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

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 5:21 AM, sfcityduck said:

It wasn't a Kirby invention. It'd been happening since at least Robin appeared in 1940. Today we'd call it a meme. And everyone in the industry knew about it.

Robin was, after all, the second most successful GA (or pre-Code if you prefer) DC superhero, and probably top 4 overall.

I didn't mean it as Kirby created it, just that he was using it before the Silver Age and that Lee didn't create it as many people believe. Humor being incorporated into Superheroes was most definitely GA. 

[Zonker]

On 10/22/2024 at 7:06 PM, sfcityduck said:

Robin is no. 2! He was with Batman in Detective, Batman and World's Finest (all three of Batman's books). PLUS he was solo in Star-Spangled more issues than Batman was solo in Detective (Batman also had some Star-Spangled appearances).

Thank you for showing us the math!  

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 5:53 AM, sfcityduck said:

GCD, for example, does not definitively credit Kirby with scripting Race for the Moon #3.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/22/2024 at 4:44 PM, Prince Namor said:

The question mark is why I say "not definitively". For that time period it seems like a real stretch to think he was doing dialoging. He wasn't in Challengers or Sky Masters because he'd hired the Wood brothers.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 5:53 AM, sfcityduck said:

This is why I don't like shotgun discussions. They go all over the place without any digging or critical thought. GCD, for example, does not definitively credit Kirby with scripting Race for the Moon #3. And we all know that despite Kirby's claim that he "wrote everything" he ever did -- he really didn't.

What's funny about when people say this is that... when I read that Fighting American that Joe Simon will claim he wrote and I read that Race for the Moon that NOBODY has claimed they wrote and I read Kirby's monster stories at DC and then his monster stories at Marvel and then his early Silver Age... they all seem to have a rhythm and a dialogue to them that's the same. 

And yet supposedly Kirby wrote none of them - the writers all just had a synchronicity that aligned and sounded the same!

And Race for the Moon #3 - sure looks like Kirby's block letter pencils under there to me (and others).

[Ken Aldred]

On 10/22/2024 at 6:20 PM, Mmehdy said:

I bought them all, 25 cents was a factor after issue #1...which is why they lowered the price to15Cents. Still at the time I agree, a different feel....issue #1 is one of my top 10 Marvels of all time....what a deal back them!

Even though they contained retellings by Gene Colan and Howard Purcell of earlier Silver Age Monster / Science Fiction stories, I thought the Watcher backups were great additions when I read them first as a kid. Not bad at all for the price.

Edited 5 hours ago by Ken Aldred

[sfcityduck]

On 10/22/2024 at 5:04 PM, Prince Namor said:

What's funny about when people say this is that... when I read that Fighting American that Joe Simon will claim he wrote and I read that Race for the Moon that NOBODY has claimed they wrote and I read Kirby's monster stories at DC and then his monster stories at Marvel and then his early Silver Age... they all seem to have a rhythm and a dialogue to them that's the same. 

And yet supposedly Kirby wrote none of them - the writers all just had a synchronicity that aligned and sounded the same!

And Race for the Moon #3 - sure looks like Kirby's block letter pencils under there to me (and others).

I agree that OA with penciled in dialogue that a letterer just copied is compelling evidence that the pencil artist may have written the dialogue -- especially when no writer claims to have written the dialogue and the pencil artist claims to have written dialogue in the balloons (which claim Kirby did not make as to this specific work but he did, late in life, make a general claim to that effect without really recalling when he used that method -- despite Roz disagreeing with him as to whether he did that for Marvel).

Such concrete evidence is different than an opinion based on subjective views of "similarities" in "rhythm and dialogue." Especially, when the man claiming to have dialogued the story was the man who worked with Kirby from 1939 to the mid-1950s. Totally natural that Kirby would take on the "rhythm and dialogue" style of a man he worked closely and successfully with for years. And why would Simon lie? 

A big problem I see with relying on Kirby as a witness is that its absolutely clear that when he was making the "I wrote everything I ever did" claim he was (1) wrong (again - why did he hire the Wood brothers in 1958 for Challengers and Sky Masters - two works he claimed to have written? They were not hired to letter), (2) made that claim most famously when he was old, losing his memory, and embittered, and (3) again, why would Joe Simon, for example, lie about that? So Kirby's credibility is not high with me on a number of the statements which his boosters try to push as Gospel.

 

 

[Zonker]

On 10/22/2024 at 5:40 PM, Prince Namor said:

Silver Surfer is just poorly written. It lacks any creative spark. Lee just pulls out his usual tricks - faceless alien, guest star, etc. and the Surfer has extra pages to mope and wax poetic about the same every issue. It was a drag.

GREAT art, but... the stories were just dumb.

Did it miss the wise cracks? Probably. But Lee was maybe trying to write 'grown up comics' now per his self-proclaimed reputation.

And yes, Lee's wise cracking was a part of the appeal of those comics, but... A couple of points... 

Lee had been writing those same wise cracks all through the 50's in Millie the Model, My Girl Pearl, Dexter the Demon, etc. without any notice.

Kirby had those bickering type of charcters as early as 1942 in the Newsboy Legion (Ben-Johnny-and Reed are Scrapper-Gabby-and Big Words) and as late as 1958 in Race for the Moon (see attached). The dialogue wasn’t as silly or whimsical or whatever as Lee’s, but the intent was there. And so was the SUCCESS.

Here's an example where I do see the characteristic Kirby tell when it comes to dialogue: the frequent use of quotation marks, e.g. "Big Shot" and "figures."  That was a Kirby 1970s signature style for his DC Fourth World books, as well as his return to Marvel's Captain America in the mid-1970s.  It's something usually missing from the Kirby Atlas monster stories, which is a personal stumbling block for me in accepting that it was all Kirby's unedited dialogue on those stories. 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 7:18 AM, sfcityduck said:

I agree that OA with penciled in dialogue that a letterer just copied is compelling evidence that the pencil artist may have written the dialogue -- especially when no writer claims to have written the dialogue and the pencil artist claims to have written dialogue in the balloons (which claim Kirby did not make as to this specific work but he did, late in life, make a general claim to that effect without really recalling when he used that method -- despite Roz disagreeing with him as to whether he did that for Marvel).

Such concrete evidence is different than an opinion based on subjective views of "similarities" in "rhythm and dialogue." Especially, when the man claiming to have dialogued the story was the man who worked with Kirby from 1939 to the mid-1950s. Totally natural that Kirby would take on the "rhythm and dialogue" style of a man he worked closely and successfully with for years. And why would Simon lie? 

A big problem I see with relying on Kirby as a witness is that its absolutely clear that when he was making the "I wrote everything I ever did" claim he was (1) wrong (again - why did he hire the Wood brothers in 1958 for Challengers and Sky Masters - two works he claimed to have written?

I'm not sure he had a choice, but he certainly didn't 'hire' them for Challengers. I think at least one of the Wood Brothers 'DC'd' Kirby's dialogue on Challengers, but I doubt it was Kirby's decision.

And subtract Challengers from the Wood resume and what did they do of great note? Well... Bob was a notorious drunk who killed his wife.

And Kirby has said that pretty quickly on Sky Masters he was on his own to do the strip - they 'disappeared'.

On 10/23/2024 at 7:18 AM, sfcityduck said:

They were not hired to letter), (2) made that claim most famously when he was old, losing his memory, and embittered, and (3) again, why would Joe Simon, for example, lie about that? So Kirby's credibility is not high with me on a number of the statements which his boosters try to push as Gospel.

You hold Simon in higher regard than I do.

[Ken Aldred]

On 10/22/2024 at 10:40 PM, Prince Namor said:

Silver Surfer is just poorly written. It lacks any creative spark. Lee just pulls out his usual tricks - faceless alien, guest star, etc. and the Surfer has extra pages to mope and wax poetic about the same every issue. It was a drag.

GREAT art, but... the stories were just dumb.

Did it miss the wise cracks? Probably. But Lee was maybe trying to write 'grown up comics' now per his self-proclaimed reputation.

And yes, Lee's wise cracking was a part of the appeal of those comics, but... A couple of points... 

Lee had been writing those same wise cracks all through the 50's in Millie the Model, My Girl Pearl, Dexter the Demon, etc. without any notice.

Kirby had those bickering type of charcters as early as 1942 in the Newsboy Legion (Ben-Johnny-and Reed are Scrapper-Gabby-and Big Words) and as late as 1958 in Race for the Moon (see attached). The dialogue wasn’t as silly or whimsical or whatever as Lee’s, but the intent was there. And so was the SUCCESS.

Beefy Brown sounded like a character with real potential.

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Ken Aldred

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 7:28 AM, Zonker said:

Here's an example where I do see the characteristic Kirby tell when it comes to dialogue: the frequent use of quotation marks, e.g. "Big Shot" and "figures."  That was a Kirby 1970s signature style for his DC Fourth World books, as well as his return to Marvel's Captain America in the mid-1970s.  It's something usually missing from the Kirby Atlas monster stories, which is a personal stumbling block for me in accepting that it was all Kirby's unedited dialogue on those stories. 

I can understand that. But the original art shows us he was writing the dialogue directly onto the page in balloons.

Could be Kirby just wasn't as invested in the monster stories as he was superhero work. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Prince Namor

[sfcityduck]

 

On 10/22/2024 at 5:37 PM, Prince Namor said:

I can understand that. But the original art shows us he was writing the dialogue directly onto the page in balloons.

 

But does it really? I have yet to see any Marvel art with writing in the balloons. But Kirby said something very interesting in a 1971 interview right after he left Marvel (e.g., he had good recall and had no reason to sugar coat anything):

Q. There was a distinct difference between the stories you had drawn, and probably had a lot to do with the writing, and...

A. Well, the policy there is the artist isn't allowed to do the dialogue, and therefore has to confine himself to the script. What the artist does is the script and the drawing, and the dialogue is filled in by the writer in the balloons. The artist writes the action in the margin of the illustration board and the writer is therefore able to follow the action in each individual panel. What the artist does is make the framework for the dialogue writer.

 

You know who else said that was the way it was at Marvel? Jack and Roz in 1989.

GROTH; I’ve seen original art with words written on the sides of the pages.

KIRBY: That would be my dialogue.

....

GROTH: Was Stan your basic contact with Marvel? He was the one that you — ?

KIRBY: Yes. I’d come in, and I’d give Stan the work, and I’d go home, and I wrote the story at home. I drew the story at home. I even lettered in the words in the balloons in pencil.

ROZ KIRBY: Well, you’d put them in the margins.

 

I think I now need to retract the comments made up thread about JIM 83. Kirby said (when his memory was fresh, he was unrestrained, and he was not overly bitter) that the writer wrote in the balloons and the artists wrote in the margins.

Edited 3 hours ago by sfcityduck

[sfcityduck]

On 10/22/2024 at 5:35 PM, Prince Namor said:

I'm not sure he had a choice, but he certainly didn't 'hire' them for Challengers. I think at least one of the Wood Brothers 'DC'd' Kirby's dialogue on Challengers, but I doubt it was Kirby's decision.

And subtract Challengers from the Wood resume and what did they do of great note? Well... Bob was a notorious drunk who killed his wife.

 

Wrong. Bob Wood (like Wally although he actually inked Sky Masters) was not one of the Wood Brothers. According to Kirby, they were Dick and Dave Wood. And GCD and other sources denote Dave Wood as working on Challengers. Kirby has stated that he had a team do the whole package for Challengers outside of DC:

GROTH: When you say you were doing very well, what does that mean? What was your page rate in the ’50s?

KIRBY: Thirty-five to 50 dollars for a complete page. It depended on who you worked for. Some paid less. Some paid more.

GROTH: Would that include the writing?

KIRBY: Yes, I gave them a complete page. Joe would ink it or someone else would ink it. I’d get somebody to ink it, or I’d ink it myself, and I’d get a certain amount from the publishers. That’s how it was with Challengers of the Unknown.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/22/2024 at 5:35 PM, Prince Namor said:

 

You hold Simon in higher regard than I do.

So does Kirby. From the 1971 interview:

Q. In many comic historys that I've read, you and Joe Simon are often mentioned as collaborators. Not much is ever said about Joe Simon, though. Can you tell us a little about him?

A. Well, we were partners, and Joe is five years older than I am and maybe three feet taller than I am, and a highly competent man. We were in comics together until the early fifties, I'd say, and then we kind of parted. He wanted to do other things and I stuck with comics and it was fine. There was no reason to continue the partnership and we parted friends.

Q. Was he a writer, an artist, or both?

A. He was both! Joe was a competent writer, a competent artist and a very good letterer. He was one up on me.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/22/2024 at 5:04 PM, Prince Namor said:

What's funny about when people say this is that... when I read that Fighting American that Joe Simon will claim he wrote and I read that Race for the Moon that NOBODY has claimed they wrote and I read Kirby's monster stories at DC and then his monster stories at Marvel and then his early Silver Age... they all seem to have a rhythm and a dialogue to them that's the same. 

And yet supposedly Kirby wrote none of them - the writers all just had a synchronicity that aligned and sounded the same!

And Race for the Moon #3 - sure looks like Kirby's block letter pencils under there to me (and others).

As for the handwriting analysis, now that I know how Kirby said he actually worked, it doesn't really work for me. Block letters are block letters. They all generally look somewhat alike. These certainly could be Kirby, but do you know what Joe Simon or Dave Wood's or other writers Kirby worked with's block letters looked like? I don't. So while I admit that the OA might evidence Kirby writing this story, its not conclusive. And for Marvel, the existence of writing in the balloons would appear not to evidence artist participation based on what Kirby said in 1971.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 9:46 AM, sfcityduck said:

 

But does it really? I have yet to see any Marvel art with writing in the balloons. But Kirby said something very interesting in a 1971 interview right after he left Marvel (e.g., he had good recall and had no reason to sugar coat anything):

Q. There was a distinct difference between the stories you had drawn, and probably had a lot to do with the writing, and...

A. Well, the policy there is the artist isn't allowed to do the dialogue, and therefore has to confine himself to the script. What the artist does is the script and the drawing, and the dialogue is filled in by the writer in the balloons. The artist writes the action in the margin of the illustration board and the writer is therefore able to follow the action in each individual panel. What the artist does is make the framework for the dialogue writer.

 

You know who else said that was the way it was at Marvel? Jack and Roz in 1989.

GROTH; I’ve seen original art with words written on the sides of the pages.

KIRBY: That would be my dialogue.

....

GROTH: Was Stan your basic contact with Marvel? He was the one that you — ?

KIRBY: Yes. I’d come in, and I’d give Stan the work, and I’d go home, and I wrote the story at home. I drew the story at home. I even lettered in the words in the balloons in pencil.

ROZ KIRBY: Well, you’d put them in the margins.

 

I think I now need to retract the comments made up thread about JIM 83. Kirby said (when his memory was fresh, he was unrestrained, and he was not overly bitter) that the writer wrote in the balloons and the artists wrote in the margins.

It all changed BECAUSE of Journey Into Mystery #83. That - ABOVE - is what LEE dictated it had to be. 

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 9:54 AM, sfcityduck said:

Wrong. Bob Wood (like Wally although he actually inked Sky Masters) was not one of the Wood Brothers. According to Kirby, they were Dick and Dave Wood. And GCD and other sources denote Dave Wood as working on Challengers. Kirby has stated that he had a team do the whole package for Challengers outside of DC:

GROTH: When you say you were doing very well, what does that mean? What was your page rate in the ’50s?

KIRBY: Thirty-five to 50 dollars for a complete page. It depended on who you worked for. Some paid less. Some paid more.

GROTH: Would that include the writing?

KIRBY: Yes, I gave them a complete page. Joe would ink it or someone else would ink it. I’d get somebody to ink it, or I’d ink it myself, and I’d get a certain amount from the publishers. That’s how it was with Challengers of the Unknown.

Sounds to me as if he's saying HE wrote it and someone inked it.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 9:57 AM, sfcityduck said:

So does Kirby. From the 1971 interview:

Q. In many comic historys that I've read, you and Joe Simon are often mentioned as collaborators. Not much is ever said about Joe Simon, though. Can you tell us a little about him?

A. Well, we were partners, and Joe is five years older than I am and maybe three feet taller than I am, and a highly competent man. We were in comics together until the early fifties, I'd say, and then we kind of parted. He wanted to do other things and I stuck with comics and it was fine. There was no reason to continue the partnership and we parted friends.

Q. Was he a writer, an artist, or both?

A. He was both! Joe was a competent writer, a competent artist and a very good letterer. He was one up on me.

People from that era generally speak differently in public than they do in private.

[Prince Namor]

On 10/23/2024 at 10:07 AM, sfcityduck said:

As for the handwriting analysis, now that I know how Kirby said he actually worked, it doesn't really work for me. Block letters are block letters. They all generally look somewhat alike. These certainly could be Kirby, but do you know what Joe Simon or Dave Wood's or other writers Kirby worked with's block letters looked like? I don't. So while I admit that the OA might evidence Kirby writing this story, its not conclusive. And for Marvel, the existence of writing in the balloons would appear not to evidence artist participation based on what Kirby said in 1971.

I don't have the time to really go through it with you, but I've seen the artwork from the pre-hero Marvel's and the way Kirby did it, and the white out that Lee used to cover up the Kirby/Ayers signatures (put there by Ayers). There's so much history and research that's been done to SHOW us, that you are apparently unaware of. 

I just don't have the time to go through it... believe what you want... maybe I can find some links for you. To give you chance to go through it.

[Dr. Haydn]

On 10/22/2024 at 10:07 PM, sfcityduck said:

As for the handwriting analysis, now that I know how Kirby said he actually worked, it doesn't really work for me. Block letters are block letters. They all generally look somewhat alike. These certainly could be Kirby, but do you know what Joe Simon or Dave Wood's or other writers Kirby worked with's block letters looked like? I don't. So while I admit that the OA might evidence Kirby writing this story, its not conclusive. And for Marvel, the existence of writing in the balloons would appear not to evidence artist participation based on what Kirby said in 1971.

Kirby's E's are pretty distinctive. 

Usually there are one or two letters that are a dead giveaway with anyone's calligraphy. I can spot Sam Rosen's lettering a mile away because of his unique J's and S's.