Wednesday, February 2, 2005

Must See Lee TV

The 60 Minutes Wednesday story on Stan Lee tonight is a good example of why I've lost so much respect for TV news. Some fans will probably be upset with Stan because he was hailed as the sole creator of Spider-Man, The Hulk, The X-Men, etc., with no mention of his collaborators. Jack Kirby was not mentioned. Steve Ditko's artwork was shown but he was not mentioned.

(In fact, I'll bet a lot of folks watching the broadcast thought Stan drew those comics. He was referred to "artist Stan Lee" in a lot of program listings, and there were cutaways to the hand of someone drawing Spider-Man comics...but no shot to clarify that it wasn't Stan's hand you were seeing. This is just bad reporting...the kind of thing that would get you a D-minus in a college journalism class.)

Stan will be blamed for the omission of his partners' names but I don't know that this is a fair charge. They probably taped an hour or two of interviews with him and edited it all down to the few minutes we saw on screen. For all we know, he spoke of the artists — who, as we all know, did more than just draw; they contributed plot and character ideas — in footage that didn't make it in.

And even if he didn't mention Kirby and Ditko, it's the responsibility of any TV reporter to do at least a little independent fact-checking on their interviewees. Can you imagine a newsman going out to do a story on Paul McCartney who didn't know of John Lennon? I don't know how you could fact-check Stan Lee in the slightest and not discover that Spider-Man has been hailed by everyone, including Stan himself, as the joint creation of Lee and Ditko. There are only about fifty books in print that mention this, and I just did a Google search on "Spider-Man created" and eight of the first ten hits mentioned Ditko.

So we are left with two possibilities, neither of them flattering. One is that the folks who put together the 60 Minutes story didn't take the five minutes to look up any background info at all. Given how the program just about got shamed out of existence over its recent memo screw-up, I find that hard to fathom. But the other possibility ain't too pretty either, which was that they knew about Kirby and Ditko, but decided it would mess up their story of a creative genius being wronged by the company he built. Leave Kirby and Ditko out of the picture and it's a real nice, clear-cut David/Goliath tale with Stan as the injured party, finally winning justice from the super-villainy of Evil Marvel. Mention his co-creators and the story gets a bit more complicated...and your "hero" is no longer the most injured party. He's the guy who got fewer millions than he deserved, but still fared a lot better than his teammates.

As I mentioned here, Stan's lawsuit is not about his status as co-creator, company founder, a 50+ year employee...any of that. It's about a specific contract he received a few years back that entitled him to a designated share of the profits from Marvel-based movies. And yes, that contract and his entire employment with Marvel the last few decades probably flowed to a great extent from his co-creatorship...but as a legal point, the contract is not about that. An exec who went to work for Marvel in the last ten years and created nothing could theoretically have negotiated a similar pact. The judge who ruled in Stan's favor did not address or care about past service to Marvel; only about the terms on a piece of paper.

The 60 Minutes Wednesday story glossed over that aspect of it and dwelled on Stan as unrewarded creator. They did bring up that he has not exactly been living in poverty, receiving a million bucks a year for some time...but their story's happy ending is that he's probably going to be getting a lot more, and there it ends. No mention of the unrewarded co-creators who never saw a million bucks out of Marvel, or anything close to that, over the course of their entire lives. Kirby and Ditko are not relevant to the legalities of Stan's case, but when you start focusing on what he deserves as the "creator" of the characters, as this report did, then the guys who share that distinction become absolutely relevant. There's a much greater story of injustice there...one that a lot of us have stewed over for years and will continue to note, and one which CBS News has just helped perpetuate.

Meanwhile, right this minute, I'm more annoyed at just plain rotten reporting. And just think: As I write this, these people are covering the State of the Union address, the War in Iraq and the proposals for revamping Social Security...all, probably, with the same dedication to accuracy.

• Posted at 6:35 PM · LINK

While at WonderCon...

As I think I mentioned here some time back, I am not a great fan of "pop art" painter Roy Lichtenstein. Nevertheless, some of you are, and that may even include some folks attending the WonderCon in San Francisco in two weeks. So it might interest you to know that the Museum of Modern Art up there is hosting a Lichtenstein exhibit through February 22. And you might be more interested to know that said museum is right across the street from the Moscone Center where the WonderCon is being held. One wonders if Russ Heath, who will be among the artists at WonderCon, has ever laid eyes on any of Lichtenstein's simulations of Russ Heath comic book panels.

• Posted at 11:02 AM · LINK

Glorious Godfrey

An author named Lee Munsick sent me the following and asked that I post it here...

Lee Munsick of Virginia is researching for his upcoming book about Arthur Godfrey, his activities and associates. This includes the many folk who appeared on his programs over the years, especially the most well-known group from the television years in the 1950s, plus many who appeared on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, etc. Such as Bill Lawrence, Frank Parker, McGuire Sisters, Chordettes, Mariners, Janette Davis, Marion Marlowe, LuAnn Sims, Julius LaRosa, musicians in the band, etc. Also information about Mr. Godfrey's life away from broadcasting: his years in Baltimore, Washington and Virginia, aviation, military service in the Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force, conservation, political activity, patriotism, farming, etc. Munsick is seeking information from any source, including photos, recordings, videos, correspondence, news releases, articles, books, etc. Also, referrals to other folk who can add to his archives of material.

If you have any such info, either mail it to Lee Munsick, 804 Piney Ridge Road, RR 1 Box 134B, Pamplin VA 23958-9465 or e-mail Lee at this address.

• Posted at 9:05 AM · LINK

Birthday Boy

You see that comic book cover at left? That's the second issue of Detective Comics, which came out in early 1937. Detective was one of the first comic books to feature all-new material instead of reprints of newspaper comic strips. This may have been because its publisher-editor, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, was (as he said) dedicated to innovating new kinds of stories in graphic form and could not achieve his vision with old Dick Tracy reprints. Or it may have been, as others suggested, because the Major was a stingy crook who didn't want to pay the cost of reprinting old strips...and anyway, Dick Tracy wasn't available. Either way, it was cheaper to offer bad wages to some of the young cartoonists who then tramped around Depression-era New York in search of an income...and even cheaper when you bounced checks on them.

The drawings on these covers were done by Creig Flessel, who is 93 years old today...and still going strong. I've had the honor to talk with Mr. Flessel, in private and public, a number of times and I'll get to do so again in a few weeks. He'll be on our Golden/Silver Age Panel on Saturday, February 19 at the WonderCon in San Francisco. If you want to hear me ask him about drawing comic books back when F.D.R. was in his first term, or if you just want to wish Mr. Flessel a happy birthday month, you'll be there.

• Posted at 8:14 AM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

I've been trying to follow the Social Security arguments and I must admit that at some point, the math makes my eyes glaze over much as they did back in Mr. Buck's Geometry class in eleventh grade. The main difference is that I knew Mr. Buck wasn't trying to juggle the numbers to arrive at a certain, desired conclusion. I almost wish I had him back so I could ask him to explain things to me in a non-partisan manner...though, come to think of it, Mr. Buck was never able to explain secants and tangents in a way that I could understand them. So maybe it wouldn't help.

In a way, it's sad that we have no distinguished, apolitical sources that we can go to and get an answer that will be widely regarded as unbiased. There are such folks out there, I'm sure. The trouble is, the minute they say one side is wrong, the other side starts hammering them as partisan hacks and refuses to acknowledge their accuracy or even their sincerity. Can you imagine some think tank or economics authority venturing a view on this issue and having the exponents of the other viewpoint wrong say, "Hmm...maybe we're wrong"? Me neither. So we're all just kinda left here with one side saying the numbers add up, the other saying they don't...and insufficient data and skill to do our own calculations. I get the feeling a lot of pundits think they can say any damn thing they want and if someone disagrees, you just attack their credibility.

The "privatization" side of this issue scares me, first of all because they keep changing the term — it was private accounts, then it became personal accounts...now, it seems to be the "personalization" of Social Security. Well, actually, what really scares me about that is that reporters seem to go along with it...but if the plan is sound, it shouldn't be necessary to dress it up with names that have tested well in focus groups. Secondly, of course, a lot of people who are out there pushing the Bush plan to "save Social Security" are folks who, in the past, have made no secret of the fact that they'd love to see it destroyed. Thirdly, by any estimate the costs of implementing the plan would involve staggering amounts of debt, and they're not addressing that. They just say we'll move it "off the books," which apparently means it isn't a problem. Then, they change the subject, like a couple trillion in new borrowing is no big deal if you're creative in how you keep records.

Those are all things that make me suspicious. But you'll note that none of them involve any math. Before I decide if the plan is good or bad, I'd really like to know if the numbers add up.

Paul Krugman, in this article, says they don't...and he explains it in a pretty simple manner. Says he, those who believe the Bush plan can or will succeed, are presuming that stock investments will yield a rate of return hitting at least 6.5% over the next 75 years. According to Krugman, that's unlikely...but if it does occur, then the current Social Security plan will be in great shape so the changeover isn't necessary.

Is he right? Beats the heck outta me. One can easily find Internet commentators like this guy who will tell you Krugman is wrong. One can also easily find folks like this guy who'll tell you the fellow who says Krugman is wrong is wrong. Both load up their arguments with gobs of personal invective, which also makes me suspicious of their arguments. Then again, it's possible to be rude but right and, once more, we're getting away from the actual arithmetic.

So I don't know what to think, which I guess is okay in some way since others are going to decide this, regardless of what I think. My fear is that it will all pass or not pass, not because of the numbers but because one side did a better selling job on their spin. I certainly don't think the rank-and-file voters will ever really understand it. At best, they'll understand which side they want to trust. Me...I'm going to trust Mr. Buck. He died about twenty years ago but in this debate, that's not necessarily a drawback.

• Posted at 12:58 AM · LINK

February 3, 2005 • Current • February 1, 2005