Kiwi Newspaper Pronounces Spike Lee Dead in Botched Tribute to Stan Lee

Someone at the Gisborne Herald must be kicking themself for not doing a quick google before accidentally mourning the death of director Spike Lee, instead of Marvel comic editor-and-chief Stan Lee.

The Kiwi newspaper has gone viral after publishing a paper—yes, a physical paper, dammit—that confused the 61-year-old “Malcolm X” director, who is alive and well, with the 95-year-old creator of Spider-Man and Iron Man who died of pneumonia on Monday. Whoops.

"'Characters first, superheroes next': Spike Lee dies at 95," the headline reads alongside a picture of Stan Lee.

Huw Turbervill tweeted a picture of the botched tribute with the caption “oh dear”.

Aucklander Kenny Williams did the same, alluding to the pretty obvious difference in appearance the two have. “There’s something different about Spike Lee but I can’t quite place it,” he joked.

Luckily, Spike Lee has a sense of humour and reacted to the mix-up with an iconic line from his film ‘Do the Right Thing’. “God Bless Stan Lee,” the American film director wrote. “Me? Not Yet. And Dat’s Da ‘I’m Still A Live, And Strivin’ Truth, Ruth. YA-DIG? SHO-NUFF.”

It didn’t take long for the small paper’s bungled obituary to go global, featuring in Time Magazine and the Huffington Post and Australia’s News.com.

Let’s just hope the Gisborne paper believes in the motto, “any publicity is good publicity.” Hey, at least now some people outside of Gisborne know it exists. It’s not all bad news.