January 16th, 2012
Super Heroes and Science Fiction
Mr. Gast
Stan Lee: A Short Investigation Stan Lee is an American comic book writer who had a very influential mark on the history of comic books and in many ways shaped their future in American culture. Stan Lee is unquestionably one of the great writers of all time, creating characters that people would look at for decades. In many ways Stan Lee revolutionized the comic book industry. Stanley Martin Lieber was born in New York City on December 22, 1922. He only later changed his last name to Lee. He was born in the apartment of his parents, Jack and Celia Lieber, who were born in Romania and were Jewish. Lee’s father was trained as a dress cutter but only worked occasionally after the great depression, so his family never had very much money. Lee grew up in a one bedroom apartment. He shared a room with his brother and his parents slept on a foldout couch. Throughout Lee’s childhood he was influenced by movies and books. His favorite actor and one of his idols was Errol Flynn, an actor who often starred in heroic roles. Stan Lee was a very smart child. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, a prestigious high school in the Bronx. While he went to school he worked such jobs as an usher at a theater, selling newspaper subscriptions and was an office boy. The jobs Lee loved the most were the ones that involved writing and reading, something he did often as a child. He wrote obituaries for newspapers and wrote press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center. Lee ended up graduating high school when he was only 16 and a half. In 1939 Stan Lee was hired at Martin Goodman’s company, eventually evolving into Marvel Comics. Lee says of his early work, “"In those days [the artists] dipped the pen in ink, so I had to make sure the inkwells were filled. I went down and got them their lunch, I did proofreading, and I erased the pencils from the finished pages for them". It wasn’t until 1941 that