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Steve Ditko actually wrote about Spider-man... A LOT
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583 posts in this topic

Just now, 500Club said:

The ‘bash Stan’ agenda gets pretty tiring. 

There’s no doubt Stan had his sharp edges, and there’s no doubt Stan wasn’t singlehandedly responsible for the rise of Marvel in the 60s, but the thematic flavour of this thread is an overshoot. 2c
 

 

Disagree.

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Stan wrote the dialogue.  STAN WROTE THE DIALOGUE.  Thats what made the books so great-along with the art.  Not one of those creators ever said THEY WROTE THE DIALOGUE.  Should they have been given plotting credit?  Sure.  But Stan was the WRITER.
THE END

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1 hour ago, FoggyNelson said:

It makes me sad to think Stan Lee was a bad guy 😟😟 

He wasn’t.  He had his flaws, like every human being.  He did stupid, inconsiderate things at times, like we all have.

This thread has selectively presented anecdotal memories that paint him in a bad light.

Take the middle ground - understand that all these creators were indispensable to the formative years of Marvel Comics.

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39 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I could only get through a little bit of that.

Steve was there, and we weren't, but I have a hard time seeing it his way.    Few before Stan gave the artists published credits in the comics (EC did as Terry once rightly pointed out).    I don't know that someone disinterested in giving credit goes out of his way to.... publish credits.

How can you not see it his way if you didn’t read it?

Few gave credit before that because the lines were clearly drawn. A writer wrote the -script. An artist stuck to it. It included the panel breakdowns and complete story. The inker inked. People got paid for what they did. 
 

Julie Schwartz said he used to rewrite all kinds of dialogue - the writers still got paid for writing, he got paid for editing. 

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collaborative does not a creator make.

all people have ideas and some are good.

they take them to a business and sometimes investment will happen, but it's still the idea man that get's the credit, how much depending on contract or if they sold their rights. 

I've never thought that somehow Stan did it all, that allusiveness or illusion never happened in my brain. 

Stan was a voice, I'm glad Ditko got one too. Hopefully it is better to build up rather than tear down. Still if Ditko felt he needed to air it, I don't feel differently, who hasn't thought the boss took too much credit. If Ditko's voice is to change that in society, then I don't think of it too much as "tearing down Stan", Stan just happened to be the boss at the time. :) 

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27 minutes ago, Bronty said:

It boils down to money.     Once a creation becomes this popular there is no crafting an agreement that everyone's going to think is fair.    Everybody wants more, more, more.    If Marvel had given Jack more (or Stan more, or anyone else more), guess what they would have wanted next?    More than that.    More more more.

Once again you didn’t read it, so how can you say that?

This is why Ditko’s words are important on this subject. He wanted no money. He wasn’t even concerned with how he was perceived in the situation by fans - he was taking issue with how Stan was framing the TRUTH as he saw it. 

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17 minutes ago, 500Club said:

The ‘bash Stan’ agenda gets pretty tiring. 

There’s no doubt Stan had his sharp edges, and there’s no doubt Stan wasn’t singlehandedly responsible for the rise of Marvel in the 60s, but the thematic flavour of this thread is an overshoot. 2c

In your opinion. Why be here then?

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9 minutes ago, 500Club said:

He wasn’t.  He had his flaws, like every human being.  He did stupid, inconsiderate things at times, like we all have.

This thread has selectively presented anecdotal memories that paint him in a bad light.

Take the middle ground - understand that all these creators were indispensable to the formative years of Marvel Comics.

Exactly.

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11 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

How can you not see it his way if you didn’t read it?

Few gave credit before that because the lines were clearly drawn. A writer wrote the --script. An artist stuck to it. It included the panel breakdowns and complete story. The inker inked. People got paid for what they did. 
 

Julie Schwartz said he used to rewrite all kinds of dialogue - the writers still got paid for writing, he got paid for editing. 

I only need to read so much ranting before I get the gist Chuck.

As for your narrative around why few gave credit before that, I don't believe that for a second.   My experience in collecting illustration has generally taught me that the reason illustrators were uncredited is because if the names were out there, there was a risk the competition would poach.    I wasn't there, but to me that is the most logical reason as to why credits weren't given.    That, and they were effing kids books.   Who cared.

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Plus, the stories of the beanie on the head, and the bowing to Stan on the filing cabinet made me both laugh and cringe.   I hadn’t heard those before.

I’m sure working for Martin Goodman from the age of 18 didn’t give Stan the best of examples and role models for leadership.

However, there are many ‘eminences grise’ out there who I’m sure would cringe at some of their behaviors from their younger years.
 

 

 

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Little people in a sea of distress
Keep your more to receive your less
Unimpressed by material excess

It's all just to give both sides :foryou: I was really unaware of Stan's side as well, :shy: "Millennial's" lol 

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I can draw!  Look here's proof!!! :roflmao:

seriously anyone who has worked for Disney drawing mickey mouse you draw a circle, then 2 smaller circles.  The entire approach is 100% wrong.

Screenshot 2020-02-16 at 1.15.59 PM.png

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18 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

I went down the rabbit hole of trying to learn as much about this subject many years ago. I read through numerous books, stories told by people working at Marvel, and I pored through some of Steve Ditko's essays. Followed it to the meta-messages of Funky Flashman and Houseroy, as well as conversations by people like Jim Steranko, who in one instance talked about beyotch-slapping Bob Kane in an elevator, and in other, defended Stan Lee, when someone asked him on Twitter if Kirby got "Kane'd." I long ago made up my mind, but reading this has been a good refresher in some ways, as well as it allowing me to develop some further thoughts.

One such example, if you consider Ditko's confession/sarcasm angle, in relation to Lee's penchant for credit stealing, you have look at it beyond what he got away with at Marvel. I think it was in his DNA, and he enabled it outside of Marvel. Watch this 2nd part of an interview he does with Bob Kane. The dialogue will seem cringeworthy and ackward to anyone that has spent more than 5 minutes reading about how each of these guys screwed over creators, but listen to Stan's tone, demeanour, and the words Lee uses to give Kane a pass whenever Kane uses the same brand of sarcasm as a cover to the truth.

Stan knew what was happening between Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson. That interview was meant to give Kane an undeserved plug for a book he wrote which was basically meant to denounce any other co-creator from having any credit for Batman. The fact Kane had the balls to ask if he was getting paid - the entire shtick - led me to think Stan was either the biggest, most gullible dummy in the world or he was giving this stronzo a platform to perpetuate lies.

This interview was all I needed to see to know that everything that was ever said about Stan by people he had wronged was true.

The pace to the creator debate really picks up at the 2:58 minute mark:

 

I've long thought it strange how much Kane is vilified (and maybe deservedly so, I haven't really researched it), while Stan gets a pass.

Saw a post about Steranko defending Stan Lee from Twitter while doing this and... that was a response to ME! (Below) LOL. We got into it one night on Twitter and he didn't like the questions I was asking, so that was how he responded: "You guys may know a lot more than I do about Stan swindling Jack --- I was only there at the time!"

To which I replied, "Not in 1961 you weren't."

He didn't care for that.

Steranko is a big phony. He's milked more out of 29 comics worth of work than any creator in history. As big of a huckster as Stanley is.

image.png

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There's a system that Disney animators use to draw characters like mickey mouse.  Someone says they used to work for Ford building cars here let me prove it and they put engine in trunk, fenders on roof, you say 'you never built cars for Ford who you trying to kid here'.

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