How I Returned to Comics

by Jim Shooter

In 1970 the job market in Pittsburgh for eighteen-year-old comic book writers was pretty sad. I got some good interviews but nobody wanted to risk hiring me, a kid just out of high school. My background wasn’t exactly something I could sell. I did various little jobs and some freelance assignments, but I eventually had to get a normal job. I managed a Kentucky Fried Chicken store for about a year. I worked in advertising.

In 1973…or maybe 1974, dunno…a guy named Harry Broertjes called me and asked if he could interview me for a fanzine devoted to the Legion. The Legion Outpost. I think. Among the last things he asked me—might have been off the record—was why I wasn’t writing comics at that time. I told him that I was sure Mort wouldn’t want me back at DC, and that, having walked out on Marvel after only three weeks, I felt I’d burned my bridges there.

Harry told me, for one thing, that Mort had retired and wasn’t at DC anymore. He thought that people at Marvel and DC just didn’t know how to get in touch with me. I didn’t understand how that could be, but…. 

(Harry is now a mild-mannered guy who works for a great metropolitan newspaper. Hmm.)

The next day, I got a call from a guy named Duffy Vohland, who represented himself as an editor at Marvel. He wasn’t. I think he was an assistant in Marvel’s British Department. Harry had apparently given him my number. Anyway, he said that I would be welcome at Marvel, and that I should come to New York to meet with Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas and other people.

Okay. I think I went the next day, which was my day off at the department store. I did meet with Roy, who offered me a regular book to start with, Manwolf. I hadn’t picked up a comic book for years, and I had no idea who Manwolf was, but….

After my meeting with Roy, I went to lunch with a bunch of Marvel staffers and freelancers. They all encouraged me to go over to DC and look for work there, too. Apparently, it was okay to work at both companies at once, at that point. Things had changed since the old days when Frank Giacoia, Gene Colan, and many others were forced to use pseudonyms when moonlighting for the enemy (as if you couldn’t tell it was their work). I went to DC’s offices—someone had to tell me where they were, since DC had moved from where I’d left them last, 909 Third Avenue.

I didn’t know who to ask for. I figured that Nelson would probably still be there. Yep. Nelson was very glad to see me and escorted me right into the publisher’s office. The publisher was Carmine Infantino! That was a surprise. He’d been the art director for a while during my first stint, and had always liked my cover designs, so he remembered me, sort of. Carmine wrongly greeted me as the “kid who created the Legion.” Well, no, but….

No matter. Carmine summoned then-Legion editor Murray Boltinoff and told him to put me on the LSH again. Murray seemed pleased. Cary Bates, who was writing the series, had more work than he could handle. Murray needed a guy. Then Carmine walked me down to Julie Schwartz’s office, introduced me (we’d already met, years ago) and told Julie that I was his new Superman writer. Julie sort of grunted an okay.

So, DC offered me two strips with which I was familiar, and Marvel offered me Manwolf. I went with DC. A mistake, as it turned out.

I wasn’t very confident. How could I be, having been through Mort’s self-esteem meat grinder?

Jim

First of all, I wasn’t very confident. How could I be, having been through Mort’s self-esteem meat grinder? Yes, by that point, I’d figured out that I wasn’t a “moron,” but I sure wasn’t feeling like I was God-King of comics writers.

Julie wasn’t as verbally abusive as Mort (though ornery and acerbic), but he seemed to be deliberately hazing me. And, as I learned later, he was. He made me rewrite things two and three times for totally bogus reasons. I had no idea what was going on. Remember, I wasn’t all that confident, figured I was rusty, and for a long time I kept thinking, maybe it’s me. Nah.

Meanwhile, Murray was nicer (though crusty and sarcastic) but seemed to have early stage Alzheimer’s. Seriously. Ask his former assistant, Jack Harris. Murray would give me instructions, forget what he’d said, then be upset that I hadn’t followed some orders he’d never given me. I ended up doing rewrites because Murray misremembered things. Again, at first, I thought it was me. Maybe I was confused. Maybe I didn’t understand him correctly. 

At one point, Julie asked me for a plot for a Superman story. When I came to the office to pitch it, he cut me off and said, “Forget what you came up with, here’s the plot.” He gave me a plot bit by bit, scene by scene. I took notes. I followed that plot to a “t.” 

Julie’s assistant, Bob Rozakis, rejected the script because he didn’t like the plot! I pointed out that it was Julie’s plot, and appealed to Julie, but Julie said tough shit, if Rozakis didn’t like what I’d written, I should re-plot the story with him.

Okay. I did. Then, I rewrote the script according to the new plot. 

Then, Julie’s other assistant, Nelson, rejected the story, again, because he didn’t like the plot! In his letter, Nelson said the dialogue was great, each scene was well-realized, everything was good—except the plot, which he found puzzling, since I was usually so good with plots.

I had to go to New York to see Murray anyway, so, while there, I went to Julie’s office and tried to tell him that I was being batted around like a tennis ball among him and his two assistants. The first thing he said was that he “stood by his assistants.” He added that if I had written the story well enough, I would have made the plot work. Either of them.

Angry, I went home and wrote a letter to Carmine, explaining what happened. The last paragraph of the letter said, “What do I expect you to do? I expect you to stand behind your editor. But I thought you ought to know what happened, and that I will never work with Julie Schwartz again.”

I got a letter from Julie a few days later. He had intercepted my letter before it reached Carmine! Julie’s letter said, “Dear fellow J.S., You shouldn’t have sent that letter to Carmine. You will never work in this business again.” Exactly that.

No great loss at that point. Curious, I called Murray and asked him if he still wanted me to write the last batch of stories he’d approved. He said, of course. Why wouldn’t he? No reason, I said.

That’s when I realized it wasn’t me. It was them. 

Murray continued to be a little fuzzy-brained. One time he sent back a script to be rewritten because it “didn’t work” due to the fact that people could see Phantom Girl. “Jim, she’s a Phantom! How can they see her?” Well…she gets immaterial, not invisible. So I argued with Murray for the first time. And won.

Feeling, for the first time that I knew what I was doing, after that, I often argued with Murray and won. One time, he asked me to send him three “springboards,” which are one-paragraph ideas. I did. He sent them back with a scathing letter saying he asked for plots. What the hell was I doing sending him these paragraphs? So, I called Murray, told him I was happy that he liked the springboards and asked him which to write first. He seemed confused and asked me to “refresh” him regarding the springboards. I did. He specified which order he wanted them in and I wrote the scripts. 

However, I also did do a few stories for Marvel during that same period. A Super-Villain Team-Up, an Iron Man, I think…maybe something else. Maybe a Manwolf. I forget. 

It was kind of an adventure. I had no idea how to write “Marvel style.” I sent in plots, as requested—okay so far—then was stunned when finished pencil art came to me in the mail. Wh-wh-what?! What the hell was I supposed to do with that? 

I tried calling Marv Wolfman, Editor-in-Chief at the time, but every time I called and asked for Marv, the receptionist transferred me to Dan Adkins, who worked in the black and white department. He didn’t know how to transfer calls, and eventually just started hanging up on me. I kept trying to explain to the receptionist what was happening, but no matter what, I got Dan. Click. 

Finally, a fan, a member of the Pittsburgh Comics Club told me he thought what I was supposed to do was write dialogue and indicate on the pencil art where the balloons should go. So, I did. 

Because I was clueless and couldn’t reach anybody who could explain things, I made some gigantic screw ups. Not all my fault. For instance, the penciler on the Super-Villain Team-Up was George Evans—and it was his first Marvel job, too. He’d always worked from full scripts before. The Marvel plot-pencils-then-dialogue thing was as much a mystery to him as it was to me. And he didn’t know the characters! At one point in the plot, I wrote, “Doctor Doom taunts his helpless captives.” George drew Doom dancing around with his thumbs in his ears, wiggling his fingers going nyah-nyah!

When I saw that in the art, I didn’t know what to do. See, I assumed that some editor had checked the art before it was sent to me. (Nope. Marvel didn’t do that. The writer was, to some extent, the editor. Who knew?) At DC, with Mort, questioning anything was death. I couldn’t live with that image, though, so I wrote the most polite note possible suggesting that perhaps, this was a mistake. There were lots of mistakes, by the way, but that one was over the top. I think Marie Severin fixed that panel when she saw it as the pages flowed like molasses through the office, but I know for a fact that everyone at Marvel thought I had called for that nyah-nyah.

Anyway…somehow I struggled through.

I continued working for Murray, but there didn’t seem to be much of a future there. Then, one day in December of 1975, I got a call from Marv Wolfman, then Editor-in-Chief of Marvel. He offered me an editorial position. I agreed to come to New York to discuss it on Monday, December 29.

“The new guy’s here! Jim’s here!” It was as if they were overwhelmed, desperate for help.

Jim

I arrived on time for my 10:00 AM interview. Marv wasn’t there. When I walked into the editorial suite, however, I was happily greeted as if I already had taken the job by the rest of the editorial staff—Roger Slifer, Scott Edelman and Roger Stern. “The new guy’s here! Jim’s here!” It was as if they were overwhelmed, desperate for help. Um…they were. They asked me to proofread the lettered, inked art boards for an issue of Captain Marvel that had to go out that day. Okay. They were very happy to see me and deferential, as if I were the new boss. They came to me and asked me questions about finished art boards they were proofreading! “How should I handle this? What should I do here?” What da f**k? So I proofread Captain Marvel and answered questions the best I could.

The other two people who sat in that room were Marv’s secretary, Bonnie, and Chris Claremont, who wasn’t in. He did arrive later, but spent most of his time sitting in Bonnie’s chair with her in his lap, necking. They eventually got married. I was at the wedding. 

I soon found out that, for years, since Stan had stopped being the one-man writing-editing-creative head guy, mostly Marvel writers were on their own. Writers sent plots directly to the pencilers, pencilers sent the pencils directly back to the writers, writers sent the script, pencils and balloon placements directly to the letterers, letterers sent the lettered pages directly to the inkers and the inkers finally sent the pages to the office. So, the first time the work was seen by someone in editorial was when the pages were finished, all but colored. Everybody on the editorial staff was a “proofreader”—trying to fix problems that were already committed to ink on boards. 

So, if there were major problems with a story, or major mistakes, they had to be corrected on the inked, lettered boards! That’s hard. Much rewriting, re-lettering, redrawing and re-inking had to be done routinely. 

Marv breezed in around noon, stopped in his office long enough to drop off his bag and breezed out again, going to lunch. Okaaay…so I went to lunch with the editorial troops at the local Brew Burger.

Sometime after we got back, Marv breezed back in, and finally we had our talk. Marv wanted me to replace Chris Claremont, who was going freelance. Chris occupied a position Marv called “pre-proofer.” What? Apparently Marv had come up with the “revolutionary” notion that if someone in editorial read the plots before they were drawn and checked out the scripts and pencils before lettering and inking, mistakes could be caught earlier when they were easier to fix, before they got to the “proofreaders” in a finished state. 

I said, so you want me to be the editor? He said, no, I’m the Editor. I said, no, you’re the Editor-in-Chief. He was still uncomfortable with my title being Editor, so he offered the title “Associate Editor.” Okay. Whatever. The job was the same, the money was okay. I was to supervise the plots, scripts and pencils, head up the “proofreading” staff and be his second in command. Fine. Marvel was a train wreck at that time. I thought I could help fix it. 

What a total lack of organization. What a mess. 

When I took the job at Marvel, I still owed Murray a few stories. It was okay by Marv that I deliver them. I told Murray I’d finish what was on the docket, but then I was done. He seemed honestly disappointed.

Roger Stern, who had started at Marvel only two weeks before me quickly became a friend and volunteered to help me plot those stories. I think it was a good exercise for him—he wanted to become a writer—and he was a great help to me. That was all I had going with DC then.

I officially started at Marvel on the first working day of 1976, January 2, a Friday. Just like in my first try at Marvel, I showed up that day with a suitcase and no idea where I was going to sleep that night. Déjà vu. But, this time, I had some money in my pocket. I think I stayed at the Y again, at first, but at least I could afford to eat. 

Thank you to JC Vaughn for allowing me to excerpt an article he wrote.