Alliterative and Amusing Attributions

For most of the Silver Age, DC did not include credits for their stories (although it was not uncommon for artists to sign their work). Indeed, probably the most common credit given was fictitious; the one that identified most Batman stories as being drawn by Bob Kane.

Marvel was different. From the very beginning, they included some credits for their stories. From Fantastic Four #1:

At first, as you can see, the credits were rudimentary. Here's something of interest, though, from Amazing Spiderman #1:

Even when DC did go to more commonly including credits later in the Silver Age, back then they never (to my knowledge) gave attribution for lettering. Still, the credits were more or less haphazard at that point at Marvel. For example, ASM #4 does not including lettering credit, and up to and including #9 the credits were pretty simple. In ASM #10, things changed:

This was the beginning of Stan's alliterative phase, which would continue for the rest of the Silver Age (and be continued by later editors at Marvel).  That same month, Fantastic Four #24's credits included another look at the future:

The following issue, Stan put both alliteration and braggadocio together:

But there was still one more element to be added: Humor.  That started to be added with #29:

Stan apparently (I assume he came up with the idea for these credits) delighted in tweaking his letterers; for the next few years this became the template.  Greatness was always implied for the script, pencils and inking; mere competence (or worse) was ascribed to putting the words on the paper.

 Although these amusing credits became a significant part of the difference between Marvel and DC, they did not last anywhere near as long as I remembered.  Indeed, by late 1966, Stan pretty much reverted to a more basic style:

After that the humorous and alliterative credits became more infrequent.  Indeed, Stan often saved that for the Bullpen Bulletin or the letters page.  I suspect that his workload by that point was getting too big; it was around this time that he turned the scriptwriting chores for the Avengers over to Rascally Roy Thomas.

The appeal of these credits was strong.  It gave readers the feeling that they were in for a fun time.  True, the self-promotion could get overbearing at times, but this was also the era where Mohamed Ali amused us all by proclaiming his greatness at the top of his lungs, rather than engage in the more common false modesty of most athletes before and after.