It makes me sad to know that Ultimate Spider-Man will beat Stan and Jack's record.

Somehow, that seems to be perfectly symbolic of the whole "let's supplant that old crap cuz our crap is kewler" mentality so prevalent in the industry today.

I'm just glad that they're trying to emulate Stan and Jack's work ethic.

I don't read Ultimate Spider-Man, but I think it's pretty cool that these guys stuck it our for the long haul.

Yeah, other than Ultimates, I haven't found the Ultimate line to my liking.  I'd hear guys excited about the first appearances of "Ultimate Venom" and "Ultimate Electro" and the first "Ultimate Fastball Special"...  It just wasn't for me.

Maybe someone's enjoying them like I enjoyed the new Barry Allen Flash and the new Hal Jordan Green Lantern... I hope so.

When I see Ultimate, I think of the bullies in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle yelling, "EXTREME!"

"Maybe someone's enjoying them like I enjoyed the new Barry Allen Flash and the new Hal Jordan Green Lantern... I hope so."

I'm probably this someone, although I see everyone's points: That Bendis' work is extremely dialogue driven and that he, literally, only produces two comic book arcs a year. The thing is, there is probably nothing that will top, in terms of quality, the first 102 issues of the Fantastic Four. Stan and Jack created the benchmark, anything after that will just be surpassing it in terms of quantity and never quality. Probably nothing could surpass, for so many, the relevance those issues held and what they defined for the next forty-five years.

Ultimate Spider-Man, I would say, is neither better nor worse than the Lee/Ditko work. It's different. It reflects a post-cold war era and it is written in an entirely different style with wholly different sensibilities. I guess I'd say that, again, to me, it's as good of a modern comic book as the first thirty-three odd issues of the Amazing Spider-Man are "classic" comic books.

Bendis was asked to modernize the webslinger for a more youthful audience. Would the same audience have responded well to issues of Marvel Tales? I know I did. The truth is, many kids will reject anything that's older, in black-and-white, or is "dated." Bendis, I think, succeeded in making a Spider-Man comic that accurately captures teen angst post-millennium as well as Stan Lee did in the nineteen-sixties. 

Bendis and Bagely I think are supposed to break the Marvel Lee-Kirby record within a few months on Ultimate Spiderman.

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Personally, I find any comment that Bendis and Bagley might make, comparing themselves to Lee and Kirby, to be both offensive and laughable.  Lee and Kirby did their own material.  All Bendis has done in that title is borrow storylines and give them different twists.  It's also much easier to run up an issue count, if you're decompressing every story into six issues instead of just one or two.  

well, I know it is not the most longer run, but Mister B on th FF was among the longest and also full of quality art and stories...

And I am not shoe shinning or A..-licking !

And to bad we just speak about American comics because for the French ones, there have been a lot of artists spending a lot of years with the same heroes. Nothing to compare in term of number of pages but in term of years, there sure be some winners on that side of the ocean! Just recently, comic book artist Willy Lambil celebrated 34 years with the same characters, " Blue jackets ":

http://lambiek.net/artists/l/lambil.htm

And I don't speak of the like of Hergé on " Tintin "...

When Bendis produces as many *stories* in a row as Stan I'll be impressed.

Andy