The first installment of SCOTT SHAW! SATURDAYS! — Welcome 13th Dimension’s latest weekly columnist — Scott Shaw! with SCOTT SHAW! SATURDAYS Presents ODDBALL COMICS, the newest iteration of his popular humor-mixed-with-history feature, which dates back to the ’70s. Scott, as I’m sure you know, created the beloved Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew; has a lengthy history in comics and animation; is the winner of four Emmy Awards and an Eisner; and was among the founders of San Diego Comic-Con. He’ll be here every week! — Dan — By SCOTT SHAW! Considering that NBC’s Saturday Night Live recently celebrated its existence for half a century in many ways, I thought this would be an appropriate choice for my first of many Oddball Comics from my personal collection. I’ve been doing my Oddball Comics Live! Shows since the 1978 San Diego Comic-Con and eventually, at comic conventions across the country, online, in Hollywood’s comedy theaters, in a boxed trading card set, and even as a calendar. I usually ad lib comments about each vintage comic book cover, from the late 1940s into the 1980s, but here at 13th Dimension every Saturday, I plan to add more information than before, at least whenever the funnybook of the week merits it. I hope you dig these as much as I do. After six years, Marvel Team-Up in 1978 seemed like it had used all of its popular superheroes, and most of its more obscure characters, to team up with Spider-Man multiple times (a few issues were different teams not featuring Spidey). They also needed something that was different from the usual fare, to get readers interested to continue following the title. That’s when writer Chris Claremont came up with an interesting idea: how about the “Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players,” aka the cast from NBC’s Saturday Night Live? It was SNL’s third season, still new-ish, hip, cool and still somewhat obscure to the general public, much like Marvel at the time. Chris’ clever suggestion had the potential to positively affect both outfits. But could they interest SNL in something like this, especially since it would be written and edited outside the show itself? Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter told Chris that the only way they were going to learn was to call SNL… and it was Chris’ job to contact Lorne Michaels’ office to pitch his concept. Whoever...