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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 134943
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | 1
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Found this:“I read that cover [to FF 236] with Stan Lee has an empty space next to him because Jack Kirby didn't want his face to be on the cover. Or did he not want to be next to Stan? Maybe both.” Or neither. I drew Jack, but Shooter ordered him removed. Apparently there was concern that including him would be interpreted as acknowledging his claims of ownership. Result: decades of being excoriated for not including him.
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Brian Miller Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: 28 July 2004 Location: United States Posts: 31698
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | 2
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Amazing how much misinformation is out there even as the truth is available for anyone to find. You’ve told that story many times, yet people still want to propagate versions that hold nothing of the truth.
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Evan S. Kurtz Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: 04 July 2022 Location: Canada Posts: 158
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | 3
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I've said this before - I really wish there was a comprehensive, honest history book about stuff like this. This is a serious problem with our world - the history we know really is rather skewed, in some cases hopelessly so.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 134943
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | 4
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Steranko’s HISTORY OF COMICS comes closest to an unadulterated form. Although outdated now, at least it was written by someone who was (mostly) actually there.
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Matt Reed Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004 Posts: 36398
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | 5
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Evan S. Kurtz wrote:
I've said this before - I really wish there was a comprehensive, honest history book about stuff like this. This is a serious problem with our world - the history we know really is rather skewed, in some cases hopelessly so. |
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We have books, research papers, podcasts, documentaries, newspaper/magazine articles and numerous nonfiction books covering a wide variety of topics from history, to science, to religion. You name it. All of those can and often are widely disregarded because there are people for whom their opinion is fact and can’t be dissuaded. Sadly, I don’t think a definitive account of comic book history would change that at all.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 134943
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | 6
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One of the more depressing things I have learned in all my years on the internet is that there are some people out there who think their opinions are just as valid as what the writers and artists are producing!!
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Evan S. Kurtz Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: 04 July 2022 Location: Canada Posts: 158
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | 7
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Matt - to me, part of the problem is that the content that gets it right is hard to find and not usually collected, which means that people have to really do a lot of work to actually find out how things happened. And most people do't have the patience for that when some YouTuber can give them the answer they seek - even if that answer is something far from the truth. Edited to add: and having that accurate history, collected and easy to disseminate, wouldn't change much with all those ordinary people, but at least it would exist for those of us who want to dig deeper and know the truth.
Edited by Evan S. Kurtz on 24 July 2025 at 5:19pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 134943
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | 8
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I think about all the horse puckery out there about me, only a tiny fraction of which comes anywhere near true, and Peter David saying he intended to repeat the stories even knowing they were false. I pity historians of the future!
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Matt Reed Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004 Posts: 36398
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | 9
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Evan S. Kurtz wrote:
Matt - to me, part of the problem is that the content that gets it right is hard to find and not usually collected, which means that people have to really do a lot of work to actually find out how things happened. And most people do't have the patience for that when some YouTuber can give them the answer they seek - even if that answer is something far from the truth. |
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I get it. I really do. That said, I don’t think there will ever, nor can there ever, be a definitive, indisputable history that is found in a single tomb, a collection or an easily searchable database. It’s just too broad. As vaunted as Steranko’s HISTORY OF COMICS has been for decades, it still leaves things out. That’s history. It’s simply too large, too broad, too vast to contain it all. And that, of course, doesn’t even speak to the segment of the population for whom that wouldn’t matter at all. There are a vast, unending number of books on the subject of just the rise and fall of the Nazi party, yet there are still millions who believe their version (read: opinion) is truth to the exclusion of all else. No amount of available knowledge, if even such a thing can be compiled, can combat that.
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Joe Murray Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: 15 February 2009 Location: United States Posts: 281
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Posted: 24 July 2025 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | 10
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To this day, whenever I see that favored cover, my mind tries to include Jack there. I don’t recall ever seeing the pre-erase, which would be an amazing outtake.
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Ed Fahey Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: 07 March 2005 Location: United States Posts: 280
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Posted: 25 July 2025 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | 11
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Once I saw a Kirby figure in there on some website - but whether it was a pre erasure or someone photoshopped it in I could not tell. Looked nice tho.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 134943
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Posted: 25 July 2025 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | 12
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Found someone elsewhere manipulating a scan/xerox of the cover to “prove” I had left a blank circle for the cover copy and “never” drawn Kirby there. Sure do love being called a liar, especially by someone who clearly doesn’t know how production processes work.
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