Originally published December 24, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1362
“Being Stan Lee”
Gregor Samsa awoke one day to discover that he was Stan Lee.
Gregor—“Greg” to his friends—had been sorting through back-issue comics, part of his job at Ninth World Comics in Malibu. It was, however, taking Greg longer to do than usual, because he had stumbled over old issues of Fantastic Four that he remembered fondly. The storyline was the immortal “Battle of the Baxter Building” sequence, and reading those issues had led to reading others, both before and after. Childhood memories seized him, and he was transported to those pleasant recollections of the first, heady days of Marvel—back when it was the company that could do no wrong, and every issue was an infinity of possibilities.
He muttered the dialogue out loud as he read it, carried away as always by the style of the inimitable Stan Lee. So many people had tried to diminish his contributions to Marvel’s success, but there was no question that it was his voice that provided the heart and soul of the characters.
Fired by sudden inspiration, Greg used the store’s computer to go online and ran a search under the name of his creative hero. Sure enough, he was quickly led to stanlee.net. He chuckled as curtains opened on the screen and a computer cartoon of Stan Lee—recorded with Lee’s inimitable tone—welcomed him. He surveyed the options and was attracted to the entry of “free newsletter.” It was the description that caught his eye. It read, “Get wired directly to Stan all the time!”
He couldn’t pass that up. Yet, for some reason, the mouse vibrated urgently beneath his hand as he paused over the option. It seemed to be—warning him. He ignored it—and clicked on the invitation to “Get wired directly to Stan.”
Continue Reading ““Being Stan Lee,” Part I” →
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