For those of you who’ve grown tired of seeing endless photos of the Stan Lee of 2008 due to the National Medal of the Arts he received from President Bush at the White House last Monday, here he is 41 years ago at the 1967 New York Comic Convention.

That’s Big Name Fan turned pro Dave Kaler on the right.

And before you ask, no—I wasn’t there to take this picture, though I wish I had been. I was only 12, and my first comic-book convention was still three years away. (As for Stan, I guess the goatee was still in his future.)

Though I’ve had the photo in a folder for decades, you’ll have to thank either Andy or Pat Yanchus for its existence. One of them (they’re not quite sure which; after all, it was 41 years ago) snapped it at this early con at the City Squire Hotel.

Stan Lee was at the White House this morning, where he was awarded the 2008 National Medal of the Arts. Said Laura Bush, “These medals recognize great contributions to art, music, theater, literature, history, and general scholarship.”

According to the official transcript of the event:

MILITARY AIDE: Stan Lee. (Applause.) The 2008 National Medal of Arts to Stan Lee, for his groundbreaking work as one of America’s most prolific storytellers, recreating the American comic book. His complex plots and humane super heroes celebrate courage, honesty, and the importance of helping the less fortunate, reflecting America’s inherent goodness.

(The medal is presented.) (Applause.)

Remember the collection of Stan Lee’s “Stan’s Soapbox” columns I was telling you about back in August? Once I’d heard about the project, I contributed scans of a batch of Stan’s old manuscripts I’d been hanging onto since the ’70s so they could be included in the book.

Well, the tome is finally coming out, and Stan’s done a video in support of this latest fundraising effort of the Hero initiative, a corporation which provides a safety net for comic-book creators in need of financial support.

Check it out:

Not bad for a guy who’ll be turning 86 next month!

Thanks to The Comics Reporter, I’ve been wandering The Little World of Harvey Kurtzman, a site devoted to the first editor of Mad magazine.

Perhaps I’m weird (scratch that—I know I’m weird), but I found this old Mad magazine letterhead fascinating. If you check out the site, you’ll find other examples.

Which leads to me believe that maybe I’m not the only one intrigued by old stationery. With that in mind, at left is a sheet of Marvel Comics letterhead from the old days when the company was at 635 Madison Avenue, with a detail at right.

I can’t remember what span of years Marvel would have been at that address, because by the time I started working there in the mid-’70s, the company was already down the street at 575 Madison Avenue.

I’ll leave it to someone else who has more free time to dig through old comics and figure out exactly when this letterhead would have been in use.

Meanwhile, treat this artifact responsibly, and don’t go forging any old letters from Marvel staffers!

According to Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat, you’ll soon be able to buy a complete collection of Stan Lee’s “Stan’s Soapbox” columns, which were originally published as part of the Marvel Comics’ Bullpen Bulletins pages from 1967 through 1980.

When I was a kid, it was that interstitial writing, as much as the comics themselves, which made me into a True Believer. Stan somehow made me feel as if I had a pal.

The book, which will be available in November, is being published as a fundraiser for the Hero Initiative, a federally chartered not-for-profit corporation which provides a safety net for comic-book creators in need of emergency medical aid or other financial support.

In additional to the columns themselves, the collection will also place Stan’s columns in their correct historical context via essays by current Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige, former Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, and others.

But one thing I’ll bet the book won’t contain is scans of the original typed copy for those Soapboxes, direct from Stan’s hands. Why, to read something like that, you’d probably have to have been working at Marvel Comics in the mid-’70s so you could go through the trash next to the typesetter’s desk.

Well … either that … or else, lacking a time machine, you could just take a look below. (more…)