In the mid-1970s, Marvel teamed up with Topps Trading Cards to produce two lines of stickers that combined most of Marvel’s classic heroes and villains with a series of speech bubbles containing corny (and, by today’s standards, dated) one-liners.
The entire 1974 and 1975 sticker run of 96 cards has been faithfully reproduced in Marvel Classic Sticker Book from Abrams Books. The 76-page softcover also includes 26 stickers that were released by The Philadelphia Chewing Gum Corporation during the 1960s and 1970s. While the Topps stickers were delineated by a thick black border around each sticker, the Philadelphia stickers filled the entire rectangular card, resembling a panel from a page in a comic book.
But wait, there’s more! Abrams has added two pages of corner box art stickers that appeared on Marvel Comics from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. The last sections of the book include five pull-out posters from Marvelmania, the official Marvel fan club from 1969 to 1971. On the reverse side of each poster is a blank comic page, allowing the enterprising reader to peel and stick their own comic book adventures.
The Marvel Classic Sticker Book checks in at $12.99 USD and is available from comic shops and online booksellers.
