lordbyroncomics

I respect you kav but this is fundamentally untrue except for the dialogue part. Kirby was plotting all the stories. Ditko was plotting Spider-Man to the extent that Stan credits it and mentions it in several interviews. The end.

Thank you for the response. To clarify, the people I spoke with were on stage with Elvis and the context in that was the decline of his show quality over the years which I believe is related, perhaps not massively, to his overall unhappiness with life. Yes, Priscilla dating Mike Stone was a blow to Elvis's ego and Elvis was very protected and sheltered which likely also worked against him. No one seems to like Kirby's writing skills which, for me, is a separate discussion from the one about Stan Lee claiming things were his ideas when evidence exists that they were not.

This is correct. There was an exhaustive study a few years ago about how Graceland attendance was declining and Elvis tribute artists were becoming scarcer as Elvis became more and more distant to modern culture and became more of a niche thing.

I believe he hadn't "given up" insomuch as "stopped trying" and "settled". He had a young child still and was severely affected by longtime abuse of prescription drugs which clouded his judgment and gave him the rationale that he was invincible and could control his addictions. I've talked to James Burton, Cissy Houston and Joe Esposito who all told me Elvis wasn't giving up and letting himself die, he was just more undisciplined because the crowds didn't stop coming. (Even if they said the tabloids commenting on his appearance hurt him a lot) Sorry to get into Elvis. Back to the Stan book. I believe Stan "dumbed down" Kirby's inventive and forward-pushing thoughts and he often diluted Jack's intentions for the Invisible Woman (for example) to make her less proactive and more "Oh Reed". I also realize it's all subjective and I still like a lot of stuff Stan did dialogue for and the general tone of the books from 1963-1967. I still think he stole credit for being an idea/creations guy instead of just being a really great editor and salesman and dialogue writer. I also thought this statement was made well: "The fact of the matter is that not only was Kirby a writer, he was a great writer in a medium where dreadful writing is common. One of the main reasons super hero comic book fans detest Kirby’s writing is because it isn’t anything like what they are used to reading. Kirby’s writing has been widely praised by novelists like Harlan Ellison, Glen David Gold, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, and Neil Gaiman. Comic book writer Grant Morrison has compared Kirby to William Blake, and commented comics fans who don’t appreciate Kirby’s writing simply don’t have Kirby’s “reading list.”—Patrick Ford, 15 August 2011.

With respect, never read Albert Goldman's book "Elvis". The reason for this is simple: so much of it is sensationalized and fictionalized for often curious, unknown reasons, the same thing he did with his Lennon biography. Again, I have to stress- I don't down this book because I am a fan of Elvis and can't stand any mean or unflattering things said about him- far from it- but because it is made up. Peter Guralnick's 2 volume comprehensive biography about Elvis is completely factual and extremely thorough. So much context you didn't know, about the Colonel, about the structure of Elvis's live arrangements, and so forth. Oddly enough. Roy Thomas and I spoke about this specific bio around the time an Elvis mini-series came on tv. All I remember about that was that Rose McGowan played Ann-Margaret.

There's a component to this not often talked about in that, Stan became more insistent because his employers- the corporate owners of Marvel (first Perfect Film/Cadence, than New World, than Disney, etc. etc.) had it in their best interests that Stan claim "sole creator" status- it protected their investment. Stan was all too happy to go along with it and say he was a company man, he understood they owned it, blah blah blah- so long as he received status and a healthy guaranteed salary to be himself and push the narrative.

I'm glad to say Hi. And yeah, same- I like shows where there's a sense of comic sensibility over pop culture sensibility and guests who are veterans of the industry.

Curious if anyone here on the boards is going to go to Mike Carbo's one day event on May 1st? https://www.instagram.com/p/CMcqBPir4k5/ I went in 2017 I believe to see the Kirby/Eisner at 100 panel (which devolved into audience members asking about the film 'Logan' for some reason) but remember digging the old school vibe and some of the back issues I was able to get. Interested in anyone else's thoughts or stories from Big Apple Cons?

I was only 13 when this happened but remember being flabbergasted at it. It posed as being all in good fun but I thought some of the people involved took themselves too seriously and this is when the Wizard era was really cooking up and, I think, boosting up comic professionals who thought they were genuine superstars and bad boys. See also: the online behavior of Mark Waid, who often speaks like a tough guy when he is, in reality, anything but. McFarlane was shirtless because he attempted to come out in a boxing robe and boxing trunks and attempted to play the 'Rocky' theme but the sound system failed. Nothing ever got solved from this 'debate', really- if you were already for or against one of the two debating, you likely stayed on the side you started on. I did think it would start ongoing and civil 'debates' which might actually be a good and productive thing for conventions if handled well.

No snark intended when I say- that's kind of fascinating. In the sense that, your boss finding some random comic and having some vague sense of comics being valuable and having you research it- I know it still happens, but didn't think it'd happen as much in 2021. It's obvious it's a self published b&w indie a couple years after the b&w explosion of 1986.

Yeah, I watched the video and completely trust Very Gary's assessment. I think it's the concept of a 'Comics Warehouse' that seems appealing. I can see how, cleanliness aside, it would just be overwhelming and possibly disorganized. Because of the decline of back issues at comic stores (again, we all understand why this happens), it really does make your relationship with an online seller or sellers more crucial. I also look forward to certain cons where there's a heavy comic component (Baltimore Comic Con comes to mine) where great vendors have a healthy dose of Golden-Silver-Bronze.

@BlowUpTheMoon- Thank you! Yeah, I like Very Gary's channel, never saw this one.

I literally buy every week from MyComicShop and find them to be the highest quality in terms of grading, communication, and customer service. Never a bad experience.

I'm gonna look for that as I'd love to visit such a place.

The space you're describing (up on the third floor) depends on what you constitute as back issues- there's nothing older than a few years old, and it's really an afterthought. I would think in New York, the birthplace of American Comics, there'd still be some vast and musky places with back issues but due to gentrification and other factors, not so much. St Marks Comics had a decent back issue section. I do know that in the last decade and a half, comic shops have had to become "pop culture shops" to adjust and survive and that's probably also why there's a decline in back issues. I've been going to Lancaster, PA once a month for business and there's a lovely shop there (The Comic Store) across from the train station and they retain the magic I used to feel as a little kid going into comic stores- they are the best of all worlds, and I highly recommend them should you ever be in Amish country! But I do a lot of travel around the East Coast and I'm not knocking any comic shop- God bless 'em for fighting- but the vast majority do not have back issues.

I miss Jim Hanley's Universe by the Empire State Building. I ordered from Midtown about three times in early 2016 and it just didn't work out as well for me as using MyComicShop. That's just my personal experience though. I do think it's a bit of a red flag to refer you to a statement rather than have a pic up.

Remember, we must credit Tipper with forming the 'Secret Defenders' esque team of Frank Zappa and John Denver.

Thanks for this answer.

Am I wrong (sincerely asking, not framing this as a challenge or statement) in understanding that they are essentially pulling and restricting things from circulation out of them being offensive by today's standards but not boycotting them... meaning, it isn't illegal to have these things, they're just not going to be continued in print or still available to look through in a library or something. If that's the case, I guess that could seem frustrating for some people but if they're not illegal to look at or try to obtain, is it really "banned" or "cancelled"?

Yeah, again- that's not the point. You're probably right- Kirby didn't write as good of dialogue as Lee. Okay. This is not "who wrote better dialogue", it's "who obviously had the more creative imagination and created more concepts". The usual argument from Stan rationalizers is how bad Kirby's dialogue is. Place that aside because it's not the discussion. I will give Stan credit all day that, for a certain period, he was a great dialogue writer before settling in and never challenging himself again. Also, in the 'Stuf' Said' book by TwoMorrows, they point out that a couple months after Kirby left, Stan publicly in the Bullpen Bulletins solicits plot ideas from readers. I again just think the evidence is overwhelming that without people to give the basic idea, Stan didn't prosper. I love Stan. I wish he was still around. I just think saying he's an equal creator is wrong and immoral.

Plus, according to Ed Piskor (who states this on an episode of Cartoonist Kayfabe), Roy also ghost-wrote Stan's introductions to Marvel Masterworks (!!), and someone at ReedPop told me that Stan's "How to Write" and "How to Draw" Comics books from a decade ago were ghost-written by Fingeroth. And Jim Shooter has famously explained how Stan needed someone to plot the daily Spider-Man strip from the inception of it back in the late seventies... again, I'm not saying those things are bad or wrong per se.. I guess.. I'm just saying, doesn't all of this support the argument at least that Stan was not a creative force? But rather someone very good at embellishing and guiding?

"One thing I’m trying to put across that there are these things that Marvel should be proud of him for, or thank him for, such as the concept of the shared Marvel universe. Or such as the wrangling of talent. Or even just the letters pages. The letters pages were enormously helpful. They were instrumental. People who read those comics came back month after month, week after week, because they wanted to interact with Stan and see what Stan’s interactions with other fans was like. Stan still has an enormous legacy for Marvel. Without Stan, I don’t think Marvel succeeds. I don’t think you could have had the Marvel revolution without a Stan Lee. It’s not that I’m trying to say his name should be banished from the Earth – far from it. He’s somebody who really was crucial for the success of Marvel and therefore for the comics medium and the superhero genre, and that’s not something to sneeze at. You just have to take it also with the fact that a lot of his legacy was built on falsehoods or dubious claims or exaggerations and so on. So, just because his legacy should change doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve a legacy or that he has none." One other point Riesman made was that Stan's entire legacy is built on one small block of time, with nothing great or groundbreaking before that block of time or after it, whereas Kirby goes on to create the New Gods, The Demon, etc.- whether or not you view those as valid creations, the point is he kept creating. Not in a contest sense but simply to add more weight to the argument of who creates what. It's also interesting that Stan never ever claimed sole credit until Kirby left Marvel and went to DC and Marvel was bought by Chemical Co. and the new owners secured him in a new position. It's suggested that the powers that be always supported Stan because he was going to claim creator as sole creator without going against them for any sense of ownership so long as he had a secure position, and therefore protecting them from any future legal claims. The same is true at the Disney deposition, decades later. There's a vested interest in Marvel/Disney keeping this myth alive. Even the blurb for the forthcoming 'August 1961' Omnibus begins with something like, "It wasn't until his beloved wife, Joan, told him to take a stand and do comics HIS way..." It's obnoxious. And again, the issue is not taking anything away from Stan. Why Stan defenders won't get this is due to their child-like need to preserve their notions of nostalgia. It's simply to properly credit who did drive the creative pulse at Marvel. There's no Marvel without Stan, I'm the first to say it. But it's the things he didn't do that he keeps getting credit for- this needs to be corrected and balanced. Sorry, frantic ones!

I appreciate Prince Namor quoting and giving excerpts from the book itself, but I thought some quotes from the author in recent interviews would be worth sharing as well: "One of the great tragedies of Stan’s life was that there were a lot of things that he was unambiguously good at, and those were generally not the things he chose to emphasize. He chose to put the spotlight on things that he claimed he did that there is a lot of doubt about. He emphasized that he was the great ideas man, when it’s unclear whether the ideas behind these characters and stories were really his. He pitched himself as this great writer when he wasn’t writing scripts. He was writing dialogue and narration, sure, but he was not doing the first pass at the drafts. At the same time, he was not saying, “I was a great editor,” which he was in a lot of ways, or “I was great because I created the interconnected continuity of the Marvel universe.” That was another thing that was pretty unambiguously him, but he didn’t choose to emphasize. So yeah, it’s interesting. It raises a lot of questions about human nature and the degree to which we all do that. We all have the things we do that we want to be known for that are not necessarily the things we’re known for, and that can be frustrating. But when you go against the grain like that, you can at times end up getting caught in a lie."

Roy Thomas's rebuttal is built on a sense of preservation and his own bias. Not a surprise. I'm amused how his "manager" continues to get his credit multiple times in anything Roy is involved with these days.

Wow, thank you so much- I had no idea that ToW and IST were even affiliated which shows how out of the loop I am. Really, I appreciate it thanks again- I'll check that out!