1974 WAS AWESOME

In 1974, when I was nine, my Mom bought me some frikkin' AAAAAAWESOME Marvel stickers. Spidey. Cap. Thor. The Falcon - pre-wings!

My mom, bless her heart, assumed I would stick them on my schoolbooks or the chest that held my comics. I promptly stuck them all over a kitchen cabinet, much to her dismay. Italian families don't believe in decals. I believe the Pope decreed them to be unclean and a gateway to homosexuality and the drugs.

Anyhoo, thirty-five years later, that cabinet is still in my childhood home, in the basement, where old furniture and paint cans go to die. I took some pictures because after all this time, the stickers have not aged a day. I think it has something to do with John Romita's artwork. That man channelled the gods. Those drawings still radiate life and energy. If I was an old kitchen cabinet, I would be honored to have these stuck all over me.