Travel back to Marvel Comic Con 1975 (through the medium of its tchotchkes)!

I was all set to make fun of this stuff. Marvel has purveyed a lot of garbage over the years, and one could only expect no less from them when it came to their 1975 in-house Marvel Comic Con and its associated souvenir junk. (Even if conventions can produce some amusing mementos.) But the above wares are the finest sort of ephemera: things you wouldn’t mind having almost forty(!) years in the future, i.e. things not trashed immediately upon exiting the convention hall.

Would I put that John Buscema/Joe Sinnott poster on my wall? Yes. Would I wear the shirt — at least around the house? Yes. Would I bag and board that program? Of course. The bumper sticker and button I could take or leave, but that’s an impressive trifecta. The poster is the real champion, with the dates and address of the convention only adding to the allure of the mid-1970s Marvel roster (Doc Savage! Frankenstein! Dracula!), like some concert flier dating from a megastar rock band’s humble origins. It’s taking all my willpower to resist click over to eBay and spending far too much money on one. All of it.