Unca Ben

Me too! Mine should ship July 21

For the most part, when Jack plotted and pencilled a book it was fully finished pencils. There's plenty of examples of photostats of his pencil work. (Jack Kirby Collector comes to mind) I believe when he did layouts it could vary. But he was plotting and pacing the story thru his layouts. A good example is X-Men 17 (just reread it the other day). The page one splash is pure Kirby, very little Roth. The rest of the story has a lot more Roth. But the pacing is all Kirby, especially the shock ending!

What a great thread! Some wonderful books!

Yeah, that's part of the wonder in discovering comics when you become a fan. It's a great experience.

This book, along with Fantasy Masterpieces 3&4 at first confused, and then amazed a 10-year-old me. It's how I found out that Marvel had published superhero books long before FF 1. There was a whole 'nother aspect to the superhero books (and "unfolding universe")that I loved and had no idea about. A revelation.

I don't see that many Kirby pages inked by Rule. This is a very nice one.

Gorgeous page! Someone's gonna be very happy! 30 years. you're gonna miss it.

My favorite inker. (terrible scans)

RIP Mr. Sinnott. My favorite inker.

Also the first issue where Ben yells "It's clobberin' time!", IIRC. I could also see ST 102 being more essential than ST 101, if the criteria for essential is along the lines of what stories were "essential" to the developement of the (early) Marvel universe. First Wizard; check. First story with an already established character against a unremarkable one-shot villian; not so much.

...now personally, I consider all the books published up to '66 - '67 or so, as essential.

Missing some FF's, too. I think the keyword is essentials. As in a Reader's Digest Condensed Version (for those old enough to get the reference)

Unless an inker erased Jack's finished pencils before inking (?), then most of the pencils would be under the ink. May not be able to see 'em, but they're there.

Yep. beautiful piece!

A decent refrigerator magnet is 200 times stronger than the earth's magnetic field. Earth's field is very weak. Too weak to create any reasonable repulsion or attraction. It's gravity that keeps us on the earth's surface, not any magnetic field. Besides, in order to float in the air you'd need a pretty strong opposing field in the direction of earth's gravity, and in most places earth's flux lines are more horizontal than vertical. As for Supes - the red sun/yellow sun stuff - physics is physics. It works the same no matter which planet you're on or which solar system you're in. There is no "different physics" on different planets. It's comix - Magneto can't fly, he's just drawn that way. Unless, like Supes, you invoke pseudo-science.

...but I don't think Ditko was ever subliminal about expressing his views...

Looks like fun! Can't wait. 'Course, I'm a big Scarlett Johansson fan!

Ditko was also great at creating supporting characters. yeah, some of these characters were alter-egos of Spidey's villains, but they also played big roles in Peter's private life. I'd say Spidey had one of the largest and most interesting supporting cast of any super-hero character. Aunt May Uncle Ben J. Jonah Jameson John Jameson Flash Thompson Liz Allen Betty Brant Ned Leeds Frederick Foswell / Patch Curt Connors & family Anna Watson Mary Jane Watson Gwen Stacy Harry Osborn Norman Osborn Prof Warren These characters made regular appearances in Ditko's stories. They all had distinctive looks and personalities (give Stan some credit on the latter). Ditko even had minor repeating characters like Aunt May's doctor (Bromwell?) and Pete's high school principal (Davis) and high school teacher (another Warren). Kirby was awesome at creating universes, Ditko was awesome at creating communities neighborhoods (as in friendly. heh). The most interesting stuff in Ditko's ASM run was Peter's private life. (IMO) It's interesting that Spidey's costume completely covered his face, which was uncommon at the time, so we didn't see Peter's expressions when he was Spider-Man, but Ditko balanced this with an extensive personal life for Mr. Parker. Genius.

RIP Mr. Cochran. bought stuff from him, too. Not art, but comix and books.

I do like all the articles written by Ditko that you've posted. Seen a few of 'em before, but they're always interesting. Ditko seems... intense. And there's nothing wrong with that.

And I agree with this. It is all the exaggerated and incendiary language that I can't help but notice. And one-sided sources. If a point can be made with critical reasoning, then there's no need to attempt to manipulate a readers emotional response. And I couldn't help but notice that only the sourced quotes that supported the claim that Stan demanded that the artists come up with the stories were referenced; it took "Stan's defenders" to bring up the Romita and Steranko quotes that contradicted the narrative. And here's an incendiary language example: Martin Goodman reneged on his agreement about royalties for Captain America with Joe and Jack. Joe later sued (twice?) over ownership of Captain America and settled out of court. That's what happened. To make the statement, "Goodwin straight out stole Captain America from Jack and Joe" elicits an emotional response from the reader and isn't completely accurate. Why the need for this kind of inflammatory statement if logic and reasoning with a brief factual account of martin's behavior in this - but without the potential emotional manipulation- can make the same point. Using this rhetoric, who did Joe and Jack "steal" Captain America from? ...so Martin "stole" from Joe & Jack, who had "stolen" from Shorten and Novick. It seems everybody was playing fast-and-loose with intellectual properties back then. Not just Martin. (although he was more guilty of this than most) If DC could successfully sue Fawcett over the similarities between The Big Red Cheese and Superman, then this could have been a no-brainer. In the Patrick Ford blog about Ditko's Sore Spot article, Patrick injects his own remarks, that without careful reading, might be attributed to Ditko ( appending the following text [BECAUSE IT IS ACTUALLY THE PROPERTY OF THE ARTIST.] at the end of a Ditko quote). Ditko wrote no such thing, in fact Ditko has stated the opposite. But that didn't fit Patrick's narrative. And mixing in opinions among historical narrative ... eg: "Stan's shallow writing". -I think that was another of Patrick's. I don't remember. All this to manipulate the reader to a predetermined conclusion. ...and I'm not a "Stan Lee sycophant' - not that you said I was, but why the need for more inflammatory rhetoric when other phrases that might further the conversation in a constructive manner might be used? LASTLY - when I gave examples of what I thought were great Stan Lee stories (Sons of Serpent, first Titanium Man story arc, etc) you compared them to the Galactus Trilogy, arguably one of the greatest arcs in Marvel silver age history. I submit that most of Jack's own FF stories aren't in the same category as the galactus Trilogy, either. I submit that the stories that I cited are in the same category (or better) as many of Jack's FF stories. Why use the galactus trilogy instead of the Infant Terrible - or the Impossible Man - or Tomazooma the Living Totem? I would rate Sons of the Serpent up there with The Brutal Betrayal of Ben Grimm (FF 41-43) which to me is a great Kirby FF story arc. Why the need to use such an (outstanding) outlier as FF48-50 instead of the body of work as a whole. (which was what I based my statements on) Anyways, it's great chatting with you on the subject. And i've really enjoyed your latest Archie installments. Your love of the medium is abundantly clear! Edit: I realized that I've used this post to comment on two separate topics. It was easier for me. Mea Culpa

That is one downfall about reading through a series at once; kinda like binge-watching an old television series. Reading a series issue after issue without a month (or two) wait between issues may magnify repetitious themes, dialogue, characterizations, etc. Same with T.V. series. M.A.S.H. is a good example for television. There are plenty of others, I'm sure. There's a big difference (IMO) between being exposed to something for the first time with week(s) or month(s) between successive installments, and binge watching or reading all the installments in short order - especially if it's been read or viewed before, and if the content has become familiarized by word-of-mouth accounts, articles & features on the subject, and subsequent imitations.

I didn't say that anyone claimed Stan sat around doing nothing. But with all the incendiary language being bandied about in this topic and the "Stan stole FF 51" topic, it could lead one to view it that way. Once again, I am referring to the timeframe when Stan, Jack and Steve were creating the marvel superhero universe. More than 8 books a month, then. My post was aimed at the way in which journalists and authors commonly use methods to elicit an emotional response in the reader. One method by which journalists fool the general public is by using very broad assumptions and to slap incendiary labels on individuals whom they don’t agree with, rather than relay the information in a factual genuine way. I can provide examples from both threads if needed.

Stan worked pretty hard, I imagine. During the heyday, Stan was editing 10-16 books a month (I'm not sure where the 8 book a month limit for silver age Marvel came from; if you check the newstand feature on Mike's Amazing World website, Marvel was putting well more than 8 books a month on the stands - usually 10 to 15 or 16). All these books would pass thru Stan's desk at least twice (pencil stage and then after lettering & inking). Stan was also writing a good share of these. And writing the dialogue for everything from the FF to Modeling with Millie. Approving covers. Deciding which artists and inkers to pair. The Bullpen page and letters pages. Promotion, promotion, promotion. And other day-to-day stuff. (and yeah he had Roy for much of this time - not at the early stages, though) By comparison, in the years and decades that followed, and after Marvel expanded and hired multiple editors and assistant editors, an editor would handle maybe 6-10 books a month, at most. Stan was doing double that plus all the other duties noted above when He, Kirby and Ditko were building the House of Ideas. A phenomenal amount of work, when you think about it. DC was putting out a little more than twice as many books each month during that time. How many editors and writers did they have during this same time? To think that Stan was sitting around while others did all the work and he took all the credit doesn't reflect the reality of the early silver age "bullpen". The Marvel method of creating a book was as much a necessity as anything else. That is not to say Stan didn't end up taking advantage of it.

I re-read the “Sore Spot” blog that had been linked, noting which text was blog author Patrick Ford’s comments and which text was direct quotes from Ditko’s essay. I don’t have a copy of the original Sore Spot essay. I wish I did. It should be noted that at least one paragraph of the original essay quoted in the blog may be truncated at the beginning. In his blog, Patrick Ford remarks that "Ditko had very harsh and extensive words for the comics community and its attitude towards stolen art", and that seems to be the thrust of Ditko's essay. In the essay, Ditko is condemning the comics community (at the time) for their stand that Kirby had an “unqualified right” to all of his pages held by Marvel except for the pages held by others that were immorally or illegally taken from Marvel. Ditko states that this hypocritical stance of the comic community (C/C) was a counter to the comic company’s claims that they were the self-evident owners of the art pages. Ditko even laments that Marvel, despite their responsibility to protect their valued material, easily tolerated losing a piece of their property to crime. In the quote from Ditko where he states “...(we) who are denied our 'original artwork' and are being 'deprived of a portion of (our) livelihood?”, Ditko is using the comic communities (nonsensical) view on ownership, not his own. Now, when Ditko was talking about what pages he got back as a “gift”- which in another essay he stated that Marvel had a right to do – he was complaining about all the missing pages and about the conditions attached to the return of the few pages he got back. That was to point out the large number of missing pages. And where were all those missing pages? Most were with the “thieves market” – who the comic community (at the time) seemed to be giving a pass. (at least in his eyes) The main point of Ditko’s essay “Sore Spot” seemed to be about the untenable view held by the comic community regarding art ownership of stolen pages. The number of pages he got back was a secondary (but interesting) point in the essay, at best. -That, by my lights, was the theme of Ditko’s essay. I’m gonna look for a copy of the original.