Farewell, Stan Lee. Excelsior!

X-Men, in case you were wondering. Spider-Man, early, but the ones that I bought with my own money were the X-Men. I moved on from there; my comics habit these days is fitful. When I'm in a shop I'm guaranteed to walk out with a fistful. But there are few that hold my interest so much as they did back then.

Dark Phoenix. Wolverine's history. There was a time where my afternoons, evenings, were the comic shop. A guy opened up a shop in the mall across the parking lot from the music store I worked at. The shop, and the owner, folded a group of misfits into the fold.

We went in, where we could smoke in the back room, hang out talking about comics, and these new card games coming into vogue. Play games, shoot the shit.

Read the comics. Always. Pour over the bins, hiding the good ones until the next pay check. Arguing over how much to price this and that.

Laughing at Stan. Laughing with Stan. None of us would have taken the other side of the bet that Stan did. That comics would have meaning to any besides ourselves.

Oh, sure, a good movie; Tim Burton showed it could be done.

I would never had dared hope we'd get more than a handful. Like Stan did. His imagination.

His longevity. Long after the others passed, or gave up and moved on, there was Stan, fighting the good fight. Holding onto the faith long after it might have turned to madness. That this little four-color art had, not just meaning, but something more than that. Appeal, for the normies and the geeks alike.

Who'd have thunk it? Onward. Upward. Write the stories I want to read, you want to read, always write the next story. And keep the faith.