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)
Stan Lee should be memorialized. He deserves something big and grand. Use your imaginations.
But in the meantime…tell everyone 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.
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When Douglas is not ranting, he and his work can be found here
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