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Smart Sayings and Learned Opinions On Comics From the Folks Who've Actually "Been There, Done That": 3
You've all been on your best behavior. Most of these will be a bit on
the lighter side. 
18.) " True plot is determined by characterization. Out of characterization grows 'plot.' A character who acts and reacts makes a story."
-- Robert Kanigher (ENEMY ACE; METAL MEN; etc.)
THE COMICS JOURNAL #85
19.) "But there is so much talk about 'continuity' now, and the way a character behaves... as if the character can't behave in any other way other than the character has behaved before. To me, a person is like those wooden Russian dolls. You open it up, and there's another doll inside; open that doll, and there's another doll inside, ad infinitum, each one containing another face that is still the original doll."
-- Robert Kanigher; ibid
20.) "I suppose if I had any agenda, it was that. I do hate the whole concept of 'continuity'. It's probably not important enough to hate. But -- in their desperate attempt to 'cohere' -- mainstream comics have managed to get rid of everything that was interesting. And they're still AT it."
-- Grant Morrison (JLA; ANIMAL MAN; etcc.)
THE COMICS JOURNAL #176
21.) "Every time I see [Stan Lee], he says to me: 'What are they doing with my characters now?' and -- before I can say anything -- he immediately says: 'No. Don't tell me. I don't want to know.' "
-- Mark Evanier (GROO; BLACKHAWK; etc.))
THE COMICS JOURNAL #112
22.) "For years, [comic book] artists didn't get their original art back. Sometimes, it would be destroyed. DC, for a time, actually had someone on staff in the office to sit there all day and rip up pages. They didn't just toss them in the dumpster. They ripped them up, and they did so in front of the artists."
"I think it's Neal Adams who tells the story of the guy saying to him once: 'Hey, Neal! That was a real nice art job of yours that I just destroyed!' "
-- MARK EVANIER (GROO; BLACKHAWK; etc.)
THE COMICS JOURNAL #113
23.) "Mort [Weisinger] was very professional. He was also very relentless and immovable. I would come in with one, two, three ideas, and he would reject them... but: he always prided himself on the fact that a writer would never leave him without an assignment."
"One day, I came in with seven ideas; he rejected them all."
"I said: 'Mort... how can you possibly reject seven ideas -- ?' "
"He said: 'Because, Mr. Kanigher... I'm just getting warmed up.' "
-- Robert Kanigher (ENEMY ACE; THE METAAL MEN; etc.)
THE COMICS JOURNAL #86
24.) "Shelly [Mayer] asked me to write a WONDER WOMAN story. I did the best job I could. He threw it on the floor and jumped up and down on it. I rewrote it. He threw it on the floor and jumped up and down on it. I rewrote it for the third time. He threw it on the floor and jumped up and down on it. I cursed him and I left. He called me that evening and invited me to be an editor. I think that was the start of the migraine headaches."
-- Robert Kanigher; ibid
25.) "If [Jack] Kirby had worked in film, he would be better known in America than Lucas, Speilberg or Walt Disney. He has done more for comics than any of these men have done for film. I would even suggest he has done more for movies."
-- Frank Miller (DAREDEVIL; SIN CITY; eetc.)
THE COMICS JOURNAL #105
26.) "... Marvel was devastated [by Jack Kirby's defection to DC in the '70's]. They survived the loss, but they had to scramble to do it. They had people on FANTASTIC FOUR tracing old Kirby panels to keep the same look on the book. The ethics of that have always struck me as questionable."
"They dredged up every Kirby reprint they could find. You know... Jack was at DC, but there were several months there when Marvel actually printed more Kirby material, by way of reprint, than DC did."
"The last issue of FANTASTIC FOUR that Jack did... Marvel held it to release it the same month that Kirby's new DC books started appearing. They did everything."
"I remember Johnny Romita sitting there with a pile of old Kirby FANTASTIC FOURs to use as a reference, because he was taking over the book -- and he wasn't happy about it, but he'd been told it was his duty. The old Kirby issues, someone had annotated with remarks like 'good head to swipe,' and 'copy this machinery,' and so on."
-- Mark Evanier (GROO; BLACKHAWK; etc.)
THE COMICS JOURNAL #112
27.) "They [DC] redrew his Superman and Jimmy Olsen heads, whenever he [Jack] drew those characters. Jack was forced to draw a monthly book, and he picked JIMMY OLSEN because it was the only DC book at that moment on which wouldn't displace anyone. Jack refused to bump someone else off an assignment."
"So DC gave him JIMMY OLSEN, and then they were horrified when the pages came in and they didn't look like the 'official' DC Superman and the 'official' DC Jimmy Olsen... which was, basically, the Curt Swan designs, although DC thought of them as company creations. They went: 'My God, those look like Jack Kirby drew them!' Horrors!"
-- Mark Evanier; ibid
28.) "When Marvel was worried about the loss of Jack crippling the line, it was that Kirby was this incredible fount of ideas that nurtured not just the books he drew, but everyone else's. How much mileage has Marvel gotten out of the Skrulls? Or the Negative Zone? Or the Inhumans, or the Black Panther, or S.H.I.E.L.D., or Doctor Doom, or the Watcher, or the Silver Surfer, or umpteen others? It seems like every time a Marvel book doesn't know where to go next, in comes Galactus."
"One of the reasons Marvel didn't suffer the loss of Kirby much is that he'd already left them this incredible cache of characters and concepts. You could put John Buscema on drawing FANTASTIC FOUR, and it would still be a good-looking comic... but John Buscema is not going to suddenly concoct a new Silver Surfer or Puppet Master."
-- Mark Evanier; ibid
29.)"I speak with much authority -- and with quotes from both Stan and Jack to back me up, as well as much of the existing paperwork -- that most of the 'Lee and Kirby' comics were done as follows: Stan and Jack would sometimes get together and talk out the general direction of the story, and then Stan would sometimes type up a plot incorporating both of their ideas. That's sometimes... NOT always."
"At some point, Jack would go to the drawing board and pencil out twenty pages or whatever, writing notes in the margin explaining to Stan what's going on. If you come across original Kirby artwork of the period, you can still see those notes, easily."
"When Jack handed the pages in, Stan would find out what the story was about; would take the pages home; and would write the copy that would go in the balloons."
"Now, you can debate forever as to who's the 'writer' of a book done this way. [...] Well, I don't believe you can 'write' a comic after it is penciled any more than you can 'write' a movie after it's filmed."
-- Mark Evanier; ibid
30.)
"Kirby did stuff that nobody's ever figured out. Not even
the first Marvel generation after him, like John Buscema.
There were things that Kirby did with framing that are still, to this day,
very, very radical. [...] The way he cropped a picture.
Absolutely revolutionary. Always, the focus of the panel was
the center, but everything around it has this sense of complete
chance and spontaneity, like a camera; a snapshot taken by a reporter,
who's being jostled by striking workers on the dock, just barely
capturing the club smashing into the head of the worker. Always pointing
the camera right where it has to point, but getting things on the
edge that just happen to be there: the edge of a face, or a cut-off
hand. Kirby did that like no one else."
--Scott McCloud (UNDERSTANDING COMICS)<
THE COMICS JOURNAL #179
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