"Early on, it had been the subject of one of those Kirby precictions that few took seriously when he made it. He said the con [San Diego Comic-Con, first held in 1970] would grow until it took over all of San Diego. He said that the definition of 'comics' would expand beyond those things printed on cheap paper. It would be about comic books as movies, comic books as television, comic books in forms yet to be invented. He said -- and this is a quote -- 'It will be where all of Hollywood will come every year to find the movies they'll make next year and to sell the movies they found here the year before."Kirby was a visionary, to say the least. By 1970 he was slowing down as an artist but realized TV, and later film, would be where the money was. He transitioned from comics to show producer and managed (with great effort) to get back some of his original artwork from Marvel and apparently lived pretty comfortably after a lifetime of economic anxiety, even though his creations had generated so much wealth for multiple comic companies (including, less famously, DC).
Stan Lee does not come off well here. He was, at best, pretty much indifferent to the economic plight of the man who basically created the Marvel Universe. At worse, he stole all of Kirby's best ideas.
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