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Post by tolworthy on Nov 17, 2014 6:43:02 GMT -5
A distinctive feature of Jack Kirby's New World books was his use of multiple exclamation marks!!! But I'm reading a lot of old Lee and Ditko stories and I don't see them!! Yet the first four issues of the Fantastic Four are full of them!! (From issue 5 normal punctuation becomes the norm, at least on most pages). My knowledge of non-FF books is limited, so I was wondering,
Did Stan use multiple exclamation marks in other comics of the early sixties or before?
If this is unique, is it a Kirby fingerprint? Or just a sign that Stan was not yet used to superheroes?
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 17, 2014 7:37:34 GMT -5
I get the feeling that he was trying to create a sense of excitement. Damned if it didn't work.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2014 7:43:51 GMT -5
A distinctive feature of Jack Kirby's New World books was his use of multiple exclamation marks!!! But I'm reading a lot of old Lee and Ditko stories and I don't see them!! Yet the first four issues of the Fantastic Four are full of them!! (From issue 5 normal punctuation becomes the norm, at least on most pages). My knowledge of non-FF books is limited, so I was wondering, Did Stan use multiple exclamation marks in other comics of the early sixties or before? If this is unique, is it a Kirby fingerprint? Or just a sign that Stan was not yet used to superheroes? I don't know if it's a Stan or Kirby thing, but Stan Lee used multiple exclamation points ALL! THE! TIME!!!!!!!! IN! EVERYTHING! CONTANTLY!!! His is Captain America, FF, X-Men. It was his thing. And pretty much solely his thing, I *think*. Well, mainly HIS! thing.  In fact, my son and I joke all the time about this one part in his Captain America where Jarvis is asking him if he wants any sugar cubes in his coffee (or tea?). It's a running joke in our house. "No, JARVIS!!! I DO NOT WANT ANY SUGAR IN MY COFFEE!!!!" I mean, we've greatly bastardized it and use it for everything ("You want pizza for dinner, son?" him: "NO!!! I DO NOT WANT ANY PIZZA FOR DINNER!!!!" stuff like that). |
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Post by tolworthy on Nov 17, 2014 9:19:15 GMT -5
Mystery solved then!!! Looks like the Lee-Ditko short stories and later comics were the exception!! And not the rule!! Thanks for the replies!!!
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Post by Dizzy D on Nov 17, 2014 10:09:53 GMT -5
To quote Sir Terry Pratchett:
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Post by The Cheat on Nov 17, 2014 16:57:30 GMT -5
It was a typography thing. The printing tech of the time meant full stops weren't always clear enough to be used, whereas there was no mistaking exclamation marks.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2014 17:06:32 GMT -5
It was a typography thing. The printing tech of the time meant full stops weren't always clear enough to be used, whereas there was no mistaking exclamation marks. Really?? That's very interesting. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,041 
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Post by Confessor on Nov 17, 2014 20:39:43 GMT -5
Yeah, I've heard the 'exclamation marks showed up better than full stops on the cheap newsprint that comics were made of back then' thing before. While I don't doubt that for a second, it still doesn't really explain why Stan added multiple exclamation marks to some dialogue. Like Icctrombone says, I think it was just to add a sense of excitement to proceedings.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2014 10:35:40 GMT -5
Yeah, I've heard the 'exclamation marks showed up better than full stops on the cheap newsprint that comics were made of back then' thing before. While I don't doubt that for a second, it still doesn't really explain why Stan added multiple exclamation marks to some dialogue. Like Icctrombone says, I think it was just to add a sense of excitement to proceedings. I think you are so right and I think it's meant to add excitement and action to the book so that his books that he creates a sense of dynamics that makes his books totally different from the other Marvel Comic Books.  There are 11 ! ... on one page of Marvel Comic Book and that's pretty much his style back then. Another thing that he likes to do ...is to put nuff said! ... in his books too. That's my 2 cents on this matter ... |
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 23, 2014 11:04:32 GMT -5
When every non-interrogative concludes with an exclamation point, you need extra !s for emphasis. In other words, the extras fill the function a single ! serves in text that uses periods as stops.
Cei-U!
I! Summon!! The!!! !s!!!!
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Post by MDG on Nov 24, 2014 12:43:43 GMT -5
When I got faxes from an artist/letterer to proof a story I co-wrote, I noticed that I'd used a semi-colon (correctly) in a dialog balloon.
I wrote him back "I must be nuts! A semi-colon?!?! In a comic?!?! Change it to an exclamation point!!!"
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