THE ACT OF CREATION - FACT OR FICTION...?

As an occasional writer of poetry, I can tell you that only

a very small proportion of them were about subjects I set out

to write.  Most of the time, although I'd occasionally decide on

a theme beforehand, the majority of my writings resulted from a

line popping into my head and then following its own course, with

little direction and not much assistance from me.  My main con-

tribution was to juggle some rhyme and then polish the finished

poem into something that seemed to be the result of some-

one who'd had something specific to say and said it.

Thing is, someone will then ask what your inspiration or

motivation was, and you find yourself relaying a perfectly

convincing account of why you wrote what you did.  A poem

about fear of the dark?  Well, that was because you recognized

that such a fear was common to a lot of people and you wanted

to make a comment about it, and that...blah, blah, blah!  It's only

much later that you may perhaps recall it was a random line that

jumped into your head, and that you merely followed in its

wake.  Honest, take my word for it - however ridiculous

that may sound, that's often simply the way it is.

There's no conscious desire to deceive anyone over

the origins of what you've written, but in being asked what

your motivation was, your mind is misdirected into thinking that

you had one, and it automatically produces a rationalization that

seems entirely likely and reasonable.  If it isn't actually what hap-

pened, it should be.  You even believe it yourself as you relate

the creative genesis of your poem or story to your inquisitive en-

quirer.  You simply accept it as fact and it may never occur to

you to question or doubt it.  Then, whenever you're asked

about it in future, your mind goes into automatic mode

and you trot out the same old story.

  

Which brings me to STAN LEE.  Where did he get

the idea for SPIDER-MAN?  Did JACK KIRBY give him

it, did he recall the '30s pulp hero The SPIDER, or was he in-

spired by watching an anarchid crawl up a wall and then decide

to base a comic strip on a character with spider powers?  I don't

think even Stan remembers for sure.  I think it's not unlikely that,

when asked years later what had prompted the idea, his memory

searched itself for a likely explanation and produced one which

seemed the most probable.  And you know what? It may even

be the true one, with a little creative embellishment

to make it more interesting.

I don't believe Stan has ever consciously lied in an at-

tempt to steal credit for other folk's creations.  I think that

he genuinely believes his accounts of the origins of MARVEL

COMICS and, like I say, they may well be true.  If his version

of events has occasionally strayed from historical fact, it's likely

only due to the fickleness of memory and its capacity to supply

order and reason to that which is often the result of sudden

and random impulse and not the deliberate and controlled

act of conscious creative endeavour. 

        What think the rest of you?        

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