mrc

On 3/10/2024 at 9:29 AM, Unca Ben said:

And see, I liked the problems pestering Peter in ASM.  Aunt May's health, trouble paying the bills, Flash, JJJ, Betty Brant's intense dislike of Spider-Man, guilt over Uncle Ben (the last of which I believe Ditko addressed in the Master Planner trilogy and would have had that particular monkey off Peter's back had Ditko continued the series). In fact when I re-read the Ditko/Romita run, on occasion I find myself skipping thru the battle scenes and focusing more on the stuff about Peter's private life.  I find it fascinating.  Always did.

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.

On 2/24/2024 at 12:02 AM, Prince Namor said:

Or face the facts in reality, that Stan Lee stole CREDIT and PAY from those artists.

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.  

On 10/10/2023 at 10:37 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

In two sentences, Steve Ditko cut to the heart of the problem with the Marvel Method, as it was practiced in the 1960s.

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 9/18/2023 at 5:52 PM, Prince Namor said:

It's amazing to see the amount of clues right in front of our faces as to who Stan Lee was as a 'writer'. Again, here, he takes someone else's creations and captions them with smart alec sayings, again using Martin Goodman's Magazine Division to do something outside of comic books. For someone who made this period in his career out to being some sort of creative awakening, it's very telling by just how uninspired this whole production is. 

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."

On 9/3/2023 at 8:57 PM, VintageComics said:

I remember listening to a CD for the first time in the late 80s or early 90s and I vividly remember thinking it sounded EXTREMELY different than an analog vinyl disc. 

To this day I still believe that digital is missing the humanity and warmth of analog recordings. 

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

On 8/5/2023 at 12:37 PM, Ken Aldred said:

As a Brit, I've been trying to find the issue number of Viz Comic featuring the classic first battle between the Brown Bottle and his nemesis, Cider Woman.

Sure it's an issue before 100, but pinning it down has proved to be an extremely difficult task.

Issue 18, June 1986

Strange Adventures #205 - 1st Deadman    

On 7/13/2023 at 4:59 PM, Mokiguy said:

And then I watched a video of some long time collector on YouTube and he had a cheat sheet, and on his cheat sheet he has comics grading as high as 9.0 with one staple detached and 7.0 with complete centerfold detachment. He also showed CGC slabs in the video that graded as high as 7.5s with noted detached centerfolds. I understand the rest of the book matters, but have I been wrong all this time automatically downgrading to 4.5 with one staple and max of 2.5 with a completely detached centerfold?

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 6/24/2023 at 10:56 PM, Prince Namor said:

"There are many others who take credit for it, but Steve Ditko, it was entirely in his hands. I can tell you that Stan Lee had other duties besides writing Spider-Man or developing Spider-Man or even thinking about it."

................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?"  

On 6/22/2023 at 9:53 PM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

Btw met Stan Lee twice in his prime. Very friendly man and could see why he got to the top, but when we opened those books it was the artists that took us to another level, not the dialogue. 

 

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.

As an 8 yr old, this Adams cover made a big impression when it was bought for me back in '71. Still one of my favourites............... 

On 6/2/2023 at 5:11 PM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

The more I read this thread and hear some podcasts it's looking like Stan "The Man" Lee was not the man. The evidence is Kirby, Ditko and other artists did most of the work.

I am kind of disappointed in Stan Lee now. 

Of course they did most of the work. That was their job. Stan promoted the brand and he did it very well. A successful team effort, just like in any successful organisation in history. Don't believe everything you read............'nuff said.

On 3/12/2023 at 8:04 AM, Prince Namor said:

Poor taste is screwing over the people who made you successful. Stan Lee was a hack and a nobody until Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko changed his life. 
 

And he screwed them over. 
 

THAT is in poor taste. 

You can't rewrite history by judging the past by today's standards. Everyone at Marvel had a job to do. Isn't it ironic that working with Stan at Marvel led to the enhanced value of Kirby's & Ditko's work. Kirby was earning the equivalent of $230k when he left Marvel in 1970. I wouldn't say that was being 'screwed over'. In later years even Kirby himself stated that he didn't hold any personal grudge against Stan.

Kirby's writing left a lot to be desired, and he needed someone like Stan to make the books work. It wasn’t until they started doing the superhero books that sales started to improve. Stan had a lot to do with the characterisation which was appropriate for the time. It was fresh and filled with mock irreverence. And that’s not Jack, that was Stan. Of course Jack was doing superb work as well.

No one screwed anyone over, because no one at that time could forsee how the comic book industry and fanbase would evolve over the next 60 yrs or so.

............for me, it always comes down to this cover. I also like the backstory of how it was created, "It was a Sunday night, I’ll never forget it. The cover art had to be in by Monday morning. Not only does Frank not have the faintest idea of what he’s going to paint, he doesn’t have any canvas board in the house. We get into this terrific fight, it’s always like this. Frank runs down to the cellar. We were putting in a masonite floor in the basement so Frank decides to tear up a piece of the floor, put it on the easel and had it done in six hours.”

On 2/14/2023 at 3:03 AM, Cliff R. said:

Steve Ditko was my favorite Spider-Man artist. 

I remember seeing the change in Spidey in issue 39, and 10 year old me wasn't happy.  

Same here!.................I struggled on through the Kingpin saga, got bored and dropped the title (when Marvel was reprinted in the UK back in '73).

On 1/6/2023 at 11:34 PM, Prince Namor said:

remember when Stan said that he decided not to use Kirby on Spider-man, because he made everyone look too heroic... 

Yep, once again Stan shows us his TRUE GENIUS at editorial decisions and managing temperamental 'creative types' in pursuit of a new direction and social relevancy in comic books. After all, we all know that TOO MUCH Kirby can get REALLY BORING  after a while (especially all those square jawed faces)....................Excelsior!!

Merry Christmas

On 12/18/2022 at 5:00 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Flipping through some old Thrashers, and came across this.  Anybody that was skating at the time knows how big of a deal this was when it happened...

 

Yep, Natas and the Gonz were the true pioneers of modern day street skating. Incredibly Natas was doing his high ollies on what looks like a single kicktail vert deck as opposed to the now ubiquitous double kicktail 'popsicle' skateboard deck!