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Jack Kirby as a writer (For more examples see the "Jack Kirby Dialogue" group) 1 July 2017 Lee uses Kirby's dialogue nearly verbatim on this page. (these are photocopied pencils, then coloured as a guide for colourists: note the colour numbers) Kirby's rich dialogue: Patrick Ford 13 September 2016 DOUG HARVEY: "Kirby's writing is rife with bizarre word play, clichéd and surreal dialogue, awkward appropriations of youth-culture lingo, and entirely invented slang and technological argot. While charged with giddy momentum, it is not humorous in the knowing “camp” way that typified so much of comic writing in the wake of his early sixties work (and its translation into TV dialogue on Batman). Instead, Kirby's writing is riddled with the kind of rollicking unconditional humor that animates the work of Charlie Chaplin or Ornette Coleman: lyrical, sentimental, and revolutionary. --" http://www.dougharvey.la/doug_harvey.php?ID=47 Mark Ricard: Dialog was his weakest ability in terms of his storytelling. He had a wonderful ideas and stories, but people did not "sound" realistic. Patrick Ford: In my opinion Kirby's dialogue was his strongest attribute. Many people agree. Norris Burroughs: that 'gonad"quote has often been cited as proof that Kirby couldn't write dialog. I never understood why certain people found that line so"awkward and stilted." Chris Tolworthy: Kirby wrote poetry. You need to pause and think about every line. Then it becomes a thing of beauty. I maintain that every Kirby story is two different stories and must be read twice. The first time, just look at the art and skim the dialog, if you read it at all. Then you get the action packed version, The action story is usually clear without the dialog. Then once you have enjoyed that, go back and re-read it very slowly, savouring every line, rolling it around in your head to get the full flavour. Each story then becomes a multi issue epic, and you begin to see the emptiness of other people's prose. Chris Tolworthy: "Realism" is a funny word. There is nothing realistic about smooth dialog. Try transcribing real conversations in real time. They are erratic, extremely verbose, extremely repetitive, barely grammatical, and full of "um" and "er". Similarly there is nothing realistic about movie dialog. That's why movies pay so much money to teams of writers: they are producing something you cannot get in real life. Once we recognise the artificiality of prose, then we can see its conventions, and open our minds to all the other possibilities. Take James Joyce for example. His prose is extremely difficult for some people, but others say his stream of consciousness style is the closest thing we can get to what really goes on in our heads. To say that a particular style is more realistic is to show that we do not understand reality. In my view. Patrick Ford: There is nothing real about Shakespeare or Eugene O'Neil. And there is also nothing real about anything Stan Lee ever wrote. Kirby's dialogue had range. Everything from "speaking in tongues" poetic genius, to about as close to real as would ever be seen in a comic book when writing The Losers. Patrick Ford: I've always felt that when comic book fans speak of realistic dialogue they are simply parroting Stan Lee's claims that he wrote realistic dialogue. Mark Ricard: This is not something only Lee supporters have had trouble with. Some pro Kirby supporters felt his dialogue skills were a bit less than standard level. Mark Ricard: I do think Stan's dialogue itself is overrated. Not terrible but some of it is corny and over the top. Aaron Noble: Some of it? Aaron Noble: Mark Ricard is correct. There are professional comics writers, I wouldn't call them Kirby supporters myself, but published writers who feel that Kirby needed someone like Stan to fix his writing. Their own writing is to Kirby's as Danielle Steele is to Henry James... Mark Ricard: The fact that he give the character's distinct voices put him up a little ahead of other writers of the time like Garden Foc. But yes it is overrated. What I find personally irritating is the bragging of the whole thing "Look at us are we not so innovative?" Peter Parker has to tell his aunt why he is late to get home. Wow, we are impressed Stan. Give us a break. Mark Ricard: Not quite James Joyce is it? Chris Tolworthy: Is there an objective way to measure writing quality? Voting is one way. yes, no doubt. But if we vote for best writer we get the lowest common denominator, almost by definition. Mark Ricard: mentioned distinctive voices: that is an objective measure. Are there others? The purpose of writing is to communicate. So simplicity is one measure. Stan Lee probably scores highly there, but books for toddlers score even higher. Another measure would be information density. Hence we get poetry, where far more is packed into each line. This is where I think Kirby is king of writers. Slow down, see how much is packed into each line, enjoy the imagery and the conflict and the personality. Kirby has to be read as poetry, not prose. In my opinion. Mark Ricard: Not fan of Stan. His only talent was a modest one area and that was in dialogue. Not huge one . He had very few original ideas in contrast to Kirby who had so many that they kept coming all the time. They at other ends of the spectrum on that aspect of writing. However Stan's dialogue writing is more stereotypes like the tough guy, the smart one, the young kid, the woman. Yes that was a Fantastic Four reference. In some ways this was a improvement in the early mid 60s because it showed some distinct personality. Hardly award worthy however. Michael Hill: Please go back and read your Lee-dialogued Marvels... NO distinct voices, they're all the same. That's another myth put in your ear by Lee. It was Kirby who knew how to give the characters distinct voices. Mark Ricard: This is the first time anyone has ever accused me of giving Lee too much credit. Hell has frozen over. Patrick Ford: Aaron, No doubt the vast majority of the professional writers who began entering the industry during the '60s have a very low opinion of Kirby's writing. This might bother me if I respected any of them, or read their material. The case is that I began reading DC and Marvel comics on a regular basis in 1970 and gave up on the two companies in 1974 because I felt the writing was so poor. Chris Tolworthy: Patrick Ford And of course there's a strong selection bias going on. If a writer wants freedom, mainstream comics are not for them. If they want stories that matter (i.e. events have consequences), mainstream comics are not for them. Mainstream superhero comics are a factory system producing a product, the McDonalds of restaurants. Their annual events and reboots are their special promotions. I don't think it's fair to use modern comics as a benchmark for writing, any more that we would use McDonalds as a benchmark for fine cuisine. That's not the business they're in. And when from time to time an original voice appears, they either leave or endure extreme frustration. Patrick Ford: Someone once told me that they liked McDonalds in the narrow sense in which a person can be anywhere in the world and know what to expect when eating there. So a lot of people like the familiar. They like what they are used to. they would rather eat a fast food hamburger than sashimi. Particularly if they were in Japan. Patrick Ford: It's notable the degree to which Lee's style of writing has permeated DC and Marvel comics. I assume this is because almost every writer that has worked for Marvel and DC since the '60s was (and generally remains) a member of Lee's Marching Society. This is even true of British writers like Allan Moore. The influence of Lee is so pervasive that to this day it's standard "comics speak" in many places outside the comic books published by DC and Marvel. On news sites and fan sites it is common to see fans and writers use phrases and a style of writing which suggests they are playing out some fantasy of being Stan Lee. Around fifteen or twenty years ago I wrote to John Morrow and asked him if he would stop writing his editorials and comments in TJKC in the Marvel Bulletins style of Lee. He said most people thought it was fun. I haven't read the magazine in years but I assume nothing has changed. The Lee style is like a handshake known to others. It's a comfort zone. When a fan sees the friendly arches they know what to expect. Chris Tolworthy: "Lee's Marching Society" - the MMMS of course pulled in piles of money from trusting fans then collapsed fraudulently. :) Michael Hill: The TJKC editorials these days just look like another article at the beginning of the magazine. Patrick Ford: Part of the discussion concerning Kirby's dialogue is tied to the Marvel Method. Here's something Roy Thomas said: "Jack had certainly written a lot of great stories in his day; there was no doubt about Jack's talent as a creator. He'd written stuff that back in the '40s and '50s was well above the level for the field. It didn't seem to traffic quite as well in the '60s. Certain aspects of it did. There's a certain poetry about Jack, in concepts and phrasing." Thomas makes a number of good observations in that comment. First he rightly points out that during the '40s and '50s Kirby's writing was "well above the level of the field." That is certainly true and not disputed. And Thomas is correct that Kirby's style didn't "traffic" as well (to say the least) during the '70s (he says '60s but I assume he misspoke). And he points out the poetic quality of Kirby's writing style. That's probably the key right there. Readers of '60s era Marvel and DC comics don't like poetry. They don't like anything which falls outside the little sectioned off areas on their TV dinner tray which keeps the mashed potatoes from touching the green beans. In a sense they don't like "foreigners." This attitude got so bad that by the early '70s most Marvel and DC comics fans not only didn't like Kirby's writing. They didn't like his artwork. And it wasn't just Kirby. They didn't like anything which seemed out of place in their village. They didn't like Steve Ditko. Not only the fans, but none of the writers wanted to work with Ditko. They didn't like Frank Robbins because Robbins "wasn't right for super heroes." I have no doubt in my mind that if Basil Wolverton had been hired to draw Batman or Spider-Man the fans would have had some sort of attack and fallen down. If Jack Cole had still been alive and sought work at Marvel or DC he would almost certainly have been told his work was "too cartoony" and "not right" for Marvel and DC. Patrick Ford: It was in Marvel's interest to ridicule Kirby's writing. Marvel wanted to define Kirby as a penciler. The copyright issues are connected to defining Kirby as a penciler. This effort went so far as to try and diminish Kirby's role as the primary writer for the S&K partnership. It became important to claim that it was Joe Simon who wrote. The reason for that is because one of the standard Marvel "proofs" that Kirby was not a talented writer is the supposed fact (a fact which happens to be completely false) that Kirby's efforts as a writer failed. That ridiculous and untrue theory would have to be tossed out even if it were not ridiculous and untrue, if a person admits that Kirby wrote during the '40s and '50s. And so part of the Marvel strategy became denying Kirby writing credit for his work during those decades. Patrick Ford: There was a general trend at Marvel and DC to promote the idea that "writers write and artists draw." This attitude is completely contradicted by the whole world wide history of comics. It's in the interest of DC and Marvel to turn to production of a comic book into an assembly line process where the cogs can be replaced. The development of a house style of writing and drawing benefits the companies not the creators. Marvel and DC were assisted by the fact that almost all the young writers entering the field in the '60s and '70s were not only card carrying members of the MMMS, but were failed artists. As failed artists they were eager to promote the idea that writing and drawing were mutually exclusive and a person could not possibly excel at both. This served the publishers and was a balm for the insecurities of the failed artists who turned to writing. Gil Kane was the first person I saw point this out when speaking of the new generation of factory workers eager to work for Marvel and DC. (Ford20160913Kane.jpg"> Chris Tolworthy: What are you talking about? Stan Lee was an expert on writing AND ALSO an expert on drawing! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stan-Lees-How-Draw-Comics/dp/0823000834 Patrick Ford: Gil Kane uses the expression "comics" here, but he obviously is talking about Marvel and DC. There are all sorts of other comics which do not have to conform to the constraints of a house style. (Ford20160913Kane1.jpg"> Patrick Ford: My thought when reading Marvel and DC comics from 1970 to 1974 is they were unreadable. A lot of the artwork interested me (John Buscema, Kubert, Wrightson, Kaluta, Adams, Smith) but the stories didn't interest me at all. It felt like a task having to read them. For a few years I kept reading mainly because I had spent the money to buy them and I felt like since I spent the money I should read them. After a point I began just flipping through the comics. Then they started to pile up unread and in some cases not even flipped through. At that point I began to feel like the whole bit was a bad habit and I just gave up on that sort of comic. There were plenty of other options for comics reading.

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