Unca Ben

So when it's Stan thru the 50s, it was a boom time in comics. When It's Kirby's company failing in the 50s, it was a tough time. Gotcha. Hey, me too! There's a lot of opinions that I respect more than mine. Which reminds me of a saying that I subscribe to: "I don't respect half of you half as well as I should like; and I respect less than half of you half as well as you deserve." Then I disappear.

It's all the latest rage nowadays. The claim is the fact and the fact is the claim. Understand?

amen.

not according to Ditko. But what would he know? you understand way more than he did. just because.

and Ditko says he worked from a one or two page synopsis. Which mean Stan had input, contrary to Kirby's claims when he was angry with Stan. Not to mention your claims. Who came up with the radioactive spider? Not Jack. And Steve mentions the costume and web shooters and sticking to walls. He didn't mention the radioactive spider origin being his. He also mentions Stan's input on the Spidey sense in one of his essays or interviews. And he mentions regularly working from 1 or 2 page synopsis from Stan, until he and Stan started disagreeing on a lot of stuff. So your indictment that Stan had zero input and Jack and Steve did all the creating is not true. Especially at the beginning, when these characters were CREATED. Here are some quotes from Kirby when he wasn't grinding an axe against Stan: "WE shared laughs, ideas, and stubby cigars" "I've always enjoyed working with Stan - we've been a successful team. In the collaboration something good comes out; it's the chemistry of a good team." So instead of cherry-picking Kirby's quote when he felt hurt or angry, the big picture sounds like more than the one-dimensional take of "Stan taking credit for other peoples ideas".

And who did these writers emulate? It certainly wasn't the 1960's DC writers like Jack Schiff, Otto Binder, Edmond Hamilton, E. Nelson Bridwell or Bill Finger. They wrote comic books geared for children as per National's dictate. It was Stan Lee who brought relevance to comics that greatly expanded comic book readership to college kids and older. DC was the one who copied Marvel's (and Stan's) success at that point.

Lots of opinions.

“Stan had ZERO success as a writer in the business for 20 years leading up to 1960.” -I’d say keeping the comic book arm of Goodman’s publishing company afloat from the ‘40s thru thru rough 50s was a success. No one is denying Kirby’s success. Yet, how long did Simon & Kirby’s company last? A few issues? And were all Kirby’s successes up till then done in collaboration with Joe Simon? Seems Kirby did best with a collaborator. It appears to me you were not buying comics during this time. I apologize in advance if I’ve got this wrong, but you write all this as if it were someone judging this stuff after the fact and that circulation numbers were the primary indicator of a book’s or company’s popularity. They’re not. Stan has his finger on the pulse of pop culture back then. And pop culture responded in kind. Visits to the Marvel office by folks like Country Joe and the Fish and by Fredrico Fellini (Stan accepted Fellini’s invite and stayed at one of Fellini’s villas when visiting Italy. Fellini accompanied Stan to a Broadway show). Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention advertised “We’re Only in it for the Money” album in full page Marvel ads. So did Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company with their album “Cheap Thrills”. Why would they do that, unless the counter-culture they were reaching wasn't heavily into Marvel Comics? Our local television station scheduled the cartoon Marvel Super Heroes to air right before The Monkees T.V. show. For many years in the mid-to-late sixties and early seventies, Marvel swept the ACBA awards year after year. Paul McCartney wrote a song about some of the more esoteric Marvel Characters. “The lyrics refer to the Marvel Comics characters Magneto, Titanium Man, and Crimson Dynamo. Magneto was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and the others were by Lee and Don Heck. McCartney discovered the characters in comics bought on a Jamaican holiday in 1975.” “Yes, that’s about Marvel Comics. When we were on holiday in Jamaica, we’d go into the supermarket every Saturday, when they got a new stock of comics in. I didn’t use to read comics from eleven onwards, I thought I’d grown out of them, but I came back to them a couple of years ago. The drawings are great. I think you’ll find that in twenty years’ time some of the guys drawing them were little Picassos. I think it’s very clever how they do it. I love the names; I love the whole comic book thing.” -Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney In His Own Words, Paul Gambaccini I didn’t live near a big city, but I’d bet those of us who grew up in the northeast at the time would tell you that the Comic Conventions starting up were very Marvel-centric, given Marvel’s relatively small market share. Marvel was largely responsible for the growing comic book Fandom at the time. Anybody who was there at the time want to chime in and correct me if I’m wrong? I would be glad to hear it. Articles in Eye magazine (that I referenced earlier), The Village Voice, college campus newsletters, UC Santa Cruz, etc., etc., etc., all extolled the virtues of Marvel Comics. Letters from fans that started Marvel Comics Chapters on their college campuses were numerous. And so on and so on. To evaluate popularity by circulation numbers is like viewing one color in a rainbow. An inaccurate depiction of what was happening. And yeah, I bought that first Jimmy Olsen comic by Kirby. A lot of Marvel fans did. It was Kirby’s first work after leaving Marvel. I also bought a bit of the 4th world stuff. So did a lot of other Marvel fans. A lot of folks made fun of Kirby’s dialogue. And rightfully so (my opinion).

And yet Steve Ditko, the AynRandian that he was, never mentioned pay being stolen from him by Stan. He did mention credit, which is why he was credited with plotting ASM starting around ish 25 (?). When Stan said that he wished Ditko would come back, Steve did mention he would if Martin Goodman paid him the royalties that he was due. This had to do with Spidey merchandising, not a lack of payment for plotting. In his essays, Ditko has said he was fairly compensated at Marvel for his Work-for-hire. That was not his bone of contention with Stan.

and here's another quote from Kirby: "The only book I didn't work on was Spider-Man, which Steve Ditko did. But Spider-Man was my creation." and "I created Spider-Man. I drew the first Spider-Man cover. I created the character. I created the costume. I created all those books, but I couldn’t do them all. We decided to give the book to Steve Ditko who was the right man for the job. He did a wonderful job on that. He was a wonderful artist, a wonderful conceptualist. It was Steve Ditko that made Spider-Man the well-known character that he is." ............................................................................. And I would counter with Ditko's essay. I'm sure that you are aware of it. "KIRBY: My initial concept was practically the same. " Kirby's costume? Kirby's character? This is Steve's recollection of it. From this essay: "Almost all of the bits of this "creation" (the scientist, magic ring, etc.) were never used. So what is left of the original creation? A name, a teenager, an aunt and uncle." Part of Ditko’s essay “An Insider’s Part of Comics History: Jack Kirby’s Spider-Man article shown again and discussed in Alter Ego, 2001, Steve Ditko contests Jack Kirby’s claim of creating the costume, saying that he received a sketch of Jack Kirby’s costume which was more like Captain America, and also saying that Steve himself created the costume, look and movement, webshooters, etc. Steve Ditko also discusses the 5 page synopsis that he received from Stan which was a product of a conversation between Stan and Jack, which went mostly unused including a penciled splash picture of the Jack Kirby drawn Spider-Man. He also wrote “Stan said Spider-Man would be a teenager with a magic ring which could transform him into an adult hero-Spiderman. I said it sounded like the Fly, which Joe Simon had done for Archie publications…. Kirby had penciled five pages of his Spider-Man. How much was pure Kirby, how much Lee, is for them to resolve.” This early version reminded Steve Ditko of the Archie comic by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby called the Fly, and he has written that he pointed out the similarity to Stan Lee, so Stan (wisely) chose to give Ditko the project, likely to make it different from the Fly and add his own Ditko flair to the character. https://comicbookhistorians.com/marvel-1960s-jack-kirby-stan-lee-steve-ditko-who-created-what/ And as far as contributing the name "Spider-Man" as evidence of co-creation from Kirby, does that mean Kirby and Lee's "Thor" has another co-creator? (much less the "Human Torch"?) “Does anyone wonder or care what S-M would look like, be like today, if I had never mentioned the Fly and just inked Jack/Stan’s S-M idea?” — Steve Ditko, ‘The Silent Self Deceivers’ 2012 (as reprinted in ‘The Complete Four-Page Series and other Essays’, 2020) “The Lee/Kirby S-M idea, five art pages, was not a story, no kind of blueprint but a flawed, failed S-M idea. The potential (acorn, seed) could not be brought to life.” — Steve Ditko “Roislecxse” The Avenging Mind 2007 (reprinted ‘The 32 Series by Ditko’ Vol 1, Overture, 2019)

Thanks! I am familiar with Vassallo's blog. but not the Kirby book (pamphlet?) pictured. I will look it up. Thanks again!

Okay. but I'd like to know which books you were referring to, since you think that I haven't read them.

which books? I have a Kirby Ditko Marvel library. I probably have those books and have already read them. side note: just read the introduction to an old Marvel Masterpieces by either Colan or Heck, I think. I can't recall exactly. but the artist mentions receiving lots of plots from Stan, ranging from a few pages to a couple notes.

Oops. sorry. that happens on here.

Not true. I can show you letters pages and Bullpen Bulletins in Stan's own words that show otherwise.

You are cherry picking. In a few letters page at the time, Stan said Ditko create Dr. Strange and brought it to Stan. In other letter pages and in Bullpen Bulletins, Stan gave plenty of credit to guys like Kirby and Ditko. He has said this many many times. Are you basing your claim on a single source or sources while ignoring all the times that Stan claimed otherwise? I just read an early story where Spider-Man was referred to as Superman. I would cite this as evidence as to how busy Stan was during this period. Making a mistake during a creative mess (a creative mess - as opposed to tidy idleness) is not evidence that Stan had nothing to do with character creation. He co-created so many characters in a short period of time it was hard to keep track given how busy he was, along with the dreaded deadline doom, and editing his own work. You ever make mistakes that you didn't catch?

It probably depended upon each individual issue. As a sweeping generalization, I'd say Stan likely deserved the writers pay during the first couple or so years of Marvel and as things progressed and the "Marvel method" became streamlined, guys like Kirby and Ditko and perhaps to some degree Heck and Ayers and perhaps, at least on occasion, Colan and Buscema and Romita likely deserved a share of the writing pay. Or dividing the writers pay into subdivisions of plotting and / or scripting, which would of had to been done, generally speaking, on an issue-by-issue basis. But Stan was not going to take a pay cut because his method proved to be successful. Al this ignores the reality of what was happening with Marvel at the time. It was a small group of creators as say compared to the main competition that was the behemoth DC that had multiple editors and writers along with the pencillers, inkers and letterers. And I'd bet DC's production dept. and support staff was huge compared to Marvel's. Like a start-up company competing with a well-established firm. (which I've experienced). In a start-up, workers end up wearing many hats. And they don't often get paid for all the hats they wear, but paid just for the job description under which they were brought on. It's the way the company survives and competes - or else no one has a job. If folks don't like it, then go work for Lockheed or Westinghouse or Cisco. But when companies like Yahoo! or Google first started, workers whether they were permanent or temp had to do lots of tasks that they weren't being paid for. Or else no one would have a job. Now, once the company grows and staff and support departments are added, things can be different. During the sixties (or at least the early to mid sixties) Marvel was like that start up. That's mostly the period of time we're discussing, here. As Marvel grew Kirby was offered a full time position as art Director and he turned it down. It was then given to Romita. Ditko appeared to have a personality conflict with Stan; the issues he has raised in his self-published works revolved around the creation / co-creation of Spidey and Stan receiving credit for what Ditko thought was his. I have not ever read Ditko complaining about Stan "stealing" money from him. Plotting credit, yes. it's also on record that Ditko didn't feel marvel should return the art he did while under work-for-hire for marvel. And Ditko being Ditko - would not have refrained from all this if he had felt otherwise.

I don't know about the measure of success, but Stan did keep Timely /Atlas going throughout the 50's. I even stated that Jack and Steve were creative giants. If Stan wasn't a gifted writer, why did Kirby and Ditko enjoy the most success while working with Stan? Why did ASM readership increase after Ditko left (and according to Romita, Stan did plenty of plotting for his run on ASM). As a side note, Ditko's ASM run is my favorite run of books along with Jack's FF (both with Stan - and both which I read as they came off the stands except for the earliest stuff. I was just a couple years too young). " At best, Lee added a dialogue that worked for characters created by others." ...so are you saying Stan did not co-create any of those characters? I disagree. I loved Stan's writing at 8-12 years old, and I love it now. Kirby's 4th world dialogue was clumsy and he should be "kept away" from the "parenthesis" "keys" on a "typewriter". As for Kirby's stuff being more adult, it was written almost ten years after the FF started and the Comics Code was much more relaxed by then. Much of Kirby's 4th World subject matter wouldn't have made it past the code in 1961. And it was Stan who championed writing comics for an older audience which is why Marvel became ubiquitous on college campuses way before the 4th World stuff was even written. Before Stan, in popular culture comic books were portrayed as juvenile and read only by adult folks with limited intelligence (I'm reminded of the old Andy Griffith show where it was kids like Opie Taylor or characters like Gomer Pyle and Goober who read comics while being gas station attendants). Then Stan's Marvel hit and you started having popular culture portraying comic books being read by not only children, but by college kids, soldiers, and regular adult characters. It was articles like the 1969 one in EYE magazine that documented comics -specifically Marvel- being brought into the adult mainstream. This article being just one of many. -from someone who was there while it was happening.

No. While I do have an opinion since I read and collect Ditko's Charlton and Kirby's fourth world, I base my statements on readership, fan acclaim, cultural significance, longevity of the characters, influence on future comic book creators, etc. For one example: one thing Ditko's Blue Beetle and Captain Atom books didn't do was usher in "the Charlton Age of Comics".

...but you will get less clicks, nowadays.

Can you write to get your point across without character assassination or without loaded language? I bet you can. After all, Saint Jack has been quoted as saying that he creating Spider-Man. But when Jack does it, the excuse is "his faulty memory". But Stan, well Stan is lying . That's what I mean by loaded language. (along with STEALING). But it is all the rage in writing, nowadays.

...and I wrote this praise for Stan without having to character-assassinate Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko! Imagine!

If Stan hadn't worked at marvel in the early sixties then the FF would have been a rehash of The Challengers of the Unknown and the Amazing Spider-Man would have been a direct imitation of The Fly. Just the same stiff dialogue and cardboard characterization that permeated comics at the time. They would have read just like every other run-of-the-mill super hero comic from National or Charlton or Gold Key. Same old blandness. Read the first 10-12 stories of the Challengers and compare them to the first dozen issues of FF. (and I'm not knockin' the Challs, I'm just sayin' character-wise the FF would have been just more of the same). No Marvel Age of Comics, no Face Fronting, no 'Nuff Said, no True Believing, no Keeper of the Faithing, no No-prizes, no Bullpen Pages, no Marvel Madmen, no Merry Marvel Marching Society, no funny credit boxes (in fact no credit boxes at all), no Jack "King" Kirby, no catering to the older college-age crowd. No "Dear Stan and Jack" or "Dear Stan and Steve ", just the impersonal "Dear Editor". And Spidey would have been like the Fly if Lee wasn't there to veto Kirby's initial attempt at the character and handed it to Ditko, instead. Comics are pictures and words. When I started picking up Marvels after reading DC's, one thing that attracted me (besides the art) were the stories and characters and the way that they were written. It can be a combination of art and dialogue that sets the tone. Ben Grimm's dialogue would never be confused with Reed's. Peter Parker's personality was markedly different from previous teenage superheroes (in fact, the couple of stories drawn by Kirby where Spider-Man appeared were noticeably off-character. The Spidey-Torch dust up in ASM #8 comes to mind). The flowery, Shakespearian speech in JIM's Thor and TTA's Sub-Mariner was a welcome change. I read Ditko's Captain Atom and Blue Beetle and those characters aren't nearly as interesting or fleshed out as Peter Parker and Stephen Strange. Kirby's Fourth World and some of his clumsy character-names (Mother Box?) and dialogue with all his " " " " " " just became bothersome (YMMV). I'd bet Stan would have adjusted "Mother Box" to something much cooler. And all this while Stan was editing every single book. What; 9 super hero books, 1 war comic, 3 westerns, and whatever else - over 13 books while writing/scripting a majority of them. What does the average comic book editor handle nowadays? 4-5, maybe 6 titles? With an Assistant(s)? Stan worked his butt off for Marvel in those formative years. Without him, comics would have been the same same-old. There's a reason all those future comic creators like Roy Thomas, Kurt Busiek, and Claremont and Cockrum wrote to Stan back then (as evidenced by the letters pages). And when all these guys entered comics, did hey write more like Stan Lee or more like Jack Schiff? - No offense to Mr. Schiff intended. - It was Stan that changed the way comics were written. Sure they were creative giants, but it wasn't Jack. Or Steve. Denny O'Neil's GL/GA stories wouldn't have happened without Stan paving the way (and DC needing to catch up to Marvel's relevance). It was Stan's flair for drama and hipness. And I firmly believe the comic industry would have taken a different path, or just tromped down the same old path, if not for Stan Lee. What If: the FF read like the Challengers and Spider-Man was a copy-cat of the Fly? I shudder to think. 'Nuff Said.

Stan consistently gave credit to guys like Kirby and Ditko. An example of someone taking credit for mega-popular comic characters that turned into a long-running brand spawning billions of comics, TV shows, etc. with world wide recognition: MLJ comic's editor and co-publisher John Goldwater maintaining that he created Archie and Betty and Veronica and Jughead, etc., and not Bob Montana.