the literati blog: On Stanley Himself...

Stan Lee has passed away and all of comicsdom is in mourning.

The term ''comicsdom'' never made any sense whatsoever - of course; my using it does not mean I condone it! ''Comics'' implies comedy - yet there has never been a real focus on it; not anymore, not since the 1970s, perhaps...! Comics or comic-books were called as such because they were primarily funny animal, cartoony things - in their early days. They were the simplest form of amusement. The term has been replaced, anyway - it has become FANDOM; and it adheres more strictly to FILMS now, as comic-book creatives themselves have shifted focus, considerably, from their actual niche to viewing themselves as full-fledged Hollywood people...! Publishers DC and Marvel have since relocated their offices from New York to Tinseltown. Stan Lee himself was seeing himself, in his twilight years, as a Hollywood consultant and executive producer - that says it all, does it not?

Now that we got all that baggage out of the way - this: Bill Maher, radical TV personality that he is, never hesitates to call a spade by its name. He will fearlessly tackle any politician there is - Trump, most of all, these days... Why would anyone be surprised he would be bashing Stan Lee now?

Hell... I'll bash Stan Lee now too!

But not for the same reasons Maher did - oh, no!

Some feel as though Bill is biting the hand that fed him - because he made one tiny cameo in one of the damnable Marvel movies. BIG EFFIN' DEAL. Just like Garry Shandling, for example, Bill Maher was asked to appear and basically be himself - just as he is in real life (isn't that his tribune's title, too: Real Life With Bill Maher? Whatever!) but within the context of the wildly unrealistic ''Marvel Cinematic Universe'' which has been made wildly successful by sheer out of control fandom support alone! Well... Boo-hoo now, that all the Marvel Zombies out there fail to realize that, those cameos are there just to help the impossible freaks that their favorite characters are become... borderline more relatable to the real world indeed. BORDERLINE - because it can never be achieved without massive doses of suspension of disbelief - and comic relief, too. Hence, maybe, the term ''comicsdom'' is justified, even in 2018 after all... Comedy it is! But that's another story!

Bill bashes Stan's LEGACY - which may well be to drive Hollywood completely bankrupt if the world keeps revolving around the sun - long term! (Cameron and Foster think so, too...!)

Me... I bash Stan Lee's PHILOSOPHY. Not the core message - but its deep, inherent, totally insufferable contradiction!

Both of us make total complete abstraction of the well-known fact that Stan was a glory hound - he got credit - and took it, also- when credit was due to his collaborators: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Buscema to name but a few... It was ''Stan Lee Presents'' all those years - when, in fact, he would simply insert some witty repartee (and it was not even witty, sometimes!) onto pre-existing artwork, detailed panel-by-panel stories already all done, really - it only missed some dialogue. For that is, and it was so admitted by all involved in the process, the ''Marvel Way'' of creating comics...

Originally, this ciphering and usurping propelled Stan onto the main spot, on top of the hill - but it was not enough for Stan Lieber, initially, thought of himself as doing this ''just for a while'' until he could launch his ''real writing career''...

And, now that he has passed, people will latch on to the basic message his stories appeared to be telling: FIGHT EVIL... but that came with a warped view of just how it could be done and, ultimately, it led to the widespread desensitization that we can witness now, in all audiences, of all ages and creeds - practically...