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Stan Lee Lied - Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in the 'Origins of Marvel Comics'
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Started by Prince Namor,

2,600 posts in this topic

comicwiz

comicwiz

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 10/18/2024 at 6:47 PM, Prince Namor said:

If not for Star Wars, which had to GIVE the deal away for Lee to even take it - Marvel might've gone into bankruptcy in 1978.

This is a FACT which people have long overlooked or ignored.

Largely due to the lie perpetuated by Flashman and Houseroy, which had long attempted to erase the truth.

Which was that the deal was handed to them, all expenses paid, for the first five issue. That's right. It wouldn't cost Marvel a cent.

Unlike Shooters claims on his blog, Charles Lippincott, 20th Century Fox (Allan Ladd Jr), and Star Wars saved Marvel. 

Niether Houseroy, nor Flashman, the nepotist freeloader, had anything to do with it.

Edited by comicwiz
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grendel013

grendel013

Posted
Posted
On 10/18/2024 at 7:06 PM, Prince Namor said:

I think people here forget WHY Ditko finally came out publicly for the first time since the 60's... it was because Stan Lee... LIED. lol

In 1998, Lee said in an Interview how he came up with the lifting scene in ASM #33, I guess figuring Ditko hadn't been heard from in decades, used one of his old ploys - giving the artist credit for the DRAWING, but NOT the writing they actually did as well - taking that for himself. 

 

"I didn't write detailed scripts for him [Steve Ditko], I would tell him (as I did Jack [Kirby]) what I thought the story should be and he went home and drew it any way he wanted...There is a very famous scene he did in a Spider-Man story (#33, Feb. 1966] where he was trapped in a subway tunnel and had to lift some heavy weight over his head. I just mentioned the idea but Steve drew it incredibly...devoting, I think, 3 or 4 pages to Spider-Man lifting those weights. I hadn't thought of devoting that many pages to it."

- Stan Lee, in a Comic Book Marketplace interview (#61, July 1998)

 

Well Ditko couldn't let a continuity error like that pass! So he surprisingly responded:

"...at some point before issue #25 (where I am publicly credited with plotting Spider-man and Dr. Strange), Stan chose to break-off communicating with me. That initiated break-off means no Stan Lee synopses, no kind of Stan Lee input, no Stan Lee "ideas" of any kind on anything. And certainly no "lifting idea" for issue #33 (Feb.1966). I'm on my own in providing all the story ideas, story continuity, for Spider-man (Dr. Strange)."

- from Ditko's published essay A MINI-HISTORY 1. "The Green Goblin" © 2001 S. Ditko.

 

I remember this and everyone stammering that Ditko had "awaken". Lee hit a nerve for sure.

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VintageComics

VintageComics

Posted
Posted
On 10/17/2024 at 1:40 PM, Albert Tatlock said:
On 10/17/2024 at 1:26 PM, sfcityduck said:

The charge of "stealing" is really unsupported, and a prosecutor of that charge would find it pretty much impossible to meet the burden of proof.

Agreed.

I'm going to quote this for posterity. 

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VintageComics

VintageComics

Posted
Posted
On 10/17/2024 at 2:24 PM, sfcityduck said:

JIM 83 original art

The JIM #83 original art is not a secret. There are pieces out there being displayed in public. 

Metropolis (literally) had a piece lining their bathroom when I visited some years ago. 

I'll do a search, but there should be examples out in public either in auction archives or in galleries. 

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sfcityduck

sfcityduck

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 10/18/2024 at 1:09 PM, Zonker said:

Good post above, my only pushback is I'm pretty sure Kirby had passed away well before Ditko shared his recollections in print.  The ones I've seen have all been from after the turn of the most recent century. 

Correction: The article Ditko wrote because Kirby’s 1989 TCH interview by Groth came out in 1990 in The Comics, v1 no. 5 (May 1990). 
 

You can thank PN and wiz’s statements for prompting the correction.

Edited by sfcityduck
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sfcityduck

sfcityduck

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 10/18/2024 at 4:06 PM, Prince Namor said:

I think people here forget WHY Ditko finally came out publicly for the first time since the 60's... it was because Stan Lee... LIED. lol

In 1998, Lee said in an Interview 

That is not true.

Ditko broke his silence in 1990 to rebut multiple claims Jack made in the 1980s that he was the creator of Spider-Man not Steve and Stan, including in Groths interview of Kirby published in the TCJ. Ditko’s article was “an Insider’s Part of Comics History; Jack Kirby’s Spider-Man” in The comics, v. 1, no. 5 (May 1990) . 
 

I posted the article up thread so you can read it to verify that Ditko singled out Kirby’s false claim to creating Spider-Man as the reason he wrote the article.

PS turns out the airplane has internet.

Edited by sfcityduck
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sfcityduck

sfcityduck

Posted
Posted
On 10/18/2024 at 4:29 PM, comicwiz said:

This is a FACT which people have long overlooked or ignored.

Largely due to the lie perpetuated by Flashman and Houseroy, which had long attempted to erase the truth.

Which was that the deal was handed to them, all expenses paid, for the first five issue. That's right. It wouldn't cost Marvel a cent.

Unlike Shooters claims on his blog, Charles Lippincott, 20th Century Fox (Allan Ladd Jr), and Star Wars saved Marvel. 

Niether Houseroy, nor Flashman, the nepotist freeloader, had anything to do with it.

What is with the Houseroy name calling? I am not from the South but isn’t that a racially charged derogatory term?

From wictionary

Etymology

edit

From house +‎ boy (“young male; (historical or offensive) non-white male servant regardless of age”).

 

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Zonker

Zonker

Posted
Posted
On 10/18/2024 at 8:58 PM, sfcityduck said:

What is with the Houseroy name calling? I am not from the South but isn’t that a racially charged derogatory term?

From wictionary

 

Etymology

edit

From house +‎ boy (“young male; (historical or offensive) non-white male servant regardless of age”).

 

It's a reference to Kirby's satire of Stan and Roy in Mister Miracle #6.  There a Stan-like character is Funky Flashman and Roy is House-Roy.  

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CGC Mike

CGC Mike

Posted
  • Administrator
Posted
On 10/18/2024 at 8:58 PM, sfcityduck said:

What is with the Houseroy name calling? I am not from the South but isn’t that a racially charged derogatory term?

From wictionary

 

Etymology

edit

From house +‎ boy (“young male; (historical or offensive) non-white male servant regardless of age”).

 

Houseroy History

This is some deep “inside baseball,” except it’s about comic books. Funky Flashman is Jack Kirby’s bitter parody of Stan Lee, and Funky’s flunky is Houseroy. He’s a dig at Roy Thomas, who is depicted as being Smithers to Stan’s Mr. Burns, without the gay overtones.

Funky-Flashman-Houseroy.jpg
Funky Flashman and Houseroy, with JACK’s characteristically idiosyncratic DIALOGUE putting the emphasis on the WRONG word.

My feeling is that Jack misrepresented Roy, who was pivotal to Marvel’s success during the second half of the 60’s, into the first half of the 70’s while Kirby was at DC. Roy talks about Funky and Houseroy, 50 minutes into this 2-hour interview.

I’m still shaking my head in disbelief from the time five years ago, when Roy and my buddy Bismo teamed up for this bit of fun craziness.

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Zonker

Zonker

Posted
Posted
On 10/18/2024 at 8:48 PM, sfcityduck said:

That is not true.

Ditko broke his silence in 1990 to rebut multiple claims Jack made in the 1980s that he was the creator of Spider-Man not Steve and Stan, including in Groths interview of Kirby published in the TCJ. Ditko’s article was “an Insider’s Part of Comics History; Jack Kirby’s Spider-Man” in The comics, v. 1, no. 5 (May 1990) . 
 

I posted the article up thread so you can read it to verify that Ditko singled out Kirby’s false claim to creating Spider-Man as the reason he wrote the article.

PS turns out the airplane has internet.

???  I'm not seeing references to Ditko's 1990 publication up-thread.  Lots of early 2000's stuff, including the essay with the same title you mention above, but here from 2002:  

DitkosInsiderGuide.jpg.8a7da68fa2d02dcd850b4daf58cfb3c6.jpg

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sfcityduck

sfcityduck

Posted
Posted
On 10/18/2024 at 6:21 PM, Zonker said:

???  I'm not seeing references to Ditko's 1990 publication up-thread.  Lots of early 2000's stuff, including the essay with the same title you mention above, but here from 2002:  

DitkosInsiderGuide.jpg.8a7da68fa2d02dcd850b4daf58cfb3c6.jpg

I posted the reprint. The cite I gave the original publication.

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