Kirby vs Marvel

[johnmiic]

What this all boils down to is: Why was Kirby left out? Wasit MARVEL's fault alone or did Stan Lee play some part in this? In Evanier's book KIRBY: King of Comics he recounts, more than once, how Stan always was out there doing inteviews, ratcheting up his own hype, not usually giving any credit to Jack Kirby. It wouldn't have taken much effort to credit Kirby for his contributions.

When Goodman sold MARVEL, Stan was in a position to correct the lack of credit Kirby should have got-but repeatedly said he had no power to do so. All the while he was being praised as a genius for the comics he allegedly created. Stan still has the power to correct this but again he is keeping the glory-and the money for himself.

Also where merchandising is concerned it is the art-not the words-which are moneymakers. Kirby's designs for the FF and Spider-Man and countless other heroes were aped for cartoons, toys, halloween costumes, and endless other products. Jack really never saw a dime from any of this stuff. He was so broken up about it he couldn't enter a toy-store without getting upset, (also recounted in Evanier's book). Yet when every big-budget film comes out it is Stan Lee who receives million-dollar paychecks. When Captain America premires will it say Created by Stan Lee? That would be an all-out lie but not unexpected. Lee was trying to claim he created Captain America in the 1970's when is was really Simon & Kirby.

Interesting to note is I saw Richard Arnold at a convention many years ago had a long list of complaints against Stan Lee. According to him Stan seemed to follow quite a bit of what Arnold would write in Doom Patrol and use it for X-Men. Sadly Arnold passed away a few years back.

[PNGwynne]

Lee was trying to claim he created Captain America in the 1970's when is was really Simon & Kirby.

Interesting to note is I saw Richard Arnold at a convention many years ago had a long list of complaints against Stan Lee. According to him Stan seemed to follow quite a bit of what Arnold would write in Doom Patrol and use it for X-Men. Sadly Arnold passed away a few years back.

Didn't Marvel settle simon & Kirby about Cap? It would be tragic if they received no credit on the film.

Regarding Doom Patrol: The X-Men's success as a result of industrial espionage is one of the saddest in comicdom. For me, DP was just as revolutionary in characterization & art as the so-called "Marvel Method."

[hedrap]

Brazoo - First off, if my tone comes across combative, it's not meant to be. So please don't take anything as personally directed.

I think Evanier's view is fairly balanced - and he even restated that a Goodman/Liebowitz (not Schwartz) conversation is what made Goodman decide to try a superhero team in his testimony. So, I do think you missed that.

You're right about Liebowitz. It was late and when I think of Silver DC, Schwartz is always the first name.

As for Evanier

Q: Go back. Do you agree with Mr. Lee’s statements that the Fantastic Four, at least in part, came about as a result of discussions that Mr. Lee had with Mr. Goodman in connection with the idea of coming up with a group of superheroes?

MARK EVANIER: My understanding is that Mr. Goodman said to Mr. Lee, “I see DC Comics has some very decent sales on what is called the Justice League of America. We should try a comic like that.”

Mr. Lee, in many interviews, said as I related, that Mr. Goodman had played golf with Jack Leibowitz, who was the head of DC Comics at the time, and that Leibowitz had bragged about the sales of Justice League, and that that prompted Mr. Goodman to come back from the golf game and say, “We should – we should create a comic like that.”

Mr. Lee has told this story on many occasions. Mr. Leibowitz, when he was interviewed, said he never played golf with Goodman in his entire life. So based on that, I tend to disbelieve at least that part of Mr. Lee’s story.

Q: So you think Lee is just lying about it?

MARK EVANIER: No, I think he just is being casual about the record.

Has Evanier ever asked Stan about this? If so, why doesn't he mention the response? If not, why not, especially if you're going refer to it, as Evanier has over the years, as a way to discredit someone. His intent was to imply Stan can't be trusted but couch it in passive-aggressive speak.

As for the wife pep talk, I see where you're coming from. It can sound like a reply from Stan's Soapbox. You're right about the comfort factor of working for Goodman, but it's always read to me as Timely/Atlas could close any given month, hence the constant name change to find loopholes. I think the embellishment is if Stan emphasizes he was leaving right after FF1 and only a blockbuster would keep him around. I think a modest success would have kept him lingering, but a flat-out bomb probably would have closed the company.

...if anyone created the situation of fans choosing "sides" between Lee and Kirby, it was Lee due to his public persona as the 'mind behind Marvel'.

That's true. When you're hanging out at Playboy Mansion dressed like a Plaid Stallion, you're looking for celebrity status.

My view is that Jack had a roll in the creation of these characters and stories that was undervalued - both creatively and financially. I believe that Marvel was unfair with him in many respects. Legally, this view was supported as well - and that's the main point of this whole thread.

That's where we differ. He did have a sizable creative role and everybody was undervalued at that time and had been since Siegel and Shuster, but that doesn't make Stan, Bob Kane. Stan's gone to bat for the Kirby Estate on a number of occasions, especially during the latest film boom. I know for Ang Lee's Hulk, Universal wanted to leave both of them off the credit role. Stan fought it and they originally acquiesced to him alone, but he said both or nothing. Film credits equal hard dollars so that was money to the Kirby's.

Your references to Kirby's recollections about Asgardian's being alien instead of actual gods is hard to judge...

It's really only come to light recently due to the film. It's being used as an excuse by Feige and writers as to why Thor is now the Connor Macleod for Marvel Films. They're claiming that was always what Kirby intended and Evanier has provided the reality; it was a retcon idea of Kirby's that Marvel didn't want to pay for and became the New Gods.

I think Lee was a creative component in creating Marvel - but I think his public persona makes him less likable. His "company man" attitude and poor creative track record after he served as editor-in-chief are the main reasons why his point of view is tainted for me. I also have the view that Stan Lee was primarily an editor, and often unfairly misused his position and mis-credited himself as a "writer" on many stories he didn't actually write, in any conventional sense that would fit with standards of that time.

Stan's post-EIC work does expose his reliance on others, no question, but the "feet of clay" characterizations are something I haven't found in Kirby's pre-FF work. You sees signs of it in the Atlas books, but Stan was involved with those, too. I think you had this combo of where Jack could present cinema and TV visually and thought that was all one needed to express a character's emotion, and Stan saw it as dialogue or soliloquies. Together, they were able to create a story by skipping the first step of physically plotting. At most, the outline would resemble a theater play instead of a conventional film/TV script, and that was what Kirby wanted. Unless it was Simon, he was not a fan of being directed by others, which only became more overt with time.

[samurainoir]

It doesn't mean he was screwed out of ownership, it means he was screwed by bad freelance contracts as was everybody at the time.

My understanding is that those same bad freelance contracts that screwed everybody at the time is the crux of these lawsuits against Marvel and DC. They refer to the practice of having the contracts on the back of the cheque, and I'm sure those kind of contracts are hardly as airtight as they are now in our culture of over-lawyering. Given what everyone has said over the years (and these recent series of reclamations by creators), it's really doubtful that there is a totally reliable cut-and-dried paper-trail, especially if we are talking about a Golden Age character like Captain America.

The concept of Work For Hire as Creative Authorship assigned to the Corporate Entity was not well defined until the seventies. Couple that with the revisions to copyright laws that have extended the dates where a creation falls into public domain and you have a situation where the Original Creators can reclaim their creations that would have otherwise fallen into public domain as per their original agreement.

It would be really very interesting to read Kirby's transcript where he testified on behalf of Marvel AGAINST Joe Simon when Simon attempted to reclaim Captain America during the copyright extensions of the seventies.

At the end of the day, depending on what Kirby said back then, I'm afraid that this is what is going to doom this attempt, or at best cause them to take a settlement out of court (as Simon did in the most recent copyright extensions).


Keep in mind that Stan and Marvel are not necessarily synonymous here... Stan himself felt he was screwed by Goldman when the company was sold to Cadence in the seventies. The difference being that Stan the self-promoter (or more likely his Hollywood lawyers/agents) over the subsequent years had managed to negotiate better contracts, so that when he was finally released by Marvel in the insanity of the nineties, he launched a lawsuit for Millions (I believe this one was settled by Marvel as well).

[samurainoir]

Given where this conversation is heading (we've been here many time before on this forum), I should refer you guys to Work For Hire (established in 1976... years AFTER the main Kirby creations).
Work for hire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note that they separate Copyright from Moral Rights... Kirby's credit in the Hulk films are Moral Rights (as were Siegel and Shusters' in the Superman movie and their return to the credits in the comic book in the seventies).

It's very well documented that Superman was created by Seigel and Shuster first, and and then sold to DC/National. Which is why Warners has to back up the money truck to hold onto Superman. There is no way that Superman was originally Work For Hire.

I have no knowledge of what Kirby signed in the seventies in terms of contacts with Marvel, but even within that context, here is how the concept of Work For Hire works...

Stan was a salaried employee of Marvel. Thus his contribution to the creative work is considered Work For Hire and owned by the company. Now the question that the courts are dealing with now is whether or not Kirby's contribution to the creative work was Work For Hire or not. Kirby was a freelancer and received a page rate. Which is why Evanier and the other witnesses are grilled repeated on the process. The fact that Kirby can bring pages in that can be rejected and NOT paid for by Marvel is pretty crucial here.

[samurainoir]

Didn't Marvel settle simon & Kirby about Cap? It would be tragic if they received no credit on the film.

They definitely settled with Simon in his most recent reclamation, after he lost due to Kirby's testimony in the seventies attempt. The really sad part here is that Kirby seemed to have no idea that as co-creator, he would have been entitled his share of whatever Simon was able to reclaim from Marvel.

Goodman promised (verbally) to pay Kirby whatever he would have had to otherwise shell out to Simon if he won the lawsuit, if he testified on Marvel's behalf. Goodman of course never followed through with his end of that bargain.

In retrospect it really seems like Kirby was cutting off his own nose to spite the face. At the time and context, you have to understand that Marvel was his livelihood for more than the past decade, coupled by what appeared to be some kind of betrayal by his former partner, Simon.

[Brazoo]

Brazoo - First off, if my tone comes across combative, it's not meant to be. So please don't take anything as personally directed.

You don't really sound combative - "romantic blindness" is an ad hominem argument weather it was directed at me or not - but don't worry about it. I'm not personally offended and I love talking about this stuff.

As a side note: ctc (Don) would probably have some interesting input here too - but I haven't seen him around lately.

You're right about Liebowitz. It was late and when I think of Silver DC, Schwartz is always the first name.

I wasn't really trying to catch you making a mistake or anything - my point was just that this conversation was between the 2 publishers, and Schwartz was an editor, so I just wanted to clarify.

As for Evanier



Has Evanier ever asked Stan about this? If so, why doesn't he mention the response? If not, why not, especially if you're going refer to it, as Evanier has over the years, as a way to discredit someone. His intent was to imply Stan can't be trusted but couch it in passive-aggressive speak.

I think you're reading this a bit wrong - Evanier is critical of Lee, but I do think he respects Lee. I think that's why he's very carefully NOT calling Lee a liar, even though he doesn't believe Lee's point of view in this point of Lee's story. He's had MANY conversations with Lee - and talks about that in the deposition as well.

In any case, Lee was not privy to conversations between Goodman and Leibowitz - but Leibowitz was - and he disagreed that it happened. It at least casts doubt on the story.

That's where we differ. He did have a sizable creative role and everybody was undervalued at that time and had been since Siegel and Shuster, but that doesn't make Stan, Bob Kane. Stan's gone to bat for the Kirby Estate on a number of occasions, especially during the latest film boom.

I'm not comparing Lee to Bob Kane at all! Though, your example of Bob Kane does prove that publishers did have other types of legal binding contracts with creators - other than the one's Marvel insists were standard.

I think that unlike Kane, Lee was an active creative contributor to Marvel comics - usually as an editor and a "scripter" (a credit Lee invented, but only used when he didn't "script" books). There's no question that Lee contributed to the outlines of a lot of stories - there's also no question that Kirby wrote a lot of story plots on his own and didn't receive writer credit.

In any case, that's not the main issue - you either believe that Kirby was a hired illustrator, illustrating Marvel's creations - or a co-creator.

Again, this is really about Marvel v. Kirby and the legal interpretation of copyright and "work-for-hire" concept that was established after the 60s. Samurainoir posted a lot of the legal information of the case already.

As I understand it:
The creator of any given work is the copyright owner - unless they sell or transfer the copyright - and this is about whether or not that sale or transfer was legally established at that time.

Marvel says it was, because they say Kirby was paid on a "work-for-hire" basis, which automatically transferred copyrights of anything he did to them. The lack of a contract showing that makes it less straight forward - so Marvel is trying to establish that it was understood that Kirby created characters as a standard part of his piece-work salary, but if that's the case then why was Marvel able to reject pages he handed in? Why was he able to create characters they rejected and didn't pay for? Either he was "work-for-hire" or he wasn't.

In my opinion, by the late 80s Marvel should have been paying Kirby a healthy pension and a taste of royalties, and they would have avoided this whole mess.

I know for Ang Lee's Hulk, Universal wanted to leave both of them off the credit role. Stan fought it and they originally acquiesced to him alone, but he said both or nothing. Film credits equal hard dollars so that was money to the Kirby's.

I really don't know about the specifics of that, but I have no reason to doubt it. I'm not questioning Lee's motives for doing it - but if he DID receive soul credit I think he knew the fans would flip out on him.

It's really only come to light recently due to the film. It's being used as an excuse by Feige and writers as to why Thor is now the Connor Macleod for Marvel Films. They're claiming that was always what Kirby intended and Evanier has provided the reality; it was a retcon idea of Kirby's that Marvel didn't want to pay for and became the New Gods.

Well, gain, I'm not sure about the Thor thing, I haven't followed it. But I believe that the fact that Marvel rejected Kirby's creations is actually evidence that contradicts the "work-for-hire" model, as I understand it at least.

Stan's post-EIC work does expose his reliance on others, no question, but the "feet of clay" characterizations are something I haven't found in Kirby's pre-FF work. You sees signs of it in the Atlas books, but Stan was involved with those, too. I think you had this combo of where Jack could present cinema and TV visually and thought that was all one needed to express a character's emotion, and Stan saw it as dialogue or soliloquies. Together, they were able to create a story by skipping the first step of physically plotting. At most, the outline would resemble a theater play instead of a conventional film/TV script, and that was what Kirby wanted. Unless it was Simon, he was not a fan of being directed by others, which only became more overt with time.

I agree - I think Lee probably contributed to the "feet of clay" characterizations more than Kirby did - as a basic concept. But I don't think that's the most important part of Marvel's success - and I don't think that means Kirby was less of a contributor than Lee was.

[Brazoo]

Keep in mind that Stan and Marvel are not necessarily synonymous here... Stan himself felt he was screwed by Goldman when the company was sold to Cadence in the seventies. The difference being that Stan the self-promoter (or more likely his Hollywood lawyers/agents) over the subsequent years had managed to negotiate better contracts, so that when he was finally released by Marvel in the insanity of the nineties, he launched a lawsuit for Millions (I believe this one was settled by Marvel as well).

Yeah - This is why I'm sorry to have brought up any Lee/Kirby stuff in the first place. Though, Lee is towing the company line in his deposition.

[ctc]

>ctc (Don) would probably have some interesting input here too - but I haven't seen him around lately

....that’s because he’s RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!! AAAHHHH!!!!!!AAAHHHH!!!!

Actually, I was kinda waiting to see where the thread went. We had a big debate over Stan not too long ago and I think a lot of that still applies.

>My view is that Jack had a roll in the creation of these characters and stories that was undervalued - both creatively and financially. I believe that Marvel was unfair with him in many respects. Legally, this view was supported as well - and that's the main point of this whole thread.

Hmmmm.... there’s a lot going on in that bit. I think a key point that gets neglected in debates like this is how the comics were seen by the publishers, creators, and public. Back in the day, comics were seen as a sort of disposable entertainment: you read them, got on with your life, read the new issue next month, etc. That view was pretty universal for all involved. To that end, the writers and artists were often given crummy deals ‘cos nobody saw the products of things of worth, or more correctly of lasting value. (Not that I AGREE with this, but comics were relegated to newspaper strips’ poorer cousins by the 40's.) Nobody questioned it ‘cos it was “just comics.”

But things changed in the 60's. Comics became “pop art” and developed a large bodies of COMIC fans. (As opposed to normal folks who just read them.) Fans who kept up on the background details, long term histories, etc. That attitude changed things for Marvel and DC (not so much other companies ‘cos they didn’t have the same kind of following) but there was still sufficient remnants of the old ways. When the marketing boom rolled around in the 70's, the idea of how much money these characters and books were worth became a real issue; and you started having a lot of attention paid to who’s responsible for what, and who deserves what, etc. The problem was to sift through 30 years of work, and apply a completely different attitude to them than the one under which they were made.

The Evanier testimony shows some of this, as well as the difficulty parsing it out years later. You can see the lag-time in attitude in the descriptions of how finished pages would be rejected; and even though Kirby would end up drawing 24+ pages for a story, he’d only get paid for the 20 used.

Don C.

[Brazoo]

>ctc (Don) would probably have some interesting input here too - but I haven't seen him around lately

....that’s because he’s RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!! AAAHHHH!!!!!!AAAHHHH!!!!

GAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, I was kinda waiting to see where the thread went. We had a big debate over Stan not too long ago and I think a lot of that still applies.

Yeah - I was actually enjoying that debate before the thread got locked down! I guess the thread got a little ugly (not between you and me).

>My view is that Jack had a roll in the creation of these characters and stories that was undervalued - both creatively and financially. I believe that Marvel was unfair with him in many respects. Legally, this view was supported as well - and that's the main point of this whole thread.

Hmmmm.... there’s a lot going on in that bit. I think a key point that gets neglected in debates like this is how the comics were seen by the publishers, creators, and public. Back in the day, comics were seen as a sort of disposable entertainment: you read them, got on with your life, read the new issue next month, etc. That view was pretty universal for all involved. To that end, the writers and artists were often given crummy deals ‘cos nobody saw the products of things of worth, or more correctly of lasting value. (Not that I AGREE with this, but comics were relegated to newspaper strips’ poorer cousins by the 40's.) Nobody questioned it ‘cos it was “just comics.”

But things changed in the 60's. Comics became “pop art” and developed a large bodies of COMIC fans. (As opposed to normal folks who just read them.) Fans who kept up on the background details, long term histories, etc. That attitude changed things for Marvel and DC (not so much other companies ‘cos they didn’t have the same kind of following) but there was still sufficient remnants of the old ways. When the marketing boom rolled around in the 70's, the idea of how much money these characters and books were worth became a real issue; and you started having a lot of attention paid to who’s responsible for what, and who deserves what, etc. The problem was to sift through 30 years of work, and apply a completely different attitude to them than the one under which they were made.

The Evanier testimony shows some of this, as well as the difficulty parsing it out years later. You can see the lag-time in attitude in the descriptions of how finished pages would be rejected; and even though Kirby would end up drawing 24+ pages for a story, he’d only get paid for the 20 used.

Don C.

Reading what I wrote again I guess I was being unclear about what I was saying. I tend to leave off parts of my points sometimes when I get embarrassed about how big my posts are getting! When I said "Legally, this view was supported as well" I had the Simon/Marvel settlement and the Superman/DC cases in mind. I think the outcome of those cases bring to question the assumption that Marvel owns reprint and character rights in perpetuity in exchange for the money paid for the page rates, at the very least.

I agree with everything you wrote - obviously reprinting, merchandising and now movie adaptations changed the way both sides looked at the legal end of things - but I don't see how that automatically means Kirby's estate is wrong here.

Other publishers and creators established ownership, royalties, reprint rights etc. before the 60s - so it's not totally accurate to say that these things were always taken for granted. In this specific case, I think Goodman AND Kirby were cutting out some legal red-tape so they could just bring in some dough during a time when the comic market was tough - but, without clear contracts doesn't copyright ownership fall into the hands of the creator?

Basically, I can see all the arguments you're making being used for saying that Kirby was accepting payment for one-time use, and all reprints etc. should have been negotiated for when Marvel decided to start reprinting and merchandising Kirby's drawings.

[Brazoo]

They definitely settled with Simon in his most recent reclamation, after he lost due to Kirby's testimony in the seventies attempt. The really sad part here is that Kirby seemed to have no idea that as co-creator, he would have been entitled his share of whatever Simon was able to reclaim from Marvel.

Goodman promised (verbally) to pay Kirby whatever he would have had to otherwise shell out to Simon if he won the lawsuit, if he testified on Marvel's behalf. Goodman of course never followed through with his end of that bargain.

In retrospect it really seems like Kirby was cutting off his own nose to spite the face. At the time and context, you have to understand that Marvel was his livelihood for more than the past decade, coupled by what appeared to be some kind of betrayal by his former partner, Simon.

I looked into this years ago - when I started buying "The Kirby Collector", and from what I can recall there may have been some bad feelings between Kirby and Simon left over from working together all those years, plus I think Marvel convinced Kirby he would loose out if Simon gained soul ownership.

As much as I love Kirby, he was only human, and prone to making mistakes like everyone else. It is sad though.

[ctc]

>Other publishers and creators established ownership, royalties, reprint rights etc. before the 60s - so it's not totally accurate to say that these things were always taken for granted.

True; but for the old dinosaurs things were definitely slanted away from the talent. DC was definitely one of the old fogeys, and Marvel; hip and new though they were was still run by folks who’d been around for a bit. A lot of the other companies printed stuff owned by a third party (like Charlton doing HB stuff, or Gold Key’s Disney books) so it was kind of moot there. You DID have the beginnings of the underground/independents; but their influence was still kind of far off.

>I don't see how that automatically means Kirby's estate is wrong here.

Well.... I don’t think they’re MORALLY wrong, but legally there’s some issues. The big problem is that the legality of the situation changed over the years. According to the OLD ways, they have no say in the characters at all. According to the NEW ones, they’ve got a case. The problem is showing how the new ideas can be applied to the old characters.

>should have been negotiated for when Marvel decided to start reprinting and merchandising Kirby's drawings.

It should have been negotiated WAY before that.... but like I said, the problem was that nobody thought this stuff was going to be worth anything back then.

>As much as I love Kirby, he was only human, and prone to making mistakes like everyone else.

I think he was an idea man and not a business man, which let a lot of folks take advantage of him over the years.

Don C.

[Brazoo]

>Other publishers and creators established ownership, royalties, reprint rights etc. before the 60s - so it's not totally accurate to say that these things were always taken for granted.

True; but for the old dinosaurs things were definitely slanted away from the talent. DC was definitely one of the old fogeys, and Marvel; hip and new though they were was still run by folks who’d been around for a bit. A lot of the other companies printed stuff owned by a third party (like Charlton doing HB stuff, or Gold Key’s Disney books) so it was kind of moot there. You DID have the beginnings of the underground/independents; but their influence was still kind of far off.

I don't think that's true across the board - about the dinosaur companies.

From what I understand Golden Age days were different. Sales were high, and demand for artists who could sell a title were high too. Simon and Kirby were getting royalties from their work in those days.

Bob Kane and William Moulton Marston signed very lucrative contracts with some provisions for retaining a controlling interest in their characters, and EC was supposedly very fair to it's skilled staff.

Obviously the industry had it's shysters and bad deals too.

>I don't see how that automatically means Kirby's estate is wrong here.

Well.... I don’t think they’re MORALLY wrong, but legally there’s some issues. The big problem is that the legality of the situation changed over the years. According to the OLD ways, they have no say in the characters at all. According to the NEW ones, they’ve got a case. The problem is showing how the new ideas can be applied to the old characters.

This is where I'm getting confused,because I thought the work-for-hire rule was officially created in the mid 70s, long after Kirby had done his most valuable work.

Either way - since there aren't any clear-cut contracts to point to, isn't the onus on Marvel and not Kirby?

EDIT: Okay, so I think I got it now - you're talking about the system for filing for copyright at that time, correct? So if Marvel filed for copyright, it didn't matter if Kirby signed anything over? Is that the deal?

>should have been negotiated for when Marvel decided to start reprinting and merchandising Kirby's drawings.

It should have been negotiated WAY before that.... but like I said, the problem was that nobody thought this stuff was going to be worth anything back then.

Yeah - it should have been negotiated before, but I'm saying because it wasn't, because as we both said everyone involved thought Marvel comics were going to be printed once and forgotten about - there must have been a time where they knew that wasn't true. At some point they knew they were going to do a reprint, or use a drawing for a piece of merch, so I'm saying AT LEAST things should have been put on paper at that point - and I thought the onus would have been on Marvel to do that.

>As much as I love Kirby, he was only human, and prone to making mistakes like everyone else.

I think he was an idea man and not a business man, which let a lot of folks take advantage of him over the years.

Don C.

Yeah, I totally agree.

The ironic thing is that if he was a better business man he probably wouldn't have been around when Marvel started. He probably would have followed Joe Simon into commercial art, making better money, and potentially leaving a much smaller legacy.

[samurainoir]

Maybe this belongs in a new thread, but given the fact that we return to these topics over and over again, I find a bibliography might be essential for these kinds of discussions.

Particularly in figuring out and attributing the urban legends and what can be considered "facts" between first, second and third hand accounts.

The updated version of Joe Simon's The Comic Book Makers has good coverage of his account of the first Captain America reclamation lawsuit. Since the settlement with the second one, the cone of silence came down, so there are no real details that I've stumbled across over that one.


Of course I'm very fond of Men of Tomorrow, detailing how the comics publishing and distribution industry was built by con-men, organized crime, and pornographers. You needed to be, based on how the newsstand distributions worked back then.


I'm wandering way off topic here, but I would heartily suggest following that up with Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay... the fictionalized account. With cameos by some of the real players back in the day, as well as owing a huge amount to Seigel and Shuster, as well as Steranko (who was a real life escape artist).

[number 6]

Interesting to note is I saw Richard Arnold at a convention many years ago had a long list of complaints against Stan Lee. According to him Stan seemed to follow quite a bit of what Arnold would write in Doom Patrol and use it for X-Men. Sadly Arnold passed away a few years back.

Regarding Doom Patrol: The X-Men's success as a result of industrial espionage is one of the saddest in comicdom. For me, DP was just as revolutionary in characterization & art as the so-called "Marvel Method."

Don't mean to de-rail a thread, but this is interesting to me as I like the classic Doom Patrol.

Where can I find out more about this?