July 5th, 2011
Galley Friend B.D. turned me on to Jim Shooter’s blog and it is total, complete, hotness. Unlike most of the people on the creative side of the comic book business, Shooter is (a) a grown-up and (b) perfectly willing to talk candidly about the industry, specifically about who did what, when.
It’s Matt Scully levels of awesome. You should be reading him daily.
Sample greatness, from a post titled, “Roy Thomas Saved Marvel”:
As previously mentioned, Marvel was a mess throughout the mid-1970’s and during my two years as “associate editor,” from the beginning of 1976 through the end of 1977. Almost every book was late. There were unscheduled reprints and fill-ins, and we still just plain missed issues here and there. Many books, despite my best efforts to shore up the bottom were unreadable. Not merely bad. Unreadable. Almost all were less than they ought to be. . . .
Then Roy proposed that we license some upcoming science fiction movie calledStar Wars and publish an adaptation.
Jeers and derision ensued—um, not within Roy’s earshot of course. But he was in California.
The Prevailing Wisdom at the time said “science fiction doesn’t sell.” Adapting movie with the hokey title “Star Wars” seemed like folly to most. . . .
What sold, said the Prevailing Wisdom, were male super heroes and male dominated groups, especially the marquee stars like Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. Not so much the “third-string” characters like Daredevil. And there had to be lots of action against marquee super villains interlaced with some soap opera. That was about it. That’s what the “kids in Fudge, Nebraska” wanted. Period.
The Great Proponents of Prevailing Wisdom were Marv and Len. . . .
There was a lot of opposition to Star Wars. Even Stan wasn’t keen on the idea.
Even I wasn’t. I had no prejudice against science fiction, but wasting time on an adaptation of a movie with a dumb title described as an “outer space western?”
I was told—don’t know for sure—that George Lucas himself came to Marvel’s offices to meet with Stan and help convince him that we should license Star Wars. I was told that Stan kept him waiting for 45 minutes in the reception room. Apocryphal? Maybe. Roy would know. But if so, it still reflects the mood at the time. . . .
But, Roy got the deal done and we published Star Wars.
The first two issues of our six (?) issue adaptation came out in advance of the movie. Driven by the advance marketing for the movie, sales were very good. Then about the time the third issue shipped, the movie was released. Sales made the jump to hyperspace.
Star Wars the movie stayed in theaters forever, it seemed. Not since the Beatles had I seen a cultural phenomenon of such power. The comics sold and sold and sold. We reprinted the adaptation in every possible format. They all sold and sold and sold.
In the most conservative terms, it is inarguable that the success of the Star Wars comics was a significant factor in Marvel’s survival through a couple of very difficult years, 1977 and 1978.
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I’m mostly unfamiliar with the actual comics he’s talking about (I didn’t read comics til the early 90s, and then almost exclusively DC), but the publishing side of what he had to go through is just incredible.
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Thanks for clueing me in to Shooter’s blog. His post yesterday on the origins of Marvel’s “G.I. Joe” book was completely engrossing. I’m in my early thirties so the G.I. Joe series from Larry Hama was my gateway drug into the Marvel Universe and comics in general.
Brett July 6, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Interesting, although I have to say that Shooter’s most recent run on the “Legion of Super-Heroes” (2007-2009) really made me question whether or not he’s got anything left in the tank. The goofiest Silver-Age style paired with overgrown 21st century snickering adolescence he brought to the story was just awful. It almost killed my fanboy-hood for the series I’ve followed since I was 8.