The Rutland Halloween Parade

How Tom Fagan brought Marvel Comics to Rutland, and vice-versa.

This week’s jigsaw: The Rutland Halloween Parade

I was looking for a colorful Halloween picture that would make a great puzzle, yet still have an local historic connection. Then I remembered hearing about The Rutland Halloween parade with “real” superheroes. Stan Lee was mentioned as well.

It’s a bit farther afield than many of these puzzles, but…it’s Halloween.

Learn its origin in 1960 and how Marvel Comics got involved, laying the foundation for the growth of cosplay, decades before the word was coined in 1983.

A more scholarly take on the matter, from the Vermont Historical Society:

And a video and more detail from a comic book historian:

and finally, how Tom Fagan is memorialized in Rutland:

Thanks for reading.