STAN LEE QUOTES II

American comic book writer & creator (1922- )

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Someone wants to do a movie of my life now and he's writing a script, and I said to him, "What the hell could you do? I've never been arrested, I haven't taken drugs, I've had the same wife for 54 years -- where's anything of interest to people?"

STAN LEE

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I don't really see a need to retire as long as I am having fun.

STAN LEE

Tags: retirement

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Jack Kirby to me was far and away the king. I gave him the name King Kirby ... everything he drew was just the way it should be.

STAN LEE

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Jack [Kirby] and Joe [Simon] wrote and drew the stories themselves in the beginning and I was just, like, the office boy. But after a while they had more writing than they could handle and I was the only guy around, so they said, "Hey Stan, you think you can write this?" When you're seventeen years old, what do you know? I said, "Sure, I can do it!" And that was it.

STAN LEE

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Kids like comics as much as ever, but a very unusual thing happened. There used to be a very big collectors' market; all of a sudden people were paying high prices for back issues of comics. Houses like Sotheby's would have big auctions, and kids would read that a comic book, which originally cost a dime, was sold for $20,000. There were newspaper articles: "Comic books are a better investment than stocks." So, instead of buying one issue of a magazine, they'd buy twenty. They wouldn't even read them, never took them out of the cellophane. Suddenly a book that sold 200,000 was selling a million or half a million. It was the greatest thing. Then the market crashed.

STAN LEE

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I've written so many things over the years that I don't want to go back to being just a scriptwriter. I'm in what I consider to be the enviable position of all I have to do is come up with the idea and write an outline that makes it seem like it's a viable idea that will interest people, and then other people write the scripts -- and I become the executive producer or the producer, depending on how much involvement I have, and I get a creative credit and then move on to the next project.

STAN LEE

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For many years we've been trying, in our own bumbling way, to illustrate that love is a far greater force, a far greater power than hate. Now we don't mean you're expected to go around like a pirouetting Pollyanna, tossing posies at everyone who passes by, but we do want to make a point. Let's consider three men: Buddha, Christ, and Moses ... men of peace, whose thoughts and deeds have influenced countless millions throughout the ages -- and whose presence still is felt in every corner of the earth. Buddha, Christ, and Moses ... men of good will, men of tolerance, and especially men of love. Now, consider the practitioners of hate who have sullied the pages of history. Who still venerates their words? Where is homage still paid to their memory? What banners still are raised to their cause? The power of love -- and the power of hate. Which is most truly enduring? When you tend to despair ... let the answer sustain you.

STAN LEE

Tags: love

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Well, I guess we were looking for something to hook some new readers. Also, I think boredom had a little to do with it. We had been turning out books for about twenty years. Same old type all the time ... so I figured, let's try something a little more offbeat. Let's try to ... I think the big policy was to avoid the clichés. For example in the Fantastic Four, the first cliché was: all superheroes wore costumes. We soon learned that was a mistake because, much as the readers like offbeat things, there are certain basics that we must have, and apparently superhero fans do demand costumes as we learned in the subsequent mail.

STAN LEE

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Some artists, such as Jack Kirby, need no plot at all. I mean I'll just say to Jack, "Let's let the next villain be Dr. Doom" ... or I may not even say that. He may tell me. And then he goes home and does it. He's so good at plots, I'm sure he's a thousand times better than I. He just makes up the plots for these stories. All I do is a little editing ... I may tell him that he's gone too far in one direction or another. Of course, occasionally I'll give him a plot, but we're practically both the writers on the things.

STAN LEE

Tags: art

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We're lucky. Most of our men are good story men. In fact, they have to be. A fellow who's a good artist, but isn't good at telling a story in this form ... in continuity form ... can't really work for us.

STAN LEE

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Never speak harshly of your enemy -- when you can kick 'im in the shins instead!

STAN LEE

Tags: enemies

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Achilles, without his heel, you wouldn't even know his name today.

STAN LEE

Tags: weakness

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With great power there must also come ... great responsibility!

STAN LEE

Tags: power

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Some people will say, "Why read a comic book? It stifles the imagination. If you read a novel you imagine what people are like. If you read a comic, it's showing you." The only answer I can give is, "You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?"

STAN LEE

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I'm proud of everything that was done that was successful. I did the hiring and the firing and I'm proud of the fact that we were able to hire people as talented as the artists that we had, like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and Gene Colan and John Romita and Gil Kane. I'm proud of the fact that I worked with them and I like to think that we brought out the best of these artists and writers. It was a great time. I look back at that time when Marvel was starting I think I couldn't have been with a better group of people.

STAN LEE

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What did Doctor Doom really want? He wanted to rule the world. Now, think about this. You could walk across the street against a traffic light and get a summons for jaywalking, but you could walk up to a police officer and say "I want to rule the world," and there's nothing he can do about it, that is not a crime. Anybody can want to rule the world. So, even though he was the Fantastic Four's greatest menace, in my mind, he was never a criminal!

STAN LEE

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The "problem" is that Comic-Con is so damned successful. People who are there seem to have a wonderful time. The very size of it makes it exciting. Wherever you look, there's something exciting. The attendees are always looking around for a familiar face. It's either 'There's a movie star!' Or, 'There's a TV star!' Or, 'There's the guy who drew the Green Lantern!' It means so much to the fans. It makes them feel like they're where it's happening. It's like Woodstock.

STAN LEE

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I'm very proud of being a hack. It's why I've lived as long as I have, I think.

STAN LEE

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I try not to do anything that's too close to what I've done before. And the nice thing is we have a big universe here. It's filled with new ideas. All you have to do is grab them.

STAN LEE

Tags: ideas

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I'm thankful for our writers
Whose imaginations never fail,
And I'm thankful for our artists
Who illustrate each tale.
I'm thankful for our letterers
Who print the words we write,
And without our classy colorists
We'd just be black and white.
I'm thankful for our editors
Who put it all together,
And the gang that proofs each peerless page
In every kind of weather.
I'm thankful for our printers
So dependable and true,
And also for our auditors
Whatever it is they do.
I'm thankful for our sales force
Selling every neighborhood,
And I thank our competition
For making us look good.
Now here's to all of Marveldom
I can't thank you enough,
Yep, you're the ones I thank the most
For reading all this stuff!

STAN LEE

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