Check Out the 1983 MARVEL BULLPEN Christmas Party!
In a Facebook post made on Saturday, November 5th, 2021, legendary comic book letterer Janice Chiang shared photos of the 1983 Marvel Bullpen Christmas Party!
The photos are from the archives of Eliot R. Brown, and they appear here with the permission of Chiang. If you want to see more of the photographs in Brown’s archive (including many more in the Marvel Bullpen), check out his website!
The Ghost Of Christmas 1983
The photos were taken at the Marvel Bullpen Christmas Party in 1983.
In all three photos, you can see Chiang with her young son, Calvin Louie.
The 1983 Marvel Bullpen Christmas Party. Photo Credit: Eliot R. Brown Archives.
In the first photo, Chiang’s mentor, Morrie Kuramoto, appears. Kuramoto is an especially interesting individual because, not only did he work for Marvel Comics, he also worked for Timely Comics, which is the name that Marvel went by before it was Marvel!
Photo Credit: Eliot R. Brown Archives.
The second photo includes Mark Texeira. As Chiang noted in her post on Facebook, she and Texeira would go on to collaborate on the Ghost Rider series.
Photo Credit: Eliot R. Brown Archives.
And in the third photo, Barry Kaplan and Bernie Shaktman make an appearance.
Here’s a fun fact about many of the individuals who appear in these photos: many of them also have doppelgängers who appear in the panels of Marvel Comics! Metafiction is nothing new for the mighty Marvel multiverse, and once upon a time, a big part of that involved including doppelgängers of Marvel Bullpen creators in Marvel Comics stories.
Merry Marvel, One and All!
If you’re interested in learning more about Chiang, I wrote an article about her earlier this year, following her professional history lettering for Marvel Comics (and beyond)!\
What do you think of these photos of the 1983 Marvel Bullpen Christmas Party, Marvel Blog True Believers? We want to hear what you’re thinking! Give us a shout-out in the comment section.
