EXCLUSIVE: Stan Lee Records "Marvel Origins," Reminisces About Cameos, Kirby And Care

[CBR News]

Comic book legend Stan Lee speaks exclusively with CBR about his career, the future of the comic book industry and narrating the new "Marvel Origins" storybook apps.


Full article here.

[storyofaboy]

does it hurt anyone else's feelings to see stan signing that issue of x-men?

[Ravin' Ray]

Why, anything noteworthy about that issue.

Stan's remark about profuse word balloons in the '60's is telling, because while they might have certainly appealed to readers who were just getting introduced to the Marvel Universe, along with spoken exposition, today's audience apparently wants it cut back. Actually word balloons are still present, but in a different form: those rectangular text boxes.

[CrazyOldHermit]

He didn't want me to use too much dialogue, 'Nobody wants to read the dialogue, don't use words of more than two syllables, don't worry too much about complicated plots, just get a lot of fighting and action and killing,' and things like that," Lee said.

This could be applied to more than a few modern books lol.

[Bricolo]

I love thought balloons and miss them when they are not present. I'd rather see them as thought baloons than those stupid little boxes. I love the dialogue, another problem with a lot of modern comics, very little dialog. It should take fifteen or twenty minutes to a half hour to read a comic, not two minutes. Love you Stan Lee, I wish Marvel could one day recapture your spirit, you made comics fun.

[CHOX]

I've recently been reading older Marvel issues, and the thought balloons definitely stood out. They made the story so much longer! It seems like it takes me 20 minutes to read some of the original X-Men issues or Silver Surfer. Now days, I get through a comic in about five minutes.

[Iron Maiden]

I've recently been reading older Marvel issues, and the thought balloons definitely stood out. They made the story so much longer! It seems like it takes me 20 minutes to read some of the original X-Men issues or Silver Surfer. Now days, I get through a comic in about five minutes.

I miss them too because it told you more about the character. Sometimes what the dialogue didn't tell the whole story. Or you could show that what are character was saying wasn't always the the same as what they were thinking.

[Sam Robards, Comic Fan]

Stan's remark about profuse word balloons in the '60's is telling, because while they might have certainly appealed to readers who were just getting introduced to the Marvel Universe, along with spoken exposition, today's audience apparently wants it cut back...

I think part of it is the audience and part of it is the comic companies. I remember Joe Quesada said a few years back (when he was E-i-C) that they were trying to reduce the amount of word balloons, if not outright eliminate them, so that they're comics would be "more cinematic."

As a result, the artist is expected to do so much more work than he/she used to. An artist used to be able to get away with literally having two floating heads over a solid background color during a scene of extensive dialogue/exposition (I remember it happening a couple times in the Kree/Skrull War). If an artist tried to do that now, their work would get ripped for being "lazy" or "lacking detail."

So I guess the question is: did people's perception of the balance between writer and artist shift, or did a shift in the industry cause our perceptions to change? Very chicken and the egg, though I could be overthinking things...

...Actually word balloons are still present, but in a different form: those rectangular text boxes.

You're exactly right, though they interact with the story differently. To me, caption boxes (for lack of a better term) are very passive and seem to imply that everything is happening in the past tense: i.e., this already happened, and the character's telling you about it. Thought bubbles always seemed more active and engaging to me because you're seeing how a character's thinking and reacting to circumstances within the book the second they occur.

They can both work, given certain circumstances, but I still seem to prefer bubbles due to their apparent spontaneity of thought.