JIM MORRISON'S LAST ALBUM, L.A. WOMAN RELEASED 53 YEARS AGO TODAY!

Blues- and Jazz-Infused Music From America’s Greatest Rock Band; Excerpt from Roadhouse Blues

The Doors released L.A. Woman on April 19, 1971, and Jim Morrison would be dead about 10 weeks later. The last album during his lifetime solidified the band’s standing and the singer’s legacy as an iconic figure in rock ‘n roll history.

Roadhouse Blues author Bob Batchelor with L.A. Woman

EXCERPT FROM ROADHOUSE BLUES: MORRISON, THE DOORS, AND THE DEATH DAYS OF THE SIXTIES (HAMILCAR PUBLICATIONS)

While incarceration loomed, Jim and the band got back into the studio. Ray, Robby, and John understood the seriousness of the situation. Densmore claimed that saving Jim was the band’s first priority: “Fuck, man, if we don’t get an album or two more out of Jim, so what? Maybe we’ll save his life.” They thought the creative process would reverse the spiral. The strategy had worked with Morrison Hotel.

Ironically, the album that would later be named after their adopted home—L.A. Woman—would be made without longtime producer Paul Rothchild. He hated the songs the band planned to use for the new record, telling them, “It sucks…it’s the first time I’ve ever been bored in a recording studio in my life.” At a dinner, according to Hopkins and Sugerman, Rothchild told them that they should produce themselves with Botnick’s assistance.

Although Rothchild may have disliked the tracks and sound, some felt that he still mourned Janis and was afraid to watch Jim’s journey down a similar path toward destruction. He also wanted a more controlled sound and believed the band couldn’t deliver, based on Jim’s commitment to partying and the tension that it caused with Ray, Robby, and John.

Rothchild had a point. Krieger remembered Jim’s drinking, saying, “When he got too drunk, he would become kind of an ass. It got harder and harder to be close with him.” The band kind of lined up on one side— on the other, Jim and his increasing number of drinking buddies and hangers-on. In his memoir, Ray called them “reprobates…slimeballs, and general Hollywood trash.”

Still, Botnick agreed to co-produce the next album, and the band went to work to perfect the demos and create several more. They set up shop at the Doors offices at 8512 Santa Monica Boulevard, which felt safe and secure for the band. With Jim across the street at the fleabag Alta Cienega Hotel, Robby remembered that the singer was reenergized by the process. Like the previous album, Botnick wanted to get a live feel. He said, “Go back to our early roots and try to get everything live in the studio with as few overdubs as possible.”

The Doors perform at the Hollywood Bowl

Continuing the creative process that had worked on Morrison Hotel, the band wrote songs together, often from poems Jim had been working on over the years. Adding to the new vibe, they used Elvis’s bassist Jerry Scheff and rhythm guitarist Marc Benno to add a deeper, more lush tone. Morrison sang in the adjoining bathroom to get the sound he wanted. To capture the desired live spirit, they didn’t do many takes and kept overdubs to a minimum.

Morrison’s concept of L.A. Woman centered on imagining the city as a sexy woman, his way to pay homage to the “City of Lights.” They also continued to explore what it meant to live on the West Coast and in the contemporary world. The sound was expansive, more alive than what they had done recently, despite the weight of Jim’s conviction.

The title track “L.A. Woman,” according to Densmore, epitomized the new sound, particularly Jim’s anagram for his name. “‘Mr. Mojo Risin’ is a sexual term,” the drummer explained. “I suggested that we slowly speed the track back up, kind of like an orgasm.” For Robby, it was the teamwork that pulled the best work from the band. “The title track was distilled from jam sessions, with all of us contributing equally,” he remembered. “Jim started with a handful of lines and added lyrics as he went while John kept it interesting with time changes and Ray and I harmonized on the melody and traded solos.”

In 2022, the editors at Bass Player named the bassline of “L.A. Woman” one of the forty greatest of all time. “True to the production values of the day, Ray Manzarek’s throbbing keyboard bass is all low frequencies and no mids, adding to its thunderous presence,” they said. That unforgettable sound “takes everything that was best about The Doors—acid-drenched psychedelia, a threatening blues edge and that era-defining drone—and anchors it all with a rock-solid bassline.” The enduring success of the song and its ranking among the best ever recorded is a demonstration of what the Doors could still create, particularly in their stripped-down, blues-infused era.

Despite the stress Jim experienced while putting the album together, the power of his vocals propelled the record. Morrison sounded lively—perhaps even sober—between takes. “I don’t follow orders. I’m just a dumb singer,” he playfully told his bandmates during one interval. Yet under Botnick’s guiding hand, songs like “L.A. Woman” came together, as the producer explained, with “a little bit of woodshedding.”

According to Robby, much of the beauty of “L.A. Woman” came from how he worked with Jim to bring the vocals and guitar into sync. “During the verses, I do these little answer lines to Jim’s vocals. That was just a natural thing he and I would do. He’d sing something and I’d respond.” The improvisation gave the song a timeless vibe, ramping up the power of the live feel. If you close your eyes, you can feel the sun on your face and hear the motor roaring as you’re chugging down the Pacific Coast Highway. The glint off the ocean is blinding, but the air is clean, and the grit of the city is in the rearview mirror.

As a tribute to the great jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington, Krieger wrote “Love Her Madly,” whose title comes from the way the Duke ended his shows by telling audiences: “We love you madly!” It took the rest of the band, however, to work it into the Doors groove. “We workshopped it together,” the guitarist said.

Roadhouse Blues by cultural historian and biographer Bob Batchelor

For the band, working collectively always worked best. “We tickled them and cajoled them and pampered them, and whipped them into line,” Ray said of those tracks. “It was like the old days.” L.A. Woman was a testament to that collaborative spirit.

WHAT DID STAN LEE DO DURING WORLD WAR II

A Fact-Filled, Frequently Asked Question by Stan Fans Everywhere!

Pearl Harbor brought the war to America. Winning hinged on creating an interlocked infrastructure to support the troops. Businesses of all sizes rallied to the cause. Democracy hung in the balance!

Although still a teenager, Stan Lee enlisted on November 9, 1942, just as the US faced its first skirmish on the coast of North Africa. He took the Army General Classification Test and scored high, qualifying for the Signal Corps.

The war was good for comic books. In 1943 more than 140 were on newsstands, reportedly “read by over fifty million people each month.” In 1944, Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures sold 14 million copies (up 21 percent). Superhero titles drove sales, but publishers also expanded into humor, funny animals, and teen romance. Captain America remained Timely’s most popular series.

“How would you like my job?” Lee asked his friend Vince Fago.

Veteran animator Fago had worked on Superman and Popeye for Fleischer Studios. Battling with Disney, Max Fleischer’s shop differed by focusing on human characters, such as Betty Boop and Koko the Clown, rather than talking mice, ducks, and other anthropomorphic figures. Martin Goodman paid Fago $250 a week.

The fighting overseas was heavy stuff; readers yearned for lighter comedic fare. Fago specialized in funny animals, so Timely used Disney as a model, essentially transforming into Disney-lite. They published amusing animal tales, such as Comedy Comics and Joker Comics. Lee had concocted some of these characters, like Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal (co-created with artist Al Jaffee, the future Mad magazine illustrator). Fago estimated that each comic had a print run of about 500,000. “Sometimes we’d put out five books a week or more,” Fago remembered. “You’d see the numbers come back and could tell that Goodman was a millionaire.”

Goodman also wanted to gain female readers. Miss America, a teenage heiress who gained superhuman strength and the ability to fly after being struck by lightning, first appeared in Marvel Mystery Comics #49 (November 1943), with Human Torch and Toro on the cover thwarting a Japanese battleship. In January 1944, Miss America became a title character. However, when sales dropped, the next issue was delayed until November, publishing as Miss America Magazine #2. A real-life model portrayed the character in her superhero outfit. For the relaunch, Fago and his team gradually eliminated superhero material in favor of topics deemed more appropriate for teen girls.

***

Lee went through basic training at Fort Monmouth, an enormous base in New Jersey that housed the Signal Corps. It also served as a research center – radar was developed there and the handheld walkie-talkie. In subsequent years, they would learn to bounce radio waves off the moon.

Stan Lee with his beat-up jalopy

Stan learned how to string and repair communications lines – a path to combat duty (like his former boss Jack Kirby). Army strategists knew wars were often won by infrastructure – the Signal Corps kept communications flowing, but they could barely keep up with demand. Other training centers opened at Camp Crowder, Missouri, and Camp Kohler, near Sacramento. By mid-1943, the Corps’ consisted of 27,000 officers and 287,000 enlisted men, backed by another 50,000 civilians.

Pearl Harbor heightened concern that German subs or planes might mount a surprise attack during the cold New Jersey winter. Lee patrolled the base perimeter, claiming the frigid wind whipping off the Atlantic nearly froze him to death.

The beachfront burden ended when Lee’s superior officers discovered his work in publishing. They placed him in a special outfit producing instructional films and other wartime materials. Lee wrote fast and in a breezy style that recruits and trainees could comprehend.

The Army liked these traits too. At the Training Film Division, based in Astoria, Queens, he joined eight other artists, filmmakers, and writers to create public relations pieces, propaganda materials, and information-sharing documents. Education was critical for the war effort. Imagine, millions of young Americans were enlisting and they collectively had about an eighth grade education. They needed to learn how to fire machine guns, run offices, and build bridges, barracks, and other essentials necessary to win the war. They needed training materials that they could understand and put to immediate use.

The Army purchased a large building flanked by rows of tall, narrow windows at 35th Avenue and 35th Street. Colonel Melvin E. Gillette commanded the efforts. Inside the Army built the largest soundstage on the East Coast, enabling filmmakers to create a variety of military settings and scenes. The old movie studio (built in 1919) soon rivaled the major Hollywood production companies.

Prop department at the Long Island facility

“I wrote training films, I wrote film scripts, I did posters, I wrote instructional manuals,” Lee said. “I was one of the great teachers of our time!” The Signal Corps group included many famous or soon-to-be-famous individuals, including three-time Academy-award winning director Frank Capra, New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams, and children’s book writer and illustrator Theodor Geisel, who the world already knew as “Dr. Seuss.” The stories that must have floated around during staff meetings!

Lee took up a desk in the scriptwriter bullpen, to the right of eminent author William Saroyan – at least when the pacifist author visited the office. Saroyan, who had won a Pulitzer Prize (but rejected it) for his play The Time of Your Life (1939), usually worked from a Manhattan hotel. Lee and the others, including screenwriter Ivan Goff and producer Hunt Stromberg Jr., earned the official Army military occupation specialty designation: “playwright.”

As home front efforts intensified, Lee traveled to other bases, essentially crisscrossing the Southeast and Midwest. Each base had a critical need for easy-to-understand manuals, films, and public relations documents. Stan wrote about using combat cameras, caring for weapons, and other topics he knew little about. In these situations, he utilized a familiar motto – simplify the information. “I often wrote entire training manuals in the form of comic books. It was an excellent way of educating and communicating.”

One post took Lee to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, just northeast of Indianapolis – a jarring locale for a New York City native who had not ventured outside the city. He worked with the Army Finance Department, which struggled to keep up with payrolls. Watching the wannabee-accountants march, Lee noticed they lacked vigor. He penned a song for them, inserting new lyrics over the famous “Air Force Song.” The peppy tune included memorable lines, like “We write, compute, sit tight, don’t shoot,” but it improved morale.

Stan used humor to help the men absorb the complex procedures. “I rewrote dull army payroll manuals to make them simpler,” Lee remembered. “I established a character called Fiscal Freddy who was trying to get paid. I made a game out of it. I had a few little gags. We were able to shorten the training period of payroll officers by more than 50 percent.” He joked: “I think I won the war single-handedly.”

“I rewrote dull army payroll manuals to make them simpler. I established a character called Fiscal Freddy who was trying to get paid. I made a game out of it. I had a few little gags. We were able to shorten the training period of payroll officers by more than 50 percent...I think I won the war single-handedly.”

— Stan Lee

Lee moved to another project, calling it “my all-time strangest assignment,” creating anti-venereal disease posters aimed at troops in Europe. Sexually transmitted diseases had plagued armies throughout history. American leaders considered the effort deadly serious. Despite implementing extensive education campaigns, the military still lost men to syphilis and gonorrhea. The British – less willing to confront the taboo epidemic – had 40,000 men a month being treated for VD during the Italian campaign.

Military leaders went to extreme measures to thwart STDs, including the creation of propaganda posters showing Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo deliberately plotting to disable Allied troops via disease. Many of these images, such as the ones famously created by artist Arthur Szyk, depicted the Axis leaders as subhuman animals, with rat-like features or as ugly buffoons.

Unsure how to combat the scourge, Lee promoted the prophylactic stations set up by the armed forces. Men visited the huts when they thought they were infected, which involved a series of rough and painful treatments. “Those little pro stations dotted the landscape,” Stan said, “with small green lights above the entrance to make them easily recognizable.” He wrestled with different taglines, ultimately hitting upon the simplest: “VD? Not me!”

Lee illustrated the poster with a cartoon image of a happy serviceman walking into the station, the green light clearly visible. Army leaders liked its simplicity and flooded bases with the posters. Ironically, the print may have ranked among Lee’s most-seen, yet also the most roundly ignored.

According to lore, the other “playwrights” couldn’t keep up with Stan, forcing the commanding officer to order him to slow down. While it is difficult to quantify the importance of the films, posters, photos, and training aids the Signal Corps produced, analysts determined they cut training time by 30 percent. Signal Corps efforts also provided from 30 percent to 50 percent of newsreel footage for movie theaters, which kept the public informed. Lee, Capra, Geisel, and the other Army “playwrights” did vital work.

Lee used downtime to keep his fingers dipped in Timely ink and his pockets filled with Goodman’s money as a freelance writer. With the extra money, Stan purchased his first automobile for $20 – a 1936 Plymouth with a fold-up windshield. Stationed near Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, the unique windshield allowed the warm Southern air to blow in his face as he cruised the back roads of tobacco country.

No matter where the Army sent him, Lee received letters outlining stories from Fago every Friday. Stan then typed up the scripts, sending them back on Monday. In addition to working on comics, Lee also helped out with the pulps. He wrote cartoon captions for Read! magazine, including this short ditty in January 1943: “A buzz-saw can cut you in two / A machinegun can drill you right thru / But these things are tame, compared— / To what a woman can do!” The accompanying drawing shows a plump woman feeding her bald husband – chained to a doghouse. The ribald humor fit within Goodman’s magazines, filled with sexist overtones and racy photographs.

Stan also wrote mystery-with-a-twist-ending short stories, similar to the ones in Captain America. In “Only the Blind Can See” (Joker, 1943-1944), the gag is on the reader, who eventually realizes a supposedly blind panhandler (assumed a phony) was telling the truth. Written in second person so Lee can speak directly to the reader (addressed as “Buddy”), one learns that the down-on-his-luck beggar had been too prideful. The truth comes to light when a speeding car hits the blind man. These short stories served as training for the science fiction and monster comic books that Lee would write after the war.

Stan’s afterhours writing for Timely went largely unnoticed by his superiors, but once got him arrested (in typical Lee madcap fashion). One Friday a bored mail clerk overlooked Stan’s letter, reporting an empty mailbox. Lee swung by the closed mailroom on Saturday and spied a letter in his cubby – with the Timely return address.        

Fearful of missing a deadline, Lee asked the officer in charge for the letter. The harried officer told Lee to worry about the mail on Monday. Angry, Stan used a screwdriver to gently loosen the hinges and freeing the missive. When he realized what Lee did, the mailroom supervisor went berserk, reporting him to the base captain. They charged Lee with mail tampering and threatened to throw him in Leavenworth prison. Luckily, the colonel in charge of the Finance Department intervened. In this instance, Fiscal Freddy really did save the day!

***

Stan’s signature and a quick roll of his ink-stained thumb across the Army discharge papers made it official – in late September 1945 Sergeant Lee returned to civilian life. Practically before the ink dried, the 23-year old roared off base. His new black Buick convertible had hot red leather seats, flashy whitewall tires, and shiny hubcaps – a noticeable upgrade from the battered, $20 Plymouth.

Lee received a $200 bonus (called “muster out pay”), given to soldiers so they could jumpstart their post-military lives. Half went into a savings account and Lee pocketed the rest. The Army had allotted him $42.12 to get back to New York City from Camp Atterbury in central Indiana, about 50 miles south Fort Harrison.

Excited to get back to the Big Apple, Stan joked that he “burned my uniform, hopped into my car, and made it non-stop back to New York in possibly the same speed as the Concorde!” The editor desk awaited in the new headquarters on the fourteenth floor of the Empire State Building. Lee zoomed off on the 700-mile trip to the Big Apple.

Stan Lee: A Life by biographer and cultural historian Bob Batchelor

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UNMASKING STAN LEE: FROM SUPERHEROES TO CULTURE IN 10 PIVOTAL MOMENTS -- GREAT LIVES LECTURE SERIES AT UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON

“Stan Lee: Spider-Man and Marvel Comics” — February 22, 2024

The Yuh Prosthodontics Lecture

William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series

Biographical Approaches to History and Culture begins its third decade with a program on January 16, 2024. The schedule includes a total of 18 programs, running through March 28.

Bob Batchelor lecture on Stan Lee at University of Mary Washington

Join cultural historian Bob Batchelor on an exhilarating journey into the extraordinary life of Stan Lee, an icon whose legacy is as epic as the superheroes he co-created. Renowned for film cameos as the Marvel movie franchise conquered the world, Lee would have been 101 today, providing the perfect moment to delve into his profound impact on contemporary America and global culture.

Batchelor presents Lee’s life in 10 pivotal moments, each encapsulating an era of modern history. From the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression, the American Century to the twenty-first century, his journey mirrors the sweeping narrative of the nation itself. Lee’s vision and creative genius revolutionized pop culture, introducing us to superheroes that were as complex and fallible as their creator (and all of us).

Experience the highs and lows, drama and humor of Lee’s life via a narrative that not only explores a cultural visionary, but also uncovers the heart of a man who dreamed of writing the Great American Novel and, in the process, rewrote the script of global pop culture. This is the story of Stan Lee, a true American icon, whose legacy continues to entertain and inspire generations around the world. Excelsior!

BRIEF BIO

A 3-time winner of the Independent Press Book Award, cultural historian Bob Batchelor has been hailed as “one of the greatest non-fiction writers and storytellers” by New York Times bestselling biographer Brian Jay Jones. His books examine modern popular culture icons, events, and topics, from comic books and music to literary figures and history’s outlaws.

By day, Bob is a diversity, equity, and inclusion advocate and ally at The Diversity Movement, a Raleigh DEI consultancy. By night, he is the author of 14 books, editor of 19 books, and has been published in a dozen languages. He is best known as biographer of Marvel icon Stan Lee, having written 3 books on him and numerous essays and chapters, one on Spider-Man appearing in Time.

An interdisciplinary writer, Bob has published books on Jim Morrison and the Doors, Bob Dylan, The Great Gatsby, Mad Men, and John Updike, among others. He wrote an award-winning illustrated history of Rookwood Pottery, the revolutionary company that became one of the great art potteries in the world, and The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius, a rollicking tale of the infamous bootleg baron, as widely known in the Roaring Twenties as Warren G. Harding and Babe Ruth.

Bob’s work has appeared or been featured in the New York Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, Los Angeles Times, and PopMatters. He created the podcast “John Updike: American Writer, American Life” and “Tales of the Bourbon King: The Life and True Crimes of George Remus.” He has appeared as an on-air commentator for The National Geographic Channel, PBS NewsHour, PBS, the BBC, and NPR. Bob hosted “TriState True Crime” on WCPO’s Cincy Lifestyle television show.

Bob earned his doctorate in American Literature from the University of South Florida and an M.A. in History from Kent State University after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught at universities in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Vienna, Austria. Bob and his wife, antiques and vintage expert Suzette Percival live in North Carolina and have two wonderful teenage daughters.

Happy 100th Birthday Celebration for Marvel Legend Stan Lee

Stan Lee as Artist and Producer — The Man “Behind” Marvel’s Success

Stan Lee: A Life by cultural historian Bob Batchelor

Stan Lee had been working in the comic book industry for decades before the successes of the 1960s. Lee’s most important lessons from those first two-plus decades in comic book publishing were about how to manage a business, the seemingly simple on paper, but difficult in practice nature of running a company.

Comic book publishing was not for the meek – governed by relentless deadlines in an era before technology made many of the processes more efficient. While not trained in business, Lee became a manager, which gave him insider perspective into the machinations of the industry, particularly in contrast to the artist or writer view that is solely on their specific creation. From an enterprise perspective, Lee learned everything that would enable him to re-launch Marvel in the early 1960s, ultimately overseeing the company as it became a force in comic books and later, American popular culture as a whole.

Yet, if we were just discussing Lee as an editor and manager of Marvel, the story would be truncated. Of course, he was also a creator, as were so many of the early comic book artists and writers, more or less forced into developing managerial acumen, because, well someone had to run the business side. What emerged in Lee as a result of the melding of the business and creative parts of his work life was a keen sense of responsibility. He had to nurture the artistic aspects of comic book creation, from writing and editing to assigning cover art and lettering, while also overseeing the business side, from managing budgets to working with the production team to ensure deadlines were met in an industry with slim margin for error. Ultimately, all responsibility wrapped back to Lee.

Rather than these viewpoints warring inside Lee as he built his career, he used them as a way to create a central worldview: Comic books were important as tools to educate. They had value for readers – regardless of age – as a means of education, including outlining a value system based on the complexity of the human experience, not unlike literature and poetry. Lee realized that this perspective stood in contrast to the mainstream opinion that comic books were “pulp,” simple stories aimed at children and feeble-minded adults (a common belief through the 1960s).

Without going into deep analysis of the controversial creation of Spider-man – an amalgamation of the thinking and experiences lived by Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby – the character’s popularity provided Lee with an instrument to explore his ideas about how important comic books could be as tool for education. Spider-man gave him influence and proved that he could help shape culture in ways unimaginable during the first 20 years of his career.

Continually attempting to establish Marvel as different, Lee started calling the company the “House of Ideas,” which stuck with journalists and became part of the company’s cachet. If a downside existed in the surge of Marvel comics into the public consciousness it is that Lee and his bullpen teammates had to balance between entertainment, social issues, and profitability. Stan valued the joy derived from reading comics, but he wanted them to be useful: “Hopefully I can make them enjoyable and also beneficial…This is a difficult trick, but I try within the limits of my own talent.” Lee wanted to have it both ways – for people to read the books as entertainment, but also be taken seriously.

“Hopefully I can make them enjoyable and also beneficial…This is a difficult trick, but I try within the limits of my own talent.”

— Stan Lee

At the same time, Marvel had to sell comics, which meant that little kids and young teenagers drove a sizeable chunk of the market. In 1970, Lee estimated that 60 percent of Marvel’s readers were under 16-years old. The remaining adult readership was enormous given historical numbers, but kept Lee focused on the larger demographic. “We’re still a business,” he told an interviewer. “It doesn’t do us any good to put out stuff we like if the books don’t sell…I would gain nothing by not doing things to reach the kids, because I would lose my job and we’d go out of business.”

 On one hand, the industry moved so quickly that Lee and his creative teams constantly fought to get issues out on time. The number of titles Marvel put out meant that everyone had to be constantly producing. So, when Lee was in the office or working from home, he committed to getting content out. Roy Thomas recalls, “Stan and I were editing everything, and the writers were editing what they did, and we had a few assistant editors that didn't really have any authority...that was about it.” However, that chaotic atmosphere made it rife for animosities to form or fester. Lee needed content out the door and Goodman tried to maintain control over cover artwork and other little details that inevitably slowed down the process.

Thomas’ ascension and Lee’s pull toward management did shift the editorial direction, if for no other reason than that Stan wouldn’t be writing full-time any longer. “It was time to kind of branch out a little bit,” Thomas explained. “We wanted to keep some of that Marvel magic, and at the same time, there had to be room for other art styles and other writing styles.” The most overt change came when Lee turned in the copy for The Amazing Spider-Man #110. The late 1971 issue was the last Lee wrote for the character. Writer Gerry Conway succeeded Lee and the next books in the series would be co-created by Conway and star artist John Romita.

While many adults looked down on Lee for writing comic books, especially early in his career, he developed a masterful style that rivals or mirrors those of contemporary novelists. Lee explained:

Every character I write is really me, in some way or other. Even the villains. Now I’m not implying that I’m in any way a villainous person. Oh, perish forbid! But how can anyone write a believable villain without thinking, “How would I act if he (or she) were me? What would I do if I were trying to conquer the world, or jaywalk across the street?...What would I say if I were the one threatening Spider-Man? See what I mean? No other way to do it.”

 Lee’s distinctive voice captured the essence of his chosen medium.

Lee also understood that the meaning of success in contemporary pop culture necessitated that he embrace the burgeoning celebrity culture. If a generation of teen and college-aged readers hoped to shape him into their leader, Lee would gladly accept the mantle, becoming their gonzo king. Fashioning this image in a lecture circuit that took him around the nation, as well as within the pages of Marvel’s books, Lee created a persona larger than his publisher or employer. As a result, he transformed the comic book industry.

Unlike Bob Dylan or Jann Wenner, for example, Stan didn’t plan this revolution. He didn’t say to himself that he would cocreate a character that would become part of American folklore. It wasn’t planned, yet it seems completely intentional.

Baby boomers grew up with Stan’s voice in their heads. Interestingly, Lee spoke for Marvel’s superheroes to eager audiences talking about the characters, while at the same time creating the dialogue in the actual comics. So he was the person talking about the characters he himself was voicing. In addition, he wasn’t just in the media; Stan was talking directly to readers within the pages. He was Spider-Man’s voice, while also talking about the comics, the company, his colleagues, and the world to a captivated audience.

By the time Gen Xers started reading comics, Marvel’s style was wholly entrenched. As each generation ages out of traditional comic book reading age, Lee’s voice becomes commensurate with nostalgia—a part of our lives we look back to with fondness and equate with better times. Immersed in a heavily capitalistic, entertainment-driven culture, embedded stories are ones that get retold, and Marvel superheroes become a balm for a cultural explosion driven by cable television, global box office calculations, and the web. In what seems like the blink of an eye, the Marvel voice became the voice of modern storytelling.

Why did the Marvel Universe come to dominate global popular culture? Largely based on Stan supplying a voice to a mythology. Certainly, the creation of the Marvel Universe was a team effort, like all forms of entertainment, nothing is created in a vacuum. There are unheralded people in the process and those who deserve as much credit as Lee for their roles. Yet, it was the unmistakable “music” that Lee conceived that launched a cultural revolution.

Crisscrossing the nation while speaking at college campuses, sitting for interviews, and conversing with readers in the “Stan’s Soapbox” pages in the back of comic books, Lee paved the way for intense fandom. His work gave readers a way to engage with Marvel and rejoice in the joyful act of being a fan. Geek/nerd culture began with “Smiley” and his Merry Marauding Bullpen nodding and winking at fans each issue. Lee’s commitment to building a fan base took fandom beyond sales figures and consumerism to authentically creating communities. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has spun this idea into global proportions. It is the fans of the MCU across film and television that has reinforced and spread Stan’s voice across the world.

Amazing Fantasy #15, the comic that launched Spider-Man into the popular culture stratosphere

The superheroes that Lee and his co-creators brought to life in Marvel comic books remain at the heart of contemporary storytelling. Lee created a narrative foundation that has fueled pop culture across all media for nearly six decades.

By establishing the voice of Marvel superheroes and shepherding the comic books to life as the creative head of Marvel, Lee cemented his place in American history. According to analyst Paul Dergarabedian, the results have been breathtaking: “The profound impact of Stan Lee’s creations and the influence that his singular vision has had on our culture and the world of cinema is almost immeasurable and virtually unparalleled by any other modern day artist.”

“The profound impact of Stan Lee’s creations and the influence that his singular vision has had on our culture and the world of cinema is almost immeasurable and virtually unparalleled by any other modern day artist.”

— Paul Dergarabedian

DOORS CONCERT REVIEW -- 55 YEARS AGO!

“Primitive, Grotesque, and Blatantly Sexual”

Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, Hartford, December 2, 1967

Hartford Courant reporter James Petersen was not a fan of The Doors. In his review, published 55 years ago on December 2, 1967, he centered on then-accepted notion that anything from California was odd and drug-addled. “Beautiful, beautiful” is most certainly a drug reference, his indication of how a high Californian would react to the spectacle of the band and its leather-clad singer.

Harsh criticism of the Doors concert

Rather than declare the Doors bad, Petersen puts his opinion in the mouth of an older “ticket seller,” who he believes would see the band, audience, and performance as “primitive, grotesque, and blatantly sexual.” What the reporter wants the reader in conservative Hartford, Connecticut, to understand is that the Doors and Jim Morrison are dangerous. The coded language is the type the band often faced when looked at by those who represented the establishment or “traditional” values.

In other words, devalue the band and its members as both musicians and people: fear the grotesque and outlaw the sexual.

The drumbeat against the Doors and Morrison picked up pace in late 1969, especially after Morrison was arrested on stage in New Haven just one week later. The entire nation — and the federal government — would turn against the Doors, a slippery slope that would be the catalyst for Morrison’s untimely death just three and a half years later.

The reporter is obviously an organ fan…he loves Ray’s organ!

Surprisingly, the only member of the Doors that the reporter enjoyed was Ray Manzarek’s organ. The irony here is that Ray’s driving sound, ranging from dark and eerie to carnival-like and filled with joy, was the sound of the band. How could they be primitive if he liked their essential sound?

Ray Manzarek — “Keyboardist” of the Doors and mastermind of their unique sound!

When Petersen did opine on where he ranked the Doors versus other bands, he ranked them lower than both Procol Harum and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

Read the story of the Doors and the Death Days of the Sixties in Roadhouse Blues, published by Hamilcar Publications! For the holidays, the book has been discounted to $15 when ordered at: https://indiepubs.com/products/roadhouse-blues/