“I’m hung up on dialogue; dialogue turns me on,” said Stan Lee in an interview on file in Box 127 at the University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center. “I love to read what people are saying. I’m not interested in what the sunset looks, but I’m interested in what the hero has to say…So I would say that if you find the dialogue good, I’m very gratified and I’m very pleased to hear that because that, to me, is the most important thing there is in writing. That’s what gives any semblance of realism that a literacy work may have.”
Stan Lee, a comic book writer and publisher who was responsible for the creation of Marvel characters like Spider-Man and Iron Man, died Nov. 12 at age 95.
The American Heritage Center’s relationship with Lee goes back to the 1980s when the AHC’s director contacted Lee, hopeful he would donate some of his collection. The tipping point that persuaded Lee to send his collection to UW was the fact that Jack Benny, an individual whom Stan Lee admired, donated some of his work here as well.
Since then, the AHC has collected 196 cardboard boxes of Lee’s work. An exhibit of some of the material is currently on display at the AHC, but the public can access the full collection as well.
“The American Heritage Center is extremely pleased and proud to have Stan Lee’s collection,” said Bill Hopkins, AHC collections manager and head of collection management unit. “We consider it one of the prestige collections of our holdings. It relates to some of the other collections here so it by no means is by itself, but it certainly is one of the gems.”
Lee’s first donation was in the early 1980s and his last donation was in 2011. In 1984 Lee himself came to UW as a guest speaker in the Arts & Sciences building where it was a standing room only due to the large crowd that attended. He also appeared at a more restricted reception in the AHC to give autographs and answer questions.
Lee’s characters have grown far beyond their original comic book appearances to be featured in a string of blockbuster Marvel movies which have made billions of dollars at the global box office.
“Certainly the movies have not hurt either the popularity or visibility of Stan Lee,” Hopkins said. “The idea that these characters are still incredibly popular and resonate so well with people, I think, is kind of a testament to the creative process that went behind it and has sustained it all these years. Stan Lee created the characters, but many people have been involved with them over the years. They have taken on a life of their own to be honest. They have had many different artists draw them. They have had many different writers write them. I think that they will endure.”
Hopkins has been in the collections business for the past 40 years and, before that, enjoyed collecting comics himself as a kid. He was given the opportunity to watch comics mature and sophisticate to become the incredible works of art that they are today, he said.
“If you look at the older stories you can see the progression of art and writing and presentation from a very basic kind of art form to a current very sophisticated art form,” Hopkins said. “When you look at the sophistication of comics today with their multilayered storyline and their sometimes exquisite and also sometimes exploratory art, and way of presenting things and the way they meld the written word and the visual together, they really are a unique art form.”
Anyone can view the AHC’s extensive Stan Lee collection. Visitors must fill out a short form saying why they wish to see the collection and how they heard of it, and then they may put their hands on the real and physical collection.
