FIRST!

Stan Lee is the whole reason the world reads comics. There is no way that you can tell me comics would be as popular today if it was all left to National Periodicals\DC to carry the torch. I rue the day that we hear the passing of this great and talented man.

To Stan: Excelsior!!

So was it really a day for someone else that had talent and Stan Lee just took credit for it?

@ kenshiro:

How can you say that Stan Lee has no talent? Did you personally know him? Have you ever researched about Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko?

Good for Stan. I've had my disagreements with him in the past but he's still awesome.

Hey true believers it's me Stan Lee. If you haven't heard Friday October 2nd was declared Stan Lee day in Los Angeles. Well let me tell you it was the party to end all parties! This quickly became a holiday so big it can only be rivaled by Arbor Day, Day of the Race (M), and Canada's Thanksgiving. I had friends from as far away as the Savage Land that showed up to help celebrate. Here's a quick re-cap of how everything went down.
Early in the morning the children of the village decorated Stan Lee eggs.
We hid them all around the city for the children to find. Kids from all over LA dressed up in Stan Lee masks and went door to door collecting candy.
At noon we slaughtered the ceremonial Skrull and burned it to pleasure the "me" in hopes that it would bring rain for harvest season. At sundown we dined on the Stan Lee Ham with all the fixings. After the feast we gathered around the Stan Lee tree and told tales of long long ago. Beast lay sleeping in front of the fire place and I could tell the X-Men's eyelids were getting heavy. It was time for bed, after all it would be long before "I" would come sliding down the chimney with presents for all good girls & boys. That means you ain't getting' sh** Apocalypse!

Not to be a stickler, but the certificate is clearly from the "County of Los Angeles" not the "City of Los Angeles."

Let's give credit where credit is due.

Do I get the day off?

@ Stan Lee:

That was good! LOL!!

@Reading is Fundamental
The County of Los Angeles includes the City of Los Angeles, as well as 80-something other cities. So even though it is technically inaccurate, it's not that inaccurate.

Are all Marvel comics free that day? I hope so. Take that, DC bastards!

hmph! And we're just hearing of this almost two weeks later? I suspect a Skrull plot to keep us in the dark about this!

Try reading a comic that Lee actually scripted, you'll see that he has no idea what comics are about. He used to just walk into meetings and say, I want a big angry guy, then everyone else would do sketches, brainstorm, and finally come up with the Hulk, and Stan would pat himself on the back with pride.

"I suspect a Skrull plot to keep us in the dark about this!"

Doom, on the other hand, blames Richards.

@ A Legend in His Own Mind:

No offense to what you think Stan Lee is all about, but he does admit to being a co-creator to all his characters and gives credit to a lot of artists. And he did write scripts for the artists. He wrote scripts and let the artists run with it. When they came back with the art, he would approve or request changes. After all, he was the publisher/edito-in-chief after the name switch from Timely to Marvel. He also was President for a short time and decided he would rather work everyday with the bullpen.

A good DVD to watch is called "Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters & Marvels". Kevin Smith interviews Stan Lee personally.

Another short fact is that Lee's Spider-Man comic strip is one of the longest running and successful comic strips in history.

So to say he didn't have talent or didn't create characters is hogwash.

No one really knows for sure about the early marvel days except for those dudes who where doing it. I do know that Kirby felt that after marvel was bought out early on he was pushed out and he felt Stan Lee just let it happen.

As far as the look of this comics and the story telling it was a whole lot of Kirby.

And if you look and see what Kirby went on and did after his Marvel days and what Stan has done, I think you can clearly see who was the real person behind Marvel.

@ bambo:

Jack Kirby's problem with Marvel was the fact that he would not sign a no compete agreement with Marvel stating that once he got his artwork back, he would not try to sell the artwork to make further money from it. He somehow thought Stan was to blame for that and Stan tried to talk to Jack about the issue and they could never get it resolved. That was more Jack than Marvel. Marvel was willing to give him back his work. But Marvel felt that even though he could have his artwork back, they owned it and only they could make money off of it. Stan was a publisher at that point and was not in the Marvel offices in NY. By this time, Stan was on the west coast and was not running the ever day company politics. jack did resolve the issue with Marvel years later. Stan wanted to make Jack the head art director at Marvel, but Jack refused the offer for personal reasons that Stan says to this day he couldn't understand.

This was one of the major reasons why Image Comics was created. Topps followed not too long after, but couldn't make a go of it.

But yes, I do agree that only the legends of the business truly know exactly what went down at Marvel in those days.

ok Anonymous, are you really Stan Lee in disguise? Because if you're not, settle down. I can see your hard-on from here, jeezus.

I like how the L.A. councilmen can't agree on a state budget, but they CAN agree on giving Stan Lee his own day.

@ eveyone on this site:

I just have a deep appreciation for the early work that guys like Lee, Kirby, Ditko, Romita, Buscema, Trimpe, Severin, Infantino and whole host of others did at Marvel (and at DC in some cases).

Don't get me wrong. DC/National Periodicals had some great talent as well in those days. But Marvel was always one step ahead. Plus, Marvel was a little more believable than DC was. Example: basing heroes in NYC instead of all over the map; having one Universe instead of different time continuums.

Sorry for having a different view of Stan and the gang than a lot of others do, but I still feel that Stan contributed a lot to the world of comic books.

Now, continue with your roasting.

Hey Everyone,

This proclamation, along with another one from the city of Long Beach, CA. were both presented to Stan Lee on October 2nd at the opening ceremony of the first annual Long Beach Comic Con.

Stan himself was on-hand to accept the gifts and to do a ribbon cutting ceremony for the convention.

I covered the event for my website and even posted up a bunch of pics of him receiving the proclamations from Jeff Loeb.

You can see the pics here, if you want:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28916978@N06/sets/72157622520994232/

@ Patrick:

Thx! Nice pics.

Not bad for a guy who was gonna quit the comic book industry before he created the Fantastic Four, eh?

why not a Jack Kirby day instead of a Stan Lee day?

I was at the Long Beach Con and Stan Lee is funny as hell.
http://www.slycomics.com/

They should have done a Kirby/Lee day. That would end a lot of debates.

Not really, since Jack Kirby is.......DEAD!

@carlos:

The reason is because Stan Lee's superpower is shameless self promotion and Jack Kirby's was to be good at comics.