Today, King Features retired the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip and, with it, beloved longtime Marvel comics inker Joe Sinnott also retired. Although Joltin’ Joe stopped inking comics in 1992, he’d still been doing the Sunday Spider-Man strip… at the age of 92. He worked for Marvel for 69 years, most famously, to many of us, on Fantastic Four. Indeed, his first inking job for Marvel was Fantastic Four #5, which introduced Doctor Doom. During his run on that title, he inked the introductions of Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, the Inhumans, Adam Warlock, and many others.

If you’re seeing the Spider-Man strip in your newspaper, it’ll probably remain, but in reruns. The original strip is over, according to its writer and artists, and its syndicate. Today’s Sunday strip, above, is the last original strip, credited to Stan Lee (as so much of Marvel has been), but actually courtesy of Roy Thomas, Alex Saviuk and Joe Sinnott.

I’ve told the story many times of how tongue-tied I was to meet Jack Kirby when I was 12. But a big part of that revolves around Joe Sinnott, who was sitting next to him at that convention in New York in 1974:

But when I was 11, I was just amazed to see him in person. It was like seeing Leonardo da Vinci or Abraham Lincoln or Jesus Christ or some other enormously great historical figure in the flesh. How was it even possible?

That July, just a week-and-a-half before my 12th birthday, my father took me to the 1974 New York Comic Art Convention; this was an incredible gift, which I’m still grateful for, 25 years after his death. And there, in some little room, back when comic-book conventions were far far smaller, I stood at the back of a line of maybe 10 people waiting to meet Jack Kirby.

Kirby was seated at the left of two folding tables, drawing sketches and signing autographs and chatting with whoever was next in line. To his left (my right) was his longtime inker on “Fantastic Four,” Joe Sinnott. (Mr. Sinnott, aged 90, is still with us.) Although Kirby by this point had left Marvel for DC, and I had read some of those DC comics, I was still completely enamored with “Fantastic Four” — as was seemingly every person in line ahead of me. One by one, each of them remarked upon “Fantastic Four.”

But I didn’t want to be like them. Who would want to approach the godhead and seem like just another supplicant?

So, when it was finally my turn to approach the great man, I said with as much of a squeak as I could register, in something like a high-pitched mumble filled with nervous anxiety, “I really like your work on ‘The Avengers.’ ”

Now, for the record, Kirby’s work on “The Avengers,” while displaying the same dynamism he brought to pretty much everything, was nowhere near on a par with his work on “Fantastic Four.” And I knew this. I said this only to be different. At age 11, and small in stature and frame and tiny in self-confidence in front of Kirby in particular, it was, in retrospect from 40 years later, a little brave for me to say: “I really like your work on ‘The Avengers.’ ”

To which Jack Kirby replied, “What?”

At age 57, he hadn’t quite heard what my pipsqueak voice had said.

Fully intimidated to be in his presence, I couldn’t even bring myself to look up and see the great man sitting eight inches in front of me. I just trembled and managed to say in a quaking voice, “Oh, never mind” and stood quaking as Kirby signed an autograph for me.

I am not exaggerating this encounter.

And I have never again been so intimidated in my life. Not because of him — he was eminently approachable — but because of what he signified: everything that was important to me.

Joe Sinnott, God bless him, saw my extreme mortification and called me over and drew for me a full sketch of the Thing, a member of the Fantastic Four, and wrote my name and signed it and I cherish it to this day and am still struck by his monumental kindness.

Here’s a profile of Mr. Sinnott from the New York Times two years back.  Yes, on Facebook today, Mr. Sinnott’s son announced his father’s retirement. If it’s so, I wish Joltin’ Joe many happy returns. But I like to think that, somehow, in some way, we’ll find out that his story as a comics artist is continued.

Something I care a great deal about is right on the precipice — and at a time when its identity is more popular than ever.

I speak of the comic book.

Growing up, I learned a lot from them, including the basics of storytelling, acceptance of others, and wonder at the universe, and they gave me a lot of joy. But it pains me to see that just about nobody buys them any more. Comic books are mostly unseen, hard to find, expensive to purchase, and also difficult to get into because of convoluted and interwoven back stories that scare away all newcomers.

While comic-book characters rule screens around the world, as demonstrated again just this week with the out-of-this-world success of “Captain Marvel,” grossing over $150,000,000 in its opening weekend, titles of big-name characters from Marvel (which spawned Captain Marvel, as well as Spider-Man, the Avengers, Black Panther and countless others) and DC (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.) rarely scrape together 100,000 unit sales. In fact, many of today’s comics from the big two publishers linger down around 20,000 sales or lower. I have tried, more than once, to pencil out just how a Marvel comic book selling under 20,000 copies is sustainable. The answer:  It’s not. But then, none of them are.

Here’s something else that isn’t happening. All of those movie (and TV) fans of these Marvel and DC heroes and villains? They’re not turning into buyers of comics. The movies have replaced the comic books.

Gerry Conway, who in the 1970s and ’80s wrote just about every major DC and Marvel character (and in the process killed off Spider-Man’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy, and created The Punisher, Firestorm, and several other significant characters) lays out a lot of the problem in this post on his blog:

On the one hand, you have superhero mythology in mainstream media– a mass market appealing to millions upon millions of consumers world wide, a potential audience beyond anything imagined by comic book creators half a century ago in our most weed-enhanced fantasies. And on the other hand, you have superhero publishing in the direct market– a shrinking niche market numbering in at most a hundred thousand, dominated by a core readership of a few thousand, whose financial support is strained to the breaking point and beyond by ruthless and extortionate marketing of low-value-added gimmick publications that thwart long term emotional investment.

He also proposes a solution:  Recognize that that the money, and the interest, in comics is actually an interest in the characters and the stories — in the intellectual property — and that the companies should just use comics creation to foster creativity accessible in other media.

… But, I would ask… isn’t that what’s already happening?

Last week, just before I came across Conway’s blog post, I happened to read a 10-point prescription from comic-book-store owner Brian Hibbs on how to save the comic-book industry. Here it is.  For the most part, Hibbs wants the direct distributor of comic books, Diamond Comic Distributors, to change a lot of its terms, and his fellow comics retailers to stop falling victim to all sorts of sales schemes intended to extract more money from the wallets of an ever-dwindling supply of comics buyers.

His viewpoint is shared by the four people who sat on a panel I sat in on this past weekend at San Diego Comic Fest. The panel was called “What’s Wrong with Comics and How Can We Fix it?” The retailer on the panel, who doubled as the moderator, said that there were two perceived problems with comics:  content and cover price (the lowest cover price is now $3.99 — and $7.99 is not unique), but that it was “naive” for anyone to think that the cover price was going to drop, so he immediately took that off the table. He too blamed Diamond, but also added that DC and Marvel don’t make it easy for new readers to enter the market, and they should make it easier to navigate which publications are entry-level for people who come into comic-book stores and don’t know what to buy. Other panelists agreed in various ways. Finally, I put up my hand, and said something like this:

“All of your proposed solutions are related to comic-book stores. Comic-book stores are a subset of book stores. They are specialty book stores. Last week, Samuel French, the specialty book store devoted to theatre, film, and television, closed all of its stores. [Note: They still have one inside a theatre in London, England.] Barnes & Noble is going out of business. Even the porn bookstore in West Hollywood just went out of business! Book stores aren’t going to be around. The solution to the problem with comic books isn’t going to come from comic-book stores. When’s the last time you had a new customer come into a comic-book store?”

They chattered about this for a while, and much of the subsequent discussion from the audience and the panel revolved around my statement, and then about 20 minutes later, someone else on the panel turned back to me and said, “No one up here answered your question, did they?” And I said no, they hadn’t.

Before the panel, I had gone out to the exhibit hall — what, back in the 1970s we used to call the dealers room — and wound up chatting with a middle-aged guy named Koop who was selling comics from the Silver Age. I asked him where he was from, and guessed correctly — it’s hard to mask a Pittsburgh accent — but he’s lived in Arizona for decades. Koop said that selling comics is his hobby, and it’s a lot of fun, but the rest of the time he’s a database administrator. We talked about comic-book shows of the 1970s and people we used to know in common, and I told him that I now realize what a good father I had because he was willing to take me when I was 12 years old to New York City in 1975 at great expense and inconvenience because he knew how much the chance to go to a comic-book convention — my first! — meant to me. He took me the following year, too, and we stayed over, and the year after that I got to take a friend as well. After that, I was selling comics at conventions and hiring friends or, later, my niece to work for me.

“You must be around my age,” Koop said, and we figured out that I am. His father wouldn’t take him to that convention in New York City, so he didn’t get to start going to conventions until he was older. I shared with him the story of how my father and I met legendary Disney artist Carl Barks, the creator of Uncle Scrooge, at a small convention in central New Jersey when I was about 15. Barks had brought one of his paintings of the Disney ducks to auction off, and it had gone for $3,000 on the spot. “THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!?!?!” my father exclaimed loudly. “I was just having a beer with that guy in the bar!”

Koop loved that story — what comics fan wouldn’t? — and noted just how much $3,000 was in the 1970s. I pulled a bunch of bagged-and-boarded ACG comics from the mid-60s out of one of his long boxes and when he saw what I’d fished out, Koop said, “Ahh… great Kurt Schaffenberger covers!”

“Nobody else is going to appreciate these,” I said. “None of this. When we’re gone, the hobby’s gone. There’s nobody after us.”

Just then, a guy in his 30’s next to me said that his son, aged 12, was here in the room and loving every minute of the convention. I’m still doubtful that that kid is ever going to develop a love for Silver Age and Bronze Age comic books, but it was nice to hear.

I took the ACG comics, and two DCs, all from 1965 to 1971, and paid Koop $55. He cut me a break on the price, and it felt to me like a steal.

If comic books have a future, it won’t be as periodicals. Will they even be in print? I don’t know. I’m glad they’re here while I’m here. I don’t expect things to last forever, and I don’t hold onto the past.

Although I do plan to hold onto my comic books.

I just got another email request for “The Screw Iran Coloring Book.”

I couldn’t give these away in 1980. Now that they’re relics, there’s low but persistent demand.

Of all the tributes to Stan Lee that I’ve read in the past day-and-a-half, it’s Gerry Conway’s that has touched me the most.

Conway succeeded Stan Lee in scripting Spider-Man at age 19 (!!!). He was a significant comic-book writer for Marvel from 1971 to 1977 (and a minor writer for DC for three years before that), and thereafter became a major comics writer elsewhere, before transitioning into television. So he knows what he’s talking about — and he attributes his entire career to the jolt given him by an early issue of Fantastic Four — and, therefore, to Stan Lee.

What I most appreciate about this piece is that he looks at Stan unsentimentally — noting the shortcomings many of us saw — but comes away recognizing just how essential Stan Lee was to revolutionizing both comic books and pop culture.

What, according to Gerry Conway, was Stan Lee’s most significant achievement? Making it cool to want to work in comics… and to love comics.

“Nobody aspires to play in a rock band if they’ve never heard of a rock band. The Marvel Bullpen of the 1960s was comicdom’s first rock band.

“That was because of Stan.”

Spot on.

You can read the rest of the piece here.

‘Nuff said.

According to longtime DC Comics scribe Elliot S! Maggin, here’s how Stan Lee got started in a career in cameos.

Countless young people like me read this at the time and were positively influenced by it.

Stan Lee has died. And with that, we’ve lost the last luminary of the Golden Age of comics.

I owe the man a lot. He and his creative partner Jack Kirby shaped my early life, helping me to understand that while each of us would always have problems to deal with, there was a universe of adventure awaiting our exploration.

Kirby was the cosmic explorer, a man overfilled with big ideas and the drawing ability to set them down on paper. It was Lee, though, who supplied the underlying humanity — whether it was the tortured Ben Grimm trying to hold onto his sense of self while trapped within the body of a monster, or, even, the imposter who’d taken Ben’s guise but who, as he learned about Ben’s noble character, sacrificed himself to save the rest of the Fantastic Four. Kirby’s later comics, without Lee, were fun but soulless; Lee’s few attempts at comics without Kirby were all spin and no groove. While DC characters like the Flash and Green Lantern had all the personal luster of a subcommittee hearing, Marvel’s characters were conflicted and torn:  Tony Stark, the munitions maker with the damaged heart trying to protect those closest to him while supplying arms; Thor, trying to balance the competing demands of godhood, an overbearing father, and the mortals he was drawn to; Bruce Banner, a sensitive scientist struggling with the rage he personified as the Hulk. The Silver Surfer, in particular, trying to find his proper place in a universe that’s been closed off to him. These and many more speak to Stan Lee’s gift for archetypal character.

I’ve run into Stan Lee many, many, many times over the course of my life, and not just at comics conventions. At the Beverly Center, a mall on the west side of town, I was going down one side of an escalator while he was rising on the other, his lovely wife in tow. I’ve seen him on the street or at events here and there throughout the past 30 years. A client of mine had Stan Lee consulting for him. About four years ago, I literally almost collided with him in a crowded stairwell at a hotel, where he was pursued by admirers. This is a man who was famous as early as 50 years ago, speaking on college campuses and even putting on a show at Madison Square Garden. The Marvel movies of the past 10-plus years, with his signature cameos, only increased his fame.

Last night, as I was leaving the gym, I came across a white Dish satellite panel van, its interior lights left on, I assumed, by a driver who was now working out in the gym. I was tired — bedraggled, even — but made my way back around the corner and around another corner and into the gym to tell the man at the front desk that someone had left his lights on and that they should make an announcement. This wasn’t on a par with warning people about the imminence of Galactus, but it still reflects the sort of values I learned from my parents and in indelible ink from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and that I try to practice every day.

His work, though easily mocked as lowbrow pop culture, was an inspiration to millions of us. He also brought delight to a lot of lonely bookish kids like me all across the world.

Excelsior!

This year the San Diego Comic-Con, which I returned from early Monday morning, seemed better planned than ever:  Although the event was as sold-out as ever, with an estimated 150,000 people packing the convention center and environs, there was a remarkable easing of the crush that has been squeezing all the attendees. How do you accomplish getting just as many people, but alleviating the sort of throngs we’re used to seeing in big-budget zombie flicks? You start by moving to RFID badges and requiring that attendees scan in, and out, of every passageway — thus eliminating all the counterfeit badges that, evidently, had been turning up. You move more and more events into adjacent locales, such as the Hyatt and the Marriott and the downtown library, thereby splitting up the horde. Finally, you work with the city to get the main thoroughfare closed to vehicles, and you restrict the main sidewalk to people with badges, thereby creating easier and more orderly passage for everyone who is there for the convention.

All tolled, it’s truly impressive how well-managed and well-organized this event is.

Because it was so much better organized, I was able to get into every panel and event I wanted to attend. In the past 10 years, it’s more of a crapshoot:  How early should I line up to see if I can get in? (Thereby missing other potential panels because I was in line early for something else.) This year? No problem. The result is that I went to more panels than ever, learned a lot, and had an all-around terrific time sampling from the wide variety of very well-programmed offerings.

I might want to go into detail here about some of those offerings later, but in the meantime, given my recent post here about the recently deceased Harlan Ellison, I thought I’d say that I went to his hastily organized tribute at the convention. I do not mean to poke fun when I note that the moderator spent much of his time choking back tears over Harlan’s demise (while noting that Harlan “hated crying” and would strenuously object were he there), and then devoted the first 23 minutes to an extremely mopey video from Neil Gaiman on the subject of how much Harlan’s writing meant to him. I am less of a fan, and didn’t enjoy my encounters with Harlan Ellison, so, as they say, your mileage may vary. Before arriving, I had been tempted to go to the mic during the inevitable Q and A and point out that Harlan spent a lot of time deriding fans (a visit to YouTube will help you verify this), fans being precisely the sort of people who were now attending this little tribute panel. But when I found out that his widow was seated in the front row, I thought better of it. She put up with him for 30 years; why add to her misery now?

What I will do, though, is link to three recent posts about Harlan Ellison on Mark Evanier’s blog.

Here’s the first one, in which Harlan insinuates himself front and center into someone else’s lifetime achievement award.  It seems like Mark thinks this is cute; I think it’s self-centered and childish.

Here’s the second one, in which Harlan runs around naked in front of other people because he believes he’s written the best sentence ever.

Here’s the third one, in which Harlan blows up a simple misunderstanding into an incident in which he’s physically threatening to beat someone, and urging the crowd to assist him. In this one, Mark, like some others, decides he’s had enough and keeps his distance thereafter.

I have a friend who suspects that Harlan Ellison was manic-depressive. That’s easy to say and impossible to prove. What it does seem fair to say is that he was a drama queen, and sometimes that was fun, and lots of times it wasn’t.