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Post by Chris on Jun 27, 2023 20:59:34 GMT -5
About all this with Shooter and O'Neil and then Byrne quitting the Hulk book, quotes from each - Shooter - "When John Byrne got mad, quit Marvel and went to DC, he called (or wrote a letter? I forget) President Jim Galton and demanded that I be fired — or so Galton told me. Then Galton asked me who John Byrne was. P.S. Then Mike Hobson, publisher, ordered me to fire Denny O’Neil, who he felt was responsible for the Byrne fiasco, which he absolutely was. So I did." (Emphasis mine) Full post hereO'Neil (The comment was actually posted by Rich Johnston, who was presumably forwarding it from O'Neil.) -"Dennis O'Neil repiles; Wow. Not how I remember it at all. I don't want to revisit old pain, and as Jim said, I did okay, but…I'd already told Mike Hobson that I'd had an offer from DC and asked for a reaction, because for a lot of reasons, Jim and I were on a collision course. Mike said I was valuable, etc etc yadayadaya…and he'd play peacemaker at lunch later that week. Jim told me we'd have to "part company" before we could have that meal. I take full responsibility for rejecting the Byrne job–maybe I was right, maybe not–and I don't recall Jim being in the mix at all. But maybe he was. I did occasionally do freelance in the office. That was sleazy, and I deeply regret it. But I don't recall slighting editorial work to do it. And I guess I'm willing to stand by my output. I'd be interested in seeing an answer to Matt Adler's question. I had no reason to make particular note of anything that happened so long ago and I unhappily admit that my memory is lousy. And I am way past my feuding days. But…memories other than mine are faulty, too." From a comment on the same post as above. Byrne - "Denny did not tell me he couldn't use the all-splash issue because Shooter had rejected it. Denny didn't even show it to Shooter. Everyone at the office was by then so gun shy they were afraid to let Shooter even SEE something that might "upset" him. And THAT was why I quit HULK, and why I eventually quit FF. Impossible to work in that environment, where something could be approved in full on Friday, and utterly rejected on Monday. And -- the all-splash story was later used by Al Milgrom as an issue of MARVEL FANFARE, the "prestige" book. So perhaps it was not so bad after all?" Full thread here
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Post by Calidore on Jun 27, 2023 23:26:29 GMT -5
About all this with Shooter and O'Neil and then Byrne quitting the Hulk book, quotes from each - Shooter - "When John Byrne got mad, quit Marvel and went to DC, he called (or wrote a letter? I forget) President Jim Galton and demanded that I be fired — or so Galton told me. Then Galton asked me who John Byrne was. P.S. Then Mike Hobson, publisher, ordered me to fire Denny O’Neil, who he felt was responsible for the Byrne fiasco, which he absolutely was. So I did." (Emphasis mine) Full post hereO'Neil (The comment was actually posted by Rich Johnston, who was presumably forwarding it from O'Neil.) -"Dennis O'Neil repiles; Wow. Not how I remember it at all. I don't want to revisit old pain, and as Jim said, I did okay, but…I'd already told Mike Hobson that I'd had an offer from DC and asked for a reaction, because for a lot of reasons, Jim and I were on a collision course. Mike said I was valuable, etc etc yadayadaya…and he'd play peacemaker at lunch later that week. Jim told me we'd have to "part company" before we could have that meal. I take full responsibility for rejecting the Byrne job–maybe I was right, maybe not–and I don't recall Jim being in the mix at all. But maybe he was. I did occasionally do freelance in the office. That was sleazy, and I deeply regret it. But I don't recall slighting editorial work to do it. And I guess I'm willing to stand by my output. I'd be interested in seeing an answer to Matt Adler's question. I had no reason to make particular note of anything that happened so long ago and I unhappily admit that my memory is lousy. And I am way past my feuding days. But…memories other than mine are faulty, too." From a comment on the same post as above. Byrne - "Denny did not tell me he couldn't use the all-splash issue because Shooter had rejected it. Denny didn't even show it to Shooter. Everyone at the office was by then so gun shy they were afraid to let Shooter even SEE something that might "upset" him. And THAT was why I quit HULK, and why I eventually quit FF. Impossible to work in that environment, where something could be approved in full on Friday, and utterly rejected on Monday. And -- the all-splash story was later used by Al Milgrom as an issue of MARVEL FANFARE, the "prestige" book. So perhaps it was not so bad after all?" Full thread hereThat's interesting. Here's Byrne from his website:
"My adventures with THE INCREDIBLE HULK came about by a rather sad and curious route. I'd always liked the Hulk, but felt -- and this will shock and astound everyone, I'm sure -- that the character had drifted too far from his beginnings, and a "back to the basics" approach was necessary. To this end, I mentioned what I thought should be done with the Hulk to the Editor-in-Chief, and his response was "That's great! You should take over the Hulk book at once!" Well, I was up to my ears in other stuff at the time, so taking over the Hulk seemed unlikely -- until I realized I really had said all I had to say with ALPHA FLIGHT. So I called Bill Mantlo, who was writing HULK at the time, and asked if he would care to trade. Ultimately we did, and I set about doing all those things I had told to the E-i-C. Whereupon the very same E-i-C began saying "You can't do this! You can't do that!" Realizing I had been bushwacked, I took the only course available, and left the book after six issues."
Seem to have accidentally not copied the date at the end, but it's from sometime in 1998.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 28, 2023 6:01:01 GMT -5
This and other Shooter involved stories are going to be the subject for a future podcast that Shaxper and I are working on. I will respond quickly to the Oneil portion - Denny was in trouble as an editor because he wasn't doing his job and checking work from the creative people under his charge. Shooter in interviews stated that he only ever fired 2 people, O'neil and Mike Carlin and he states they both deserved it. Denny was doing freelance work instead of his editing duties. The only reason this came to light was that his assistant editors told Shooter. This is why unacceptable stories like the splash page book was completed instead of his stopping it at its inception. Shooter sites other instances of poor work passing by under Danny's watch. Byrne relationships with other editors is well known and he's disliked and shunned by the big two companies. He can hardly blame that on Shooter. there are two lengthy Shooter interviews on YouTube that fill in lots of blanks. It's up to you if what he says passed the smell test.
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 28, 2023 8:19:48 GMT -5
I guess we can thank Shooter for firing Carlin, because he immediately moved to DC and edited the greatest run of Superman comics in it's history.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 28, 2023 8:40:14 GMT -5
I guess we can thank Shooter for firing Carlin, because he immediately moved to DC and edited the greatest run of Superman comics in it's history. Carlin deserved it and appears to have straightened out in DC. There have been accounts by Rob Liefeld and the late Dwayne Mcduffie that Carlin was not a nice person. Dwayne I talked to personally, as he used to live on a route in Brooklyn that I worked.
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Post by badwolf on Jun 28, 2023 8:57:55 GMT -5
Although I like the issue, I can see why an all-splash story might be rejected. Readers might complain that they didn't get enough story and felt ripped off. But hey I'm all for being adventurous. Byrne liked to play with sequential art conventions, like the "blank pages" in an issue of Alpha Flight, or the "widescreen" issue of FF. I thought all these things were novel.
At least it got printed on better paper in the end.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 28, 2023 9:29:33 GMT -5
Although I like the issue, I can see why an all-splash story might be rejected. Readers might complain that they didn't get enough story and felt ripped off. But hey I'm all for being adventurous. Byrne liked to play with sequential art conventions, like the "blank pages" in an issue of Alpha Flight, or the "widescreen" issue of FF. I thought all these things were novel. At least it got printed on better paper in the end. I didn’t feel any way about the issue , but my complaint is that if they didn’t like the story, why did they use it in a Fanfare issue ? And as an aside, I thought the blank pages issue in Alpha Flight was a scam. He totally got paid his exhorbitant page rate for it by the person he hated. Yeah that Shooter was a monster.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 28, 2023 9:32:11 GMT -5
Although I like the issue, I can see why an all-splash story might be rejected. Readers might complain that they didn't get enough story and felt ripped off. But hey I'm all for being adventurous. Byrne liked to play with sequential art conventions, like the "blank pages" in an issue of Alpha Flight, or the "widescreen" issue of FF. I thought all these things were novel. At least it got printed on better paper in the end. I didn’t feel any way about the issue , but my complaint is that if they didn’t like the story, why did they use it in a Fanfare issue ? It was already paid for.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 28, 2023 9:42:58 GMT -5
I didn’t feel any way about the issue , but my complaint is that if they didn’t like the story, why did they use it in a Fanfare issue ? It was already paid for. Of course , but it was judged as being unacceptable before.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 28, 2023 10:06:14 GMT -5
Of course , but it was judged as being unacceptable before. Different editor with different needs.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 28, 2023 10:10:26 GMT -5
I guess we can thank Shooter for firing Carlin, because he immediately moved to DC and edited the greatest run of Superman comics in it's history. Carlin deserved it and appears to have straightened out in DC. There have been accounts by Rob Liefeld and the late Dwayne Mcduffie that Carlin was not a nice person. Dwayne I talked to personally, as he used to live on a route in Brooklyn that I worked. Uhhh..........check out the recent discussion on the Post-Crisis Superman thread. Ton of evidence that Carlin not only didn't get straightened out, he engaged in severely toxic behavior.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 28, 2023 10:13:51 GMT -5
Wasn't that the whole point of Marvel Fanfare? To use up inventory stories?
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Post by badwolf on Jun 28, 2023 11:19:28 GMT -5
Wasn't that the whole point of Marvel Fanfare? To use up inventory stories? It wasn't the stated reason, but that's what it turned out to be.
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Post by foxley on Jun 28, 2023 15:48:39 GMT -5
Although I like the issue, I can see why an all-splash story might be rejected. Readers might complain that they didn't get enough story and felt ripped off. But hey I'm all for being adventurous. Byrne liked to play with sequential art conventions, like the "blank pages" in an issue of Alpha Flight, or the "widescreen" issue of FF. I thought all these things were novel. At least it got printed on better paper in the end. Although wasn't the blank pages issue of Alpha Flight done during Assistant Editor's Month where all kinds of weird stuff was being done?
Or am I misremembering?
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Post by badwolf on Jun 28, 2023 16:58:48 GMT -5
Although I like the issue, I can see why an all-splash story might be rejected. Readers might complain that they didn't get enough story and felt ripped off. But hey I'm all for being adventurous. Byrne liked to play with sequential art conventions, like the "blank pages" in an issue of Alpha Flight, or the "widescreen" issue of FF. I thought all these things were novel. At least it got printed on better paper in the end. Although wasn't the blank pages issue of Alpha Flight done during Assistant Editor's Month where all kinds of weird stuff was being done?
Or am I misremembering?
Yeah, it was.
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