201103081744.jpgHere.

On a November day in 1957 I found myself standing in front of Miss Grosier’s first grade class in Hillcrest Elementary School in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, trying to think of a really good word. She had us play this game in which each kid had to offer up a word to the class, and for every classmate who couldn’t spell your word, you got a point–provided, of course, that you could spell the word. Whoever got the most points received the coveted gold star.

“Bouillabaisse,” said I, finally.

“You don’t even know what that is,” Miss Grosier scolded.


See, even in a blog post, the former Marvel editor in chief sets up the conflict right from the start.

Shooter is known for running the company during some of its greatest Silver Age moments, presiding over the rise of the X-Men, killing off Jean Grey by editorial fiat, and other deeds, before moving on to revitalize Valiant and then run his own company, Defiant. Today he’s involved in revamping the Gold Key characters for Dark Horse.

He’s also tweeting.

1 COMMENT

  1. It feels like he’s told that story in every interview and puff piece he’s done since the anecdote actually happened.

  2. I know he made the trains run on time at Marvel, but I still think of his promotion to Ed-in-Chief as “The Day the Music Died.”

  3. “Shooter is known for running the company during some of it’s greatest Silver Age moments ….”

    Are we really including the late 1970s and the 1980s in the Silver age now?

  4. I’d rather read an interview with Jim Shooter then most anyone else in the industry. With Shooter I know I’m going to get no bullshit and none of the requisite industry “niceties” that exists simply to sugar coat the dirty truth. You know, like in any issue of Alter Ego.

  5. At least now we can have all of his anecdotes collected in one place instead of all over the place.

    Looking forward to any tidbits about his time with Mort Weisinger. I read some of Shooter’s stories in one of DC’s Essentials World’s Finest books and his stories really benefited from being so different from the other writers. Ed Hamilton may have offered imaginative scope, but some of the other writers continued the paranoid Weisinger-era stories that are just a painful thing to read. By contrast Shooter’s stories had some real adventure and excitement to them!

  6. Jim
    I picked you up as a hichhicker you got me a job, dishwashing,then as a chem….no lets say as a fixer of problems for the mastermines of the island.nevel island ..The stories were ture and the Train was a dragon comming out of the big hole ..you were there to save us all and put us on the path of 2012..It took me 45 years but you were right..Good Luck SquereShooter..