All That Pizzazz

By | Thursday, August 07, 2008 4 comments
Marvel tried to jump on the youth culture magazine fad of the late 1970s with Pizzazz. Each issue, like most of its competitors, featured a combination of pap interviews with celebrities, trite articles about popular movies and music, and a few comics. The series lasted for about a year and a half and is largely only remembered these days for a serialized Star Wars comic strip started by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin.

Personally, I just find it kind of amusing that Shaun Cassidy is shown or referenced on six of the 16 covers. The next most frequent cover guests are the Hulk (five covers), Spider-Man (four) and Peter Frampton (three)...

Also worth noting is the Linda Ronstadt cover. Oh, sure, it's a good likeness of her and the fact that Captain America and Dr. Strange are playing guitars behind her is chuckle-worthy. But I think it's more entertaining to see C-3PO playing drums behind them!

Finally, does anyone actually have a copy of #12? I want to read up on those "Albino Roach Jokes!"
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4 comments:

Chris Duffy said...

You know....I really loved Pizzazz. They had, like Marvel at large, a really fun, wise guy voice. They had fun in jokes, like introducing the word "pellucid", defining it for the readers and then proceeding to drop into interviews to befuddle celebrities...

And they reprinted a lot of Kurtzman Hey Looks!

I fondly recall them product testing Slime with Worms with Barry Gibb...I think...

Thanks for the nostalgia!

Shano said...

The look on Captain America's face on that Linda Rohnstadt cover is just about the best thing ever.

Anonymous said...

I absolutely loved Pizzazz as a kid and was heartbroken when it stopped publishing. I owned those last five copies, and a few others, and remember them well. Slime With Worms was an ongoing theme. I've tried to buy some back issues on eBay but they're hard to find.

Rich said...

These are great -- thanks for sharing. First time I've ever seen them.