I loved Marvel Comics in the 1980s. I read them religiously from 1985–1989 and they were a huge part of my life. I’ll write more about that some other time.
My new blog doesn’t have any particular plan to it, but one of the inspirations is a blog I discovered around five years ago by Marvel’s editor-in-chief from the period, Jim Shooter.
Shooter is a polarizing figure and even as a kid I remember reading complaints about him in fanzines, mostly from creators who were sore that he stepped on their creative control. I didn’t particularly like the books he wrote personally, but it seems indisputable that Marvel became the modern-day force that it is today under his watch—with the emergence of numerous pivotal creators and top-line stories and characters—and imploded not long after he was forced out in corporate shenanigans.
From 2011 to 2016 he blogged extensively about his lifetime professional experiences and it’s endlessly fascinating. I suppose it’s self-serving (by definition) but he certainly seems reasonable to me. He was stuck between two worlds: geeky comics creators on one side (he was their youthful boss at Marvel) and business sharks on the other, who just saw comic books as a way to make money.
His blog answered a ton of mysteries, for me, as to why the comics came out as they did. And there are lots of stories about my favorite writers and artists.
For some reason he simply stopped blogging in 2016, without even an explanation why.
But his blog is still up and it’s fascinating—and very well written!
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