|
|
|
|
Jim Shooter
|
| |
|
| |
James Shooter (born September 27, 1951 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American writer, occasional fill-in artist, editor, and publisher for various comic books.
he age of 14, Shooter began selling stories to DC Comics for Adventure Comics, beginning with Adventure Comics #346 (July 1966), for which he provided not only writing but pencil breakdowns as well. Shooter created several characters for Legion of Super-Heroes including Karate Kid, a teenage superhero who predated the martial arts fad of the 1970s; Ferro Lad, a teenage superhero who can transform to living iron; and Princess Projectra, who could cast realistic illusions.
After his Legion series ended its run in Adventure Comics, Shooter had intended to retire from the comic book industry, as he had concurrently graduated from high school.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Jim Shooter' Start a new discussion about 'Jim Shooter' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
James Shooter (born September 27, 1951 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American writer, occasional fill-in artist, editor, and publisher for various comic books.
Career
DC Comics
At the age of 14, Shooter began selling stories to DC Comics for Adventure Comics, beginning with Adventure Comics #346 (July 1966), for which he provided not only writing but pencil breakdowns as well. Shooter created several characters for Legion of Super-Heroes including Karate Kid, a teenage superhero who predated the martial arts fad of the 1970s; Ferro Lad, a teenage superhero who can transform to living iron; and Princess Projectra, who could cast realistic illusions.
After his Legion series ended its run in Adventure Comics, Shooter had intended to retire from the comic book industry, as he had concurrently graduated from high school. The Legion of Super-Heroes stories had been relegated to the pages of Action Comics as a smaller back-up series in the late 1960s. However, Shooter was coaxed out of retirement by members of Legion fandom several years later. He undertook a second run writing the Legion in the mid-1970s (now in their own book, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes), but eventually Shooter left the title.
Marvel Comics
In the mid-70s, Marvel Comics was undergoing a series of changes in the position of Editor-in-Chief. After Roy Thomas retired from the post in order to focus on writing, a succession of other editors, including Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman and Archie Goodwin, took the job during a relatively short span of time, only to find the task too daunting as Marvel continued to grow and add new titles and a larger staff to turn out material. Shooter joined the Marvel staff as an assistant editor and writer, being most remembered for the Korvac Saga in Avengers. With the quick turnover at the top, he rapidly found himself rising in the ranks.
Shooter succeeded Archie Goodwin to become the ninth editor-in-chief of Marvel from 1978 to 1987.
Marvel enjoyed some of its best successes during Shooter's tenure as Editor-in-Chief, most notably Chris Claremont and John Byrne's run on the Uncanny X-Men and Frank Miller's run on Daredevil. Also under Shooter's editorial reign, Walt Simonson revamped The Mighty Thor and made it again a bestseller.
In 1981, Shooter brought Marvel into the lucrative comic book specialty shop market with Dazzler #1. Featuring a disco-themed heroine with ties to the X-Men (based upon an unproduced motion picture set to star Bo Derek), this series was sold only through the specialty stores, bypassing the then-standard newsstand/spin rack distribution route altogether. Dazzler was the first direct sales-only ongoing series from a major publisher; other Marvel titles, such as Marvel Fanfare and Ka-Zar, soon followed.
Valiant Comics
After being fired from Marvel, Jim Shooter spearheaded an effort to purchase the then-floundering publisher Marvel from its corporate ownership — "buying Marvel Comics" as it were. He lost out at the last minute to Ronald Perelman's slightly higher bid.
Shooter, followed by his investors, then founded a new company: Voyager Communications, which published comics under the Valiant Comics banner, which entered the market in the 1990's. Shooter brought many of Marvel's big name creators with him, including Bob Layton and Barry Windsor-Smith, as well as veterans such as Don Perlin. Valiant also established "knob row" — taking in raw talent and teaching them how to make comics Valiant-style — and launched many careers, most notably Joe Quesada's.
Occasionally over the years, Shooter was required to fill in as penciller on various books he wrote and/or oversaw as editor. During his period as Valiant's publisher, money and talent were often at a premium, and Shooter was forced to pencil a story sporadically. To conceal this fact, he drew under the pseudonym of Paul Creddick, which is the name of his brother-in-law. Shooter said he could get away with it only with a great inker like Bob Layton.
Defiant Comics
In 1993, Shooter, together with several of his loyalist coworkers, went on to found Defiant Comics. After some initial success with the first title, the new company failed to secure an audience in the increasingly crowded direct sales market and folded thirteen months after its first title appeared.
Broadway Comics and beyond
In 1995, Shooter founded Broadway Comics, which was an offshoot of Broadway Video, the production company that produces Saturday Night Live, but this line folded after its parent sold the properties to Golden Books.
Shooter returned to Acclaim for a brief stint in 1999 to write Unity 2000 (an attempt to combine and revitalize the older and newer Valiant universes) but Acclaim folded after the completion of only three of the planned six issues. In August 2000, he became part-owner and creative consultant for the sci-fi firm Phobos Entertainment. However, the website has disappeared since. In a 2004 article that is no longer available on the website , Tim Hartnett interviewed Jim Shooter. In the interview, Shooter discussed that his "main occupation is working for a company called TGS, Inc. developing entertainment content for an internet site." TGS, Inc. was acquired by Ascent Media Systems & Technology Services in October 2005 and no longer recognizes TGS, Inc. as a separate entity and does not list employee names on the website.
In September 2007, DC Comics announced that Jim Shooter would be the new writer of the current Legion of Super-Heroes (Vol. 5) series, beginning with issue #37, following the departure of writer Mark Waid who had left the series in mid-2007 with issue #30. Shooter's return to the Legion, a little over 30 years from his previous run, is his first major published comic book work in years. It is slated to end with the discontinuation of the book with issue #50.
Awards
External links
Interviews
|
| |
|
|
