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The first appearance of Spider-Man, and behind the scenes in 1963
Dave Rawlins
25 May 2017
Page 12 from Spider-Man's debut in Amazing Fantasy #15. Note the caption at the bottom of the page, Fantasy is written over sno-pake and Spiderman is missing its hyphen. Errors or last minute changes?
Dave Rawlins:
Patrick Ford: Likely "ADULT FANTASY" was painted over. I don't doubt Kirby's Spiderman pages were intended to AMAZING FANTASY and the change from AMAZING ADULT FANTASY (which was entirely Lee/Ditko) to AMAZING FANTASY intended to feature a Kirby story would seem to indicate AMAZING ADULT FANTASY was not selling particularly well.
Dave Rawlins: Maybe. It could also be covering up Spiderman or Spider-Man, the spacing fits. If it is then that would contradict the story that Stan Lee sneaked the story into a title that was going to be canceled. Perhaps instead the title was slated to be changed to Amazing Spider-Man.
Patrick Ford: Dave, That's a possibility. Lee's claim that Goodman hated Spider-Man and Lee had to sneak it into a title slated for cancellation does not hold up to scrutiny. Steve Ditko has pointed out the flaws in Lee's scenario. Off the top of my head I can list.
1. Ditko describes a conversation with Lee as Lee was giving Ditko the Kirby pages to take and ink. According to Ditko Goodman was planning on a whole line of insect based super heroes.
2. Ditko mentions how frequently Lee claims that he did something which Goodman hated. And how unlikely it is that a publisher would back an idea he hated.
3. The fact is that rather than abandon the Spider-Man idea all together when Kirby's pages were rejected, Lee had Ditko work on a different version and when it came to to supposedly sneak Spider-Man into AMAZING FANTASY not only was Spider-Man on the cover, Lee rejected Ditko's cover and had Kirby create another one.
Mark Evanier: AMAZING ADULT FANTASY was not selling well but there's some evidence -- not entirely conclusive -- that when Kirby drew his SPIDERMAN pages, that strip was going to go into TALES OF SUSPENSE.
Patrick Ford: I think Will Murry wrote about that in COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE. I forget exactly what he said, but he made a good case. I'll dig out that issue when I have a moment.
Patrick Ford: The Will Murry article is in COMIC BOOK MARKETPLACE #5 (2002). Jean Depelley has also written on the earliest Spider-Man stories recently.
Michael Hill: Jean Depelley speculates that Lee commissioned four stories from Ditko (3) and Kirby (1) for successive issues of Amazing Fantasy. The Kirby story ultimately appeared in FF Annual #1, but its cover was used on the second-ever Spider-Man book, ASM #1. Inside, Ditko (or Brodsky) swiped Kirby's fight scene but shortened it, answering the question Kirby's "greatest fans" like to ask, why did Kirby have to swipe Ditko's fight scene for the FF Annual story?
The other question that arises is whose ASM #1 cover was drawn first? (It's generally assumed that Kirby's was a redraw.) I posed the question to Steve Ditko in a letter. He in no way owes me an answer to anything I ask him, and although he wrote me back, he declined to address the question.
Jean Depelley: Concerning the FF Annual pages, the best way would be to have a look at Ditko's original pages from ASM#1, these representing the fight scene of Spider-Man with the FF. To me, they are clearly Ditko (and not Brodsky). Do they have paste-ups on them? Were they modified by Brodsky to concentrate the panels in less pages? Only the original pages could tell and they were stolen (even if everybody knows where they are today).
Patrick Ford: ASM #1 was complete and in the Marvel warehouse in 1981. And in a "break room" near an elevator in April of 1982 when it was stolen. It's pretty much 100% certain one person still has all the pages.
Jean Depelley: Yes, it is still in the collection of the guy who bought them from the stealer back then. One famous comics dealer...
Patrick Ford: I've never gotten a clear read on the sale of that horde of stolen art. I've heard the "art in the park" story. I have also been told there was a now deceased dealer who was the fence. Then about a year ago Michael Kaulta posted some photographs of a large accumulation of complete stories known to have been stolen in 1982. Kaluta didn't identify who had them but he said the person was a friend or acquaintance. That made me think of a couple of comic book writers with a history of shady original art dealings going back to the '50s.
Jean Depelley: It is a part of my Kirby biography. I investigated from serious art collectors. I didn't write any name in the book but, only the initiales. The guy is famous in NY.
Patrick Ford: The guy with the B.S. initials?
Patrick Ford: I've got a very very long series of posts on original art I'll place here. Take a look and see what you think. I have it on another group but will share it here.
Patrick Ford: Will's theory in the simplest terms is that Kirby's Spider-Man would have been placed in TALES OF SUSPENSE because all the other Marvel superheroes debuted were by Kirby and, with the exception of the FF and the Hulk, were placed in the fantasy books where Kirby was already doing the long lead stories. Thor in JIM. Ant-Man in TTA. And the Human Torch in ST.
Patrick Ford: Counterbalancing the opening in TOS is Ditko writing that when Lee gave him the Kirby pages to ink Lee mentioned Spider-Man was going to be in AF #15.
Dave Rawlins: That makes sense, especially during the period before the character being handed over to Ditko. I'm thinking that since AMAZING FANTASY wasn't selling that well and the strip was given to Ditko Lee and Goodman might have initially thought of changing the title and keeping the numbering.
Patrick Ford: So why didn't a new Kirby hero feature immediately go into TALES OF SUSPENSE? Murry points out it is unlikely that TOS was kept "open" as a place to burn "monster/fantasy" inventory. Within a short time a lot of the back up fillers in the various titles were being done by Larry Lieber.
I speculated here previously that Kirby's assignments and the HULK story Kirby destroyed might indicate Lee and Kirby had some sort of major dispute. Kirby's assignments drop down considerably for several months. Was Kirby looking for other work? Was Lee withholding assignments? Who can be sure? The record shows that Kirby's monthly assignments went way down.
Patrick Ford: Here's my post and further discussion in the comments concerning the apparent drop in the number of assignments Kirby was doing for Marvel.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1758159214462637/permalink/1830856940526197
Patrick Ford: I looked to see what Kirby's assignments were for March (cover date) 1963 the same month as JIM #90. It turns out Kirby's assignments were unusually light that month and for several months there after. So perhaps Kirby came close to quitting? Or possibly Lee began withholding assignments as punishment. Kirby's workload abruptly explodes in Sept. of 1963 with the first issues of the X-MEN and THE AVENGERS added to his work on the FF and SGT.FURY.
The next month (Oct. 1963) Kirby added (JIM #97) Thor and Tales of Asgard.
Let me give a couple of examples:
March 1963: Al Hartley pencils (at least) the Thor feature in JIM #90. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 is published. Kirby writes and pencils only one story (FF #12, and ten covers). First appearance of Iron Man in TALES OF SUSPENSE #39.
Kirby quit working (was removed from) the Thor feature in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY the exact same month he quit (was removed from THE HULK). HULK #6 is March 1963 and JIM #90 is March 1963. Go figure.
April 1963: Kirby creates FF #13 and the 13 page Iron Man story in TOS #40, and 6 covers.
May 1963: FF #14, SGT. FURY #1, and another 13 page Iron Man story for TOS #41. And 10 covers.
June 1963: FF #15, and a 13 page Torch story in STRANGE TALES #109. And five covers.
The information above is a good example of the way the historical record does not fit Stan Lee's version of events. Just about anytime you see it mentioned that Kirby was taken off the Thor feature people will say or write that Kirby was reassigned because he was too busy at the time.
Fishing around on the old Kirby-List I came across a post from Mark Evanier (Dec.16,1998) which is (I assume) Mark accurately reporting something Stan Lee told him.
ME: " Al Hartley believed that he could handle an adventure strip and
was always after Stan to let him prove it. He did up a few samples
that reportedly didn't look bad...but Stan was still understandably
hesitant.
Then Marvel suddenly had to gain a month on their production schedule.
They either changed color separators or their separator told them they
had to have the work farther in advance. Whatever the reason, there
was a sudden deadline panic: Every book was suddenly late.
Stan gave a THOR assignment to a "new" artist -- i.e., someone who
hadn't been working for them recently...probably someone who'd worked
for him years before. The artist never handed anything in, and Stan
was suddenly faced with the need to get a THOR story drawn in a few
days...and all his dependable artists (Kirby, Ditko, etc.) were busy
making up the extra month on other books.
Al Hartley happened to walk into the office at that precise moment and
said he could get the story done in just a few days. Stan decided to
gamble, not so much because he believed Hartley could do it but
because he was desperate at that moment. He didn't have two or three
days to find someone else who could jump right on the assignment.
Hartley knocked it out in time. You saw the result.
Stan was unhappy with the job but it had to go to press. Hartley
asked for another chance...an opportunity to show what he could do
without an impossible deadline. Stan gave him another super-hero
assignment but it was never printed. (No, I don't know what it was.)"
The story Mark is relaying had to have come from either Stan Lee or Sol Brodsky. Consider that most of it happened before, "Al Hartley happened to walk into the office at that precise moment." The story sound credible until you go and look and find out that number of pages assigned to Kirby fell off dramatically at the exact juncture where Kirby left Thor (because it wasn't a one issue thing, it was seven issues until Kirby returned) and was also taken off the HULK. And it was several months before Kirby resumed his normal number of assignments.
And there are several contradictions between what Lee wrote in his letter to Jerry Bails and what Lee told (I assume it was Lee, it may have been Brodsky) Mark.
1. Lee apparently told Mark the Hartley was eager to try an adventure strip and even asked for a 2nd try when Lee was unhappy with the Thor story.
Lee told Bails that Hartley would be the first to agree that he wasn't right for super heroes.
2. Lee apparently told Mark that Hartley came walking through the door after not having worked with Lee since "years before."
Lee correctly told Bails that Hartley was the regular artist on PATSY WALKER.
3. Lee told Mark a vague story about Marvel changing color separators or having to have the books delivered to the separator further in advance.
Lee says nothing of the kind to Bails. Instead Lee blames Kirby for being late on an issue of the FF.
And of course if everyone was busy trying to make up the lost month due to demands from the color separator then how is it Ditko was able to not only complete his usual assignments on SPIDER-MAN, but pencil and ink HULK #6?
Patrick Ford: Just to add one more thing. On top of everything else I recently noticed an interview with Hartley where he says he was briefly on staff at Marvel working as Stan Lee's assistant for a few weeks in 1962. So Hartley didn't just happen to wander in out of nowhere.
Mark Evanier: When I said Al Hartley happened to walk in the door, I didn't mean to imply that he hadn't been working recently for Marvel at the time. He just walked into the office at that moment just as Ditko sometimes walked in when a correction was needed or Kirby sometimes walked in just when a plot idea was needed.
The story I told came mostly from Brodsky.
I don't believe there was ever a moment during this period when Jack was not working at capacity for Marvel. Don't assume that all the issues that came out in one month were drawn in one month. Some strips were way ahead of others in production.
Patrick Ford: The production schedule is certainly a factor Mark and it's possible to see that month to month Kirby's page totals bounced one month up and the next month down in a steady beat up until the time period where for several months his totals were consistently well below average.
Now that may be because he was preparing SGT. FURY the X-MEN and AVENGERS. Still that ripped in half HULK story.
Mark or Michael J. Vassallo if you ever get the chance why not ask Larry Lieber about the rest of the pages. The pages are numbered and from the middle of a story. They don't fit anywhere in published issues.
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