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Post by MDG on Oct 5, 2021 8:17:33 GMT -5
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Subjectively, it seems to me that the Ditko and Kirby books were qualitatively different from most other Marvel books in their higher level of creativity - more startling new ideas and characters, and generally different kinds of stories. So I think they were doing much more than just filling in those middle 15 or so pages.... Oh, yeah--this, for me, has always been the evidence for how much of a creative lead Ditko and Kirby took on their books: the fact that compared to what they were doing, other Marvels from the time ranged from mediocre to bleh! Also, the fact that throughout their careers after Marvel, they usually (though not always) initiated projects they worked on.
It's curious that I don't think I've ever heard abut how editor Stan Lee worked with writers during the 60s.
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Post by kirby101 on Oct 5, 2021 8:44:01 GMT -5
Ditko got plotting credit after issue #26 of Amazing Spider-man, and from issue #56 of the FF it was just "By Stan Lee and Jack Kirby" without assigned job titles. So it's not like there was no acknowledgement that they did more than just draw the story.
Did they get enough credit? No. But the did get some.
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Post by MWGallaher on Oct 5, 2021 10:06:26 GMT -5
... Subjectively, it seems to me that the Ditko and Kirby books were qualitatively different from most other Marvel books in their higher level of creativity - more startling new ideas and characters, and generally different kinds of stories. So I think they were doing much more than just filling in those middle 15 or so pages.... Oh, yeah--this, for me, has always been the evidence for how much of a creative lead Ditko and Kirby took on their books: the fact that compared to what they were doing, other Marvels from the time ranged from mediocre to bleh! Also, the fact that throughout their careers after Marvel, they usually (though not always) initiated projects they worked on. It's curious that I don't think I've ever heard about how editor Stan Lee worked with writers during the 60s.
Here's some of what his brother Larry Lieber had to say: RT (Roy Thomas): I used to take cab rides down there from the East 80s at midnight or later, hoping Special Delivery would get to Sam Rosen in Brooklyn or Artie Simek in Queens by the next morning. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. You were a few years ahead of me in that department. You mentioned earlier that Stan would say to you, "Jack needs a story now." Did you plot some of those lead monster stories, as well? Lieber: No. Stan made up the plot, and then he'd give it to me, and I'd write the script. Tudor City had a park; and when it was nice, I'd sit there and break the story down picture by picture. I was unsure of myself just sitting down to write a script. Since I knew how to draw, I'd think, "Oh, this shot will have a guy coming this way... this shot we'll have a guy looking down on him," and later I'd sit at the typewriter and type it up. After a while, I'd just go to the typewriter. I would follow from Stan's plots. RT: Would Jack have already penciled the story? Lieber: No. These were all scripts in advance. RT: So this wasn't "Marvel style" yet? I asked Stan recently just how that style started. He felt maybe Fantastic Four #1 was the start of it, but I wondered if, by 1961 and before, he was already doing some things plots-in-advance for Jack and others. Lieber: No, I think it started with Fantastic Four, or around the time he did the super-heroes. RT: So you'd turn Stan's plots into a full script for Jack or whoever? Lieber: Or for Don Heck, or someone. Stan liked writing his own stories for Ditko. Jack I always had to send a full script to. Also, what Stan liked was that I made up names. As a matter of fact, I made up the name "Henry Pym".... RT: That would be in the "Man in the Anthill" story in Tales to Astonish #27, which led to Pym returning as Ant-Man. You probably made up a lot of names that people assume Stan or Jack coined. Didn't you make up "Don Blake" when you scripted the first Thor story? Lieber: I probably did. I wrote a full script and sent it off to Jack. When was it you came there, or when Stan started writing the super-heroes? We can't know whether Stan's technique with his brother was the same he'd take with R. Bernstein or Jerry Siegel or Don Rico, etc. My assumption would be that those "writers" would have been asked to do what Stan himself did after the penciled pages came in, with the plots originating from the artists, with or without initial input from Stan. But that's just my guess, under the assumption that these writers weren't well-versed in the Marvel Universe mythology that had been built up by Lee with Kirby, Ditko, Heck, Hartley, etc.
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Post by MWGallaher on Oct 5, 2021 10:15:45 GMT -5
Ditko got plotting credit after issue #26 of Amazing Spider-man, and from issue #56 of the FF it was just "By Stan Lee and Jack Kirby" without assigned job titles. So it's not like there was no acknowledgement that they did more than just draw the story. Did they get enough credit? No. But they did get some.
True, and as you dig, you come across acknowledgments like the Bullpen Bulletins I posted, and you see artists like Dick Ayers and Ogden Whitney getting occasional plot credits. My impression is that Lee did less "transformative" edits on Ditko's plots than he did to Kirby's. I can't think of nearly as many instances as Tolworthy's book gives of the script quite obviously contradicting, redirecting, inserting off-panel details, etc. on Spider-Man or Dr. Strange. But I assume Lee knew he was on thin ice with Ditko, with anything perceived by Ditko as an infraction of his artistic intent likely to lead to precisely what did happen, for whatever reason it did. Kirby, though, put up with a whole lot of revision, and would usually get on board with whatever Stan decided to go with..."OK, OK, the Hulk doesn't fly, he leaps. I'll start drawing it that way."
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Post by Rob Allen on Oct 5, 2021 11:39:06 GMT -5
Kirby, though, put up with a whole lot of revision, and would usually get on board with whatever Stan decided to go with..."OK, OK, the Hulk doesn't fly, he leaps. I'll start drawing it that way." Fred Hembeck wrote about Stan, Jack and the Hulk leaping in his blog... yikes, twelve years ago. www.hembeck.com/FredSez/FredSezJuly2009.htm, toward the bottom of the long page:
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