RIP Stan Lee

Thank you for all the years of fun, Stan Lee. 

You and the Marvel Bullpen (and "Brand Echh" too) added a tremendous joy to the long, dark, and cold winter nights I had growing up in Anchorage, Alaska. 

Here I am sorting my "lesser" comics, c. 1977. I had been collecting for 15 years by that point. What fun it was to be a fan. I loved sorting and playing with my stacks of "raw" comics. I read them all!

Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, c. 1985

This signed copy of Silver Surfer #4 just sold at auction for over $28,000!

Anchorage The Mall at Sears: One-Man Comic Con

When I put on a one-man proto-comic con in the Sears Mall in Anchorage, c. 1974, I recall I bought and sold a heap of the Marvel monster mag reprints. They were a real crowd-pleaser. My older brother is seen here working my sales table. The man with the beard, Chuck Doulgerakis, started a comics collector club up here. I was official member #3.

Vintage Ben Cooper Marvel Superhero Costumes

Ben Cooper, Inc. Thor Halloween costume

Ben Cooper, Inc. Thor Halloween costume

Ben Cooper, Inc. Thor Halloween costume

Ben Cooper, Inc. Thor Halloween costume

Ben Cooper, Inc. Iron Man Halloween costume

Ben Cooper, Inc. Iron Man Halloween costume

Ben Cooper, Inc. Iron Man Halloween costume

Ben Cooper, Inc. Iron Man Halloween costume

Ben Cooper, Inc. Iron Man Halloween costume

From yee Wiki:

Ben Cooper, Inc. was a privately held American corporation which primarily manufactured Halloween costumes from the late 1930s to the late 1980s. It was one of the three largest Halloween costume manufacturers in the US. The company's inexpensive plastic masks and vinyl smocks were an iconic American symbol of Halloween from the 1950s to the 1970s, and Cooper has been called the "Halston of Halloween" and the "High Priest" of Halloween.

Founder Ben Cooper was born on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1906. Although his father was a restaurateur, Cooper studied accounting and briefly sought a career as a songwriter before founding a theatrical costume business in 1927. Cooper designed costumes and sets for the legendary Cotton Club in Harlem and several editions of the Ziegfeld Follies.

With live theater becoming rarer in the 1930s due to the Great Depression and Halloween becoming a more popular holiday, Cooper established Ben Cooper, Inc., in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937. The firm assumed control of A.S. Fishbach, Inc. -- which had a license to produce costumes based on characters owned by The Walt Disney Company such as Donald Duck and Snow White -- in 1937 and began selling Disney costumes under Fishbach's Spotlight brand. The two companies formally merged and incorporated as Ben Cooper, Inc., on December 8, 1942. 

By the late 1940s, Ben Cooper, Inc. was one of the largest and most prominent Halloween costume manufacturers in the United States. Its costumes were generally very thin fabric with a silk-screened image on the front that sold for less than $3.00. The company began selling its costumes through large retailers such as J. C. Penney, Sears, Woolworth's, and five-and-dime stores. 

Costumes often sold for $1.25. At the time, the most popular costumes were traditional Halloween figures such as devils, ghosts, skeletons, and witches. In the 1950s, television characters such as Davy Crockett, Superman, and Zorro were more popular. As parents became more concerned about safety in the 1950s, the company responded by creating its "Glitter Glo" costumes, dresses, and jumpsuits with large amounts of blue glitter glued to the front (which would reflect the headlights of oncoming automobiles). The company banked heavily on the popularity of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, but had to destroy thousands of masks after Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Ben Cooper, Inc., was one of the "big three" Halloween costume companies, along with Collegeville and the H. Halpern Company (Halco). The company became known for licensing popular film and television characters and getting their images onto store shelves quickly. For example, it licensed Spider-Man, a virtually unknown character at the time, in 1963. The company also licensed the Batman character in 1964.

Marvel Comics' Cosmic Mythology: Galactus, the World Eater and HisHerald, The Silver Surfer

Jim Lee art

Moebius (Jean Giraud) art

Jack Kirby art

Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott art

Huffingtonpost: Stan Lee Turns 90 Today

Today is the birthday of comic genius and wily television personality, Stanley Lieber, better known as Stan Lee. The Marvel writer and editor behind works such as "The Amazing Spiderman" and "The Incredible Hulk" is turning 90 years old this Friday, December 28.



A young Stanley Lieber began his comic career at Timely Comics in 1939 in New York. His initial duties included proofreading, erasing pencil marks and filling inkwells, but two years after this drudgery he enjoyed his first text-filler job in a 1941 issue of "Captain American Comics," writing under the pseudonym Stan Lee.

His first real career break arrived at 19 years old, when Timely editor Joe Simon and his creative partner Jack Kirby left the company. Lee was subsequently given the post of interim editor, but it was his talent for writing and imagining epic heroes that earned him the permanent position of editor-in-chief, a seat he would occupy until 1972 when he was made publisher of Timely's later evolution, Marvel Comics.

Lee's truly creative era began in the late 1950s, however, when DC Comics spurred a trend in superhero stories, courtesy of characters like the Flash and the Justice League of America. Lee was given the task of creating a team of heroes similar to JLA for Marvel, the result of which was the Fantastic Four. Working mostly with Kirby as well as with Bill Everett and Steve Ditko, Lee went on to devise personalities like the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, Daredevil, Doctor Strange and, of course, the Amazing Spider-Man.



In his later career, Lee dabbled in work for DC Comics, refashioning heroes like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Flash for a series called, "Just Imagine..." His most recent endeavor is a new YouTube channel, aptly named "Stan Lee's World of Heroes."

We'd like to wish Mr. Lee a very happy 90th birthday.