Home > COMICS > [NYCC] STAN LEE RECEIVES NEW YORK COMICS LEGEND AWARD
[NYCC] STAN LEE RECEIVES NEW YORK COMICS LEGEND AWARD
Peter David, Joe Quesada and waves of fans are on hand to congratulate Stan The Man and kick off New York Comic-Con 2008
By Kiel Phegley
Posted 4/18/2008
Thursday night, the activities of the third annual New York Comic-Con kicked off in earnest when legendary Marvel Comics writer and editor Stan Lee received the first ever New York Comics Legend Award. Held on the book sales floor of the Virgin Megastore in Times Square, the event featured a Spider-Man-centric tribute to Stan "The Man" in the form of food servers in Spidey gear passing out cocktails with rubber arachnids in the bottom of their glasses while scenes from the "Spider-Man" films pumped on monitors everywhere in site.
Lee was presented the award by New York Comic-Con's Lance Fensterman, and Lee was introduced by a trio of speeches from comics writer Peter David, Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan and current Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, who before the ceremony mused on Stan's long connection to New York City.
“Stan was stealing hubcaps at a young age,” joked Quesada before turning a bit more serious. "It's a fantastic thing. Stan is a dyed in the wool New Yorker. Unfortunately we lost him to the West Coast, but it's good to have him back here, and this award is—any award that Stan gets is well deserved. What hasn't he deserved? He’s the man."
Quesada also shared his thoughts on the continued growth of New York's latest home town con. "I think this show is very quickly becoming the number two show right behind San Diego, and I think given the space allocations, it could certainly grow to the size of San Diego. And by the way, that's how it should be. We've needed a show like this in New York for many, many years because this is where the comics industry is. This is where it was born. And not just that. This is where the publishing industry is en mass. So all those things being in place, this is where the biggest show in the nation for our industry should be."
When the event was properly underway, David took the mic first and spent his 11 minutes dishing out equal parts grand praise and personal anecdotes. "When you’re talking about Stan Lee, you have to divide it into two things: Stan Lee the writer and Stan The Man," said the writer before telling the tale of how a recommendation letter from Lee helped him gain custody of his daughters during a messy divorce when both the court-appointed psychologist and the judge were wowed by the fact that "THE Stan Lee" vouched for him.
David also espoused on how Stan's writing work changed comics. "In talking about what Stan Lee has brought to comics, truth above all is his major contribution. Let's remember that before Stan was writing comics, the weaknesses and difficulties that heroes had were such easily relatable things as the color yellow, wood, fire [and] glowing green rocks.
"Stan gave us heroes with problems that we could relate to: sick relatives, girlfriend trouble, money trouble. He gave us a family of heroes that we could relate to. His superhero team was dysfunctional. He gave us a guy with major anger management problems before anyone had come up with the term anger management. He gave us stories set in New York City. You want truth? It doesn’t get truer than New York City."
Devarajan's speech also took a personal turn when he explained what Stan's many characters had meant to him. "On a personal level, let me just add that the stories Stan created alongside the exceptional artists he worked with have defined the very essence of the man I am today. As a child, the worlds and adventures Stan took me on made me believe in the greatness of mankind and the optimism of a better world."
Of course, the long bouts of praise wouldn't last all night, as Quesada used the comedy chops established by Lee when he held the Marvel E-I-C job to poke a little fun at the award recipient.
"The reason you're getting this Legend Award is...it's just because you're really old," said Quesada before explaining a bit about how many characters Lee had created for Marvel. "You all know the creations he's responsible for. The list goes on and on. Stan has left us at Marvel with one jewel after the next...I think what we need to do here, because you are a humble man...so I think we need to talk about are the characters [you created] that are still waiting [for fame.] They haven't quite met their time yet, but we still have them here at Marvel. And I'd like to share these with you because these could possibly be the next big 'Spider-Man' move."
The list included forgotton Marvel characters with names like The Porcupine, The Living Eraser, Leap Frog, The Kangaroo, The Carbon Copy Man and something called Gogan, Son of Goom.
But of course, despite laughs from the assembled masses at Quesada's antics, the final word of course belonged to Lee who in his acceptance speech got the biggest laughs of the night. "I'll never let Quesada talk about me again,” he said after taking the stage. “See, the thing is nobody really knows me. I like to think of myself as a really mysterious figure.”
Lee went on to disprove that “mysterious” nature by hamming it up for the crowd, joking that he won’t be accepting an invite to be on the Hollywood walk of fame because they charge you for the honor ("I think I may have to give up my chance to be beside such celebrities as Benji") and of course, plugging his new company Pow! Entertainment and latest fumetti comic Election Daze.
"I want to tell you that I think I'm really grateful for whatever that was," Lee concluded in reference to Quesada's speech. "When I get home I'll have to make some explanation to my wife..I'm certainly grateful to all of you for coming here and expecting a much better show than you got. I know how disappointed you all must be, but if its any consolation, I am too."
