Giant-Size Marvel Triple Action #1 was a 1975 reprint book that collected stories from mid-’60s issues of The Avengers, Daredevil, and Strange Tales. You wouldn’t think much could be learned from the cover of such a recycled Marvel comic. But there was always something more to be learned from Stan Lee.

Take a look at the preliminary cover to the left, and compare it with the published cover on the right. Notice anything different?

Aside from noting the obvious differences—color vs. black and white, a penciled word balloon and caption—take a look at Giant-Man’s face. Doesn’t he look fiercer in the printed version? How do you think he got that way?

Stan, of course!

In the memo to Len Wein that came attached to the preliminary cover, Stan gave a crash course in how to create a compelling cover.

About those scribbles on the cover, Stan wrote, among other things:

“Always look for, and try to recognize, these so-called ‘dead areas.’ By livening them up, either with addl. artwork, or zippy copy, you can often add a helluva lot more excitement to a cover. It’s one of the things that always gave, and will give us an edge over the competish.”

But—oh, no!—I now see that the “Avengers Assemble!” exclamation Stan asked for wasn’t added. Watch out, Len! If Stan finds out you ignored his request, he’ll come gunning for you! He doesn’t believe in the statute of limitations!

Luckily, Len did make sure that some of the heroes’ expressions were tweaked, based on Stan’s other comment:

I’ve told this to all our staff a million times over the years, but it can’t be mentioned too often. It’s VITALLY important. Often a story that seems dull could seem twice as exciting with more excitement being registered by the characters. Always look for, and try to remedy, such situations.”

There’s more detail in the memo itself, which I advise you read in full. After all, you wouldn’t want the competish to get the upper hand!

When I worked in the Marvel Bullpen in the mid-’70s, one of the many things I’m still amazed the company would let a kid like me be in charge of was the 1975 Marvel Comic Con. Phil Seuling, who’d been running the famed July 4th weekend comic book conventions, was the organizational brains of the event, dealing with the hotel, the dealers, the memberships, etc., while I took care of the creative aspects—the panels, the program book, wrangling the talent, and so on.

As a result, there were dozens of memos flying around the office as we tried to pull the thing together, many of them written by me, but quite a few from Stan Lee. Unless there’s a demand for it (which I’m not expecting), I’m going to spare you from having to read any of the memos I wrote while trying to get this off the ground, and just share the missives from those who matter … like the following two-pager from Stan in response to one of my many lists of programming suggestions.

To me, the most intriguing part of the memo is Stan’s insistence that we eschew the word “horror,” because it’s “like waving a red flag to a bull in regards to most parents.” Things have changed a bit in the intervening decades. At least, it seems like they have. (They have, haven’t they?)

As for his comments that the panels needed more artists, that they were too writer-heavy … yeah, what can I say, I was guilty. He had me dead to rights. My writerly bias was showing and Stan properly reined it in … which I hope any of you who made it to the con in 1975 saw.

And speaking of that, a show of hands. How many of you DID attend that convention, now almost 36 years ago?

If there’s one thing that my old boss Stan Lee wasn’t known for, it was humility. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Shepherding the Marvel Universe into being was hard enough, but selling it to the world was even harder. You’ve got to be a salesman. And that requires bombast, which Stan had (still has) oozing out of his pores. But humility? Not so much.

Why is why, when Bill Mantlo, who was the writer of Marvel Two-in-One, which teamed up The Thing with a different character each issue, suggested Stan as one month’s co-star, it was surprising that The Man would say … well, see below.

Nothing ever came of it, and I have no idea why. Was it Marv? Was it Roy, Len, or Archie? Or was it that mysterious “etc.”? Who knows? But the team-up never happened.

What’s that? You say you remember a team-up between Stan and Benjamin J. Grimm? Ah, but that wasn’t 35 years ago, just five, in Stan Lee Meets the Thing, published in 2006.

Bill Mantlo had nothing to do with this eventual meet-up. Instead, the issue was written by The Man himself, and drawn by Lee Weeks and Nelson DeCastro.

I won’t say it was a story 30 years in the making … but Bill Mantlo was there first.

I know I was a pretty annoying comic book fan, as my previous posts easily prove. But I’d forgotten how annoying I was when I first became a comic book professional.

As a fan, I was always bothering the pros for sketches, autographs, and behind-the-scenes info. But once I became a pro myself, that pestering was instead directed toward the other pros who were now my bosses.

Pros like … Stan Lee.

I’ve been going through my stash of Marvel memos to pick out ones that might be useful to Sean Howe (who definitely needs a Marvel nickname), who’s writing a history of Marvel in the ’70s, and while doing this I came across one of my many suggestions to Stan. I had the bizarre idea that we could start a Dial-a-Superhero service than would allow fans to hear pre-recorded messages from Marvel’s greatest.

Check out my note to Stan below.

Stan’s response? Take a look.

He liked the idea, and asked me to see if I could make it happen.

I couldn’t.

Why? After all these years, I no longer remember whether I reached out to an existing company that already knew how to provide such services and was rebuffed, or if some other reason prevented the concept from coming together. But consider yourself lucky.

And if you think that was the craziest thing I ever suggested to Stan, well, all I can say is … you’ll see.

You’ll see.

Back in December 2008, I wrote about Patricia Highsmith’s work in comics, and how surprised I was never to have heard of it before. Now that I’ve gotten my hands on a copy of The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar, I don’t feel quite so ashamed of my ignorance.

Because that’s the way Highsmith would have wanted it.

It turns out she did her best to erase all evidence of her history in comics. And if she didn’t want me to remember her, why feel bad for not doing so?

Here’s what Schenkar wrote about that history:

Pat systematically erased from her life every single thing that had to do with comics; she threw away every comic script, every proposal for a comic script, and every scenario for a comic book story she ever wrote. There would have been thousands of pages of comics work to cull—and she culled every one of them,. Nor did she keep any copies.

It turns out that the only evidence Highsmith kept of her extensive comics work was by accident. On the back of a page of French vocabulary can be found these notes toward a story about the character The Golden Arrow. (more…)

In 1978, Marvel had plans to create a short promotional movie to sing its own praises. Why? And to whom? Was it meant for advertisers? Possible Licensees? Hollywood studios to which the company was pitching its characters?

Who knows? All I can say for sure is that a seven-page script was created titled “The Marvel Age of Comics: 15 Minute History in Film,” one that explained how, starting in 1961, Stan Lee changed everything. The film was meant to be narrated by Stan himself, who can be seen in sketch form on the first page of the script below.

The artist for that six-panel intro? None other than Stan’s baby brother Larry Lieber, who also happened to script the introductory appearances of both Iron Man and Thor.

There’s plenty of interesting info here, especially when Stan explains the creation of two of Marvel’s most important properties. (more…)

Sean Howe, writer/editor of the book Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!, has been in touch with me because he’s writing a book in which he’ll attempt to sort out the Marvel Comics of the 1970s, which means that I’m doing some sorting out of my own.

During the mid-’80s, after I was no longer working in comics, I tried to process some of what went in in the mid- to late ’70s by writing a series of Ethics columns for The Comics Journal. And since I’m scanning copies of them for him, I figure why should the two of us be the only ones who suffer?

So here’s the first installment, which appeared in the magazine’s June 1985 issue, and started to explain how my love affair with comics turned into a love/hate relationship. You’ll see, if you hang in through all the installments—including the final one, which has never before been published—how my ambivalent feelings were eventually exorcised.

Somewhere I have copies I’ve proofed to correct typos and editing errors, but since I can’t find those right now, I’ll let these stand as originally printed.

I’ll be interested to learn how these read to you, because sitting down today and reading my 1985 opinions of my 1974 sure seems odd to me!

For those of you hoping for more Stan Lee commentary on the recent sale of Marvel Comics, check this out:

“They want to make some real dynamite movies and TV shows based on all your favorite characters, plus any new, original ideas we come up with. And they know how to put excitement on the screen.”

You can check it out here as part of a Stan’s Soapbox on the sale.

Ooops! My mistake, folks! That isn’t Stan commenting on the recent sale of Marvel to Disney—that’s Stan writing in 1986 on the sale of Marvel to New World from the pages of the June 1987 Marvel Age.

As they say, the more things change …

Since this has been a tumultuous couple of weeks in comics, I thought I’d share a second Stan Lee memo regarding personnel changes, in addition to the one I showed you several days ago.

Though the following item is signed, it’s undated, so I can’t tell you exactly when it was written. What I can tell you is that in my orderly file folder of memos from that period, it was between a memo dated March 24, 1976 (from me to John David Warner with due dates for upcoming issues of Son of Satan) and one dated April 20, 1976 (from Sol Brodsky regarding Jim Shooter’s … well … I’ll let that be a post for another day).

Yet another souvenir from Marvel’s revolving-door editor-in-chief position of the mid-’70s.

Stan’s Soapbox: The Collection, which I’ve told you about many times before, is finally out. The book, which collects all of Stan Lee’s “Stan’s Soapbox” columns which originally appeared from 1967 through 1980, plus essays from people such as Joe Quesada, Roy Thomas, and others, including me, has been published by the Hero Initiative as part of its fundraising efforts for comic-book creators in need of financial support.

The large trade paperback is in full color, beautifully illustrated, and turns out to be far more elegantly designed than I’d anticipated. You should all rush out and buy it right now!

But I must admit that there was one page of the book which took me aback. (more…)