At some point in the mid to late 80’s, I became the regular letterer of all three of Marvel’s Spider-Man line of comics.

These books became the purview of a tall bearded fellow who had been hired to be the editor of MARVEL AGE–a brand new comic “house organ” promoting the various comics that Marvel was publishing.

This fellow’s name was Jim Salicrup but we all called him “Sauerkraut” and his office was smack dab in the middle of the Marvel Bullpen where I worked.

Along with everyone else*, I had been entertained and very amused by Sauerkraut’s seemingly effortless ability to dash-off cartoons about whoever came into the room– or whatever was happening there on any particular day.

Although none of us were doing the actual artwork for any of Marvel’s regular line of comics, I think it’s fair to say that most, if not all of us in that room could all draw fairly well and were a pretty creative bunch.

Unlike the others, I didn’t have any staff responsibilities other than to occupy a drawing table and do my freelance lettering work for the company.

Jim and I traded cartoons, each of us trying to outdo the other.

He usually won.

So, when Jim eventually got promoted to editor of the Spider-Man line of comics, I was elated when he chose me as his letterer, above all the great letterers working for Marvel at that time.

I will admit, though, that years later, I was just a tad disappointed to discover that it didn’t have anything to do with my artistry as a letterer, he claimed that it was just so he could pretend to be J.Jonah Jameson and yell, “PARKER!!!!” at me from the Spider-Man office across the hall whenever he felt like it.