1. Now that Stan Lee is being eulogized far and wide, it's important to remember how marginal Stan Lee and his collaborators (Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) were in the 1950s and 1960s.
-
-
8. I think one way to recast Lee's legacy is to think of him as an Editor who added dialogue more than a writer. And he was an editor of genius, far better than his peers in terms of recognizing the talent of Kirby & Ditko, giving it room to breathe.
Show this thread -
9. It was Lee who first conceptualized the Marvel line as a coherent universe (an outgrowth of encouraging his artists to put in cameos to cross pollinate the titles). And his carnival barkers voice, sometimes grating, gave the Marvel titles a tonal unity.
Show this thread -
10. The framing of the Marvel books as a coherent interlocking universe was the key shift. We're very used to this now in pop culture. Even frigging Lego has their own cinematic universe! But Lee in 1960s (perhaps influenced by sci-fi) was pioneerhttps://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/cinematic-universes/247152/the-9-cinematic-universes-currently-in-development …
Show this thread -
11. The key to Stan Lee's life is that he wanted originally to be a novelist (Stanley Leiber!) and did comics as a day job & pen name (Stan Lee). By the time he was 39 he realized the novel wasn't coming and so threw himself into the day job with a passion.
Show this thread -
12. My more extended thoughts on Stan Lee and his legacy here:https://newrepublic.com/article/152201/stan-lee-midwife-marvel-universe …
Show this thread -
13. My Lee piece should be read in conjunction with my earlier Kirby piecehttps://newrepublic.com/article/144558/jack-kirby-unknown-king …
Show this thread -
14. And also my Ditko obituary: https://newrepublic.com/minutes/149680/steve-ditko-co-creator-spider-man-doctor-strange-dead …
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
This Tweet is unavailable.
-
It's honestly hard for me to rank them, but Gene Colan never gets enough recognition. He was definitely one of the giants in that field.
End of conversation
-
-
-
Comics, like film and rock, is a collaborative art. How much of the credit for the Beatles do McCartney or Lennon deserve? How much of Mr. Smith was Capra or Rifkin? We may never know how much of Marvel was Stan or Jack, What matters is to celebrate them.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.