Stan Lee flanked by Hyper-Strike and Hygena.
Despite a scheduled meeting this was as close as we would manage to get.
It was the third day of the San Diego Comic-Con, the day I didn’t meet Stan Lee. I was there on Glass House Graphics’ dime, pushing the agency while also pimping for writing work myself.
The mountain of jobs performed by Glass House and its many artists in the past year included supplying artwork for Stan’s Sci-Fi Channel series Who Wants To Be A Super-Hero, providing the display covers for each aspiring champion of justice as well as the artwork for the winner’s comic book debut.
Which begins to explain how I came to not meet him that day. The WTB panel, starring Stan, Feedback and Hygena was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning. A week or so before the trip out to San Diego, Stan’s assistant contacted David Campiti, the founder and head of Glass House, advising the best way for David to meet up with Stan and some of the cast. David had the idea of giving to the cast members large color prints of those covers, autographed by the artists who did them.
The plan was simple enough. At the end of the panel David would head on up front of the room, present Stan and the heroes with the covers and snap a couple of quick pictures before the world’s spryest 85 year old ran off to his next appearance.
As Glass House didn’t have a photographer in attendance I was asked to do the honors since nobody is really sure just what it is I do around there anyway and David probably realized how much I would enjoy the opportunity to meet Stan, however briefly. David has known Stan for 20 but the closest I’ve ever come was listening to a message from Stan on the Glass House answering machine.
David had been with me in my only previous visit to San Diego when I didn’t meet Jack Kirby either. Jack was sitting just a table away from us at the Eisner Awards in 1988 and I dearly wanted to shake his hand but he didn’t seem to feel well and his family looked worried so I stayed out of the way.
I was on the convention floor saying hello to all the wonderful people who I hoped would have work for me or some of the other creators working through Glass House when David called. The panel had just started and even though we had an hour to kill I headed straight up. I didn’t want to risk blowing the picture. Besides, how often do you get to sit in the room with Stan Lee?
The big meeting room on the second floor of the San Diego Convention Center was packed to capacity with an overflow crowd ringing the walls of the room. Up front at the center of the riser sat the great man, his wit and tongue as quick as ever.
On Stan’s right sat Hyper-Strike, one of this year’s contestants, dressed in red and white spandex with a headband, looking oddly like a cross between a Canadian flag and one of the Village People. To Stan’s left sat was Hygena in mid-length powder blue chiffon with a black corset wrapped around her waist. To her left was last year’s winner Feedback, in his tight black and blue vinyl with the F across his chest falling backward at a 45 degree angle. At the far right end of the panel stood writer Jimmy Palmiotti behind a 5 foot high wooden dais where he moderated the show.
The seating was split in two with a long aisle down the center of the room. The aisle was filled with a long line waiting to ask Stan questions about the series. It can take a long time to fight through the crowds at San Diego and they were about 15 minutes into the program when I stepped in.
I quietly poked my way into the room. At the front of the line a disappointed aspirant from season one was waving his own self-produced comic at Stan before asking him for a hug.
I scanned the room searching vainly for David. I have the approximate hunting skills of Elmer Fudd on peyote but fortunately modern technology came to our rescue and with a flurry of text messages I finally tracked him down.
A steady stream of admirers took their turns at the microphone. In between glowing tributes to Stan the questioners pretty much stuck to the topic at hand which kind of surprised me. Give me a microphone and a chance to ask Stan a question I’m a lot more likely to ask him about working with Jack Kirby or whether the Thing was deliberately based on the Jewish folklore of the Golem.
It was clear time was running short as the moderator began to hurry the questioners along. The room had begun to thin out a little so David and I ducked down and moved up about halfway to be closer to Stan when the program ended.
It was a few minutes short of 11:30 when the panel drew to a close. We shot up to the front of the room. Stan’s legs are still as quick as his wits and photo-op or no he doesn’t hang around long when an appearance is over.
We got to the front of the room and veered to the right toward Stan’s exit. And all at once it was over.
A big, hulking security guard who clearly hadn’t been told we were coming was determined not to let us past. Like a Secret Service agent willing to take a bullet for the president he had no intention of letting us past. “Stan’s not signing anything,” he warned.
David called out to Stan who did not hear him. Earlier in the panel he’d complained the amplifier to help him understand the questions wasn’t working, nor apparently was it functioning now.
Another security guard was hustling Stan toward the door as we pleaded our case with the man-mountain blocking our way. “Stan’s expecting us,” we explained plaintively but it was no use. “We do work for him on the show, this is scheduled!” David was a couple of feet behind me in the crowd. “Show them the covers!” I called back to him. “Hold ‘em higher! Wave ‘em around!”
Then suddenly the hulking guard, and Stan, were both gone.
We ran out into the hallway in pursuit but Stan like many of the mysterious characters he scripted he was gone as if he’d vanished into thin air.
Rushing back to the lair Matthew Atherton, a.k.a Feeback,
pauses long enough to snap a photo with Glass House head David Campiti.
We managed to fight through the throng and catch up with the first season champion Feedback, a likeable 34 year old also known as Matthew Atherton whose boyish good looks belie his age. He had to hurry along too but paused long enough to accept the covers and shoot a couple of photos on the fly.
The next day Matthew stopped by the Glass House booth to say hi and pose for a few pictures. He acted like a real super-hero when he posed for a picture with an excited boy named Kendrick who I’m pretty sure has a new favorite today.
If Feedback is looking for a sidekick young Kendrick Gaussoin, junior reporter for ComicsOnline.com,
looks ready to join the fight. Did Jimmy Olsen start out this way?
As for my meeting with Stan Lee; well it would have been nice to shake his hand and snap a picture and I would dearly love to have a chance to really sit down and talk to him but missing out on the photo-op was no big deal.
I spent a lot of time with Stan when I was growing up in the pages of hundreds of great old Marvel comics. I figure I really got to know him 35 years ago every time I sat down with Peter Parker, with Ben Grimm and the rest of the Fantastic Four, and with countless untold others. Stan taught me a lot.
He taught me that with great power comes great responsibility and by extension I figured out that even a little power comes with some responsibility too. He taught that love is the greatest power of all and a man with a little decency and courage can stand up and do the right thing no matter what the odds.
What would I have said when I got to meet him? That’s simple: Thanks Stan. Thanks for everything.
Maybe next year.
Comments? Send to dlawrencemail-response@yahoo.com
// thats one of the coverage from the Comic Con 2007 in San Diego, if you ask me what will I do or ask if I met Stan Lee. hmm, maybe I might kneel and bow to him! hahaha.. for making the best characters in the Marvel Universe. hahaha, he's the 2nd man I want to meet after George Lucas, or maybe he can be the first. But meeting Neil Gaiman couple of years back is one great experience.
So how about you? what would you do or ask Stan Lee if ever you meet up with him ?
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