>>151186234
>but you can tell roughly half of his public appearances was a persona he created.

I mean yeah? Even as a kid you could tell he was hamming it up and while I do honestly believe there's a good amount of sincerity to it all it's very clearly his job. He was the comic sales man of course he's gonna put it on and put it on he did. But he was exciting. He was endearing. You can't fake charisma. And he's part of what made marvel fun. You can argue who really made what, how much influence he had but he made marvel. He made it stand out from the distinguished competition. We weren't readers we were "TRUE BELIEVERS." It's hard to really describe but there was always a certain jenesaisquoi back when he was pushing things. Something that made being a fan of something feel different. It's why Nintento kind of felt like a family of IPs rather than just a library of games. It's like things felt alive and yeah when you get down to it as an adult it's all just marketing and show boating but it worked. It made it feel like it mattered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqrf7xObOpY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N3W-3Qz6AQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI88ClTST4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29STOa7RIa0