STAN LEE QUOTES II
American comic book writer & creator (1922- )
I don't really see a need to retire as long as I am having fun.
STAN LEE
interview, Feb. 6, 2006
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
Castle of Frankenstein, no. 12, 1968
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
Stan Lee: Conversations
It's the fact that fans still care. I like all the comics conventions: The smaller ones are easier, the bigger ones are exciting.... Each one I say: Never again. But they're all great.... These things are important because they keep the fans' interest alive in comics. They keep the fans reading and their imaginations stimulated.
STAN LEE
The Washington Post, July 23, 2010
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
"Stan Lee: From Marvel Comics Genius to Purveyor of Wonder with POW!", PR, March 13, 2006
I'm very proud of being a hack. It's why I've lived as long as I have, I think.
STAN LEE
"Spidey Bites: Stan Lee's Secret for Saving Spider-Man the Musical?", Vanity Fair, March 10, 2011
I think the most important thing is to be busy, because if you have work occupying you, you don't have time to worry about the other serious problems in life.
STAN LEE
Toronto Sun, April 17, 2015
Another definition of a hero is someone who is concerned about other people's well-being, and will go out of his or her way to help them -- even if there is no chance of a reward. That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero.
STAN LEE
Cyberspacers
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
interview, April 30, 2002
I'm no prophet, but I'm guessing that comic books will always be strong. I don't think anything can really beat the pure fun and pleasure of holding a magazine in your hand, reading the story on paper, being able to roll it up and put it in your pocket, reread again later, show it to a friend, carry it with you, toss it on a shelf, collect them, have a lot of magazines lined up and read them again as a series. I think young people have always loved that. I think they always will.
STAN LEE
Brandweek, May 2000
The publisher had me doing western magazines, crime magazines, men's adventure magazines, even romance and teenage magazines and one day he came to me and he said you know one of our competitors has a book called The Justice League and it's selling well and it's a bunch of superheroes, why don't we do some superhero magazines? I said OK, I wanted to keep my job so I came up with The Fantastic Four and the others and that was the only reason. If my publisher hadn't said 'let's do superhero stories' I'd probably still be doing A Kid Called Outlaw, The Two Gun Kid or Millie the Model or whatever I was doing at the time.
STAN LEE
interview, CNN, June 12, 2013
When you can sit down with a plain sheet of paper in front of you and make some notes, and, little by little, you see it take shape and become a concept for a movie or a TV show. That's a real thrill. You watch it go from notes on a paper to a meeting with writers and directors and actors. I can't think of anything that's more exciting.
STAN LEE
online interview, Esquire, July 3, 2012
If Shakespeare and Michelangelo were alive today, and if they decided to collaborate on a comic, Shakespeare would write the script and Michelangelo would draw it. How could anybody say that this wouldn't be as worthwhile an artform as anything on earth?
STAN LEE
Stan Lee: Conversations
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
The Washington Post, July 23, 2010
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
Castle of Frankenstein, no. 12, 1968
Well, the biggest thing I like about [Spider-Man] is that he seems to be so successful. Everybody else seems to like him. Basically the thing that always intrigued me, what I always wanted to produce was a character that the average reader could identify with. He's not the strongest man in the world. And in his normal identity as Peter Parker, he's not as handsome as Brad Pitt, he's not a great athlete. He's just a regular guy like most guys. And I think that has helped to create the popularity that he has because so many readers can just identify with him.
STAN LEE
"How Stan Lee is bringing women and minorities to the comic world", She Knows, January 27, 2015
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
"Stan Lee's Soapbox", Conan the Barbarian #59, February 1976
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
interview, April 30, 2002
If you're writing about a character, if he's a powerful character, unless you give him vulnerability I don't think he'll be as interesting to the reader.
STAN LEE
interview, March 13, 2006
Everybody wants to feel that you're writing to a certain demographic because that's good business, but I've never done that ... I tried to write stories that would interest me. I'd say, what would I like to read?... I don't think you can do your best work if you're writing for somebody else, because you never know what that somebody else really thinks or wants.
STAN LEE
Brandweek, May 2000