photo from Townhall
Stan Lee
Stan Lee spent much of his career working for Marvel and created some of their major characters including SpiderMan, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Black Panther as well as the collectives Fantastic Four and the X-Men.
Much of those characters were introduced in the 1950s-1970s when the media landscape was changing. Previously, the heroes of comics, films and TV shows were the epitome of the perfect men, with great morals, great strength and showed almost very vulnerability. In film, John Wayne was the all-American man. In comics, the Superman (of DC Comics) was indestructible.
But the times were changing. People were questioning America's high ground in the light of the civil right's movement and the Vietnam War. People were starting to question authority more. People were questioning their parent's generation more. People were questioning why the need for so much censorship.
Stan Lee's creations reflected those societal changes. He had his superheroes express vulnerability more, even though they had some rare superpowers. He introduced nonwhite characters in his comics and made anti-racist statements at the risk of alienating European-American audiences.
His comic book characters eventually had their own animated cartoons and merchandise (including but not limited to toys, Halloween costumes, backpacks, school supplies, blankets, video games and more).
And in this century, they became a billion-dollar movie franchise.
And just like his contemporary Hugh Hefner (founder of Playboy), Stan Lee never faded from the media spotlight even as the world around them changed!
Even at his old age, Stan Lee still toured the world and attended comic book convention. People stood in line and paid big money just to shake his hand and take a picture with him.
On the day he died, many people shared photos they took with Stan Lee, as well as Halloween costumes of his characters. I was volunteering at a booksale sponsored by the Friends of the Library of Hawaii (FLH) on the day he died, and FLH posted a photo on their social media pages of Marvel comics being sold that day.
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Growing up, my older brother was a comic collector who was a major Marvel fan. He said "DC Comics suck" and like a follower that I was, I said it too even though at that time I didn't actually read a DC Comics to figure out if they were better or worse than Marvel.
My older brother mostly collected X-Men comics as well as Marvel cards. I mostly learned the characters from those cards.
I also had a SpiderMan toy.
As I got older and became more distant from my brother (long story short, life happens! But we did talk story this past Thanksgiving), I stopped paying attention to the comic world. Some of my friends are still into the world of comics, whereas my pop culture interests shifted towards music and nightclubs.
I had fictional characters in my mind, but I never came up with a storyline for any of them. I experimented with drawing political comics during my undergrad years in UH being that I was friends with the school newspaper (Ka Leo O Hawaii) political comic artist David Parker. Our friendship didn't last long and after we stopped hanging out, I lost interest in drawing comics. None of them got published.
But I did return to doing visual artwork when I started selling my music. (note: music distributors and online music stores require visual artwork to go along with any single or album you submit to them).
As for fictional characters, in some of my music videos (check out Pablo the Mad Tiger Warrior's YouTube channel), a Tiger makes an appearance. Sometimes, it's a rainbow colored Tiger made from scratch art. Other times, it's a Yellow Tiger made with coloring pencils.
The yellow tiger symbolizes my high school mascot (McKinley High School), though I drew it differently so that I don't violate copyright!
The Tigers in the videos are shown doing stuff like
- motorbike stunts
- riding a lowrider
- playing a brass instrument
- holding a bazooka while the other is holding a tambourine
- lounging by a pool
- visiting an arcade
- taking a field trip to a mad scientist lab
- torturing another tiger with a whip
- riding a riverboat
- dying in a hospital bed
I also drew other characters for my videos, including not limited to a
- a frog playing a guitar
- human video game warriors
- bears riding lowriders
- bears playing rock music
- guard dogs in front of a barbed wire fence
- stick figures walking through a haunted castle
- person running from the police (coming soon, person on a motorbike speed chase)
They may not be international superstars like Stan Lee's creations, but hey, I am happy to be a part of a community of artists :)
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BONUS:
Some interesting articles about Stan Lee and his social impact
Jonah Goldberg, “Stan Lee's Work a Reflection of His Times,” Townhall, November 16, 2018,
https://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2018/11/16/stan-lees-work-a-reflection-of-his-times-n2536050.
Chauncey DeVega, “Stan Lee Has Departed Our Universe, Having “surpassed His Wildest Dreams”,” Salon, November 19, 2018,
https://www.salon.com/2018/11/19/stan-lee-has-departed-our-universe-having-surpassed-his-wildest-dreams/.
