Hurts Like Heaven

I promised myself that I would remain positive this November and that all my posts would be about things I like. This is definitely about someone I like and someone who created things I like, so that will have to do. 

For you see, what I am about to tell you makes me sad and I do not like it one bit. 

Today I lost yet another of my heroes. 

On this day, the 12th of November, 2018, the world said farewell to Stanley Martin Lieber, better known as Stan Lee. 

Stan Lee - born in New York City, NY - was a creator, writer, editor, publisher and a character as large and as colorful as any he had a part in inventing. Collaborating with such artistic geniuses as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, Stan helped to create Superhero Comic Book characters known the world over - Spiderman, The Hulk, Thor, Doctor Strange, The X-Men, and many, many more.

Thanks to the popularity of feature films produced by Marvel Entertainment/Disney over the past 10 years, his characters are household names from Hastings to Hong Kong and Toledo to Tokyo. 

More so than any other single individual in the history of comic books, Stan Lee was the name and face most closely associated with that medium. He was a master of promotion and branding before either were really a thing in the modern sense. One could say one of the greatest characters he every created was Stan Lee himself.  At the same time he wasn't just interested in his own image and legacy. He was an advocate for the Comic Book and an unequivocally passionate individual in that regard.

He wasn't perfect. He was Human. Yet there are clearly those who could take lessons from him on how to be a Human being. In 1968, Stan used his comics as a forum to fight bigotry and published the following editorial:

I only met Stan in person once. I was a kid. We didn't really exchange words. I just stared in silent awe. There he was, a living legend, within a few feet of normal, teenage me. I wish I had said something, anything, to let him know how he'd inspired me. 

Well Stan, you did. You inspired me enough to go to art school, to make attempts to break into comics, to write and draw and keep the dream of 'With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility' alive. 

Farewell True Believer. 

Excelsior.

1922-2018

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