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Stan Lee: The Rise and Fall of The American Comic Book
If you don't know who Stan Lee is, you will have little to no interest in this book. But who are we kidding? Any geek worth his or her metal knows Stan "The Man" Lee, the co-creator of Spider-man, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four and countless other beloved Marvel Comics characters. What most people don't really know is the real story behind the creation of these characters. Many have never heard of the artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, who contributed a great deal to the creation and development of these superheroes. In the past years a bit of a rift has formed in comics fandom, the hard-core siding with the late Kirby, claiming that Lee and Marvel did the artist wrong. The other side blithely backs the amiable Lee. Through interviews with artists, family members and Stan Lee himself, Spurgeon and Raphael try to shed some light on the subject.
Anyone who's read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay will notice a great deal of similarities between Stan Lee's origins and the fictionalized settings Chabon created for his book. Both stories start in the time of the pulps, when publishers cranked out fantastic publications by the truck-load. The parallels are fascinating. If you're a comic book fan and you haven't read Chabon's book, you need to read it.
Anyway, the book I'm supposed to be reviewing tracks Stan Lee's star from his position as a lowly writer at Timely Comics, to the editor behind the most famous run of comic books in history; Marvel's Silver Age comics. This is when the Fantastic Four, Spider-man and The Hulk were born. The book doesn't stop there. It follows Lee through the decades detailing his involvement with the Marvel titles all the way. It examines his rocky relationship with Hollywood and decades of attempts to bring Marvel characters to life on television or in the movies. Even more fascinating are the segments of the book that deal with Stan Lee Media and the enormous financial flame-out that occurred when the business went sour.
The book paints Lee in a very humanistic light. It brings his flaws into sharp contrast and at the same time gives him credit for his amazing accomplishments, unceasing drive and wild imagination. Most interesting is the way the book tells the story of all comics in the context of Marvel and Lee's story. As much as underground geniuses such as R. Crumb or Art Spiegelman must hate the association, it's hard to argue that the fates of all comics are influenced by Marvel's gravitational pull.
There's been a mild knee-jerk reaction in the comics community that the book is blatant attack on Lee, being that both Spurgeon and Raphael both worked at The Comics Journal, a publication that has publicly supported Jack Kirby's claims against Lee. To be fair, the authors put an exceptional amount of work into trying to tell the truth, which is reflected in the sheer number of annotated resources they've provided in the book's source notes.
In all seriousness, try to forget for a moment that I'm friends with the authors. As a lifelong comics reader I found the information presented in this book fascinating. It made me want to run to my comics shop and buy reprints of the old issues. Don't take my word for it, though.
There are several excerpts of the book available online. You can read the prologue at the book's official website. Part of Chapter 17, "Stan in Hollywood" is excerpted at The Comic's Journal's website."
You can purchase Stan Lee: The Rise and Fall of The American Comic Book from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
at ISBN.nu
Ha ha ha. This post was almost as funny as the Friends episode you ripped it off from.
The "most important book ever to be written about the subject of comic books" is Understanding Comics.
It's in comic book (more accurately, a graphic novel (even more accurately, graphic nonfiction)) form, which is the right medium to actually describe the craft.
Alan Moore and his Watchmen, Neil Gaiman's Sandman as well as Frank Miller's Sin City> and the psychotic Batman.
The proper use of the phrase is worth your "mettle" not "metal."
Revemnge of the English Majors . . .
I just finished reading this book and it's wonderful. I don't have time (or will) to write a full review, but if you've any interest in comic books or in very good historical fiction, I'd suggest picking up a copy
Sure, Marvel went bankrupt a while back, but that's because they were headed Ronald Perelman, a so-called "turnaround specialist," who actually behaves much like the executives of SCO, whom we love so dearly. He pumps up stock prices, issues junk bonds, then bails and lets the company crater. As a brief aside, he now heads Revlon, which is trading around $3 per share.
Sure, I suppose if one were writing a book in the midst of Marvel's bankrupcy, one would be tempted to write a book called The Rise and Fall of American Comics, but in fact that was an artificial situation, and the industry has recovered quite well since then.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
the most important book ever to be written about the subject of comic books
Most would probably say that honor belongs to "Comics and Sequential Art" by Will Eisner.
I also would highly recommend "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud.
Well I don't know what the author of the post had in mind, but the following authors are worth checking out:
- Moebius (French Sci Fi), he also uses other names for side projects
- Schuiten&Peeters (Belgian architectural delirium!), these guys sometimes work on their own too
- Bilal (French Sci Fi), great drawings
- Hugo Pratt (Italian poetic adventures)
- Manara (Italian erotica)
The last two authors have definitely been translated to English, not sure about the others...
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
Incorrect.
Snow White: The Wicked Queen falls down a cliff and dies.
Little Mermaid: Ursula is pierced through the heart with a large sailing ship. Aside: in the Little Mermaid Two, Morgana, Ursula's sister, refers to this. "Now why couldn't dear Ursula attend? Oh, yes, I remember, it's because YOU ALL SISH-KEBOBED HER!' Morgana, at the end of the story, is imprisioned in a block of ice.
Disney's Atlantis: Helga Sinclair dies, after being betrayed and thrown off of an airship, and she tries to take said airship, and it's crew, with her. Note that we also see such wonderful things as the beating death of a king. One of the better Disney movies, with a concious effort not to include any cute anthropomorphic animal sidekicks.
Those are some that I can think of off the top of my head, at least.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
An issue of Nick Fury was disapproved by the CCA and Marvel ran the story unchanged without the CCA sticker rather than change the story. Nobody noticed and their sales were unchanged.
What was the horrible depiction that caused the CCA to refuse approving the story, you ask? Nick and a female character decide that they have finished work for the day; then the next panel shows the working room empty, with the phone off the hook. Anyone who could figure out the subversive hidden meaning in the off-hook phone was old enough to not be influenced by it.