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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 23, 2023 16:22:43 GMT -5
Yeah, I really enjoyed listening to the conversation. My one criticism would probably be the inclusion of that quote from Rick Marschall at the end, simply because I think it says more about him and the type of person he is than about Shooter. This is from Shooters blog: Meanwhile….
As an editor, Marschall was marginal at best. He made a lot of mistakes. The worst was failing to get licensor approval on a movie adaptation—Planet of the Apes, I think, prior to going to press. The licensor rejected the book. We had to scrap 600,000 copies. (for more info, see comment)
A couple of days after that went down, Marschall asked me if he could have the next several days off because relatives of his from Germany were visiting. I turned his request down. One of his books, an important one, another movie adaptation, I think, had to get into and out of the house in the next few days and his presence was required—especially after the last debacle.
So, he called in sick.
Meanwhile, it had come to the attention of President Jim Galton that we’d had to scrap a print run. He ordered me to fire Marschall. I called Marschall and left a message saying he must come in the next day, a Friday. He didn’t. So, I called again, got him and fired him over the phone.
He later got a friend at the New York Times to write a major article for the business section all about how I was driving talent like him away from Marvel. Whatever. Good riddance.
I hired Lynn Graeme to replace him as editor of the magazines. New to comics, but a very smart woman.
That is a pretty massive screw up, I don't see how you could do that and not feel like you were going to be justifiably fired. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 23, 2023 16:25:10 GMT -5
Icctrombone and shaxper , I am amazed at the power of recall you guys have when it comes to the ins and outs of the backroom politics involved in the Shooter saga. Not to mention the knowledge you both have of all of these series. Thanks for doing this. Very entertaining and informative. And it's great to hear people disagree and still laugh and remain friends. My best memories of Shooter are his breakthrough as a writer for Weisinger and how exciting the Legion became when 13-year-old Shooter came on board, so your back and forth on his tenure at Marvel was fascinating. Not sure if I come down hard on either side, which is a tribute to your ability to sustain a rational discourse. Keep up the good work, guys. PS: A suggestion for the next installment... Tomahawk: Woke history or Euro-patriarchal propaganda? I was pretty amazed by the detailed recall too, especially when I saw the bare bones notes that Icctrombone and shaxper were working off of to structure the podcast(which is another fun patreon perk!). Other than those notes what was the process of planning this? I always love the inside baseball of how these kinds of things come to be. I have consumed many hours of interviews and podcasts involving Jim Shooter over the years. Of course pages of notes help too.  I've always been curious about individuals that are reviled by almost everyone. They have to have their side of their story too, right ? |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 23, 2023 16:28:50 GMT -5
This is from Shooters blog: Meanwhile….
As an editor, Marschall was marginal at best. He made a lot of mistakes. The worst was failing to get licensor approval on a movie adaptation—Planet of the Apes, I think, prior to going to press. The licensor rejected the book. We had to scrap 600,000 copies. (for more info, see comment)
A couple of days after that went down, Marschall asked me if he could have the next several days off because relatives of his from Germany were visiting. I turned his request down. One of his books, an important one, another movie adaptation, I think, had to get into and out of the house in the next few days and his presence was required—especially after the last debacle.
So, he called in sick.
Meanwhile, it had come to the attention of President Jim Galton that we’d had to scrap a print run. He ordered me to fire Marschall. I called Marschall and left a message saying he must come in the next day, a Friday. He didn’t. So, I called again, got him and fired him over the phone.
He later got a friend at the New York Times to write a major article for the business section all about how I was driving talent like him away from Marvel. Whatever. Good riddance.
I hired Lynn Graeme to replace him as editor of the magazines. New to comics, but a very smart woman.
That is a pretty massive screw up, I don't see how you could do that and not feel like you were going to be justifiably fired. You would be surprised about the amount of creators that left Marvel cursing Shooter , and what reason why. They all cried the victim but some were blatantly stealing . |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 23, 2023 16:31:26 GMT -5
I was pretty amazed by the detailed recall too, especially when I saw the bare bones notes that Icctrombone and shaxper were working off of to structure the podcast(which is another fun patreon perk!). Other than those notes what was the process of planning this? I always love the inside baseball of how these kinds of things come to be. I have consumed many hours of interviews and podcasts involving Jim Shooter over the years. Of course pages of notes help too. I've always been curious about individuals that are reviled by almost everyone. They have to have their side of their story too, right ? I'm definitely one who never understood the hate Shooter got, I always liked the stories he wrote and the period he was editor has to be one of the all time bests for Marvel. |
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Post by shaxper on Aug 23, 2023 20:47:58 GMT -5
Very entertaining and informative. And it's great to hear people disagree and still laugh and remain friends. Honestly, that's my favorite thing about our chemistry. I was genuinely disappointed when George agreed with me about Shooter's Big Bang of the Marvel Universe. |
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Post by shaxper on Aug 23, 2023 20:50:03 GMT -5
On the other hand, DC, under Kahn and Giordano, gained a lot of fan and creator goodwill--if not sales--by almost explicitly being the "anti-Shooter." I was so tempted to delve into this, but ultimately decided that it probably belonged in an episode about DC, maybe specifically Crisis on Infinite Earths and its aftermath. |
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Post by shaxper on Aug 23, 2023 20:53:04 GMT -5
Icctrombone and shaxper , I am amazed at the power of recall you guys have when it comes to the ins and outs of the backroom politics involved in the Shooter saga. Not to mention the knowledge you both have of all of these series. Thanks for doing this. Very entertaining and informative. And it's great to hear people disagree and still laugh and remain friends. My best memories of Shooter are his breakthrough as a writer for Weisinger and how exciting the Legion became when 13-year-old Shooter came on board, so your back and forth on his tenure at Marvel was fascinating. Not sure if I come down hard on either side, which is a tribute to your ability to sustain a rational discourse. Keep up the good work, guys. PS: A suggestion for the next installment... Tomahawk: Woke history or Euro-patriarchal propaganda? I was pretty amazed by the detailed recall too, especially when I saw the bare bones notes that Icctrombone and shaxper were working off of to structure the podcast(which is another fun patreon perk!). Other than those notes what was the process of planning this? I always love the inside baseball of how these kinds of things come to be. There really wasn't much to it. Crimebuster had let me know he wasn't going to be returning to the podcast for a long while, so I asked if i could take over, and he was totally supportive of the idea, his one stipulation being that I make it something different so that he could still return to his podcast from time to time. I listen to enough podcasts to know that co-host energy and interplay is everything and knew I could count on George to be fun and keep me on my toes. From there, I knew we both loved Valiant comics, so that was the original plan for episode 1. Then we did a test of the recording equipment and got into a conversation about the topic, realizing that we had even more to say about Shooter's time at Marvel. So we took a few extra few weeks to bone up for that conversation. That was pretty much it. |
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Post by Chris on Aug 23, 2023 21:09:47 GMT -5
Well, limited budget, difficult to work with, and shunned by the industry may have been a winning combo. or many of the various artists on the books he wrote. Did he demand the art reflect the story they were given? Of course. Stan Lee had stacks of pages that he rejected from Kirby because they didn't follow the story. I have heard and read from many artists that were frustrated by the artists inability or unwillingness to produce what was asked of them. David Anthony Craft complained about Carmine Infantino delivering hackwork on his stories. If I recall correctly, George Perez stated in Comics Interview that he was (quote from memory here) "one of the few people who left Marvel without an axe to grind" during Shooter's time there. This was in the context of saying he was NOW mad at shooter because of the JLA/Avengers crossover falling apart. And if I recall correctly again, Perez later said (I can't remember where) that he no longer blamed Shooter and that he had been given some incorrect or false information. As for Byrne, has has complained about Shooter many times. However, Byrne complains about a lot of people, and a lot of people complain about him, so it's tough to know what's accurate there. |
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Post by MDG on Aug 23, 2023 21:10:25 GMT -5
On the other hand, DC, under Kahn and Giordano, gained a lot of fan and creator goodwill--if not sales--by almost explicitly being the "anti-Shooter." I was so tempted to delve into this, but ultimately decided that it probably belonged in an episode about DC, maybe specifically Crisis on Infinite Earths and its aftermath. An episode on that and an episode on the implosion would be good topics. Another might be the transition period from Silver to Bronze where both DC and Marvel seemed to think superheroes were on the way out and were leaning into mystery/horror, pulp characters, humor... |
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Post by shaxper on Aug 23, 2023 21:42:56 GMT -5
I was so tempted to delve into this, but ultimately decided that it probably belonged in an episode about DC, maybe specifically Crisis on Infinite Earths and its aftermath. An episode on that and an episode on the implosion would be good topics. Another might be the transition period from Silver to Bronze where both DC and Marvel seemed to think superheroes were on the way out and were leaning into mystery/horror, pulp characters, humor... Of course, Shooter ended most of that at Marvel. We actually discussed that a bit in the episode, but it was cut for time. |
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Post by Chris on Aug 23, 2023 23:07:30 GMT -5
I never listen to podcasts. But I listened to this one, and it was great. Terrific job guys.
You two played off each other well, and you avoided the pitfalls that make me avoid other podcasts (like saying "uhh" and "umm" a lot and having big silent gaps).
Looking forward to the next one.
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Post by Yasotay on Sept 25, 2024 0:20:01 GMT -5
So Jeff's post about this episode in the Thor review thread convinced me to listen again (Thanks Jeff, just what I needed when I had work to do, listen to a podcast I've already heard  ). So many things to comment on... On Jeff's recommendation, I read that World's Finest 172 that a teenage Shooter wrote. The nicest thing I can say is, it read like it was written by a teenager. On a more serious note, the podcast was very entertaining and informative and I'd agree with most of what was said. In particular I have to agree with George's comment that you need to separate the personality from the work. Shooter may have had his flaws, he may even have been the monster his critics claim. But the work speaks for itself. Doesn't mean he was a good guy but one has nothing to do with the other. One thing I'd disagree with is Jeff feeling that Shooter's tenure at Marvel was ultimately a failure and he could have done much more. Besides Stan Lee, only Joe Quesada ever had a longer EIC tenure. Shooter stabilized Marvel financially and many people would say, quality-wise, they hit a high water mark during his reign. How much more could he have done? People in those kinds of positions, like sports coaches, tend to have a shelf life where they either burn out or the people under them stop listening. So I'm not sure he could have kept doing the job effectively much longer under any circumstances. I also believe if Shooter had permanently replaced all the established heroes, from a creative perspective, it would have been the best thing for Marvel, though from a financial perspective, it might have been a disaster. But I think that highlights the difference Jeff alluded to between Shooter the comics guy and Shooter the businessman. As a comics guru, he was brilliant. But by some accounts, and judging by his dealings with financial guys he keeps claiming double crossed him on his other ventures, it seems in business he was a schmuck. As for Secret Wars, you need to do a podcast on that so I can tell you how wrong you are and how it ruined Marvel. And now you're going to force me to listen to that Valiant episode again, curse you! |
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Post by shaxper on Sept 25, 2024 6:48:03 GMT -5
So Jeff's post about this episode in the Thor review thread convinced me to listen again (Thanks Jeff, just what I needed when I had work to do, listen to a podcast I've already heard ). If we have succeeded in ruining your efforts to be productive, we have accomplished our greatest goal. Huzzah! Ouch. Of course, for a Silver Age DC story, feeling like it was written by a teenager probably made it twenty times better than much of the other dreck the company was pumping out. Sure, the story is simplistic and a little emo, but I think it's fantastic and pulled things from both characters that no writer had ever tried prior to that story. But, as always with literature, your mileage may vary. I'm not sure I ever wrote off Shooter's tenure as a failure, per se. My criticism of him is really that he brought so much of the innovation that had been happening since Roy Thomas' tenure to a screeching halt, sending talented creators packing. I would certainly agree that his rebranding of core Marvel characters was smart, interesting, and effective. It's how he treated his people that I take issue with. George and I seem to agree on aspects of that, but I think we differ on whether or not that kind of treatment was necessary. Sometimes, being the smartest guy in the room can turn you into an a-hole without your realizing it, and I think that's pretty much what happened. I think that was definitely true at Marvel. I think he learned from his mistakes and was a lot more savvy by the time he launched Valiant, though. Problem is, if you want total control, and you have no money, you have to curtail your expectations quite a bit, and I think that's exactly what happened at Valiant. I know less about what happened at Broadway. Icctrombone, what do you think? I'd be down, but that would be A LOT more Shooter talk, and we're already dredging up shooter again as part of our upcoming next episode. We just can't leave the guy alone! Haha. And then maybe the Roy Thomas episode for contrast. My biggest criticism of Shooter beyond his general treatment of people is that he killed everything Thomas brought to Marvel. Anyway, thanks for all this. Love a listener who isn't afraid to disagree! |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 25, 2024 7:31:00 GMT -5
This is the discussion that never ends shaxper says
My biggest criticism of Shooter beyond his general treatment of people is that he killed everything Thomas brought to Marvel.
Nobody, I mean nobody publishes books that don't sell. Thomas unleashed the monster of writer/editor to the world of Marvel and maybe it started out okay, but eventually the writers started to get lax about the material and turning in work in a timely matter. Books that didn't sell, no matter if a genius like Gerber was the writer, were going to get canceled. Shooter killed bad policies. |
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Post by beyonder1984 on Sept 25, 2024 8:21:04 GMT -5
Back then nobody published comics that don't sell, and I agree Shooter would never canceled comics that sold unless there was an iron clad licensing agreement in place. I recall a Stan's Soapbox where Stan apologized for cancelling Silver Surfer because it had only appealed to adults, not children. How the times have changed. Nowadays it's all about corporate edicts/IP.
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I've always been curious about individuals that are reviled by almost everyone. They have to have their side of their story too, right ?
). So many things to comment on...