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Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1950's. (1957) Jack Kirby's Marvel Age has already begun!
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Started by Prince Namor,

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS AUGUST OF 1957!

The oddity for the month was this work for St. John, in which Gill and Ditko would do 5 stories. I don't show either of them doing any other work for the company around this time... a second issue would come out two months later (all Dick Ayers) and then the once prosperous publisher would eliminate their comic book line and continue on with just its magazines. 

Do You Believe in Nightmares #1 (St. John)

Story ONE - Joe Gill (writer)

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER OF 1957!

House of Mystery #68 (Ruben Moreira cover)

Here was a surprise in my research - Joe Maneely started doing work for DC around the time of Atlas' implosion, which puts a lot more credibility to the idea that talk shutting the Comics Division down was a real thing... in Interviews, most everyone is adamant that Stan didn't allow moonlighting, but with the implosion he would've had to give in... 

He'd continue doing stories for them until a few months before his death the following year.

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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Mark Evanier actually wrote about this a few years ago on his blog:

https://www.newsfromme.com/2019/06/20/ask-me-65/?fbclid=IwAR3-uRfs6qSCiFH9GmOEAMm0Z2sEAcd9CHEELSHIUMZf71D6KgTX847g_Ns

Joe Maneely was a superb comic book artist who was pretty much the "star" of the line of comics that Martin Goodman published and Stan Lee edited in the late fifties. This was the line that soon morphed into what we now know as the Marvel Comics Group. Maneely was not around to see it morph, however. On June 7, 1958, he stumbled or somehow fell to his death between the cars of a fast-moving commuter train. He was 32 years old. Here's a question about him that Johnny Achziger just sent me…

Here's a purely speculative question I've occasionally pondered over. Joe Maneely was a terrific artist and did a lot of stuff for Stan in the '50's. My question is, if Joe had lived through the '60's how do you think the Marvel Universe would have been different? I can certainly see him doing Thor, maybe something like Agents of SHIELD. Do you think he would have been a superstar like Kirby and Ditko?

Johnny did not originate this question. It's a discussion topic about once a year somewhere on Facebook or some comic forum. I even tackled it before on this blog back in 2007. But I've had some new thoughts about it so here's my new, improved answer, starting with the easy part of it…

The Easy Part of It: I think Maneely would have been a superstar in comics no matter where he worked or what he worked on. He was very good and very versatile.

Beyond that, it gets a bit tougher. At the time of his death, Maneely was drawing for Stan Lee, who loved his work…but Maneely was also beginning to get work from DC. Atlas/Marvel (whatever you want to call Stan's company) was then a very shaky enterprise. No one would have been too surprised if they'd just closed down as so many other companies did around then. Several folks I interviewed who were around then believed Goodman did decide to discontinue his comic book line — several times. He'd decide on Monday to get out and then change his mind on Wednesday.

He also paid low rates. DC paid way better and was on solid ground.

My speculation is that Maneely would have become a full-time freelancer for DC. He had a wife, young daughters and a lot of expenses due to a new house he'd just purchased. I also think he'd have fit in well at DC — way better than either Kirby or Ditko would have. The DC editors and production folks had some pretty firm ideas of how a DC book should look and some of them spent the sixties dismissing what Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko did for Marvel as quite inferior to anything seen in a DC title.

But Maneely drew the way DC liked its artists to draw. I think they would have found more and more work for him and soon, he would not be working for Stan anymore. Why would any man, who presumably wanted to do right by his family, have stuck with a company that paid less and which might be outta business any day? George Klein was doing some inking for Marvel up until the moment when he was able to get steady work inking Superman for DC, whereupon he fled.

So Maneely would not have been around Marvel during the years that Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, The X-Men (etc.) were launched. Later on, when Marvel was not on the verge of closure and was paying about the same as DC, he might have come back as John Romita Sr. and Gene Colan and a few others did. At that point, he might have been assigned to any book in the place. He could have drawn just about any one of them.

If he had for some reason been at Marvel in the early sixties when they started creating super-hero books, I'm sure he'd have been tapped for them. What he would have done is hard to say because I don't know the answer to this question: Was he one of those artists, like Kirby or Ditko, who could not only draw but contribute mightily to the writing? Some very fine comic artists couldn't do that.

If Maneely was really good at coming up with new ideas for stories and characters, and at fleshing out whatever plots and concepts Stan Lee came up with, then "Stan and Joe" might have created some of the early Marvel super-heroes. I've very certain though that he would not have worked on the first issues of the strips we know; he would not have been the co-creator of Fantastic Four or Thor or Spider-Man or any of those.

Why? Because he was not Jack Kirby, nor was he Steve Ditko. I don't believe Stan Lee came up with any of those wholly on his own and then selected an artist from his stable to draw his creations. Even Stan only claimed that some of the time.

If Maneely wasn't great at plotting and new concepts, he still would have had a place at Marvel but one more like Don Heck or Dick Ayers. I'm not talking here about quality of artwork — just his usefulness to Stan as an artist. In writing about those early days, one must keep in mind that Stan had a hard time finding good artists to work for the money that Goodman paid. He certainly wouldn't have not kept a guy who drew as well as Maneely around.

So that's my speculation. If you have your own, fine. No one can ever prove us right or wrong except, of course, that yours is wrong and mine is right. Or vice-versa.

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BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

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On 7/27/2022 at 10:33 AM, sfcityduck said:

First, thanks for posting that Alter Ego article. Great stuff I'd never seen before!

Second, why is it strange that Stan was making an effort to get into newspaper strips if he was burned out on comics? The newspaper strips were always viewed as more lucrative and less work. Foster, Raymond, Caniff were all famous cartoonists being written up national magazines and living very nice lifestyles. In this same time period, Kirby made his own foray into the strip world with Sky Master of the Space Force. It's a very logical move for a guy who was burned out on the comic book grind to want to move to the more relaxed world of a daily and/or Sunday strip. To me, Stan trying so desperately to get out of comic books is entirely consistent with him being burned out on comic book work.

Virtually every person who worked in comics dreamed of being able to do newspaper strips instead.  Not just Stan but Siegel and Shuster and Romita come to mind.  In their day, working in comics was what you did when you couldn't get work on newspaper strips.  It was like working in radio and wanting to work in the movies. 

The poster should know this even more than I do, since he's clearly delved into great details reading bios, etc.  I just know it from the few articles I've read over the years and some personal conversations with people who worked in comics in the 40s-60s.  

It feels like this guy has such a hard-on for Kirby and agin' Lee that he contort any natural predilection and turn it into a glowing virtue or a glaring fault, depending on which person it's affixed to. 

 

 

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shadroch

shadroch

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If I recall correctly, there was a large lag time to get paid on the strips.  With comics, you got paid monthly but the comic syndicates paid quarterly and it took time for those payments to begin. Comic strips were much more lucrative but could be a problem for cash flow challenged artists. 

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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On 7/28/2022 at 6:44 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

Virtually every person who worked in comics dreamed of being able to do newspaper strips instead.  Not just Stan but Siegel and Shuster and Romita come to mind.  In their day, working in comics was what you did when you couldn't get work on newspaper strips.  It was like working in radio and wanting to work in the movies. 

The poster should know this even more than I do, since he's clearly delved into great details reading bios, etc.  I just know it from the few articles I've read over the years and some personal conversations with people who worked in comics in the 40s-60s. 

In all the things I’ve read and all the creators I’ve talked to, not once did I ever hear or read of anyone who said that they would ‘prefer’ to do newspaper strips ‘instead’ of comics. 
 

Of the people I follow and read about… all of them seem to prefer the long form flexibility of comic books. Of the ones who brought it up, they saw it as a great ‘added’ source of income - something that if they got it picked up and syndicated and established - could give them the options to pick and choose their comic book work more selectively. 

On 7/28/2022 at 6:44 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

It feels like this guy has such a hard-on for Kirby and agin' Lee that he contort any natural predilection and turn it into a glowing virtue or a glaring fault, depending on which person it's affixed to. 

There’s some history here that goes far beyond your Fall of 2021 join date. I’ve started threads, posting historical artifacts with no commentary and if it doesn’t jibe with Stan Lee’s common story - I get attacked. 
If I post something WITH commentary, I get attacked. 
So I pretty much say whatever the hell I want and I could care less what you or anyone else thinks about it. 
 

In this instance I questioned something and sfcityduck responded with what seemed reasonable. I didn’t see a need to take it further. Whatever. 

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Ken Aldred

Ken Aldred

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On 7/28/2022 at 11:28 PM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER OF 1957!

House of Mystery #68 (Ruben Moreira cover)

Here was a surprise in my research - Joe Maneely started doing work for DC around the time of Atlas' implosion, which puts a lot more credibility to the idea that talk shutting the Comics Division down was a real thing... in Interviews, most everyone is adamant that Stan didn't allow moonlighting, but with the implosion he would've had to give in... 

He'd continue doing stories for them until a few months before his death the following year.

Ruben Moreira cover.jpg

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Interesting. He’s adapted his art to appear more like DC’s house style, quite different to the much harder, grittier style he used at Atlas.   If he’d have maintained that at Marvel in the 60s, difficult to see where he’d have fit in well, maybe Sgt Fury. But, he was adaptable, and you can see him going from that DC style to something similar to Romita, and being fine with super-hero material.
 

Having only seen his Atlas work I’d assumed he was a bit inflexible, though clearly I was wrong.

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER OF 1957!

Jack Kirby did 4 stories in (Harvey Comics) Alarming Tales #2 (Joe Simon cover) 

Story ONE - Jack Kirby story, pencils and inks

For those who question Jack's writing, the stories he did for both Alarming Tales show exactly how good he was at doing his own writing and dialogue. These first two issues are two of my favorite Jack Kirby pre-hero works. 

 

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER OF 1957!

Jack Kirby did 5 stories in (Harvey Comics) Black Cat Mystic #60 (Joe Simon cover) 

Story FOUR - Jack Kirby story, pencils and inks - The power of the ANT... Kirby incorporating super powers into the lives of ordinary people who do not look super heroic...

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