Verily...Tis Random!

[michaelpaciocco]

Look, I love his JLA run and All-Star Superman. Still do.

HOWEVER, that doesn't excuse his mistakes, failings or excesses. I like Claremont too, but there's a good chunk of his writing that's unreadable too.

And I'm not confident that Morrison's "Action" is going to be any better than JMS' "Grounded."

[paulpogue]

You know what would have improved the final Harry Potter? Neville delivering a Death Eater corpse with a note pinned to it reading "NOW I HAVE THE SWORD OF GRYFFINDOR. HO HO HO."

Funny thing is, I've been making the "Neville Longbottom is wizarding's John McClane" joke for YEARS and I only just now remembered the archnemesis McClane and Longbottom have in common. I blame poor nutrition.

[jensaltmann]

Sad: No more "True Story, Swear to God."

[michaelpaciocco]

Soooo, the Henry Cavill Superman costume shot.

My reaction in brief - yeah, not liking the texture, but still....

[jensaltmann]

Nope, sorry, I like even the Superman Returns costume better than this.

It's the texturing and the shade of blue they use that kill it for me. If they wanted to use something that looks like NuSupes's armor, they should go for an armor look instead of textured look.

I think it's interesting that they went for Earth-2's Superman, Kal-L, for the S-Shield.

[michaelpaciocco]

This is where we'll disagree - the Returns costume was nearly equally textured as this thing. And as far as the "S" redesign - not crazy about it, but I'll wait and see.

Keep in mind that, for my money, the best live-action Superman Costume was Dean Cain's from "Lois and Clark".

No, I'm not fucking joking.

Michael

[michaelpaciocco]

Well, this is the saddest fact checking ever...

So, I read the Grant Morrison Rolling stone interview and Q&A:



www.rollingstone.com/music/news/grant-morrison-on-the-death-of-comics-20110822


Now, here's where I have problem - his inaccurate statements re: Alan Moore. As a respected Moore Fan, I'm sure you can help fill the gaps here.

"I was reading some Alan Moore Marvelman for some reason today. I found one in the back there and I couldn't believe. I pick it up and there are fucking two rapes in it and I suddenly think how many times has somebody been raped in an Alan Moore story? And I couldn't find a single one where someone wasn't raped except for Tom Strong, which I believe was a pastiche. We know Alan Moore isn't a misogynist but fuck, he's obsessed with rape."

Actually, this is inaccurate on both fronts:



1) Re: Tom Strong - by the traditional "sex without consent" definition, Strong himself was raped (implied) in the first volume - that's the story of Albrect's conception.
2) As far as "obssessed with rape", here's how I broke it down from the material of his I've read.
V for Vendetta - I want to say "no", but not sure
Watchmen - yes.
The Killing Joke - Going to have to say "sexual assualt but not rape"

Marvelman - yes
1963 - no

his run on Jim Lee's Wildcats - I said "no" at first, then I remembered Ladytron's origin, so I guess no.

From Hell - I'm not 100% sure, but no.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - yes.

his Supreme run - if you count the issue where Radar (The Krypto Analogue) impregnates several hundred dogs, then yes, but that's iffy.
Top 10 - yes (the whole thing with Atoman)

Promethea - question mark - I'm not sure the whole issue with the magic guy counts.

The other ABC books - no.

OK, that's depressing on several levels. Sorry everyone!

Edited: rechecked, made a few mistakes originally. Yeesh.....

[Anders]

In V Evey is about to be raped when V shows up.

[jkcarrier]

There's at least a couple in Swamp Thing, too. But tallying up a list is meaningless. Count the murders too, while you're at it. All that matters is: in the context of the story, is it gratuitous? I don't think it is, in most of Moore's work. It's not something that just gets tossed in for shock value...it's meaningful to the story, and the repercussions are dealt with ("Killing Joke" may be the exception here, and even Moore has expressed mixed feelings about that one).

[K-Box]

It's inaccurate on THREE fronts, since Morrison's The Invisibles and The Filth contained MULTIPLE rapes, and Morrison's entire ORIGIN for Crazy Jane in Doom Patrol was rape, and Morrison even RETCONNED IN a rape into one of the few explicitly CONSENSUAL on-panel sexual encounters Batman has ever had, by making Damian the CHILD of Bruce's rape by Talia.

Also? Any white person who compares being working-class and from the UK to being a Native American on a reservation can fuck off and die.

[michaelpaciocco]

You know, maybe he's the hero, maybe he's the villain, and we'll probably never know where in the middle he falls, but Jim Shooter's story here should prove quite frightening for anyone who works in the comics industry of how shafted you can be. Joey the Q, Didiot, et al., should be very very weary;

www.jimshooter.com/2011/08/recent-question-and-answer.html

[paulpogue]

Looking for a devil's advocate, folks:

Can anyone point me to a reasonably coherent and reasonably current statement, essay or interview from someone who was actually there at the time that out-and-out paints Jim Shooter as a villain? Because I've noticed something interesting: nearly everything I've read in the last few years about Shooter talks about how unpopular he is, but rarely, anymore, does anyone ever say why. The interviews usually say something about "once the most hated man in comics," but it's been a long time since I've seen an interview with a professional from that era who actually gives solid, hard evidence of Jim Shooter's alleged dickishness.

Which, to me, points to the conclusion that Shooter's accounts of events in his blog is usually reasonably close to the facts -- that he can't really be held responsible for a lot of bad shit that was going on before he was boss, like the Kirby thing or the royalties. Shooter frequently owns up to the fact that "I was the face of the corporation and had to be the good company man, so I willingly took the hit for whatever was coming down from above." Which is as close to an admission of assholedom as you'll get, but also explains a lot. Christopher Priest once theorized that Shooter was an extremely intelligent, borderline autistic who was almost incapable of explaining what he was doing to the people who worked for him, which also makes a lot of sense.

The few people who still outwardly criticize him are pretty flawed sources. Tom Brevoort makes a snarky comment every so often about how Shooter isn't always telling the truth, but Brevoort A: wasn't there, B: has a full-of-shit content higher than Russell T. Davies talking about the next season of Doctor Who and C: isn't exactly forthcoming in his own right, just infers that he knows more. John Byrne, who WAS there, often has Shooter Asshole stories, but they're usually pretty petty things, like the time Shooter griped about how nobody could draw the Hulk punching right and Byrne threw one of his own covers in his face or something like that. Or how Byrne feels Shooter takes way too much credit for convincing the higher-ups to allow royalties, and how the higher-ups in question are apparently hurt that they don't get the credit. Not exactly damning stuff.

About the only thing I've ever seen where Shooter legitimately comes off looking poorly is his testimony against Grant Morrison in the Flex Mentallo/Atlas lawsuit, and to be honest, while I disagree with Shooter's viewpoint, he takes a legitimate position and mounts a reasonable defense of it (i.e., even I would have a hard time claiming Flex Mentallo was parody, simply based on how absolutely seriously Grant takes the whole thing in the book.) So I don't really put that one in the "Jim Shooter Asshole" column.

Thoughts?

[michaelpaciocco]

Aug 27, 2011 15:41:05 GMT -8 paulpogue said:

Looking for a devil's advocate, folks:

Can anyone point me to a reasonably coherent and reasonably current statement, essay or interview from someone who was actually there at the time that out-and-out paints Jim Shooter as a villain? Because I've noticed something interesting: nearly everything I've read in the last few years about Shooter talks about how unpopular he is, but rarely, anymore, does anyone ever say why.

There was a column a few months back by Gary Groth (I think) giving context (can't find the link, but you can probably search it out). Of course, given the Groth/Shooter feud is the biggest this side of Dave Sims/sanity, you may have to take it with a grain of salt.

The thing I keep in mind is that it's impossible to know for certain what happened because of the nature of Shooter's position. There was no one of equal standing to him in the corporate hierarchy, so no one with access to the same information. No one under him is likely to have said information, and everyone above him has reason to not like him. So there's no one to validate either "Shooter is an evil asshole" or "Shooter is a misunderstood hero."

As far as the post itself, it illustrates quite nicely the delicate balancing act between obeying your own personal ethics and the goals of the company - and it's not always as simple as saying "he should have blown the whistle because it was the right thing to do", because 1) there's no guarantee that will work at all (Shooter explicitly states it didn't for him - possibly because he waited too long), 2) even if it does, it can have severely negative consequences in EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE, and 3) the very arguement Shooter makes for waiting as long as he did - "I can help out while I can, while some other bastard in this job might just let it all go to hell." - if someone less ethical had been in the EIC chair instead of Shooter, could creators have gotten ripped off worse? Then there's 4) sometimes the company is looking after the greater good. Granted, this may seem pretty rare, but who's to say that if the deal that Shooter tried to stop hadn't gone through, that there would still be a Marvel Comics at all come 1996? Again, we don't know this stuff with any certainity. John Rogers, in his blogposts responding to various Leverage episodes, actually does take the time out to explain that yeah, there are some bad companies out there, but most of them? Actually do improve people's lives in a very direct way that justifies their personhood (though not to the extent that say, the courts allow corporate personhood to trump human personhood).

TL:DR? Groth wrote something a while back and we'll probably never know for certain because there's not enough evidence or reliable witnesses.

[paulpogue]

I asked the same thing over at the V and they pointed me to the Groth stuff, which is pretty fascinating. It gives a very good counterpoint, largely because Groth was such an in-the-know comics figure in the 1980s as well, and thus isn't entirely talking out his ass. Groth DOES have a pretty high BS factor at times, but a lot of what he says about Shooter is pretty well backed up by facts and/or witnesses, unlike much of what Byrne has to say. His account of the 1985/1986 convention appearances, in which he claims Shooter is crediting other people with saying what Shooter himself said, is pretty damning.

That said, Groth is entirely too proud of himself for hammering home certain points -- most notably, the fact Jack Kirby never sued Marvel. He goes on for ages about how this totally undercuts Jim's credibility because Jim was always talking about "the Kirby lawsuit." Shooter's defense against this on his blog is that it was commonly understood at Marvel that a suit was on the way, they got huge piles of paperwork from Kirby's lawyer, and that everyone around the office referred to it as "The Kirby lawsuit," so even if it wasn't on its way to court, it sure felt like that to them. Fair enough, I suppose.

Part of the problem between Groth and Shooter is that they have deep philosophical divides about settled issues in the comic book industry that informs every aspect of their interaction. One of the things that always hurts Shooter in the public is that he is, unambiguously and admittedly, The Company Man. He speaks for Marvel, and if Marvel does something shitty -- and a company the size of Marvel is ALWAYS doing something shitty -- he takes the hit and he's probably the one who actually executed it. One of Groth's issues, for instance, is the work-for-hire thing, and he extensively quotes Shooter's defense of work-for-hire and the fact that he considers Marvel Comics, not Chris Claremont, to be the author of X-Men, et cetera. Which is, whether anyone likes it or not, THE ENTIRE ACCEPTED DEFINITION THROUGHOUT THE INDUSTRY. Claremont doesn't own X-Men, Miller doesn't own Daredevil, and nothing Gary Groth ever says (or Jim Shooter ever does) is ever going to change that fact. The editors hold all the cards. Any time a creator seems to be getting away with murder (See also: Bendis, Brian M. and Millar, Mark), it's because the editors above them are deliberately giving them that free reign.

Hell, Groth goes on and on about how Shooter invented the crossover and that alone makes him the devil. So in a way I think the feud between them is really Groth's anger at everything wrong with the superhero comics world and Jim Shooter sort of personifies it for him.

Groth is slightly undercut by all the accounts of people he says hate Shooter's guts, whereas Shooter is posting copies of personal correspondence that says otherwise.

I blame Shooter's unpopularity on three things:
1. Company Man. Nobody likes The Man. (Hell, Shooter gives a long account of how he had to untangle the mess created by the production manager who was routinely issuing paychecks for work that wasn't yet done, with the promise of it being done eventually. If I were the one benefitting from that setup, I'd be pissed too.)
2. Shooter's incredibly poor understanding of personal interaction. Priest nails that one perfectly.
3. Torpedoing the writer/editor system. The late 1970s at Marvel were a time of absolute creative chaos because everyone was doing their own thing and blowing deadlines left and right. And Shooter's right when he says the comics were disasters. (Seriously, how many true classics came out of Marvel in the five or six years before Shooter took over? There were a few outliers -- Warlock, Howard the Duck -- but those were created by certified comics geniuses.) But the people actually in those writer/editor positions were in a really, really plumb spot. Shutting it down did wonders for Marvel, but the people who were benefiting from it probably felt so personally screwed that they'd hold a grudge for decades.

Usually I come down on the "misunderstood hero" side of the Shooter debate. Because when all is said and done, just look at the output. The Shooter years are among the greatest era of any comics company, ever, and probably the greatest creative output Marvel did outside of Stan/Jack/Steve/Wally's first few years. Somebody did SOMETHING right.

[paulpogue]

And yeah, it's always a tough spot handling the line between company and ethics. Although if the stuff Shooter says about the bigwigs stuffing their pockets as they sold the company, it puts them pretty heavily into asshole territory.

The summation though, is that it helps nobody to be in the big editor's chair. Aside from Stan himself, who's ever come out of that job in a good position? Shooter got EPICALLY screwed. DeFalco is largely treated as a joke, and Harras was a pariah for quite a while. And the long line of editors-in-chief between Stan and Jim -- Archie, Marv, Len, Roy -- all have a certain amount of respect in the industry, but even in the 1980s, I could feel a certain amount of "go away, old man, while the youngsters have their day" going on.

(On another note, it probably didn't help Shooter's early career being the tender young age of 13 and having all the responsibility he did, PLUS dealing with the likes of Mort Weisinger and Stan Lee, who were old-school publishing hardasses of the most intense sort. Even Stan, jovial and avuncular though he may be, is pretty free in admitting most of J. Jonah Jameson is based on himself.)