How 2 by Stan

In 1947, Stan Lee wrote an article for Writer's Digest, a magazine that is still very much in business. It caters to wanna-be writers, telling them how to sell their work and who might buy it. I've always been curious about (a) how many submissions it generates and (b) how many of them sell. My guess would be (a) tons and (b) a few but I may be quite wrong about this.

Stan's article was called "There's Money in Comics!" and while some of its advice about writing is still valid, very little of its advice about selling is. And the example of a comic book script format shown is way outta date. I have a lot of old scripts by prolific comic book writers like Otto Binder, Gardner Fox, Paul S. Newman, Jerry Siegel, Robert Kanigher and Carl Wessler and none of them are in that format. Stan certainly abandoned it.

The article says — and remember this was '47 — that writing comics paid from $6 to $9 a page. Twenty-three years later when I sold my first comic book script, I got $10 a page but there were still companies paying those 1947 rates. I think some small publishers still are but rates at DC, Marvel and other major companies are much, much higher today.

Anyway, Writer's Digest has posted Stan's article here for all to see.