The Mighty Marvel Mail Room 1979

Face Front True Believers!

Righteous Rack Rattlers, the guys from the mail room, Marvel Comics style! Left to right: John Galvin, Poppie (last name unknown, sorry bud), Mike Kudzinowski and Tony Cerniglia.

There was a call for photos to be placed in a Marvel Calendar. I ran around and took some pictures. From photographic evidence, the collection process seems to have taken place in March of 1979. I think a couple were selected by Editor Sublime, Jim Salicrup, for the 1980 calendar— Marvel didn’t do too many more. Why, I do not know.

Let 40 years stagger by and details fade. Like that I’d shot these for a reason. The whole roll of film had some silly pictures. But never mind them; I will milk those one-at-a-time for blogs to come…

The above gang was located on the 6^th Flr of the Marvel Editorial Offices at 575 Madison Ave. I had met John and Tony long ago when I had my strange job at Marvel. The one before my “real” job—roughly 1974-75. I had even met John before that, when he messengered packages to my mother’s office, the oft-mentioned Kalish, Quigley & Rosen (Marvel’s ad agency!). So John is the old timer here!

John was a developmentally challenged young fellow who was a very sweet and gentle person, very out-going. He sought to improve himself by returning to school to complete High School (I believe). Alas, he simply aged out of Marvel. At some point he realized he was nearing retirement and did so. That could have been 1994 or 96 during Marvel’s financial restructuring.

Poppie and Mike were related by marriage—which is about all I know about them.

Tony I know more about. He was a drummer—still in the union at the time of this picture—and claimed to have been working during Prohibition. Telling tales of drumming in speak-easies! An optimistic guess at his age, considering Prohibition ended in 1933, adding the intervening 46 years, guessing at him being a precocious drummer might put him at 62? Maybe. He told of one detail that sounded so right, I could not doubt the man. When anyone heard cops (“the bulls”) were near, a “clicker” – a novelty item, still available – that makes a loud click-clack sound, would be used to warn everyone to put various things away. Funny, he still had one in his pocket. He used to occasionally show up wearing a tuxedo! He still had a gig and called them his overalls!

The mail rooms of the late 60s and 70s were a strange world unto themselves. There was a network of messenger people who crisscrossed the city (any city! This was New York City!) on a daily basis. The possibility for communication between two places, separated by only a few blocks was near mythological. Only the introduction of fax machines made that sort of thing quicker—but not by much! This was the age of “You want it when?” and “You don’t have to be crazy to work here—but it helps!” signs and their like. Mail room humor was of debatable merit but always there.

At Marvel, this mail room dealt with mail, sure. But also assembled comic “bundles” (one of everything… I know!) for all the editorial staffers and some freelancers. They did something peculiar to comics (perhaps some version for publishing in general). I have spoken ad nauseum about proof rolls (gear up with a nice pillow; I’ve got a doozie coming some day) but the film negative is the origin of those proof rolls. And those poor mail room devils got all the film for all the comics!

Worse, they had to “strip” them, breaking them down into their component pieces. Then keep track of it all and store them. When I was on-staff in 74-ish, I helped that mail room assemble FOOM Kits. (Friends Of Old Marvel and guys n gals, it was a real good idea of Stan’s. Those were neat bundles of fun comic stuff. I only wish I’d steered one my way… honest to a fault, y’see…)

So, if the Editors were the brain, the Bullpen was the heart and the Mail Room was the lymphatic system – of comics!