Liberal Writers Killing Marvel Comics?

[UltimateWebhead]

Dang... I love both of those quotes... especially Stan's. Thanks for sharing

You're welcome, sir

 

[UltimateWebhead]

First, Happy Thanksgiving to all those that celebrate!

Second, here's a very neat interview with the great ex-Marvel EiC Jim Shooter on several topics including the current state of Marvel. I highly recommend reading.

http://https://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2017/11/19/interview-legendary-marvel-comics-editor-in-chief-jim-shooter-on-the-current-state-of-marvel-creator-incentives-and-more/

 

[sweetre15]

First, Happy Thanksgiving to all those that celebrate!

Second, here's a very neat interview with the great ex-Marvel EiC Jim Shooter on several topics including the current state of Marvel. I highly recommend reading.

http://https://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2017/11/19/interview-legendary-marvel-comics-editor-in-chief-jim-shooter-on-the-current-state-of-marvel-creator-incentives-and-more/

Definitely a good read. Thanks man

 

[TheVileOne]

Some people could learn a thing or two from Jim Shooter.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Dang. Can we get Jim Shooter back please? I loved just about everything he had to say there.

 

[The Infernal]

I see comments by people saying that a lot of great work was published in the Shooter era, but didn't a lot of the staff working under him resent the guy? I'm sure I recall something about him getting a lot of hate.

 

[UltimateWebhead]

I see comments by people saying that a lot of great work was published in the Shooter era, but didn't a lot of the staff working under him resent the guy? I'm sure I recall something about him getting a lot of hate.

Yes, they did. That is accurate. I've seen several quotes from writers during that period because they didn't agree with how Shooter ran the show.

He was against the idea of putting homosexuals in comics which was something that kinda began in that era--DC was doing it with their Vertigo line, so Marvel was behind the curve so-to-speak in that regard. I remember reading a quote from John Byrne saying he had to be very careful with how he wrote things. Probably his greatest negative from that era though was the mandate that Shooter was pushing for, something he nicknamed or maybe the writing staff did, as the 'Big Bang.' This was an idea that Shooter wanted in which all the major players, Thor, Captain America, Peter Parker, would be killed off and replaced by new heroes. But in the same roles. Meaning, for example, Peter Parker was to die and then a new character would be bitten by a spider and he/she would become the new Spider-Man. Obviously, this sent a huge uproar thru Marvel between the editors and writers basically saying "you can't do this." Though no one ever said anything like that to Shooter. They were all afraid to cross him.

Shooter believed in that business model, I can't remember the name, wherein anyone and everyone is easily replaceable, like cogs in a machine. Not to say he was a major d**k, he was still a good person from some accounts that I've read but when it came to business that's exactly how he ran things. It sounds ugly I suppose but at the same time because of his strict standards that he pushed for, Marvel was a huge success in the 80s both critically and commercially. IMO, I also think that many of the staff were upset because Shooter actually pushed those guys/gals to their limits and expected their full potential in every issue. And he succeeded in spades. Marvel was booming. Many titles were selling in the high 80,000 to 100,000 copies and higher. Spider-Man, for example, is often considered and imo as well, to have been the best era of his tenure outside of the original runs with Stan/Steve and John in the 60s. Shooter may have been an unpopular guy in the Marvel business world but he also ran a tight, well-oiled machine that put out results of a high quality nature.

As with any EiC Shooter made mistakes but I feel that his positives greatly outweighed the negatives. And when you compare him to Alonso, they do have similarities however Alonso basically let his writers do whatever they wanted politically and also go to online forums and berate the fans. Shooter was much more controlling--he ran things with a heavy hand or iron fist or what have you, but in the end Shooter produced much better results. So, when I see or hear writers talk about how much they didn't like Shooter, imo it basically boils down to any manager that pushes the envelope in production and expects nothing but the best from his/her employees. You're gonna cause a stir.

 

[TheVileOne]

That BIG BANG stuff sounds more like Marvel in the last few years than the Jim Shooter era,

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

The Shooter era of Marvel was for the most part successful in spite of Shooter's involvement, not because of it. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Marvel.

 

[UltimateWebhead]

Like I said, with any EiC, there are positives and negatives but in the case of Shooter, for every one of his writers or editors that complained, he was instrumental in guiding the Marvel ship to success. Not all of his ideas were great but overall, during his tenure as EiC, Marvel was a huge hit. And here's a direct quote from Sean Howe on Shooter:

“I do think that Jim Shooter is a really important figure in saving Marvel,” Howe continued. “Maybe he did some damage at the very end of his tenure in terms of morale, but he was a necessary corrective to the chaos that preceded him. He’s a really smart guy who has a genuine affection for the comic book artform. I think his ideas about what that artform should be have differed a lot from other people, but I don’t see him as having bad intentions.”

While Shooter has been singled out for particular disdain in the years since his time at Marvel, that strain—of the creator working under the auspices of demanding or capricious editors and writing for characters over which they ultimately have little control—is a constant theme in the book.

“Every single person who has worked at Marvel Comics has probably been painted in a terrible, negative light,” Howe said. “With every editor-in-chief you’re going to find people who say, ‘That guy is a force of evil.’ The fact that all the threads of these stories are passed along among different people who start getting these proprietary feelings for what they’re doing—there’s just bound to be disappointment. No matter how much you’ve invested, whatever great contributions you’ve given, you don’t get to keep doing it.”

IMO, at the end of the day, I'll take someone like Shooter over Alonso every day and twice on Sunday.

 

[sweetre15]

So did you see Joe Quesada essentially laying out the reality of the Marvel books that have been cancelled not selling?

Journalists like Joe Glass was crying to him and Joe just kept it 100 the entire time lol.


Here are the tweet links:

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943916513957961728

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943919768167440384

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943921533004795904

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943922380963041281

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943922683603021824

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944243446654685190

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944243968044404738

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944245046785830912

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944248170866991104

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944248864219033600

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944255853053599744

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944256524079296512

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944257112544284673

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944258199384940544

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944260241692209154

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944261330281861120

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944261840003108864

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944265868753678337

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944266988406403072

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944267858565062657

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944267984645869574

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944268770662547456

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944269103644241922

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944269417650753536

 

[CaptainWagner]

See, there's the big thing. Fans love to complain about changes being made to their favorite characters, but they refuse to invest when Marvel tries anything actually new.

 

[random_havoc]

So did you see Joe Quesada essentially laying out the reality of the Marvel books that have been cancelled not selling?

Journalists like Joe Glass was crying to him and Joe just kept it 100 the entire time lol.


Here are the tweet links:

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943916513957961728

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943919768167440384

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943921533004795904

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943922380963041281

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/943922683603021824

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944243446654685190

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944243968044404738

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944245046785830912

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944248170866991104

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944248864219033600

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944255853053599744

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944256524079296512

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944257112544284673

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944258199384940544

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944260241692209154

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944261330281861120

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944261840003108864

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944265868753678337

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944266988406403072

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944267858565062657

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944267984645869574

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944268770662547456

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944269103644241922

https://twitter.com/joequesada/status/944269417650753536

Thanks for sharing those. Very eye opening. As much as I hated a few things Quesada did while EIC, it was comics while he was at the helm that brought me back after years away. This new (and much corrected) attitude that Marvel seems to be moving into, I'm hoping, will see a fresh return to high quality comics like we haven't been seeing for years now

 

[sweetre15]

See, there's the big thing. Fans love to complain about changes being made to their favorite characters, but they refuse to invest when Marvel tries anything actually new.

One also has to wonder whether the overpriced nature of Marvel comics’ overpriced nature also contributes to this

 

[Sithborg]

So, is any of those tweets up there the one where Quesada was blaming the fans for the book's cancellation. Because a lot of those tweets seem to be his attempt at PR control after blaming the fans.

Also add She-hulk to the list of the mass culling.

It really isn't a great look to cancel all of those books at the same time.

 

[sweetre15]

So, is any of those tweets up there the one where Quesada was blaming the fans for the book's cancellation. Because a lot of those tweets seem to be his attempt at PR control after blaming the fans.

Also add She-hulk to the list of the mass culling.

It really isn't a great look to cancel all of those books at the same time.

Well he never “blamed the fans” as much as he simply illustrated the point that people ultimately weren’t buying those books and that regardless of race, gender and sexuality, if the characters are written and developed well they’ll resonate.

 

[Sithborg]

If a comic finds an audience it will stick around regardless of the lead character or creator’s gender, ethnicity, sexual preference or identification. You can claim we’re tone deaf but we PUBLISHED those books but you guys ultimately decide what survives.

Generally speaking, that isn't the greatest way to defend a mass cancellation of books with woman/minority characters and/or creators.

 

[sweetre15]

Generally speaking, that isn't the greatest way to defend a mass cancellation of books with woman/minority characters and/or creators.

Considering that for a long time Comics weren’t ever truly at a loss for representation of those groups, I don’t see the problem simply because the bottom line is ultimately gonna matter. That’s the commonality besides the identity groups these characters adhere to. Especially since there is the extremely high likelihood that some new and more interesting characters within these racial/sexual/gender groups can take their place.

At the end of the day we still can’t ignore that if the people who banged the drum so heavily on these books would have bought and supported these books en masse these books wouldn’t be cancelled.

Maybe next time they’ll make these characters have more depth than just being a statement on being a minority and have actual personalities/interests and sacrifices for a change.

I’m a black man myself and I don’t like the way these characters were written because they had no doubt and ultimately caricaturized these groups

 

[random_havoc]

I'm bummed that she-hulk is among the cancelled. I felt like they were finally giving the character the gravitas she did best with

 

[RockSP]

At the end of the day we still can’t ignore that if the people who banged the drum so heavily on these books would have bought and supported these books en masse these books wouldn’t be cancelled.

For all you know they were the ones buying the books.

 

[random_havoc]

For all you know they were the ones buying the books.

That would still just go to show that there aren't enough of them as customers, so Marvel shouldn't be making books with them as the primary audience target

 

[Sithborg]

That would still just go to show that there aren't enough of them as customers, so Marvel shouldn't be making books with them as the primary audience target

Or, maybe Marvel needs to relook their dependency a book's success purely on how well it does in physical, single issue sales.

And shockingly, there are a lot of comic book stores that are not exactly friendly to non-white males.

 

[sweetre15]

Or, maybe Marvel needs to relook their dependency a book's success purely on how well it does in physical, single issue sales.

And shockingly, there are a lot of comic book stores that are not exactly friendly to non-white males.

And how do we know that none of these things have been accounted for? Joe has even said all these things have been factored in

Also is there any evidence for this 2nd claim?

 

[random_havoc]

Or, maybe Marvel needs to relook their dependency a book's success purely on how well it does in physical, single issue sales.

And shockingly, there are a lot of comic book stores that are not exactly friendly to non-white males.

I'm gonna take the word of the former EIC and current CCO of Marvel over that of a random fan. As Quesada said, those other factors are already taken into consideration. So, again, the proof is in the numbers and Marvel hopefully now will get back to making comics about the characters that people already know and love and, oh I don't know, maybe have comics with the real Thor, with Bruce Banner, with a heroic, Steve Rogers, Captain America, etc. Crazy ideas I know.

 

[random_havoc]

And before someone breaks out the racism card, I'm happy to see diverse characters but when they cut out most of my favourites for the sake of trying to push them that irritates me and makes a very obvious reason for declining sales.