Bullpen Bulletins
With "Bullpen Bulletins", Lee created the friendly, chatty editorial voice of Marvel Comics — "a style that could be characterized as High Hipster — two parts Lord Buckley, one part Austin Powers",[1] putting "himself on a first-name basis with the readership at a time when the rival DC editors generally came across... as... stodgy adults".
He often bestowed colorful sobriquets on Marvel staffers and creators; nicknames such as Stan "The Man" Lee and Jack "King" Kirby permeated into mass culture.
Lee often used "Marvel Bullpen Bulletins" and "Stan's Soapbox" to needle other comic book publishers,[3] which he referred to as the "Distinguished Competition" (i.e., DC) or, more disparagingly, "Brand Echh".
[5] The tone of "Bullpen Bulletins" was inspired by a series of boys' adventure books Lee read as a child.
Penned by Leo Edwards, the end of each Jerry Todd book had the unusual feature of printed letters from readers and the author's warm, informal responses to them.
Finally, the first stand-alone "Marvel Bullpen Bulletins" page, complete with checklist and special announcements, debuted in the issue's cover-dated December 1965.
[10] Later on, when filling in for Lee in the space that was originally slotted for "Stan's Soapbox", Thomas's column would be titled "Roy's Rostrum".
When it returned in issues cover-dated January 1982, the page was missing the checklist and "Stan's Soapbox", and was for the first time actually signed by its author: Shooter.
...We'll also present on this page occasional announcements, gossip, news, and nonsense from Al Milgrom, Denny O'Neil, Jim Salicrup, and Louise Jones, pertaining to the particular comics and magazines they edit.
In 1983, Shooter launched Marvel Age, which was essentially a comic book-length version of "Bullpen Bulletins", filled with company news, creator interviews, and previews of upcoming books.
By the end of Shooter's tenure, "Bullpen Bulletins" contained very little original material, as it was mostly filled with design elements and an abbreviated Marvel Comics checklist.
[6] Tom DeFalco took over Marvel's editorial reins in 1987, and for the first time, someone other than the editor-in-chief was put in charge of "Bullpen Bulletins": writer/editor Mark Gruenwald.
[1]Writer Mark Evanier: I... really liked the friendly editorial 'voice' [Lee] established in his letter columns, house ads and especially in the 'Bullpen Bulletins'.
Creative folks generally being the garrulous sort, typically, quite a bit of 'bull' got tossed around these legendary rooms, so the nickname 'bullpen' was a natural.... At any rate, these days, most comics artists and writers prefer to work in their own studios, but, still, here at Marvel, we have a big room, a production bullpen, where all of our art/production people work doing our paste-ups, lettering corrections, art corrections, and such — and even though the editorial folks are bunched in small offices off to the sides we still refer to the whole shebang as the Marvel Bullpen.
