A Look Back With Jim Shooter
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- Supercon Mike had a chance to sit down and talk to Jim Shooter about his past in the comic book industry as a writer, artist, editor, and publisher for nearly fifty years! He is the former Editor-in-Chief for Marvel Comics and Valiant Comics.
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Jim Shooter is and was Marvel. He made me a fan for life.
Loved Stan Lee as a kid, but as I've gotten older (or as an "adult")...I have to say Shooter is closer to what the average person's idea of Stan Lee actually is....his tenure produced the best Marvel Comics...especially Elecktra Assasin.
Shooter era is what brought me to Marvel Comics, this guy has a vision of what comics should be that i totally agree with. That's the problem in comics today, too many scumbags and not enough Jim Shooter's.
I agree exactly with what you've said.
Absolute legend. I really wish he never got kicked out of Valiant
perhaps the most important tallent to break into the comic biz in the 1960s..He represents tens of thousands of equally tallented fans his age, who wouldnt and couldnt do what he did to get in the biz.
+MemphoWrasslin1 After many years of consideration on the matter, yes. Marvel and dc, are the BIG two. Shooter broke into the biz, while still in jr. high school, and wrote for dc, while in grades 9 to 12. How many in the biz managed to equal that?He brought new life into dc's product, then did a lot to keep marvel from going down in 77-78. Valiant,IF he had not been kicked out of the company, was on its way in the early 90s,to becoming a contender alongside marvel and dc.IF he had played his cards right,he could have become as well, the head man at dc.While a fan of Adams, well,His glory days are sadly over.He was great in his day.What does crumb mean to marvel and dc? Nothing really. his best days are 45 years ago.I include Barry Smith on this list also.
One of the things that really impressed me about Jim Shooter was even though all the stuff he went through and rough times he had, he never really said a bad word about anyone in this interview.
I really enjoyed this interview.
Thanks!
I quit reading Marvel within months of Shooter being tossed out. I was a kid at the time and knew nothing about that, but the comics declined almost immediately and you could feel the difference. Years later I understood why everything seemed to go downhill. Marvel really never recovered.
I will say this about Jim Shooter -- I've heard good, I've heard bad about him.
To me, Marvel's Golden eras were the 1960s and 1980s. I've read extensively from those years and I have no doubt in my mind most of the really great storylines and comic runs were from those two decades. The best source material for the various animated and live-action series comes from those two decades.
Marvel's best EIC was Stan Lee and Jim Shooter is a solid second-best EIC and I daresay it's not much more than a sliver's difference.
Much of the "bad" I've seen about Shooter seems to come from people who weren't doing the level of work needed to tell better stories that would also get released on schedule. He demoted or replaced them, hence the bad blood. Not to mention fans who sided with those so demoted.
With Stan having taken a less active, less hands-on role in the company, the resulting editorial structure Shooter replaced had become a clubby fraternity that exercised little oversight on writers or artists deemed popular. Quality suffered as a result. Shooter also recognized markets that Stan had to learn about later. And I think you'll find that a lot of what the MCU is now successfully adapting is based on material that also appeared while Shooter was EIC.
Wonderful, creative visionary & a truly amazing man. For sure one of my heroes who kept comics alive before my life even began. Profound guy, n m. HUGE fan
Great interview, thank you!
Killing the newsstand, convenience store, and grocery store checkout selling points was essentially a slow suicide that has almost reached fruition. There are very few new readers coming in.
Imagine an EIC who actually cares about giving fans what they like, and caring about the industry and at the same time paying the artists what they deserve. I can see why some artists and writers might bristle under his direction given his eye towards business, but if a comic company isn't making money it dies, and the artists lose their livelihood along with it. I think as an EIC Shooter had the right balance between art and business.
Best EiC Marvel ever had.
+MemphoWrasslin1 True, Stan was a good EiC. But I always felt his great talent lay in writing, not editing. The reason I personally like Shooter best as EiC is because during his era, Marvel exuded a reverence and respect of their own history, continuity, and canon. And they used that continuity effectively as a springboard into new stories. I also like the general tone of Marvel's stories and characters during his era. They always struck a good balance of fun and seriousness. They never seemed overly cheesy or overly cynical to me, there was always a good balance. Also, a good portion of all my favorite runs of Marvel titles come from when he was in charge. I just like the vibe and culture he brought to Marvel during his time there.
+MemphoWrasslin1 First of all, Secret Wars is good. It had great art and a fun story with all the great characters in it, though I can understand why some people don't like it. You did miss quite a few GREAT comic book runs that came out during Shooters era (Roger Stern Spider-Man, Roger Stern Avengers, John Byrne Fantastic Four, Tom DeFalco Spider-Man, Michelinie Iron Man, Gruenwald Cap, the beginning of Peter David's Hulk). All the major characters really shone during Shooter's era, which is why I consider him the best EIC. Also you are underrating Stan, he did a lot more writing then you give him credit for.
+PaDesai98 The artwork was terrible, the story so-so.
+MemphoWrasslin1 If Lee had to write full scripts, it would have been impossible to handle all the titles. He did write the captions and words, which were an important function.
I think Stan's great gift was taking the ideas and storytelling abilities of guys like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and polishing them up. Stan emphasized making the characters accessible and his scripting was usually crisp and engaging. Look at Kirby's sole creations like Kamandi, The New Gods, Captain Victory, OMAC, Silver Star, etc. for example. All of them have all that amazing high concept Kirby stuff in it, just like the FF does. But the copy in FF reads much more smoothly, and the characters in FF are more rounded, have a human grounding, and feel more accessible and developed. I think that was Stan's touch, making other creators concepts feel human and giving those mind blowing cosmic Kirby and Ditko ideas a human POV and an entry point for the reader. So I don't really subscribe to this trending notion amongst fandom nowadays that "Stan didn't do anything," but at the same time it does irk me that the general public seems to think "Stan did it all by himself."
Come back to Marvel jim, you are missed!
Legend, thank you for doing this interview.
I enjoy the interview but it's a little funny that it's shot like Shooter is being interrogated for a murder.
The only wrong move shooter ever made was grow that ponytail😀
Im aware of all the bad about Jim, but in his defence: he got Marvel comics all the way to New Zealand 🇳🇿 on a regular consistent basis in the 1980s
Is this Shooter or Tombstone?
Is this Vince McMahon? Lol 🤣🤣.
4:25 you could change your style to something more simple to be faster, It's not preferance that Stan Lee had the "marvel method" which is an eufemism for the cheap method, it's not a coincidence that many manga can look cheap and simplified
just ask alterna, they know
All the nose clearing and snorting by the interviewer just destroys this wonderful interview for me. Yuck.
Yeah, really. The interviewer looks like Curly from the 3 Stooges. I was waiting for some nah, nah, nah sounds & dog barking.