Spidey-Stash Episode 4: Back To School With Spidey

Here in the Northeast section of the United States, the new school year has been in session for a month.  I am a high school teacher, so I don’t see that many students who are excited when a school year begins.  But I remember being excited about “back to school” when I was in elementary school.  Shopping for new clothes and all those wonderful new school supplies were fun times for sure!  In this installment of “Spidey-Stash”, let’s have some fun and go “Back to school with Spidey”!

Since the 1990’s, there have been a large amount of Spider-Man school items produced.  I am going to feature items from earlier decades, when it was not easy to find Spidey items which were cool for school.

In 1975 many young Marvel fans were blown away by a large line of school items release by the Mead Products company.  I was beginning 6^th grade when the products came out, so I was a little bit too old to dive in deep, but I got a few of the items. 

Mead and Marvel did a great job of marketing the items.  Many ads in comic books and other publications, and some great store displays were successful in getting many items sold in major stores across the nation (and the world).

The Spider-Man items featured the cover to Amazing Spider-Man issue 135 (well before The Punisher became super popular).  The Mead product line for each featured character:  2-pocket folder;  large size drawing pad (the cover lifted up vertically, and sheets could be torn out across the top of each sheet); plastic 3-ring binder; wire-bound notebook; pack of 30 sheets of paper (available in college ruled and wide marginal ruled varieties), which also contained a t-shirt iron-on image of the character with the comic book logo beneath the character.

Mead also offered an “organizer”, which was a plastic tri-fold binder, which featured imagery of all the heroes and comic book panels.  It also seems that Mead offered something they called “theme books”, which are folders with holes punched into the left side of the folder (the holes would line up with notebook paper with holes in it).  The theme books may have been released only in other countries (may not have been released in the USA).

One other Mead offering which is somewhat rare is a “3 pack” available through Sears catalog sales.  You could order a binder, wire bound notebook, and pack of paper, and they would arrive in the same generic cardboard Sears box.

1975 Smash Magazine, Vol. 2, #1 (available through grade school book orders) offered  a book cover inside the magazine.  The book cover had the image of Amazing Spider-Man issue # 137 on it.

In 1976, other book covers were offered through the pages of comic books.  Two different character’s covers were packaged together.  Thankfully, my two favorites were in the same package!  Spidey and Captain America.  Thankfully, there were bicycle safety rules printed on the book covers as well (apparently the youth of the world needed more bicycle safety back then).  The packaging of the book covers does not mention the manufacturer, but the comic ads mention “Fascinating Art Industries, Inc.”

Pens of comic book characters were plentiful in the late 1970s and into the 1980s.  Ink pens and markers were produced in massive quantities.  The pens (1978 clickable and 1980 US Pen Co. stick pens) were usually in colorful display boxes in the stores. The clickable pens were sometimes available 3 in a pack (variety of characters), possibly as an incentive for fundraisers or given away in some promotions.

“Bic markers” were becoming popular in the 1970s.  The US Pen Company made some of a similar style with cool Spider-Man artwork on the packaging.  The 1978 package contained three different colors of markers.  In 1980, US Pen Company released Spider-Man and Spider Woman pens in a two pack (marker pens and stick pens).  Keeping up with changes in products, the National Pen Corporation packaged a Spider-Man rollerball marker in 1988, with the classic “running Romita” Spidey image on the cap.

A cool glue stick was released by Dennison in 1979, again featuring the “running Romita” Spidey. In that same year, a Spider-Man “messenger bag” was produced, which would have been a great book bag!  It was made of tan material and featured a colorful image of Spider-Man on the front of the bag.  I can’t find a manufacturer’s name on the bag.

In 1980, Nasta Industries, Inc. produced many office/desk items.  I will most likely do a whole article just about Nasta items in the future.  There are two Nasta products I want to mention for this article. An awesome “School Kit”.  The kit contained a large pencil/lunch money pouch, ruler, eraser, pencil sharpener, and pencil in the same package!  The other item was pencil cap “heads” and square erasers of both Spidey and Hulk in the same package. 

And now, the crowning jewel of school items (and bragging rights for the kids who had them):  Marvel Lunchboxes! Those wonderful, colorful, stamped/3-D relief pieces of art were a “must have” for young Marvel fans.

The first Marvel lunchbox was made by Aladdin (king of lunchboxes) in 1976.  Spider-Man was featured prominently on the front, swinging from a common rope instead of a web, for some reason.  All sides of the lunchbox were decorated with various Marvel heroes.  Spidey was also a featured star on the plastic thermos inside the box. 

The next lunchbox was produced in 1980. Spidey and the Hulk were featured on the front, and Captain America on the back.  New artwork was featured on the thermos.

There was supposedly a Spider-Man prototype Aladdin lunchbox produced in 1981.  One of them was recently for sale on eBay for a number of months (with a gigantic asking price), but I don’t see it there now.  The images available show it to be the same as the 1976 box, except the front is “Spidey only” new artwork.  Due to the large asking price, Brad Douglas already covered this item in a post here on the Crawlspace two years ago (click on the image below to see Brad’s article): 

https://www.spidermancrawlspace.com2019/03/got-an-extra-13000-for-a-spider-man-lunch-box-2/

In 1984 a “Secret Wars” lunchbox was released.  Spidey is featured on the front, back, and on one side of the box.  The same thermos from the 1980 lunchbox was used for this box.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, to the more care-free schooldays of our youth!  If you have comments, questions, or more information about any of these items, please share it below.