CLIP AND COLLECT SPIDEY STAMPS

In honor of Free Comic Book Day on May 4th, the League of Extraordinary Bloggers asked members to go full on "funny book" and talk comic books! Comic books have been in my life off and on since I can remember. I'm not sure what my first comic was, but I'd guess it was a Spider-Man comic. Ol' web-head has always been my favorite, especially when I was a kid! Heck, Spidey even helped teach me how to read with Spidey Super Stories. SSS was for younger readers with simplified stories starring some of The Electric Company gang along with Marvel characters. Basically it was Marvel Team-Up for little tykes. Back in 1975, my grandma bought me a subscription to Spidey and for a few years Spidey showed up in my mailbox with a new adventure every other month. (Spidey was a bimonthly mag.)   

The fun turned up a notch with issue #17 when Spidey Stamps were introduced. These were similar to the Marvel Value Stamps that were found in the letter pages of regular Marvel comics in the mid-70s. The great thing about Spidey Stamps was that they were printed on the slick back covers!

Kids were encouraged to "clip and collect" the stamps. Ooh, this was a terrible dilemma for me. Do I cut up my comic book for a swell collection of stamps or keep the comic intact? Thankfully, I chose the later. All together there were a total of 39 stamps to collect from issue #17 to #55. For whatever reason the last two issues of the series #56 and #57 didn't have stamps. The set has an error with the accidental omission of number twenty and two number nineteens. Also, The Cat, known as Hellcat in the regular Marvel Universe, gets two stamps with #23 and #37. Only one non-super hero/villain is part of the set and that's Aunt May #24. 

So without further ado, I present the (almost) complete collection of Spidey Stamps. (Sorry, I'm missing one. I'll be on the lookout for Spidey #51 and hopefully stamp #35 won't be cut out from the back cover!) 

Be sure to check out some of the other LOEB members for their comic book posts!

Branded in the 80s spins the comic rack for X-Men.

Toyriffic spins the comic rack for Plastic Man.

Monster Cafe spins the comic rack for The Amazing Spider-Man.

Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool spins the comic rack for 80s comics.

Cavalcade of Awesome spins the comic rack for undeveloped movie scripts turned into comics.