Sometimes you can't separate the two because the writer has let it slip that certain decisions of theirs was directly informed by their own prejudices.  

For example, when John Byrne rebooted Superman he included a moment where Superman announces that he really has no interest in Krypton other than as a mild curiosity.  Now, I'm not a fan of Byrne's writing or his work on Superman (for reasons that go beyond that Krypton thing I just mentioned), but I certainly didn't equate my judgement of his skills, or lack of, with my impression of who he is/was as a person.  He could be a great guy for a knew, but who just didn't share my views on Superman.  Big deal.

However...

When I came across a comment which Byrne made in 2005 that 

“Being an immigrant myself, I have something of an insight, I think, into the way Clark’s mind works. I was born in England, and I am proud of my English heritage (I was also quite a lot older than Kal-El when I left “home,” so my connections would be stronger) but I grew up in Canada and I have lived for the last 25 years in the US, and I don’t ever—ever—feel like a “displaced Englishman. (…)Clark would be proud, too, of his Kryptonian heritage, but later portrayals of him have tried to shoehorn in too much of the psychobabble of adopted children longing for and seeking out their biological parents. Excuse my French, but to me, they fall under the heading of “ungrateful little shits.(…)Clark grew up as human, thinks as a human, reacts as a human. He lives and loves as a human. And that is what really defines him.”

I could no longer see that scene without understanding that, in this instance at least, Byrne was using his character as his own mouthpiece.  There is no separation from the writer and the character here. For the record, I do know people who were adopted and who do wonder about their biological parents and they are not "ungrateful little shits".  

For all I know, that's the only time Byrne used a fictional character to voice his own unwarranted ugliness and hatred, but when a writer is unable to separate himself from his work, how can I?

It’s not off in any way.  It’s extremely normal.  Byrne is an incredibly broken little troll.  It would be a miracle if he were ever actually right about anything.  

Shooter does present himself as professional, reasonable and approachable, in those things. In some interviews when he was EIC, it was a different story. He doesn't have those same stresses, anymore. When he talks about Marvel, it is his viewpoint, but I can find a lot more contradiction to his viewpoint that I tend to discount what he says more. When he is talking Valiant, I tend to believe his viewpoint more, especially given the financial shenanigans that went on behind the scene. The corporate set-up with the venture capital firm quickly became a clear conflict of interest and it is pretty self-evident. Shooter had a clear case for a big lawsuit; but, I think he recognized the financial cost vs what he could achieve, in court.

Claremont has always struck me as a bit of an odd duck. Interviews with him, that I have watched, can seem a bit off. Nocenti I have only seen on or two brief clips and can't recall a long print interview.

Evanier, to me, always described Jack as a guy who would stand up to the bullies of the world; but, when it came to demanding what was owed him by the owners, wasn't as quick to push his own case. It has more to do with when he grew up. Jack was the breadwinner for his family from his teen years and beyond, moving from his parents to supporting a wife and children. As an artist, he earned more by producing more; so, he got fast. He and Joe Simon were well paid, in the Golden Age and had a strength to negotiate; but, Simon was the business mind. Jack was more focused on the creative. Simon & Kirby struck out on their own, just in time for the outside focus on comics to cut the floor out from under them. They were too small to have weight with the distributors and there stuff would be returned, unopened. The Kefauver committee and other pressures that led to the Code pushed a lot of publishers out of business, including Simon & Kirby's Mainline. Now, they had to work with the ever decreasing group of remaining publishers. They lost that position of strength. Jack ended up having to swallow crap at DC, when he did Green Arrow, who were still mad because the deal they had in the 40s. Jack couldn't walk away so easily. Jack got into some situations with the Sky Masters strip, that he might not have, if he was still in partnership with Simon. That hurt him financially and came close to legal issues. Jack was welcomed back to Atlas; but, they were soon down to a skeleton operation and were losing ground, steadily. So, by the 60s, when Jack was given more freedom to let loose, it paid off. Except, he was too busy creating to recognize the strength he had, until the end of the decade. Then, he cut a pretty good deal with DC, until DC reneged on elements of the agreement. Then, Jack was caught in a situation where he had cut ties with Marvel and DC had him over a barrel. Where could he go? Harvey? They had given up adventure comics after Simon's line had failed, in the Silver Age. Archie? Their Mighty Comics revival didn't work. Warren? might have been more satisfying; but, might not have been able to afford him. So, Jack ate crow, until his contract was up and made a deal to come back to Marvel. Then, he found that a younger regime didn't respect his work and a certain faction wanted him out. He did what he could and then went off to work in animation, where his skills were valued and he was paid well and treated with respect. So, he did stand up for himself, to a point; but, he also knew when to pick his battles.

Evanier has talked about Jack calling up the crook who ran the Marvel merchandising company, of the era, who had been bullying Evanier and threatening him, when Evanier started questioning some of his shady practices. he describes Jack getting the guy on the phone and threatening to come over and nail his hide to the wall. The guy never leveled another threat at Mark. Will Eisner told the story of Jack standing up to some crooks trying to use intimidation tactics to extort money from them for a "towel service," for the Eisner-Iger studio. Jack got in their face and told them to hit the bricks. They backed down and left.

Jack was a fighter; but, he also was a provider and knew when he had to swallow some pride to provide for his family and when to stand on principle. Ditko could stand on his principles, since he didn't have a family to support, so far as is known. He just had himself to look out for.

Getting back to the original theme, I was disappointed more and more as I encountered interviews with Bob Kane and those of people who knew him and the situations behind Batman. As a kid, I would see the name and think it was cool that he produced this stuff. Then, you learn that his actual contributions were minimal and mostly swiped from elsewhere and that so many other people were responsible for things. Then, you'd catch him in outright lies, like major portions of his memoir. When I read his story of allegedly meeting a young Norma Jean Baker and basing Vicky Vale on her it just didn't ring true and timelines didn't match up. The more you heard from others, the more a liar and con artist he seemed. Then with the Burton movies, he was spreading it thick to the media. He started selling lithographs and got caught using ghost artists, while claiming it was his work. It was one thing to negotiate a byline on the Batman comic feature, it was quite another to say paintings were your work.

I have heard other stories about this guy or that, in convention settings; but, always took those with a grain of salt. Conventions are a different thing you can find dozens of reasons why a creator might be less than friendly after dealing with a crooked promoter, opportunistic dealer, or psychotic fan. I once saw Mark Gruenwald evaluate someone's work at a convention and thought he sounded like an a-hole and kind of kept that perception through the con, though I never spoke with him. I wasn't buying any Marvel titles except Classic X-Men; so, I kind of looked down on their line, at that time. When he passed away, all the stories about him were about how fun he was to work around and at conventions and how much he put up with, as Shooter's assistant. It made me reflect on what I saw and I realized that he had been honest with the kid, in terms of his storytelling, not his figure work (which is what I took in, when I saw the art on the page, and his being honest was of greater value to the wannabe artist than give him false compliments. After that convention, i had my interview for the Kubert School (about a year later) and had a blunt portfolio review; but, I knew going into it where my weaknesses were and could usually spot the criticism before the interviewer (Mike Chen) brought them up. That also changed my perspective on the evaluation I saw at the con.

I haven't had many personal interactions with pros and almost all have been very pleasant.

I'm a big Jim Shooter fan as previous threads can attest to so I won't regurgitate what I've posted before. From interviews and podcasts I believe what happened was that the pressures from upper management In Marvel began to weigh on him and he became a different person. Even people like Romita Sr. say he was different from a certain point on. His dealings with the talent usually gets divided between the people he helped and the people that didn't want to be told what to do. Writers had a nice scam going in Marvel when he arrived as Writer/Editors of their own books. He eliminated that and I'm sure made enemies. I thought that maybe he was too hard on Gene Colan until it was revealed that many writers refused to work with Gene because he was hacking out the work in an attempt to produce as many pages as he could in order to pay some type of alimony. It's tough to be the boss. 

As for Byrne, I chose to remember his great work on X-men, FF , Superman and dismiss his stupid opinions on the world. 

^^^^ I'm shocked to hear that about Glanzman. He was at 3 or 4 Ithacons and always personable, though I believe it was very hard for him to hear well in that environment. And even though he was older--this was in the late 80s-early 90s--I'm pretty sure he came on his motorcycle at least once.