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 ZZ: So how did you end up in the comics business?
SL: I saw an ad in the paper for a position in a publishing house. I thought it might be books or a magazine like Time. It was comics. But, I was 17 years old and I figured, 'Hey, what the hell. I'll try comics. That sounds interesting.' And I always figured I would quit after a few months. I would just get some experience and then go into the real world. But before I knew it -- [laughs] it was my life's work.
ZZ: Now, what year was that?
SL: I think it was either 1939 or 1940, somewhere around there.
ZZ: So you were truly there at the birth of the actual Golden Age of comics?
SL: You know, I have no idea what the Golden Age is or the Silver Age -- everybody has a different interpretation. But I was certainly there when comics were getting started.
ZZ: What characters and stories did you work on originally?
SL: The first character I did was Captain America. That had been created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. And when I started work I was their assistant. After a while they let me do some stories, and I was writing Captain America, which really excited me because as a kid I had read a couple of Captain Americas. And now I was writing them!
Then I did The Destroyer, Father Time, Hurricane, on and on. I did a million characters that nobody has heard of since. But every time I wanted to quit, I got a raise or they made me the editor or something happened that I figured, 'Well, I'll stay a little bit longer. This isn't so bad.'
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"I always figured I would quit after a few months. But before I knew it -- it was my life's work."
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Stan Lee
;)
