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

[themagicrobot]

Talking of letters pages. Did Sol's daughter Janice, who would then have been 8 years old, really write in (thanking them for all the reading pleasure she had been given) or did Stan just utilise her name? Patsy Walker 118:

[Prince Namor]

Stan can't tell the TRUTH, because then Kirby becomes the first sayer - the genesis of the idea - which is what Lee built his entire 'Origins'/I-created-it-all on. 

It doesn't matter to Lee what happens to the character later on or what changes - it's who comes up with the initial idea (and as long as it's him).

That's why he invented the whole story of seeing a fly crawling up the wall. Without this information, HE is the first sayer.

The idea of Kirby bringing in a fully formed character - reminiscent of one he'd already released and had success with* - would show Jack in a light he didn't want fans to see. As a storyteller and a creator. 

 

*In 1961, 2 years after he worked on the book, The Fly was still doing 240,000 copies a month (Challengers was at 235,000) - putting it in the Mystery In Space, Showcase, Brave and the Bold level. Marvel's best selling book that year (of what we have numbers for) was Kirby's Strange Tales at 191,261.

[Albert Tatlock]

From the relaunch of The Fly from 1983.

Not much in the editorial that has not been covered here already, but it is a cool cover.

 

Edited Thursday at 04:00 PM by Albert Tatlock
scan added.

[BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES]

On 10/16/2024 at 7:53 PM, sfcityduck said:

No one comes into anything without bias. The question is whether we can keep our bias in check enough to listen to the arguments of others, find actual evidence to support or rebut the views in the conversation, and have the ability to change views if the evidence warrants. Astute readers of this thread probably have noticed I'm open to changing my opinion to conclude that Kirby had no hand in creating Thor. Not because of opinions as to whether Stan did the dialogue, but based on the possible establishment of the fact that Kirby dialogued JIM 83 based on his writing of the dialogue into the balloons. PN asserts we will be able to see pics of the OA which show that. If those pics ever emerge they may close the debate on whether Stan was involved in creating Thor. 

In contrast, I'm not seeing much engagement with the extensive evidence put up on this thread establishing that Spider-Man was a Lee and Ditko creation. Instead, I see the continued assertion that Kirby created nearly everything, including Spider-Man. Ditko and Simon (and of course Lee) disagree.  Ditko says it was a Lee and Ditko creation. Simon says it wasn't him and Kirby. Yet this goes ignored. That's the cognitive weakness called confirmation bias - a flaw in reasoning that causes people to ignore evidence that conflicts with their beliefs.

I agree that everybody has some bias. Just trying to give credit where I think it's due for an unreasonable amount of bias, as opposed to the virtually monomaniacal obsession I see elsewhere, which is exhausting and ultimately pointless to engage with, because no adjustment of the obsession will be made, however minor. So getting into it with them is about a good a use of your time as arguing with a barking dog. What you say or how you say it or what compromises you try to make are all meaningless. He will always outlast you and you will simply waste a great deal of time and accomplish nothing

Edited Thursday at 04:06 PM by BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

[Ken Aldred]

On 10/17/2024 at 4:02 PM, Prince Namor said:

Kirby's Fly looks smaller than Romita's Spider-man. And about the same as Ditko's. 

During the early Silver Age, Kirby did tend to draw slimmer-looking characters.

You can see the difference in early vs late Silver Age Captain America, in the latter period being given a much bulkier appearance.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 10/17/2024 at 5:01 PM, Ken Aldred said:

During the early Silver Age, Kirby did tend to draw slimmer-looking characters.

That, I think, was often a consequence of Dick Ayers' inking.

[Ken Aldred]

On 10/17/2024 at 5:07 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

That, I think, was often a consequence of Dick Ayers' inking.

Maybe. But, he was following Kirby’s figure outline.

[jimjum12]

I'm still planning to read the book 

.... and I feel, in my own fanboy way, that the early history of "The House Of Ideas" is VERY important as a pervasive cultural and intellectual catalyst of the 60's and 70's. A lot of intellectuals, researchers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, and captains of industry were spawned there. Unfortunately, at this late stage in the game, and with the ulterior motives of duplicating the big payday of the Kirby Estate, which began in earnest around 2009, and possibly as early as the payroll disclaimer that began appearing. on the back of freelancer checks as early as 1970, this may be futile. That could explain a lot about the fuzzy and changing recollection of freelancers. Similar legal challenges by Siegal and Schuster, circa 2008(at minimum) may also have a similar effect on the "truth". A 100% truth is, unlikely, at best, and cults of personality will only serve to further confound. Emotion is rarely a conduit to absolute truth, exceptiing, of course, Perry Mason.

I'm hoping Gower's effort will at least provide a cornerstone to the endeavor.

GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friiend of jesus)

Edited Thursday at 05:22 PM by jimjum12

[sfcityduck]

On 10/17/2024 at 7:32 AM, Zonker said:

 

Here I think you're confusing a claim made about Archie's The Double Life of Private Strong (featuring a Shield character) with Marvel's later Nick Fury series. 

I stand corrected. Too early in the morning to post.

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 10/17/2024 at 8:02 AM, Prince Namor said:

Kirby's Fly looks smaller than Romita's Spider-man. And about the same as Ditko's. 

[sfcityduck]

On 10/17/2024 at 7:32 AM, Zonker said:

Here I think you're not doing justice to the Stan Taylor / Chuck Gower argument.  As far as we know, Kirby never spoke directly to Ditko about his Spiderman concept or the eventual Amazing Spider-Man, and from what I've read of Ditko's writings, his only contact was Stan.  So it is possible that some of what wound up in early issues of ASM was the result of either Kirby's original pitch to Stan, or a pre-ASM plotting conference Stan & Jack had before the concept was ever brought to Ditko.  I believe the argument is it was Kirby's ideas that were transmitted to Ditko via one or more of the Stan synopses. 

Fact: Kirby was not involved in any plotting sessions for ASM issues.

Fact: Ditko says Kirby's ideas for Spider-Man were "failed ideas" and he had no influence on the version of Spider-Man that appeared in AF 15, including Peter Parker's appearance.

Fact: Ditko says he worked off of Stan's 1.5 page synopsis for AF 15. 

Fact: Ditko who read the synopsis and saw Kirby's OA for the failed attempt at Spider-Man says the only similarities were a kindly Aunt May, the use of Uncle Ben as the name of an overbearing Uncle/former police office in the Thunderbolt Ross mold, and the name.

Fact: Unlike Ditko who created a long-term plan for his characters, Kirby stated he plotted panel by panel and page by page without ever creating any written scripts or plots:

From the 1989 TCJ interview:

GROTH: I think you were drawing much of the time three books a month, and those books must have been about 24 pages — so you were turning out roughly 75 pages a month. Was that a strain?

KIRBY: No, I like working hard. Not only that, but if you look at some of my old pages, notice the expressions on the people — they’re very real expressions. I was totally immersed in the characters. I penciled fast, I wrote fast. Nobody could have written it for me because they couldn’t have understood the situation or what to do.

ROZ KIRBY: He never wrote the story ahead of time, he wrote while he was drawing.

KIRBY: In other words, I’d never planned a story —

GROTH: That’s my next question. When you were doing a story, say, the first Dragon Man story in Fantastic Four that took place on a campus — would you plot that out in your mind?

KIRBY: No, no, I’d take it from the beginning, then say, what would he do? Here he is, he’s a dragon — this guy is in a mess! He’s really a human being, but he’s a dragon— what would a human being trapped in those circumstances do? Then I’d come up with an answer. I didn’t plan out the entire story. I had to do it panel by panel because I had to think for each individual. Sometime even after I thought it out, the story would come out different because on the way something would happen and this guy would have to make other plans.

Fact: Amazing Fantasy 15 covered date 8/62 was a tryout for Spider-Man. Amazing Spider-Man 1 covered dated 3/63 came out SEVEN MONTHS LATER making it highly unlikely that Jack and Stan were having plotting sessions for ASM issues.

Fact: Jack Kirby never claimed to have plotted any issue of ASM or to have created any villains that first appeared in ASM. To the contrary, he just claimed he created Spider-Man and the idea was handed over to Ditko to actually implement. A claim is being made here that even Jack Kirby never put forward.

 

[Albert Tatlock]

SHAKESPEARE HATH LIED

According to the title of a recently re-discovered 17th Century book.

The author questions the authorship of the Bard, and I cannot stand idly by.

Shakespeare's autobiography had been thought lost for many centuries, but I have tracked down a fragment of the final chapter, and it appears below.

Friends, Romans, countrymen,

T’WAS ME, T’WAS ME, T’WAS ME.

It hath of late come to mine notice that a petty chapbook is being transported to all corners of the realm by ruffianly pedlars.

In it, my authorship of my many works is denied and granted falsely to Francis Bacon, to the Earl of Oxford and divers others.

Those gentlemen, once my friends, have put in no more than a drop into my ocean of invention.

The author, one Guido Gower, a most scurrilous knave and rogue, is profiting by these false and baseless tales.

I well remember how, as a merry company were quaffing their flagons of ale in a low Eastcheap tavern, Bacon drunkenly burbled: ‘Hey, good Will, have we never written of witches and their doings?’.

That was enough for me. Bright and early the next morning, or as soon thereafter as my hangover did allow, I began the first draft of my Scottish play, and the opening night was at the Globe that very eve.

His Majesty was in attendance, and he lauded my work to the skies. ‘Thou knowest, good sir, how I be down on witches. Let us rid the realm of them’, quoth he. ‘Let them dangle from a gibbet.’.

I bowed low, and thought him about to knight me on the spot. I can wait, though.

Another evening, in the same tavern, Oxford was regaling us (yet again) with wild tales of his prowess on the battlefield. My eyelids began to droop, when the phrase ‘slings and arrows’ dropped from his lips.

That was on the Friday night. My Hamlet was with the printer come Monday morn.

Nor is that all, gentle friends. As fast as my quill could scratch its way across the page more and more burst from my imagination, just as Athena fully formed from the brow of Zeus.

Henry V and Julius Caesar were real, I think, but if not, I could have invented them in a trice.

Cleopatra, I made her up. All I saw was her name on a scrap of papyrus, and I gave the world her full story. No one would have heard of her without me. She launched a thousand ships, remember. Or was that the other broad? I made her up too, I clearly remember it.

Now Bacon and Oxford, and maybe others, have forgotten that I rewarded them in full. I pressed a groat, a newly minted shiny groat, into each of their palms, but, base ingratitude from these wretches, they demand of me a purse full of golden doubloons.

Forsooth and gadzooks! Nay, nay, a thousand times nay!

Yorick and Falstaff. Marc Antony and Shylock. Romeo and Hotspur. Rosencrantz and Guildernstern. Romeo and Doll Tearsheet.

Who but myself could have committed them to paper?

And several characters, nameless, but who are known as Watchmen. Must remember to do a whole series of sonnets about them when time permits, I just hope that no rascal claims my credit.

And I have just thought up a tale of a wooden horse, one of my lackeys will bring it, under my guidance, to the page.

Time will tell who will reap the glory for my characters. Shakespearedom Assembled will be the judge.

Excelsior!

Given under my hand this xxiii day of April, in the year of Our Lord 1616.

 

Edited Thursday at 04:52 PM by Albert Tatlock

[sfcityduck]

On 10/17/2024 at 8:35 AM, Prince Namor said:

Let's look at the full quote and take notice to what Ditko specifically points out... nothing about 'too heroic looking'...

“For me, the [Spider- Man] saga began when Stan called me into his office and told me I would be inking Jack Kirby’s pencils on a new Marvel hero, [Spider-Man]... Stan never told me who came up with the idea for [Spider-Man] or for the story Kirby was penciling. Stan did tell me [he] was a teenager who had a magic ring that transformed him into an adult hero... I told Stan it sounded like Joe Simon’s character, The Fly, that Kirby had some hand in, for Archie Comics [in 1959].

“Stan called Jack about The Fly. I don’t know what was said in that call. Day(s) later, Stan told me we would be doing [Spider-Man]. I would be penciling the story panel breakdowns from Stan’s synopsis and doing the inking.

“Kirby’s five penciled [Spider-Man] story/art pages were rejected. Out went the magic ring, adult [hero] and whatever legend ideas that story would have contained.

“Now we can speculate: What if I never said anything about the Simon Fly, and Kirby had completed penciling that magic ring- teenager-into-an-adult-SM-legend story? ...There would be lots of nots: Not my web-designed costume, not a full mask, web-shooters, no spider-senses, no spider-like action, poses, fighting style, and page breakdowns, etc.

“There is not even a credible resemblance [to Joe Simon’s never-realized Silver Spider], not any valid point of comparison, between the non-Marvel Fly, unused [Spider-Man] pages, and the published Marvel [Spider-Man].”

- Steve Ditko, in ‘A Mini-History - 13. ‘Speculation’ © 2003 S. Ditko

 

What exactly are you trying to argue here?  Because Ditko is arguing opposite your position by stating that Kirby's ideas had no influence on the Ditko and Lee version. The fuller publications that Ditko issued on this topic make that even more clear. That "Stan never told me who came up with the idea" for the original Lee and Kirby attempt is irrelevant since the "idea" Ditko was referencing was never used.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/17/2024 at 8:48 AM, Prince Namor said:

 

*In 1961, 2 years after he worked on the book, The Fly was still doing 240,000 copies a month (Challengers was at 235,000) - putting it in the Mystery In Space, Showcase, Brave and the Bold level. Marvel's best selling book that year (of what we have numbers for) was Kirby's Strange Tales at 191,261.

Worth noting that the Fly was a S&K creation that was initiated by Joe Simon. That the book was still selling well, better than Kirby's Marvel work, two years after Kirby is not an argument for Kirby's unique importance.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/16/2024 at 10:30 PM, Prince Namor said:

Julius Schwartz gave a LOT of input on things at DC that he edited and added dialogue to and made changes.

He didn't claim he created it.

And he didn't steal pay from the people who did. 

 

Julius Schwartz was an editor of full scripts. He wasn't acting as the writer working under the Marvel method. So its no surprise that he made no claim to creation.

You have yet to prove that Stan stole a penny from anyone. This was all addressed in posts above to which you have not made any response.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/17/2024 at 9:45 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

SHAKESPEARE HATH LIED

According to the title of a recently re-discovered 17th Century book.

The author questions the authorship of the Bard, and I cannot stand idly by.

Shakespeare's autobiography had been thought lost for many centuries, but I have tracked down a fragment of the final chapter, and it appears below.

Friends, Romans, countrymen,

T’WAS ME, T’WAS ME, T’WAS ME.

It hath of late come to mine notice that a petty chapbook is being transported to all corners of the realm by ruffianly pedlars.

In it, my authorship of my many works is denied and granted falsely to Francis Bacon, to the Earl of Oxford and divers others.

Those gentlemen, once my friends, have put in no more than a drop into my ocean of invention.

The author, one Guido Gower, a most scurrilous knave and rogue, is profiting by these false and baseless tales.

I well remember how, as a merry company were quaffing their flagons of ale in a low Eastcheap tavern, Bacon drunkenly burbled: ‘Hey, good Will, have we never written of witches and their doings?’.

That was enough for me. Bright and early the next morning, or as soon thereafter as my hangover did allow, I began the first draft of my Scottish play, and the opening night was at the Globe that very eve.

His Majesty was in attendance, and he lauded my work to the skies. ‘Thou knowest, good sir, how I be down on witches. Let us rid the realm of them’, quoth he. ‘Let them dangle from a gibbet.’.

I bowed low, and thought him about to knight me on the spot. I can wait, though.

Another evening, in the same tavern, Oxford was regaling us (yet again) with wild tales of his prowess on the battlefield. My eyelids began to droop, when the phrase ‘slings and arrows’ dropped from his lips.

That was on the Friday night. My Hamlet was with the printer come Monday morn.

Nor is that all, gentle friends. As fast as my quill could scratch its way across the page more and more burst from my imagination, just as Athena fully formed from the brow of Zeus.

Henry V and Julius Caesar were real, I think, but if not, I could have invented them in a trice.

Cleopatra, I made her up. All I saw was her name on a scrap of papyrus, and I gave the world her full story. No one would have heard of her without me. She launched a thousand ships, remember. Or was that the other broad? I made her up too, I clearly remember it.

Now Bacon and Oxford, and maybe others, have forgotten that I rewarded them in full. I pressed a groat, a newly minted shiny groat, into each of their palms, but, base ingratitude from these wretches, they demand of me a purse full of golden doubloons.

Forsooth and gadzooks! Nay, nay, a thousand times nay!

Yorick and Falstaff. Marc Antony and Shylock. Romeo and Hotspur. Rosencrantz and Guildernstern. Romeo and Doll Tearsheet.

Who but myself could have committed them to paper?

And several characters, nameless, but who are known as Watchmen. Must remember to do a whole series of sonnets about them when time permits, I just hope that no rascal claims my credit.

And I have just thought up a tale of a wooden horse, one of my lackeys will bring it, under my guidance, to the page.

Time will tell who will reap the glory for my characters. Shakespearedom Assembled will be the judge.

Excelsior!

Given under my hand this xxiii day of April, in the year of Our Lord 1616.

 

It is amazing that there is a debate as to whether (1) William Shakespeare existed and (2) whether he was intelligent enough to have written the plays for which he is identified as the author (a mainly British idea that probably originated out of class snobbery as the other candidates put forth are usually members of the nobility), even though contemporary documents confirm WS's existence and also include tributes to him by his contemporaries upon his death in compilations of his plays.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 10/17/2024 at 6:09 PM, sfcityduck said:

You have yet to prove that Stan stole a penny from anyone.

To be fair, you cannot steal what has never been received.

But did Stan prevent payment reaching those it should have?

And if so, did he do that unfairly?

[jimjum12]

On 10/17/2024 at 1:05 PM, sfcityduck said:

Worth noting that the Fly was a S&K creation that was initiated by Joe Simon. That the book was still selling well, better than Kirby's Marvel work, two years after Kirby is not an argument for Kirby's unique importance.

Plus, we keep drifting away from the questionable nature of those circulation figures, from the markets of Children's disposable entertainment commodities, and their alleged role in money laundering. Anything pooped away, pissed away, or thrown away in those days, lent itself well to that malevolent intent. For example, I would be reluctant to think COTU sold 235.000 copies in the entire 87 issue run combined. If you were caught with a copy of that in my neighborhood, you'd be lucky to get off with a swirly. GOD BLESS ...

-jmbo(a frend of jesus)

[Albert Tatlock]

On 10/17/2024 at 6:13 PM, sfcityduck said:

It is amazing that there is a debate as to whether (1) William Shakespeare existed and (2) whether he was intelligent enough to have written the plays for which he is identified as the author (a mainly British idea that probably originated out of class snobbery as the other candidates put forth are usually members of the nobility), even though contemporary documents confirm WS's existence and also include tributes to him by his contemporaries upon his death in compilations of his plays.

It is now accepted that others collaborated with Shakespeare, although he was the prime mover.

It took fully two centuries for the anti-Shakespeare conspiracy theory to get lift-off.

[sfcityduck]

On 10/17/2024 at 10:15 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

To be fair, you cannot steal what has never been received.

But did Stan prevent payment reaching those it should have?

And if so, did he do that unfairly?

The issue of whether Stan was "stealing" pay from Marvel artists for the writing work they allegedly did is all addressed up thread but ignored (which could be due to confirmation bias e.g., ignoring arguments and facts you don't want to address or others to see because you are too committed to your views). I'll re-paste it here:

Did the artists have rights to anything other than the page rate they negotiated. Ditko said no late in his life in letters to David Curie:

• "The ideas could be mine but I had no real right to them when published. And it didn’t matter. I was getting the experience free lancers don’t usually get” (Steve Ditko (2013 letter to David Currie).
• “What I did with Spider-Man I was paid for.” (Steve Ditko (March 2015 letter).

Kirby said this in the 1989 TCJ interview:

GROTH: You were getting a page rate at Marvel?

KIRBY: Yes, I was getting a good page rate.

GROTH: Did your page rate increase substantially in the ’60s as the work became more popular?

KIRBY: Yes, it did. My object was to help the publisher to make sales. That was my job. It wasn’t a job of being a Rembrandt.

ROZ KIRBY: It wasn’t that big an increase.

GROTH: Do you remember approximately what it went 10 from the beginning ’60s to the late ’60s?

ROZ KIRBY: I don’t remember what the page rate was.

GROTH: Do you think your page rate doubled during the ’60s?

ROZ KIRBY: I don’t think it doubled.

KIRBY: I don’t think it doubled, but it gradually grew, and it grew faster than it usually did.

....

GROTH: Did you have to ask for increases, or did they simply offer them to you?

KIRBY: No, no. I had to ask for them. There’s a class system in the comics.

....

GROTH: Can I ask you how you were paid? Were you paid on a weekly basis?

KIRBY: I was paid when I brought my script in [NOTE: HE MEANT "PENCIL ART" BECAUSE TO KIRBY THE PENCIL ART WAS A "SCRIPT"]. I was a freelancer. You get paid on a weekly basis if you worked in the office, and I never worked in the office.

GROTH: So you brought in an issue of The Fantastic Four, and they simply gave you a check?

KIRBY: They’d send the check out. They wouldn’t give the check to me, but I’d get the check the following week. They were prompt with their checks. We never had any difficulty because I was making sales for them, and there was a good relationship there.

 

And in response to my question as to how Stan got paid, Zonker posted:

On 10/14/2024 at 7:24 AM, Zonker said:

I've seen quotes from the Stan Lee deposition.  A quick Google search pulls up the below reference within the comment section of Jim Shooter's blog.  It's not the original source, but matches what I remember reading. Perhaps @Prince Namor has a link to the original.

 

Lee's deposition comments:
Q. How were you paid in connection with the work as Editor and as a writer?
STAN LEE: I received a salary which paid me as Editor and Art Director, but I got paid on a freelance basis for the stories that I wrote.
Q. And when you say you were paid on a freelance basis, how were you paid? On what basis?
STAN LEE: The same as every other writer. I was paid per page, so much money per page of script.

To which I replied:

That's helpful information. Typically, what was meant by "per page of script" was the "per the page lengnth of the story." E.g. a five page story earned you less than an 8 page story. You weren't paid by the number of pages you turned in. And what was meant by "script" under the Marvel method was essentially the dialoguing because there was no formal script. The artists all knew this.

I've seen no evidence that Marvel ever objected to this arrangement. It was certainly no secret how the Marvel method worked. Lee explained the method in the pages of Marvel comics. So it appears that Marvel recognized that Stan's dialogue had enough value to warrant the extra pay on top of his editor salary. As we saw in the Ditko quotes upthread that Ditko acknowledged that readers loved Lee's dialogue despite that Ditko found it not in keeping with his vision of the book. And the history of Marvel comics fandom seems to confirm that Stan's dialogue was appreciated by fandom.

Which pushes the emphasis over to the artists' contracts. All the evidence seems to indicate that the artists also knew what the Marvel method was and negotiated their page rates with Marvel based on a full understanding of what their obligations would be. Jack Kirby stated even late in his lime that he was happy with his page rate at Marvel. Ditko says he got paid for what he did on Spiderman -- the book where he took formal control of all plotting. 

So I really think there's no validity to this "stealing" charge. I do agree that a wordless story could have been an issue for Lee's employer if they objected to him taking a payment when he did no dialogue -- but there's no evidence that Marvel had any objection. Stan Lee wasn't stealing from Marvel.

As for the artist of the wordless story, under the Marvel method the amount of work done on a wordless story is no greater than for a story with words. The artists turned in pencilled pages and got paid based on the number of pages in the story. Still, to satisfy the artist, Lee also did agree to give the artist extra compensation in form of the letterer's cut (a bonus since the artist did no lettering). So that example seems to be much ado about nothing.

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.

Edited Thursday at 05:40 PM by sfcityduck