THANK YOU Stan Lee.  Days after his death, I wanted to step back and think about what Stan Lee meant to me and my childhood and the inner child that now lives within me as an adult. I wanted to find a way to best remember the man and his universe.  I think I found it.  I found it at Garfield’s News, a small little, family owned store in York Beach, Maine.

As a tween and a teen, my friend and I would converge on Garfield’s every Tuesday.  Tuesday was new comic day. The day we couldn’t wait to part ways with our hard earned allowances.  We couldn’t wait for the next issue of our favorite hero story because of the cliff hanger and the tease from the week before.  Mr. Garfield (John-a 2nd generation Garfield running the store) would let us stand there as long as we wanted.  We’d read, flip pages, discuss the plots, explore new comics and heroes, new #1 issues to add to our collection, etc.  You get the idea, this was a BIG DEAL.  This was crowd sourcing and social media before the internet was a thing.

Religiously we showed up every Tuesday because for us we weren’t just buying a comic, a story, a small magazine made up of ink, color, and ads.  We were buying hope.  We were buying acceptance.  We were buying confidence.  We were buying a belief in something good.  We were buying into the idea that even heroes with all these amazing abilities, struggled to fit in and find their place in the world.  Above all else, we learned that as scary as the world can be, there are people, real heroes, there to help.  It inspired us to want to be heroes, to be helpers, to be brave, to be good.

Sadly, Garfield’s News is not longer there. It closed in 2013 after John’s son took over the family business.  That day, a small piece of my childhood died with it.  Now, with the passing of Stan Lee, I can’t help but think of my friends, all those Tuesday’s, John Garfield’s friendly smile and a universe full of hope.  Thank you Stan Lee, Thank you.

-JJ