An Educational Visit—1979

I must confess, these images are an oddity. A nice oddity but mysterious. 40 years later, I cannot say who this group of youngsters were. I can say they were pretty lucky.

The place is the Marvel Bullpen. At this point in time, Spring of 1979, Marie Severin had her desk in a prominent corner but also with a window. Which she liked.

I do know what institution they were affiliated with, The Pratt Institute– right there on their t-shirts.  That great university of many arts is still going strong. I would guess this was one of those young adult programs that involved kids who showed an aptitude for art. And what kid wouldn’t want to work in comics?

What I can say is that they came to the right people—Marie Severin was one of the most charming and affable people alive. She could discuss her work down to what seemed an atomic level. These kids saw a lot. Later you will see John Romita, Jr showing off some light penciling. John takes after his father, Artist/Creator of Renown, John Sr. and an all round nice guy. Both Johns were on staff at the time of these pictures (I believe Virginia Romita was also just put on staff, so we had a lot of Romitas running around).

It’s hard to see in these images, but Marie is holding up a full sized comic page. (For those not familiar with these blogs constant harping on technical matters—the artwork is done larger than the size that it is printed at!) Above, she is holding a board with a layer of Vellum or tracing paper—which could be there for countless purposes.

In the top image, there is a weird color guide spread out on the table in view. All I can make out is that Spider-Man is there. No other characters can be seen. It’s also not a comic page—and might be a piece of advertising.

In the above image you can see this intrepid videographer holding a monstrous camera on his shoulder. Of course as the time, we all marveled at how small and compact it was! To his rear is the video tape recorder—is a backpack case done in “Black Box Orange.” That’s so you can find it! That’s a joke! This thing weighed 50lbs! Somewhere in there was a battery of some kind. Why it must have allowed videoing for 20 minutes at a time! Amazing! This probably was a VHS type video tape format—maybe, ma-a-aybe a Sony type of ENG (Electronic New Gathering) Beta format, then in wide use by news agencies. Who knows!

Here’s John surrounded by interested students and a still photographer!

As incomplete as my memory is of this afternoon—these images serve to show just how crazy the place could get. One never knew what one would see while strolling around! Just an average day…