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RIP: Stan Lee


Cygnia

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6 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

I don't remember whether Lee himself wrote it, but one Spider-Man story became partly responsible for smashing the authority of the Comics Code. After the comic panic of the 1950s (inspired by the book The Seduction of the Innocents, which in turn was based on fatally flawed research that was eventually thoroughly discredited) comics were bared from covering many real-life phenomena and required to always have endings where "crime does not pay". It was enforced by a self-appointed Authority who acted as censors and barred distribution to the main outlets for comics (mainly drugstores and supermarkets, and later convenience stores) of books that did not meet their standard. Underground comics (by artists like R. Crumb) were underground because they had to be distributed by other means and were thus far less profitable.

 

Then Stan Lee challenged them by writing a classic Spider-Man story in which Peter Parker discovers that one of his friends has become addicted to a drug. Portrayal of drug use was prohibited by the Authority - who wanted to pretend it didn't happen for fear of glamorizing it. (Political and social conservatism was one of the Authority's main drivers, and a partial reason that all cxomic book heroes of the '50s and '60s were still white.) They withdrew their seal from the book, hoping it would dissuade Lee from releasing it.

 

He published it anyway. Having already pioneered realism in character development (Ben Grimm's reactions to becoming the Thing were both rational and heartbreaking, and could not have happened before Lee and Ditko came along.) And despite the hold of the Authority on distribution people bought the book anyway through Marvel's thriving mail-order platform. The story became so famous that it was eventually included in high school textbooks. Rival publisher DC Comics was inspired to one-up Lee by having one of their heroes (Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy) deal with a drug problem. Then there was Tony Stark's hard drinking, which led to very frank stories about alcoholism in the Iron Man series. Comics confronted the real world as opposed to denying it, while still being the escapist entertainment fans craved. It took decades ofr the Comic Code Authority to finally disappear, but as time went on they became less and less relevant -- and the final blow was the advent of specialty comic book retailers.

 

I bought the issue when it came out (I was 14), without noticing the absence of the CC approval logo on the cover.  It was only a couple of months later, reading the letters in the back of a subsequent issue, that I noticed the hoo-rah and went back and confirmed that yes, I had overlooked the difference.  Didn't bother me when I first got the comic, didn't bother me later.  Not long after that we moved back to the States (we had been at a US base in Germany), and we just didn't buy comics when we were in the US, I think because the Army PX's had a very limited selection of books available so going back to the US meant we had a much broader selection of reading material available, far beyond what the Stars & Stripes newsstand carried.

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Bill Maher is a professional ass. More politely, he is the sort of comedian/pundit for whom the line between joke, commentary, and the deliberately incendiary blur. He is best known for shows on ABC and HBO where he eventually went off the leash and took a few steps too far (then cried victimization when the inevitable consequences followed).

 

The question of which arts forms are important, which should be important, and what choice of important art forms means for a society -- that is a question best left to its own thread.

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A rather touching tribute to Stan Lee from our MMORPG cousin, Champions Online:

 

The world lost one of the greatest heroes in comic book history this week. Stan Lee created so many worlds that inspired, and continue to inspire the work we do here on Champions, and we join superheroes everywhere in mourning his passing. Stan was a bright, powerful force in the world, working to bring comics to the mainstream acceptance they now enjoy for decades. The stories and characters he created, and the man himself, will never be forgotten. As a special tribute, we've added Stan's iconic glasses to Champions Online. They're available for free, to everyone, right now, as Glasses Aviator Legacy in the tailor.

Thank you, Stan. For everything.

 

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Mahar's problem is he has my Dad's view of comics from back in the 80s: they are for small children. Or to directly quote my Dad: "When are you going to stop playing with all this baby sh1t and grow up?!"

 

What he doesn't realize is that the comics themselves have grown up. They're not written for small children anymore, and really haven't been for 40 years. But in his mind they still are.

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  • 2 weeks later...
5 hours ago, Bazza said:

Yes it is real. Seen it on Facebook ads twice now. 

 

My issue is that the illustration of Stan + on that shirt shows absolutely none of the fabric wrinkling displayed by the shirt around it. It's a completely flat image over a non-flat surface. The shirt may exist, but that's not a photograph of one.

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In this Q&A with the Russo brothers about Infinity War (thanks to Starlord [ours] for the original link to our forums), there's a passage about Stan Lee I wanted to highlight:

 

When asked about working with Stan Lee, Joe Russo had this to say: “It was always a blast, and he was always fun to have on set. Whenever he came on set the crew would light up.”

Anthony Russo added, “when [Stan Lee] would hit set, he was just exuberant. The energy that he would bring to set – especially at his age – was stunning. You could just tell that he loved to be there. It lit him up. He always wanted more lines, and he always wanted to do more, which is fantastic.”

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