Stan Lee Lied - Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in the 'Origins of Marvel Comics' 11 11

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 10:54 PM, VintageComics said:

Not if Kirby quietly agrees to it while taking a larger paycheck than anyone else for his contributions, which (up until this point) is the conclusion that is forming.

You're making things up again.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/18/2024 at 7:02 PM, Prince Namor said:

I'll put it a different way.

Ditko's had been publishing and writing in 'The Comics' for a while. I can't imagine its print run was very high.

He broke through into the Mainstream - something he wasn't fond of - after Lee's claim in Comics Book Marketplace #61 (July, 1998). He felt so strongly about Lee's LIE that he wrote a letter to them for publication and then did 15 essays on the subject.

Correct me if I am wrong but Ditko sent the letter to CBM but the essays were not for CBM or any other “mainstream” publication, right?

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 11:20 PM, sfcityduck said:

Correct me if I am wrong but Ditko sent the letter to CBM but the essays were not for CBM or any other “mainstream” publication, right?

I have no idea.

[VintageComics]

On 10/18/2024 at 2:58 PM, Iconic1s said:

This thread is amazing!  I love the book but have really enjoyed the back and forth between opposing viewpoints here…

I haven’t seen anything here yet that will make me a Stan Lee fan once again.  I think I said around page 3 or 4 that I was a fan until I started hearing rumors and then did my own research… Alan Moore’s thoughts on the subject are what sold me that all was not as Stan had said.

I have tried to read this thread with an open mind (not sure how successful I have been at that) and like I already said… I’m even more convinced now that he lied.  But now I understand just how much and have a better sense of who those lies hurt.

Besides arguing over the meaning of “recent” or “the” I believe that intuition is pretty important to human beings.  I was always disgusted how Stan carried himself in a perpetual state of self-gratification as he asserted over and over again how amazing he was and how all should worship his creative genius.  It was pretty disgusting, but then again I was never a good at buying what people like that were selling.

He sure did a number on everyone though… imagine if he had been just a little honorable in how he treated people he had authority over!  If he had, there certainly wouldn’t be the ambiguity we see today and people still arguing over the context of everything everyone said, exactly the words used, when said.. and what was written in the margins…

If he was decent there would be no question of who did what and when.  This is actually some pretty sad stuff all around.  Fans still confused and misled well after his death… maybe in denial… defending or looking for an excuse for him.

In light of everything, my gut says he just wasn’t a good dude… I’m gonna leave this thread now because I know all I need to know.

I feel like you've disagreed with most of my posts here, and yet tis may surprise you, that I can say I probably agree with most of this. 

Even down to Stan not being a "good dude".

I've likened Stan Lee to David Lee Roth in this thread more than once because they're both insufferable, self aggrandizing, mouthpieces. I dislike people like that a lot.

But at the same time, that doesn't negate the fact that without DLR or SL, either group would NOT be as successful as without them. Yes, VH ended up selling more records later with Hagar and Marvel's output increased afterward but that's not the point I'm making. We wouldn't have had a competitive VH or Marvel without these two frontmen, as annoying as they are. 

Quite frankly, it's the very things we despise about many of our early heroes when scrutinize them that made them successful and given them the drive to rise to the top of the pyramid and in much the same way that you can't change the past without altering the future, you can't remove a small part of a personality and expect the end result to be the same. 

Would I have preferred Stan be more 'decent' or diligent in sharing credit? ABSOLUTELY. Integrity is always the ultimate goal.

But I also have to admit that if Stan had more integrity or decency, we wouldn't have the Marvel we have today.

And those two things are inextricably tied together and can't be undone. 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 11:24 PM, VintageComics said:

I feel like you've disagreed with most of my posts here, and yet tis may surprise you, that I can say I probably agree with most of this. 

Even down to Stan not being a "good dude".

I've likened Stan Lee to David Lee Roth in this thread more than once because they're both insufferable, self aggrandizing, mouthpieces. I dislike people like that a lot.

But at the same time, that doesn't negate the fact that without DLR or SL, either group would NOT be as successful as without them. Yes, VH ended up selling more records later with Hagar and Marvel's output increased afterward but that's not the point I'm making. We wouldn't have had a competitive VH or Marvel without these two frontmen, as annoying as they are. 

Quite frankly, it's the very things we despise about many of our early heroes when scrutinize them that made them successful and given them the drive to rise to the top of the pyramid and in much the same way that you can't change the past without altering the future, you can't remove a small part of a personality and expect the end result to be the same. 

Would I have preferred Stan be more 'decent' or diligent in sharing credit? ABSOLUTELY. Integrity is always the ultimate goal.

But I also have to admit that if Stan had more integrity or decency, we wouldn't have the Marvel we have today.

And those two things are inextricably tied together and can't be undone. 

"If I'm not ruthless and cheat people, I won't be successful!"

Works in selling comic books too, I suppose.

Lots of successful people in the world who didn't have to cheat anyone. 

[sfcityduck]

On 10/19/2024 at 9:17 AM, Prince Namor said:

My assumption is FACT. 

There is an obvious logical problem with this sentence.

Plus, the issue is not whether Kirby and Ditko talked, it is what they talked about. No ecidence, let alone facts, it was ASM plots.

Carry on I have to focus on my father’s 85th B-Day (his childhood comic collection, now part of mine,is only around 76 years old).

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 11:28 PM, sfcityduck said:

There is an obvious logical problem with this sentence.

Plus, the issue is not whether Kirby and Ditko talked, it is what they talked about. No ecidence, let alone facts, it was ASM plots.

Carry on I have to focus on my father’s 85th B-Day (his childhood comic collection, now part of mine,is only around 76 years old).

Not at all.

They talked. Period.

WHAT they talked about, we don't know.

BUT...

as far as the topic is concerned...

“This similar plotting sequence is a lot like DNA testing, one or two match-ups doesn’t mean a thing, but the odds increase exponentially with each added matched item.”

- Stan Taylor, Spider-Man: The Case For Kirby (2003), reprinted in the Jack Kirby Collector #70 (Winter 2017)

[VintageComics]

On 10/18/2024 at 4:32 PM, sfcityduck said:

On 10/18/2024 at 4:26 PM, VintageComics said:

Stan made the right call by investing Ditko into that character...and ironically, nobody else could have made that call. 

That 5 minute meeting must have been a good one!

 

Ditko stated the meetings were longer. And what ultimately made Ditko leave Marvel is he said that Stan would no longer meet with him. Ditko wanted the meetings.

That was a little <sarcasm> on my part because there is this need to constantly downplay Stan's efforts (PN at one point about 70 pages ago 'plotted' Stan's day and speckled it with a bunch of "5 minute" meetings, when in fact, you have no way of knowing how long his meetings were, and while some plotting sessions could have been zero to 5 minutes ("go get me an idea!") that didn't mean every plot meeting was just Stan forcing people to pull rabbits out of hats. 

In fact, what seems to be apparent as the discussion unfolds is that Stan probably spent more time plotting in the early days than later days, as his role become more broad. 

[Prince Namor]

And in case you missed it:

   On 10/18/2024 at 9:49 AM,  sfcityduck said:

Ditko has written that he did not provide dialogue to Stan.

He did?

“The book contains two independent stories. They were both credited as Script: Stan Lee/Art: Steve Ditko. There was no Stan Lee script. I worked from two synopsis. And I provided rough panel script — dialogue — for the penciled story panels, plus whatever clarification needed when we went over the penciled panels.”

— Steve Ditko A Mini-History 3 “The Amazing Spider-Man #1’ (The Comics V. 12 No. 11, November 2001) the newsletter of Robin Snyder.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/19/2024 at 9:32 AM, Prince Namor said:

Not at all.

They talked. Period.

WHAT they talked about, we don't know.

BUT...

as far as the topic is concerned...

“This similar plotting sequence is a lot like DNA testing, one or two match-ups doesn’t mean a thing, but the odds increase exponentially with each added matched item.”

- Stan Taylor, Spider-Man: The Case For Kirby (2003), reprinted in the Jack Kirby Collector #70 (Winter 2017)

Still not a fact, just an opinion based argument. 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 3:32 AM, sfcityduck said:

Ditko stated the meetings were longer. And what ultimately made Ditko leave Marvel is he said that Stan would no longer meet with him. Ditko wanted the meetings.

Prove Ditko 'wanted' the meetings.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 11:32 PM, VintageComics said:

That was a little <sarcasm> on my part because there is this need to constantly downplay Stan's efforts (PN at one point about 70 pages ago 'plotted' Stan's day and speckled it with a bunch of "5 minute" meetings, when in fact, you have no way of knowing how long his meetings were, and while some plotting sessions could have been zero to 5 minutes ("go get me an idea!") that didn't mean every plot meeting was just Stan forcing people to pull rabbits out of hats. 

It was a generalized look, not his actual minute by minute schedule. Duh.

On 10/19/2024 at 11:32 PM, VintageComics said:

In fact, what seems to be apparent as the discussion unfolds is that Stan probably spent more time plotting in the early days than later days, as his role become more broad. 

He probably spent more time in discussion with the artist in the early days. He definitely did less plotting for ASM #25-38 and Doctor Strange in ST #133-146, because he didn't do ANY.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 11:34 PM, sfcityduck said:

Still not a fact, just an opinion based argument. 

Correct.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/19/2024 at 9:33 AM, Prince Namor said:

And in case you missed it:

 

   On 10/18/2024 at 9:49 AM,  sfcityduck said:

Ditko has written that he did not provide dialogue to Stan.

He did?

“The book contains two independent stories. They were both credited as Script: Stan Lee/Art: Steve Ditko. There was no Stan Lee script. I worked from two synopsis. And I provided rough panel script — dialogue — for the penciled story panels, plus whatever clarification needed when we went over the penciled panels.”

— Steve Ditko A Mini-History 3 “The Amazing Spider-Man #1’ (The Comics V. 12 No. 11, November 2001) the newsletter of Robin Snyder.

Didn’t miss it just don’t have time to give you the response it deserves including the Ditko quotes.  Ia nutshell, Ditko wrote Stan didn’t want dialogue in the first half of the run and he didn’t provide any. They met in person to talk about the story,

After Stan turned plotting over to Stan and they stopped meeting, Ditko commenced providing “rough panel script” to guide Stan (although it was not requested by Stan as far as I can tell b/c that claim was never made that I have seen) and Stan still did the dialogue.

Edited Saturday at 04:50 PM by sfcityduck

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 11:43 PM, sfcityduck said:

Didn’t miss it just don’t have time to give you the response it deserves including the Ditko quotes. In a nutshell, Ditko wrote Stan didn’t want dialogue. In the first half of the run and he didn’t provide any. They met in person to talk about the story,

After Stan turned plotting over to Stan and they stopped meeting, Ditko commenced providing “rough panel script” to guide Stan (although it was not requested by Stan as far as I can tell b/c that claim was never made that I have seen) and Stan still did the dialogue.

That quote is for ASM #1.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/19/2024 at 9:34 AM, Prince Namor said:

Prove Ditko 'wanted' the meetings.

Ditko wrote he did. I don’t have time to chase it down today. Here’s a cheat sheet if you want to seek the sources yourself:

https://comicbookhistorians.com/the-ditko-version-exploring-steve-ditkos-recollections-of-marvel-in-the-1960s-by-rosco-m-copyright-rosco-m-2023/
 

[VintageComics]

On 10/19/2024 at 12:18 PM, Prince Namor said:

On 10/19/2024 at 11:54 AM, VintageComics said:

Not if Kirby quietly agrees to it while taking a larger paycheck than anyone else for his contributions, which (up until this point) is the conclusion that is forming.

You're making things up again.

No. It's a reasonable conclusion based on the entire body of evidence presented in this thread so far. 

It's reasonable to conclude that a fledgling industry of throwaway material that nobody cared about much would compensate employees enough to have them not grumble and keep working. 

Things like well defined roles when the business became more lucrative didn't need to be carved out, especially when it yet wasn't an industry standard. 

So it's reasonable to conclude that Kirby accepted the larger pay rate as a compromise. 

You've reached less likely conclusions with less evidence. 

Your obvious, blatant bias against Lee and towards Kirby prevents you from gauging what's 'reasonable' in a discussion. 

[Prince Namor]

From Ditko's 1990 essay that you posted here:

“Briefly, in regards to our working method, Stan provided the plot ideas. There would be a discussion to clear up anything, consider options, and so forth. I would then do the panel/page breakdowns, pencil the visual story continuity, and, on a separate paper, provide a very rough panel dialogue.”

- from Ditko's published essay “”An Insider’s Part of Comics History: Jack Kirby’s Spider-man” © 1990 S. Ditko.

 

[sfcityduck]

On 10/19/2024 at 9:44 AM, Prince Namor said:

That quote is for ASM #1.

Can you provide the quote in context?

 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/19/2024 at 11:47 PM, VintageComics said:

No. It's a reasonable conclusion based on the entire body of evidence presented in this thread so far. 

It's reasonable to conclude that a fledgling industry of throwaway material that nobody cared about much would compensate employees enough to have them not grumble and keep working. 

Things like well defined roles when the business became more lucrative didn't need to be carved out, especially when it yet wasn't an industry standard. 

So it's reasonable to conclude that Kirby accepted the larger pay rate as a compromise. 

You've reached less likely conclusions with less evidence. 

Your obvious, blatant bias against Lee and towards Kirby prevents you from gauging what's 'reasonable' in a discussion. 

No. Marvel did not give incentives in the 60's.

Go read the court documents about how they did business.