“[My first story for Stan Lee] had some weaknesses, especially in the inking – Stan calls up [Timely artist] Joe Maneely and tells him, “I’m going to send this guy out to spend a day with you. Give him as many pointers as possible.” And the next day, I think, I went out to Flushing, probably from 10:30 in the morning until about 4:30 in the afternoon. I watched Maneely; and while he’s talking to me, giving me pointers, he turned out like two or three pages, one double-spread with an entire pioneer fort in Indian country with Indians attacking from the outside, and guys shooting from the inside.

“He didn’t need reference, he didn’t need anything. He just sat there, and between 10:30 and, say, 12:30, he had penciled this double-spread in, very roughly. After lunch – I think I just went out and got a hot dog – I come back and he’s starting to ink it, and he finished the damn double-spread before we finished the afternoon session! He was just a staggering talent!

“[He] died when he was 38 years old, I think. I jokingly said once that, if Joe Maneely had lived, half of us would have been out of work!”

-John Romita
from an interview with Roy Thomas