mrc

Exactly. Which is why (at age 10) I was heavily invested in the ASM characters and the run became an essential weekly (in the UK) pickup for me at the newsagents/paper shop/sweet shop.

No one 'stole' anything because they were all paid employees, working in collaboration to create a product to sell. Sure, Kirby & Ditko may not have liked the Marvel Method or the fact that Stan 'took' credit but, Stan's promotion of the brand and his success in making the books 'relevant' and exciting is what made the 'product' sell and ultimately changed the way comic books were perceived as a creative medium. Frankly, your continued accusations of 'theft' are beyond tedious. Perhaps Chris Evans (Captain America) summed it up best, “There will never be another Stan Lee. For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy. He exuded love and kindness and will leave an indelible mark on so, so, so many lives. Excelsior!!”

Years ago I received a wavy slabbed book in the post from the US. The condition of the book was quite alarming at first. It was caused by the inner well/holder being bowed. I got it reholdered and it came back flat.

Science fiction can be found in the remote past. Among the earliest examples is the 2nd century, Syrian-born Greek satirist Lucian, who in Trips to the Moon describes sailing to the Moon. Such flights of fancy, or fantastic tales, provided a popular format in which to satirize government, society, and religion while evading libel suits, censorship, and persecution. The clearest forerunner of the genre however, was the 17th century swashbuckler Cyrano de Bergerac, who wrote of a voyager to the Moon finding a utopian society of men free from war, disease, and hunger. The voyager eats fruit from the biblical tree of knowledge and joins lunar society as a philosopher, until he is expelled from the Moon for blasphemy. Following a short return to Earth, he travels to the Sun, where a society of birds puts him on trial for humanity’s crimes. In creating his diversion, Cyrano took it as his mission to make impossible things seem plausible.

The Marvel Method wasn't a problem. It was why Marvel was successful and however many times people say otherwise won't make it true.

After trying different options.......these are my favourite

On the contrary, Topps 1959 You'll Die Laughing & later in the UK, Creature Feature bubblegum cards were hugely popular and successful. I think it was an astute move to try out the same idea in a magazine format. Amazon review "You will love and laugh when reading this very funny magazine , that also has fantastic photographs from classic Horror movies."

Generally, I would agree...............

Issue 18, June 1986

Strange Adventures #205 - 1st Deadman

I normally collect late silver & bronze and don't get slabs below 7.0. However, this nice raw VF book had the cover detached from the bottom staple so I thought I'd get Neal to sign it when he came over to London.........................

Here's one of my books.........with detached centerfold

The Marvel method, though messy, gave people like Kirby a wide enough latitude to let loose their imaginations rather then simply following the publisher’s instructions. Perhaps one of the biggest shames surrounding the credit controversy is that it obscures Lee’s very real genuine contributions as an editor. In the book Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book, Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael note.............. "Lee got the best work out of artists who had been ignored by other companies. He rooted out the essence of what was appealing to the readers, distilled it and communicated it successfully to a wide variety of artists and writers. He recruited new talent according to both short term and long term needs and assigned them to roles suited to their particular skills. He also did the best writing of his career, in service of ideas from other artists and working with artists whose creativity was subsumed into Lee’s own. No pop culture phenomenon has ever offered its readers more than Stan Lee’s Marvel gave comic-book fans."

................on the issue of the initial creation, Ditko stated, "I still don't know whose idea was Spider-Man". Ditko did, however, view the published version of Spider-Man as a separate creation to the one he saw in the five pencilled pages that Kirby had completed. To support this Ditko used the analogy of the Kirby/Marvel Thor, which was based on a name/idea of a character in Norse mythology: "If Marvel's Thor is a valid created work by Jack, his creation, then why isn't Spider-Man by Stan and me valid created work, our creation?"

Er, no. It was both for me. I would always be looking forward to the next ish!! Truth be told, back in the day I got a bit bored with Kirby's artwork after a while and, there were soo many other great artists to enjoy.