Favorite Pop Culture Heroes ! ( the artists )

[huedell]

Is a monkey creative/artist when it puts boxes together to stand on to get bananas?

I wasn't talking about "monkeys on boxes" though in regards to guys like Lee.

Still, people...not just Sandy....will insist on minimizing the work of a guy just
because of differening definitions of "artiste". I'm not saying Sandy is "wrong"
...I'll even venture that he's "right"...but I WILL still disagree in that I
PERSONALLY think what Lee does constitutes an artist and a
great one at that.

Apologies if you were just using that "monkey/boxes analogy" to answer
the inner thread question, rather than debate what I said earlier about Lee
specifically.
When you say something like this though:

I think the word artist is thrown around so much now it has very little meaning.

Lee or no Lee, my first thought is "I've heard such sentiment before
and I've always balked at balking on using the word too tightly."

What's wrong with spreading the word around? Frankly, it sounds elitist to me
to think differently.

Even if someone is a "hack".... I mean undeniably a "hack" in their field...
is taking away their title like a "punishment" or a "penalty" of sorts?

Britney Spears is a mediocre singer...so now, by this mindset,
she isn't even a "singer" anymore?

Seems wrong IMHO.

[Brazoo]

Well, I don't think Lee is a hack as an editor-in-chief, but he didn't have foresight to put together Marvel's incredible bullpen either - he just got really lucky that those guys were all desperate for work at that time.

You have to remember, in other publishing fields an editor can have a major contribution to the published material, but they don't take credit as an author, and Lee did! The Marvel Method is just nonsense jargon he created to justify his view which is completely disingenuous.

His claim to authorship stems from the fact that he re-wrote a lot of the dialog.

A) rewriting dialog is not writing in my book

B) while the Lee voice has it's charms, his lack of self-control - his need to put his stamp all over the work is often one of the most detracting things about the work. Read some of the best comics from that era and you're bound to be sick of the fact that every group shot is crowded by every character saying something in every single panel. There's almost never a moment where a character can silently contemplate something - even in the fight scenes they're saying extraneous nonsense constantly which completely undermines the drama.

C) He often did a half-assed job and screwed up his own work. Take one of the best single issues of the era, Fantastic Four #51, "This Man...This Monster!" It's one of my favorite comic issues of all time - and the biggest flaw is Lee's contribution. It's complicated to describe the issue, but very quickly: A one-off bad guy - a very smart scientist - sedates The Thing and then changes his own body into a "Thing" hoping to infiltrate the FF. He does so, and in the end he gives his own life to save Reed. The message is that being mistaken for a hero undermines his criminal desires and he makes the ultimate sacrifice. Here's the problem - Lee is obviously slightly asleep at the wheel because at first the bad guy only talks as though he's The Thing just to fool the other FF members, but then even in his own thoughts he keeps talking as though he's The Thing. We clearly see at the start of the book that the scientist doesn't use slang and talks almost exactly like Reed. Basically Lee messed up and sort of forgot what the story was about. There are other examples like this as well.

Lee tainted his own legacy. For years he strutted around talking about how he created everything at Marvel and barely shared credit. Recently, only in the past 10 or so years, he's started including co-creators names - but still speaks as though he "wrote" the issues. He's even taken credit for plot-lines and character traits of characters like Iron Man/Tony Stark that happened after he was the editor-in-chief. It's delusional.

[Neutron X]

Just to clarify. I called Stan Lee an Opportunist. My point was, being creative doesn't make you an artist any more than a Monkey solving a problem makes him creative.

I do think Stan Lee contibuted a great deal to Marvel's success. I also think he is willing to take credit for others peoples ideas and do anything to promote himself. Hense an opportunist.

[huedell]

It's cool guys...my definition of "artist" is just different...I call Lee an "artist"
cause I give "creativity" the "honor" of being a part of being an artist.

[Mego Superboy Prime]

Charles M. Shultz
Stan Lee
Jack Kirby
Bill Hanna
Joe Barbera
Alex Toth
John Romita Sr.

[jemboy2004]

1. George Perez
2. Alex Ross
3. Brian Bolland

all comic people but wasn't sure if we were including any artist so I stuck with comics.

[TrueDave]

I was thinking Briteny spears myself. She s a "meat Puppet" but still I couldnt do it.

Buncha Nostalgic old cusses we are.