Comic Books 101
Page 23
By 1952, skyrocketing paper and printing costs made The Spirit section no longer profitable, and the syndicate pulled the plug. They asked Eisner to keep the character alive in a daily strip, but he refused. He continued to work for the U.S. Army, writing and illustrating P.S. Magazine, a series of comic-style instruction manuals for enlisted men. Eisner spent the next two decades applying the comics form to “education, instruction and other pragmatic directions,” as he himself put it. In 1978, Eisner was ready to return to storytelling, and did so in grand form with what most comics historians consider the first graphic novel, A Contract With God.
A NOVEL IDEA
A Contract With God was the first of Eisner's autobiographical graphic novels, telling stories of life in the tenements of the Bronx in the 1930s. Contract is made up of four stories, tales of lost faith, lost hope, despair and coming of age, illustrated by a cartoonist at the height of his form, and with rough dialogue that rings true; the voices of immigrants not heard for fifty years speak out again through Eisner's pen.
In 1986, Eisner published another autobiographical work, The Dreamer, about his early days trying to find work and success in the then-burgeoning comic-book industry. Eisner recants his own only slightly fictionalized telling of the founding of the E & I studio, the Wonder Man lawsuit and his decision to jump to the syndicate. He also provides character studies of Jack Kirby, Lou Fine, Jack Cole and other Golden Age greats.
In The Building (1987), Eisner tells the stories of four different residents of a New York building, how their lives intermingle without ever knowing it and how, after death, their spirits remain a part of the structure, even after it's been demolished. Often overlooked by readers, The Building may be Eisner's best single work, combining the authenticity and heart of his autobiographies with the unmatched plotting and storytelling skills he demonstrated in The Spirit. Highly recommended.
Though advancing in years, Eisner's productivity continued unabated. In To The Heart of the Storm (1991), Eisner returned to autobiography with a much more ambitious work, devoting attention to his father's youth in Vienna and his own struggles growing up as a Jewish kid in a predominantly Italian and Irish neighborhood.
After signing a long-term contract with DC Comics to keep all of his works in print, including the entire run of The Spirit, Eisner produced three major works, putting to shame contemporaries one-third his age. Eisner's Last Day in Vietnam (2000) tells the small stories of military life in wartime, gleaned from Eisner's own military experience, as well as field trips to Korea and Vietnam during his stint producing P.S. Magazine. Minor Miracles (2000) comprises Eisner's retellings of the tales of modern folklore passed on to him by his family growing up.
Eisner's following book, The Name of the Game (2002), was a generational novel about a wealthy Jewish family and their attempts to gain social advantage through marrying “the right people.” The Name of the Game expands on some of the themes touched upon by Eis-ner as early as A Contract With God, and does so with vitality, wit and Eisner's ever-improving sense of draftsmanship and design.
In his final work, The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (2005), Eisner tried to raise public consciousness of anti-Semitism with his exploration of a 100-year-old hoax that falsely accused Jewish leaders of planning to take over the world. Primarily a historical piece, The Plot has none of the heart that made Eisner's other works so powerful, but the artwork is astonishing, the work of a man who spent a lifetime developing his craft.
Will Eisner passed away January 3, 2005, at the age of eighty-seven. He left behind a legacy unprecedented in the comic-book industry, and a body of work to be studied for decades to come by those who look to learn at the feet of the master.
RECOMMENDED READING 101
WILL EISNER
The Best of the Spirit
The Building (Scott's personal favorite)
Comics and Sequential Art
A Contract With God (Chris's personal favorite)
The Dreamer
The Name of the Game
To the Heart of the Storm
4 Stan Lee
Smilin' Stan Lee
PHOTO COURTESY OF STAN LEE AND POW! ENTERTAINMENT.
If you're looking for the most influential name in American comics, how can it not be Stan Lee? The Fantastic Four. The Hulk. Spider Man. The Mighty Thor. Doctor Strange. The X-Men. Iron Man. The Avengers. As kids, thanks to the Origins of Marvel Comics reprint series, our first exposure to these characters wasn't necessarily current comics, but their original appearances by Stan, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Much is made of the fact that Kirby and Ditko don't get enough credit for their work at Marvel; there's no denying that. However, it was the voices of the characters that made Marvel's heroes more alive than DC's — the humor and angst of Spider-Man, the depression of Ben Grimm, the cool confidence of Captain America, the tortured soul of the Silver Surfer.
And even with the more than considerable partnership of fine artists and co-plotters like Kirby, Ditko, Gene Colan, John Romita, John Buscema and many others, it often goes unremarked that Stan was for quite a few years writing the bulk of Marvel's output himself, not only balancing dozens of characterizations, but creating all of the countless connections that are woven back and forth between all the Marvel series. Lee created the notion of the “Marvel Universe” that DC and practically every other comic-book publisher would eventually imitate.
So how to recommend the best Lee-penned stories? In looking at the hundreds of great comics in Lee's long, storied career, this makes for a difficult if not unpleasant task. As always, it's a matter of opinion. Is “The Spider-Man Unmasked” in The Amazing Spider Man #39–40 (August–September 1966) the best? Or “The Galactus Saga” in Fantastic Four #48–50 (March–May 1966)? “The Return of Captain America” in The Avengers #4 (March 1964)? The Silver Surfer #4 (February 1969)? It's hard to say. The crowning glory of Lee's initial output at Marvel — beyond the sheer inventiveness that he brought to all of the characters he helped create — is the 102 issues of Fantastic Four that he and Jack Kirby produced together. While later creators have surpassed the sheer number of consecutive issues created by a single team, the creativity, originality and sheer mastery of this centennial accomplishment will never be matched. Another early and amazing feat for which Lee is renowned is his long tenure on The Amazing Spider-Man with Steve Ditko and then John Romita. And the list only starts with these two titles.
Fortunately, the bulk of Lee's creative output is now readily available, both in handsome full-color hardcovers and much more affordable Essential black-and-white editions. The ambitious new comics reader should start with Fantastic Four and The Amazing Spider-Man and go forward from there.
MAKE YOURS MARVEL
One feat for which Stan should be heralded is the sheer force of will he brought to bear in promoting the comics that Marvel produced. Beyond the act of creation and his scripting chores, Stan was (and is) a tireless, enthusiastic promoter of comics. Before Stan, comics were appreciated by fans for their colorful characters. Stan had the foresight to become a colorful character in his own right. He oversaw the letters pages, which allowed fans to have their say about a previous issue and receive bombastic replies from the folks creating the comics. Even his nicknames for himself and the creators in the credits boxes of Marvel's comics (“Rascally” Roy Thomas, Jack “the King” Kirby, “Sturdy” Steve Ditko, and so on) added to the sense of familiarity between creator and fan.
Stan further created “Stan Lee's Soapbox,” a column in the letters pages where he talked up the comics in inimitable fashion. He talked about Marvel's comics and fans' support of them in a conspiratorial manner, making the readers feel like they were on the same team as the Marvel staff, all aligned in solidarity against the more staid “Distinguished Competition,” Stan's gentle barb of a nickname for Marvel's main competitor, DC Comics. He signed off his columns with “Excelsior!” because he liked the sound of it, and it was a call to arms t
hat would stick in readers' minds. While Stan was in charge, as far as he made fans feel, Marvel was the only place to be. Stan also talked up Marvel's comics at conventions. He made the rivalry with DC a personal, but never mean-spirited, thing. And he oversaw the creation of Marvel fan clubs such as the 1960s M.M.M.S. (Merry Marvel Marching Society) and FOOM (a fan club/fan magazine) in the 1970s.
STAN LEE: MASTER THESPIAN
Of course, in addition to his distinguished career as editor, writer and publisher, Stan has yet another calling in which he's flourished in recent years — acting! Just take a look at these performances from some of the most popular movies ever made! Stan Lee: the new Robert De Niro? The evidence speaks for itself.
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (TV movie)
Guy in Jury Box
The Ambulance
Marvel Comics Editor
Mallrats
Smilin' Stan Lee
X-Men
Hot Dog Vendor
Spider-Man
Guy Looking Up
Daredevil
Guy at Traffic Light
Hulk
Security Guard
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Foreign Diplomat
Spider-Man 2
Guy Dodging Debris
Fantastic Four
Postman Willie Lumpkin
X-Men: The Last Stand
Guy with Garden Hose
Spider-Man 3
Guy in Times Square
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Uninvited Wedding Guest
Iron Man
Guy Who Looks Like Hugh Hefner
The Incredible Hulk
Guy Who Drinks Gamma Soda
RECOMMENDED READING 101
STAN LEE
The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus
Bring on the Bad Guys
The Fantastic Four Omnibus
The Incredible Hulk Omnibus
Origins of Marvel Comics
Son of Origins of Marvel Comics
The Superhero Women
EXCELSIOR!
It was the development of Stan Lee as a public persona that led to his eventual positions as president, publisher and finally chairman emeritus of Marvel. In the early 1980s, Stan headed west to Southern California to function as publisher while simultaneously developing Marvel's properties for Hollywood. Stan has been very active in helping develop Marvel's characters as animated series, television shows and big-budget motion pictures. He also pursued other ventures outside of Marvel, creating new entertainment companies and developing all-new creations for print, Web and broadcast.
In 2001, Stan crossed a line that longtime fans never thought they'd see — he wrote comics for the Distinguished Competition. Just Imagine… Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe allowed Stan to pair up with acclaimed artists and re-cast DC's flagship characters in their own style. All of which was just one more way for Stan to do what he does best: find new and exciting ways to create comic books and promote them to eager fans.
5 Jack Kirby
In the time it took to take this photo of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the King likely could have drawn three more pages.
FROM THE COLLECTION OF MARK EVANIER. USED WITH PERMISSION.
What do you say about Jack Kirby? The man practically invented the superhero comic, or at least what most people think of when they see one. Jack Kirby was one of the top guys in the business in the 1940s, on books such as Captain America, The Sandman, Boy Commandos and dozens more, and he out-and-out revolutionized the industry in the 1960s, creating nearly all of Marvel Comics's trademark characters, from the Fantastic Four to the Hulk to Thor, from the Avengers to the X-Men. Kirby's dynamic sense of storytelling and larger-than-life style swept the comics world, and his timeless ability in character design can still be seen to this day. Nearly everyone working at Marvel Comics is still in some shape or form playing with the toys Jack “the King” Kirby created, and while there's certainly no shame in that, it bears repeating from time to time.
FROM MARVEL TO DC
As more and more of the plotting fell on Kirby for Marvel works such as Fantastic Four and Thor, Kirby reportedly disliked that Stan Lee's scripting often did not properly reflect the direction or tone of the stories as he'd conceived them. So, during his last few years at Marvel, Jack developed a whole new army of characters and kept them to himself. Since there was no creator ownership in mainstream comics at the time, Kirby wasn't about to turn his newest, most personal concepts over to Marvel, so away they went into the drawer.
Frustrated, Jack Kirby quit working at Marvel Comics in 1970. According to a famous rumor, no one working at Marvel at the time received a formal memorandum that Jack Kirby had left the company. Instead, there was only one of Jack's trademark cigars pinned to a wall with a note attached reading “I quit!”
When then-DC Comics publisher Carmine Infantino made Jack an offer to come over to DC, Kirby accepted, and brought his new concepts with him. Infantino wanted Kirby to handle at least one existing title in addition to the new books he had in the works. Kirby had no great love for any of the DC books, and didn't want to boot another artist out of a job, so he told Infantino to give him whatever book didn't have an artist even if it was the lowest-selling title DC published. As a result, Jack Kirby made his post-Marvel DC debut on Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 (October 1970).
Readers who were expecting the placid, Mort Weisinger-style Jimmy Olsen stories they'd seen for years were in for a shock. Suddenly every issue was full of new concepts: the Whiz Wagon, Project Cadmus, the Hairies, a new Newsboy Legion and Guardian (revivals of previous Golden Age Kirby work for DC). And lurking in the background was a mysterious new villain that would soon become very important in the rest of Kirby's DC work: Darkseid, the uncontested dictator of the hellish world Apokolips.
The new Kirby take on Jimmy Olsen was so revolutionary that Infantino ordered the faces of established Superman characters Superman, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen to be either redrawn or heavily inked by established Superman artists Al Plastino and Murphy Anderson. Kirby fans were outraged that DC tampered with his art, and Jack himself reportedly wasn't pleased, but he was busy putting the finishing touches on the debut issues of his three new series for DC, which he would write, draw and edit. Kirby was in complete control of his work, for probably the first time in his career, and his enthusiasm showed.
THE FOURTH WORLD
In 1971, Kirby debuted his signature work at DC, later dubbed the “Fourth World” saga:New Gods, Mister Miracle and The Forever People. Together with Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, Kirby intended these stories to be part of an interconnected epic. This epic would run forty or fifty issues of each of the three central titles and culminate in a grand finale for the entire saga, which would then be slightly condensed and reissued as a series of hardcover collections for mass-market bookstores. It's important to remember the time frame: this is 1971 we're talking about. There were no miniseries in comics, never had been, and comics weren't designed to be finite and have endings. And the idea of reprinting the comics in a hardcover? Selling to bookstores? Ludicrous. Comics are sold at newsstands and grocery stores, and that's it. Kirby was about twenty-five years ahead of the industry, correctly predicting what would eventually become the lifeblood of today's modern comics market.
Before joining DC in 1970, Kirby created many titles alongside Joe Simon, including Black Magic from the late 1940s.
BLACK MAGIC #17 © 1952 CRESTWOOD PRIZE GROUP.
Sadly, Kirby's epic was never properly finished. After less than two years (only eleven issues each of New Gods and The Forever People, and eighteen issues of Mister Miracle), Kirby's series were canceled, ostensibly for low sales, a claim that remains in question. Some fans and critics have accused Infantino of canceling the books because he didn't “get” them or because they looked too much like Marvel books, but he steadfastly maintains that the sales weren't there and that it was purely a business decision. O
ther historians claim the sales were steady if not spectacular, and certainly not the worst-selling DC titles by far. Still, it's easy to imagine that the average 1970s-era DC comics reader might have been a little taken aback by Kirby's dynamic, explosive work, not to mention Kirby's, shall we say, unique approach to dialogue, which often sounds little like any form of discourse commonly used, and could more properly be termed a kind of “free-form word jazz.”
SCOTT SAYS
No one's quite sure what “Fourth World” refers to; like a lot of Kirby's names and phrases, he just liked the way it sounded and stuck with it, providing different rationales for it from time to time.
After the books were axed, Kirby created a second wave of titles for DC, including OMAC, Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth and The Demon, then returned to Marvel for a brief stint, eventually winding up working in animation. When DC editors later realized the genius of the original Kirby “Fourth World” series, they asked him to return to the series for a grand finale. Kirby made several attempts, first in a new New Gods reprint series and then with the DC graphic novel The Hunger Dogs, but both DC and Kirby agreed that they were less than successful. Even so, Kirby's characters have remained active in the DC Universe ever since.