Lee is the creator of Spider-Man
Ditko is the conceptional creator of Spider-Man

Calling Ditko the co-creator of Spider-Man is kind of like calling Ralph McQuarrie the co-creator of Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C3PO. I haven't heard Ralph calling out George Lucas over creator status. Obviously, in the entertainment world (be it print, art, movies, TV, theater, whatever...with the possible exception of books, and even then there's often artwork involved) a lot of cooks are involved making the soup.

Part of the reason Hollywood doesn't value ideas is because you can't put them on a T-shirt. But you can't visualize them sometimes either. Everyone knows Darth Vader's voice courtesy of Jones and his image courtesy of McQuarrie. THAT'S what's on the lunchboxes and T-shirts, and I'd imagine that Lucas is the one who gets money for those, not McQuarrie or Jones. They may well have done it as work-for-hire under contract and have no legal right to it, but that doesn't mean I don't understand why they object ethically and personally. I'm an armchair moralist, I know, I'm not the producer or creative force who put my millions on the line by giving them work on something that could've turned out disastrously. I get that. But I fully understand the point-of-view of artists in other fields who've made contributions and feel slighted creatively or financially. Obviously, where you stand on it in personal terms will vary from one individual to another, and of course legally, it's obvious where things stand. But I do get why some people feel the way they do.

It is interesting. So much of what we identify with Star Wars comes from Ralph McQuarrie. Take away his designs, substitute them with someone's else's, and it's not going to be the same thing.

(Though I would be really curious to see what Moebius' Star Wars would look like.)

Yeah, that's one of those things that seems weird. Sandman just feels so much like Neil Gaiman's singular vision that crediting Sam Kieth as co-creator seems kind of odd.

Same with Walking Dead, where Tony Moore gets credit for being the guy who drew the first six issues. The book just feels like Kirkman's baby, regardless of who's drawing it.

The difference is how much variation in designing zombies and human survivors would have occurred between Robert Kirkman's descriptions and resulting comic had Kirkman gone with a different artist? Most Walking Dead comic shirts aren't instantly recognizable without the logo title there.

You don't need a title for Spider-man to be recognized. Which means that just the artistic contributions alone made by Ditko, contributed a substantial amount to the popularity of the character.

And to "spoil" that podcast and answer the question - Lee was just a comic writing mill. He was writing anything and everything they were throwing out there in the market as well as editing the other writers. He was getting tired of the stories being rather meaningless and for kids (I think with particularly the western and romance books - perhaps this was during the period where capes fell out of favor?) and was on the verge of quitting. So his wife told him to write a story he would want to read, and he turned around and wrote Fantastic Four. Lee started writing the stories and characters he wanted to. But even he admits Fantastic Four was a response to either JSA or JLA. It was still a business. He was still just pumping out book after book and couldn't even remember the first name he gave Banner and was writing wrong ones into the Hulk books. And as someone else pointed out, it was DC that really drove the superhero wave back in, so that's what Goodman wanted Lee to put out. Lee just did it his way, and his way worked out for everyone involved.

Just watched the documentary. Pretty damn good and compelling stuff.

Are we talking about Spider-Man or are we talking about Walking Dead and Star Wars? Apples and oranges, folks. And, Shannon, I'm assuming you typed "Kirby" twice when you meant to type "Ditko".

Ditko didn't just design Spider-Man's look, he took a few of Lee's thoughts and turned them into 18 to 22 pages of story. He didn't sit behind a typewriter but he did "write" those stories. Eventually, Lee stopped bothering to give him any story ideas and just waited for Ditko to deliver the art, then Lee dropped in dialogue and captions. There's a much greater role in what Ditko did than what McQuarrie did.

As to Kirkman & Moore, another completely different story. If I can borrow from JasonF, Kirkman didn't go to Moore and tell him "It's a book about a man who wakes up from a coma to find a zombie apocalypse has occurred. He and a handful of other remaining human survivors must band together to survive, but the focus is more about the way the humans attack each other than about the way the zombies attack them" and expect Moore to come back with 6 issues of story/art. My understanding is that Kirkman developed his ideas fully and provided Moore with full scripts which Moore's job was to illustrate. Completely different scenario than Lee & Ditko.

That's the beauty of creativity. When it is done right, it looks obvious and simple because the answer is staring you in the face. The man figured out the right formula for comic book heroes at that point in time and it worked brilliantly and Marvel became a major contender to DC. He deserves his credit.

I just don't agree with this. Gambit was created by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee. Who came up with every single concept of the character I don't think matters., same with Spidey. If Spider-Man was created in the 90's both would have gotten credit, however since he was created in a writer dominated era the artist was marginalized.

I didn't know about McQuarie until fairly recently thanks to my Great Star Wars Divorce of 1997, but I'm inclined to agree. Film is a medium worked on by hundreds of people too, lets we forget, and those who opine the auteur theory are probably more likely to side with the director. I've long felt that Wes Craven was slighted by New Line on the Freddy Kruger character, but have I ever thought about David Miller not getting any of the profits? It's a tricky issue with no easy answers.

My father has never read a comic book in his life and has never seen any of the films.

This is Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man:


This is Steve Ditko's:


This is Erik Larsen's:


This is Mark Bagley's:


My dad would know instantly that all of these were supposed to Spider-Man. He knows what Spider-Man looks like. That's because of the visual identity Ditko created for the character. Ditko created that, not Lee. Does that mean that Lee doesn't deserve credit for making the character relatable, coming up with the origin story, and so forth? Certainly not, he absolutely does. But it was a creative collaboration. Now, as to who deserves more credit for what, who knows?

Yeah, but in some ways, art is in the eye of the beholder and comes after the fact. When Stuart Galbraith IV interviewed many tokusatsu creators for his book Monsters Are Attacking Tokyo: The Incredible World of Japanese Fantasy Films, he talks about how many creators were shocked that there was anyone who care about their work, much less on the other side of the world who didn't even speak the language. They weren't self-consciously making "art," just doing their jobs. But that doesn't negate the artistic validity of what they did. Really, a lot of this is personal preference too. Howard Hawks and John Ford found their treatment in Cahiers du cinéma hilarious, and look at Room 237, with all of the weird theories people opine. These people were artists in the confines of what they had to do, not bohemian rebels. But art takes on a life of its own.

I think the principle is the same though.

Again, we're also sorting this out after the fact. One of these groups is from an era where the fanbase rabidly analyze things like this, the other wasn't. Do I think Kirkman had more to do with The Walking Dead than the artists? Yes. Does that mean that the artists don't deserve co-creator credit? No, I don't think so, anyway.

The thing about superhero characters is that they are created by committee. There's usually not one single creator.

Look at Wolverine.

Wolverine was a fairly forgettable character who appeared in a couple of issues of The Incredible Hulk. Wolverine was initially created by writer Len Wein (at the behest of Roy Thomas), costume designed by John Romita Sr, and drawn in the comics by Herb Trimpe.

Then Wolverine has the good fortune to end up in Giant Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum (who redesigned Wolverine's costume into the familiar form).

But then, further refinements by Claremont and Byrne -- personality traits and backstory -- gave the character his identity.

I would argue that, while Wolverine may have been created by Wein and Romita, it was Claremont and Byrne who gave him his identity. They took an empty shell and filled it.

They deal in absolutes. Personality traits aside, the initial Wolverine design and redesign was Wein with Romita.

Lee and Ditko (or Ditko) didn't consider personality traits or whatever. The LOOK is what they're talking about.

I have always thought Lee's public persona was a huge put-on, because he thought fans and Marvel wanted it as the face of comics.

I would credit Ditko with a bigger share of why Spider-Man became the biggest comic book icon since the introduction of Superman and Batman than Stan Lee. Comics are a visual medium and Spidey's costume is instantly recognizable. Lee's genius was doing things entirely differently than DC had until that point. Make the superheroes real people with real problems, set in a coherent universe around New York City.

Lee is comic's ultimate pitchman. I'd say he is easily the most recognizable person involved in comics.

BTW: What the hell is with that Todd McFarlane picture? I know Spiderman's limber, but how the hell does someone get into that pose?

It was the 90s... let it go.

Anyone remember the Stan Lee from X-Play? That's MY favorite Stan Lee.

If you really exam in his artwork; it isn't all that. The only thing that he did cool for Spiderman was the webbing style which everyone after him copied.

Granting that it was physically possible, which is doubtful, you damn sure wouldn't ever get out of it, and if you did, you'd be hospitalized and never move again.

Yup.

McFarlane's hyper-detailed style really impressed me when I was younger and knew nothing about comics, but now I sort of think he was form without content. There are individual things about him that are impressive, mostly just the detail and the sheer number of lines, but I don't think he was much of a storyteller, and he had no business writing. I'm always fascinated that he's become such a billionaire though, because hearing him speak, his thought process seems really scattershot and difficult to make sense of to me.

Todd is a great artist and a hack of a writer. He should have let someone else write Spawn, like Liefeld letting Alan Moore completely take over Supreme.

I actually think McFarlane's 90's style still holds up. But hell what do I know Jim Lee has always been my favorite artist.

His sequential art lacks in some places but his splash shots were some of the best. Still my favorite rendition of Spider-Man.

Want to smell like an old man? Only 30 bucks sucker!



http://www.toywiz.com/jul132169.html

I love Stan Lee but thought this was pretty funny.

McFarlane also popularized the gigantic Spidey eyes (though it probably didn't originate with him). It's kinda odd, his style is detailed yet cartoony. Early on, much of his stuff had to be redrawn because his characters were so stylized, and there was a lot of tension with the older guard (some of it was that the newer guys put so much detail into their work that it was unsustainable for the older guys to do while keeping deadlines and maybe even doing multiple books, George Perez aside).

I do think his impossible Spidey poses worked with the nature of the character... not so much when it went to Spawn and his cape. He did succeed in changing the toy landscape, with hyper detailed figures, then with basically statues that were sold in the action figure aisle.