This 11x17 original art of Marvel Comics Spider-Man is from the Spider-Man Sunday Strip for 10/27/13 and is rendered by artist Alex Saviuk and Joe Sinnott and penned by Stan Lee. 
All 3 legends signed this original art and Joe Sinnott donated it to the Inkwell Awards at Rhode Island Comic Con 2014.

Alex Saviuk

Alex SaviukSaviuk at the November 2008 Big Apple Convention in Manhattan.BornAugust 17, 1952 (age 62)NationalityAmericanArea(s)Penciller, InkerNotable worksWeb of Spider-Man

Alex Saviuk is an American comic book artist primarily known for his work on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man.

Early life[edit]

Saviuk grew up on Long Island, New York, graduating from Floral Park Memorial High School in 1970. He attended the School of Visual Arts, where he studied with (among others) Will Eisner, graduating in 1974 with a degree in Illustration.[2] Saviuk also studied biology at Hofstra University and York College.

Career[edit]

Saviuk's professional career began in 1977 at DC Comics, where he illustrated such titles as Green Lantern, The Flash and Superman. Saviuk's first work for DC was a one-page story titled "The Victim!" in House of Mystery#255 (Nov.-Dec. 1977). His first full work for the company, Green Lantern #100 (Jan. 1978), introduced an updated version of the Air Wave character. Saviuk drew The Flash #275 (July 1979) wherein the title character's wife, Iris West Allen was killed.

In the early 1980s, Saviuk was the regular backup feature artist on Action Comics, where he drew the exploits of Air Wave, Aquaman and the Atom in collaboration with writer Bob Rozakis. Rozakis stated in a 2014 interview that "I don't recall how we ended up with the three of them. It may have simply been that all three had names that began with 'A' and it was a backup in Action Comics". Saviuk frequently drew the "Whatever Happened to...?" backup feature in DC Comics Presents. He and writer E. Nelson Bridwell introduced the Global Guardians in DC Comics Presents #46 (June 1982).

The Amazing Spider-ManSunday strip from 2004. Pencils by Saviuk, inks by Joe Sinnott.

In 1986, Saviuk moved to Marvel Comics, where he eventually established himself as a key Spider-Man artist with a seven-year run on Web of Spider-Man (issues #35-116). In 1989, he drew the The Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Livesgraphic novel. From 1994–1996, Saviuk worked on the series Spider-Man Adventures (later retitled The Adventures of Spider-Man). Since 1997, Saviuk has drawn The Amazing Spider-Man Sunday newspaper comic strip, written by Stan Lee; since 2003, he has inked the daily Spider-Man strip, pencilled by Lee's brother Larry Lieber, and pencilled the Sunday page of the same, inked by Joe Sinnott.

In 1997–1998, he spent a one-year stint at Topps Comics drawing The X-Files until the end of its run.

Some of the characters Saviuk has co-created include Arkiss Chummuck and Malet Dasim of the Green Lantern Corps (with Bob Toomey), Sunburst (with Paul Kupperberg), Olympian (with E. Nelson Bridwell), Tombstone (with Gerry Conway), and the New Enforcers (with Terry Kavanagh).

In addition to comics, Saviuk does storyboards for advertising agencies and, occasionally, film and animation studios.

Bibliography[edit]

DC Comics[edit]

• Action Comics #487-489, 511, 515-516, 521-540, 548-549, 559-560, 563-564, 567, 571, 573, 582 (1978-1986)
• Batman and the Outsiders Annual #1 (1984)
• DC Comics Presents #29-33, 37-40, 46, 51, 55, 57, 63-64, 70, 72, 74, 89. 93 (1981-1986)
• DC Special Series #11 (1978)
• Detective Comics #489-491 (1980)
• The Flash #265-267, 273-279, 325 (1978-1983)
• Green Lantern #100-105, 107, 111-116, 118-119, 130-132 (1978-1980)
• House of Mystery #255, 279, 287 (1977-1980)
• New Adventures of Superboy #28, 45-47 (1982-1983)
• Superman #360-361, 364, 368, 398, 403, 405-406 (1981-1985)
• Superman Annual #12 (1986)
• The Superman Family #195, 199-205 (1979-1981)
• Unknown Soldier #216 (1978)
• Vigilante #16 (1985)
• World's Finest Comics #261, 267-270, 272-275, 277, 279-281 (1980-1982)

Marvel Comics[edit]

• Adventures of Spider-Man #1 - 4, 7 - 12 (1996-1997)
• The Amazing Spider-Man #292, 296-297 (1987-1988)
• The Amazing Spider-Man: Children Special #1 (1993)
• The Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives graphic novel #1 (1989)
• Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos #4 (1987)
• Defenders of the Earth #1-4 (1987)
• Iron Man #211 (1986)
• Marvel Adventures #13 (1998)
• Nightmask #3 (1987)
• Sledge Hammer! #1-2 (1988)
• Spider-Man Adventures #1-6, 8-15 (1994-1995)
• Spider-Man Giveaway: AIM Toothpaste Exclusive Collectors' Edition: Spider-Man #1 (1980)
• Spider-Man: Marvel Power Game #1
• Star Brand #3 (1986)
• Web of Spider-Man #35-36, 38-45, 47-48, 50, 54-70, 73-80, 84-116 (1988-1994)
• Web of Spider-Man Annual #4, 10 (1988-1994)
• What The--?! #3 (1988)

Joe Sinnott

Joe SinnottSinnott at the November 2008 Big Apple Con in Manhattan.BornOctober 16, 1926 (age 88)
Saugerties, New York, United StatesNationalityAmericanArea(s)InkerNotable worksFantastic FourAwardsAlley Award, 1967, 1968
Inkpot Award, 2005
2013 Will Eisner Hall of Fame Award
Inkwell Awards Hall of Fame, 2008http://www.joesinnott.com/

Joe Sinnott is an American comic book artist. Working primarily as an inker, Sinnott is best known for his long stint on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, from 1965 to 1981 (and briefly in the late 1980s), initially over the pencils of Jack Kirby. During his 60 years as a Marvel freelancer and then salaried artist working from home, Sinnott inked virtually every major title, with notable runs on The Avengers, The Defenders and Thor.

Marvel impresario Stan Lee in the mid-2000s cited Sinnott as the company's most in-demand inker, saying jocularly, "[P]encilers used to hurl all sorts of dire threats at me if I didn't make certain that Joe, and only Joe, inked their pages. I knew I couldn't satisfy everyone and I had to save the very most important strips for [him]. To most pencilers, having Joe Sinnott ink their artwork was tantamount to grabbing the brass ring." Sinnott, who as of 2012 continues to ink the The Amazing Spider-Man Sunday comic strip, had his art appear on two US Postal Service commemorative stamps in 2007.

Early life and career[edit]

Born in Saugerties, New York, Joe Sinnott was one of seven children to Edward and Catherine McGraw Sinnott; his siblings were Frank, Anne, Edward, and three who predeceased him, Jack, Richard and Leonard). He grew up in a boarding house that catered primarily to schoolteachers, some of whom inspired in the young Sinnott a love of drawing. His childhood comics influences include the comic strip Terry and the Pirates and the comic book characters Batman, Congo Bill, Hawkman and Zatara.

Following the death in action of his brother Jack, a member of the United States Army's Third Division, in 1944, Sinnott acceded to his mother's wishes not to be drafted into the Army himself, and he enlisted in the Navy in the autumn of that year. After serving with the Seabees in Okinawa during World War II, driving a munitions truck, he was discharged in May 1946. After working three years in his father's cement-manufacturing plant, he was accepted into the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (later the School of Visual Arts) in New York City in March 1949, attending on the GI Bill.

Sinnott's first solo professional art job was the backup feature "Trudi" in the St. John Publications humor comic Mopsy #12 (Sept. 1950). Later, during a two-week school vacation in August 1950, he married his fiancée Betty Kirlauski (March 7, 1932 - November 1, 2006), to whom he remained married for 56 years until her death.

Cartoonists and Illustrators School instructor Tom Gill asked Sinnott to be his assistant on Gill's freelance comics work. With classmate Norman Steinberg, Sinnott spent nine months drawing backgrounds and incidentals on, initially, Gill's Western-movie tie-in comics for Dell Comics. Sinnott recalled in 1992 "taking the Long Island Rail Road every weekend and working all day Saturday and Sunday." He said in 2003, "Tom was paying us very well. I was still attending school and worked for Tom at nights and [on] weekends," with night work added after he tired of commuting to Long Island and "began working [in] my room on 75th Street for $7 a week."

Sinnott in 1992 recalled his earliest work for Gill being the Western comic Red Warrior and later including Kent Blake of the Secret Service, both for Atlas Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics. "Tom would do all of the heads. We'd do everything else. We'd do the backgrounds and the figures, but since they were Tom's accounts, he'd do the heads so it looked like his work. I did this for about nine months. It was great learning," he said, adding, "I can never have enough good to say about Tom Gill. He gave me my start."

Timely/Atlas[edit]

Branching out professionally, Sinnott in 1951 met with editor Stan Lee at Marvel Comics' 1950s iteration Atlas Comics, having reasoned, he recalled, "'Gee, Stan can't turn me down because he's accepting all the work we bring in'. So I went over to see Stan and he gave me a script right away...." Due to creator credits not generally being given at the time, sources differ on Sinnott's first non-Gill Atlas assignment. One standard source gives two stories published the same month: the four-page Western filler "The Man Who Wouldn't Die" in Apache Kid #8 (Sept. 1951), and the two-page "Under the Red Flag" in Kent Blake of the Secret Service #3 (Sept. 1951).

Regardless, Sinnott would go on to draw a multitude of stories in many genres for the company throughout the decade: horror, science-fiction and supernatural-fantasy stories for Adventures into Terror, Astonishing, Marvel Tales, Menace, Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Uncanny Tales and others; war-comics stories for Battle, Battle Action, Battlefield, Battlefront, Combat, Navy Combat and others, including historical war stories in Man Comics; biblical stories in Bible Tales for Young Folk; Westerns in Frontier Western, Gunsmoke Western, Two Gun Western, Western Outlaws, Wild Western and others, co-creating with unknown writers the titular heroes of The Kid from Texas and Arrowhead, the latter starring a Native American warrior; and the occasional crime story (Caught ) and romance tale (Secret Story Romances).

He said in 2003, "I used to go up [to the office, at the Empire State Building] and sit in a little reading room with four or five other artists. It got so that every week I went up, the same guys would be in the room. Bob Powell, Gene Colan, people like that. I got to talking to them. Syd Shores was [freelancing] there, too." The pattern, Sinnott recalled, was for assistant art director Bob Brown to call each in turn to meet with Lee for "maybe ten or fifteen minutes.... There'd be a stack of scripts on the left side of his desk, typed on legal yellow paper. He'd take one off the top and didn't know what he'd be handing you. It could be a war story or a Western or anything. You took it home and were expected to do a professional job on it".

Sinnott lived in New York City for three years while attending art school, living near Broadway and West 74th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and then returned to his hometown of Saugerties, New York, where he spent his life.

During a 1957 economic retrenchment when Atlas let go of most of its staff and freelancers, Sinnott found other work in the six months before the company called him back. Like other freelancers there, he had taken sporadic cuts in his page-rate even before the company implosion. "I was up to $46 a page for pencils and inks. and that was a good rate in 1956, when the decline started. I was down to $21 a page when Atlas stopped hiring me. ... Stan called me and said, 'Joe, Martin Goodman told me to suspend operations because I have all this artwork in-house and have to use it up before I can hire you again.' It turned out to be six months, in my case. He may have called back some of the other artists later, but that's what happened with me".

He began doing such commercial art as billboards and record covers, ghosting for some DC Comics artists, and a job for Classics Illustrated comics. Former EC Comics artist Jack Kamen, now the art director of Harwyn Publishing's 12-volume, 1958 Harwyn Picture Encyclopedia for children, had Sinnott join a roster of contributors that included such celebrated EC artists as Reed Crandall, Bill Elder, George Evans, Angelo Torres and Wally Wood.[22] Sinnott also began a long association with publisher George Pflaum's Treasure Chest, a Catholic-oriented comic book distributed in parochial schools. With Bob Wischmeyer, a Treasure Chest writer-editor, Sinnott collaborated on an unsold college-athlete comic strip Johnny Hawk, All American.

Silver Age of Comic Books[edit]

Fantastic Four #72 (March 1968), featuring the Watcher (background) and the Silver Surfer. Cover art by Jack Kirby and Sinnott. While Sinnott was not the creator of the pseudo-fractal light illusion known as Kirby krackle, he was one of its leading practitioners.

During the late 1950s and 1960s period historians and collectors call the Silver Age of Comic Books, Sinnott continued doing occasional pencil-and-ink stories for Atlas Comics as it transitioned into the nascent Marvel Comics, contributing to such "pre-superhero Marvel" titles as Strange Tales, Strange Worlds, Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense and World of Fantasy. He also began a stint with the low-budget Charlton Comics, teamed as penciler with inker Vince Colletta on several romance-comics stories in series including First Kiss, Just Married, Romantic Secrets, Sweethearts and Teen-Age Love that he would do through 1963.

Sinnott's first collaboration with Jack Kirby, one of comics' most historically groundbreaking and influential creators and the penciler with whom he is most often identified, came with the war-comics story "Doom Under the Deep" in Atlas' Battle #69 (April 1960). After a supernatural Kirby story in Journey into Mystery, #58 (May 1960), he inked Kirby's twice-reprinted giant-monster story "I Was Trapped By Titano the Monster That Time Forgot" in Tales to Astonish #10 (July 1960), although not the cover featuring that lead story. Sinnott in 1992 believed his first Kirby collaboration was a Western story titled "Outlaw Man from Fargo", but nothing approximating that appears in standard databases.

Sinnott did one additional Kirby pre-superhero Marvel story, "I Was a Decoy for Pildorr: The Plunderer from Outer Space", in Strange Tales #94 (March 1962), before inking his first Marvel superhero story: writer-editor Stan Lee and penciler/co-plotter Kirby's The Fantastic Four #5 (July 1962), the issue introducing the long-running supervillain Dr. Doom.

As Sinnott explained his not remaining on The Fantastic Four after his single early issue,

Before Stan called me to ink Jack on Fantastic Four #5, I never knew the Fantastic Four existed. I lived up here in ... the Catskill Mountains, and I never went down to the city at that time. ... Everything was done by mail and I didn't know what books were coming out, even. ... Stan called me up and said, 'Joe, I've got a book here by Jack Kirby and I'd like you to ink it, if you could. I can't find anybody to ink it. ... [When the pencil art arrived,] I was dumbfounded by the great art and the characters. ... I had a ball inking it. I remember when I mailed it back, Stan called me. He said, 'Joe, we liked it so much, I'm going to send you #6.' So he [did], but I had committed myself [to] another account at [publisher George A. Pflaum's Catholic comic book] Treasure Chest ... and this was a 65-page story I was going to have to do on one of the Popes ["The Story Of Pope John XXIII, Who Won Our Hearts", in vol. 18, #1-9 (Sept. 13, 1962 - Jan. 3, 1963)]. I had committed myself to it, so when I had started #6, I think I just did a panel or two. I had to send it back to Stan.

Sinnott had by then inked the introduction of the Norse god superhero Thor, in Journey into Mystery #83 (Aug. 1962). He also inked the following issue's Kirby cover, and, following his papal project, he both penciled and inked five subsequent Thor stories, in issues #91-92, 94-96 (April-Sept. 1963).

Aside from these sporadic works, however, Sinnott was primarily inking for Charlton during this period, with occasional jobs for American Comics Group, Treasure Chest, and Dell Comics, for which he variously penciled and fully drew film and TV adaptations, and penciled the one-shot biographical comic The Beatles #! (Nov. 1964). But then, in 1965, he returned to Marvel to work virtually exclusively, beginning with his inking the cover and the story, "Where Walks the Juggernaut", of The X-Men #13 (Sept. 1965).

After this, Sinnott began his long and celebrated stint on a Marvel flagship title, Fantastic Four, inking Kirby on "The Gentleman's Name Is Gorgon! or What a Way to Spend a Honeymoon!" in issue #44 (Nov. 1965). He remained on the series through Kirby's departure after issue #102 (Sept. 1970) — contributing visually to the introductions of Lee/Kirby's Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, the Inhumans, Adam Warlock and other characters — and continued on through 1981, missing an issue here and there or simply inking the cover. He made a brief return in the late 1980s. His post-Kirby pencilers included John Romita, John Buscema, Bill Sienkiewicz, Rich Buckler, and George Pérez.

As one comics historian assessed of the mid-1960s Kirby-Sinnott art collaboration,

In an uncanny stroke of luck and perfect timing, just when Kirby gained the time to improve his artwork, Joe Sinnott became the FF's regular inker. Sinnott was a master craftsman, fiercely proud of the effort and meticulous detail he put into his work. ... That slick, stylized layer of India ink that Sinnott painted over Kirby's pencils finished Jack's work in a way that no other inker ever would. Comic fans had never witnessed art this strange and powerful in its scope and strength.

During the 1960s Silver Age, Sinnott also inked several Kirby Captain America stories and his "The Inhumans" backup feature in Thor; two Jim Steranko stories each of superspy Nick Fury and superhero Captain America; and Buscema's 38-page origin story in The Silver Surfer #1 (Aug. 1968), among other Marvel work.

Sinnott recalled in 2006,

Sinnott, third from left, on a 2008 panel on Jack Kirby. With him from left to right are Mark Evanier, Roy Thomas and Stan Goldberg.

Down through the years, all through the '60s, [rival] DC [Comics] always called me and ask me if I'd come over and work for them, and I'd tell them that [Marvel editor] Stan [Lee] would give me all the work I wanted. Stan had always told me, “Joe, whatever DC offer you, we'll continue to pay you more," no matter what the rates were. In those days all the artists didn't get the same pay, we all got different rates. And I enjoyed the characters that we were working on.

Later Marvel career[edit]

During his years as a Marvel freelancer and then salaried artist working from home, Sinnott inked virtually every major title, with notable runs on The Avengers, The Defenders and Thor.

Sinnott retired from comic books in 1992 to concentrate on inking The Amazing Spider-Man Sunday strip, and to do recreations of comics covers and commissioned artwork. He has continued to contribute sporadically to Marvel comics, and as late as Captain America vol. 6, #1 (cover-dated Sept. 2011), he inked John Romita Sr. on one of six variant covers done for this premiere issue.

Awards and recognition[edit]

• 1995 Inkpot Award
• 2008 Inkwell Hall of Fame Award
• 2008 Inkwell Award for Favorite Inker (Retro; Tied with Terry Austin)
• 2008 Inkwell Awards Special Ambassador (2008-present)
• 2013 Will Eisner Hall of Fame Award.

Legacy[edit]

Two Jack Kirby-Joe Sinnott images are among those on the "Marvel Super Heroes" set of commemorative stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service on July 27, 2007: the Thing and the Silver Surfer.

Sinnott is named the #1 inker of American comics by historians at the Chicago, Illinois, retailer Atlas Comics, on its list of the medium's top 20, based on criteria here.

Stan Lee

Stan LeeLee in 2007BornStanley Martin Lieber
December 28, 1922 (age 91)
New York City, New York, U.S.NationalityAmericanArea(s)Writer, editor, publisher, producer, actor, television host, voice actor, authorNotable worksAvengers
Daredevil
Fantastic Four
Hulk
Iron Man
Spider-Man
Thor
X-MenNotable collaborationsJoe Simon, Jack Kirby, Steve DitkoAwards

• The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame
  
• Jack Kirby Hall of Fame

Spouse(s)Joan Clayton Boocock Lee (m. 1947–present)ChildrenJoan Celia "J. C." LeeSignature

Stan Lee[ is an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, media producer, television host, actor, voice actor and former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.

In collaboration with several artists, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, and many other fictional characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. In addition, he headed the first major successful challenge to the industry's censorship organization, the Comics Code Authority, and forced it to reform its policies. Lee subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995.

Early life[edit]

Stanley Martin Lieber was born in New York City on December 28, 1922, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, at the corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan. His father, trained as a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression, and the family moved further uptown to Fort Washington Avenue, in Washington Heights, Manhattan. When Lee was nearly 9, his only sibling, brother Larry Lieber, was born. He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles. By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in a one-bedroom apartment at 1720 University Avenue in The Bronx. Lee described it as "a third-floor apartment facing out back", with him and his brother sharing a bedroom and his parents using a foldout couch.

Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx. In his youth, Lee enjoyed writing, and entertained dreams of one day writing The Great American Novel. He has said that in his youth he worked such part-time jobs as writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center; delivering sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices in Rockefeller Center; working as an office boy for a trouser manufacturer; ushering at the Rivoli Theater on Broadway; and selling subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune newspaper. He graduated high school early, at age 16½ in 1939, and joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project.

Career[edit]

Early career[edit]

A text filler in Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941) was Lee's first published comics work. Cover art by Alex Schomburg.

With the help of his uncle Robbie Solomon, Lee became an assistant in 1939 at the new Timely Comics division of pulp magazine and comic-book publisher Martin Goodman's company. Timely, by the 1960s, would evolve into Marvel Comics. Lee, whose cousin Jean] was Goodman's wife, was formally hired by Timely editor Joe Simon.

His duties were prosaic at first. "In those days [the artists] dipped the pen in ink, [so] I had to make sure the inkwells were filled", Lee recalled in 2009. "I went down and got them their lunch, I did proofreading, I erased the pencils from the finished pages for them". Marshaling his childhood ambition to be a writer, young Stanley Lieber made his comic-book debut with the text filler "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge" in Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941), using the pseudonym "Stan Lee", which years later he would adopt as his legal name. Lee later explained in his autobiography and numerous other sources that he had intended to save his given name for more literary work. This initial story also introduced Captain America's trademark ricocheting shield-toss, which immediately became one of the character's signatures.

He graduated from writing filler to actual comics with a backup feature, "'Headline' Hunter, Foreign Correspondent", two issues later. Lee's first superhero co-creation was the Destroyer, in Mystic Comics #6 (Aug 1941). Other characters he created during this period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comics include Jack Frost, debuting in USA Comics #1 (Aug. 1941), and Father Time, debuting in Captain America Comics #6 (Aug. 1941).

When Simon and his creative partner Jack Kirby left late in 1941, following a dispute with Goodman, the 30-year-old publisher installed Lee, just under 19 years old, as interim editor. The youngster showed a knack for the business that led him to remain as the comic-book division's editor-in-chief, as well as art director for much of that time, until 1972, when he would succeed Goodman as publisher.

Lee entered the United States Army in early 1942 and served stateside in the Signal Corps, repairing telegraph poles and other communications equipment. He was later transferred to the Training Film Division, where he worked writing manuals, training films, and slogans, and occasionally cartooning. His military classification, he says, was "playwright"; he adds that only nine men in the U.S. Army were given that title. Vincent Fago, editor of Timely's "animation comics" section, which put out humor and funny animal comics, filled in until Lee returned from his World War II military service in 1945. Lee then lived in the rented top floor of a brownstone in the East 90s in Manhattan.

He married Joan Clayton Boocock on December 5, 1947, and in 1949, the couple bought a two-story, three-bedroom home at 1084 West Broadway in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island, living there through 1952. By this time, the couple had daughter Joan Celia "J.C." Lee, born in 1950; another child, Jan Lee, died three days after delivery in 1953. Lee by this time had bought a home at 226 Richards Lane in the Long Island town of Hewlett Harbor, New York, where he and his family lived from 1952 to 1980, including the 1960s period when Lee and his artist collaborators would revolutionize comic books.

In the mid-1950s, by which time the company was now generally known as Atlas Comics, Lee wrote stories in a variety of genres including romance, Westerns, humor, science fiction, medieval adventure, horror and suspense. In the 1950s, Lee teamed up with his comic book colleague Dan DeCarlo to produce the syndicated newspaper strip, My Friend Irma, based on the radio comedy starring Marie Wilson. By the end of the decade, Lee had become dissatisfied with his career and considered quitting the field.

The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961). Cover art by Jack Kirby (penciller) and an unconfirmed inker.

Marvel revolution[edit]

In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero archetype and experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to create a new superhero team. Lee's wife urged him to experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose.

Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal archetypes that were typically written for preteens. Before this, most superheroes were idealistically perfect people with no serious, lasting problems. Lee introduced complex, naturalistic characters who could have bad tempers, fits of melancholy, and vanity; they bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends, got bored or even were sometimes physically ill.

The first superhero group Lee and artist Jack Kirby created was the Fantastic Four. The team's immediate popularity led Lee and Marvel's illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new titles. With Kirby primarily, Lee created the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and the X-Men; with Bill Everett, Daredevil; and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange and Marvel's most successful character, Spider-Man, all of whom lived in a thoroughly shared universe. Lee and Kirby gathered several of their newly created characters together into the team title The Avengers and would revive characters from the 1940s such as the Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and Ka-Zar.

Comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that in the 1960s:

DC was the equivalent of the big Hollywood studios: After the brilliance of DC's reinvention of the superhero ... in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it had run into a creative drought by the decade's end. There was a new audience for comics now, and it wasn't just the little kids that traditionally had read the books. The Marvel of the 1960s was in its own way the counterpart of the French New Wave.... Marvel was pioneering new methods of comics storytelling and characterization, addressing more serious themes, and in the process keeping and attracting readers in their teens and beyond. Moreover, among this new generation of readers were people who wanted to write or draw comics themselves, within the new style that Marvel had pioneered, and push the creative envelope still further.

Lee's revolution extended beyond the characters and storylines to the way in which comic books engaged the readership and built a sense of community between fans and creators. He introduced the practice of regularly including a credit panel on the splash page of each story, naming not just the writer and penciller but also the inker and letterer. Regular news about Marvel staff members and upcoming storylines was presented on the Bullpen Bulletins page, which (like the letter columns that appeared in each title) was written in a friendly, chatty style. Lee has said that his goal was for fans to think of the comics creators as friends, and considered it a mark of his success on this front that, at a time when letters to other comics publishers were typically addressed "Dear Editor", letters to Marvel addressed the creators by first name (e.g. "Dear Stan and Jack"). By 1967, the brand was well-enough ensconced in popular culture that a March 3 WBAI radio program with Lee and Kirby as guests was titled "Will Success Spoil Spiderman" 

Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962), the first appearance of Spider-Man. Cover art by Jack Kirby (penciller) and Steve Ditko (inker).

Throughout the 1960s, Lee scripted, art-directed and edited most of Marvel's series, moderated the letters pages, wrote a monthly column called "Stan's Soapbox", and wrote endless promotional copy, often signing off with his trademark motto, "Excelsior!" (which is also the New York state motto). To maintain his taxing workload, yet still meet deadlines, he used a system that was used previously by various comic-book studios, but due to Lee's success with it, became known as the "Marvel Method" or "Marvel style" of comic-book creation. Typically, Lee would brainstorm a story with the artist and then prepare a brief synopsis rather than a full script. Based on the synopsis, the artist would fill the allotted number of pages by determining and drawing the panel-to-panel storytelling. After the artist turned in penciled pages, Lee would write the word balloons and captions, and then oversee the lettering and coloring. In effect, the artists were co-plotters, whose collaborative first drafts Lee built upon.

Because of this system, the exact division of creative credits on Lee's comics has been disputed, especially in cases of comics drawn by Kirby and Ditko. Lee shares co-creator credit with Kirby and Ditko on, respectively, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man feature film series.

Following Ditko's departure from Marvel in 1966, John Romita, Sr. became Lee's collaborator on The Amazing Spider-Man. Within a year, it overtook Fantastic Four to become the company's top seller. Lee and Romita's stories focused as much on the social and college lives of the characters as they did on Spider-Man's adventures. The stories became more topical, addressing issues such as the Vietnam War, political elections, and student activism. Robbie Robertson, introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #51 (Aug. 1967) was one of the first African-American characters in comics to play a serious supporting role. In the Fantastic Four series, the lengthy run by Lee and Kirby produced many acclaimed storylines and characters that have become central to Marvel, including the Inhumans and the Black Panther, an African king who would be mainstream comics' first black superhero. The story frequently cited as Lee and Kirby's finest achievement is the three-part "Galactus Trilogy" that began in Fantastic Four #48 (March 1966), chronicling the arrival of Galactus, a cosmic giant who wanted to devour the planet, and his herald, the Silver Surfer. Fantastic Four #48 was chosen as #24 in the 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time poll of Marvel's readers in 2001. Editor Robert Greenberger wrote in his introduction to the story that "As the fourth year of the Fantastic Four came to a close, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby seemed to be only warming up. In retrospect, it was perhaps the most fertile period of any monthly title during the Marvel Age." Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "[t]he mystical and metaphysical elements that took over the saga were perfectly suited to the tastes of young readers in the 1960s", and Lee soon discovered that the story was a favorite on college campuses. Lee and artist John Buscema launched The Silver Surfer series in August 1968. Lee and Gene Colan created the Falcon, Marvel's first African-American superhero in Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969).

In 1971, Lee indirectly helped reform the Comics Code. The U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare had asked Lee to write a comic-book story about the dangers of drugs and Lee conceived a three-issue subplot in The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (cover-dated May–July 1971), in which Peter Parker's best friend becomes addicted to pills. The Comics Code Authority refused to grant its seal because the stories depicted drug use; the anti-drug context was considered irrelevant. With Goodman's cooperation and confident that the original government request would give him credibility, Lee had the story published without the seal. The comics sold well and Marvel won praise for its socially conscious efforts. The CCA subsequently loosened the Code to permit negative depictions of drugs, among other new freedoms.

Lee also supported using comic books to provide some measure of social commentary about the real world, often dealing with racism and bigotry. "Stan's Soapbox", besides promoting an upcoming comic book project, also addressed issues of discrimination, intolerance, or prejudice.

In 1972, Lee stopped writing monthly comic books to assume the role of publisher. His final issue of The Amazing Spider-Man was #110 (July 1972) and his last Fantastic Four was #125 (Aug. 1972).

Later career

Signed photo of Lee at the 1975 San Diego Comic Con.

In later years, Lee became a figurehead and public face for Marvel Comics. He made appearances at comic book conventions around America, lecturing at colleges and participating in panel discussions. He owned a vacation home on Cutler Lane in Remsenburg, New York and, from 1975 to 1980, a two-bedroom condominium on the 14th floor of 220 East 63rd Street in Manhattan. Lee and John Romita, Sr. launched the Spider-Man newspaper comic stripon January 3, 1977. Lee's final collaboration with Jack Kirby, The Silver Surfer: The Ultimate Cosmic Experience was published in 1978 as part of the Marvel Fireside Books series and is considered to be Marvel's first graphic novel. Lee and John Buscema produced the first issue of The Savage She-Hulk (Feb. 1980) which introduced the female cousin of the Hulk and crafted a Silver Surfer story for Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980). He moved to California in 1981 to develop Marvel's TV and movie properties. He has been an executive producer for, and has made cameo appearances in, Marvel film adaptations and other movies. He and his wife bought a home in West Hollywood, California previously owned by comedian Jack Benny's radio announcer, Don Wilson. He occasionally returned to comic book writing with various Silver Surfer projects including a 1982 one-shot drawn by John Byrne, the Judgment Day graphic novel illustrated by John Buscema, the Parable limited series drawn by French artist Mœbius, and The Enslavers graphic novel with Keith Pollard. Lee was briefly president of the entire company, but soon stepped down to become publisher instead, finding that being president was too much about numbers and finance and not enough about the creative process he enjoyed.

Peter Paul and Lee began to start a new Internet-based superhero creation, production and marketing studio, Stan Lee Media, in 1998. It grew to 165 people and went public through a reverse merger structured by investment banker Stan Medley in 1999, but near the end of 2000, investigators discovered illegal stock manipulation by Paul and corporate officer Stephan Gordon. Stan Lee Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 2001. Paul was extradited to the U.S. from Brazil, and pleaded guilty to violating SEC Rule 10b-5 in connection with trading of his stock in Stan Lee Media. Lee was never implicated in the scheme.

In the 2000s, Lee did his first work for DC Comics, launching the Just Imagine... series, in which Lee reimagined the DC superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash.

In 2001, Lee, Gill Champion and Arthur Lieberman formed POW! (Purveyors of Wonder) Entertainment to develop film, television and video game properties. Lee created the risqué animated superhero series Stripperella for Spike TV. In 2004 POW Entertainment went public via another reverse merger structured again by investment banker Stan Medley. Also in 2004 Lee announced a superhero program that would feature Ringo Starr, the former Beatle, as the lead character. Additionally, in August of that year, Lee announced the launch of Stan Lee's Sunday Comics, hosted by Komikwerks.com, where monthly subscribers could read a new, updated comic and "Stan's Soapbox" every Sunday. The column has not been updated since February 15, 2005.

In 2006, Marvel commemorated Lee's 65 years with the company by publishing a series of one-shot comics starring Lee himself meeting and interacting with many of his co-creations, including Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, the Thing, Silver Surfer and Doctor Doom. These comics also featured short pieces by such comics creators as Joss Whedon and Fred Hembeck, as well as reprints of classic Lee-written adventures.

On March 15, 2007, Stan Lee Media's new president, Jim Nesfield, filed a lawsuit against Marvel Entertainment for $5 billion, claiming that the company is co-owner of the characters that Lee created for Marvel. On June 9, 2007, Stan Lee Media sued Lee; his newer company, POW! Entertainment; POW! subsidiary QED Entertainment; and other former Stan Lee Media staff at POW!

At the 2007 Comic-Con International, Marvel Legends introduced a Stan Lee action figure. The body beneath the figure's removable cloth wardrobe is a re-used mold of a previously released Spider-Man action figure, with minor changes.

In 2008, Lee wrote humorous captions for the political fumetti book Stan Lee Presents Election Daze: What Are They Really Saying?. In April of that year, Viz Media announced that Lee and Hiroyuki Takei were collaborating on the manga Karakuridôji Ultimo, from parent company Shueisha. That same month, Brighton Partners and Rainmaker Animation announced a partnership POW! to produce a CGI film series, Legion of 5. That same month, Virgin Comics announced Lee would create a line of superhero comics for that company. He is also working on a TV adaptation of the novel Hero. He wrote the foreword to the 2010 non-fiction e-book memoir Skyscraperman by skyscraper fire-safety advocate Dan Goodwin, who had climbed skyscrapers dressed as Spider-Man.

Lee promoting Stan Lee's Kids Universe at the 2011 New York Comic Con.

In 2009, he and the Japanese company Bones produced its first manga feature, Heroman, serialized in Square Enix's Monthly Sh?nen Gangan; the feature was adapted to anime in April 2010.

In October 2010, Lee's SLG Entertainment partnered with Guardian Media Entertainment on The Guardian Project to create superhero mascots for the National Hockey League.

In August 2011, Lee announced his support for the Eagle Initiative, a program to find new talent in the comic book field.

In 2011, Lee was writing a live-action musical, The Yin and Yang Battle of Tao. In October, Lee announced he would partner with 1821 Comics on a multimedia imprint for children, Stan Lee's Kids Universe, a move he said addressed the lack of comic books targeted for that demographic; and that he was collaborating with the company on its futuristic graphic novel Romeo & Juliet: The War, by writer Max Work and artist Skan Srisuwan.

In April 2012, Lee announced his partnership with Regina Carpinelli, the founder and CEO of Comikaze Expo. Comikaze Expo, Los Angeles' largest comic book convention, was rebranded as Stan Lee's Comikaze Presented by POW! Entertainment.

At the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International, Lee announced his new YouTube channel, Stan Lee's World of Heroes, which airs several programs created by Lee and other creators, including Mark Hamill, Peter David, Adrianne Curry, and Bonnie Burton.

It was announced in February 2013 that one of Lee's recently created characters, the Annihilator, a Chinese prisoner-turned-superhero named Ming, would be adapted into a film written by Dan Gilroy and produced by Barry Josephson.

Lee is among the interview subjects in Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle, a three-hour documentary narrated by Liev Schreiber which premiered on PBS in October 2013.

Disney Publishing announced in November 2013 that Lee would write a book, Zodiac, with Stuart Moore.

Charity work[edit]

The Stan Lee Foundation was founded in 2010 to focus on literacy, education and the arts. Its stated goals include supporting programs and ideas that improve access to literacy resources, as well as promoting diversity, national literacy, culture and the arts.

Stan Lee has donated portions of his personal effects to the University of Wyoming at various times, between 1981 and 2001.

Fictional portrayals[edit]

See also: List of comics creators appearing in comicsLee and Kirby (bottom left) as themselves on the cover of The Fantastic Four #10 (Jan. 1963). Art by Kirby and Dick Ayers.

Stan Lee and his collaborator Jack Kirby appear as themselves in The Fantastic Four #10 (Jan. 1963), the first of several appearances within the fictional Marvel Universe. The two are depicted as similar to their real-world counterparts, creating comic books based on the "real" adventures of the Fantastic Four.

Lee was parodied by Kirby in comics published by rival DC Comics as Funky Flashman. Kirby later portrayed himself, Lee, production executive Sol Brodsky, and Lee's secretary Flo Steinberg as superheroes in What If #11 (Oct. 1978), "What If the Marvel Bullpen Had Become the Fantastic Four?", in which Lee played the part of Mister Fantastic. Lee has also made numerous cameo appearances in many Marvel titles, appearing in audiences and crowds at many characters' ceremonies and parties, and hosting an old-soldiers reunion in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #100 (July 1972). Lee appeared, unnamed, as the priest at Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' wedding in New Avengers Annual #1 (June 2006). He pays his respects to Karen Page at her funeral in Daredevil vol. 2, #8 (June 1998), and appears in The Amazing Spider-Man #169 (June 1977).

In 1994, artist Alex Ross rendered Lee as a bar patron on page 44 of Marvels #3.

In Marvel's "Flashback" series of titles cover-dated July 1997, a top-hatted caricature of Lee as a ringmaster introduced stories that detailed events in Marvel characters' lives before they became superheroes, in special "-1" editions of many Marvel titles. The "ringmaster" depiction of Lee was originally from Generation X #17 (July 1996), where the character narrated a story set primarily in an abandoned circus. Though the story itself was written by Scott Lobdell, the narration by "Ringmaster Stan" was written by Lee, and the character was drawn in that issue by Chris Bachalo.

Lee and other comics creators are mentioned on page 479 of Michael Chabon's 2000 novel about the comics industry The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Chabon also acknowledges a debt to Lee and other creators on the book's Author's Note page.

On one of the last pages of Truth: Red, White & Black, Lee appears in a real photograph among other celebrities on a wall of the Bradley home. Under his given name of Stanley Lieber, Stan Lee appears briefly in Paul Malmont's 2006 novel The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril.

In Stan Lee Meets Superheroes, which Lee wrote, he comes into contact with some of his favorite creations. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby appear as professors in Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #19.

In Lavie Tidhar's 2013 The Violent Century, Lee appears – under his birth name of "Stanley Martin Lieber" – as a historian of superhumans.

Film and television appearances[edit]

Marvel television[edit]

Animation[edit]

• One of Lee's earliest contributions to animation based on Marvel properties was narrating the 1980s Incredible Hulk animated series, always beginning his narration with a self-introduction and ending with "This is Stan Lee saying, Excelsior!" Lee had previously narrated the "Seven Little Superheroes" episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which the Hulk series was paired with for broadcast.
• Lee did the narration for the original 1989 X-Men animated series pilot titled X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men.
• Lee was an executive producer of the 1990s animated TV series Spider-Man. He appeared as himself in animated form in the series finale episode titled "Farewell, Spider-Man." Spider-Man is transported by Madame Web into the "real" world where he is a fictional character. He meets Lee and the two swing around until Spider-Man drops him off on top of a building; Madame Web appears and brings Spider-Man back to his homeworld. Realizing he is stuck on a roof, Lee muses, hoping the Fantastic Four will show up and lend a hand.
• He also voices the character "Frank Elson" in an episode of Spider-Man: The New Animated Series series broadcast by MTV in 2003, titled "Mind Games" (Parts 1 and 2, originally aired on August 15 and 22, 2003).
• He voiced a loading dock worker named Stan on The Spectacular Spider-Man in the episode "Blueprints."
• In several episodes of The Super Hero Squad Show, Lee voices the Mayor of Super Hero City.
• Lee has appeared in episodes of the Disney XD TV series Ultimate Spider-Man as a high school janitor named Stan, in which he makes references to Lee's real-life career. In the pilot "Great Power" and the episode "Why I Hate Gym," he mentions Irving Forbush, an in-joke character Lee co-created in 1955 as a literary device. Stan the Janitor also appears in Episode 18, "Out of Damage Control," as a part-time worker for Damage Control. In the episode "Stan By Me," he, along with Mary Jane Watson, Agent/Principal Coulson, and Harry Osborn, helped Spider-Man fight the Lizard. At the end of the episode it is revealed that Lee's character is secretly a top S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and is aware of Peter Parker's secret identity as Spider-Man.

Live-action[edit]

• In the TV-movie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989), Lee's first appearance in a Marvel movie or TV project is as a jury foreman in the trial of Dr. David Banner.
• Lee appeared on the February 4, 2014, episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., titled "T.R.A.C.K.S."

Marvel films[edit]

Lee has had cameo appearances in many films based on Marvel characters that he created or co-created. Many of these appearances are self-aware and sometimes reference Lee's involvement in the creation of the characters. Lee is a credited executive producer on most films based upon Marvel characters he created or co-created.

• In X-Men (2000), Lee appears as a hotdog stand vendor on the beach when Senator Kelly emerges naked onshore after escaping from Magneto.

• In Spider-Man (2002), he appeared during Spider-Man's first battle with the Green Goblin, pulling a little girl away from falling debris. In the DVD's deleted scenes, Lee plays a street vendor who tries to sell Peter Parker a pair of sunglasses "just like the X-Men wear."
• In Daredevil (2003), as a child, Matt Murdock stops Lee from crossing the street and getting hit by a bus.

• In Hulk (2003), he appears walking alongside former TV-series Hulk Lou Ferrigno in an early scene, both as security guards at Bruce Banner's lab. It was his first speaking role in a film based on one of his characters.

• In Spider-Man 2 (2004), Lee pulls an innocent person away from danger during Spider-Man's first battle with Doctor Octopus. In a deleted scene that appears as an extra on the film's DVD release, Lee has another cameo, saying, "Look, Spider-Man stole that child's sneakers."Lee as Willie Lumpkin in Fantastic Four, 2005.

• In Fantastic Four (2005), Lee appears for the first time as a character that he created for the comics, Willie Lumpkin, the mail carrier who greets the Fantastic Four as they enter the Baxter Building.

• In X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Lee and Chris Claremont appear as two of Jean Grey's neighbors in the opening scenes set 20 years ago. Lee, credited as "Waterhose Man," is watering the lawn when Jean telekinetically redirects the water from the hose into the air.

• In Spider-Man 3 (2007), Lee appears in a credited role as "Man in Times Square". He stands next to Peter Parker, both of them reading a news bulletin about Spider-Man, and commenting to Peter that, "You know, I guess one person can make a difference". He then says his catchphrase, "'Nuff said."
• In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Lee appears as himself at Reed Richards' and Susan Storm's first wedding, being turned away by a security guard for not being on the guest list. In Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965), in which the couple married, Lee and Jack Kirby are similarly turned away.

• In Iron Man (2008), Lee (credited as "Himself") appears at a gala cavorting with three blondes, where Tony Stark mistakes him for Hugh Hefner. In the theatrical release of the film, Stark simply greets Lee as "Hef" and moves on; another version of the scene was filmed where Stark realizes his mistake, but Lee graciously responds, "That's okay, I get this all the time."

• In The Incredible Hulk (2008), Lee appears as a hapless citizen who accidentally ingests a soft drink mixed with Bruce Banner's blood, subsequently dropping it and leading to the discovery of Dr. Banner's location in a bottling plant in Brazil.

• In Iron Man 2 (2010), during the Stark Expo, Lee, wearing suspenders and a red shirt and black and purple tie, is greeted by Tony Stark as "Larry King".

• In Thor (2011), Lee appears among many people at the site where Thor's hammer Mjolnir lands on earth. He tears the bed off his pickup truck in an attempt to pull Mjolnir out of the ground with a chain and causes everyone in the scene to laugh by asking, "Did it work?". His character is credited as "Stan the Man".

• In Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), this time portraying a general in World War II, who mistakes another man for Captain America/Steve Rogers, commenting, "I thought he'd be taller." This film is an exception considering Lee had nothing to do with the basic creation of the title character. However, Lee began his writing career in the character's original series where he created the idea of Captain America using his shield as a throwing weapon. Furthermore, he was responsible for reviving the character in the Silver Age of Comic Books and co-wrote most of the character's stories in The Avengers and his solo stories in that period.

• In The Avengers (2012), Lee makes a cameo appearance as a random citizen in the park asked about the Avengers saving Manhattan. Lee's character responds, "Superheroes in New York? Give me a break", and then returns to his game of chess. He also appears in a deleted scene, apparently as the same character: when a waitress flirts with Steve Rogers, he says to him, "Ask for her number, you moron!"

• In The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Lee makes a cameo as a librarian at Midtown Science High School, comically oblivious to the fight between Spider-Man and the Lizard happening behind him (a table nearly hits him as well) due to the fact that he is listening to classical music. He walks out of the library as the fight continues.

• In Iron Man 3 (2013), Lee makes a cameo as the beauty pageant judge that appears on a television monitor and happily gives one of the contestants a 10.

• In Thor: The Dark World (2013), Lee appears as a mental ward patient who loans his shoe to Erik Selvig for a demonstration about "the Convergence" in his delusions. When Selvig finishes and asks if anyone has questions, Lee says, "Yeah, can I have my shoe back"?

• In Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Lee plays a security guard at the Smithsonian Institution who after discovering that Captain America stole his World War II uniform from an exhibit, says, "Oh man, I am so fired."

• In The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Lee makes a cameo as a guest at Peter and Gwen's graduation.

• In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Lee appears as an elderly gentleman having a conversation with a significantly younger woman. Rocket, viewing him through a scanning device, dismisses him as part of what he saw was wrong with the planet Xandar. With the exception of Groot, Ronan and The Collector, Lee did not have a hand in the creation of the Guardians of the Galaxy. He was originally intended to appear in a cell of the Collector's, giving Groot a rude gesture, but this scene was not filmed.

• Lee will have a cameo in Avengers: Age of Ultron and has finished filming his scene.

Warner Bros./DC properties[edit]

Stan Lee mourning on Dan Turpin's funeral. Above TV capture from original episode and below storyboard art by Bruce Timm and text comments by Paul Dini.

In the original February 7, 1998, broadcast airing of the Superman: The Animated Series episode "Apokolips... Now! Part 2" on the Kids' WB programming block, an animated Stan Lee was visible mourning the death of Daniel "Terrible" Turpin, a character based on his longtime Marvel Comics collaborator Jack Kirby. This shot was later modified to remove the likeness of Lee and other of background Marvel characters when the episode was released on DVD.

Other film, TV, and video[edit]

• In the 1990s, Lee hosted the documentary series The Comic Book Greats and interviewed notable comic book creators such as Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld and Whilce Portacio.
• Lee has an extensive cameo in the 1995 Kevin Smith film Mallrats. He plays himself, this time visiting the mall to sign books at a comic store. Later, he takes on the role of a sage-like character, giving Jason Lee's character, Brodie Bruce (a longtime fan of Stan's), advice on his love life. He also recorded interviews with Smith for the non-fiction video Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters, and Marvels (2002). Lee will make a second cameo in a Kevin Smith film with the 2015 release Yoga Hosers.
• Lee is the host of the 2010 History Channel documentary series Stan Lee's Superhumans.
• Lee makes a cameo appearance as the "Three Stooges Wedding Guest" in the 2004 Disney film The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.
• Lee hosted and judged contestants in the SyFy series Who Wants to Be a Superhero?
• Lee appears with director Kevin Smith and 2000s Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada in the DVD program Marvel Then & Now: An Evening with Stan Lee and Joe Quesada, hosted by Kevin Smith.
• Lee was interviewed on the History Channel show Superhuman by Daniel Browning Smith, who held several Guinness Records for extreme flexibility due to having Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic condition affecting collagen formation. Smith had created his own comic book to display his own struggles as an outcast for his flexibility, and legitimately surprised Lee with a quick demonstration of his talent.
• In the animated series Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, Lee plays himself in a live-action scene of the "Comic Capers" episode.
• Lee appeared as himself in an extended self-parodying sketch on the episode "Tapping a Hero" of Robot Chicken.
• Lee appears as himself in writer-director Larry Cohen's The Ambulance (1990), in which Eric Roberts plays an aspiring comics artist.
• In "I Am Furious (Yellow)", the April 28, 2002, episode of The Simpsons, Lee voices the animated Stan Lee, who is a prolonged visitor to Comic Book Guy's store. He asks if Comic Book Guy is the stalker of Lynda Carter – the star of the 1970s show Wonder Woman – and shows signs of dementia, such as breaking a customer's toy Batmobile by trying to cram a Thing action figure into it (claiming that he "made it better"), hiding DC comics behind Marvel comics, and believing that he is the Hulk (and fails trying to become the Hulk, while Comic Book Guy comments he couldn't even change into Bill Bixby). Lee also appeared on the commentary track along with other Simpsons writers and directors on the episode for The Simpsons Season 13 box set released in 2010. In a later Simpsons episode, "Worst Episode Ever", Lee's picture is seen next to several others on the wall behind the register, under the heading "Banned for life". Lee later officiated Comic Book Guy's wedding to a lovely manga artist in "Married to the Blob".
• Lee appears as himself in the Mark Hamill-directed Comic Book: The Movie (2004), a direct-to-video mockumentary primarily filmed at the 2002 San Diego Comic-Con.
• Lee made an appearance on December 21, 2006, on the NBC game show Identity.
• Lee appeared as himself in "The Excelsior Acquisition", a third season episode of The Big Bang Theory, in March 2010. He appears at the front door of his house wearing Fantastic Four pajamas, ultimately calling back into the house, "Joanie, call the police!" to get rid of Sheldon, who showed up after missing a comic book signing at the local store.
• He plays a bus driver in the 16th episode of the first season of Heroes.
• Lee made a guest appearance as himself in "Bottom's Up", a season seven episode of the TV series Entourage.
• He guest-starred as Dr. Lee (aka: Generalissimo) in "Glimpse", a season four episode of Eureka that aired in July 2011.
• Lee appears in "The Guardian", the October 7, 2010, episode of Nikita, as Hank Excelsior, a witness to a bank robbery who is interviewed by a TV reporter.
• Lee was interviewed in the 2011 documentary Superheroes.
• Lee is scheduled to appear on X Japan's music video "Born to be Free".
• Lee portrayed himself at a CIA holiday party in the fifth season of Chuck, in which it is revealed in that universe he secretly works for the government and has a romantic interest in General Beckman.
• Stan Lee appeared in the eleventh episode of season five of The Guild, in which he was captured at a convention by the character Zaboo's Master Chief cosplaying henchmen. 
• Stan Lee lent his voice to "The Amazing Man-Spider", a segment of the May 13, 2013 episode of the satirical animated TV series MAD. The segment depicts the story of what happened to the radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker.
• Stan Lee portrayed a future version of Tony Stark in "Episode 205 – The Future!" of the comedy web series Avengers Assemble!. In this episode, he delivered from the future a cryptic message to the rest of his fellow Avengers, but constantly frustrated his companions due to his ineptness with the technology of his future era.
• He was the subject of an April 2012 Epix cable-network documentary, "With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story.”
• Lee appeared as a judge in the second season premiere of the web series Video Game High School.
• In the Phineas and Ferb crossover special, Mission Marvel, Lee cameos as a New York City hot dog vendor.
• Lee's Chakra the Invincible will premier on Rovio Entertainment's ToonsTV channel sometime in 2014.
• Lee also has a cameo with a popular youtube star "Smosh".
• Lee makes a cameo during a post-credits scene of Disney's Big Hero 6 as Fred's busy father.

Video games and applications[edit]

• Lee narrates the 2000 video game Spider-Man,[157] the 2001 sequel Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro,[158] and 2010's Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
• Lee made his first-ever onscreen video game appearance as a senator named after himself in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.
• Lee narrates The Avengers Origins: Hulk and Avengers Origins: Assemble! apps for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, which were released by Disney Publishing Worldwide in February 2012.
• Lee is a playable character in Activision's The Amazing Spider-Man video game, which was released in June 2012, as a tie-in to the film of the same name. In the game, Lee is depicted as having the same superpowers as Spider-Man, and uses them to retrieve the pages of a new comic book manuscript that he had lost and were subsequently scattered around Manhattan. He also voices a character with his first name in the main story mode, who calls Peter about the charges to his credit card when Peter's walking to Dr. Connor's sewer lab.
• Lee appears as a playable Lego version of himself in Lego Marvel Super Heroes[163] released October 2013.
• Lee reprised his role, appearing as himself in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 video game, which was released in April 2014, as a tie-in to the film of the same name.

Personal life[edit]

Lee's favorite authors include Stephen King, H. G. Wells, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Harlan Ellison. As a child, he read the Bible because he enjoyed the phraseology. He is also a fan of the films of Bruce Lee.

Lee was raised in a Jewish family. In a 2002 survey of whether he believes in God, he stated, "Well, let me put it this way... [Pauses.] No, I'm not going to try to be clever. I really don't know. I just don't know."

In late September 2012, Lee underwent a surgical operation to insert a pacemaker into his body, cancelling planned appearances at conventions.

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

YearFilmRoleNotes1973L'An 01Cameo1989The Trial of the Incredible HulkJury ForemanTV movie1990The AmbulanceHimselfCameo1995MallratsHimselfCameo2000X-MenHotdog Stand VendorCameoCitizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IVNarrator (voice)The Adventures of Cinderella's DaughterPriest2002Spider-ManMan Saving GirlCameo2003DaredevilMan Crossing StreetCameoHulkSecurity GuardCameo2004Spider-Man 2Man Saving Innocent PersonCameoComic Book: The MovieHimselfCameoThe Princess Diaries 2: Royal EngagementThree Stooges Wedding Guest2005Fantastic FourWillie LumpkinCameoConflictTrevorShort film2006X-Men: The Last StandWaterhose ManCameo2007Spider-Man 3Man in Times SquareCameoFantastic Four: Rise of the Silver SurferHimselfCameoMosaicStanleyThe CondorGrandfather2008Iron ManHimself (Hugh Hefner)CameoThe Incredible HulkHapless CitizenCameo2010Iron Man 2Himself (Larry King)Cameo2011ThorPickup Truck DriverCameoCaptain America: The First AvengerGeneralCameo2012The AvengersRandom CitizenCameoThe Amazing Spider-ManLibrarianCameo2013Jay & Silent Bob's Super Groovy Cartoon MovieHimself (voice)CameoIron Man 3Beauty Pageant JudgeCameoThor: The Dark WorldMental Ward Patient (credited as "Himself")Cameo2014Captain America: The Winter SoldierSmithsonian GuardCameoThe Amazing Spider-Man 2Graduation GuestCameoX-Men: Days of Future PastParis Crowd MemberCameoGuardians of the GalaxyXandarian Ladies' ManCameoBig Hero 6Fred's DadPost-credits cameo2015Avengers: Age of UltronCameoAnt-ManCameo

Television[edit]

YearSeriesRoleNotes1981–1983Spider-Man and His Amazing FriendsNarrator (voice)15 episodes; Also Executive producer1982–1983The Incredible HulkNarrator (voice)13 episodes; Also Executive producer1989X-Men: Pryde of the X-MenHimself/Narrator (voice)Episode: "Pilot"Muppet BabiesHimself (voice)Episode: "Comic Capers"1991–1992The Comic Book GreatsHimself (host)13 episodes; Also Creator, executive producer1998Spider-ManHimself (voice)Episode: "Spider Wars, Chapter 2: Farewell Spider-Man"; Also Executive producer1994Fantastic FourHimself (voice)2 episodes; Also Executive producer1997The Incredible HulkCliff Walters (voice)Episode: "Down Memory Lane"; Also Executive producer2002The SimpsonsHimself (voice)Episode: "I Am Furious"2003Spider-Man: The New Animated SeriesFrank Elson (voice)Episode: "Mind Games: Part 1"StripperellaJerry (voice)Episode: "Crime Doesn't Pay... Seriously, It Doesn't"; Also Creator, Executive producer2003–2004MadtvHimself2 episodes2006IdentityHimselfEpisode: "1.4"2006–2007Who Wants to Be a Superhero?Himself (host)14 episodes; Also Creator, Executive Producer2007–2013Robot ChickenHimself (voice)3 episodes2007HeroesBus DriverEpisode: "Unexpected"2009The Spectacular Spider-ManStan (voice)Episode: "Blueprints"; Also Executive producer2009–2011The Super Hero Squad ShowMayor of Superhero City (voice)12 episodes; Also Creator, executive producer2010Black PantherGeneral Wallace (voice)Episode: "Pilot"The Big Bang TheoryHimselfEpisode: "The Excelsior Acquisition"EntourageHimselfEpisode: "Bottoms Up"NikitaHank ExcelsiorEpisode: "The Guardian"2010–presentStan Lee's SuperhumansHimself (co-host)Also Creator, Executive Producer2011EurekaHimselfEpisode: "Glimpse"ChuckHimselfEpisode: "Chuck Versus the Santa Suit"The GuildHimselfEpisode: "Costume Contest"2012–presentUltimate Spider-ManStan the Janitor (voice)Recurring Role2013MadBird Scientist, Papa Smurf, The Amazing Man-Spider Announcer (voice)Episode: "Papa / 1600 Finn"Phineas and FerbNew York City Hot Dog Vendor (voice)Episode: "Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel"FangasmHimself[174]Episode: "Beam Me Up, Stan"Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Maximum OverloadHot Dog Vendor (voice)Episode: "Assault, Off-Asgard!"2013–presentHulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.Stan the Salesman (voice)Recurring Role2014The SimpsonsHimself (voice)Episode: "Married to the Blob"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.Debonair GentlemanEpisode: "T.R.A.C.K.S."Hell's KitchenHimselfSeason 12 Episode 18: 5 Chef's Compete"

Video games[edit]

YearVideo GameVoice2000Spider-ManNarrator2001Spider-Man 2: Enter ElectroNarrator2009Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2Senator LieberMarvel Super Hero SquadMayor of Superhero City2010Spider-Man: Shattered DimensionsNarrator2012The Amazing Spider-ManHimself2013Lego Marvel Super HeroesHimself2014The Amazing Spider-Man 2Himself2014Family Guy: The Quest for StuffHimself

Awards and nominations[edit]

YearAwardNominated workResult1994The Will Eisner Award Hall of FameWon1995Jack Kirby Hall of FameWon2000Burbank International Children's Film FestivalLifetime Achievement AwardWon2002Saturn AwardThe Life Career AwardWon2003Hugo AwardHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation- Spider-ManNominated2005Hugo AwardHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation- Spider-Man 2Nominated2008National Medal of ArtsWon2009Hugo AwardHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation- Iron ManNominated2009USC Scripter AwardScripter Award- Iron ManNominated2009Scream AwardsComic-Con Icon AwardWon2011Hollywood Walk of FameWon2012Savannah Film and Video FestivalLifetime Achievement AwardWon2012Visual Effects Society AwardsLifetime Achievement AwardWon2012Producers Guild of AmericaVanguard AwardWon

• The County of Los Angeles declared October 2, 2009 "Stan Lee Day".
• The City of Long Beach declared October 2, 2009 "Stan Lee Day".

Comics bibliography[edit]

Lee's comics work includes:

DC[edit]

• DC Comics Presents: Superman #1 (2004)
• Just Imagine Stan Lee creating:
  • Aquaman (with Scott McDaniel) (2002)
  • Batman (with Joe Kubert) (2001)
  • Catwoman (with Chris Bachalo) (2002)
  • Crisis (with John Cassaday) (2002)
  • Flash (with Kevin Maguire) (2002)
  • Green Lantern (with Dave Gibbons) (2001)
  • JLA (with Jerry Ordway) (2002)
  • Robin (with John Byrne) (2001)
  • Sandman (with Walt Simonson) (2002)
  • Secret Files and Origins (2002)
  • Shazam! (with Gary Frank) (2001)
  • Superman (with John Buscema) (2001)
  • Wonder Woman (with Jim Lee) (2001)

Marvel[edit]

• The Amazing Spider-Man #1–100, 105–110, 116–118, 200, Annual #1–5, 18 (1962–84); (backup stories): #634–645 (2010–11)[182]
• The Amazing Spider-Man, strips (1977–95)
• Avengers #1–35 (1963–66)
• Captain America #100–141 (1968–71) (continues from Tales of Suspense #99)
• Daredevil, #1–9, 11–50, 53, Annual #1 (1964–69)
• Daredevil, vol. 2, #20 (backup story) (2001)
• Epic Illustrated #1 (Silver Surfer) (1980)
• Fantastic Four #1–114, 120–125, Annual #1–6 (1961–72); #296 (1986)
• The Incredible Hulk #1–6 (continues to Tales to Astonish #59)
• Journey into Mystery (Thor) plotter #83–96 (1962–63), writer #97–125, Annual #1 (1963–66) (continues to Thor #126)
• Ravage 2099 #1–7 (1992–93)
• Savage She-Hulk #1 (1980)
• Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1–28, Annual #1 (1963–66)
• Silver Surfer #1–18 (1968–70)
• Silver Surfer vol. 2, #1 (1982)
• Silver Surfer: Judgment Day (1988) ISBN 978-0-87135-427-3
• Silver Surfer: Parable #1–2 (1988–89)
• Silver Surfer: The Enslavers (1990) ISBN 978-0-87135-617-8
• Solarman #1–2 (1989–90)
• The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #10 (1990)
• Strange Tales (diverse stories): #9, 11, 74, 89, 90–100 (1951–62); (Human Torch): #101–109, 112–133, Annual #2; (Doctor Strange): #110–111, 115–142, 151–158 (1962–67); (Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.: #135–147, 150–152 (1965–67)
• Tales to Astonish (diverse stories): #1, 6, 12–13, 15–17, 24–33 (1956–62); Ant-Man/Giant Man: #35–69 (1962–65) (The Hulk: #59–101 (1964–1968); Sub-Mariner: #70–101 (1965–68)
• Tales of Suspense (diverse stories):#7, 9, 16, 22, 27, 29–30 (1959–62); (Iron Man): plotter #39–46 (1963), writer #47–98 (1963–68) (Captain America): #58–86, 88–99 (1964–68)
• Thor #126–192, 200, Annual #2 (1966–72), 385 (1987)
• Web of Spider-Man Annual #6 (1990)
• What If (Fantastic Four) #200 (2011)
• The X-Men #1–19 (1963–66)

Simon & Schuster[edit]

• The Silver Surfer: The Ultimate Cosmic Experience, 114 pages, September 1978, ISBN 978-0671242251

Other[edit]

• Ultimo (Manga original concept)
• How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way

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