True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee 6 6

[kav]

That does not explain the existence of Stan's written plots-or Ditko's own words that Stan gave him a SCRIPT to work from:

Edited April 3, 2021 by kav

[kav]

And I'm still waiting for an answer to who wrote the SA books-it obviously was not Kirby and Ditko as their writing styles in their solo work is nothing like the SA Marvel writing.  So if it wasnt Stan, and it couldnt have been Jack or Steve-WHO WAS IT?

[Prince Namor]

Stan’s own words from the 1966 Herald Tribune article:

“I don’t plot Spider-Man anymore,” Lee told the reporter. “Steve Ditko, the artist, has been doing the stories. I guess I’ll leave him alone until sales start to slip. Since Spidey got so popular, Ditko thinks he’s the genius of the world. We were arguing so much over plotlines I told him to start making up his own stories.”

[Prince Namor]

Stan calling it a ‘plot’ is interesting. They no longer spoke, so Ditko did the whole book, turned it in and Stan spruced up the dialogue. 
 

That’s not writing. That’s editing. 

[kav]

Stan did not 'spruce up' the dialogue WTH-Have you even read ditko's solo work?  It has ZERO resemblance to SA ASM dialogue.  Lee may have stopped plotting spider man towards the end of Ditko's run but that does not mean Ditko then took up the dialogue also-or that Stan never wrote any of the Marvel stuff ever and stole credit the entire time.  

[Prince Namor]

Stan again:

”Some artists, such as Jack Kirby, need no plot at all. I mean I'll just say to Jack, "Let's let the next villain be Dr. Doom" ... or I may not even say that. He may tell me. And then he goes home and does it. He's so good at plots, I'm sure he's a thousand times better than I. He just makes up the plots for these stories. All I do is a little editing ... I may tell him that he's gone too far in one direction or another. Of course, occasionally I'll give him a plot, but we're practically both the writers on the things.”

[kav]

Plots for Jack Kirby and Ditko's own words:

[Prince Namor]

Didn’t I already post these:

Wally Wood 

Wood: I enjoyed working with Stan [Lee] on Daredevil but for one thing. I had to make up the whole story. He was being paid for writing, and I was being paid for drawing, but he didn't have any ideas. I'd go in for a plotting session, and we'd just stare at each other until I came up with a storyline. I felt like I was writing the book but not being paid for writing.

Evanier: You did write one issue, as I recall--

Wood: One yes [Daredevil #10]. I persuaded him to let me write one by myself since I was doing 99% of the writing already. I wrote it, handed it in, and he said it was hopeless. He said he'd have to rewrite it all and write the next issue himself. Well, I said I couldn't contribute to the storyline unless I got paid something for writing, and Stan said he'd look into it, but after that he only had inking for me. Bob Powell was suddenly pencilling Daredevil.[Later on in the interview] ... I saw [Daredevil #10] when it came out, and Stan had changed five words---less than an editor usually changes. I think that was the last straw.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

Dick Ayers is another one whose work Stan signed his name too in the late 50's and this is what HE had to say: 

(with Roy Thomas in Alter-Ego Magazine): “Stan said, ‘I can’t think of a story for Sgt. Fury. We won’t have an issue unless you think of something.”

When Ayers requested a plot credit Stan told him, “Since when did you develop an ego? Get out of here!”

Ayers wrote a wordless story (And not a Word was Spoken) for Two-Gun Kid #61.

Ayers submitted a payment requisition to Stan for the plot feeling he should be paid more for writing the wordless story. Stan and Ayers argued, and Stan agreed to pay Ayers for five pages of lettering.

[kav]

10 minutes ago, kav said:

Plots for Jack Kirby and Ditko's own words:

[dupont2005]

I think it’s obvious Stan did less than he claimed, but I also don’t think he was completely absent from the process. I do think he was just rushing out content off the fly. “Uhh uhh it was a radioactive spider! Call him Spider-Man! Uhh, space radiation! Uhh, radiation from a bomb!” You know he didn’t create Wolverine because he wasn’t bit by a radioactive wolverine 

[Prince Namor]

There’s no question Stan played a part in plotting. That’s what an editor does. But Stan himself says he did not write scripts. 
The ‘Marvel Method’ is all about NOT writing a -script.

There’s a whole web site devoted to what Jack wrote in the margins for the story and what Stan turned it into. (Stan followed a great deal of it - spicing it up - but regularly made changes). 
 

 

[kav]

5 minutes ago, dupont2005 said:

I think it’s obvious Stan did less than he claimed, but I also don’t think he was completely absent from the process. I do think he was just rushing out content off the fly. “Uhh uhh it was a radioactive spider! Call him Spider-Man! Uhh, space radiation! Uhh, radiation from a bomb!” You know he didn’t create Wolverine because he wasn’t bit by a radioactive wolverine 

It's clear he wrote the dialogue and boxes.  We know it couldnt have been Jack and Steve.  Their distinctive writing was NOTHING like the SA Marvel stuff.  It was Stan.
The end.

[kav]

Ditko says he wrote scripts.

[kav]

It's clear the Marvel Method was flexible.  Sometimes Stan wrote a -script.  Sometimes just a plot.  Sometimes jack or steve plotted.  But what is absolutely clear is Jack and Steve could not have written the dialogue.  No way.  They simply dont write that way.

[Prince Namor]

No one’s claiming Kirby and Ditko wrote the dialogue for the story. Both wrote what they WANTED the dialogue to be in the margins, and Lee embellished from there. But by the mid-60’s, both men where doing the majority of writing (according Stan as well) and asked for the appropriate credit. 
 

Stan begrudgingly gave Ditko ‘plotting’ credit, even though at a certain point (around #24) Lee no longer had any input what the story was from month to month because he refused to speak to Ditko. With Kirby he simply called it a Stan Lee/Jack Kirby production. 

Edited April 3, 2021 by Prince Namor

[kav]

Embellished makes it sound like Kirby and Ditko wrote 95% of the words and Stan merely changed it a bit.
Anyone who has read Kamandi or Mr A knows this idea is absurd.

[kav]

All of the SA Marvel books had the exact same punchy sarcastic writing style. To claim Stan wasnt the writer, we have to believe all the SA artists had the same exact writing style.  And that once they stopped working with Stan Lee, they completely changed their style of writing.
Regardless of who said what when, at some point you have to use logic.  Logic says all the books were written by the same guy, and he wasnt just embellishing the various artist's scripts-you cannot embellish Stephen King and make him John Grisham.  

[Prince Namor]

Stan wrote ALL of the words. He just was given a guideline of what most of them were. 
 

You don’t have to like either of their dialogue. New Gods was a great storyline that was cut off early. As a story or a concept - it’s better than anything Lee did previous to the Silver Age or after. If Lee and Kirby had only 11 issues to tell the story of the FF or Lee and Ditko only 4 issues to tell the story of Spider-man, they wouldn’t be what they are today. 

[kav]

Strange how a mere guideline of most of the words from every single marvel artist came out the exact same writing style-