You are probably correct that (with Ditko and Kirby, in the sixties) Lee never wrote proper scripts. However, I see no reason to think that Lee was not the main driver of most or all of the storylines and characters ('plot synopsis', as you put it -- and of course all the dialogue) in series like Fantastic Four and Spider-Man's early years. Are you certain that, right from the beginning, Lee had "verbal plot conferences" with artists like Kirby and Ditko? He may have done so in a casual way over the phone, but as Lee obviously had final say in what went into the issues or didn't, it would appear to me that Lee was indeed the "writer", though it's also clear that he welcomed plot input from the artists. However, the artists having plot input doesn't mean Lee followed their suggestions. (We were reminded, by a poster above, that Kirby never even read the final editions and mistakenly assumed Lee had taken on all his ideas.) I'm sure that when Ditko or Kirby had a great idea that Lee liked, he said "Yeah, great!" and went with it. (Why wouldn't he, as it saved him time?) But I'm also pretty sure that if Lee or Kirby presented ideas that Lee didn't like, he shot them down. As an example, it's well known that Ditko (for Spider-Man) wanted the Green Goblin to be an everyman no-name type of guy, but Lee said no, because for dramatic impact he had to be someone already in the series, within Spider-man's social network. So, obviously, Ditko wasn't just plotting everything, even in his later issues, because Lee still had certain points in mind, story-wise, that he was directing (whether Ditko cares to admit it or not). Do you have any (non-Ditko, whom I don't trust) source for the #18 onward point? I don't say it's impossible, but I doubt very much that Lee had no plot input at all from that point. What about, for example, the Mary Jane Watson character, who first "appeared" (hidden) in #25? Was that entirely Ditko's idea? (I might add that when we go back and look at the Spider-man series, there are some early issues in the #20s and 30s -- which I suspect Ditko mainly plotted -- which kind of suck. I do think his art was getting worse later in the series, and that if he had carried on for many years, the series would not have become nearly as popular as it did.) If indeed Lee was taking the full "writer" fee while doing 50% or less of the plotting (plus all the dialog, which means he was probably doing around 75% of the "writing" in the latter half of those famous runs, though considerably more in the earlier half), as you say, that is a fair reason to criticize his conduct. Point taken. But, then again, the entire American comic book industry was always run on a "work-for-hire" system, and Lee was subject to that just as Lee and Kirby were. That is, if Lee hadn't become publisher when Martin Goodman knocked off (or however that happened), Lee wouldn't have had any legacy control over any of those iconic characters he co-created either. In the sixties, he was in the same boat as Lee and Kirby as far as creative ownership went -- with the obvious difference being that he was in the more powerful position in the company. Further, Lee and Kirby knew exactly the system they were working in -- they'd both worked with Lee for years prior to the Marvel comics era. If they both volunteered lots of wonderful story ideas, you'd have to wonder why they did so, knowing full well they weren't going to be paid for it. Now, it's a different story if Lee had hinted that they'd be getting paid some writer fees or something and then failed to deliver, but I've never heard that charge. Ditko and Kirby just thought they were under-appreciated (or Ditko thought he was right and Lee was utterly "wrong", as per nutty right-wing Ayn Rand philosophy), and found a better pay-package elsewhere. Absolutely they were co-created. But remember, Timely/Marvel had a bevvy of talented artists to draw from. If Kirby or Ditko hadn't been there, someone else would have been, and Stan Lee would still have had the same ideas. Now, we can philosophize over whether these characters would have become as popular without those two -- and certainly the characters would have looked and "felt" different -- but the Marvel revolution wasn't so much about costumes and artwork as it was about character development and (relatively) realistic human drama, which I don't think was coming much from right-wing Ditko or cosmic-Kirby! And, again, Spider-man became the most popular and iconic comic-book character of the late-60s/early-70s without any input from Ditko or Kirby, and lots from Lee. (Not to discount John Romita's enormous contribution to that!) That's a straw-man argument because Lee is not an artist. It's a bit like saying, 'Mozart wasn't that great because he never wrote a lyric as good as Bob Dylan.' I highly doubt that Lee "never" wrote a classic story without a co-writer (assuming that any comic-book story can be "written" without an artist). Take, for example, the very first Spider-Man story in Amazing Fantasy, 1962. Did Ditko have a hand in plotting this story? I have never heard any claim that he did. This is probably the single most iconic story in Marvel history. You're not the only person who (in recent years) thinks this way, but I honestly have no idea how anyone could conclude this. It seems to me that the "raw ideas" of the creation of most of these characters is clearly from Lee. I think you are focusing too much on the periods after the first 20-odd (Spider-man) or 60-odd (Fantastic Four) to assume that Lee was always doing nothing but filling in dialog. Firstly, I doubt he was only filling in dialog al the time in these issues, and he certainly wasn't doing only that in the earlier, most iconic period of these series when the characters and tropes were established. The matter of taking more money than his collaborators is a legit one, for sure, but my question would be: Were other Marvel "writers" in the sixties asking the company to pay more to the artists? And I don't see how you can hold Lee accountable for being "given more credit... by the general public". The fact that Lee became the publisher and eventually the public face of Marvel has nothing to do with his collaborative work with Kirby or Ditko. More to the point: As early as 1962-63, Lee was giving credit and name/face-value to the artists on his series, which was certainly not the industry norm at the time. Readers of Spider-Man or Fantastic Four or X-Men knew Lee, for sure, but they also knew the artists' names, which was not the case at DC (I think) or almost any other comic company. Lee was all for giving these guys credit, when he was collaborating with them.
I just bought a book called “Marvel Comics: the Untold Stories”, and am sure most of it will be about Lee, Kirby and Ditko. I am looking forward to it.
Loved Kirby as a kid. His FF and Thor comics were beautiful. As I progressed I found Steranko, Barry Smith and Berni Wrightson to be my favorites. Frank Miller re-established the Batman comics, really loved his very distinct style. Regarding Jack Kirby I am amazed by the sheer output and quality. I learned a lot about foreshortening through his style. Was he "King" ? IDK, he was covering a lot of characters, did a bang up job, but I think the pinnacle of comic art for me was "Conan the Barbarian" Number 24.
"Details of the amendments were not made public, but Kirby's lawyer, Greg Victoroff, told the Journal, "Jack got just about everything he wanted." The form was signed and the art was returned. The eventual tally of Kirby art Marvel had collected for return came to approximately 1,900 pages, still far short of his total output for Marvel but considerably more than the amount originally specified."
There is a Kirby Museum online, it has many hi res originals to ponder over. I wonder if most of the work was donated by his family or collectors. It was said he would start in one corner and fill the page. I imagine he drew like Kim Jung Gi in that regard but Gi is in a universe of one . Search Kim Jung Gi on YouTube and prepare to be flabbergasted.
Thankfully with the foresight of Greg Theakston. We get a glimpse of Jack Kirby drawing from start to finish. And what a glimpse...
I loved those Kirby covers for late '70s Marvel, especially on The Avengers. Dan Adkins like his mentor Wally Wood could be particularly good on Jack Kirby. I'd have loved a run of that team on The Avengers, but with a scripter. I bought Captain Victory and Silver Star for awhile in the early '80s, so I didn't entirely shun Kirby written comics.
There's really nobody else to compare to Jack Kirby in U.S. comics, he did so many things first... the only figure really worldwide would be Osamu Tezuka in Japan sometimes called the 'God' of Japanese comics and animation, so Jack Kirby is definitely the once and forever 'King' I think. There was some guy way back who ran a studio who called himself the 'king of comics' but he didn't draw and I don't know if he ever even wrote any comics, and well before E.C. the quality of writing in comics like the artwork could be absolutely bare bones assembly line basic stuff in the '40s, and that earlier king's shop churned out a lot of forgettable filler. I think maybe it was Harry Chesler but I might have that wrong.
Ditko and Kirby both said that by the time the superhero books started (at which point they'd both been working with Stan for several years) they had evolved the system of having a plot conference first, in which they met in person and hashed out the story details together, after which Stan would type out a plot synopsis summarizing what they'd created. Dick Ayers also attested to working that way with Stan from the beginning. Yes, it's possible Stan could make changes to the story when he typed up the synopsis. Just as it's possible the artist could make further changes when he drew the story. And Stan could make further changes when he wrote the dialogue. It was a give-and-take. That doesn't alter the fact that the two of them together created the plot, the basic story, and then together they modified it. They were co-writers. It's also notable that both Kirby and Ditko submitted rough dialogue for the stories which Stan then rewrote (Kirby wrote his dialogue in the margins of the art, Ditko submitted his on separate sheets of paper). So Stan was not coming up with the dialogue cold, he was rewriting what Kirby and Ditko submitted. As I noted, the system changed over the years, but the changes went in the direction of Stan having less involvement... talking by phone rather than in person, Stan not bothering to type up a synopsis, Stan contributing only a few rough ideas and leaving the artist to flesh out the story. Ultimately it reached the point of Stan doing none (with Ditko) or almost none (with Kirby) of the plotting. So it would be accurate to say in the early days, Stan did at most about 75% of the writing (co-plotting and finished dialogue). Since he was rewriting rough dialogue written by Kirby and Ditko, 75% is probably too generous a number. And from there it decreased as his role in the plotting receded. On stories where the artist did 100% of the plotting and submitted rough dialogue for Stan to rewrite, I'd say 40% of the writing credit/money would be the most he deserved. Possibly less. When all Stan was doing was rewriting the rough dialogue submitted by Kirby or Ditko, it is arguable he was simply performing the function of an editor (Julie Schwartz for example routinely rewrote dialogue, and never paid himself as a writer). That is untrue. It's a myth that was likely created by Stan's faulty memory. Ditko has said that he intended from the very beginning for Norman Osborn to be the Green Goblin, and that he included details in the story pointing in that direction. The stories themselves bear that out, as there are several instances of Osborn engaging in sketchy behavior in Ditko's stories. There's an article here that goes over all this in detail. The most important point to note is that during the final year they were working together, Lee and Ditko were not having any contact at all. Ditko would plot the stories and draw his pencils, handing them off to Sol Brodsky without even seeing Stan. So there would have been no way they could have disagreed about the identity of The Green Goblin, since they were not speaking to each other. Stan has acknowledged that during this time he had no input into the plotting and did not know what was going to be in each new issue until he received Ditko's pencils. Stan was well-established (by his own admission and testimony of associates) to have had a terrible memory. Most likely what happened is that Stan and Steve disagreed about the identity of the Crime Master (in an earlier story), with Ditko wanting him to be a no-name rather than an established character. Ditko won that argument since he had plotting control of the book at that time. Then later Stan misremembered the argument as having been about the identity of the Green Goblin. Yes it was entirely Ditko's idea. Issue #25 happens to be the issue where Ditko begins receiving sole plotting credit, so there is no dispute that every issue from then on was entirely plotted by Ditko without input from Stan. Ditko said that issue #18 was when he began solo plotting, though he did not receive credit on the splash page for it until issue #25. Even if you don't believe him, Stan himself says (on the letters page of issue #17) that issue #18 was solo plotted by Ditko, so that issue is not in dispute. As to issues #19-24, I'm puzzled as to why you "don't trust" Ditko's recollections. To my knowledge nothing he's ever claimed has been disproven. More to the point, he is the antithesis of a glory hound, being someone who avoided the spotlight and avoided talking about his work. And due to his very idiosyncratic belief system, he strikes me as someone who would NEVER intentionally take credit for someone else's work. For those reasons, I find his recollections to be particularly reliable. Ah yes, the old "they knew what they were getting into, so they don't deserve sympathy" argument. To which I say, the fact that they were willing to accept an unjust arrangement doesn't make it into a just one. Well, the ideas for the characters did not come solely from Stan. At least half (if not more) of the ideas about the creation of the characters and their origins came from Kirby and Ditko. So without them, the characters wouldn't have existed. If Ditko and Kirby hadn't been there, Stan might have tried to create some new characters with say Don Heck or Dick Ayers, but they wouldn't be the same characters with the same powers, names, or origins, because many of the raw ideas for those things came from Kirby and Ditko. Stan did not create the characters on his own, he developed them with Kirby and Ditko. They did more than just draw the stories. You'd be surprised. According to Ditko, in the early issues of Spider-Man Stan was unhappy with the amount of time Ditko was spending on Peter Parker's personal life, and he wanted Ditko to cut down on that and include more action and more scenes of Spider-man fighting. Ditko says he came up with the iconic "half Peter, half Spider-Man" image of Parker as a way to give Stan more Spider-Man without actually cutting down on the scenes of Parker's life. No, you're missing my point. I wasn't expecting Stan to be an artist, I was saying he never created a character without a co-writer. Meaning, the characters were all developed by Lee with Ditko or Kirby. Ditko and Kirby didn't just draw them, they helped created the origin stories and powers of the characters. He gave them tons of credit for their artwork, but he did not give them full credit for their contributions to the writing. More importantly, he did not pay them for the writing work they did.
As @czeskleba notes, when you look at Kirby’s original pencils for the Fantastic Four, he penciled detailed dialog and plot notes in the margins. Lee took those notes and added his flowery phrasing to Kirby’s plot and dialog ideas, but Kirby clearly came up with the plot and dialog ideas. Of course, when Kirby left Marvel for DC, he edited, wrote, and drew the New Gods/Fourth World titles all by himself. Kirby’s pseudo-Shakespearean dialog was more stilted than Lee’s, but the Fourth World demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that Kirby could plot and write comic books all by himself. During the glory days of their partnership on the Fantastic Four, Lee was more like Kirby’s editor than Kirby’s 50/50 plotter/co-writer, in my opinion. I’d say the creative division of labor was at least 80/20 in favor of Kirby.
Who did what in the Lee & Kirby team is discussed in this book-size issue of the Jack Kirby Collector: Exclusive: John Morrow Discusses His New Book 'Kirby & Lee: Stuf' Said' Amazon lists it for $75.00--but the revised edition is available at TwoMorrows: Kirby & Lee: Stuf' Said! (Expanded Second Edition) : TwoMorrows Publishing, The Future of Comics and LEGO™ Publications.
Late in Ditko’s run on Dr. Strange, Lee was replaced as “writer” by Roy Thomas and Denny O’Neil. Thomas recalls this about working with Ditko: Marvel legend Roy Thomas looks back on his epic Silver Age Doctor Strange run Interviewer: What do you remember most about taking over the Doctor Strange solo gig in 1968? Roy Thomas: Well, it was actually my second time on the strip. I had written two of the last four Doctor Strange Steve Ditko-plotted stories for Strange Tales. I would have had the honor of dialoguing Steve’s last Doctor Strange stories but I was taken off it and it was given to Denny O’Neil so I could do something else. I never had a lot of interest in Doctor Strange. Thomas clearly recalls that Ditko “plotted” the Dr. Strange stories and that he “dialogued” them from Ditko’s plots, which exactly matches the working method between Kirby and Lee on Fantastic Four, as I mentioned above. Given that the Dr. Strange stories at the tail end of Ditko’s run were “written” by a tag team of Lee, Thomas, and O’Neil, it’s pretty clear that the one constant creator on the title, i.e., Ditko, was plotting the long Dr. Strange/Clea/Baron Mordo/Dormammu extended narrative that ran across many issues.
Yeah, thats a great book. It uses archival interviews to reconstruct what each of the key players said about the creative process at the time. It’s available as a pdf download for like $10 also if you don’t care about owning physical media.
Learning a few things here which is great! It may have even been in a Kirby Collector mag I read the description of the studio shop boss quoted as saying he was the "king of the comics". Now it's going to bug me who that was! He used the term king before Stan lee used it on Jack Kirby but it really applies best to 'King' Kirby. Even at DC I think they called him that. I've seen John Byrne pages where he has written a lot of things in the margins for Chris Claremont and he would get annoyed when the final version would contradict what he'd thought they'd discussed about the story earlier. Did this kind of thing happen between Lee and Kirby, or Lee and Ditko? It could explain a few things in ways that it simply being about financial compensation or security doesn't. It would seem to be an inevitable hazard of working the so-called Marvel method. Things can be more fun and lively but there can also be conflicts when the artist and writer/scripter are not the same person (and even then there can be conflicts with an editor who wants a say in the story).
#Czeskleba, thank you for your detailed posts, and you clearly know more of the back-story of these things than I do, so it's great to read your take. I accept most of your points, and, again, I 100% occur that the artists in question are co-creators and also that they were (almost) undoubtedly underpaid in that they were co-writers or co-plotters (I had completely forgotten that Ditko was listed as such late in his run). For years, I have heard (not only from Lee, I think) the story of Ditko not wanting the Green Goblin to be an established character, so if that take was wrong, it's good to be corrected! There are a couple of (somewhat defensive) points I would like to make in response, however: Ditko was clearly a very singular guy who saw everything in purely black and white terms, with no shades of grey. I agree with you that he (very obviously) wasn't seeking the spotlight, but it doesn't follow that his memory is therefore more accurate than Stan Lee's. Most of your specific points are from the memories of Lee, Ditko, Brodsky, etc. -- all Marvel staff who worked under Lee -- and you're not considering Stan's memory. When you work under a guy for years and years, it's natural that you and your peers will have fairly negative memories of him. It's just like when co-workers go our for beers and all bitch about the boss. Now, I have no idea whether Stan Lee had a good memory or not (just as likely he didn't), but I think you're giving a lot of favor to the under-dogs here because they're under-dogs. Lee's memories might be faulty, but so were others! (Let's pause to remember Jack Kirby's fairly silly claim to have created Spider-Man.) OK, I was not saying they don't deserve sympathy. (In fact, I clearly stated the exact opposite, that they do deserve sympathy.) I am pointing out, however, that the artists in question had many opportunities over many years to raise objections to Goodman or Lee or whomever about the "Marvel Method", even years before the superhero revolution at Marvel. I also asked if any other Marvel writers (there weren't many in the early days, of course) were fighting for their artists to get more money? Would both Kirby and Ditko (and others) have preferred Lee to send them detailed scripts, with page/panel instructions, that they had to follow? I am not sure, but as creative artists, I doubt it. Sure, it's unfair if they (voluntarily) did extra work they weren't paid for, but is Lee to blame for that? It was the system they all worked under. The "unjust treatment" issue here seems to me entirely about money. The Marvel Method was clearly not invented by Stan Lee alone, and Stan Lee was a company man (he was in with the Goodmans, as you know), so it's hardly surprising that he went along with it when it was working for him. I do agree that the artists should have received more money for their creative input into stories. I'm just saying that Stan Lee is not the sole and only villain in this piece -- he wasn't even the person most responsible for this system. OK, how do you know this? Ditko said so? Kirby? There's no possibility they're biased? What about Larry Leiber (Stan's brother) -- what has he said about this? What we'll always get into in this debate is if, in the comic book medium, any writer can ever create a character 100% alone? I'm not really sure of the answer. Lee was not an artist, but it seems to me quite possible that he (just like an artist who writes a comic) could have conceived, in his mind, of characters quite fully. When Ditko created one of his (very unpopular) later characters like The Question or whoever, did that character not exist until Ditko had drawn it on the page? Could it not have existed in his mind, first? Then, could Lee not have done the same, left the physical representation up to the assigned artist, and then rejected/accepted the received ideas as he looked at the art? (In any case, the creatorship of the characters is long since legally settled and Ditko and Kirby are rightfully credited officially as co-creators... as they should be.)
I believe your referring to Victor Fox “Artist Jack "King" Kirby said of the employer who gave him his start drawing superhero comics, "Victor Fox was a character. He'd look up at the ceiling with a big cigar, this little fellow, very broad, going back and forth with his hands behind his back saying, 'I'm the King of Comics! I'm the King of Comics!' and we would watch him and, of course, smile a little because he was a genuine type".
Cool. I hope I didn't come off as too pedantic, but this is a topic I'm really interested in. The only source for "Lee and Ditko argued about the Green Goblin's identity" story is Stan Lee. John Romita later repeated it, but he of course heard it from Stan. And for his part, Romita did say that it didn't make sense to him, because when he took over the book and read Ditko's issues, he thought it was obvious that Osborn was supposed to be the Goblin from the clues planted. So he was surprised when at some point later Stan told him the story about the two of them arguing about it. As noted, Ditko was adamant it never happened and the logistics of his non- relationship with Stan at the time back up his account. If you read interviews with his associates (particularly Roy Thomas) they all admit that Stan had a really terrible memory. And it's something he himself would admit to and joke about in interviews at times. It's notable that late in their lives both guys seemed to move into the area of taking too much credit and saying the other did nothing. Kirby did it with his notorious Comics Journal interview in the early 90s. Stan did it in his deposition in the Kirby copyright trial in which he claimed to have conceived of all the characters and their origins completely by himself. Neither of those claims should be taken seriously. Both guys in their younger days, acknowledged the roles of the other in the creation of the characters. If you're interested in this topic you should check out the book Stuf' Said which was mentioned earlier in the thread. It compiles all the public statements they made, chronologically so you can see how their positions evolved and their memories likely became less accurate with the passage of time. Stan was the editor in chief, so he was in a position to pay them more for the co-writing work they did. The other writers (like Roy Thomas) did not have that authority. And it was a conflict of interest for Stan, because if he'd paid them more he would have had to pay himself less, because Martin Goodman would have looked at the expenses and asked questions otherwise. The artists that stuck around liked working Marvel style, no doubt, and probably preferred it to full scripts. But they did not like not getting paid for the extra work it entailed, and in the 70s the system evolved to where artists who co-plotted did get paid for their plotting work. FWIW, working Marvel style left a really bad taste in Kirby's mouth. After leaving Marvel in 1970, he refused to ever work Marvel style again (with one exception) because he was so disgruntled with it. In 1976 Roy Thomas even offered him a deal where he would return to Fantastic Four as plotter and artist, and would be paid for his plotting work. Kirby declined because at that point he hated the Marvel Method so much. It's possible, but I don't believe that is what happened, because it contradicts what Kirby and Ditko said happened (and what Lee himself said happened, in earlier days). Beyond that, we can consider: how many really successful, iconic characters did Lee create or even co-create without any help from Kirby or Ditko? I'm hard-pressed to name even one. If Lee was able to conceive and devise successful characters without those two guys, why did he never do it? By contrast, Kirby created dozens of characters without Lee, including the Silver Surfer, Darkseid, and the entire New Gods and Eternals pantheons (both of which are soon to be major motion pictures). Their overall track records as creators are the reason I tend to believe Kirby did more of the raw creation, with Stan doing more the refinement and development of Kirby's ideas. I'm not trying to make Stan Lee out to be a complete villain, or say he contributed nothing. He obviously did contribute a lot to the conception and development of these characters. But I also feel he took more credit than he deserved, and it's an unfortunate fact that many people have an inaccurate view of his role in the creative process. So I'm trying to counter that with my posts here.
I wonder if five hundred years from now there will be scholars arguing about if Stan Lee was a real person like they do about Shakespeare today. Perhaps better that than if Thor was real or if he could beat The Hulk though. None of them were villains, they were people who luckily for us worked well together for awhile, then later couldn't, and both Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko returned to work for Marvel after having left in the '60s. I do wish those two could've been happier, but it's not unusual at the bottom end of publishing for artists/illustrators/painters/cartoonists to be seen mostly as a freelance by the piece position rather than employees. Disney had artists as full time employees and people say they were abused. They didn't get public recognition. Marvel comics artists got recognition but few a guaranteed full time position.
1) They will more than likely be arguing about the veracity of any of the books written on the subject, as there's plenty of Stan in the media to justify his actual existence (unless they begin to suspect he's just another version of Bob Dobbs). 2) The real question is, between Hulk and Thor - which one would Jack himself have been able to beat the worst...!
