A few words about this picture:
The setting is Marvel’s 1994 Christmas Party which was held in 1995. I think the office got a deep discount after the holidays… Bullpenners and freelancers found themselves in the Grand Hyatt Hotel on 42 & Lexington. I used to know it as the Commodore Hotel (saw the first NY Star Trek Con there…). The joint was quietly jumpin’!
I had stumbled upon Scott Lobdell doing something mighty funny with his hands in front of Stan Lee! Who could resist? I took the shot. I don’t know what Scott was doing, perhaps explaining his long-form plotting methods to Stan.
At the time of this picture, Scott was riding higher and higher! I would not have been surprised to find they him write the invitation to the party. I knew Scott only slightly. Before his big break, working on X-Men then Generation X, he had “little” breaks and thus we passed each other in the office several times as freelancers do.
One day, LO! Scott is escorting in Gilbert Gottfried! Before he became famous as the voice of Iago the Parrot from the animated Aladdin, more recently the Aflac Duck, Mr. Gottfried was a stand-up comic. Fairly well-known to us Bullpenners and office-dwellers was that, Scott had been a stand-up comic—I only wish I’d managed to see one of those sets. His old brick-wall pal must’ve wanted to see where real magic happened.
I was delighted to shake Mr. G’s hand and remind of him of his various revelations on The Howard Stern Radio Show, which I listened to back then. I actually got him to open his eyes at one point, considered that a “win” then bid my well-wishes to both him and Scott and moved on.
What I think is stand-out about this picture is that Stan looks so relaxed. Usually at these parties, he’s expected to be “on” or is delivering a speech of some kind. But here he is just yakkin’ with a fellow creator/writer.
Picture #2 is actually before the picture above, but I thought I’d lead with a stronger image. I find this one pretty nice. Freelancer Liaison and all-round nice person, Holly Reandeau ran into me with several people in tow. She asked if I knew where Scott was. My memory tells me that at some point, maybe then… maybe later, I was informed that a kid had won some kind of Marvel contest to meet with Scott. It’s exceedingly rare, but I could be wrong – (if anyone does remember this—comment below and I will update; the contest would have been held in 1994). Could have been the kid of someone in the office. No one knows…
I remember being surprised at the time. Now I look at this and am really touched. There’s Scott, probably avoiding a small mountain of work to come to an office party. That’s the usual balance of fear and loathing. And there’s this kid with a book bag full of Scott’s work.
Not every day one gets to meet a personal idol and have them get right down on the floor with you to discuss the fine details. The kid’s expression says it all. So does Scott’s.