The late Stan Lee’s Twitter account is being used to sell NFTs based on his work. His fanbase is not happy about it.
In a move that could politely be described as misjudged, and more realistically as pretty ghoulish, the Twitter account of the late Stan Lee has now found itself a shop front for the sale of non-fungible tokens.
Better known as NFTs, these are – as we’ve discussed before – digital collectables, where you can get a piece of digital art that’s uniquely yours. Well, unless someone takes a screenshot of it or something, but let’s not quibble over details.
Since Stan Lee – the creator or co-creator of numerous comic book heroes such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Doctor Strange et al – passed away in 2018 at the age of 95, his Twitter account has regularly posted tributes and memories of him and his work. Abruptly though, the following suddenly popped up…
It’s an odd way “to honor his innovative spirit.” The associated website plays the Stan Lee card hard too, with a big picture of the man himself the focal point of its landing page. It duly invites people to, er, celebrate what would have been Lee’s 99th birthday at the end of the month by buying some NFTs. A time-honoured way to mark such an occasion.
Amongst the list of founders of Orange Comet, the company behind the idea, are Kurt Warner, Gloria Estefan (albeit without her Miami Sound Machine), and Emilio Estefan.
A huge backlash, unsurprisingly, soon followed. It’s clear that this isn’t anything that Marvel itself has backed, and quite where the deal has been struck to use Lee’s posthumous account is unclear. But what’s certain is the affection still held for Lee, and the number of people who will jump to his defence.
Replies to the Tweet announcing the NFTs were not polite, but credit to the official Dictionary.com account for capturing the mood in a printable fashion…
There’s no suggestion of anything legally untoward with regards what Orange Comet has done, to be clear. It was evidently given access to the social media account by someone in charge somewhere. Still, it can’t help but leave something of a foul taste…
