 |
|
 Edited by Roy Thomas |
Alter Ego, the greatest 'zine of the '60s, is all-new, focusing on Golden and Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews and unseen art. Each issue includes an FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) section, Mr. Monster & more! |
Power Luncheon--1974Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Frank Robbins, & Roy Thomas at a Mid-'70s SeulingconFrom Alter Ego Vol. 3 #13 NOTE: From the late 1960s through the 1970s, comics entrepreneur Phil Seuling was host to a series of major New York City Comics Conventions, which, until they were eventually eclipsed by those in San Diego, were the biggest in the world. Four of the major guests at the 1974 "Seulingcon," as they were colloquially known, were the four gents listed above. By sheer coincidence they included three of the first four editors-in-chief of Timely/Marvel Comics: Joe, Stan, and then ed-in-chief Roy. (Only 1942-45 head honcho Vince Fago was missing to make it a full house!) Seuling gathered Stan, Joe, and Roy (with his first wife Jean, also a writer for Marvel), plus artist/writer Frank Robbins, together at a luncheon in a packed meeting-room at the Hotel Commodore, after which he initiated a question-and-answer session. The following transcription was printed in Seuling's 1975 convention program booklet, along with photos. Alas, we're not sure who originally sent us photocopies of various Seulingcon materials, but our hat's off to him-and to A/E consulting editor (and Comic Book Artist editor) Jon B. Cooke for helping us get the best possible reproduction of the photos. Since many of the panel's comments were of mostly transitory interest (queries asked of Stan, or of Roy because he had been Marvel's main editor for two years), Phil's interview has been considerably edited to emphasize the more pertinent remarks. -RT.
PHIL SEULING: Joe Simon, you were the editor at Marvel Comics when the 17-year-old Stan Lee came to work there, which means that between you two and Roy Thomas we have three generations of Marvel editors on this panel. That's quite true, isn't it, Joe? What was it like then? JOE SIMON: Well, Stan was just telling me that the last time he left me, 1939, I was eating then, and nothing's changed. When Stan came to us, he was very eager, he wanted to do some writing, and I think he was still in high school, weren't you, Stan? STAN LEE: I'd just graduated. SIMON: Just graduated? Well, we gave him the text page to do because nobody ever read the text page, even the editors! And Stan wrote his text, signed his name to it, and we printed his name. He made it very important and he made everything important after that. And that's why he's where he's at, I guess. LEE: At the end of the table. SIMON: At the end of the table. [laughter]
SEULING: Roy, you've seen a heck of a lot of writers and artists go through Marvel Comics. Who are the people who are not with Marvel any longer that you still feel some vibrations from? ROY THOMAS: Good or bad? SEULING: Either. It's an open luncheon. THOMAS: I've been working for Marvel for about nine years. And the people who have worked for Marvel that I think contributed the most, and who aren't there any longer, are the same ones the readers would like to see-since I was a reader of Marvel Comics. Jack Kirby, certainly. Stan Lee-he's sort of not there any more as far as writing goes! I wish he were... I keep asking him to do The Silver Surfer, but he doesn't have time right now. Obviously, a guy like Steve Ditko, who sort of wandered out the door and never came back-guys like Jim Steranko and Barry Smith. Some people that I admire have gone on to other places, like Bernie Wrightson, who did his first covers for Marvel, and a couple of stories.... It would be the same people, probably, that you would want working for Marvel. In other words, everybody in the business who's any good! We have a goodly percentage of them now. I wish we had those people and a few more. SEULING: I want to ask this question of Joe Simon. How much are you a fan of comic books? SIMON: I'm afraid I haven't read a comic book in many years, but I do look at the pictures. The graphics are considerably improved over the early years and what they called the Golden Age. At that time we had less than a handful of really good artists-Lou Fine, of course Jack, and there were maybe three or four others, but today almost every artist is superb. I couldn't keep up with them today.
SEULING: Speaking about writing-Roy said that some of the finest artists and writers are working for Marvel Comics right now. That's hard to contradict when you've just added to your work force a man who's written and drawn, oh, 10,000 pages or so. Frank Robbins, how do you like the Marvel style as you've found it so far? FRANK ROBBINS: The Marvel method of working? Well, they have a different approach than I've been used to, in terms of the way they lay out the script in synopsis form and then you work the pictures and then add the words later. But it's very intriguing. I like it very much. It sort of gives you a visual challenge and you try to dramatize and imagine what the dialogue might or might not be. You get a pretty good picture of what you're doing as you go along, and it's very freewheeling, you know. I like it. It's a different way of handling things. THOMAS: I'd just like to mention that we may be the first people-Marv Wolfman, Tony Isabella, and I-ever to ask Frank Robbins if he can draw any faster. [laughter] SIMON: I have something to say about that. I just met Frank last night for the first time, but I remember his work from when Kirby and I first started, and Jack used to have Frank Robbins' work in front of him. He was influenced by this man here. SEULING: There are so many ties in this business from one person to another, from one company to another. I think these luncheons have brought out many of these interwoven threads. Stan, I'd like to ask you a question, since you have a few of the people that you've worked with through the years here. When Roy first came to New York, and we met each other for the first time, he said he would favor working with Marvel because of a flavor, or spirit, some certain characteristic about Marvel that at that time the fans really admired. Now, the question would be this: Of the people that you like to call the "Marvel people" through the years, what would you say are the characteristics that they have in common? LEE: The one common denominator is you have to be a little bit insane... and enthusiastic. I think maybe, if nothing else, the people at Marvel, at our batty bullpen, as I cordially call it, are pretty enthusiastic. Almost every time that we sit and talk about something, Roy'll say, "Hey, how about doing a magazine of this sort or that sort?" and I never can say no to him. His ideas are usually great, and we're always turning out more magazines than we really have enough artists and writers to produce. It's hard for us to turn any idea down, if we think it'll be good, and we love our ideas, so what usually happens is-our biggest problem is always trying to go out and get better and better artists and writers. When a guy like Frank Robbins falls into our lap after, lo, these many years, this is a great thing. Just like when Roy Thomas fell into our lap-how many years ago was it, Roy? It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, 'cause I had been doing most of the writing and editing myself and I kept thinking, "Gee, if I could only find somebody who'd be dumb enough to do all this work and let me have some time off and also be good enough." I didn't know he'd end up being better, but that's okay. Anyway, I'd say the biggest thing at our place is the quest for talent. If Marvel is to any degree successful, it's because we've always tried to have the best people working for us. And that can be considered as a want-ad solicitation. [laughter]
SEULING: Let me ask this of Joe: In the 1940s, let's say from '39 to '45, the war years, was it more of a business with a production line, or was there a camaraderie, fellowship, spirit that held people together in those days of the Marvel bullpen? SIMON: I think the spirit that held us together was the spirit of nepotism. Almost everybody there was a member of the Goodman family [NOTE: Martin Goodman was Timely/Marvel's original publisher. -R.T.], and we were all good friends and we had a nice spirit about it. I was going to say to Stan that we love our ideas, too, until we get the sales figures. SEULING: I learned something this morning which will be one of the things I'll remember from this convention, and I think this audience would be interested in it. When you think of all the Joe Simon productions, when you think of Boy Commandos, Young Allies, Captain America, "Sandman," Boy Explorers, Stuntman-endless parades of excellent quality products-what was the most profitable book you ever worked on? SIMON: Well, Young Romance and Young Love are by far the most profitable ventures! For over ten years, they sold two million copies a month, and with high percentage figures. Of course, everybody was copying them, but there's something about the first titles. If they're pretty good, they'll outlast all the others, and nobody seemed to approach them in sales. Young Romance and Young Love were the leading magazines in sales in Hawaii, for instance, leading Life magazine and everything else!
SEULING: In other words, we talk about Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, and it turns out that "Dear Abby" may outsell them all. That'll tell us where we are! We started out being a super-hero fan convention, and I guess we're learning other things.... I'm going to change the line of questioning. Both Joe and Frank fall into kind of a rarefied category-the writer/artist. I don't know which is more writer, which is more artist, in either man. And the question that occurred to me is this: do you, when you read other people's work, recognize that this artist was a writer, or that he wasn't? Do the things that are collaborations between the strictly artists and the strictly writers... do they have a different flavor, in your eyes? SIMON: I think so. I think that the artist/writer is an ideal comic book producer, and he can do things that a team can't do. In the old days, they didn't have scripts. When comics first started, there was no such thing as a script. Everybody did his own complete job. In fact, when I first started in comics, I went to a package outfit called Funnies, Inc., and they were packaging the Goodman books, and- SEULING: Was Funnies, Inc., Bill Everett's-? SIMON: Bill worked there, right. It was run by someone named Lloyd Jacquet. And they just told me to give them six pages or seven pages. There was no character or anything. You know, just fill seven pages. And so we had to come up with a character or an idea and write it, draw it, letter it, and turn it in. Then they'd send it over to some publisher and they'd use it. That was the beginning of comics. SEULING: And you think that that's one of their strengths? The artist/writer kind of originated them? SIMON: Well, I think some of the best things that were done, like Eisner's things, were in a class by themselves. I don't think they can be duplicated by a team. SEULING: As one member of the most outstanding team in the comics' history, this is an interesting statement. SIMON: Well, when I say "team," I mean a written script given to an artist to work from. When we worked, we didn't use a script. We wrote it right on the board.
SEULING: Frank, do you see a difference in the collaborations and the single-man product? ROBBINS: That's a difficult thing to answer, in a way, because, in many cases, if it's a perfect welding of the various elements and if you didn't see the credits, you'd find it very difficult-at least I would-to differentiate whether it's a one-man team, so to speak, or a three-man team. But in other instances, of course, it's very desirable if someone can do his own writing, plotting, dramatization, visual and otherwise. It has a hell of a lot of advantages, too. And yet, oddly enough, I find it sort of intriguing to draw things which are going to surprise me by the dialogue that's going to come in later. So, I'm going to end up a reader of something that I've already illustrated, even though the dramatization, the plot, are all in my pictures. I assume the general idea is to suggest to the writer certain things to say, more so than if he hadn't had the pictures first. It's the reverse of what I've been used to. You learn to adapt to that, to a certain extent. THOMAS: All of us drew at one time or another. Stan has mentioned how he used to win drawing contests in New York newspapers until they asked him not to enter any more... and I used to fool around with drawing a little. While I think that a person who is a good writer and a good artist can produce some very fine things and does have total control over the product (which both artists and writers would like to have), the collaboration thing works well with comics. One of the things that I have admired about comic books over all the years is that it's a collaborative effort. I keep reading articles about how [in a newspaper strip] one guy is doing everything. These people believe Alex Raymond wrote Flash Gordon [as well as drew it], but he had help on that; Charlie Schultz may be one of the last people doing an entire strip. Everybody else has ten assistants. One of the things I like about comic books is that there are a lot of credits. Everybody's saying it's "production mentality, production mentality." But think of the wonderful things done on Captain Marvel in the '40s. Then you discover it was produced by a shop where different guys drew different parts of panels. Comics, be they strips or books, have always been a collaborative effort with certain rare exceptions. It works both ways. The only question is what two people or what one person you get. It may be Bill Everett doing The Sub-Mariner [by himself] down to a very distinctive style of lettering, or it may be Al Feldstein or Harvey Kurtzman laying out an entire page and then giving it to an artist and saying, "Here, fill in the space between the panel borders." Obviously, both methods work out quite well and they have both produced some real classics of comic artwork, so I think it's almost irrelevant to talk about a particular method being better.... But it was a good question, Phil. [laughter] [NOTE: There follows some discussion among the panel members concerning the changes in comic book writing over the decades. Phil Seuling addresses Stan Lee's closing statement:] SEULING: I listen to what you say, I listen to what Frank says, listen to what Joe says about the new writers and artists being so much better than they were when you remember them, that everybody has a great talent now... I listen to what Roy says, and I guess you all have to agree with me: these are the good old days... right? [NOTE: At this point the panel take questions from the floor, beginning with one about how comics were then scripted at Marvel, fielded first by Stan, then by Roy, who tells of his initial encounter with a Marvel synopsis in 1963, as recounted in TwoMorrows' trade paperback Alter Ego: The Comic Book Artist Collection. Next come a pair of queries about "minority" writers, about the language and "censorship" of comics, about the then-possibility of a Spider-Man movie, etc.-after which Jean Thomas asks a question of Joe Simon:] JEAN THOMAS: Joe, I'd like to know what you would think about creating a character such as Captain America today. How would you make a Captain America relevant to 1974? Would he wear red, white, and blue? SIMON: Well, I just read somewhere, in [someone's] analyzing Captain America, that he is really a fascist... and he has all the ways of a Nazi Superman. Did you read that, Stan? So I guess I would try to do something with him more on the free-thinker style. I don't think it would be a super-type hero. It would be more like Thoreau. Well, it's a camp thing now, isn't it-the red, white, and blue? But the uniform's valuable, isn't it, Stan? LEE: I never knew how important uniforms were until we brought out the first Fantastic Four, and I thought we were being so clever by not giving them costumes. Boy, we got an avalanche of mail saying, "We love the book, but we'll never buy it again unless you put them in their little long-underwear suits." I gotta mention one thing, talking about Joe Simon. When I first started there, I think I was still wearing short pants and playing with a yo-yo, and I walked in and there was the whole staff... which consisted of Joe Simon, hiding behind the biggest cigar anybody ever saw, and Jack Kirby. But for the first three weeks I only saw the top of his head, 'cause he was always crouched over the drawing board while Joe was giving his orders that Jack never particularly listened to. [laughter] SIMON: That's what you think! LEE: And it didn't matter, because Joe changed everything he did, anyhow. And Jack used to smoke, I think, Joe's left-over cigars, or cast-offs. Jack had to smoke a little smaller cigar than Joe. And this was the mighty Timely staff for quite a while, while I worked there. I didn't see too much of them, 'cause they had me running out to buy lunch and coffee and stuff... when I wasn't screwing up the place. But I gotta tell you that they were two great guys to work for, and for many years Joe was really my idol because he came up with more ideas and he really knew this business. I never knew for years... I'd look at a drawing or a page they had done... I never knew whether Joe gave Jack the idea and Jack drew it, or Jack gave Joe the idea and Joe had Jack draw it, or Joe drew it first and Jack copied it. I sometimes suspect that they didn't know, but that was a real good examples of two guys- SIMON: Usually we stole the idea. [laughter] LEE: I'd like to say, from me... but they didn't, because I was just learning at the time.
[NOTE: There follows a bit of talk about the Republic Captain America movie serial, and a question to Roy Thomas about how someone could become a writer for Marvel... after which Phil Seuling ends the panel:] SEULING: I remember [Golden Age writer] Otto Binder's words at another convention.
He said that when he came to New York to break into the very profitable comic
book field, he wrote twenty or thirty scripts, all of which were rejected. Then
he sold his first, and within a month, all the twenty or thirty that he hadn't
sold before... so that might be an encouragement to keep you going.  Sign up here to receive periodic updates about what's going on in the world of TwoMorrows Publishing. Howard Keltner's Golden Age Comic Books Index is the premier
references for Golden Age comics! Bob Klein worked with Howard
to make this edition available, just before Howard's untimely death
in 1998. Howard's widow has graciously given us permission to give
the index away for free for all to enjoy! Click
here to view! (1.5 MB file. Adobe
Reader required.)
|
