Excelsior!: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee

I purchased this book for a Christmas present,i could not afford a new one so was worried about it being used but the condition is fantastic,it is a present for someone who has collected comics and i am sure he will love it. Thank You.

Still reading at the min, but totally loving it! I was a fan of Stan before reading this book and I'm totally blown away by the guy. Can't recommend this book enough

well worth a read

I put American as the title probably because I'm not American and this all seems very American. Particularly 50s and 60s America. Stan Lee is aware that values and society perspectives have changed since he was a young comic-book editor, writer and general wizz! Marvel has had a huge impact in our society (and this was published even before the MCU hit the screens) but Lee comes across as a good guy with a rye smile, modest at times but not unaware of his attributes and standing. If you want navel-gazing and soul searching from Stan, then this isn't for you but if you're into a bit of a rambling, rye, cinema-noir-esque narrative with some interesting, framed moments of comic-book history then you'll enjoy this. Not sure why it's so expensive - I expected more visuals - well wouldn't you?

I am an immigrant and when I came to the UK with my family way back in the early 1960s my love for reading and for the English language began with Marvel Comics and the work of Stan 'The Man' Lee. I learned to appreciate great writing, irony, alliteration, puns and Shakesperian references not just in the four-colour adventures of The Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk etc. but also through Stan Lee's editorial pages and responses to readers' letters. So I came to this semi-autobiography with a strong sense of expectation and I was not disappointed. What I found was the story of a man who had significant lessons to teach me about the hard work and habits that underlie success. The book follows Stan Lee's life from his beginnings as the child of impoverished parents in Queens, New York City to his current standing as the Publisher Emeritus of Marvel Comics and the man overseeing the realisation of his superhero characters as among the most successful products in Hollywood. The book is written in the easygoing and mildly self-ironic style that is typical of Stan Lee's work, but in amongst the witty asides and self-deprecatory humour there are some valuable lessons to be learned for even serious businessmen. The three things I learned most from this book are: Be true to your vision Stan Lee entered the filed of comic book writing almost by accident but found that it became a steady, if not always lucrative, source of income. However in the early 1960s he was on the verge of quitting the struggling comics industry when his wife Joan (a Brit!) urged him to follow his own vision (that of creating comics characters who had distinct personalities and complex personal lives) rather than live his life wishing he had at least tried to do things his own way. Well Stan Lee put his vision into action with The Fantastic Four # 1 and with that comic he both revived a struggling industry and found his niche in the world. Work hard and consistently Stan Lee came from a poor family and remembered his father struggling to find work during the Great Depression. This left him with a strong work ethic and he tended to work as many jobs as he could at one time in order to pay the bills and enjoy a lifestyle which his father had only dreamed of. This work ethic remains with him today and his tendency to make cameo appearances is only in part due to his love of showboating, more importantly he loves to keep working. His success is down to working hard and consistently, persisting when colleagues around him might have just given up or eased back on their work rate. The importance of disciplined creativity Stan Lee does not believe in notion of 'writers block'. He says himself that though he has worked in a creative industry, the need to keep producing material has demanded that he keep on writing. He believes strongly that creativity must be tempered with discipline, after all he had sometimes dozens of comics per month to fill with dialogue and character development. This means having to make yourself be creative even when 'the muse' seems to be absent. There you have it. A very personal book choice for me but one which I think you will find offers some salient observations on just what it takes to be the author of a worldwide success. As Stan himself would say, 'Excelsior!'

Very good resume from Stan. Suffers slightly from err... being written by Stan, with his well-worn Stan's Soapbox style. But full of interest for anyone who wonders how on earth they managed to create those Marvel mini-masterpieces in 1961.

This is a bright and breezy biog of probably the most well known name in comics, Stan Lee the man behind Marvel. Written in a humourous style, you can certainly hear the great man's voice leaping off the page, but what it has in humour and informality, it often lacks in detail. The early part deals with how Stan got into comics and this is the most fascinating, painting a vivid picture of New York in the 40s and 50s. What's needed more detail is the stories behind his fall outs with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko - anyone hoping for new revelations will be disappointed. The fall outs between these legends is dealt with in a paragraph or so. Still the man himself has paid his dues and for the most part this is entertaining and an easy read - worthwhile picking up if you're a Marvel or comics fan in general but I feel Stan, the heroes he created and most importantly the people he created those heroes with deserve something better and meatier down the line.

Stan Lee has written his autobiography much the way he has written to his Marvel fans, in an easy going and informal style sprinkled with humour. We are invited to see how as a talented writer from a depression-era family, he had his first taste of comics, to soon join the Army (in which he frequently saves the world by indirect means), and finally returning to comics to co-found Marvel. He elaborates on how comics have come of age from the humble comic strip, pass the Golden Age of Comics, to the current Hollywood craze about all things with costumes. This book will be an interesting read for both the young and old who know of Fantastic Four, Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men and wish to know of the man behind the scenes, glimpses of how he created them and his thoughts and musings. Amongst these, he reveals the reason for the near-conspiratorial pattern of character names from Reed Richards (R.R.), Bruce Banner (B.B.), Peter Parker (P.P.), Jonah Jameson (J.J.). All in all, a very enjoyable book and at 250 pages, it is very light and readable in one sitting.