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The Benevolent Lapping Scam – Benign Malfeasance

Around the beginning of December, 1977, Marvel President Jim Galton offered me the Editor in Chief job, replacing Archie Goodwin.  (How that came to pass is another wondrous strange tale, coming soon.)  Archie was going to step down as EIC and become a contract writer-editor.

The plan was for Archie to finish out the month and for me to begin on the first working day of January, 1978.  Stan thought it would be best not to announce the change until just before it went into effect.

The month of December, 1977 was a traumatic time for Marvel.  John Romita resigned as Art Director to work full time on the Spider-Man syndicated strip.

And, Production Manager John Verpoorten died at the age of 37.

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The Benevolent Lapping Scam – Background Info

While Stan Lee was the editor, from 1941 till Roy Thomas took over as Marvel’s first Editor in Chief in 1972, Marvel Comics was run like a mom’n’pop operation.  Stan was the boss, and did or governed all things creative.  For a while during the 1950’s, and again from the early 1960’s through the early 1970’s, his “right hand man” was Sol Brodsky, Production Manager.  Besides overseeing the mechanics of getting the books created and printed, Sol handled anything legal, financial, technical or complicated, that is, anything Stan didn’t want to be bothered with. 

In 1972, Roy Thomas took over from Stan, who had been made President.  That didn’t work out.  The bureaucratic crap and administrative duties involved didn’t suit him, so Stan became Publisher instead.  

By then, Sol had left for a while to start ill-fated Skywald Publications, which promptly failed.  Sol needed a job, and approached Stan, but a new Production Manager had been hired in Sol’s absence—John Verpoorten.  Stan convinced the Cadence Board to create a new position for Sol, “V.P. of Operations.”  Essentially, he was Stan’s right hand man again.  More on that later.

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When I took over as Editor in Chief of Marvel on the first working day of January 1978, I didn’t know it, but the place was rife with corruption.  Most of it was small-time, but some of it wasn’t so small. This is the tale of one of the smaller, but still very damaging instances.First, in my early days as Editor in Chief at Marvel, I went to a lot of conventions, trying to promote the books. I was on the road two or three weekends a month. I paid my own expenses—that is, Marvel paid my expenses. I had an expense account. So, con organizers were glad to have me, a professional guest for free.In case you don’t know, in those days, comics companies never sent creators or even staffers to conventions, or on any kind of promotional trips.  It just wasn’t done. Con organizers had to pay all expenses to get professional guests to come, unless the pro lived in the neighborhood.  Then, all they had to do was provide a free table.

Anyway, I did a lot of panels talking about, and talking up Marvel projects. These speeches were usually followed by a Q&A.

Inevitably, someone in the audience would complain that they had subscribed to one or more Marvel titles, but no books ever came. Why? Once, in Chicago, I asked the crowd if anyone had subscribed to any Marvel titles and received no books. A dozen hands went up.

I told them that I would look into it.

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