Jack Kirby's Son Comments On New Stan Lee Documentary 3 3

[grendel013]

Sorry Signature Series folks but Stan Lee signatures devalue the slab. IMO. 

[Ed Hanes]

On 6/22/2023 at 3:14 PM, grendel013 said:

Sorry Signature Series folks but Stan Lee signatures devalue the slab. IMO. 

 

I do kinda agree with you..sold my ASM 119 stan lee sig after having it for two months 

but many others dont

Last week, an ASM 38 8.5 signed by Stan Lee auctioned for $901, while an ASM 38 (no sig) at  8.0 auctioned off for $265 ..both on comiclink, side by side. 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Ed Hanes

[fast eddie]

What a fantastic thread,,,,,,,,,,, thank you all for your comments and thoughts. I am well aware of Lee's thirst for notoriety,,, his charm and panache surely served he and Marvel well over the years,,, but I also love Kirby for his unquenchable thirst for creation and action,,,,, I wish I could have met them both and thanked them,,,,,, their books were building blocks to my personality for the rest of my life,,,yup!

[lordbyroncomics]

"Showing a hard-core Marvel fan evidence that Stan Lee lied, cheated, and stole gets you about as far as if you were to show an Evangelical evidence that Christ ever existed. They'll either be furious with you or cheerfully ignore you, but they won't believe you."

https://www.vulture.com/2023/06/disney-s-stan-lee-documentary-perpetuates-a-myth.html

[Prince Namor]

On 6/22/2023 at 6:00 PM, comicwiz said:

Thomas hitched his wagon to the Lee history of the MCU, claiming their rights and billing himself as a renowned comics historian who was there and would know better than anyone who wasn't. He continued the pro-Lee narrative with contributions for Taschen and the Folio Society. I barely saw mention of him with the archival footage when he arrived at Marvel, but didn't see the end credits mention him having any direct involvement.

How remarkably prescient Kirby's Funky Flashman was about the outcome of Lee's legacy. Funky throwing Houseroy at the attackers and jumping out the window while the home he inherited explodes is a pastiche bringing to life a documentary of an amoral, mean-spirited, phony capitalist with his toupee and fake beard walking away for another day with undeserved exclusive creator credit.

I love that Funky Flashman story.

Yeah, as soon as Roz died, Roy held Lee's hand through that infamous May 1998 "A Conversation between Stan Lee and Roy Thomas" Interview which is later published in COMIC BOOK ARTIST #2 (Summer 1998), and the FF#1 'synopsis (that isn't)' suddenly popped up. 

How no one has ever thought it suspicious that Lee hired a fanzine fanboy to be his right hand man, who then nationally published his fanboy fanzine to keep the propaganda going all these years, is beyond me. 

I guess when your hypnotized you just don't see things others do...

[Crimebuster]

While I was watching this documentary, I told my wife, "the worst thing about this is the fact that now I'm going to have to listen to a bunch of 60 year old fanboys continue the same incredibly tedious Stan vs. Jack argument they've been having for the last half century."

[Cat]

On 6/23/2023 at 7:03 AM, ymisbatg said:

Does this really matter though (who created what) because everyone involved was working for the parent company (Marvel) at the time?  Doesn't the company receive profits from sales, or do the writers/publisher/artists receive a commission based on sales?  

Back then the writers and artists received no royalties, strictly a flat rate. They didn't even get their artwork back. This all became a sticking point, and eventually lead to where we are now: you get your page-rate, royalties if your book hits certain sales targets, and your artwork is now returned to the artist, providing them with another source of revenue they didn't previously have. 

[lostboys]

 

Im only 45 years old but to me Stan Lee is Marvel Comics much like Hugh Hefner is Playboy Magazine.

 

I enjoyed reading this thread, very educational.

 

 

[ymisbatg]

I see. Thanks for insight into the way things work.  I had no idea how compensation works in the comic book industry.  This seems much fairer compared to what was mentioned in the documentary.  Thanks!

[jimjum12]

It took a village. 

None of these guys even came close to creating MCU single handedly. Stan may have exaggerated a bit, but I'm sorry, I just don't buy the angle that he locked himself in his office and masturbated to a well worn JC Penny's catalogue, all day, every day. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited July 7, 2023 by jimjum12

[lordbyroncomics]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:04 AM, jimjum12 said:

It took a village. 

None of these guys even came close to creating MCU single handedly. Stan may have exaggerated a bit, but I'm sorry, I just don't buy the angle that he locked himself in his office and masturbated to a well worn JC Penny's catalogue all day every day. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Has that ever been an angle that people have pursued? Damn.

Anyone who says that simply hasn't put the time in and doesn't know what they're speaking of. Stan certainly had a huge voice in press release and promotion.

But don't worry about any rumors of Stan locking himself in his office all day every day... it's already been documented time and time again that Stan only went into the office three days a week, later turning into two.

So he could "get writing done" at home, you know.

So just remind those people apparently pushing that angle that any claim of Stan going to work five days a week is literally untrue. 

[lordbyroncomics]

On 6/23/2023 at 12:51 PM, Crimebuster said:

While I was watching this documentary, I told my wife, "the worst thing about this is the fact that now I'm going to have to listen to a bunch of 60 year old fanboys continue the same incredibly tedious Stan vs. Jack argument they've been having for the last half century."

This implies having this discussion is enjoyable 

 

So long as the same false narrative continues however, people will respond to it. It's also a huge and obvious tactic for Stan defenders to preface things with "They say Stan didn't do anything, wahhh" which is something people educated over history would never do. It's the same lack of comprehension about what this topic is about that's amazing and makes grown aging men look increasingly obtuse as the years go on. For the record, this is a very specific thing we're discussing. So, it has nothing to do with:

- Jack's dialogue without Stan on the Fourth World books isn't as snappy

- Jack's ideas wouldn't have gone anywhere without Stan's hucksterism 

And if this is weary, y'know the benefit of a message board is that you can see what you're about to read. Ignore this thread- it's as easy as that.

This is about someone who took credit for things he didn't do. I see the community here rightfully outraged when a dealer has their books stolen at a show- if you can have empathy for that, what's different about this? It's theft on a far grander scale. Why, because you liked the narration to Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends? 

"for me, Stan WAS Marvel" blah blah blah- again, this is irrelevant to Stan being a liar. 

[topofthetotem]

I thank all of them for their work it’s continues to be part of my life.

Best GA to read Fiction House

Best SA Fantastic Four

Best BA Tomb of Dracula

Best CA Hulk 

Best MA Bone

[jimjum12]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:44 AM, topofthetotem said:

Best CA Hulk 

I see they didn't carry Saga of Swamp Thing in your area  GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

... for the record I  both Stan and Jack .... waaah!

[topofthetotem]

On 6/24/2023 at 1:28 AM, jimjum12 said:

I see they didn't carry Saga of Swamp Thing in your area  GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

... for the record I  both Stan and Jack .... waaah!

Didn’t read Saga till much later in life and I loved Hulk’s Bum a Month club, good times. 

[Zonker]

I've always found this Stan Lee quote interesting (originally from a Comics Interview from 1990, but quoted here from an online source (emphasis mine):

Quote

"You know, very often, in fact, most of the time after we got started, the artist did most of the plotting. I would just give him a one-liner, like, 'Let's feature Dr. Doom and he goes back in time' or something. And whoever the artist was, he'd practically do the whole story. But when I would get the artwork back, and I had to put the copy in, very often there were things that I thought didn't work or were foolish or didn't make sense or something.  "Instead of having the artist redraw and go through a lot of trouble, the thing that was the most fun for me was to find out how I could take that discordant element in the story and make it seem as if we purposefully did that to embellish the story. You know what I mean? And turn it into a good story point. It was like doing a crossword puzzle."

And from the same source:

Quote

STAN LEE: And Jack would just put in all the details and everything. And then it was -- I enjoyed that. It was like doing a crossword puzzle. I get the panels back, and I have to put in the dialogue and make it all tie together.

Apparently, that was the fun part of the job for Stan Lee: fitting in some smart-sounding word balloons into the constraints provided to him from the already-penciled artwork.  

Once in high school English I was given an assignment to write a sonnet.  At first I hated all the rules (a certain number of lines, a fixed rhyming scheme, a certain number of syllables per line, etc.)  But I soon found all those rules actually helped me get started and produce something good enough to turn in to complete the assignment.  From that I realized it must take an exceptional poet (not me) to write some unstructured free verse poem that anyone else would ever care to read.  But to write a somewhat passable haiku or sonnet?  You wouldn't need to be a genius to do that, just... clever.

And I think Stan Lee was clever.  And before Stan, the people writing the word balloons and captions for super-hero comic books were not always expected to be clever.

 

Edited June 27, 2023 by Zonker
added "super-hero" (not talking about ECs here)

[ThothAmon]

As this was all work for hire I don’t get all the indignation?  I love King Kirby but he knew exactly what he was bargaining for when he began working at Marvel. Sure at some point his viewpoint changed but by that time the die was cast. Personally I give them both equal credit for the greatness that ensued.

[StillOnly25Cents]

Roy Thomas weighs in

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/stan-lee-marvel-veteran-review-disney-doc-1235523843/

 

[ThothAmon]

On 6/27/2023 at 12:50 PM, StillOnly25Cents said:

Roy Thomas weighs in

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/stan-lee-marvel-veteran-review-disney-doc-1235523843/

 

‘Nuff said. 

[mrc]

The Marvel method, though messy, gave people like Kirby a wide enough latitude to let loose their imaginations rather then simply following the publisher’s instructions. Perhaps one of the biggest shames surrounding the credit controversy is that it obscures Lee’s very real genuine contributions as an editor. In the book Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book, Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael note..............

"Lee got the best work out of artists who had been ignored by other companies. He rooted out the essence of what was appealing to the readers, distilled it and communicated it successfully to a wide variety of artists and writers. He recruited new talent according to both short term and long term needs and assigned them to roles suited to their particular skills. He also did the best writing of his career, in service of ideas from other artists and working with artists whose creativity was subsumed into Lee’s own. No pop culture phenomenon has ever offered its readers more than Stan Lee’s Marvel gave comic-book fans."