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Raphael, Jordan, and Tom Spurgeon. Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book. Chicago, Chicago Review Press, 2003.

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First issue of The Fantastic Four

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The Fantastic Four spring to action as a team for the first time. As they learn how to control their new found powers, will it be enough to stop the fury of the Mole Man?

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First Issue of Captain America

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What better way to introduce a hero clad in the American flag during World War II than by showing him decking Hitler? Simple and effective, we have Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to thank for this one.

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What better way to introduce a hero clad in the American flag during World War II than by showing him decking Hitler? Simple and effective, we have Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to thank for this one.

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Clips from old Marvel cartoons

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1960s Marvel Comics Saturday morning cartoon.

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Collection of some of Jack Kirby's art.

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Welcome to this week's Fabulous Find, I hope you all are doing fine. This week I've pulled out of the vault the "King" Kirby Portfolio, dated 1971. This treasury size portfolio also goes by the name Kirby Unleashed. Why the two names? I'm not really sure. As you can see from the cover reproduced below, it simply says: A "King" Kirby Portfolio and lists the price as four dollars. But once you turn to the inside cover, the indicia clearly states that the portfolio is named; Kirby Unleashed.

Kirby Unleashed is a collection of works of art by the artist Jack Kirby, which was published by Communications Unlimited. Jack's son, Neal Kirby, is listed as the business manager, and the portfolio is compiled by Steve Sherman and Mark Evanier.

Here is the cover to the portfolio:

Pretty nice, right? But it gets even better when you open it up so that you can see the entire wrap-around cover. And here it is, in all it's glory:

Now that's a cover! But let's open up this bad boy and see what wonders we might find inside. Including the covers there are forty-four (44) pages in all. Most of the work is reproduced in black and white, but there are four (4) pages in addition to the two cover pages that are printed in color.

We find pages of Jack Kirby's earliest work, for such diverse publishers as: Max Fleischer Studio and New Yorker Magazine, well Jack had submitted the art and was rejected! But you get to see examples of a young Kirby, at only fourteen (14) years of age. Some published editorial cartoons and examples of early comic strips that were published in newspapers across the country.

Then we get to see some early comic book work, for example this Captain America, Buck and Red Skull piece found on page thirteen (13), which was done while he was working at Atlas Comics, prior to it becoming Marvel Comics:

And how about the Bullseye piece on page twenty (20)? Pretty sweet, eh?:

And to give DC Comics equal time, how about this early drawing of Mister Miracle, found on page twenty-five (25):

And before I leave the artwork, here is the centerspread from the portfolio, in full color:

All in all, a very nice package for only four dollars back in 1971. The originals are not real easy to find for sale now a days, but in 2004, TwoMorrows Publishing, reprinted the portfolio and sold with a couple of additional pages and sold it for twenty (20) dollars. These copies are a little easier to find in today's market.

This was one of the first portfolios sold back in the day, before there was a great proliferation of companies putting out portfolios with featuring art from many and diverse artist.

Hope you enjoyed my look back on this one! Please be sure to come back next week for a new RETRO REVIEW and I'll be back in two weeks with a new Fabulous Find. Be seeing you ...

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1971 King Kirby Portfolio or Kirby Unleashed

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Welcome to this week's Fabulous Find, I hope you all are doing fine. This week I've pulled out of the vault the "King" Kirby Portfolio, dated 1971. This treasury size portfolio also goes by the name Kirby Unleashed. Why the two names? I'm not really sure.

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Stan Lee discussing the Stan Lee Entertainment situation.

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Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People

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Stan Lee - My companies: Stan Lee Media and POW! Entertainment  (29/42)

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Throughout Stan Lee's very long career as a comic creator he would always make attempts at making it big at Hollywood. Most of his attempts at television shows or movies were often meet with disappointing failure until May 3rd 2002, when the Spider man movie was released. This movie was met with high praise and grossed tens of millions of dollars. In a way, Stan Lee's career had finally come full circle.

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Things were looking up for Stan Lee Media, it was producing profits, and the stock price was even going up. things were looking good, there were planned collaborations with celebrities, like with the rapper RZA. Everything seemed fine until the stock finally plummeted. as it turns out Peter Paul and his partners were selling and buying back their own stock to make the company look like it was succeeding. Peter and his associates had kept millions of Stan Lee's money that he put into the company. What they were doing was obviously illegal, but when police looked for Peter Paul, he had already relocated to Brazil. Peter was eventually found and arrested in 2001.

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in the late 1990's Stan Lee met a man named Peter Paul, who saw potential in Stan's status. The two became partners and funded Stan Lee Media. The idea behind Stan Lee Media was to create online web comics and web animations. Stan Lee Media would feature new original superhero comics and animation with exclusive merchandise. What Stan Lee didn't know about his partner Peter Paul was that he had gone to jail before over fraud charges.
"In the late 1970's, when he was a young lawyer in Miami, Paul was convicted of cocaine possession and of attempting to defraud the Cuban government out of $8.7 million."(249)

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Stan and Kirby had come to a mutual agreement to leave behind the grudge they had. Jack Kirby died in 1994. There was a lot of talk about weather Stan would be invited to his funeral or not, but he was invited. Stan sat in the very back so that he wouldn't cause a scene for the already grieving family. Stan had a phone call with Jack's wife where she confirmed that there was no bad blood between Stan and Jack.
"I didn't want anyone to see me, and make a fuss and start talking about Jack and me and our relationship."  (224)

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Stan had received a large amount of criticism because his work ethic was being considered dated. Many saw Stan as a greedy business owner who suppressed artistic freedom in his pursuit of money. A change that was happening at Marvel was that artists would receive all of their original artwork back. All the artists were happy to sign a contract and comply, but Jack Kirby was neglected one of these contracts. Jack heavily criticized the Marvel company and Stan, so they responded by only offering him 80 out of his 8,000 works that he had made for Marvel. This was met with outrage from the comic community, until Marvel finally gave Jack 1,000 pieces of his art. Jack criticized Stan for not giving him enough credit for the art they worked together on.

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Since Stan Lee had left his position at Marvel open, he was quickly replaced by a comic book editor named Shooter. The character's that were being used in the Marvel line up were running out of new adventures to go on, so many artistic liberties had to be taken to keep the super heroes fresh. Artists at Marvel and other comic companies were demanding more artistic ownership of their own work. The main way to distribute comics was now through comic book stores, this allowed new comic creators to get their content out into the public more easily. The comic industry was going through a number of changes.

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Stan moved to California and left the comic industry behind to try and make a name for himself in the film industry. Stan teamed up with a film maker named Lloyd Kaufman, and together they'd write and pitch movie scripts, however none of the scripts were ever produced into movies. The success of the Batman live action television show sparked television shows for the Hulk and Spider-man, but neither shows were a success. After the Superman film was an astounding success, film companies raced to buy up as many Marvel properties as they could. Many of the movies trying to be the next Super Man were financial failures. The only success Marvel had in the film industry was through animation.
"Of the dozens of deals, great and small, great and small, that Stan helped bring together in the 1970's and 80's, only four resulted in movies, and all of them were embarrassments." (194)

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The late 1970's was an experimental time for Stan, he experimented in different genres of comics to see if he could strike gold anywhere. He first published a book on how Marvel comics were produced, then he attempted to create comic book pornography, but the most successful of his experiments was a    Spider-man comic strip that would go in newspapers. Stan eventually enlisted the help of Jack Kirby for one more project. Together the two of them created a 100 page Silver Surfer comic, which would be the last time Stan and Jack worked together on a project. Jack left Marvel again over creative differences to pursue animation full time.

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Stan was considered the face of Marvel. When Marvel needed a representative to go to a convention or give a speech, Stan was the man they'd send. Stan began to gain charisma and confidence during his interviews, which helped display Marvel in a positive light. Stan gained a distinct personality that the public loved, and that nobody could replicate. He had finally gained his celebrity status that he was trying to reach earlier in his career.
"Lee was a natural storyteller, and through his stories he fashioned himself into a star." (167)

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A short lived Stan Lee project was an attempt to bring the underground genre of comics to Marvel. Stan hired underground comic creators and promised them full creative freedom with no censorship. Sadly this project was a failure.

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Marvel had become a much bigger company which was now owned by a publishing company called Cadence. Cadence was already filled with business heavy executives so the need for Martin Goodman was nonexistent. Martin Goodman was fired, and Stan Lee was promoted to his spot. Goodman saw this as a betrayal from Stan, since Goodman was the person who got Stan his job at Marvel in the first place. Goodman began a new comic book company in the hopes that it would rival and overthrow Marvel. Goodman's company was successful at first but it quickly went out of business.

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Stan Lee felt that his success at Marvel couldn't last forever, so he attempted to gain a celebrity status so that more job opportunities would open up. In his attempt to become a celebrity, he decided to be a featured creator on a talk show. This ended up being a disaster. Stan was humiliated.
"One of the first major attempts to broaden Lee's horizons to that of a celebrity who transcended the four-color field was a failure." (134)

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Steve Ditko was frustrated with Stan over creative differences about the Spider-man story line, which Steve created in the first place. Steve left Marvel in 1966. Jack Kirby who had co-created many Marvel superheros was upset that Stan was getting all the credit for comics that they created as a team, so he also quit in 1970. Superhero comics were beginning to decline in sales so Stan attempted crossovers, costume changes, and publicity stunts to regain his superhero fan base. Marvel was able to maintain it's popularity thanks to these tactics.

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Marvel had now shifted all production to superhero comics, which made business thrive. Stan,  Jack, and Steve had somewhat become the saviors of Marvel. Marvel no loner had to chase trends because they were the trend. Around the same time in 1965, Stan began guest speaking at colleges around the United States. Stan also began accepting interviews unlike Jack and Steve. Because of this Stan Lee became the face of Marvel, and the person people thought of when they thought of Marvel.
"The college lectures put Lee at the forefront of the Marvel superhero renaissance, making him the public face for what he and the artists were accomplishing." (114)

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Despite everything going against the new comic, The Fantastic Four was a massive success. This success was in part due to the superheroes now having more personality and flaws. Old superheroes were depicted as perfect people who could do no wrong, but now superheroes were more fleshed out and realized. Thanks to Stan Lee's experience in other comic genres, he was able to fuse super hero comics with other forms of comics to make them more interesting. This success sparked a revival and increase in production of superhero comics. Timely had now been changed to Marvel
"The 'Iron Man' serial blended elements of war comics, spy novels, and science fiction."(92)

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Stan Lee felt empty just chasing trends in the comic book industry. Stan Lee's next project was gonna be an attempt to revive superhero comics with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby. Super hero comics were considered a dead genre after the WWII hysteria ended. They published a new super hero comic titled The Fantastic Four which was an immediate success.
"Thus ends the first issue if The Fantastic Four, cover-dated November 1961." (85)

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Despite the many restrictions put in place by the CMAA, Timely was still thriving. Timely was now a much bigger company than what it used to be, so it had to go from a small business to a corporation. Timely began releasing a wider selection of comics from different genres meant to appeal to different demographics. Stan maintained a spot near the top of the company acting as a director and writer who oversaw most projects. Jack Kirby returned to Marvel along with another artist named Steve Ditko. Jack, Steve and Stan profited on the growing monster comic genre of the time.

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The Comic book industry was still considered a form of literature, but it was despised by authors and parents that feared that comics would rot the brains of the next generation. To combat the growing comic book industry concerned parent led a number of petitions and law suits against the comic book industry. After a long legal battle it was decided that comics had to go through the CMAA, which would censor or outright refuse to let a comic be published. the CMAA restricted the use of guns, extreme violence, drugs, sympathy towards villains, and vulgar language of any kind.
"The comics code adopted by the CMAA in 1954 changed the field for decades to come. The code constricted content." (46)

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World War II eventually forced many people in the comic industry to leave their jobs and enlist in the army.  Stan Lee was forced to enlist in the army to help fight in World War II. At the time the Super hero fad began to die off, and comedic comics were the newest popular genre. While Stan was at the army base receiving training, he continued to write and produce comedy comics for Timely.  After Stan Lee's return from the war, Timely was now a much bigger and successful company.
"Even though he was occupied keeping America's fighting forces from VD, Stan sill found time to write stories for Timely."(32)

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The Captain America comics were very profitable, and made a very large sum of money for Martin Goodman, but the artist Simon and Kirby felt they should've been earning more. They began producing comics for DC (a rival comic company) in secret until somebody told Martin Goodman. Martin confronted and fired the two employees leaving the position of director and art director open. The position of director was filled by Stanley and was meant to be temporary.
"Goodman installed Lee as the editorial director on a temporary basis, with the intention of eventually finding someone else." (24)

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Timely publications had a business tactic where when there was a trend, or something successful going on in the comic industry, they'd shift all production onto that genre to capitalize on the trend, until a new comic became more popular. In 1940 Timely struck gold with the Captain America comic series. This comic became successful because of its patriotic messages during a time when many feared world  war II. The success of Captain America ended up sparking a superhero era in comic books with everyone eager to capitalize on the growing market. Stanley published his first comic under his pen name Stan Lee

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On December 28, 1992, Stanley Lieber was born into a Jewish family in New York City. Stanley grew up with his parents Jack and Celia Lieber and his little brother Larry. The Lieber family live the poverty brought on by the Great Depression.

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Although Stanley was Jewish, it was rare for him to be discriminated against, since he grew up in a prominently Jewish part of New York. People who attended Stan's High school often described him as energetic and social. Stan Lee took up work at the school newspaper, where he gained a little bit of experience in publishing. The year was 1939 and Stan Lee had just graduate high school.
"To save money, the Liebers moved to a tiny apartment in the Bronx, an ethnically diverse borough with a large Jewish population." (4)

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Stan didn't get a chance to attend college because he needed to support his family which was still in poverty. Stan Lee cycled through multiple demeaning jobs, until he was offered a job by his cousin in law Martin Goodman, who was the owner of a company named Timely Publications. Timely Publications published comics to capitalize on the blossoming comic industry at the time. It was Stanley's job to assist the two overworked employees Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Stanley accepted the offer to work at Timely.
"They need an assistant, a gofer, someone to fetch sandwiches or to erase stray pencil marks on finished artwork- and maybe, down the road, to do a little writing." (9)