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Stan Lee quotes from SCARP Con 1968
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42 posts in this topic

On 6/22/2022 at 5:32 AM, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

The participants are knowledgeable, and their frank exchange of views are illuminating 

congratulations to everyone on this thread. Threads should all be like this

this

unfortunately most threads descend into some madness because people want to participate in every thread even when they have nothing to contribute.

threads like this for me are a read, not another reason for me to increase my post count

 

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On 6/22/2022 at 1:00 AM, Prince Namor said:

They were two of the biggest selling creators of the entire Golden Age. They were the first two to be listed on the front cover of a comic to promote it. To say Kirby's 'legend' in the GA is overblown shows that you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. 

Stan Lee never had a hit in the Golden Age. It's as simple as that. 

Jack Kirby had multiple million copy selling books in the Golden Age, including titles that sold that way for years. 

If comic books had ended in 1960, Jack Kirby would be in the Comic Book Hall of Fame. Stan Lee wouldn't. 

He wasn't much of anyone until Kirby and Ditko changed his fortunes. 

I do. Stan wrote snappy dialogue and was a great promoter. 

The greatest character Stan ever created was himself. 

Joe Simon was a great promoter.  That is why he was the senior partner.  The legend of Kirby benefitted from his association with two great promoters.  S&K did ten issues of CA, a Joe Simon creation that was a blatant Shield imitation. The book thrived after they left.  The book sold, but many did in the GA. You need some perspective. The biggest selling superhero comics were probably Fawcett.  Many comics have claimed million seller status, including Disney and Dennis the Menace

The most successful property was probably Superman - a star of radio, live action film, newspaper strips, animated cartoons, books, and many licensed products. Certainly S&K’s creations at DC were not in that company’s top echelons.

If Kirby had died in 1959 no one would believe Stan’s “Jack King Kirby” hype. 

I agree that, like Joe Simon, Stan was a great promoter and master of dialogue.  Those are the two essential traits of a comic editor and writer and they are what made Marvel different in the 60s.  Stan”s creation of the “Stan Lee” and “King Kirby” hype in the 60s was brilliant (albeit EC paved the way with that type of fan interaction).  Stan’s quotes are some of the greatest in comic history.  The 60s was both Stan and Jack’s heyday. Both of them in the GA are mainly notable for their work rate - which was astounding in quantity. 

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On 6/21/2022 at 6:12 PM, Prince Namor said:

Jack Kirby with Joe Simon created Captain America, a comic book that sold in the Millions. A Huge Hit.

Jack Kirby with Joe Simon created the Boy Commandos for DC Comics, another comic book that sold in the Millions. A Huge Hit.

Jack Kirby with Joe Simon created the Newsboy Legion for DC Comics, another comic book that sold in the Millions. A Huge Hit.

Jack Kirby with Joe Simon created Young Romance, bringing the romance genre to comics. Along with its companion Young Love, those comics sold in the Millions for EIGHT YEARS. A huge Hit. 

During this time, Stan Lee had no hits.

Once Joe Simon stopped working with Jack, he never again had a hit.

Jack Kirby with Stan Lee had huge success during the Silver Age of Comics. 

Once Jack left Marvel, Stan never again achieved the type of success he did during the Silver Age. 

(Unless you count, strong-arming Marvel for a million dollar a year salary to be the 'face' of the company and not actual create anything.)

Jack Kirby without Joe Simon or Stan Lee, created a whole Universe of new characters. His Fourth World stories have been reprinted as a collection at the same pace as any of his Silver Age work. It gets reprinted again, and again, and again...

 in  Jack Kirby's New Gods (DC, 1998 series) ([February] 1998) [new colored background on cover], ([February] 1998) [gray tone only]

 in  Millennium Edition: New Gods 1 (DC, 2000 series) (June 2000)

 in  Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus (DC, 2007 series) #1 ([August] 2007)

 in  Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus (DC, 2011 series) #1 ([November] 2011)

 in  DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection (Eaglemoss Publications, 2015 series) #84 - New Gods 1 ([September 2016]), #84 - New Gods 1([September 2016])

 in  The Fourth World Omnibus by Jack Kirby (DC, 2017 series) (2017 [February 2018])

 in  New Gods by Jack Kirby (DC, 2018 series) ([October] 2018)

 in Absolute Fourth World by Jack Kirby Vol. 1 Hardcover – June 30, 2020

 in Fourth World by Jack Kirby Omnibus (New Printing) Hardcover – September 14, 2021

At a time when very few series' for DC OR Marvel made it past just a few issues, Kirby's New Gods went 19, Mister Miracle 25, and Kamandi for 58. 

His Fourth World characters were absorbed into the DC Universe, leading to movie appearances, TV appearances and animation projects. 

He has been successful wherever he worked in comics. 

Brother Power, the Geek, not so much. 

 

Stan Lee had snappy dialogue. Jack Kirby had Fantastic Worlds of Creative Ideas. With everyone he ever worked with. 

To say that Joe Simon never had a hit without Jack Kirby is plain wrong. The problem is nobody studies Joe Simon and his career and assumes that he didn’t have anything else. Can’t know about someone’s achievements if nobody studies them. Sick magazine was a huge hit back then, being Mad Magazines biggest competitor, created by Joe and drawing the talented of Joe himself, Bob Powell, Jack Davis, Angelo Torres among others. Joe unlike Jack,’left comic books and created a hit outside of the stuff they were familiar with.
 

someone else mentioned that Jack was the junior partner in the golden age. During Simon and Kirby, Joe was the bigger name in comics. He hired Jack to work for him on Blue Bolt. Joe was the more dominant figure during this time. And they worked so well together, splitting everything 50/50 and lasting almost two decades together. Soemthing Jack would never experience again with another collaborator. 


they both needed each other, apart, Jack never sold better than when he was with Joe. And without Jack, doing comics just wasn’t the same for Joe. Joe lost a lot of the passion following mainlines split. They were never as sucessful apart compared to together. But to say Jack didn’t need Joe, well that’s just not true. Even Jack’s son said Jack owed a lot to Joe. 

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On 6/22/2022 at 9:08 AM, sfcityduck said:

Stan’s quotes are some of the greatest in comic history.  The 60s was both Stan and Jack’s heyday. Both of them in the GA are mainly notable for their work rate - which was astounding in quantity. 

Stan’s quotes truly elevated the medium, I agree totally 

09CEE303-406D-49CA-BE18-C5D150F0859B.jpeg

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On 6/22/2022 at 6:04 AM, jsilverjanet said:

this

unfortunately most threads descend into some madness because people want to participate in every thread even when they have nothing to contribute.

threads like this for me are a read, not another reason for me to increase my post count

 

Hear, hear...

(oops)

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On 6/22/2022 at 12:39 PM, Prince Namor said:

LOL.... 'With Great Power there must also come -- great responsibility!' isn't Stan's. He didn't come up with that.

 

First quoted by the French Philosopher Volatire pre-1778 (finally copyrighted in 1829), he used the exact phrase "with great power comes great responsibility".

From Wikipedia:

....this phrase is borrowed from the works of Voltaire, Volume 48 which was written before the French philosopher's passing in 1778. Complicating the matter, all the works of Voltaire, 54 volumes were not copyrighted until 1829 (first known copyright of his manuscripts).

In 1817, British Member of Parliament William Lamb, also known as Lord Melbourne, is recorded saying, "the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility."

In 1899, U.S. President William McKinley used the following in his State of the Union address: "Presented to this Congress are great opportunities. With them come great responsibilities."

In 1906, Winston Churchill, as Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office, said: "Where there is great power there is great responsibility," even indicating that it was already a cultural maxim invoked toward government at the time. In 1943, now as Prime Minister, Churchill evoked the proverb once again, though less exactly: "The price of greatness is responsibility."

Though not the exact phrase, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a 1908 letter that "responsibility should go with power."

 

But make no mistake, Volatire used the exact phrase "with great power comes great responsibility", almost 200 years before Stan decided to swipe that too. 

 

This is a perfect example of how Stan's 'fantasy history' can be repeated over and over and over again, until fans start to believe it's some kind of reality. There are numerous articles written online that attribute this phrase to him. So much for researching the truth.

:tonofbricks:

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On 6/22/2022 at 11:59 AM, Simon Comics said:

To say that Joe Simon never had a hit without Jack Kirby is plain wrong. The problem is nobody studies Joe Simon and his career and assumes that he didn’t have anything else. Can’t know about someone’s achievements if nobody studies them. Sick magazine was a huge hit back then, being Mad Magazines biggest competitor, created by Joe and drawing the talented of Joe himself, Bob Powell, Jack Davis, Angelo Torres among others. Joe unlike Jack,’left comic books and created a hit outside of the stuff they were familiar with.

Yes, Joe Simon had a hit outside of comics, with SICK Magazine. Or was it a hit?

per John Jackson Miller at Comichron.com:

"An on-ramp to the counterculture for younger readers, the title (MAD) became a staple of Baby Boomer life in the 1960s; it topped 100,000 subscribers in 1969, a number never seen for any other comics periodical. The title reached its peak circulation in 1974, the culminating year for Watergate, with average sales per issue of 2,132,655 copies.... Mad’s imitators were many over the years, three of which — Cracked, Crazy, Sick — ran postal circulation statements, but none was in Mad‘s league when it came to sales."

So maybe not. It did last through the decade. But he never again had a comic book hit. Kirby did. Many. 

On 6/22/2022 at 11:59 AM, Simon Comics said:

someone else mentioned that Jack was the junior partner in the golden age. During Simon and Kirby, Joe was the bigger name in comics. He hired Jack to work for him on Blue Bolt. Joe was the more dominant figure during this time. And they worked so well together, splitting everything 50/50 and lasting almost two decades together. Soemthing Jack would never experience again with another collaborator. 

I'm not sure what a 'bigger name in comics' was in 1940... I doubt the average reader or artist was familiar with either of them unless they worked for them. But ALL of the artists of the Golden Age talk glowingly about KIRBY's work... they recognized that it was Jack Kirby who changed the look of action in comic books and storytelling in comic books. 

That's just fact, repeated over and over and over again by ARTISTS who worked in the business at the time. 

On 6/22/2022 at 11:59 AM, Simon Comics said:

they both needed each other, apart, Jack never sold better than when he was with Joe. And without Jack, doing comics just wasn’t the same for Joe. Joe lost a lot of the passion following mainlines split. They were never as sucessful apart compared to together.

That's not true. As far as sales numbers, no, no one was selling a million copies after the Comics Code came in. It took 3 decades for that to change. But Jack WAS successful. How do you not consider the Silver Age successful? How do you not consider the Fourth World successful? How many Omnibus collections of New Gods are there vs Prez?

On 6/22/2022 at 11:59 AM, Simon Comics said:

But to say Jack didn’t need Joe, well that’s just not true. Even Jack’s son said Jack owed a lot to Joe. 

First of all, I didn't say that. But I will now. Jack didn't need Joe. He went on to create a huge body of work that's still collected and read today. Some would say his most popular work. 

And speaking of Simon, I find it rather curious how little Joe seemed to think of Jack in his autobiography. For someone he worked with for two decades and created some of the biggest selling books of the Golden Age with, he gives him to no more consideration than anyone else he worked with throughout those years. It's very strange...

 

When Joe and Jack split, they would go on to do what they did best:

Jack made great comics. Joe published.

When Stan and Jack split, they would go on to do what they did best:

Jack made great comics. Stan promoted himself.

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On 6/15/2022 at 9:47 AM, Prince Namor said:

Someone posted this on Facebook, and I had never seen it... this Stan talking pretty openly on things he'd later contradict himself on, because it occurs a) when Kirby is still at Marvel and b) before Goodman was talking about selling Marvel.

Some specific highlights:

“Stan went on to tell how various types of magazines had their day. Such as westerns, super hero books, horror and the E.C. line. He speculated that the reason E.C. died was because, in their quest for realism, they perhaps injected some sex and possibly a little too much violence into their books. Plus Dr. Wertham came along and we all know what happened then. He started a crusade and brought about the end of what Stan referred to as his “First Golden Age”.

It's strange that Stan would frame this as he did, that EC essentially went away because of 'some sex and possibly a little too much violence into their books', and acting like Wertham was an 'oh by the way' in the process. For those that don't know, EC's William Gaines was the only publisher who straight out stood up to the scrutiny of Wertham and the Senate in those hearings. It scared the publishers, who feared the government might do something, and they ganged up (including Stan's relative by law boss Martin Goodman) to put EC out of business with the Comics Code that specifically went after their books.

EC was one of the biggest selling publishers in the business, but would be OUT of the comic business in a year. In a fitting twist ending, not unlike an EC Comic Story (with less gore), Gaines Mad Magazine would dwarf any individual comic book in sales for the next 30 years. 

Stan Lee, up until 1954 was defiant in the comics himself, writing a few editorials and even writing a couple of mock stories about censorship and Wertham types. But as the fires grew, Stan backed down and watched as DC, Marvel, and Archie bullied the biggest publisher of all right out of the business. He knew exactly how it happened. 

 

 

 

Sarcasm.   I can imagine the inflection in Stan's voice as he said that.

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On 6/21/2022 at 12:48 PM, sfcityduck said:

The focus on Kirby and Lee is a bit myopic when it comes to Marvel.  The ONLY reason the FF were created is because Goodman wanted a superhero team book like the JLA.  Stan and Jack undoubtedly had to scramble. So in true Timely/Atlas/Marvel trend-following fashion, the FF featured the return of one of Timely's Big Three, the Human Torch, in a new incarnation (just like DC had done years earlier with JLA stalwart the Flash).  Reed Richards was an imitation of Plastic Man.  The Invisible Girl was basically the Invisible Scarlett O'Neil. And the Thing could have come out of any Atlas/Marvel Monster Book. And, yes, the FF origin was a partial retread of issue three of DC's Challengers on which Kirby had worked (but not as the writer). A few issues in we got another Timely revival in Subby. Overall, the origin, powers of the characters, and general plotlines in FF were not profound or innovative at all.

What was innovative, was the everyday stuff - the way the FF thought, talked, and interacted. That was not typical super-hero at all. And that was, at the very least, a collaboration between Lee & Kirby. It was a joint effort that showed a lot of influence of their respective time on non-superhero books. The folks above denigrating Stan (or Jack) for working on those non-superhero books are completely missing that Marvel in the 60s was basically putting out books featuring costumed superhero characters that followed a mash-up of the conventions of romance/teen humor/gag/war/monster comics. That was the innovation of Marvel. When DC was still doing straight up superhero books, Marvel was blending genres and utilizing a writing style not then in the marketplace. Marvel also marketed to fans with a level of hype and engagement that was not then in the marketplace (but maybe harkened back to tactics previously used by publishers in the GA and by EC). 

Most every major Marvel character was a re-tread or ripoff of prior superheroes. Marvel's gift in the 60s was that they just did them better.

I just find the Kirby v. Lee debate a bit boring.  They both had their roles. Did either do anything great without the other or an equivalent collaborator?  My answer is pretty much "No."  Stan couldn't draw and Jack was a not a great writer. But together they were like peanut butter and jelly in the 60s.

  

 

^^^^^^

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Just heard back from John Jackson Miller... he hasn't completed his work on Sick's publication numbers yet (this guy is amazing), but here's what he did tell me (Remember, this was at a time when MAD was on an upswing going from 1.5 MILLION in 1965 to over 2 Million in 1974):

"Cracked peaks in 1966 at 266,000 copies before collapsing for years. It really picked up steam again in the 1970s as the Mad alternative, peaking at 474,000 copies in 1977 — and then it’s just a long drain from there. I plan to post the finalized Cracked data soon."

 

"Sick, meanwhile, is messier. They’d been doing around 150k in the mid-1960s when the title moved to Hewfred — at which point they get the statements completely wrong, listing the print run as the sales number. This was in violation of postal statute. I expect the real numbers in that stretch are closer to 100k, because when they go to Charlton in the late 1970s, we get normal reports again, going from 85k in 1976 to 50k in 1979, at the end."

 "So as a very rough estimate, you can kind of say that Cracked usually outsold Sick 2 to 1, and that both were a fraction of MAD."

 

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On 6/22/2022 at 11:01 AM, Prince Namor said:

 

First of all, I didn't say that. But I will now. Jack didn't need Joe. He went on to create a huge body of work that's still collected and read today. Some would say his most popular work. 

And speaking of Simon, I find it rather curious how little Joe seemed to think of Jack in his autobiography. For someone he worked with for two decades and created some of the biggest selling books of the Golden Age with, he gives him to no more consideration than anyone else he worked with throughout those years. It's very strange...

 

 

I'm not impressed with the OP's tone towards Joe's grandkid, but hey he gets to be him.

My only correction of Simon Comics is that Kirby agreed to Simon getting a bigger cut of S&K's share of the CA royalties than that Jack was to receive. That's according to Joe. Makes sense given the facts. I also believe that Joe continued to get more than Jack's share for a while during their partnership, but I don't have the source on that handy.

 

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On 6/22/2022 at 11:01 AM, Prince Namor said:

 

per John Jackson Miller at Comichron.com:

"An on-ramp to the counterculture for younger readers, the title (MAD) became a staple of Baby Boomer life in the 1960s; it topped 100,000 subscribers in 1969, a number never seen for any other comics periodical. The title reached its peak circulation in 1974, the culminating year for Watergate, with average sales per issue of 2,132,655 copies.... Mad’s imitators were many over the years, three of which — Cracked, Crazy, Sick — ran postal circulation statements, but none was in Mad‘s league when it came to sales."

Jack made great comics. Stan promoted himself.

Found this Stan Lee pic from Toronto, ON, Canada December 1968 Marvel Index.

20230423_162738.jpg

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On 6/22/2022 at 1:39 PM, Prince Namor said:

LOL.... 'With Great Power there must also come -- great responsibility!' isn't Stan's. He didn't come up with that.

 

First quoted by the French Philosopher Volatire pre-1778 (finally copyrighted in 1829), he used the exact phrase "with great power comes great responsibility".

From Wikipedia:

....this phrase is borrowed from the works of Voltaire, Volume 48 which was written before the French philosopher's passing in 1778. Complicating the matter, all the works of Voltaire, 54 volumes were not copyrighted until 1829 (first known copyright of his manuscripts).

In 1817, British Member of Parliament William Lamb, also known as Lord Melbourne, is recorded saying, "the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility."

In 1899, U.S. President William McKinley used the following in his State of the Union address: "Presented to this Congress are great opportunities. With them come great responsibilities."

In 1906, Winston Churchill, as Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office, said: "Where there is great power there is great responsibility," even indicating that it was already a cultural maxim invoked toward government at the time. In 1943, now as Prime Minister, Churchill evoked the proverb once again, though less exactly: "The price of greatness is responsibility."

Though not the exact phrase, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a 1908 letter that "responsibility should go with power."

 

But make no mistake, Volatire used the exact phrase "with great power comes great responsibility", almost 200 years before Stan decided to swipe that too. 

 

This is a perfect example of how Stan's 'fantasy history' can be repeated over and over and over again, until fans start to believe it's some kind of reality. There are numerous articles written online that attribute this phrase to him. So much for researching the truth.

great work btw @Prince Namor- great work as *always*.


Something I never see get mentioned is this dialogue from the 1948 SUPERMAN serial:

"Because of these great powers- your strength and x-ray vision- you have a great responsibility"

I believe it's hard to reconcile for people how much actual evidence exists that shows Stan was not the idea or concept creator. He put a great finishing sheen over Kirby's ideas- there's nothing shameful about that! And Stan's voice to the fans in the Bullpen Bulletins, etc. are a huge component of what made Marvel so special to people in the Sixties, clearly. But there's more evidence for Kirby as the generator and there's basically none for Stan. But people desperately need this image of Stan as the Geek Godfather of their lives, it's pathological. I've spent years going through Stan's papers and every interview he ever gave and his disinterest in comics and reading them is tangible. 

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On 7/20/2022 at 12:09 PM, sfcityduck said:

I'm not impressed with the OP's tone towards Joe's grandkid, but hey he gets to be him.

My only correction of Simon Comics is that Kirby agreed to Simon getting a bigger cut of S&K's share of the CA royalties than that Jack was to receive. That's according to Joe. Makes sense given the facts. I also believe that Joe continued to get more than Jack's share for a while during their partnership, but I don't have the source on that handy.

 

I'm curious why Joe's grandkid needs to sign Simon prints at conventions. Honestly, just curious- not saying he shouldn't, but it's kind of weird in my opinion. I'd say the same thing about Kirby's Grandkid. 

"If Kirby had died in 1959 no one would believe Stan’s “Jack King Kirby” hype."

- Well, if Kirby had died in 1959... where would Stan have been that he would have been listened to or heard to give this hype?! Without Kirby, you don't have the Marvel Age. I mean, you wouldn't without Stan or Goodman either, but saying that Kirby dies prematurely and then Stan would be the same figure to have had his words carry weight isn't realistic. 

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On 4/23/2023 at 10:31 PM, lordbyroncomics said:



- Well, if Kirby had died in 1959... where would Stan have been that he would have been listened to or heard to give this hype?! Without Kirby, you don't have the Marvel Age. I mean, you wouldn't without Stan or Goodman either, but saying that Kirby dies prematurely and then Stan would be the same figure to have had his words carry weight isn't realistic. 

My only point is that Kirby was not King of the GA. Other guys had better resumes.  Kirby took it up several notches in the SA.  

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