Good Cause Needs Help

I had the good fortune to attend a little gathering at UCLA last night with my friend Richard.  It was “An Evening with Stan Lee” or something like that.  It featured Stan “The Man” Lee, Joe Quesada, Kevin Smith and a couple of surprise guests, one of whom was Reggie Hudlin who is currently writing the best “Black Panther” ever!
The event was a benefit sponsored by HERO , a group that raises money to help old comics creators who have gotten screwed by the Industry and need help to make it though the inevitable crises of old age.

It’s a very worthy cause and the people who work on its behalf deserve nothing but praise.  And more money for the cause.

Now what they need is more help in running their benefit shows because, nobility and innate coolness not withstanding, last night was a screw-up on pretty much every level from an organizational stand-point.  Bad sound system (at UCLA!), bad powerpoint, bad guest-wrangling ended up making the whole thing run around three hours and feel like five.  Stan Lee is 84 this month.  Sure he comes off like a man in his sixties but even so you don’t put a Legend like that through such an ordeal if it’s not going to result in a cure for cancer.

Everyone onstage did their best with what they had to work with and it was a privilege to see Stan in person.  That said, at the very least someone in the organization should be asked to un-volunteer in the future if they can’t do a better job than what I saw last night.

Donate anyway.  The cause is beyond reproach.