I never got to meet him, or see him in person. I never got chance to speak to him, I never sent him fan mail, and I never drew any art as a tribute. What I did do, was consume his media.
I'm a young man, nearing the end of my college experience, and I've loved superheroes for as long as I can remember. I remember when I was a little kid in the late 90's - early 2000's, watching Batman and Superman cartoons on T.V., and Spider-Man and X-Men on vhs. For me back then, there was no division. If you liked Batman, you probably liked Spider-Man too. It wasn't D.C. vs Marvel or "if you like this company you don't know quality." It was about the imagination, the storytelling, the mind-boggling wonder that Superheroes inspired. I remember in the mid-2000s sitting on the floor in my room with the vhs looping a string of Spider-Man episodes, me trying to draw one of my favorite villains from the show. I believe his name was Spot. Anyway, I think back then is when it really started, watching Superman punch out one of Kirby's creations while one of Lee's creations punched out a polka-dot themed supervillain. There was a moment there when it all sort of clicked into place. I wanted to make characters too. I wanted to tell stories too. I wanted to entertain, and make people happy.
It was a lingering thought in my mind, that. Something of a whisper in the background. "This is what you want." Fast-forward to my junior year of highschool, I'm fully immersed in comic book culture. Not just that, but video games, film, literature. I liked it all, because they all told stories. Stories that were remembered. I was sitting with a fee friends in the library at school, and that whisper, suddenly, became a confident shout. "This is what you want."
I'm not drawing for nothing. I have ambition. I want to be great at what I love. I want to be published, and have people say in excited tones, "did you read the latest issue?" I want to inspire, and make people laugh, or cry, or explode with fury, with characters you can cheer for or hate to death. I want to create worlds that you can fall in love with. Like what I had growing up.
I had a dream that one day, once I had become good enough, once I had made something I found pride in and that the world would recognize, once I had achieved my goals... That I would finally meet one of my heroes. That I could look him in the eye, person to person, and shake his hand. That I could look at him with my own eyes with respect, and hopefully see that he respected me too.
But I've failed in that dream. So many of my heroes have gone in recent years. I can't ever speak to them. I can't shake their hands.
I never met Stan Lee. I never saw him in person. I never said a word to him, or sent him fan mail. I never made art in tribute to him. I say all this, but I feel the same as most everyone else does. I feel as if a piece of me is gone. His work with Marvel Comics is just a part of it. I've been surrounded by that madia for as long as I've been alive. But it isn't just that. Other publishers were affected by him and his legacy. Even Marvel's greatest competitor had to evolve and change over the years in response to the stories he wrote.
I say this with complete confidence. If it weren't for Stan Lee, Marvel, DC, Image, DarkHorse, hell, even Manga wouldn't be the same as they are today. Without him, comics would be different. That means cartoons would be different. T.V. would be different. Movies would be different. Media in general would be different.
Without the influence of Stan Lee and his peers, the world would be a different place. The thought of that scares the hell out of me.
So, I vent my thoughts in remembrance of him and all he's done. I renew my resolve to become a great artist and storyteller. I won't be making any art though. Not of him, not today. I feel like I'd be capitalizing on his passing if I did.
I'm a bit of a mess right now, so I don't really know how to end this post.
Thank you Stan. Thanks for all you've created, co-created, produced, said and done. Thank you for helping to put me on my path. Thank you for being great.
Treasure your heroes, everyone.