@jashro44 said:
@adamtrmm said:
@cattlebattle said:
2. Isn't it sort of ironic?? Didn't Stan Lee come up with the concept of not crediting individual creators with their contributions and just having creations and characters homogenized as just being "Marvel's"??
Did he? This one needs a fact check, but for that we need quality geek journalism, which is simply nonexistent.
No he's right. Stan would always say "he considers" Steve Ditko the co-creator of spider-man but he never outright said Steve was the co-creator of spider-man. When he was pushed on the subject in the belwo interview he said "I am willing to say so" and than when Jonathon Ross said "so its a no", Stan said "the guy who dreams it is the creator".
Stan was very specific with his wording. I definitely get a sense here Stan is doing a legal tap dance. And I also have to say I don't think its a coincidence Jack Kirby felt the same way and he is the other big name Stan worked with. I think eventually he acknowledged it years later but I don't know for sure (His twitter calls him the "co-creator" of spider-man but not sure if that is an acknowledgement Ditko is the other co-creator).
That's the inbuilt issue with the concept of the "Marvel" method and as a creator myself, I can see it from both sides.
The origins of Marvel's Silver-Age characters boils down to this:
Writer - So I've got this great idea for a character. *explains his idea*
Artist - I like/love that/find it interesting. Here's my interpretation of what you told me.
The result - A character both people claim "they" created.
How much does the original pitch weigh on concept creation all depends on how detailed the original pitch was. If the idea for Spider-Man was just a man with spider-like powers and the artist came up with the finished product that everyone recognises years later as the definitive/original version of Spider-Man then the writer inspired the artist who then created the character. If the writer goes through a number of edits and redraws because the writer keeps saying "no, no, that's not what I imagined" then the creatorship skews far more towards the writer.
From what I understand about the situations for Silver Age Marvel, it was very much a grey ara of the last part with heavy mixes of the artist just doing whatever they wanted and the writer having to adjust. The story is that Stan wanted Spider-Man to be the slender kid who looked like a breeze could knock him off rather than the typical superhero of the day and in that case, most of the initial concept idea is coming from Stan.
Ditko was apparently infamous for going "off script" and drawing things that hadn't been talked about in the planning stage. Stan wasn't a saint, obviously, and changed the meaning of scenes using the words that went away from "artist's intent."
The "Marvel Method" can be great for the artistic development of stories if used well but it needs a major oversight to be aware of when new characters are introduced. As soon as a new character gets brought in, editorial needs to sit down and legit work out from notes and conversations who came up with the majority of the idea and split the creator credit/royalties that way. And the people making those decisions must be 100% impartial. Silver Age Marvel and their legendary craftsmen were filled with egos and people set in their ways who wouldn't budge on anything.
I will also finish that Stan could probably never outright say Ditko was the creator/co-creator of Spider-Man anywhere that could be used against him legally. Ditko was a man who didn't believe in compromise and if he could legally prove Stan says he had a hand in creating Spider-Man, would have immediately looked to gain total control of the character.
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