Dispatches From the Fortress – Day 342

Another excerpt from Abraham Riesman's book on Stan Lee can be read over here. It's about an article that appeared in the New York Herald-Tribune in early 1966 and drove a major wedge between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and also between Stan and his other star artist, Steve Ditko. On a list of the Top Ten reasons Jack quit Marvel a few years later, it might come in at around #5. It made Stan out to be the sole genius of Marvel and made Jack sound like a non-entity who just took dictation.

I'm quoted in the excerpt and the factual recital matches not only what Jack and his wife told me but also what Stan told me and what Danny Fingeroth reports in his recent bio of Stan. It's one of those few incidents from that period that both Lee and the Kirbys remembered the same way. (Actually, they all remembered that it was Jack's wife Roz who phoned Stan that morning and woke him up to complain about the piece but that's a minor discrepancy.)

When Riesman interviewed me for his book (which I still haven't read), he told me he was going to try to locate and interview the fellow who wrote the article that so infuriated Jack. I told him I'd bet that if he did, he'd find out that the reporter was trying real hard to get Stan to give him a job. Riesman found the guy, talked to him and then wrote to tell me, "You were right."

That was one reason Stan usually got so much better press than Jack. Stan had hiring power.


I'm keeping an eye on what The Pandemic is doing to Nevada and how the state is slowly and cautiously trying to "open up." The stats are in for last year and it turns out that for 2020, Las Vegas had — by whatever method they calculate this number each year — 19 million visitors. That doesn't mean much until you compare it to the 2019 total, which was 42.5 million. 19 million is the lowest total in 31 years.

They're loosening restrictions there. Restaurants and attractions that were limited to 25% of capacity are going to 35%. Maximum capacities in showrooms that had been at fifty people are raised to 100. That should enable some shows to reopen, though obviously not all. On March 15, some of these numbers will be raised again. You can read more about this here.


Back in this video link, I wondered aloud what the deal was with Groucho Marx's hair. Steve Stoliar — who knew the man as well as any man alive — suggests that for some reason, Groucho was wearing the toupee they gave him for the movie Skidoo.