I do not about how much interest there is in minutia. However with few records, bad memories and conflicting testimonies there really isn’t any other way to provide history.

Harry

I hope someone other than you and I take an interest in minutia of this nature!

Continuing on the theme of sound effects and your comment about Stan’s love of them. Couldn’t this be something that Kirby really picked up from Stan. I say this because because sound effects seem such a prominent part of Kirby art from the silver age onward. Sound effects seem to comparitively play such a small part in S&K productions. I am not saying there are not used, just that they are much less frequent and generally smaller in size when used. This is particularly brought home to me as I scan Foxhole. Time and again there guns are fired without any sound effects. Including stories by Jack.

Harry

If you mean pre-implosion Atlas, I agree completely. Many writers worked there, including Carl Wesssler and Hank Chapman. Post-Implosion staff was very small, according to people such as Larry Lieber, who I spoke with. It is possible that others at Magazine Management moonlighted on some comics stories, though.

I have not thought this out thoroughly, but it is entirely possible that Stan edited/plotted the stories and it may be the reason for the disparity.

On the original art I’ve see in the Marvel age, Stan added the effects, usually on the printed page that the letterer followed. I believe Stan has mentioned that he loved coming up with those effects. Occasionally an artist may have added them, such as Bill Everett, in the pencil stage, but I believe most writers added their own either in the script or when they recieved the pencilled pages.

Like I said before I am not convinced about the use of quotes to detect Kirby writing. I cannot say your wrong, just that the evidence is insufficient. It is clear that Lee and Lieber were not the only writers for early Atlas. At some point in the weeks to come I should be posting on this.

If you are saying that the reason that many of the early Atlas stories do not sound like Kirby is because Lee supplied plots and editing then I do not think we are really in disagreement. Because I am not saying Kirby had no input to those stories. Only that Kirby did not have full control over those stories. What I do not understand is why the Yellow Claw and “Afraid to Sleep” stories do not seem to have that sort of interference.

I am puzzled by your last statement about sound effects. Is there any evidence about what Stan did in writing before the Marvel method? Heck I am not even sure how to tell who added the sound effects during the Marvel method.

Harry

While others may have used quotes, I haven’t seen much use of it in other non-Kirby stories at Atlas. Around this point it was pretty much Larry Lieber and Stan Lee doing the writing. As far as sound effects go, my pointing out the type of words Kirby used (WHAAMM) may appear superfluous but I believe it is another signature that was specific to his style of wording which continued throughout his career.

As to why these stories may not read like earlier Kirby stories, it is a possibility that Stan Lee may have supplied Kirby worked with a plot, as he did brother Lieber and others, which may have hindered Kirby. Lee may also have editied the stories. I know the other story in that issue of Battle has more of a human quality, if I recall correctly it involved a young GI facing the dangers of war (and was heavily edited by the comics code).

Hey, where is Stan Taylor in this discussion? Stan what is your opinion? Do my thoughts have any legitamacy or am I completely off base here?

I have to admit that I do not find your agruments very convincing. It is hard to believe that the use of quotes is a trait limited to Kirby alone. As for special effects (such as “WHAAAM”) should that be attributed to the artist or the writer? I have not read a lot of comic scripts but those I have did not include instructions on what sound effects to use.

When I read this Battle story I find the plot to be totally unlike Kirby stories from S&K days or from his late period when he was doing the writing and editing himself. This “story” is about various missle weapons, where is the human drama that is so important to everything Kirby did? The closest you get is a man firing a bazooka. Further the type of writing does not sound like Kirby to me. When I read some of the work Jack did during S&K it has such a similar “sound” to it as compared to say New Gods or the mid ’70s Captain America. Why would Jack writing be so different in the Battle story from a period in between?

I am not saying that Jack has no input into the stories he did at Atlas. Just that they seem to contain writing that was not done by Jack. That being the case it would seem Kirby did not really have control over his work. But there are other early Atlas stories (Yellow Claw and “Afraid To Dream”) that seem to me to be thoroughly Kirby in manner. My original thoughts on this was that this was a pre/post Implosion difference. Sometime in the weeks to come I will be posting on another pre-Implosion Kirby comic. My initial reaction that one is that Kirby did not have control over it either.

Harry

I’d have to disagree with you about the writing on Battle. I see too many stylistic traits that surfaced in Kirby’s later written work. Examples in “Find “em! Chase “Em! Blast “Em!” include the opening exposition on the splash page; the use of “quotes” (Page 1: “This is the “Guided Missle Story”; Page 2: “Nebelwerfer 41″; page 3: “The Loon”; page 4: “Lark”; “Roc”; “Gorgon” (name sounds familiar); “Little Joe”, even the use of sound effects were similar to his later use of them (page 2; panel 3 “WHAAAM!”). “Ring of Steel” in the same issue has some of these traits as well, especially the special effects. I would have to go through every early issue for a full analysis, which I may do at some point, but I believe Kirby was involved in the writing on some stories in this period.

I have only seen a portion of Kirby’s 59/60 Atlas work. But what I have seen convinces me that the writing is very different then as compared to pre-Implosion. I have not read all the titles you mentioned but I have read Battle #65 and although the title may sound Kirby-ish the story writing does not seem so at all.

Harry