Today in History: Excelsior!

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Many years later, Stan Lee told an interviewer that he had been, “The ultimate hack. I was probably the hackiest hack that ever lived. I wrote whatever they told me to write the way they told me to write it. It didn’t matter: War stories, crime, Westerns, horror, humor; I wrote everything.” The “they” for whom he was writing everything was Atlas Comics (previously Timely Publications). He grew fed up and vowed to quit.

His wife Joan suggested that if he was going to quit, why not go out on his own terms and write a comic that he could be proud of. He and artist Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four, superheroes that retained the “human” part of “superhuman.” He did not quit Atlas Comics, not was he fired. The company eventually changed its name to Marvel Comics, and Lee continued to create characters and story lines that are now a deep part of our culture.

He is even a big enough star in his own right that there are one-sixth scale action figures of Stan Lee available (see in the photo at top).

Stan Lee is 94 today. That is sufficient reason to share this video from 2012 of Mr. Lee reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” (after the jump):
Read More

On to 2017 for Shawkan

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A journalist’s job is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

* * * *
The ordeal that the photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid (“Shawkan”) has endured since 2013 will continue into 2017, it was learned earlier today at a hearing of the Cairo Criminal Court in Egypt. The next hearing for the 700-plus defendants arrested in August 2013 in the round-up of a sit-it is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, January 17.

At court today, ten defendants were ordered to be released for health reasons, but Shawkan was not among them. His family reports that his health is deteriorating.

The photo at top was taken by the photojournalist Mohamed El Raai today. The new year merely brings a continuation of a long story.

Shawkan’s story is one of the denial of basic human rights by a nation allied with Western governments, but it also has been a story of many citizens stepping up and making certain that Shawkan’s story is heard. Both stories are worth knowing.

For those unaware of Shawkan’s story, I wrote the following background article:
Read More

Today in History: Dec. 27

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, a play by J. M. Barrie, made its theater debut on this date in 1904 at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London.

It introduced audiences to Neverland, Peter Pan, Wendy Darling and her brothers, Captain Hook, the Lost Boys, and Tinker Bell. (A playbill from the first production is at top.)
Read More