Robot 6
“Stan’s Back”? I didn’t know he was ever gone …
Stan's Back
Some sort of teaser campaign popped up over the weekend on sites like the Bendis Boards and The Savage Critics. They simply say “Stan’s Back” and link to a website with that URL and the same text. (Incidentally, if you try to look at the source code, you’ll find a hidden message: “You are not going to learn anything about this site from looking at the code!”).
From the signature, it’s obvious that these ads are referencing Stan Lee, but who exactly is he working with? Some random guesses:
- Maybe Stan’s heading back to Marvel to usher in the Heroic Age, some other project or to take some sort of bigger role. But the campaign doesn’t feel like something Marvel would do; they typically release teasers to comic news sites vs. taking out ads like this or setting up a separate URL like that.
- It could be something to do with Stan’s company POW! Entertainment, but it would be kind of odd for them to say he’s back when he’s never really left.
- And of course there’s the recently announced multimedia series he’s doing with Archie and A Squared Entertainment. But why do a teaser campaign now without mentioning the series itself, since it has already been announced?
- Oh, and there’s Ultimo, his book with Hiroyuki Takei for Viz. Again, it’s already announced, so why be cryptic?
- This may be a longshot, but the ads remind me a lot of BOOM!’s Mark Waid campaigns — the one where he was evil, and the one where he wasn’t. They’re popping up in similar places, with a similar look and feel. But he’s never had anything to do with BOOM!, I don’t think, so I don’t know why he’d be back.
Or it could be for something and someone I’m completely missing here. Thoughts?
Tagged: advertising, Stan Lee
18 Comments
Rich Johnston
February 21, 2010 at 4:10 pm
As Bleeding Cool points out, it’s even using the same domain name registrar as the MarkWaidIsEvil as well as similar media buying patterns. BC has a scan of a print ad as well.
David Uzumeri
February 21, 2010 at 4:12 pm
It could be a project called “Back” or something.
Wraith
February 21, 2010 at 4:14 pm
My thought is that whatever the explanation, it will fail to meet the standard of logic which you have applied to considering the various possibilities.
Van GoghX
February 21, 2010 at 4:19 pm
I’m going with Marvel. Gotta be.
Brother Justin Crowe
February 21, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I hope it’s not anything like Lobo’s Back.
Matt S.
February 21, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Stan Lee is supposed to announce something at Anaheim Comic-Con. This could be a teaser for that announcement.
Rob Peters
February 21, 2010 at 7:47 pm
This ad has been placed all over comic websites, it even appeared very briefly on my own webcomic. The ad was placed on my site by someone called “Acme Productions.”
David Uzumeri
February 21, 2010 at 7:52 pm
I really doubt this has anything to do with Marvel, since then it’d be Marvel’s announcement, and they’d never announce anything at a Gareb Shamus convention, not anymore.
chad
February 21, 2010 at 9:53 pm
it could be since Disney has said Stan will be Marvel spokes men again stans back could mean that or maybe Stan is hinting at doing some marvel work again like writting some secret marvel project. fans will have to wait till stan makes the thing official once and for all though think he is back in the fold at marvel doing a project or maybe Disney has decided to have Stan run marvel for them.
cactusjac2000
February 21, 2010 at 10:59 pm
zzzZZZzzzZZZzzz
Ninjazilla
February 22, 2010 at 3:33 am
U said it cactusjac2000 Stan Lee is more washed up than Ringo Starr or
Striperrela or Ravage 2099 anyone?Though hopefully hell give the grating cameos in marvel movies a break for a while -lol who am i kidding
Jaap!
February 22, 2010 at 3:37 am
Maybe it’s about his back?
Matt Maxwell
February 22, 2010 at 8:33 am
Assuming it’s Smilin’ Stan, good on him that he can still get tongues wagging after sixty years in the business. That said, I haven’t been all that wild about the things he’s worked on in the last ten years or so. But still, he commands attention, that much can be said of him (and of not many others.)
johnny zito
February 22, 2010 at 9:14 am
Nobody is every really gone in comics.
Richard
February 22, 2010 at 12:19 pm
we should be lucky that they didn’t say that Stan is bring sexy back.
Richard
February 22, 2010 at 12:19 pm
*bringing
Shea Reinke
February 22, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Maybe he has decided to option my script/setting concept?
Golabutron
February 22, 2010 at 9:42 pm
It looks like stansback.com is from Boom. The Google Analytics account in the source is the same as the one used on boom-studios.com. (For those who don’t know, GA uses JavaScript and browser cookies to anonymously track visitors to a website, and cranks out reports that the website owners use to tell how well the site is doing).
The GA account codes (at least as of today) are:
- boom-studios.com: UA-3171997-4
- stansback.com: UA-3171997-15
These are respectively the 4th and 15th GA profiles created by the account 3171997.
It doesn’t prove that it’s Boom, but I’d say our options are
1) It IS Boom (seems most likely to me)
2) It’s NOT Boom, but rather a third-party agency that the mystery company shares with Boom (taht only has 15 clients so far)
3) It’s NOT Boom and the mystery company was so clever they decided to fake a Boom GA account and forgo any web analytics for themselves in order to throw off our scent.