You keep watching em and I’ll keep recording em! Thanks so much for the kind words and for checking out the channel. Really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment as well, helps out the channel immensely!
@@JerkComicI just came back to rewatch this one again and watched some of your others again about Image and Liefield. You should come back and do more videos.
My god does it make me happy to read this. I have been dealing with some health stuff and knowing that I did your Uncle just a modicum of justice here really makes me smile. Congrats on getting stuff with Marvel worked out btw - incredible news!
Mark Ditko really appreciate the share and happy you dig the video! Any help spreading the word about the channel is so awesome man - please let me know if there’s anything you want to see an episode about.
Mark Ditko thanks so much brother! Really try to dot my I’s and cross my T’s and it takes me a while between videos but getting comments like this make it worth while! Thanks so much for spreading the word super appreciated
Mark Ditko okay I’m not going to lie - I didn’t see your complete username as I was at work... I am awed that you enjoyed this. I previously discussed IDWs plans for Mr A and I would be beyond interested to ask you a few questions about that as I felt your stance on the subject described by Bleeding Cool were very presumptuous and I’ve had a lot of people ask me about it. You happen to be friends with my buddy Todd Clark on FB (my father and I are also music journalists and absolutely adore his work and have been friends with him for years) so sent you a friend request - if I’ve over stepped please feel free to ignore the request. Either way, I have had more interest in the channel in past 24 hours than the last year combined. Legitimately can not thank you enough for the share and support of the video!
@@JerkComic Haha... ya ... I'm a 'Ditko" ... whatever that's worth. (My uncle hated it whenever I implied anything 'special' about "Ditko;s") Steve Ditko was my Uncle (my dad's brother). Feel free to email me at markATditkoverse.com
Listening to Stan Lee recall arguments with Ditko about who can be considered a character's creator makes me realize that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko are the Reshiram and Zekrom of Marvel Comics. They are the embodiment of the battles of Truth vs Idea.
Ditko even uses that terminology man. Dead on. Kinda sad when you step back and look at it really. No one was ever going to be happy or get what they wanted.
Thanks so much - really appreciate it! You keep watching 'em and I'll keep making 'em. Really appreciate you taking time to leave a comment too, helps out the channel a ton.
Awesome - let me know what you think. Can't thank you enough for checking out the channel, and especially for taking time to leave a comment - helps out the channel immensely!
JerkComic A small channel putting in that work and making interesting quality content, you're destined to blow up! Love smaller content creators because it's like y'all still have la pasiòn, you don't really get all the obscure history from the storyline tubers anymore really.
@@FleshWolf thanks so much again for the kind words try to be different and interesting at the same time never sure if I'm succeeding haha. Hopefully the channel continues to grow and I can finally get around to more of the bigger stuff I want to work on
When I think of a comic writer, I don’t think of Stan Lee. When I think of Lee, I think of a good editor and a charismatic salesman. Marvel would not have been the success it was without Lee. It would also not be the success it was without men like Kirby and Ditko. Creators deserve the credit they are do. The fact that Lee couldn’t even just admit it is a little arrogant. Filling in the speech bubbles is not writing a comic, imo, especially when there was sometimes already dialogue that Lee just edited to sound more Marvel-esque. And saying you have an idea for a guy with spider powers is different than creating the costume, the backstory, the web-shooters, the villains, etc. When Grant Morrison writes a book, he writes it, and even does the concept art for the characters (often times). When Alan Moore writes a script, it’s so detailed that any writer could draw it will similar results (check out his crazy detailed scripts). That’s way different than adding a bit of dialogue to a plotted and drawn comic book. Great video
Lee was a master of marketing, more than anything else. Had he just been more forthcoming about what he was a master of, I think Ditko would have respected him more.
Well, I learned how to research from the best sooo.... Thanks for checking this out, I know comics are not your bag but at least you can hopefully appreciate the historical angle on this. It's funny to think about how much these characters are worth these days. And while fans will never have a hand in monetary compensation for Steve Ditko, I can only take a cue from you and try and ascribe the correct historical credit and information for people to see and share with others.
Ok, don't be too distraught! Yes. Stan Lee was a liar and a thief. Guess what? MOST people in the industry are! Lee is FAR from alone, and at a certain point I think the whole thing just got out of hand. By the time Lee left as publisher HE had no vested interest besides his absolute consuming NEED for attention to keep up these stories, MARVEL? Yeah, well they did. And they paid Lee MILLIONS of dollars a year to keep it up. Now it's Disney. So you have to also lay blame at the feet of people like Martin Goodman and a ton of other people for the "Lee mythology" of creating Marvel. That's the nasty part. The good part? Read ANYTHING that Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby did without Stan Lee. If Lee's dialogue was ham fisted, I have no clue what to call Kirby's ludicrous writing in the Fourth World. Amazing story. Absolutely abysmal dialogue. Steve Ditko? Yeah, that dude got SO wrapped up in his own personal politics he ended up doing Transformers coloring books and Tiny Toon Adventures comics because he refused to play nice with anyone. I personally love Mr. A for what you can learn about Ditko from it, but as a comic - it's laughable. It's these huge narrative diatribes burying images in layer upon layer on objectivist rhetoric and propaganda. Seriously. Even The Question got almost unreadable by the end for that reason. Stan Lee was able to temper that with his, well WHATEVER the heck it was that Lee had. And rest assured true believer, he had it. He was a comic book ambassador. You think of him, or thought of him fondly when you remembered comics, no? Maybe he even helped you get into comics. Lee was an essential and absolutely pivotal part in the creation of the Marvel Universe. Kirby put them all in New York, Lee wrote them into a single universe. Don't hate Stan Lee. That's not what this is about. Don't even dislike him. Don't ever loose that part of yourself. Remember the good things he DID do. Remember all the contributions he DID make. If you listen to the end of this, I use Lee in a small, 'nuff said quote. I don't hate Stan Lee or even dislike him. This is about setting the record straight and setting history straight. Hope this wasn't too awful for you. I know it comes as a heavy blow to learn Lee isn't quite the patron saint of comics he's painted out to be, but he's far from the devil either so take solace in that if nothing else!
It's difficult to see a childhood hero as a significantly flawed human being. I felt disillusionment about Stan after learning some of the specifics re: his work with Kirby. But, I have learned to admire what I can about the man -- he persuaded Martin Goodman to green-light numerous comic books and strips; as editor he kept Marvel super-hero titles "mature" in the sense that there were rarely characters or stories aimed at first-graders (unlike DC); he was an effective art director and an even better corporate spokesperson. He also was a fairly hands-off collaborator with Kirby and Ditko, suggesting to me that deep down he understood his own strengths and weaknesses pretty well.
By the way, I love your videos. You are one of the most thorough and incisive commentators on comics I've found on UA-cam or anywhere else. I'm a subscriber for life. Keep up the good work. I wish you every success.
Man can't thank you enough for such kind words - hopefully the channel keeps growing like this as I'd love to do even more in depth and comprehensive videos! Thanks so much for checking this out and taking the time to share such kind words, really appreciate it and it helps out the channel immensely!
Great work as alway! Having dipped my toe into the world of creative work for hire, I can completely see where Ditko was coming from. I've had people tell me, "Let's write a novel." or a short story or what have you. I say okay, how do you want to work this? I'm told, "I come up with the idea and you do all the writing stuff." And the idea, in these cases is 2 or 3 minutes of spitballing ideas. Then that person is done. I'm expected to spend the hours and days and weeks of creating. Then, the person wants all the credit because I'm "just a ghost writer." No thank you. I'll pass on that offer.
I think there's a lot of people who legitimately think that's how a collaborative project works. You come up with an idea, you write down a synopsis, you hand it off, someone MAKES THE ENTIRE THING FOR YOU, and then you get to add dialogue, etc. A big reason for this is the Marvel Method, which had all but disappeared by the 60's, though it was prominent much earlier in the industry. But people's idea of Stan Lee, and the fact that well, HE had the idea - so HE is the creator has done what I believe might be irreparably damage to the industry. Now, I should mention I think this is mitigated by the fact that he was a massive part of Comics (which a capital C) not Marvel, but Comics. He was the face and the voice, and they needed that. It's a shame he was a huckster and a liar, but I think that if you look at the way his daughter pimped him out the last few years of his life, the mental and physical abuse that he faced for years at the hands of his care givers, things kind of come full circle. If you're the kind of person to step on your "friends" backs and use them like stepping stools, ignoring them when convenient, and heralding them only when it serves you and in the most self aggrandizing way possible, well, you might just end up on the other end of the stick. I would probably have been able to let this go had Lee and Ditko not publicly had this spat resulting in the Ross documentary In Search of Steve Ditko. Hearing Stan Lee actually say that he doesn't think Ditko, and by extension Romita, or Severin, or Kirby, or Steranko, or any of them - deserve credit, that HE, Lee, is the creator since he had the "idea" absolutely infuriates me. He was honest that ONE time, he let it slip, and then you can hear him be like crap, I should not have said that. Because he looks like a monster. He just, he can't admit that anyone else had a place in this fantasy world that he created for himself and was indulged in for so long. The fact it now serves the narrative that the house of mouse demands be history because it would otherwise start a tipping of power that is dangerous to their bottom line is the reason you won't hear this talked about like it should be. This, the Ghost Rider Gary Friedrich lawsuit and the Kirby lawsuit will probably be sealed forever. Disney can't afford for the idea to even get into people's heads that maybe the guy who DREW the image that they associate with the character, no one is like oh yeah Captain America - AVENGERS ASSEMBLE without that Kirby image of Cap tossing his shield on a cover. It's a VISUAL medium. And what's so sickening here, is that Ditko didn't want money. He didn't want credit for himself. He didn't want people to know who he was. He didn't want a danged thing other than to show the world Lee was a liar and that comics as they perceived them are basically a sham game set up to rob creative individuals of their intellectual creations, creativity and power in the medium. Freelance artists deserve mad respect, especially those who make a living off of it - hats off to you and thanks for checking this out. Glad you enjoyed and I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment. Helps out the channel a ton.
Great video man... I’ve been studying this stuff my whole life. Worked in a comic shop for 15 years. I’m just glad someone is getting this stuff out. Thanks man
Thank you for taking the time to check it out. And that is precisely the reason I made this. I've been studying this for years and years and knowing I'm faaaar from an authoritative expert I made this in hopes of giving future historians and generations a kind of jumping off point for reading and research. So happy you enjoyed this, I think it might have been my favorite I've done so far, well the two Ditko pieces which are really just one long episode I ended up breaking up haha
I love your channel. I love the history of comics, and not necessarily what the comic book culture has become. I appreciate alot of your content and your enthusiasm for it. Great channel, you go my sub.
I love the industry so much, it's been an amazing opportunity to delve deeper and deeper into things with this channel and share my journey with all you awesome people. Thanks so much for checking out the video, so happy you're enjoying the channel and I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, helps out the channel immensely!
Thanks. I'm having a hard time trying to keep the channel afloat right now so if you or anyone you know has ever thought about supporting the channel and you want to see more content now is the time. Hope to keep putting stuff like this out until the end of time but a second full time job is gonna make that hard. Thanks for checking this out and especially the kind words and taking time to leave a comment - means a lot and helps out the channel a ton!
@@JerkComic yeah bro. Your content is near and dear to my heart. You do your research and have taught me a lot I didn't know. And I'm a really committed comic fan. I hope you pull through .
This is the best comment on UA-cam! Seriously though, thanks so much. It really means a lot to know people are actually watching and taking away something from these videos I spend so long on. It means a lot and it helps out the channel more than you know - so thanks again!
Thank you so much! The sub is super appreciated and so glad you enjoyed the video. Please let me know if there’s ever anything you you want to see an episode about in particular.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate the kind words as well as you taking time to leave a comment. I really do love comics and I love the industry almost as much as I enjoy the characters and stories that we see on the pages so it's been a real dream getting to share all this stuff with so many new people. I try to go a little above and beyond and super happy it shows. Thanks again for checking out the video and taking time to leave a comment!
Those who get angry at Stan for not saying it differently are actually, objectively, wrong. Stan was very honest in the interview and he said exactly what he believed. I don't think Ditko or any other true objectivist would have ever wanted Stan Lee to say something he didn't believe. That would be a hollow and meaningless victory. The truth is the two men had a difference of opinion because they defined the question of creation differently, and from each of their perspectives, both were right. I actually admire the fact that Stan, when asked directly, answered honestly according to his own deeply held beliefs, just as Ditko would have. It seems to me this controversy could have been settled simply by being more precise in how the matter was stated. Rather than asking who "created" Spider-Man, simply ask who originated the idea of the character. The answer is clearly Stan Lee. And then ask who originated the look and visual design aspects of the character. The answer is clearly Steve Ditko. I think both men would agree to such wording. The problem is that when one simply asks 'who was the creator?', Stan Lee was honestly answering the first question, while Steve Ditko, just as honestly, believed that both questions should be combined into one. That's merely a subjective difference of opinion that derived from an objective difference of definition.
The original idea of Spider-Man is more complicated than sayiing it was Stan Lee. If you reaearch more you will realize that you are skipping two very important persons... Captan America creators Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. In the 50's before the creation of Spider-Man they came with Silver Spider concept and The Fly characterr. It's very weird that the character is an orphan teenager who lives with his uncles. Where did I heard that story, Uh? Besides you complety ignore Jack Kirb from the credits of the first Spider-Man issue although he had a hand on it. Did you know that he drew the iconic cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 ?
The Fly is a rework of the Joe Simon, not Simon and Kirby creation of Silver Spider from the failed Mainline imprint years before. I did not ignore this, nor am I unaware of this. The Fly/Silver Spider was most likely pitched to Lee who then took the idea, not wanting to give Kirby more power and also disliking the idea of the Cap American inspired appearances and the costume in the ring, etc - and passed the assignment on to Steve Ditko. Ditko was likely only given the basic premise of the Silver Spider/Fly character with his Uncle etc, but also not told it was a preexisting character and set off to design the character himself at his apartment, though his roommate would suggest the iconic web designs. The involvement of Kirby is in COMPLETE question. Some say he did work for the interiors 4-6 pages, which were rejected and subsequently lost. Shooter has said that Kirby did some initial designs, but that he believes that the mythical 4 page pitch on interiors does not exist. Kirby and Joe Simon likely inspired Lee to further an idea, steal it and then pass it off to Ditko. That is supposition though. There's no quotes from anyone other than when Kirby said he wrote the Fantastic Four and created Spider-Man. This all aside, that's not really the point of the video. The point is that Lee BELIEVED, he really did, that he created Spider-Man and to shine a light on the more dubious and duplicitous reasons he wrote the spider-Man co-creator letter. Tackling the Silver Spider/The Fly Spider-Man connection would be an entirely different thing all together. My point here is that Lee never believed Ditko came up with it, Ditko didn't believe Lee came up with it and that it is my belief for all intensive purposes that they both have valid points. There is nothing without an idea, but an idea is just that without a physical manifestation of that idea - I do not believe the Lee came up with the idea, but I do believe that Ditko came up with the physical creation on his own. Kirby simply did the AF15 cover because Lee didn't like the "weird one" that Ditko did, and even by this point after Atlas Ditko and Lee HATED each other. This video would have gone ever direction and quadrupled in length had I attempted to tackle even whether Kirby even drew any interiors for Spider-Man during this period as there's plenty of information suggesting that it is both true and untrue.
You hit the nail on the head. Stan has his own definition of "creator" and at least up until that deposition he was pretty consistent with it. In my own personal opinion, I give Lee and Ditko equal credit. Lee's involvement with the Ditko run was probably minimal after the first handful of issues, but Spider-Man ran for a long time after that and it was really during the Lee/Romita years that Spider-Man became the character we love today.
If Peter Parker is an Amazing Spider-Man, for sure Steve Ditko is Peter Parker. Just look in Mr Ditko's Johnstown PA high school year book pic. Plain as the nose between your eyes.
I 100% agree with this in all seriousness. I do believe that Parker was Ditko's first attempt at a comic book avatar (Mr A being the second and successful one) and that this might be the reason he was so incredibly touchy about the disagreements that he was having with Stan Lee about all of the stories and basic character elements of ASM. Ditko did not agree with the morally ambiguity of Lee's heroes but this was the only time they ever really clashed like this over a character? Why? Ditko was completely capable of distancing himself from his work and not really caring what others thought or made of it, but not Pete. I think this was because Ditko felt in part responsible for what he perceived as the negative ideology and moral compass of Spider-Man and in part because Ditko WAS Spider-Man in many ways. Thanks so much for checking out the video, if you ever want to see an episode about something in particular let me know!
Stan Lee: I got an idea for a character. He's a teenager who has real life problems, but also super powers. I'll call him Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Steve Ditko: Okay, here is a badass character costume for him. Conclusion: They both created Spider-Man and should share the rights equally.
What about Joe Simon? 8 years before the creation of Spider-Man he had and idea.... The Silver Spider. A teenage orphaned boy who lived with his uncles and transforms into and adult hero.... The idea was rejected by Harvey Comics. Years later, in 1959 and 3 years before the creation of Spider-Man Joe Simon and Jack Kirby brought to life the same idea but now in Archie Comics, the character was named The Fly. (Check on Internet the cover ofbthe furst issue) Years later Jack Kirby bròught that idea in Marvel and of course he had to modify it to avoid lawsuits from Archie Comics. Guess who was the man who drew the very first cover appearance of Spider-Man, I mean Amazing Fantasy #15. Yup, the King of Comics...Jack Kirby! Steve Ditko did all the interior artwork. So again, what did you say ?
Wait, so on the seventh day Stan Lee didn't invent the Marvel Universe!?! NOOOOO!!! My childhood is ruined, gah... As Comic Book Guy (Best. Screen. Name. Ever) astutely pointed out, Kirby and Simon had come up with a character called Silver Spider. While he was eventually rejected by Harvey, I believe he was originally designed for a failed comic imprint that Simon and Kirby were trying to get off the ground Mainline Publications - at the time the superhero thing was on the way out and they phased out plans to do a bunch of stuff - one of them I believe being Silver Spider. Now that's the 50s and we all know that Kirby, ahem - like to, how shall we say? Recycle characters. If he could get away with tweaking something and selling it twice with a costume tweak and name change that was all part of the game. He goes to sell Lee on Silver Spider, Lee turns him down. Lee then picks up the phone and calls up Ditko to do the title. Now why would he cut out Kirby? Well Joe Maneely. Maneely is commonly referred to as the Kirby of Atlas comics. Following his death Lee was reticent to put all of his eggs in one basket, and although he had an acrimonious relationship with Ditko at best - Lee wasn't going to be left holding the milk pale again if Kirby kicked the bucket or bailed on Marvel. That being said - we will never know the full truth of any of it. Ditko was too, well, I love the dude - but he was just nuts. Lee was a liar and Jack Kirby man, that dude just lashed out at the end of his life and sometimes it's hard to separate fact from his own embellished version of reality. Whatever the case, Lee put the words in Spider-Man's mouth - Ditko designed the costume and Kirby/Simon came up with the character by my estimation.
I always wondered what Ditko thought when Jack Kirby claimed in the 80s that HE created Spider-Man. A claim that even the most die hard Kirby supporters doubted.
I hit on that - there's an illustration I show that is how he felt. Jack Kirby did suggest Spider-Man, but not by that name or with these powers. He was called Silver Spider and it is the most likely scenario that Kirby pitched this idea to Lee who not wanting Kirby to get too much power and end up like the new Joe Maneely if they ever fell out, passed the idea along to Ditko. Now, by Lee's own admission - his one crontribution to the Spider-Man character essentially boiled down to suggesting the name and a man that had insect powers, namely to crawl on the wall. Ditko took this and came back with the Spider-Man that we know and love. Well, if Kirby had suggested this - Silver Spider look almost identical to Captain America and presumably shot webs from his gun - then Lee had nothing to do with Spider-Man and by his own logic Kirby created him. I tend to think it was all 3 of them, but I do think that Jack Kirby was instrumental in the idea of an insect powered character and therefore in the creation of Spider-Man Ditko's illustration of the different versions of Spider-Man: www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/50clg8/jack_kirbys_original_spiderman_design_according/
Stan literally couldn't afford to give Steve 50% creation credit as that would inevitably lead to Stan being legally liable for 50% of years worth of monetary gain. The way I see it, Stan was a creative business man, Steve a true creator. Creators have always been exploited by business, a sad truth.
I believe it would've opened a legal floodgate for other characters co-creations. Especially Kirby. There's a lot to this, if Stan sold the characters and had no right to do that with out consent from a co-creator. Would Marvel have to pay? My understanding is that they were free lance workers and ultimately, the work didn't belong to the creators. Too bad, as there seems to be enough cash to go around with the MCU movies.
Lee doesn't own Spider-Man never did. He didn't own Marvel - he wouldn't have been liable for a penny just to be clear. He would have had to come off the fact he didn't create him, and that is something Lee as completely incapable of doing as well evidenced by the Ross interview imho.
Disney messed up copyright laws and things got so bad that the actual guy responsible for the copyright law revisions was set to testify in support of Kirby's estate before the settlement because he said what Marvel and Disney were doing was exactly what he had tried to STOP from happening. That being said, Stan Lee could say whatever he wanted. He didn't own those characters in any way shape or form, and certainly didn't own Marvel. It was all about ego. Giving someone else the credit. Check out the Ross interview, he just can't do it. I just feel like the person who has the idea, blah blah - credit thief plain and simple and he couldn't come off of it for fear of loosing his millions of dollars as Marvel's comic ambassador...
@@JerkComic He had a lot of sway at Marvel all the way until he died, he had a lot of power. Stan says a Marvel movie sucks, what happens? He was "paid off" since the sixties in one way or another.
@@davidlindsay9564 he was paid off but had little power in the comic department especially. He couldn't even pull enough sway to get his own later comic creations published there. Who Wants To Be A Superhero is a great example. That comic was going to be released by Darkhorse as Lee couldn't even pull enough weight to get a one shot published by then. He severed ties with the comics group in the 70s and never looked back. But Disney straight up just stopped paying him for like 2 years and he ended up suing Marvel and Disney over it. And for the record. He had even LESS sway with the films. That was all Arad. Lee squandered decades and millions of company dollars on projects that never panned out and constantly under performed. His only use was as a mouth piece for the last 30 plus years of his life...
Thanks so much! This one took me some serious work but it was really amazing to have Mark Ditko say this was "essential viewing" for fans of his uncle... one of the bigger moments for me on the channel to say the least haha. Thank you so much for checking this oldie out btw, means a lot to know people are actually watching and enjoying these videos I spend so long on and I can't tell you how much it helps out that you took the time to leave a comment!
@@JerkComic My pleasure, man. Yeah, I just had the channel recommended to me in my feed and I've been going through a few of your videos. Lol, planning to binge through all of them.
@@luistoomuch that's awesome! So happy you're finding more stuff of interest too! Let me know if there's ever anything you wanna hear about btw. Always love a good suggestion!
In the works. Dude is crazy weird and awesome. There will likely be a shorter vid about him and Bob Kane and then I’ll do a longer overview in the future. Keep an eye on the channel for sure!
Man youre getting popular pretty soon youre not gonna be able to respond to us like you do youre gonna be getting soooo much attention brother great video
I will ALWAYS strive to respond - it takes me hours each night but talking to cool people such as yourself is the entire reason I started this channel, will be very sad when I can no longer keep up at all :(
There was something special about how pissed off Lee seemed to get Ditko and Kirby that resulted in an undeniable magic. The dialogue was trite and painful, but man do I love those early Spider-Man issues. Always felt so unique to me and now I know a lot of that is the behind the scenes drama/chemistry going on. That being said, I'll never shut up about Lee's claims until people start actually giving Ditko and Kirby their due... so I'll probably be screaming into the void for the rest of my life, but I'll be screaming the truth, haha!
He felt guilty. He got all the credit. To me, Lee reminds me of Steve jobs. Hes the idea man but others flesh out the details and he okays it and puts his seal on it.
He didn't feel guilty, he even says he thinks Ditko is wrong. I mean, I think Lee deserves a lot of credit when it comes to the voices of characters and the kind of universal "feel" and existence of a Marvel Universe as in a shared collective of interacting stories and characters etc. I don't think that entitled him to sole credit on Spider-Man, but HE did. And he said so often and repeatedly. Not here to bash on a dead guy, just wish we had gotten the record set straight before everyone decided to up and die on us. Spider-Man is a muti-BILLION dollar a year character, and we don't know jack squat about the historical facts regarding his creation or origins. Sad to me, just sad.
@@JerkComic It really is unfortunate that the lack of accountability in that business structure at the time has led to such confusion now. Looking back now I think if any of this was going to change in favor of Stan's collaborators it would've probably had to be before the 90's when these characters really started branching out, the damage to Stan's ego had been done at that point and any big interview with Ditko alleging everything he'd created probably would've been publicly disregarded and made Ditko look worse. Their deaths, while sad, have no real effect on the optics here because history really is written by the winners and Stan won by being the man in charge of Marvel. At least there are great lessons to learn from in solidifying the concept of creating an idea and establishing credit for creators in the future.
Thanks so much for the sub and really happy you enjoyed. I spent a looong time on these 2 Ditko pieces and a lot of thought and research went into them. I loved doing this. I'd had opinions about it all forever but nothing to substantiate my thought process. This just proves what I had believed all along. Its to bad that Lee and Ditko weren't able to at least see eye to eye long enough to set the historical record straight but hopefully this helped fill in some of the missing gaps of info that are so hard to come by and spread out.
I´m curious about Ditko´s involvement and views on Peter Parker´s personality. From his description of heroes using Mr. A, it sounds like a guy like Peter Parker would be the last kind of protagonist he´d want to draw and plot for. Was Spider-Man in his eyes meant to be a satire on conflicted heroes? Or was he intending for Peter to come off differently but Lee´s scripts made him seem more neurotic and impulsive?
It would be my BELIEF - as Ditko never said this - but I believe, that Ditko not only disliked where Lee went with the character, but that it was a spot or early and continuous tension between the two that was just the icing on the cake for two people who hated each other as much as these two did. Ditko would never have agreed to anything as wishy-washy as Parker if he had known and been allowed input, so that means either he wasn't allowed input at all, or Lee often vetoed and rewrote stuff when he got the finished art in. I know that Ditko made a really big deal of not even being able to see Stan when he turned stuff in by the time he quit originally, so perhaps this is because Lee didn't want to hear about Ditko's complains about the stuff he changed. It is well know that Ditko and Lee disagreed about the contents of Spider-Man and clashed over many of the major stories and story elements for sure though.
@@JerkComic Interesting. Yeah, this would make sense. If that´s the case, then while I definitely consider Ditko a co-creator, it´s Lee´s contribution that makes me like the character so much. Unfortunately, the way Lee made such an impact (ignoring and not communicating with Ditko) is a completely wrong way of going about it. The things you learn . . . Anyways it really sheds some light on their arguments. Ditko was largely responsible for setting, rogues overall look and atmosphere, and the plots (which were brilliant) and Lee was largely responsible with characterization and came to Ditko with the idea in the first place. At the end of the day, their contributions are inseparable.
@@JerkComic As it was, Ditko had to fight for plotting credit, a major contention of the two being the pay from it. Lee had been part of the plotting for sometime.
@@dakotah7683 Lee's contributions to the plot were all post-Ditko creating the art and there weren't conversations about plots according to Ditko starting super early on. I don't know if we'll ever be aware of the particulars but it's clear that Lee was after the pay more than control over the book imho and Ditko the exact opposite of that. I just don't see Ditko coming up with a conflicted hero, runs so opposite to what he stood for and stuff. Thanks for checking this out btw, glad people are still watching this!
Thank you! These Spider-Man pieces were real passion projects for me. Took a long while but Ditko deserves to have his voice heard... whether he'd like it or not haha. Thanks so much for the kind words and hopefully you find some other stuff on the channel you enjoy as well.
Bob Kane is the only other dude on the planet you can make the parallel to for sure, and that was ONE character. His reputation is garbage and most people hate Kane, Lee claimed credit for dozens of other people's work... I mean, just do the math haha!
As stated in Stan's own interviews, and later the great Jack Kirby: when Atlas Comics was going down and basically the offices were being emptied out Kirby came along and said, "I can create some characters/comics for you and they WILL SELL !" So, backtrack and fast-forward: 1940's-late 50's Stan Lee 'created' almost nil. Jack Kirby (with Joe Simon) created Captain America, The Guardian with the Newsboy Legion (I'll give that the Guardian is almost a Capt. clone down to the shield (also Fighting American)), Boy Commandos, Manhunter, created a whole new field of comics with Romance titles, Bullseye, The Fly, The Shield (Pvt. Strong), Challengers of the Unknown (where a lot of the Fantastic Four came from), updated Green Arrow's origin. Created most of Marvel's main characters, especially Thor (as he has a thing about Gods). Kirby leaves Marvel and Lee, strangely, quit writing/'creating' `(She-Hulk is just a female Hulk through a blood transfusion (Whoop-de-do)), and Kirby continues creating characters: New Gods, Darkseid, Demon, OMAC, Mister Miracle, Kamandi, Eternals, Celestials, Machine Man, Captain Victory. Oh, Stan's main contribution after Kirby.... Stripperella !!!
I believe not a lot has ever been focused on "the deal" Lee and Ditko had regarding the 14 issues before AF #15 - clearly Kirby was a issue. Lee confirmed this to me back in the early 80's
Lee and I talked constantly on the phone around 1984 to 1986... Lee was a good talker. I was going to get him to come to a comic convention I was going to hold at The Sydney Opera House with Eisner and Steranko... Lee ended up as a no-show. That pissed off Eisner big time. Anyway - during all of the talks I had with Lee, I wanted to know more about the beginning of Marvel and Kirby. That's when Lee started to clearly explain to me what the story was (From his point of view) regarding the "Marvel way" the situation with Kirby along with his "deal"... "agreement" ... with Ditko. Possibly best to email me if you want to know more. rìchard.rae@live.com.au
A bit late: but I do really like it when I can watch a video on comics and not find myself mentally (and sometimes literally, I lack shame) shout at the TV for the whole video
God I wish I didn't know that feeling haha. My wife HATES watching documentaries with me because of this. She's like I don't even know why you watch them if they're all wrong? And I'm like yeah. But every once in a million their RIGHT and it is beautiful 🤣 Glad you enjoyed this. I'm hoping to sit down with Mark Ditko who called this video "essential viewing" for fans of his uncle to talk Ditko soon as well... if you dig this make sure to check out the follow up The Great Marvel Art Heist too, might be up your alley. Thanks either way for checking this out and super glad you enjoyed and took the time to leave a comment. Means a lot and helps out the channel a ton
@@JerkComic hahahah yeah mate, everyone hates watching documentaries with me. And would you believe I went straight to the Art Heist one straight after watching this? Cos I did. Ooooh, yeah I'd watch that interview
with the shang chi movie in the works might I suggest a historic showcase of the master of king fu story. It's rare to see chi's story told but it can't be denied his was a long run series successful to the point that giant size and even supersize specials were issued as well as black and white mags too. Then there's the content ,the characters and the creative team(s) Monech,Galucy,Zeck and Day whose careers this comic and its storylines brought them notice and acclaim. Then there's the Sax Rohmer characters inclusion into the melding of the story how that came about? and in the new upcoming movie how the Mandarin (marvel's obvious and nearest answer to replacing chi's infamous dad) came about? All curious and interesting points that I feel ..no scratch that I would love to see reported here so please in preparence and anticipation of the TEN RINGS I dearly ask let's have the shang chi story from its humble conception thru all its characters and creators ..bring us the tale of THE MASTER OF KUNG FU!
He didn't want money, he didn't even really actually want credit - he just didn't want Lee and Marvel to have it, haha! I love Ditko. He's so misunderstood and people see him as this crotchety crazy old person when he was obviously usually the most astute person in a room. To think he just shrugged off the money involved with Spider-Man and never really looked back I think says a lot more about Ditko and his moral code than words ever could. He was a man of conviction and it's a crime that he's seen as such a curmudgeon and not given proper credit for his work for sure. Still waiting for that Mr A Artists's Edition too...
This all pretty much stems from an inability to accept a common use of the word "consider." I think there's a whole load of things to question about Lee's version of events, and...this is inarguable...Marvel Comics had a vested interest in promoting the guy who was a loyal "company man" over two artists who had subsequently left the company. I think saying that Ditko was "solely" responsible for Spider-Man is disingenuous. I think we can agree, Jack Kirby did NOT create Spider-Man, no matter what the Kirby family lawyer wants us to believe. I just think that this argument always boils down to "Jack and Steve did everything," versus "Stan wrote the dialogue over Jack and Steve's plotting." None of the Marvel books would've worked without the collaboration of the creators involved. Which argument seems more open to the world of collaboration?
I think that the Camp Kirby Camp Lee stuff is crap. It was a collaborative effort without doubt. That being said Lee had the artists do the heavy lifting and in turn often lifted the credit. I think he played an integral part in the Marvel U witout question and it couldn't have existed without him. That being said, I believe that Ditko's umbrage at the word consider was his way of trying to illustrate, however unsuccessfully and obtuse, that Lee didn't believe anyone else deserved credit. I am not here to bash on a dead man or men, and hopefully this video as well as comment make that clear, but rather to point out the inadequacy of credit given to people like Ditko and Kirby. I'm all about history accuracy and obviously have no horse in this race other than my own interest in knowing what went down and how which at this point will unfortunately never happen.
I could never believe they used it, I lmao but never imagined many people even understood the original reference not to mention the layers with Ditko and Mr A becoming Question haha
Stan Lee's reason for down playing the importance of artists in the Marvel Universe is because it undercuts the artist's ability to fight Marvel's ownership of these characters. Remember, Martin Goodman was Stan Lee's cousin and Lee was well compensated for taking full credit for the Marvel Universe. Marvel paid Lee a million dollars a year and executive producer credit for all MCU media. Whenever Stan Lee left Marvel and threatened sue for ownership of the characters, Marvel always had to back down and rework the deal they had with Stan because the narrative they created. Keep in mind that Lee didn't start taking full credit until Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegle sued DC over Superman. It was about protecting Marvel's rights to these characters without fear of losing a legal battle. For his loyalty to Marvel, Lee was paid his 30 pieces of silver.
This is PART of the reason he downplayed artists. Are you familair with a man named Joe Maneely? An artist for Timely Atlas, his death left Lee in a rather nasty spot and while you're absolutely right it eventually became about protection, Lee initially attempted to downplay artists and their importance in the creation and life of characters because he didn't know how long he could keep them. His relationship with Ditko was tenuous to say the least from the start, and while Kirby certainly appreciated the work, by 1964 he was already tired of Lee and his antics. It's weird because you see artists promoted in a lot of ways at Marvel, but their importance in big major things downplayed for a myriad of reasons. Goodman quickly realized the problem they had with Lee very early on and this was a big point on contention between the two and led to the weird Atlas comics situation years later. As per Lee's "emmisary" money, because Marvel technically paid him to be a "comics' emissary". And he was good at it. He might not have been great at much else, but he was good at that. But they didn't always pay him. While I know Lee's family and estate were involved with suits or threatened as such about ownership, Lee's legal action against Marvel was usually suing them because they hadn't paid him. They would conveniently forget to send him his checks rather often and he was awarded at least THREE settlement payouts that I know of for breach of contract on Marvel's end there. And as much as I would like to believe it was all money. Dollars and cents. I really, truly, honestly believe that after 30 years of research and listening to him and reading god knows how much information about him. For Lee, it was about attention and ego first, and money second. He always loved his money, but the reason he started crapping on his artists is because he could not objectively remove himself from the equation without "due credit" being given in his eyes. Stan Lee BELIEVES that his 2 sentence schpeel, and an idea he stole from Kirby who had taken it from Simon btw - gives him SOLE CREATOR CREDIT for Spider-Man. That's insane. But he believes it. That speaks much more to ego as it was a position he held long before the character became the money making juggernaut it is today. That's why he wrote this letter. To stroke his ego. To make himself feel better about himself. Not to help out Ditko or clear the air or anything or than to make himself feel good... and well, maybe lure Ditko back into some Marvel work again, haha - as if!
@@JerkComic I agree that it was more about ego than money when it came to Lee. I just find it interesting that Lee always gives credit to Kirby in the early years but started taking more and more credit in the '70s. I don't think Stan understood until later why the higher-ups at Marvel wanted him to push that narrative AND that's why later he always wanted his lawyer with him whenever talking about who created who. I don't think Stan did this because he was a bad person or that he wanted to hurt Ditko & Kirby, but he did downplay their involvement. I do think he was trying to undo some of this later in life, but he saw what happen to his good Friend Bob Kane's legacy once all the Bill Finger stuff started to gain steam so he stopped talking about it in public. On the flip side, I know Kirby came after Lee because of the power dynamic shift that happened in their relationship. When they first met, Lee was a Gopher at Timely and Kirby gave Lee his first work in Captain America. Even in their early interviews, Lee speaks of Kirby as more than an equal, but Kirby still saw Stan as that 19-year-old kid. That hurt Stan and made him want to show Kirby how important he was. In my mind they were all co-creators of the Marvel Universe, but the company saw the value of only having to pay one person instead of three and Lee was more than happy to be the man who created Marvel.
Another great piece! I agree with darn near everything you've said. A couple of comments... Ditko quit Spider-Man and left Marvel in 1966, not 1968. Not a big deal but you might want to run a text correction or re-dub the audio. One of the factors I find most interesting about the fractious Lee/Ditko relationship is the fact that they stopped interacting even as Ditko continued working on Amazing Spider-Man. I know that Lee claimed at some points that this was Ditko's choice, but I find that claim very, very difficult to believe. Lee was the boss and if he truly had capitulated after Ditko said, "I don't want to speak with you anymore, I'll drop off the finished pages with Sol Brodsky when they're ready," then Lee would potentially have been faced with similar insubordinate behavior from other staffers -- "I won't be doing any more unpaid revisions of my artwork," "I won't be giving up my weekends to complete rush jobs on your timetable," "I won't be plotting any more stories unless I receive extra pay," etc. etc. I think it's far more likely that Lee in fact chose to stop speaking to Ditko. I would not be surprised if Lee was somewhat intimidated by Ditko (because Ditko had the backbone to demand plotting credit for Spider-Man and was persistent/insistent enough to get it). I also believe that Lee was reluctant to fire Ditko outright (because Ditko was churning out work that made a lot of money for Marvel). Consequently, Lee took the easy way out -- he stopped interacting with Ditko, because their collaborative relationship didn't require it. This approach probably reduced the possibility that Ditko would make further demands of Lee, it served as a warning of sorts to other Marvel staffers ("if you get on Stan's bad side he'll stop talking to you") and eliminated whatever portion of the work week/month that Stan had previously spent speaking to Ditko, thus freeing him up to spend that time on other matters. I also find it interesting that Lee apparently never made any claims re: contributions he made to the visual appearance of Spider-Man, the supervillains in ASM or the supporting cast. He was, after all, the Marvel art director as well as a competent (if unexceptional) cartoonist with numerous published works to his credit. One would think that if he had developed more than the most bare-bones idea for the ASM strip that he would have made specific assertions to help support his position -- "I gave Steve a sketch of Dr. Octopus as I envisioned him, and Steve largely based the character on it," or whatever. Also, I can't help thinking there was more than pride fueling Stan's reluctance to fully acknowledge Ditko as co-creator of Spider-Man. Lee was a 20-year veteran of the comic book publishing industry when Spider-Man debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15, and must have been aware of the financial implications of crediting a freelancer with creating anything they generated. (Theoretically, in late 1966 or at any time afterward, Ditko could have said, "actually the person who created the vast majority of the Spider-Man strip was ME, I did so without any direction from Stan Lee, there's no written contract to say otherwise and I've already hired a lawyer who'll be happy to fight it out in court and meanwhile I'm developing a 'Remarkable Arachnid-Teen' comic for a company in such-and-such country that doesn't recognize U.S. intellectual property law.") I believe that Stan may have been motivated to claim sole creatorship to provide a little bit of extra protection to Marvel and its owners from such a development. In other words, when Stan says, "I consider Steve Ditko to be co-creator of Spider-Man," part of what he's saying is, "I am not willing to make a simple, unequivocal assertion that Ditko was the co-creator of Spider-Man, because such an assertion might imply that Marvel Comics and everyone else with a financial stake in Spider-Man is obliged to treat Ditko as co-creator, for purposes of authorship credits, intellectual property rights, revenues, etc. So, instead, I want it known that I am speaking only for myself." Please note that Lee's 1999 letter doesn't say anything whatsoever about actions that *other* people should take to "set the record straight" or provide any sort of tangible benefits to Ditko. Finally, if Stan "always considered" Ditko to be the co-creator of Spider-Man, he sure did allow a lot of inaccurate assertions to go uncorrected over the years, many of them in materials he supposedly wrote himself. Just my two spider-cents. :)
Re 1968: godmnit. I knew recording this at 4AM was a bad idea, so close and yet so far away! Definitely will do something - thanks for the catch my friend. re Lee/Ditko relationship: Lee swung back and forth between whatever suited the story the way he was telling it at that particular moment. I take anything he says with a grain of salt. There's a grain of truth to it all imo, but finding that grain in a silo of disinformation is a less than enthusing prospect. 1) Lee was most certainly intimidated by Steve Ditko. Ditko is no fake a$$ Erudite putting on pretenses or show for anyone or anything. He took great pride in everything that he did, at least back in the day... and I don't think Lee was used to dealing with people who cared about the end published product, the way it was packaged and presented, the content, the credits, the printing - Ditko was one of the few artists I know of from back then that actually looked at the printed final products in efforts to improve his future work. Stan Lee was between a rock and a hard place. He couldn't fire Steve Ditko, he was making everyone a boatload of money and he wasn't openly insubordinate or anything like that. They had no real grounds. They could have stopped offering him work, and honestly it seems like that's what they did. They pegged him down as the Spider-Man guy, stuck him in the meat grinder and expected him to play along. Dikto was having none of that - we both know he was crafting entirely different stories in his head than what Lee was lettering and "scripting" from day one, so it's definitely believable Lee was rightfully frightened that Ditko would make some power grab at the rights, or the assertion of sole creator credit, etc... except Ditko would never have done anything like that, and everyone knew it. Neither would Kirby, and they knew that too. Everyone who kept their jobs were good at keeping their heads down, it was the way the game was played. But Ditko didn't play games and he wasn't going to jump through those hoops. I think that your supposition of Lee not speaking to Ditko was his decision and a way of "punishing" Ditko and making an example of him. Lord only knew what he was going to put in those word balloons and narration... if he was talking to you, you at least had some clue and a fighting chance at some sort of cooperation if you didn't like the way things were working. re Lee's lack of credit assertion: I don't think it's any secret he had nothing to do with that series from day 1. Ditko was not a man to be trifled with, the Marketplace interview proves this as does the Time Magazine article from around this period. If you f-ed with him, he was coming for blood. Lee and Ditko knew who had come up with that stuff, look at the Ditko illustration for his article "Jack Kirby's Spider-Man" and you can see the totality of both Lee and Kirby's contributions to even the original idea. While Ditko would never have asserted rights or initiated legal actions of any sort. There's no doubt in my mind, had Lee begun claiming as he did with the Fantastic Four and several other Kirby properties, that he had given Ditko this sketch, and a little written explanation of what he was working on Ditko would have simply gone to the fanzines, the media and wherever else he could and set the record straight thereby stripping Lee of any and all credit he might be able to assert over the Spiderman (hypehnless) character. This is however supposing that Lee and Ditko ACTUALLY stopped talking. I for one, find it beyond unbelievable that this tenuous and tumultuous a relationship lasted as long as it did in the volatile state it has been reported. I find it much more likely that Lee was in fact speaking to Ditko, but on weekends and on the phone and away from other artists. He was bound to Ditko through sales, but couldn't afford his brazen intelligence and cunning to give anyone - specifically Kirby (the golden goose) - any nasty ideas about growing a spine and taking an active role in the finished product of the comic book they were creating; it should be noted that Kirby was as uninterested in this as he was suing Marvel Comics which is to say not at all. I don't think for a second that if things were as bad as they seem and have been played up that Ditko would have ever come back to work for them in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I just don't buy it. They probably had their tiff, stopped talking when he went to Charlton and then sometime during that period professionally patched things up enough for Dikto to return of free will and good conscience to Marvel. re Lee's pride: I would like to agree with you that it was a professional thing that made Lee take the credit in the name of Marvel and the publisher, etc so as to not overpower artists or creators who might be getting ideas from Siegel and Shuster etc. However, I don't think that's necessarily the case. They had a long working relationship prior to the Marvel Age and this level of acrimony and braggadocio didn't exist. Because no one cared. I think it was much less about "pride" or the, I made it, I did that - than people looking at him. Lee was the kind of kid who told you he went to the moon in 4th grade knowing everyone knew he was lying, except for those two gullible kids in your class. But if you can get the public to buy into that crap, the accelerant of the media and fans and that kind of attention is going to turn someone like that into a monster. And that's what Lee became. A monster. He couldn't even admit, even bring himself for a single moment or second that Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko had a single valid point in their claims as "co" creators. The Ross interview shows that plainly. He didn't dislike Ditko, he liked Kirby, but he could not bring himself to relinquish the limelight. It's what got him ousted from Marvel imo, the bullheaded nature of needing to pursue Hollywood so more people would look and pay attention to his childish antics. I don't for a second believe anymore that Lee was doing anything on "Marvel's" behest, behalf, interest or anything else of that nature. I think he was jumping up and down showing his butt and seeing if people would buy into his BS. And they did. Hook, line and sinker. I honestly believe that Steve Ditko was absolutely correct in his assertion that Lee used the word "considered" because he didn't believe what he was saying, or writing. Yes it was to protect them legally perhaps, but that in essence was of secondary concern with Lee issuing this letter with no other reasoning than to try and make up with a guy he hadn't spoken to in 30 years? Yeah, bull crap. No way. Considered or not, this could have opened a monstrous can of worms for Marvel and Lee didn't care - he was only vestigially connected to the company at this point anyway. He was interested in mending bridges with Ditko - but why? Why was Lee trying to buddy back up to Ditko? Because they never actually stopped talking and Ditko was genuinely incensed by Lee's comments during several interviews and articles and had had enough. I think Lee was trying to get Kirby and Ditko to work on some of his own new failed series by Stan Lee Media and Stan Lee Entertainment etc. He wanted to get the old band back together. Except, he'd screwed them all. Kirby was out and out because of Roz - he wasn't going to work with Lee again on her word alone, period. Ditko on the other hand might be wooed. He was working in the public sector and had little compunction about working as a hired gun of sorts. This is all assertion on my part, but I find it highly doubtful that Lee was simply trying to make nice after so many years and that he was been trying to convince Ditko to do something with him for some time and made a big boo boo with the interview, tried to fix it, and then botched it worse. He was incapable of taking or giving proper credit, the reasons are debatable and all assertion, but that's the truth and Ditko needed the world to see it. Hopefully this video helps spread that message a little bit more.
@@JerkComic Wow, great response -- you've got two highly plausible assertions in there that deserve more attention (Stan didn't stop talking to Ditko altogether, and Stan "wanted to get the band back together" with Ditko and Kirby in later years.) Something you might want to consider investigating, when the time is right -- was Ditko's exit from Marvel truly a surprise to Stan? Or, to put it more specifically, did Stan really learn of Ditko's departure from Sol Brodsky, after Ditko dropped off the artwork for ASM #38? Also, I'd throw in this one other factor re: Ditko's willingness to stand up to Stan -- Ditko was a bachelor and (unlike Kirby and John Romita, Sr.) didn't have kids to support. Thus, Ditko was a bit more free to say "forget this" and walk out. (Wally Wood had a similar situation when he departed Marvel -- wife who was capable of earning a living on her own, and no kids. Of course, Woody's departure had some other factors in play.) Finally, I should point out that there was at least one artist during the Atlas era who had a contentious relationship with Stan that paralleled Ditko's in some ways -- that being Bernard Krigstein, who illustrated a bunch of crime and war stories in the late '50s. As I understand it, Krigstein frequently drew more panels per page than Stan liked, and Stan sometimes demanded revisions that rankled Krigstein, or simply had other artists make revisions before the art went to the printer. On one of their final collaborations, Krigstein ended up telling Stan something to the effect of, "you will use my art as provided, or you will not use it at all -- if you revise it I will sue you." I recently ordered a reasonably priced copy of the EC fanzine Squa Tront issue 6, which focuses on Krigstein, and when it arrives I'll see if there's anything re: Stan contained in it. I'll get back to you on that. :)
@@comicbookguy6361 Thanks! Most of those guys would totally agree with you but John Romita doesn't think that Lee is responsible for basically any of this weirdly enough. He always talks extraordinarily highly of Lee and has often come to his aid in many a time of fan backlash! I don't "hate" Lee, I just think the record needs to be set straight and he needs to be taken down a peg. Give me one verifiable shred of evidence of his involvement in the "creation" of any of these Marvel characters and I'll gladly shut up and apologize. Until then... Thanks so much for checking out the video and please let me know if there's ever anything you want to see an episode about!
@@JerkComic I recognize Lee as a good editor, promoter and marketing genius. But not as a creator of the Marvel characters. I would love to see and episode of...Who really created Spider-Man? Jack Kirby even claimed..."I created Spider-Man" Joe Simon came with the idea of Silver Spider years before Spider-Man was created. I would like you to talk about The Fly and the Ben Cooper spider-man costume in the 50's.
I'll admit, I grew up thinking Lee was the absolute mastermind of Marvel. His monthly Soapbox was like the Gospel to me. He was the creator of Spider-Man after all! Even now, his name is spoken by fans with such reverence. Videos like this one and other documentaries have shed some light on the truth and shattered any illusions I had about Lee. It's really too bad Lee and Ditko dissolved their working relationship. I can only think of the many untold stories that they could have created together. I think there might have been some "legalism" behind Lee's phrasing that he "considers" Ditko to be the co-creator. If Lee comes out and says that Ditko is absolutely and definitely the co-creator, that would open up a can of worms, legally speaking. Thinking out loud, what if we take the question of "who is the creator" to Lee's last Marvel creation: She-Hulk. Lee is credited with She-Hulk's creation, but John Buscema was the one who drew her, putting the character to paper in issue #1. Did Buscema ever seek credit for co-creating She-Hulk? Anyways, awesome and informative video. Thanks for posting!
She Hulk is an idea based on a character that already existed, II mean The Incredible Hulk, a character created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. The sane way Spider-Woman is based on Spider-Man, a Ditko and Lee creation. They came up with those female characters just for patenting and registering purposes.
Well, Lee was a Mastermind. He made an empire on what until then had been barely minimum wage career, by taking things others had failed at, and being successful. He may not have been a "Creative Mastermind" but certainly a mastermind. And a salesman that is second to none.
Steve Ditko died alone in bitter isolation with self righteous indignation. Comics JD Salinger. Bottomline: Without Stan's showmanship, second to none salesmanship only to Disney and his relatable with-it everyman disposition that was palpable off the pages, there would be no MCU. No multi-media juggernaut. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko brought the talent and creations to life, but Stan knew how to market, sell and elevate them into something that transcended it's own medium and make legends out of all of them. The reason this never happen for Jack or Steve on their own is they couldn't sell their talent like Stan could and Stan was a marketing genius. His skills at dialogue and editing proves he had creative talent too. And Stan needed visionaries who could bring it all to life. They all needed each other. Nobody should be dismissed. They are the f*cking Beatles of modern day comics. They all played a role. Even brother Larry. Every band needs a Ringo.
Ditko wasn't in bitter isolation. It might seem like that, but he regularly visited with friends, had visitors to his office and was still working up until the day he died doing what he wanted to do, how he wanted to it. I respect the crap out of that. I might not LIKE some of what he did, but I respect the path he chose for himself and the fact he stuck to his guns like he did - not something I take lightly or tread on easily. As per Marvel, I think you're absolutely correct. No Marvel juggernaut indeed. That however doesn't mean he's entitled to the lion's share of credit for "creating" things imo. He was a showman, he was great at selling the brand and hyping, but none of that entitles him to claim to be the creator of the Marvel U, which is something I saw and heard repeated throughout my entire life. I'm not going to get into a debate about his plotting or dialogue, personally I think he did a great deal on this front, I'm not one of those people who thinks Kirby wrote all of the dialogue, this is easily disproved, but I think that the effort for finished comics during this initial wave especially was a collaborative effort and trying to interpret it as anything else is folly. I think there's a myriad of reasons why basically everything Kirby and Lee created post Marvel paled in success, but the same for Lee. Few, if any, of Lee's most lasting "creations" came a part from this wave of the Marvel-era with Ditko, Kirby, etc. I think there was something magical going on where they were bouncing stuff off of each other and after having seen the new Beatles doc I think you're pretty spot on about the Beatles metaphor actually - they managed to create amazing stuff despite not wanting to be in the same room with one another and all of their solo stuff is far less potent.
Ditko as a subscriber and loyal disciple of objectivism, he is militant. Stan is a Jedi master and Jedis don't deal in absolutes. Love your channel btw. Lol. Obviously. You rock
Haha, thanks so much! I think there's was an undeniable magic when Lee and Ditko worked together. Lee was a consummate business and salesman and Marvel wouldn't be what they are without him. But he definitely doesn't strike me as a jedi... don't remember Anakin suing Obi Wan or Qui when he turned to the dark side, lmao! Thanks for checking this out, hope you enjoyed!
Great work! Now look at a similar comic creative team like Sergio aragones and mark evenier. They have worked together similar to how Stan and the artists he worked with did. Big difference is they have great respect for each other.
Evanier would never dream of trampling creators rights like Lee that’s for sure! In fact Evanier is one of Kirby’s old assistants and one of the best sources of information regarding the Kirby suits and Marvel’s stance on “creators” and “artists rights” out there. You ever watched a doc about Kirby Evanier is sure to pop up and I always freakin love listening to him talk. Real shame Aragones doesn’t get the respect I think he’s due. Super talented guy
JerkComic totally agree Sergio is one of the most talented creators in comics. I think it is cool that groo got its start helping other artists in destroyer duck. All 4 of that creative team are close and still work together after all these years.
I mean I get that sentiment, I wouldn’t argue they’ve all contributed to his continued existence but not his creation per say. Ditko was instrumental as well as Kirby who probably actually pitched the idea of a spider super hero to Lee who then passed it on to Ditko to make sure that Kirby didn’t become the new Joe Maneely (even though he did). Ditko was the guy who came up with nearly every aspect of what we think of as Parker and was obviously the physical model for Parker as well as the basis for Parker’s almost unbreakable moral code. Thanks for checking out the video hope you dug it and thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment really helps out the channel immensely!
This Lee/Ditko fiasco reminds me a lot of the Kane/Finger hassle that had been going on for years. In all honesty, you can not have one without the other. From what ive seen happen throughout the years, i CONSTANTLY see ONLY Lee be given credit for Marvels creations ((EVEN CAPTAIN AMERICA!!! HELLO???)) I feel as though Lee went out of his way to make sure ONLY his name was attached to these characters, and would constantly dance around the issue of co-creation between his artists.
Lee was certainly a glory hog and a credit thief. I think that there's good evidence, that Jack Kirby is the one who suggested a Spider themed/powered superhero to Lee who then handed the concept off to Ditko. If this is the case, Lee is literally extraneous in the equation other than making it see print. The Ditko Lee thing is different from the Kane Finger situation in oh so many, many ways. I am not going to apologize for Stan Lee here, but Bob Kane is a liar and a thief. He destroyed Bill Finger, he stole credit for his work and I hope he took that with him to his grave. Lee was never as fervent about his claims and often joked that he wasn't remembering things right... which he knew he wasn't because he didn't have anything to do with so much stuff (Silver Surfer and heck yes, CAP!). Lee most certainly made sure his name was on everything. And that he got the biggest piece of the credit, the top billing, and - the biggest check. Imagine that? Ditko couldn't have cared less really - but when Lee started showing up in the obituary for Bob Kane (small world right?) claiming to be the CREATOR of Spider-Man - I think seeing Kane and Lee right there, right then, Ditko's objectivist views would no long allow him to sit idly by. He didn't want the credit for himself - he just wanted to make sure Stan Lee didn't get it, haha. Thanks so much for checking out the video, hope you enjoyed - and I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, helps out the channel immensely - especially thoughtful and insightful comments like this one!
There's a documentary for Stan Lee postmortem (I'm pretty sure its "With Great Power") that stated Jack Kirby was asked to design it first but Stan didn't want a muscle bound hero like Jack drew, but an every man. If you want to just see his concept art, just google 'Jack Kirby Spider-Man'.
@@bryanstickell429 that isn't his concept art that's Steve Ditko's drawing approximation of their opposing designs for the character. That story about the every man makes no sense. If this was the case Kirby wouldn't have done the cover. The most likely series of events is that Kirby came to Lee like he had many times before with a pitch for a character Spiderman (no hyphen) liberally borrowed from the Kirby Simon Silver Spider originally for the failed Mainline imprint. This pitch is the concept design that Ditko redrew which featured the Captain America inspired outfit and the costume that came out of a ring he wore on his finger. Lee didn't like that pitch and then subsequently told Ditko to design a insect based character or a character that could at least walk on walls. This is the only constant to Lee's version of events. Then Ditko and his roommate at the time designed Spiderman and made Parker as "everyman" like Ditko drew. Lee likely didn't think the original cover to AF15 was flashy enough and called in Kirby to provide the flashy cover of a buff hero in action as opposed to Ditko's mucb stranger design that more closely resembled the interiors. The history of Spider-Man now featuring the hyphen will probably never be fully known for a myriad of reasons. Ditko was just confusing sometimes and never came out and said anything, Kirby didn't dare speak out until he had just snapped and then you get stuff like comment that he made that made him look crazy to a lot of people. This course of events is what I believe he was referring to. While prone to exaggeration without doubt I dont think Kirby was a liar in any sense of the word. Mind you this is all supposition on my part after decades of research from a very removed stand point. So sad these guys couldn't bury the hatchet enough to really set the record straight...
Missing the point. Lee did it in a small way that makes him appear magnanimous and kind. BUT most of the time he says ad acts like HE did it all, he is THE CREATOR. Watch the Jonathan Ross thing on Ditko. Stan says the "guy who comes up with the idea is the creator", and who ever he hires to draw it, is like hiring someone to paint a house. His attitude is "Well I'll LET Steve have some credit," like its a gift to be given. It's BS. Stan is important but he was along for the ride as far as creativity.
I used that clip. That's as close as we ever got to him being honest about how he felt about the whole thing. And you could tell he wished he hadn't said it as soon as it came out of his mouth too.
Great video. When I found out about how Ditko and Kirby were cheated of their credit by Lee, I lost respect for him. I can at least admire that he tried to push the comics medium as something not just for kids, but that's about it. At least with Lee he wasn't a complete a-hole like Bob Kane. If I ever have the opportunity, I'm taking a crap on Bob Kane's grave for what he did to Bill Finger. That was Walter Keane levels of despicable.
Lee was important as well. He just doesn't deserve sole creator credit. He did a lot of great stuff for the industry, but sadly, like you - I lost a great deal of respect for him when I found the extent to which he was willing to go to protect the Marvel/Disney version of events. While this was no doubt due to inordinate amounts of money, fame and by extension, attention and even more lucrative opportunities make it understandable, but not forgivable. I think his comments in the Johnathan Ross, Searching for Steve Ditko doc kinda did me in on the Lee from my childhood once and for all sadly enough. I mean, he claimed to have helped create Captain America, right? Yeah... well, anyone with the internet can easily discover that's, ahem, not quite the truth - he famous asked who the naked guy on a surf board was when he saw the Silver Surfer, the list goes on and on. In fact, pretty sure his first professional work, a written word piece, was published in a CAP book, though I could be wrong there. It's a sad tale, but I think the important thing historical, is that we begin to look at what we know he did and didn't do, and start assigning credit accordingly moving forward. I would like kids in 40 years to know how important Ditko was to those early Spider-Man comics, that Kirby and Simon came up with Cap, it's important to me. But I don't honestly think we would be talking about these characters were in not for Stan Lee, so there's credit due and deserved there, it just needs to be credit for the RIGHT stuff, haha. As per Bob Kane... I still want to meet Jim Steranko just one time. To shake his hand. To tell him thank you. Thank you for slapping the taste out of that man's mouth on behalf of one of the most talented men to have worked in this industry. A man who you helped marginalize and systemically preyed upon. There's a special place for Bob and they kept it NICE and warm for him...
Your video is extremely interesting. There have been a few issues of the Ditko/Lee Spider-Man that I consider masterpieces. If it were limited to who created/co-created Spider-Man the decision would be hard to make. But there's more than that to it, isn't there? I recently watched a video of Todd McFarlane answering the question, "What is more important, the writer or the artist?" He answered that people buy the comic books more for the art than the writer of story. That is my opinion also. 1. Steve Ditko was never given any rights to his own art. 2. There's the compensation (money). Not only from the feature films. Ditko never received any royalties from the merchandise sold. T-shirts, etc. 3. He could not get his original art back. Everyone else made a profit from his art. I seriously have a hard time accepting that he didn't have any rights to/from his art. I'll give credit to Stan Lee for his idea but Steve Ditko's art is the majority of the character Spider-Man. There's Superman - Siegel & Shuster. Captain America - Simon & Kirby
Silver Spider - years before. And yes. But not the same thing at all. There is an illustration I show in this and the Spider-Man Co-Creation video that is Ditko’s illustration showing Kirby’s Spider-Man which looks much more like Captain America and was a reworking of that Silver Spider character. His costume came out of his ring he had boots and a gun... it wasn’t Spider-Man. The only thing I think is VERY plausible is this scenario. Kirby suggests to Lee that they resurrect Silver Spider from Kirby’s failed line with Joe Simon. Lee takes only man Spider or man with spider powers away from that talk after not liking the initial design and concept. What we see and read for the original Peter Parker Spider-Man is Ditko plain and simple and there’s not much short of someone finding the fabled 4 page concept and pitch stuff from Kirby that I don’t think exists if it ever did to dissuade me from this opinion.
I think whether Stan Lee believed Ditko was the co-creator of not that wasn't the reason he put consider in the letter. I bet it was Marvel that made him write the letter and lawyers put consider on it. I bet there were a few letters were written until the final one. The creation of Marvel's characters has the creation of Stan Lee, then Stan Lee with the helped of, with the considered co-creation, and many other terms, now both writer and artists are co-creators PS. I remember reading that at one Jack Kirby claimed he created Spider-Man. He even did a drawing with all his creations or cocreations and one of the characters was Spider-Man. Spider-Man was has been my favorite characters
Fun fact: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko did the comic where Spider-Man debuted. Who did what? We will never know precisely. The only truth is those 3 guys had a hand on it.
Well Marvel had no hand in the letter - let me make that clear. Lee was neither working for Marvel Comics as a writer, editor or any other function. He was the "face" of Marvel - I think they called him an ambassador or something. Anyways, Lee had to sue Marvel for his pay because they shorted him millions of dollars. He was involved with several other companies which he himself had started, and if you look at the letter head of the Co-Creation letter is is from Stan Lee Media - no affiliation with Marvel in any way shape or form. That being said - there most certainly was a lawyer consulted. There's no way Lee was going to make a statement that equated to Ditko's family having any sort of claim to creation or royalties when Steve passed away. He wasn't dumb. He also knew that this letter would make him look like the good guy to Ditko's cranky insane rants hammering on him for his word choices... no one got it, they - we, all thought he was nuts. I know I did. Seeing that stuff out of context, it made Ditko look like a psycho. At this point The House Of Mouse is most certainly dead set on preserving the Lee angle as it's the only one that protect them from a hail of lawsuits for multi-million dollar characters - but that wasn't the case when this letter was written. Lee's motivations and those of Marvel parted ways in the late 70s/very early 80s and Lee was as much part of Marvel Comics proper as the Moon is of Earth - as in, not at all. Marvel still used his name but Lee was out doing other stuff for other companies - and Lee was the one who wrote that statement not Marvel, that's important to remember imo. It shows just how little Lee thought of the people who he made millions off of every year. re Kirby Spider-Man: Kirby said a lot of stuff at the end of his life to get attention, well, I guess to bring attention to his legitimate claims I think is a better choice of words. The Spider-Man quote is often used as an example of showing he was loosing his senility. However, I think that Kirby was partially telling the truth. There was a character from the failed Mainline imprint owned by Kirby and Simon called Silver Spider. The most likely form of things is that Kirby recycled that idea and pitched it to Lee who didn't like Kirby's design or sell on the character and then passed off Kirby's outline to Ditko who tossed about 99% of it out the window and with the help of his roommate came up with what we know as Spider-Man visually. That's years of research distilled into a tiny little paragraph - but it's the truth that only those 3 men will ever know the truth of the creation of one of the most profitable and popular characters of all time and that kinda kills me inside...
A very thorough and enthusiastic discussion. As fair-minded as anyone can be on this thorny subject. As you say it's tough to advance the claims of Ditko and other greats without being tempted to pile on Lee at the same time. While Lee deserves stellar praise for his efforts on behalf of US comics, his silence - aided by a $1million/yr Marvel contract which was effectively an NDA - regarding the unfair treatment of Ditko and other legends speaks volumes. He fell out with arguably the three biggest and most talented American superhero artists/creators of the day: Ditko, Jack Kirby and Wallace Wood over lack of credit and writing/plotting pay. A pity Lee was not called out enough on this - and let's not beat about the bush, his lies concerning the ASM #33 plot - before his old age and his passing-away.
The fact you bring up the Marvel position here really shows you know your stuff, along with Wood's inclusion. I really don't like hammering a dead man, but when you lie you lie and he did. And he stole. He stole the credit for countless creations from his talented artistic collaborators. I hate that it's true but it is. I think he could have just admitted he was responsible for molding them after their inception and been good but he made a conscious decision to snatch up as much credit as possible. A real shame not only for his legacy but also for those of us that simply want a factual and historically accurate answer to the question of who created these insanely popular and profitable characters.
I recently came to the conclusion that Stan Lee was a narcissist, in the clinical psychiatric sense. Symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder include exaggerated sense of self-importance, desire to live in a fantasy world, need for constant praise, tendency to belittle or bully others. As such an individual, Lee was never going to "break down and confess his sins" regarding departed talent or make any sort of attempt to mend fences with Marvel personnel who had issues with him. Lee's occasional claims of bewilderment re: the departures of Ditko and Kirby and whomever else -- that's nonsense. It's a simple way to escape any potential criticism and shut down further exploration of the topic -- and it's not as though Stan Lee was regularly interviewed by hard-charging investigative reporters who'd really try to pin him down on the details. His claiming credit for plot elements in ASM 33 or changing Daredevil's costume to red is more evidence that I'm correct -- rewriting history to one's own liking is par for the course for narcissists.
@@reprintranch I don't think it's just narcissism - as hard as that may be too believe. He was certainly an egomaniac as well and most certainly suffered from delusions of grandeur, but I do think, and this is only my supposition so take it with a grain of salt - that he was being paid to reinforce this idea for so long he began to suffer from BDP, or Borderline Personality Disorder. If you look at what became of Hunter S Thompson, the steady decline into his character of Raol Duke - this is what was expected of him, people were uninterested in Thompson, they wanted Duke - then I believe you begin to see what happened to Lee. He was obviously in constant need of attention, always had to be the center of admiration, etc, a lot of it does line up. BUT he DID try and set things right with Kirby and Ditko, at least in his pathetic little half assed way where he had an angle he was playing at. The Co-Creation letter was to try and smooth things over with Ditko and Roz always tells a story of Lee taking Kirby aside and them having a heart to heart where Lee kind of apologized as much as he ever was going to, and even got Kirby to agree to a last job for him and Marvel, Roz put the kibosh on that one and got in between them, but I do think Lee was trying to get the old band back together, though not for Marvel. It's my belief he wanted both to join him in his Stan Lee Media mess, or the company that directly followed once Media started suing everyone in sight and Lee parted ways with them. He's delusional though, in a very real sense. Watch that Ross piece, just check out the interview over and over. He's not lying. He's not covering, he's not even trying to be mean. He honestly BELIEVES he came up with the characters. He always craved attention, but it was only after the insane pressure he faced and I do think personal turmoil following the death of Joe Maneely that this become so pronounced. He may have crossed at some point into the territory of true narcissism, but with someone paying him to repeat that stuff, along with the role of Comic's Ambassador to the world that was thrust on him, I would put dollars to donuts it was a seriously wicked case of BPD. More evidence of this is his activities and even further change in personality following the loss of his child. Lee was I honestly believe, a sick man. He was responsible for some of the best and most important moments in comics, but unlike nearly every other person and entity corporate or otherwise to be involved with creating important and lasting creations in the field - Lee enjoyed the fruits of his labor and was adored the world round for people's perception of his work. I know it sounds f-ed up, but at a point I feel sorry for Lee. No one should be the singular face of a complete literary or hell any product - that has to be hard. Lee was comics to most people, inseparable and his ego was insatiable - this is a disastrous combination. Then enter Marvel paying him millions of dollars a year to just be the "face" of the company - but really the entire industry by that point, followed by Disney who had to have made it abundantly clear his story WOULD NOT CHANGE. I DOUBT he would have come off of it even without the acquisition, but I think that Disney certainly put an end to any hope we might have seen for an attempt of any kind of this sort of Lee's end. This all points to someone who yes has a self-centered and arrogant thought process, but it also fueled by others encouraging and paying him to maintain said thought processes and inflating his ego beyond belief, to the point, that in my opinion, he legit developed straight up BPD. Bad. There was a part of Lee you could see in interviews where he WANTED to so badly to be able to truly compliment and speak well of those he worked with, but just couldn't. He was too busy soaking it all up for himself and maintaining the story status quo for his corporate employers. That sort of empathy is something I don't associate with narcissists as much as I do people who have crossed straight over the line of narcissism due to mental illness and right into BPD (they're very closely related as I understand them, though I make no assertions to being a psychologist and would bow to better knowledge of the subject here). PS - d*** good to read a comment from you, getting ready to e-mail you about the Krigstein piece tomorrow. Hit a health snag and worked on it a bit, hope all is well with you my friend and rant at you later... lord do I make long comments or WHAT?
This video was SO hard to make. I'm far from like an ardent Ditko fanatic. I think he was a person and had plenty of foibles, but I've grown so weary of people crapping on him because of well, Lee and the story that he was so instrumental in promoting and propagating. It would have been nice for him to just one time, just once, give someone else some credit. Nope. Couldn't do it. I just, I can't with that guy anymore. He was instrumental in the Marvel U in that he was it's voice. He gave people their names, he strung together narratives, but the fact he gets SOLE creator credit and all these kids running around today don't know who Jack and Steve are? Yeah, that kinda sticks in my craw. Glad you enjoyed this one as it was a real pain to work on. Tried not to get TOO overly biased and just go over the rails on this one, but stuff like the recent "documentary" about how the Ditko issues of this series suck and constant critiques of this man because of his personal politics and beliefs pisses me off to be quite frank. Was an extreme honor when Steve's nephew Mark shared this on his personal page and called it "essential viewing" for fans of his Uncle. Talked to him a few times and has really helped me come to terms and I think understand Ditko more than I would have ever imagined possible. I'd really like to get into more heavily researched stuff like this, but the cost of materials adds up QUICK on these man. This was a monster to pick up materials for. Hoping with the help of Patreon members and other support this year I can really dig into more stuff like this. Really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment as well btw - helps out the channel more than you know and really does put a big old smile on my face!
Maybe this will provide some perspective on the subject; whether this is actually true or I'm misremembering, I believe I read something once that mentioned Stan bringing his Spider-Man concept to someone with whom he collaborated more often than Ditko. Some guy by the name of Jack Kirby. But unlike the product of so many other collaborations between Lee and Kirby,Stan wasn't particularly crazy about Jack's interpretation of the character. And so he took the idea to Ditko, and was much more pleased with what he came up with. Which,of course,was the rough idea of Spider-Man as we know him today. Spider-Man's look is 100% Steve Ditko. That is certainly not nothing. ...... I'd love to see what Kirby's interpretation was, though.
Ditko drew the only known illustration of what "Kirby's" Spiderman (no hyphen) looked like. His suit came out of a ring, he had - well, let's be honest, he was basically Cap and a few other old Kirby and Simon characters - including a character for their failed Mainline imprint - Silver Spider. Logically speaking Kirby likely approached Stan with an idea to re-work another one of his older characters, as they had done with his work several times already, and Kirby really liked doing to cut down on the design work, and Stan either didn't like Kirby's Spiderman, or he didn't want to give Kirby any more power. I'm not sure if you're familiar with a man named Joe Maneely, but that would be the situation Lee was trying to avoid repeating by giving any one artist too much power. There are some people who claim this is the reason Lee completely cut Kirby out, but considering how acrimonious the relationship between Ditko and Lee already was (they had already been at each other's throats for years at Atlas) I think it's likely Lee didn't like the Cap inspired ring Kirby Spiderman and he passed off this idea to Ditko who took it and came back with what we know as Spider-Man. If you want to see Ditko's illustration I'm referring to you can easily Google it and I'm almost positive I used it at one point or another in this video.
Heh! Spiderman. Have you ever seen that opening to an old episode of Friends? It originally aired prior to the release of Raimi's first film. It would make much less sense today. Phoebe asks Chandler if it's pronounced Spider-Man or Spidermin,and Chandler replies with,"He's a Spider-MAN. Not Phil Spidermin from accounting." Sorry. The lack of hyphen made me think of that. It still gets a chuckle out of me after all this time. ....... I noticed watching this video that you're extremely well researched. This is backed up by all of the additional information in your comment. You are a true documentarian. Where do you find the energy or the patience!? I didn't know any of that. Lee and Ditko having problems well before....heh...Spiderman, Kirby's interpretation having a costume that came out of a ring..... none of that stuff. I wasn't even certain that what I said in my original comment was necessarily true.
4 роки тому+2
Stan lie did not come up with the idea for spiderman. He lies like his rug.
I personally happen to think Kirby pitched him on Silver Spider, Lee took note of a few other insect based characters, and then Ditko came up with what we know of as Spider-Man and Peter Parker on his own, with help on the webs from his then roommate. Lee DID however give Parker his voice as nothing in those comics was ever written by Ditko - Lee would never have allowed that - and Ditko and Lee hated each other they couldn't even be in the same room for Ditko to turn in his pages. A real shame Ditko never took Marvel to task like the Kirby estate did imo - then again, at this point - I just want the TRUTH. But we ain't never gonna get that while the House of Mouse is running the show for danged sure...
4 роки тому
@@JerkComic Yes the silverspider story makes sense. And kirby admitted to stealing the idea. Stan lies story about a fly crawling up the wall, what a lying piece of, read Stuff Said.
I'm particularly proud of this and the Missing Marvel artwork episodes, spent a long time on them and they were real turning points for me investigating and learning about stuff.
@@JerkComic unc you have no idea how much you really put your love in it as you cant see from a fans point you really put alot of love in to your show im big into docs and its why i love the channel so much i will alway be thereto watch and like the episode man your good unc thank you so much.
@@johnaraya3761 Really appreciate it! I'm particularly proud of this and the Missing Marvel Art pieces I did for Ditko. They took a long time and a lot of effort, but they changed the way I investigated and researched stuff in a lot of really cool ways. Was a total bonus that Ditko's nephew popped in and complimented the video for sure! I love this stuff and I do try and pour all of that enthusiasm into the pieces so I'm glad you enjoy and pick up on that brother
Interesting video although I try not to get too emotionally involved in this topic. It quickly becomes a quagmire much like politics and religion do. Just found your channel, BTW.
I can see how it could become that. I definitely have a very clear way of how I see and perceive things, I'm glad I looked into it and did this piece and all the research. I'm not out to vilify anyone, I just wanna know what went down. I have a much clearer understanding of that having done this and I hope that without getting TOO mired down, you did as well. Ditko is infinitely fascinating because, I think as he would have wanted, people see him in black and white. I on the other hand see the world as a tapestry of grays so it's interesting to look at and analyze him without trying to get too preachy about any of it. Hope you liked this one and find some other stuff on the channel that interests you! Means a lot that you took the time to check this out and leave a comment especially, means a lot and helps out the channel more than you know.
Okay so while Stan taking credit for the plot might be a little much he still gets credit because of the dialogue put into the story the writing is just as important as the art but when it comes to creating it it takes both Stan came up with the character of Spider-Man and Steve came up with the look of Spider-Man you take Steve out then give it to someone else it doesn’t work no Spider-Man you take Stan out there’s nothing for Steve to draw no Spider-Man there done quit picking sides
The entire point is shared and equal credit. Sorry if this didn't come through but you take either man out of the equation and it doesn't work. And yes Lee deserves dialogue credit absolutely, but that's it outside of editing. He was notorious for collecting checks for writing he never did and it's well known this is one of the major things that caused Ditko and Lee to butt heads to begin with leading to Ditkos writing credits
Just got approval a few minute ago - still kind of aghast at what's happened the last few weeks. Never thought it would exponentially expand like this. Btw - definitely need to send you some monies to get you to do a better version of the Mummy for the logo and get that Maxx piece! Will drop you a line tomorrow, and thanks again for checking this out - can't wait ot do the Hate Off The Beaten Rack Episode btw!
@@JerkComic I know it was like 2 weeks ago I stumbled upon you and you had like 288 followers. and I was like this doesn't haven't enough followers jeez. Happy to see your channel blow up 7 fold.
I think the 80s action films really sealed the deal on this one and it's not happening, it already happened. The rise of stuff like The Crow is proof positive of this - and on a more mainstream side, the rise of Wolverine (berserker Wolvie that is), Punisher, and then taking things to the next level with guys like Hitman and stuff. I'm not necessarily convinced that it's a bad thing however. I can not endorse the idealism of black and white/right and wrong. I don't feel as though I've earned a spot as a juror or an executioner, things are shades of grey to me - but I know Ditko took objectivism to a completely other level even compared to Ayn Rand and stuff. Respect Ditko so much and disagree with his ideology on a fundamental basis - it's been really hard squaring those two in my mind... Hope you enjoyed this btw, I totally crapped myself when Mark Ditko reposted this and called it "essential viewing for fans of [his] uncle"!
JerkComic I love Ditko but not a fan of his ideals. Life is more gray than it is black and white. I don’t have a problem with berserker wolverine or the punisher. Characters like those are needed for a more balanced story.
You have to wonder if Stan Lee consulted lawyers prior to publishing that letter. It certainly seems so. It also seems like Stan Lee is no better than Bob Kane. Bob Kane claimed sole creation to Batman and reaped all kinds of monetary benefits while never giving Bill Finger any credit. Bill Finger created everything that we now associate with Batman today. Check out Batman & Bill on Hulu it's a great documentary. Steve Ditko came up with much of what we associate with Spider-Man today. So yes he deserves just as much credit if not more for Spider-Man. I will concede that the idea originated with Stan Lee.
These days are long gone - it's a whole new world of screwing with people you gotta look out for these days, IPs is where it's at and you aren't getting any of that on a scale that's feasible with Marvel or DC and I don't think you're alone. Keep making comics btw - we need more great work out there and thanks so much for checking this out means a lot and leaving a comment really helps out the channel a ton!
I believe Steve Ditko is not the Co-Creator Spider-Man. Stan Lee is correct if Ditko did not draw Spider-Man someone else would have. It was Stan Lee’s idea. If he never told Ditko about it he would have never have any conceptual idea about the character. Having an idea is everything. Should Jim Lee be considered Co-Creator of the X-Men? Should Todd MacFarlane be considered Co-Creator of Spider-Man? Sure artists tweak a costume and add things to the origin but that doesn’t make them Co-Creators. The same can be said about Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Even Joe Quasada said it was Stan Lee’s creation. I believe Lee only said he was Co-Creator because he was an ambassador to the industry and didn’t want to create controversy or others to see him as a villain.
Steve ditko was replaceable, sure...but Spider-Man wouldn't ever have been the Spider-Man we know without him. That said, he stole his idea from a yellow spider web Halloween costume
Nah, you’re pretty wrong on this one, Jimmy Lee. Stan only had a base idea of creating a spider-powered superhero. He originally pitched the idea to Jack Kirby, who’s version was a super-powered adult. Stan felt that route was too much of a road well-travelled. He, then pitched to Steve. Steve came up with the suit, much of the origin, the cast, and whatever trappings that the character has built his foundation upon. He also plotted the first 38 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, plus Amazing Fantasy #15. Without Steve’s input, there would be no Peter Parker, Spider-Man , co-created by Stan Lee. Everything would have been different. No, Jim shouldn’t be co-creator of the X-Men, but co-creator of Gambit, Omega Red, and whomever else during his run. Todd would be co-creator of Eddie Brock Venom, and any character he created or co-created during his run. The reason is that the characters were already created and established before they started their runs. However, they can create new characters, environments, and ideas during their runs and get credit for those. Joe Quesada can only say so much because he’s an employee at Marvel and doing any more wouldn’t be good for him or the company. The thing with Bill Finger, is that he came up with the origin, the costume, the city, the cast, the villains, and most of the trappings that came with Bruce Wayne. Without any of that, Bruce Wayne is just a guy in a red suit, with da Vinci wings a domino mask , no origin, no reasons or morals and no villains to fight or a city to protect.
Just shows that in one particular Ditko is wrong, sometimes our heroes are flawed. I have the famous Spider-man issue and it still blows me away. LEE helped a shy teenager to cope with the real world and gave me something to enjoy in my loneliness. It's a shame these two creators had their problems. Once again a great video essay on comics.
Fictional heroes should be flawless, not real individuals just to be clear. Ditko acknowledged we are only human and therefore prone to error and flaw, but this was one of the main reasons that he asserted fictionalized heroes should be flawless. I don't agree, but it was his belief. And Stan Lee most assuredly deserved credit for dialogue and some direction in some instances, but especially with Spider-Man if those original issues did it for you, that is pure Ditko. Lee had so little input on that title is is insane. Most of the other books are arguable, but not Spider-Man. Nothing about it screams anything but Ditko. I think if Lee had simply taken credit for what he actually did do his legacy would be much less in question. As it is, the better part of what he left behind are feuds and blatant half truths at best. He was a credit thief and I think it's a real shame he couldn't, or more accurately, wouldn't - come off credit for Ditko was a real shame. As a historian I'd just like to know the historical truth of the matter. Sadly, that was not to be and all we're left with are more questions than answers. Glad you enjoyed and thanks for taking te time to comment!
Or if he had a script - wait, forgot he didn’t write those. Or he had a pitch - oh wait, forgot, he didn’t write THOSE. He is the only modern writer worth a hundredth of what he is that doesn’t have a single scrap of verifiable proof he created a single thing he claimed to have created. I think Lee knew he didn’t crate Spider-Man, or any of the original Marvel characters - that’s why his relationships with Ditko and Kirby got so ugly so quickly. A real shame as involved in some of the best comic runs in history and it would be really cool to know who actually did and created what...
The thing is they both have a point, no matter what side you take, the other side has a point. The reason why it drove Ditko crazy is because his worldview doesn't allow for both to be kind of right. Ditko believed everything had an ultimate right and wrong. And this situation drove Ditko to the edge of insanity. But I see both sides. I mean I've given people co-creator credits on multiple IPs that I don't believe they deserved, but did it for civility's sake. And I've developed every aspect of an IP from nothing more than an eight word sentence and been denied a creator credit. It happens. It does kind of seem strange though, that Ditko never had anywhere near the success without Stan, but Stan seemed to have success with everyone he worked with.... I don't know. But I do think Ditko deserved a co-creator credit.
They definitely both have points, that was one of my major points here. I htink that ascribing anything to any ONE person in this situation is a little ridiculous. Though, given the Silver Spider and Kirby's likely pitching of an "insect character" this makes Lee even less responsible for the initial creation. He helped define the voice, the world and the "feel" of Spider-Man undeniably, it's just a real shame he had the view about "creation" that he did. I get what he's saying and Dikto would never have come up with Spiderman without Lee, but conversely - no one else could have ever come up with Spider-Man now with hyphen, other than Ditko who took the idea of an "insect superhero that could climb on walls" and turned it into what we saw in AF15. I think Ditko just wanted to take Lee down a peg, get him to finally admit that he didn't come up with EVERYTHING on his own. Just didn't work out like that, and Ditko's absolutist worldview that there had to be a yes no answer and black white/right and wrong deal to it all was never gonna play... As per Lee's success with others - I think this is due to the fact he let the "others" do most of hte work and then put the finishing touches on it. The thing I believe Lee was greatest at was picking out the idea that would work well, the ONE that would sell and be remembered. Now it was other people who came up with them, but he did the choosin and the writing on them, that was his recipe for success.
He appreciated the work that he took credit for. He just didn’t feel the need to share the fact that anyone else had worked on a book apart from himself. A shameless credit hound for sure. Lee was never the same after Joe Maneely died though... I often wonder what their relationship was like as it sounds like they were much closer and he might be the reason Lee kept artists after his death at arms length for the rest of his life.
For far too long Stan Lee took too much credit for everything that wasn't publicly owned by someone else. At the end of the day, most of what Lee did was edit the comics how he saw fit, and put in the dialogue and captions. I'm sure very early on that Lee came up with some of the bare basics of a new character, and maybe even some of the plots, but once Marvel got a whole stable of superhero comics going, Lee's workload was limited to just editing and making up dialogue and captions. Everything else was created by the penciler; be it Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, Sr., Wally Wood etc. I think that Lee was so desperate to make a name for himself for so long that once he did he accepted the spotlight fully and always said yes to any question asked of him whether he was involved in it or not. Sometime in the mid-1960's there was an article written, I believe for a college newspaper, about Marvel and it primarily focused on Stan Lee. Now as Lee has told it, he tried to get the journalist to pay attention to Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko who he felt deserved all the attention, but when she (the journalist) tried to talk to Kirby and Ditko she found them both to be quite boorish and standoffish. In that article she dismisses them both, even going as far as to label Kirby as the type who should be a foreman in a girdle factory because of how he dressed when she tried to interview him. This, I believe, is the linchpin where things turned for the worse in Lee, Kirby, and Ditko's relationships.
Yeah, Marvel Method my butt... taking credit for other people's work is what I call that. That's the very article I reference actually, and it definitely was a turning point in Kirby and Lee's relationship. I think Ditko was ticked off, but Kirby took it too heart and stuff was never the same - because, we all know how hard it would be to believe that Lee didn't engineer his own self importance throughout the entirety of that piece and basically every one following it. I think Lee definitely helped to provide a unified voice for the early Marvel stuff, but when you joke about taking credit that's not nailed down, I don't know. I just think, maybe time to give up the ghost? Who cares? You're 100 years old. Do you really need to keep taking full credit for all this stuff? I think he honestly believed his own hype, especially after a certain point and had a vested interest in keeping the Lee-centric narrative alive not only for his own purposes, but to lend aid to Marvel fending off any pesky writers or artists that might try and claim credit for the work they had done. Sad state of affairs, but the Mouse has all the power in the world to make sure people still keep thinking like that for decades. Ditko was a man of uncompromising principals, whether I understand or agree with them, and therefore was bound to have a falling out with Lee. Ironically, my research into Bernard Krigstein has led me to some interesting thoughts and insight on the Ditko and Lee relationship and why it played out like it did. Thanks so much for checking out the video, hope you dug it and really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment - really helps out the channel!
In all honesty, after reading as many of those old Marvel stories during the 1960's as I have, and reading Kirby and Ditko's work in the 1970's, I can firmly say that Stan Lee did write all the dialogue and captions in those comics. I've even seen some of Kirby's penciled art where he wrote dialogue on the sides, and it's clear as day that Kirby and Ditko both were super weak on dialogue. At heart Lee was a salesman and a fantastical storyteller. Sadly he had an ego as big as the sun too, and far too often believed his own hype. And to be honest, I think he didn't want to give up his credit towards the end because he was afraid that the Marvel owners would cut off his paycheck to be the Marvel brand ambassador, not to mention Marvel was probably pushing Lee to keep it up for fear that the estates of Kirby, Ditko, and others might sue and get the financial compensation the artists deserved along with co-creation credits, much like Bill Finger did with regards to the co-creation of Bob Kane.
I just think Bill Finger said f-it at some point, if he ever gave a crap. That story just brings tears to my eyes. God bless Steranko. I think you hit the nail on the hear about fear of being sued - Marvel got bigger and bigger, and then at the end the Mouse was having none of that. They would have rained fire on him from the heavens. But still, would have been awesome if he had just come off of it for say 30 seconds sometime. That Ross interview though, that was when I knew I would never get anything like that from Lee. It proves completely that he totally bought into the idea that all of those characters were his creation, and they weren't. You can argue up and down, but they're all co-creations at best. And his dialogue is the only REAL thing he left behind we know he did, and that's not because it's "well crafted prose" or anything haha.
@@JerkComic Oh some of it is cringeworthy, just look at the first issue of X-Men, but if you read those comics that Stan Lee takes credit for writing you can hear Lee's mannerisms. And if you compare it to the first Captain America story he wrote back in the 1940's, and it's all text by the way, and Simon said Lee wrote it, you can see it's written by the same man. There's a certain flow and an obsession with alliteration, which Lee routinely did with character names. i.e. Peter Parker. Ditko's dialogue is very stiff, very preachy, and very boring. He's a great artist, and a great plotter, but dialogue is his weak suit. Kirby too. His dialogue is especially clunky to read.
@@TheLoneMutant If Marvel had someone who could have written dialogue really well that got along with Lee well enough they would have made some truly great comics. Unfortunately, as you say Ditko was far to stiff and preachy, Kirby - well he was just to grandiose and obtuse, but Lee was just a hack writer. It's easy to pick his writing out, because it's like finding a ghost writer on a strip. You can smell the stink from a mile off, heh. I want to give Lee credit for some stuff... but then I remember, he doesn't need any and I probably shouldn't defend him. I just wish we culturally had an understanding of who actually did what with Spider-Man and Ditko was accorded more appropriate credit. Ugh so depressing....
That's precisely the point of this. Ditko was owed, and now his heirs, a small fortune for this character and Lee tried to dance around this with fancy words. Obfuscation of history does not make it truth. A is a, or a is not a.
Funny that Steve D. never brings up the fight that broke them up ultimately which was the identity of the Green Goblin. Ditko wanted the reveal to be a random dude and completely arbitrary. Stan wanted it to be someone the audience knew. This is just storytelling 101. Time has proven Stan right and always will. His approach has a payoff and emotional resonance. Steve's is like his attitude in general which seems to resent his audience with an almost distain and only wanted to please himself. If they went with his resolve of that long running mystery, that would've been one of the greatest letdowns and cautionary tales in comics history. Stan's instinct for story, structure and audience expectation is spot on. Ditko knows this too. Hence why he never brought the actual fight that broke them up ever again. Everything else he breaks down to minute details are just simantics. They both created Spiderman. Left to Ditko, Spiderman would've sputtered out at Amazing Fantasy 15 and been a footnote in a forgotten medium.
1) there is no imperical evidence that the Green Goblin fight was what lead to this, in fact, as far as I know - and having talked with Mark about dates, Ditko had decided he was done prior to this and no one, not even his family or friends ever knew the straw that broke the camel's back. THere's been a LOT of speculation over the years, but Ditko denied this, adn as far as I know - while he had some extreme view points and talked a lot of smack, he never lied. I'll take Ditko at his word on that one, he earned that I think. 2) as per his audience. Sadly, I believe that you're correct. Ditko grew increasingly despondent with the messages being taken from his work and who was actually reading his stuff. While this was most evident in the work he created for Spider-Man, Dr. Strange and the hippies who thought he was on psychedelics or making some grandiose statement about transcendentalism or something really irked him. As an objectivist I can see that eating at you. As for only wanting to please himself - I would argue this is the higher calling that almost all "great" artists follow. Now mind you, I'm not slamming on journeymen, I'm not calling people who follow orders idiots, but I do think that most of my favorite illustrators have thrown convention to the wind and run with what THEY thought was right, what THEY thought looked good. That's totally fine with me. When it becomes a problem working with other people because you are being difficult and refuse to draw a story, well, that's another story... having contempt for your fans is something most illustrators deal with whether they say it or not, it's the truth. Ditko just didn't care about the repercussions it could have on his career, and sadly, those he was working with either. I'm all for tossing yourself under the bus if you want, but don't drag other people along for the ride, you know? 3) Left to Kirby Spider-Man would have likely died in AF 15, left to Lee he would have likely folded - it was only by a chance of fate that the amazing Spider-Man survived, and even thrived. Much like Claremont and Byrne, they might have hated each other, and even loathed the others writing style, but it was only through Ditko's mind that Lee's concept was brought to life. But that's just this Jerk's opinion. It's all speculation at this point, haha!
Steve Ditko has claimed multiple times in his personal essays that he always planned for GG to be Norman Osborn. He even said he gave him and Harry distinctive haircuts so you remember them. Stan Lee mixed it up with Electro and Crime Master who DO have a "regular guy" reveal.
I’m pretty sure Stan Lee didn’t invent a single character. I’m sure because Stan claimed to have been in the same city at the time Ditko created Spiderman he proclaimed that he, too, was the co-creator. Just by being in the same state.
He legit says he wanted an "insect based character" that "walked on walls". That's it. That's what Lee thinks entitles him to SOLE creator credit on Spider-Man... and at least that's about a million times more than he came up with for a lot of the other characters that Kirby just brought in and dropped in his lap. Then again, there's a good chance that Spider-Man is based on the Silver Spider pitch from Kirby soooooo
@@JerkComic It’s one of the great travesties of superhero/ comic book culture history. I’ve seen a couple documentaries from Kirby’s family who claimed Stan didn’t create a single character it was all Kirby, Ditko or others. I remember it was said Kirby showed his draft and outline of Spiderman and all Stan added was “how about we give him a red costume” because he wanted to take a popular concept from Superman. You seen it in the Rob Liefeld comic artist greats where Rob sketches a DieHard and all Stan said was… “so this character has superhuman strength because he looks real tough?” “Could he fly?” “Oh okay so this is a collaboration you and I both created this character.” That’s the first time Rob stepped in and said “no have your lawyer call mine.” Then Rob sketched the character Cross. You can hear Stan asking Rob to put some spikes on his shoulder pads. Then immediately… “so this is OUR character we both get credit for creating THIS character…” Rob again; “have your lawyers call mine, Stan.” Very immature selfish grandiose ways of thinking. When I was 7 or 8 my dad took me fishing and he caught this huge cat fish. Well. Because I alerted my dad that his pole was shaking but in my childlike mind… “I helped catch it” so therefore “I caught it.” Wish there was a documentary exposing the lies of Stan Lee.
@BLASTER0913 yeah it helps when your uncle is the publisher and you're acting EIC and what you say goes as well. Lee undoubtedly contributed stuff and that take on Spider-man is a slight bit stilted as Ditko was the guy who came up with Spidey and we know him, the whole Silver Spider thing was a jumping off point for Lee who dumped it on Ditko who really ran with it just fyi. But I think your assessment of it being a very childish way of thinking is correct. If you watch that Ross interview its clear Lee really believes what he's saying. He's totally off his rocker but he's not "lying" anymore. The guy just did NOT get collaboration imho
I might not be am objectivist but I do try and look at things objectively as a good friend once said. Ditko was a man of unrivaled moral fortitude and I think punishing him and his work because it's not a popular view is a travesty. He had a lot of valid points and I think that there's no long ANY reason to keep up the charade that the Lee series of events even begins to approximate what ACTUALLY happened. I flipped wigs when his nephew called this essential viewing for fans of his uncle's. Highest compliment I could have gotten I think.
Good video, but I just can't stand Ayn Ran. She is a hypocrite through and through. Ditko clearly created Spider-Man, and is an awesome creator, but he also constantly shot himself in the foot with that stuff.
He worked comfortably for the rest of his life, well into his 90s so I guess more power to him. I will never claim to fully understand the code that he lived by and held others to but I can respect the fact he stuck to his guns. He knew what he believed and that level of conviction is one you rarely see. All that being said I'm not the biggest Rand fan and I can not even begin to think of the world in such terms so perhaps I'm ill suited to address the subject objectively.
Great topic! I've done research over the years.. listened to interviews etc. Here is what it comes down to IMO. Lee approached Kirby first before Ditko to do the art for amazing fantasy 15.. according to Lee he didn't like Kirby's artwork on the pages he penciled.. implying that Stan had an image in his mind of what the character should look like and an origin story for the character at least. For the proof of this look no further then the published cover of AMF15.. it's Kirby's work not Ditko's.. Ditko drew an unpublished version of the cover (Kirby's was better). My thinking is that Lee scripted the original story and most likely the first dozen issues or so.. to a point where (as he was spread thin between a growing line of successful titles) he realized that certain artists like Ditko and Kirby could work independently with minimum plot input from himself and he would simply dialogue and caption a story based on the art (not an easy task either if you think about it creating a story based on pictures without knowing what the artist was thinking) but more importantly keeping the personality, the wisecracks, all the quintessential traits that embody and define the Peter Parker and Spiderman characters as we know them consistent.. which is truly what makes them who and what they are. It can surely and probably successfully be argued that later issues in the run and many characters and villains were created by Ditko and fleshed out by Lee (rather then the other way around). It can possibly also be argued that Ditko is the writer of later issues in his ASM run. However Stan Lee created Spiderman.. that doesn't mean that he wrote or plotted every story in the whole run of the book... The creation of the Character is the first appearance of the character: AMF15.. nothing else after that single issue matters as to the answer of "who created Spiderman?" ... Only who wrote, conceived, captioned, and dialogued AMF15 matters as to answer the question of Spiderman's creator. The answer is clearly Stan Lee.. his idea, his choice of a teenage not an adult for the hero, his dialogue, his words that are the core of the character.. power and responsibility.. Spiderman has changed visually over the years through different costumes and artists but the character core is Stan Lee's work and therefore he created it. I Love Ditko but fact is fact.
Let me preface this info dump by saying I've spent years researching this. Not an easy thing for me to try and break down but I'll do my best to further illustrate my beliefs. Let me secondly state that while I do disagree with you I don't mean this in an argumentative or aggressive way. Your thought process is diametrically opposed to mine - I feel like I probably see things fundamentally differently than you do. So that being said, here we go... In Stan Lee's OWN WORDS, he said he had the idea for a insect superhero that could crawl on a wall. That's it. Nothing more - nothing less, and he said it a LOT. This doesn't just imply that he didn't know what the character would look like, it means that by his own admission he had no idea. Kirby's original version of the Spiderman (no hyphen) character had his suit pop out of a ring that he wore and even carried a gun. He sported boots and a costume more than reminiscent of Captain America (check out Ditko's illustration showing the differences between their versions of Spider-Man) and Lee knew enough to know he didn't like that. As for any claims that Lee "scripted" issues I don't buy it for one second. He is so famous for creating so many things and yet, he never wrote anything down? NONE of it survived? Not a plot, or a pitch - not a memo note to himself, nothing. Lee was extraordinarily good at a few things but taking credit was undoubtedly the best. Lee never claimed to have come up with Spider-Man's look, check out the Ross interview and listen to his wording, he had an idea. He might have known he didn't like Ditko's version of the cover - but Ditko wasn't told how or given any instruction on how to draw Spider-Man, that was totally up to him, as per the "Marvel Method". I'm not going to derail here and start attacking or debasing dead men, that is not my intention - but Steve Ditko had help from his buddy who suggested adding the webbing to Spider-Man's costume as he worked on the design, that is just simply more evidence that Ditko was given zero input on what Spider-Man SHOULD look like. As for your assumption about the AM15 cover and how that relates to the "creation" of Spider-Man I do not understand what you're talking about. If Lee liked Kirby's version better, and he had done the 4 page pitch why not use that? His version was "better", no? (which for the record I vehemently disagree with) Makes no sense, none. If however, Ditko turned in the story and Lee thought, well Kirby could probably do a better job with this cover - and THEN brought in Jack well, that adds up. That in no way equates to Lee "knowing what Spider-Man should look like". Lee is many,many things but he's not an artist - he left that up to far more talented people and wasn't stupid enough to mess with that. Lee knew what he DIDN'T like, but that again doesn't prove anything. Even if Ditko came in 20 times with revised character designs, which was not happening as they stopped talking loooong before that and didn't even see each other even before Ditko went to bat about more credit for the title, and Lee said - Nope, don't like the cape. That doesn't mean Lee was like, "Well I envision him in a red and blue spandex suit from head to toe with webs all over it". That never happened. That's fantasy land man. No one has sole ownership claim to Spider-Man in my opinion. Lee and Ditko are co-creators of Spider-Man, that's just fair. I think the wild card in this situation in all honesty is Jack Kirby. How does he fit in? Did he give the "insect superhero" idea to Lee? If so, Lee didn't come up with squat - nadda, nothing. That's a rather dubious prospect. Ditko on the other hand never sought monetary compensation or ownership of the character and was seemingly motivated by no other factor to set the record straight about Spider-Man than he saw Lee as a con-man and a thief. And so did Jack Kirby, and Roz... I mean, the guys he built his career on all ended up salty with Lee. I personally don't think that's coincidence. Lee most certainly wrote the dialogue for those issues, and I won't dispute that reverse engineering a story from art is skillful, but that doesn't mean he wrote a thing for those books. If the artist went off and made it and then gave him something he interpreted with the help of their notes and stuff, he should have gotten a scripting or maybe co-plotting credit. Not sole writer credit, that makes no sense. Stan Lee gets too much credit from some and not enough from others. I can not firmly support the idea that the Marvel creations were solely those of Lee, Ditko or Kirby separately but that together Lee and Ditko and Lee and Kirby were capable of truly amazing things together. Ditko never came up with another smash apart from Lee like Spider-Man, nor did Kirby achieve the success of Fantastic Four elsewhere anywhere in his career. Neither did Lee. He was not a creator, I'm sorry but he just wasn't. He needed talented artists and other help to bounce ideas off of and they needed him. That sounds like a symbiotic relationship to me, or that of co-creators... This is all my own personal supposition from nearly a decade and a half of chasing stories, talking to anyone involved and reading anything I can get my hands on - but it's just an opinion and you know what they say about opinions right? They're like butts, we all got one and they all stink!
@@JerkComic There is a lot to unpack here.. firstly I don't consider your message to be an info dump but rather an expression of your thoughts and I respect that and enjoy hearing them. The argument is not whether or not Stan Lee was a good person, a fair boss, or even monetarily Fair to the artists.. The answer to all 3 could be NO. The issue is creation of a character.. For that we have to first look at what makes a character a character. You are from what I'm grasping from your statements arguing that visual medium (art) is what makes a character. I disagree. I think art enhances a charater and without question Steve Ditko's art enhanced Spiderman. He was the perfect artist to illustrate the charater. An example would be that Gene Roddenberry is the creator of Star Trek.. however he didn't build the sets, make the costumes or even write every episode of the series..but the idea and concepts were his and he is therefore the creator. As to the visuals.. the drawing that you are referring to was a pencil drawing after the fact done by Ditko in an attempt to illustrate what he says was Kirby's work vs his on Spiderman's visual concept. We have to take Ditko at his word I presume since there are NO pencils done by Kirby resembling that anywhere that I have been able to find. Either way though there is an argument that the costume visuals for Spiderman may have been inspired by a holloween costume that started market production in the 50's and ran into the 70's called the Spiderman. Ditko and Kirby both would have seen the costume as it was displayed in window stores near Marvel's offices seasonally for almost a decade prior to AMF15. Other contributing factors are pulp mags from the 30's depicting a character called the Spider and another pulp that slips my mind at this time. Lee stated that he gave the assignment to Kirby first prior to Ditko being involved.. He then rejected Kirby's work because the character was meant to be a teenager and Kirby's art was too heroic and mature for Stan's idea. (Again look at the cover of AMF15.. Spiderman looks much more like that of an adult stature and broad-shouldered hero... not what Stan wanted. As to the name Spiderman.. Lee was a wordsmith he knew what sounded good and what didn't.. he wanted an insect based character and went down the list until it had the sound he liked. As to the "scripts" for original stories I'm sure they were given to the artists and much like the original art turned into Marvel by those artists, tossed into the garbage once they were used. If there was no value perceived for original artwork at that time do you really think that Stans plots for issues had value to anyone after they were executed? Daredevil is an era based example of prose vs visuals interms of character creation.. Daredevil's costume was yellow and red for the first several issues then changed (possibly by John Romita Sr.. I could be wrong don't quote me) to the red costume that everyone knows... but the character didn't change because of the visuals.. he was still Matt Murdock, blind lawyer etc..:Stan's concept. All creation starts as an idea.. hence if you can conceive it you can achieve it. The person with the concept/idea is the creator... the aesthetic refinement is enhancement. Stan Lee created Spiderman.
@@justafanmarvel9669 Suppose that Stan Lee goes on a tour of a research hospital. While he's there he meets an oncologist who's trying to cure cancer. Stan says, "say, you really ought to try harnessing the body's own natural defenses to identify and destroy cancerous cells, that seems like a sure winner!" The oncologist replies, "we're actually pursuing that very concept and have begun clinical trials on human patients, using an experimental drug built on that concept. So far, the results have been very encouraging." Question: At this point, can Stan Lee say, "I cured cancer"?
@@reprintranch at that point can anyone? As cancer had not been cured. Very bad analogy! A better way to look at it would be if Stan Lee had an idea for a new kind of cookie and he sat down and wrote a list of ingredients and a desired shape and texture for the finished product... He then hads it to a baker and says this is a recipe for a new kind of cookie I thought up... I'd like you to take these ingredients and bake them for me. I'll taste them when you are done and let you know what changes I need you to make until I get the cookie I want. I would say that Stan in that case could state that he created a new cookie.. even though he didn't mix and bake the ingredients he directed the person with baking experience to build what he designed.
@@justafanmarvel9669 Hey, wait a minute -- does this cookie exist? If not, isn't your analogy fatally flawed, by your own standard? But I'll play along -- sure, if Stan Lee had indeed developed the cookie concept to such a high degree that he had written up a list of ingredients and a description concerning the shape and texture of the finished product, then perhaps he really did create the cookie, and the baker made no contribution apart from physically preparing the recipe Stan provided. Do you really think this situation is a realistic representation of Stan's interaction with Steve Ditko vis a vis creation of Spider-Man? If so, why do you suppose that neither Stan Lee nor Steve Ditko ever asserted that there'd been a situation comparable to the one you've described, as in "Stan provided a well-thought-out set of notes for Steve to follow, which included sketches/descriptions of Peter Parker, Spider-Man, Aunt May, Uncle Ben, the burglar, Peter's classmates, the way Spider-Man would move while in action, the sorts of perspectives to be used in the panels, general info about the amount of background detail to use, etc."? Most likely, we've never heard those assertions because they were never made. By his own account, Stan Lee had a notion for a comic-art character that existed only in his imagination, and he enlisted Steve Ditko to give the character visual form. Considering that Stan Lee never stopped asserting that spider are insects -- which is scientifically inaccurate -- I'm reluctant to ascribe much forethought to him regarding the exact nature of Spider-Man's powers and their limitations. (In the scientific discipline known as taxonomy, spiders are members of class Arachnida whereas insects are members of class Insecta, both of which fall under the broader classification of phylum Arthropoda, the arthropods.) I will cede one point to Stan Lee -- I believe that he came up with the fundamental idea "super-hero with the powers of a spider" before Ditko made any contributions to the character. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Heck, I'm not sure I've ever seen a Stan Lee quote where he asserted it was his idea that Peter Parker would bitten by a radioactive spider. If Stan Lee wanted to be known as "the guy who thought up the basic idea for Spider-Man," sure, I'll give him that one. If he wanted to be known as "the guy who created Spider-Man," I'll call him co-creator, because in my mind the term "created Spider-Man" carries the implicit assumption, "created Spider-Man as we have come to know him," a distinction that means we have to consider the entire, finished comic books that introduced the world to Spider-Man -- at least the first couple years' worth of ASM, not just the 11-page origin story from AF #15. In my opinion, what Stan Lee really wanted is to be considered "the guy who created Spider-Man and is responsible for Spider-Man being such an important pop-culture figure," and he most assuredly does NOT deserve this status alone. I'd be arguing for Artie Simek as a co-creator before I'd cede that one, ha ha. Best wishes on this, the first of the "Twelve Days of Kirby." I hope your celebrations are enjoyable.
The voodoo that I do do. Thanks for the kind words and checking out the video hope you dug it and I super appreciate you taking time to leave a comment helps out the channel immensely
Lee was definitely shady but not 'evil' like a lot of people like to make out. He was a shady businessman lots of them. Manga was always awesome until I found out about all the unnamed guys that do so much of the work you see on the page that literally get and ask for NO credit. That's always seemed really weird to me - need to get more into manga for sure though, one of my big blind spots!
Uncle Jerk: these 'talks' of yours are absolute GOLD. Keep 'em coming!!!
You keep watching em and I’ll keep recording em! Thanks so much for the kind words and for checking out the channel. Really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment as well, helps out the channel immensely!
@@JerkComicI just came back to rewatch this one again and watched some of your others again about Image and Liefield.
You should come back and do more videos.
I just watched this again. Man, what a great episode!!
My god does it make me happy to read this. I have been dealing with some health stuff and knowing that I did your Uncle just a modicum of justice here really makes me smile. Congrats on getting stuff with Marvel worked out btw - incredible news!
Love how timeless these videos are, ty for making them.
Thank YOU for checking them out! Seriously appreciate you taking time to leave a comment as well btw - means a lot and helps out the channel a ton.
THAT was excellent!!! Nice work!!! This is getting shared on my Facebook page!!!
Mark Ditko really appreciate the share and happy you dig the video! Any help spreading the word about the channel is so awesome man - please let me know if there’s anything you want to see an episode about.
@@JerkComic I'm spreading it, man!! ...and will think about episode suggestions... but you killed it on this one!!
Mark Ditko thanks so much brother! Really try to dot my I’s and cross my T’s and it takes me a while between videos but getting comments like this make it worth while! Thanks so much for spreading the word super appreciated
Mark Ditko okay I’m not going to lie - I didn’t see your complete username as I was at work... I am awed that you enjoyed this. I previously discussed IDWs plans for Mr A and I would be beyond interested to ask you a few questions about that as I felt your stance on the subject described by Bleeding Cool were very presumptuous and I’ve had a lot of people ask me about it. You happen to be friends with my buddy Todd Clark on FB (my father and I are also music journalists and absolutely adore his work and have been friends with him for years) so sent you a friend request - if I’ve over stepped please feel free to ignore the request. Either way, I have had more interest in the channel in past 24 hours than the last year combined. Legitimately can not thank you enough for the share and support of the video!
@@JerkComic Haha... ya ... I'm a 'Ditko" ... whatever that's worth. (My uncle hated it whenever I implied anything 'special' about "Ditko;s") Steve Ditko was my Uncle (my dad's brother). Feel free to email me at markATditkoverse.com
Listening to Stan Lee recall arguments with Ditko about who can be considered a character's creator makes me realize that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko are the Reshiram and Zekrom of Marvel Comics. They are the embodiment of the battles of Truth vs Idea.
Ditko even uses that terminology man. Dead on. Kinda sad when you step back and look at it really. No one was ever going to be happy or get what they wanted.
I've been binging your videos all night. Keep up the great work!
Thanks so much - really appreciate it! You keep watching 'em and I'll keep making 'em. Really appreciate you taking time to leave a comment too, helps out the channel a ton.
Glad I found this channel, I'm about to binge listen to these at work all night
Awesome - let me know what you think. Can't thank you enough for checking out the channel, and especially for taking time to leave a comment - helps out the channel immensely!
JerkComic A small channel putting in that work and making interesting quality content, you're destined to blow up! Love smaller content creators because it's like y'all still have la pasiòn, you don't really get all the obscure history from the storyline tubers anymore really.
@@FleshWolf thanks so much again for the kind words try to be different and interesting at the same time never sure if I'm succeeding haha. Hopefully the channel continues to grow and I can finally get around to more of the bigger stuff I want to work on
When I think of a comic writer, I don’t think of Stan Lee. When I think of Lee, I think of a good editor and a charismatic salesman. Marvel would not have been the success it was without Lee. It would also not be the success it was without men like Kirby and Ditko.
Creators deserve the credit they are do. The fact that Lee couldn’t even just admit it is a little arrogant.
Filling in the speech bubbles is not writing a comic, imo, especially when there was sometimes already dialogue that Lee just edited to sound more Marvel-esque.
And saying you have an idea for a guy with spider powers is different than creating the costume, the backstory, the web-shooters, the villains, etc.
When Grant Morrison writes a book, he writes it, and even does the concept art for the characters (often times). When Alan Moore writes a script, it’s so detailed that any writer could draw it will similar results (check out his crazy detailed scripts). That’s way different than adding a bit of dialogue to a plotted and drawn comic book.
Great video
Well said my friend !
Lee was a master of marketing, more than anything else. Had he just been more forthcoming about what he was a master of, I think Ditko would have respected him more.
This was a deep and thoughtful break down. As a person that has done both writing and drawing characters in the past, I see it from both sides.
A topic I knew virtually nothing about previously. Well done.
Well, I learned how to research from the best sooo.... Thanks for checking this out, I know comics are not your bag but at least you can hopefully appreciate the historical angle on this. It's funny to think about how much these characters are worth these days. And while fans will never have a hand in monetary compensation for Steve Ditko, I can only take a cue from you and try and ascribe the correct historical credit and information for people to see and share with others.
In the wake of reading Scioli's Jack Kirby bio comic, my childhood hero version of Stan Lee is in ruins. He disappoints me.
Ok, don't be too distraught! Yes. Stan Lee was a liar and a thief. Guess what? MOST people in the industry are! Lee is FAR from alone, and at a certain point I think the whole thing just got out of hand. By the time Lee left as publisher HE had no vested interest besides his absolute consuming NEED for attention to keep up these stories, MARVEL? Yeah, well they did. And they paid Lee MILLIONS of dollars a year to keep it up. Now it's Disney. So you have to also lay blame at the feet of people like Martin Goodman and a ton of other people for the "Lee mythology" of creating Marvel. That's the nasty part. The good part? Read ANYTHING that Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby did without Stan Lee. If Lee's dialogue was ham fisted, I have no clue what to call Kirby's ludicrous writing in the Fourth World. Amazing story. Absolutely abysmal dialogue. Steve Ditko? Yeah, that dude got SO wrapped up in his own personal politics he ended up doing Transformers coloring books and Tiny Toon Adventures comics because he refused to play nice with anyone. I personally love Mr. A for what you can learn about Ditko from it, but as a comic - it's laughable. It's these huge narrative diatribes burying images in layer upon layer on objectivist rhetoric and propaganda. Seriously. Even The Question got almost unreadable by the end for that reason. Stan Lee was able to temper that with his, well WHATEVER the heck it was that Lee had. And rest assured true believer, he had it. He was a comic book ambassador. You think of him, or thought of him fondly when you remembered comics, no? Maybe he even helped you get into comics. Lee was an essential and absolutely pivotal part in the creation of the Marvel Universe. Kirby put them all in New York, Lee wrote them into a single universe. Don't hate Stan Lee. That's not what this is about. Don't even dislike him. Don't ever loose that part of yourself. Remember the good things he DID do. Remember all the contributions he DID make. If you listen to the end of this, I use Lee in a small, 'nuff said quote. I don't hate Stan Lee or even dislike him. This is about setting the record straight and setting history straight.
Hope this wasn't too awful for you. I know it comes as a heavy blow to learn Lee isn't quite the patron saint of comics he's painted out to be, but he's far from the devil either so take solace in that if nothing else!
It's difficult to see a childhood hero as a significantly flawed human being. I felt disillusionment about Stan after learning some of the specifics re: his work with Kirby. But, I have learned to admire what I can about the man -- he persuaded Martin Goodman to green-light numerous comic books and strips; as editor he kept Marvel super-hero titles "mature" in the sense that there were rarely characters or stories aimed at first-graders (unlike DC); he was an effective art director and an even better corporate spokesperson. He also was a fairly hands-off collaborator with Kirby and Ditko, suggesting to me that deep down he understood his own strengths and weaknesses pretty well.
By the way, I love your videos. You are one of the most thorough and incisive commentators on comics I've found on UA-cam or anywhere else. I'm a subscriber for life. Keep up the good work. I wish you every success.
Man can't thank you enough for such kind words - hopefully the channel keeps growing like this as I'd love to do even more in depth and comprehensive videos! Thanks so much for checking this out and taking the time to share such kind words, really appreciate it and it helps out the channel immensely!
Great work as alway! Having dipped my toe into the world of creative work for hire, I can completely see where Ditko was coming from. I've had people tell me, "Let's write a novel." or a short story or what have you. I say okay, how do you want to work this? I'm told, "I come up with the idea and you do all the writing stuff." And the idea, in these cases is 2 or 3 minutes of spitballing ideas. Then that person is done. I'm expected to spend the hours and days and weeks of creating. Then, the person wants all the credit because I'm "just a ghost writer." No thank you. I'll pass on that offer.
I think there's a lot of people who legitimately think that's how a collaborative project works. You come up with an idea, you write down a synopsis, you hand it off, someone MAKES THE ENTIRE THING FOR YOU, and then you get to add dialogue, etc. A big reason for this is the Marvel Method, which had all but disappeared by the 60's, though it was prominent much earlier in the industry. But people's idea of Stan Lee, and the fact that well, HE had the idea - so HE is the creator has done what I believe might be irreparably damage to the industry. Now, I should mention I think this is mitigated by the fact that he was a massive part of Comics (which a capital C) not Marvel, but Comics. He was the face and the voice, and they needed that. It's a shame he was a huckster and a liar, but I think that if you look at the way his daughter pimped him out the last few years of his life, the mental and physical abuse that he faced for years at the hands of his care givers, things kind of come full circle. If you're the kind of person to step on your "friends" backs and use them like stepping stools, ignoring them when convenient, and heralding them only when it serves you and in the most self aggrandizing way possible, well, you might just end up on the other end of the stick. I would probably have been able to let this go had Lee and Ditko not publicly had this spat resulting in the Ross documentary In Search of Steve Ditko. Hearing Stan Lee actually say that he doesn't think Ditko, and by extension Romita, or Severin, or Kirby, or Steranko, or any of them - deserve credit, that HE, Lee, is the creator since he had the "idea" absolutely infuriates me. He was honest that ONE time, he let it slip, and then you can hear him be like crap, I should not have said that. Because he looks like a monster. He just, he can't admit that anyone else had a place in this fantasy world that he created for himself and was indulged in for so long. The fact it now serves the narrative that the house of mouse demands be history because it would otherwise start a tipping of power that is dangerous to their bottom line is the reason you won't hear this talked about like it should be. This, the Ghost Rider Gary Friedrich lawsuit and the Kirby lawsuit will probably be sealed forever. Disney can't afford for the idea to even get into people's heads that maybe the guy who DREW the image that they associate with the character, no one is like oh yeah Captain America - AVENGERS ASSEMBLE without that Kirby image of Cap tossing his shield on a cover. It's a VISUAL medium. And what's so sickening here, is that Ditko didn't want money. He didn't want credit for himself. He didn't want people to know who he was. He didn't want a danged thing other than to show the world Lee was a liar and that comics as they perceived them are basically a sham game set up to rob creative individuals of their intellectual creations, creativity and power in the medium. Freelance artists deserve mad respect, especially those who make a living off of it - hats off to you and thanks for checking this out. Glad you enjoyed and I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment. Helps out the channel a ton.
Great video man... I’ve been studying this stuff my whole life. Worked in a comic shop for 15 years. I’m just glad someone is getting this stuff out. Thanks man
Thank you for taking the time to check it out. And that is precisely the reason I made this. I've been studying this for years and years and knowing I'm faaaar from an authoritative expert I made this in hopes of giving future historians and generations a kind of jumping off point for reading and research. So happy you enjoyed this, I think it might have been my favorite I've done so far, well the two Ditko pieces which are really just one long episode I ended up breaking up haha
I love your channel. I love the history of comics, and not necessarily what the comic book culture has become. I appreciate alot of your content and your enthusiasm for it. Great channel, you go my sub.
I love the industry so much, it's been an amazing opportunity to delve deeper and deeper into things with this channel and share my journey with all you awesome people. Thanks so much for checking out the video, so happy you're enjoying the channel and I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, helps out the channel immensely!
Love your content, keep doing what you do bro.
Thanks. I'm having a hard time trying to keep the channel afloat right now so if you or anyone you know has ever thought about supporting the channel and you want to see more content now is the time. Hope to keep putting stuff like this out until the end of time but a second full time job is gonna make that hard. Thanks for checking this out and especially the kind words and taking time to leave a comment - means a lot and helps out the channel a ton!
@@JerkComic yeah bro. Your content is near and dear to my heart. You do your research and have taught me a lot I didn't know. And I'm a really committed comic fan. I hope you pull through .
@Martin Santos, Jr same here, don't wanna give up the channel love doing these so much
Really great stuff. I'm subscribing!
Thank you so much! Glad you liked it - please let me know if there’s ever anything you want to see an episode about and thanks again for the sub!
This is the best channel on UA-cam.
Sincerely,
Hank Truck
CEO. Formosa Comics
This is the best comment on UA-cam! Seriously though, thanks so much. It really means a lot to know people are actually watching and taking away something from these videos I spend so long on. It means a lot and it helps out the channel more than you know - so thanks again!
Amazing! Good work. I'm subscribing.
Thank you so much! The sub is super appreciated and so glad you enjoyed the video. Please let me know if there’s ever anything you you want to see an episode about in particular.
A topic I knew virtually nothing about before this video. Very informative. I enjoyed it greatly. Keep up the good work.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great content - you really get deep into the research and show a great affection for the medium!
Thanks so much! I really appreciate the kind words as well as you taking time to leave a comment. I really do love comics and I love the industry almost as much as I enjoy the characters and stories that we see on the pages so it's been a real dream getting to share all this stuff with so many new people. I try to go a little above and beyond and super happy it shows. Thanks again for checking out the video and taking time to leave a comment!
Those who get angry at Stan for not saying it differently are actually, objectively, wrong. Stan was very honest in the interview and he said exactly what he believed. I don't think Ditko or any other true objectivist would have ever wanted Stan Lee to say something he didn't believe. That would be a hollow and meaningless victory. The truth is the two men had a difference of opinion because they defined the question of creation differently, and from each of their perspectives, both were right. I actually admire the fact that Stan, when asked directly, answered honestly according to his own deeply held beliefs, just as Ditko would have. It seems to me this controversy could have been settled simply by being more precise in how the matter was stated. Rather than asking who "created" Spider-Man, simply ask who originated the idea of the character. The answer is clearly Stan Lee. And then ask who originated the look and visual design aspects of the character. The answer is clearly Steve Ditko. I think both men would agree to such wording. The problem is that when one simply asks 'who was the creator?', Stan Lee was honestly answering the first question, while Steve Ditko, just as honestly, believed that both questions should be combined into one. That's merely a subjective difference of opinion that derived from an objective difference of definition.
The original idea of Spider-Man is more complicated than sayiing it was Stan Lee.
If you reaearch more you will realize that you are skipping two very important persons...
Captan America creators Jack Kirby and Joe Simon.
In the 50's before the creation of Spider-Man they came with Silver Spider concept and The Fly characterr.
It's very weird that the character is an orphan teenager who lives with his uncles.
Where did I heard that story, Uh?
Besides you complety ignore Jack Kirb from the credits of the first Spider-Man issue although he had a hand on it.
Did you know that he drew the iconic cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 ?
The Fly is a rework of the Joe Simon, not Simon and Kirby creation of Silver Spider from the failed Mainline imprint years before. I did not ignore this, nor am I unaware of this. The Fly/Silver Spider was most likely pitched to Lee who then took the idea, not wanting to give Kirby more power and also disliking the idea of the Cap American inspired appearances and the costume in the ring, etc - and passed the assignment on to Steve Ditko. Ditko was likely only given the basic premise of the Silver Spider/Fly character with his Uncle etc, but also not told it was a preexisting character and set off to design the character himself at his apartment, though his roommate would suggest the iconic web designs. The involvement of Kirby is in COMPLETE question. Some say he did work for the interiors 4-6 pages, which were rejected and subsequently lost. Shooter has said that Kirby did some initial designs, but that he believes that the mythical 4 page pitch on interiors does not exist. Kirby and Joe Simon likely inspired Lee to further an idea, steal it and then pass it off to Ditko. That is supposition though. There's no quotes from anyone other than when Kirby said he wrote the Fantastic Four and created Spider-Man. This all aside, that's not really the point of the video. The point is that Lee BELIEVED, he really did, that he created Spider-Man and to shine a light on the more dubious and duplicitous reasons he wrote the spider-Man co-creator letter. Tackling the Silver Spider/The Fly Spider-Man connection would be an entirely different thing all together. My point here is that Lee never believed Ditko came up with it, Ditko didn't believe Lee came up with it and that it is my belief for all intensive purposes that they both have valid points. There is nothing without an idea, but an idea is just that without a physical manifestation of that idea - I do not believe the Lee came up with the idea, but I do believe that Ditko came up with the physical creation on his own. Kirby simply did the AF15 cover because Lee didn't like the "weird one" that Ditko did, and even by this point after Atlas Ditko and Lee HATED each other. This video would have gone ever direction and quadrupled in length had I attempted to tackle even whether Kirby even drew any interiors for Spider-Man during this period as there's plenty of information suggesting that it is both true and untrue.
You hit the nail on the head. Stan has his own definition of "creator" and at least up until that deposition he was pretty consistent with it.
In my own personal opinion, I give Lee and Ditko equal credit. Lee's involvement with the Ditko run was probably minimal after the first handful of issues, but Spider-Man ran for a long time after that and it was really during the Lee/Romita years that Spider-Man became the character we love today.
If Peter Parker is an Amazing Spider-Man, for sure Steve Ditko is Peter Parker. Just look in Mr Ditko's Johnstown PA high school year book pic. Plain as the nose between your eyes.
I 100% agree with this in all seriousness. I do believe that Parker was Ditko's first attempt at a comic book avatar (Mr A being the second and successful one) and that this might be the reason he was so incredibly touchy about the disagreements that he was having with Stan Lee about all of the stories and basic character elements of ASM. Ditko did not agree with the morally ambiguity of Lee's heroes but this was the only time they ever really clashed like this over a character? Why? Ditko was completely capable of distancing himself from his work and not really caring what others thought or made of it, but not Pete. I think this was because Ditko felt in part responsible for what he perceived as the negative ideology and moral compass of Spider-Man and in part because Ditko WAS Spider-Man in many ways. Thanks so much for checking out the video, if you ever want to see an episode about something in particular let me know!
Stan Lee: I got an idea for a character. He's a teenager who has real life problems, but also super powers. I'll call him Peter Parker as Spider-Man.
Steve Ditko: Okay, here is a badass character costume for him.
Conclusion: They both created Spider-Man and should share the rights equally.
What about Joe Simon?
8 years before the creation of Spider-Man he had and idea.... The Silver Spider.
A teenage orphaned boy who lived with his uncles and transforms into and adult hero....
The idea was rejected by Harvey Comics.
Years later, in 1959 and 3 years before the creation of Spider-Man Joe Simon and Jack Kirby brought to life the same idea but now in Archie Comics, the character was named The Fly. (Check on Internet the cover ofbthe furst issue)
Years later Jack Kirby bròught that idea in Marvel and of course he had to modify it to avoid lawsuits from Archie Comics.
Guess who was the man who drew the very first cover appearance of Spider-Man, I mean Amazing Fantasy #15.
Yup, the King of Comics...Jack Kirby!
Steve Ditko did all the interior artwork.
So again, what did you say ?
Wait, so on the seventh day Stan Lee didn't invent the Marvel Universe!?! NOOOOO!!! My childhood is ruined, gah...
As Comic Book Guy (Best. Screen. Name. Ever) astutely pointed out, Kirby and Simon had come up with a character called Silver Spider. While he was eventually rejected by Harvey, I believe he was originally designed for a failed comic imprint that Simon and Kirby were trying to get off the ground Mainline Publications - at the time the superhero thing was on the way out and they phased out plans to do a bunch of stuff - one of them I believe being Silver Spider. Now that's the 50s and we all know that Kirby, ahem - like to, how shall we say? Recycle characters. If he could get away with tweaking something and selling it twice with a costume tweak and name change that was all part of the game. He goes to sell Lee on Silver Spider, Lee turns him down. Lee then picks up the phone and calls up Ditko to do the title. Now why would he cut out Kirby? Well Joe Maneely. Maneely is commonly referred to as the Kirby of Atlas comics. Following his death Lee was reticent to put all of his eggs in one basket, and although he had an acrimonious relationship with Ditko at best - Lee wasn't going to be left holding the milk pale again if Kirby kicked the bucket or bailed on Marvel.
That being said - we will never know the full truth of any of it. Ditko was too, well, I love the dude - but he was just nuts. Lee was a liar and Jack Kirby man, that dude just lashed out at the end of his life and sometimes it's hard to separate fact from his own embellished version of reality. Whatever the case, Lee put the words in Spider-Man's mouth - Ditko designed the costume and Kirby/Simon came up with the character by my estimation.
I always wondered what Ditko thought when Jack Kirby claimed in the 80s that HE created Spider-Man. A claim that even the most die hard Kirby supporters doubted.
I hit on that - there's an illustration I show that is how he felt. Jack Kirby did suggest Spider-Man, but not by that name or with these powers. He was called Silver Spider and it is the most likely scenario that Kirby pitched this idea to Lee who not wanting Kirby to get too much power and end up like the new Joe Maneely if they ever fell out, passed the idea along to Ditko. Now, by Lee's own admission - his one crontribution to the Spider-Man character essentially boiled down to suggesting the name and a man that had insect powers, namely to crawl on the wall. Ditko took this and came back with the Spider-Man that we know and love. Well, if Kirby had suggested this - Silver Spider look almost identical to Captain America and presumably shot webs from his gun - then Lee had nothing to do with Spider-Man and by his own logic Kirby created him. I tend to think it was all 3 of them, but I do think that Jack Kirby was instrumental in the idea of an insect powered character and therefore in the creation of Spider-Man
Ditko's illustration of the different versions of Spider-Man: www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/50clg8/jack_kirbys_original_spiderman_design_according/
Stan literally couldn't afford to give Steve 50% creation credit as that would inevitably lead to Stan being legally liable for 50% of years worth of monetary gain.
The way I see it, Stan was a creative business man, Steve a true creator.
Creators have always been exploited by business, a sad truth.
I believe it would've opened a legal floodgate for other characters co-creations. Especially Kirby. There's a lot to this, if Stan sold the characters and had no right to do that with out consent from a co-creator. Would Marvel have to pay? My understanding is that they were free lance workers and ultimately, the work didn't belong to the creators. Too bad, as there seems to be enough cash to go around with the MCU movies.
Lee doesn't own Spider-Man never did. He didn't own Marvel - he wouldn't have been liable for a penny just to be clear. He would have had to come off the fact he didn't create him, and that is something Lee as completely incapable of doing as well evidenced by the Ross interview imho.
Disney messed up copyright laws and things got so bad that the actual guy responsible for the copyright law revisions was set to testify in support of Kirby's estate before the settlement because he said what Marvel and Disney were doing was exactly what he had tried to STOP from happening. That being said, Stan Lee could say whatever he wanted. He didn't own those characters in any way shape or form, and certainly didn't own Marvel. It was all about ego. Giving someone else the credit. Check out the Ross interview, he just can't do it. I just feel like the person who has the idea, blah blah - credit thief plain and simple and he couldn't come off of it for fear of loosing his millions of dollars as Marvel's comic ambassador...
@@JerkComic He had a lot of sway at Marvel all the way until he died, he had a lot of power. Stan says a Marvel movie sucks, what happens? He was "paid off" since the sixties in one way or another.
@@davidlindsay9564 he was paid off but had little power in the comic department especially. He couldn't even pull enough sway to get his own later comic creations published there. Who Wants To Be A Superhero is a great example. That comic was going to be released by Darkhorse as Lee couldn't even pull enough weight to get a one shot published by then. He severed ties with the comics group in the 70s and never looked back. But Disney straight up just stopped paying him for like 2 years and he ended up suing Marvel and Disney over it. And for the record. He had even LESS sway with the films. That was all Arad. Lee squandered decades and millions of company dollars on projects that never panned out and constantly under performed. His only use was as a mouth piece for the last 30 plus years of his life...
This was an amazing video!
Thanks so much! This one took me some serious work but it was really amazing to have Mark Ditko say this was "essential viewing" for fans of his uncle... one of the bigger moments for me on the channel to say the least haha. Thank you so much for checking this oldie out btw, means a lot to know people are actually watching and enjoying these videos I spend so long on and I can't tell you how much it helps out that you took the time to leave a comment!
@@JerkComic My pleasure, man. Yeah, I just had the channel recommended to me in my feed and I've been going through a few of your videos. Lol, planning to binge through all of them.
@@luistoomuch that's awesome! So happy you're finding more stuff of interest too! Let me know if there's ever anything you wanna hear about btw. Always love a good suggestion!
I would like you to make a video of Jim Steranko.
I love that guy, his art is unique !
In the works. Dude is crazy weird and awesome. There will likely be a shorter vid about him and Bob Kane and then I’ll do a longer overview in the future. Keep an eye on the channel for sure!
Man youre getting popular pretty soon youre not gonna be able to respond to us like you do youre gonna be getting soooo much attention brother great video
I will ALWAYS strive to respond - it takes me hours each night but talking to cool people such as yourself is the entire reason I started this channel, will be very sad when I can no longer keep up at all :(
Look at the track records of Lee and that of Kirby/Ditko, before and after the 60s. Thats all you need to do to see who were creators and who wasn't.
There was something special about how pissed off Lee seemed to get Ditko and Kirby that resulted in an undeniable magic. The dialogue was trite and painful, but man do I love those early Spider-Man issues. Always felt so unique to me and now I know a lot of that is the behind the scenes drama/chemistry going on. That being said, I'll never shut up about Lee's claims until people start actually giving Ditko and Kirby their due... so I'll probably be screaming into the void for the rest of my life, but I'll be screaming the truth, haha!
He felt guilty. He got all the credit. To me, Lee reminds me of Steve jobs. Hes the idea man but others flesh out the details and he okays it and puts his seal on it.
He didn't feel guilty, he even says he thinks Ditko is wrong. I mean, I think Lee deserves a lot of credit when it comes to the voices of characters and the kind of universal "feel" and existence of a Marvel Universe as in a shared collective of interacting stories and characters etc. I don't think that entitled him to sole credit on Spider-Man, but HE did. And he said so often and repeatedly. Not here to bash on a dead guy, just wish we had gotten the record set straight before everyone decided to up and die on us. Spider-Man is a muti-BILLION dollar a year character, and we don't know jack squat about the historical facts regarding his creation or origins. Sad to me, just sad.
@@JerkComic It really is unfortunate that the lack of accountability in that business structure at the time has led to such confusion now. Looking back now I think if any of this was going to change in favor of Stan's collaborators it would've probably had to be before the 90's when these characters really started branching out, the damage to Stan's ego had been done at that point and any big interview with Ditko alleging everything he'd created probably would've been publicly disregarded and made Ditko look worse. Their deaths, while sad, have no real effect on the optics here because history really is written by the winners and Stan won by being the man in charge of Marvel. At least there are great lessons to learn from in solidifying the concept of creating an idea and establishing credit for creators in the future.
I subscribed. This stuff is so amazing, man! I thought about this for years and I completely agree with what you said.
Thanks so much for the sub and really happy you enjoyed. I spent a looong time on these 2 Ditko pieces and a lot of thought and research went into them. I loved doing this. I'd had opinions about it all forever but nothing to substantiate my thought process. This just proves what I had believed all along. Its to bad that Lee and Ditko weren't able to at least see eye to eye long enough to set the historical record straight but hopefully this helped fill in some of the missing gaps of info that are so hard to come by and spread out.
The hard work shows! Great episode!
I´m curious about Ditko´s involvement and views on Peter Parker´s personality. From his description of heroes using Mr. A, it sounds like a guy like Peter Parker would be the last kind of protagonist he´d want to draw and plot for. Was Spider-Man in his eyes meant to be a satire on conflicted heroes? Or was he intending for Peter to come off differently but Lee´s scripts made him seem more neurotic and impulsive?
It would be my BELIEF - as Ditko never said this - but I believe, that Ditko not only disliked where Lee went with the character, but that it was a spot or early and continuous tension between the two that was just the icing on the cake for two people who hated each other as much as these two did. Ditko would never have agreed to anything as wishy-washy as Parker if he had known and been allowed input, so that means either he wasn't allowed input at all, or Lee often vetoed and rewrote stuff when he got the finished art in. I know that Ditko made a really big deal of not even being able to see Stan when he turned stuff in by the time he quit originally, so perhaps this is because Lee didn't want to hear about Ditko's complains about the stuff he changed. It is well know that Ditko and Lee disagreed about the contents of Spider-Man and clashed over many of the major stories and story elements for sure though.
@@JerkComic Interesting. Yeah, this would make sense. If that´s the case, then while I definitely consider Ditko a co-creator, it´s Lee´s contribution that makes me like the character so much. Unfortunately, the way Lee made such an impact (ignoring and not communicating with Ditko) is a completely wrong way of going about it. The things you learn . . .
Anyways it really sheds some light on their arguments. Ditko was largely responsible for setting, rogues overall look and atmosphere, and the plots (which were brilliant) and Lee was largely responsible with characterization and came to Ditko with the idea in the first place. At the end of the day, their contributions are inseparable.
@@JerkComic As it was, Ditko had to fight for plotting credit, a major contention of the two being the pay from it. Lee had been part of the plotting for sometime.
@@dakotah7683 Lee's contributions to the plot were all post-Ditko creating the art and there weren't conversations about plots according to Ditko starting super early on. I don't know if we'll ever be aware of the particulars but it's clear that Lee was after the pay more than control over the book imho and Ditko the exact opposite of that. I just don't see Ditko coming up with a conflicted hero, runs so opposite to what he stood for and stuff. Thanks for checking this out btw, glad people are still watching this!
@@JerkComic He did write the plots. There is evidence that suggests that, including within the art itself.
great content !
Thank you! These Spider-Man pieces were real passion projects for me. Took a long while but Ditko deserves to have his voice heard... whether he'd like it or not haha. Thanks so much for the kind words and hopefully you find some other stuff on the channel you enjoy as well.
I love Stan Lee but he suffered from Bob Kane-esque theft of credit when it ought to have been shared or primarily belonging to others.
Bob Kane is the only other dude on the planet you can make the parallel to for sure, and that was ONE character. His reputation is garbage and most people hate Kane, Lee claimed credit for dozens of other people's work... I mean, just do the math haha!
As stated in Stan's own interviews, and later the great Jack Kirby: when Atlas Comics was going down and basically the offices were being emptied out Kirby came along and said, "I can create some characters/comics for you and they WILL SELL !"
So, backtrack and fast-forward: 1940's-late 50's Stan Lee 'created' almost nil. Jack Kirby (with Joe Simon) created Captain America, The Guardian with the Newsboy Legion (I'll give that the Guardian is almost a Capt. clone down to the shield (also Fighting American)), Boy Commandos, Manhunter, created a whole new field of comics with Romance titles, Bullseye, The Fly, The Shield (Pvt. Strong), Challengers of the Unknown (where a lot of the Fantastic Four came from), updated Green Arrow's origin.
Created most of Marvel's main characters, especially Thor (as he has a thing about Gods).
Kirby leaves Marvel and Lee, strangely, quit writing/'creating' `(She-Hulk is just a female Hulk through a blood transfusion (Whoop-de-do)), and Kirby continues creating characters: New Gods, Darkseid, Demon, OMAC, Mister Miracle, Kamandi, Eternals, Celestials, Machine Man, Captain Victory.
Oh, Stan's main contribution after Kirby.... Stripperella !!!
I believe not a lot has ever been focused on "the deal" Lee and Ditko had regarding the 14 issues before AF #15 - clearly Kirby was a issue.
Lee confirmed this to me back in the early 80's
Care to elaborate? I've heard a few stories of how they proposed and did work together but not of a "deal"...
Lee and I talked constantly on the phone around 1984 to 1986... Lee was a good talker.
I was going to get him to come to a comic convention I was going to hold at The Sydney Opera House with Eisner and Steranko... Lee ended up as a no-show.
That pissed off Eisner big time.
Anyway - during all of the talks I had with Lee, I wanted to know more about the beginning of Marvel and Kirby.
That's when Lee started to clearly explain to me what the story was (From his point of view) regarding the "Marvel way" the situation with Kirby along with his "deal"... "agreement" ... with Ditko.
Possibly best to email me if you want to know more.
rìchard.rae@live.com.au
I will do that!
A bit late: but I do really like it when I can watch a video on comics and not find myself mentally (and sometimes literally, I lack shame) shout at the TV for the whole video
God I wish I didn't know that feeling haha. My wife HATES watching documentaries with me because of this. She's like I don't even know why you watch them if they're all wrong? And I'm like yeah. But every once in a million their RIGHT and it is beautiful 🤣 Glad you enjoyed this. I'm hoping to sit down with Mark Ditko who called this video "essential viewing" for fans of his uncle to talk Ditko soon as well... if you dig this make sure to check out the follow up The Great Marvel Art Heist too, might be up your alley. Thanks either way for checking this out and super glad you enjoyed and took the time to leave a comment. Means a lot and helps out the channel a ton
@@JerkComic hahahah yeah mate, everyone hates watching documentaries with me. And would you believe I went straight to the Art Heist one straight after watching this? Cos I did. Ooooh, yeah I'd watch that interview
with the shang chi movie in the works might I suggest a historic showcase of the master of king fu story. It's rare to see chi's story told but it can't be denied his was a long run series successful to the point that giant size and even supersize specials were issued as well as black and white mags too. Then there's the content ,the characters and the creative team(s) Monech,Galucy,Zeck and Day whose careers this comic and its storylines brought them notice and acclaim.
Then there's the Sax Rohmer characters inclusion into the melding of the story how that came about? and in the new upcoming movie how the Mandarin (marvel's obvious and nearest answer to replacing chi's infamous dad) came about?
All curious and interesting points that I feel ..no scratch that I would love to see reported here so please in preparence and anticipation of the TEN RINGS I dearly ask let's have the shang chi story from its humble conception thru all its characters and creators ..bring us the tale of THE MASTER OF KUNG FU!
A is not A, or A is entitled to half of all proceeds from the vast Spider-Man legacy
He didn't want money, he didn't even really actually want credit - he just didn't want Lee and Marvel to have it, haha! I love Ditko. He's so misunderstood and people see him as this crotchety crazy old person when he was obviously usually the most astute person in a room. To think he just shrugged off the money involved with Spider-Man and never really looked back I think says a lot more about Ditko and his moral code than words ever could. He was a man of conviction and it's a crime that he's seen as such a curmudgeon and not given proper credit for his work for sure. Still waiting for that Mr A Artists's Edition too...
This all pretty much stems from an inability to accept a common use of the word "consider."
I think there's a whole load of things to question about Lee's version of events, and...this is inarguable...Marvel Comics had a vested interest in promoting the guy who was a loyal "company man" over two artists who had subsequently left the company. I think saying that Ditko was "solely" responsible for Spider-Man is disingenuous.
I think we can agree, Jack Kirby did NOT create Spider-Man, no matter what the Kirby family lawyer wants us to believe.
I just think that this argument always boils down to "Jack and Steve did everything," versus "Stan wrote the dialogue over Jack and Steve's plotting." None of the Marvel books would've worked without the collaboration of the creators involved. Which argument seems more open to the world of collaboration?
I think that the Camp Kirby Camp Lee stuff is crap. It was a collaborative effort without doubt. That being said Lee had the artists do the heavy lifting and in turn often lifted the credit. I think he played an integral part in the Marvel U witout question and it couldn't have existed without him. That being said, I believe that Ditko's umbrage at the word consider was his way of trying to illustrate, however unsuccessfully and obtuse, that Lee didn't believe anyone else deserved credit. I am not here to bash on a dead man or men, and hopefully this video as well as comment make that clear, but rather to point out the inadequacy of credit given to people like Ditko and Kirby. I'm all about history accuracy and obviously have no horse in this race other than my own interest in knowing what went down and how which at this point will unfortunately never happen.
“A is A and Luther is Luther” I love that scene in the JL cartoon
I could never believe they used it, I lmao but never imagined many people even understood the original reference not to mention the layers with Ditko and Mr A becoming Question haha
JerkComic yeah it was a rly kool tip of the hat to Ditko from DC
Stan Lee's reason for down playing the importance of artists in the Marvel Universe is because it undercuts the artist's ability to fight Marvel's ownership of these characters. Remember, Martin Goodman was Stan Lee's cousin and Lee was well compensated for taking full credit for the Marvel Universe. Marvel paid Lee a million dollars a year and executive producer credit for all MCU media. Whenever Stan Lee left Marvel and threatened sue for ownership of the characters, Marvel always had to back down and rework the deal they had with Stan because the narrative they created. Keep in mind that Lee didn't start taking full credit until Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegle sued DC over Superman. It was about protecting Marvel's rights to these characters without fear of losing a legal battle. For his loyalty to Marvel, Lee was paid his 30 pieces of silver.
This is PART of the reason he downplayed artists. Are you familair with a man named Joe Maneely? An artist for Timely Atlas, his death left Lee in a rather nasty spot and while you're absolutely right it eventually became about protection, Lee initially attempted to downplay artists and their importance in the creation and life of characters because he didn't know how long he could keep them. His relationship with Ditko was tenuous to say the least from the start, and while Kirby certainly appreciated the work, by 1964 he was already tired of Lee and his antics. It's weird because you see artists promoted in a lot of ways at Marvel, but their importance in big major things downplayed for a myriad of reasons. Goodman quickly realized the problem they had with Lee very early on and this was a big point on contention between the two and led to the weird Atlas comics situation years later.
As per Lee's "emmisary" money, because Marvel technically paid him to be a "comics' emissary". And he was good at it. He might not have been great at much else, but he was good at that. But they didn't always pay him. While I know Lee's family and estate were involved with suits or threatened as such about ownership, Lee's legal action against Marvel was usually suing them because they hadn't paid him. They would conveniently forget to send him his checks rather often and he was awarded at least THREE settlement payouts that I know of for breach of contract on Marvel's end there. And as much as I would like to believe it was all money. Dollars and cents. I really, truly, honestly believe that after 30 years of research and listening to him and reading god knows how much information about him. For Lee, it was about attention and ego first, and money second. He always loved his money, but the reason he started crapping on his artists is because he could not objectively remove himself from the equation without "due credit" being given in his eyes. Stan Lee BELIEVES that his 2 sentence schpeel, and an idea he stole from Kirby who had taken it from Simon btw - gives him SOLE CREATOR CREDIT for Spider-Man. That's insane. But he believes it. That speaks much more to ego as it was a position he held long before the character became the money making juggernaut it is today. That's why he wrote this letter. To stroke his ego. To make himself feel better about himself. Not to help out Ditko or clear the air or anything or than to make himself feel good... and well, maybe lure Ditko back into some Marvel work again, haha - as if!
@@JerkComic I agree that it was more about ego than money when it came to Lee. I just find it interesting that Lee always gives credit to Kirby in the early years but started taking more and more credit in the '70s. I don't think Stan understood until later why the higher-ups at Marvel wanted him to push that narrative AND that's why later he always wanted his lawyer with him whenever talking about who created who. I don't think Stan did this because he was a bad person or that he wanted to hurt Ditko & Kirby, but he did downplay their involvement. I do think he was trying to undo some of this later in life, but he saw what happen to his good Friend Bob Kane's legacy once all the Bill Finger stuff started to gain steam so he stopped talking about it in public. On the flip side, I know Kirby came after Lee because of the power dynamic shift that happened in their relationship. When they first met, Lee was a Gopher at Timely and Kirby gave Lee his first work in Captain America. Even in their early interviews, Lee speaks of Kirby as more than an equal, but Kirby still saw Stan as that 19-year-old kid. That hurt Stan and made him want to show Kirby how important he was. In my mind they were all co-creators of the Marvel Universe, but the company saw the value of only having to pay one person instead of three and Lee was more than happy to be the man who created Marvel.
Another great piece! I agree with darn near everything you've said.
A couple of comments...
Ditko quit Spider-Man and left Marvel in 1966, not 1968. Not a big deal but you might want to run a text correction or re-dub the audio.
One of the factors I find most interesting about the fractious Lee/Ditko relationship is the fact that they stopped interacting even as Ditko continued working on Amazing Spider-Man. I know that Lee claimed at some points that this was Ditko's choice, but I find that claim very, very difficult to believe. Lee was the boss and if he truly had capitulated after Ditko said, "I don't want to speak with you anymore, I'll drop off the finished pages with Sol Brodsky when they're ready," then Lee would potentially have been faced with similar insubordinate behavior from other staffers -- "I won't be doing any more unpaid revisions of my artwork," "I won't be giving up my weekends to complete rush jobs on your timetable," "I won't be plotting any more stories unless I receive extra pay," etc. etc. I think it's far more likely that Lee in fact chose to stop speaking to Ditko. I would not be surprised if Lee was somewhat intimidated by Ditko (because Ditko had the backbone to demand plotting credit for Spider-Man and was persistent/insistent enough to get it). I also believe that Lee was reluctant to fire Ditko outright (because Ditko was churning out work that made a lot of money for Marvel). Consequently, Lee took the easy way out -- he stopped interacting with Ditko, because their collaborative relationship didn't require it. This approach probably reduced the possibility that Ditko would make further demands of Lee, it served as a warning of sorts to other Marvel staffers ("if you get on Stan's bad side he'll stop talking to you") and eliminated whatever portion of the work week/month that Stan had previously spent speaking to Ditko, thus freeing him up to spend that time on other matters.
I also find it interesting that Lee apparently never made any claims re: contributions he made to the visual appearance of Spider-Man, the supervillains in ASM or the supporting cast. He was, after all, the Marvel art director as well as a competent (if unexceptional) cartoonist with numerous published works to his credit. One would think that if he had developed more than the most bare-bones idea for the ASM strip that he would have made specific assertions to help support his position -- "I gave Steve a sketch of Dr. Octopus as I envisioned him, and Steve largely based the character on it," or whatever.
Also, I can't help thinking there was more than pride fueling Stan's reluctance to fully acknowledge Ditko as co-creator of Spider-Man. Lee was a 20-year veteran of the comic book publishing industry when Spider-Man debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15, and must have been aware of the financial implications of crediting a freelancer with creating anything they generated. (Theoretically, in late 1966 or at any time afterward, Ditko could have said, "actually the person who created the vast majority of the Spider-Man strip was ME, I did so without any direction from Stan Lee, there's no written contract to say otherwise and I've already hired a lawyer who'll be happy to fight it out in court and meanwhile I'm developing a 'Remarkable Arachnid-Teen' comic for a company in such-and-such country that doesn't recognize U.S. intellectual property law.") I believe that Stan may have been motivated to claim sole creatorship to provide a little bit of extra protection to Marvel and its owners from such a development. In other words, when Stan says, "I consider Steve Ditko to be co-creator of Spider-Man," part of what he's saying is, "I am not willing to make a simple, unequivocal assertion that Ditko was the co-creator of Spider-Man, because such an assertion might imply that Marvel Comics and everyone else with a financial stake in Spider-Man is obliged to treat Ditko as co-creator, for purposes of authorship credits, intellectual property rights, revenues, etc. So, instead, I want it known that I am speaking only for myself." Please note that Lee's 1999 letter doesn't say anything whatsoever about actions that *other* people should take to "set the record straight" or provide any sort of tangible benefits to Ditko.
Finally, if Stan "always considered" Ditko to be the co-creator of Spider-Man, he sure did allow a lot of inaccurate assertions to go uncorrected over the years, many of them in materials he supposedly wrote himself.
Just my two spider-cents. :)
Re 1968: godmnit. I knew recording this at 4AM was a bad idea, so close and yet so far away! Definitely will do something - thanks for the catch my friend.
re Lee/Ditko relationship: Lee swung back and forth between whatever suited the story the way he was telling it at that particular moment. I take anything he says with a grain of salt. There's a grain of truth to it all imo, but finding that grain in a silo of disinformation is a less than enthusing prospect. 1) Lee was most certainly intimidated by Steve Ditko. Ditko is no fake a$$ Erudite putting on pretenses or show for anyone or anything. He took great pride in everything that he did, at least back in the day... and I don't think Lee was used to dealing with people who cared about the end published product, the way it was packaged and presented, the content, the credits, the printing - Ditko was one of the few artists I know of from back then that actually looked at the printed final products in efforts to improve his future work. Stan Lee was between a rock and a hard place. He couldn't fire Steve Ditko, he was making everyone a boatload of money and he wasn't openly insubordinate or anything like that. They had no real grounds. They could have stopped offering him work, and honestly it seems like that's what they did. They pegged him down as the Spider-Man guy, stuck him in the meat grinder and expected him to play along. Dikto was having none of that - we both know he was crafting entirely different stories in his head than what Lee was lettering and "scripting" from day one, so it's definitely believable Lee was rightfully frightened that Ditko would make some power grab at the rights, or the assertion of sole creator credit, etc... except Ditko would never have done anything like that, and everyone knew it. Neither would Kirby, and they knew that too. Everyone who kept their jobs were good at keeping their heads down, it was the way the game was played. But Ditko didn't play games and he wasn't going to jump through those hoops. I think that your supposition of Lee not speaking to Ditko was his decision and a way of "punishing" Ditko and making an example of him. Lord only knew what he was going to put in those word balloons and narration... if he was talking to you, you at least had some clue and a fighting chance at some sort of cooperation if you didn't like the way things were working.
re Lee's lack of credit assertion: I don't think it's any secret he had nothing to do with that series from day 1. Ditko was not a man to be trifled with, the Marketplace interview proves this as does the Time Magazine article from around this period. If you f-ed with him, he was coming for blood. Lee and Ditko knew who had come up with that stuff, look at the Ditko illustration for his article "Jack Kirby's Spider-Man" and you can see the totality of both Lee and Kirby's contributions to even the original idea. While Ditko would never have asserted rights or initiated legal actions of any sort. There's no doubt in my mind, had Lee begun claiming as he did with the Fantastic Four and several other Kirby properties, that he had given Ditko this sketch, and a little written explanation of what he was working on Ditko would have simply gone to the fanzines, the media and wherever else he could and set the record straight thereby stripping Lee of any and all credit he might be able to assert over the Spiderman (hypehnless) character. This is however supposing that Lee and Ditko ACTUALLY stopped talking. I for one, find it beyond unbelievable that this tenuous and tumultuous a relationship lasted as long as it did in the volatile state it has been reported. I find it much more likely that Lee was in fact speaking to Ditko, but on weekends and on the phone and away from other artists. He was bound to Ditko through sales, but couldn't afford his brazen intelligence and cunning to give anyone - specifically Kirby (the golden goose) - any nasty ideas about growing a spine and taking an active role in the finished product of the comic book they were creating; it should be noted that Kirby was as uninterested in this as he was suing Marvel Comics which is to say not at all. I don't think for a second that if things were as bad as they seem and have been played up that Ditko would have ever come back to work for them in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I just don't buy it. They probably had their tiff, stopped talking when he went to Charlton and then sometime during that period professionally patched things up enough for Dikto to return of free will and good conscience to Marvel.
re Lee's pride: I would like to agree with you that it was a professional thing that made Lee take the credit in the name of Marvel and the publisher, etc so as to not overpower artists or creators who might be getting ideas from Siegel and Shuster etc. However, I don't think that's necessarily the case. They had a long working relationship prior to the Marvel Age and this level of acrimony and braggadocio didn't exist. Because no one cared. I think it was much less about "pride" or the, I made it, I did that - than people looking at him. Lee was the kind of kid who told you he went to the moon in 4th grade knowing everyone knew he was lying, except for those two gullible kids in your class. But if you can get the public to buy into that crap, the accelerant of the media and fans and that kind of attention is going to turn someone like that into a monster. And that's what Lee became. A monster. He couldn't even admit, even bring himself for a single moment or second that Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko had a single valid point in their claims as "co" creators. The Ross interview shows that plainly. He didn't dislike Ditko, he liked Kirby, but he could not bring himself to relinquish the limelight. It's what got him ousted from Marvel imo, the bullheaded nature of needing to pursue Hollywood so more people would look and pay attention to his childish antics. I don't for a second believe anymore that Lee was doing anything on "Marvel's" behest, behalf, interest or anything else of that nature. I think he was jumping up and down showing his butt and seeing if people would buy into his BS. And they did. Hook, line and sinker. I honestly believe that Steve Ditko was absolutely correct in his assertion that Lee used the word "considered" because he didn't believe what he was saying, or writing. Yes it was to protect them legally perhaps, but that in essence was of secondary concern with Lee issuing this letter with no other reasoning than to try and make up with a guy he hadn't spoken to in 30 years? Yeah, bull crap. No way. Considered or not, this could have opened a monstrous can of worms for Marvel and Lee didn't care - he was only vestigially connected to the company at this point anyway. He was interested in mending bridges with Ditko - but why? Why was Lee trying to buddy back up to Ditko? Because they never actually stopped talking and Ditko was genuinely incensed by Lee's comments during several interviews and articles and had had enough. I think Lee was trying to get Kirby and Ditko to work on some of his own new failed series by Stan Lee Media and Stan Lee Entertainment etc. He wanted to get the old band back together. Except, he'd screwed them all. Kirby was out and out because of Roz - he wasn't going to work with Lee again on her word alone, period. Ditko on the other hand might be wooed. He was working in the public sector and had little compunction about working as a hired gun of sorts. This is all assertion on my part, but I find it highly doubtful that Lee was simply trying to make nice after so many years and that he was been trying to convince Ditko to do something with him for some time and made a big boo boo with the interview, tried to fix it, and then botched it worse. He was incapable of taking or giving proper credit, the reasons are debatable and all assertion, but that's the truth and Ditko needed the world to see it. Hopefully this video helps spread that message a little bit more.
@@JerkComic Wow, great response -- you've got two highly plausible assertions in there that deserve more attention (Stan didn't stop talking to Ditko altogether, and Stan "wanted to get the band back together" with Ditko and Kirby in later years.)
Something you might want to consider investigating, when the time is right -- was Ditko's exit from Marvel truly a surprise to Stan? Or, to put it more specifically, did Stan really learn of Ditko's departure from Sol Brodsky, after Ditko dropped off the artwork for ASM #38?
Also, I'd throw in this one other factor re: Ditko's willingness to stand up to Stan -- Ditko was a bachelor and (unlike Kirby and John Romita, Sr.) didn't have kids to support. Thus, Ditko was a bit more free to say "forget this" and walk out. (Wally Wood had a similar situation when he departed Marvel -- wife who was capable of earning a living on her own, and no kids. Of course, Woody's departure had some other factors in play.)
Finally, I should point out that there was at least one artist during the Atlas era who had a contentious relationship with Stan that paralleled Ditko's in some ways -- that being Bernard Krigstein, who illustrated a bunch of crime and war stories in the late '50s. As I understand it, Krigstein frequently drew more panels per page than Stan liked, and Stan sometimes demanded revisions that rankled Krigstein, or simply had other artists make revisions before the art went to the printer. On one of their final collaborations, Krigstein ended up telling Stan something to the effect of, "you will use my art as provided, or you will not use it at all -- if you revise it I will sue you." I recently ordered a reasonably priced copy of the EC fanzine Squa Tront issue 6, which focuses on Krigstein, and when it arrives I'll see if there's anything re: Stan contained in it. I'll get back to you on that. :)
This video made me hate Stan Lee even more.
He did the same to Kirby, Everett, Romita and many more.
By the way, nice video and very well documented.
@@comicbookguy6361 Thanks! Most of those guys would totally agree with you but John Romita doesn't think that Lee is responsible for basically any of this weirdly enough. He always talks extraordinarily highly of Lee and has often come to his aid in many a time of fan backlash! I don't "hate" Lee, I just think the record needs to be set straight and he needs to be taken down a peg. Give me one verifiable shred of evidence of his involvement in the "creation" of any of these Marvel characters and I'll gladly shut up and apologize. Until then... Thanks so much for checking out the video and please let me know if there's ever anything you want to see an episode about!
@@JerkComic I recognize Lee as a good editor, promoter and marketing genius.
But not as a creator of the Marvel characters.
I would love to see and episode of...Who really created Spider-Man?
Jack Kirby even claimed..."I created Spider-Man"
Joe Simon came with the idea of Silver Spider years before Spider-Man was created.
I would like you to talk about The Fly and the Ben Cooper spider-man costume in the 50's.
I'll admit, I grew up thinking Lee was the absolute mastermind of Marvel. His monthly Soapbox was like the Gospel to me. He was the creator of Spider-Man after all! Even now, his name is spoken by fans with such reverence. Videos like this one and other documentaries have shed some light on the truth and shattered any illusions I had about Lee. It's really too bad Lee and Ditko dissolved their working relationship. I can only think of the many untold stories that they could have created together. I think there might have been some "legalism" behind Lee's phrasing that he "considers" Ditko to be the co-creator. If Lee comes out and says that Ditko is absolutely and definitely the co-creator, that would open up a can of worms, legally speaking. Thinking out loud, what if we take the question of "who is the creator" to Lee's last Marvel creation: She-Hulk. Lee is credited with She-Hulk's creation, but John Buscema was the one who drew her, putting the character to paper in issue #1. Did Buscema ever seek credit for co-creating She-Hulk? Anyways, awesome and informative video. Thanks for posting!
She Hulk is an idea based on a character that already existed, II mean The Incredible Hulk, a character created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.
The sane way Spider-Woman is based on Spider-Man, a Ditko and Lee creation.
They came up with those female characters just for patenting and registering purposes.
Well, Lee was a Mastermind. He made an empire on what until then had been barely minimum wage career, by taking things others had failed at, and being successful.
He may not have been a "Creative Mastermind" but certainly a mastermind.
And a salesman that is second to none.
Steve Ditko died alone in bitter isolation with self righteous indignation. Comics JD Salinger. Bottomline: Without Stan's showmanship, second to none salesmanship only to Disney and his relatable with-it everyman disposition that was palpable off the pages, there would be no MCU. No multi-media juggernaut. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko brought the talent and creations to life, but Stan knew how to market, sell and elevate them into something that transcended it's own medium and make legends out of all of them. The reason this never happen for Jack or Steve on their own is they couldn't sell their talent like Stan could and Stan was a marketing genius. His skills at dialogue and editing proves he had creative talent too. And Stan needed visionaries who could bring it all to life. They all needed each other. Nobody should be dismissed. They are the f*cking Beatles of modern day comics. They all played a role. Even brother Larry. Every band needs a Ringo.
Ditko wasn't in bitter isolation. It might seem like that, but he regularly visited with friends, had visitors to his office and was still working up until the day he died doing what he wanted to do, how he wanted to it. I respect the crap out of that. I might not LIKE some of what he did, but I respect the path he chose for himself and the fact he stuck to his guns like he did - not something I take lightly or tread on easily. As per Marvel, I think you're absolutely correct. No Marvel juggernaut indeed. That however doesn't mean he's entitled to the lion's share of credit for "creating" things imo. He was a showman, he was great at selling the brand and hyping, but none of that entitles him to claim to be the creator of the Marvel U, which is something I saw and heard repeated throughout my entire life. I'm not going to get into a debate about his plotting or dialogue, personally I think he did a great deal on this front, I'm not one of those people who thinks Kirby wrote all of the dialogue, this is easily disproved, but I think that the effort for finished comics during this initial wave especially was a collaborative effort and trying to interpret it as anything else is folly.
I think there's a myriad of reasons why basically everything Kirby and Lee created post Marvel paled in success, but the same for Lee. Few, if any, of Lee's most lasting "creations" came a part from this wave of the Marvel-era with Ditko, Kirby, etc. I think there was something magical going on where they were bouncing stuff off of each other and after having seen the new Beatles doc I think you're pretty spot on about the Beatles metaphor actually - they managed to create amazing stuff despite not wanting to be in the same room with one another and all of their solo stuff is far less potent.
Ditko as a subscriber and loyal disciple of objectivism, he is militant. Stan is a Jedi master and Jedis don't deal in absolutes.
Love your channel btw. Lol. Obviously. You rock
Haha, thanks so much! I think there's was an undeniable magic when Lee and Ditko worked together. Lee was a consummate business and salesman and Marvel wouldn't be what they are without him. But he definitely doesn't strike me as a jedi... don't remember Anakin suing Obi Wan or Qui when he turned to the dark side, lmao!
Thanks for checking this out, hope you enjoyed!
Great work! Now look at a similar comic creative team like Sergio aragones and mark evenier. They have worked together similar to how Stan and the artists he worked with did. Big difference is they have great respect for each other.
Evanier would never dream of trampling creators rights like Lee that’s for sure! In fact Evanier is one of Kirby’s old assistants and one of the best sources of information regarding the Kirby suits and Marvel’s stance on “creators” and “artists rights” out there. You ever watched a doc about Kirby Evanier is sure to pop up and I always freakin love listening to him talk. Real shame Aragones doesn’t get the respect I think he’s due. Super talented guy
JerkComic totally agree Sergio is one of the most talented creators in comics. I think it is cool that groo got its start helping other artists in destroyer duck. All 4 of that creative team are close and still work together after all these years.
I think every person involved with making any Spider-Man content is a co creator, as they have changed the character and their view of the character.
I mean I get that sentiment, I wouldn’t argue they’ve all contributed to his continued existence but not his creation per say. Ditko was instrumental as well as Kirby who probably actually pitched the idea of a spider super hero to Lee who then passed it on to Ditko to make sure that Kirby didn’t become the new Joe Maneely (even though he did). Ditko was the guy who came up with nearly every aspect of what we think of as Parker and was obviously the physical model for Parker as well as the basis for Parker’s almost unbreakable moral code.
Thanks for checking out the video hope you dug it and thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment really helps out the channel immensely!
This Lee/Ditko fiasco reminds me a lot of the Kane/Finger hassle that had been going on for years. In all honesty, you can not have one without the other.
From what ive seen happen throughout the years, i CONSTANTLY see ONLY Lee be given credit for Marvels creations ((EVEN CAPTAIN AMERICA!!! HELLO???)) I feel as though Lee went out of his way to make sure ONLY his name was attached to these characters, and would constantly dance around the issue of co-creation between his artists.
Lee was certainly a glory hog and a credit thief. I think that there's good evidence, that Jack Kirby is the one who suggested a Spider themed/powered superhero to Lee who then handed the concept off to Ditko. If this is the case, Lee is literally extraneous in the equation other than making it see print. The Ditko Lee thing is different from the Kane Finger situation in oh so many, many ways. I am not going to apologize for Stan Lee here, but Bob Kane is a liar and a thief. He destroyed Bill Finger, he stole credit for his work and I hope he took that with him to his grave. Lee was never as fervent about his claims and often joked that he wasn't remembering things right... which he knew he wasn't because he didn't have anything to do with so much stuff (Silver Surfer and heck yes, CAP!). Lee most certainly made sure his name was on everything. And that he got the biggest piece of the credit, the top billing, and - the biggest check. Imagine that? Ditko couldn't have cared less really - but when Lee started showing up in the obituary for Bob Kane (small world right?) claiming to be the CREATOR of Spider-Man - I think seeing Kane and Lee right there, right then, Ditko's objectivist views would no long allow him to sit idly by. He didn't want the credit for himself - he just wanted to make sure Stan Lee didn't get it, haha.
Thanks so much for checking out the video, hope you enjoyed - and I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, helps out the channel immensely - especially thoughtful and insightful comments like this one!
There's a documentary for Stan Lee postmortem (I'm pretty sure its "With Great Power") that stated Jack Kirby was asked to design it first but Stan didn't want a muscle bound hero like Jack drew, but an every man. If you want to just see his concept art, just google 'Jack Kirby Spider-Man'.
@@bryanstickell429 that isn't his concept art that's Steve Ditko's drawing approximation of their opposing designs for the character. That story about the every man makes no sense. If this was the case Kirby wouldn't have done the cover. The most likely series of events is that Kirby came to Lee like he had many times before with a pitch for a character Spiderman (no hyphen) liberally borrowed from the Kirby Simon Silver Spider originally for the failed Mainline imprint. This pitch is the concept design that Ditko redrew which featured the Captain America inspired outfit and the costume that came out of a ring he wore on his finger. Lee didn't like that pitch and then subsequently told Ditko to design a insect based character or a character that could at least walk on walls. This is the only constant to Lee's version of events. Then Ditko and his roommate at the time designed Spiderman and made Parker as "everyman" like Ditko drew. Lee likely didn't think the original cover to AF15 was flashy enough and called in Kirby to provide the flashy cover of a buff hero in action as opposed to Ditko's mucb stranger design that more closely resembled the interiors. The history of Spider-Man now featuring the hyphen will probably never be fully known for a myriad of reasons. Ditko was just confusing sometimes and never came out and said anything, Kirby didn't dare speak out until he had just snapped and then you get stuff like comment that he made that made him look crazy to a lot of people. This course of events is what I believe he was referring to. While prone to exaggeration without doubt I dont think Kirby was a liar in any sense of the word. Mind you this is all supposition on my part after decades of research from a very removed stand point. So sad these guys couldn't bury the hatchet enough to really set the record straight...
Missing the point. Lee did it in a small way that makes him appear magnanimous and kind. BUT most of the time he says ad acts like HE did it all, he is THE CREATOR. Watch the Jonathan Ross thing on Ditko. Stan says the "guy who comes up with the idea is the creator", and who ever he hires to draw it, is like hiring someone to paint a house. His attitude is "Well I'll LET Steve have some credit," like its a gift to be given. It's BS. Stan is important but he was along for the ride as far as creativity.
I used that clip. That's as close as we ever got to him being honest about how he felt about the whole thing. And you could tell he wished he hadn't said it as soon as it came out of his mouth too.
Great video. When I found out about how Ditko and Kirby were cheated of their credit by Lee, I lost respect for him. I can at least admire that he tried to push the comics medium as something not just for kids, but that's about it. At least with Lee he wasn't a complete a-hole like Bob Kane. If I ever have the opportunity, I'm taking a crap on Bob Kane's grave for what he did to Bill Finger. That was Walter Keane levels of despicable.
Lee was important as well. He just doesn't deserve sole creator credit. He did a lot of great stuff for the industry, but sadly, like you - I lost a great deal of respect for him when I found the extent to which he was willing to go to protect the Marvel/Disney version of events. While this was no doubt due to inordinate amounts of money, fame and by extension, attention and even more lucrative opportunities make it understandable, but not forgivable. I think his comments in the Johnathan Ross, Searching for Steve Ditko doc kinda did me in on the Lee from my childhood once and for all sadly enough. I mean, he claimed to have helped create Captain America, right? Yeah... well, anyone with the internet can easily discover that's, ahem, not quite the truth - he famous asked who the naked guy on a surf board was when he saw the Silver Surfer, the list goes on and on. In fact, pretty sure his first professional work, a written word piece, was published in a CAP book, though I could be wrong there. It's a sad tale, but I think the important thing historical, is that we begin to look at what we know he did and didn't do, and start assigning credit accordingly moving forward. I would like kids in 40 years to know how important Ditko was to those early Spider-Man comics, that Kirby and Simon came up with Cap, it's important to me. But I don't honestly think we would be talking about these characters were in not for Stan Lee, so there's credit due and deserved there, it just needs to be credit for the RIGHT stuff, haha.
As per Bob Kane... I still want to meet Jim Steranko just one time. To shake his hand. To tell him thank you. Thank you for slapping the taste out of that man's mouth on behalf of one of the most talented men to have worked in this industry. A man who you helped marginalize and systemically preyed upon. There's a special place for Bob and they kept it NICE and warm for him...
Your video is extremely interesting. There have been a few issues of the Ditko/Lee Spider-Man that I consider masterpieces.
If it were limited to who created/co-created Spider-Man the decision would be hard to make.
But there's more than that to it, isn't there?
I recently watched a video of Todd McFarlane answering the question, "What is more important, the writer or the artist?" He answered that people buy the comic books more for the art than the writer of story.
That is my opinion also.
1. Steve Ditko was never given any rights to his own art.
2. There's the compensation (money). Not only from the feature films.
Ditko never received any royalties from the merchandise sold. T-shirts, etc.
3. He could not get his original art back.
Everyone else made a profit from his art.
I seriously have a hard time accepting that he didn't have any rights to/from his art.
I'll give credit to Stan Lee for his idea but Steve Ditko's art is the majority of the character Spider-Man.
There's Superman - Siegel & Shuster.
Captain America - Simon & Kirby
You know kirby was independently working on a spiderman character too right?
Silver Spider - years before. And yes. But not the same thing at all. There is an illustration I show in this and the Spider-Man Co-Creation video that is Ditko’s illustration showing Kirby’s Spider-Man which looks much more like Captain America and was a reworking of that Silver Spider character. His costume came out of his ring he had boots and a gun... it wasn’t Spider-Man. The only thing I think is VERY plausible is this scenario. Kirby suggests to Lee that they resurrect Silver Spider from Kirby’s failed line with Joe Simon. Lee takes only man Spider or man with spider powers away from that talk after not liking the initial design and concept. What we see and read for the original Peter Parker Spider-Man is Ditko plain and simple and there’s not much short of someone finding the fabled 4 page concept and pitch stuff from Kirby that I don’t think exists if it ever did to dissuade me from this opinion.
I think whether Stan Lee believed Ditko was the co-creator of not that wasn't the reason he put consider in the letter. I bet it was Marvel that made him write the letter and lawyers put consider on it. I bet there were a few letters were written until the final one.
The creation of Marvel's characters has the creation of Stan Lee, then Stan Lee with the helped of, with the considered co-creation, and many other terms, now both writer and artists are co-creators
PS. I remember reading that at one Jack Kirby claimed he created Spider-Man. He even did a drawing with all his creations or cocreations and one of the characters was Spider-Man.
Spider-Man was has been my favorite characters
Fun fact: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko did the comic where Spider-Man debuted.
Who did what? We will never know precisely.
The only truth is those 3 guys had a hand on it.
Well Marvel had no hand in the letter - let me make that clear. Lee was neither working for Marvel Comics as a writer, editor or any other function. He was the "face" of Marvel - I think they called him an ambassador or something. Anyways, Lee had to sue Marvel for his pay because they shorted him millions of dollars. He was involved with several other companies which he himself had started, and if you look at the letter head of the Co-Creation letter is is from Stan Lee Media - no affiliation with Marvel in any way shape or form. That being said - there most certainly was a lawyer consulted. There's no way Lee was going to make a statement that equated to Ditko's family having any sort of claim to creation or royalties when Steve passed away. He wasn't dumb. He also knew that this letter would make him look like the good guy to Ditko's cranky insane rants hammering on him for his word choices... no one got it, they - we, all thought he was nuts. I know I did. Seeing that stuff out of context, it made Ditko look like a psycho. At this point The House Of Mouse is most certainly dead set on preserving the Lee angle as it's the only one that protect them from a hail of lawsuits for multi-million dollar characters - but that wasn't the case when this letter was written. Lee's motivations and those of Marvel parted ways in the late 70s/very early 80s and Lee was as much part of Marvel Comics proper as the Moon is of Earth - as in, not at all. Marvel still used his name but Lee was out doing other stuff for other companies - and Lee was the one who wrote that statement not Marvel, that's important to remember imo. It shows just how little Lee thought of the people who he made millions off of every year.
re Kirby Spider-Man: Kirby said a lot of stuff at the end of his life to get attention, well, I guess to bring attention to his legitimate claims I think is a better choice of words. The Spider-Man quote is often used as an example of showing he was loosing his senility. However, I think that Kirby was partially telling the truth. There was a character from the failed Mainline imprint owned by Kirby and Simon called Silver Spider. The most likely form of things is that Kirby recycled that idea and pitched it to Lee who didn't like Kirby's design or sell on the character and then passed off Kirby's outline to Ditko who tossed about 99% of it out the window and with the help of his roommate came up with what we know as Spider-Man visually. That's years of research distilled into a tiny little paragraph - but it's the truth that only those 3 men will ever know the truth of the creation of one of the most profitable and popular characters of all time and that kinda kills me inside...
A very thorough and enthusiastic discussion. As fair-minded as anyone can be on this thorny subject. As you say it's tough to advance the claims of Ditko and other greats without being tempted to pile on Lee at the same time. While Lee deserves stellar praise for his efforts on behalf of US comics, his silence - aided by a $1million/yr Marvel contract which was effectively an NDA - regarding the unfair treatment of Ditko and other legends speaks volumes. He fell out with arguably the three biggest and most talented American superhero artists/creators of the day: Ditko, Jack Kirby and Wallace Wood over lack of credit and writing/plotting pay. A pity Lee was not called out enough on this - and let's not beat about the bush, his lies concerning the ASM #33 plot - before his old age and his passing-away.
The fact you bring up the Marvel position here really shows you know your stuff, along with Wood's inclusion. I really don't like hammering a dead man, but when you lie you lie and he did. And he stole. He stole the credit for countless creations from his talented artistic collaborators. I hate that it's true but it is. I think he could have just admitted he was responsible for molding them after their inception and been good but he made a conscious decision to snatch up as much credit as possible. A real shame not only for his legacy but also for those of us that simply want a factual and historically accurate answer to the question of who created these insanely popular and profitable characters.
I recently came to the conclusion that Stan Lee was a narcissist, in the clinical psychiatric sense. Symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder include exaggerated sense of self-importance, desire to live in a fantasy world, need for constant praise, tendency to belittle or bully others. As such an individual, Lee was never going to "break down and confess his sins" regarding departed talent or make any sort of attempt to mend fences with Marvel personnel who had issues with him. Lee's occasional claims of bewilderment re: the departures of Ditko and Kirby and whomever else -- that's nonsense. It's a simple way to escape any potential criticism and shut down further exploration of the topic -- and it's not as though Stan Lee was regularly interviewed by hard-charging investigative reporters who'd really try to pin him down on the details. His claiming credit for plot elements in ASM 33 or changing Daredevil's costume to red is more evidence that I'm correct -- rewriting history to one's own liking is par for the course for narcissists.
@@reprintranch I don't think it's just narcissism - as hard as that may be too believe. He was certainly an egomaniac as well and most certainly suffered from delusions of grandeur, but I do think, and this is only my supposition so take it with a grain of salt - that he was being paid to reinforce this idea for so long he began to suffer from BDP, or Borderline Personality Disorder. If you look at what became of Hunter S Thompson, the steady decline into his character of Raol Duke - this is what was expected of him, people were uninterested in Thompson, they wanted Duke - then I believe you begin to see what happened to Lee. He was obviously in constant need of attention, always had to be the center of admiration, etc, a lot of it does line up. BUT he DID try and set things right with Kirby and Ditko, at least in his pathetic little half assed way where he had an angle he was playing at. The Co-Creation letter was to try and smooth things over with Ditko and Roz always tells a story of Lee taking Kirby aside and them having a heart to heart where Lee kind of apologized as much as he ever was going to, and even got Kirby to agree to a last job for him and Marvel, Roz put the kibosh on that one and got in between them, but I do think Lee was trying to get the old band back together, though not for Marvel. It's my belief he wanted both to join him in his Stan Lee Media mess, or the company that directly followed once Media started suing everyone in sight and Lee parted ways with them. He's delusional though, in a very real sense. Watch that Ross piece, just check out the interview over and over. He's not lying. He's not covering, he's not even trying to be mean. He honestly BELIEVES he came up with the characters. He always craved attention, but it was only after the insane pressure he faced and I do think personal turmoil following the death of Joe Maneely that this become so pronounced. He may have crossed at some point into the territory of true narcissism, but with someone paying him to repeat that stuff, along with the role of Comic's Ambassador to the world that was thrust on him, I would put dollars to donuts it was a seriously wicked case of BPD. More evidence of this is his activities and even further change in personality following the loss of his child. Lee was I honestly believe, a sick man. He was responsible for some of the best and most important moments in comics, but unlike nearly every other person and entity corporate or otherwise to be involved with creating important and lasting creations in the field - Lee enjoyed the fruits of his labor and was adored the world round for people's perception of his work. I know it sounds f-ed up, but at a point I feel sorry for Lee. No one should be the singular face of a complete literary or hell any product - that has to be hard. Lee was comics to most people, inseparable and his ego was insatiable - this is a disastrous combination. Then enter Marvel paying him millions of dollars a year to just be the "face" of the company - but really the entire industry by that point, followed by Disney who had to have made it abundantly clear his story WOULD NOT CHANGE. I DOUBT he would have come off of it even without the acquisition, but I think that Disney certainly put an end to any hope we might have seen for an attempt of any kind of this sort of Lee's end. This all points to someone who yes has a self-centered and arrogant thought process, but it also fueled by others encouraging and paying him to maintain said thought processes and inflating his ego beyond belief, to the point, that in my opinion, he legit developed straight up BPD. Bad. There was a part of Lee you could see in interviews where he WANTED to so badly to be able to truly compliment and speak well of those he worked with, but just couldn't. He was too busy soaking it all up for himself and maintaining the story status quo for his corporate employers. That sort of empathy is something I don't associate with narcissists as much as I do people who have crossed straight over the line of narcissism due to mental illness and right into BPD (they're very closely related as I understand them, though I make no assertions to being a psychologist and would bow to better knowledge of the subject here).
PS - d*** good to read a comment from you, getting ready to e-mail you about the Krigstein piece tomorrow. Hit a health snag and worked on it a bit, hope all is well with you my friend and rant at you later... lord do I make long comments or WHAT?
Painful to hear, but just gotta. Thank you, Uncle Jerk.
This video was SO hard to make. I'm far from like an ardent Ditko fanatic. I think he was a person and had plenty of foibles, but I've grown so weary of people crapping on him because of well, Lee and the story that he was so instrumental in promoting and propagating. It would have been nice for him to just one time, just once, give someone else some credit. Nope. Couldn't do it. I just, I can't with that guy anymore. He was instrumental in the Marvel U in that he was it's voice. He gave people their names, he strung together narratives, but the fact he gets SOLE creator credit and all these kids running around today don't know who Jack and Steve are? Yeah, that kinda sticks in my craw. Glad you enjoyed this one as it was a real pain to work on. Tried not to get TOO overly biased and just go over the rails on this one, but stuff like the recent "documentary" about how the Ditko issues of this series suck and constant critiques of this man because of his personal politics and beliefs pisses me off to be quite frank. Was an extreme honor when Steve's nephew Mark shared this on his personal page and called it "essential viewing" for fans of his Uncle. Talked to him a few times and has really helped me come to terms and I think understand Ditko more than I would have ever imagined possible. I'd really like to get into more heavily researched stuff like this, but the cost of materials adds up QUICK on these man. This was a monster to pick up materials for. Hoping with the help of Patreon members and other support this year I can really dig into more stuff like this. Really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment as well btw - helps out the channel more than you know and really does put a big old smile on my face!
great work. Greetings
Maybe this will provide some perspective on the subject; whether this is actually true or I'm misremembering, I believe I read something once that mentioned Stan bringing his Spider-Man concept to someone with whom he collaborated more often than Ditko. Some guy by the name of Jack Kirby. But unlike the product of so many other collaborations between Lee and Kirby,Stan wasn't particularly crazy about Jack's interpretation of the character. And so he took the idea to Ditko, and was much more pleased with what he came up with. Which,of course,was the rough idea of Spider-Man as we know him today. Spider-Man's look is 100% Steve Ditko. That is certainly not nothing.
...... I'd love to see what Kirby's interpretation was, though.
Ditko drew the only known illustration of what "Kirby's" Spiderman (no hyphen) looked like. His suit came out of a ring, he had - well, let's be honest, he was basically Cap and a few other old Kirby and Simon characters - including a character for their failed Mainline imprint - Silver Spider. Logically speaking Kirby likely approached Stan with an idea to re-work another one of his older characters, as they had done with his work several times already, and Kirby really liked doing to cut down on the design work, and Stan either didn't like Kirby's Spiderman, or he didn't want to give Kirby any more power. I'm not sure if you're familiar with a man named Joe Maneely, but that would be the situation Lee was trying to avoid repeating by giving any one artist too much power. There are some people who claim this is the reason Lee completely cut Kirby out, but considering how acrimonious the relationship between Ditko and Lee already was (they had already been at each other's throats for years at Atlas) I think it's likely Lee didn't like the Cap inspired ring Kirby Spiderman and he passed off this idea to Ditko who took it and came back with what we know as Spider-Man. If you want to see Ditko's illustration I'm referring to you can easily Google it and I'm almost positive I used it at one point or another in this video.
Heh! Spiderman.
Have you ever seen that opening to an old episode of Friends? It originally aired prior to the release of Raimi's first film. It would make much less sense today.
Phoebe asks Chandler if it's pronounced Spider-Man or Spidermin,and Chandler replies with,"He's a Spider-MAN. Not Phil Spidermin from accounting."
Sorry. The lack of hyphen made me think of that. It still gets a chuckle out of me after all this time.
.......
I noticed watching this video that you're extremely well researched. This is backed up by all of the additional information in your comment. You are a true documentarian. Where do you find the energy or the patience!? I didn't know any of that. Lee and Ditko having problems well before....heh...Spiderman, Kirby's interpretation having a costume that came out of a ring..... none of that stuff. I wasn't even certain that what I said in my original comment was necessarily true.
Stan lie did not come up with the idea for spiderman.
He lies like his rug.
I personally happen to think Kirby pitched him on Silver Spider, Lee took note of a few other insect based characters, and then Ditko came up with what we know of as Spider-Man and Peter Parker on his own, with help on the webs from his then roommate. Lee DID however give Parker his voice as nothing in those comics was ever written by Ditko - Lee would never have allowed that - and Ditko and Lee hated each other they couldn't even be in the same room for Ditko to turn in his pages. A real shame Ditko never took Marvel to task like the Kirby estate did imo - then again, at this point - I just want the TRUTH. But we ain't never gonna get that while the House of Mouse is running the show for danged sure...
@@JerkComic Yes the silverspider story makes sense. And kirby admitted to stealing the idea. Stan lies story about a fly crawling up the wall, what a lying piece of, read Stuff Said.
Damn i missed this one.
I'm particularly proud of this and the Missing Marvel artwork episodes, spent a long time on them and they were real turning points for me investigating and learning about stuff.
@@JerkComic unc you have no idea how much you really put your love in it as you cant see from a fans point you really put alot of love in to your show im big into docs and its why i love the channel so much i will alway be thereto watch and like the episode man your good unc thank you so much.
@@johnaraya3761 Really appreciate it! I'm particularly proud of this and the Missing Marvel Art pieces I did for Ditko. They took a long time and a lot of effort, but they changed the way I investigated and researched stuff in a lot of really cool ways. Was a total bonus that Ditko's nephew popped in and complimented the video for sure! I love this stuff and I do try and pour all of that enthusiasm into the pieces so I'm glad you enjoy and pick up on that brother
Interesting video although I try not to get too emotionally involved in this topic. It quickly becomes a quagmire much like politics and religion do. Just found your channel, BTW.
I can see how it could become that. I definitely have a very clear way of how I see and perceive things, I'm glad I looked into it and did this piece and all the research. I'm not out to vilify anyone, I just wanna know what went down. I have a much clearer understanding of that having done this and I hope that without getting TOO mired down, you did as well. Ditko is infinitely fascinating because, I think as he would have wanted, people see him in black and white. I on the other hand see the world as a tapestry of grays so it's interesting to look at and analyze him without trying to get too preachy about any of it. Hope you liked this one and find some other stuff on the channel that interests you! Means a lot that you took the time to check this out and leave a comment especially, means a lot and helps out the channel more than you know.
Okay so while Stan taking credit for the plot might be a little much he still gets credit because of the dialogue put into the story the writing is just as important as the art but when it comes to creating it it takes both Stan came up with the character of Spider-Man and Steve came up with the look of Spider-Man you take Steve out then give it to someone else it doesn’t work no Spider-Man you take Stan out there’s nothing for Steve to draw no Spider-Man there done quit picking sides
The entire point is shared and equal credit. Sorry if this didn't come through but you take either man out of the equation and it doesn't work. And yes Lee deserves dialogue credit absolutely, but that's it outside of editing. He was notorious for collecting checks for writing he never did and it's well known this is one of the major things that caused Ditko and Lee to butt heads to begin with leading to Ditkos writing credits
How many years has this British dude been around? i watch him on Quiz shows like 9 out of 10 cats does countdown, etc.
Congratulations blowing right past 1000 followers, get yourself monetized brah!
Just got approval a few minute ago - still kind of aghast at what's happened the last few weeks. Never thought it would exponentially expand like this. Btw - definitely need to send you some monies to get you to do a better version of the Mummy for the logo and get that Maxx piece! Will drop you a line tomorrow, and thanks again for checking this out - can't wait ot do the Hate Off The Beaten Rack Episode btw!
@@JerkComic I know it was like 2 weeks ago I stumbled upon you and you had like 288 followers. and I was like this doesn't haven't enough followers jeez. Happy to see your channel blow up 7 fold.
Ditko should have had his pick of titles whenever, whatever.
He was too difficult to work with for that to have been a reality but skill wise? Hell yeah he should have. Still old of the best to ever do it.
What Ditko is saying about “The Flawed Hero” becoming society’s norm is happening now. Today’s comic heroes are now the villains
I think the 80s action films really sealed the deal on this one and it's not happening, it already happened. The rise of stuff like The Crow is proof positive of this - and on a more mainstream side, the rise of Wolverine (berserker Wolvie that is), Punisher, and then taking things to the next level with guys like Hitman and stuff. I'm not necessarily convinced that it's a bad thing however. I can not endorse the idealism of black and white/right and wrong. I don't feel as though I've earned a spot as a juror or an executioner, things are shades of grey to me - but I know Ditko took objectivism to a completely other level even compared to Ayn Rand and stuff. Respect Ditko so much and disagree with his ideology on a fundamental basis - it's been really hard squaring those two in my mind... Hope you enjoyed this btw, I totally crapped myself when Mark Ditko reposted this and called it "essential viewing for fans of [his] uncle"!
JerkComic I love Ditko but not a fan of his ideals. Life is more gray than it is black and white. I don’t have a problem with berserker wolverine or the punisher. Characters like those are needed for a more balanced story.
That’s my view, Ditko did not share that opinion though haha. I love his work but man was he a complicated dude
JerkComic yea great guy but too complicated to the point where he screwed himself out of large amounts of money
You have to wonder if Stan Lee consulted lawyers prior to publishing that letter. It certainly seems so. It also seems like Stan Lee is no better than Bob Kane. Bob Kane claimed sole creation to Batman and reaped all kinds of monetary benefits while never giving Bill Finger any credit. Bill Finger created everything that we now associate with Batman today. Check out Batman & Bill on Hulu it's a great documentary. Steve Ditko came up with much of what we associate with Spider-Man today. So yes he deserves just as much credit if not more for Spider-Man. I will concede that the idea originated with Stan Lee.
This is why I don't want to work at DC or Marvel.
These days are long gone - it's a whole new world of screwing with people you gotta look out for these days, IPs is where it's at and you aren't getting any of that on a scale that's feasible with Marvel or DC and I don't think you're alone. Keep making comics btw - we need more great work out there and thanks so much for checking this out means a lot and leaving a comment really helps out the channel a ton!
I believe Steve Ditko is not the Co-Creator Spider-Man. Stan Lee is correct if Ditko did not draw Spider-Man someone else would have. It was Stan Lee’s idea. If he never told Ditko about it he would have never have any conceptual idea about the character. Having an idea is everything. Should Jim Lee be considered Co-Creator of the X-Men? Should Todd MacFarlane be considered Co-Creator of Spider-Man? Sure artists tweak a costume and add things to the origin but that doesn’t make them Co-Creators. The same can be said about Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Even Joe Quasada said it was Stan Lee’s creation. I believe Lee only said he was Co-Creator because he was an ambassador to the industry and didn’t want to create controversy or others to see him as a villain.
Steve ditko was replaceable, sure...but Spider-Man wouldn't ever have been the Spider-Man we know without him.
That said, he stole his idea from a yellow spider web Halloween costume
Nah, you’re pretty wrong on this one, Jimmy Lee. Stan only had a base idea of creating a spider-powered superhero. He originally pitched the idea to Jack Kirby, who’s version was a super-powered adult. Stan felt that route was too much of a road well-travelled. He, then pitched to Steve. Steve came up with the suit, much of the origin, the cast, and whatever trappings that the character has built his foundation upon. He also plotted the first 38 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, plus Amazing Fantasy #15. Without Steve’s input, there would be no Peter Parker, Spider-Man , co-created by Stan Lee. Everything would have been different.
No, Jim shouldn’t be co-creator of the X-Men, but co-creator of Gambit, Omega Red, and whomever else during his run. Todd would be co-creator of Eddie Brock Venom, and any character he created or co-created during his run. The reason is that the characters were already created and established before they started their runs. However, they can create new characters, environments, and ideas during their runs and get credit for those. Joe Quesada can only say so much because he’s an employee at Marvel and doing any more wouldn’t be good for him or the company. The thing with Bill Finger, is that he came up with the origin, the costume, the city, the cast, the villains, and most of the trappings that came with Bruce Wayne. Without any of that, Bruce Wayne is just a guy in a red suit, with da Vinci wings a domino mask , no origin, no reasons or morals and no villains to fight or a city to protect.
Just shows that in one particular Ditko is wrong, sometimes our heroes are flawed. I have the famous Spider-man issue and it still blows me away. LEE helped a shy teenager to cope with the real world and gave me something to enjoy in my loneliness. It's a shame these two creators had their problems. Once again a great video essay on comics.
Fictional heroes should be flawless, not real individuals just to be clear. Ditko acknowledged we are only human and therefore prone to error and flaw, but this was one of the main reasons that he asserted fictionalized heroes should be flawless. I don't agree, but it was his belief. And Stan Lee most assuredly deserved credit for dialogue and some direction in some instances, but especially with Spider-Man if those original issues did it for you, that is pure Ditko. Lee had so little input on that title is is insane. Most of the other books are arguable, but not Spider-Man. Nothing about it screams anything but Ditko. I think if Lee had simply taken credit for what he actually did do his legacy would be much less in question. As it is, the better part of what he left behind are feuds and blatant half truths at best. He was a credit thief and I think it's a real shame he couldn't, or more accurately, wouldn't - come off credit for Ditko was a real shame. As a historian I'd just like to know the historical truth of the matter. Sadly, that was not to be and all we're left with are more questions than answers.
Glad you enjoyed and thanks for taking te time to comment!
Ditko was plotting the books.
I guess Stan should've been a better artist then there wouldn't even be a dispute.
Or if he had a script - wait, forgot he didn’t write those. Or he had a pitch - oh wait, forgot, he didn’t write THOSE. He is the only modern writer worth a hundredth of what he is that doesn’t have a single scrap of verifiable proof he created a single thing he claimed to have created. I think Lee knew he didn’t crate Spider-Man, or any of the original Marvel characters - that’s why his relationships with Ditko and Kirby got so ugly so quickly. A real shame as involved in some of the best comic runs in history and it would be really cool to know who actually did and created what...
@@JerkComic lol ..Love ya man!! Keep giving us more!!
The thing is they both have a point, no matter what side you take, the other side has a point. The reason why it drove Ditko crazy is because his worldview doesn't allow for both to be kind of right. Ditko believed everything had an ultimate right and wrong. And this situation drove Ditko to the edge of insanity.
But I see both sides. I mean I've given people co-creator credits on multiple IPs that I don't believe they deserved, but did it for civility's sake. And I've developed every aspect of an IP from nothing more than an eight word sentence and been denied a creator credit.
It happens.
It does kind of seem strange though, that Ditko never had anywhere near the success without Stan, but Stan seemed to have success with everyone he worked with.... I don't know. But I do think Ditko deserved a co-creator credit.
They definitely both have points, that was one of my major points here. I htink that ascribing anything to any ONE person in this situation is a little ridiculous. Though, given the Silver Spider and Kirby's likely pitching of an "insect character" this makes Lee even less responsible for the initial creation. He helped define the voice, the world and the "feel" of Spider-Man undeniably, it's just a real shame he had the view about "creation" that he did. I get what he's saying and Dikto would never have come up with Spiderman without Lee, but conversely - no one else could have ever come up with Spider-Man now with hyphen, other than Ditko who took the idea of an "insect superhero that could climb on walls" and turned it into what we saw in AF15. I think Ditko just wanted to take Lee down a peg, get him to finally admit that he didn't come up with EVERYTHING on his own. Just didn't work out like that, and Ditko's absolutist worldview that there had to be a yes no answer and black white/right and wrong deal to it all was never gonna play...
As per Lee's success with others - I think this is due to the fact he let the "others" do most of hte work and then put the finishing touches on it. The thing I believe Lee was greatest at was picking out the idea that would work well, the ONE that would sell and be remembered. Now it was other people who came up with them, but he did the choosin and the writing on them, that was his recipe for success.
Stan didn't have an appreciation for the artist. Something he couldn't do well..
He appreciated the work that he took credit for. He just didn’t feel the need to share the fact that anyone else had worked on a book apart from himself. A shameless credit hound for sure. Lee was never the same after Joe Maneely died though... I often wonder what their relationship was like as it sounds like they were much closer and he might be the reason Lee kept artists after his death at arms length for the rest of his life.
@@JerkComic Have you done a series on the comic villains creators and history?
For far too long Stan Lee took too much credit for everything that wasn't publicly owned by someone else. At the end of the day, most of what Lee did was edit the comics how he saw fit, and put in the dialogue and captions. I'm sure very early on that Lee came up with some of the bare basics of a new character, and maybe even some of the plots, but once Marvel got a whole stable of superhero comics going, Lee's workload was limited to just editing and making up dialogue and captions. Everything else was created by the penciler; be it Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, Sr., Wally Wood etc. I think that Lee was so desperate to make a name for himself for so long that once he did he accepted the spotlight fully and always said yes to any question asked of him whether he was involved in it or not.
Sometime in the mid-1960's there was an article written, I believe for a college newspaper, about Marvel and it primarily focused on Stan Lee. Now as Lee has told it, he tried to get the journalist to pay attention to Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko who he felt deserved all the attention, but when she (the journalist) tried to talk to Kirby and Ditko she found them both to be quite boorish and standoffish. In that article she dismisses them both, even going as far as to label Kirby as the type who should be a foreman in a girdle factory because of how he dressed when she tried to interview him. This, I believe, is the linchpin where things turned for the worse in Lee, Kirby, and Ditko's relationships.
Yeah, Marvel Method my butt... taking credit for other people's work is what I call that. That's the very article I reference actually, and it definitely was a turning point in Kirby and Lee's relationship. I think Ditko was ticked off, but Kirby took it too heart and stuff was never the same - because, we all know how hard it would be to believe that Lee didn't engineer his own self importance throughout the entirety of that piece and basically every one following it. I think Lee definitely helped to provide a unified voice for the early Marvel stuff, but when you joke about taking credit that's not nailed down, I don't know. I just think, maybe time to give up the ghost? Who cares? You're 100 years old. Do you really need to keep taking full credit for all this stuff? I think he honestly believed his own hype, especially after a certain point and had a vested interest in keeping the Lee-centric narrative alive not only for his own purposes, but to lend aid to Marvel fending off any pesky writers or artists that might try and claim credit for the work they had done. Sad state of affairs, but the Mouse has all the power in the world to make sure people still keep thinking like that for decades. Ditko was a man of uncompromising principals, whether I understand or agree with them, and therefore was bound to have a falling out with Lee. Ironically, my research into Bernard Krigstein has led me to some interesting thoughts and insight on the Ditko and Lee relationship and why it played out like it did.
Thanks so much for checking out the video, hope you dug it and really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment - really helps out the channel!
In all honesty, after reading as many of those old Marvel stories during the 1960's as I have, and reading Kirby and Ditko's work in the 1970's, I can firmly say that Stan Lee did write all the dialogue and captions in those comics. I've even seen some of Kirby's penciled art where he wrote dialogue on the sides, and it's clear as day that Kirby and Ditko both were super weak on dialogue. At heart Lee was a salesman and a fantastical storyteller. Sadly he had an ego as big as the sun too, and far too often believed his own hype. And to be honest, I think he didn't want to give up his credit towards the end because he was afraid that the Marvel owners would cut off his paycheck to be the Marvel brand ambassador, not to mention Marvel was probably pushing Lee to keep it up for fear that the estates of Kirby, Ditko, and others might sue and get the financial compensation the artists deserved along with co-creation credits, much like Bill Finger did with regards to the co-creation of Bob Kane.
I just think Bill Finger said f-it at some point, if he ever gave a crap. That story just brings tears to my eyes. God bless Steranko. I think you hit the nail on the hear about fear of being sued - Marvel got bigger and bigger, and then at the end the Mouse was having none of that. They would have rained fire on him from the heavens. But still, would have been awesome if he had just come off of it for say 30 seconds sometime. That Ross interview though, that was when I knew I would never get anything like that from Lee. It proves completely that he totally bought into the idea that all of those characters were his creation, and they weren't. You can argue up and down, but they're all co-creations at best. And his dialogue is the only REAL thing he left behind we know he did, and that's not because it's "well crafted prose" or anything haha.
@@JerkComic Oh some of it is cringeworthy, just look at the first issue of X-Men, but if you read those comics that Stan Lee takes credit for writing you can hear Lee's mannerisms. And if you compare it to the first Captain America story he wrote back in the 1940's, and it's all text by the way, and Simon said Lee wrote it, you can see it's written by the same man. There's a certain flow and an obsession with alliteration, which Lee routinely did with character names. i.e. Peter Parker. Ditko's dialogue is very stiff, very preachy, and very boring. He's a great artist, and a great plotter, but dialogue is his weak suit. Kirby too. His dialogue is especially clunky to read.
@@TheLoneMutant If Marvel had someone who could have written dialogue really well that got along with Lee well enough they would have made some truly great comics. Unfortunately, as you say Ditko was far to stiff and preachy, Kirby - well he was just to grandiose and obtuse, but Lee was just a hack writer. It's easy to pick his writing out, because it's like finding a ghost writer on a strip. You can smell the stink from a mile off, heh. I want to give Lee credit for some stuff... but then I remember, he doesn't need any and I probably shouldn't defend him. I just wish we culturally had an understanding of who actually did what with Spider-Man and Ditko was accorded more appropriate credit. Ugh so depressing....
Ya but no money was exchanged Stan is hustler. Billion dollar character creator gets no money. "Just do" gives nothing to Steve.
That's precisely the point of this. Ditko was owed, and now his heirs, a small fortune for this character and Lee tried to dance around this with fancy words. Obfuscation of history does not make it truth. A is a, or a is not a.
@@JerkComic Truth you write but do not forget Kirby and his contribution to Spider-Man has well nice video
Funny that Steve D. never brings up the fight that broke them up ultimately which was the identity of the Green Goblin. Ditko wanted the reveal to be a random dude and completely arbitrary. Stan wanted it to be someone the audience knew. This is just storytelling 101. Time has proven Stan right and always will. His approach has a payoff and emotional resonance. Steve's is like his attitude in general which seems to resent his audience with an almost distain and only wanted to please himself. If they went with his resolve of that long running mystery, that would've been one of the greatest letdowns and cautionary tales in comics history. Stan's instinct for story, structure and audience expectation is spot on. Ditko knows this too. Hence why he never brought the actual fight that broke them up ever again. Everything else he breaks down to minute details are just simantics. They both created Spiderman. Left to Ditko, Spiderman would've sputtered out at Amazing Fantasy 15 and been a footnote in a forgotten medium.
1) there is no imperical evidence that the Green Goblin fight was what lead to this, in fact, as far as I know - and having talked with Mark about dates, Ditko had decided he was done prior to this and no one, not even his family or friends ever knew the straw that broke the camel's back. THere's been a LOT of speculation over the years, but Ditko denied this, adn as far as I know - while he had some extreme view points and talked a lot of smack, he never lied. I'll take Ditko at his word on that one, he earned that I think.
2) as per his audience. Sadly, I believe that you're correct. Ditko grew increasingly despondent with the messages being taken from his work and who was actually reading his stuff. While this was most evident in the work he created for Spider-Man, Dr. Strange and the hippies who thought he was on psychedelics or making some grandiose statement about transcendentalism or something really irked him. As an objectivist I can see that eating at you. As for only wanting to please himself - I would argue this is the higher calling that almost all "great" artists follow. Now mind you, I'm not slamming on journeymen, I'm not calling people who follow orders idiots, but I do think that most of my favorite illustrators have thrown convention to the wind and run with what THEY thought was right, what THEY thought looked good. That's totally fine with me. When it becomes a problem working with other people because you are being difficult and refuse to draw a story, well, that's another story... having contempt for your fans is something most illustrators deal with whether they say it or not, it's the truth. Ditko just didn't care about the repercussions it could have on his career, and sadly, those he was working with either. I'm all for tossing yourself under the bus if you want, but don't drag other people along for the ride, you know?
3) Left to Kirby Spider-Man would have likely died in AF 15, left to Lee he would have likely folded - it was only by a chance of fate that the amazing Spider-Man survived, and even thrived. Much like Claremont and Byrne, they might have hated each other, and even loathed the others writing style, but it was only through Ditko's mind that Lee's concept was brought to life. But that's just this Jerk's opinion. It's all speculation at this point, haha!
Steve Ditko has claimed multiple times in his personal essays that he always planned for GG to be Norman Osborn. He even said he gave him and Harry distinctive haircuts so you remember them. Stan Lee mixed it up with Electro and Crime Master who DO have a "regular guy" reveal.
I’m pretty sure Stan Lee didn’t invent a single character.
I’m sure because Stan claimed to have been in the same city at the time Ditko created Spiderman he proclaimed that he, too, was the co-creator.
Just by being in the same state.
He legit says he wanted an "insect based character" that "walked on walls". That's it. That's what Lee thinks entitles him to SOLE creator credit on Spider-Man... and at least that's about a million times more than he came up with for a lot of the other characters that Kirby just brought in and dropped in his lap. Then again, there's a good chance that Spider-Man is based on the Silver Spider pitch from Kirby soooooo
@@JerkComic
It’s one of the great travesties of superhero/ comic book culture history. I’ve seen a couple documentaries from Kirby’s family who claimed Stan didn’t create a single character it was all Kirby, Ditko or others. I remember it was said Kirby showed his draft and outline of Spiderman and all Stan added was “how about we give him a red costume” because he wanted to take a popular concept from Superman.
You seen it in the Rob Liefeld comic artist greats where Rob sketches a DieHard and all Stan said was… “so this character has superhuman strength because he looks real tough?” “Could he fly?” “Oh okay so this is a collaboration you and I both created this character.” That’s the first time Rob stepped in and said “no have your lawyer call mine.”
Then Rob sketched the character Cross. You can hear Stan asking Rob to put some spikes on his shoulder pads. Then immediately… “so this is OUR character we both get credit for creating THIS character…” Rob again; “have your lawyers call mine, Stan.”
Very immature selfish grandiose ways of thinking.
When I was 7 or 8 my dad took me fishing and he caught this huge cat fish. Well. Because I alerted my dad that his pole was shaking but in my childlike mind… “I helped catch it” so therefore “I caught it.”
Wish there was a documentary exposing the lies of Stan Lee.
@BLASTER0913 yeah it helps when your uncle is the publisher and you're acting EIC and what you say goes as well. Lee undoubtedly contributed stuff and that take on Spider-man is a slight bit stilted as Ditko was the guy who came up with Spidey and we know him, the whole Silver Spider thing was a jumping off point for Lee who dumped it on Ditko who really ran with it just fyi. But I think your assessment of it being a very childish way of thinking is correct. If you watch that Ross interview its clear Lee really believes what he's saying. He's totally off his rocker but he's not "lying" anymore. The guy just did NOT get collaboration imho
Dammit you are doing the lords work. So much disinformation in the art world. Thanks for finding the truth.
I might not be am objectivist but I do try and look at things objectively as a good friend once said. Ditko was a man of unrivaled moral fortitude and I think punishing him and his work because it's not a popular view is a travesty. He had a lot of valid points and I think that there's no long ANY reason to keep up the charade that the Lee series of events even begins to approximate what ACTUALLY happened. I flipped wigs when his nephew called this essential viewing for fans of his uncle's. Highest compliment I could have gotten I think.
Good video, but I just can't stand Ayn Ran. She is a hypocrite through and through. Ditko clearly created Spider-Man, and is an awesome creator, but he also constantly shot himself in the foot with that stuff.
He worked comfortably for the rest of his life, well into his 90s so I guess more power to him. I will never claim to fully understand the code that he lived by and held others to but I can respect the fact he stuck to his guns. He knew what he believed and that level of conviction is one you rarely see. All that being said I'm not the biggest Rand fan and I can not even begin to think of the world in such terms so perhaps I'm ill suited to address the subject objectively.
Great topic! I've done research over the years.. listened to interviews etc. Here is what it comes down to IMO.
Lee approached Kirby first before Ditko to do the art for amazing fantasy 15.. according to Lee he didn't like Kirby's artwork on the pages he penciled.. implying that Stan had an image in his mind of what the character should look like and an origin story for the character at least. For the proof of this look no further then the published cover of AMF15.. it's Kirby's work not Ditko's.. Ditko drew an unpublished version of the cover (Kirby's was better). My thinking is that Lee scripted the original story and most likely the first dozen issues or so.. to a point where (as he was spread thin between a growing line of successful titles) he realized that certain artists like Ditko and Kirby could work independently with minimum plot input from himself and he would simply dialogue and caption a story based on the art (not an easy task either if you think about it creating a story based on pictures without knowing what the artist was thinking) but more importantly keeping the personality, the wisecracks, all the quintessential traits that embody and define the Peter Parker and Spiderman characters as we know them consistent.. which is truly what makes them who and what they are.
It can surely and probably successfully be argued that later issues in the run and many characters and villains were created by Ditko and fleshed out by Lee (rather then the other way around). It can possibly also be argued that Ditko is the writer of later issues in his ASM run.
However Stan Lee created Spiderman.. that doesn't mean that he wrote or plotted every story in the whole run of the book... The creation of the Character is the first appearance of the character: AMF15.. nothing else after that single issue matters as to the answer of "who created Spiderman?" ... Only who wrote, conceived, captioned, and dialogued AMF15 matters as to answer the question of Spiderman's creator. The answer is clearly Stan Lee.. his idea, his choice of a teenage not an adult for the hero, his dialogue, his words that are the core of the character.. power and responsibility.. Spiderman has changed visually over the years through different costumes and artists but the character core is Stan Lee's work and therefore he created it.
I Love Ditko but fact is fact.
Let me preface this info dump by saying I've spent years researching this. Not an easy thing for me to try and break down but I'll do my best to further illustrate my beliefs. Let me secondly state that while I do disagree with you I don't mean this in an argumentative or aggressive way. Your thought process is diametrically opposed to mine - I feel like I probably see things fundamentally differently than you do. So that being said, here we go...
In Stan Lee's OWN WORDS, he said he had the idea for a insect superhero that could crawl on a wall. That's it. Nothing more - nothing less, and he said it a LOT. This doesn't just imply that he didn't know what the character would look like, it means that by his own admission he had no idea. Kirby's original version of the Spiderman (no hyphen) character had his suit pop out of a ring that he wore and even carried a gun. He sported boots and a costume more than reminiscent of Captain America (check out Ditko's illustration showing the differences between their versions of Spider-Man) and Lee knew enough to know he didn't like that. As for any claims that Lee "scripted" issues I don't buy it for one second. He is so famous for creating so many things and yet, he never wrote anything down? NONE of it survived? Not a plot, or a pitch - not a memo note to himself, nothing. Lee was extraordinarily good at a few things but taking credit was undoubtedly the best. Lee never claimed to have come up with Spider-Man's look, check out the Ross interview and listen to his wording, he had an idea. He might have known he didn't like Ditko's version of the cover - but Ditko wasn't told how or given any instruction on how to draw Spider-Man, that was totally up to him, as per the "Marvel Method". I'm not going to derail here and start attacking or debasing dead men, that is not my intention - but Steve Ditko had help from his buddy who suggested adding the webbing to Spider-Man's costume as he worked on the design, that is just simply more evidence that Ditko was given zero input on what Spider-Man SHOULD look like. As for your assumption about the AM15 cover and how that relates to the "creation" of Spider-Man I do not understand what you're talking about. If Lee liked Kirby's version better, and he had done the 4 page pitch why not use that? His version was "better", no? (which for the record I vehemently disagree with) Makes no sense, none. If however, Ditko turned in the story and Lee thought, well Kirby could probably do a better job with this cover - and THEN brought in Jack well, that adds up. That in no way equates to Lee "knowing what Spider-Man should look like". Lee is many,many things but he's not an artist - he left that up to far more talented people and wasn't stupid enough to mess with that. Lee knew what he DIDN'T like, but that again doesn't prove anything. Even if Ditko came in 20 times with revised character designs, which was not happening as they stopped talking loooong before that and didn't even see each other even before Ditko went to bat about more credit for the title, and Lee said - Nope, don't like the cape. That doesn't mean Lee was like, "Well I envision him in a red and blue spandex suit from head to toe with webs all over it". That never happened. That's fantasy land man. No one has sole ownership claim to Spider-Man in my opinion. Lee and Ditko are co-creators of Spider-Man, that's just fair. I think the wild card in this situation in all honesty is Jack Kirby. How does he fit in? Did he give the "insect superhero" idea to Lee? If so, Lee didn't come up with squat - nadda, nothing. That's a rather dubious prospect. Ditko on the other hand never sought monetary compensation or ownership of the character and was seemingly motivated by no other factor to set the record straight about Spider-Man than he saw Lee as a con-man and a thief. And so did Jack Kirby, and Roz... I mean, the guys he built his career on all ended up salty with Lee. I personally don't think that's coincidence. Lee most certainly wrote the dialogue for those issues, and I won't dispute that reverse engineering a story from art is skillful, but that doesn't mean he wrote a thing for those books. If the artist went off and made it and then gave him something he interpreted with the help of their notes and stuff, he should have gotten a scripting or maybe co-plotting credit. Not sole writer credit, that makes no sense. Stan Lee gets too much credit from some and not enough from others. I can not firmly support the idea that the Marvel creations were solely those of Lee, Ditko or Kirby separately but that together Lee and Ditko and Lee and Kirby were capable of truly amazing things together. Ditko never came up with another smash apart from Lee like Spider-Man, nor did Kirby achieve the success of Fantastic Four elsewhere anywhere in his career. Neither did Lee. He was not a creator, I'm sorry but he just wasn't. He needed talented artists and other help to bounce ideas off of and they needed him. That sounds like a symbiotic relationship to me, or that of co-creators...
This is all my own personal supposition from nearly a decade and a half of chasing stories, talking to anyone involved and reading anything I can get my hands on - but it's just an opinion and you know what they say about opinions right? They're like butts, we all got one and they all stink!
@@JerkComic There is a lot to unpack here.. firstly I don't consider your message to be an info dump but rather an expression of your thoughts and I respect that and enjoy hearing them.
The argument is not whether or not Stan Lee was a good person, a fair boss, or even monetarily Fair to the artists.. The answer to all 3 could be NO.
The issue is creation of a character.. For that we have to first look at what makes a character a character. You are from what I'm grasping from your statements arguing that visual medium (art) is what makes a character. I disagree. I think art enhances a charater and without question Steve Ditko's art enhanced Spiderman. He was the perfect artist to illustrate the charater.
An example would be that Gene Roddenberry is the creator of Star Trek.. however he didn't build the sets, make the costumes or even write every episode of the series..but the idea and concepts were his and he is therefore the creator.
As to the visuals.. the drawing that you are referring to was a pencil drawing after the fact done by Ditko in an attempt to illustrate what he says was Kirby's work vs his on Spiderman's visual concept. We have to take Ditko at his word I presume since there are NO pencils done by Kirby resembling that anywhere that I have been able to find. Either way though there is an argument that the costume visuals for Spiderman may have been inspired by a holloween costume that started market production in the 50's and ran into the 70's called the Spiderman. Ditko and Kirby both would have seen the costume as it was displayed in window stores near Marvel's offices seasonally for almost a decade prior to AMF15. Other contributing factors are pulp mags from the 30's depicting a character called the Spider and another pulp that slips my mind at this time.
Lee stated that he gave the assignment to Kirby first prior to Ditko being involved.. He then rejected Kirby's work because the character was meant to be a teenager and Kirby's art was too heroic and mature for Stan's idea. (Again look at the cover of AMF15.. Spiderman looks much more like that of an adult stature and broad-shouldered hero... not what Stan wanted.
As to the name Spiderman.. Lee was a wordsmith he knew what sounded good and what didn't.. he wanted an insect based character and went down the list until it had the sound he liked.
As to the "scripts" for original stories I'm sure they were given to the artists and much like the original art turned into Marvel by those artists, tossed into the garbage once they were used. If there was no value perceived for original artwork at that time do you really think that Stans plots for issues had value to anyone after they were executed?
Daredevil is an era based example of prose vs visuals interms of character creation.. Daredevil's costume was yellow and red for the first several issues then changed (possibly by John Romita Sr.. I could be wrong don't quote me) to the red costume that everyone knows... but the character didn't change because of the visuals.. he was still Matt Murdock, blind lawyer etc..:Stan's concept.
All creation starts as an idea.. hence if you can conceive it you can achieve it. The person with the concept/idea is the creator... the aesthetic refinement is enhancement. Stan Lee created Spiderman.
@@justafanmarvel9669 Suppose that Stan Lee goes on a tour of a research hospital. While he's there he meets an oncologist who's trying to cure cancer. Stan says, "say, you really ought to try harnessing the body's own natural defenses to identify and destroy cancerous cells, that seems like a sure winner!" The oncologist replies, "we're actually pursuing that very concept and have begun clinical trials on human patients, using an experimental drug built on that concept. So far, the results have been very encouraging." Question: At this point, can Stan Lee say, "I cured cancer"?
@@reprintranch at that point can anyone? As cancer had not been cured.
Very bad analogy!
A better way to look at it would be if Stan Lee had an idea for a new kind of cookie and he sat down and wrote a list of ingredients and a desired shape and texture for the finished product... He then hads it to a baker and says this is a recipe for a new kind of cookie I thought up... I'd like you to take these ingredients and bake them for me. I'll taste them when you are done and let you know what changes I need you to make until I get the cookie I want.
I would say that Stan in that case could state that he created a new cookie.. even though he didn't mix and bake the ingredients he directed the person with baking experience to build what he designed.
@@justafanmarvel9669 Hey, wait a minute -- does this cookie exist? If not, isn't your analogy fatally flawed, by your own standard?
But I'll play along -- sure, if Stan Lee had indeed developed the cookie concept to such a high degree that he had written up a list of ingredients and a description concerning the shape and texture of the finished product, then perhaps he really did create the cookie, and the baker made no contribution apart from physically preparing the recipe Stan provided. Do you really think this situation is a realistic representation of Stan's interaction with Steve Ditko vis a vis creation of Spider-Man? If so, why do you suppose that neither Stan Lee nor Steve Ditko ever asserted that there'd been a situation comparable to the one you've described, as in "Stan provided a well-thought-out set of notes for Steve to follow, which included sketches/descriptions of Peter Parker, Spider-Man, Aunt May, Uncle Ben, the burglar, Peter's classmates, the way Spider-Man would move while in action, the sorts of perspectives to be used in the panels, general info about the amount of background detail to use, etc."?
Most likely, we've never heard those assertions because they were never made. By his own account, Stan Lee had a notion for a comic-art character that existed only in his imagination, and he enlisted Steve Ditko to give the character visual form. Considering that Stan Lee never stopped asserting that spider are insects -- which is scientifically inaccurate -- I'm reluctant to ascribe much forethought to him regarding the exact nature of Spider-Man's powers and their limitations. (In the scientific discipline known as taxonomy, spiders are members of class Arachnida whereas insects are members of class Insecta, both of which fall under the broader classification of phylum Arthropoda, the arthropods.)
I will cede one point to Stan Lee -- I believe that he came up with the fundamental idea "super-hero with the powers of a spider" before Ditko made any contributions to the character. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Heck, I'm not sure I've ever seen a Stan Lee quote where he asserted it was his idea that Peter Parker would bitten by a radioactive spider.
If Stan Lee wanted to be known as "the guy who thought up the basic idea for Spider-Man," sure, I'll give him that one. If he wanted to be known as "the guy who created Spider-Man," I'll call him co-creator, because in my mind the term "created Spider-Man" carries the implicit assumption, "created Spider-Man as we have come to know him," a distinction that means we have to consider the entire, finished comic books that introduced the world to Spider-Man -- at least the first couple years' worth of ASM, not just the 11-page origin story from AF #15. In my opinion, what Stan Lee really wanted is to be considered "the guy who created Spider-Man and is responsible for Spider-Man being such an important pop-culture figure," and he most assuredly does NOT deserve this status alone. I'd be arguing for Artie Simek as a co-creator before I'd cede that one, ha ha.
Best wishes on this, the first of the "Twelve Days of Kirby." I hope your celebrations are enjoyable.
Soulja boy tell 'em.
The voodoo that I do do. Thanks for the kind words and checking out the video hope you dug it and I super appreciate you taking time to leave a comment helps out the channel immensely
I've always thought that Lee was shady when i got into this comic thing. im from the manga side of things good stuff
Lee was definitely shady but not 'evil' like a lot of people like to make out. He was a shady businessman lots of them. Manga was always awesome until I found out about all the unnamed guys that do so much of the work you see on the page that literally get and ask for NO credit. That's always seemed really weird to me - need to get more into manga for sure though, one of my big blind spots!
A topic I knew virtually nothing about before this video. Very informative. I enjoyed it greatly. Keep up the good work.
Awesome, thank you!