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Post by Farrar on Mar 4, 2016 14:10:30 GMT -5
I'm sure others will add to this, but here's a passage from Sean Howe's book--from the section about Marvel in 1966-7. "Joe Simon, meanwhile, was about to pursue a copyright claim of his own, on Captain America. Captain America had been-along with Iron Man, Thor, Sub-Mariner, and the Hulk-one of five characters announced for the Marvel Super Heroes animated show. By the spring of 1966, as the series began production, there was already a bonanza of licensing in place: paperbacks, LPs, model kits, costumes, buttons, pins, trading cards, board games, T-shirts and sweatshirts, toys, and stickers. "We've had movie offers for just about all our characters," Lee bragged. Simon would file suit against not only Goodman's Magazine Management, but also Krantz Films (distributor of the cartoon show) and Weston Merchandising (which had developed Captain Action, a figure that included Captain America paraphernalia). Simon, a businessman as well as an artist, was a greater legal threat than Burgos [creator of original Human Torch]. He'd kept extensive records-including the original sketches he'd done of Captain America in 1940. As he had with the Human Torch, Goodman took measures to reestablish Marvel's ownership of Captain America. Fantasy Masterpieces, a double-sized title that had run reprints of 1950s Atlas stories, suddenly shifted gears and re-presented Golden Age Captain America. But the credits-"art and editorial by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby"-were removed. Kirby protested, but he was in a tough spot. "Simon said he created Captain America," Goodman told him. "He wants the copyright and it looks like you're out." Goodman offered a deal: if Kirby would side with Marvel in the dispute, the company would pay him an amount to match any future settlement with Simon. On July 12, 1966, Kirby signed a deposition describing the creation of Captain America. "I felt that whatever I did for Timely belonged to Timely as was the practice in those days. When I left Timely, all of my work was left with them." Divide and conquer. looks like Kirby sold out Simon... Yes, it was divide and conquer. Also, it's not noted in the Howe excerpt I posted, and I'm sure there's more about it in Joe Simon's My Life In Comics and The Comic Book Makers, but apparently Goodman misrperesented the settlement figure to Kirby or there was some loophole, and Kirby got much less than Simon's true settlement amount. When I am back at home I'll see if I can locate more details. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 21, 2016 17:36:56 GMT -5
Sooner or later someone would have tapped into the genius of Kirby and Ditko. I'm not as sure about that. Twice, in the late 50s and the mid 70s, Stan hired Kirby at a time when no other publisher would. In the 50s, the Sky Masters debacle got Jack blackballed at DC and made other publishers leery. In the 70s no one else would give him the creative freedom he wanted. And Ditko did work for others but never got the kind of support that really unleashed his genius. His DC books all got cancelled quickly. And more than that, I think that the simple act of Stan naming his creators in the credits is responsible for much (most?) of Kirby's reputation today. It might be partially responsible for the reputation of every post-EC Classic comics artist. And not only did he name Kirby (and Colletta, and Sinnott, and Artie Simek et. al) he made it virtually impossible to ignore the fact that there were real people working on the books. The cutesy nicknames, the editorial asides (signed "Stan" not "ye ed.) DC/Archie/Charlton made it impossible for young fans to identify the creators - even the EC books from the past made 'em dig for signatures. Marvel made it near-impossible for young fans to ignore the creators. That is huge. That completely changed the way that fans interacted with comics. And while this was partially done out of admiration for the talents he was working with, I suspect that Stan was doing this as a means of promotion. He was well aware of the effect that EC had on the industry - a lot of his '50s books were slavish copies of EC books - and he saw that fandom was buying the books based on the creators. So he wanted to promote Kirby as product as a means of cross-promoting the Marvel brand. The current readership which will buy Spider-man comics no matter what because they love the character was probably unthinkable to him - there was no way to predict that would ever be a possibility. (I certainly wouldn't have guessed that could happen. Comic fans are weird.) But fans buying books based on the creative talent - THAT had happened, and Stan figured that he could make it easier for his audience to find and develop a relationship with the work of specific Marvel artists - which was a way to keep them buying Marvel, and (indirectly) advancing Stan Lee as a brand. It wasn't just the environment at Marvel that allowed Kirby to become KIRBY - it was Stan actively promoting Kirby as a brand. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 21, 2016 18:21:15 GMT -5
I'm not as sure about that. Twice, in the late 50s and the mid 70s, Stan hired Kirby at a time when no other publisher would. In the 50s, the Sky Masters debacle got Jack blackballed at DC and made other publishers leery. In the 70s no one else would give him the creative freedom he wanted. And Ditko did work for others but never got the kind of support that really unleashed his genius. His DC books all got cancelled quickly. And more than that, I think that the simple act of Stan naming his creators in the credits is responsible for much (most?) of Kirby's reputation today. It might be partially responsible for the reputation of every post-EC Classic comics artist. And not only did he name Kirby (and Colletta, and Sinnott, and Artie Simek et. al) he made it virtually impossible to ignore the fact that there were real people working on the books. The cutesy nicknames, the editorial asides (signed "Stan" not "ye ed.) DC/Archie/Charlton made it impossible for young fans to identify the creators - even the EC books from the past made 'em dig for signatures. Marvel made it near-impossible for young fans to ignore the creators. That is huge. That completely changed the way that fans interacted with comics. And while this was partially done out of admiration for the talents he was working with, I suspect that Stan was doing this as a means of promotion. He was well aware of the effect that EC had on the industry - a lot of his '50s books were slavish copies of EC books - and he saw that fandom was buying the books based on the creators. So he wanted to promote Kirby as product as a means of cross-promoting the Marvel brand. The current readership which will buy Spider-man comics no matter what because they love the character was probably unthinkable to him - there was no way to predict that would ever be a possibility. (I certainly wouldn't have guessed that could happen. Comic fans are weird.) But fans buying books based on the creative talent - THAT had happened, and Stan figured that he could make it easier for his audience to find and develop a relationship with the work of specific Marvel artists - which was a way to keep them buying Marvel, and (indirectly) advancing Stan Lee as a brand. It wasn't just the environment at Marvel that allowed Kirby to become KIRBY - it was Stan actively promoting Kirby as a brand. I say BS to this line of reasoning. In the early days of the industry thru the WWII years, creators were allowed to sign their work at many companies if they wanted to. Then the publishers took that right away (and it is a creator's right) to help gain total ownership of the product. Restoring that right is not to be praised, it is to be expected. Meanwhile they were still under the slave auspices of work-for-hire rules in not getting royalties, artwork returned or a share of merchandising money Would you praise a slave owner for giving his slave the right to learn to read as he still keeps them as a slave? |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 21, 2016 18:32:07 GMT -5
Stan not only allowed creators to "sign" their work (which, yeah, he should be praised for considering what everybody ELSE in the industry was doing at the time) he made the idea that comics were created by living, breathing humans inescapable. You can't overemphasize the importance of that.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 21, 2016 18:44:31 GMT -5
Stan not only allowed creators to "sign" their work (which, yeah, he should be praised for considering what everybody ELSE in the industry was doing at the time) he made the idea that comics were created by living, breathing humans inescapable. You can't overemphasize the importance of that. You yourself mentioned just 8 years previously EC was letting all their creators sign their work. They promoted the artists and writers in their letter pages. They even had creator profile pages with their photos and bios. So Stan restoring what was once taken away a few years earlier and basically copying what EC had done does not, in my eyes , make him a champion for creators. Especially when he was taking credit dor the ideas that Kirby and Ditko came up with Warren magazines, from the beginning also gave creator credits and promoted them as well in the letter pages |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 21, 2016 19:15:26 GMT -5
Stan not only allowed creators to "sign" their work (which, yeah, he should be praised for considering what everybody ELSE in the industry was doing at the time) he made the idea that comics were created by living, breathing humans inescapable. You can't overemphasize the importance of that. You yourself mentioned just 8 years previously EC was letting all their creators sign their work. They promoted the artists and writers in their letter pages. They even had creator profile pages with their photos and bios. So Stan restoring what was once taken away a few years earlier and basically copying what EC had done does not, in my eyes , make him a champion for creators. Especially when he was taking credit dor the ideas that Kirby and Ditko came up with Warren magazines, from the beginning also gave creator credits and promoted them as well in the letter pages I'm not arguing "champion for creators" per se, I'm just saying that he raised the profiles of the creators he worked with exponentially and - due to the success of his creator marketing - everybody else followed suit. And the difference between a signature that might exist somewhere and a uniform credit box that is designed to draw the eye is a pretty major one. He was doing what EC (the most progressuve of the dozens upon dozens of American comic publishers to that point) did - using creators as a way to move product - but he was doing it better. I suspect his goal was more to sell comics than to champion creator rights, but the effect was to elevate and promote comics creators to invisible cogs in the machine to the prominence we see today. (And he was, as far as I know, the first to credit inkers and letterers.) |
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 21, 2016 19:47:46 GMT -5
You yourself mentioned just 8 years previously EC was letting all their creators sign their work. They promoted the artists and writers in their letter pages. They even had creator profile pages with their photos and bios. So Stan restoring what was once taken away a few years earlier and basically copying what EC had done does not, in my eyes , make him a champion for creators. Especially when he was taking credit dor the ideas that Kirby and Ditko came up with Warren magazines, from the beginning also gave creator credits and promoted them as well in the letter pages I'm not arguing "champion for creators" per se, I'm just saying that he raised the profiles of the creators he worked with exponentially and - due to the success of his creator marketing - everybody else followed suit. And the difference between a signature that might exist somewhere and a uniform credit box that is designed to draw the eye is a pretty major one. He was doing what EC (the most progressuve of the dozens upon dozens of American comic publishers to that point) did - using creators as a way to move product - but he was doing it better. I suspect his goal was more to sell comics than to champion creator rights, but the effect was to elevate and promote comics creators to invisible cogs in the machine to the prominence we see today. (And he was, as far as I know, the first to credit inkers and letterers.) I am icctrombone and I approve this message. |
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Post by MDG on Mar 22, 2016 8:13:56 GMT -5
Reptisaurus! makes a good point about Stan's use of credits and promotion of creators, but that may have made any (real or perceived) exploitation of these creators even more galling to them. Wally Wood was probably the first artist promoted on the cover of a book (the DD with the bullfighter guy), but that didn't keep him at Marvel very long.
It's great to be praised on the Bullpen page with a cute nickname, but when you have a mortgage, a bump in page rate is more important.
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