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Live from your comic store … it’s Saturday Night Live!
Pop culture book publisher
Bluewater Productions has announced that this March, they will be releasing a comic book based on the 37-year history of
Saturday Night Live. But did you know that this is
NOT the first appearance of SNL in comic-book form? That distinction goes to Marvel Comics, who has a
rich history of partnering with the long-running comedy show, with often
hilarious results.
The first appearance of SNL in a comic was Marvel Team-Up #74, way back in 1978! In this issue Stan Lee hosts the show with “The Not Ready For Prime-Time Players” including John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray, and the comedy troupe teams up with Spider-Man to defeat the Silver Samurai.
Hit up your local comic shop’s back-issue bins and you can probably locate a copy of this cool classic!
In a weird case of life imitating art, there is a
Facebook drive on to get Stan Lee to host Saturday Night Live for real (a la the
Facebook Betty White on SNL campaign). It looks like interest in this has waned a little, but with the upcoming
Avengers movie, it’s the perfect time to make this happen –- so hit the link and join the drive!
Speaking of the Avengers, have you seen the 10-second sneak-peek of the upcoming Super Bowl Avengers trailer? If not, take a look below!
Bluewater Productions
Marvel Comics
Believe it or not, this will be the 7th time SNL has graced comic book pages. There’s Marvel Team-up #74. The Coneheads came to comics in 1992 with a mini-series that tied in with the movie. And Seth Meyers and Bill Hader wrote an issue of Spider-man in 2009.
SNL’s 7th appearance in comics hits stores in March, and it’s all my fault. I’ve written the biography (mentioned above) of Lorne Michaels and his show for Bluewater. I had reservations about writing a biography comic, but then I ran into Tina Fey at Disney World and decided to give it a shot. It took six months to write a 24 page comic about 37 years of television history. It wasn’t easy. But the end result is one of the best scripts I’ve ever written.
It must have been meant to be. Two weeks after I turned in the script, my name came up in the SNL ticket lottery. I found myself in studio 8H for the October 15th broadcast with host Anna Faris and musical guest Drake. It was a dream come true – though I would have preferred to see the Stan Lee/Rick Jones taping from Marvel Team-up.
Thanks for the shout out!