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Post by kirby101 on Jan 23, 2024 18:02:28 GMT -5
Simon and Kirby did invent the Romance Comic. Look at the Marvel comic line before and after Kirby and Ditko. The change was there were suddenly all these monster books. Same editor, same "writer". His claim is he came up with those monsters, not Lee.
You want to believe Stan Lee came up with Thor and the story, told it to Leiber to script and then had Kirby draw it, just like he says in Origins. There is really nothing I can say that could change your mind.
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Post by kirby101 on Jan 23, 2024 18:08:58 GMT -5
When I say DC was outselling Marvel in the 60s, I mean the individual books were out selling the Marvel books. Superman and Action outsold Spider-Man (Marvel's best seller) by 2 or 3 to 1. It wasn't that DC had more books. Archie books were outselling Marvel books. The DC books that outsold Spider-Man in 68 were Superman, Batman, Superboy, Action, World's Finest, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Adventure (Supergirl)
Marvel was getting a very loyal fan base, but it was by no means a juggernaut yet. If memory serves, DC was, in a roundabout way, the DISTRIBUTOR of Marvel's comics, which is why they were limited in the number of titles. DC would not let Marvel distribute the numbers of comics that would outsell their own comics. Breaking away from DC's distribution is where Marvel was able to take a much larger share of the market. That is true. I think cody gives the more elaborate history of Goodman's mistake somewhere in the Forum. But the restriction in number of comics has nothing to do with the individual comics were out sold by DC. |
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Post by jester on Jan 23, 2024 18:10:54 GMT -5
It's interesting to look over the credits for the "second stage" of the Stan Lee/John Romita Spider-Man. When Don Heck takes over as penciler with #58, Lee takes credit for script, Romita for "breakdown", and Heck for "finalizing." Then it's "produced by Stan Lee and John Romita", with penciler Heck and the inkers getting vague euphemistic credits ("enchantment by Don Heck"). This sort of thing continues as Jim Mooney takes the lead with the lead as penciler, with credits like "Script: Stan Lee, Storyboards: John Romita, Illustration: Jim Mooney". With issue 70, the credits settle on Lee as "author", Romita as "innovator", and Mooney as "illustrator". John Buscema gets the "innovator" credit with #72-73, then Romita returns as "innovator." Romita and Buscema trade off as "innovators" until issue 80, where Stan is "author/editor", then issue 81 just has the whole gang credited jointly for "story, art, and lettering" (maybe allowing Stan to blame the bottom-of-the-barrel villain "The Kangaroo" on Artie Simek!). With issue 83, Stan claims the role of "writer", with Romita and "Demeo" as "illustrators." Stan credits himself as "writer", "scripter", "story", and "author" in later issues, and when John Romita steps in again with issue 93 (in place of Gil Kane), it's back to vague "by Stan Lee and John Romita". With issue 100, as Stan is ready to hand the book over to Roy Thomas, he takes what may have been intended as his final bow with "Created & Written by Stan Lee". Maybe Lee was just engaging in his frequently-seen playfulness with credits, but my hunch is he was too dependent on Romita to alienate him by running credits that would be interpreted as Lee being the primary plotter. If the very curious "innovator" credit has any actual relationship to the word--and remember, that credit was not a one-time gag, it was the standard running credit for a stretch there--it implies that Romita and Buscema were the ones working from a blank page, creating something new: innovating rather than implementing. I really think you're over-analyzing things here. For starters, I don't think those art credits were intended to be actually indicative of anything beyond signifying an "art by comittee" approach. Here's Mark Evanier on the subject www.newsfromme.com/2022/08/30/ask-me-comic-book-credits-2/Similar credits that seemed to possibly suggest that Stan and the artists were co-plotting the books (eg. "Produced by...") were occurring on most Marvel books at this point (the Kirby books, Colan on Daredevil, Buscema on Silver Surfer). The very same "Innovator-Illustrator" credit was used for Herb Trimpe and Sal Buscema on Hulk #124, which was scripted by a different writer than Stan, further suggesting that that credit specifically was used for situations were the finished art details went beyond your typical penciler/inker division. Another thing is I get the impression that Stan and Romita's working relationship was very simpatico. I don't think Romita was hugely concerned with getting credit for plotting (I'm sure he would have appreciated it, but he wasn't going to leave Marvel over it), and I don't think Stan had any reason to be concerned about alienating him, given that by this point they had been working on Marvel books together for several years, with everything suggesting there wasn't any problem between them. Romita himself said that for the first few years he worked on Spider-Man, he was worried that his penciler job on that book wasn't secure because he thought Ditko was going to come back any day, thinking that Ditko was going to do what Romita said he himself would have done if he had been in Ditko's place, which was call Stan, hash out their differences, and come back to a top selling book. |
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Post by commond on Jan 23, 2024 18:14:01 GMT -5
One of the most interesting periods in Stan's career, IMO, was when he became very negative towards the comic book industry in the early 70s and flirted with the idea of making a sci-fi film with Alain Resnais. Apparently, it was going to a film called "Monster Maker, about a frustrated schlock-movie producer who tries to redeem himself by speaking out against societal ills." He was working on the film during the period where Stan was on "vacation" and Archie Goodwin was doing The Fantastic Four. Lee must have had some problem with the new owners as he was outspoken about what a terrible industry comic books were for creative talent. Of course, the movie was never made and Stan returned to Marvel to take on the position of company president.
I wonder if he was truly as embittered as he made out or if it was just Stan-speak. He even talked about bringing Jack and other Marvel guys into the movie business with him. I definitely think that Stan wanted out of comics and the movies was where he wanted to be. Unfortunately, aside from European arthouse directors like Federico Fellini and Alain Resnais, there wasn't much interest in superheroes at the time and aside from adult film ideas that appeared to be all Stan had to pitch. Margaret Loesch did say Stan had an amazingly positive attitude towards being rejected and never let it get him down.
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Post by berkley on Jan 23, 2024 18:14:27 GMT -5
I think one of the reasons a consensus will never be reached on this question is that many comics readers see very little of value in Kirby's solo work and thus it's hard for them to believe he contributed much of value to the Marvel Universe: maybe a few bare-bones concepts that required someone like Stan to bring them to life; just as, for them, even Kirby's most highly acclaimed solo work would have been infinitely better if only he'd had someone like Stan to write the scripts for them.
I think that that's totally misguided and that a New Gods scripted by Stan Lee, or whoever else you'd care to name, would have been an artistic disaster.
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Post by commond on Jan 23, 2024 18:16:30 GMT -5
Simon and Kirby did invent the Romance Comic. Look at the Marvel comic line before and after Kirby and Ditko. The change was there were suddenly all these monster books. Same editor, same "writer". His claim is he came up with those monsters, not Lee.
You want to believe Stan Lee came up with Thor and the story, told it to Leiber to script and then had Kirby draw it, just like he says in Origins. There is really nothing I can say that could change your mind.
I don't want to believe anything. I just want some evidence other than Stan did nothing, Jack thought of everything. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jan 23, 2024 18:48:44 GMT -5
As for Kirby creating Captain Marvel. NO. He said he loved the character and thought it was better than Superman. What he did do is the first issue of Captain Marvel Adventures.
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Post by kirby101 on Jan 23, 2024 18:48:57 GMT -5
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Post by commond on Jan 23, 2024 19:42:29 GMT -5
As for Kirby creating Captain Marvel. NO. He said he loved the character and thought it was better than Superman. What he did do is the first issue of Captain Marvel Adventures. Kirby claimed, and this was in the 1970s, that Eddie Herron created Captain Marvel and that Jack came up with the costume, etc. He also claimed to have done the layouts for Don Heck and creating Iron Man and also doing the layouts for Bill Everett and creating Daredevil. I know this sounds like an attack on Jack, but it's things that he said in interviews. There's even a quote from Wally Wood where he says that Jack always claimed he invented everything. |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on Jan 23, 2024 19:59:28 GMT -5
As for Kirby creating Captain Marvel. NO. He said he loved the character and thought it was better than Superman. What he did do is the first issue of Captain Marvel Adventures. Kirby claimed, and this was in the 1970s, that Eddie Herron created Captain Marvel and that Jack came up with the costume, etc. He also claimed to have done the layouts for Don Heck and creating Iron Man and also doing the layouts for Bill Everett and creating Daredevil. I know this sounds like an attack on Jack, but it's things that he said in interviews. There's even a quote from Wally Wood where he says that Jack always claimed he invented everything. At the risk of offending all sides in this argument, I can't remember what I did two nights ago. If someone asked George and I how we came up with the CCF In-Depth Podcast (which we began this past summer), his story and mine probably wouldn't line up much at all. I think it's important to remember that no one had any way of knowing how big these characters were going to be at the time, as well as how long Kirby and Lee had both been at this business prior to the establishment of The Marvel Universe. What is comic book history now was a Tuesday morning for them at the time. I just think we fans and historians tend to lose that perspective. It's got to be very very easy to misremember this stuff, and, with so much importance attached to it in hindsight, the pressure to retrieve these memories can easily and subconsciously lead one to sort of, well, "invent" or embellish said memories in the process. And, to be clear, I'm not talking about Stan claiming he invented it all. I doubt he was just confused in that circumstance. |
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Post by commond on Jan 23, 2024 20:20:57 GMT -5
I don’t have a problem with any of that, but if people say Stan is a liar when he does it but Jack’s just misremembering details, then that isn’t fair.
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Post by kirby101 on Jan 23, 2024 20:57:18 GMT -5
Kirby did the cover for Tales of Suspense 39 and most likely designed the costume. He also did layouts for Heck in the Avengers and other books. Stan would send artist to Kirby if they had trouble plotting. So Kirby did have input in ToS 39. Was it layouts, maybe, but compared to Stan's Origins story, I can say, yes one is not remembering precisely and one is a lie.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on Jan 23, 2024 21:30:43 GMT -5
I don’t have a problem with any of that, but if people say Stan is a liar when he does it but Jack’s just misremembering details, then that isn’t fair. Stan's claims became the company line and were made into books sold to fans. Kirby said stuff in interviews. It's not exactly apples to apples. |
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Post by berkley on Jan 23, 2024 21:43:59 GMT -5
I don’t have a problem with any of that, but if people say Stan is a liar when he does it but Jack’s just misremembering details, then that isn’t fair. Stan's claims became the company line and were made into books sold to fans. Kirby said stuff in interviews. It's not exactly apples to apples.
Yeah, I think it's a mistake to compare their misstatements one-for-one as if they were coming from the same place. It seems to me that Kirby's were largely a reaction - and probably in some cases, granted, an over-reaction - to Stan's long-standing overblown claims. Psychologically, if someone's attacking you with metaphorical nuclear bombs your instinct is respond in kind, so Kirby may have felt he had to state his case in the strongest possible terms (which sometimes crossed the line into overstatement) in order to counteract Stan's relentless self-promotion.
That doesn't completely absolve Kirby of any false claims he made have made himself but I think it's important to look at the nuances of how the whole situation came about in the first place and how it then unfolded.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 23, 2024 21:53:12 GMT -5
I don’t have a problem with any of that, but if people say Stan is a liar when he does it but Jack’s just misremembering details, then that isn’t fair. Stan's claims became the company line and were made into books sold to fans. Kirby said stuff in interviews. It's not exactly apples to apples. Not to mention the fact that he did create romance comics and he did plot and draw the monster comics and he did create Iron Man. Stan frequently said things that were easily shown to be nonsense. Nobody has shown that these things Jack was saying aren’t true. |
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