Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's (1963) Butting Heads, Unexpected Success and Not Expected Failures! 3 3

[Dr. Haydn]

A "battering ram" indeed! Looks like Jack made a funny!

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Amazing Spider-man #4 - And just like that: 'by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko'.

What prompted THAT? It's not hard to guess, but it wouldn't last...

Part ONE:

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Amazing Spider-man #4 -

Part TWO:

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Amazing Spider-man #4 - It's weird that Stan thought these 'Spiderly' poses would incite the Comics Code to take action. By today's standards they're not even slightly weird or creepy at all.

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Amazing Spider-man #4 - A recurring dialogue in Stan's early comics is that anyone that gets introduced is a surprise, because even though they'd heard about it, they thought it must've just been 'a gag'. Again this contrasts with DC, where a 'Hawkman' or whatever just appears and is accepted as a normal occurrence. Placing these characters in a real world setting, gave it a life that endeared it to readers immediately. 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Amazing Spider-man #4 - Letters Page

People really like that corner box on the cover!

The World's Greatest Editor fesses up to his Peter Palmer mistake!

Stan's pandering to fans is annoying, or even the smallest of details ('Amazing' in the title).

Spidey is announced as a MONTHLY title!

Another X-Men AD (without the X-Men)

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Amazing Spider-man #4 - Ditko speaks!

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Amazing Spider-man #4 - And speaks some more! (Giving Stan credit on deciding what NOT to do with Betty Brandt). 

 

Spoiler

 

 

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Edited March 21, 2023 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Amazing Spider-man #4 - Ditko on creating covers for the series - it seems Stan wasn't super keen on Ditko's covers, but couldn't deny the success of the overall book, so never took the covers away from Ditko. Steve DID create a few iconic covers, but mostly... they were functional. 

He he gives some insight on his interaction with Stan over the covers/cpntent...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Tales of Suspense #45 - Story Plot (as opposed to just 'plot'): Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Don Heck Lettering: S. Rosen

An 18 pager, that introduces Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts. It's not as bad as some of the others, but still more of a DC type story than what most think of as the 'Marvel Age of Comics'. 

For the cover, it's believed that Kirby did the Iron Man figure and maybe Ditko or Heck did the rest...

From GCD: Happy Hogan is based on pro wrestler-turned-actor Nat Pendleton; Pepper Potts is based on actress Ann B. Davis. [per Henry Kujawa]

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Tales of Suspense #45 - I still find this funny...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Tales of Suspense #45 - Right around the same time as Pepper Potts became Tony Stark's secretary, Stan Lee hired Flo Steinberg as his 'Gal Friday'.

"I went up and talked to this man, Stan Lee. And the interview was in this teeny little cubbyhole of an office... And the whole Magazine Management company was in one big floor [of 625 Madison Avenue] with partitions set up. And Marvel Comics was the teeniest little office on the floor. There was Stan and his desk, then another small desk.”
November 1984: Flo Steinberg interviewed by Jim Salicrup and Dwight Jon Zimmerman, Comics Interview #17

[PopKulture]

On 3/23/2023 at 8:18 PM, Prince Namor said:

 

As a longtime fan of silver age DC, I still on occasion chance across the sentiment from Marvel zombies that the artwork in the DC mags was vastly inferior to their Marvel counterparts. To wit, I give unto them this issue, along with others by Heck, Tuska, Leiber, etc. If you're talking about the Fantastic Four issue numbers in the 50's or 60's, that Kirby/Sinnott art represents a very high bar. A lot of the other Marvel art, especially the early silver stuff, falls more than a little short of Swan, Heath, Kane, Anderson, Infantino, etc. The above story doesn't compare all that favorably against Gold Key or even some Charlton, IMHO. 

[Dr. Haydn]

Page 7: Some real-life New York landmarks: the as-yet-unnamed Shea Stadium, future home of the Amazin' Mets, and the 1964 World's Fair at Flushing Meadows!

[Prince Namor]

On 3/23/2023 at 11:33 PM, PopKulture said:

As a longtime fan of silver age DC, I still on occasion chance across the sentiment from Marvel zombies that the artwork in the DC mags was vastly inferior to their Marvel counterparts. To wit, I give unto them this issue, along with others by Heck, Tuska, Leiber, etc. If you're talking about the Fantastic Four issue numbers in the 50's or 60's, that Kirby/Sinnott art represents a very high bar. A lot of the other Marvel art, especially the early silver stuff, falls more than a little short of Swan, Heath, Kane, Anderson, Infantino, etc. The above story doesn't compare all that favorably against Gold Key or even some Charlton, IMHO. 

Aw, I certainly mean no disrespect towards DC at all! (That panel in particular, it was more the 'superhero plugging himself into a wall socket' that made me laugh - not necessarily the art). Swan, Heath, Kane, Anderson, Infantino, etc. are all giants of the hobby who, regardless of my own personal preference, I have a great deal of respect for. I was a bigger fan of some who followed them, like Nick Cardy, Neal Adams, Jim Aparo... but all of those guys deserve a tremendous amount of respect for that great era of comic books. 

When I say 'DC type of story', I don't necessarily mean to imply the art - or an inferiority of the art - I'm like you, I'd take almost any of those DC guys over Heck's work at Marvel during this time - it's more the storytelling aesthetic that Kirby was allowed to put in place at Marvel... it was grittier, it was different, it stood out... compared to a more cleaner style of story (and art) that DC and almost everyone else was doing at the time. 

And I don't want that to seem like I mean the Marvel stuff was 'better' - that's subjective - the DC books of that era are under appreciated - HIGHLY under appreciated - I guess because DC didn't have a Stan Lee to over promote them for 5 decades. I like that there are people out there who still champion that work and speak up and say, "Hey wait a minute!", whenever a Marvel Zombie (or even ME) tries to not give it it's due! It deserves it!

 

[Dr. Haydn]

The dialogue in ToS 45 seems a bit snappier than usual. Maybe Robert Bernstein was getting the hang of the Marvel Style--just before Stan got rid of him!

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Jack Kirby also did the cover for Kid Colt Outlaw #112, inked by Paul Reinman!

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Strange Tales #112 - Again, Stan Lee comes up with the 'Story Plot'***, with Script: Joe Carter (Jerry Siegel) , Art: MR. Ayers and Lettering: S. Rosen (His name is SAM, gosh darn it!)

 

 

***Any writer will tell you it's a strange term - there's a difference between what a story is and what a plot is. Stan probably created this term as a way to puff up his input into the process. I googled 'difference between story and plot' and this is the first thing that came up: 

Alan Moore perfectly sums up the difference between story and plot when he says, “always remember that the plot is not the story. It is just what gets you from one end of the story to the other. For example, the plot of George Orwell’s Animal Farm – some animals take over a farm – is not what the book is about.”

Or to put it more technically:

The story is about the who, what, and where within your concept. The plot is about the how, when, and why everything within that story happens. 

THIS is how he created with most artists. They'd debate the who, what, and where and then the artist would do the actual how, when, and why  of the actual story (though sometimes the artist would do both, but Stan still took credit and pay. So how did it work with Stan - a scripter - and an artist? Did Stan actually tire of this and fire the script writers (as HIS history tells us), or did THEY tire of not getting paid as much to do the heavy lifting of whatever minor germ of an idea he might've had?

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JUNE 1963

Strange Tales #112 - We also get our first look at the cover to Avengers #1!

Collectors! The first appearance of the Avengers is in Strange Tales #112!!! 

[Dr. Haydn]

Am I to assume that Jerry Siegel was paid by the word?