some letters. In fact, that's what gave me the idea to do the Bullpen Bulletin pages in the comics years later. [From ZineZone. Read the entire interview here.]
Bullpen Bulletin Jan. 1968 For more informationonf Bullpen Bulletins go to: Marvel Bullpen Bulletins |
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