Larry Lieber

Lawrence D. Lieber (; born October 26, 1931) (Scroll down) is an American comic book artist and writer best known as co-creator of the Marvel Comics superheroes Iron Man, Thor, and Ant-Man; for his long stint both writing and drawing the Marvel Western '' Rawhide Kid''; and for illustrating the newspaper comic strip ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' from 1986 to September 2018. From 1974 to 1975, he was editor of Atlas/Seaboard Comics. Lieber is the younger brother of the late Marvel Comics writer, editor, and publisher Stan Lee.

Early life

Larry Lieber was born in Manhattan, New York City, the second child of Romanian-Jewish immigrant parents Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, and the brother of Stanley Martin Lieber, later known as Marvel Comics editor and impresario Stan Lee. When he was six months old, the family moved to The Bronx,''Alter Ego'' interview
p. 19 of print version settling at 1720 University Avenue, which Lee described as a one-bedroom, "third-floor apartment facing out back", with him and Larry sharing a bedroom and his parents using a foldout couch. At "about ten-and-a-half", with his brother in the U.S. Army, Lieber and his parents returned to Manhattan, moving to the Washington Heights neighborhood. Already interested in art and drawing by this time, he attended George Washington High School there.

Lee wrote in his autobiography that when Larry was a teenager, the boys' mother died and Lieber went to live with his brother and his sister-in-law, Joan, prompting the trio's move to Woodmere, New York, on Long Island.Lee, Mair, p
71
/ref> Lee elsewhere described that move to a two-story, three-bedroom home at 1084 West Broadway as occurring in 1949, when Larry would have been 17 or 18. As Lieber recalled it to comics historian Daniel Best, "My mother died when I was 16. My brother was back from the Service, he was just married and he moved out outside of New York to Long Island. I lived with him for a while and it didn't work out so well. I wanted to leave, so I left. I was very young and I had a couple of jobs."Lieber in

At 17, Lieber became a messenger for ''The New York Times'' and also found work at the Times Square studio of Sam Furber, a letterer whose work included movie posters. For roughly a year and a half, he lived in the since-defunct Hotel Manhattan Towers, a residence hotel at Broadway and West 76th Street in Manhattan.Lieber, in the ''Alter Ego'' interview, p. 19, recalls the company name as Magazine Management, under which it was known by at least 1953, though the year of the company's incorporation is uncertain.

Career

Early work

In 1941, Lee was made the editor of Timely Comics, the future Marvel Comics, then a division of a publishing company owned by a relative, Martin Goodman. Lieber began working for Goodman as an art assistant on the magazine side, "doing paste-ups. ... I was working during the day and I went to he_Pratt_Institute_art_school,_in_Brooklyn.html" ;"title="Pratt_Institute.html" ;"title="he Pratt Institute">he Pratt Institute art school, in Brooklyn">Pratt_Institute.html" ;"title="he Pratt Institute">he Pratt Institute art school, in Brooklyn, in] the evening."''Alter Ego'' interview
pp. 19-20 of print version There Lieber began illustrating comic books; his first known credit is penciling and inking the four-page crime comics story "Cop on the Beat", by an unknown writer, in ''All True Crime'' #44 (cover-dated May 1951).

In 1951, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, beginning four years of military service. Serving during the Korean War, he spent two of those years stationed at Okinawa, after having done his boot-camp training at the since-defunct Sampson Air Force Base, near the Finger Lakes region of New York State.

1950s

After returning from the service, Lieber attended Manhattan's Art Students League. "I still wanted to be an artist and do comics, but I had in mind to eventually become an illustrator," he said in 1999. "I was drawing, but I was slow."''Alter Ego'' interview
p. 20 of print version He again drew for his brother, editor Stan Lee, at the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics, known generally as Atlas Comics, though whether on staff or freelance is uncertain. Regardless, his next confirmed credit is penciling and inking the three-page story "A World to Conquer" in ''Journey into Unknown Worlds'' #52 (Dec. 1956), followed by stories in such Atlas romance comics as '' Love Romances'', ''Love Tales'', ''Stories of Romance'', ''True Tales of Love'' and ''The Romances of Nurse Helen Grant'' in issues cover-dated April to August 1957 and July 1958. Because it was not standard industry practice during this time to give writer and artist credits, Lieber may have supplied more. He recalled in 1999 he had written some or all of these stories himself, "because I remember Stan was saying to me, 'You write romances really well.'"''Alter Ego'' interview, print version only, p. 20 In 1958, following an economic downturn for the publisher and the firing of virtually all the comics staffers save Lee, "Stan said he wanted somebody to help him write, and he had nobody then; he was doing it all himself. I said, 'I'm not really a writer.' He said, 'Oh, I've read your letters.'"

Lieber, by now living in the Tudor City apartment complex in Manhattan, began freelancing regularly for the nascent Marvel Comics, "writing stories for Jack irbyto draw", referring to the artist who had co-created Captain America for the company in 1940 and had recently returned for a long, exclusive stint in which Kirby would co-create many signature Marvel characters in the Silver Age of Comics. At this point in the late 1950s, Kirby was drawing science fiction / fantasy stories followed by giant-monster tales in what collectors and historians call "pre-superhero Marvel" comics, primarily ''Journey into Mystery'', ''Strange Tales'', '' Tales of Suspense'' and ''Tales to Astonish''. As Lieber recalled of those creature features,

Lieber's earliest, tentatively confirmed pre-superhero Marvel script is for the six-page Don Heck-illustrated "I Am the Beast-Man" in ''Strange Tales'' #77 (Oct. 1960), and his first confirmed is the 13-page "I Led the Strange Search for Manoo", penciled by Kirby and inked by Dick Ayers, in ''Amazing Adventures'' #2 (July 1961).

Marvel superheroes and the Rawhide Kid

Under Stan Lee plots, Lieber would go on to script the debut origin stories and other early appearances of the superheroes Thor (co-created with artist Jack Kirby) in ''Journey into Mystery'', Iron Man (co-created with Kirby and Don Heck) in ''Tales of Suspense'', and Ant-Man (co-created with Kirby) in ''Tales to Astonish''. This included creating the names of their respective alter egos: Don Blake, Tony Stark, and Henry Pym. His first superhero work, the first appearance of Marvel's Thor in ''Journey into Mystery'' #83 (Aug. 1962), introduced one of the mainstays of the Marvel Universe, the mystical metal "uru", of which Thor's hammer Mjolnir is made. As Lieber recalled, "I kind of liked it; it was short. It's easy on the letterer; they're going to be using it all the time. I don't know where the hell I came up with it. I used to get names out of the back of the dictionary, from the biographical section where you have foreign names, Russian, this and that. I used to go to it and gets parts of names to put together."''Alter Ego'' interview
pp. 21-22 of print version

As Stan Lee recalled, in his trademark jocular style, in 1974,

Lieber in 1999 remembered circumstances less hyperbolically: "Thor was just another story. I didn't think about it at all. Stan said, 'I'm trying to make up a character,' and he gave me the plot, and he said, 'Why don't you write the story?'"
p. 22 of print version Under Lee's plotting, Lieber's eight Thor stories also introduced the Marvel characters Loki, Odin, and Balder, from the pantheon of Norse mythological gods; their home, Asgard; and Bifrost the Rainbow Bridge, which connected that realm to Earth. For another series, starring the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four, Lieber co-created the longstanding supervillain the Wizard in ''Strange Tales'' #102 (Nov. 1962).

After the debut Iron Man story in ''Tales of Suspense'' #39 (March 1963), however, Lee replaced Lieber with Robert Bernstein, writing as "R. Berns", for the next seven issues before Lee took over the reins himself for a few stories. Don Rico, writing as "N. Korok", followed for a two-issue stint. Lee then took over as regular writer for the next few years. Lieber wrote the first nine Ant-Man stories (following the character's non-costumed introduction months earlier) in ''Tales to Astonish'' #35-43 (Sept. 1962 - May 1963) before veteran Ernie Hart

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases