Each year on December 28, this blog notes the birthday of Stan "the Man" Lee, lord high guru of the Marvel Universe. I have had my differences with Stan over the years but last I looked, we were still friends and every time someone does a major bio on him, he asks the biographers to include me as a source and/or Talking Head. As anyone who has met him knows, he is a charming and witty man. I first met him in July of 1970 and if I'd been asked to create the ideal future for him — the life he would most enjoy — it would be a lot like what's happened to him the last decade or so. He's truly become a celebrity and a superstar. He couldn't be happier and those who love him couldn't be happier.
The other night, I was talking with Scott Shaw! (he spells it with the exclamation point) and I got to musing whether upon the passing of Joe Simon and Jerry Robinson, Stan now has seniority as the living person who's been in comics the longest. Scott reminded me of Sam Glanzman, who was drawing comics for Funnies, Inc. in late 1939. Then I reminded me of Sheldon Moldoff, who actually had work in Action Comics #1 (1938) and there are a few others from that era still kicking and kicking around. But only a few.
Stan, who turns 89 today, went to work for Timely Comics — the company now known as Marvel — in…well, that's a darned good question. In one of the many interviews I did with him, he said he went to work at Timely in 1939 and he's told others that so it's what's often reported. But he also told me in that same conversation that he read the first issue of Captain America before he started there. The first issue of Captain America was cover-dated March of 1941 and came out in December of 1940. I didn't catch the contradiction at the time but when I asked him about it later, all I got was "Oh, hell, I don't remember that far back." His first published work was a text story in Captain America #3 which would have been assembled around February of 1941 and I find it hard to believe that Stan went to work at the firm in '39 and didn't write anything for publication for more than a year. So I'm guessing around January of '41 — or around 71 years ago.
I love seeing how active he still is, scurrying around to meetings and appearances and signings and half a hundred projects. It's not that I want to be like that when I'm 89. I want to be like that now. So Happy Today, Stan. Hope you're enjoying middle age.