Chuckles mourns Stan but needs your help 0

[Pirate]

in between all the Chuck wildly_fanciful_statement about him and stan being the best of buddies blah blah blah and him needing to pay the bills in same sentence, something struck me.  He made mention of Stan waiving his $10000 signing fee in 1981 for his dirt poor best friend Chuckles.  Was Stan really charging that much in 1981?

[theCapraAegagrus]

20 minutes ago, Pirate said:

in between all the Chuck wildly_fanciful_statement about him and stan being the best of buddies blah blah blah and him needing to pay the bills in same sentence, something struck me.  He made mention of Stan waiving his $10000 signing fee in 1981 for his dirt poor best friend Chuckles.  Was Stan really charging that much in 1981?

No way in hell.

My grandfather got his signature a few times in the 80's an IIRC it was $40-50 back then.

[comicquant]

4 minutes ago, TwoPiece said:

No way in hell.

My grandfather got his signature a few times in the 80's an IIRC it was $40-50 back then.

I think he meant the retainer fee the host pays to have Stan onsite.  I could see $10k at that time.  This was a really good time for Marvel.  Claremont wrote Days of Future Past in 1981 and I believe this is around the time Marvel experienced its highest distribution numbers.

[mr_highgrade]

He signing comics for free at a NY comic show in 1986. 

[theCapraAegagrus]

13 minutes ago, comicquant said:

I think he meant the retainer fee the host pays to have Stan onsite.  I could see $10k at that time.  This was a really good time for Marvel.  Claremont wrote Days of Future Past in 1981 and I believe this is around the time Marvel experienced its highest distribution numbers.

O I C

[RCheli]

I could see that. That may have been a flat fee for his time, travel, hotel, etc. If he's flying to Colorado, staying over at a nice place, eating out, it's not insane to ask for that much.

Remember, stars now get a minimum for appearance at a con. If they don't make that up in signature fees, the con organizer has to buy up the remaining amount (usually getting thousands of dollars worth of signatures). 

[Pirate]

2 minutes ago, RCheli said:

I could see that. That may have been a flat fee for his time, travel, hotel, etc. If he's flying to Colorado, staying over at a nice place, eating out, it's not insane to ask for that much.

Remember, stars now get a minimum for appearance at a con. If they don't make that up in signature fees, the con organizer has to buy up the remaining amount (usually getting thousands of dollars worth of signatures). 

I know all this, it's out of hand.  I"m talking about 1981.

[RCheli]

5 minutes ago, Pirate said:

I know all this, it's out of hand.  I"m talking about 1981.

Sure. Last year, his rate was probably $50k or more. So $10k in 1981 wasn't that nuts.

[theCapraAegagrus]

Just now, MyCameo said:

Signatures were free back then.

Had to be the 70's or 80's. He didn't go to conventions in the 90's or 2000's (passed in 2006).

[shadroch]

I do not believe Stan was getting $10,000 for appearances in 1981. Simply didn't happen. No one charged for autographs then and while Stan was still huge, he'd  not yet reached cult status.

[jaeldubyoo]

1 hour ago, RCheli said:

Sure. Last year, his rate was probably $50k or more. So $10k in 1981 wasn't that nuts.

$10,000 in 1981 was a huge chunk of change. That's about 2/3 of the average annual income that year, You could have bought 20,000 new comics off the newsstands at cover price.

Edited November 14, 2018 by jaeldubyoo

[KobaltDog]

I heard a rumor that he wasn't really  getting paid until the xmen movie dropped. 

[shadroch]

Not in 1981 ,he wasn't.  He started making real money when Pearlman bought Marvel and wanted to take it public. In 1981, he was unsuccessfully shopping Marvel to Hollywood. 

Edited November 14, 2018 by shadroch

[Pirate]

I was 99% sure Chuckles was embellishing once again.

[jimjum12]

23 hours ago, RCheli said:

23 hours ago, Pirate said:

I know all this, it's out of hand.  I"m talking about 1981.

Sure. Last year, his rate was probably $50k or more. So $10k in 1981 wasn't that nuts.

Which show would also make a difference …. a show like SDCC might see it as an attendance generating draw, where as the local Creation Show at the nearby community college would pass on that. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited November 15, 2018 by jimjum12

[01TheDude]

Stan most likely did have an appearance fee -- probably a couple of thousand to at least cover expenses and some money for the effort-- but I would consider the source of this 10K amount and doubt it was quite that much to have him do a store appearance in 1981. Chuck stretches the truth to make his stories more impactful pretty much in every instance. Not saying it is impossible that Lee had a fee that high for something like attending a convention-- he was pretty hot in the collecting community at that point. My guess is the old Chuck multiplier was used to make the 2K into a 10K amount. But a less formal store appearance seems like it would a couple grand for a few hours of being there.

Edited November 15, 2018 by 01TheDude

[Mercury Man]

Chuck got confused.  He was probably pricing X-Force #1 in his head while having the Stan conversation at the same time. 

[roach04]

The first signature I ever paid for was Stan’s - it was $35 in 2010.

i can see Stan asking for travel expenses, even in 1981.  But 10k?  Impossible.

[WhatMeWorry]

What is with this board and the continuous bashing of Mile High. Gets old.

[roach04]

2 minutes ago, WhatMeWorry said:

What is with this board and the continuous bashing of Mile High. Gets old.

LOL - it’s true.

I can’t speak for others - but it’s mostly because Chuck has had a terrible, awful run for his whole life (at least most of his stories start that way) with never-ending money problems.

...while finding the greatest Golden Age collection of all time.  And I know I’m a bit jealous that I didn’t live in Colorado and get a call from the Church family!