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Stan Lee's story changed after 1978
J David Spurlock
11 June 2016
Stan took the money & the published credit for plotting that
freelancers like Kirby, Ditko & Wood did — YES. But, he acknowledged
the plotting artists occasionally in interviews, forwards, letters
pages, etc UP UNTIL, the law changed in '78. As Lee had long
expressed, the "Marvel Method" included artists participating in
plotting, Marvel, to try to strip freelancers from their rights which
the new law better detailed, couldn't totally refute it. The only
thing Marvel could do, to further minimize the Marvel Method freelance
talents — to keep all the profits and rights for the corporation — was
to claim ALL stories started with SOME bit of a plot from Stan. That
whole smokescreen rewriting of history started to kick-in the
following year (1979) but Stan had already turned in the foreword for
the Dr Strange book which he told the truth in (prior to the new
corporate plan to rewrite history).
Patrick Ford: In the case of Ditko things are complicated by the fact
that Ditko was able to get plot credits in the published comic books.
So Lee mentioning Ditko as plotting here is something that can't be
disputed due to the published credits back in the '60s.
Kirby *NEVER* got a plot credit the whole time he sold stories to
Marvel from 1958-1970. Kirby did get seven script credits (I think
seven is correct, it might be one or two more), only two of which came
prior to 1970.
There is a claim that plot credits were rare at Marvel during the
'60s. That is incorrect. Stan Lee took numerous published in the
credit boxes plot credits during the '60s and Lee began to credit
himself with plots in books cover dated Nov. 1962 which was the very
first month Lee began using the credit box in the Marvel comics.
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