Tuesday, April 15, 2008

JUST IMAGINE... NO REALLY THIS TIME

ITEM! As Yours Truly and a whole rapturous raft of entertainment lawyers get ready to head east to the New York Comic Con, I thought I’d let you Keepers of the Faith in on one of my top-secret projects. Sure, sure, your Uncle Stanley will be there to accept the first-ever New York Comics Legend Award, to do a press event for my new Manga collaboration Ultimo, to sell as many copies of Election Daze as pulse-poundingly possible, and to engage in more shameless self-promotion than George Foreman's publicist (heck, I would’a named up-to-five sons of mine Stan Lee, but alas I only had a daughter!). But that’s not all your Fearless Leader is going to be up to while in the New York area.

You may have read about the recent court decision awarding the Jerry Siegel estate shared copyright to the Man of Steel, Superman. Believe it or not, there’s already a mass of malingering mega-media companies forming a line to license those rights form the Siegel heirs. Me? Well Yours Truly and enough avaricious attorneys to sink the Titanic are gonna go talk turkey with the Siegels and see what we can work out. If we can reach an agreement, watch out Marvelites!

Let me be Frank (or even Irving for that matter). I think we can all agree that the Just Imagine Stan Lee Created... Superman book was a colossal catastrophe of cretaceous proportions. Part of the problem was trying to create a fresh take on Supes that hadn’t already been Elseworld’ed to Hell and half of Kandor. And your Uncle Stan isn’t exactly a spring duckling anymore! But a sizzling Stan the Man version of the Big Blue Boy Scout that actually uses the core concepts of the character — just imagine! Of course I may make a few changes. Maybe Kal-El was originally a normal man who gave up his humanity to save his home planet Krypton from some world-devouring menace — maybe a Techno-Kirby version of Brainiac? Then he gets marooned on Earth where he splits his time between saving Lois Lane and Shakespearean soliloquizing about the human condition from mountain tops and near Earth orbit. That should be enough plot for at least 18 or so issues right there. The mind boggles at the portentous possibilities, pilgrims. Stay tuned for more information Frantic Ones, same Stan Time, same Stan Channel! 

Excelsior!
Smiley

2 comments:

Richard said...

Dear Stan,

That's a fantastic cover. I really hope this deal works out for you! But in the interest of helping the negotiations, please accept a tip from one of your faithful fans: your dealings with the estate of Jerry Siegel will probably go a lot more smoothly if you can just remember to spell his fershlugginer name correctly! The general rule is "i before e, except when at sea" or something like that.

Little things like this can be important. After all, that whole messy quarrel with your best-loved collaborator might never have happened if you hadn't kept calling him "Jack Kirkby" all the time. And for the record, the artist on Spidey and ol' Doc Strange was not named "Klaatu Barada Ditko" though anyone could see how that was an easy mistake to make.

Hope this reminder helps! Yours till Superman eats a bowl of lime-flavored Kryptonite,

-- Richard B. (K.O.F., F.F.F., and Q.N.S.)

Stan the Man said...

Duly noted and doubly corrected, Rab! And thanks for keeping your Uncle Stanley honest! Your electronically-mailed No-Prize is winging it's way to you via the World Wide Webs as we speak.

In my undeserved defense, the New York Times recently made a similar faux pas, as professionally pointed out by Madcap Mark Evanier! Who says this isn't the Marvel Age of Miss-Spelled Mishaps?

Smiley