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

[sfcityduck]

On 8/7/2023 at 5:56 PM, Prince Namor said:

Nonsense.

By Goodman ignoring him it made it easy for Stan to do Spider-man. 

At that point Goodman didn't much care either way. 

You and Lordbyroncomics need to fight this out.

He's asserting that Goodman reviewed every cover and was a micromanager. While also arguing that Goodman was a good boss.

You're arguing that Goodman was simultaneously horrid to Stan while ignoring him.  

Which is it?

[lordbyroncomics]

On 8/7/2023 at 8:32 PM, sfcityduck said:

None of the key statements in that article are supported by any evidence cited.  They are the very definition of speculation or outright falsehoods ("regularly published teen superheros"). The anecdotes about Goodman being a good boss date to a time period after he'd left Marvel and founded Atlas-Seaboard or concerned isolated instances which do not touch on his relationship with Stan at all. Prince Namor has brought you the testimony of a man who was at Marvel sitting next to Stan during the years in question. Stan offered his own opinions when Goodman was still alive. Silence was Goodman's response. Perhaps Goodman became a better man as he aged, but there's no facts or testimony which support the speculation in that article.

You keep referring to contemporaneous newspapers accounts.  So what do they prove of consequence? The fact he was progressive or supported gay rights does not mean he was a good boss to Stan.  Nor does his support for psychotherapy. On the other hand, his comment about Stan in the NYT is far from nice. 

I apologize. You're right.

[lordbyroncomics]

On 8/7/2023 at 9:01 PM, sfcityduck said:

You and Lordbyroncomics need to fight this out.

He's asserting that Goodman reviewed every cover and was a micromanager. While also arguing that Goodman was a good boss.

You're arguing that Goodman was simultaneously horrid to Stan while ignoring him.  

Which is it?

Not fighting anyone*, least of all Prince Namor whom I respect tremendously. I apologize again for my prior passionate comments.

(*- However, if anyone here wants to meet at a convention and put on gloves for a charity match, let me know )

[Prince Namor]

On 8/8/2023 at 8:01 AM, sfcityduck said:

You and Lordbyroncomics need to fight this out.

He's asserting that Goodman reviewed every cover and was a micromanager. While also arguing that Goodman was a good boss.

You're arguing that Goodman was simultaneously horrid to Stan while ignoring him.  

Which is it?

I'm not sure how you can't see it could be both.

He doesn't have to like Stan or treat him overly well to make sure the books are done right and published on time.

Words like 'horrid' I think YOU interjected. 

[Prince Namor]

I'm going to copy and paste the write up on this from Eric Stedman. What a great piece of history!!!

 

JACK KIRBY'S 70th BIRTHDAY PRESENT FROM STANLEY 

I wonder how many people here have heard this.

A radio station talk show invites Kirby onto a program to wish him well on his 70th birthday.

Stan Lee, who apparently found out that the broadcast was going to take place -- calls in, unannounced, and tries to monopolize the conversation AND steamroll right over Kirby, who has been talking about his inspirations for stories -- something Lee did NOT want so ever see happen -- and out of nowhere asserts that the dialogue in the comics Kirby created was "all his."

Kirby tries to get the information into the conversation that he wrote rough dialogue and caption content beside panels on the original art (which he did), and Lee cuts him right off -- on Jack's birthday, and apparently without any foundation for saying so -- directly insults him by accusing him of never reading the finished comics with Lee's version of the dialogue in them. Which even if it were true has nothing to do with the conversation at hand. Lee tries to monopolize the whole conversation and throw insults in between vague general compliments which, considering the circumstances, mean very little. Some birthday present.

Lee is definitely on the attack here & it is very clear that he called in because he heard Kirby talking at the beginning of the broadcast about what inspired him to write stories and Lee wanted that sort of statement never, ever to be made -- he wanted ALL the credit for not just finished dialogue but everything else in a story and for Kirby just to have been characterized as a told-what-to-do artist and nothing else and if people want "evidence" of what Stan Lee was really like and misbehavior that inspired Flashman this is a prime example.
This is cued up to the moment of attack by Lee. If you want to hear Kirby's discussions of his inspirations for various characters you can start playing the recording from the beginning. He discusses humanizing villains like the Red Skull and Dr. Doom, among other things.

[Steven Valdez]

As I said earlier (this may have been skimmed over):

I'm fairly sure that when/if Goodman questioned Lee about bringing in Spider-Man, it was very cursory. They'd already been publishing stories about monsters, aliens and misfits for years, so it seems unlikely Goodman would have balked at the idea of a spider guy appearing in half an issue. Stan just naturally liked to dramatize things. It makes for a better story if there was a major conflict with the boss, who Stan bravely defied. 

[sfcityduck]

On 8/7/2023 at 6:05 PM, Prince Namor said:

I'm not sure how you can't see it could be both.

He doesn't have to like Stan or treat him overly well to make sure the books are done right and published on time.

Words like 'horrid' I think YOU interjected. 

Lordbyron says Goodman reviewed every cover before it went out.  You said Goodman ignored Stan. Those aren't compatible.

You say that that Stan's closest co-worker was witness to horrid treatment as follows:

 "My dad actually worked at Magazine Management, which was the company that owned Marvel Comics in the fifties and sixties, so he knew Stan Lee pretty well. He knew him before the superhero revival in the early sixties, when Stan Lee had one office, one secretary and that was it. The story was that Martin Goodman who ran the company was trying to phase him out because the comics weren't selling too well. ... Stan’s office was right next to my dads so they saw each other all day, and he did feel bad for him during those lean years for Atlas comics because he felt the company’s owner Martin Goodman was trying his best to humiliate Stan by constantly downsizing his office and his assistants, attempting to phase out the comics line altogether without actually going as far as firing him, probably because he was the cousin of Goodman’s wife. My dad said he really admired how Stan held on, held his ground, even when he was down to the lone desk in a cubicle, one secretary, and hardly anyone else around him. Of course Stan would later have the last laugh when Marvel exploded in the sixties."

LordByroncomics  and the ill-reasoned article you both cite argue that Goodman was a "good boss."  

Again, not compatible.

These are entirely inconsistent positions that no amount of pro-Kirby cognitive dissonance can explain away.

Stan says he feared that Goodman would fire him.  Stan's and his close co-workers views are entirely consistent.

Edited August 8, 2023 by sfcityduck

[lordbyroncomics]

On 8/7/2023 at 9:12 PM, sfcityduck said:

Lordbyron says he reviewed every cover before it went out.  You said he ignored him. Those aren't compatible.

You say that that Stan's closest co-worker was witness to horrid treatment as follows:

 "My dad actually worked at Magazine Management, which was the company that owned Marvel Comics in the fifties and sixties, so he knew Stan Lee pretty well. He knew him before the superhero revival in the early sixties, when Stan Lee had one office, one secretary and that was it. The story was that Martin Goodman who ran the company was trying to phase him out because the comics weren't selling too well. ... Stan’s office was right next to my dads so they saw each other all day, and he did feel bad for him during those lean years for Atlas comics because he felt the company’s owner Martin Goodman was trying his best to humiliate Stan by constantly downsizing his office and his assistants, attempting to phase out the comics line altogether without actually going as far as firing him, probably because he was the cousin of Goodman’s wife. My dad said he really admired how Stan held on, held his ground, even when he was down to the lone desk in a cubicle, one secretary, and hardly anyone else around him. Of course Stan would later have the last laugh when Marvel exploded in the sixties."

LordByroncomics  and the ill-reasoned article you both cite argue that Goodman was a "good boss."  

Again, not compatible.

These are entirely inconsistent positions that no amount of pro-Kirby cognitive dissonance can explain away.

Stan says he feared that Goodman would fire him.  Stan's and his close co-workers views are entirely consistent.

Once again, I apologize for my prior shortcomings.

[sfcityduck]

On 8/7/2023 at 6:07 PM, Prince Namor said:

I'm going to copy and paste the write up on this from Eric Stedman. What a great piece of history!!!

 

JACK KIRBY'S 70th BIRTHDAY PRESENT FROM STANLEY 

I wonder how many people here have heard this.

A radio station talk show invites Kirby onto a program to wish him well on his 70th birthday.

Stan Lee, who apparently found out that the broadcast was going to take place -- calls in, unannounced, and tries to monopolize the conversation AND steamroll right over Kirby, who has been talking about his inspirations for stories -- something Lee did NOT want so ever see happen -- and out of nowhere asserts that the dialogue in the comics Kirby created was "all his."

Kirby tries to get the information into the conversation that he wrote rough dialogue and caption content beside panels on the original art (which he did), and Lee cuts him right off -- on Jack's birthday, and apparently without any foundation for saying so -- directly insults him by accusing him of never reading the finished comics with Lee's version of the dialogue in them. Which even if it were true has nothing to do with the conversation at hand. Lee tries to monopolize the whole conversation and throw insults in between vague general compliments which, considering the circumstances, mean very little. Some birthday present.

Lee is definitely on the attack here & it is very clear that he called in because he heard Kirby talking at the beginning of the broadcast about what inspired him to write stories and Lee wanted that sort of statement never, ever to be made -- he wanted ALL the credit for not just finished dialogue but everything else in a story and for Kirby just to have been characterized as a told-what-to-do artist and nothing else and if people want "evidence" of what Stan Lee was really like and misbehavior that inspired Flashman this is a prime example.
This is cued up to the moment of attack by Lee. If you want to hear Kirby's discussions of his inspirations for various characters you can start playing the recording from the beginning. He discusses humanizing villains like the Red Skull and Dr. Doom, among other things.

My position is that Stan and Jack each moved to extremes when talking about one another.  Marvel was a product of collaboration, with the plotter, artist, writer (e.g. he who wrote the dialogue) all deserving creator credit.  Because what made Marvel was a combination of a number of factors, of which story seriousness, look, and dialogue (charaterization and tone) were all key.

The problem here is that while Kirby and Lee can be excused for their follies, it is very hard to find any justification for those of us who sit far away and with no personal axe to grind.

Edited August 8, 2023 by sfcityduck

[RedSkull]

TOS 47 Art

[Steven Valdez]

On 8/8/2023 at 11:16 AM, sfcityduck said:

My position is that Stan and Jack each moved to extremes when talking about one another.  Marvel was a product of collaboration, with the plotter, artist, writer (e.g. he who wrote the dialogue) all deserving creator credit.  Because what made Marvel was a combination of a number of factors, of which story seriousness, look, and dialogue (charaterizatio and tone) were all key.

The problem here is that while Kirby and Lee can be excused for their follies, it is very hard to find any justification for those of us who sit far away and with no personal axe to grind.

You've completely missed the point that Kirby and Ditko did all the heavy lifting (in creating the characters and storylines) while Stan took all the credit. It's been said a hundred times here that nobody is detracting from Stan's actual contributions.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Steven Valdez

[sfcityduck]

On 8/7/2023 at 6:32 PM, Steven Valdez said:

You've completely missed the point that Kirby (and Ditko) did all the heavy lifting while Stan took all the credit. It's been said a hundred times here that nobody is detracting from Stan's actual contributions.

Yeah ... no, I'm not missing your assertion.  I'm disagreeing with it - both your assertion that Kirby (and Ditko - by which I assume you mean by putting him a parenthetical that Ditko is subservient to Kirby especially as to Spiderman) did "all" the heavy lifting and that "nobody here is detracting from Stan's actual contributions." You got people here who are basically stating Stan made no worthwhile contributions. In my view, Stan's dialogue did as much to make Marvel successful as anything else. It wasn't the character designs (many of which were derivative), or costumes which could also be derivative or hokey, or even necessarily the stories, but the characterizations and dialogue which fleshed out those characterizations which to me always made Marvel special. Yes, I agree the art is very important and that nothing can ruin a comic faster than bad art except maybe bad dialogue and story. They all are important.

[Steven Valdez]

On 8/8/2023 at 11:40 AM, sfcityduck said:

Yeah ... no, I'm not missing your assertion.  I'm disagreeing with it - both your assertion that Kirby (and Ditko - by which I assume you mean by putting him a parenthetical that Ditko is subservient to Kirby especially as to Spiderman) did "all" the heavy lifting and that "nobody here is detracting from Stan's actual contributions." You got people here who are basically stating Stan made no worthwhile contributions. In my view, Stan's dialogue did as much to make Marvel successful as anything else. It wasn't the character designs (many of which were derivative), or costumes which could also be derivative or hokey, or even necessarily the stories, but the characterizations and dialogue which fleshed out those characterizations which to me always made Marvel special. Yes, I agree the art is very important and that nothing can ruin a comic faster than bad art except maybe bad dialogue and story. They all are important.

No, Ditko was not subservient to Kirby... where do you get that from?! It's just that Kirby created way more characters and stories than Ditko or anybody else did. I haven't seen anyone here say that Stan did literally nothing.

[lordbyroncomics]

On 8/7/2023 at 9:45 PM, Steven Valdez said:

No, Ditko was not subservient to Kirby... where do you get that from?! It's just that Kirby created way more characters and stories than Ditko or anybody else did. I haven't seen anyone here say that Stan did literally nothing.

Yeah, there's no Marvel as we know it without Stan- Bullpen Bulletins, the letter pages and so forth are utterly and completely significant to the rise of the Marvel, as well as his dialogue up until about 1967-1968. The issue is Stan getting credit for things he didn't do.

[Prince Namor]

On 8/8/2023 at 8:57 AM, lordbyroncomics said:

Yeah, there's no Marvel as we know it without Stan- Bullpen Bulletins, the letter pages and so forth are utterly and completely significant to the rise of the Marvel, as well as his dialogue up until about 1967-1968. The issue is Stan getting credit for things he didn't do.

And pay. 

[sfcityduck]

On 8/7/2023 at 6:57 PM, lordbyroncomics said:

Yeah, there's no Marvel as we know it without Stan- Bullpen Bulletins, the letter pages and so forth are utterly and completely significant to the rise of the Marvel, as well as his dialogue up until about 1967-1968. The issue is Stan getting credit for things he didn't do.

Well no one is giving Stan credit for art. So are you upset he got creator credit?  Are there any creator credits he is presently given that you think Stan does not deserve?  Which ones? What about Ditko?

[Steven Valdez]

On 8/8/2023 at 12:25 PM, sfcityduck said:

Well no one is giving Stan credit for art. So are you upset he got creator credit?  Are there any creator credits he is presently given that you think Stan does not deserve?  Which ones? What about Ditko?

The Marvel Method in the '60s was where the artist plotted, paced, directed and illustrated an entire story based on little more than a sentence like, "Let the villain be Dr Doom". Stan Lee himself said that, and Kirby, Ditko, Wood, Romita and John Buscema all confirmed as much in interviews.

Stan would then take the pages and dialog them, based on the artist's margin notes. He called this 'writing the story' when it was more accurate to describe it as adding dialog to an existing story.

John Romita: "The only thing he [Stan] used to do from 1966-72 was come in and leave a note on my drawing table saying 'Next month, the Rhino.' That’s all; he wouldn’t tell me anything, how to handle it.

 

[Zonker]

On 8/7/2023 at 9:16 PM, sfcityduck said:

The problem here is that while Kirby and Lee can be excused for their follies, it is very hard to find any justification for those of us who sit far away and with no personal axe to grind.

I think part of the continuing fascination many of us have with the Kirby/Lee dynamic is that it is an example of what is almost an archetype across the history of innovation.  Think Wozniak/Jobs or-- somewhat differently-- Tesla/Edison (though those 2 were never actual collaborators):

One person grinds it out through a combination of genius and sheer force of will, while another person certainly contributes, but also has the personality and the savvy to focus on securing the funding, marketing the effort, building the myth, while effectively delegating out a lot of the detail.  One person is relatively unknown, while another person is a household name to this day.  This dynamic probably plays out more often than we know about in start-ups or university labs (by definition, the more-silent partner is relatively invisible!) 

[Zonker]

On 8/7/2023 at 10:00 PM, Prince Namor said:

And pay. 

How did this work, exactly?  We've established that Goodman's staff (certainly including Stan) all were on salary, not paid by the job.  Is it the thinking here that Stan drew his salary as an editor, but also had a separate page rate for his work as a wordsmith*?

*Again, I'm using "wordsmith" to avoid arguments about what is a writer or scripter or dialogue-polisher or whatever it is one thinks Stan did. Substitute whatever word makes sense in your frame of reference.

[Prince Namor]

On 8/8/2023 at 8:33 PM, Zonker said:

How did this work, exactly?  We've established that Goodman's staff (certainly including Stan) all were on salary, not paid by the job. 

No. Different time. The Implosion got rid of everyone who was staff and ran off almost anyone who was freelance.

At this point, Stan is, for the comics division, one of the only salaried people. Brodsky is salary.

On 8/8/2023 at 8:33 PM, Zonker said:

Is it the thinking here that Stan drew his salary as an editor, but also had a separate page rate for his work as a wordsmith*?

*Again, I'm using "wordsmith" to avoid arguments about what is a writer or scripter or dialogue-polisher or whatever it is one thinks Stan did. Substitute whatever word makes sense in your frame of reference.

It has been established as such for decades based upon many sources, and confirmed again during the Marvel vs Kirby trial.