Stan "The Man" Lee was born on this date in 1922. Stan is a guy who gets too much credit for the wild success of Marvel, but that said there's no way it happens without him. He had much more help from other great talents. Still Stan was a great comic book writer, able to bring high drama to the antics of Marvel's heroes. Stan gained even more fame from his cameos in nearly all Marvel movies. My favorite is his appearance as Willie Lumpkin, the postman who delivers mail to the Fantastic Four at the Baxter Building.
Stan Lee joined forces with Dan DeCarlo to create the comic strip Willie Lumpkin, comic strip designed to entertain in the "hinterlands" of the United States. his route was in the fictional town of Glenville. Stan was always looking for a way to break out of the comic book ghetto, and a successful syndicated strip was a good way to do it. The strip ran for a few years from 1951 until 1961. Later Stan used the name for the mailman who delivered to the Baxter Building in the pages of the Fantastic Four. Stan at last found the success he craved, but it was inside the ghetto, one he and his colleagues redesigned for a new audience and a new age.
William Lemuel Lumpkin became a not infrequent visitor in the Marvel Universe even revealing his superpower, the ability to wiggle his ears.
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Wonder if the name was "inspired" by Red Skelton's Willie Lump-Lump character, who predated the strip by at least five years. Or, like we were told with Yogi Berra / Yogi Bear, its all just a big ol' coinkydink.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a reasonable theory to me. And the Yogi Berra thing ain't no coincidence, I don't care what anyone might protest.
DeleteStan Lee and Dan DeCarlo are two of my very favourite comic people, one perhaps overhyped ( but nevertheless a major talent) the other I always felt didn't get the credit he deserved. -perhaps as he was a humour artist - Both though were pivotal to the success of comics .
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on Lee and DeCarlo. The latter's Archie comics are some of my favorites. Lee was a heck of a writer, if not the greatest creator.
DeleteMuch credit for getting out of Kirby's way at the beginning and just hanging on. Jack had already helped run a powerhouse studio, pioneered and excelled in several genres, and been one of comics' first superstars. But when he got to DC, he was repressed and diluted by a regime that was convinced it already knew the best way to produce comics.( The attitude still seemed to carry over when he came back a decade later, even as Marvel was kicking their ass). Stan had been in the trenches as an editor during lean times and was pretty savvy about what might be possible with his new comics. Making the decision to take the big leap may have been desperation or courage, but he was the one who jumped first, and made the revolution possible.
ReplyDeleteStan deserves a great deal of the credit he gets, but it does rankle fans who know better when folks who don't know tout him as the "creator" of the Marvel Universe. It was a huge collaborative process. But that's true in movies and other media as well when directors get credit for work done by others such as film editors and cinemaphotographers and writers.
DeleteI too like both "Stan and Dan" (as they were sometimes billed together on Timely strips like MILLIE THE MODEL), but boy, do I dislike WILLIE LUMPKIN. I've only seen a handful of the strips, but they're all horribly mediocre. The Timely humor strips aren't good, but at least some of them have a little "bite" to them once in a while. Stan's been quoted as saying he and DeCarlo pretty much designed the strip to suit a syndie editor. Neither of them looks like he's having fun with this strip, and clearly both did much better work in comic books before and after the sixties. Little did anyone in 1960 realize how there had been a subtle cultural shift: comic strips, formerly the Big Shots, were becoming less innovative as gag strips took over again, and comic books, despite (or due to) being restricted by the Code, were going to enter an era one might call "the Second Golden Age" as much as "Silver Age."
ReplyDelete(Of course, having grown up in said age, I might be a wee bit prejudiced.)
In the late 60's when I came of age, comics and strips were about the same in value, at least to me. I read in the few books on the subject (Horn's tomes for the most part) that strips were the big deal, but it didn't feel like that in the world.
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