PLUME: Going back to Mallrats, what was it like working with Kevin?
LEE: I loved it.
PLUME: That was filmed in Minneapolis, wasn’t it?
LEE: I took a plane over there. I was a little annoyed… He didn’t tell me I could bring my hairdresser with me, or my costume designer. I didn’t have a stunt double waiting for me… That upset me a little bit. And my honey wagon wasn’t prepared for me, or my own dressing room…
PLUME: No red carpet… No rose petals…
LEE: I was put out about that… But other than that… Nah, he was really a pleasure to work with. He was a very good director - very easygoing. Everybody made me feel at home. In fact, I was telling him how to shoot a movie two minutes after I got there…
PLUME: And complaining about the rose petals…
LEE: It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.
PLUME: Would you say you were treated almost reverentially by them?
LEE: I was treated very nicely, and that’s all I ever wanted. I mean, frankly, they treated everybody very well. I was allowed to make some changes in the script - I adlibbed a little bit… Nobody cared.
PLUME: Transitioning a bit now, what led to the formation of Stan Lee Media?
LEE: Well, what happened was a couple of years ago, Marvel - as you may know - went into bankruptcy. At the time they were in bankruptcy, they did what most companies do that are in that situation - they rejected everybody’s contract… Which you can do when you’re in bankruptcy. My contract had been a lifetime contract, which I’ve had for a million years, and suddenly - for the first time since joining the company - I was free to do anything at all. My good friend, Peter Paul - who had been wanting to do something with me for years, but we were unable to because of my contract - said, “Let’s form an internet company.” I said, “I don’t know how to form any companies.” He said, “Don’t worry… I do.” So together we formed Stan Lee Media, and we were able to go public very quickly. We’re now on NASDAQ…
PLUME: And doing quite well…
LEE: Yeah… And we’re doing all sorts of things. In fact, we just made the deal for a big budget 7th Portal movie, and there are other things that we’re going to be discussing soon. I’ve never had a better time, because I’m finally, actually, in control of the things that I’ve been writing and creating.
PLUME: And which of the concepts you’ve created for Stan Lee Media are closest to your heart?
LEE: They all are. When you create something, you love it. They become like your children. I’m crazy about The 7th Portal, and it gets better all the time… You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Wait till you see it in a month, or two months from now. Then we have The Accuser, and after that we have The Drifter, and then we have one with the unlikely name of Percy Gentle - which I think will be a big hit - and then we have Stone Man and a couple of female characters…
PLUME: And you also have Mighty Mouse coming up…
LEE: That’s right! It’s hard for me to remember them all. We’re trying to do Mighty Mouse different than he’s ever been done. He never really had any personality - the cats were always chasing mice and then, at the end, Mighty Mouse would swoop down and beat them up and then there’d be a song. We’re trying to really make him a character, now, and I’m having fun with that.
PLUME: And you’ve come full circle, because didn’t you write Mighty Mouse comics for Timely in the 40’s?
LEE: Yeah. Well, what happened was - I may have mentioned to you - one of the trends years ago was the animation trend, and we did a lot of animated-type comics. I met Paul Terry, who was the guy who did Terrytoons, and I did the Mighty Mouse book and Heckle and Jeckle and a number of his things… I think we even had a book called Terrytoons. Then we made up a lot of our own characters - you know Al Jaffe, who draws for Mad Magazine?
PLUME: Yeah…
LEE: Well, he did Silly Seal and Ziggy Pig with me. And we had Posty the Pelican and Super Rabbit… And on and on - I can’t even remember how many we had.
PLUME: So it’s ironic that you’ve pretty much come full circle…
LEE: Yeah, and I love it. The fun of it now is that we can animate the characters, whereas in the comic books, the characters just lay there.
PLUME: I think the reader reaction to StanLee.net shows that people really like that dynamic aspect…
LEE: I hope so. And not only is there animation, we can use voices! We have actors doing all the roles… We save money on lettering.
PLUME: What has been the most difficult aspect of running Stan Lee Media?
LEE: Learning how to do this. As I say, I think what we’ve done so far is good for beginners, but I wish I could push the clock ahead and I wish everybody could see the way our website is going to look in another few months, because we have made - and are making - so many improvements. I think, in the beginning - since we were a start-up company - we made every mistake in the book. For example, in the beginning when I started doing the stories, I thought we would have half-hour episodes, so I started writing them that way. Then I learned that we had to limit them to just a few minutes because of the download time - too many people would have to wait too long to log on. We had to take the things that we had done for a half-hour and quickly cut them down and try to make our deadline - so everything was in a panic. We’ve learned so much and hired the greatest artists and terrific writers and we have technical wizards working here who know how to do the graphic designs on the computer and voice synchronizers… I think we’re really turning into a magnificent studio, and I wish that I could just snap my fingers and it was a few months from now, and you could see the difference. Even our other features - our columns… and we have games coming up and interactive things. Well, you’ll see… You’ll see.
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