In true Stan Lee fashion this entire article should consist of various tangents and non-sequiturs, completely ignoring this year's “Spotlight on Stan Lee” panel. Alas, ComicsOnline's main focus is covering geek pop culture, and since there isn't a single (human) geek icon more recognizable than Smilin' Stan Lee, the panel must be reported on. The skrull that took Stan Lee's place in 1976 did not disappoint and walked on stage doing the best caricature of himself he could muster. He jumped from topic to topic like a bottomless Plinko board, completely ignoring the questions asked by the panel's moderator, Todd McFarlane.

    Stan, a self-proclaimed “very fascinating person”, touched on how he broke into, and eventually reinvented, the comic book industry. He explained that either his cousin, his wife's cousin or his cousin's husband (either Stan is losing his memory or he is, in fact, his own grandpa) owned a publishing company and Stan was offered a job as the lowest rung on the ladder at the comics department. After months of bringing coffee to Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, he was offered a writing job that nobody else wanted. Back in those days, shipping was much cheaper if the publication was a “magazine”, to be officially considered a “magazine” there had to be two full pages of text. Stan explained that nobody else was willing to do this because the blocks of text would largely be ignored as “most of those people (comic buyers) couldn't read anyway.” Once he won over his coworkers and the literate sub-group customers, he was able to move up to the big league and have his stories accompanied by artwork.

    Stan's creative partner of 12 years, Gill Champion, got a few words in here and there and finally inspired Stan to briefly touch on a few of his current projects. The full-length documentary, With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, premiered at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, but has no release date for other forms of distribution. Stan gave no detail whatsoever but confirmed that he still works on Heroman, his Japanese cartoon, Ultimo, his manga, and the apparently-still-existing Stripperella. He's obviously not there to promote anything but himself, but who can blame him? He's every nerd's wacky grandpa. His little quips, like admitting “I'll steal anything!” in reference to Mr. Fantastic's striking similarity to Plastic Man, make it worth it to see Stan Lee speak whenever you get the opportunity. If you've never had the chance to see his form of shameless self-promotion live, do so quick, because as the child behind me stated, “He's so old!”

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