I can tell you exactly when timely
comics became Marvel actually from
timely they had a lot of other names in
the interim I don’t remember all of them
but the last name they had before they
became Marvel was Atlas comics and after
we did the Fantastic Four we did the
Hulk spider-man the x-men and so forth
we suddenly began to realize hey we’ve
got fans winter had fans before we had
never gotten fan mail before but all of
a sudden with the start of our new
superheroes we got real letters I like
this I don’t like this you did a great
job on this so I decided we ought to
change the name of the company get
something better than Atlas and the very
first book that martin goodman had ever
published when I think even before I
came to work there was called Marvel
Comics so if he Marvel’s a great words
and also there’s so much you could do
with it you could make up slogans and
mottos so I decided I would treat Marvel
like a big advertising campaign and I
made up slogans like make mine Marvel
Marvel marches on welcome to the Marvel
Age of comics you know things like that
and I came up with a lot of catchphrases
I would sign all the things I wrote with
enough said or hang loose or face front
but I noticed that the competition was
starting to use those expressions too so
I figured I’ve got to get something that
they won’t copy and I tried to think of
something a they wouldn’t know how to
spell and B they wouldn’t know what it
means and that’s why I came up with the
word exile Co I try to inject a feeling
of warmth in all the books I always had
the feeling that the other comic books
they had good stories good artwork
everything was fine but there was a
detachment even in their letters pages
and they had very few we were the ones
who really made letters pages popular
but occasionally they’d run a letters
page and it would be like this
dear editor I read your story and I
liked it signed Charles Smith and the
answer would be dear Charles thank you
very much the editor well I decided to
run lettuce pages but I wanted to make
him friendly I wanted the kids to feel a
part of Marvel so even if somebody wrote
a letter that said dear editor to me
when I printed it I wrote dear Stan
I changed the word that it is dead and
um when I answered the letter instead of
saying dear Charles I’d say something
like hey thanks a lot charlie you know
and I tried to keep the tone friendly as
if I’m a guy they know and we’re just
talking together and after a while it
became very natural and after while all
the letters hey Stan I loved his story
hey Stan I hated your story whatever it
was but it was like they knew me and I
knew them there was one time and I don’t
even remember it might have been the
Fantastic Four some other book we had a
story that I thought wasn’t that good
but we were stuck with it we had to send
that out there was the due date I didn’t
have time to do it over and on the cover
I wrote a little note something I don’t
remember the exact words but something
like hey kids I’ve got to admit this
isn’t the best story we’ve ever done but
we’ve given you so many good ones before
we think you owe it to us to buy this
one also everybody thought I was crazy
you know that book sold better than most
of the others of that period and I got a
ton of mail saying you guys are great
nobody else would have written anything
like that
[Music]
if you want more Stanley check at the
top ten rules video I made on him the
link is right there next to me I think
you’ll enjoy it continue to believe and
I’ll see you there I got this great idea
I want to quote spider-man and he’s a
teenager so I gave him the idea and he
said Stan that is the worst idea I have ever heard
comics became Marvel actually from
timely they had a lot of other names in
the interim I don’t remember all of them
but the last name they had before they
became Marvel was Atlas comics and after
we did the Fantastic Four we did the
Hulk spider-man the x-men and so forth
we suddenly began to realize hey we’ve
got fans winter had fans before we had
never gotten fan mail before but all of
a sudden with the start of our new
superheroes we got real letters I like
this I don’t like this you did a great
job on this so I decided we ought to
change the name of the company get
something better than Atlas and the very
first book that martin goodman had ever
published when I think even before I
came to work there was called Marvel
Comics so if he Marvel’s a great words
and also there’s so much you could do
with it you could make up slogans and
mottos so I decided I would treat Marvel
like a big advertising campaign and I
made up slogans like make mine Marvel
Marvel marches on welcome to the Marvel
Age of comics you know things like that
and I came up with a lot of catchphrases
I would sign all the things I wrote with
enough said or hang loose or face front
but I noticed that the competition was
starting to use those expressions too so
I figured I’ve got to get something that
they won’t copy and I tried to think of
something a they wouldn’t know how to
spell and B they wouldn’t know what it
means and that’s why I came up with the
word exile Co I try to inject a feeling
of warmth in all the books I always had
the feeling that the other comic books
they had good stories good artwork
everything was fine but there was a
detachment even in their letters pages
and they had very few we were the ones
who really made letters pages popular
but occasionally they’d run a letters
page and it would be like this
dear editor I read your story and I
liked it signed Charles Smith and the
answer would be dear Charles thank you
very much the editor well I decided to
run lettuce pages but I wanted to make
him friendly I wanted the kids to feel a
part of Marvel so even if somebody wrote
a letter that said dear editor to me
when I printed it I wrote dear Stan
I changed the word that it is dead and
um when I answered the letter instead of
saying dear Charles I’d say something
like hey thanks a lot charlie you know
and I tried to keep the tone friendly as
if I’m a guy they know and we’re just
talking together and after a while it
became very natural and after while all
the letters hey Stan I loved his story
hey Stan I hated your story whatever it
was but it was like they knew me and I
knew them there was one time and I don’t
even remember it might have been the
Fantastic Four some other book we had a
story that I thought wasn’t that good
but we were stuck with it we had to send
that out there was the due date I didn’t
have time to do it over and on the cover
I wrote a little note something I don’t
remember the exact words but something
like hey kids I’ve got to admit this
isn’t the best story we’ve ever done but
we’ve given you so many good ones before
we think you owe it to us to buy this
one also everybody thought I was crazy
you know that book sold better than most
of the others of that period and I got a
ton of mail saying you guys are great
nobody else would have written anything
like that
[Music]
if you want more Stanley check at the
top ten rules video I made on him the
link is right there next to me I think
you’ll enjoy it continue to believe and
I’ll see you there I got this great idea
I want to quote spider-man and he’s a
teenager so I gave him the idea and he
said Stan that is the worst idea I have ever heard
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