Marvel’s 1970s Titans: Jim Starlin, Steve Englehart & Al Milgrom

Recorded live at Terrificon, this conversation brings together three of Marvel’s most influential Bronze Age creators—Jim Starlin, Steve Englehart, and Al Milgrom—to share stories from the wild, experimental days of the 1970s comic book industry.

From Starlin’s cosmic epics with Captain Marvel and Warlock, to Englehart’s politically charged Captain America and groundbreaking Avengers and Batman runs, to Milgrom’s steady hand as artist, inker, and editor across Captain Marvel, and Avengers—this panel is packed with history, humor, and behind-the-scenes tales of working at Marvel during a time of radical creativity. 

Whether it’s the birth of Thanos, the rise of long-form continuity, the shaping of Marvel’s cosmic landscape, or the day-to-day chaos of 1970s bullpen life, this discussion is a must for fans of comics history.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Welcome back time again for another Word Balloon

(00:02):
the comp Conversation Show. John stuntris here live from terrificon
where today I had my first panel on Friday. It
was an excellent look at Marvel during the Bronze Age
the nineteen seventies, and we had three great creators to
talk about their experiences during that fantastic decade. I'm talking
about Jim Starlin, Steve Engelhart, and Al Milgram. Of course,
you know Al. He's been on the show recently talking

(00:24):
about a lot of his work. He talks about meeting
Starlin back in grade school, the two of them coming
out to New York to find their fortunes at Marvel,
and Steve Engelhart does the same thing.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
And we talked about.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Thanos and Avengers and Defenders, Captain Marvel, a little bit
of Warlock, and of course Steve's excellent Secret Empire Captain
America story that all takes place in this fantastic terrificon
panel today on Word Balloon. Word Balloon is brought to
you by the Legend of Kingdom. Come discover the story

(00:57):
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one of the League of word Balloon listeners Patreon dot
com slash word Balloon. Folks, thanks a lot for coming.
I appreciate the interest, as I'm sure the gentlemen do

(02:55):
as well. We're gonna be talking about Marvel in the seventies. Also,
you know, come on, these guys have had decades since
the seventies and we can talk about whatever you want
to talk about.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
My name is John Cuntrius. I have a podcast called
war Balloon. It's at wargalloon dot com.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
And I've had the pleasure of interviewing all these gentlemen
that are on the panel and Al Milgram on the
phone recently about two weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
What an entrance. Huh, I'm telling you, you're standing up. Sorry,
I'm late.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
They didn't send anybody to watch my table, and the
guy they sent was just gonna bring me here.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
So I said, no, you watched the table. I'll find them.
Here's lunch.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
That beautiful write it down, fantastic writer for many years
and still doing great, and I'm so glad he's back
in comics.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Steve Engelhardles and.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
Che what do you wants to.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Stuff?

Speaker 1 (03:48):
And last, but not at least certainly, the father of
Thanos Drax fire Starfire Firefox Ars Arrows. Of course, the
original name is Starfux, but hes.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
I've got a proved I will say, there you go.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
I'm great, So I appreciate darrow S there, Jim Starlin, everybody.
So honestly, I do want to talk obviously about what
you guys wrote in the seventies.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
But Jim and l you guys were boyhood friends, right,
excuse me, that's Jim and I. Yes, or as I
used to sign our covers Gemini. Well I like that?
What a what a punt?

Speaker 4 (04:25):
So?

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Who who met who first? Or how did how did
the meeting happen to me?

Speaker 2 (04:30):
I met him first? He met me several years later?
What does that mean? I don't know, but I liked it.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
I tried to pretend I didn't know him.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
I tried to pretend I didn't know him for the
longest time. Same grade.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
Are you here in the same grade?

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yes, Jim was degraded so junior high.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Junior High.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
I must have been sixth No, our junior High was
seven eighth and ninth grade. Okay, we were you know,
thirteen fourteen maybe right?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
And I ran with the crowd that I didn't read,
let alone read comics.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Well, they were going to read anything, they would have
read comics.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Well, they didn't even get that far.

Speaker 5 (05:14):
And Allen would run up to be and go, he's
just a new Fantastic four, And I.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Go, well, you beat quiet, don't put on? Was it was?
It really was the stake there. He would say, call me,
call me later at home.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
And I said, what you know, don't your friends know
your recind He said, if they knew I was reading.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Comics, they beat the ship out of it. And they
would have too.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
Jim.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Jim was tough enough, but these guys were Neanderthals. They
were big tough.

Speaker 6 (05:45):
What was Detroit?

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, it's true, exactly that.

Speaker 5 (05:48):
And he was a kidding about the bandas who loved
beef with maggots in it?

Speaker 4 (05:52):
You know that that's what they did find you?

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Oh yeah, really yeah, just well, protein is protein, I
guess it.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Was that ultra protein, actually ultra protein.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Did you guys go to New York together? Was that
the plan? I mean, how did how did you guys
make the move.

Speaker 6 (06:09):
From New York?

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Or Bucktritch right there the ark?

Speaker 5 (06:11):
I sold two page two two page stories at you Orlando,
and I went there and then work was coming and
I called him up and said, you ought to come too,
And we had a We were sharing a house with
some other folks in Staten Island, and you moved in
else thereby.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
It was Bill de Bay, it was Steve Skates, it
was Mike Friedrich. Oh that's right, Mike was area and
so that that would that would have been Mike, you,
Steve and uh and debate would have been there four
and Mike Friedrich, who was a writer and he felt
like he'd established himself in the business already after twelve

(06:55):
minutes and he said, I'm going to move back to California.
I don't think he liked New York at all, and
so he left, and so there was a room available,
and so they invited me to take over. There were four,
you know, four rooms for each, one for each of
the roommates, and he invited me to take it over,
and you know, nobody wanted to pay the extra rent.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
So I got in.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
I think we already lasted another couple of months there.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
It wasn't long. It's like I came.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
I came back to the apartment day everybody had moved out,
and what the hell happened?

Speaker 2 (07:26):
It was the it was the word I was.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
Jim was getting work already, because he was that much
better than I. But I got a job doing backgrounds
for Murphy Anderson, who was a you know, very well
established artist for DC Comics.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
He'd been around since the late forties.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
He had done the buck Ragers newspaper strip and at
this point in his career he was doing inking mostly over.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Over Kurt Swan on Superman and IRV.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Nova Batman, I believe, and you know various he had
inc Carmine Infantino on the Flash and Gil Kane on
the Atom and Green Lantern.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
So you know, he was an old pro.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
And when I say old, I think it was probably
forty two at the time. So I thought, oh my god,
imagine having that long a career in Hammets. Now I'm thinking,
good Lord, I've outlived him by you know how many
years now.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
It's crazy. But I was doing backgrounds for Murphy and.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Jim and I had been doing we you know, we did.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Stuff in high school.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
I met Jim. It was so much better than I was.
I said, I'll just think his stuff. Why, you know,
why am I trying so? But eventually I got up
the Coumpton to try and do penciling as well.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
But Jim was working.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
For Marvel and I showed my stuff to Carmine at
d C and he said, oh, you guys are a
great team. You think we could get you know, the
two of you working together over here at DC, And
I said, well, you know, I can't speak for Jim.
I said, I don't know. He's getting work on his
own over there. He's pretty happy. So Carmen said, they're
going to ruin him. Anyway, I said, I said, that

(09:15):
was a funny about face. Can we get you too
talented guys, he's no good. They'll ruin him. They didn't,
so anyway, but Jim got a job doing a backup
story at DC on a book called Sword of Sorcery,
because I guess they sort and sorcery was too generic,

(09:36):
and so they made a sort of There was a
sort of sorcery, and it was an adaptation of the
Fafford and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz liber Biber
Library Biber and Jim. It was a it was a
Gray Mouser story, and Jim drew the heck out of
it and it was tit as hell. I just sort

(09:57):
of poured the ink on the page and then wiped
away the bear areas and it was terrific. And based
on that, he did a lot.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
Of work on it.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
It was not Santael's at hard, but it was it
was very tightly penciled, and you know, and then and
then she dragged me over to Marvel with him, and.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
He introduced me to John.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Verporton, who was the production manager at the time, big
heavy set guy. He'd be sitting there in his office,
a giant guy who was six like five and weighed
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
I shuddered to think what he weighed, but.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
You know, and he's sitting there reading, proof reading a
stack of originals and he, you know, Jim knocks on
his door and he says, hey John.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
He looked up over his little reading glasses.

Speaker 6 (10:46):
Jim.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
He says, this is al oldrom. He's going to be
inking Captain Marvel from now on. And John went and
went back to proof reading. So it was not a tough,
tough process. It was, you know, it's not a lot
of oversight there. Jim said, I think he's good. Let's
use him next thing. You know, I'm working for Marvel Comics.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
That's beautiful.

Speaker 5 (11:09):
And then a month later they transferred him over to
somebody else. Every issue I had a different inquor on
that book.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, well, no, that was before me and after you too,
I know, I did several and.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Then Van Green Dan I was did one Dan jack Abel.
I thought I thought it was just tired of me already.
I think you did too.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
No, this was all John. John was always screw Steve.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I feel that I've been we've gone on a tangent.
But I obviously when did you break in? And and
what was your first gigs in the seventies?

Speaker 7 (11:44):
It was the seventies, right, yeah, broken, yeah, Well, I
started as Neil adams assistant. I was in the army
in Maryland, and these days I cannot plaine what I
was thinking, except that I really admired Neil Adams. And
so on Friday, I didn't have anything to do with

(12:07):
the military base, and so I got on a train
and I went to New York, and I somehow knew
that Neil liked to hang around DC's offices.

Speaker 6 (12:14):
So I went.

Speaker 7 (12:17):
Showed up around five o'clock on a Friday afternoon and
said I'd like to talk to Neil Adams.

Speaker 6 (12:20):
And they went.

Speaker 7 (12:22):
Because this was in a time when fans there weren't
any I mean, you know, it's like the lot of readers.
They had no experience really with people actually showing up
and being interested. But they checked with Neil, and Neil
said come back. And I talked to Neil and I
said you know, when I got out of the Army,
I'd really like to, you know, be your resistant sir.

(12:42):
And he said why wait, and I said, because I'm
in the army. And he said, can you come up
every weekend and work with me? And I'm like, yeah,
I can do that. So I did that, and eventually
I got out of the Army and went to New
York and I was in the Bronx.

Speaker 6 (13:00):
Six people.

Speaker 7 (13:04):
Rich Butler, Rich Butler's mother, and a couple other people
who you know, you wouldn't know their names at this point.
They didn't really make it happen, but we weren't a
six floor walk up in the Bronx. This was just
about Christmas time. I had a car which I parked

(13:24):
on the street in New York and then went to
in Indiana for a couple of weeks for Christmas. And
when I came back, the battery was gone from my car.
And I said, six floor walk up in a neighborhood
like that, No, So I moved out. Salimon Dola, who
did Dead Night of the Batman, is you know, still

(13:44):
a famous thing that he did. He and I moved
up to Connecticut at that point and I was doing
background stuff, little one page mystery things.

Speaker 6 (13:56):
I was because I was doing art.

Speaker 7 (13:57):
Right, Well, I skipped a little bit, but I mean,
Neil insisted that I have my name on this story
that we did for Vamparella, not a Vamperella story, but
in the magazine, because he said, then you'll have a
published credit. And I mean again, he was a tremendous guy.
Neil was a tremendous guy. So I had a published credit.

(14:19):
I came to New York, I already had published stuff
and I could go around and so I was working
trying to do art. And then the thing about New
York in those days was you had to be there.
There was no FedEx, there was no internet, so you
had to be able to hand things to people. So
even if you lived in Connecticut, you had to come
in on the train and hand stuff to people.

Speaker 5 (14:42):
And they were also at Marvel going from eight books
to twenty three books a month, which is so we
were all getting hired at that.

Speaker 7 (14:50):
Point, right, and so well, but you know, I personally
was still doing background stuff, and I was doing backgrounds
for Bob Oxinger on Supergirl, and I was doing Jimmy
Olsen backgrounds, and I was doing stuff for Giordano on
Batman and you know whatever. And then the thing about
New York was everybody was there and it was really

(15:11):
cool because I mean everybody, Wally Wood I got to know,
I mean people who were there long before me, and
nobody was treated any different from anybody. It didn't matter
how long you've been there or what you've done. And
we were all comic book people together in New York,
which I very much appreciate. In any event, I got
to know Gary Friedrich, who wrote Nick Fury, An Agent

(15:31):
of Shield, and the summer after I got to New
York and moved to Connecticut, a stewardess now called a
flight attendant got murdered in the apartment above where Gary
Friedrich lived, and his wife, who was from New York, said,
I don't like this.

Speaker 6 (15:49):
Let's go back to.

Speaker 7 (15:50):
Missouri where you're from for the summer, and just I
don't want to live where in a murder was committed.
And so Gary called me up. I guess because he
knew I was, you know, just doing things here and there,
and he said, would you like to fill in for me?
For six weeks at Marble He was the low man
on the totem pole and that's what he was offering me,

(16:12):
the guy who would answer letters and do whatever. And
I almost said no because I was living so far
up in Connecticut that it was two hours in and
two hours out on the train every day. But I
remember going and talking to Roy Thomas and I said, well,
I'll do it four days a week, I mean, you know,

(16:35):
and he said, okay, sure, what does he care for
six weeks for a fill in guy. But at the
end of six weeks, Gary did not want to come
back from Missouri and he didn't want to do any
more work. So he sent back this six page monster
story that he was supposed to have written, but he didn't,
and they just kind of looked around the office. Roy,
I guess, and he's like, I don't know you want

(16:55):
to write this thing?

Speaker 6 (16:57):
And I said, sure, wait, a scripting it?

Speaker 7 (17:01):
Scripting it, yeah, scripting it, yeah, yeah, because it was
drawn it no, no, no, it was sid short. There was
this six page monster story. Six page monster stories. They
started everybody off and and so I went home that
night and I wrote it and I enjoyed the writing
of it, and they liked what I wrote. So they said, oh,
you want to do some more and then you know,

(17:23):
that's how my career started. In those days, you worked
your way up to the superheroes. So I wrote romance stories,
I wrote monster stories, I wrote Western stories, and eventually
I wrote The Beast and then you know, all that
stuff went from there.

Speaker 6 (17:39):
So it was really.

Speaker 7 (17:42):
Every step of the way sort of right place, right time,
you know what I mean. It just like I didn't
do anything. I just you know, I was.

Speaker 6 (17:50):
Just I was there when they needed somebody. Yeah, I
was not so well, we were.

Speaker 5 (17:56):
All connected up. I mean my first cover was for
Win of his Beast stories.

Speaker 7 (18:00):
Okay, yeah, because I wasn't the only guy who was
that age who showed up at that time. Right there
was you know, there was Brunner, there was there was
Steve Gerber, there was you know Don McGregor, there was
you know.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
Derry Smith, Jones.

Speaker 7 (18:16):
It just there was a whole group of us who
had sort of grown up being comic fans and sort
of all came of age right at that time and
went to New York and did.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Truly, guys, that's why your generation is so interesting because
you I mean, prior to that, you had all the
mad Men, you know era kind of buttoned down guys.
And you I mean you, and I mean I know
this about you, Steve, and and you know your conscientious
objector and everything, which is amazing.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
The Army, yeah, you know, And that's how that's a
which is fantat. That's how I yeah, I tell the
story offensive in terms of that you you.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Know, were able to get out with an honorable discharge.

Speaker 7 (18:52):
Well, you know, I got drafted when I got out
of college. I went to Wesleyan right over in Middletown.
I got out of college and I called up my
draft board and I said, you know, I've also been
accepted at law school. Can I get a semester in?
And they said, you have about three weeks before we
come and get you. So I went into the Army
and I didn't really want to go, but it was like,

(19:16):
what was I going to fly? Flee to Canada? Just
what you did? You know, that's what young men did,
had to do. But I got to know a guy
in basic training who was also from Indianapolis, which is
where I was from. I didn't know him in Indianapolis,
but we bonded because of that. He gave me a
lot of stuff because I assigned a journalism school, and

(19:37):
he was going to go, you know, just be a
foot soldier and get it over with, and he did.
As a matter of fact, he died the first week
he was in Vietnam. And that was the first time
that I knew a guy who died. You know, I
was only twenty twenty one whatever I was, and that
sort of made an impression upon me, you know that, like, oh, okay.

(20:00):
And then I was working in the journalism office in
Maryland and everybody there had already been to Vietnam, and
they had nothing good to say about it, you know.
It was just like, no, it's a joke, it's a disaster, etc.
So I sort of figured out eventually this was not
something that I wanted to do. So I applied to

(20:21):
be a conscientious objector, and you had to be interviewed
by a chaplain, by a shrink, and by an officer
knowledgeable in matters pertaining the conscientious objection, of which there
are none, because why would there be one, you know,
And so the shrinks that I was saying in the
chaplains that I was sincere, and then the officer was

(20:43):
a whack major, which seemed to me like the worst
possible thing, because she would have had to have enlisted
in the first place, and then she would have had
to re up in order to be a major. But
not only did I, you know, I mean, we had
the thing, but I should mention that Neil Adams, again
on his own dime, came down from New York to

(21:03):
testify in my behalf that I was that I was
a cool guy, you know, and.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
So I don't know if being a cool guy would
get you out of me. I know, well he's cool,
get out of here.

Speaker 6 (21:16):
He's got the shades, you know.

Speaker 7 (21:19):
Anyway, so in the end she decided that I should
get out, but it still had to be approved by
the Pentagon, and there was like a month where I'm
just I'm still there, and of course I'm persona on
Grada in the Army because I've been trying to do this,
so everybody's you know, I was getting a lot of
KP duty and you know whatever. But in the end

(21:40):
the Pentagon said okay. But in that month I would
go over and see her because you know, we'd sort
of talk face to face and I'd say, well, you know,
so what is you know, well you hear anything, what's
going on? Eventually, they let me out. They said, yep,
I got an honorable discharge, but I don't get any benefits,
although I'm told that's changed now, but then who knows.

(22:01):
In any event, I got out, I went to New
York and moved in with Rich Butler's mother. At that point,
something we all had to go through.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
It's in the contra.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
But I already had Rich for one night.

Speaker 6 (22:18):
But a memorable night, I'm sure.

Speaker 7 (22:20):
Anyway, to just to wrap this up, I a month later,
I went back down to my Maryland based to see
friends who were still there. And I was on my
way to d C Washington, d C. And I stopped
in and I wanted to go see the major, you know,
and I stopped buying. And they said, oh, she opted
to get out of the army. And I think I
talked her into it.

Speaker 6 (22:43):
So, you know, anyway, get you on.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
An enemy's list today?

Speaker 6 (22:48):
Yeah, But so that's a very long no.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
But I loved it, and truly, again, guys, truly to
have that kind of fear of getting drafted, and certainly
during Vietnam stuff, I can't imagine. So, but I am
curious because you guys all worked on, like you said,
to get started and everything you had to work on
these backup stories and other genres and things. But also
this was the period of like Vamparella and I know
later on Epic Illustrate, but also even the theos, like

(23:17):
the creation of Thanos that was like pro well, I
know an iron Man, you put him in iron Man,
but didn't you also create a prior to put him
in Iron Man?

Speaker 6 (23:24):
Yeah? He was.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
He was in my portfolio when.

Speaker 5 (23:27):
I got work up in marl And when Roy asked
me if I wanted to do it, I said, oh,
I wanted to do this guy. Yea, yeah, he said fine,
and talking with Mike, and Mike said, hey, we'll talk
about it when we get back to the house.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
And I at a time he got back to the
house and.

Speaker 5 (23:41):
I had three pages, pencils, beautiful hard to back out then.

Speaker 6 (23:46):
And I said, sure, if you want us to own it,
go right ahead.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:49):
Well, the thing is they didn't keep the pay for work,
so okay for me in the long run.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Which is so great truly, And that's you know, because
you see the other guys and the things they've created
and not getting compensated for it.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
So we're all we're all thrilled it you know.

Speaker 4 (24:03):
Yeah things people have been real nice to me.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Beautiful, Yeah, beautiful, that's great.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
But that era of epic illustrated and all the Warren magazines,
did you guys do warn stuff?

Speaker 7 (24:14):
And oh yeah, well that first story I did with
Neil appeared in the Vamparella magazine, and then I wrote
Vamparella for four issues Okay, only three of which appeared
because the fourth one got lost in the mail.

Speaker 6 (24:24):
And that's when I learned, always make a backup.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Who who drew it? Back then?

Speaker 6 (24:28):
You re it was Gonzales? Okay, Spanish guys.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Okay, yeah, very gorgeous.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
It was gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
But like epics, like, were you guys? I mean, was
science fiction something you guys wanted to do?

Speaker 2 (24:39):
I mean? Or was it just anotherose genre? I mean I.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
Always liked science fiction because you didn't have to draw
any horses or cars? Was that?

Speaker 2 (24:49):
It was that standard answer all? But all the world
building that you did, pardon me, I was spending.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
Yeah, it was more fun doing spaceships and creating societies.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
And it was drawn cars, which came first, which is
unusual from a guy from the Detroit area, but.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
You know, most guys drawing in in the Michigan, you know,
do the design.

Speaker 6 (25:16):
That's why he had to leave.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Drawing cars.

Speaker 6 (25:20):
Sorry, you can't go to Wyoming. I don't like horses.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
So we were excommunicating horses are really harder to draw cars.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Oh yeah, did you al?

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Did you ever do any of that, like you know, vamper,
like warn magazines, like assignments.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
I did some stuff for Warren, mostly because I think
Dobay was our roommate, so I had that in and
and I did some inking on something.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
I don't remember who it was over. Might have been Buckler,
I'm not sure, but.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
I did, and and Debay had devised this way of
doing it that was completely off the wall. Instead of
like having pages penciled on paper, he would well, I
guess they were pencil on paper, but then he would
have the anchor ink them on some that would be
my wife. I'm about to say something wrong.

Speaker 4 (26:15):
I don't know what.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Excuse me one second, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Honey, I'm on a panel. I'll call you later.

Speaker 6 (26:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
No, it started at five.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Thank you, goodbye, dear.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
These in so much trouble now exactly.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
I've taken in some pretty good money so far. Today
I'll be okay, I'll be okay. I'll have to I'll
have to.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Buy a new bathroom, but other than that, I'll be okay.
So so then he would have these pages inc on
this It wasn't exactly vellum. It was some other plastic
key sort of material, so it'd ink that. And then
because the books were black and white, they had to

(27:04):
be toned. So then he would he would like paint
on the backs of the pages because it was translucent,
various gray tones, so he had to ink it on
the on the thing and then flip the thing over
and put in the gray tones so that it would
reproduce well in a black and white book. And it

(27:26):
was a big pain in the butt, but you know,
and I did. I did some of that, I remember
very distinctly. He was also giving work at the time
to Klaus Jansen, and he showed me some of Klaus's
work and he says, well, look, you can eat better
than this guy, right, And I went, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
But you know, he use my roommate, so he said, oh, no,
you can. I said, I I'll try, you know, So
I did it.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
But then I actually ended up doing a little bit
of writing for Bill. I created the least known swamp creature.
You've heard of man thing, You've heard a swamp thing?
Maybe you've heard of the heap yep, you know from
from back in the forties and fifties. But then Skywald
stole him because he was in public domain and they

(28:15):
did heap stories. Well. I did a character called Marvin
the Dead Thing. Anybody ever heard of Marvin? No, it's
a shame you don't.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Remember that one. I'll give you a copy. Anyway, it was.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
And the gist of it was a swamp monster. You know,
a guy dies in the swamp and he's terribly sad
and lonely, and he befriends a little girl and he
doesn't kill her or do anything terrible. And the last
panem I remember is the two of them skipping along
in the swamp together.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
So it had more of my sense of humor.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
But I did it as a one off, and then
they decided he was cool and they did aes about
him for a while, don't I don't even know what
they did with him, but I did that for you know,
I did. I think I must have done a few
of those. And then somebody else took it over and
they were getting they had a lot of international artists

(29:16):
and they were buying stuff where they would just take
the artwork and write a new story to shre whatever
the artwork was.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
And I remember I did one of those, and I just.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
You know, I think it was competent, but there were
very large balloons.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
And so I felt like I had to sort of
fill it.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Instead of having a giant balloon with a little bit
of copy in the middle, I felt like I had
to fill up every square inche of the balloons. So
it was the most you know, verbose, grandiose, purple pros
kind of stuff you'd ever want to read.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
And you know, I did that on maybe one or
two jobs as well.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
So I actually did do a little work for Warren
later when weasy Louise Jones was the editor of I
did I, along with every other inchor in Creation, inc.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Some Carmine and.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
Fantino stuff for And also that was a treat because
I was a big fan of Carmine's work, and he was,
you know, after they fired him up at DC and
he was doing I thought he was doing a pretty
good job at DC, very interesting stuff, very offbeat, but.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
It wasn't It wasn't doing well against the Marvel dreadnought.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
So they finally let him go and you know, replace
him with Janet Khan and and so suddenly he was
back to freelancing as a as a cartoonist, which was
good for all of his comic art fans.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
But I think Carmine was not happy with his fate.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
So do you, folks, if you if you got questions,
I'll ask you to start lining up.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Oh, can I just say one of the quick course,
of course, not that I don't talk too much as
it is, but mentioning that the different genres and offbeat
stuff that many of us did early on, How many
of you know that Jim's one of his very fresh
jobs he ever did from.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Marvel was a romance story. I didn't know that, Jim.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
Do you know that I love that Dick the dude,
Tom de truck driver and Wendy and the waitress.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
There was there was a little bit of a literation in.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
That story Ink by jack a boyd Ain't by jack
Abel and by Gary Friedrichs.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
All very nice, all ties together. Good Bye, folks, there
you go. No, that's fantastic.

Speaker 6 (31:29):
And after that Gary didn't want to write anything anymore.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
I ruined a lot of careers like that.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Back to Missouri, so get training, changing Captain Marvel from
green to white to eventually the black haired, blue and
red and everything else with Captain Marvel.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
How like, how early were you able to jump in and.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
All right, I'm fixing this character and making him the
character that we all know him love.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
Dead.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Okay, well before that point, that's a great story too,
don't kid me wrong.

Speaker 5 (32:00):
I got fired by Stanley at my second issue of
Iron Man. He he fired me and Seve gerber Bose, and
Roy decided he was going to make up for it,
so he gave gerber Man thing review and then he.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
Came to me and he said, we got this book that's.

Speaker 5 (32:19):
Probably going to get discontinued before you ever get your
first issue done, but we'll put you on it and
we'll see what happened. Then that was Captain Marble, and
the sales went up, and so I had a steady
gig for a while.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
Until I quit.

Speaker 5 (32:35):
But yeah, that was basically it.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Was Stanos always part of the plan of eventually putting
him in Captain Marble.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (32:45):
You know, Marble thought I was hiring me to do
Iron Man or Captain.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
Marble and Warlock or Silver Surfer. Yeah, yeah, it was
always Thane's was always going to come into it.

Speaker 5 (32:55):
Nobody else wanted to work on the character. He went
around for years decades. Was me the only one who
ever did? And I think Ron Myer's getting a couple
of stories because we were buddies, okay, but nobody else
wanted to do it, and then the movie came out
and they didn't want me to do it anymore.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
Anybody but Jujim Crazy.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
When well, Steve, when you were doing Avengers and you
were touching on the Chrease scrawl war and everything, the
Celestial of the Manta story and everything, you know. So
was that prior to Jim starting to mess with Marvel
and everything with Captain Marvel or was that same time?

Speaker 5 (33:30):
Well he actually he actually Steve actually scripted in the
second to last story or something like that or that story.

Speaker 7 (33:37):
Yeah, I'm not sure about the timeline to answer that question,
but yeah, Jim was doing the Captain Marvel and then
this is the way I understand it. Feel free to
correct me, but you felt that you could maybe be
a better writer if you took a little more time
and thought about it.

Speaker 6 (33:54):
So you asked me to write it.

Speaker 7 (33:56):
Yeah, well you stepped back from that thing, and then
he quit, and then me and Al we're doing We're
doing Captain Marble.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
Okay, there was a couple of issues in between there,
but you know, basically, yeah, yeah, I wanted.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
To see what you're doing.

Speaker 5 (34:11):
You're a good writer, and I said, okay, let's put him.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
I learned something, you know, So you did that one issue.

Speaker 7 (34:18):
Yeah, which is the cool thing to do. I mean,
who else would do that?

Speaker 4 (34:22):
Right, h only lunatics.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
We got a question, So my questions for Steve with
your run on cap going through Secret Empire, he had
to talk about Secret a very did no, man, I.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Mean it's a that was a big status change. Yeah,
a long time character. Well is there any concern or discussion?

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yeah, pushorial, No, let's remind people, you know, Secret Empire,
big swing a Dixon.

Speaker 6 (34:51):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (34:52):
Well when I when I took over Captain of Marvele,
I got the same speech that Jim did about to
Captain America.

Speaker 6 (34:59):
He got Marvel.

Speaker 7 (35:01):
But they said, this book is you know, nobody's figured
out how to make this book work. It's you know,
it's either going to go bi monthly or it's going
to get canceled. You're the low man on the totem
policy if you can think of something. And so I
thought of something of having him stand for the American ideals,
and that turned his fate around and has become sort

(35:22):
of the template ever since.

Speaker 6 (35:23):
Right.

Speaker 7 (35:25):
But what Roy said to me also when he gave
me the book was there's two things you have to do.
You have to turn it in on time every month,
and you have to make it sell. And if you
can do that, then we don't care what you do.

Speaker 6 (35:41):
Wow. And he said it was seriously.

Speaker 7 (35:43):
And I got to back it up to say that
when Roy and Denny were hired by stan Stan made
them sound like him. He because everything had sounded like
him to that point and he didn't want to change
that from a writing stand from a writing standpoint, and
so he made Roy and Denny write like him, and
he would grill them and train. So it's amazing, maybe

(36:05):
not if you you know, but I mean the fact
that Roy. When Roy took over, Roy just said, you
guys can do anything you want to do, so long
as it sells and you don't miss deadlines.

Speaker 5 (36:15):
There was no assistant editors had done it right, This
is Roy doing everything himself.

Speaker 6 (36:19):
Right.

Speaker 7 (36:20):
We, I mean, us writers did our own letters pages.
I mean, we were the editors basically of our own books.
And so the answer to your question is nobody.

Speaker 6 (36:30):
The book was.

Speaker 7 (36:30):
Selling and I was turning it in on time, and
they didn't care what else I did. So that's how
that happened. And then and then Watergate happened. And for
those of you who weren't there, it was a big deal,
and it was on television every day, and Americans were
all tuned in to watch the live hearings, which were
conducted by statesmen back when people on both sides of

(36:52):
the aisle, even whatever their predilections, still thought it was
a serious thing that they had to deal with. And
so it just made no sense to me that if
Captain America, who I had very innocently established as caring
about the ideals of America, that he would just keep
on fighting the Yellow Claw during the course of all this.

(37:13):
And we're supposed to be living in the real world.
The Marvel Universe was supposed to be you know, blah
blah blah blah. So anyway, I thought I should do something.
So I had this anagram for Watergate, and that story
took as long as it took, and then Nixon was
still the president, but it was clear he was not
gonna be for much longer. But I, you know, I

(37:34):
couldn't kill Nixon himself on stage in a comic book
and so forth, so I just did it off panel, right.
We never said who it was, and then that just
led the character. When I write characters, I'd just like
to let them tell me what's going on, you know.
I mean, the Captain America, who I had chronicled to

(37:56):
that point, couldn't take you know, well, he'd given his
life to those ideals, and here was the president doing
this kind of stuff. So he decided he was not
going to do that anymore. But he was still a hero,
so he became no mad. I mean, it just it
was logical, and I knew, you know, I knew, is
Captain America going to come back at some point? Of course,

(38:17):
Captain America is going to come back at some point.
But I thought, how long can I string this out?
How long can I make this work without a Captain
America and the Captain America.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Book when he was no mad?

Speaker 7 (38:25):
Yeah, when he was no mad? Yeah, And you know,
I ran that as far as it felt like I should.
And then Captain America came back. But that was all.

Speaker 6 (38:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (38:34):
And people say, did they tell you can't do Nixon? No,
that was me because I thought I can't do Nixon.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
You know, it was a great story. Yeah, my god, Yeah,
that picked story. Absolutely sure, Please come on up. Yes,
I don't know how much to go right through the microphone.
You don't like such, I don't know how much is
the question?

Speaker 1 (38:51):
But to see with the Avengers Defenders War, yes, I
thought it was.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
The coolest thing I had ever read.

Speaker 6 (38:58):
And I.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Back then you weren't.

Speaker 8 (39:01):
Necessarily getting comments on a regular basis, so there was
holes in the gap. But I can't tell you how
many years I had spent trying to catch up with
the various issues, so I know I gotten it a
long time ago.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
So I guess I want to say thank you. And
I guess there was a question with all.

Speaker 8 (39:16):
The you know, big crossover events, that one was very small,
like eight issues or something like that.

Speaker 4 (39:22):
Something you do you want to take blame for all.

Speaker 7 (39:24):
The well, I mean they had done the j LA
JSA stuff before me, you know, before that time. But
the other book that I got when I was handed
Captain America was the Defenders, and I really liked doing
the Defenders. And then a couple of months later Roy
gave up the Avengers and he gave it to me,

(39:45):
which I thought was a nice vhote of confidence and
so forth. But then I was writing both of them,
and we got to the summertime and Marvel said they
weren't going to do any annuals that year, and I
had always loved the annuals in the summertime, and I thought, well,
then there ought to be something special about this summer,
and I thought about doing my two teams together, and
I went to Roy and I said, this is what

(40:07):
I want to do. And Roy said, if you miss
any deadline, everything will topple over like Domino's. And I said,
I won't do that and he said okay, And that's
you know, that was the editorial oversight on it. So
I just wanted to do something special for that summer,
and I controlled most of the Marvel heroes at that point,
so that's what I did.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
Fantastic thing.

Speaker 6 (40:32):
Steve.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
You kind of answered you kind of answered my question,
but this is for the whole panel.

Speaker 9 (40:35):
Was there a story or a story that you want
to do what couldn't do based on editorial or because
I know some of were editors, But you know, is
there a story that you wanted to do that higher
up said no, or that didn't want to do that
you had to do for the whole pant.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
I wanted to do a name or a story after
nine to eleven. It was going to be sort of
a thoughtful essay on.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
The balance of power and the misunderstandings and more of
an intellectual look. Atlantis is going to be destroyed and
Namo was going to be off trying to find out
what was going on. I had planned on Nelsen man
Nell would be in a guest star in it at
the time, but it was jingoistic enough for Anti heroupe

(41:25):
enough for Marvel. So they sat on there for a
year and they eventually said, we're going to do nay
More in Love.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
How many of you remember and name oh Andy Watson. Yeah,
the team to actually remember I.

Speaker 5 (41:35):
Knew, and so I never have to do that story,
And that was the story I would have liked to
have done.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah, that was that weird experimental time with Jemison because
I don't really trying anything.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, please, ye, I got nothing.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
I mean, you know, when Jim quit Captain Marvel, and
I'm actually curious what prompted that at the time, because.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
You and then you went over to d C for
a while.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
Yes, yeah, I mean it was different inkers every months.

Speaker 5 (42:04):
Oh, just the different incors, that was it.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
He penciler, he is, Yeah, I mean they were.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
You mostly had pretty good inkers though, but you know,
you just wanted the consistency.

Speaker 6 (42:17):
I have been.

Speaker 4 (42:18):
Promised that Kloud's was going to be it.

Speaker 5 (42:20):
And as soon he got the one issue off and
they gave him away, and I went, okay, never mind.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
No, okay, but you know, and then and then they
hired Steve and myself to continue the book.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
So it took two of us to do what Jim
was doing by himself.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
And but I thought, you know, that was a nice
I think they thought, well, Molton kind of draws like Starlin,
so let's we'll get him, but nobody'll notice that Jim's gone.
And Steve's a very good writer and very you know,
offbeat creative ideas. You know, he thinks outside the box
almost all the time. And so I thought we had
a very nice run on the character and I enjoyed that.

(42:59):
But you were back, you were out west still, Yes, yeah,
he went back out to the Bay Area and I
was in New York. And we did not communicate.

Speaker 7 (43:11):
Overly much, right, it was. It was a bi monthly book,
and so we would every time something was ready to do,
we'd get on the phone and try to plot something
really complex over the course of some conversation, which didn't
always work out.

Speaker 6 (43:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
I have the sense that you mostly just wrote it
and then I just drew it.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
I don't remember a lot of give and take on it.

Speaker 7 (43:35):
But I think it changed because when you did, like
the Space Cowboy and stuff like that, it sort of
switched over to where you were plotting it, and I was.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Just really yeah dialogue, Yeah, okay, Well but as you
couldn't see, it wasn't a finally messed who was editing
you guys when you were collaborating first, Yeah, no recollection whatsoever, all.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Right, And I mean it was the carousel of editors,
I think.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
And you know, Steve mentioned earlier about basically editing his
own stuff. Sure, and that became sort of you know,
Marvel went from being stan Lee was was the editor
of all the titles and writing a good percentage of them.
But that's when it was a finite. They were only
allowed to do eight titles a month. I think the distributors,

(44:24):
which was d C Comics distributor, they were I don't
know who owned which, but they were completely connected, and
they for some reason they said, well, we'll also distribute
your you know, your comics, Marvel, but no more than
eight books a month. And once Marvel started, you know,
taking off and hitting it big and doing better and

(44:44):
better with more and more characters, that's why they had
those split books for as long as they did.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
They they weren't allowed to have new titles.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
So they had the you know, Tales of Suspense and
Tales to Astonish and Journey in the Mystery and you know,
Strange Tales, and they were all, you know, two different
characters each getting half the book.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
And they finally went they.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Said, well, look, we really want to expand. And Independent
News said no, you're not allowed. You know, this is
just eight books a month. And they said, well, and
they found another distributor, Curtis was it, and boom, you know,
the Marvel you know, big bang explosion just took off,
and they you know, everybody instead of being in a

(45:30):
half a book, got their own title, and they kept
introducing new characters, and you know, frequently they were you know,
they were supporting characters who somebody decided, oh, we could
really do something with him and make him a lead character.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
And you know, then it just it just mushroomed from there.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
So you know, but.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
What I was getting to originally was that Stan had
been the whole shebang, and then Roy when he was
you know, Stan went out west to try and sell
Marvel to Hollywood, and Roy became the whole shebang. And
even he realized that was you know, as it was expanding,
one man could not do the job. And and so

(46:16):
you know, Roy went back to freelancing, writing and and
doing you know, Conan and introducing, which was a which.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Was a big property for Marvel, I think in the time.
But then there was a whole string.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
You know, Lan Ween was editor in chief for a while,
and Marl Wolfman was editor in chief for a while,
and Jerry Conway was editor in chief for twelve minutes.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
And I mean I'm barely exaggerating. It was a month,
maybe two weeks, and the shoots ready to quit again
just enough took Jim Off again exactly.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
Yes, it's too bad there weren't more comic companies because
he could have.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
Was hating pongall over them.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Was that nutty for you guys as you were doing
your books because you're doctor Strang and everything.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
You're doing and everything, and to know their cosmic code?

Speaker 7 (47:04):
Yeah, I mean Jerry and I are friends now, but
I mean that it was. You know, Jerry took over
and he decided he wanted to write the Avengers and
the Defenders, so he took one from me and one
from Gerber and I said, yeah, yeah, I said, no,
that's and that's why I ended up over at DC
doing Wow Batman and stuff.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Well, well again s DC, I mean Marvel Fenn as well,
but a STC fans are glad you guys came over
because you guys did amazic work at DC as well.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Well. And the thing was that each of these editors
in g when they finally realized this is a thankless job,
they would quit. They would quit, but then they say, well,
now I'm going to write and edit my own stuff
on these four titles, six titles I think Jerry took
I don't know, nine or twelve titles I mean, more

(47:51):
than a human could write in a month.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
And so he's one of these guys.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
And then, of course the whole point of an editor,
you know, it's it's tough to be a self editor
because you know, how much are you gonna.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Yell at yourself?

Speaker 3 (48:07):
How hard are you going to crack that whip to
get you, you know, you to do stuff, either better
stuff or on time stuff, or whatever the criteria might be.
So you know, so each one of them, you know,
was doing their own little fiefdom of several books. And meanwhile,
Marvel the books were getting later and later, and they
were missing deadlines, Helter Skelter and Yon and and you know,

(48:31):
Conway again two weeks. Although I do oh a vote
of thanks he one of the things he did in
his two weeks in charge is he had me doing
cover sketches for Jack Kirby. And why, you may ask,
that's what I asked, But you know, he said, well,
you know Jack was now back from doing the stuff

(48:53):
at DC, the Fourth World stuff, and he said, yeah,
we want to have Jack, like in the old days,
doing the covers for as many books as we can
as we can have done, because who does a better
comic book cover than Jack Kirby, no one, and so
so I said, well, why does.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Jack Kirby need me to do cover sketches for him?

Speaker 3 (49:14):
It's absurd, He said, no, no, it says that we
don't want to have to ship hundreds of pages of
photo copies out to the West Coast and then waste Jack's.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Time looking through all these issues.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
To find the cover scene that you know things would
be best.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
So I said, oh, oh, so I can waste my
time doing that because exact days. So that was the deal.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
I did a bunch of cover sketches for Kirby, which
he's stuck to pretty closely. Although I was doing my best,
you know, Jack Kirby impression on the sketches and I
the only deal I made because I.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Never got any originals back from those.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Jack was getting all the originals for whatever. I guess
he cut his special deal with Marvel, and nobody told me.
But the thing was, and I said, well, look, if
if Jack discovers based on my sketches, I'd like to
ink his pencils. So I thought maybe I didn't original
or two, but anyway, and Jerry said.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Oh, yeah, we love your ranking. That's fine. So I
got to work with Jay Kirby, who's, you know, my
all time fave.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
So yeah, he can't he can't beat Jack Herby anyway,
So he accomplished that. And then somewhere in there Archie
Goodwin was also editor in chief for maybe a year
I think anyway, and then finally Archie I think Archie
was fissed because they promoted Jerry to the position before

(50:37):
he was. So then Archie did it, and he said,
why would why did I want this? So he went,
you know, he went back into editing maybe epic and
writing whatever stuff he was writing. And there was an
assistant up at the office at the time named Jim Shooter,
and more about him in a panel later this week.

(50:57):
But you know, Jim had come him up at the
age of thirteen or fourteen years old.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
He was writing professional comics for.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
DC and he learned under mort Weisinger's you know agis
and said the use of.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
That good Lord was a monster.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
He was a monster, and Jim admired him quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
But but you know, but he he was a very
successful comic book editor.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Sure, you know, with you.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
Know, with the whole idea, the concept of coming up
with a cover shot and then writing a story based
on it. So they just sat around thinking up what
would be a cool story. What if super Baby.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
You know, had a rattle and he broke the you know,
the planet.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
With it or something, just so we'd make for an
eye catching cover and they sold a lot of books,
and then they would come up with a story to
fit and so on. So Shooter was writing professionally for DC.
Now he was working as an assistant editor up a marvel.
Finally the carousel came around and he was tagged it
and h and he went.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
To the people upstairs.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
He said, look, you know, all the like I said,
all the editor writers or writer editors were screwing up
their deadlines and they were missing their shipping dates, they
were missing their engraving dates. All the other people who
put the comic together, after the creative people, and they
were charging the distributors everybody. They were getting length fees

(52:24):
left and right. And Jim went up and said, look,
I can't fix this unless I have an editorial staff.
And so he and they said, oh my god, you know,
so all these years we were paying just one guy
to be editor in chief. And he says, yeah, but
how much are you paying in lake fees and penalties
every month? And he said, oh yeah, gee gosh, if

(52:46):
you could save all that money, we could afford an
editorial staff and actually, you know, make more money. So
he put together, he hired me, he hired I don't
think I was the first. He hired Salakrup, he hired Groomwald,
he hired me, and after I came in, both Larry
Hama and I had been editors at DC briefly, and

(53:07):
so for some reason Jim hired me first. Larry clearly
was the better editor. But he said, you think Larry
would like to, you know, get on staff here, and
I said, I'll call him ask him. He said, yeah,
take him out to lunch and sound him out. So
I took him out to lunch and we had a
nice leisurely lunch, discussing nothing about comments at all, and
then at the end I said, by the way, Larry,

(53:29):
shoot wants to know if you're interested in being an
editor of Marvel now. And he said, oh, yeah, maybe
I'll talk to him, And so he got hired, and
he hired Weezy Louise Jones, who was editing the Warren
books at the time. So he put together a you know,
pretty good powerhouse editorial staff, and then slowly but surely,
we got all the books back on schedules so you

(53:50):
weren't having reprints from like a year and a half
ago and stuff like that, and the books got to
be on time.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
And then Jim wanted them all to be perfect. But
that's another story. So, uh, you know, he did.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Really good, good things, and he did very good things
for a lot of the freelancers. Also, you know, d
C introduced the idea of royalty payments and and Shooter
went up to the Powers that Marble and said, look,
if we don't match d c's deal, they're all our
talunt's going to leave you and go work for d C.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
And he convinced them because they had a lot more
to lose than d C. And d C had very
few books that would have paid royalties at.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
That period, and they were hoping that they could lure
over the Marvel talent. Then their books had so well
enough to to you know, warrant some of these royalties
they were promising.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
Jump, Actually, Roy Friedrich and I were working on the
royalty thing when d C beat us to it. Heard
that before Mike kept throwing things in that was botching
it up, you know, but he was.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
He was looking out for Marvel.

Speaker 5 (54:55):
And even Mike Hobson up there was going no, no,
said something up right, And you know they only beat it.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Because, let's they were two guys were spinning your wheels.

Speaker 5 (55:05):
Well yeah, yeah, but you know what, and this was
shooters doing too.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
Yeah, here's the main cource on it.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
I'll forgive me because we're up against the clock and
this poor gentleman's to wait for so long.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
I just want to get him in there. I want
to see his legs just buckle under him. And that's
why I've been stalling. Where any of you would buy
Atlas commerce.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
Oh that's a great at impact what Marvel in DC.
So we don't about Atlas real fast. There was Chip Goodman,
Marvin Goodman's son.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
Originally Antlas was was Marvelous Marvel himselves.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
No, no, it was Marvel's imprint in the fifties. We're
not the seventies. Atlas.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Martin Goodman, who was the publisher and owner of Marvel
sold the company and made a tidy sum, nothing like
what Disney paid for it. But you know, and and
then uh, apparently I believe I heard this. They were
supposed to keep his son Chip employed, and they did not.

(56:09):
And I think Chip may not have been the greatest
talent in the industry. You know, he was there because
his dad said, give him a job, and then they
decided they didn't.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
Want him in the job.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
So his dad created a new comic book company and
he used the Atlas name.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
And put Ship in charge of it, and so they did. Briefly,
they did a whole line of comics.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
They were offering higher rates, which was surprising because both
Marvel and DC always.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Said, oh, we can't report it to pay anymore. You
guys are getting the top rate. This is it. That's
not we can't call him well bankrupt.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
No, here was this, you know, brand new company that
was paying better rates than either company. Of course, it
failed badly, and they had, you know, they had a
lot of very very freaky, offbeat, strange.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Characters, many of them written by Michael Fleischer. Sure, who
had all forgive you? We literally are up against the clock.
Did you get any offers from Alice? I worked for Alice.
What did you do for Alice? It was Morlock two thousand?

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Okay, ok, sure I did exactly two issues, and then
I fled back to the Marble.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
I respect that, Jimmy, and they jump after you. No, Steve, No, excellent.
We answered the question and also again, but up against time.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Get us go to their tables, pass them more. But
I will ask you us money at us for the
ask questions. Just pay of the dreadstar magnum Opus and
everything still.

Speaker 5 (57:37):
Finished, the pencils on it. I'm just waiting for the publisher.
He got sick, and so we're beginning.

Speaker 4 (57:44):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Which is the list of things?

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (57:47):
There should be a kickstarter for the third book sometime
in the next three weeks.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Excellent, Steve, you're back in comments already. You're working on
your own stuff.

Speaker 6 (57:54):
Yeah, doing my own stuff. You know. I just like
to write. And even though I, you know, gave up.

Speaker 7 (58:00):
I haven't worked for the Marvel since twenty years now,
maybe something like that, but I just continued to write
stuff that interested me. And I wasn't worried about could
I sell it?

Speaker 6 (58:10):
Did it? You know?

Speaker 7 (58:11):
Is a commercial? It's just like, this is an interesting
thing to write. My magnum Opus. I'll be brief. My
magnum Opus was I wanted I wanted to do a
story called Secret Identities, in which I have like twenty
ongoing characters. It's a small town in California, and there's
all these people in it, and all of a sudden,
two of them become superheroes, but I don't tell you

(58:33):
which too, And so we're still following these twenty people
going about their lives, but meanwhile two of them are
not showing us everything. And I thought, can I pull
this off? Can I, you know, do this where I
can write twenty different stories and they don't all climax
at the same time, and some of them a love
stories and some of them are superhero stories, and you know.

(58:53):
And I did it because there was this pandemic that
gave me a lot of time. I heard about it
and yeah, and I you know what I got to
do with it. And then I said, wait a minute.
So the way it worked out was seven sixty page stories,
and I said, George Peis is dead. There's nobody who's
ever going to draw something with twenty ongoing characters over
four hundred and twenty pages, and you know, I mean,

(59:16):
so it's that kind of stuff. But oddly enough, DC
has now said we might be interested in doing that.
But I mean, this is so totally tentative. I wouldn't,
you know, rush right out to make any money on it.
But you know, but it might happen.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
I understand Alice taking commissions and Carver Recreations and as
is a website, correct, Now I have no website.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Oh, so how do they get in contact with you?
I have no idea? Yes, you know, I don't.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
I know.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
No, you don't want to give your email to the speaker.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
Well we did, we did this interview and yeah, but
I'm saying for the people who are now them, I
want to see you to your example.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Of course you can. You can contact me through an email.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
I don't, but I don't have like a a website.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
I don't have a website or whatever. So my email
is I want everybody to write this down. I don't
see any pencils out. It's okay.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
It's editorial, not to be confused with editory OL editorial
four and that's the numeral not spelled out editorial four
at aol dot com. And if you in a subject
front line you write commission or terrificon I will respond
and I will assume you're trying to send.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Me a virus.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
All right, Polito is waiting for us, and I appreciate
everybody talking and listening.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Thank you very much.