From Billy Suratt…
Ka-Zar #1 (1970) reprinted Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's original story from X-Men #10, along with some other stories and a new cover by Marie Severin and either Herb Trimpe or John Verpoorten (depending on what source you believe).
Somewhere along the line, it became somewhat infamous for allegedly having profanity snuck into the background of the cover, above Zabu's posterior. Some say it was unintentional. Some say it's an urban legend. Some say it was Verpoorten trying to stick it to the Comics Code. Some say they can't even make out the alleged profanity.
Any insights, contemporaneous or otherwise? I'm curious when this alleged shenanigan first came to light and what kind of reaction (if any) it might have generated at Marvel. I'd also love to know if you have any favorite examples of artists legitimately sneaking things into backgrounds, as many have been known to do from time to time.
I happen to have an actual contemporaneous insight into this one. In the summer of 1970, my then-partner Steve Sherman and I went back to New York to visit the offices of DC Comics and Marvel Comics for the first time. (We also spent some time in the offices of MAD magazine, in the office of Steve Ditko and at that year's Comic Art Convention. See badge below.)
The issue of Ka-Zar you ask about came out in April of that year and the alleged dirty word was spotted by many in fanzines and at our old comic book club. Marvel got a fair amount of mail about it and when we were up at the Marvel offices not long after it came out, Steve couldn't resist asking Marie Severin about it. Marie was a very nice and honest lady so I believed her anger was genuine when she complained about people seeing things that weren't there. Even though she hadn't inked the cover and done those particular brush strokes, she'd drawn it in pencil and colored it and she caught some flak from "the people upstairs" at Marvel.
She was undoubtedly referring to the business-type managers who actually weren't upstairs. The official address of Marvel then was 625 Madison Avenue and that's where the "suits" worked — but the comic book editorial offices were squirreled away in a surprisingly-tiny office in a building at 635 Madison Avenue. And here's an interesting By-the-Way: The offices of National Lampoon, which was a pretty popular magazine at the time, were then at 635 Madison.
So I think it was just one of those things that wasn't intended. I also think John Verpoorten, who inked it and who was then Marvel's Production Manager, had enough sense to not put something like that in intentionally. Because of his position in the company, he would have been held somewhat responsible for anything offensive that got into a Marvel comic even if he hadn't put it there.
I don't have any "favorites" of people sneaking that kind of thing into a comic book because they're pretty sophomoric. But there have been a lot of witty things in the margins and backgrounds of different comics, absolutely none of which come to mind at the moment.
