Keep in mind, though, that if you're going to judge Stan only by his pre-Marvel work, Ditko also didn't garner a lot of fan-attention prior to Marvel. If for some reason he'd gafiated from comics up to that point, Ditko would be remembered as no more than a crafter of eccentric horror/SF stories-- and MAYBE for working on Captain Atom. Like Basil Wolverton, Ditko's early work appears all over the place, so he wouldn't benefit in fannish histories from being associated in a strongly edited format, as did the artists of EC. Of course this is no knock against Ditko; he was much younger than both Kirby and Lee. But still, it's impossible for a modern fan to look at his work for DC or Charlton, or his self-published works, without both falling under Marvel's large shadow.

Pre-Marvel Kirby does have more successful series to his credit than Stan Lee does, no question. But it's also hard to see some of that without the "spillover effect," and more, Kirby does not appear to have been a double-threat, able to write and draw the whole product, like Jack Cole. He *seems* to have benefited from the quality control of working for a studio, so it's hard to say who did what. We have Joe Simon's testimony that he provided the basic template for the most popular Simon-Kirby creation, Captain America. Should Kirby get full credit for later successes, like Boy Commandos and Newsboy Legion, or is his creativity also compromised by having input from a partner?

Also, I'm not sure that most Kirby-fans would be interested in many of his lesser ideas if it weren't for the spillover effect. The 1950s series Fighting American is fun, but there were a lot of rather tongue-in-cheek superhero concepts pervading the superhero boom of the 1940s. Is Fighting American really better than Quality's Spirit imitation MIDNIGHT, or does FA get more respect simply because it's wedged between Golden Age Cap and the Marvel Universe in Kirby's career-- and also, because there are no definitive collections of MIDNIGHT?


 

Marvel's marketing machine of the time agrees with you...

-M

There's a lot of knowledgeable folks posting in this thread...folks who know much more about the Lee/Ditko/Kirby creative process during the Silver Age than I do.

I have a question: Did Steve Ditko do more of the dialogue writing in the Doctor Strange comics than he did in Amazing Spider-Man? To me, the scripting in Doctor Strange seems much more Ditko-flavoured than it does Stan Lee, and likewise, the dialogue in Amazing Spider-Man appears to be more Stan Lee flavoured.

Another question for you Silver Age know-it-alls would be, how long did the Marvel method of creating comics last? My understanding of the "Marvel method" is that the artists basically constructed each story themselves, following only the most basic of plots, and then Stan Lee (or whoever) would write the dialogue. Did this end with the departure of Kirby to DC or was it going on into the 1970s? Also, was it really a company wide thing or just something that Ditko and Kirby were allowed to do, by virtue of their incredible talent?

I'm no expert and don't have any insider knowledge from reading about the creators at Marvel worked together back then, but it seems to me that the basic idea of the Marvel Method as I understand it - 1. a loose story being hashed out between the artist and writer, 2. the artist drawing that story without oversight, thus possibly introducing changes, 3. the writer scripting the art, possibly introducing reinterpretations of whatever the artist had had in mind - would have encompassed a pretty wide range of collaborative practices.

For example, I don't think an artist like Gene Colan would have had as much input into the story as a Ditko or Kirby, who were probably exceptional in that they were often skipping step 1 in large part or even altogether and bringing an already completely drawn story to Stan for him to script; but those other artists probably still had a lot more input than their DC counterparts because of the freedom and flexibility allowed them in step 2, even if they weren't always heavily involved in step 1.

OTOH, my guess is that a writer like Steve Gerber probably came up with the stories largely on his own and didn't leave as much space for the artist to change things as Stan or some other writers might have done.

But I don't really know and therefore, like Confessor, I'd love to hear or read somewhere about the details of the creative processes of some of my favourite series. With some books you'd often get a few hints through the letters pages - I recall Doug Moench sometimes talking about how he and Gulacy came up with a particular sequence or idea, for example. But I don't remember anything similar in, say, the Tomb of Dracula. Has this question been covered n mags like TwoMorrows' Back Issues or anything?

That pretty much lines up with my understanding berk. Very good post. And yes, Gerber was always one to exert the power of the writer in the creative dynamic at Marvel and elsewhere.

Well Star Wars had the additional problem of the scripts had to be approved by Lucasfilm before they went to the artist, so even if the writers wanted to use the Marvel method, they couldn't. The Marvel method was being used by some writers well into the 90s and some still use it today, but the standard is now full script.

-M

Matt Wagner and Walt Simonson are two other big names who prefer to work Marvel method.  Notably, both are artists as well as writers. Wagner has mentioned that when he first sees the other artists' visions of his plots, he gets new ideas on where to take the story. That's actually why he stuck around on Madame Xanadu past his initial 10 contracted issues-- he was so impressed by Amy Reeder's work that he had a bunch of new story ideas.