YouSaid · the spoken record

Stan Lee

lines on the record: 42
first: 2019-05-19
most recent: 2019-05-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“To end it. At what part of my life should I wrap it up? Since I'm still insanely involved with a whole caboodle of projects, at what point should I write the end? A person's career isn't like a movie. As long as you're alive, there's no dramatic fade out shot accompanied by suitable music as a credits roll, and I'll be damned if I'll shrug off this mortal coil just to furnish you with a dramatic ending. Of course, I could always just retire, and that would give the book a nice, warm, uncomplicated ending. In fact, people are always asking when I plan to retire. I always ask them retire to what? Most people retire in order to finally do the things they really want to do. I can't think of anything better than tackling new movies, TV projects with a bunch of talented enthusiasm. Creative people.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is a tail as old as time. Remember, I always talk about this idea that we're not rational creatures. We're rationalizing. And those are two are very, they're very different things. We can't help but see things from our selfish perspective. Needless to say, by this time, I didn't care what Martin said or thought. I was finally free to do it. I always felt I could and should have done with Marvel. And that was all that mattered. It freed me up to begin devoting myself to promoting Marvel as it had always felt it should be promoted. I wanted to bring our company to the next plateau to make it the next Disney. So then he hires a bunch of writers, editors. He gets away from writing basically all day nonstop. And he goes out and promotes. And for 10 years, this is why we know Stan Lee. He would give speeches to groups of people, whether it's psychologists, anywhere he could. And he was on the road for like 50 weeks out of 52 weeks a year, just giving speeches, promoting Marvel, talking about that, cultivating fan bases.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this other company buys it and then they morph into another conglomerate called Cadence. So he's still working for Cadence at the time. And Cadence decides, hey, we're going to give you a promotion, Stan, because you're so important. You're going to become a publisher. And a publisher was basically what Martin was, right? So Stan's like, no, this is fantastic. Martin, let me just read it to you. But once again, Martin proved what a friend and grateful guy he was. He tried every way he could to prevent my becoming publisher because he had been hoping to give that job to his son. Still, despite all Martin can do, Cadence named me publisher of Marvel Comics. What I'm about to tell you now is still hard after all these years for me to accept, but I swear it's true. Martin actually had the gall to accuse me of disloyalty, of betraying him after all he had done for me.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Somewhere. So, think about that. This guy gets unbelievably wealthy off of Stan's work and doesn't give him anything. Not a dollar, nothing. And then leaves the company two years later. Oh, so he's about to leave the company. And now, you know, Marvel's been bought over and over again.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know he'll be fair. Oh, really You stand have not learned. So he goes to have dinner after the sale. Remember Martin's married to his cousin. So it's Martin, Stan's cousin, and Stan and his wife. Martin puts his arm around. Stan, he says, Stan. I'll see to it that you and Joni will never have to want for anything as long as you live. I'm going to make you a gift of some valuable warrants, which he said were somewhat like stock options. I figured, at last, this is my pot of gold. He's keeping his promise. As time went by, the warrants proved to be absolutely worthless. But what was even worse, although he said he would, he never actually gave them to me, nor did he ever in any way make good on the promise that Joni and I would never want for anything as long as we live. Zilch's lesson to be learned there.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought that was interesting. One, the time aspect of it, but seconds like, ah, I can make new characters or I can just create new stories based on how other characters relate to one another, which again is just a reflection of human. Think about all the different humans that you interact with and how those relationships then interact with each other, like you act differently with maybe your spouse, to your best friend, to your co-workers, to the people you play sports with or whatever the case is. Okay, now he's going to give us a lesson in human nature. And it's He gets basically screwed over by Martin Goodman.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so now he's really happy. Now he's back. He's like, I found it. He starts doing Spider-Man at a fantastic four. And then this is just a note I've already trampled over this note, but I'll read it anyways. Breaks box office records 55 years later. In 1963, we also gifted the reading public with the Avengers. It was another team of superheroes, but not new ones. And then think about how crazy this is. He came up with Avengers out of laziness. He said, probably out of laziness instead of dreaming up a whole new caboodle of new characters. I simply took our already established and popular characters and had them form a team called the Avengers.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You believe in the human element of it and you should because you have to be good entrepreneurship, I think you have to understand, fundamentally understand people, there's probably worth reinvesting in things that do not have any immediate return. Not probably there definitely is.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much. Value that is to people, you know, these things like we cannot predict what we're passionate about and how those passions affect us later in life. So he's talking about even in the first when they did the first like fan club, the MMMS, you would get like a pin, right? And people would wear them on their shirts and stuff like that. And so later on Stan's like going into a meeting with to do like a joint venture with another company and the people that called in the meeting that came up with the idea, he walks in, he's meeting with four people, every single one of them was a member of the MMMS and they still had their pin like 30 years later. Like, how valuable is that now? This guy is getting an opportunity three decades in the future because he had an impact on somebody else's life 30 years prior. So I would just say”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Except just keep publishing the books and hope they'd sell. They didn't seem to understand the value of having a great fan base. They didn't seem to realize it was necessary to nurture those fans. To keep their loyalty and enlist their support that never seemed to be aware of how vital it was to maintain contact with those who cared about us because fans can be the most elusive ephemeral group in the world and the suits didn't get it. Now I'd also say it's interesting how this kind of phenomenon, this abstraction, can compound over time. If you just try to do Avengers today movie and nobody knew what it was, wouldn't sell. But the fact that you've been building on these stories and increasing the fan base and constantly producing more stories involving the same characters allows it to build to the point where you can have the highest grossing movie or one of the most popular attractions or whatever it is. You just have no idea how much”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All this other stuff that kind of makes them more human-like, they just happen to have weird powers Okay, so this is an example of what I was saying earlier about. I understand that most people prefer modesty, but I'm not necessarily sure if I believe that's the best.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Such a key. Then she said something that should have occurred to me right away, and it was the thing that made up my mind. Remember, you've got nothing to lose by doing the book your way. The worst that can happen is that Martin will get mad and fire you. But you want to quit anyway. So what's the risk? At least you've gotten it out of your system. That did it. My mind was made up. So then this is the birth of him writing superheroes before that. You know, they were all perfect. They'd be like, you'd have the Superman. He's good looking. He has no very few weaknesses. Handsome, strong, etc., etc. He starts making these people that are kind of neurotic, like the Fantastic Four, where the lead guy is like, he's like, he talks too much. He annoys the people around him. You got things like this ugly creature. You have Peter Parker, Spider-Man, who's the same insecurities that all teenagers have. And it's not Google Girls.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is when he gets an absolute genius piece of advice from his wife that changes his life and changes now after this day, Sam are stamped. Stan comes from being doubting he was doing right and miserable, like just being this hack, he called himself, to just saying, you know what, I know I have nothing left to get like I have zero fucks left to give and now I'm just going to do things how I want to do it. And this becomes the birth of the Marvel universe because what he does here. She goes, so that night I told Joni of my decision. She was completely supportive, but then she added something I hadn't thought of. You know, Stan, if Martin wants you to create a new group of superheroes, this could be your chance for you to do it the way you've always wanted to. You could dream up plots that have more depth and substance to them and create characters who have interesting personalities, who speak like real people.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Okay, so he's almost 40 years old before he reaches a turning point of his life. It's actually a really important part of the book. I'm going to read a lot from here. Okay, so my urge to quit the comic book field have become stronger than ever. The titles were no longer selling the large numbers they once did. As far as I could tell, the comic book industry was in trouble. I felt we were merely doing the same type of thing over and over again with no hope of either greater financial rewards or creative satisfaction. But as so often happens, a tiny, almost unnoticed pivotable event can change the course of a person's life. This particular pivotal event was a chance golf game between Martin Goodman, remember that's the guy that owns the company, and Jack Libowitz, the publisher of National Comics. The Justice League of America, consisting of a team of superheroes including Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, all in one book, was selling surprisingly well.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so now we've got to the turning point of Stan's life. Remember, most of the book, he's talking about interesting things he creates, but then he shares multiple examples of just complete dissatisfaction with his life. So this is a turning point of his life. By the early 1960s, my urge to quit the comic book field had become stronger than ever. So think about that. He was, let's see, how when was he born? Let's check real quick. Oh no. Googled to pull up his Wikipedia page to find his birthday. One of the headlines is Stanley's former business manager charged with elder abuse against late Icon. That's terrible. Okay, so 2019-22?”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“like allowing other people to infringe upon his creative outlet. He wanted to do a comic strip about a big city New York cop because he grew up and lived in Manhattan for most of his life. So that's what he felt he knew. And then other people convinced him to change it to like a, it was going to be something called Barney's Beat, like, you know, the cop beat. And then they changed it to like instead of a hip big city cop, they wanted Barney to be a small town mailman. And it was called Willie Lumpkin. And he was just as terrible. And he's like, I'm making work that I don't give a crap about. And that's why he comes up with sometimes mediocrity can be as disappointing as failure.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Experience taught me an important lesson. I learned that a person's opinion isn't necessarily right just because he happens to have an important title or be the head of a company. I was determined never to try to create something according to somebody else's lights if I didn't feel comfortable doing it. So it's more of the...”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I felt I was wasting my adult life and whatever little talent I might possess on a job that wasn't all that meaningful. I was just making a living, nothing more. This is the dangerous thing about our mind. Our mind plays tricks on us. It caught like we have these little seeds of self-doubt, of anxiety, of depression that can sit there. And again, I'm just going to keep bringing this up on the podcast because I know people that are listening to this feel that way too. I felt that way. And I sure I will in the future. But it's not real. That is not actually happening. You have to step back and take and learn from using history as gives yourself additional context and realize that everybody feels this way. Even if they're not going to talk to you about it, I mean, we're really lucky that Stanley's been so honest and there is something to be said about a lot of the autobiographies that”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As time went by, one problem that kept gnawing at me had nothing to do with the comic book characters or plots, but rather with the plot of my own life. I was still feeling more and more frustrated and discouraged. I realized I was almost forty years old and still doing comic books. Was that what a grown man, a husband and father should seriously be doing? I told Joni, that's his wife, how I felt, and she was totally sympathetic. She said she could understand if I felt burned out. After all, she knew how many years had been working at the same job, and she knew how much pressure I was constantly under to turn out script after script. She also understood that I felt somewhat like a DJ in a small town. I was sitting at the mic getting the message out, but was anybody listening? Did anybody care?”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he's not going to understand that for quite some time. We're still early in the book. Okay, well, we're in like the middle of the book. Okay, and that's funny. A few pages later, I'm looking at the note out of myself. You ever feel like you're wasting your life? Stan Lee felt that way too. And so we're going to see more of that here.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That Henry Kaiser quote like problems are just opportunities and workloads. But feeling miserable about it is not helping anything. I understand it's like natural. It's a natural part of being human. But I feel like that looking at things like stepping outside myself and looking back and being like, okay, oh, I'm anxious? Okay. Well, most humans are anxious and they always will be, most likely. So what are we going to do about it? I mean, this guy's calling himself. I was only a moderately successful hack. So, I mean, if he feels that way, why wouldn't we, right? Waiting for some elusive big break and the chance to get out of comics and into the real world. This is such an important sentence coming up. What I didn't understand at that point in my life was that comics were the real world to me.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Says, the two things I didn't love about my life were the one hour commute and the feeling that I wasn't getting ahead the way I should be. The haunting feeling that I was only a moderately successful hack. Think about that. Think about how he's describing himself. That's insane, right? That's what I mean about the reason it's so like, I love the fact that human nature doesn't change. He felt this way in the, let's say, this 1950s we're in now. There's people in present day that feel that way. And in 150 years from now, there'll still be people that feel the same way. It's really like sometimes when I feel anxiety or I'm unsure or like I pause and I'm like, David, it's not just happening to you. This feeling you're having is part of the human condition. It's been happening in the past. It will happen in the future. So don't let it freak you out. Calm down. Write out your feelings if you...”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the same time, simultaneously, he's doubtful that his life's work means anything. So this is just another reminder, we're hearing some of his inner monologue here before he becomes a Stanley. We all know that it took him time to realize that he's already found what he should be doing with his life. And that was just mind-blowing to me, not knowing his life story before this. You know, it's perfectly normal to have doubts. Stan Lee had doubts for four decades. Oh, maybe not four. 30 years, whatever it is, close to that. It's a long time.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, now he's got more advice. So maybe this is a better way to put it. So, well, first he talks about why he can work so fast. So let me get there first. He says, I was doing so much of the writing myself. And if I may be totally candid, I'm my own biggest fan. Since I liked everything I wrote, there wasn't that much editing needed. So I've been using the words confidence, arrogance, whatever you want to optimism. I think that's a better way to put it. Like what I was really trying to get to is like, especially if you're standing outside of the norm and you want to do something different, something that's just not copying whatever like the tracks that are laid down for everybody else, like I don't see a reason not to be your own biggest fan, even if you're not, like, you may not be producing the quality of work that you want to now, but being your own biggest fan, like assuming you're not lazy and giving up, like you can grow into that quality. And I just, I don't know. I think Stan hit on something. It's weird because he's his own biggest fan.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so now we have here Stan reflecting on, he's still in the thick of it. Again, comic books are selling, but they're not really respected. And self-doubt is the largest, I mean, this is a biography on Stan Lee, and I think his co-star is the self-doubt, which is fascinating considering how successful what he created turns out to be. But he has this point. He's like, listen, I don't want to copy. I want to create. And unfortunately, he's working for somebody that only gives, like, they don't care about what they're doing. They just want to make a dollar and they'll do that by first seeing what other people are doing and then quickly copying. So he says, I was writing many, if not most of the stories, and I admit I enjoyed their variety. Yet I said to myself, none of this is making an impression on anybody. We were recently successful. We made some money. But what bothered me is that we were always following the trends, never setting them. That changes later. And I'll tell you more about that. Martin Goodman, that's the owner of the company he works for, would merely check the sales figures of all the various companies.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Children to waste their time reading. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't all bad because the next day I'd be immersed in a world of fantasy and imagination doing work that was fun and absorbing, while many of the people who denigrated comics couldn't make that claim for themselves. That's what that specific paragraph is what I mean about why you don't care what other people think. If somebody's close to you, somebody respects giving you constructive criticism, that's one thing. But the idea is like, well, I'm enjoying the work I do. He's not making much money at the time. Most of the money's going to the owner of the company, unfortunately, but he's immersed in a world of fantasy and imagination. And the people criticize it. Like he's loving what he's doing. And most of the people are criticizing surely can't say the same thing. Now, this whole idea about most adult worlds didn't want them buying them, reading them. I heard this idea and I took a note on it. So let me pull that up for you real quick. So this really interesting person I've come across on Twitter recently. He's been on a couple podcasts. His name is Josh Wolf. He's an investor, I think, in Lux Capital. And he has, let me just...”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interesting part is he thought he was going to go fight. And somehow he got classified as a playwright, as a screen, like a screenwriter. And so there wasn't many screenwriters in the army, so the army doesn't send him to fight. They have him. They're like, hey, we need, we have a bunch of conscripts, people that don't have anything, any idea what the military is about, and we need to train them. So they made films and instruction manuals. And so that's what Stan did. And the good idea, I mean, is how he was able to keep his job at timely while he was still in the army. And we're going to see that that ties into how fast he works. He says, so I wrote my little training films and instruction manuals the same as I've always written everything else. As fast as I could. I never expected that one day the officer in charge would tell me to take it easy because the others in our unit were turning out their material at a much slower pace. And I was making it look as if they were dragging their feet. Well, since I had to slow down, that left me with lots of spare time on my hands. And it was then that an idea hit me. If there wasn't enough military...”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Meaning World War II. Publishers were selling 55 million comic books a month. That blew my mind. I had no idea. All right, it says, I've always been a fast writer, mainly because of my impatience in wanting to get finished as soon as possible. So this is a description of what I meant earlier when he says that he didn't like writing, but he likes having written. Also, I'm a gregarious guy. I like being with people, talking to people, even arguing with people. But I can't do that when I'm writing. Writing is about as lonely as an activities you can find. So that's why he's so fast. So I wrote my little training films and instructor. Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped over something. He's working at timely, but then he's drafted into the army. And then he was convinced that he was going to go and he wanted to actually go. So even if he wasn't drafted, he would have signed up. And maybe he did sign up. I don't actually remember.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I'm a writer because they were seen as just, there was no prestige. There was just a prestige in if you wrote a novel or a book or if you had like a shiny nice magazine. But comic books, which is interesting because I'm going to get into in a little bit how the sheer numbers that they sold, which is just mind-boggling. I mean, 800,000 copies and an issue kind of thing. But it was still frowned upon in kind of like, you know what? It reminds me of when I read Anthony Bourdain's book, Kitchen Confidential. Like now chefs are like, you know, like their show, TV shows about them. We look up to them. People travel all over the world to eat their food. And he's like, that's not how it was, Anthony Bourdain was talking. He's like, that's not how it was when we started. The restaurant industry was an industry of misfits and drug addicts and, you know, people that were way out of mainstream. Funny, Danny Meyer, if you remember the podcast I did on him, he said very similar things. That's why even though he was in love with food.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This story illustrates us perfectly because he decides to come up with the name Stan Lee because he didn't want to ruin his real name for when he writes the great American novel. He's 17, and this is how he's thinking. So he says, I had decided that nothing would stop me from one day writing the great American novel. Typical, isn't it? A guy gets a few comic book scripts under his belt and decide he's the next Hemingway. Being only 17 at the time and not yet having become the incredible, sophisticated and knowledgeable superperson that I am today. See, he says in Jess, but he does really, really believe that he's special. And again, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. I somehow felt it would not be seemly to take my name, which was certain to one day win a Pulitzer and sign it to a mere humble comic strip. So context before I finish that, comic book, anybody who worked in the comic book industry in the 1940s and at this around this time, they were like embarrassed. When people were like, oh, what do you do? I'm a graphic illustrator.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good old, it's called timely, is the name of the company. So he's being a gopher, and then they're like, hey, kid, we have too much work to do. Will you write some stuff? He's like, yeah, of course. I would love to. And so he says, my first story appeared in Captain America number three, which was dated May 1941. My first actual comic book script, which came two issues later in Captain America number five, which was dated in August 1941. I was barely at...”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so this is how he becomes a comic book writer by accident. Then my big break happened. As the number of comics expanded, there was more work than Joe and Jack could handle. These are the people working. The place is called, it changes names multiple times before it becomes Marvel. So I guess I should bring that up. I didn't know Stan Lee is not technically a founder of Marvel Comics. But as you'll see, he worked there for 40 years. He was the one, he was the editor. He was the man in charge doing everything else. And most at the time, most of the people that own, like the company was sold five or six different times before Disney owns it. And they were just shuffling executives. They didn't pay much attention to the creative department, even though the creative department was the ones actually creating the products that gave them all the profits that they would collect. And they would say dumb things like, oh,”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so this is now, he's graduated high school, and we're in the year 1939. Stan is 17 years old. And this is how he finds his life's work. And the bulk of the podcast is going to be us reflecting on how he feels about his life's work because I think that was the most fascinating part about the book. And the most surprising to me says, my uncle Robbie told me that they might be able to use somebody at a publishing company where he worked. The idea of being involved in publishing definitely appealed to me because he liked to read and write. I began working as a gopher for $8 a week at this small company located in the McGraw-Hill building at 42nd Street Night Avenue in Manhattan. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had embarked on my life's career.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“News service. Now he's probably 14, 15 years old the time. Then that led to a job writing publicity for the National Tuberculosis Hospital, which is kind of weird. And then he also got a job at a movie theater being an usher. So just doing whatever, he would take whatever work he could get at that time, even if he didn't like it. But in the case of the movie, being an usher, it's one of his favorite jobs.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So then he talks about it's amazing. He's close to 80 years old writing these words and he could still remember his favorite teacher, which is a guy named Leon Ginsberg. And he talked about something that he learned from Leon that he applied for the rest of his life. He said he would entertain the class with humorous and exciting stories to illustrate teaching points. It was Mr. Ginsburg who first made me realize that learning could be fun, that it was easier to reach people, to hold their attention, to get points across with humor than any other way. It was a lesson I never forgot and a lesson I've tried to apply to everything I do. So he's definitely, like this book is pretty funny. Like he's very, and he comes off extremely likable even though he is extremely confident. Most people would consider him an arrogant person. And again, I'm not, I don't really have a problem with that. I'd rather...”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Say that if there was nothing to read, I'd read the labels of ketchup bottles, which I did. And then we're going to hear that as we're not surprised that all Stan was kind of a misfit. Like he was an outsider. He didn't fit in. He was a weird person. And I mean weird in the most loving way possible. And then we're going to learn about a lesson that he never forgot. So he said in school, I was always thinking of an outsider. That's because I usually the youngest kid in my class and in my social group. So his parents didn't have any money. They made him study really hard so he could basically skip grades and finish school faster so they could get to work and help the family. So this is part of the impact of the depression had on families like mine. My mother wanted me to finish school as soon as possible so I could get a job and help support the family, which is another reason I had the work ethic drummed into me at an early age. I studied hard and skipped grades which pit me in with older kids. But as you might imagine, it's no fun being the youngest kid in class.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so let me skip ahead. Sometimes you're going to hear Stan refer to himself when I'm reading. That's the words he wrote. He also has a co-author in the book, and his name is George Mare. And so whenever we're talking about Stan, that's George writing. So George is writing this. He says, even in those difficult times, there's one joyful thing for Stan. It was the thing that eventually changed his life forever. It was his love for reading, for losing himself in the magical world of books. Okay, now we're going to get to Stan's description of that. He said, I can't remember when I first learned to read, nor can I remember a time when I wasn't reading. It was my escape from the dreariness and sadness of my home life. I read everything I could find, everywhere, every chance I got. In school, reading and composition were always my best subjects. At every meal at home, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, I'd have a book or magazine to read while I ate. My mother used to say”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have to be kind of alone, but he definitely enjoyed the process of having written, which I've come across a couple times, where even some of my favorite writers are talking about, well, I don't really like writing. I just like the fact that I have written. So there's a lesson there. But this whole idea about seeing, so the foresightlessness, he was definitely never idle. Even, you know, he's reflecting on some of the projects he's taking on when he's in his 70s at the time. He just kept going, going, going. But this whole idea about he realized from an early age about what the absence of money can do to a family. So Stan was never poor, but he definitely never captured even.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll always regret the fact that by the time I was earning enough money to make things easier for them, it was too late. And he talks about reflecting one of his earliest memories of his father, his father sitting at the kitchen table going through the want ads, spending all day applying for jobs, coming back with no luck, and then doing it over and over and over again. And I just want to read this one sentence. Stan just has a wonderful way with words. And this was his impression as a young person seeing this happen to his family. He says, forced idleness is a terrible thing. That's a hell of a sentence. And you know what's weird, though, to me now that I've read the book? So he was definitely not idle. I think I talk a little bit about it later on, but in case I don't, he basically wrote all day long, every day constantly. And he didn't necessarily enjoy the process of writing because he's like an extrovert, a gregarious person. You wanted to be around people when you're writing.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I would also add person he's writing this book in 2002 when he's 80 years old. He doesn't pass away until he's 95. So let me just interject there again. It's a feeling that most important thing for a person is to have work to do, to be busy, to be needed. Today, I never feel more fulfilled than when I'm working on a number of projects at once, which is really nuts because I'm always wishing I had more free time. Still, when I'm busy, I feel needed and that makes me feel good. So he's going to reflect a little bit about what it was like growing up during the Depression and seeing his parents struggle and, frankly, argue constantly about money. And the lack thereof of money. They were both good loving parents. And I think the only thing that gave them any pleasure was their children. My brother and I always regretted that fate had not been kinder to them.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and the titanically talented people I've worked with Here are a couple sentences I wrote some years ago to describe my feelings about what Marvel comics represents. Marvel is a cornucopia fantasy, a wild idea, a swash buckling attitude, an escape from the humdrum and the prosaic. It's a serendipitous feast for the mind, the eye and the imagination, a literate celebration of unbridled creativity coupled with a touch of rebellion and an insolent desire to spit in the eye of the dragon. There you have it my take on Marvel and the fantasy genre in general, and perhaps my own philosophy in particular, if those words strike a chord with you, read on. If they don't, I'd rather not know.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How did it happen? How did I get into this me, a guy who's almost always written fantasy, suddenly having to deal with facts, the facts of my life? Although come to think of it, those facts themselves are pretty fantastic. If I hadn't lived the whole thing, I might not even believe it. During those strange struggling early years, I wallowed embarrassment because I was a mere comic book writer, and now because of those same humble comic books, here I am the featured star of a real grown up book, the hero of my own life story. There's probably a moral hidden there. Feel free to search for it as we roll along. To tell the truth, I can't wait to read the pages that follow, since so much of the past has managed to homogenize in the plot and the plot cluttered recesses of my mind. It's a chance to rediscover little truths about my own inscrutable self.”
2019-05-19 · Founders · #72 Stan Lee: Founder of Marvel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source