STAN LEE QUOTES III

American comic book writer & creator (1922- )

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I'm very proud of being a hack. It's why I've lived as long as I have, I think.

STAN LEE

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I'm proud of everything that was done that was successful. I did the hiring and the firing and I'm proud of the fact that we were able to hire people as talented as the artists that we had, like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and Gene Colan and John Romita and Gil Kane. I'm proud of the fact that I worked with them and I like to think that we brought out the best of these artists and writers. It was a great time. I look back at that time when Marvel was starting I think I couldn't have been with a better group of people.

STAN LEE

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I try not to do anything that's too close to what I've done before. And the nice thing is we have a big universe here. It's filled with new ideas. All you have to do is grab them.

STAN LEE

Tags: ideas

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A superhero's catchphrase should be like a really memorable advertising slogan. It sticks in your head and you can't stop humming it. And let's face it, superheroes are just really selling themselves as products.

STAN LEE

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With great power there must also come ... great responsibility!

STAN LEE

Tags: power

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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

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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

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In the early days, I was writing scripts for virtually all the books, and it was very hard to keep all the artists busy; poor little frail me, doing story after story. So I'd be writing a story for Kirby, and Steve Ditko would walk in and say, 'Hey, I need some work now.' And I'd say, 'I can't give it to you now, Steve, I'm finishing Kirby's.' But we couldn't afford to keep Steve waiting, because time is money, so I'd have to say, 'Look Steve, I can't write a script for you now, but here's the plot for the next Spider-Man. Go home and draw anything you want, as long as it's something like this, and I'll put the copy in later.' So I was able to finish Jack's story. Steve in the meantime was drawing another story. Then Don Heck would come over and say, "Hey Stan, I need something to do." I'd say, "Well, I can't write it for you Don, but here's the plot for Iron Man, you go and draw it, and I'll put in the copy later." That way I could keep five, six, ten artists busy; they were drawing, and as they'd bring in the strip, I'd put in the copy. Okay, it started out as a lazy's man's device--or maybe a guy who just didn't have enough time--but we realized this was absolutely the best way to do a comic. Because any artist who really belongs in this field--and of course our artists do--is a storyteller himself. He tells stories with pictures; he has imagination, he knows continuity, he knows how a story should be told.... Don't have the writer say, 'Panel one will be a long shot of Spider-Man walking down the street.' The artist may see it differently; maybe he feels it should be a shot of Spider-Man swinging on his web, or climbing upside-down on the ceiling or something.

STAN LEE

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I'm sort of a pressure writer. If somebody says, "Stan, write something," and I have to have it by tomorrow morning, I'll just sit down and I'll write it. It always seems to come to me. But I'm better doing a rushed job because if it isn't something that's due quickly, I won't work on it until it becomes almost an emergency and then I'll do it.

STAN LEE

Tags: writing

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I never thought that Spider-Man would become the world wide icon that he is. I just hoped the books would sell and I'd keep my job.

STAN LEE

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Comic book should be written as one word. So from now on, I want you to remember that. I never want to see the word comicbook written as two words. They are not funny books. They are not comic books, they are comicbooks! Remember that, or incur my wrath.

STAN LEE

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If we don't blow ourselves up, the future will be wonderful.

STAN LEE

Tags: future

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Excelsior!

STAN LEE

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I just figured that Bruce Banner had probably been a friend of Reed Richards, and Reed had given him some elastic trousers. There's an explanation for everything, but you may not be technically advanced enough to follow me on all of this.

STAN LEE

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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

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'Nuff Said!

STAN LEE

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