tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post8946496836350976636..comments2024-03-17T11:05:22.464+00:00Comments on The Life And Opinions of Andrew Rilstone: Amazing Spider-Man #28Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-50441560528077829962017-10-17T22:29:49.821+01:002017-10-17T22:29:49.821+01:00"Consequences game relay". I'm havin..."Consequences game relay". I'm having, that, I am. :)<br />Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-60195991713471191152017-10-17T17:51:31.511+01:002017-10-17T17:51:31.511+01:00Yes, that’s it right there. The two myths clashing...Yes, that’s it right there. The two myths clashing without ever meeting in the middle. In one myth, Kirby and Ditko did everything. But unfortunately before their grand narratives and great artwork reached us some corporate hack went and graffitied his hucksterish copywriting all over it, and Pablo Picasso never had that problem, you know. In the other… well, the Grand Creator is really a very good metaphor. The Man was the great originator and it’s testament to his achievement that his creations survive to this day, though of course every actual instance never lives up to the true Platonic ideal. The real thing is to hold up the icons again. The notion of actually collaboration (even in the consequences-game relay form of the Marvel method) fits neither agenda and so gets overlooked by both.<br /> Gavin Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347163260510316959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-10554030263612082522017-10-16T22:23:51.212+01:002017-10-16T22:23:51.212+01:00I genuinely doubt that he remembers what actually ...I genuinely doubt that he remembers what actually happened (why should he?) and the stories he tells are a mixture of the "Smilin' Stan" character (which I love as much as anyone) and a necessary corporate line (Spider-Man was invented by the the Third Floor of 655 Madison Ave.)<br /><br />It irks me that when people talk about Stan, they talk about the mythic and unrecoverable iconic Stan who dreamed up all the Marvel characters in six days and rested on the seventh; and seem relatively uninterested in the thing concrete thing he definitely left to posterity -- hundreds of thousands of words of clever and funny text. Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16934052271846235431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-11638036635629062142017-10-16T19:24:06.446+01:002017-10-16T19:24:06.446+01:00A bit like a comedian pretending his jokes aren...<i> A bit like a comedian pretending his jokes aren't funny</i><br /><br />Yep, that's how I read it.<br /><br />Oh, only Stan Lee could speak, what tales he could tell us!Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-4262149740667400012017-10-16T17:10:18.806+01:002017-10-16T17:10:18.806+01:00Perhaps I ought to have said "a friendly dig&...Perhaps I ought to have said "a friendly dig" or "a bit of joshing"; or even "a self-deprecating remark"?<br /><br />It is a fact that the narrator's voice, when it comments on the story, tends to "talk up" action scenes (and especially fights) and deprecate or apologize for real world, soap opera sequences. My view is that these comments reflect pretty closely Stan's actual opinions. We know that Lee had no knowledge of what was going to be in the stories until Ditko's art landed on his desk. We can be pretty sure that he often leapt right in and wrote copy for Page 1 before he knew what was on page 2 (because there is so little foreshadowing, and some actual contradictions and errors). So I stick to my view that the captions represent Stan's actual reaction (often expressed in striking and witty language) to Ditko's art. But it is perfectly possible that his captions are a construct -- part of a role he is playing -- in which he pretends to be impatient with the latest J.J.J scene even though he knows the audience lap it up. (A bit like a comedian pretending his jokes aren't funny, or a musician telling a string of banjo jokes before picking the instrument up.) Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16934052271846235431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-2371834323975185392017-10-13T14:25:19.731+01:002017-10-13T14:25:19.731+01:00“Our story begins with the savage impact of a fall...<i>“Our story begins with the savage impact of a falling feather…”<br /><br />A very clear dig at Steve Ditko for leading with a “soap opera” thread rather than a "super-villain" thread. </i><br /><br />I'm not sure we need read that into it. I see it merely as a rather good piece of writing. Not <i>everything</i> Stan Lee did was an attempt to get at Steve Ditko. In an issue that I agree is pretty forgettable, that opening is about the most memorable part of it.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.com