In 1977, KISS was the most popular rock band in America. That was the headline splashed all over the press that summer, as the annual Gallup Poll found that the shock-rockers had become the #1 band in the land.
RELATED: January 1977: KISS Rocks Detroit with Three Sold-Out Shows
It was that spring when KISS aligned with Marvel Comics, both entities at the peak of their powers. Marvel thought it would be cool to make a KISS comic book. A shrewd promotions man thought it might be even cooler to get the band members to put drops of their actual blood into the red ink for the comic book. While Marvel leader Stan Lee was skeptical, the band loved the idea. Watch Stan Lee tell the story below.
The press did indeed love the story, as word of the KISS comic book hit news broadcasts across the country. In Buffalo, New York, where the blood draw took place on May 26, 1977, a local reporter can't contain his obvious contempt for the band or the stunt. Watch his hilarious story below.
"As the KISS comic book project moved along, someone came up with the idea of putting real blood in the ink," is how Gene Simmons remembered the moment. "It wasn't me - maybe it was Bill Aucoin. We got in the DC3, one of those big prop planes, and flew up to Buffalo to Marvel's printing plant, where they pour the ink and make comic books. A notary public actually witnessed the blood being drawn." Take a peek inside the comic book--which now goes for thousands of dollars on the resale market--below.
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