One of the things that kept most comics from being monthly was that very few artists could produce 24 pages per month. Jack Kirby was very much the exception to the rule, but his towering presence at Marvel started to dictate the whole shape of the industry—and that's where problems set in! (2008)
John Byrne
In the early days, I was writing scripts for virtually all the books, and it was very hard to keep all the artists busy; poor little frail me, doing story after story. So I'd be writing a story for Kirby, and Steve Ditko would walk in and say, 'Hey, I need some work now.' And I'd say, 'I can't give it to you now, Steve, I'm finishing Kirby's.' But we couldn't afford to keep Steve waiting, because time is money, so I'd have to say, 'Look Steve, I can't write a script for you now, but here's the plot for the next Spider-Man. Go home and draw anything you want, as long as it's something like this, and I'll put the copy in later.' So I was able to finish Jack's story. Steve in the meantime was drawing another story.....Okay, it started out as a lazy's man's device...but we realized this was absolutely the best way to do a comic.....Don't have the writer say, 'Panel one will be a long shot of Spider-Man walking down the street.' The artist may see it differently; maybe he feels it should be a shot of Spider-Man swinging on his web, or climbing upside-down on the ceiling or something.
Stan Lee
A time machine would come in handy, right about now. Go back about fifteen years and shoot all those people who didn’t listen when I predicted the present state of the industry as the natural outcome of what the industry was doing, or starting to do, then. Basically—we must get the product back into the maximum number of venues, in cheap and accessible packages. Comics are primarily a cyclical fad, and they depend upon new readers being able to spontaneously discover them, on a spinner rack, at the drugstore, or the Mom & Pop, or the grocery story, or the bus depot, etc., etc. As long as new blood has to make a conscious decision to walk into a comic book shop, looking for comics, and as long as the comics we produce continue to be aimed at the wrong audience—witness Gareb Shamus and his insane attempts, of late, to rekindle the speculator mentality!!—the industry has slim hope of recovery, or even survival. (2000)
John Byrne
Imagine, 24 pages of superhero adventures produced by the same writer and artist every month!! How did they do it? (What? By being professional about it? But that's too much like work!) (2008)
John Byrne
I was one of the first guys writing comic books, I wrote Captain America, with guys like Stan Lee, who became famous later on with Marvel Comics. Stan could write on three typewriters at once! I wrote the Human Torch, Submariner. I worked my way down. I started off at the high level, in the slick magazines, but they didn't use my name, they used house names. Anyway, then I went downhill to the pulps, then downhill further to the comics. I went downhill class-wise, but I went uphill, money-wise! I was making more money in the comics. I wrote the original Mike Hammer as a comic, Mike Danger.
Mickey Spillane
Blockbusters are the exception, not the rule, and yet we see an entire industry through their rarefied air.
Chris (writer) Anderson
Byrne, John
Byrom, John
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