Most Influencial Comic Book Creator Ever [Archive]

SUPERECWFAN1

01-19-2005, 08:20 PM

This Is a hard one. You have the very men who created the biggest Iconic corner stone of the DC Universe. Then you have Eisner who crafted and developed what a comic page would become.

Stan Lee who would develope and create the Modern Marvel era that saw FF,Amazing Spiderman and X-Men. Steve Ditko for developing who Peter Parker was.

Theres a lot. But I think Kirby has a special place rserved for himself. He Is after all "THE KING" as they say. His creations with Stan Lee stand the test of time. Then he went to DC and created more memborable charactors there.

Kirby Is perhaps the best of all time. Theres a lotta names on this list and who should be where. But without Jack Kirby half of what we read wouldn't exist. The man was a creator.

Reptisaurus!

01-19-2005, 08:34 PM

Kirby.

*Then* Eisner.

Kirby basically designed the way panel-to-panel motion is portrayed in comic books. If you read "Understanding Comics," he basically invented action to action and moment to moment transitions.

Eisner, well, he *understood* the comic medium and what you could do with it better than anyone.

But Kirby pretty much defined how the modern American comic book works. Not comparable.

Plus, as an added note, most of Kirby's work signed "Kirby" is actually Kirby. Most of Eisner's "Spirit" stuff is ghosts, under Eisner's direction.

The Shadow

01-19-2005, 08:34 PM

Stan Lee and Jack Kirbt based on volume and having stood the test of time.

Seigel and Shuster for having started it all in 1938.

Will Eisner for crafting adult stories in the funny books.

Neal Adams for bringing an absurd realism to the medium artistically.

ChildOfTheDarkholde

01-19-2005, 09:57 PM

I agree with all the choices mentioned...you guys definitely know comics, but I will humbly add one name: Charles Moulton Marston, for creating what is still today the most famous and influential heroINE in comics, Wonder Woman:

"if Wertham (Fredric Wertham, the child psychiatrist and author of Seduction of the Innocent, who charged that comic books turned their readers into juvenile delinquents and sexual deviants) was the Lex Luthor of comics, hell-bent on their total annihilation, then William Moulton Marston was their Man of Steel, dedicated to championing their cause. Marston was a Harvard-trained psychologist who had a law degree to go along with his Ph.D. In the ’20s and ’30s, Marston was best known as a tireless advocate of the polygraph -- he developed an early lie detector machine -- and he lobbied unsuccessfully for its use in the courts.

Never one to slough off publicity, Marston even appeared in a 1938 Gillette razor blade advertisement that used a lie detector test to discover men’s "true" feelings about various shaving aids. (The "scientific shaving tests," which measured subjects’ subconscious reactions, overwhelmingly found that Gillette blades minimized the subtle "emotional disturbances" caused by competitors’ products.)

In 1941, under the pseudonym Charles Moulton, Marston created the first great female comic book hero, Wonder Woman, a displaced Amazon princess who helped the Allies defeat the Axis Powers while seeking romance on the side. (Unsurprisingly, Wertham was appalled by the character, which he denounced for its "lesbian overtones.")
Unlike most intellectuals, Marston celebrated the popularity of the comic book form and saw it as an opportunity to get kids to read -- and to circulate radical feminist notions. Writing in Phi Beta Kappa’s journal, The American Scholar, in the early ’40s, he noted: "It’s too bad for us ‘literary’ enthusiasts, but it’s the truth nevertheless -- pictures tell any story more effectively than words....If children will read comics...why isn’t it advisable to give them some constructive comics to read?"

For Marston, the most "constructive" comics were those that laid the groundwork for what he insisted was the coming age of "American matriarchy" in which "women would take over the rule of the country, politically and economically."

Whether Marston’s feminist utopia, which Les Daniels calls "simultaneously daring and touchingly naive," has come to pass, his contribution to popular culture has endured. By the time of his death in 1947, Wonder Woman was already a household name (and a cottage industry), appearing in various comic books and newspaper strips; she remains a vibrant part of popular culture, whether as a feminist icon, the hero of a campy late-’70s action-adventure show, the star of what is currently the longest-running comic book starring a female superhero or one third of the biggest cultural icons in comic book history (Superman and Batman being the other two)
She wasn't the first costumed comic book heroine, but she was the one that all others after her would take their cues from.
THE female superhero par excellence.

The Shadow

01-19-2005, 10:11 PM

William Moulton Marston
VERY cool person to mention!

The Wayner

01-20-2005, 12:16 AM

Stan Lee/Jack Kirby

Gladiator X

01-20-2005, 06:10 AM

Seigel,Schuster,Kirby,Lee,Eisner,Schwartz,Infantin o,Kane,Ditko and on and on.So many differant folks contributed so many differant things to comics I can't really pick who is "the" most influencial creator to the medium so I'm going to pick the man,who personally,has been the biggest influence for me.

George Perez.

Ever since I saw his art in "Creatures on the Loose" he has been my favorite comics artist and everything I read I compare to him.He is MY personal comics god and his body of work has kept me enthralled by this medium for my entire life.

The Shadow

01-20-2005, 08:04 AM

Chuck Austen? :D
you WOULD say that! LOL

Ol' Chuck does have a way of igniting fire in people (both good and bad)

JeffreyWKramer

01-20-2005, 09:17 AM

I agree with all the choices mentioned...you guys definitely know comics, but I will humbly add one name: Charles Moulton Marston, for creating what is still today the most famous and influential heroINE in comics, Wonder Woman:

The problem is, this thread is about "influential", and much as I love Marston's WONDER WOMAN, his influence beyond having created Wonder Woman was pretty minimal. Even at the beginning, in ALL STAR where she regularly appeared as the JSA's secretary/sort-of member, Wonder Woman was not really written in a manner consistent with her portrayal in her own stories. Marston's mix of feminism and psychoanalytically-influenced psychosexual themes really didn't spread beyond WW's solo stories, and as soon as he left, all that stuff and most of Wonder Woman's backstory, rogues gallery and continuity was abandoned, in favor of light fantasy and generic superheroism. Since then, subsequent WW writers have cribbed a few external details (endless but usually lifeless versions of some of the old villains, mostly), and George Perez incorporated a strong sense of feminism into his post-CRISIS relaunch of WW, but nobody has really even tried to continue where Marston left off.

So, sure, he created the first comic superheroine, but the moment he left, she was reframed into something not much at all like his original creation, and unlike, say, Batman, nobody has ever really gone back to the source. Which, IMHO, is one reason Wonder Woman has rarely been interesting in the past several decades - Marston's themes were abandoned, and nothing that has been put in their place has been terribly distinct or unique.

BTW, as I've said for years, one thing I'd really love to see DC do would be to launch a Vertigo WW title, completely divorced from the mainstream DCU continuity, which drew upon and updated all the stuff that characterized Marston's WW and which has been abandoned since then - the psychosexual themes, the feminist/masculinist dichotomies, the sadomasochistic and occasional lesbian undercurrents, etc. *That* would have the potential to be an interesting and mature superhero comic, as opposed to stuff that just has superheroes swearing a lot and having sex.

Get Grant Morrison and JH Williams III on it and you'd have the best new book in a decade or more.

Headhunter

01-20-2005, 09:20 AM

Stan Lee; it isn't even close. There have been other titans in comic books, but without Stan Lee, it'd still be relatively niche. And Marvel would probably have bit the dust a long time ago...

HomerJay

01-20-2005, 10:57 AM

This list begins and ends with Stan Lee.
The only other names I would even entertain would be Jack Kirby, Bob Kane, Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster.

As far as modern creators go, I would name Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Frank Miller.

Nate C.

01-20-2005, 11:12 AM

Plus, as an added note, most of Kirby's work signed "Kirby" is actually Kirby. Most of Eisner's "Spirit" stuff is ghosts, under Eisner's direction.

Not "most".

JeffreyWKramer

01-20-2005, 11:14 AM

This list begins and ends with Stan Lee.

Get a different list, then, as that one sucks.

Realistically, Lee is probably #4. After either Siegel and Shuster or Jack Kirby (one can make good arguments for either), and with Eisner coming in at third. Stan had a major impact - both positive and negative - on what comics became during the 60s, and on what they have been since that time.

Bob Kane wouldn't even make the top ten. He created one very distinctive and important character, but said character really wasn't that original - essentially just a translation of pulp sensibilities to a character in a costume, to better take advantage of the highly visible medium of comics. Note that I'm not saying Kane sucked, or that he is unimportant - he's just not that influential. But keep in mind, some of the other early Bat-folk - Finger and Robinson - arguably have more to do with Batman's staying power and pop-culture status than does Kane himself.

riftt

01-20-2005, 12:13 PM

Rob Liefeld

TJ Shoun

01-20-2005, 03:13 PM

No Julie Schwartz?

I nothing else he ushered in the team concept (introduced the Justice League in the Brave and the Bold) which revolutionized superhero comics.

Halofreak20

01-20-2005, 03:21 PM

Stan Lee; it isn't even close. There have been other titans in comic books, but without Stan Lee, it'd still be relatively niche. And Marvel would probably have bit the dust a long time ago...

Marvel wouldnt even be created with Jack Kirby, and without Kirby Stan Lee wouldnt even be a house hold name nowadays.

Poor Jack always in Lee's shadow

JeffreyWKramer

01-20-2005, 03:33 PM

No Julie Schwartz? Julie was important, but not on the par with most others mentioned in this thread.

I nothing else he ushered in the team concept (introduced the Justice League in the Brave and the Bold) which revolutionized superhero comics.

Ummm... ever hear of Shedon Mayer, Gardner Fox and the JSA? They were the ones who introduced the super-team concept. Schwartz simply revived the concept for the Silver Age, when it had temporarily fallen by the wayside.

Sockburger

01-20-2005, 05:43 PM

Jacob Kurtzberg and Stanley Leiber aka you know who... :D

TJ Shoun

01-20-2005, 07:02 PM

Julie was important, but not on the par with most others mentioned in this thread.

I know, but I felt like he was a more influential figure than, say, Infantino, Ditko, or Perez.

All of whom have had a huge influence on the industry, but nothing like Schwartz.

Actually if I had to pick one ( or two ;) ) it'd of course be Siegel and Shuster who launched the entire superhero concept which dominates the industry, although I don't think they realized what Superman would be the start of.

Next would be The King followed by The Man.

Eisner is up there but (and correct me if my impression is wrong) I always felt like Eisner's contribution was in the quality and ingenuity of his graphic/sequential storytelling rather than his influential direction on the state of the industry itself. Still... Nothing to scoff at.

For better or worse, Marvel and DC have historically dominated the face of comics and continue to do so -- so I'll go with basically the four guys who launched both houses.

X-Men Forever

01-20-2005, 07:31 PM

for me(not the industry), it is Len Wein and John Romita. I think these two guys created my favorite character Wolverine, I think they did anyways?

Karl J. Barnes

01-20-2005, 07:45 PM

Though maybe not as influential as Kirby and Eisner, I think that Wally Wood desrves a shout out and Frank Frazetta.

discostu

01-20-2005, 11:40 PM

Kirayoshi

01-20-2005, 11:58 PM

1) Eisner. Not only helped redefine(along with Kirby) the ideas of comic layout and panel-to-panel progression, he established the grammer of comics(his book "Comics and Sequential Art"), and later created the first true 'graphic novel', "A Contract With God", one of the first comics that told a mature, adult story.

2) Simon and Shuster. Superman. Need we say more?

3) Kirby, Lee and Ditko. More or less created the Marvel Universe.

4) Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Comics as high-brow literature? Thank them.

5) William Gaines. Father of modern horror comics, creator of Mad.

Allen Smith

01-21-2005, 04:40 AM

discostu

01-21-2005, 04:44 AM

Well, I sort of disagree that Lee and any other artist would be as well remembered as Lee and Kirby are. Romita's art was very good, and he's an excellent artist, but not a creator of concepts and characters as Kirby was. He, Romita, would probably tell you the same things himself. Lee was a great influence, no disputing that, though.
I'm not against Kirby in any way, but for someone to say that Kirby was more important Lee, or that anyone is more important than Lee in the history of comicbooks is insane.

TomGun13

01-21-2005, 05:10 AM

Stan Lee. This shouldn't even be a thread. Without Stan Lee comicbooks wouldn't even exist today. Kirby is number two, but the writer is more important than the artist. Remember, it could have easily been Lee/Romita that everyone remembers rather than Lee/Kirby.

Yeah I guess in a visual medium there is no need for an artist. I guess Stan could have drawn the books himself. He was "The Man".

TomGun13

01-21-2005, 05:13 AM

Well, I sort of disagree that Lee and any other artist would be as well remembered as Lee and Kirby are. Romita's art was very good, and he's an excellent artist, but not a creator of concepts and characters as Kirby was. He, Romita, would probably tell you the same things himself. Lee was a great influence, no disputing that, though.

Romita has said himself that when he got on Spiderman he intentionally made his art resemble Ditko so the fans wouldn't leave the book because his art was different. As time went on he slowly made it his own.

SUPERECWFAN1

01-21-2005, 06:55 AM

I'm not against Kirby in any way, but for someone to say that Kirby was more important Lee, or that anyone is more important than Lee in the history of comicbooks is insane.

I like Stan Lee. Hell the man's an icon onto himself. But heres a thing....Kirby helped co-create many of the Marvel Universe charctors you see. He gets zero half credit from Marvel.

Its pretty clear they should have thanked him for helping co-create the X-Men. Plus he was a fantastic artist. But since you read no DC you have zero clue that he moved to DC and started creating charactors.

See Darksied ...that was Jack Kibry. The man created all those 4th World Charactors for DC . The man was just a creator. He'd move onto companies , work & create. I like Stan Lee , but compared to a Jack Kirby he was a slacker. ;)

HomerJay

01-21-2005, 07:18 AM

Get a different list, then, as that one sucks.

RIIIIIIGHT.
Whatever happened to "I respectfully disagree with your opinion and here's why"?

"Donkey Kong sucks."
"You know what? YOU suck!"
- Billy Madison

niall mc cann

01-21-2005, 11:15 AM

I'm not against Kirby in any way, but for someone to say that Kirby was more important Lee, or that anyone is more important than Lee in the history of comicbooks is insane.

Why so?

I love Stan, he's written some of my favourite comics ever, but to suggest he's the only serious contender for the crown in this case is ignorant, to say the least.

Personally, i'd go with Eisner. However a person may feel about his hands-on (or otherwise) approach, i think he does a good job of keeping his own character and style in everything he puts his name to, and i really don't feel it's arguable that he wasn't one of the first to approach comics with a mind to the mechanics of the form; with a real desire to understand how the medium worked.

A lot of folks will say Kirby did that too, but from what i've read of them, Kirby seemed less concerned with that side of the creative process, preferring to spend time on his big ideas; he was a master storyteller, but i just don't think he approached comics with the same sense of deliberate inventiveness of craft that Eisner did.

I place Stan higher in the list than Siegel and Shuster, though. They created superheroes, fair enough, but they did it once... I like their very early superman stuff, it's really cool, but they really didn't do anything as good as that again, did they? They came up with the spectre, i suppose, and i've never read a Spectre comic in my life, so i can't comment on the quality of that title, but i don't think they ever engaged the public imagination again like they did with the big, blue boyscout.

Also, Superheroes were not the be all and end all of comics back then. It was in stan's time that they're influence came to practically choke out all other genres. Also, Stan produced Spidey, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, The Fantastic Four, etc, etc, etc. He did lots of great stuff.

So i don't know, i suppose i'd go Eisner, Kirby, Lee for the 1, 2, 3 slots. Siegel and Shuster feature lower, imo. Below Bill Finger, even, imo.

bloodyarts

01-21-2005, 11:22 AM

discostu

01-21-2005, 11:55 PM

I like Stan Lee. Hell the man's an icon onto himself. But heres a thing....Kirby helped co-create many of the Marvel Universe charctors you see. He gets zero half credit from Marvel.

Its pretty clear they should have thanked him for helping co-create the X-Men. Plus he was a fantastic artist. But since you read no DC you have zero clue that he moved to DC and started creating charactors.

See Darksied ...that was Jack Kibry. The man created all those 4th World Charactors for DC . The man was just a creator. He'd move onto companies , work & create. I like Stan Lee , but compared to a Jack Kirby he was a slacker. ;)
Let's not say things that we can't take back.

icctrombone

01-22-2005, 06:10 AM

This question has to be answered by picking the most influencial artist and writer separately.

Artist has to be Kirby. His action layouts and powerful details was the model that artists of today pattern themselves after.

Writer is Stan Lee . He wrote all the books for Marvel at the begining . If not for him , the simple generic writing that was the standard from Dc would not have changed.

Gaz

01-22-2005, 06:25 AM

The problem is, this thread is about "influential", and much as I love Marston's WONDER WOMAN, his influence beyond having created Wonder Woman was pretty minimal. Even at the beginning, in ALL STAR where she regularly appeared as the JSA's secretary/sort-of member, Wonder Woman was not really written in a manner consistent with her portrayal in her own stories. Marston's mix of feminism and psychoanalytically-influenced psychosexual themes really didn't spread beyond WW's solo stories, and as soon as he left, all that stuff and most of Wonder Woman's backstory, rogues gallery and continuity was abandoned, in favor of light fantasy and generic superheroism. Since then, subsequent WW writers have cribbed a few external details (endless but usually lifeless versions of some of the old villains, mostly), and George Perez incorporated a strong sense of feminism into his post-CRISIS relaunch of WW, but nobody has really even tried to continue where Marston left off.

So, sure, he created the first comic superheroine, but the moment he left, she was reframed into something not much at all like his original creation, and unlike, say, Batman, nobody has ever really gone back to the source. Which, IMHO, is one reason Wonder Woman has rarely been interesting in the past several decades - Marston's themes were abandoned, and nothing that has been put in their place has been terribly distinct or unique.

BTW, as I've said for years, one thing I'd really love to see DC do would be to launch a Vertigo WW title, completely divorced from the mainstream DCU continuity, which drew upon and updated all the stuff that characterized Marston's WW and which has been abandoned since then - the psychosexual themes, the feminist/masculinist dichotomies, the sadomasochistic and occasional lesbian undercurrents, etc. *That* would have the potential to be an interesting and mature superhero comic, as opposed to stuff that just has superheroes swearing a lot and having sex.

Get Grant Morrison and JH Williams III on it and you'd have the best new book in a decade or more.
The problemwith Marston's sexual themes is that they stray dangerously close to masochistic voyeurism themselves, while that is partly due to the artists you cannot ignore the fact that the submissive theme is counterproductive to the character's feminist core. Perez's WW is damn close to that ideal without straying into those potentially patronising waters. (BTW, I do give Marston credit for creating such an icon)

My personal picks are Eisner, Kane, Lee, Kirby, Ditko, Miller, Moore (Alan and Terry) and Gaiman.

Sir Tim Drake

01-22-2005, 10:03 AM

Will Eisner, beyond a doubt.

Dennis K

01-22-2005, 10:10 AM

Lee
Kane
Kirby

Calamas

01-22-2005, 12:33 PM

There can be no one Most Influencial Creator. It’s a ladder and you can’t reach the next rung without stepping on the one before you.

Start with Simon and Shuster. But they only opened the door.

Then Julie Schwartz

Then Lee and Kirby with Ditko

Then Bronze Generation Marvel: Englehart, Gerber, McGregor, Wrightson, Chaykin, Starlin, Steranko--and Neal Adams

Then Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman

Then Alex Ross

There are other “great” creators. But these are the ones who changed the approach of those who followed.

Reptisaurus!

01-22-2005, 08:50 PM

Not "most".

????

Yeah, I stand my "most."

He did *something* on most of the Spirit strips, penciled, inked, or thumbnailed. But very rarely (if at all) did he do everything on a single strip. If he drew it, usually someone else did the backgrounds.

(Guess who spent all day reading those Kitchen Sink reprints with Eisner Interviews.)

niall mc cann

01-23-2005, 07:29 AM

There can be no one Most Influencial Creator. It’s a ladder and you can’t reach the next rung without stepping on the one before you.

Well, that's a given, of course, but the fun of these things for me is the debate, you know?

Then Alex Ross

There are other “great” creators. But these are the ones who changed the approach of those who followed.

How do you feel Alex Ross changed the approach of newer writers? He's a good artist, and he's done some stuff i like, but overall i don't feel he deserves the kind of kudos he gets from a lot of sources.

For me, he's kind of like Jim Lee; he's good at a certain kind of thing, but take him outside that arena and he gets it hard to be flexible.

In fact, i'd say Lee's glossy sexiness changed the approach of more younger artists (for better or worse) than Ross did. What is it about Ross's approach that you feel has influenced comics so deeply?

Calamas

01-23-2005, 10:42 AM

How do you feel Alex Ross changed the approach of newer writers? He's a good artist, and he's done some stuff i like, but overall i don't feel he deserves the kind of kudos he gets from a lot of sources.

First off, not writers. Editors influence storytelling. Writers influence writing. And artist influence art. But nitpicking aside, you have a point.

Certainly Ross hasn’t produced the legion of clones that Adams did. Of course Nassau, Buckler and Sienkiewicz--at least early in his career--didn’t have to overcome any major difficulties to swipe Adams. All they had to do was pick up a pencil, something they were doing anyway. Not every artist can paint.

But I do feel Ross has earned his elevated status. Look how he has surpassed, say Jon J Muth, an artist of considerable talent. No one else comes near Ross’ standing in the field. I will admit, no one else has his freedom, either, but one begot the other. Yet does Ross belong with the others I listed? I believe, now that I’ve thought it over, that I included him with an eye toward the future. It would depend on whether comics choose to pursue this form of art, and in turn draws in artists capable of pursuing it.

Upon reevaluation, I now place Ross with Eisner: brilliant within their chosen showcases, though not quite innovators of evolution.

For Ross, that could change in the future.

discostu

01-27-2005, 11:53 PM

Stan Lee. 'Nuff Said!

Reptisaurus!

01-28-2005, 12:02 AM

Upon reevaluation, I now place Ross with Eisner: brilliant within their chosen showcases, though not quite innovators of evolution.

It's been pretty safely established that without Will Eisner we wouldn't have Frank Miller, Alan Moore, or Neil Gaiman.

And *probably* no Jim Steranko, either.

And without those four gentlemen modern comics would look very, very different.

And it isn't all that rare to see a story point or a layout curbed from Eisner, even today.

I think it's *very* arguable that he is second only to Kirby as the most influential comic book creator ever.

discostu

01-28-2005, 12:05 AM

It's been pretty safely established that without Will Eisner we wouldn't have Frank Miller, Alan Moore, or Neil Gaiman.

And *probably* no Jim Steranko, either.

And without those four gentlemen modern comics would look very, very different.

And it isn't all that rare to see a story point or a layout curbed from Eisner, even today.

I think it's *very* arguable that he is second only to Kirby as the most influential comic book creator ever.
So that would make him third behind Lee.

Reptisaurus!

01-28-2005, 03:24 PM

So that would make him third behind Lee.

Gosh. Possibly, just possibly, if I had *meant* third behind Lee I would have *said* third behind Lee.

DC and most of the other major companies have adopted his editorial model, and pretty much every writer in the past fourty years has borrowed from his dialouge and sense of character.

Without Stan Lee, modern comics would be very different.

But Kirby defined how comics work. His contributions are *vastly* greater than even Lee's. Before Kirby comics were pictures illustrating the text. After Kirby the art itself told the story. (And this is all back in the fourties, when Lee was a teenage errand boy who did the occasional fill in issue annoyed the hell outta everyone with his flute. :))

Without Kirby, Lee's work in the sixties would be impossible. No Kirby, no Stan Lee. Hell, no Kirby, no art form.

Speaking of which... I'm calling Eisner # 2 because he was the first to really understand that comics *were* an art-form, and could tell serious, adult, stories.

Heck, now that I think of it, no Eisner no Stan Lee, either.

(And, someone on the Com Board overheread Stan Lee admitting that if Eisner were still running his studio... Lee would be working for him.)

Shellhead

01-28-2005, 07:58 PM

Dammit, the answer is NOT Jack Kirby.

First of all, Spider-man has always been more popular than the Fantastic Four. I don't remember Kirby doing any work at all on Spider-man, that was all Lee and Ditko in the early days.

Second of all:

Lee and Kirby gave us the Fantastic Four.

Kirby without Lee gave us the New Gods.

Let's face it, the New Gods have never, ever come even remotely close to the FF in terms of popularity. There will never be a New Gods cartoon, or movie, or anything. They're lucky they even get the rare cameo appearance in other DC cartoons.

Kirby is not my favorite artist, in fact he's not even in my top 20. But I do respect that he has talent, and he has influenced the comic industry in important ways. But it's clear that Stan was the man with the ideas, and if Kirby hadn't been available, there were other guys like Ditko around.

Reptisaurus!

01-28-2005, 08:12 PM

Now, I'm going to ignore that argument.

Because I'm sure everyone here can find the logical flaw. And I'm sure Shellhead's gonna turn bright red...er...orange when he notices it.

So:

For the third freaking time:

Kirby elevated the comic medium from *illustrated text* to a seperate, narrative medium.

He was the first artist to show panels depicting events in immediate, sequential order.

Really, you have to track down some early golden age reprints to understand the importance of this. Find the first Superman or Batman archives. The art doesn't *flow.* It's completetely secondary to the text.

Here's a distilation of Scott Mccloud's "Understanding Comics."

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Transwiki:Understanding_Comics#Chapter_3:_Blood_in _the_Gutter

Everybody read that? Good. *Jack* *Kirby* *invented* *action* *to* *action* transitions. Invented them. I can't stress this enough.

And without action to action transitions, we don't have comics. End of story, roll clip.

Reptisaurus!

01-28-2005, 08:31 PM

On the matter of "Who's ideas were whose in the Early Marvels"

Well, Mark Evanier probably knows better than anyone.

He was Jack Kirby's assistant for a goodly number of years, and a friend of Stan Lee.

Here's what he has to say on his homepage, POVonline.com

Who did what on the Lee-Kirby collaborations?

Ooh...tough one to start with. Well, it's safe to say Jack did all the pencilling. Beyond that, we run into all sorts of semantic arguments having to do with definitions of the word "writing" and with the fact that Mssrs. Lee and Kirby both have/had notoriously poor memories. You also have the fact that, when two creative talents get together and come up with an idea, each of them might honestly believe that he suggested at least the core of the concept if not the entire thing. This happens in any collaboration anywhere and, ultimately, you usually have to just say that they both had the idea. Ergo, I say that the Lee-Kirby creations are Lee-Kirby creations.

Some of the ideas sound more like Stan to me, some sound more like Jack and there's some documentation and other evidence that suggests that certain ideas flowed more from one gent than the other. Even then, even where one person contributed 80% of the notion, they are still Lee-Kirby co-creations. The plots came from both, though Stan has acknowledged that once Marvel started to grow and he became busier, Jack was largely on his own to figure out the details of each story, if not the basic plotline. Stan's dialogue sometimes closely paraphrased marginal notes that Jack wrote while drawing, and sometimes deviated altogether. I do think Stan has been unfairly maligned by those who've said that all he did was retype and polish Jack's notations. I also think Jack was wronged to some extent by credits that gave him no credit for anything other than drawing because he certainly did more than that.

Didn't Kirby contribute the cosmic concepts and Lee contribute the human elements?

You might think that. Once upon a time, I did, as well. But after talking extensively with both Stan and Jack, as well as some of their co-workers...and after examining a lot of Stan Lee plot outlines and Jack Kirby marginal notes, my conclusion is that that wasn't always the case. Stan definitely contributed some of the more "cosmic" (for want of a better adjective) ideas and Jack certainly contributed some of the elements we might call "soap opera." There are specific contributions that I believe can be attributed to one or the other, at least in that one of them was the primary source. But, as stated above, there's a point beyond which one cannot tell who did what.

Since ME is as reliable and unbiased a source as anyone, this is as close to a definitive answer as we're likely to get.

The early Fantastic Four, X-men, Avengers, Thor, Silver Surfer, Black Panther, and Incredible Hulk stories were collaborative efforts between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Likewise, the early Spider-man and Doctor Strange stories were coloborative efforts with Steve Ditko. Kirby probably had some small part in the creation of Spider-man, but didn't have much to do with the finished concept.

Scott Shaw! says that Daredevil was Bill Everett's *idea* initially, but he was off the book after the first issue, so Stan certainly deserves credit for developing his ideas.

And inventing all those great early Daredevil villains like *snicker* the Frog-man, the Stilt-man, and *Bwahahahahahah!* the Matador.

The first Iron Man stories were scripted by Stan Lee's brother Larry Leiber (although credited to Stan), and illustrated by Don Heck? (I think.)

So who knows.

Lurch

01-28-2005, 08:31 PM

If you're looking for a single answer, it would almost have to be Kirby, because he did it when comics were becoming pop culture.

Overall, it would be a toss-up between he and Eisner in terms of how they influenced the medium of graphic storytelling.

The Shadow

01-28-2005, 09:12 PM

Everybody read that? Good. *Jack* *Kirby* *invented* *action* *to* *action* transitions. Invented them. I can't stress this enough.

And without action to action transitions, we don't have comics. End of story, roll clip.
My only argument to that is comics were around long before Kirby developed his style... and they sold in greater numbers...

I still maintain it's Stan Lee and Jack Kirbt though... they single handedly revolutionized the medium and took it from something kids would read and made it something for everyone.

Reptisaurus!

01-28-2005, 09:31 PM

My only argument to that is comics were around long before Kirby developed his style...

Untrue. Original comic books debuted in (I believe) 1937. (Give or take a year.) Kirby was doing work for Marvel by 1940, and was pretty much fully stylistically developed by the first few Captain American comics, circa 1941.

and they sold in greater numbers...

This I don't know.

Did they really sell *that* much better in the 30s than the 40s? I always thought the opposite was true. I know that Captain Marvel, who debuted in 1940, was the best selling superhero book ever on an issue by issue basis.

I still maintain it's Stan Lee and Jack Kirbt though... they single handedly revolutionized the medium and took it from something kids would read and made it something for everyone.

Honestly, in terms of most influential *superhero* creators, I'd have to give the nod to the S & S boys and Superman.

...

Unrelated note: Nobodies said Robert Crumb yet, but I'd rate him top five, along with Kirby, Lee, S & S, and Eisner.

discostu

01-28-2005, 11:06 PM

Stan "The Man" Lee.

Reptisaurus!

01-28-2005, 11:31 PM

Stan "The Man" Lee.

He's so cute when he's out of his depth.

discostu

01-29-2005, 12:13 AM

I'm just here to remind the people of the real answer to this question. Stan Lee.

Lurch

01-29-2005, 12:51 AM

I'm just here to remind the people of the real answer to this question. Stan Lee.

I love Stan, but just because he was the P.T. Barnum of the comic book world doesn't make him an innovator. And really, that was his greatest contribution. He was a real influence on the way comics were and are produced, and he did add elements that had never been seen before, but that doesn't compare to the stylistic influence that Kirby had on the medium.

discostu

01-29-2005, 12:55 AM

I love Stan, but just because he was the P.T. Barnum of the comic book world doesn't make him an innovator. And really, that was his greatest contribution. He was a real influence on the way comics were and are produced, and he did add elements that had never been seen before, but that doesn't compare to the stylistic influence that Kirby had on the medium.
Stan Lee may not have been a penciler, but he was the catalyst for the MU, he came up with the ideas... Stan Lee would have still created the MU even if two different artists were handling the art chores.

eric halfabee

01-29-2005, 01:45 AM

I’m new here so I hope it’s okay if I jump into the conversation.

I know that this has mostly become a discussion of who has been more influential to comics, Jack Kirby or Stan Lee. And as much as I love the King and as much as I recognize his tremendous contribution to comics I have to place myself squarely in the Stan Lee camp.

Like it or not, it was Stan Lee, mostly in the pages of Spider-Man, but also in his other books, who introduced the idea of realistic dialogue and real-life situations into comic books. And it was Stan Lee who developed the idea of a coherent “universe” for his characters, first truly emphasized cross-overs and team-ups and probably most importantly, for better or worse first placed a hard emphasis on continuity.

Yes, Kirby and Ditko established the look of the Marvel universe, and certainly they are responsible for a huge amount of the style of modern comics, I don’t want to denigrate the work of either man, or Eisner for that matter either, but we are talking influence and the truth of the matter is that the one thing that all modern comics have in common is that almost every last one of them employs the writing techniques as well as the writing cliches of Stan Lee.

niall mc cann

01-29-2005, 05:12 AM

First off, not writers. Editors influence storytelling. Writers influence writing. And artist influence art. But nitpicking aside, you have a point.

My mistake. Slip of the keyboard. Sorry. (I'm a writer fanboy more than an artists'...)

Certainly Ross hasn’t produced the legion of clones that Adams did. Of course Nassau, Buckler and Sienkiewicz--at least early in his career--didn’t have to overcome any major difficulties to swipe Adams. All they had to do was pick up a pencil, something they were doing anyway. Not every artist can paint.

I don't think that's fair. Adams was a hell of an artist. He had a real feel for how stories could be told with flair and adrenalin. I don't think just anybody could pick up a pencil and do what he was doing. they could mimic him a little, but very few could go toe-to-toe with him, imo.

As far as the notion that Ross hasn't influenced others 'cause painting is harder than pencilling... well, i don't think that's the be all and end all of the issue, but even that is a reason why he hasn't been influential, rather than has.

But I do feel Ross has earned his elevated status. Look how he has surpassed, say Jon J Muth, an artist of considerable talent. No one else comes near Ross’ standing in the field. I will admit, no one else has his freedom, either, but one begot the other. Yet does Ross belong with the others I listed? I believe, now that I’ve thought it over, that I included him with an eye toward the future. It would depend on whether comics choose to pursue this form of art, and in turn draws in artists capable of pursuing it.

Well, i'd prefer to let the future take care of itself. I don't see painting ever making the kind of foothold in the comic world that line art has. There've been some great painted works before (i don't necessarily credit photo-realism as inherently superior to any other style of painting), and Ross has been responsible for some of it. I don't think Marvels will open the floodgates any more than Slaine did.

I like Ross, he's a good, solid comic-book artist. So's John Romita Jr, though, and he doesn't get a tenth of the kudos Ross does.

Upon reevaluation, I now place Ross with Eisner: brilliant within their chosen showcases, though not quite innovators of evolution.

For Ross, that could change in the future.

Hmm... I guess i hold Eisner in higher esteem than you, so i just don't know where to go. I guess in twenty years we could come back her on this topic and you could be perfectly satisfied that Ross influenced the hell out of everyone while i just wouldn't see it. :o

I don't know. he's a good artist, and i enjoy his work, so i hope he does go on to revamp comics as a whole. I don't see it happening, personally.

And i really don't think it's happened yet.

discostu

01-29-2005, 05:20 AM

well, you do see alot more realistic type art in comicbooks these days, like with hitch and cassaday, one could conclude that the more realistic line art is a direct result of the influence of Ross' photo realistic painting style.

niall mc cann

01-29-2005, 05:21 AM

I’m new here so I hope it’s okay if I jump into the conversation.

Bit presumptuous of you, but you've done it now, i suppose... :mad:

:D :D :D

Only kidding! Jump on in!

I know that this has mostly become a discussion of who has been more influential to comics, Jack Kirby or Stan Lee. And as much as I love the King and as much as I recognize his tremendous contribution to comics I have to place myself squarely in the Stan Lee camp.

Like it or not, it was Stan Lee, mostly in the pages of Spider-Man, but also in his other books, who introduced the idea of realistic dialogue and real-life situations into comic books. And it was Stan Lee who developed the idea of a coherent “universe” for his characters, first truly emphasized cross-overs and team-ups and probably most importantly, for better or worse first placed a hard emphasis on continuity.

Yes, Kirby and Ditko established the look of the Marvel universe, and certainly they are responsible for a huge amount of the style of modern comics, I don’t want to denigrate the work of either man, or Eisner for that matter either, but we are talking influence and the truth of the matter is that the one thing that all modern comics have in common is that almost every last one of them employs the writing techniques as well as the writing cliches of Stan Lee.

Lee's the most political guy on any potential shortlist for this kind of thing, 'cause you got a lot of Marvel readers who see him as the daddy of their favourite comics, whereas you get a lot of broader comics readers who see him as a gloryhog who steals the thunder from a lot of other, more talented guys.

So some people have chips on one shoulder or the other when it comes to stan, and discussions can get heated.

Personally, i love much of his work, and i think it's unargueable that he changed people's perceptions of the kind of stories comics could tell. I also think after him, his influence could be seen on 90% of comics that were published (maybe that's because after Lee, only superhero comics were published, but still...). I have no qualms about putting him up there in the top three. He deserves it.

Amazing Fantasy 15 was one of the books that made me love comics, and his Fantastic Four cemented him in my affections. Like Eisner or Kirby, he's a master.

niall mc cann

01-29-2005, 05:49 AM

The Shadow

01-29-2005, 06:36 AM

Untrue. Original comic books debuted in (I believe) 1937. (Give or take a year.) Kirby was doing work for Marvel by 1940, and was pretty much fully stylistically developed by the first few Captain American comics, circa 1941.
You cannot tell me you think Kirby from 1941 and the Kirby that drew the Fantastic Four were even REMOTELY close stylistically?!?!?! I have a bunch of the old Cap issues in reprint form and if I didn't look at the credits I would never have known it was Jack. My FF run goes as far back as #3 and I have most of the early Avengers, a bunch of his 4th World/New Gods stuff and even some of his lesser works like Kamandi (all in minty shape too!)... and THAT Kirby is waaaaay different than the early Kirby.

It wasn't until the 60's he truely exploded and became the "King".

This I don't know.

Did they really sell *that* much better in the 30s than the 40s? I always thought the opposite was true. I know that Captain Marvel, who debuted in 1940, was the best selling superhero book ever on an issue by issue basis.
Captain Marvel was selling anywhere between 1.5-2 million copies per issue. Superman was 1-1.5 and Batman slightly below that.

Shellhead

02-03-2005, 10:04 AM

Untrue. Original comic books debuted in (I believe) 1937. (Give or take a year.) Kirby was doing work for Marvel by 1940, and was pretty much fully stylistically developed by the first few Captain American comics, circa 1941.

So when did Kirby start influencing other artists? 1942? 1945? 1950? Didn't think so. What you want to give Kirby credit for didn't seem to really kick in until he started working with Stan Lee. Doesn't that seem to indicate that Stan's influence on Kirby was pivotal?

hangmanjury

02-03-2005, 10:51 AM

Eisner.

Without a doubt, for me, it's Will Eisner.

Kirby may have been more influential in the field of superhero comics and superhero techniques, such as in your face action, but Eisner was much more influential in everything else.

Human emotion, experimental layouts, architexture...

If nothing else, Eisner was the primary influence of both Moore (with Kurtzman) and Miller, who are pretty much the primary influences of just about everyone in the field right now.

mckracken

02-03-2005, 04:22 PM

I think youre all forgetting that there are still people out there who trust their own instincts completely and give a crap what anyone has done before them.

Influential is such a big word and so...overused these days.
And it has a nasty side effect as well: you cant go anywhere these days without some mentioning Stan Lee God here or Alan Moore unfailing genius there.

Praise is fine, but its annoying to construct everpersistent legends.

Halofreak20

02-03-2005, 05:14 PM

Basicly any of the creaters from the Golden Age are real insperations.

Lee at first sucked at making storys, he didnt get good until like the mid 60's when he created the silver surfer, the inhumans, and many more

thorionthei

02-03-2005, 11:09 PM

I say Stan Lee then Alan Moore. :)

discostu

02-03-2005, 11:45 PM

speedy12

02-05-2005, 02:36 PM

Stan Lee. Who else comes close??? Who has ever read something of Eisner? Who outside comic fandom has ever heart about the guy or about the Spirit? Kirby or Ditko? They both participated with Stan Lee in creating the MU, but how long were they on the respective books compared to Stan, were they involved with as many succesfull characters as Lee? How many succesfull characters did they (co-) create without Stan Lee?

niall mc cann

02-05-2005, 05:24 PM

T GUy

02-05-2005, 06:11 PM

Stan Lee would have still created the MU even if two different artists were handling the art chores. - Discostu

Had anyone other than Kirby been 'handling the art chores' on the FF, DC would have sued Marvel for plagiarising the Challengers of the Unknown.

Lee at first sucked at making storys, he didnt get good until like the mid 60's when he created the silver surfer - Halofreak20

According to Lee in Son of Origins of Marvel Comics, Kirby created the Silver Surfer.

Kirby or Ditko... How many succesfull characters did they (co-) create without Stan Lee? - speedy12

Darkseid seems to have hung around a lot longer than, say, Sgt. Barney Barker. Or even Solar-Man.

Gingold

02-05-2005, 06:18 PM

Did I miss somebody mentioning Harvey Kurtzman? Not sure if I'd put him at number one- he can duke it out with Eisner and Kirby, but he should certainly be part of the discussion. Stan Lee comes in at four, closely followed by Siegel and Shuster, who I'd count as one creator for the purposes of the list. Rounding out my top ten are Neal Adams, Carl Barks, Alan Moore, Steve Ditko and Jim Steranko. Honorable mentions to Gardner Fox, Wally Wood, Alex Toth, Gil Kane, Denny O'Neil, B. Krigstein, R. Crumb, John Buscema, Bob Kane and Bill Finger.

Sir Tim Drake

02-05-2005, 06:57 PM

niall mc cann

02-06-2005, 04:46 AM

Had anyone other than Kirby been 'handling the art chores' on the FF, DC would have sued Marvel for plagiarising the Challengers of the Unknown.

Unlikely. Neither The FF or The CotU were so remarkably original in their conception that they didn't owe to possibly hundreds of other sources of inspiration.

And the FF were in a different class, frankly, to most of those sources. And Lee was a huge part of making them that, and the part he played did go on to influence how many, many other comics creators approached their material.

T GUy

02-06-2005, 05:11 AM

Neither The FF or The CotU were so remarkably original in their conception that they didn't owe to possibly hundreds of other sources of inspiration. Well, I'm not that much an expert on the Challs, but:

An intellectual, a tough guy from Brooklyn and a young hothead are involved in an aerospace accident, as a result of which they team up to have adventures and fight evil. In one of these adventures they fight a powerful alien until its parents whisk it away home and tell it not to be a naughty boy.

Hundreds of sources of inspiration for that?

I think there's also a Challs story with a Dr. Doom magician or time-traveller type in it.

MDG

02-06-2005, 08:24 AM

That sounds good to me.

My top ten would be: Eisner, Kirby, Crumb, Kurtzman, Barks, Pekar, A. Moore, Siegel & Shuster, Lee, and Ware. But that's just at the moment. If I thought about it a little more it would probably be different.
Good list, except I can't see Ware on it. Of course, I'm not reading much new stuff, alternative or manistream, these days. Has he really been influential?

A good replacement might be Speigelman, who really helped bring comics some mainstream recognition. Plus, by putting out Raw, he provided exposure for a lot of alternative artists and, I'm sure, inspired many more.

MDG

Scott Shaw!

02-06-2005, 10:57 AM

Jerry Siegel
Joe Schuster
Jack Kirby
Joe Simon
Will Eisner
Harvey Kurtzman
Stan Lee
Carl Barks
Dan DeCarlo
Jack Davis

Aloha,

Scott!

Sir Tim Drake

02-06-2005, 12:03 PM

Good list, except I can't see Ware on it. Of course, I'm not reading much new stuff, alternative or manistream, these days. Has he really been influential?

A good replacement might be Speigelman, who really helped bring comics some mainstream recognition. Plus, by putting out Raw, he provided exposure for a lot of alternative artists and, I'm sure, inspired many more.

MDG

You know, you're absolutely right. Spiegelman should be on my list instead of Ware.

telerites

02-06-2005, 05:54 PM

Dammit, the answer is NOT Jack Kirby.

First of all, Spider-man has always been more popular than the Fantastic Four. I don't remember Kirby doing any work at all on Spider-man, that was all Lee and Ditko in the early days.

I'm pretty sure Kirby was Spidey's first artist in Amazing Fantasy #15.

It is so tough to narrow this down to one person. I am assuming this must be an writer/artist or I would say Max Gaines or Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. They would be my choices as pioneers.

But to stay with the writer/artist theme. I have a few choices in no particular order - Stan Lee, Will Eisner, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Julie Schwartz, Carl Barks, Joe Schuster, Jerry Siegel, Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Mainly for their longevity and/or major contribution.

But there have many pivotal creators - Neal Adams comes to mind or Al Feldstein and a whole slew of EC artists artists, Barry Smith, etc.

hangmanjury

02-06-2005, 06:08 PM

I'm pretty sure Kirby was Spidey's first artist in Amazing Fantasy #15.

You'd be partly right. He was supposed to be, but his visions of Spider-Man didn't mesh with what Stan wanted. So Stan turned to Steve, and Steve is officially the co-creator of Spider-Man, and was the artist on Amazing Fantasy 15.

Kirby did have a hand in the cover though, still for my money, the best of the classic covers.

Paul Newell

02-06-2005, 06:12 PM

I'm pretty sure Kirby was Spidey's first artist in Amazing Fantasy #15.

Kirby designed the costume and drew the cover. The "Created Spider-man" story is a little murky, as most stories are from that time.

Stan Lee says he was inspired by the pulp hero, The Spider, and created the concept. And that Kirby pencilled the first few pages, but Lee thought the character looked too noble and heroic for what he had in mind, so he got Ditko in.

Jack Kirby said that he pitched the character to Lee, based upon an old "Spiderman" pitch he and Joe Simon developed in 1953. He also said that by the time the project was approved he had become too busy developing the Hulk, Thor and Antman to draw it, so Ditko got the job.

At least, that's what is stated in "The Comic Book Heroes" by Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs.

eric halfabee

02-06-2005, 06:51 PM

Kirby designed the costume and drew the cover. The "Created Spider-man" story is a little murky, as most stories are from that time.

Steve Ditko designed the Spider-Man costume not Kirby, at least according to Steve, a man who most people will admit to being scrupulously honest, at times to a fault.

Although Jack was originally assigned the book, Stan didn't like the direction Kirby was going with it and gave it to Ditko after Jack had only drawn a couple of pages.

A couple of years ago in Comic Book Artist they reprinted a piece by Ditko about all of this and Ditko states that Kirby's design resembled the Fly's, featured a “web gun” and looked nothing like the costume that Ditko eventually came up with.

MDG

02-06-2005, 06:59 PM

Jerry Siegel
Joe Schuster
Jack Kirby
Joe Simon
Will Eisner
Harvey Kurtzman
Stan Lee
Carl Barks
Dan DeCarlo
Jack Davis
Davis is an odd choice. No one's a bigger Davis fan than I am (except, apparently, Scott!), and I wish he'd been more influential. Of course, he did have a big influence in commercial art, but I'm taking the question to mean within comics.

Scott Shaw!

02-07-2005, 07:45 AM

Although I certainly admire Jack Davis, he's not a top favorite of mine...although Jack Kirby sure is. Yes, I AM referring to influence in and OUTSIDE the world of funnybooks. Both Dan DeCarlo and Jack Davis -- whose names remain obscure -- have art-styles that are probably more familiar to the general public than those of any other comic book artists. Also, both have spawned legions of professional imitators.

Aloha,

Scott!

InfoBroker

02-07-2005, 01:09 PM

Spider-man has always been more popular than the Fantastic Four.

Beware of words like "always"...

Well there was all those months from Aug 1961 until May of 1962 when there was no Spider-man comics on the newsracks. A bit hard for Spidey to have been more popular then.

In the early years of Marvel, the Fantastic Four was the flagship comic of the Marvel Super-hero universe, both thematically and in sales. The Amazing Spider-man Comic did not outsell the Fantastic Four until 1966 and issue #39.

I don't remember Kirby doing any work at all on Spider-man, that was all Lee and Ditko in the early days..

Jack did the cover to Amazing Fantasy #15, and a back-up story in issue #8.
Minor stuff true, but there you go.

- jb the ib :cool:

InfoBroker

02-07-2005, 01:30 PM

You cannot tell me you think Kirby from 1941 and the Kirby that drew the Fantastic Four were even REMOTELY close stylistically?!?!?!

I guess it depends on what you call style.

My artist's eye can see all kinds of things in Jack's early work that stayed with him through his entire career. Composition, panel layout, story dynamics, pacing, character handling, camera angles, 3D space ...

If you want to limit style to how the lines look when then meet the page, then yea there are a ton of variations. Some depending on the gendre he was working on, who inked him, who might have been assisting, how rushed the deadline was, how big the workload, or in the case of reprints, by how loyal the process was at honoring those original lines.

It wasn't until the 60's he truely exploded and became the "King".

Well historically, it was Stan Lee who gave him the moniker "The King", but the Kirby/Simon creative team was influential, in demand, and highly popular right from the start. I look on the 60s, and the Marvel impact as the period when Jack dramatically expanded on the mountain of influence he had already created.

- jb the ib :cool:

InfoBroker

02-07-2005, 01:59 PM

So when did Kirby start influencing other artists? 1942? 1945? 1950? Didn't think so. What you want to give Kirby credit for didn't seem to really kick in until he started working with Stan Lee. Doesn't that seem to indicate that Stan's influence on Kirby was pivotal?

It's interesting to note, that in the 1960s, there was a notable section of Comics Fandom that felt while Jack's current work at Marvel was good, Jack's artistic creativity and his influence on the media peaked years earlier when he worked with Joe Simon on Captain America, Sand-man, Boy Commandos, Romance Comics, Black Magic, and most especially Boys Ranch.

Certainly in the 60s, with Stan making Jack's style the house style, and having every artist that came to work at Marvel be put through an indoctrination period, even the old pros like Gil Kane and John Romita, the impact of Jack's styles became even larger. But Jack's style had influences and impact long before that. Stan wasn't the first editor to point at a Kirby piece of artwork and tell artists that he wants his comics to look like that.

- jb the ib :cool:

InfoBroker

02-07-2005, 02:13 PM

How many succesfull characters did they (co-) create without Stan Lee?

This can just as easily be turned around...

How many successful, (be it commercially or otherwise) characters did Stan create without Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko?

I'm not one to take anything away from Stan and his creative acheivements, but I have to admit that I have to ponder a lot longer to think of characters for him. Not too hard for Steve, and tremendously easy with Jack.

- jb the ib :cool:

T GUy

02-07-2005, 03:31 PM

This can just as easily be turned around...See my earlier message.

Reptisaurus!

02-07-2005, 03:32 PM

This can just as easily be turned around...

How many successful, (be it commercially or otherwise) characters did Stan create without Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko?

I'm not one to take anything away from Stan and his creative acheivements, but I have to admit that I have to ponder a lot longer to think of characters for him. Not too hard for Steve, and tremendously easy with Jack.

- jb the ib :cool:

Hey, thanks! :)

I kinda dropped out of this thread, because I always get reallyreallyreally *angry* at people who don't take this stuff seriously. (In this case I was so annoyed with DiscoStu that I found myself writing a really nasty response to Eric Halfabee, which was completely undeserved.)

It *also* really makes me mad that there's so much great comics work out there that I can't afford and doesn't seem to be reprinted. I've heard a buncha people call "Boys Ranch" Kirby's best work ever, but it seems like I'll never get a chance to read it.)

Reptisaurus!

02-07-2005, 03:36 PM

Jerry Siegel
Joe Schuster
Jack Kirby
Joe Simon
Will Eisner
Harvey Kurtzman
Stan Lee
Carl Barks
Dan DeCarlo
Jack Davis

Aloha,

Scott!

I was thinking that if we go outside of American comics and include all of Western Culture, one could make a real case for Carl Barks as the most influential (or at least important) comics artist ever. Us poor Americans just don't have the intelectual sophistication nesacary to appreciate funny animals.

Question: Did Jack Davis actually do comics, outside of "Mad?" I thought he was primarily a strip and commercial artist?

And would Crumb be # 11?

T GUy

02-07-2005, 03:36 PM

I've heard a buncha people call "Boys Ranch" Kirby's best work ever, but it seems like I'll never get a chance to read it. I seem to recall a hardback collection issued back in the 1990s. And don't forget the paperback Real Love collection from the '80s (probably now semi-hard to get hold of).

dan bailey

02-07-2005, 04:23 PM

Question: Did Jack Davis actually do comics, outside of "Mad?" I thought he was primarily a strip and commercial artist?

like most of the mad artists, he did a fair amount of work for the ec horror titles. a peek at the illustrations in the middle of seduction of the innocent demonstrates that quite graphically.

Dizzy D

02-07-2005, 04:49 PM

I was thinking that if we go outside of American comics and include all of Western Culture, one could make a real case for Carl Barks as the most influential (or at least important) comics artist ever. Us poor Americans just don't have the intelectual sophistication nesacary to appreciate funny animals.

Question: Did Jack Davis actually do comics, outside of "Mad?" I thought he was primarily a strip and commercial artist?

And would Crumb be # 11?

You better put parenthesis on those 'funny animals', young man. *insert smiley* Barks' Donald Duck was more human than many human characters in comics were at that time.

And I agree with the people saying that these lists are impossible to narrow down to a single person. Though Scott Shaw and Kirayoshi's short lists do seem to cover a lot of bases.

Reptisaurus!

02-07-2005, 04:49 PM

. I seem to recall a hardback collection issued back in the 1990s.

It took me half an hour of Googling, but I found it on Amazon.. (For sixty bucks, which isn't in my price range now but probably will be someday.)

Awesome. Thanks!

And don't forget the paperback Real Love collection from the '80s (probably now semi-hard to get hold of).

Those are the first Simon and Kirby romance comics?

That's so... well, somehow I just can't imagine a Kirby romance comic. My mind just won't process this. Does this, well, *work?* Are they good stories?

like most of the mad artists, he did a fair amount of work for the ec horror titles. a peek at the illustrations in the middle of seduction of the innocent demonstrates that quite graphically.

The copy in our library didn't have pictures. :( Which sucks, cause I wanted to see some good eye-injuring. That's the kind of wholesome fun you just can't get from today's comics.

....

And crap. Davis did a bunch of stuff for "Piracy," didn't he. I guess I knew that. (If it comes right down to it, Pirate and Dinosaur comics are my favorite genres... Errr...Subgenres, maybe. Whatever. Anyway, I *really* like Pirates, and I have all of the EC reprints, and would probably rank right up there with my favorite comics ever.)

eric halfabee

02-07-2005, 05:53 PM

(In this case I was so annoyed with DiscoStu that I found myself writing a really nasty response to Eric Halfabee, which was completely undeserved.)

GAH!!!! :eek:

Actually I'm glad to see you think it was undeserved. I'm just a newbie trying to fit in.

I met Kirby once back in the early 1980's when he was doing a signing in San Diego for Destroyer Duck and he was a very nice man, and the last thing I would want to do is sound like I’m badmouthing the man.

I actually have a great deal of respect for all three of them though, Lee, Kirby and Ditko. Still I tend to think that the most honest account of the origin of Spider-Man or the rest of the Marvel characters for that matter is in Stan’s original Origins series.

The origin books were all written years before the whole issue of who created who became a hot button issue. And they were written at a time when both Kirby and Ditko were still working for Marvel. On top of that much to Stan’s credit he goes out of his way to clearly give credit to his fellow creators. Stan clearly gives Kirby credit for the Thing and the Silver Surfer, and although he states that Kirby was his first choice on Spider-Man the Kirby style just wasn’t working out in the direction Stan wanted and from there Stan clearly gives credit for Spider-Mans design to Ditko.

So while I’ll bet that Kirby certainly has a case to make for his creation of Spider-Man, both Lee and Ditko clearly say the looks from Ditko.

MDG

02-07-2005, 05:56 PM

Question: Did Jack Davis actually do comics, outside of "Mad?" I thought he was primarily a strip and commercial artist?

He did a fair amount of work for Atlas, post-EC--mainly westerns. And two issues (writing and drawing) of YAK-YAK for Dell, although they weren't exactly comic books.

MDG

dan bailey

02-07-2005, 06:26 PM

GAH!!!! :eek:

Still I tend to think that the most honest account of the origin of Spider-Man or the rest of the Marvel characters for that matter is in Stan’s original Origins series.

The origin books were all written years before the whole issue of who created who became a hot button issue. And they were written at a time when both Kirby and Ditko were still working for Marvel.

not as far as i know -- not in ditko's case, assuming you're talking about stan's "origins of marvel comics" & "son of origins of marvel comics" tpbs.

origins came out in '74, son of origins in '75. ditko was working mainly for charlton & also doing some atlas & dc stuff, but his estrangement from marvel continued uninterrupted, i'm pretty sure.

eric halfabee

02-07-2005, 06:37 PM

not as far as i know -- not in ditko's case, assuming you're talking about stan's "origins of marvel comics" & "son of origins of marvel comics" tpbs.

origins came out in '74, son of origins in '75. ditko was working mainly for charlton & also doing some atlas & dc stuff, but his estrangement from marvel continued uninterrupted, i'm pretty sure.

Ditko did several stories in the time for the B&W monster books, including Dracula Lives and then came back to Marvel in the late 70's to draw books such as Machine Man.

He would work for Marvel, but he refused to draw either Spider-Man or Doctor Strange again.

Edit: I take that back. I'm getting ahead of myself here. Ditko didn't go back to Marvel until around 78 or 79 and was not working for Marvel at this time. Also Kirby was back by late 1975 but was working over at DC in 1974.

However, since it was still Stan crediting Ditko in the books, doesn't the fact that Ditko didn't work for Marvel at the time, back up Stan and Ditkos version even more? If the guy didn't work for Marvel what does Stan have to gain by crediting him for his work?

Sir Tim Drake

02-07-2005, 07:24 PM

He did a fair amount of work for Atlas, post-EC--mainly westerns. And two issues (writing and drawing) of YAK-YAK for Dell, although they weren't exactly comic books.

MDG

I think he also did some design work for Warren, but no actual comics stories. If I'm remembering the Jim Warren interview in CBA #4 correctly, by the time Jim Warren started Creepy and Eerie, Jack Davis had become ashamed of his work on the EC horror titles and didn't want to do any more horror comics.

Paul Newell

02-08-2005, 04:54 AM

Steve Ditko designed the Spider-Man costume not Kirby, at least according to Steve, a man who most people will admit to being scrupulously honest, at times to a fault.

Although Jack was originally assigned the book, Stan didn't like the direction Kirby was going with it and gave it to Ditko after Jack had only drawn a couple of pages.

A couple of years ago in Comic Book Artist they reprinted a piece by Ditko about all of this and Ditko states that Kirby's design resembled the Fly's, featured a “web gun” and looked nothing like the costume that Ditko eventually came up with.
Oh cool. I didn't know that. I didn't read anything about what the costume actually looked like so I didn't realise Spidey's costume was a different design to the Kirby one. They mention in the book that the same Spiderman proposal was revamped by Simon & Kirby for the Fly so the original Spider-Man design is understandable.

So how did Kirby end up doing the cover for Amazing Fantasy #15?

T GUy

02-08-2005, 05:31 AM

Mark Andrew: Those are the first Simon and Kirby romance comics?

That's so... well, somehow I just can't imagine a Kirby romance comic. My mind just won't process this. Does this, well, *work?* Are they good stories?

Good? Up there with the best of Kirby. Well, at least as good as you'll get outside the pages of the Fourth World and 'The Losers.' The art takes a little bit of getting used to... but once I had done that, I saw that there's at least one story in there that could pass for a 1970s Kirby with the merest smidgen of tipp-ex and black ink.

Real Love collects the best of the S&K produced romance comics, selecting something like a dozen stories from about 1947-50.

There's also: The Millenium Edition of Young Romance Comics No. 1, and several stories are starting to be issued by Pure Imagination in their Complete Jack Kirby and Jack Kirby Reader series.

niall mc cann

02-08-2005, 11:05 AM

Well, I'm not that much an expert on the Challs, but:

An intellectual, a tough guy from Brooklyn and a young hothead are involved in an aerospace accident, as a result of which they team up to have adventures and fight evil.

I'm no expert either, but you can lift the tough guy adventurer, hip young teenage adventurer and even the square-jawed scientist/genius hero from any number of sources in 50s and 60s popular culture; i don't want to insult anybody's fave heroes by calling them stock characters, but anyone could be forgiven for regarding them that way. I'm not claiming that the FF invented the concepts you mention, but neither did the challengers; imo i think it's reasonably clear that both teams took their inspiration from the most prevailant hero archetypes of the day. I don't know the the challs well enough to comment on them, but i know the FF outgrew those stereotypes very quickly.

In one of these adventures they fight a powerful alien until its parents whisk it away home and tell it not to be a naughty boy.

Hundreds of sources of inspiration for that?

Are you comparing that to Galactus? 'cause that's not what galactus was...

That's not an uncommon plotline though. It's established enough as a standard sf storyline to be parodied (expertly) in Futurama. Seen that episode? It's really funny. "He's not a child! He's thirty-four years old!" :D

I think there's also a Challs story with a Dr. Doom magician or time-traveller type in it.

It's more than possible that a challengers villain could bear superficial resemblances to Dr. Doom, but i doubt he bore more than that. Doom isn't a great villain because he looks the way he does. Doom has a character to him that's beautifully realised and was expertly drawn by Lee. I don't mean to call you on this, but i really doubt the challs had a hero/villain relationship quite like Doom's to the Four.

Reptisaurus!

02-08-2005, 11:59 AM

I'm no expert either, but you can lift the tough guy adventurer, hip young teenage adventurer and even the square-jawed scientist/genius hero from any number of sources in 50s and 60s popular culture; i don't want to insult anybody's fave heroes by calling them stock characters, but anyone could be forgiven for regarding them that way. I'm not claiming that the FF invented the concepts you mention, but neither did the challengers; imo i think it's reasonably clear that both teams took their inspiration from the most prevailant hero archetypes of the day. I don't know the the challs well enough to comment on them, but i know the FF outgrew those stereotypes very quickly.

Did those archetypes exist in popular culture when the Newsboy Legion debuted in 1942?

Because the Blue collar scrapper and the Intellectual Adventurer archetype are both *very* obvious in those stories.

And, honestly, (and comic specifically) I can't think of many scientist *first* hero *second* types in comics.

And, heck, the Blue Collar Scrapper type didn't come into comic prominence till War comics took off. (I think they debuted in 1940 from Dell, but weren't a major sales factor in the early Golden Age.)

So, considering that Kirby worked on Fantastic Four, Challengers of the Unknown, *and* Newsboy Legion,

Well, I'd be hesitant to say that the archetypal personalities of at least the Thing and Mister Fantastic came from anyone else.

Which isn't to say that Simon and Kirby didn't draw inspiration from pop culture around them. The "Kid Gang" is obviously not a brand new idea. But the first, most notable, most effectively rendered comic specific examples of the "Thing" and "Mister Fantastic" personality archetype came from Simon and Kirby first, then Kirby solo.

Are you comparing that to Galactus? 'cause that's not what galactus was...

Nope. The "Infant Terrible" storyline in Fantastic Four # 24. The plot of this story was taken pretty much intact from one of Kirby's Challenger issues. (Although I can't personally verify this. I've got a pretty good run of post-Kirby Challs, so I know the characters pretty well, but none of the first couple of Kirby issues.)

And I've seen a couple (reprinted, sadly) examples of Kirby original art where he was pretty much tellin' Lee what the heck was going on, along with notes in the margins. Sometimes including dialouge.

Still, Mark Evanier says it was a pure colaboration, and he knows better than me.

Still, when you consider Kirby's vast range of creations and co-creations without Stan Lee to Stan Lee's creations sans (proven creators) Kirby, Ditko, and Everett...

Well, you're *still* left with the greatest body of creative work in the comic medium....

Vs. the She-Hulk and Stripperella.

That's not an uncommon plotline though. It's established enough as a standard sf storyline to be parodied (expertly) in Futurama. Seen that episode? It's really funny. "He's not a child! He's thirty-four years old!" :D

Wayull, I thought that was a purposeful and deliberate Kirby nod. :) Then again, I'm pretty clueless about popular culture outside of music and comics.

Reptisaurus!

02-08-2005, 12:11 PM

Mark Andrew:

Good? Up there with the best of Kirby. Well, at least as good as you'll get outside the pages of the Fourth World and 'The Losers.' The art takes a little bit of getting used to... but once I had done that, I saw that there's at least one story in there that could pass for a 1970s Kirby with the merest smidgen of tipp-ex and black ink.

Real Love collects the best of the S&K produced romance comics, selecting something like a dozen stories from about 1947-50.

*Sigh* Fifty bucks on E-bay. Which sucks, cause I'm now really curious.

There's also: The Millenium Edition of Young Romance Comics No. 1, and several stories are starting to be issued by Pure Imagination in their Complete Jack Kirby and Jack Kirby Reader series.

Huh. I've got a Steve Ditko reader around here someplace, which I think was by the same guys.

I'll definitely try to find the Millenium edition. I think they've got a whole dollar box of Millenium books in the comic shop I go to in Detroit.

Are the Pure Imagination folks going to reprint everything Kirby ever did? I found the first "Complete" volume on Amazon, but nothing else.

And this review:

horribly drawn stories for kids, June 16, 2001
Reviewer: A reader
Surely no one buys these things to read them; comics, especially old ones like this, exist as an outlet for the drawings. This book features the artwork of Jack Kirby, who is surely the worst artist ever to work in comics, which paradoxically is why he was so influential.The drawings here are so simplistic, crude and unutterably ugly that I, and all the other kids I knew, were embarassed by them, but they appeal greatly to the visually illiterate preadolescents who made them popular.Kirby and his imitators are the ones who drug the level of superhero comics down to their current pro-wrestling level. Spare your eyes and avoid this one.

Edit: Gah! Forgot the best part!

0 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

dan bailey

02-08-2005, 12:25 PM

Did those archetypes exist in popular culture when the Newsboy Legion debuted in 1942?

Because the Blue collar scrapper and the Intellectual Adventurer archetype are both *very* obvious in those stories.

And, honestly, (and comic specifically) I can't think of many scientist *first* hero *second* types in comics.

i have only the vaguest impression of doc savage, but i think he & his 5 companions fit the bill pretty well. that pulp apparently started in 1933.

eric halfabee

02-08-2005, 12:44 PM

Did those archetypes exist in popular culture when the Newsboy Legion debuted in 1942?

Because the Blue collar scrapper and the Intellectual Adventurer archetype are both *very* obvious in those stories.

The whole kid gang idea had been around for quite awhile before the rise of comics. The most obvious example that comes to mind is the Hal Roach Our Gang films, which at various times had members who fit the blue collar scrapper image as well as the Intellectual adventuer type as well. Of course those films were comedy without much in the way of actual adventure, but they do fit.

T GUy

02-08-2005, 03:03 PM

Are the Pure Imagination folks going to reprint everything Kirby ever did?

In my dreams (the strange world of T Guy's dreams...). I think that theoretically they're going to do evrything that Marvel/DC don't have some sort of copyright claim on.

However, working it out - admittedly crudely - I don't think that Greg Theakston's going to live long enough.

T GUy

02-08-2005, 03:22 PM

i have only the vaguest impression of doc savage, but i think he & his 5 companions fit the bill pretty well. that pulp apparently started in 1933. - Dan Bailey

I've read quite a few Doc Savage books and never connected the five or six main characters with any of Kirby's groupings. Doc could be characterised as an intellectual adventurer, I suppose, but Kirby's intellectual characters are Big Words (that was the name of the guy in the newsboy legion, wasn't it?), Reed and Metron. Or that's how I see Kirby developing that character. It clearly, at least considered that way, has little to do with the Savage crew as portrayed by Lester Dent and his substitutes.

More. Three of the five asistants are scientists: chemist (Monk), Civil Engineer (Renny), Electrical Engineer (Long Tom) and Archaeologist (Johnny). Okay, intellectuals/technologists, not 'straight' scientists. Kirby never stuffed a group like that.

The whole kid gang idea had been around for quite awhile before the rise of comics. The most obvious example that comes to mind is the Hal Roach Our Gang films, which at various times had members who fit the blue collar scrapper image as well as the Intellectual adventuer type as well. - Eric Halfbee

Never seen any of these, though I'll happily accept they were the inspiration for Kirby's Kid Gangs. However, Kirby went on to use his repertory company in other work.

Intellectual: Big Words (hey, wasn't it Gabby?); Reed Richards, Metron

Tough Guy from Brooklyn: Brooklyn, Ben Grimm, Orion

Teenage Hothead: Johnny Storm, Lightray, Kamandi. Must've been one or two in the Kid Gangs, surely? Anyone?

Father figure: 'Jupiter, the all wise' in 'Mercury in the 20th Century (Kirby's first work for Marvel, I think before he teamed up with Joe Simon, and certainly before Stan Lee got a job there); the Guardian, Rip Carter, Clay Duncan, Reed Richards, Professor Xavier, Zeus, Izaya/Highfather, Himon, Zuras.

Note that from at least the 1960s Marvel period Kirby starts combining characters: Reed and Himon combine intellectual and father (also note that these two are different characters despite being the same 'template' from the rep. co.).

And when we look at comics history this way, a lot of Marvel comics from the 1960s do rather begin to look like Jack Kirby comics with Stan Lee getting his oar in.

T GUy

02-08-2005, 03:26 PM

I wrote: Doc Savage books ...the Savage crew as portrayed by Lester Dent and his substitutes.

...Three of the five asistants are scientists: chemist (Monk), Civil Engineer (Renny), Electrical Engineer (Long Tom) and Archaeologist (Johnny). Okay, intellectuals/technologists, not 'straight' scientists. Kirby never stuffed a group like that.
It's just occurred to me that the Doc stories are a product of the FDR New Deal/white hot technological 1930s. This relates to Kirby, though I doubt his 1930s idealism was unaffected by being captured bythe S. S. and seeing a Nazi extermination camp.

Shellhead

02-08-2005, 07:12 PM

Honorable mentions to Gardner Fox, Wally Wood, Alex Toth, Gil Kane, Denny O'Neil, B. Krigstein, R. Crumb, John Buscema, Bob Kane and Bill Finger.

R. Crumb. Hmm. I found his work to be vivid and grotesque, but not especially influential. I happened to stumble across an interview (in the May 1995 issue of Details) with Terrry Zwigoff, who directed the documentary "Crumb." In the last paragraph, he tells the writer about how the movie didn't do well at the Berlin film festival he attended:

"The day after it was screened, a local paper ran a review. Terry asked a woman to translate. She looked at the headline, blushed and blurted out: THE SAD MASTURBATING MAN. It made Terry laugh. And how did Crumb react? "I was afraid to run that one by Robert" he sighs. "When he saw the film he said, 'I don't think that I want to be Crumb anymore.' "

Shellhead

02-08-2005, 07:29 PM

And I've seen a couple (reprinted, sadly) examples of Kirby original art where he was pretty much tellin' Lee what the heck was going on, along with notes in the margins. Sometimes including dialouge.

Still, Mark Evanier says it was a pure colaboration, and he knows better than me.

Still, when you consider Kirby's vast range of creations and co-creations without Stan Lee to Stan Lee's creations sans (proven creators) Kirby, Ditko, and Everett...

Well, you're *still* left with the greatest body of creative work in the comic medium....

Vs. the She-Hulk and Stripperella.

That's a pretty solid argument. But comics really changed when Marvel Comics started up, because their characters had more depth and personality than the legion of cardboard heroes that preceded them. If Kirby was working in the field for decades before Marvel, influencing comics so strongly, where was that Marvel style before 1961? Doesn't that shift in tone strongly indicate the direct impact of Stan Lee? Maybe he didn't contribute a full 50% of the storytelling effort on those comics, but if he created a new kind of hero, a hero who makes mistakes, is often physically handicapped, and not automatically beloved by the American people just for fighting evil... that was something dramatically different and very influential.

To be honest, I have a real bias against Kirby's artwork. While I have seen some impressive work by him over the years, my first serious exposure was mid-70's Captain America, when the artwork went from average (Sal Buscema) to awful (Frank Robbins) and then back to just kind of below average (Kirby). He drew Cap and pretty much every other caste member with a block head, a beefy and inflated physique, and a shocked but otherwise expressionless face. It kind of sucked, compared to average contemporaries, like Sal Buscema and Rich Buckler, and really sucked, compared to Jim Starlin, Frank Brunner and Dave Cockrum.

Since then, I have gained a greater appreciation for Kirby, but there is still a lingering taint from those rushed, sloppy Captain America issues, especially #200. Kirby himself drew a better Cap in at the beginning of his career.

InfoBroker

02-08-2005, 10:09 PM

*Sigh* Fifty bucks on E-bay. Which sucks, cause I'm now really curious.

It's no more than a meager sample, but hopefully these will help you to stay patient and wait for a copy of Real Love to come in at a price you can afford.

Just don't blame me once you get pulled in by the rich characterization, tension, and excitement that are trademarks of Kirby's (and Joe's) writing styles.

BTW and just to make sure I give credit where credit is due: Mork Meskin, Bruno Premiani, Bill Draut, Ann Brewster, John Prentice and Leonard Starr were doing assignments for S&K's Romance Comics at Prize. However, I'm pretty sure these pages are mostly S&K's.

- jb the "always will be humbled by the power of Jack's work" ib :cool:

Reptisaurus!

02-08-2005, 10:44 PM

You better put parenthesis on those 'funny animals', young man. *insert smiley* Barks' Donald Duck was more human than many human characters in comics were at that time.

Not a damn thing wrong with funny animals. :) (Real Smiley)

Hey... I'm arguing that Carl Barks (and his ducks by association) might be the most important creator comics have ever seen. I have nothing but the utmost respect for funny animals... Who are no "funnier" than stories about folks who dress up in tights and shoot laser beams outta their butts, IMO.

i have only the vaguest impression of doc savage, but i think he & his 5 companions fit the bill pretty well. that pulp apparently started in 1933.

Savage himself not so much. He was the world's richest man, and he was the world's greatest detective and he was the world's handsomest man, And when he farts the room fills with the sweet, sweet scent of lavender.

I really don't like Doc Savage all that much.

Sure, he was the world's greatest scientist, but that was kind of incidental to his being the best at everything *else*, too. He wasn't a scientist/Adventurer. He was an Adventurer/Scientist/Explorer/Escape Artist/Indian Scout/Jet Pilot/Hair Dresser/ Monkey Trainer.

And I was thinking of him as kind of a Pre-Kirby archetype... A scientist in name only, who didn't act like a scientist. Or what a comic writer thinks a scientist should act like.

Still, you got a point with the rest of the five. I haven't read much Doc Savage (only the stories with pirates..) but I remeber Long Tom was specifically an electricity expert, and one of the other ones was an engineer.

I can see that being an influence on Kirby's later work, maybe.

In my dreams (the strange world of T Guy's dreams...). I think that theoretically they're going to do evrything that Marvel/DC don't have some sort of copyright claim on.

However, working it out - admittedly crudely - I don't think that Greg Theakston's going to live long enough.

Ah! Oh no!

And, lord, it's all sorts of stinky for Marvel and DC not to cough up the rights to material they're not actually doing anything with. Marvel's been reprinting Kirby's Cap stuff, and DC's been "Archiving" the Challengers, but do they *really* have plans for the Newsboy Legion? They should just get this material out there. (Preferably in inexpensive trade format, please.)

Reptisaurus!

02-08-2005, 11:19 PM

R. Crumb. Hmm. I found his work to be vivid and grotesque, but not especially influential.

Honestly, I'm a tad prudish to really deal with a lot of his later work... Although not so prudish that I don't think the scene with the baby in the desert is the funniest thing ever...

But he's undeniably and vastly influential.

(A) He was the first creator to make comics without any sort of corporate backing or connection.

Or at least the first to do this and make a healthy living at it.

All self-publishers owe him a debt. (And, personally, the fact that self-publishing is *possible* is one of the reasons I love comics so much.)

Most of the non-Mainstream comic companies, especially Fatnagraphics and Kitchen Sink acknowledge that their work wouldn't be possible without him.

Which means that the vast majority of literary-type comics might never have happened. No Crumb, no "Ghost World" or "Jimmy Corgan" or "From Hell" or "Bone" or "Cerebus" Definitely no 80s Independent Comic Boom. (And therefore *gasp!* no Ninja Turtles.

(B) The obvious inclusion of stuff like sex and drugs. If Crumb wasn't the first comic writer to deal with these themes, he's the poster boy. There's a darn good chance that No Crumb, no "Sandman."

(C) He spawned a *hell* of a lot of imitators, though they mostly stopped working with the end of the seventies, and the comics they produced were a major part of seventies 'head' culture.

(Gilbert Shelton is probably the best known of 'em, but he's more a contemperary than an imitator. Still, his work would never have achieved it's current popularity without Crumb opening the doors.)

(D) Encouraged Harvey Pekar, and drew the first few American Splendour strips. No Pekar, no autobiographical comics. Which would have saved us from a mound of crap back in the eighties...

But also none of Chester Brown, Seth, James Kochalka, or "Maus."

I happened to stumble across an interview (in the May 1995 issue of Details) with Terrry Zwigoff, who directed the documentary "Crumb." In the last paragraph, he tells the writer about how the movie didn't do well at the Berlin film festival he attended:

"The day after it was screened, a local paper ran a review. Terry asked a woman to translate. She looked at the headline, blushed and blurted out: THE SAD MASTURBATING MAN. It made Terry laugh. And how did Crumb react? "I was afraid to run that one by Robert" he sighs. "When he saw the film he said, 'I don't think that I want to be Crumb anymore.' "

I never saw all of "Crumb." But from what I've read, his life always made me think of Van Gogh or Miles Davis, kinda. These really desperate, lonely, kind of sad guys, doing really important work, but never being quite happy.

Edit: I gotta do homework now, so I'm not doing a full response, but I do agree that Stan Lee was vitally important in the formation of sixties Marvel. Fantastic Four, Thor and Captain America *didn't* read like Kirby's work. Still, they also didn't read much like Lee's fourties or fifties work1, or even Lee and Kirby's collaborative monster books, either.

And while you're right that most superheroes up to that time had little discernable personality, a buncha Kirby's characters *definitely* did.

1 Which I haven't read, at all, any of it, but I've heard this second hand from four generally credible sources.

T GUy

02-09-2005, 04:42 AM

Infobroker: these will help you to stay patient and wait for a copy of Real Love to come in at a price you can afford. (links to some jpegs or something).

Mark Andrew to Shellhead: you're right that most superheroes up to that time had little discernable personality, a buncha Kirby's characters *definitely* did.

as we can handilly see from those excerpts from the infobroker (Carol and Shelly in two of the pages are written by Kirby, as are the Lt., Ilse and Helen the stenographer from 'The Underdog;' I can't remember whether 'The Girl Who Tempted Me' is written by Kirby or not).

Admirers of Schwartz's silver age superheroes say there's characterisation in them, but I'll let them make that point.

T GUy

02-09-2005, 04:47 AM

I can't remember whether 'The Girl Who Tempted Me' is written by Kirby or not The answer is an obvious 'yes' from the rhythm of the last two sentences of the first caption alone. Even without that Kirby concern with self-respect in romantic relationships.

CossackBueh

02-09-2005, 05:20 AM

How about Walt Kelly? His talking animal's appeared in New Comics and was the birthplace of his pogo strip.

Sir Tim Drake

02-09-2005, 06:35 AM

BTW and just to make sure I give credit where credit is due: Mork Meskin, Bruno Premiani, Bill Draut, Ann Brewster, John Prentice and Leonard Starr were doing assignments for S&K's Romance Comics at Prize. However, I'm pretty sure these pages are mostly S&K's.

What about Mindy Meskin?

(Sorry, sorry...)

InfoBroker

02-09-2005, 07:04 AM

What about Mindy Meskin?

(Sorry, sorry...)

Yea, sure... go ahead and rub Morton salt on my wounds. I deserve it for that typing blunder.

I'll also stick my neck out here and venture to guess that Bill Draut was the inker on exhibits "A" and "C" The other two are definitely Joe Simon's inks.

-jb the ib :cool:

devildinosaur

02-09-2005, 08:41 AM

MilkManX

02-20-2006, 10:38 AM

The Shadow

02-20-2006, 10:48 AM

If I have to narrow it down to one.

Jack Kirby.

He did so much with the medium and created so many charicters and stories with others than anyone else. He probably pencilled more pages that anyone will ever get close to.
The only other one I think would be Stan Lee... he revolutionized the way the stories were told.

DDM

02-20-2006, 12:16 PM

Neal Adams influenced many other artists from John Byrne to Alan Davis.

Halloween Jill

02-21-2006, 05:50 AM

Initial thought: a tie between Kirby and Eisner.

But then I thought, fine, most of the artists working in comics today are carrying stuff from one or the other (or both, indirectly or not), but... who was the absolutely pivotal influence on both of these men? Milton Caniff.

So there might be an argument for Milt. I'm not at all familiar with his work, but this isn't about picking favourites, is it? If a lot of Kirby influence, NOW, is indirect, maybe it makes sense to track the lineage back a generation further... or is that a totally crazy idea?!

BTW, my standpoint on this issue is, I don't give a DAMN who was influential in the sense of catching ephemeral trends of a particular period, or making enduring cash cows for mainstream producers. I'm thinking in terms of the FORM of the medium, the kind of influence that lives on regardless of whether Superman or Spider-Man ever die for real (one can only hope)... Lee, of course, is out of the running in such a discussion... you could argue that in that kind of discussion -- the cash cow angle -- Siegel and Shuster are IT, they're responsible for the whole thing, even though their work was actually POOR (let's face it; those stories look like puke-on-a-page compared to what Kirby or Eisner was doing at the time)... but no, I'm more interested in the creative perspective.

Naldo

02-21-2006, 06:55 AM

I think there's probably a reason why the awards for achievement of excellence in comics are called "The Eisner Awards".

That being said I'm surprised no one has mentioned R. F. Outcault. I mean if we're talking influence.

Also, Walt Disney was a great influence on illustrators as was the great Charles Schultz.

All the other names mentioned so far have been incredible influences in their own right, the shapers and builders of what we now have as a very under-rated modern medium.

Nøhr

02-23-2006, 04:56 PM

Impossible to name just one, therefore, and in no particular order:
Hergé, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, André Franquin, Goscinny, Eisner, Carl Barks, Floyd Godfredson, Winsor McCay and Tezuka.
Of the modern creators:
Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Niel Gaiman.

There are of course many many more which I can't remember, for my brain is taking a holliday.

Captain Jim

02-23-2006, 08:56 PM

Somehow I totally missed this thread earlier.

In my book, it's got to be Stan Lee. No contest.

Sir Tim Drake

02-23-2006, 09:55 PM

J'onn J'onzz

02-25-2006, 08:59 AM

If we can name many, then in order of importance it would be

Jerry Seigle and Joe Shuster
Stan Lee
Jack Kirby
Gardener Fox
Steve Ditko (I'm not his biggest fan but he's still influential)
Roy Thomas

Now my favorites not mentioned above
Steve Englehart
Marv Wolfman
Paul Levitz
Mike W Barr
Gerry Conway

Agentum

02-25-2006, 02:30 PM

Well this is a hard one, many americans see comics as an american thing, but it's not.
A lot of your most important books was just important for american superherocomics.

But this is a superhero forum mostly.

Sometimes it's fun to see how crude and simple superherobooks could be in the 40-50s when european comics was maybe better than ever after, it can be really hard to read a 40s superherobook even if i do it just to understad the history.

But for superhero books Stan Lee must have been really important, i don't know if this books would be around without him.
Artist can be important but it's always somebody that can draw things, i think the writers are those who is most important whitout any improvment in the writing the artist can't do much.
But yes Steve Ditko and Kirby is important artists.
Eisner and Cole is intreesting early superhero artist that could do things that still can be read and considered to be good (and maybe even impossible to surpass with the same characters today) as opposite to much of the stuff from those days.

Alan Moore is our times most important writer, he have done things that made other writers understand what could be done in comics.
But if he was a textbook writer he would still be good but among lots of other people, it was quite easy for him to become the greatest in comics.
Neil Gaiman is really somebody that tried comics because of Moore, even that he is wery good i don't think he is that revolution good, he didn't change things.

I have a lot of favorite writers and artist but most have not changed the comics in a big way and i think to be called "most important" that is something they must have done.

Action 1 is an important book even if it's not really good, but it started the wave with superheroes.