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Stan Lee may NEVER have written full scripts Mark Ricard 10 August 2016 Was this method not originated in the 1940s? Len Wein said this. That was before Stan started saying he "invented" it. Patrick Ford: There are strong indications that Stan Lee never wrote a full script. Al Fago was an artist, writer and editor at Timely. When Lee was called away for stateside military duty after being drafted Al Fago became editor and chief for Timely for around four years. Jim Amash interviewed Fago and was told this about Lee's pre-war writing. JA: Did Stan write complete scripts? FAGO: No, never. He wrote the story and dialogue, but he didn't break the story down into panels. That was left up to me. Mark Ricard: Other companies used the method in the Golden Age. Does anyone here know which one are know to use it. Patrick Ford: Lee is unique. However, DC is said to have used a method where the editor would come up with a plot idea and have a cover created based on that idea and then the editor would assign a writer to come up with a story based on the cover idea. What makes Lee unique is Lee had no ideas and then would take all the writing pay and credit for stories created completely by Kirby, Ditko, Wood, and others. Patrick Ford: Lee's Marvel Method story is an outright lie. Lee invented it because the truth would paint Lee as the monster he is. It sounds so much better to claim Lee was "giving the 'artists' freedom" than it does to say, "I used my power as the person in charge of assignments to blackmail people into writing for me. The more pages they wrote the more money into my pocket. They couldn't do a thing. The post code [1954 Comics Code] economic landscape was bleak and people were desperate for assignments. " Patrick Ford: Mark Ricard, The various methods of producing comic books is a laundry list. The assembly-line process dates to the late '30s. On the other hand the "auteur" method was common from the '30s through the '50s. What sets Lee apart is with people like Kirby you had a situation where Kirby had always written. It is a legitimate argument that Kirby had always been more a writer than an artist. Kirby was a "story man." Kirby had always written and that includes his work for Goodman in the early '40s and well as his work for Goodman in 1956-1957. Then suddenly that changed and Kirby became known as a "penciler" and Lee became known as a brilliant idea man who didn't have time to write full scripts (although he never did) but Lee had so many ideas that he was supposedly able to supply Kirby with springboards for plots for hundreds of stories which strangely enough are all deeply rooted in Kirby's prior work. Patrick Ford: In other words Stan Lee is the Pacific Ocean of lies. Mark Ricard: One of the few truthful things he ever said was he would take any credit that is not nailed down. Patrick Ford: Which when cornered Lee claims was a joke. Sort of like a joke about Russia invading the Ukraine or 2nd Amendment people. You get caught in a lie, and suddenly it's all a joke. Patrick Ford: Lee's self-depreciation is a con. It's an escape hatch. When the Kirby's attorney Marc Toberoff did the unthinkable (in comic book land) and pinned down Lee, Lee instantly pivoted and said that a direct quote from Lee (which Toberoff made Lee read int...See more Mark Ricard: Interesting. Knew Kirby's family sued them but not that they Stan on the stand. Patrick Ford: The fact is the Kirbys did not sue Marvel/Disney. It was Marvel/Disney which sued the Kirby's. Patrick Ford: The judge who presided over the lawsuit which Disney/Marvel filed against the Kirby's wrote in her (deeply flawed) opinion that Stan Lee's was "the most percipient of witnesses." Mark Ricard: Prescience is the ability for prophecy isn't it? Do not see how that applies? Patrick Ford: How can the press continue to say that Lee is charmingly self depreciating, when in the one instance where Lee was pinned down Lee pivoted to saying the "self-depreciation" was just a joke. ? Patrick Ford: Judge Colleen McMahon: "Marvel’s case stands or falls on his (Lee’s) testimony,"

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