Former bookstore owner here.
The term "Penguin Classic" has a particular meaning for the bookish set. Books like Alice in Wonderland and Moby Dick. Orange and white covers, stuff that English majors read and sophisticated folks have on their bookshelves. High end literature from the greatest writers in history get the Penguin Classic treatment.
Well, there's gonna be some new blood in that section of the few remaining bricks and mortar bookstores out there.
Three new Penguin Classics have just been published.
That's right. Penguin has published three new editions that collect crucial stories from the Golden Age of Marvel's early days and three of its flagship characters. Spider-Man, Black Panther and Captain America are now and forever to be considered "Classic Literature". You don't get a Penguin Classic edition if you aren't Classic Literature.
It's interesting to note that Stanley Martin Lieber changed his name to Stan Lee for the comic book industry back in the early days of his career. He wanted to save his real name for the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL he planned to write one day. That he (and writers like Simon and artists like Kirby and Ditko) are now truly literature creators is probably the greatest irony of his long and storied (see what I did there?) life.
So sad he didn't live to see it.
An honour much deserved and in my humble opinion, long overdue.
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