The Marvel Method Archive

Did Lee offer Kirby a deal to become art director? Patrick Ford 4 May 2017

An Oct. 1 2008 post from Roy Thomas on the Dave Rawlins "Stan Lee Era" Yahoo group. And a cut from the Roy Thomas interview in TCJ #61. In his post to the Dave Rawlins group Thomas mentions Lee would have had to have offered Kirby the Art Director position prior to 1970. Actually Lee would have had to have offered the position to Kirby prior to 1969 because Kirby arrived in California in January of 1969. Hi List-- Just time for a couple of fast answers. I'm afraid I have no knowledge of when Stan may have offered an art director-type position to Jack Kirby, except that I suspect Stan would've kept that actual title for himself. Note that in 1972 Frank Giacoia was considered generally (though not perhaps by John Romita) as "assistant art director," with Stan retaining that title on top of being publisher and president. BUT-- it would've had to happen by 1970 or before, of course. Would've made no sense at any time after Jack moved to L.A. area, even after he returned. Roy Chris Tolworthy: "he wanted to continue to be thought of as editor, even if he never read the stories" - "it was as much my idea as anyone else's to stick "Stan Lee Presents" all over the stories" So Kirby was not exaggerating about "House Roy". Isn't this unethical? To promote lies in order to get paid? Patrick Ford: Chris Tolworthy, Mark Mayerson found this supporting quote. John Romita quote from Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics by Dewey Cassell, page 67. "There was a time after that, I think when Jack [Kirby] left, and Stan was even busier, that I was sort of considered the art director, and Stan was calling me art director, but I was never in the company records as art director. And later on, somewhere, like '72, Stan was battling for a raise from Marvel, and he called me in and said, 'Listen John. I want you to understand I need to get some money from Martin Goodman and the only way he'd go for it is if I put some other duties on my plate.' So he took on the actual, physical assignment of being the art director. He had been the art director all those years. I mean, I never really superseded him. He told me what he wanted and I did it. So I was never really the art director. So he took on the official title, and let me tell you, I was still doing everything I was doing before, but Stan was the official art director." Patrick Ford: One reason Stan Lee might have been so interested in getting more money is almost as soon as Kirby quit Lee just about stopped writing. And I think he quit writing monthly titles altogether right around 1972. In fact Lee stopped writing a bunch of titles in 1968-1969 so it may be he began getting some sort of Art Director pay right about that time. In 1968-1969 Lee dropped: DAREDEVIL, SUB-MARINER, HULK, IRON MAN. Chris Tolworthy: "as soon as Kirby quit Lee just about stopped writing." What a coincidence. Patrick Ford: Chris Tolworthy , When I looked though it seems Lee began dropping titles in 1968. What replaced the income from all those dropped titles? I noticed the Don McGregor posted a voucher on a FB page and it showed he was getting $15 a page from Marvel in 1974. I think we can safely assume Lee's page rate in 1969 must have been at least $15 per page so in dropping four titles in 68-69 that's $1200 a month. Chris Tolworthy: Patrick Ford Fair point. [comments from concurrent post on Dialogue group] Patrick Ford: I have to wonder if it was the title or the money that went with it which motivated Lee to hang on to the "Art Director" title. According to Mark Evanier, Kirby told him there was more than one occasion during the '60s when Stan Lee offered Kirby a staff position. Kirby told Mark he turned down the offers because the money would have been less than what he was making freelance. Lee of course was paid the whole writers page rate for every page written by Kirby (as well as pages written or co-written by Ditko, Wood, Buscema, Colon, etc.). Lee was also paid a salary as editor and another salary as art director. Dave Rawlins: I believe that Kirby was perhaps shrewd enough to realize that were he to accept a staff position Marvel could legitimately claim that his creations were "work for hire". Mark Evanier: Patrick, how do we know that Stan was paid one salary as editor and another salary as art director? Two titles does not necessarily mean two salaries or two checks. Do we know for a fact that when Ditko began getting credit for plotting, Stan's page rate did not go down? Or that it did? I'm trying to separate here when we know from what we assume. Patrick Ford: Mark, I believe that Stan Lee mentioned in his deposition that he was paid a salary for editing and art directing on top of a freelance page rate for writing. I'll have to double check to make sure. The Ditko question is an open one and may remain so. My assumption is X amount of money was budgeted for each title. I gather that from various comments concerning some artist (say John Buscema) not being assigned to some title (say CONAN) because the artists page rate was "too high." Of course as with so many things concerning Marvel (and comic books in general) we don't actually know the facts. We don't even know what Buscema's page rate was. To me the fact that Lee stopped writing Dr. Strange after Ditko began getting a plot credit suggests Ditko began getting some writing money. And the quotes from Wally Wood in your interview with him concerning writing money suggest the writing money was an issue. In the case of Kirby and Wood it looks like the writing money dispute and the money budgeted for a title was resolved by the writing money (i.e. layouts) being taken out of the total amount budgeted for art (layouts-pencils-inks). In fact that might explain why there was a period of time where Lee began having Ditko produce a bunch of work which was inked by George Roussos, Giacoia, Colletta, and others (Powell?). Anyhow I conclude that there was X amount of money to produce story and art for each book and I doubt that the editor came out on the short end of the stick. Patrick Ford: BTW. I would assume that the title "Publisher" which according to Roy Thomas, Lee acquired by having Chip Goodman removed, also had a salary (or raise in salary if it was all one salary) associated with it. Unlike editor the art director title was never published in the old comic books so why would anyone desire the title unless there was a financial stake? Mark Mayerson: Mark Evanier - This is a John Romita quote from Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics by Dewey Cassell, page 67. "There was a time after that, I think when Jack [Kirby] left, and Stan was even busier, that I was sort of considered the art director, and Stan was calling me art director, but I was never in the company records as art director. And later on, somewhere, like '72, Stan was battling for a raise from Marvel, and he called me in and said, 'Listen John. I want you to understand I need to get some money from Martin Goodman and the only way he'd go for it is if I put some other duties on my plate.' So he took on the actual, physical assignment of being the art director. He had been the art director all those years. I mean, I never really superseded him. He told me what he wanted and I did it. So I was never really the art director. So he took on the official title, and let me tell you, I was still doing everything I was doing before, but Stan was the official art director." Patrick Ford: Thanks Mark Mayerson for that. It does not answer the question as to whether or not Lee was being given two different paychecks, but the title did come with additional compensation. I mean it's pretty hard to dispute another Marvel employee and particularly one like Romita who is about as loyal to Stan Lee as anyone could possibly be. Patrick Ford: Here's an interesting passage from "A Conversation between Stan Lee and Roy Thomas." Read this in light of the quote from Roy Thomas I posted above. [Editor's note: in this quote, note that Lee does not say he made an offer, just that he thought he might] Roy: I remember the day that Steve quit, a few months after I began to work at Marvel. He just came in, dropped off some pages, and left. Sol Brodsky then told me he had suddenly quit. Sol had a memo on his desk to add $5.00 to Steve's page rate, a considerable raise at that time, so it certainly wasn't over money. He wandered off to do work for Charlton, which paid half of what Marvel was offering. Stan: As you know, I have the worst memory in the world, but maybe I knew why he left at the time. But right now, I absolutely cannot remember. The one thing I remember and felt bad about when Jack left, was that I had been thinking about-and maybe I even talked to him about it-that I wanted to make Jack my partner in a sense; I wanted him to be the art director and I thought that he could serve in that function and I would serve as the editor. Maybe this was way earlier, but I was disappointed when he left because I always felt that Jack and I would be working there forever and doing everything. Roy: For some months when you became publisher, you needed someone to be art director, so Frank Giacoia came in [as "assistant art director"], and, very soon, John Romita succeeded him, becoming art director. Stan: But I wasn't thinking of Jack being art director because I would be leaving; I just thought that it would be great working with him in that capacity. I was serving as art director and thought that he could take it off my shoulders, so I could just worry about the stories. It probably wouldn't have worked out anyway, because I might have disagreed with him about things-not about his own work, but if we started critiquing other artists' work, Jack and I might have looked at it differently. So it might just be that I never could have worked with any art director who would function the way I did, because I guess no two people see anything the same. Roy: Also, with Jack being in California, there would have been a geographical problem. I have a memory that, sometime before Jack left, Jack called you up about some new ideas he had for characters. I don't think it went any further than that. Do you recall that at all? I was always curious if those were the same ideas that appeared a year or so later as The New Gods, and wondered if they could easily have ended up as Marvel characters. Stan: I don't know if he told me the ideas and I had said that I didn't like 'em! [laughs] I just can't remember. Tim Bateman: "I was serving as art director and thought that he could take it off my shoulders, so I could just worry about the stories" It is to laugh! Or maybe Lee meant that he could worry about the stories as he did not understand them... and could ask his Art Director? Patrick Ford: Tim Bateman, Why would he need extra time to focus on the stories when he stopped "scripting" a whole bunch of titles in 1968 and then more in 1969 and 1970? By 1973 he had stopped "scripting" monthly titles completely. This suggests to me Lee either go the art director pay starting in 1968 or some other form of compensation, How else could he have given up so much freelance writing money between 1968 and 1970? Michael J. Vassallo: Ok, I actually have the Monsterbus book in question now. Let me update to what I thought... Editor Cory was able to wrangle the credits to read... Plot/Script : Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Larry Lieber. Then...., Pencils: Jack Kirby. So Kirby gets a bulk of credit as co-plotter, co-scriptor and then penciler. Patrick Ford: Michael J. Vassallo , That is a fair solution. Certainly an improvement over the 1989 MONSTER MASTERWORKS book which specifically credits Stan Lee with Script on every story in the book (the credit is added in type under every splash page. Larry Lieber is not mentioned in any way in the 1989 book. Michael J. Vassallo: I was surprised to notice this today. I had the book since yesterday and only managed to page through it looking at some of the inkers. It may be that it was my discussions with Cory over this credit that may have pushed him to do it this way (or tried to do it and cross his fingers). Jack needed some sort of, at the very least, co-plot credit, and he was worried the suits would butt in on anything other than the historic company line. But there seems to be a general, slight thawing since the lawsuit settlement. Patrick Ford: Michael J. Vassallo , I see a post on another page by Bob Hughes and he is saying he has the book and there are no writing credits in it at all. He also says all the stories are credited to Larry Lieber which is even more confusing. Michael J. Vassallo:

Michael Hill: Does Bob Hughes have the right book? Patrick Ford: I guess Bob meant there are no credits assigned to the individual stories as there are in the 1989 MONSTER MASTERWORKS. Michael J. Vassallo: That's true. The individual stories only have inking and lettering credits. The penciler is a given and the author is the broad, general plot/script as seen above. Patrick Ford: I think the book's credit is pretty fair. They might have chosen to reserve giving any script credits to Stan Lee for the second volume. Michael J. Vassallo: Don't know but my tendency is to doubt it. Cory is pretty straightforward and butts head with his superiors all the time over things like this. Patrick Ford: It's always interested me that people in comics are far more confident about crediting art (both inking and penciling) than they are writing. I think Martin O'Hearn is one of the few who has intensively made an effort to identify the stylistic tendencies of writers. Patrick Ford: I assume I don't need to point out all the contradictions between the comments by Thomas in TCJ and his much later conversation with Stan Lee. They're pretty glaring. Patrick Ford: Incidentally. Thomas mentions in TCJ that Lee wanted to be thought off (paid) as the editor "even if he never read the stories." In another place in the same interview Thomas says that Lee liked Thomas' stories because Lee never had to read them. And when Mark Evanier met Stan Lee in 1970 (?) Mark says that Lee told him, "Don't ask me about any of the comics. I haven't read IRON MAN in ages." Mark Evanier: In every comic book company I've ever seen, each freelancer had a set page rate and that applied to any work they did. There was no set budget on any comic but the editor knew that if he put the writer with the highest rate on it and the penciler and inker with the highest rates, the book's budget would be higher and it might be harder for it to show a profit and therefore continue. Most likely, Stan had a set page rate -- presumably the highest -- and when guys like Roy Thomas or Gary Friedrich were hired, they started at the lowest and worked their ways up. Stan probably got the same page rate on everything he did but he might have made a special arrangement for Ditko....paid himself a few bucks less on the books on which Ditko was credited for plotting, paid the difference to Ditko. Might have. We don't know for sure. I believe Sol Brodsky told me that Stan gave up Dr. Strange because he wasn't getting along with Ditko and had never really liked dialoguing that book anyway. Oddly enough, at Bob Kane's funeral, Stan started talking to me about Ditko -- I have no idea why -- and about how Ditko was the best inker Jack ever had but was of course too valuable to be used that way very often. When I mentioned that the last few Ditko Dr. Strange stories were dialogued by Roy or, I think, Denny O'Neil, Stan insisted that I was wrong; that he never let anyone else "write" for Ditko back then. When I assured him he was wrong, he believed me. Michael Hill: Mark, it was you who pointed out that Lee's credit boxes were used for accounting. Patrick Ford: The credit box being tied to payment came up when Mark Evanier mentioned the Joe Sinnott inking credit in FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #5. Someone (Sol Brodsky?) told Mark that every time the story was reprinted the inking money went to Joe Sinnott even though the book was inked by Frank Giacoia. The thing there is FF ANNUAL #5 was not reprinted until 1975. The history of the credit box is interesting. We know that both Ditko and Kirby felt the "credit" was designed to take credit away not to give it. And we know there were no credit boxes until Nov. (cover date) of 1962. So one year after FF #1 was published. And we know that on several LOC pages prior to the use of the credit box Stan Lee was very specific in saying he wrote the stories and Kirby drew them.

Patrick Ford: FF #3. The funny thing here is Kirby never signed any of his Marvel work. The signature was added by Dick Ayers and later after Lee began whiting out the Kirby/Ayers signature Stan Lee began signing the pages, "Stan Lee and J. Kirby. " Roy Thomas pointed out that it was Lee who signed the names and added that Kirby would never have used "J. Kirby."

Patrick Ford FF #11.

Patrick Ford:

Wis Byron: Is there a transcript of this entire interview anywhere online? Michael Hill: Wis, you can get it online for the cost of a TCJ subscription. There used to be a comic shop in Toronto (the one that had the shelf full o' Kirby) with a bin full of TCJ back issues, but they were displaced by a condo development and moved over Christmas to a smaller space with no bins. I actually got my copy on eBay months ago for US$3.60 (plus the massive compulsory shipping charge to Canada). Wis Byron: I might do the same thing, I'm not about to give Gary Groth a regular payment. Patrick Ford: It's not a regular payment. It's a one time $25 charge and for that you get access to every issue of TCJ. It was offered as a one issue subscription but since an issue comes out about once every three years it's quite a bargain. Wis Byron: I see. Thanks Patrick. Patrick Ford: 300 issues for $25 is cheap. Here's an online index (incomplete but useful) someone put together of issues 2-142. http://web.english.ufl.edu/comics/scholars/TCJ_Index.html Patrick Ford: Stan Lee & J. Kirby.

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