Marathon Monday is going to be hot! One year when I ran Boston the sun was brutal and the temperature was hovering around 90 and, believe me, in that heat you take almost every water stop! At the 24-mile mark is Coolidge Corner, and tomorrow, one day before 25,000 pairs of running shoes go by that spot, Morgan Spurlock will be at the Coolidge Corner Theatre for the premiere of his new documentary, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope.
Friday morning, Spurlock was on PRI’s The Takeaway, talking about comic books and the San Diego convention.
[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/takeaway/takeaway041312j.mp3|titles=The Takeaway: Morgan Spurlock on ‘A Fan’s Hope’]Spurlock says that without the involvement of Stan Lee and Joss Whedon he probably wouldn’t have gotten permission from the convention to make the movie, but Morgan is a known name and his reputation precedes him — in a good way, I think. He’s a friend to fanboys and a kindred spirit. Speaking of somebody with a reputation, here’s a picture of me with Smilin’ Stan “The Man” Lee at a show in NYC a couple of weeks ago.
When I was down in New York I stopped at the table of the Jack Kirby Museum. I donated some money and chatted with the guys representing the organization. We talked about the Kirby family’s ongoing litigation with Disney-Marvel, and we agreed it’s a shame how the company took the path it did, rather than offering an out-of-court settlement.
There’s a vocal contingent of Jack supporters who are out to make Stan the bad guy for stealing credit that rightfully should be shared with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. But the well was poisoned long before the so-called Marvel Universe came into being in the 1960’s. As the late Joe Simon said on page 114 of My Life in Comics, “Jack always thought Stan had told his uncle that we were working for DC. He never gave up on that idea, and hated him for the rest of his life — to the day he died.” The hard-line Jack supporters have taken Kirby’s hatred to heart, and I think their zeal has caused them to lose their perspective. As I told the Kirby Museum reps, I will not support Jack by hating Stan.