[Groop] Jim Shooter - EPIC Interference

[Gary Grossmann]

Can you say "backpedaling?"  
 
Jim Shooter is a very skillful wordsmith who can make it sound like he's being forthright and honest when in fact he is merely reworking his lie to try and make it sound more believeable.  What destroys the credibility of everything he says is the following quote:  
 
"Sergio Aragonés came to visit me one day to pitch an idea for a humorous comic book starring a funny, cheese-dip-loving barbarian character.  Just one thing—he said he knew that Marvel had to “own everything,” but he wanted to retain some small interest in the character.  He knew Marvel had to own and control it, but he would like—he held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart—a  little piece." (Emphasis supplied) Then after hemming and hawing about other parts of the above post he says this in his reply to the Comics Journal article:  

"The meeting we had after I became Editor in Chief happened, however, exactly as described. (Emphasis supplied) There is no way in hell Sergio would ever, ever approach an editor with that kind of proposition or obsequious attitude.  He is a very proud man, and I mean that in the most positive sense.  There are many, many folks that know him better than I do and I'd bet real money you couldn't find one who would disagree with me.  
 
So as far as I'm concerned, no matter what he says about timing issues with respect to when Marvel allowed creator owned comics and when he and Sergio had the above conversations (Shooter became EIC in 1978), everything Shooter says is suspect because he sticks to his BS story about the contents of that conversation.  
 
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!  
 
Gary G. 
 
 

 



From: usagigoya at hotmail.com
To: dougiemccoy at cox.net; groop at groo.com
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:15:41 -0400
Subject: Re: [Groop] Jim Shooter - EPIC Interference





Jim Shooter's reply to the quote from the Comics Journal interview I posted on his blog.....
 
"...every time I talked to that tall fellow at Marvel, he also say it was impossible." If Sergio is referring to conversations we had when I was associate editor, he may be correct, because at that time it WAS impossible. And I had no power to change that or any other policy.

The meeting we had after I became Editor in Chief happened, however, exactly as described. It was possible for Marvel to publish creator-owned material then, because I had gotten approval to do so from President Jim Galton. Maybe that accounts for Sergio's statement, "They later changed their mind...."

The words, "...but at that time there was no way." are troubling. There certainly was a way. He heard it from me, he heard it from Publisher Mike Hobson. We were rarin' to go.

Sergio didn't mention Groo by name, and he probably didn't mention cheese dip. But it became apparent later that the property he'd been obliquely referring to in our conversation was Groo. 

"...they weren't able to even talk on a theoretical basis - nothing! They wanted nothing to do with it."

True, before I became EIC and Galton became President. Afterwards, not true. Mike Hobson and I talked to Sergio on a practical, let's-make-a-deal right now basis. We wanted everything to do with it. 

July 14, 2011 1:57 PM  
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