I keep hearing people say Stan Lee isn't as important to comics as people claim

I keep hearing people say Stan Lee isn't as important to comics as people claim.

What's the story there? How did he become such a legend without deserving it?

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You don't ask a lich how he attained his phylactery, it's just important to know that he has it.

fpbp

What if another lich made another lich his phylactery?

He deserves it but most people start to downplay his role when they learn what Marvel Method is. Basically instead of writing an entire script and handing it off to an artist to draw he would give the artists a general outline (or absolutely nothing at all) and the artist would draw the issue. Then Stan would come in and put dialogue to whatever the artist did and get a nice Written By credit. He's also a total huckster who promoted his own name as an essential part of the Marvel brand so his name appears on a lot of stuff he really had nothing to do with.

But that's just people disliking good marketing. Frankly, people like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko wouldn't have been as popular without that Stan Lee style of writing. Marvel Method is really great for popping out comics assembly line style when you don't have a lot of resources and it does a great job of showcasing an artist's storytelling ability. He may not have had the creative job you think he had but what he did is still vastly important to Marvel and comics as a whole.

Literally invented comics, dude is a national treasure

Is that a euphemism for him fucking a certain someone's wife?

Not exactly, I'm sure it's a lich term for making another lich their bitch, so kind of.

We wasn't even a GLORIFIED gofer at Timely when the first issues of Detective and Action Comics were rolling off the presses, you numbnutt.

He's been working in comics, creating a collection of OC that no one hears about today and it wasn't until the 1950s that he did anything that was actually influential.

And it's difficult to say how much Lee really had to do with 1950s Marvel, given that by his own admission he was ready to give up on the business at that point in time. It has for more to do with the fact that he got to do the 'huckstering' as you put, in the magazine at a point in time by the mid-1960s where Marvel was really in the game in the industry.

Would Denny O'Neil be as less well known today if he did the same kind of stuff, down to Warner's putting him in cameos in the Donnerverse and Burton Batman movies? I'm not exactly comparing O'Neil to Lee, but his contributions are significant, just that outside comic book sights and boards like this, he's not well known. Bill Kane is probably a name 100 casuals know more, for example, and Finger and O'Neil probably have more significant and important contributions to Batman than Kane did.

Stan Lee presents

I understood what you mean, but it still unfairly method for artists, and everyone else who isn't Stan lee.

Stan Lee, Tim Burton, and Tom Clancy make a movie together. What happens?

>Frankly, people like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko wouldn't have been as popular without that Stan Lee style of writing.

This is true, but I think it's worth mentioning that I don't think Lee would be anywhere near as popular without guys like Kirby, Ditko and Lieber. I honestly can't think of anything successful he did without one of them.

Also if you ever see him talk about Ditko's contribution to Spiderman without a lawyer he seems like a bit of a credit hog

you whine about it

Ok, I give, Who died this time?

user... you did

Whoa, you mad?

Lee definitely did a lot for Marvel, it’s just that he was and still is the best at self-promotion in comics. Lee also has a head for business that sadly few creatives had during that time as proven by him outwitting Ike.

>as proven by him outwitting Ike.
what's the story behind that?

His writing created an atmosphere of "these are the best comics you can buy, this is where all the exciting things in comics are happening." Basically he was both a writer and a one-man promotion team. Marvel would never have had that without him.

He fights for his friends.

How did we go from that to Bendis who is literally the exact opposite but got to write an insane amount of comics for Marvel? It's like, if you see Bendis' name on it, you know it's going to be shit. And yet, he's so prominent.

Hm?

>What's the story there? How did he become such a legend without deserving it?

He was the one in charge and blacklisted people who went against the myth. Then Marvel realized they could disrespect creators by keeping everyone under his shadow, so it just became policy to puff up what he actually did.

The bottom line is he has little to no creativity of his own. He's got a good idea for recognizing other's creativity, but the man himself is pretty much just a hack and a name whore.

So he's kind of like the Harvey Weinstein of comics?

>Frankly, people like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko wouldn't have been as popular without that Stan Lee style of writing.


Kirby was popular before he worked with Lee.

More like Jimmy Saville

Because of his vacuum company.

I think Captain America helped

>Also if you ever see him talk about Ditko's contribution to Spiderman without a lawyer he seems like a bit of a credit hog
I dunno, he's always seemed make sure he gives them credit in any interview I've seen.
It's Marvel who don't.
It's Marvel who make sure the artists don't get credit because they are or were on bad terms with them, because they gave them shitty contracts.

Essentially, you have four groups.
Stan Lee
Marvel
Media
"Geeks"

I've always heard Stan Lee say that he was a co-creator and tries to mention that he didn't do it alone.

Marvel, having beef with the artists, don't and just talk about Stan.

The Media, getting their info from Marvel and loving the "story" of the lone slightly-crazy inventor promote him as some kind of creative genius.

The Geeks, meanwhile, know that Marvel and the Media's portrayal of Stan is overblown, rock the other way and paint him as someone who stole all his ideas from the artists.

So, no. Stan was not as big or influential as Marvel or the myth of the man portray, but he still was influential, he did write those scripts and he did have a hand in creating those characters and along with the great artists they made some of the best comic books and characters of all time.

His contribution to the works he's credited for is always going to be debatable, however, he is an amazing hype man. The guy is almost like great a pro-wrestler in the way he markets himself and his product

Watch his interview with Jonathan Ross, he's very careful not to say it but it seems to me he doesn't consider Ditko a co-creator

More importantly, what's the story behind him fucking Kirby's wife?

This one?
youtube.com/watch?v=p4z7xuDhMeg

Well, that's artists man.
It's an age-old argument of who actually owns the creation of something.

He certainly gives plenty of credit to Ditko's artistic work and is honest about how much work each of them did on the comics.

Stan obviously considers himself the creator, but is willing to share credit. It seems like Ditko was more interested in getting Lee to actually acknowledge it himself than what happened publicly.

It's a long and complicated story, I don't think Stan is deliberately fucking people out of credit, he is, as Ross said, not the villain of the piece. It's just a complicated personal and professional relationship.

>but is willing to share credit
But he isn't. He outright says so in the very fucking video you posted.

Even reading old reader mail from the 60s Stan gave a ton of credit to artists and defended them against angry fanboys

I second this

He wrote a letter for Steve to show to anyone.
He said if he wants to call himself co-creator, he can, if others want to call him co-creator, they can.

>He may not have had the creative job you think he had but what he did is still vastly important to Marvel and comics as a whole.
>DC/Marvel
>Important to comics as a whole.
Nice joke.

>implying comic stores could operate without either of them

That's him saying "People can call us whatever the hell they want but I stand my ground on believing I'm the only and real creator."

So, as I said, that's more about trying to force Stan to believe something he doesn't think is true, rather than anything relating to actual credit.

It's just a bunch of butthurt Jack Kirby fans who are mad he didn't mean shit.

Fuck you stan fucking life absorber

You are next on the list.

>I honestly can't think of anything successful he did without one of them.

He didn't create a lot of successful new characters without them, maybe, but he wrote some successful books without them. His run on Silver Surfer was well-liked, and the Lee/Romita Spider-Man, after Ditko left.

Together they were all greater than they were alone. Nothing Kirby or Ditko created without working with Lee was ever as successful as the things they worked on with him.

Should have clarified, nothing they did afterwards was ever as successful, since Kirby did have Captain America as an earlier success.

Read this for a comprehensive and fair look at what Stan Lee does and doesn't deserve credit for: zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff_Lee-Kirby.html

Bottom line, Stan Lee actually is, for better or worse, a rather important figure in the history of comics. But he hasn't done himself any favors by taking credit for certain IPs in which he had an editorial role at best.

>Stan cancelled his stuff Louis comic Con appearance
>Just got an email he cancelled Cleveland

Is it time?

Maybe, maybe not. I probably wouldn't bother either if my eyesight was as bad as his.

He left a note on Kirby's desk saying "the f4 fights God" and then kirby invented galactus. It can be assumed this is the same for other characters

Kirby had stuff like Fourth World and OMAC and Ditko had the Question and Hawk and Dove. Granted they didn't have the financial success they had with Lee but I think critically they did well. I definitely feel Lee's biggest contribution to any of his partnerships has been more in marketing than any writing

I disagree entirely. Silver Surfer as a character would not exist without Stan's excellent writing. It is a similar situation with Spider-Man. Those characters were built on his prose in particular his monologues. His monologues are some of the best the medium has ever seen.

See... this whole debate about Stan has always been interesting.. but the one thing that always hangs me up is the fact that some ppl are just good at collaberation. Some people see the genius in someone elses work and are good at helping to flesh it out more and make it bigger and better than it was originally.

with some obvious exceptions where he was doing the writing and not just editorial it makes sense theres this ambiguous idea of what he really helped with and what he didn't.

and then you add on top of that how crazyass comics were as a business at the time and Marvel almost going bankrupt... its not a black and white issue like most people want.

alright geniuses, here's a question:

Was Stan Lee actually a good writer?

Spider-Man only became iconic under Ditko, and the X-Men were the worst selling book before Claremont saved them. Even when you read some old Avengers and Fantastic Four stuff, its clear that he had no idea how to write women, and most of his issues seem to be rehashes of each other.

Thoughts?

Oh don't be a shithead you know full well that crap is a product of its era.

the sexism, yeah. But I'm asking whether or not he was actually good at storytelling.

he came up with one of the most horrible ideas ever

superheroes who are defined by their flaws

No. His dialogue is just plain bad and he over writes everything.

That doesn't make it immune to criticism

He is literally the Disney of comic book writers. Steals their works and takes credit for them.

I would say yes. Judging him by today's standards reflects more poorly on him, but by the standards of the day? Yeah, he is pretty good if not top of the class. He has a tendency to over-write, but that was pretty standard and his colorful style helps to make this more tolerable. His stories are also typically simplistic, but again that is pretty standard for the time.

Stan Lee is a legend in the same way Steve Jobs is a legend

Good hype men but with questionable contributions to the thing they're famous for?

yea, exactly. they deserve credit but they aren't what made the company they worked for great

Stan Lee's a bit like Hulk Hogan, amazing at hyping himself and his product up but fairly disappointing when he actually delivers

That is entirely not true for Disney. While he did very little of the animation, especially after Mickey Mouse took off, he was the driving force behind most of the major projects. Snow White, and Fantasia in particular, were basically million dollar passion products. While his artistic abilities and contributions are questionable his mind and drive are a big part of building the company and the works it produced.

Uh.. I didn't mention Disney

Sorry, I meant to respond to

hi PHG

He isn't important when compared to people like Moebius, Herge, Tezuka or Schulz. In regards to actual influence on the industry, even Crumb was more influential than him, and Crumb is still widely niche to comic fans.

What he did do was revitalize cape genre by breaking away from old formulas. New narrative ideas that fit like a glove in the culture of the 60s and ensured capes didn't fall into obscurity like other genres of the era did. Arguably he saved DC by forcing them to up their game too. He set the founding stone for what was going to become Shooter's Marvel, then he slowly retired from comic making by involving himself fully into being the public face of Marvel and writing the Spider-Man newspaper strip - which was his dream from early on

By far his greatest contribution to the industry was pushing reader-creator communication by creating the fan club and encouraging and publishing newsletters both positive and negative. This is one of the few traditions that remain to this day.

He became a legend because he's a really lovable goofy old dude.

The second paragraph is very true.

>He's also a total huckster who promoted his own name as an essential part of the Marvel brand so his name appears on a lot of stuff he really had nothing to do with.

it's really important to add that it sold and everyone was ok with it until the whole creator rights thing that happened during shooter's tenure.

ayy

Ike comes in and tries to cut Lee's salary, Lee lawyer's up and gets a new fat bonus and an even higher salary.

Sup Forums's pathetic fanfiction that's based on a joke from a shitty youtube video.

his uncle was a big in the company put little Stan to work there cuz litle Stand wasnt good at anything and joos have to take care of the family. the rest is fantasy history

Shakespeare did it long before Disney. Pretty much all his plays are adaptations of something else yet he gets all the credit for in venting them.

Who does that apply to besides Hank Pym?

But he's still willing to share credit you mongoloid.

Stan was also writing a shitload of things at once in addition to being EiC of Marvel and trying to get them deals in Hollywood. The Marvel Method happened out of pure necessity.

>He isn't important when compared to people like Moebius, Herge, Tezuka or Schulz. In regards to actual influence on the industry, even Crumb was more influential than him, and Crumb is still widely niche to comic fans.

>
What he did do was revitalize cape genre by breaking away from old formulas. New narrative ideas that fit like a glove in the culture of the 60s and ensured capes didn't fall into obscurity like other genres of the era did.

You contradict yourself. That alone makes him more important than anyone short of Tezuka.

Suddenly I feel less forgiving of his sexual harassment allegations.

>That alone makes him more important than anyone short of Tezuka.

Not at all. The formulas he pioneered weren't followed on by many writers and artists, mainly some of his contemporaries at marvel offices. Not even DC did a copycat effort, despite going through great pains they managed to develop their own thing a couple years later.

You are vastly understating how influential those four were. Only name there I'm not 100% sure is one of the great is Schulz.

In comparison:
Herge is one of the fathers of franco-belgian adventure comics, set all the core points of a genre that's still being produced to this day
Schulz's Peanuts is the be all end all of comic strip aspirations.
Moebius was so ridiculously influential he became internationally famous. l'Incal and Metal Hurlant - Specially Garage Hermetiqué revolutionized the french comic industry. Arzach nearly broke the Japanese comic market. A dozen artists took heed of his ideas. Animes were made imitating his style - Nausicaa and a couple others. marvel and DC tried to bring the graphic novel format to the US because of him. In regards of sheer weight on the industry, Moebius is still the unchallenged king of comics.
Tezuka helped nurture a growing comic industry in Japan with ideas what became manga standards for decades.

Lee's writing was breath of fresh air and a step towards greater things in capes, but not much else. Hi strengths were always being a promoter of comics - on this, he's arguably the world's most influential person. But inside the comic industry itself? Not much.

Good post.

goOOOOOOOOOttttTTT any exaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaMPLES?! bitvch!

The fuck?

Don't cuss!

Dude what? Anyone who knows what they're talking about knows that most of Shakespeare's plays are adaptions. He's credited with having a huge influence on the English language and, directly or indirectly, influencing nearly every English speaking writer who followed him. No one credits him with creating Romeo and Juliet or MacBeth, just with writing influential adaptions

Literally any 60s newsletter section Lee administered and the marvel zine i can't remember the name of.

Good post on Moebius.
There's this Silver Surfer storyline written by Lee and drawn by Moebius. Would've been interesting to know the process behind that.

Yeah, it actually does.

It was on Shooter's tenure, he created Epic, gave it to one of the company's senior editors and essentially told him "this are to be creator owned. you are not bound to the CCA, do whatever you want"

One of the first thing Epic did was publish creator owned comics (ie: starlin's Dreadstar), and then began to put out graphic novels of international fame. Among these was contacting Humanoïdes Associés - Moebius' imprint - and getting licenses to translate some of his works - and I mean real translations with proper lettering, enough to impress a snobby frog like Moebius. He took a personal interest in the project and offered himself for hire. Shooter's successor offered an unused stan lee script (or may be the original galactus script, can't remember) to work with. The result was Silver Surfer: parable and several fan / promotional artworks by Moebius.

Jim explains Epic's history on more detail in his blog - jimshooter.com/2011/07/epic-interfereence.html/

Fuck that.

Fuck yeah!

Canadians

So popular he was about to quit and go into ad work, where he'd have ended up as forgotten as Wally Wood.

It's important to underplay it a bit because

A. Stan overplayed the hell out of it for decades.
B. A lot of their hits were mostly on the penciller's side. His dialogue is detrimental to some of their works.
C. He's really more of an incredibly talented editor than anything.