Stan Lee’s company has hit back at the late-night comedian.
Over the weekend, American comedian Bill Maher released a blog post entitled ‘Adulting‘, where he spoke extremely controversially about comic-book creator Stan Lee’s passing.
The bio for the blog read: “The guy who created Spider-Man and the Hulk has died, and America is in mourning. Deep, deep morning (sic) for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess.”
He goes on to say: “Someone on Reddit posted, “I’m so incredibly grateful I lived in a world that included Stan Lee.” Personally, I’m grateful I lived in a world that included oxygen and trees, but to each his own.
“Now, I have nothing against comic books – I read them now and then when I was a kid and I was all out of Hardy Boys. But the assumption everyone had back then, both the adults and the kids, was that comics were for kids, and when you grew up you moved on to big-boy books without the pictures.”
He concluded his post with: “I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important.”
Pow, a company founded by Stan Lee, have released a statement following Maher’s comments on their website:
“Mr. Maher: Comic books, like all literature, are storytelling devices,” the statement from POW! reads. “When written well by great creators such as Stan Lee, they make us feel, make us think and teach us lessons that hopefully make us better human beings.”
It continued, “One lesson Stan taught so many of us was tolerance and respect, and thanks to that message, we are grateful that we can say you have a right to your opinion that comics are childish and unsophisticated. Many said the same about Dickens, Steinbeck, Melville and even Shakespeare. But to say that Stan merely inspired people to ‘watch a movie’ is in our opinion frankly disgusting.”
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