SAN DIEGO COMIC CON - THE WRAP-UP

ITEM! San Diego Comic Con — Is there anything more magnificent than 125,000+ True Believers all united in a single purpose, i.e. finding the nearest little-fanboys-room? The crowds were unbelievable, the fun indescribable, and the excitement unimaginable. Besides all the many and marvelous projects your Uncle Stanley was hawking like a manic madman at the Con, I was even honored Friday night to be in the audience when the Distinguished Competition’s Major Mojo, Paul “Leave it To” Levitz, got his shiny Bob Clampett Humanitarian Eisner Award. You pilgrims probably don’t understand what it means for a publisher to get anything with the word “humanitarian” in it. Publishing is a tough biz, and usually when you’re in the position of making the hard calls and taking the rough falls, folks rarely think of you as human, much less humanitarian. Well, except for Yours Truly, of course, but that’s magnanimous and munificent me. Congratz, Mr. Levitz!... and hang onto that thing for dear life. It’ll come in handy later for beating freelancers back into submission when they’re missing more deadlines than Doc Doom’s hairdresser!

Excelsior!

Smiley

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON REPORT - FREYADAY

ITEM! Just got out of the “Adapting Comics to Screen” panel (a.k.a. how do we guarantee that we never spend good studio money on another Batman and Robin ever, ever again), and I’m running like mad to get down to the Disney booth. And when I say running like mad, I really mean amblin’ along as best I can while teams of bodyguards cut a swath through the crowd ahead of me. See the pic below that Earnest Irv took of me using my incredible charm, smarm, and forearm to disarm the long-suffering swarm as I get cutsies in line. It’s good to be me! Man alive... it’s only Friday and I’m already sagging worse than Aunt May’s support hose. When is this magilla over with, anyways? Two more days? Yeesh!

Excelsior!

Smiley

HOUSE OF MOUSE REUPS FIRST-LOOK DEAL WITH THE MAN

ITEM! What can I say — Mousketeers Robert Iger and Steve Jobs know a good thing when they see it! In case you didn’t already hear, Disney just announced at Comic Con that they’ve elected to reup their first-look deal for another two years with the best-looking Purveyor of Wonder around, Yours Truly! That, and we just announced the fabulous first fruits of the Disney-Lee collaboration, a dramatic darling of a digital comic I like to call Time Jumper. It's all about a guy with a time machine built into his cell phone (which is way better than a DeLorean, don'tcha think?). Coming soon to a mobile phone or device near you! Wanna bet on whether or not it’s released for the iPhone? Nah? Why not?

Now if only I could convince them that it’s worth dealing with Marvel to do a Spider-Mouse cartoon! All they keep telling my lawyers is something about Snow White freezing over...

Excelsior!

Smiley

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON REPORT - THORSDAY

ITEM! Hookay then! Since there’s about 125 gazillion True Believers out here in San Diego right now, Yours Truly is gonna keep these Comic Con reports short and sweet... kinda like Heidi MacDonald! The Virgin panel discussion just ended and it went swell enough I suppose, except for Grant Morrison hoggin’ up too much mike-time. You know what the Scots are like after a few early morning pints. Afterwards, I finally got out on the convention floor with my circle of bodyguards and had Irving Forbush snap a few pics which I’ll be a sharin’ with yah as soon as we get inside some kind of Wide-Fi cloud that Irv keeps jabbering on and on about. Here’s the first one: your Uncle Stanley standing in front of what I think is supposed to be Galactus’ glamorous goggles from the next Fantastic Four movie. Obviously they’re gonna be painted purple in the movie! If yah see me on the floor, please don’t forget The Code of Comic Con Conduct. Enjoy!

Excelsior!

Smiley

THE SKRULL BONE'S CONNECTED TO THE NECK BONE

ITEM! Okay troops, it’s time to get your Skrull on at the Comic Con! Out in comic shops this week — the aptly titled “Secret Invasion: Skrulls!” Rather than restlessly recycle every known Skrull plot previously used in a Mighty Marvel Mag (mostly ‘cause Brian Michael Bendis already beat ‘em to it), Skrulls! uses the actual art of invasions-gone-by to deliver an encyclopedic entry for every known Skrull dictator, agitator, infiltrator, irritator or aggregator that ever appeared in a Marvel Comic! Everything yah ever needed to know about the Skrulls is covered in this one, from those funky “A Piece of the Action” gangster Skrulls to their distant Dire Wraith cousins and every Skrull-cow in-between.

And speaking of Brian Michael Bendis, just how far back was he really placing clues to the Secret Invasion story arc? The oldest clue Irving Forbush has uncovered so far is this ad in the back of Spider-Man #172 (Oct. 1977), which means that Bendis has been working on this story arc since he was at least 10 years old! Now that’s dedication above and beyond, pilgrims!

Honest Irv also found the following video clip of Bendis answering questions while on a panel at Comic Con New York this past year. Seems he got a little flustered and his true colors showed for a brief moment or two. Click on the YooTube thingy below to see what happened! 

Excelsior!

Smiley

THE BIGGEST BARGAIN IN BLOGS!

COMIC CON SCHEDULE AND CON ETIQUETTE

ITEM! It’s almost that time, Culture Lovers! It’s almost time for San Diego Comic Con 2008. Since many of you will be making the tireless trek out to the wild and wooly West Coast specifically to catch a glimpse of Yours Truly, I thought I’d make it as easy on yah as possible by letting you know my schedule and a few simple rules of earnest etiquette to use when approaching the Smilin’ One!

First, my complete Comic Con schedule can be found at this linky thing here. Just type "Stan Lee" into the search field and voila! It’s updated daily, so you know you’ll always have the latest and greatest info on where to track your Uncle Stanley down day-by-day!

Next, a few simple rules just to help things go as smoothly as possible as you traverse the thrill-seeking throngs waiting in line to get an autographed copy of Election Daze or whatever else has the good taste to come graced with my momentous moniker on it. Sure as Spidey wears a speckled shirt, someone will ignore this simple code of Comic Con conduct, but as Doc Ock would say, "forewarned is four-armed." The Smilin' One doesn't want to see anyone accosted by my POW!erful handlers or body guards. Here are the rules:

1.) On approach, check to make sure that I’m wearing my specially-tinted stare-proof prescription sunglasses. If for any reason I am not wearing them, DO NOT attempt to make eye contact. It’s not safe for mere mortals to gaze too long into the eyes of a living literary legend. Frantic Ones who have ignored this rule have been known to spontaneously combust or to break down into uncontrollable fits of worshipful sobbing.

2.) Only shake my hand if I offer it to you first. I need time to bring the power cosmic down to levels that won’t mutate genes or cause unwanted tanning.

3.) I’ll pose for any pictures so long as you sign my attorney’s short affidavit promising to publish the pictures as far and wide as possible so as too spread the word to the faithful masses. It also doesn't hurt if you're really cute.

4.) I’ll only sign items containing intellectual property that I can take actual credit for creating or co-creating... in other words anything you want to shove my way, pilgrims!

That’s it! You’ve suffered enough with the rules. See yah at the Con! So until the Silver Surfer buys a fright wig, let me leave you with this sly and sobering thought —

Excelsior!

Smiley

WHO CREDITS THE CREATORS?

ITEM! No matter how many times Yours Truly rhapsodizes about the magic of Jolly Jack Kirby, some folks just don’t seem to feel that Jack gets enough creator credit around these parts. Well, today we’ll try and fix that li’l problem. Wouldja believe me if I said that in my own humble opinion Jack’s influence as a creator can be seen as far and as wide as in the just-released trailer for The Watchmen movie? No? Then follow along, pilgrim!

Let’s start all the way back in 1959, when Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created The Fly for an Arch rival of ours. As especially studious ones already know, The Fly was based on an earlier Simon creation called The Silver Spider (and in a still earlier draft “Spiderman” with no hyphen). In 1963, when Yours Truly was casting about for another colorful character to add to our rollicking roster at Marvel, Jack dusted off the old Spiderman concept and drew around eight pages on the project before I pulled it and gave it to Sturdy Steve Ditko to do over. Jack’s original Spider-Man design can be seen here and below in a mock-up of Amazing Fantasy #15 by John Bryne and a spot drawing done from memory by Steve Ditko himself! Everyone knows that Steve then redesigned the character using little-if-any of Jack’s desgn and the rest was history, right? Don’t you bet on it, sunshine!

After Steve jumped ship to Charlton in ’66, he was asked to come up with a new version of their Golden Age superhero the Blue Beetle (see illo below, click to enlarge). Notice anything familiar about Ditko’s Blue Beetle revamp? That’s right — it bears an uncanny resemblance to Jack’s original Spider-Man design, all the way down to the Sandman & Sandy hooded cowl, goggle lenses and holstered pistol! Coincidence? Me thinks not.

Turn the clock forward to 1986, when Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons released their seminal serialized sensation, Watchmen, on an unsuspecting reading public. As most of us know, The Watchmen were loosely based on the Charlton Comics stable of heroes, with the Nite-Owl being mostly modeled on Ditko’s Blue Beetle, down to the goggles, belt full of scientific gadgetry and flying fortress airship. In 2008, all of this has been translated into fantastic filmic fun by Watchmen director Zack Snyder and crew. Hopefully you’ve seen the amazing Watchmen trailer by this time. For a Brand Ecch movie, it's not too shabby. If not, go here and check it out now in all its High-Definition glory. We’'ll wait for yah right here.

Notice anything about the movie’s version of Nite-Owl? Looks pretty Kirbyesque doesn’t he? Just for kicks compare the movie’s version of Nite-Owl with the King’s version of what a Marvelized Batman would look like in a sketch he did in 1982. It’s okay... take a minute, then you can say it with me. Just do your best George Takei voice and say, “Oh my...” Here's how the whole peerless progression goes (click on the individual pieces of artwork to see larger views):

So what’s the lesson here, pilgrims? The lesson is that Jack Kirby was an elemental force of creative nature, and he was always out there ahead of us mere mortals and probably will be for years to come. It’s almost as if all things begin and end with Jack Kirby. How’s THAT for a creator credit? Thus endeth the lesson, Faithful Ones!

Excelsior!

Smiley

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY KNIGHT - AT THE BOX OFFICE, BABY!

ITEM! What can I say, except congrats to the new box office champion! Never let it be said that the Smilin' One isn't the first to give credit-where-credit-is-due! It seems that the Distinguished Conglomerate’s new movie, The Dark Knight, has unseemingly unseated Spider-Man 3 as the opening weekend champ by selling $4 million dollars more in tickets this weekend for an opening weekend of $155 million! That should be enough for them to rebuild stately Wayne Manor for the next sequel, don’tcha think?

According to CNN, the box-office Bat-buzz was what really pushed this movie over the record-breaking edge. What was already a highly anticipated portrayal of everyone’s favorite anarchist Arkham asylum-mate by the late-great Heath Ledger brought in even more box-office-bucks when folks saw the flick and found out it truly was the Academy-Award-deserving performance of a lifetime. And of course we at the House of Ideas warmed the movie-going audience up for ‘em with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, cause that’s just the magnanimous and munificent kind of folks we are at Marvel. Jon "Fan Fave" Favreau... I hope you were taking notes this weekend. We expect this same kind of box office for Iron Man 2 in 2010! ‘Nuff Said!

Excelsior!

Smiley

MISRENDER ON THE MASTERWORKS EXPRESS

ITEM! Holy Skrull-Cow! Where’s Miss Marble when yah need her? Yours Truly just discovered that the Mighty Marvel Original Art/Recreated Art Mystery runs a lot deeper than most of us probably suspected. Apparently my amazingly monolithic alma mater has been hiring artists to “recreate” covers, interior pages, and in some cases, entire issues of Marvel’s Silver Age classics for the Marvel Masterworks and Omnibus reprint books. And by recreate I mean trace. And by trace I mean forge. It seems that they’re doing this whenever stats or film of the original issues turns up missing. Let’s go over that again so it has chance to really sink in. Rather than scanning original print copies of the missing pages or books and print that (as was done in GTI Corp’s dramatic-but-now-nearly-departed DVD collections), they’ve elected to go to special recreation artists that would never otherwise be hired to draw a Marvel comic and have them make fastidious forgeries of classic Kirby and Ditko art. And if yah don’t believe the Smilin’ One, then see 20th Century Danny Boy’s excellent examination of this egregious exercise in ersatz engraving.

Far be it from your Uncle Stanley to cast the first stick at anyone for faking something, but there should at the very least be full disclosure in these books so that readers know exactly when and where they’re not really getting the genuine article. Here’s Danny Boy’s short list of known recreated art in these high-end reprints. Go read that and then come back here for more!

Back? Good! It’s not like we didn’t face this same problem back in my day. An entire issue of The Amazing Spider-Man went missing from our files way back in the late 60s — Spidey #29 to be exact. Never reprinted until Marvel Tales #168 (Oct. 1984), the Marvel production department had to reshoot the entire ish from a print copy and then clean up the resulting stats via knife, white-out and some re-lettering. But Marvel did two things back in’84 that kept it all on the up-an-up: 1.) They told readers what they had done to restore the Ditko art, and 2.) They restored the Ditko art from stats, they didn’t redraw it. That’s at least two ethical lines that have been crossed in the current reprints. Full disclosure, disclaimers and discourse is the way to go with these Masterworks and Omnibus reprints that contain recreated artwork. You hear that, Joltin’ Joe Quesada? Is it real or is it Memorex? True Believers want to know! 

P.S. Can you imagine the poor sap that gets sorely saddled someday with recreating Vince Colletta’s inks on classic issues of The Mighty Thor? Will Marvel supply the artist with his own whisk broom to ink with, or will he they have to buy their own? Yeesh! I just gave myself cold chills with that one, pilgrims. Now if someone wants to hire Mike Royer to re-ink Jack’s entire Thor run from his pencils stats, I’m sure that’s one recreation we could all get behind! Your Fearless Leader (Emeritus) hath spoken!

Excelsior!

Smiley

THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE PRISTINE PAGE

ITEM! If you haven’t been keeping up with this on 20th Century Danny Boy’s blog, then shame on you pilgrim! It seems that an ebays seller offered up the splash page to Avengers #1 for sale, and shortly before the auction was suddenly and mysteriously cancelled, the current bid of $49,999 had still not met the reserve price. Wowsir! That’s a lotta schenkels for one page of classic Lee-Kirby magic.

But the most alarming thing about this particular page of original art is its suspiciously pristine condition. Your Uncle Stan looked at the scans and there’s no way in Odin’s green Midgard that any art that was once in Sol Brodsky’s grubby hands 45 years ago is that clean and white today. I’m here to tell yah that its either a fantastic recreation or it’s been restored to within an inch of its life. My pencilled dialogue balloons — gone. Jack’s margin notes — gone. Any trace of rubber cement, pasted-up additions or white-out corrections — gone. But you know what is in the art as scanned? The production code for that ish (X-337) is present where it normally should be at the lower left corner of the art. There’s just one problem with that. Not every single splash page back in those days had its production code included inside the panel... sometimes it was floating out in the margins, where the printers would crop it off while shooting the plates. That must have happened to Avengers #1 because my original copy (leather-bound down in my hermetically-seal vault, natch) doesn’t show any production code in the printed splash page (see pic below).

It doesn’t take Hercules Parrot to figure out that something’s up with this art. And amid the controversy addressed on Danny’s site over the last few days, the auction itself (which can still be seen right here) was pulled without warning. As Alice Cooper once said, “Curiouser and curiouser, man.”

Excelsior!

Smiley

BATTLE OF THE BOX OFFICE FRANCHISES

ITEM! Somtimes even Yours Truly has to give credit-where-credit-is-due. Not often, but I do what I can. Today, it seems that the Distinguished Conglomerate’s tentpole movie for the summer has already set one record before it even leaves the Batcave. According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Dark Knight will open tomorrow in a record-breaking 4,366 domestics playdates, which could be double and triple-screened into over 9,200 screens in the U.S. and Canada.

They really should thank us at Marvel Studios for getting the crowd all warmed up for ‘em. You’re welcome, Warner! See? That’s how we do things here at the House of Ideas. Since we have the swingingest super-heroes on the scene, it behooves us to be gracious and magnanimous to our less-fortunate brothers and sisters over at Brand Ecch. Lord knows they have enough to deal with as it is. Word has even leaked out that they think they have a shot at beating Spider-Man 3’s opening weekend. If anyone over there really wants to bet your Uncle Stanley on that one, I’ll take the bet with the same table stakes I used winning my last box office bet. Loser has to get a Spidey body-paint job and parade around naked up and down Sunset and Vine in broad daylight! But you might want to ask Avi Arad how that bet ended up for him before you call.

So until The Dark Knight opens up at 12:01 am tonight, here's a little something to tide you over. This is what would really happen if the Dark Knight tangled with Ol' Greenskin! It's got a certain Bambi Meets Godzilla appeal that I think you'll enjoy!

Excelsior!

Smiley

ANOTHER EXCELSIOR AWARD HAS FLOWN UP, UP AND AWAY!

ITEM! Well it’s that time again, gentle readers... time to award this month’s Excelsior Award for Comic Shop Excellence! And it's congratulations to Up, Up & Away of Cincinnati, Ohio for winning this month's virtuous virtual validation. July’s winsome winner was notably nominated by local MMMS member #7324 L. Starkiller who says to say "hi" to someone at the store named Leia, and then goes on to say:

"Up, Up & Away is far and away the best comic book shop in the greater Cincinnati area. For starters, the owner Kendall Swafford sometimes doesn’t even wait for you to put a book on your pull list. If he knows that you’re a Kirby fanatic for example, he’ll have the next issue of The Jack Kirby Collector saved for you behind the counter before you walk in the door. And if the last copy of something you desperately desire is his personal reading copy, he’ll sell you that one. Now that’s service! Plus he has the biggest selection of comic-related props, statues, t-shirts and other assorted goodies you’d ever want to spend good plastic on. No need to mail-order an Iron Man helmet, he has TWO in stock! They even have a life-size dancing Homer Simpson statue that sings behind the counter. All-in-all, it's a solid 10-out-of-10 on the geek meter...”

So, congrats to the captain and crew of Up, Up & Away! The score so far: two Exy winners from the West Coast, and two from the Mid-West. What's up, East Coast? Great Britain? Outer Latveria? How can your local comic shop qualify for the ever exciting, never biting Exy Award, you ask? It's all too easy, Tiger. The conditional criteria are: 1.) While there are thousands of good comic shops, is yours one of the truly great ones? Do you stand a little taller and walk a little prouder just goin’ into the place? If so, then 2.) Submit your noteworthy nomination to our rollicking review board (that’s Yours Truly and whoever else happens to be standing around at the time). No postage required, some side-effects may occur. Swelled heads lasting over four hours are not normal and you should go see a doctor. So what are you waiting for? I’m not getting any younger, yah know! Send your Exy Award nominations to the ol’ Sock It To Stan email box today!

Excelsior!

Smiley

TRAPPED IN AN OMNIBUS HE NEVER MADE!

ITEM! Without a doubt this week’s comic shop cherry-pick is the deluxe Howard the Duck Omnibus — over 808 pages of web-footed waddling and waughing that is sure to please even the most discerning finely feathered fanatic. Everyone’s favorite anthropomorphic antisocialite was Marvel at it’s Bronze Age best (not to mention some of the late-great Steve Gerber’s very best sardonic and satirical scripting), and this two-ton tome contains it all. You get all of Howard’s first appearances, the entire 33-ish run of his original series, and even his Marvel Treasury Edition appearance plus Marvel Team-Up #96! And it’s all yours for a mere $99.99, which let's face it is like two tanks of gas these days. As Doctor Bong might say, ask not for whom the ominbus tolls, pilgrim, it tolls for thee!

Excelsior!

Smiley

BABY BRO GETS A WELL-DESERVED FINGER

ITEM! In case you haven’t already heard, Mrs. Lieber’s second-most famous son is about to be the proud recipient of the much-coveted Bill Finger Award at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego! Besides being one of the greatest utility in-fielders of the Silver Age of Marvel Comics, little brother Larry Lieber probably wrote more scripts for Jolly Jack Kirby than anyone else this side of Yours Truly and Joe Simon. You see, unlike big bro, Lare could do it all — he wrote, he drew, he inked. Heck, if we’d of let him, he probably woulda delivered the comics to newsstands too! Not to mention he’s my current co-plotter/artist on the Spidey daily syndicated newspaper strip! Whatta guy! Well done, little bro! Lunch at The Grill is on me next week!

Excelsior!

Smiley