Why do people like to pretend that he wasn't an asshole too?

Because he was the bigger victim

He was honest about it

Because he wasn't? You're probably too young to have ever met him or talked to anyone who has. He was pretty reserved and always nice to his fans.

Nah, you're thinking of Steve Ditko.

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>>92849059

>>92849069
Of what exactly? Getting co-creator credit from the start?
>>92849082
when he had the chance to personally confront Stan Lee about it he was a pussy, only to go and talk shit about Stan to Gary Groth later.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A1yJZKDwIRE

>>92849141
>>92849187
>>92849218
Jack Kirby was a bitter prick who found a way to play the victim at every company he worked for. Stan Lee offered him a staff job as art director only to be turned down by Jack, who then went to DC and took a very mean spirited jab at Stan with the Funky Flashman character. Stan still hired him back a few years later and has never said a bad word about Jack Kirby.

>>92849276
Fuck off you weren't there and don't know 100% what happened between them so stop demonizing one person and sucking the cock of another

They did try to screw over Jack though, maybe not the first time but the second time

>In the mid-1970s, Congress revised the laws around copyright, offering longer periods of ownership for copyright holders—if the proper paperwork could be provided. Marvel realized that many of its previous contracts were legally questionable, remnants of the comics industry’s fly-by-night origins with regards to creative work. In 1978, the company began handing out freelancer contracts that guaranteed the company “forever all rights of any kind and nature in and to the work.” As Michael Dean wrote in a 2002 issue of The Comics Journal, these “work for hire” contracts were partly a result of the superhero boom Kirby himself had a hand in creating. “It wasn’t just monthly comic books that were at stake any more,” Dean wrote. “It was the vast ancillary potential of licensing and merchandising the content of those comics.” The contracts legally formalized what had previously been loosely assumed to be corporate policy, but having it in writing gave many comics freelancers pause for thought. When Kirby got the contract, he refused to sign it and left Marvel for good.

>But Marvel wasn’t done with him. When the company began offering to return original artwork it had long held in storage, it did so by referring to the art as a “gift.” In exchange, the creators had to sign a one-page release agreeing that the art had been produced as work for hire. Most did, though with reservations. Kirby himself, sick of fighting over ownership, indicated his own willingness to sign. But instead of the standard release, Marvel sent him—and him alone—a four-page document in 1984.

>>92849454
>The contract offered a parade of indignities, Dean wrote: Kirby would have no ownership of the physical artwork, would be unable to copy, reproduce or sell any portion of it, and in effect had only the right to store the work for Marvel. Marvel could call the work back at any time to be “revised” or “modified.” More galling, signing the contract would not only turn over Kirby’s legal rights to his characters, it would force Kirby to surrender any rights Marvel wasn’t already entitled to, forbidding him from assisting others in disputing copyrights or complaining—even in private—of the document’s unfairness. Worst of all, the contract only offered 88 pages out of the thousands of pages of work Kirby had produced for them. By signing, Kirby would acknowledge that he was entitled to nothing more.

>Kirby hit the roof. For three years, he and Marvel fought over the return of his art. Enraging him further, some of his original pages began appearing for sale by private dealers (likely the result of thefts from the famously disorganized Marvel storage.) Part of Marvel’s intransigence, Dean wrote, came from their concern that any ground they gave Kirby could be interpreted as legal proof of ownership. Eventually, though, the sheer hurricane of bad publicity and pressure from the rest of the comics industry forced them to cave. In return for signing the original release guaranteeing Marvel’s ownership, Kirby got 1,900 pages of artwork back and creator credits on many of his characters. He would not, however, see financial compensation or residuals for his work.

>>92849470
>All of this might seem like ancient history. But as the comics writer Kurt Busiek noted, the ’70s change in copyright law didn’t just extend periods of ownership, it also provided a window whereby copyright sellers could renegotiate sales. Kirby didn’t live to see that window open: He died in 1994. But in 2009, Kirby’s heirs filed notices of termination with Marvel, which the law allowed them to do.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/09/marvel-jack-kirby-and-the-plight-of-the-comic-book-artist/498299/

That said don't think Stan is evil or anything, he just distanced himself from everything in the end

Marvel has a history of screwing over artists.

>"We had some problems with the Howard newspaper strip, which led to problems with the Howard book, which ultimately led to a lawsuit. Marvel wouldn't pay the artist to draw it. Gene Colan and I were supposed to get a percentage of the syndicate's take for the strip. The problem was, the money came in 90 days, 120 days, six months — I don't remember how long exactly — after the strips were published. So, essentially, the artist was working for nothing up until that time, and no artist can afford to do that. [In comparison with Stan Lee and John Romita|'s Spider-Man comic strip,] Stan, as publisher of Marvel, had a regular salary coming in, and John Romita, I believe, was also on staff at the time. They didn't have quite the same problem."

>Comic Book Artist #7 (reprinted in Comic Book Artist Collection Volume 3 (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2005)): "Steve Gerber's Crazy Days", p. 66

Only reason Stan never got screwe dove ris because he was a smart businessman and he outjewed everyone, even Perlmutter, which is why Ike hates him with a passion.

>>92849403
I'm just offering up an alternative perspective than the norm. They both had faults but pretending that Jack Kirby was an innocent victim of Stan Lee's evil ways is just wrong.

Why can't they all be like Byrne
http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2012/09/when-i-am-working-for-marvel-i-am-loyal.html

>>92849554
Not only that but Gerber also had a case with Marvel for Howard the Duck's rights and they ended up having a settlement which both of them agreed to and then Marvel later on went and breached those terms but Steve was past the point of not giving a shit.

Jack and Stan didn't always work together, Lee being younger came in and worked for Timely/Atlas for quite some time after Joe and Jack went to work for National /DC for years. Those two were not the best of friends but Lee is probably giving himself too much credit, and Jack giving him too little.

Far more than Lee and Kirby made the Marvel Silver Age explode into what it was like Don Heck, Ditko, Bill Everett , Romita Sr, Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Larry Leiber, Steranko etc etc. Kirby was and always will be the man but he's not Heck, or Everett or Steranko. Very easy to try and narrow everything down to 2 guys and say they did everything but in the end it was many creators and their interactions.

Lee may not have been writing everything but he could relate to more people than Jack, even in that interview he said he didnt even really press trying to get to know Ditko because he was a loner at the time. Lee however had a good relationship with him, he was like a scout , a GM of sorts.

Now Kirby most definitely wrote many of the things he drew, but Stan got that all star line up of people to come and work with Marvel at the right place and the right time. Lee was definitely a concept guy , and Jack a story teller and design guy. Joe Simon was the concept guy before he went to work with Lee and they did amazing work for nearly 2 decades before Marvel.

>>92849554
Kike Perlmutter is the jewiest jew that ever jewed

>>92849961
Putting Don Heck and Larry Lieber at the same level than Kirby and Ditko is doing them a collossal disservice- Heck is so much more mediocre than Kirby that it's almost hilarious. Just take a look at Silver Age Iron Man and compare it with Captain America or Doctor Strange and it's clear to see it lags behind by a decade, not only in the art department, which other than "pretty girls" consists of mushy inking and half-assed Kirby aping, but in the "plot", where we can see what Lee reads like without a genius at the wheel- Spider-Man's whining devoid of the charisma and an endless parade of cringey Communist villian-of-the-week with less personality than a dried turnip.
Jack Kirby's comic book work of the 60's was light years ahead of anything else in the market. Practically everything that made Marvel what it became now went thru his hands at one point or another. The only reason he didn't draw literally every Marvel comic was because he only had one pair of hands(other than Dr. Strange, which was a beautiful anomaly on his own right).
Like, if only Carmine Infantino hadn't been in DC, the Silver Age may have still happened. Or only Julius Schwartz, or only Gil Kane or Curt Swan. You can theorize a DC Silver Age without one or two or even three of their key artists or writers.
Marvel Comics without Kirby is literally impossible.

>>92849059
Because he wasn't.

Fuck Stan Lee