A Quote by John Romita, Sr.

When I went to Stan Lee - every time I was with Stan, I learned something every day. When I would do a pencil job, if I didn't have much faith in it I would hand it in and invariably Stan would make it look like it was a well-written and well-planned-out story. It made me tell people, 'If you want to become an artist, go to work at Marvel. Stan will turn you into a storyteller.'
Stan is a rescue Chihuahua mix. He was the role model for Bob, the dog in 'Ivan.' The drawings in the book look precisely like Stan.
I didn't know why I was coming to this room. Someone just told me to go to Sam Raimi's office. I knew that I uniquely had the comics version of his job, which was to take Spider-Man and put him into the modern day. But I thought, "Maybe he wants to tell me to cut it out." So I come in, it's in his office, and then Stan Lee comes in, and I'd only ever met Stan as a fan, not as a professional. And then they sit us down on a couch, and roll in an AV cart with a TV on it and go, "We're going to show you the first cut of Spider-Man."
They did offer me a chance of being a V in the crowd, but it's not my scene. I think they just thought it would be fun for me to do that, but I don't know. I heard that Stan Lee appears in every movie of his.
If you look at Stan Lee and the Marvel comics, yes, there's a lot of awesome, serious and dramatic action that takes place.
I don't think American independent films have ever really been particularly experimental, except for the original guys from the '60s who were huge influences, like Stan Brakhage, Robert Breer, and Stan van der Beek. They were the true independents.
Stan Lee always wanted to do another syndicated strip while we were doing Spider-Man. I was working two jobs, and he wanted to make time to do another strip. He wanted to do a humor strip. I said, 'Stan, I barely make it through the week now. How the hell am I going to do another strip?' He said, 'Oh, I'm sorry, I always forget it takes you longer to do a page than it takes me to do twenty pages.'
A lot of people don't realize this, but probably the one person that gets made fun of in 'South Park' more than anybody is my dad. Stan's father, Randy - my dad's name is Randy - that's my drawing of my dad; that's me doing my dad's voice. That is just my dad. Even Stan's last name, Marsh, was my dad's stepfather's name.
I was there when Sam Raimi showed Stan Lee the first cut of the first Spider-Man movie. I was on a couch next to Stan, watching how special effects had finally caught up to his imagination. It was insane. And I'm thinking, "He had to wait until he was 80 years old for that to happen." When they announced 'Powers' and 'Jessica Jones,' I thought, "Oh, that's nice!"
What's true of the Marvel brand is that we're not as invested in the cape and the cowl as we are in the individuals. That goes all the way back to Stan Lee, from the very beginning.
When they ask me who's the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. Do you know? And then I'm going to say how's that going to create one job?
You're always trying to do something that, on one hand, honors all those stories, that is still in some way the same character that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were doing back in the sixties. But, at the same time, you want to be able to tell new stories and not just rehash what's come before.
One day in '61, I was looking in the Santa Monica phone book for a number, and there it was: Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I went over there and spent the afternoon with them. And pumped him with questions. I must have driven him crazy. I spent a lot of happy hours at Stan's house on Sundays just talking about comedy.
Stan Lee is like the universal hero. He got every culture together by storytelling. He gave every community their own hero to follow, in fiction and actually in factual life.
Oh yeah, I was one of the first guys writing comic books, I wrote Captain America, with guys like Stan Lee, who became famous later on with Marvel Comics.
When you're a kid that's spent all your pocket money buying Spider-Man comics, and then as an adult, you're in the Marvel Universe, and you get to meet Stan Lee - it's wonderful.
I started working with Timely in 1946. Stan Lee hired me.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!