Can't believe I forgot to get this one up here in greater detail. At the big National Comic Book Convention in New York last Saturday, I moderated a wonderful panel with four veterans of Marvel Comics: Dick Ayers, Joe Sinnott, Herb Trimpe and Gary Friedrich. And when I say "veterans," I don't just mean veterans of working in comics. Dick, as befitting the man who drew all them issues of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, wore his old Army uniform from World War II, which is still intact and still fits. (In the above photo, we have — left to right — me, Gary, Herb, Dick and Joe.)
So I'm chatting with all these gents and right in the middle of the panel, my little BlackBerry vibrates to tell me I got an e-mail and it turns out it's Stan Lee, who's way off in Los Angeles at that moment, writing to thank me for things I said about him (and didn't say) at that dinner the previous Sunday. I couldn't resist reading his e-mail to the audience there and quickly writing him back:
Hi. I am at this very moment moderating a panel at a New York con with Dick Ayers, Joe Sinnott, Gary Friedrich and Herb Trimpe. They all say hi and the audience was thrilled when I read your email to them. Any message for them?
That was sent at 12:26 PM EST. At 12:44, while the panel was still going on and I could read the message to the crowd there, I received the following in reply:
Yeah, here's a message for them — tell them to stay away from hick towns from now on and have their next convention in L.A. so I can be with 'em!
Excelsior!
Stan
So that was how we sorta/kinda got Stan Lee on the Marvel Panel even though he was 3000+ miles away and unaware it was even taking place. This is precisely the kind of thing that the Internet was invented for. Well, that and porn.