I can't see how The Spider influenced Spider-Man.

The Spider was more a Shadow-Like character.

I think that you have to look at the fact without Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby that Stan Lee's ideas would never have taken the flight they did.

Do you know what the pay scales were like in the 60's at Marvel?  Did artists make more than twice as much as Stan or Roy back then?  Or is that something that had evolved over time in the 70's?
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I wonder if today artists still earn more money than writers .

It's really a red herring, though, isn't it?

In the context of the Kirby heirs' lawsuit, the question isn't really who "created" the characters, but how the process worked. If Stan Lee worked out every concept in detail and just got Kirby to draw it out as an "art robot" or Lee just said "Hm. Four weird characters in jumpsuits, fighting monsters, go forth, Kirby and create!" and Kirby did all the real work, it's still work-for-hire.

Credit is about bragging rights, and Kirby's dead now, so what does he care?

I thought it was all settled: Kirby did the art, Lee did the words and they split the actual plotting, sometimes with Lee doing the most, sometimes Kirby, but the real magic mostly happened when they were both in the same room.

I think the whole "Kirby was the real creative force" movement is  what has deluded his heirs into thinking they can actually win this lawsuit. 

Kirby was a great man, a great comic book creator, but in my country we have a word, "Skamrose" which is when you praise a man for doing what everyone knows he didn't do, thus bringing shame upon him and declaring that his real accomplishments amount to nothing. "Shaming praise". And when his heirs declare him to be the creator of Spider-Man, that's what they do to him. They shame him.

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Because a name is not a character.

I gave Chris the name "Legion" for his MPD character. Am I co-creator? Chris dubbed my character, Guardian, "Vindicator", against my wishes. Is he co-creator?

Rob Liefeld claims to have "created" Cable. In fact, he turned in a bunch of character drawings, and an unconnected list of names. Louise Simonson took one of the drawings, one of the names, and came up with the backstory. Did Liefeld "create" or even "co-create" Cable?

I can certainly understand why Kirby got such a bee in his bonnet over Spider-Man. Here's the guy who is in many respects the real father of the Marvel Universe, and yet the one character that put the company on the map is the one he had nothing to do with. That must have burned.

John Peter Britton writes "Stan Lee has said that Steve Ditko is co-creator and that's that and i agree with him you can't be any fairer than that!"

Well, John... I've read and watched many a Stan Lee interview on the genesis of Spider-Man over the years, and "creator" has been a word that he's used very carefully. He's certainly acknowledged Ditko's contribution, much more so in recent years, but I also recall he's stopped well short of declaring Ditko the co-creator.

That said, assuming for the moment that Lee's taken the pledge and given Ditko co-creator credit, I don't know if that qualifies as "can't be any fairer than that!" For example, I don't see Stan offering up any of his profit-sharing from the Spider-Man movies with Steve Ditko. (Whether Ditko would accept same is a completely different matter, but I digress.) One would assume if you are a co-creator that you should be entitled to share in the riches. One might consider that "fairer" than mere words.

So Stan has to negotiate contracts for profit sharing for Steve Ditko too now? 

If Steve Ditko wanted to bring legal action against someone in an attempt for profits, he could.  I think he's made it clear numerous times that he's not interested in doing so.  So you're calling Stan unfair for not taking it upon himself to negotiate a deal for a grown adult that's no relation to him...and isn't interested in such a deal. 

None of which, by the way, has anything to do with the fact that Kirby's heirs are not entitled to any profits or rights to Spider-Man.

Go back and check out the thread in question.  On page one alone, Steve DeYoung, Mark Waldman, and James Malone all say that Stan should be considered the sole creator of Spider-Man.  And others pop up as the thread continues, if I recall.

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Thanks for the link, Jason.  I reread the first page of the thread, and none of the three people you mention say they believe that Stan Lee was the sole creator of Spider-Man.  Steve says, "I can see, in that circumstance, how he [Stan Lee] would consider himself to be pretty much the sole creator," but didn't proclaim that was his belief.  Mark says, "I love Steve Ditko, but I think Stan is being more than fair. Most people who honestly believe they had the idea, so therefore it's their creation, would not admit, semantics or no, what Stan does here."  However, like Steve, stops short of endorsing Stan Lee's status as "sole creator" of Spider-Man.  And James states, "Both [Stan Lee and Steve Ditko] have equal right to use the word create."