By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/8/2013
Stan Lee at home in the early 1950s. “Always wrote standing up—good for the figure—and always faced the sun—good for the suntan!”
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/24/2012
Live broadcast by Ustream
Stan Lee is chatting right now with Geoff Boucher at EPIX about his new movie With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story. Here’s the livestream in case this embed isn’t working.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 10/27/2011
What is a day in the life of Stan Lee like? Judging by the PR wire, as soon as he gets out of bed he asks himself “Whom shall I pact with today, True Believer?” and his people call some other people, and POW! a pact is born!
This week’s pact is with Former Disney chairman Michael Eisner’s Vuguru, one of those shadowy multi-media companies that sits around and thinks about stuff. And sure enough, Stan will now help them createmore stuff.
Michael Eisner’s independent digital studio Vuguru and comic legend Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment Inc. have partnered to produce original content across multiple platforms. Details of the deal, announced today, did not specify if any existing Lee properties will be involved.
Though they cannot think of better partners, they can surely think of OTHER partners. In recent month’s Stan pacted with 1821 Comics for ROMEO AND JULIET: THE WAR and a whole line of kid’s entertainment.
“We’re not on a crusade of any sort. Our main purpose is we feel that there aren’t enough comic books or books for kids that really hit the target, that is that gives them excitement and humor together and are filled with surprises,” Lee said. “And have a whole new group of new characters that the kids can call their own, just as the teenagers called Spider-Man their own so many years ago.”
The first books under the imprint will include “Monsters Vs. Kittens,” from writer and artist Dani Jones, and “Once Upon a Time” in 2012, followed by “The Fuzz Posse,” ”Reggie the Veggie Crocodile” and “The Animal Band.”
After the pacting comes the thinking, and thus such things as “Reggie the Veggie Crocodile.”
Recently, Stan pacted with MTV for a contest where people could get the chance to make their own pact with Stan by working on this concept.
Before that, Stan and POW! pacted with Ricco Capital Holdings and Fidelis Entertainment to create Magic Storm Entertainment, a film entity that will think up film stuff for the world — and China. Hope this stuff doesn’t compete with the Vuguru stuff!
And Stan also teamed with Todd McFarlane and androg
By: Lou Simeone,
on 2/24/2011
Are you looking for a place to show your art and engage in conversation about it? Do you wish you knew of a place where you could go to get positive, constructive feedback about your art? Maybe you're a professional artist who would like to help and encourage other artists by providing them with invaluable advice and answers based upon your many years of experience. Well friends - it's time to put yourselves in the Creative HotSeat.
By: Rebecca,
on 11/21/2008
Michelle and Lauren, our fabulous Publicity Assistants, attended 5 Under 35 earlier this week. Below they tell us all about the event.
For the past few years, the National Book Foundation has kicked off National Book Awards week with “5 Under 35” —a celebration of five fresh and exciting writers under the age of 35.
This year, authors Joshua Ferris, Jonathan Franzen, Francine Prose, Mary Gaitskill and Jim Shepard—all former National Book Award Fiction Finalists—each selected a young fiction writer “who they found particularly promising.” Respectively, they chose Matthew Eck, Keith Gessen, Sana Krasikov, Nam Le, and Fiona Maazel. Each author read from their most recent book to a captive audience of friends and interested writers, editors, publishers, journalists, and bloggers at the Tribeca Cinemas bar the night of Monday, November 17.
Each previous Fiction Finalist introduced their Under 35 choice with glowing recommendations and amusing anecdotes. Joshua Ferris, in fact, joked that he had originally wanted to pick Philip Roth. “Why don’t we call it 5 Under 35 Times 2 Plus 5?” he asked. But after listing all of Roth’s awards, Ferris decided, “To hell with him. That’s enough!” 
Also attending the event was musician Dean Wareham, who MC’d, and journalist/writer/pop-culture expert Chuck Klosterman—the night’s DJ extraordinaire. Chuck’s job seemed to consist of hanging out in the DJ loft (read: corner) and looking down curiously at the crowd of people squinting back up at him, his head and beard playing camouflage against the red walls and lights of the venue.
Some of the featured novels fell into category of so-called “slacker fiction”—stories of lackadaisical college years, creative oppression, and distinct antipathy towards the publishing industry, or as the literary hero of Gessin’s slacker protagonist quips: “the publishing inertia.” 
Author Nam Le’s piece featured a 20 something male slacker, also by the name Nam, who is seriously suffering from writer’s block in his last year of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. In the midst of his character’s frustration, Le deftly satirizes a literary community and industry that encourages writers to find what makes them both “stand out” and fit into the genre of the moment. “Ethnic literature’s hot” says a visiting literary agent. As Le read to a crowd akin to the antithesis of his fictional self, the paradoxical nature of the situation was only heightened by Le’s disclaimer, spoken with a facetious but equaling endearing grin: “the views and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the author.”
Young writers tell us in an explicitly subterranean way: I am not a niche! But as history has shown, not wanting to be a niche seems to always become a movement in itself. What makes this select group of five stand out from the next generation of anti-establishment artists is their extraordinary ability to render the usual realities of youth—war, romance, integration, dreams of our hero’s approval—as new, visceral, and with intelligence that is neither earnest nor loquacious, but genuine and humble.
By: John Mark Boling,
on 4/3/2008
The Arkansas Literary Festival takes place in Little Rock this weekend, April 3-6. This celebration of books and authors is presented each spring in Little Rock by Arkansas Literacy Councils, Inc. Proceeds benefit adult literacy programs, and the general public is warmly invited to celebrate literacy through admission-free sessions with authors, musicians, spoken word performers, and costumed characters. Attending this year's festival is Gigi Durham, author of the forthcoming The Lolita Effect, and novelist Tito Perdue, author of Fields of Asphodel and Lee.
By: Phenomenon Books,
on 1/24/2008
I have been addicted to Lee Child as of late and wanted to comment on what's so special about this particular author.
I actually started reading with his latest book, Hard luck and trouble. Now, this is his 11th (pretty sure) Jack Reacher novel, yet I had no trouble understanding who Jack Reacher was. The beauty of Lee Child is not only that he has you turning the page (and staying up reading into the wee hours of the morning), but you can start with any Jack Reacher novel and never feel lost.
How does he do this so well, you ask? He knows Jack Reacher, inside and out. He's given Jack distinct characteristics that you pick up on right away. Character outlines, my little beasties, character outlines.
The page turning? That's easy. Short chapters with ultimate suspense hanging at the end of each one. Each chapter builds to an extreme. Short, clipped sentences keep the pace at a breakneck speed.
Even if you don't write within Child's genre, he's definitely a writer to take note of because he's a perfect example of someone who keeps the story on a basic path without straying, while keeping the readers attention intact from the first word to the last.
Stay literate;)
By: Ann Clemmons,
on 7/2/2007
In response to a Baby Center Toddler Bulletin entitled, "How To Raise A Reader", I'm revisiting a post I wrote in May, entitled "Once Upon A Time" I hope you enjoy both articles!
5/16/07
Once Upon a Time ...
Billy's eyes filled with tears, as he plop down.
He wiped back the tears, but still wore a frown.
His face felt hot, he was mad as could be.
He could not believe Mom took his T.V.
She said, "Billy, you will not watch T.V. during the day."
"Now, go read a book, or go out and play."
(from my manuscript Billy Board and the Reading Glasses)
When my son was born , I was a scared young person, who hadn't the slightest idea what to do with a newborn. In fact, if it hadn't been for a copy of Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes, from a friend; his first night at home would have been a disaster, since it was the rhythm of the words that helped get him to sleep.
I read him his first book, two days after he was born, and then introduced him to a more grown up group of friends in Peter Pan, Wendy, and Winnie the Poo. We read about countless characters, in a variety of books, every year until he was old enough to read himself to sleep. I kept him on a routine, and read to him every night, as well as many times during the day; reading was one of our favorite pastimes. If you have not begun to read to your child, it is never too late, and there are many reasons why you should began. I'm glad I did.
One of his first books was, Goodnight Moon, crafted by means of Margaret Wise Brown’s elegant prose, a text that puts children and adults alike right in the mist of the story. I read Goodnight Moon every night during his entire colicky period of infancy. The years followed with Dr. Seuss, P.D. Eastman, E.B. White, and Old Yeller’s, Fred Gibson. Even after he was able to read on his own, I still read to him. He began to comfort himself with books, and rely on them to cope with many difficult situations. The characters and events in a good book are great examples of what to do and how to act in every situation. Teaching children that they are not alone, that we all experience similar situations, and that it is in the ways we react, that we differ.
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I wonder what other habits are employed by writers? Some claim they write better when facing a certain direction, or they have to wear certain clothing, certain times of day, etc.
Somehow it makes a lot of sense.
Writing while completely naked seems to have worked fine for Warren Ellis so far
Lee’s stated age and the “early ’50s” date are obviously wrong on that picture. The beard sideburns and sunglasses are a dead giveaway the photo dates to the ’60s. Probably the late ’60s by which time John Romita, Roy Thomas, and others have said Lee only came into the Marvel offices roughly three days a week.
From the Comics Beat page.
http://imgcdn.nrelate.com/image_cache/comicsbeat.com/8187f6e1fef998f300da45603451e3c5_thumb_stans_lee-_jack_kirby_1964.jpg
Stan has said he typed standing up because he feared getting a “fat belly” if he sat while he typed all day.
And I agree the photo is probably from the late ’60s.
Looks 50′s era beatnik look to me!
Stan didn’t look like a beatnik in the 1950s. That photo’s got to be from the late 60s.
“Writing while completely naked seems to have worked fine for Warren Ellis so far.”
Maybe for him, but the other customers at the pub are beginning to complain.
“Stan didn’t look like a beatnik in the 1950s.”
No, Stan looked like Jack Lemmon in “The Apartment” in the ’50s.