Why Stan Lee Was The Most Important Writer for My Generation

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Yesterday the comic book legend Stan Lee died aged 95. Whilst he justly recognised as a legend in comic book circles perhaps what generations not born in the sixties and seventies understand is that he was the writer that for the most part made children (mainly let's face it boys) want to read.

I cannot speak for comics/graphic novels nowadays but in my experience they were the stepping stone for the love of books I hope I've reflected in this blog. Of course he had super heroes saving the world/galaxy/universe against [insert super villain here] but with the kapow came reality. He got make that mixture between fantasy and reality believable which DC Comics rarely reached.

Take, well everybody's chatting about Spiderman, so let's take Daredevil instead. The guy (Matt Murdock) is blind. Blind. If you see blind people in the media at that time the most they ever did was to speak wisely from a chair with dark glasses on. Not Daredevil though. He fights with his heightened other senses he gained with the accident he had as a child with a lorry carrying radioactive waste

That accident made him blind (reality) but gives him super powers (fantasy). So we the young readers are being introduced to the life of a blind man that doesn't patronise the man within (he is also a lawyer).

Now some of his creations were with artists/co-writers and the extent is a matter of debate and to be honest beyond my knowledge. But Stan Lee was also creator of The X-Men. Again it tapped a childhood feeling that you're different. As an only child I was used to being alone without other kids to play with for long spells as I didn't have a sister or brother. I was different in that regard I seem to remember in junior school. Being comfortable with being alone was considered odd. And yet there were the X-Men. Together because they were different. I could relate to that.

And the point is that you were inspired to explore the world of books as a whole. It gave you a confidence to read books without pictures in them.

When you hear about the decline of men reading books. Perhaps one of the reasons is that there does not seem to be a writer capable of bridging the gap between childhood and adult books on a regular basis that would appeal to boys (perhaps the only exception being J K Rowling).

So perhaps Stan Lee should be remembered not just for being a great comic book writer. But also being a writer whose creations inspired some people to write, but for most of us to explore and love the world of books as a whole.

Until the next time.

Welsh Labour Are A Bunch Of Charlies....And Not In A Chocolate Way

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Wales as a nation has many things going for it. And I hope that, whilst not running away frim it's problems I've highlighted this. However one thing that it doesn't have in abundance are writers that have a wide worldwide audience.Now whilst there are some writers who make a splash but then are eventually forgotten. I can off the top of my head only think of two....Dylan Thomas and Roald Dahl.

But whilst the Swansea area has taken its famous son and have put up a centre for Dylan Thomas as well you being able to visit the boathouse where he lived. Cardiff...capital city of Wales seems to have almost ignored one of the greatest children writers ever and not a bad adult one at in Dahl, who was born in Cardiff.

He had the knack of creating ordinary and recognisable worlds and sprinkle them with light touches of fantasy. When you were a child reader, it was that formula that made you believe that beneath the seeming drabness of life, magic could happen.

And of his adult work it's his short stories ("Tales of the Unexpected) that are most remembered. A lot of them were capable of that sudden missed beat in your mind when the ending proved to be completely unexpected and yet logical.

Last year people flocked to Cardiff for the City of The Unexpected festival which brought the spirit of the children books to the place of his birth. This year, on the 100th anniversary of his birth...today....barely anything on an official level.

The Welsh Labour Government says there are many dedications to him across Cardiff.....hardly a centre now is it?

Cardiff Labour Council say they are looking into the possibility of building a Roald Dahl centre. But how can you take them seriously when you consider the fate of the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff Bay, which recently had to close down because the council were not prepared to extend the lease on the building. Therefore there is a good chance that the experience will be moved to another city, a city which will have absolutely no connection with the good Doctor. Unlike Cardiff where the show is actually made!

For some reason the Cardiff Labour Council / Welsh Labour Government prefer things like the UEFA Champions League final which provide one off revenue hits than things like the Doctor Who Experience was or what a Roald Dahl centre could be in providing a continuous stream of money for the local economy.

The council/Welsh Assembly should be proactive in trying to get the agreement of the Dahl estate to such a centre. That activity would certainly be a Tale Of The Unexpected coming from Welsh Labour but welcome nonetheless . It's current tardiness carries the danger that another place in the UK will get in there first, so that Cardiff, and Wales would have lost an cultural and financial opportunity to celebrate him.

Why are they like this? Well I've no idea. Welsh Labour arrogant incompetence comes to mind. But perhaps there is a more worrying reason.

Perhaps there's no one in Welsh Labour that bothers to read books anymore.

Until the next time.

In Which I Realise I'm A Slight Hypocrite

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

It started so simply. There was a news report about the sales of the script of the new Harry Potter play by J K Rowling. I tweeted my incomprehension at how there can be sales of the play before it has actually been performed.

Some people agreed with me, others didn't. But then it all went a little wider. I tweeted that I didn't understand why people bought books containing scripts for plays in the first place for their own pleasure. Essentially what I was thinking was that reading a script makes you miss the nuances of the people involved. You don't get a sense of production,direction and of course acting through reading a play on it's own. However classic the text.

And again. the issue is those people who buy these scripts for their own pleasure, I mistakenly said that this never happens, which is of course wrong. Still the proportion of people who would buy a script when there is the option of a novel, or a biography must be extremely small.Harry Potter being of course an exception by being Harry Potter. As I see it the vast majority of people who buy scripts are either people in the theatre whether amateur or professional or students studying for exams for which they will hate the playwright for ever after should he/she fail.

The responses to that view were equally mixed and basically the matter rested by the good old throwback of agreeing to disagree. Each held to their own positions I of course having the correct one and those who disagreed with me being odd.

But later on that day (and you know what's coming next) I was looking at my bookshelves when suddenly it dawned on me.

I too had books containing scripts of plays

They are, Electra by Sophocles (which I've read and was bored by), a number by that well known Norwegian funny man Ibsen and one containing three plays by J B Priestley (which, if you read this blog regularly you might remember, was bought at a local village fete straight after I'd gone to the local tip so I was smelling of grass and wearing ripped jeans).

One of the "offending" books

The thing that links why I bought these books is that they of course all Penguin paperbacks. Either pre ISBN vintage or those with coloured spines both of which I collect. That is what attracted me to buying them. The power of collecting took over my natural antipathy,

Will I read those books I haven't yet read? Yes I will. Will I buy and read more of these books if they're vintage Penguins? Yes I will. Will I buy these type of books otherwise? Definitely not.

So that's what I am ladies and gentlemen a hypocrite. Albeit a slight one.

Until the next time.