On tap this week is a group of my friends, that I’m calling the Comics Guys, gentlemen from various walks of life I’ve called together to talk about something near and dear to our hearts – comic books. On hand are writer and editor and previous guest on the ART TAP podcast, Brian K. Morris; Keith Long, Vice President of W. H. Long Companies; and actor, teacher, and technical director at Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette, Trey Gorden.
The discussion tonight circles around the question "Is Bill Maher right? Or is he just an asshole?" (explicit episode) For our listeners, comedian Bill Maher made comments recently about the death of comics legend Stan Lee, which questioned his impact and the value of comics in modern culture as a whole.
On November 17th of last year, Maher posted on his show blog, “The guy who created Spider-Man and the Hulk has died, and America is in mourning. Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess.” He went on to say that “Twenty years or so ago, something happened – adults decided they didn’t have to give up kid stuff. And so they pretended comic books were actually sophisticated literature.” And lastly he said, “The problem is, we’re using our smarts on stupid stuff. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important.”
We, of course, take issue with this.
Maher’s comments are available at: http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/index/2018/11/16/adulting and https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-maher-stan-lee-doubles-down_us_5c438b19e4b0a8dbe171f00f. And a response from Lee’s company, Pow! Entertainment, can be found at: http://therealstanlee.com/open-letter-to-bill-maher.html
We made reference to several interesting Look-Ups in the discussion:
Scott McCloud’s series on “Understanding Comics,” https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X, which we all highly recommend;
“Fantastic Four #1,” Jack Kirby and Stan Lee – https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Four-Omnibus-Vol/dp/1302913271/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=2XSNYETAXBTHEAEA3WNH,
“Marvel Comics the Untold Story” by Sean Howe, https://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Comics-Untold-Sean-Howe/dp/0061992119/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=Marvel+Comics+the+Untold+Story+by+Sean+Howe&qid=1551707050&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmrnull
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