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Lee the next Lee?
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I started think of how much Stan Lee was the face of not only Marvel but the comic book industry in general. He brought a lot of goodwill towards the art form with his warm and welcoming personality. With his passing who steps into the void? Right now I feel like it may be Jim Lee. What do you guys think?

 

 

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Yeah, Lee was such a larger-than-life character that I don't think the industry will ever see someone like him again.  Jim Lee is by all impressions a great guy and could arguably be considered the top guy in the industry, but Stan Lee managed to transcend the world of comics and had a level of awareness with the general public that I doubt anyone else will ever have.

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14 minutes ago, ShallowDan said:

Yeah, Lee was such a larger-than-life character that I don't think the industry will ever see someone like him again.  Jim Lee is by all impressions a great guy and could arguably be considered the top guy in the industry, but Stan Lee managed to transcend the world of comics and had a level of awareness with the general public that I doubt anyone else will ever have.

This is my gut reaction as well. I don't see anyone grabbing the baton from Stan when he passed. I have trouble thinking of anyone who might. 

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There's no one guy who can represent comics like Stan did. To me, at this point in time, the one who comes the closest is Robert Kirkman. In terms of convention appearances, where Stan was a ubiquitous presence for the last 20 years preceding his death, it seems like Frank Miller, Jim Lee, and Kirkman are now being positioned to assume that same headlining guest role. But again, there's no replacing Stan.

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To what Felix just said...

Stan in his comic days was a big man in a small pond. He egressed from comics to the entertainment world relatively early, to try and get things going in the larger world. It wasn’t an altruistic endeavor, and in many ways he had big Hollywood stars (and money) in his eyes. And through an unconquerable enthusiasm, eventually lived to see his dream come true. Along the way he became comics defacto ambassador to the larger world.
 

His enthusiasm for the medium was revisionist (for most it was a gig that paid when they couldn’t get jobs in their preferred professions) but history is written by the victors, or something like that. :) And no one can deny the gusto with which he promoted the medium to anyone that would listen. He was a born salesman.

There is no one in comics like Stan.

Jim Lee, Frank Miller, Robert Kirkman, etc. These folks are artists and storytellers. Kirkman might be the most natural “salesman” among them, but none will ever be in that early developmental position that Lee had, firmly focused on introducing himself into that wider world, and using his unbridled schtik to pitch a media he helped birth/develop to the attention of the folks that would eventually make it a staple of modern culture. Slowly at first, small ripples, but those early projects... the cartoons and whatnot exposed new generations to things he had a hand in creating. He was one hell of a salesman.  He definitely had a role in the creation of some of the medium’s biggest properties. But it was that sales angle that made Lee who he was. He could BS with the best, and he was unstoppable. I don’t see anyone out there like that now. And with comics so fractured and subdivided, the would-be audience for such an individual doesn’t likely exist.

A super reductionist look at Lee (he deserves much more) and my personal .02 pennies.

 

 

Edited by ESeffinga
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Not really being a Marvel fan, I'm not really into Stan Lee's "schtick".  I once rode in an elevator with him and didn't even acknowledge him.  Then again, there's a very short list of "celebrities" I would acknowledge.

I don't think OP was asking about Stan Lee as a creator.  I think the question was about Stan Lee as "the face" of comics.  He definitely was that.

Edited by Will_K
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On 11/20/2020 at 1:09 PM, Nexus said:

There's no one guy who can represent comics like Stan did. 

This.  I'm looking right now at an early SA X-Men.  As much as Stan Lee did a ton of work writing and giving this artists basically free-reign (pretty much unheard of over at National Comics), he was a marketing genius as the Marvel Age of Comics was exploding in the early- to mid-60s.  So that early SA X-Men.  The labels, "ANOTHER TRULY MARVEL-OUS STAR-STUDDED EPIC!!"  or "And WAIT TILL YOU MEET LUCIFER!"  Then the opening page, "MIGHTY MARVEL DOES IT AGAIN" or "Whatever You Want In a Super-epic, This One's GOT It!!"  Then the creator credits which were totally foreign at National:  "Supremely Drawn By:  JACK KIRBY" or "Stoically Lettered By:  S. ROSEN."   The Merry Marvel Marching Society a few pages later.  Then a full-page color ad for four other Marvel issues billed as "4 MORE MARVEL MASTERPIECES!"  Then a two-page letters section, all addressed to "Dear Stan and Jack" with a response to each.  

All of these hooks and marketing gimmicks did so much to build reader loyalty.  Yeah, no one comes close to doing what he did for the medium.

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When it comes to comic creators who are/were household names, it's a very short list. I'm not a fan of glory-hog Stan, but there's no question that he is/was the only true household name in comic-dom, if you're talking superhero books.

If you include strips like Peanuts, I suppose Charles Schulz would be up there as well, as far as name recognition. I'd say R. Crumb is a household name with a certain generation as well. However, even with this perhaps overly generous appraisal, Schulz was an introvert, and Crumb a misanthrope. Also, Schulz is dead, and Crumb is wherever. France? If you want a guy who loved promoting comics who is also recognized by the random man on the street who never read a comic, Stan Lee is really the only answer.

So, that's the argument for visibility. There aren't many choices. When it comes to ambassadorship, I'd agree that Kevin Smith is probably the next most visible parade leader for comics, which makes me sad, though not as sad as watching his movies makes me. Not a fan. That being said, I do believe that Kevin Smith stands on his own, for what its worth. His movies, his comics, they're his work. 

Jim Lee, hugely influential artist, still a superstar within the field, but no one outside of a comic shop has any idea who the guy is.

For good or ill, I think Stan took the job with him. He had many well-documented flaws, but he loved slinging the hyperbole, and blowing the Marvel trumpet. He was uniquely suited to the job, a true once in a lifetime character.

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On 11/20/2020 at 8:07 AM, gumbydarnit said:

I started think of how much Stan Lee was the face of not only Marvel but the comic book industry in general. He brought a lot of goodwill towards the art form with his warm and welcoming personality. With his passing who steps into the void? Right now I feel like it may be Jim Lee. What do you guys think?

 

 

No one. 

The closest we have isn't even part of the "club". I vote for Greg Berlanti.

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43 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

I had to google who that was. So... not such a good start for him.
 

That's because we are wedded to comic books, while the rest of the country/world is wedded to comic characters and its stories

I don't think the face of the comic book industry is in the comic book industry, but in multimedia, because that is where the money is. Stan Lee was famous to us well beforehand, but when he became famous as a media personality, that is what made the difference. With low profitability in publishing comics, a media personality is needed to save and protect the comics to serve as a source of new characters and stories (like the upcoming "Peacemaker"). And if not the creator of the Arrowverse, who else?

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I haven't seen Greg Berlanti putting himself forth as a spokesman for the industry and its characters (and himself) the way that Stan Lee did. But as far as working behind the scenes to make comic book content accessible to the television masses, I give him an A+.

I just started watching the various DC live-action TV series ("Arrowverse" seems too narrow a descriptor) during the COVID lockdown, and I'm amazed/impressed with the sheer number of concepts that have managed to translate.  Which of us would have imagined 20 years ago that we'd be able to tune in for successful ongoing TV depictions of characters like Rip Hunter, Vibe, Isis, Elongated Man, The Guardian, Mon-El, Vandal Savage, Red Tornado, Earth-X, The Dominators, Killer Frost, Mr. Terrific, The Huntress, Black Canary, John Constantine, Vigilante, The Human Target, Firestorm...

It seems to me that J.K. Rowling is taking a big risk of her characters falling into obscurity by not licensing them for ongoing stories in some fashion. The Harry Potter Broadway show was wonderful, but it's beyond the means of most of the public. Hopefully the upcoming Tolkien series on Netflix will keep the fire burning faithfully for that series. But I digress.

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2 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

That's because we are wedded to comic books, while the rest of the country/world is wedded to comic characters and its stories

I don't think the face of the comic book industry is in the comic book industry, but in multimedia, because that is where the money is. Stan Lee was famous to us well beforehand, but when he became famous as a media personality, that is what made the difference. With low profitability in publishing comics, a media personality is needed to save and protect the comics to serve as a source of new characters and stories (like the upcoming "Peacemaker"). And if not the creator of the Arrowverse, who else?

To which I still say “who”?!?

If you want to go down that road, like him or loathe him, wouldn’t Kevin Fiege be the more recognizable name to nerd culture at large? And bringing the most name recognition for himself and the characters he has shepherded into that media.  Not unlike the moustachioed pitchman this thread is about?

But of course silly me, I thought this was about who was the next Stan Lee: Ambassador for Comics, and I still come back with “no one”. That’s because everyone has a “real” job now.  And Stan was both an impossibly positive hype-man, and able to put himself in a position where his only job was really Hyping the comics medium. Specifically Marvel, but also the medium at large.

Everyone else is too busy being an Editor, or a writer or an artist, or a producer, or CEO or whatever task they do. No one has the freedom to be themselves (I.e. not the guy that runs the Twitter account for Marvel) and has the time to just ride social media and appearances, and interviews etc. right at the nexus of things happening. And at this stage as you say, with people losing interest in the medium of COMICS in the mainstream, there is likely never to be that person again. Not sure how many people would be satisfied with that being their only job. They’d want more, and thus wouldn’t be 100% That Guy. 
 

Stan hit the right time in his life, had a goal, and had the personality to stick his head in any door and turn on the Stan Lee persona. 

Like him or loathe him, he was a total salesman through and through. Even if someone crated a job solely to do Just THAT, and be the whole industries’ hype man. They wouldn’t have the street crowd of being there in the early days. Have their name mentioned in the Mount Rushmore of comics.

I don’t care if they created an “Arrowverse”, it’s all riding on the old guys coat tails. Peers of Stan. Or his.

And I sound like I’m all pro-Stan. And actually never liked him.  Not even a little. Just objectively looking at the question at hand.

Kirkman maybe (maybe) could have seemed like the guy at the center of comics a few years back, when Walking Dead was everywhere and spin-offs and world building, etc. and bleed into public consciousness, but it looks like interest has faded pretty quick for that “universe”. I suspect it’s just too one-note and not enough fantasy and expanse as some other world building ideas have been. Not as much can happen, and while it’ll never go away, it’ll never be as big as comics on the whole. Even just Marvel, never mind things like the Mignolaverse and others under the comics umbrella with tons of legs within comics. 
 

 

 

 

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