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| By Kevin Cafferty |
So it’s come to this – I’ve spent one hundred dollars to wait in line for an hour to get Stan Lee’s autograph.
It’s Saturday, and I’m at the Boston Comic Con. My con-going agenda today is pretty light (I’m not all that interested in most of the featured guests, and the number of panels at the show is light compared to what’s available at, say, DragonCon) and I already did the thing where I wander aimlessly through the show floor looking at what the various vendors are selling.
Chatted with Evan Dorkin, whose work I’ve enjoyed for a long time, and bought a copy of his most recent Beasts of Burden book.
Now it’s decision time: go home, or get Stan Lee’s autograph?
I’m conflicted. I have kind of a cool item to get signed – a limited edition Stan Lee action figure that Hasbro sent me when I worked as a professional journalist and was on their mailing list.
Still, one hundred dollars is a lot of money, and I am not much of an autograph person.
And yet, at 92 year old, this could very likely be my last chance to meet the co-creator of so many of the comic book stories and characters that illuminated my childhood.
I’ve long held to the notion that sometimes in life it’s better to do the awesome thing than the responsible thing, so I head over to the ballroom where Stan is signing.
The line in the ballroom is long, and snakes around several times, but the convention staff member manning the door tells me that it’s been moving at a brisk pace. I can understand why: every so often someone involved with the show makes an announcement that we are not to engage Stan in any sort of conversation besides “Thank you” (so much for my plan to ask him if he considers Steve Ditko the co-creator of Spider-Man!), that we are not to shake his hand (fist bumps are, apparently, okay), and that we are to have our one item out and ready to be signed by the time we get to Stan’s table.
I’m in line in front of two teenaged boys who are cosplaying the Welcome to Nightvale podcast. I chat with them for a bit and they’re legitimately awesome – I have a tendency to view everything at an ironic reserve and these kids’ enthusiasm over meeting Stan Lee is infectious.
I have a friend who is in love with the theory that the rise of “geek culture” has led to a situation where people involved with geek culture have become nothing but nasty bullies, and when you look online and see all the horrible crap that’s out there, from Gamergate on down, it’s hard not to agree with him.
Talking to the two kids behind me, and seeing how stoked they were and how much fun they were having just being at the convention among their tribe made me remember why I fell in love with this stuff in the first place.
I’m a little baffled by what some of the other people in line around me are getting signed. Books written by people other than Stan. Books written by people other than Stan featuring characters created by people other than Stan. A Marvel Encyclopedia written by someone other than Stan. Hey, it’s their hundred dollars but I don’t understand it.
Why not just have him sign a frozen dinner or a copy of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album at that point? I feel a little self-conscious in the line – a middle-aged weirdo waiting to get his doll signed. I realize that I’m not the only middle-aged weirdo in the line, but I still feel self-conscious. There’s a guy wearing no pants and panty-hose and I’m the one feeling self-conscious. Note to self: be less neurotic.
I take a picture of the line and post it to Facebook.
The line does move quickly – this is mostly due to every person getting between 4-10 seconds of face time with Stan while he signs whatever they’ve brought him.
I am terrible at math but I figure this means that Stan is making at least 600 dollars a minute. Stan does not seem to acknowledge or care what he is signing. I wonder if anyone is having him sign one of the “Funky Flashman” Fourth World comics that Jack Kirby did (which are generally considered to be an unflattering parody of Stan, and which Stan has said in interviews he was hurt by), and if Stan would notice if they did.
There is a guy in line cosplaying as Stan Lee. I wonder if Stan acknowledged him?
Finally, Stan signs my doll and hands it to me.
We do not bump fists.
I think about saying “Excelsior” but realize that if I do I will have been the seven thousandth person that day to say it to him so I refrain. On the way out of the room I run into someone I work with, who is there with his son.
I look down at my signed Stan Lee doll.
“I’m not sure I got 100 dollars worth of enjoyment out of that line,” I say to my co-worker.
I
hear the two teenagers from behind me in line emerge from the room.
They high-five and scream, “I can’t believe I got to meet Stan Lee!”
On
the train ride home, I think about old Fantastic Four comics, and about
being a kid on Saturday mornings and listening to Stan narrate Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends every week while I ate my Froot
Loops, and about reading old Stan’s Soapbox columns in Marvel Age
magazine, and about how it’s kind of ridiculous to have a Stan Lee doll
signed by Stan Lee but it’s also kind of great.
Ridiculous and great,
like geek culture in microcosm.
Excelsior!
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