The "bad guy" in the band: who are the other Mike Loves in music?

James Brown would be another member of the dictator/warlord sect.

ROGER WATERS???

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Saturday, 24 May 2014 18:58 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Roger Waters obv

― goth colouring book (anagram), Thursday, 22 May 2014 16:50 (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gilmour is definitely the mike love of pink floyd. waters? fuck outta here

lol. op says "the ones who got shit done and kept things together". gilmour organized nothing in pink floyd.

as for waters, in 1967-8 he certainly had a "drug addict/mentally unstable/genius partner (who) derailed things endlessly but still got the glory"

I can think of someone so much like Mike Love in many ways outside of music: Stan Lee.

Sarah Palin

lol. op says "the ones who got shit done and kept things together". gilmour organized nothing in pink floyd.

In which era though? I thought he was sort of the singlehanded face of the brand following The Final Cut - kind of a classic case of a guy who wasn't really a creative leader, forcing the thing to keep moving and put out material and make big money. That's Mike Love, right?

Stan lee is worse than mike love imo

xp

In which era though? I thought he was sort of the singlehanded face of the brand following The Final Cut - kind of a classic case of a guy who wasn't really a creative leader, forcing the thing to keep moving and put out material and make big money. That's Mike Love, right?

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, May 27, 2014 2:09 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, that's how i see it too

I don't recognize the post-Final Cut Floyd as Floyd but yeah ok

not familiar with comic book industry stuff....what's the basics on stan lee?

josh in chicago to thread lol

palin way off btw, she's a bez if politics has ever had one

not familiar with comic book industry stuff....what's the basics on stan lee?

― dollar rave club (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, May 27, 2014 2:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Generally, that in developing his own legend as mister super-creative genius who whiz-bang created the Marvel Universe, he shortchanged his collaborators, particularly Steve Ditko and probably also Jack Kirby. There's a lot of varied opinion on this, mind you. See also Steve Ditko: Classic or Dud The Love-ness probably comes a lot with him just living forever and really making hay out of his media presence as a winking, lovable teenage senior-citizen - Nuff Said, True Believers!

Stan Lee seems to be a lot more genial than Love (in public at least, I don't really know enough about what went on behind the scenes at Marvel), he can actually pull off winking and lovable, though maybe I just think that because I've been aware of him since I was a kid?

Kind of wary of stepping into another classic era Marvel argument because they often go on forever. I think EC's Gaines/Feldstein/Kurtzman is the only other comparable argument in comics.

Stan Lee was a writer and editor at Marvel when their most famous characters and stories were coming out but he had more skill for hype and business, he really was the ultimate cheerleader. He made Marvel seem like a cool club and created a sort of fan loyalty and obsession that didn't exist for DC until quite a bit later (some fans got called "Marvel zombies", it would be funny if they created that comic title of the same name to dispel that insult).
He had a distinct cheery writing style but not many would ever call him a great writer; he kept adding all these cringeworthy elements to appeal to hip young people, including a word I'm sure Wild Honey era Beach Boys used a couple of times: "Outtasight!" (Other examples being repeated mentions of Harry Orborne's "Fu Manchu" moustache and Mary Jane's "ginchy" new haircut. Also Mary Jane referring to friends as "dad".
Stan Lee always confessed to having a terrible memory and it really shows, he would reuse plots, ideas, character names and even specific bits of dialogue as if he had forgotten he used them before. He even forgotten names of main characters and tended to use alliterative names to help him remember.

He taken credit as if he were the sole creator in most of his media appearances for a long time unless he was challenged about it (he even joked he would take credit for anything that wasn't nailed down). It taken a very long time for it to be common knowledge that people like Kirby and Ditko were the ones with way more creativity. Some have even referred to Lee as a mere "instigator" or "word balloon filler" of the main Marvel characters. Much like Mike Love, Lee fought against his collaborators less commercial tendencies: Ditko's critique of youth culture and student protest, Kirby's ideas of killing Thor in an Asgardian apocalypse, Gil Kane's "faggy"(according to Lee) looking characters. Many more examples exist.

Lee shamed Marvel for keeping movie money from him but he stood against the children of Kirby in court so they couldn't get money.

So many have remarked on how Lee charmed people so much that he could screw them over and they wouldn't resent it too much. There are accounts of Ditko and Kirby meeting Lee at separate times in the 90s where they hugged and (sort of)forgiven him for all the things they had criticized.

I haven't been able to get much info on how Stan Lee Media turned against Stan Lee but it sounds crazy.

The main difference between Mike Love and Stan Lee is that he wasn't a bully, he sort of smoothed over injustices as if there were none.
I'd agree that Lee turned Marvel into a multimedia phenomenon and that those characters wouldn't have survived for more than a decade without him but I don't think that would be a bad thing at all.

Bob Kane was way worse than Mike Love.

I'm surprised at how little has been written about Love's disowned son, but I saw a small documentary about it.

actually, one way in which Stan Lee is similar to Mike Love is that a 'can we be shown weirdos and Stan Lee' thread would probably be viable xp

http://37.media.tumblr.com/141159766357b498e2912be675de5f5c/tumblr_mw6fqmr8u61rfrzmko1_500.jpg

cool thanks guys that is enlightening wrt to Lee who as a very very casual comic/comic book movie fan i guess i thought was like "the man" of comics

if anyone (Robert?) feels like telling the Bob Kane story I'd be interested to hear it. And thanks for Stan Lee enlightenment.

Bob Kane is more of a Mike Love than Stan.

Stan lee and mike love are both horrible greedy egomaniacs I think its a good analogy

(some fans got called "Marvel zombies", it would be funny if they created that comic title of the same name to dispel that insult).

if?

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091119155018/marveldatabase/images/8/88/Marvel_Zombies_2_Vol_1_1.jpg

Also Mary Jane referring to friends as "dad".

wtf lol

Anyone with a passing interest in Batman needs to see this one page comic about what a Bob Kane solo comic would look like...
http://tytempletonart.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/giving-comics-the-finger-bun-toons-yay/

Bob Kane was an old school humour cartoonist who got into superheroes because it was a successful new trend and he had real difficulty writing and drawing in that mode so he had has friend Bill Finger (who wasn't an artist but redesigned Batmans costume into the way it has more or less always been, he made most of the stories, characters and ideas) and Jerry Robinson (initially an inker but ended up drawing most of it for a while before some other artists worked under Bob Kane's name. Robinson claims to have basically created Joker) who he met just by chance at a tennis game when Robinson oddly had drawn on his own clothes (!?) and Kane asked him to draw for him on the strength of those drawings.

Kane doesn't have much of a cult because he got most of his work done for him (usually anonymously) and somehow managed to be the only early creator to get rich under DC (maybe the higher-ups appreciated his ruthlessly exploitative ways). Some people enjoy the slightly spooky crudeness of the early Batman art but it's hard to say how much that is owed to the inkers. Other early DC artists frequently mocked Kane's drawing ability and generally didn't like him as a person. Robinson said that Kane's peniciling got increasingly lazy to the point that he ended up just writing what was supposed to be drawn in some panels.

It has been said that Kane treated Finger horrendously and even demanded that Finger greet Kane a certain way each time they met. In later decades when Robinson written pieces about how it really was, some DC people treated this with total contempt as if nobody should have the nerve to do such a thing.
Finger spent his later years in desperation, finding it difficult to get writing work, eventually taking cheques and running away without doing the work; I think he died of scarlett fever. Apparently DC creators used to talk about "getting Fingered" when they were treated badly. Somehow the "created by Bob Kane" credit became so solid over time that it seemed there was no hope to ever officially credit Bill Finger, I don't know if that has changed.

Robinson is a really talented illustrator and done really nice work (I wouldn't bother with his Batman stuff, he never got to show his fully formed style on that work), especially with Mort Meskin; he ended up doing a lot of political cartoons and helping out political illustrators in russia.

Bob Kane is way worse than Mike Love.

Re: Marvel Zombies, I meant "if" that was their reason for creating the title, but I don't believe that. The insult doesn't get thrown around because there are just Marvel/DC zombies now.

Funny thing on that page you gave is that in the comments there is a flame war erupting w people accusing each other of ripping off their work (the work being comics about Bob Kane ripping other people off).

Yeah I just saw that, I once heard Kane meant Batman's costume to be yellow.

wow that is really interesting - thanks again, Robert!

Incontinent Batman just didn't appeal to the right demographics unfortunately

Based on brio's 5-and-a-half point list, and cwkiii's corollary, I nominate Tina Weymouth.

(I'm leaning heavily on David Bowman's book here.)

My reading of that book is that Weymouth and Byrne were both stiff weirdos who didn't communicate well.

So many have remarked on how Lee charmed people so much that he could screw them over and they wouldn't resent it too much. There are accounts of Ditko and Kirby meeting Lee at separate times in the 90s where they hugged and (sort of)forgiven him for all the things they had criticized.

Whose accounts? Kirby died at the beginning of ’94, and Lee, AIUI, hasn’t seen Ditko face-to-face since 1965. (When Ditko pressed for a plotting credit on Spider-Man, due to writing and drawing the entire book each month before Lee saw a single page to add dialogue to, Lee agreed but refused to set eyes on him again; Ditko had to deliver the finished pages to Sol Brodsky.)

a vague claim from lee in '99:

CraveOnline: What was your last contact with Steve Ditko?

Stan Lee: Quite a few years ago I met him up at the Marvel offices when I was last in New York. And we spoke, he's a hell of a nice guy and it was very pleasant. I really don't know what he's doing. I haven't heard from him since that meeting.

any mention of Weymouth/Byrne enmity automatically thinks of the story about her calling friends of the band up in the '90s and telling them that Byrne had a "baby penis"

automatically makes me think of the story, i mean

Lee is def more of a mealymouthed coward than Love, who does not shrink from confrontation

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/dynamics/2012/05/02/ditko-the-mystery-behind-the-man-article-2002/
http://www.paulgravett.com/index.php/articles/article/jack_kirby1/

This is where I found out about Lee meeting Kirby and Ditko in the 90s

kirby's "You have nothing to reproach yourself about, Stan." is also reported in the marvel untold story book, though the hug isn't mentioned. it doesn't sound like the most forgiving of statements. prior to that they'd had a frosty conversation when lee was on a radio show and kirby called in unexpectedly.

Kirby and Lee were always polite to each other in person, but that oft-repeated line - so personally whispered! - doesn't ring true, and the mere fact that Lee has used it so often points to unreliability, given his usual reportage.

Ditko's attitude to Lee is clear in his self-published writing on the topic over the last 15 years.

If Bob Kane is Mike Love then who is Jim Steranko at SDCC?

Jardine and Steranko about the same height.

Not sure I can imagine Al slapping Mike though.

Not sure I put too much weight in a 70-yo bullshit artist bragging about publicly "bitchslapping" a 75-yo poseur for being patronising in an elevator twenty years ago tbh

Personally, I thought those stories sounded fishy too and I wouldn't have been surprised if they were embellished.
I've read quite a number of Ditko's essays and letters, they can be fascinating but also quite mind numbing in places. I could never finish that 20 pager he wrote about the industry in the early 90s, even when I was at the height of my adoration for him. He does have a great memory though and can go into detailed accounts that few others are able to.

Can someone tell me about this slapping incident?

There is a popular myth about a comic artist hanging an editor out a high window by his legs in the late 50s to early 60s, some say Alex Toth did this (Scott Hampton even based a short story on this) but there are lots of different versions with different people. It was even mentioned in Mad Men, so I'm inclined to think it was a myth that circulated among various businesses where people worked in skyscrapers. But I still like to think Alex Toth really did this because he might have been nutty enough.

There is a book by Bryan Talbot called The Naked Comic Book Artist with lots of similar stories.

Found it

http://comicsalliance.com/jim-steranko-twitter-slap-bob-kane/

Sic, is Steranko a known liar?

The other thing that raised my suspicion about the Lee/Ditko meeting is that Blake Bell didn't include it in his Ditko biography book, he said he left out a lot of stories that didn't have enough evidence.

Let's stop clogging up a decent and fun ILM thread with this diversion.

Yes back to the serious business of finding a non-Mike Love Mike Love.

Are we still at 0? Is this a futile exercise? I think the best bet would be bands that are past their prime and more or less over yet keep going on reunion tours w 1 or 2 original members.

Tons of great Mike Loves identified upthread, esp. Robbie Robertson, Lars Ullrich, Johnny Ramone, Eazy E, Gene Simmons.

I mean nobody's going to be a 100% perfect fit, but these dudes are all Mike Loves.

Re: CSNY

It's tempting to say Crosby, Stills, Nash AND Young were the bad guys. There was a thread on the Steve Hoffman forum not so long back titled something like "Was Graham Nash the real a$$hole in CSNY", but that was never going to last very long over there.