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Steven Legge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 866
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| Posted: 09 October 2012 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | 1
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The book downloaded last night. I'm up to the part where Galactus shows up in FF. I have to say I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far.
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4881
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| Posted: 09 October 2012 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | 2
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I picked it up last night and am about one-third of the way through.
The portion about the Golden Age was interesting, and there are quite a few details that were new to me.
Most of the information about the 1960's I was aware of, but it does go into detail about the issues Wood and Ditko had with Lee, and that part was very interesting. The part about Kirby's departure is mostly details we're all ware of, but the book does a good of of giving a balanced account of how they got there.
The section on the early 1970's was included in the preview that is linked to early in the thread, but this has been my favorite part to this point - mainly because that story hasn't been retold to the extent that the Kirby/Lee and Ditko/Lee splits have been.
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Steven Legge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 866
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 7:49am | IP Logged | 3
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I think the most shocking thing so far in this book is how many good people died from heart attacks before the age of 45. A lot of them not even 40!
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
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Location: United States
Posts: 4881
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 9:27am | IP Logged | 4
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The reaction to Jim Shooter's hiring is interesting.
It sounds like there were a handful of writer/editors who were used to not having their work scrutinized before publication who didn't react well when Shooter was named Editor-in-Chief and started to reorganize the production side (in part by eliminating the idea that someone could be both writer and editor of a title).
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Steven Legge
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 10:43am | IP Logged | 5
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It seemed like Shooter started off with the best intentions but everything just totally went to his head and he had to micromanage everything to the point of aggravating everyone and driving off a lot of top talent. I mean, drawing layouts for Mike Zeck?? Really?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 10:53am | IP Logged | 6
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Shooter came along when Marvel was badly broken. A "stumbling giant", as some used to call it. And he FIXED it. He really did.Unfortunately, having fixed it, he had to KEEP fixing it. I was reminded of the (doubtless apocryphal) story I was told years ago by a friend who had a friend who worked in the design department of one of the major automobile manufacturers in Detroit. According to this guy, the designers were given a set amount of time to come up with a new design for a car, and heaven help them if they did it in LESS time than that. Because, if they did, they would have to keep tinkering, and tweaking, and messing with the design they were happy with, until the time was used up. That was almost certainly not true, but it was a good description of Shooter's time at Marvel. After I'd worked at DC for a while, I used to say I thought it would be a good idea if Shooter and Dick Giordano swapped jobs every five years or so. Dick was the "kindly uncle" figure, who was really no good for what DC needed. No firm hand on the wheel, there. So if Shooter could spend five years "fixing" Marvel, then go to DC to do the same, while Dick came over to Marvel to pat us all on the heads and say "good job!" for five years -- well, we'd just about have been ready for Shooter to come back and fix things again when Dick's time was up.
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4881
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 11:18am | IP Logged | 7
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JB - Was there also a feeling among writers that they were producing "art" that should be subject to limited editorial influence rather than "product" which had to be out on a set schedule and reflective of the publisher's idea of what might be the best way to handle their properties?
It seems like under Thomas and Wein/Wolfman that there was more attention paid to the flagship titles and not a lot to what was going on in the "marginal" ones. For instance it seems like someone should have stood up and taken notice when Starlin depicted the Marvel brass as clowns in one of his Warlock stories. I enjoy Starlin's work a great deal, but it seems that he and Gerber were biting the hand that fed them.
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Jason Czeskleba
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 11:43am | IP Logged | 8
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I can see why the anarchy of the mid-70s caused problems, but I'm such a big fan of many of the books of that era that I think the tradeoff was worthwhile, at least for a time. I mean, Howard the Duck would never have happened at all if there'd been more editorial oversight.
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Jason Czeskleba
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 11:54am | IP Logged | 9
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Robert, what does the book say about the circumstances of Shooter's hiring? In the Bullpen Bullentins and the fan press of the time Archie Goodwin's departure was presented as a voluntary quitting, but Shooter implied (on his short-lived blog) that Goodwin was fired.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | 10
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I mean, Howard the Duck would never have happened at all if there'd been more editorial oversight. •• Not sure how you can reckon that. Howard first appeared in an issue of MAN-THING, in which multiple realities were crashing into each other. He was a throwaway character and was literally thrown away at the end of that story. However, fan response to the character was resoundingly positive, and Marvel eventually decided to bring him back.
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | 11
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Jason - The book contends that he was going to be reassigned with Shooter replacing him as Editor-in-Chief, and when Goodwin heard this he resigned. I guess it could be looked at either way.
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Jason Czeskleba
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| Posted: 11 October 2012 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | 12
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JB wrote:
| Not sure how you can reckon that. |
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Howard first appeared in Fear #19... a typically random, off-the-wall idea Gerber threw into the story. Since there was little-to-no editorial oversight, Roy Thomas did not even read the story until it was finished and about to be published, at which point it was too late to make changes. When he did read it, Thomas thought that the Howard character was too silly for a series like Man-Thing, and ordered Gerber to kill the character off in the next story (which was in Man-Thing #1). Gerber did so, but fan reaction resulted in him being resurrected. It stands to reason that if they'd had a more conventional editorial structure (with each stage of the work being approved by Thomas) then Howard would have been removed from that first story before it ever saw publication.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 11 October 2012 at 2:27pm
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