Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's. (1960) Showing Signs of Life! 2 2

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Jack Kirby also does the cover (inked by Steve Ditko) and writes and pencils the lead story in Journey Into Mystery #60 (inked by D. Ayers). 

Story ONE:

Edited October 15, 2022 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Kirby does a second story (inked by Steve Ditko) and it also has some history... 

Story TWO:

[Prince Namor]

Carl Burgos did almost the same story in Tales of Suspense #4, except it was picked up by radio instead of TV. Did Stan, in need of a quick filler story for Journey Into Mystery, instruct Jack to retell that story? It was barely a year old!

[Zonker]

On 10/15/2022 at 12:52 PM, Prince Namor said:

Carl Burgos did almost the same story in Tales of Suspense #4, except it was picked up by radio instead of TV. Did Stan, in need of a quick filler story for Journey Into Mystery, instruct Jack to retell that story? It was barely a year old!

 

By this point, had they already used up all the inventory scripts leftover from the Atlas Implosion?  Because if not, I can easily see how the same old -script could have been "inadvertently" sent to different artists to implement in slightly different ways.

And I put "inadvertently" in quotes, because wouldn't that actually have been quite an attractive business model for Goodman & co?  They had purchased the scripts, and back then the publisher was understood to unquestionably own the purchased work, and could then reprint it as many times as they wanted, or send it directly to the incinerator, or whatever.  It would seem to be a profitable strategy to farm out the same -script multiple times to multiple artists, encouraging them to mix it up as they saw fit, and so end up with several stories out of the same -script.  

[Prince Namor]

On 10/15/2022 at 1:48 PM, Zonker said:

By this point, had they already used up all the inventory scripts leftover from the Atlas Implosion?  Because if not, I can easily see how the same old --script could have been "inadvertently" sent to different artists to implement in slightly different ways.

And I put "inadvertently" in quotes, because wouldn't that actually have been quite an attractive business model for Goodman & co?  They had purchased the scripts, and back then the publisher was understood to unquestionably own the purchased work, and could then reprint it as many times as they wanted, or send it directly to the incinerator, or whatever.  It would seem to be a profitable strategy to farm out the same --script multiple times to multiple artists, encouraging them to mix it up as they saw fit, and so end up with several stories out of the same --script.  

Yes, it was an attractive business model for Goodman. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Jack Kirby also does the cover, writes and pencils the lead 7 page story in Strange Tales #77 (inked by D. Ayers). 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Jack Kirby also does the cover, writes and pencils the lead 7 page story in Tales to Astonish #12 (the cover is inked by D. Ayers, the story is inked by Steve Ditko). 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Besides his inking jobs, Steve Ditko did 3 stories for Marvel in May. From Journey Into Mystery #60. 

Ditko inks the cover and Kirby's second story as well.

THIS 5 page story, he pencils and inks. Writer unknown. NOT written by Stan Lee. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Steve Ditko pencils and inks a story for Strange Tales #77. 

Writer unknown. NOT written by Stan Lee. 

Khan, a master of the mystical arts himself, would appear again in Marvel Premiere #24 (September 1975), in an Iron Fist story.

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Steve Ditko pencils and inks a story for Tales to Astonish #12. 

Writer unknown. NOT written by Stan Lee. 

Ditko also inks Kirby's story in this issue. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Steve Ditko pencils and inks a story for Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #19. 

Writen by Joe Gill.

The cover again is a partial, made up of panels from the interior stories.  

Edited October 16, 2022 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

Steve Ditko pencils and inks a story for Strange Suspense Stories #48. 

Writen by Joe Gill. Maybe the concept of Electro from Spider-man came from this...

The cover again is a partial, made up of panels from the interior stories.  

Edited October 16, 2022 by Prince Namor

[Zonker]

So at this point Stan is signing the Westerns that have Kirby and Ayers sigs, but not bothering to sign the monster stories by Kirby and Ayers?  Is the theory that this is being done primarily for Goodman's eyes, and Goodman is more likely to pay attention to the Westerns than the other books?

[PopKulture]

On 10/16/2022 at 10:12 AM, Prince Namor said:.

That is one stupendous splash!!  

[Prince Namor]

On 10/16/2022 at 12:02 PM, Zonker said:

So at this point Stan is signing the Westerns that have Kirby and Ayers sigs, but not bothering to sign the monster stories by Kirby and Ayers?  Is the theory that this is being done primarily for Goodman's eyes, and Goodman is more likely to pay attention to the Westerns than the other books?

He absolutely did not write those monster stories. Stan signed everything he could claim to have worked on. He even signed color pages and paper doll pages. He didn't sign those monster stories  he didn't write them. And Larry his brother didn't -script them either.  I address that here: 

 

 

When Kirby came back to Marvel, Stan was happy to have someone do the work he didn't have to do.* He wasn't interested in those books and hadn't been in years. As their popularity grew, he had to take notice. HE wasn't keeping Marvel afloat. THOSE books were. 

So when Goodman suggested that Kirby should do some Western work, to improve sales there as well, Stan realized he needed to hitch his cart to that wagon. Maybe it was Stan. Maybe it was Goodman directing Stan. But family wasn't going to allow someone ELSE to be the savior of that company. 

 

 

* One of the big misconceptions about Stan, that he gladly played in to, was that he wrote and edited all the books from the 50's before the implosion. Not even close. He wrote pretty much what he was writing now - the dumb blonde books and even LESS of the Western books - back then he was just doing the 'filler' stories that were generic and didn't include the main character.

He also didn't edit all the books. That was done by whoever was overseeing that genre - Don Rico for the Jungle and Horror, Al Jaffee doing the humor and teen comics, Al Sulman doing most of the rest - Stan oversaw it all as Goodman's inside guy. Marvel employed numerous writers - many that we know of - Hank Chapman, Ernie Hart, Paul S. Newman, Carl Wessler, Al Jaffee, Don Rico - and some we may never know... (see below)

 

From Michael J. Vassallo: 

From the December, 1956 issue of WRITER'S DIGEST, at the very height of its massive amount of titles, (specifically post-code horror/fantasy titles), and 4 months before the devastating Atlas implosion, further proof that many other folks were writing these stories (not Stan Lee), names probably well beyond Carl Wessler, Paul S. Newman, Don Rico, et al, names we may never know....

WRITER'S DIGEST : (Dec/56)

"Timely Comics, Inc., 655 Madison Avenue, New York City 21, is second only to Dell in the comics field. It has 16 different fantasy-mystery titles at the present time, for which it needs material."

"The title of each magazine indicates the kind of material wanted for it, and here's the list: Adventure Into Mystery, Astonishing, Marvel Tales, Mystic, Strange Tales, Uncanny Tales, Unknown Worlds, World of Mystery, World of Suspense, Journey Into Mystery, Mystery Tales, Mystical Tales, Spellbound, Strange Stories of Suspense, Strange Tales of the Unusual, World of Fantasy."

"Alan Sulman is the --script Editor here. He requests that you do not send in completed scripts, or even synopses. Please write to him, setting forth your qualifications and ideas, and he will suggest how you should proceed. If you're in the New York area, it might be a good idea to telephone him at Templeton 8-7900."

"Payment is in line with rates paid by other companies in the comics magazine field, and is made on acceptance."

 

[Zonker]

Ok, he didn't write the monster stories and so didn't sign them. 

But I thought the claim was he started signing his name to Kirby's Westerns with Rawhide Kid #17.  I'm trying to understand if you believe he had something to do with the writing of those Westerns (maybe just tweaking Kirby's dialogue). Or instead, if you believe those 1960 Westerns are all Kirby, with Stan just signing his name to them because Westerns were thought to be more prestigious than the monster books.  I'm still not clear why Stan would claim credit for writing Kirby's Westerns but not claim credit for Kirby's monster books?  Unless in Stan's mind he contributed more to the Westerns than to the others. 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/16/2022 at 8:19 PM, Zonker said:

Ok, he didn't write the monster stories and so didn't sign them. 

But I thought the claim was he started signing his name to Kirby's Westerns with Rawhide Kid #17.  I'm trying to understand if you believe he had something to do with the writing of those Westerns (maybe just tweaking Kirby's dialogue). Or instead, if you believe those 1960 Westerns are all Kirby, with Stan just signing his name to them because Westerns were thought to be more prestigious than the monster books.  I'm still not clear why Stan would claim credit for writing Kirby's Westerns but not claim credit for Kirby's monster books?  Unless in Stan's mind he contributed more to the Westerns than to the others. 

Even though Kirby was only 5 years older than Stan, it's important to understand the history between the two.

Jack Kirby did his first big assignment with Marvel on Red Raven #1, doing the cover, the 17 page origin story (Martin Bursten story, Louis Cazeneuve inks), an 8 page Mercury story (Bursten signed story, Kirby inks himself) and a 7 page Comet Pierce story (unknown writer - Kirby again inks himself). The cover is from Joe Simon's layout, swiped from a Hal Foster Prince Valiant strip). Jack had already worked with Simon on a couple of Blue Bolt stories for Novelty and been getting work for the last three years.

When Stan Lee came along a few months later, all of 17 years old, and playing gopher for Joe and Jack, they each had an idea of who the other was based upon that short time together (Actually they worked together for at least a year) - the already seasoned pro doing almost full comics and the boss' relative by law and actual relative to the menacing pain in the azz Uncle Robbie Solomon. 

Over the next 20 years, Kirby's success was astounding. With Joe Simon he had a million seller with Captain America, right there under Stan's nose. They went to DC and had a million selling hit with Boy Commandos and another with the Newsboy Legion. After WW2, they had a million selling hit with their Young Romance and Young Love for almost 10 YEARS. They started their own comic line - something very few independently ever tried - and when the post-Code decline made that undoable - Jack went back to DC and had a hit with Challengers of the Unknown, while working on a daily newspaper strip. He was already considered a special talent in his field. 

Stan on the other hand wasn't seen as 'leading' Marvel... he wasn't the writer of much of their material, and really the stories coming out of there about him were anything but flattering.... the Golden Age creators I hear that DO speak of Stan positively (and there are plenty that liked him)... never talk about him in terms of 'talent'. He didn't ever have a hit in all that time. Marvel was known as a copy cat publisher. Stan was an Editor in Chief through nepotism who worked for a copycat publisher.

So when Jack came back to Marvel, he spoke to Goodman. He told Goodman he'd put some book together that would sell. 

He had reason to believe him, based on his track record. What did Stan have?

No way, Stan would've demanded to be the writer for Jack Kirby at that point. 

But now... Stan saw it as a threat to his standing - or a threat to his pay - or Goodman saw it as a threat to a publisher's control over talent... either way it was going to have to change. 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/16/2022 at 8:19 PM, Zonker said:

But I thought the claim was he started signing his name to Kirby's Westerns with Rawhide Kid #17.  I'm trying to understand if you believe he had something to do with the writing of those Westerns (maybe just tweaking Kirby's dialogue). Or instead, if you believe those 1960 Westerns are all Kirby, with Stan just signing his name to them because Westerns were thought to be more prestigious than the monster books.  I'm still not clear why Stan would claim credit for writing Kirby's Westerns but not claim credit for Kirby's monster books?  Unless in Stan's mind he contributed more to the Westerns than to the others. 

Specifically to this - I believe the way he probably wormed his way in, was he asked Jack if he could do a story for a couple of Westerns, possibly telling him no artist was available - giving him a rough outline of what the story was supposed to have been and Kirby took it from there. Those stories were not done from scripts - we can see Kirby's handwriting in the balloons from the original art. 

Stan then signed his name to the competed work - he DID give the initial idea - so he signed it - as I said, near a caption box at first - and then a little more out in the open - and then finally 'by' next to his name when he felt bold enough. Since Jack rarely read the completed work, it's doubtful he even knew until someone told him. 

Many people feel that Stan had to go through Goodman to get anything approved - mainly due to what Ditko wrote about. But I think that's over stated. I think Stan used Goodman as a shield to avoid confrontation. "Let me ask, Martin if it's ok" was really "I don't want to tell you no, or I'm not sure - I want to think about it before I commit."

In the same way, I'm sure the 'approval' for the Fantastic Four came about because Goodman 'insisted' that Stan was involved in the project, and Kirby had to concede. As to if Goodman actually insisted, is unknown, but it WOULD give Stan the leverage he needed to make the 'partnership' happen. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

While Goodman is still dismissing the idea of superheroes (while Stan is increasing the amount of 'dumb blonde books - but NOT the Kirby books - ???), DC Comics gives yet another superhero his own title with Green Lantern #1 (Gil Kane cover).

And even though the Giant Puppet is the cover, the lead story is GL battling... a monster. Written by John Broome with pencils by Gil Kane and inks by Murphy Anderson. This issue would also feature the first appearance of the Guardians of the Universe (NOT the Galaxy). 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS MAY 1960

But make no mistake... still plenty of monsters on the covers of DC Comics for the month. They sure weren't bothering to imitate Millie the Model. 

It was, however, a good way to incorporate their Gorilla fixation while still making it a monster story (Superman #138)...