Books and Writing

A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee, published by St. Martin’s Press, is the definitive biography of the Lee, beloved—often controversial—co-creator of many legendary superheroes, Stan Lee. A Marvelous Life presents the origin of “Stan the Man,” who spun a storytelling web of comic book heroic adventures into a pop culture phenomenon: the Marvel Universe.

Stan Lee was the most famous American comic book creator who ever lived.

Thanks, especially, to his many cameos in Marvel movies and TV shows, Lee was―and even after his 2018 death, still is―the voice and face of comics and popular culture in general, and Marvel Comics in particular. How he got to that place is a story that has never been fully told―until now.
With creative partners including Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko―with whom he had tempestuous relationships that rivaled any superhero battle―Lee created world-famous characters including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X–Men, the Avengers, and the Hulk!

But Lee’s career was haunted by conflict and controversy. Was he the most innovative creator to ever do comics? Was he a lucky no-talent whose only skill was taking credit for others’ work? Or was he something else altogether?

Danny Fingeroth’s A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Leeattempts to answer some of those questions. It is the first comprehensive biography of this powerhouse of ideas who, with his invention of Marvel Comics, changed the world’s ideas of what a hero is and how a story should be told.

With exclusive interviews with Lee himself, as well as with colleagues, relatives, friends―and detractors―Fingeroth makes a doubly remarkable case for Lee’s achievements, while not ignoring the controversies that dogged him his entire life―and even past his death. With unique access to Lee’s personal archives at the University of Wyoming, Fingeroth explores never-before-examined aspects of Lee’s life and career, and digs under the surface of what people thought they knew about him.

Fingeroth, himself a longtime writer and editor at Marvel Comics, and now a lauded pop culture critic and historian, knew and worked with Stan Lee for over four decades. With his unique insights as a comics world insider, Fingeroth is able to put Lee’s life and work in a unique context that makes events and actions come to life as no other writer could.

Despite F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous warning that “There are no second acts in American lives,” Stan Lee created a second act for himself that changed everything for him, his family, his industry, and ultimately for all of popular culture. How he did it―and what it cost him―is a larger-than-life tale of a man who helped create the modern superhero mythology that has become a part of all our lives.

Also available as an audiobook READ BY THE AUTHOR.

Why are so many of the superhero myths tied up with loss, often violent, of parents or parental figures? What is the significance of the dual identity? 

What makes some superhuman figures “good” and others “evil”? Why are so many of the prime superheroes white and male? How has the superhero evolved over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries? And how might the myths be changing? 

Why is it that the key superhero archetypes—Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the X-Men—touch primal needs and experiences in everyone? Why has the superhero moved beyond the pages of comics into other media? 

All these topics, and more, are covered in this lively and original exploration of the reasons why the superhero—in comic books, films, and TV—is such a potent myth for our times and culture.

Also available as a streaming audiobook and audio CD READ BY THE AUTHOR.

In this insightful and provocative book, comics-industry veteran Danny Fingeroth explores the backgrounds of the most well-known superheroes and their creators—largely young American Jewish men from Eastern European backgrounds. 

These innovators include Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Will Eisner, and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Jewish Identity has historically been about the push and pull toward and away from that very identity. 

As immigrants with a history of persecution, Jews came to America with their heads down but their eyes open, finding themselves presented with unprecedented freedom and opportunity. Still, there were limits, spoken and unspoken, which often pushed Jews into fields with a hint of “second-class-ness” to them. Among these was the comic-book industry, until then minus the breakout hit that would put the medium on the map. 

That phenomenon would be the superhero—specifically Superman—and the flood of others that followed, including Batman and Spider-Man. In Disguised as Clark Kent, Fingeroth explores how the creators’ Jewish backgrounds helped make superheroes the most familiar popular-culture icons of all, far beyond the comic books that spawned them—on TV, in movies, in electronic media—and in our very ideas about what it means to be a hero. 

Drawn in part from original interviews with legendary creators as they reflect on their Jewish backgrounds—religious, ethnic, and cultural—Disguised as Clark Kent brings valuable insights into the fantasies that fuel our imaginations, and raises significant questions about the relationship of individual and group identity to the content of our collective dreams.

Also available as a streaming audiobook and audio CD READ BY THE AUTHOR.

Whether you’re looking to break into the world of comics writing, or missed key issues of Danny Fingeroth’s Write Now ― the premier magazine about writing for comics and related fields ― this is the book for you! 

The Best of Write Now features highlights from the acclaimed magazine, including in-depth interviews about writing from top talents, including Brian Michael Bendis, Will Eisner, Jeph Loeb, Stan Lee, J. M. Straczynski, Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, and others! 

Plus, there’s “Nuts & Bolts” tutorials, featuring scripts from landmark comics and the pencil art that was drawn from them, How-to articles by the best comics writers and editors around, and professional secrets of top comics pros like Neil Gaiman, Trina Ribbins, and Peter David.

Learn from the pros, as WRITE NOW! Magazine editor (and Spider-Man scripter) DANNY FINGEROTH and DRAW! Magazine editor (and Batman artist) MIKE MANLEY join forces for the ultimate “How-to” book on creating comics!

Begun as the groundbreaking Write Now #8/Draw! #9 crossover, Danny and Mike show step-by-step how to create a new comic from scratch; developing a new character, then going from script and roughs to pencils, inks, and colors—even lettering!

There’s also a section that guides you through the process of getting your comic printed and distributed, and the finished 8-page full-color comic is included, so you can see the final product!

This REDESIGNED and EXPANDED version also features over 30 new pages of ALL NEW material, including: The script written in the two most popular formats (“Full-script”, in which art and script is described for each panel, and “Marvel style,” where the artist works form a plot outline and the text is added later)! A critique of the character and comic from an editor’s point of view! New tips on coloring! New and expanded writing lessons! Plus listings of important resources, insights into the world of webcomics, and more!

Face front, true believers! The Stan Lee Universe is the ultimate repository of interviews with and mementos about Marvel Comics’ fearless leader!

From his Soapbox to the box office, the Smilin’ One literally changed the face of comic books and pop culture, and this tome presents in his own words – and those of the illustrious folks he’s worked with – the co-creation of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Silver Surfer, and so many other super-characters!

Presented are numerous rare and unpublished interviews with Stan, discussing how he made Marvel Comics the household name it is today. Also featured are interviews with top luminaries of the comics industry, including John Romita Sr. & Jr., Tod McFarlane, Dennis O’Neil, Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Al Jaffee, Larry Lieber, Jerry Robinson, and Michael Uslan discussing his vital importance to the field he helped shape.

Plus, this book contains the essential-to-every-writer Stan Lee’s Top Ten Tips for Writers! And as a bonus for this special edition, and direct from Stan’s personal archives (housed at the University of Wyoming), you’ll see rare photos, sample scripts and plots, personal correspondences, and other tidbits from the entire span of his career, some unseen for decades!

The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels is the ultimate companion to the expanding world of the “literary comic book”. Written by comic industry insider Danny Fingeroth, it includes the mediums history, from sequential art in Egyptian tombs, through the superhero boom of the 1940s to the birth of the graphic novel movement and the latest online offerings.

All you need to know about the best and rest with 60 must-read graphic novels, including the genre-defining Maus and A Contract with God, plus modern classics-in-the-making Fun Home and Alice in Sunderland.

The guide profiles the movements legends including Harvey Pekar, Chris Ware, Denis Kitchen and other amazing illustrators, writers and publishers who’ve helped win respect for this once marginalised art form. And everything else you need to know from “how to make a graphic novel” to Persepolis and the latest film and television offerings, manga, documentaries, conventions, books, magazines and websites.

Begin the saga of the Darkhawk! Long before War of Kings, teenager Chris Powell began his journey as a dark force for justice. Thrill to the earliest adventures of one of Marvel’s hottest heroes for the ’90s as the newborn Darkhawk unravels the mystery of his armored avenging alter ego, while encountering some of the Marvel Universe’s finest heroes and villains along the way.

From alliances with Spider-Man, Captain America and Daredevil to all-out brawls with Venom and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Darkhawk soars to unparalleled heights!

Spider-Man’s greatest villains take the spotlight, struggling to make their way against heroes and rival villains alike! 

Featuring the Beetle and Speed Demon, later of the Thunderbolts! Dr. Octopus! The Vulture! Stegron! Swarm! Hydro-Man! The Rhino! The Kingpin! The Answer! And more!

And guest-starring Spidey, natch!

Collecting DEADLY FOES OF SPIDER-MAN #1-4 and LETHAL FOES OF SPIDER-MAN

This volume has a bunch of Spider-Man tales written by Danny as well as Louise Simonson, and some other talented folks.

Art by Greg LaRocque, Jim Mooney, and Bob McLeod, among other stalwarts. Danny edited a few stories in here, too.

This 2011 publication contains the powerful “Sole Survivor of Earth,” written by Danny, with art by Randy Green and Wayne Faucher.

Featuring Danny’s stories of the X-Men of the New Universe, Psi-Force. Art by Mark Texeira and Bob Hall.

Danny wrote, and Bob Hall illustrated, stories based on Terkel’s classic interviews with actor Rip Torn and former Yankees pitcher Steve Hamilton. (Both stories ©2009 by Danny Fingeroth and Bob Hall.)

With Neil; Kleid doing the art honors, Danny wrote a story about two legendary Jewish singers, Al Jolson and Moishe Oysher.