CAPS Banquet (2003)

This article was originally posted at the WCG Comics website in 2003 and was moved/archived to this blog (with some light editing) in May 2020.

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I'm a member of the Cartoon Arts Professional Society (CAPS), a professional association of Southern California area cartoonists (though there are regional members from across the country) who meet monthly. At the group's January 2003 meeting, CAPS welcomed Stan "The Man" Lee. 

Stan didn't realize he was expected to speak, but his years on the college lecture circuit (and his natural abilities as a storyteller and a showman) didn't fail him. He regaled us with wonderful personal anecdotes and stories from the history of the industry. He was genuinely funny and down-to-earth. 

I arrived at the meeting a little early to help set up and placed a jacket on a chair to ensure I had a seat. By coincidence, when he came in, Stan sat down in the seat next to my coat! This gave me a chance to have some casual chit-chat with Stan before he got inundated with photo and autograph requests. Stan was gracious throughout. (I had Stan autograph my copy of his book, How to Draw the Marvel Way!) 

The photo at left was taken with my camera; the photo below is courtesy of fellow CAPS member David Folkman. 

Pictured below are Sergio Aragones and Bill Morrison.

And here are Scott Shaw and William Stout.

 

As a bonus, below is a photo from 1996 of me with with Sergio Aragones at a party thrown by the Southern California chapter of the National Cartoonists Society, to celebrate Sergio winning the NCS's prestigious Cartoonist of the Year Reuben Award that year.