[McDragon's Memo: I got to write this for my argument paper in one of my college classes. Let's just say I really liked that teacher!]

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby: The Most Influential Men in Comics
By JBMcDragon

 There are seven people in the comic book industry that are commonly acknowledged by most fans as being the most influential people in comics. Steve Ditko, Bob Kane, Alex Ross, Joe Schuster, Jerry Siegel, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are credited with making comic books the way they are today. Each of these men contributed heavily to the way comic books are drawn, the way they are written, and what they contain. Different people believe differently about which of these men are the most influential of all of them, though, and it is my belief that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby stand above the rest.

For one, Stan Lee was the first person to use comic books as a social commentary. He used The Fantastic Four to talk about space travel, and what might happen when shuttles would carry people into space for the first time. With Daredevil and Spider-Man he talked about the danger of radio-activity, something that had recently been discovered, and with the X-Men he talked about racism and intolerance. Today, it is unusual to see a comic book without social commentary of some sort.

Stan Lee also broadened the fan base for comic books, helping to make it a financially viable business. When he first started writing, comic books were written for adolescent boys. Lee, who didn't want to write comics because of the very immature fan base, started writing for adults, creating stories that he would read. The fan base now is both men and women of all ages, though predominantly college-age men.

Possibly the most important thing Lee did without Kirby's help, though, was to turn heroes in realistic people. Before Lee, comic books featured characters who fought evil, but otherwise had either perfect or non-existent lives. The only thing these heroes had to worry about was defeating the villain of the story; if their home lives were touched on at all, it was only as a minor detail, and they always had perfect relationships, friendships, jobs, et cetera. Stan Lee revolutionized this when he started writing about heroes' problems both in their normal lives, and in their crime-fighting. Spider-Man, for instance, while saving the world had to worry about getting good grades, paying his bills, fighting with his girlfriend, getting dumped, what he was going to wear, and all the other little things that make up daily lives. Readers could relate better to this type of character. Even though Spider-Man had superpowers and fought spandex-clad villains, he connected with the audience through all the mundane things that everyone goes through. Today, there isn't a comic book sold that doesn't have realistic heroes; whether those heroes be human, animal, alien or some sort of science experiment gone wrong, there is always something about them that is mundane and familiar.

Jack Kirby, though he didn't do as much as Stan Lee, was as influential in the art aspect of it as Stan Lee was in the writing aspect. Jack Kirby was the first person to use exaggeration in his art. He exaggerated bodies, making the heroes and villains larger than life and therefore more heroic looking. You could spot the hero walking down the street, because they were slightly taller and far more muscular than all the other people. Because they were so much more muscular, it seemed more believable when they performed feats such as throwing tables across a room or holding bridges up to keep them from collapsing. Kirby also greatly exaggerated movement. Motions that had been non-existent before suddenly became more obvious. Kirby used movement even when none was necessary, creating the feeling of motion and therefore life. He also made each individual movement larger. Where other artists would make a woman gasp and pull her hand up slightly, Kirby would make her gasp and cover her mouth, stepping backward in horror. When heroes threw punches, it wasn't just their arm and shoulder that moved; it was their entire upper body, often down into the lower body and legs. Kirby tilted running figures at forty-five degree angles, far past what is humanly possible, to give the impression of great speed.

The argument against Kirby being the most influential artist is usually that Ditko brought strange angles into comic books, creating more psychological tricks that heightened the sense of danger and suspense, and that Ross brought paint into comic books and turned it into fine art instead of cartoon-like drawings. Both those artists, however, freely admit they were influenced by Kirby and drew from his exaggeration techniques in their own artwork.

Lee and Kirby did more than this, though. Together they became one of the most popular artist/writer teams of their time, and influenced comic books still more. Because Lee was a very good writer, making the heroes seem real, and Kirby was a very good artist, being the only person for a very long while to use exaggeration, fans would read whatever the two men teamed up on. If they wrote romance or westerns or fantasy, the sales soared. Until this time, the only superhero comic books that were able to stay in business were Batman and Superman. Lee and Kirby decided that they could write superheroes, and with their fan following were able to do just that. Superhero comic books became immensely popular fairly suddenly, going from the comic books that never sold to outselling almost all other types of comic books on the market. Today, superhero comic books are still the most popular type to read. Schuster, Siegel and Kane's only claim for being the most influential people in comics is that they created the first superheroes, but superheroes may very well have died out if Lee and Kirby hadn't made them popular. Schuster, Siegel and Kane wouldn't have even had this much respect in the comic book industry if it hadn't been for Lee and Kirby.

Along with making superheroes popular, Lee and Kirby made many of the heroes still popular today. Captain America, The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Spider-Man, characters that became the team Avengers, and many others are still among the most popular comic books sold. Kirby and Lee flooded the market with heroes so great that they've remained alive for thirty years or more, where often times other heroes disappear within five years.

Perhaps one of the most influential things they did, however, was to change the process of making a comic book. No writer/artist team has ever done anything like this, and it doesn't appear as though it will happen again any time in the near future. Before Lee and Kirby teamed up, a comic book artist and writer would, together, create a plot. Then the writer would script it, adding not only dialogue but which characters should be in which shots, what details should be added, how people should be standing and even, occasionally, what colors would be used. The artist would then draw what the writer had scripted, and then the comic book was handed to someone else to add the words on the page, and printing. This system was very stifling for the artist, and also tended to make comic books bland since the writer didn't necessarily know what would look good or what shots would be psychologically impacting. The writer was not an artist who had worked at drawing for years, and as such didn't usually know what was appropriate. When Lee and Kirby started working together, though, they changed the entire way the comic was created. They still worked together on the plot, but then, instead of the writer scripting the comic book, Lee would give the plot to Kirby, who would then draw in what he thought the story should be like. He would give the drawn pages to Lee, who would then look at them and piece together what was going on. After he thought he had a good idea of emotions and appropriate dialogue, he would script the comic book. This system not only gave the artist tremendous freedom, but also inspired the writer to create stronger dialogue to go along with the stances, body language and psychological tricks the artist employed. Today, there are no writer/artist teams who don't create comic book in this way.

Ditko, Kane, Schuster, Siegel and Ross undoubtedly contributed greatly to the comic book industry. There are very few people who would argue this point, and I am not one of them. But I believe that they were not the greatest; that position is held by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, who didn't influence just one area of comic books, but influenced the art, writing, content and creation format. Not only did they influence these things, but they did so strongly. Ditko and Ross have admitted that their art was influenced by Kirby; without him, they would not have been so influential. Schuster, Siegel and Kane created superheroes, one of the most popular genres today, but that popularity didn't come about until Kirby and Lee started work on them. And all of these men, Ditko, Kane, Schuster, Siegel and Ross, now use the format for making comic books that Kirby and Lee created. Lee and Kirby are, without a doubt, the most influential men in comic books.

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