Friday is the 90th birthday for Stan Lee, peerless purveyor of four-color fantasies, and it’s a day I’m pleased to commemorate here by sharing the cover of Comics Buyer’s Guide #1258, from fifteen years ago:
Marie Severin drew the above cover for a special 75th birthday issue, which I organized along with the CBG staff over the course of several months. We had solicited letters of congratulation for Stan in the issue — and we wound up with more than a thousand of them, including ones from former President George H.W. Bush and Henry Winkler. In addition to Marie’s wonderful cover, we also received and included congratulatory sketches from Joe Sinnott and several other luminaries.
I
had interviewed Stan on the phone before, but I finally met him in a
San Diego elevator the summer after this issue reached him. (I think we
sent several cases!) He was gracious and a real gentleman.
You can leave your greetings for Stan at his Twitter feed. Happy birthday, Stan! Excelsior!
Comichron founder John Jackson Miller has tracked the comics industry for more than 25 years, including a decade editing the industry’s retail trade magazine; he is the author of several guides to comics, as well as more than a hundred comic books for various franchises.
He is the author of novels including Star Wars: Kenobi, Star Wars: A New Dawn, Star Trek: Discovery – The Enterprise War, and his upcoming release, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The High Country. Read more about them at his fiction site.
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