Book excerpt: The story of the most inspired comic book promotional campaign, collected here for the first time In 1974 Marvel Comics publisher Stan Lee devised an ingenious promotional campaign--Marvel Value Stamps, which appeared on the letters pages of their monthly comics. Readers could cut out all 100 of these super hero and super villain stamps and place them in a special mail-order booklet. Once complete, these stamp books could then be redeemed for special discounts and exclusive merchandise. The program was so successful, a second set was released in 1975. And now, for the first time, these original stamp books, stamps, and all of the surrounding ephemera and source material are collected into one must-have volume for collectors and fans, along with text from Marvel Comics historian Roy Thomas and an all-new cover by Alex Ross.