JiC: STAN LEE & THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN COMIC BOOK

[MattBrady]

<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/STanLeebook.jpg" width="200" height="283" border="0" hspace="1" align="right"><I>by Michael Sangiacomo</I>

I got a sense of deja vu reading <I>Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book</I> by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon. The book (Chicago Review Press, $25,) due out this month is an interesting recounting of Stan’s career, but I quickly realized the reason it felt familiar.

A huge chunk of the book came from more than 100 articles, interviews and videos about Stan Lee culled from <I>The Comics Journal, The (Overstreet) Comic Book Price Guide</I> and numerous other publications. To their credit, the authors list each and every one of them in
source notes.

The authors interviewed the Stan “several times,” but noted that he did not authorize them to write a biography. They also interviewed friends and associates of Stan.

The result is an attempt to put all those works together into an exhaustive book that will reveal a lot about Stan Lee, though certainly not everything.

Being such an uninhibited self-promoter, Stan has told many of these stories himself. The beauty of this book is that it puts Stan’s life into sequence and tries to make sense of the man. There are some things that can’t be resolved, such as the infamous feud between Lee and Jack Kirby over who created what. Raphael and Spurgeon recount Kirby’s claim that he wrote and drew everything with little input from Stan.

My opinion? Take a look at Kirby’s later solo works from DC and elsewhere and note the godawful dialogue and it should be clear that Stan had a heavy hand in the early Marvel books. Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko makes a similar claim about Stan, though not going so far as to say that Stan had nothing to do with the process.

Since the story of how Stan Lee created the <b>Fantastic Four</b>, Spider-Man</b> and <b>The Hulk</b> has been retold so many times, I found the section about the earlier half of Stan’s life more revealing. The eclipsed life, the time before <b>Fantastic Four #1</b>, shows Stan’s insane drive and energy. It carries him through the end of the 1950s, when he was a beaten man barely keeping the dream of comics alive with eight comics a month with boiler-plate stories about giant monsters.

The book also clearly shows that Lee was a reactionary through most of his career. Crime comics by Charles Biro were selling in the late 1940s for Lev Gleason publications? Lee responded with crime books like <b>Crime Must Lose!</b> and <b>Crime Can’t Win</b> in response to Biro’s <b>Crime Does Not Pay</b>.

Likewise, <b>Wacky Duck</b> and <b>Silly Seal</b> were aimed at the Disney duck and mouse fans and there were dozens of titles aimed at the Archie crowd, cowboys and teen romance. There was even a title called <b>Rangeland Romance</b> that combined both genres.

Lee himself dismissed most of the efforts as hackwork.

The book paints Stan’s cousin and publisher, Martin Goodman, as a pretty cold businessman with no regard for comics. I get the impression he kept the lines going just because Stan needed a job. There are some very sad moments in the book, in particular the section where Stan’s workaholic ethic was used against him over and over again.

Stan liked to keep ahead of the game, so he pushed writers and artists to turn in timeless stories that Stan then tucked away in a closet for a rainy day.

When Goodman heard about the treasure trove in 1949, he responded by firing most of the writing and art staff. He left Stan to use the old material and get freelancers to provide the rest.

It sounds like Lee was something of a put-upon underling whose natural creativity was crushed. It’s amazing that he stayed in the business long enough to see his fortune reverse itself with the advent of the Marvel revolution.

[Promethea]

I don't know why anybody would by this because a) like you said Stan Lee has told these stories many, MANY, times and b) 'Excelsior' Lee's own autobiography is still out there (and on my shelf). Maybe this would work when Lee goes to that Comic Book Shop in the sky and they look into his private papers, but not now.

[BillReed]

It's deja vu all over again! Wait, that's Yogi Berra, not Stan. Although they are eerily similar. Have we ever seen them in the same place at the same time?

I bet there's only going to be more Stan Lee biographies to come. Most of them will probably say the same things.

[Greg B]

The authors of this book are scheduled to be on Fanboy Radio tomorrow at 6:00 CST. You can call in live to ask questions at (817) 257-7631 or e-mail a question at fanboy@fanboyradio.com

www.fanboyradio.com

[R A Renteria]

This is the man who redefined comics in the 60's. Sure I don't think he thought about that at the time, but his contributions to my favorite media should never be overlooked. I think I'll pick this up.

Richard Renteria

[Easy Reader]

"My opinion? Take a look at Kirby’s later solo works from DC and elsewhere and note the godawful dialogue and it should be clear that Stan had a heavy hand in the early Marvel books."

Hun??????

Sure Lee was better on dialogues then Kirby, but Kirby said he created and PLOTTED most of his Marvel stuff and that Lee used his notes on the art boards to script the dialogue. If you take a look at Jack's original art you'll see that they lend support to the King's claims... Maybe that's why Marvel was so reluctant to return his art and most of it was "lost"...

Kirby Fourth World saga is rich and complex, some say his best stuff... Maybe because Lee wasn't holding him down? Sure he shouldn't have been his own editor and a second opinion might have make this a bit more clear...

On the other hand, have you seen Lee' s stuff after Kirby left????
He just kept on repeating the same plots! All the characters he "created" after his feud with Kirby were krapp!!! Ridiculous! Beneath a professionnal writer level.

And Lee worked non-stop for Marvel for about 20 years before the great silver age era of the early sixties. What did he create before the arrival of Ditko and Kirby??? I mean beside plagiarizing pulp stories and other companies characters and trends?

And Kirby is not the first to claim he did most of the plotting and creating while "working" with Stan Lee: Romita sr., Gil Kane, Ditko and others have all said they were at the very least "co-plotters" and that the plotting part of Stan the Man was usually limited to "okay, this month Spidey fights Doc Ock... again" or " we are bringing back Galactus! run with that! excelsior!"

So my opinion is that Stan was a very good editor, a splendid scripter, nothing more, nothing less. He hasn't produce anything without Kirby or Ditko that will convince me otherwise.

[mikesang]

Originally posted by Easy Reader
[B

On the other hand, have you seen Lee' s stuff after Kirby left????
He just kept on repeating the same plots! All the characters he "created" after his feud with Kirby were krapp!!! Ridiculous! Beneath a professionnal writer level."
[/B]
Mike here.
You have a very good point, Ravage 2099, and the recent Imagine Stan Lee Created... were pretty awful.
Maybe the collaboration between the two men was one of those fortuitous things where the sum was greater than the parts. I enjoyed much of the Fourth World stuff, at least it all started out great. It would have been so much better with a steadier hand at the helm, one not so prone to such stupid names and complex plots that never seemed to get resolved.

Depending on the specific work, I loved 'em both, together and apart. Good thing is we don't have to choose a side.
M

[wraith]

Originally posted by Easy Reader
"My opinion? Take a look at Kirby’s later solo works from DC and elsewhere and note the godawful dialogue and it should be clear that Stan had a heavy hand in the early Marvel books."

Hun??????

Sure Lee was better on dialogues then Kirby, but Kirby said he created and PLOTTED most of his Marvel stuff and that Lee used his notes on the art boards to script the dialogue. If you take a look at Jack's original art you'll see that they lend support to the King's claims... Maybe that's why Marvel was so reluctant to return his art and most of it was "lost"...

Kirby Fourth World saga is rich and complex, some say his best stuff... Maybe because Lee wasn't holding him down? Sure he shouldn't have been his own editor and a second opinion might have make this a bit more clear...

On the other hand, have you seen Lee' s stuff after Kirby left????
He just kept on repeating the same plots! All the characters he "created" after his feud with Kirby were krapp!!! Ridiculous! Beneath a professionnal writer level.

And Lee worked non-stop for Marvel for about 20 years before the great silver age era of the early sixties. What did he create before the arrival of Ditko and Kirby??? I mean beside plagiarizing pulp stories and other companies characters and trends?

And Kirby is not the first to claim he did most of the plotting and creating while "working" with Stan Lee: Romita sr., Gil Kane, Ditko and others have all said they were at the very least "co-plotters" and that the plotting part of Stan the Man was usually limited to "okay, this month Spidey fights Doc Ock... again" or " we are bringing back Galactus! run with that! excelsior!"

So my opinion is that Stan was a very good editor, a splendid scripter, nothing more, nothing less. He hasn't produce anything without Kirby or Ditko that will convince me otherwise.

I thought that hhe two issue Silver Surfer:Parable mini series that Stan wrote (and Moebius drew) for Epic comics was pretty damn good.

[adamania]

Wait, isn't Stan Lee that guy who used to narrate the openings for Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. He actually created characters for Marvel?;)

BTW Stan, is the Thing's dork made of orange rock?

[MichaelCoughlin]

Ya know, I've heard the stories over the years how Stan just more or less "co-plotted" or "just scripted" things, and I can NOT buy it. He worked with a myriad of artists and created brilliant charecters WITH DIFFERENT ARTISTS. If he had done everything with one artist, that artist would have a case. But from Jack to Ditko, to JRSR, etc... Stan kept on doing what he did. I can't believe that ANY writer would be THAT lucky as to have such a long string of lucky collaborations. Luck only takes you so far people...

[Spudmunkey]

The question is:
Who helped comics the most, since it's inception in Pop Culture?

[Christian Otte]

On another note, can anyone recommend some books about the comics industry in America like "Excelsior!", which Promethea mentioned?

[karmictoast]

A good book (although it's fiction) about the early workings of the comic industry is Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay. It does a pretty good job of illustrating the relationship of the editor/writer and the artist/creator. It's fiction + history, and a great story to boot. Michael Chabon is the guy that was temporarily (n both cases) tapped to write screenplays for the X-Men movie and Spider-man 2. Probably at some point, this guy will start writing for the funny books. Who knows?-adam

[Goodman]

It really doesn't make sense for any of us to take sides in "Kirby vs. Lee," since none of us were actually there to divine the truth of things. Were Kirby comments that appeared on (some) of his Marvel art there to let Lee know what the story was, or was it just to serve as a reminder to Lee of what they prevously discussed? Did the working relationship change and evolve over time? Perhaps, as some say, this was a case where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. Certainly Kirby had no break-out hits before the Fantastic Four, aside from the much-cancelled Captain America, and Joe Simon now says Jack had no hand in creating that character. Post-Marvel, Jack's Fourth World stuff was promptly cancelled, and when he returned to Marvel and wrote and drew his own stuff the sales were awful. There's critics who love this stuff, but the readers disagreed.


In any event, I do think that Lee's whimsical scripting was an essential ingrediant to Marvel's breakout success (and was emulated by most Marvel writers for decades). And Kirby's later claim that he created every successful Marvel character and that Lee never wrote anything at all for Marvel is rightly dismissed (by Steve Ditko, among others).

[mac b]

Originally posted by Easy Reader
He hasn't produce anything without Kirby or Ditko that will convince me otherwise.

easy. like wraith said, parable by lee and moebius.

[Tue Sorensen]

Originally posted by MattBrady
The book paints Stan’s cousin and publisher, Martin Goodman, as a pretty cold businessman with no regard for comics. I get the impression he kept the lines going just because Stan needed a job. Who SEZ nothing good ever came from nepotism?! :-)

[Rockin' Rich]

Here's a review of the book in The Miami Herald. (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/columnists/richard_pachter/6652455.htm)

[Goodman]

Originally posted by Promethea
I don't know why anybody would by this because a) like you said Stan Lee has told these stories many, MANY, times and b) 'Excelsior' Lee's own autobiography is still out there (and on my shelf). Maybe this would work when Lee goes to that Comic Book Shop in the sky and they look into his private papers, but not now.

Well, the authors of this new book did notice that there are some notable inaccuracies in Stan's official bio. Some are no doubt the result of Stan's notoriously bad memory, and others are undoubtably self-serving (as you would expect in any autobiography).

You can get your own look at some of Stan's papers at http://www.stanleebook.com/04_extras.html .

[Jason Fliegel]

Originally posted by karmictoast
Probably at some point, this guy [Michael Chabon] will start writing for the funny books. Who knows?-adam

Probably in December, when the first issue of his Escapist anthology (recounting the adventures of the character "created by Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay" from the late 1930s until today) hits the stands.

As far as I'm aware, the resceptive contributions of Kavalier and Clay to the creation of the Escapist are pretty well documented. ;)

[mac b]

chabon also contributed to the jsa all-stars mini that's still going (i think)

[Maliceglass]

There are very few things that get me riled up, but downgrading Stan Lee is a major one. Anyone that criticizes Stan Lee needs to let the hot air of that balloon they call their head. He has NEVER been secretive about the whole deal with Kirby plotting and Lee scripting the dialogue. He is first and foremost the biggest critic of his pre-Fantastic Four work, but frankly, it was still better than most of the stuff being produced ("most"...EC was the best pre-FF, in my opinion)! Kirby, rest in peace, didn't come up with the pathos of the Thing, Ditko didn't write the element of Spiderman that made him great, his flaws. Stan, any time the subject arises, makes sure to plug how great Ditko, Kirby, and the rest are! He holds NO grudges, is the nicest man alive, created a mythology that will endure for as long as we are here, and is to this DAY still working! Most people retire years before Stan's age. The man is a genius, and a role model. He is a living legend in the field (to quote Brody). Now, with that said, I do not down play Kirby, Ditko, and the rest of the legendary masters of the medium. They were all great, insurpassable artists. I am just sick of people, on and off these boards, thinking they have even a smidgen of right to criticize the man that made comics the way we know them today. He didn't invent the light ulb, so to speak, but he made it shine brighter than anyone else living or dead, who worked or is working, in the medium that, reading many of the posts on these message boards, I think we forget that we are supposed the love! To close this, this is a response to a certain post, and I figure anyone who posted postive things about Stan would agree with all I have said here.

[orcafresh]

My opinion? Take a look at Kirby’s later solo works from DC and elsewhere and note the godawful dialogue and it should be clear that Stan had a heavy hand in the early Marvel books. Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko makes a similar claim about Stan, though not going so far as to say that Stan had nothing to do with the process.

I've interviewed Stan several times over the last ten years and I have to agree with Maliceglass.

That doesn't mean that I don't respect Steve Ditko, nor do I kick dirt on the memory of Jack Kirby. We are sooo lucky to have Stan with us. His contributions to Marvel's forgotten and disegarded continuity are as clear as your nose in a mirror.

This particular book I will not buy. If the creative team wants to forward me a copy to read and review in the contents of my column over on www.orcafresh.net, or just to aid me in seeing their view of Stan... fine. Rest assured that I'll promptly pass any copy gotten for those purposes along to another reader.

And - I guess I'm also a tad skeptical of a book gleaned from the Comics Journal. There is no deep respect or appreciation of Stan there, near as I recall. To what end would tainted prior published materials actually aid an investigative effort?

[fantomex]

do you think stan lee has a big head