Set free from the pages of Marvel, the 77-year-old superhero flies into the future and onto the Web
The iFUSE interview

iFuse.com - Popculprit
Feb. 14, 2000

NOTE: This was the premier entry in my series of "Thwack!" columns for iFuse.com. "Thwack!" was my bi-weekly column on comics that ran of the iFuse.com "PopCulprit" site from Nov. 1999 until the dot-com downturn caught up with iFuse in October, 2000.
 
 

I usually try to avoid insanely gushing generalizations, but here's one anyway: Without Stan Lee there would be no such thing as superhero comics. In fact, they would have gone out with a whimper four decades ago. When Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four No. 1 appeared in 1961, it ignited the torpid industry as sure as the Human Torch could say "Flame On!" and burst into a ball o' fire.

Comics were still reeling from the crisis of the early '50s when they came under attack for supposedly encouraging kids to grow up to be rapists, bank robbers, drug users or gay lovers -- like Batman and Robin! (An actual accusation from comics' No. 1 inquisitor, "mental hygiene" specialist Frederic Wertham.)

Complying with the newly-imposed and, at that time, absurdly restrictive comics code, the industry cleaned up its act and in the process, desiccated the life out of its greatest characters. Most superheroes couldn't live with their dejizzification and simply went into remission. Those that remained active -- Superman and Batman, primarily -- were consigned to rote tales in which they defeated bug-eyed alien invaders and other such inane adversaries. They weren't exactly the sorts of stories kids could relate to. They were pretty dull.

Lee, along with a number of now-legendary artists, most significantly Jack Kirby, changed all that. He followed FF with a Dimaggio-like streak of characters that have long since passed into our permanent zeitgeist: The Incredible Hulk, Spider Man, Iron Man, The Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, to name but a few. All were regular guys (and gals) first, superpowered world-saviors second. It suddenly made sense to read comics again. The '60s and '70s were Lee's heyday. Starting in the early '80s he served largely as a figurehead at Marvel Comics, relocating to L.A. and concentrating on repurposing Marvel's classic characters for Hollywood. But as the new century dawns, 77-year-old Stan Lee -- now freed from his lifetime contract with Marvel -- is starting anew. This time, he's in cyberspace.

On Feb. 29 his new venture, Stan Lee Media goes online with a new set of Web-animated characters and stories. The debut show will be The Seventh Portal, in which six teenage beta testers enter another dimension, through the "portal" of the Internet (Yahoo? Excite?) where they gain superpowers and battle a squadron of supervillains led by the ultra-evil "Mongor." Other titles (which Lee says he is "not permitted to talk about") going on the site later include The Accuser, The Drifter and Stone Man. Ultimately, Lee's company plans to debut a new "webisode" of at least one show every day. I found Stan the Man in his Encino, Calif. office, looking very much like the caricature that ran with his weekly "Stan's Soapbox" column in every Marvel Comic. The hair, the mustache, the sunglasses and the irrepressible enthusiasm were all in place.

iFUSE: Will the Web have an impact on the comics industry? It seems that everything that happens in the world has a bad impact on the comics industry these days.

STAN LEE: I think all the bad impacts have been the fault of the comics industry. I think the Web will be great for it. I think it'll create a whole new audience of people who like these kinds of stories. If we can increase the audience, since we can only give them one new one a day, they'll have to turn to comic books to get their superhero fix.

iFUSE: What do you think is wrong with the comics industry? It seems like sales keep going down and there's a dismal atmosphere inside the business.

SL: We used to appeal to young kids and older people. Today I think most of the comics are written with the older reader in mind. The writers and the artists enjoy the fact that older people are reading their stuff -- which is good. But what's happened is they've lost the younger kids. It used to be there was always a new generation. As older readers would fall off there were new ones. Now there's no new ones. The stories aren't accessible to young readers anymore. You feel like you're coming in the middle of a movie and you don't understand who the people are or what they're doing. I think the comic book publishers are beginning to realize that. Also there are less stores to buy them. If you wanted comics, where the hell would you buy them? Everybody doesn't live near Golden Apple.

iFUSE: You used to buy them at the drugstore or the newsstand. SL: You don't see them there anymore.

iFUSE: If you were in charge, what would you do to change it?

SL: I'd start making the books more accessible to younger people, and I'd find a way to have them distributed in K-Mart, Wal-Mart, grocery stores, music stores. All over. They've got to work on the distribution. They've got to find a way to get them where people go.

iFUSE: Now, your new company isn't the only one doing Web-based comicsÖ

SL: Webisodes! I don't think of them as our version of comic books on the Web. It's not done in panels. We don't have dialog balloons, we have actors. I think of them as mini-movies. They just happen to be animated. They're like the old movie serials. The only thing comic-booky about 'em is, they're the same kind of stories that I've done for years. They're fantasy, science fiction, bigger than life, over the top stories -- done as realistically as possible.

iFUSE: The first question fans are going to ask is how much is Stan really going to write?

SL: I've created all the characters and the concept of our different Webisodes. But then I have writers actually writing the scripts. Our main one, The Seventh Portal, I'm co-writing with [President of Linear Content and Television Production] Bryce Zabel. I'm writing a lot of the features. I write little messages that will start appearing for the users. I'm going to write all kinds of novelty humor. I love writing humor.

I go over everything, of course. I want everything to read as if it was done by Marvel years ago. It should have that same feeling. I want them to be fantasy mixed with reality, a touch of humor in certain areas, a lot of great visuals and a lot of provocative themes.

Other than that, the usual stuff.

iFUSE: It seems your site is aimed at very young people, so-called "Gen Y." How much cachet do you think your name has with that age group?

SL: I get a lot of fan mail from them. I get a lot of kids eight years old asking for my autograph. I don't know if their older brothers or their fathers tell them about the comics. I don't know what it is. But they do seem to know me.

In business you always have to say who your target audience is, who your demographics are. So [Lee's business partner] Peter [Paul] usually says between 10 and 20, something like that.

I never think of demographics. I've always tried to write stories that would be clear an understandable enough for young people but intelligent enough and with enough little bits of humor and reality for older readers.

iFUSE: At an age when you could be retiring to be an elder statesman of the industry, why are you starting a whole new venture?

SL: I'd rather be the younger statesman than a retiree. I never thought of retiring. I love what I do. I've always had a lifetime contract at Marvel but last December I was able to work out a new deal where I'm allowed to do other things. I figured I was in on the ground floor of comics and was able to do something that turned out to be kind of big. Wouldn't it be great to be in on the ground floor of the Internet, which is infinitely bigger than comics could ever be? Who could resist an opportunity like that.

iFUSE: A lot of Web entertainment sites, it seems, produce shows for the Web, but what they're really doing is pitching to TV through the back door. Is that your plan?

SL: I always just concentrate on what I'm doing. I'm trying to see to it that we get the very best, most exciting, most engrossing Webisodes that it's possible to get on a computer screen.

Now, in this world in which we live, very often anything that's good, people in other lines of endeavor want to grab that thing and put it to use. So it's not unlikely that some Saturday morning network would like to do an animated series. It's not unlikely that some interactive game company is going to say, "Hey, this would make a great game." It's not unlikely that somebody would want to make a movie. That they'll want to make toys. But that's not what I concentrate on. If that happens, great! If it doesn't happen, fine. I want to get the best damn shows we can get on the Internet.

iFUSE: You have people out there shopping you around, though?

SL: Oh, we have licensing people. We have everybody. But that's not my primary concern. I find that the minute you try to do a show that will be good for something else you're not giving a hundred percent to that show. I had that experience some time ago with a toy manufacturer. I don't want to mention who, what, when, where. Instead of giving the most compelling characters and show we could, he wanted this to take place on a million different planets so that each planet would have different kinds of people and each one would be a different toy. From his point of view the show was great -- it had all these toys! He overlooked the fact that it was a lousy show!

iFUSE: Do you follow the comics industry?

SL: No time, no time. I follow it as much as I can but I don't have time to read the books.

iFUSE: I was going to ask if there's anything being done today that stands out.

SL: There may be, but I wouldn't know. I don't even have time to read good stuff. It's my biggest regret. I used to go to sleep every night with a book on my night table. I'd read a chapter or two. Now I work until I can't keep my eyes open anymore and I plop into bed. I barely have time to read the newspaper. One paper at breakfast. I don't even have time to read Variety and The Hollywood Reporter which I used to read faithfully.

iFUSE: All your time goes to this company?

SL: All to this! And I'm not complaining. I love it! I love every minute of it!      

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