shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 20, 2024 12:58:09 GMT -5
Upon relistening to the episode, I realized why George is right at 33:36 that none of the projects created by the people Roy Thomas brought in lasted very long -- Shooter fired or pushed out nearly all of those creators and/or cancelled many of those projects. Thomas brought in free-thinkers to create non-traditional superheroes, and Shooter wanted creators who would fall in line and revitalize traditional superheroes. I doubt it was personal, but Shooter effectively undid everything Thomas brought to Marvel. I believe it all comes down to sales, personally. Shooter wanted comics that sold, and it's true that many of the less traditional books didn't sell as much as the X-Men or Spider-Man. That being said, Shooter did green light things like The Nam, an original take on Ka-Zar, Micronauts, G.I. Joe, Dakota North, Savage Tales, with varying degrees of success. I don't think he was against new original ideas, but he wasn't ready to cut them too much slack if they failed to bring in the money; as EiC, he probably thought it was his job to put Star Creator A on a better selling title than to let them "waste" their time on a good but low-selling book. Roy, to me, was more of a comics fan. He wanted to publish comics that he'd want to read first and foremost, and the fact that they made money was probably just an added bonus. That's creatively very commendable, but I see why someone more business-oriented would not go that way. Here's an extra tinfoil hat theory for y'all... From all that I've read, it seems like Cadence seldom bothered Roy, Marv, Len, Archie, nor Gerry with concerns about sales numbers. Cadence had acquired Marvel as a byproduct of its acquisition of Goodman publishing and seemed more interested in licensing potential than in how many copies a book was selling in a given month. When Cadence did apply pressure, it seemed to be more about shelf presence and pushing DC out than (again) actual sales. Once Shooter comes aboard, he's outright told that comics are on their way out, the industry is dying, oh well. He's the one who makes it his job to care about sales numbers since, if you can believe Tom Defalco, he was jockying to become publisher and was thus doing his best to prove himself to those above. Shooter killed a ton of titles, always citing low sales, when this seldom happened under the guys before him. I think that, once the big companies (Kinney and Cadence) acquired Marvel and DC, actual comic sales were small potatoes to them. As to whether they were more interested in licensing and multimedia, or maybe overall shelf presence since the average newsstand distributor was more likely to notice "kids seem to like DC better" as opposed to "War of the Worlds isn't selling very well," these were big companies to which comic sales was a very very small detail, and the industry was in decline as a whole; what CEO was going to worry himself with selling 10,000 more copies of a book with a razor thin profit margin when sales were down across the board at every publisher? So, really, I doubt these companies cared very much what was selling so long as the kids were wearing Spidey pajamas and newsstands still felt Marvel was a company that was popular with readers. Also worth noting, multiple people who worked at marvel confirm that there was major interest in licensing Moon Knight during Shooter's tenure, and that Stan Lee (who seldom otherwise got involved at this point) shot it down because Moon Knight wasn't one of his creations. So Shooter was working under that pressure as well. No matter how good one of these new properties was going to get, it would never be allowed to get truly big if Stan was watching. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 20, 2024 13:08:25 GMT -5
There's also the question of whether Roy's "by fans, for fans" accelerated the shrinkage of the comic-buying audience before LCSs became common. In an age before we had strong sales data and analytics, can't that be said about anything? At the very least, Roy helped to retain a generation of fans that were about to outgrow mainstream comics. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 20, 2024 17:51:05 GMT -5
Upon relistening to the episode, I realized why George is right at 33:36 that none of the projects created by the people Roy Thomas brought in lasted very long -- Shooter fired or pushed out nearly all of those creators and/or cancelled many of those projects. Thomas brought in free-thinkers to create non-traditional superheroes, and Shooter wanted creators who would fall in line and revitalize traditional superheroes. I doubt it was personal, but Shooter effectively undid everything Thomas brought to Marvel. Still bashing Shooter. Shame on you… |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 20, 2024 18:19:04 GMT -5
Upon relistening to the episode, I realized why George is right at 33:36 that none of the projects created by the people Roy Thomas brought in lasted very long -- Shooter fired or pushed out nearly all of those creators and/or cancelled many of those projects. Thomas brought in free-thinkers to create non-traditional superheroes, and Shooter wanted creators who would fall in line and revitalize traditional superheroes. I doubt it was personal, but Shooter effectively undid everything Thomas brought to Marvel. Still bashing Shooter. Shame on you… Well, I didn't call him the Son of Satan or anything... |
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Post by commond on Apr 20, 2024 18:30:59 GMT -5
One thing that wasn't mentioned in the podcast, IIRC, was that during his run as editor-in-chief, Roy would often launch a title before handing it off to other creators. I believe he did this with The Defenders, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, and Kull. In that respect, I feel he was slightly more hands-on then simply letting creators make the comics they wanted to make. As editor-in-chief, he was sharing plenty of ideas with creative teams while also writing his own books. To this day, I don't think he gets enough credit for how talented he was.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 20, 2024 18:33:17 GMT -5
One thing that wasn't mentioned in the podcast, IIRC, was that during his run as editor-in-chief, Roy would often launch a title before handing it off to other creators. I believe he did this with The Defenders, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, and Kull. I know he did much of the conceptual work for Killraven, as well. I thought we mentioned this in the episode, but perhaps it got cut from the final edit. I do agree that it's a key aspect of what made his leadership special. He could get the ball rolling and then hand the project off to others without ego nor need for control. EDIT: Found it. We do briefly mention this at 57 minutes in, but perhaps it warranted more discussion. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Apr 20, 2024 19:19:08 GMT -5
Roy helped develop the Ghost Rider concept but it was Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog who worked out the details of his look and origin.
Cei-U!
I summon the badass biker with the bonfire bean!
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Post by commond on Apr 20, 2024 21:27:09 GMT -5
Roy helped develop the Ghost Rider concept but it was Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog who worked out the details of his look and origin. Cei-U! I summon the badass biker with the bonfire bean! There was actually some disagreement over who created what. Roy claimed that Friedrich wasn't there the day that they were designing the character and that Roy and Ploog designed him together. Friedrich claimed Ghost Rider was entirely his idea. Ploog couldn't remember who came up with what. Roy is credited in Marvel Spotlight #5 for "aid and abatement." Roy's original claim came from this interview about Marvel's horror titles -- www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/13thomas.htmlIt's quite an interesting interview actually. Apparently, horror wasn't really Roy's thing. He touches on some of the editorial stuff mentioned in the podcast. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 21, 2024 5:32:50 GMT -5
One thing that wasn't mentioned in the podcast, IIRC, was that during his run as editor-in-chief, Roy would often launch a title before handing it off to other creators. I believe he did this with The Defenders, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, and Kull. In that respect, I feel he was slightly more hands-on then simply letting creators make the comics they wanted to make. As editor-in-chief, he was sharing plenty of ideas with creative teams while also writing his own books. To this day, I don't think he gets enough credit for how talented he was. I find it interesting that now that Roy is getting some credit for creating Wolverine, he has said in a recent interview that he should just have written his first appearance. That would have finished any discussion of whether Wein or him came up with the idea. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Apr 21, 2024 15:25:22 GMT -5
I'm about halfway through the episode and finding myself glad I wasn't a participant because I would've been constantly fighting the urge to throttle George. But Jeff and Rob are doing a fine job of defending Roy's status as one of Marvel's greatest EICs despite the handicaps Stan and Cadence imposed on him so I'm content just to listen. But I did want to take a moment to dispel a myth I heard George repeat: Wally Wood did NOT draw all the women in The Cat nude because he was the inker, not the penciller. I wish people would put this tired old story out of its misery.
Cei-U! And now, back to the podcast!
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 21, 2024 16:56:54 GMT -5
I'm about halfway through the episode and finding myself glad I wasn't a participant because I would've been constantly fighting the urge to throttle George. Just like every other episode the three of us do together!  |
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 21, 2024 17:07:14 GMT -5
I'm about halfway through the episode and finding myself glad I wasn't a participant because I would've been constantly fighting the urge to throttle George. But Jeff and Rob are doing a fine job of defending Roy's status as one of Marvel's greatest EICs despite the handicaps Stan and Cadence imposed on him so I'm content just to listen. But I did want to take a moment to dispel a myth I heard George repeat: Wally Wood did NOT draw all the women in The Cat nude because he was the inker, not the penciller. I wish people would put this tired old story out of its misery.
Cei-U! And now, back to the podcast!
Don’t hate me because i’m beautiful. |
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Post by Prince Hal on May 6, 2024 13:16:57 GMT -5
Superb deployment of "Zeitgeist", Shax.
Rest easy.
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Post by Yasotay on Sept 4, 2024 2:28:17 GMT -5
I know I'm late to the party on this but listened to it again - it was worth a second listen - and thought I'd offer a few comments. The main thing I have to say would fit best in the Thor review thread but it will probably be another 10 years before HoosierX and Icctrombone get up to the later 200s so I'll toss it in here. Though I know you were focusing on Thomas as an editor, having gone back and reread his writing in recent years, I felt like a lot of it didn't stand the test of time (never really read Conan so can't comment on that). But the one series that he did which still reads pretty well to me was his Thor, which he wrote from 272-297, minus a couple of issues. He had the right tone for Thor and his love of mythology and folk tales added to the series. Also, his Celestials saga had to have been one of the lengthiest, most ambitious story lines in Marvel history up to that point. It probably did drag on a little too long - I always felt he was intentionally stretching it out so he could conclude it in issue 300, which, ironically, he didn't even write - but it still captured the epic nature of Thor and was an enjoyable ride... at least until he went off the rails at the end of it turning Thor into a Wagnerian opera. I know people rave about Walt Simonson's Thor but Thomas's still remains in my childhood memory as the classic Thor. Regarding his editorship, Jeff was right in giving him credit for keeping the ship afloat after Stan Lee. It's always tough to be the quarterback who replaces a hall of famer but Thomas did the job probably as well as anyone could. And he did bring in the great new talent you mentioned. But the other significant thing I think he did as editor was to enshrine continuity as foundational at Marvel. Growing up as a kid in the 1970s, I loved Marvel for that. But I can see where, ultimately, it was a blessing and a curse. Was he a great editor? Who knows? It's always hard to say just what an editor is really contributing to a publication because it's all behind the scenes. I know, as a writer, you feel - sometimes unfairly - that an editor can't improve things, he can only make your copy worse. Or, to paraphrase someone, you feel like yelling "Get your stinking paws of my story, you damn, dirty editor!" But I'd tend to give Thomas the benefit of the doubt. He was, afterall, the only person really capable of doing that job until Shooter came along. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 4, 2024 3:53:47 GMT -5
But the other significant thing I think he did as editor was to enshrine continuity as foundational at Marvel. You are so right. Lee and Kirby did it first, but man did Roy take that to a whole other level, probably moreso as a writer than as an editor. Yes, I really do believe this is true. Of course, Rob Allen will point out that Archie Goodwin made some critical moves prior to Shooter's arrival as well. Thanks much for the kind words (and the second listen)! |
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