Willie Lumpkin
Willie Lumpkin is a fictional supporting character in the Marvel Universe, who is best known as the mailman of the Fantastic Four in their self-titled comic book.
Publication history
Newspaper comic strip
The character was originally created for a syndicated daily comic strip by writer Stan Lee and artist Dan DeCarlo. Lee recalled in a 1998 interview that,
Willie Lumpkin drew humor from the people and situations Willie would encounter along his mail delivery route in the small town of Glenville. The daily strip ran from December 1959 to May 6, 1961. A Sunday strip ran through May 28.
Marvel Comics
Lee and artist Jack Kirby then introduced their comic book version of Willie Lumpkin in Fantastic Four #11 (Feb. 1963). The comic book Lumpkin is depicted as significantly older than in the comic strip, though the character's good nature was retained, as were references to his past as a mailman in Glenville, which the comic book placed in Nebraska.
In his first comic book appearance, Lumpkin is represented as having befriended the Fantastic Four, to whom he makes regular fan mail deliveries at their Baxter Building headquarters in New York City. He half-jokingly requests to join the team on the grounds that he has the "power" to wiggle his ears.
Podcasts:
