Robert Kirkman's Secret History of Comics

Solid watch. I enjoyed it as well.

Mark Evanier is the go-to guy on Jack Kirby (he's the Kirby family's official biographer, and he was one of Jack's assistants as soon as Jack left Marvel in '70). Knowing that they interviewed him sold me on the show. Evanier said he was happy that they left in his statement about Kirby being heavily involved in the writing of the Marvel stories, since most documentarians cut that part out of the interview.

That Kirby radio interview that Stan called in on... man... just kills you to hear Jack stand up for his writing credits while Stan denies it all.

Bumping because this series continues to deliver. Do yourself a favor and watch the first five episodes on the AMC link in the OP.

The episode about Superman's creators was heartbreaking (and Neal Adams doesn't get enough credit for what he did for them).

Last week's episode about the Milestone creators was fantastic. Miss Dwayne McDuffie so much.

Tonight is the final episode of the season, focusing on the Image guys.

Really hope that this comes back for another season.

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Bumping because this series continues to deliver.

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This show has been excellent so far.
Really looking forward to tonight.

I haven't watched it, but I really want to. There's a tendency among the comics community to demonize Stan and canonize Jack, and I get that impulse, but it's not really the truth. Stan should have treated Jack as more than just a regular creator, but that is the terms of the deal everyone worked under. Even Stan. And Jack really was a miserable so-and-so and generally hard to work with. He deserved more than he got, but he also made things worse for himself with his own conduct, making a reconciliation impossible.

Stan is a company man through and through. He had similar onerous terms, but Marvel renegotiate with him as he became the Face of Marvel. That, I think, is what chapped Jack's arse. The company eventually gave Stan the recognition and didn't do the same for him.

To be fair, if Stan Lee didn't exist, Jack Kirby would have been a super talented writer/artist on a failing indie that no one read (or eventually, a worker bee for DC, where he would suffer the same fate). You needed Stan's hucksterism to sell it. Without Jack, Stan had nothing to sell.