Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's (1964) The Slow Build 5 5

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1964

Tales to Astonish #54 - Dreamed up by: Stan Lee scribbled & Sketched by: L.D.Lieber   Finished in Inidia Ink by: Sol Brodsky  Lettered & Bordered by: Art Simek

In the nicest way I can express it, Larry Lieber wrote a lot of 'filler' material. It's pretty easy to see why they put him on a dying genre like Westerns. The idea that this guy ever wrote for Kirby is just ludicrous. Another beneficiary of nepotism. 

Edited August 26, 2023 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1964

Tales to Astonish #54 - Story Plot: Stan Lee   -script & Art: L. Lieber   Inking: P. Reinman  Lettering: Art Simek

 

[Dr. Haydn]

On 8/26/2023 at 1:37 PM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1964

Tales of Suspense #52 - Story Plot: Stan Lee   --script & Art: L.D.Lieber   Inking: Chic Stone  Lettering: R. Holloway

Ray Holloway lettering. His work largely disappears from Marvel in mid-1963. I wonder if this was an older inventory story that was published to fill up the page count?

[Dr. Haydn]

On 8/26/2023 at 1:42 PM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1964

Tales to Astonish #54 - Story Plot: Stan Lee   --script & Art: L. Lieber   Inking: P. Reinman  Lettering: Art Simek

 

There will be a villain named Spencer Smythe (of Spider-Slayer fame) in Spider-man in early 1965. Any relation to the hero of this tale? (I see a possible retcon opportunity here!)

[jimjum12]

On 8/26/2023 at 8:50 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

Ray Holloway lettering. His work largely disappears from Marvel in mid-1963. I wonder if this was an older inventory story that was published to fill up the page count?

 

RAY HOLLOWAY ... LETTERER

 

GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Dr. Haydn]

On 8/26/2023 at 11:29 PM, jimjum12 said:

 

RAY HOLLOWAY ... LETTERER

 

GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Thanks for the link!

Holloway did a boatload of uncredited work for Timely/Atlas/Marvel prior to 1962, left Marvel just after letterers started getting credits there, and did a considerable amount of uncredited work for DC afterward. (He got one or two credits in the short-lived Inferior Five parody comic in 1967-68). He was in the same league as Simek, the Rosen brothers, Saladino, and Schnapp, to my eyes, but his contributions to Silver Age (and early Bronze Age) comics went largely unrecognized due to circumstances of time and place.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Dr. Haydn
added Bronze Age

[jimjum12]

On 8/27/2023 at 1:22 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

Thanks for the link!

Holloway did a boatload of uncredited work for Timely/Atlas/Marvel prior to 1962, left Marvel just after letterers started getting credits there, and did a considerable amount of uncredited work for DC afterward. (He got one or two credits in the short-lived Inferior Five parody comic in 1967-68). He was in the same league as Simek, the Rosen brothers, Saladino, and Schnapp, to my eyes, but his contributions to Silver Age (and early Bronze Age) comics went largely unrecognized due to circumstances of time and place.

It's cool to meet someone who appreciates lettering. Marvel has always been on the cutting edge of lettering, but those pure hand crafted graphics by Simek and the Rosens are special favorites. I seem to remember Holloway doing some early ASM issues... GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1964

For February, Marvel would again release 12 titles to the newsstand. That's 23 total for the year, or 11.5 per month.

 

February 4th, 1964

Daredevil #1

Journey Into Mystery #103

Modeling with Millie #30

Patsy Walker #114

Tales to Astonish #55

Two Gun Kid #69

 

February 11th, 1964

Amazing Spider-man #12

Fantastic Four #26 

Kid Colt Outlaw #116

Millie the Model #120 

Strange Tales #120

Tales of Suspense #53

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1964

Daredevil #1 - Written by: Stan Lee   Illustrated by: Bill Everett   Lettered by: Sam Rosen

Cover by Jack Kirby with inks by Bill Everett

Part ONE

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS FEBRUARY 1964

Daredevil #1 -

Part TWO

[Prince Namor]

Daredevil will be a good example of a couple of things:

a) Again, Stan's inability to do much with a Kirby/Ditko-less character and

b) How, as Kirby pulls back ideas for new books (and the inability for Marvel to hire anyone to write FOR Lee in doing them, suddenly Marvel's House of Idea man Stan Lee dries up in ideas too. Coincidence? No. Lee couldn't come up with any original ideas on his own for the rest of the time he was in charge of Marvel. Yet, he positioned the company as the House of Ideas, and people ate it up.

Some notes on DD:

Goodman acquires the Charlie Biro character Daredevil. Biro’s DD was a ‘Master of Courage’. Marvel would change that to ‘Man without Fear’.

Goodman tells Lee to put it together.

Kirby sketches a character, somewhat with his and Simon's Stuntman in mind.

Per Ditko, Lee offers DD to Ditko, showing him Kirby’s sketch. Ditko instead chooses the Hulk to revamp. Ditko mentioned in a second essay he did not like the "cane gimmick" as well as feeling Daredevil overlapped Spider-Man in too many ways.

Bill Everett is given the assignment. (J David Spurlock believes Goodman had a soft spot for Everett and suggested this)/

Lee claims to have come up with the idea for making DD blind, but Everett’s daughter years later says that her Dad came up with it based on the fact that SHE is legally blind.

Everett, working a full time job ends up being 6 months late, and the original release date should have been July of 1963. Kirby is brought in to help fix the emergency of filling in that spot in the schedule and knocks out the 1st issue of the Avengers.

It’s interesting to note that, Kirby’s original sketch (and of course the name, and the idea that Kirby was channelling Stuntman) gives DD a sort of acrobat vibe and yet, when Lee ‘writes’ DD, he doesn’t follow through on that.

And a few months later when Steve Ditko has to use DD in a guest appearance in ASM #16, it takes place in a circus (ala Stuntman).

Even weirder, a year later when DD guest stars in FF #39-40, Kirby makes use of him with science gadgets that he’d never use anywhere else (These included a pop-out umbrella type shield and a gun which Daredevil uses to shoot down a small flying drone.).

Also interesting to note that, based on what Ditko has written, Stan took some of the ideas that Ditko rejected for ASM, and used them for the early Joe Orlando issues of DD (eg. the Owl)

Ditko: “Stan believed the most effective villain was the heavy set one. He once mentioned the movie villain, Sydney Greenstreet, as a villain model… Marvel later had a heavyset bird villain, The Owl. So one can compare the two for how effective bulk is over lean.”

 

Why no more Everett issues?

From the Everett issue of Alter Ego circa '69/'70 Bill said, "I found that I couldn't do [Daredevil] and handle my [full-time paper plant] job, because it was a managerial job; I didn't get paid overtime but I was on an annual salary, so my time was not my own. I was putting in 14 or 15 hours a day at the plant and then to come home and try to do comics at night was just too much. And I didn't make deadlines – I just couldn't make them – so I just did the one issue and didn't do any more."

 

J David Spurlock: Hulk ended March of '63. Daredevil was announced for Sept of '63 just 6 months later but was so late it was replaced with The Avengers #1. Joe Quesada said, "Daredevil #1 was so late from Bill Everett that it cost the company thousands of dollars and that’s thousands of dollars in the early Sixties. In the end, Steve Ditko and Sol Brodsky ended up inking a lot of backgrounds and secondary figures on the fly, they cobbled the cover and the splash page together from Kirby's original concept drawing." From the Bill Everett issue of Alter Ego circa '69/'70 Bill said, "I found that I couldn't do [Daredevil] and handle my [full-time paper plant] job, because it was a managerial job; I didn't get paid overtime but I was on an annual salary, so my time was not my own. I was putting in 14 or 15 hours a day at the plant and then to come home and try to do comics at night was just too much. And I didn't make deadlines – I just couldn't make them – so I just did the one issue and didn't do any more." DD was advertised again in Jan '64 (April issues Spider-Man #11, JIM #103. FF #25) and finally appeared February 4th, 1964 (April cover date).

Thor didn't get his own book, Iron Man didn't get his own book. Dr Strange didn't get a cover for YEARS, running pretty-much as a back-up in Strange Tales. Ant Man failed, The Incredible Hulk failed, X-Men was on the brink of cancellation for YEARS. The ONLY reason Daredevil got his own book was because it was required for Martin Goodman to successfully usurp the trademark from Golden Age Daredevil publisher Lev Gleason. Stan Lee had no interest in Daredevil other than trying to fulfill his boss's order. The only things recognizable from Stan in early issues of Daredevil were copped from Spider-Man: radioactivity, death of an elder, romance and a few editorial blurbs. The writing does not read as Stan's and Everett, Orlando and Wood have all confirmed they were writing at least the plots. But the pre-Wood DD is recognized as dated and as much as we love Everett and Orlando, is not considered their better work.

 

More J David Spurlock:

"The truth of the matter is that Daredevil‘s genesis was difficult, and #1 was arriving a full six months after it was originally slated. What finally resulted is a bit of a mixed bag, even aside from the lead character’s eyesore of a costume. It’s not a bad issue by any means, it’s just jumbled and lacking in the giddy excitement that Marvel had made its stock in trade. Daredevil would, in fact, need a few more months to find its feet. Artist Joe Orlando took over the series with #2, but quickly clashed with Lee over direction and storytelling style, and left after a trio of underwhelming issues.

Things finally started to gel once WALLY WOOD stepped in for #5 — Wood was one of the industry’s best illustrators and designers, and after taking some small liberties with the costume in his first two issues, he assured the series’ success with #7 when he revamped the character completely, creating the all-red outfit that has defined Daredevil ever since."

 

 

“While there isn't public sales data available from the first few years, it is clear that, unlike the INCREDIBLE HULK, a comparable bimonthly title which was cancelled after six issues, DAREDEVIL, where Wallace Wood took over following the 4th issue, kept on going. It obviously prospered, as it was during Wood's year on DAREDEVIL that the title went monthly. It's reasonable to look at Wood's contributions as a factor in the book's success."

— John Jackson Miller, Feb 17, 2016

Author-historian, editor of Standard Catalog of Comic Books, founder of Comichron, comic-book circulation history website

 

 

Me: Unfortunately for DD it would peak in sales in 1968 (mainly benefitted by the entire line peaking), and then drop every year in sales for the next 10 years. Really, DD was pretty much a THIRD tier character (down to 110,000 in the late 70's!) for most of its run, and wouldn’t see real growth until Frank Miller rewrote new life into the character in the 80’s.

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Prince Namor

[Dr. Haydn]

Panel 6: why is Foggy pointing to the door of the Nelson/Murdock law firm to show Matt their names? Foggy knows Matt can't see! n't see!

[sfcityduck]

Bill Everett was probably the best artist for Timely/Atlas/Marvel from before MC 1 through the 1950s.  DD 1 is a great first issue and one of Marvel’s best premises for a superhero. Miller certainly proved that and that Kirby was wrong about the cane. II have always thought DD was “inspired”’ more by DC’s Wildcat than the GA DD, and given Krigstein’s super strong influence on Miller I have always enjoyed the fact Krigstein did GA Wildcat and suspect Miller did too.

Edited August 28, 2023 by sfcityduck

[shadroch]

I've always thought DD #1 was the best first issue of the first wave of Marvel.    He was a third-tier character for much of the Silver Age and needed to add a co-star( Black Widow) to remain relevant in the Bronze. I enjoy the run from around 80-110 or so, but then it lost its way until Miller came along.  I enjoyed Everetts's later work on Sub-Mariner and was surprised when he died around 1973. It wasn't until many years later that I was able to buy some of his GA stuff.

[The humble Watcher lurking]

On 8/28/2023 at 12:29 AM, Prince Namor said:

Why no more Everett issues?

From the Everett issue of Alter Ego circa '69/'70 Bill said, "I found that I couldn't do [Daredevil] and handle my [full-time paper plant] job, because it was a managerial job; I didn't get paid overtime but I was on an annual salary, so my time was not my own. I was putting in 14 or 15 hours a day at the plant and then to come home and try to do comics at night was just too much. And I didn't make deadlines – I just couldn't make them – so I just did the one issue and didn't do any more."

It would have been fascinating to see Bill Everett the co-creator of Daredevil have more than one issue and have a long run like Ditko and Kirby had on Spider-Man and FF. I really enjoyed Daredevil #1 for the origin.  Here is a picture of Bill Everett in his prime. He was in the creations of both Sub-Mariner and Daredevil. Good resume.

[The humble Watcher lurking]

On 8/28/2023 at 2:51 AM, shadroch said:

I've always thought DD #1 was the best first issue of the first wave of Marvel.    He was a third-tier character for much of the Silver Age and needed to add a co-star( Black Widow) to remain relevant in the Bronze. I enjoy the run from around 80-110 or so, but then it lost its way until Miller came along.  I enjoyed Everetts's later work on Sub-Mariner and was surprised when he died around 1973. It wasn't until many years later that I was able to buy some of his GA stuff.

He stopped drinking, but the damage was done. Drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes a long time caught up with his health. He died during open heart surgery at 55.  Back then open-heart surgery was a new surgery in 1973. 

Yeah, I agree his last Sub-Mariner work was some of his best.

 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by The humble Watcher lurking

[Dr. Haydn]

On 8/28/2023 at 12:50 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

Panel 6: why is Foggy pointing to the door of the Nelson/Murdock law firm to show Matt their names? Foggy knows Matt can't see! n't see!

Stan was playing footloose and fancy free with this page. I'm not sure exactly how one can "sound" five foot four. I guess Matt can figure out someone's height by calculating how high off the ground the voice is coming from? Still, Matt should know to adjust for stiletto heels versus flats. Also, I would add 2 or 3 inches for Karen's hairdo.

[sfcityduck]

On 8/28/2023 at 8:38 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

Stan was playing footloose and fancy free with this page. I'm not sure exactly how one can "sound" five foot four. I guess Matt can figure out someone's height by calculating how high off the ground the voice is coming from? Still, Matt should know to adjust for stiletto heels versus flats. Also, I would add 2 or 3 inches for Karen's hairdo.

How about this?: Daredevil basically sees using sonar.  So the sound of her voice would provide a basis for a sonar reading.

[Dr. Haydn]

On 8/28/2023 at 12:21 PM, sfcityduck said:

How about this?: Daredevil basically sees using sonar.  So the sound of her voice would provide a basis for a sonar reading.

Sure, I'll buy that! If I could give you a no-prize, I would!

[Zonker]

On 8/28/2023 at 12:29 AM, Prince Namor said:

 

Per Ditko, Lee offers DD to Ditko, showing him Kirby’s sketch. Ditko instead chooses the Hulk to revamp. Ditko mentioned in a second essay he did not like the "cane gimmick" as well as feeling Daredevil overlapped Spider-Man in too many ways.

Bill Everett is given the assignment. (J David Spurlock believes Goodman had a soft spot for Everett and suggested this)/

Lee claims to have come up with the idea for making DD blind, but Everett’s daughter years later says that her Dad came up with it based on the fact that SHE is legally blind.

 

As is often the case, these various memories turn out to be mutually exclusive.  If Kirby had the "cane gimmick" that Ditko didn't like, then DD must have been blind before the concept was given to Everett (assuming Ditko's recollection of the timeline is accurate).