Gullivar Jones: more important than Quicksilver and the Watcher, equal to the Invisible Girl.

Untold Stories: Marvel Sells Stash of Original Art (by John Romita, Gil Kane, and others) for $770, 1973

“But think about the Marvel Warehouse of Original Art! Since there is some disagreement as to whom finished art truly belongs (the penciler merely pencils, the inker merely inks, the letterer letters), Marvel prudently settles the question by appropriating all.”
—Creem, April 1973

Marvel began returning current pages to artists sometime in 1974, and eventually worked retroactively back a few months, to comics cover-dated from January 1974; among the earliest issues from which art was sent back were Avengers #119 and Amazing Spider-Man #128. 

But a year earlier, Marvel sold the covers to these issues, cover-dated January 1973, to the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Seven covers, plus progressive proofs and color guides for each, for a total of $770.

Back in 1986, Irene Vartanoff (who began managing artwork return in 1975) told The Comics Journal that Marvel would occasionally send artwork to exhibits. But as far as I know, this is the only evidence that exists of Marvel actually accepting money for pages of original art.

It’s unclear if the gallery still possesses the pages; nothing comes up on their inventory database. But if Rich Buckler, Joe Sinnott, Barry Smith, John Romita, Sal Buscema, or Tom Palmer happens to read this, they may want to give them a call.

UPDATE: It looks like the pages were displayed in 2006, as part of an exhibit called Funny Papers, and that—great news—the gallery then returned the works to the artists.

Gil Kane.

Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag! From Marvel Treasury Edition #13, 1976. Art by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott

“I would tell any cartoonist who has an idea, think twice before you give it to a publisher.” —Stan Lee, 1971

Here’s one of the many fascinating documents I came across in the process of researching Marvel Comics: The Untold Story: Stan Lee forcefully criticizing the comic industry’s treatment of creators.

On the evening of Wednesday, January 20, 1971, Stan Lee joined a number of comic veterans—including Gil Kane, Will Eisner, and Archie Comics publisher John Goldwater—at the Lambs Club in Manhattan for a discussion about the state of the industry. Jack Kirby had quit Marvel the previous spring, and Lee himself was only a few months away from taking a sabbatical to collaborate on a film script with Alain Resnais. His disillusion with the world of comics is striking, as is the spirited nature of the debate with the other panelists, some of whom seem to feel he’s putting too much blame on publishers.

“I would say that the comic book market is the worst market that there is on the face of the earth for creative talent and the reasons are numberless and legion,’ says Lee. “I have had many talented people ask me how to get into the comic book business. If they were talented enough the first answer I would give them is, ‘Why would you want to get into the comic book business?’ Because even if you succeed, even if you reach what might be considered the pinnacle of success in comics, you will be less successful, less secure and less effective than if you are just an average practitioner of your art in television, radio, movies or what have you. It is a business in which the creator, as was mentioned before, owns nothing of his creation. The publisher owns it….”

The above documents pick up the conversation about halfway through. Near the end, you can practically hear Stan Lee prophesizing his escape hatch to Hollywood: “Isn’t it pathetic to be in a business where the most you can say for the creative person in the business is that he’s serving an apprenticeship to enter a better field? Why not go to the other field directly?”

Nearly everything about 1975’s GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1 is a familiar echo of 1961’s FANTASTIC FOUR #1: the Magnificent Seven–like gathering of the team, the dysfunctional bickering, the mysterious island to which they are summoned, even the dramatic escape by plane as the island explodes behind them.
With the final word balloon of the issue—“what are we going to do with thirteen X-Men?” someone in the plane asks—the transition begins. The old X-Men will be put out to pasture; the new X-Men will have a shot at capturing a younger audience.

The Marvel Bullpen, circa 1970.

Unknown, Stu Schwartzberg, Gil Kane, Gerry Conway, Bill Everett, Herb Trimpe, Marie Severin, John Verpoorten, Roy Thomas, John Romita, Morrie Kuramoto, Unknown (Allyn Brodsky?).

Can anyone identify the men at either end of the picture?

Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October, 1971). Art by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia, Words by Roy Thomas.