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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133328
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 10:22am | IP Logged | 1
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I have reached the conclusion that Jim Shooter was an ass.•• Amusingly enough, just recently I came across some kind of blog on which a poster insisted that "people like" Steve Englehart and myself "taking shots" at Shooter did not make Shooter look bad, but made US look like "petty jerks". It's ever and always a source of fascination, to me, to watch people pontificate upon that which they know nothing about -- such as what it was like working at Marvel under Shooter. I wonder if this poster thinks that all the "shots" that have been taken at ME over the years make those doing the "shooting" also look like petty jerks?
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Kevin Brown
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 8956
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 10:29am | IP Logged | 2
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I have met JB once and I have met Jim Shooter once. If all I had to go on in terms of the type of people they're like based on the one meeting, I would have to say that JB is one of the nicest individuals I've ever met at a convention and that Shooter is one of the tallest.
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Francesco Vanagolli
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 June 2005
Location: Italy
Posts: 3130
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 11:49am | IP Logged | 3
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Michael Penn:
QUOTE:
| I bet that was rather a lesson learned from Stan Lee, who "killed" Gwen's father, somebody who had been a significant supporting character for many years, and then... poof! He was all but forgotten. And yet Spider-Man was still Spider-Man, 100%. |
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One of the things I noticed reading those classic Stan Lee stories (which were already 30 years old) was that when you had a big story, consequences were explored in just a few following issues, then Stan went onward.
Frederick Foswell's death was forgotten in one, max two issues.
George Stacy died in ASM #90, then we had a two issues storyline dealing with the consequences of that, another issue as a sort of epilogue, then two issues dealing with Gwen's departure, the drug trilogy... and here we are, Gwen is back and her father his history (except for a short mention in issue #100).
Gwen's death was different. She died in 1973 and her death was mentioned every issue or so for two years. Her presence was even more stronger than she'd were alive! Only after the clone saga Gwen's name disappeared from the pages of ASM, to reappear only sporadically.
This, until the late '80s (Conway, again) and the 1990s. Gwen's presence in the 1990s was... I'd say obsessive.
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Thanos Kollias
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 June 2004
Location: Greece
Posts: 5009
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 11:59am | IP Logged | 4
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...they could not live with each other. Only because that's how they were written. ++++ This is in the same vein of what some fans used to say about Jean and Scott when Morrison decided he should mess them up.
As for the Jan/Hank incident, well, I can't think how Shooter could possibly be on the level, consider what was the actual scene: 
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | 5
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"The Simpsons" handles continuity well in that everything happened but no one ages and no one mentions anything from the past unless it's necessary for a story. There's no gain in mentioning that Homer won a Grammy and as an astronaut. Move on to the next story. Superhero comics used to be that way but now it's about Kevin Smith "cleverly" alluding to a scene in Batman: Year One.
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12717
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | 6
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He [Shooter] may regret what he did now, but it's too late; the damage is done. The only thing that saying this now does is serve as an old-timer's voicing regrets about past mistakes to the kid at the bar.
****
The other night I watched THE BROWNING VERSION. If Jim Shooter had expressed himself like the Crock, well, that at least would have had the virtues of honesty, sincerity, and depth of feeling... but, oh well.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133328
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | 7
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"The Simpsons" handles continuity well in that everything happened but no one ages and no one mentions anything from the past unless it's necessary for a story.•• Unfortunately, for many writers (and fans) EVERYTHING is "necessary for a story". Can't bring back Dr. NastyGuy without it tying in DIRECTLY to some previous encounter he had with Captain Hero -- and better footnote all the other appearances, too! (In retrospect, perhaps the biggest mistake Stan made was introducing footnotes -- tho in his defense, the ones he used mostly said "See our last issue!" or "Don't miss the latest issue of XXXX -- on sale now!")
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 31183
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | 8
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Those footnotes turned me on to A LOT of good comics tho, JB.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35945
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | 9
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I can certainly see where those footnotes eventually played into the anal fan, but as a kid I loved 'em. Made it feel like the books in the Marvel U were connected as opposed to existing in a vacuum. Unfortunately, when they began to explain why X story existed before or after Y event, that's when they became too much for me. I never worried about that before and certainly didn't care that the FF were in space in one series and at the Baxter Building in their own title, both in the same month.
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Vinny Valenti
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8120
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | 10
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I generally liked the footnotes, too, when they showed issues where previous storylines were being described - but looking at some mid-70's comics, I began to notice that they were being overused - like a panel where a villain is revealed, there's a footnote saying "Last seen in So-and-So #50!". Why would that be relevant?It's probably not coincidental that I had noticed this at its worst during the Writer-Editor phase at Marvel...
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Kip Lewis
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 March 2011
Posts: 2880
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | 11
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"last seen in ..." either served the now growing back issue market of the 70s or cut off letters saying, "When did so and so last appear?"
But the most important footnotes to me in the 70s was "Reprinted from FF ##". I hated unintentionally buying reprints. (Intentionally was fine, but not unintentionally.)
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Kevin Brown
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 8956
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| Posted: 31 March 2011 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | 12
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There has always been continuity in comics. It's only within the past couple of decades that it's become rigid and no longer fluid.
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