I've been enjoying this thread, much like any of the other tales from the bullpen or of anything from the "inside" of the comics industry that JB and others frequently provide.  For whatever reason, I've always had a basically negative impression of Shooter.  A buddy of mine is a fan of his blog though and has tried to get me to read it. 
To that end, he sent me a link to the blog in which this particular thread has been discussed.  My buddy isn't exactly a fan of who he thinks JB is so I was pretty much prepared to read an entirely different POV from Shooter on the "how to throw a punch" recollection by JB.  Complete denial caught me off guard though.  Just thought the followup would be appreciated by those who are interested.

jimshootersaid...

Never happened.

Ask people who know me if the tale as he relates it rings true.

Those of you who have read my lectures, do they sound arbitrary and irrational?

If I were such a madman, could I have survived as EIC nearly 10 years and been well rewarded for outstanding service until the company was going through the ugly process of being sold, which put me at odds with owners who were selling us down the river?

I liked Ross Andru and his work. I hired him to do at least one job for me at VALIANT. He was at the end of his career, then, so if he did more it wasn't many.

June 27, 2011 9:19 PM

"Ask people who know me if the tale as he relates it rings true."

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But don't ask anyone who might have been a witness!!

This is actually an interesting choice of phrasing, for the "response". In this manner, Shooter sets up an automatic dismissal of anyone who disagrees with him, or his version of the Past: clearly, such people don't really "know" him!

Vinny wrote: ...Not to mention that JB has said that Harras was generally hands-off on his late-90's Marvel work. Harras had a rocky start, but he was far from the worst EIC around...

It's pretty bad that Marvel's excuse for firing him was that the company's owners felt he failed to properly capitalize on the success of the first "X-Men" film.

Has any comic book series really seen that much of a boost in NEW comics sales (not back issue sales) due to a film since the first "Batman" in 1989? I can tell you, as a retailer, that as far as my shop is concerned, there's not much of a boost, if any, in sales of the new comics due to a movie coming out. You do get speculators going after the old stuff thinking each time that each new movie will propel the prices of the back issues into the stratosphere, despite the fact that never really occurs.

Reading Andy Mokler's link to Jim Shooter's blog comments, I see Shooter is now taking credit, of a sort, for "Crisis on Ifinite Earths." What didn't he create or what wasn't he responsible for, that was momentous, anyway, directly or indirectly? Huh.

Jim Shooter wrote: ...One proposal for the 25th Anniversary that was floated and shot down instantly was the "Big Bang." The idea was that we'd end all titles and start again, keeping what was good and ignoring things that were bad or out of date. We'd get Reed Richards out of fighting with the French Underground in WWII, get Iron man's origin out of Viet Nam, the Hulk's origin away from being due to an above-ground nuclear test, etc. The concept was briefly bandied around, and in fact, I had recommended it to Jeannette Kahn for DC years earlier. Turns out Gerry Conway had also recommended such a thing to DC before I did. They needed it more than we did. I think that notion became part of the basis for Crisis....

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The "Batman" TV series, starring Adam West, created such am upsurge in sales of the BATMAN comics that the character was actually saved from cancellation!

The important difference, of course, is that when "Batman" was on TV, BATMAN comics were sold on the newsstand, in drugstores, at train stations, bus depots, grocery stores, etc, etc.

By the time Harras was EiC, the Direct Sales Market was virtually the ONLY place Marvel comics could be found -- which meant anyone inspired by the X-Men movie to pick up an X-MEN comic would have to make a deliberate effort to seek out a comic shop, and that might require a journey of a considerable distance.

The DSM has removed the SPONTANEITY of buying comics, and that makes it almost impossible to cash in on successful movies.

A person posted a small part of the court transcript on Jim Shooter's blog that addresses Shooter's claim that JB said he earned 10 million dollars from Marvel...

QUOTE: Question: "You have earned over ten million dollars at Marvel?" Byrne: "That's probably fair." He then qualified that with the following, after stating that he made less money doing Alpha Flight than any other book; Question: "During your career you earned 20 million from others than Alpha Flight?" Byrne: "Right. I should point out that did not earn 10 million specifically from Marvel. I would say ten million probably in the course of my entire career, I have made four or five million doing the Next Men, which I created to own at Dark Horse.

Jim Shooter's response to the facts:

Jim Shooter wrote: ...I remembered the "That's probably fair" part, if not the exact quote. The point is he made a lot of money...

Byrne: "That's probably fair."

He then qualified that with the following, after stating that he made less money doing Alpha Flight than any other book;

Question: "During your career you earned 20 million from others than Alpha Flight?"

Byrne: "Right. I should point out that did not earn 10 million specifically from Marvel. I would say ten million probably in the course of my entire career, I have made four or five million doing the Next Men, which I created to own at Dark Horse.

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??!!

I think there must be a transcription error there. I could say with confidence that during Shooter's time at the company, I GENERATED more than 10 million dollars in income FOR MARVEL, but for me to have EARNED ten million myself would have required my receiving a MUCH larger share of the sales than was the reality.*

Same with NEXT MEN. Altho that book was a HUGE seller when it started (outselling any other direct sales only book by something like a factor of ten), even the (by then) high cover price and larger share of the sales would not have put $5,000,000 into MY pocket.

I can only have been talking about what the PUBLISHERS were earning from the books I worked on.

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* Do the math, and you will see my run on FANTASTIC FOUR probably pulled in close to $9,000,000 FOR MARVEL, but since the first half of that run was done without royalties, my own share would have been around $180,000.

Do the math, and you will see my run on FANTASTIC FOUR probably pulled in close to $9,000,000 FOR MARVEL, but since the first half of that run was done without royalties, my own share would have been around $180,000. ----JB

How much of that did you get to keep after local, state and federal taxes, retirement and health care costs are deducted?

When someone wins the lottery and the amount is annouced, I imediatley begin to think, "How much did they REALLY win?" after taxes are subtracted.