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Post by tolworthy on Aug 4, 2014 21:05:04 GMT -5
I should have clarified, he could have (in theory, Goodman allowing) paid for actual proven science fiction writers, not comic book writers. Harlan Ellison is a good example. I'm not saying it would be easy, but there were dozens of really good writers in America, but only one person with Stan Lee's mix of talents.
Of course, finding and paying for the best writers, and making them happy with the Marvel Method would be very difficult, might be unrealistically difficult. I just want to emphasise that Stan was a creative genius with unique talents, but just not a genius writer: that part was luck IMO.
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Post by tolworthy on Aug 4, 2014 14:32:59 GMT -5
Stan's hyperbolic communication style and to Jack Kirby being allowed to fire on all cylinders.
That's actually the best I've heard it put. Stan had TONS to do with Marvel exploding... just not necessarily the reasons Stan wanted us to think.
Very well put! I think you've nailed it. Stan thought of himself as a writer. He wanted to write novels and screenplays. He wanted to take credit for all those stories he suggested then dialogued. But I don't think he was as good a writer as he thought. He was a good dialoguer compared with other comic writers, but that is faint praise. However, he was a world class huckster (I use the term affectionately) and probably the best comics editor ever (according to Jordan Raphael's biography, and I agree) . I differ from most comic readers in that I think Stan's huckstering and editing were every bit as creative, difficult and vital to success as any plotting/drawing. And this is not to say Stan's plots and dialogue were unimportant, but I think he could have hired others to do that if needed. But nobody could replace Stan at running the whole show, not in that crucial 1961-1965 window. I think back to those early letters pages, where he was so hungry for feedback, where he would do anything to get just one more reader: he was passionate, hyperactive, while behind the scenes spinning plates and herding cats! No other editor or writer could compete with that. I think the crucial story elements appeared by accident, and I don't think Stan understood exactly why they succeeded. He was not a genius writer. But he was a genius editor and promoter and communicator and organiser, that's what the comics needed. He didn't provide the seed, but he provided the fertile soil and sunshine and water. Continuing the seed analogy, I think Stan was no biologist, but he was the most creative and energetic gardener: he made things live when nobody else could. |
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Post by tolworthy on Aug 4, 2014 1:39:14 GMT -5
Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. Sorry it took so long to reply - I've been at work. Do you mean after the two were no longer collaborating? Yes, or even earlier than that. My pet theory is that it all went pear shaped in 1968. Stan (following Martin Goodman) made a number of decisions that, to my mind, cause Marvel's skyrocketing sales to begin to fall. It suggests to me that they did not realise what was causing the sales in the first place. Then a few years later when Stan left for Hollywood. Stan wanted to leave comics to write movie scripts. , it suggests to me that he did not realise what he was leaving behind! He had created something more beloved to its fans than any movie could be (and years later a multi billion dollar movie franchise would be just one result). I don't think Stan realised what he had. I only agree as far as any creator can't possibly know what the public will accept. True, and they certainly put in the effort. It's interesting to see how many covers and inner panels were changed: Stan really cared. Yet even after he hit the jackpot and had legions of adoring fans, I'm not sure he knew what had happened, or why. |
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Post by tolworthy on Aug 3, 2014 13:44:10 GMT -5
Yes, I agree. They were the right people at the right time. And I am thankful for it! I would never have heard of Marvel (and the stories would not have lasted as long) if not for Stan Lee, and I would not have cared if not for Jack Kirby.
But I find it fascinating that they could not duplicate the magic afterwards.
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Post by tolworthy on Aug 3, 2014 11:57:13 GMT -5
I just received a whole pile of Alan Class comics. I am in heaven! Alan Class reprinted old American comics in Britain: most seem to be Marvel and Charlton mystery stories from 1961 give or take 3 years, with a few superheroes from the period. It's fascinating. For the first time in my life I can read a whole pile of Lee-Ditko fantasy and monster tales, alongside early superheroes like Ant Man. One thing seems obvious to me: Marvel's success was a complete accident. A total fluke. Entirely down to chance. In my opinion. Now, according to both Stan and Jack, it was all planned. According to Origins of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee one day decided to write good comics. And according to Kirby's 1980s interviews, HE decided to pull out all the stops and save Marvel. And yet... it seems to me that the truth is the other way around. Success was a complete fluke, and they then decided it was deliberate. It seems to me that Marvel published average fantasy stories (which I LOVE by the way) and then mediocre superheroes. Really, those early Ant Man, early Iron Man, Strange Tales Torch, early Thor, etc? Classics they ain't. Early Hulk was more interesting, but it was cancelled, which tells you what readers thought. Yuck! So here's my theory of how Marvel was a complete accident: DC did it. In 1961 Stan needed to sneak a superhero comic past National (DC), who distributed his comics and would not appreciate them competing with their own superheroes. So thanks to DC, Stan was forced to make it look like a monster comic. But the thing about monster comics is, - the humans are not the stars, so they can have human weaknesses (unlike superheroes)
- the stories are usually done-in-one, so you can have real changes, real conflict: no limits (unlike those safe superheroes)
Lo and behold, fans liked it! Thanks, DC, Marvel owes you one! So in 1962, when the sales on the FF were looking good, Stan was more open to new ideas if they included realism. So he let his two best artists a bit more freedom to each do the one thing they had always wanted to do. - Kirby, the fighter, was interested in real legends, so he was allowed to do Tales of Asgard as a backup.
- Ditko, the introvert, was interested in real people, so the next character was allowed to be particularly weedy, young, with extremely down to earth problems.
Nobody expected them to be hits: all the efforts of Lee, Kirby and Ditko to deliberately create hit superheroes (Ant Man, most of Kirby's own stuff, Mr A. etc) generally got cancelled. So we have three ideas that sold: realism, heroic gods, and problems. Gradually, from 1963 to 1964, these three concepts spread to all the comics. Stan was doing what he always did, blindly following whatever sold, and the rest is history. I find this fascinating because the Marvel Cinematic Universe is generating a ton of money for the people who can claim to have created these ideas, when nobody did: sure, people put in a lot of work, but the fact that idea A was a success and idea B was a flop, well that was totally random, in my opinion. Any thoughts? |
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Post by tolworthy on Aug 2, 2014 13:35:59 GMT -5
As a teenager it seemed to me that DC simply had much better art.
Perez was detailed, precise, dynamic, just amazing. I thought Marvel had put some super-cheap artist on Secret Wars. Secret Wars was going to sell regardless, so why waste money on a good artist?
Maybe Zeck produced great work elsewhere, but Secret Wars made me avoid his work.
Having said that, I think Zeck was better than a lot of current art, and this is why:
1. You can actually see what's going on
2. People were doing interesting things, and have expressive, individual faces. Not just photo referenced faces and standing around.
EDIT: obviously some of Zeck's covers were more in-your-face. E.g. the Hulk under rocks, or Doom in ragged clothes. Those was real eye catchers. But I've always been a realism nerd. Those stories were just not realistic to me.* To be fair, it is possible (even very likely) that the DC story was even more absurd. But as a Marvel junkie on a limited budget I couldn't justify buying Crisis.
tl;dr: more than any other series, Secret Wars reduced my interest in Marvel, and Perez-Crisis tempted me to switch sides.
*The idea of Doom seriously challenging the Beyonder was so absurd to begin with, and the idea that exposed flesh was any kind of defence... the picture just made me dismiss the story out of hand. As for escaping from under that mountain, seeing the very tiny electronics in Iron man's suit and how it created such a big blast without any flying shrapnel or recoil - that issue was highly problematic for me. Yes, I realise that for most people superheroes mean "suspend disbelief", but I have never subscribed to that theory. For me, thinking how it would actually work is half the fun.
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 31, 2014 7:49:40 GMT -5
md hit it on the head I think with reprints, too... there's really little point in them once the original (or trade, or whatever) can be had..that's probably why stuff like Marvel Triple Action and such aren't around any more. What's your opinion of reprints that just add a few extra pages inside the story? Like the classic X-men of a few years ago, or Byrne's FF annual 1? Fun and good? Heresy? Did many people buy them? |
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 26, 2014 14:00:22 GMT -5
Re: Working for DC. If you weren't working for Mort Weissinger, you weren't working on Superman. Kirby did draw some back-ups for Worlds Finest, but he never struck me as the type to actually read comics looking for his work. And I never got the sense he thought about/particularly cared for superheroes per se. Did Kirby ever go top the DC offices? I hear that in later years they had big pictures on the walls: is it possible they had a blow up of Action 1 on the wall when Kirby visited? |
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 26, 2014 11:48:27 GMT -5
BTW, did M C Escher draw the original cover? I'm trying to wrap my hear around how the car is facing towards the reader, yet is crashing BEHIND a mound of earth that is BEHIND the car.
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 26, 2014 10:41:57 GMT -5
How many? (Another too-serious tolworthy reply coming up:) 400-600 online, comprising 100-150 printed covers, and the rest are fan art etc. At least, that's my estimate based on a very extensive search for homages to FF issue 1. For the FF I got 180 homages (55 printed covers, the rest fan art etc.) and couldn't help but notice how often my search came up with Action 1 instead. Obviously I wasn't searching for Action specifically, but I used a lot of different methods to uncover the hard-to-find FF homages, and the strong impression I got is that there are at least twice as many Action 1 homages: there may be as many as three times as many, but I doubt there are more, because (1) homages were not a big thing before the 1970s: old covers were not routinely accessible (2) since the 1970s Marvel has outsold DC, and this would bias folks toward himaging Mavrel stuiff. But not enough to cancel out the huge lead that Action 1 has, simply to being the first great superhero cover and such a memorable scene. The other image that kept coming up for me was Amazing Fantasy 1. I would estimate that it's been homaged roughly as much as FF1, maybe up to 50 percent more, giving its range as 180-270 (55-75 printed covers) While on the topic, what do you guys think of this one? I doubt it was a deliberate homage, but may have been influenced by a vague memory? The cover of Action 1 was not widely reprinted in 1961, and lifting a car was not uncommon (largely due to Action 1), and it seems clear that Kirby was not working from a picture (or we would expect a tyre in the bottom right)... but Action 1 was not completely unknown, and Kirby had recently worked for DC. It's the two guys at the left who make me think this MIGHT be a dim memory of the iconic image. Or is it total coincidence? What do you think?  |
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 26, 2014 2:30:02 GMT -5
You seem to be equating brain size to intelligence. Just because Neanderthals had larger brains didn't mean they were smarter than us. It's not like they were smart enough to invent computers and the internet to waste time at work and view porn. They had to do it the (very) old-fashioned way. Fair point. They didn't invent computers (unless you subscribe to the theory that henges could be used to calculate the solstice). All they ever invented was agriculture, cities, civilisation... trivial inconsequential stuff.  I think an argument can be made though that hunting is intellectually more demanding than growing crops, and there are several other reasons to conclude they were smarter on average, but no, it doesn't add up to absolute proof. |
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 26, 2014 2:09:49 GMT -5
I just got an email from Robin Kirby about his forthcoming book on the history of Marvel UK. There's no date yet, but I mention it so it's on the radar. This will be the definitive work, and worth reading even if you've no interest in Marvel UK, simply because so many big American names were involved. Anyhow, if interested you can follow the books's progress on Robin's blog here: a-distant-beacon.blogspot.co.uk/This isn't the final cover, just a mock up:  |
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 25, 2014 11:49:22 GMT -5
I want villains like the Wizard to mess with superheroes just to mess with them. Pure, unadulterated, unreasonable jealous because-&$(@*-that-guy. I think that made comics more realistic. If you have the ability to nuke the other side, and so do they, it's insane to actually use your nukes. Instead you have d**k waving contests, wars of propaganda: the goal of a supervillain must be to show they are massively more capable and the hero is an idiot. In contrast I find modern grim and gritty stories utterly silly: the villains want to genuinely kill and main people yet somehow nobody is hurt. The old style is at least believable in principle. blundering misunderstood aliens causing problems I love this too. it doesn't make sense for aliens to be smart: if they were, then given the rate of technological progress we would already be defeated. The only way aliens can exist is if they are mostly dumb. It's not a bad success strategy either: insects are individually very dumb, but being so simple allows them to reproduce fast enough to out evolve us every time. It's why I think Dr Who's early no-stairs daleks were so genius: a basic tin can could reproduce very quickly, making it an unstoppable threat, whereas today's flying super-computer daleks do not stand up to any scrutiny at all. There is a good reason why billions of years of evolution has not produced giant brains, and why the humans brains have been shrinking since Neolithic times (when farming made our lives easier): brains are not an efficient way to survive. |
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 23, 2014 9:33:04 GMT -5
Subnormality is the only new comic I enjoy, whether print or not.
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Post by tolworthy on Jul 21, 2014 14:55:46 GMT -5
For the classic era Fantastic Four at least, powers were purely a mcGuffin. They allowed for a wider range of stories and made everything bigger. Everything the FF did could have been done without superpowers, but on a smaller scale.
I think the real problem is power inflation. If Ben Grimm can lift five tons (like at the start) and he's one of only three people who can, that makes him super-interesting. I can just about buy that possibility, and it allows for some fascinating stories. But when everybody and his dog can lift a hundred or a thousand tons? It's like a child's story where everybody throws nuclear bombs around: even if a writer could make it believable I can no longer relate.
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I think an argument can be made though that hunting is intellectually more demanding than growing crops, and there are several other reasons to conclude they were smarter on average, but no, it doesn't add up to absolute proof.