A 1975 Radio Interview With STAN LEE
5
Conducted On-Air By Carole Hemingway, KABC-Talk Radio, October 1975 Transcribed by Steven Tice – with Additions by Rand Hoppe
A/E
CAROLE HEMINGWAY: Hi, everybody. The time is 9:05 at KABC-Talk Radio… this is ridiculous! Why did I invite you here? [chuckles; Lee laughs] Who can talk about comicbooks? Nobody can talk about comicbooks for an entire hour. They’re boring and violent… bloodshed!
EDITOR’S INTRO: In October 1975, Stan Lee, then still living on the East Coast and serving as Marvel Comics’ publisher, made one of his periodic trips to Los Angeles—in this case, to help promote the new Simon & Schuster/Fireside hardcover Son of Origins of Marvel Comics, the sequel to 1974’s Origins of Marvel Comics. Both books were composed of stories he had scripted in the 1960s for the early days of Marvel, with Lee also providing new prose introductions to each tale. One of his most memorable appearances was on talk-radio station KABC in L.A., where the nighttime hostess was Carole Hemingway. Hemingway had begun on the station a year earlier, and had quickly become a very popular presence on the nighttime air waves, remaining there until 1982, and later having another such radio gig (though in the afternoon) from 1986-93. She also later owned a media consulting firm operating out of Beverly Hills, California, and for some time wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column of social commentary.
STAN LEE: Just ask me some questions. Just introduce the thing. There is violence, there is bloodshed, but these are Marvel Comics, which are a model of decorum. HEMINGWAY: No, no, no… I’ve been reading this… LEE: You lucky devil… HEMINGWAY: No, no, no… you’re the devil. LEE: The introductions that I wrote, did you know… HEMINGWAY: No, they are pretty bad, actually. LEE: Well, it’s been nice seeing you! I’m glad the settings are not turned on or anything. [chuckles]
Carole Hemingway & Stan Lee bookend the cover of the brand new 1975 Simon & Schuster/Fireside hardcover book that Lee had come west to ballyhoo: Son of Origins of Marvel Comics, with its dramatic painted cover by John Romita. [Cover art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]
When I first read a transcription of some of the latter part of this hour-long interview with Stan Lee, I thought—as, apparently, did a few other readers as opposed to listeners— that Carole and Stan had gotten off on the wrong foot and were hostile to each other. However, after the entire talk was transcribed, it was apparent that it was nothing but a good-natured verbal “love & insult fest,” perhaps a welcome aperitif to all the radio shows on which Stan did little but plug product. He and Hemingway made a good match—and when I discovered that none other than the legendary Jack Kirby had called in near the end of the show to toss in his 2¢ worth (at a time when he had only recently returned to Marvel for what would become, alas, merely a three-year stay), I decided that it had to be spotlighted in this celebration of Stan the Man….
HEMINGWAY: This is Stan Lee, by the way. He originated Marvel Comics and all those people with some sort of extra-fantastic power. We have Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Iceman, Iron Man, Magneto, Wasp, Silver Surfer, Ant-Man…
LEE: I love The Silver Surfer. HEMINGWAY: He’s mean and cruel. LEE: No, he’s sweet and adorable—almost Christ-like in his aspect and demeanor, and the college kids are really into The Silver Surfer. HEMINGWAY: They’re into The Silver Surfer… LEE: There’s a lot of philosophy… Your problem is…