Jim Shooter died on Monday, June 30 of esophageal cancer. He was supposed to appear at HeroesCon last weekend, but word quickly spread that he was very ill. The one-time editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics was a controversial figure in the industry to say the least, and I’m sure just about every obituary you’ll read about him over the next few days or so will say that in the first paragraph, like I just did. But he was a very nice guy to me, personally, in my couple of encounters with him. In fact, he gave me my first—and only—job at Marvel Comics. But we’ll get to that in a minute.
Shooter was, of course, a famous comics wunderkind, who started working for Superman Family editor Mort Weisinger at the age of 13. He wrote and illustrated some Legion of Super-Heroes stories and boldly submitted them to DC. Weisinger hired him, and eventually the Legion became Shooter’s regular assignment. I have fond memories of those Adventure Comics stories, especially the ones illustrated by Curt Swan and inked by George Klein. Not sure how Swan felt about having a teenager do layouts for him, though.
Three memorable Jim Shooter-scripted issues of Adventure Comics featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes, during DC’s Go-Go Checks era, with covers and stories drawn by Curt Swan (issues 352, 353, and 354).
Shooter’s writing was helping provide additional financial support for his family, who lived in a suburb of Pittsburgh. He put up with Weisinger’s famous abuse, probably not at all tempered by the fact that he was still in his teens. Shooter took a break from comics for a bit after high school, until 1975, when Marvel Comics editor-in-chief at the time, Marv Wolfman offered him an assistant editor/writer position. He started in January 1976 and two years later he was editor-in-chief himself, lasting nine years in the position. Some of Marvel’s best comics of that era came out under his reign, like Frank Miller’s Daredevil and John Byrne’s Fantastic Four, plus the top-selling Uncanny X-Men title, written by Chris Claremont. But Shooter’s management style pushed people away—both Miller and Byrne were over at DC by the mid-80s, and other major talent, like Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, and Gene Colan, also made the switch to the Distinguished Competition.
Shooter was a native son of Pittsburgh and he came to the Pittsburgh Comix Club’s PittCon in 1979. I interviewed him on a panel … that’s me on the left in this photo, including weird hair and large collar, with him on the stage of the community room at the Monroeville Mall, where the con was held that year. I just happened to have my portfolio with me, and Shooter looked through it. When he came across my pen and ink illustration of Alan Alda from MASH, he paused and said, “This is the kind of art I want in our magazines. Can you put something together for me to present to the editor?” (Looking back at the fairly lousy photo of this piece [below], God knows what he saw in my work. But the cross-hatching was nice.)
My Alan Alda drawing that got Shooter’s attention; and me trying my best Richard Amsel imitation (far right). Amsel’s Lucy illustration is just one of his classic TV Guide covers.
At this point in my life, I was working for my small town weekly newspaper, which—little did I know—was about to fold. (To be honest, when you come back from lunch and two IRS agents are waiting behind the door in the foyer of your office, it’s kind of a tell-tale sign.) So my newspaper art director days were coming to a close. But what I really wanted to do was be an illustrator. My dream job was to do covers for TV Guide. I wanted to be the next Richard Amsel, hence that Alda drawing, and the Ann Reinking from All That Jazz one. (That’s Amsel in the middle, with one of his wonderful TV Guide covers, of which he did 37).
So I went back to my hometown from the big city of Pittsburgh, pretty much walking on air. Shooter had mentioned pin-up style drawings, so I did three or four pieces; a large opaque watercolor painting featuring the elfin main cast from “Weirdworld,” a Marvel Lord of the Rings rip-off; a Batman drawing that I swiped from a Barry Windsor-Smith Doctor Strange splash page (why I did Batman, I’ll never know), and—at Shooter’s request—a Star Trek illustration, because Marvel was going to do the official Star Trek: The Motion Picture adaptation, which was slated to come out in December 1979, when the movie premiered. I climbed on the Trailways bus to the Big Apple in late spring 1979 with this mini-portfolio to show Shooter and to take Marvel Comics by storm.
Left to right: The black and white line-art, the color rough, and a photo of my finished painting.
I had done a black-and-white illo of Kirk and Spock in their TV show uniforms, with an accompanying color rough, and Shooter loved it, taking me to see magazine line editor Rick Marschall, who seemed resistant to his boss basically shoving me down his throat. But we made a deal: I would create a full-color “frontispiece” for the inside front cover of Marvel Super Special 15, for the princely sum of $100.
Now, like I said, I had drawn Kirk and Spock in their TV costumes, so I asked if I could get reference material of their movie costumes, which would probably be Paramount’s preference for this new relaunch of the Star Trek franchise. “Naw, this is great, they’ll love it,” Shooter replied. I went home with my marching orders and did my painting (in pen and ink and Dr. Martin’s dyes), and by the time I delivered the finished piece a few weeks later, Marschall was out as editor-in-chief of the magazine line, and a woman by the name of Lynn Graham (I believe) was in charge.
December came quickly and the magazine came out. I eagerly picked it up at my local newsstand and frantically leafed through it to find my art; maybe it was later in the mag, used for a Star Trek history article? I suppose the fact that I didn’t get an advance copy should have been a dead giveaway that my piece wasn’t used, but what did I know? Maybe they didn’t send out artist’s copies in those days. I eventually got in touch with the magazine editor and she told me Paramount didn’t want any art that featured the TV show costumes. The movies were totally separate from the television franchise. Ummmm …
A copy of the check, dated October 3, 1979. Don’t try to cash it.
They did pay me the $100 for the art, as promised, before the magazine–and disappointment–arrived on the newsstands. You can bet your sweet Starship Enterprise that I made a copy of that check, and I did get the artwork back. When I moved to Pittsburgh in 1980 and started to work for Eide’s comics shop, I placed it on consignment in a big box of prints and portfolios and somebody came in and bought it for 50 bucks as a birthday present for their son, who was a huge Star Trek fan. I think I still have the original color rough, on vellum, taped over a black and white stat, somewhere, but to be honest, I wish I still had that original painting. It was my one attempt at comic book stardom, shot down by an acute case of “I told you so!”
RIP, Jim Shooter. Thanks for the opportunity, even though it didn’t work out.
@innocent-bystander.com 
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