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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 11:53am | IP Logged | 1
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Chris Rayman wrote:
| Jack without Stan (or Joe) Eternals, Fourth World, Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man, etc.
Stan without Jack
Spider-Man, Doctor Strange! |
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This makes no sense. Comparing the characters Kirby created entirely by himself to characters Stan co-created with other collaborators hardly seems fair as a means of gauging their respective creative abilities.
Analyzing Stan's creative contributions always requires some speculation, because post 1960 he wrote little if anything completely by himself (without a co-plotter), and created characters only in collaboration with others. Looking at the commonalities between all the things Stan worked on (as well as the things Kirby and Ditko did without him and the things Stan has done with non-Kirby/Ditko collaborators) I come away with the impression that Stan's strengths were his ear for dialogue and his ability to edit, refine, and improve the plots and raw ideas of others. He strikes me as a brilliant editor/rewriter, not as a great originator of ideas. And he certainly deserves credit for that, as it was an important part of Marvel's success.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 10 April 2013 at 11:58am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 11:53am | IP Logged | 2
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Jack Kirby didn't try to take any credit for Spider-Man until late in his life, if I remember correctly. It felt to me like he'd been denied his proper due, never getting anything more than page rate for what he'd done for Marvel and DC, and adding Spider-Man to his resume was overcompensating to offset Marvel's treatment of him. Mind reading, perhaps, but my sense over the years has been that Kirby felt resentful that he had, indeed, co-created virtually the entire Marvel "universe", yet the character that really put Marvel on the map, Spider-Man, was the one he had no claim to. Mind you, he spent a lot of time out in California, with various sycophants dripping their poison in his ear. He may simply have become convinced he really did do it all, and all alone.
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Chad Carter
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | 3
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-- I did! -- Back in the 1970's! It's how I knew that Jack Kirby came up with The Silver Surfer (though, as pointed out above, Stan was the guy that gave Silver Surfer his personality, which was a big part of that character). Guess who revealed that fact about Kirby? Stan Lee, himself. And back then, Stan Lee wasn't yet being crucified by over zealous fans who wanted to say he contributed NOTHING to Marvel other than hype.
I read ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, and you know what I found, or rather did not find?
I did not find an introduction of any kind by Jack Kirby, the "co-plotter." And that's really all there is to say about that.
The one thing I know, Stan Lee was a hell of an editor. But as a writer? Not so much.
We're all waxing nostalgic over Stan's '60s "scripting." And any of us who picked it up off the racks were little kids. Of course we got excited about a slugfest, which was pretty much Marvel's bread and butter. Everyone points at the Spider-Man/Goblin drug issues as indicative of the quality of Stan's writing. That was an aberration of Stan's writing, however much input he put into the issue outside of his masterful dialogue.
Seen critically, now, have any of you actually read the bulk of comics with Stan's byline? Daredevil, Avengers, Spider-Man, Hulk--if Stan was directly responsible for the dreck that was a large percentage of the late 1960s and early 1970s, then he deserves rightly a raspberry. Those books are saved by dynamic art, mostly; Daredevil, probably one of the books Stan seemed to stick it out on longest, is terrible. If not for Gene Colan and the superb inkers, Daredevil would be unreadable. Iron Man, the same, without Gene and Heck.
Kirby seems to be the only half of this Stan/Jack team-up that gets vilified for his progressively strained and clunky work in the late 1970s, while Stan skipped into mustache persona mode years earlier with his golden tongue still wagging about how stupendous he was in the 1960s, when he personally created Captain America. Which seems to be everyone's understanding today. Alas, Joe Simon, another stepping stone.
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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | 4
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Regarding Kirby's claims to have created Spider-Man:
I believe that the creator of a superhero is the person (or persons) who invent with the name, specific powers, costume/appearance, origin, and general personality of the character. In the case of Spider-Man, that would be Lee and Ditko.
However, there have been times when Stan has argued that he alone is the creator of Spider-Man, because he came up with the name and basic concept (a teenager with unspecified "spider powers") before Ditko was involved. I don't agree with that, because I don't think a character is created until he is fleshed out beyond a name. But Stan has made that argument.
So... what if it is true that Stan got the idea for the name and basic concept of Spider-Man from Kirby, or from Joe Simon? Wouldn't that make them co-creators, or even sole creators, by Stan's logic? The same rationale that would deny Ditko creator credit would seemingly have to give credit to Kirby and/or Simon, if in fact it's true that Stan was aware of their Spider-Man idea when he came up with his. Even if the finished character does not much resemble their idea, that does not matter by Stan's logic, as they came up with the name and basic concept.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 10 April 2013 at 12:16pm
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Jason Czeskleba
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | 5
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Chad Carter wrote:
I read ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, and you know what I found, or rather did not find?
I did not find an introduction of any kind by Jack Kirby, the "co-plotter." And that's really all there is to say about that. |
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It's true that Stan began explaining how the Marvel Method worked in the mid-60s, both on letters pages and in the Bullpen Bulletins. However, this only came after several years' worth of comics with deceptive credits that gave Stan sole credit as writer and made absolutely no mention of the artist's role in story plotting. It was only after Ditko began demanding proper credit for plotting stories that the other credits were modified to say things like "Produced by Lee and Kirby."
Stan also does make it clear how the Marvel Method worked in the text portion of Origins of Marvel Comics. However, on the cover of the book the author is listed solely as "Stan Lee." And most of the stories reprinted in the book feature credits that give Stan the sole writer's credit. I bet there were a lot of kids who skipped the text and only read the stories.
I don't think that Stan should be vilified, but I also don't think that he is completely blameless for the mistaken impression that many people have that he wrote the stories and created the characters by himself.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | 6
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The one thing I know, Stan Lee was a hell of an editor. But as a writer? Not so much. Stan's skill as a WRITER turned many a pedestrian Kirby Plot into the STORIES we remember. I commented in the Doctor Who thread that Steven Moffatt, the current show-runner, seems to be an idea man, but not so much a story man. The same could be said of Kirby. His books exploded with IDEAS, but when it came to stringing them into stories, he often fell back on the most ordinary paths, and he was not at all shy about lifting whole cloth from TV and movies. Stan, when he scripted Jack's pages, often turned corners that were not really in the pictures. Often found ways to make an ordinary scene into an extraordinary one. And if you think otherwise, you have clearly drunk the Kirby Kool-Aid, and really have nothing at all to contribute to this discussion.
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Chad Carter
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | 7
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Concerning "scripting" and Stan Lee:
I think everyone needs to comprehend what the hell a script actually is.
It is not a dialogue-polisher. That is "editing."
Scripting is what a writer does, from conception--with input in a collaborative setting (Stan's position, only 80-20 in his favor)--to execution, meaning the actual writing, the plot, the character development, the in-other-words work of constructing a story, three-acts beginning-middle-end, and the conclusion, which to paraphrase Mickey Spillane on serial story-telling, "The first page sells that book. The last page sells the next book."
What Kirby, Colan, Severin, Buscemas, Ditko, and every Marvel artist was doing was the actual writing without writing. These artists were so good at visual story-telling that they didn't need words. Unfettered, the artists could construct their own plots. Jack Kirby never needed a writer, and FANTASTIC FOUR proves it.
In the case of other artists who were not geniuses, Stan gave them the prompt: "I want Electro to fight the Hulk, True Believer!" Stan's sandbox, but no one expected Herb Trimpe to conceive, much less give a crap, about superheroes. Trimpe (and yes, here is MIND-READING) didn't get excited about drawing yet another Hulk story, but he wanted a paycheck just like any working stiff. John Buscema and Gil Kane seemed famously ready to chop off their hands before rehashing superheroes over and over and over, mind-numbing, boring adolescent concepts to artists who, suddenly, were being told that a new audience, a more mature audience (college-age and older) were appreciating them on a level they never imagined. And through superheroes, no less.
So Stan gave these men the 20th meeting between Doc Ock and Spider-Man. And they, professionals, were so damned good that it seemed, to us, that they loved superheroes just as much as Stan did.
And to be fair, it's hard to fault Stan for loving superheroes so much that he spear-headed the more mature themes. It's just a shame he didn't love the actual men behind the superheroes as much. And not even a fourth as much as Stan loved himself.
So it's easy for the world to love Stan Lee. Hell, I want to love Stan Lee, and have. It just disgusts me how seemingly hard it is for the same culture to love all of the minions who actually did the hard work, the verifiable professionals who by the very nature of the Marvel Method were the creative forces behind the masks. And as they die, already forgotten except for Kirby--who was more than an artist, more than a writer or editor and worth 100 Kirbys weight in gold--we're left with their generally sad circumstances, coal dust on our golden, silver, and bronze memories.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | 8
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It's true that Stan began explaining how the Marvel Method worked in the mid-60s, both on letters pages and in the Bullpen Bulletins. However, this only came after several years' worth of comics with deceptive credits that gave Stan sole credit as writer and made absolutely no mention of the artist's role in story plotting. It was only after Ditko began demanding proper credit for plotting stories that the other credits were modified to say things like "Produced by Lee and Kirby." To be "deceptive" requires a deliberate deception. Stan's credits -- and, as noted, he was among the first to make credits a standard feature of the books, so remember that when you're accusing him of denying credit -- were in the model of the time. Readers did not care about such fine detail as "plot". Most barely knew what an inker did.
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Matt Hawes
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | 9
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Chad wrote:
| ...I did not find an introduction of any kind by Jack Kirby, the "co-plotter." And that's really all there is to say about that... |
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So, because Jack did not write an introduction, that means Stan Lee did not credit him, even though he did???? Nonsense. You simply want Stan Lee to be this snivelling villain no matter the evidence that contradicts your claims..
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | 10
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However, there have been times when Stan has argued that he alone is the creator of Spider-Man
Where and when?
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Chad Carter
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | 11
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The one thing I know, Stan Lee was a hell of an editor. But as a writer? Not so much. Stan's skill as a WRITER turned many a pedestrian Kirby Plot into the STORIES we remember. Really? How is that possible, if by the very nature of the "Marvel Method", the plot was executed by the artist. The PLOT is the actual writing--this happened, then this happened, then this is how it concluded. Unless Stan is sitting beside Kirby, as we were led to believe all of our lives, pointing excitedly over Jack's shoulder and shouting, "Now! Now, Jack, GALACTUS APPEARS!", how is it remotely possible that Stan Lee did anything but doll up the dialogue and toss in a subplot via caption? This is all it takes to transform Kirby's pedestrian plots into classics?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 10 April 2013 at 12:43pm | IP Logged | 12
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Really? How is that possible, if by the very nature of the "Marvel Method", the plot was executed by the artist. The PLOT is the actual writing--this happened, then this happened, then this is how it concluded. Before you make an even bigger fool of yourself, I suggest you do some serious research into just how the "Marvel Method" works. You clearly have no clue.
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