Stan Lee Explains Why Everyone Is Spelling 'Comic Book' Wrong
According to Lee, the accepted spelling of "comic book" as two words is wrong. As he told AMC's Comic Book Men blog:
People always write it as if it's two separate words. But to me, if it's two separate words, then it means a funny book - a comic book. If you write it as one word, which is the way I do it, then it's a generic term meaning a comicbook! So I feel everybody ought to write comicbook as if it's one word, because it doesn't mean funny book.
Lee appears to be fighting a losing battle on this one, even if his rationale makes sense.
When it comes to the hyphen in "Spider-Man," however, the co-creator is the authority and he refuses to give an inch:
Oh, that's get me angry! It's gotta have a hyphen, because that's the way I stated it. And also, it makes it look very different from Superman, which doesn't have a hyphen. It should be a capital "S" and a capital "M." If I don't see it done that way, it arouses my ire. So if you don't want my ire to be aroused, you'd better write it correctly.