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Post by kirby101 on Mar 13, 2023 16:30:37 GMT -5
By then he was in his late 60s and 70s not barely 50 as Stan was when he stopped scripting. I agree, that his work became "The Legend of Stan Lee" as opposed to writing a novel. Though The Origins of Marvel Comics is a work of fiction.
And while Kirby's drawing had become, shall we say more abstract in the 80s, partially due to his eye sight, he still was capable of being a creative force. Captain Victory is underappreciated for it's creative vision, and who doesn't love Thundarr!
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Post by impulse on Mar 13, 2023 16:55:25 GMT -5
Lee's forays into the murky realm between biography and fiction aside, I still can't fault someone for having the grind beaten out of them, and I can believe at some point said person had aspirations to write novels but by the time they had money and time, just no longer had the drive in them. It doesn't take away their legitimacy as a creator just because they didn't keep producing until they dropped dead.
Some creators' legacies would remain in better standing if they didn't keep producing until the dropped dead...there, I said it.
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 13, 2023 17:30:54 GMT -5
Far enough, I just don't think he ever had "The great American Novel" in him.
Though his sensibilities were perfect for some good YA books.
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Post by commond on Mar 13, 2023 17:38:46 GMT -5
Lee did continue to write Silver Surfer stories while he was still with Marvel. I don't really see it as a knock on him that he spent the last part of his career trying to become a film producer. He was largely unsuccessful, but he was clearly onto something in terms of Marvel's potential as a film property.
I would love to see a Netflix series about Lee's life starring Marc Marion as Stan.
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Post by Batflunkie on Mar 13, 2023 19:45:18 GMT -5
While Spider-Man is my favorite superhero of all time, I would much rather go back and read the first 300 issues of the Fantastic Four than the first issues of ASM. The first 30 issues or so of each however is an entirely different matter! Early issues are always rough (I'm looking at you Thor), Cap was very much that way. Until the introduction of the WWII stories in TOS #63, Cap was just a confused mess which thinking back on it kind of reflects Steve too in a way. Then after Kirby left the book it became even more lost to the point that I'm amazed that it lasted as long as it did until Englehart came and shook things up With Fantastic Four, I'm not that interested in the early years until the inking improves, then I think the classic Lee/Kirby era extends past the point where most people cap it. I really dislike their later stuff, however, and aside from the build up to issue #200, don't see much merit in the title until Byrne takes over. I bought the post-Byrne run off the stands and was into the Defalco/Ryan run, but I'd go with ASM over FF any day of the week. Early FF has a lot of neat things going for it, but I'm up to issue 54 and have yet to see what made it so unique other than the family dynamic. It's easy for me to say that so much of it has been done better by other books, but I don't think that's the case To elaborate on my preference for the overall run of FF, I pretty much enjoyed every era. Yes, classic Lee/Kirby/Sinnott was the bee's knees, but I love how the team kept going in the 70's. You've still got awesome villains like for example Annihilus and the appearance of Thundra, and totally LOVE the era when Medusa took Sue's place for a time (one of my favorite incarnations of the team even though I'm glad they finally went back to normal). Their stories still seemed pretty epic for the most part. And then the Byrne era in the 80's (at least until the latter part) was way more exciting to me than Spidey at that point (though I did like Hobgoblin). I've been interested in getting some of the 70's FF Epic Collections by the fact that the majority of them are written by Conway is enough to make me steer clear |
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 13, 2023 21:03:22 GMT -5
Early issues are always rough (I'm looking at you Thor), Cap was very much that way. Until the introduction of the WWII stories in TOS #63, Cap was just a confused mess which thinking back on it kind of reflects Steve too in a way. Then after Kirby left the book it became even more lost to the point that I'm amazed that it lasted as long as it did until Englehart came and shook things up was a far superior book after Kirby left. Others--namely Lee, Steranko and Friedrich turned Cap into a relevant character with stories where he questioned the legitimacy of being a walking flag in a far different America, and with the introduction of the Falcon, Rogers' bonding with a man (Wilson) who suffered from an "American dream" minted for one race, while Wilson struggled with trying to play things straight (and his neighborhood fellows pressuring him to be a revolutionary, or mock his efforts) was unique and powerful writing. Gone was the "noble minority" of early years Black Panther stories, but a black hero very much a participant, even victim of the political chaos of the late 60s / early 70s. Cap's title was no longer starring the stoic, patriotism-spewing character found in some of his post Avengers #4 stories, but a man who knew he had to live up to and present an America that was more myth than reality. That made Captain America one of Marvel's most revolutionary titles, arguably right behind The Amazing Spider-Man. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 13, 2023 21:06:07 GMT -5
The reality is that if Stan ever wanted to write the Great American Novel he would have done so. He had plenty of opportunities but never did anything; so, you are left with the story he tells making for a good anecdote; but, like many things Stan said, should be taken as an anecdote and not necessarily the truth. Even story magazines paid better than comics, so why didn't Stan even pursue submitting to them? If he did, he never made a sale. The one non-comics and non-military piece I have ever seen or heard of, from Stan, was a 1947 Writer's Digest article about making money writing for comics. Reproduced here.Now, maybe Stan's combined salary as writer and editor was more than he could make on individual stories, in the prose field, but a novel would have brought a lot more money. Plenty of other comic writers did produce novels and many were doing a lot more writing than Stan was, like Gardner Fox and Otto Binder. When you look at his career, all Stan knew was comics. He had worked for Martin Goodman since he was a teen and got his training from Joe Simon, Goodman and probably Vince Fago. I don't count How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way, as, one, it is still comics; and, two, it is pretty much Buscema's technique, mixed with a lot of reprints of Marvel art, and fairly minimal text from Lee. The amount of writing Stan did for it was no greater than the equivalent of a couple of comics. Could Stan have done a long form novel? Maybe, maybe not, without someone helping him develop the plot. Stan's writing is at its best, in comics, with an artist who plotted their own stories, like Kirby & Ditko, whose ideas and visuals give something for Stan to play off of. When he was the driving force in the work, you get a lot of cliched stories with Commies. Maybe that is why he never wrote a novel; he just wasn't inspired enough to do it, on his own. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 13, 2023 21:14:50 GMT -5
Just to add to Codystarbuck's point... Stan Lee post Marvel Silver Age most definitely could have got someone to give him an advance for a novel if he asked, I'm sure. I don't know too much about it, but based on Bullpen Bulletins, he was a busy guy doing everything else BUT writing a novel.
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 13, 2023 21:20:50 GMT -5
Lee's forays into the murky realm between biography and fiction aside, I still can't fault someone for having the grind beaten out of them, and I can believe at some point said person had aspirations to write novels but by the time they had money and time, just no longer had the drive in them. It doesn't take away their legitimacy as a creator just because they didn't keep producing until they dropped dead. Agreed. Creativity does not punch an eternal time clock. It has its peaks and valleys, and to your point: True; some just beat themselves and their dwindling skills into the ground, to the point where it was clear certain creators were essentially conning themselves that their then-present day work was as good as it had been in past decades. |
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Post by impulse on Mar 13, 2023 22:13:25 GMT -5
Far enough, I just don't think he ever had "The great American Novel" in him. Though his sensibilities were perfect for some good YA books.
Okay, that's a fair point. Good observation. |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 14, 2023 0:06:21 GMT -5
Stan wanted to write the great American novel and maybe other comics writers did too, so they wrote like novelists. Or so he said. More Stan Lee grandiosity? He was barely 50 when he stopped writing comics, and yet he did not write any novels. Great American or otherwise. He did not keep writing, his career became the promotion of Stan Lee. He did write some screenplays from what I understand. While he may or may not have aspired to be a novelist inhis younger years, everything I've read suggests when he stopped writing comics what he really wanted to do was break into Hollywood. He wrote a screenplay in 1970 or thereabouts for French auteur Alain Resnais which may have given him the bug. I read that he also wrote a Silver Surfer screenplay in 1980 that was also never produced? But those ambitions never panned out. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 14, 2023 4:12:03 GMT -5
Or so he said. More Stan Lee grandiosity? He was barely 50 when he stopped writing comics, and yet he did not write any novels. Great American or otherwise. He did not keep writing, his career became the promotion of Stan Lee. He did write some screenplays from what I understand. While he may or may not have aspired to be a novelist inhis younger years, everything I've read suggests when he stopped writing comics what he really wanted to do was break into Hollywood. He wrote a screenplay in 1970 or thereabouts for French auteur Alain Resnais which may have given him the bug. I read that he also wrote a Silver Surfer screenplay in 1980 that was also never produced? But those ambitions never panned out. It's one of those situations where , in an alternate reality, if he becomes this novelist , we never get the Marvel Universe as we know it. So, everything turned out well. |
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 14, 2023 7:57:41 GMT -5
Lee's forays into the murky realm between biography and fiction aside, I still can't fault someone for having the grind beaten out of them, and I can believe at some point said person had aspirations to write novels but by the time they had money and time, just no longer had the drive in them. It doesn't take away their legitimacy as a creator just because they didn't keep producing until they dropped dead. Agreed. Creativity does not punch an eternal time clock. It has its peaks and valleys, and to your point: True; some just beat themselves and their dwindling skills into the ground, to the point where it was clear certain creators were essentially conning themselves that their then-present day work was as good as it had been in past decades. They worked because they needed the money. Unlike Stan, they did not get a lucrative stipend for life for all the things they created. |
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Post by Batflunkie on Mar 14, 2023 9:31:09 GMT -5
Early issues are always rough (I'm looking at you Thor), Cap was very much that way. Until the introduction of the WWII stories in TOS #63, Cap was just a confused mess which thinking back on it kind of reflects Steve too in a way. Then after Kirby left the book it became even more lost to the point that I'm amazed that it lasted as long as it did until Englehart came and shook things up was a far superior book after Kirby left. Others--namely Lee, Steranko and Friedrich turned Cap into a relevant character with stories where he questioned the legitimacy of being a walking flag in a far different America, and with the introduction of the Falcon, Rogers' bonding with a man (Wilson) who suffered from an "American dream" minted for one race, while Wilson struggled with trying to play things straight (and his neighborhood fellows pressuring him to be a revolutionary, or mock his efforts) was unique and powerful writing. Gone was the "noble minority" of early years Black Panther stories, but a black hero very much a participant, even victim of the political chaos of the late 60s / early 70s. Cap's title was no longer starring the stoic, patriotism-spewing character found in some of his post Avengers #4 stories, but a man who knew he had to live up to and present an America that was more myth than reality. That made Captain America one of Marvel's most revolutionary titles, arguably right behind The Amazing Spider-Man. IDK, it's been a while since I've read the post-Kirby stuff and I personally never cared for the Steranko issues, felt too much like pure style over substance.
And it's funny to me that you mention Cap as "one of Marvel's most revolutionary titles behind Spidey". I can find a wealth of videos on youtube discussing Spiderman, but all anyone wants to talk about is Brubaker and the MCU films when it comes to Cap
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 14, 2023 10:12:08 GMT -5
Captain America was a far superior book after Kirby left. Others--namely Lee, Steranko and Friedrich turned Cap into a relevant character with stories where he questioned the legitimacy of being a walking flag in a far different America, and with the introduction of the Falcon, Rogers' bonding with a man (Wilson) who suffered from an "American dream" minted for one race, while Wilson struggled with trying to play things straight (and his neighborhood fellows pressuring him to be a revolutionary, or mock his efforts) was unique and powerful writing. Gone was the "noble minority" of early years Black Panther stories, but a black hero very much a participant, even victim of the political chaos of the late 60s / early 70s. Cap's title was no longer starring the stoic, patriotism-spewing character found in some of his post Avengers #4 stories, but a man who knew he had to live up to and present an America that was more myth than reality. That made Captain America one of Marvel's most revolutionary titles, arguably right behind The Amazing Spider-Man. IDK, it's been a while since I've read the post-Kirby stuff and I personally never cared for the Steranko issues, felt too much like pure style over substance.
And it's funny to me that you mention Cap as "one of Marvel's most revolutionary titles behind Spidey". I can find a wealth of videos on youtube discussing Spiderman, but all anyone wants to talk about is Brubaker and the MCU films when it comes to Cap
That's more of a factor of the generation that is producing Youtube videos, rather than the character. Most of the ones I have seen are done by people under 40, whose experience with Captain America is either not from comics or only later era Cap and not the Silver or Bronze Age. If you are lucky, they might go back to Gruenwald. |
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