Latest / Piper Renee / Piper Renee 3 The Hero Behind the Friendly Neighborhood Mask

Transcript

Piper Renee 3 The Hero Behind the Friendly Neighborhood Mask · Piper Renee

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, my wonderful friends, and welcome back to Piper Renee.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I am Piper Renee Dixon, and whether you are listening
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: on your morning commute, sketching in your notebook, or relaxing
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: at home, I am so glad you stopped by the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: studio today. Before we open up the long boxes and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: dive into today's story, I want to ask for a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: small piece of your moral support. If these conversations about comics, anime,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and art bring some joy into your week, please take
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a quick moment to follow the podcast, leave us a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: kind five-star rating or review, and share our link with
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: a friend. Every single follow and review helps our independent
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: show reach more listeners. And please remember that all of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: our episodes are sitting right there on our podcast feed
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: whenever you want to binge a few more stories. Today,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I want to take you back to the summer of 1962,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: inside a cramped, noisy office on Madison Avenue in New
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: York City. And I want to talk about how a skinny,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: nearsighted teenager who couldn't pay his rent and always had
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a cold changed American comic books forever. If you look
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: at superhero comics before the 1960s, almost every single hero
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: was basically a flawless marble statue. They were squared-jawed millionaires,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: alien gods, or fearless adults who lived in shiny futuristic cities.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: never made a mistake, never worried about money, and never
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: had a bad hair day. Teenagers in comic books back
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: then were never allowed to be the main hero. Teenagers
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: were only allowed to be the cheerful sidekick who followed
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the grown-up hero around and shouted, gee whiz boss how
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: did you figure that out? And then in 1962 writer
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko had a rebellious idea.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Stan Lee walked into his publisher's office and pitched a
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: brand new character for the final issue of a dying
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: anthology magazine called Amazing Fantasy, issue number 15. He told
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: his boss, I want to create a superhero who is
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: an ordinary high school teenager. He gets picked on at school.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: He is shy around girls. He lives in a small
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: house in Queens with his elderly aunt and uncle. He
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: worries about paying the electric bill. And even when he
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: puts on a costume to save the city, the newspapers
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: think he is a menace and half the time his
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: costume tears, and he has to sew it back together
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: by hand. Do you know what the publisher said to
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Stan Lee? He said, Stan, that is the worst idea
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I have ever heard. People read comic books to escape
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: from their everyday problems. Nobody wants to read about a
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: superhero who has to worry about rent, homework, and a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: stuffy nose. And besides, people hate spiders. Because the magazine
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Amazing Fantasy was already scheduled to be cancelled, after issue
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: 15 anyway, the publisher let Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: put the story in the final issue just to fill
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the pages. Figuring nobody would care. A few months later,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: when the sales numbers came back from the newsstands across America,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that single 15-cent comic book featuring Peter Parker, Spider-Man, was
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the highest-selling issue the company had published all year. Why
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: did millions of kids, teenagers, and adults fall so completely
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: in love with Peter Parker right from page one? Because
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Steve Ditko didn't draw him like a muscle-bound Greek god.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Ditko drew Peter with narrow, hunched shoulders, thick round glasses,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: and hand-me-down sweaters. Let me share a memory from my
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: own neighborhood comic book shop a few years ago. Every
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Wednesday is New Comic Book Day, the day when the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: fresh cardboard boxes arrive from the printer and regulars come
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: into the shop after work or school to pick up
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: their weekly issues. There was a 14-year-old kid named Marcus
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: who used to come into the shop every Wednesday afternoon.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Marcus was going through a really tough year. His parents
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: had just split up. His mom was working two nursing
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: shifts to keep their apartment, and he had just switched
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: to a new school where he didn't know a single soul.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: He would come in sit on the old wooden crate
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: in the back corner by the dollar bins, and read
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: old 1960s and 70s reprints of The Amazing Spider-Man for
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: two hours straight. One rainy afternoon, when the shop was quiet,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I walked back with two cans of soda, handed one
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to Marcus, and asked him which issue he was reading.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: He held up Amazing Spider-Man issue number 33. From 1966,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the famous story that comic fans call If This Be
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: My Destiny. If you have never read that issue by
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, it is three pages of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: pure comic book magic. In the story, Peter Parker's Aunt
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: May is dangerously sick in the hospital, and the only
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: medicine that can save her life has been stolen by
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: a villain hiding in an underwater base beneath the river.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Spider-Man fights his way in, grabs the heavy steel canister
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of medicine, and right then, the roof of the underwater
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: fortress collapses. Tons of massive iron machinery fall directly onto
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Spider-Man's back, pinning him to the floor while cold river
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: water begins pouring into the room. Now, in a normal cartoon,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the hero would just smile, flex his muscles, toss the
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: machinery aside in one panel and fly away. Ditko and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Lee did something completely different. For three full pages, panel
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: after panel, Peter is trapped under that crushing weight. His
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: muscles are shaking, his mask is soaked with sweat. and
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: he is ready to give up because the steel is
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: simply too heavy for his body to lift. And as
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the water rises around his neck, he doesn't think about
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: fame or glory or winning a trophy. He thinks about
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: his Uncle Ben, who died because Peter was selfish once.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: He thinks about his frail aunt May lying in a
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: hospital bed, counting on him to come home, and out
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of pure, desperate love for his family. He digs his
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: boots into the concrete floor, screams through his mask, and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: lifts tons of solid steel off his shoulders one agonizing
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: inch at a time until he breaks free. And do
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: you know what happens right after he saves his aunt's
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: life and delivers the medicine to the hospital? Does the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: city throw him a giant parade? No, he walks home
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: in the rain with bruised ribs. Realizes he forgot to
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: take photos for the newspaper, so he has no money
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: for bus fare. Gets yelled at by his boss. and
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: sits at his bedroom desk at midnight trying to finish
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: his college chemistry homework before morning. Marcus looked at that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: page in the comic shop, looked up at me, and said, Piper,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: that is why I love him. Every other superhero gets
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to take off their human life like a disguise and
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: become a god. For Peter Parker. The mask is the disguise,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and the hard part is just being a good person
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: when everything in your life goes wrong at the same time.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: That 14-year-old kid understood American comic books better than any
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: academic critic I have ever read. At their very best,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: comic books are our modern mythology. Ancient Greeks had Hercules
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and Achilles on painted pottery. We have four-color heroes printed
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: on cheap newsprint paper. And the greatest message of Spider-Man,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: that with great power, there must also come great responsibility,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: isn't really about radioactive spider powers at all. None of
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: us can climb walls or swing from buildings. Yet every
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: single one of us has the power to show up
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: for the people who depend on us when we are tired.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Every single one of us has the power to be
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: kind when we are having a terrible day, to keep
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: our promises when nobody is watching, and to get back
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: up when the weight of life feels like 10 tons
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of steel on our shoulders. Today, Marcus is 21 years old,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: studying graphic design in college. And whenever he comes home
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: for the holidays, he still stops by the shop to
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: talk comics for an hour. He still keeps a battered
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: copy of issue 33 framed on his dorm room wall.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Never let anyone tell you that comic books are just
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: silly distractions for kids. For millions of us, a 15-cent
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: comic book in a cardboard box was the friend who
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: sat beside us on a hard afternoon and whispered, I
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: know the weight is heavy. Keep pushing anyway. Thank you
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: so much for hanging out in the comic shop with
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: me today on Piper Renee. If this episode meant something
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to you, please give us your moral support by tapping
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: that follow button, leaving a kind five-star rating or review,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: and checking out all the other episodes waiting for you
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: right on our podcast feed. I am Piper Renee Dixon.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Be a friendly neighbor today, keep turning the pages, and
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I will talk to you on the next episode.