ARSENIC LULLABY UPDATE!
...if
this page looks jacked up in your email window, click the link
below.
(or cut
and past if clicking does nothing)
www.arseniclullabies.com/newsletter20181112.html
STAN LEE CREATED A
WORLD…IT’S THE ONE WE LIVE IN.
If I’m a bit tardy in putting
this blog out it is because after I heard of Stan Lee’s
passing…I needed to get drunk.
I don’t know that you can put
into words just how important and impactful the life and
accomplishments of Stan Lee are, but we all need to try.
That includes every one of you. Each of us has been
touched by his work, his imagination, his effort, his savvy.
Stop and think for a few moments of the effect he had on your
life…and do your best to explain it to others. Because
without him this entire world would be dramatically different.
And different for the worse. There would be a dramatic lack of
joy and whimsy.
You have his work, characters
stories, words…think of all they have accomplished. The
people they inspired. Not just other writers, all the
illustrators…the people in every other field of work who took a
little bit of his ambition and joy with them. all the
people who he inspired among countless fields to make use of
their imaginations and to try to be heroes and let know it is
okay to try but fall short.
Think about the impact and human
need for “escapism”. Consider the balm that it is as
respite from the drudgery, stress and even pain that is real
life. The escape from all of that. The world he created
where people could send their imaginations and mind to forget
everything else, to feel less alone, to feel less of an outcast,
to be able to relate to or even project part of themselves and
their struggles onto any of his characters.
Think about how G*ddamn important
that is. And realize he gave that world to all of us…for
decades previous and for decades to come. Intentional or as a
by-product of business or simply wanting to tell stories, it is
a gift to humanity.
His stories had, as an escape, as
an inspiration, changed the entire world …and again if you
consider the effect they had on millions and millions of people,
in ways large or small, for decades, for generations, Stan Lee
changed the course of human history.
And every single one of us
should tell the world. So that it understands how important Stan
Lee was and how important his works still are. Because as hard
as it may be for you and I to believe, there are people out
there that don’t realize the scope of what his accomplishments
mean to the world.
You see these pictures…
they are of a funeral procession
for a deceased president. I’m not naming which one,
because it doesn’t matter. Pick your favorite. Did he have
as much impact on the world as Stan Lee? Honestly and
pragmatically think about that question. As far as profound
impact on people’s lives and the sheer number of people who felt
that impact…I would say no, but at the very least you’d
have to say the Stan Lee is pretty damn close.
Stan Lee deserves a parade just
as long, a national day of morning and a G*ddamn 40 foot tall
marble statue in the middle of D.C. And if you think that
is hyperbole, stop and consider all I’ve already said.
Compare his effect on the world in which we live to other men we
have memorialized in such ways.
Someone should make this happen,
crowdfund it, get the permits and whatever signatures it takes.
( someone else…I’m simply not credible in this regard and given
the tone of MY work…it would be out of place)
But Stan Lee should be
memorialized. He deserves something big and grand. Use your
imaginations.
And in the meantime…tell your own
story. Maybe he inspired you to get into the field of work
you are in, got you through some rough times, or maybe just gave
you a fond memory or two of reading Spider-Man with a flashlight
when you were supposed to be asleep. Just give us all a
little something, it helps with the morning.
This book here…it is one of the
first comic books I ever read.
I was given to me with a stack of
old Marvel comics when I was in the hospital at age 6. I
probably don’t have to explain that him creating Marvel comics
had no small part in me having a career in the comic book
industry decades later, or that the urge to tell stories and
learn how to draw can be traced back to that. Or the
importance of trying to do so, even at a young age, and
realizing I was good at something. But you can put all
that aside, and I can still say that reading those stories and
running around in the back yard with my friends playing “super
hero” was about as much fun as anything I can remember in my
whole life. And I can’t imagine not having those memories.
Thank you Stan. Thank you
so much.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------