ITEM! You know, I’ve done my very best over the years to make Sturdy Steve Ditko happy... I really have. I’ve done everything from publishing a letter in the New York Times in which I stated plainly and for-the-record that I have always “considered” him the co-creator of Spider-Man, to voluntarily letting myself be grilled by that BBC-boob Jonathan Ross until some of my true feelings about the matter accidentally slipped past my normally glib and glamorous gab-hole (see video below). I’ve even made anonymous donations to anonymous libraries to try and straighten this creative-credit karma out. And what thanks do I get? I get to read blogs like this one by Matt Tauber.
Actually it’s a pretty good read, including a nice analysis of Ditko’s latest Avenging Mind comic/essay. You know, current efforts to properly credit my co-creators and keep my legendary literary legacy nice and shiny aside, your Uncle Stanley will have to redact himself from commenting on things written or said as long ago as 1974’s Origins of Marvel Comics. Was Yours Truly just grabbing any credit that wasn’t nailed down back then, or were Marvel’s entertainment attorneys breathing down my neck to ensure that a current work-for-hire employee was credited with creating everything? Who knows... I sure don’t. I have trouble remembering what I had for lunch yesterday, my-as-less what went on 30-40 years ago. And besides, if an 85-year-old man wants to think he mostly created (or co-created for Odin’s sake) the whole blamed Marvel Universe, why not let him? You’ll note that even after Steve and Jack left Marvel, the Smilin’ One went right on creating new characters. She-Hulk anyone? How ‘bout Stripperella?
Excelsior!
Smiley
1 comment:
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE DEPT.
I just think that the Marvel Age of Comics was a team effort. Saying that Stan, Jack or Steve or whomever lifted this or moved that or stapled the other is sad. Individuals on a team do great things but it's the team victory that is remembered, and rightly. Marvel BUTCHERED DC and the Marvel heroes were and still are vastly more popular with the general public, albeit that some DC characters are very well known. Hitler is very well known too, does that mean we need a comicbook of him?
Marvel Origins, the actual Marvel Origins, are a firmament of stars not a single shining point of light. But equally one of those stars was, is and ever shall be Stan Lee, our very own self-promoting superstar.
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