Stan Lee biography anybody read this

[musicmeta]

Here is the link Stan Lee

[jkrk]

I appreciated this line from the link:

 

"Lee's metamorphosis from bespectacled kid in the Bronx to living symbol of a billion-dollar entertainment empire is every bit as impressive as any super hero origin story.

 

He was first hired as an office boy by a relative who owned a marginal publishing company. An ambitious workaholic, Lee made himself indispensable by writing for virtually every title in the company's line. At the time he was drafted for service in World War II, he was editorial director".

 

Here is a sililar version:

 

"Timely's staff was increasing at this point, with the increased work-load requiring more employees, and at some point in that spring a young man by the name of Stanley Lieber, the nephew of Martin Goodman, started work for Timely. He started out as the office gopher, then began doing text pieces, and then moved from there to back-up strips. His first story was in Captain America Comics #3, and while he used a number of pseudonyms for his work during this time, the one that stuck was the one that nearly everyone knows him by: Stan Lee.

 

The link on the full story is at :

 

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/7160/Timely1.htm

 

 

 

 

 

[fantastic_four]

The biography describes him as "endearingly arrogant." Maybe he was, but on camera, he always looks markedly humble. Extroverted, ambitious, and very self-confident, but I wouldn't call his public persona "arrogant."

 

Who knows what he's like behind the scenes! Anybody got any dirt stories of him being a [!@#%^&^]?

[joe_collector]

The biography describes him as "endearingly arrogant." Maybe he was, but on camera, he always looks markedly humble.

 

That's the trick isn't it? Kinda like Wayne Gretzky in public.

[fantastic_four]

The biography describes him as "endearingly arrogant." Maybe he was, but on camera, he always looks markedly humble.

 

That's the trick isn't it? Kinda like Wayne Gretzky in public.

 

I wouldn't know, I prefer not to speculate on other people's character traits or actions if I don't have direct knowledge of them. Have any of his co-workers besides Ditko spoken out against him?

 

Ditko is weird anyway...can't believe he just trashes his original art because he could "care less" about it, or that he generally refuses any type of interview. And I can't believe how many times he's jumped ship and how early he "retired" from the big titles...does anybody know if he just got sick of drawing or was it personality conflicts?

[joe_collector]

I wouldn't know, I prefer not to speculate on other people's character traits or actions if I don't have direct knowledge of them. Have any of his co-workers besides Ditko spoken out against him?

 

I don't think anyone has gone as far as Ditko, but many artists have portrayed Stan as a likeable hardass who basically told them to "go draw a story and I'll put some words to it".

 

Even Stan has lampooned himself in a similar way.

[Proverbs22_2]

The biography describes him as "endearingly arrogant." Maybe he was, but on camera, he always looks markedly humble.

 

That's the trick isn't it? Kinda like Wayne Gretzky in public.

 

I wouldn't know, I prefer not to speculate on other people's character traits or actions if I don't have direct knowledge of them. Have any of his co-workers besides Ditko spoken out against him?

 

Ditko is weird anyway...can't believe he just trashes his original art because he could "care less" about it, or that he generally refuses any type of interview. And I can't believe how many times he's jumped ship and how early he "retired" from the big titles...does anybody know if he just got sick of drawing or was it personality conflicts?

 

...Okay, is it just me, or did you not just "speculate about (Ditko's) character traits and actions, without direct knowledge" in this very post ?

 

I'm cun-foozed...

[thanos_oftitan]

[garthgantu]

Yo - Ha! "Pot to kettle, pot to kettle..."

 

Back to the subject at hand... I thought that Kirby and Lee had a major falling-out in the early/mid-'70s, and that at some point, Lee testified on Marvel's behalf (not quite the same as testifying *against* Kirby, but close in this case) when Kirby tried to wrest control or compensation from Marvel ?

 

I've always thought that Stan the Man got considerably more than his share of the credit for the "Marvel Revolution," but I think I'm in the tiny minority on that one...

[fantastic_four]

...Okay, is it just me, or did you not just "speculate about (Ditko's) character traits and actions, without direct knowledge" in this very post ?

 

I'm cun-foozed...

 

Just because I didn't post bibliographic references doesn't mean it was speculation. I didn't speculate, I got those ideas from articles about Ditko I've read over the years. If you can identify one or more of the ideas I posted that you believe to be speculation, I'll search for a web-based or a paper-copy of the articles and try to post a scan or a link to them.

[fantastic_four]

Yo - Ha! "Pot to kettle, pot to kettle..."

 

Back to the subject at hand... I thought that Kirby and Lee had a major falling-out in the early/mid-'70s, and that at some point, Lee testified on Marvel's behalf (not quite the same as testifying *against* Kirby, but close in this case) when Kirby tried to wrest control or compensation from Marvel ?

 

Did the article you read (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt you didn't give me and assume you read this and didn't just "speculate" it) include any information about how Stan did manage to retain ownership of the characters? I've been wondering that ever since he started his recent lawsuit against Marvel over the profit percentage that was due him related to the recent Marvel movies. After hearing Todd McFarlane and the Image artists and authors complain so loudly about how Marvel wouldn't allow their creators to retain the rights, I had to wonder, how did Stan pull it out? Did he use a close relationship with Martin Goodman to negotiate a deal giving him ownership? Or did Marvel give him some kind of ownership later on to keep him on board?

 

Kinda hard to figure out how Stan is getting these shares from Marvel whereas Kirby, Ditko, and the rest seem to get jack.

[Aman619]

Stan doesnt now nor did he ever own any interest in the characters. He is on a par with all the other creators Marvel employed via aork-for-hire over th eyears on that account.

 

What he does have is an employment contract that pays him a salary plus a percentage of the 'profits' from all movies made from Marvel characters that he was involved in. (He has no part in the Punisher film).

 

He is suing to recover what is owed to him by Marvel based on the contract they signed. My impression is that Marvel now feels his reported million dollar annual salary to be a Marvel booster and little else is payment enough. And there is always legal confusion when the word "profits" is the basis for bonus payments.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

I've been reading an advance copy of the book. It's an entertaining read, with not too much in it that fans wouldn't already know, but it does consolidate all the stories into one concise narrative that follows Stan from the start of his career through the glory days and beyond. It's not bad, but although it *does* make very clear the significant and occasionally far larger contribution of Kirby, Ditko et al to the creation of the Marvel Universe, it also reinforces some of the more blatantly apocryphal tales that Stan has woven over the years. Fun to read, but this is not the final word on that part of comics history, and I still wonder whether anyone will be able to dig deep enough to get to the real man behind "The Man."