Jim Shooter died on June 30, 2025. His death was reported widely, of course; for those who don’t know, Shooter was Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics from January 1978 to mid-April 1987. He was, to put it mildly, a controversial figure, perhaps most famously (infamously?) depicted in THE COMICS JOURNAL #171 where a Gary Groth written piece was simply titled, “Jim Shooter, Our Nixon.”

I only met Jim Shooter once, here in Ottawa at the 2018 edition of the Ottawa Comiccon on May 11, though we had exchanged a few emails prior to this in-person meeting. He was kind enough to accept an early copy of the very first volume of my WOLF’S HEAD. Sometime later, on October 13, 2019, he gave me some feedback.

That is what I’m going to talk about, because I think it addresses something that Shooter has been maligned about. We’re gonna get there, but first, I need to do an aside. Here goes.

Aside: On Jim Shooter’s Alleged Homophobia

I’ve noticed that his current Wikipedia page, as of this writing (September 3, 2026), has a section on his alleged homophobia. Here’s a screencap, but I’ll quote the section in full; I did drop the linked References (you can find them in the archived link, of course):

“During Shooter’s tenure, he enforced a policy forbidding the portrayal of gay characters in the Marvel universe. According to John Byrne, he initially had to conceal Northstar’s sexuality, since Shooter personally told him that portraying a gay character would not be allowed. Marvel nonetheless published the first gay-themed story by a mainstream comics publisher during this time, written by Shooter himself; in it, two gay men attempt to rape Bruce Banner. Comics historian Frederick Luis Aldama says that Marvel under Shooter’s tenure ‘was widely considered homophobic.’”

It’s interesting to me that no mention is made of the Comics Code Authority (CCA) and its role in the suppressing the depiction of homosexuality since the mid-1950s. Ethan Parker, in his COMICS CODE REPEAL, notes “The Comics Code Authority, established in 1954, imposed strict rules on comic book content, effectively banning any positive or even neutral portrayals of homosexuality. It wasn’t until the early 21st century that major publishers began to seriously challenge its influence.” [my emphasis added]. Amy Kiste Nyberg, in her SEAL OF APPROVAL: THE HISTORY OF THE COMICS CODE, noted the following, “Comics also became somewhat more graphic in their depiction of violence and sex, and occasionally the code authority issued memos interpreting the code regulations. One such memo was issued April 13, 1974, and clarified the definitions of ‘excessive bloodshed and gore’ as well as warning publishers about their treatment of sex.” Nyberg notes that Code administrator Leonard Darvin’s¹ memo also noted, “… homosexuality or any suggestion of it by illustration, dialogue, or text was strictly forbidden.” [my emphasis added]

Given what we know, would it not be more fair to say that Shooter was concerned about Code approval? One could interrogate whether he was or was not prepared to challenge them, as Marvel had done in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #96–98. Of course, Lee had the backing of the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, something that Shooter obviously did not have. As Don & Maggie Thompson wrote in their NEWFANGLES fanzine (#44, February 1971; you can also read a cleaned-up screencap here), “According to a long and fascinating story in NY Times (4 Feb 71),² Lee was asked to do the story by the National Institute of Mental Health, a branch of the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare. John Goldwater (publisher of Archie Comics and an opponent of Code liberalization — his line has nothing to gain from relaxation of the Code) refused approval; Leonard Darvin, code administrator, was ill and Goldwater, president of the Comics Magazine Assn., fought against allowing the story. Lee and Publisher Martin Goodman, after a story conference and a stormy session with the CCA, decided to publish issues 96-98 of SPIDER-MAN without the seal.”

Now, a key point is that the SPIDER-MAN issues were a specific story arc (dealing with drugs) rather than dealing with an intrinsic aspect of a character (their sexuality, that would presumably be an ongoing aspect of their character). From my point of view, an honest entry in Shooter’s Wikipedia entry would address all of this. Otherwise? Well, we get what we got: an attack on Shooter without any context about why he might have felt the need to enforce these policies.

I don’t know if most contemporary readers of comics and graphic novels understand how catastrophic the Comics Code Authority was to the medium of comics. As Stan Wiater and Stephen Bissette note in their COMIC BOOK REBELS : CONVERSATIONS WITH THE CREATORS OF THE NEW COMICS on John L. Goldwater’s AMERICANA IN FOUR COLORS: A DECADE OF SELF REGULATION BY THE COMICS MAGAZINE INDUSTRY, “Rare and long-out-of-print, this remains an essential presentation of the Comics Code Authority’s reign by its founding father, John L. Goldwater, who was also the publisher of Archie Comics. A slight but fascinating, infuriating, blood-curdling censorship (excuse us, we mean “self-regulation”) document which tells the reader more about the Code than most comic book creators and editors who continue to work under CCA rules know!” Remember folks: while the Code is thankfully gone, censorship still continues.³

Getting back to Shooter’s Wikipedia entry, the excerpt’s last line (“Comics historian Frederick Luis Aldama says that Marvel under Shooter’s tenure ‘was widely considered homophobic.’”) is 100% incorrect. Aldama did NOT say that. How do I know? Aldama is the editor of THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF COMIC BOOK STUDIES, but when I searched “inside the book” on Oxford Academic’s website, I discovered the “was widely considered homophobic” quote is in reference to Nicholas E. Miller’s chapter titled “Disco, Derby, and Drag: The Queer Politics of Marvel’s Dazzler.” Miller wrote the following on the very first page of his piece, second paragraph, “Although Dazzler has long been canonically heterosexual, the case can be made for reclaiming the queer subjectivities of her early comics in order to understand how they opened up space for queer readings of her character—particularly in a period when Marvel Comics (under editor Jim Shooter) was widely considered homophobic.” That is the source of the attribution to Aldama. Unfortunately, Miller does not present any citations for this claim, which I find pretty odd given that he used a number of end notes in his essay, along with a number of cited works. This absolutely needed to have a citation, preferably more than one, to back up Miller’s claim, especially in the face of what we know about the Comics Code Authority. Without it? Well, it’s an allegation and one I’m surprised that editor Aldama did not challenge.

Now, let’s move on to another Wikipedia allegation. The entry notes, “Marvel nonetheless published the first gay-themed story by a mainstream comics publisher during this time, written by Shooter himself; in it, two gay men attempt to rape Bruce Banner.” While the rape attempt is true, it occurred in HULK #23, the non-Code magazine format publication that Marvel was publishing at that time. I’m going to say that again. HULK was a NON-code magazine. Issue #23 has a cover date of October 1980 and features Shooter’s story “A Very Personal Hell” illustrated by John Buscema, Alfredo Alcala, and Steve Oliff. And yup, I own the issue in question. Is it perfect? Nope. Would I have done it? Hell, no. Shooter does engage in stereotypes in the story (in the form of rapists Dewey and Luellen) and it’s regrettable, to say the least. By the by, Shooter has said as much himself (see his comments at https://jimshooter.com/2011/07/epic-interfereence.html/#comment-1962). I tend to share Brian Cronin’s point of view on this story; I would strongly argue that when there is little to no representation, then it behooves a writer to make damn sure that they aren’t using stereotypes. As Shooter himself noted in the linked comment, “When I wrote the story, I wasn’t thinking about what was or wasn’t going on in mainstream comics. I was thinking about that story. It didn’t appear in ‘mainstream comics’ anyway. It appeared in a Code-free magazine. I didn’t ponder what was going on in mainstream magazines, either. I was just trying to write a good story based on experiences I was close to. I wish I had been smarter, wiser, more conscious of what that little bit might mean in the great context of comics publishing, but I wasn’t. The preceeding [sic] sentence was not written in a snarky way. I mean it. I wasn’t as aware as I should have been, or someone better prepared than me might have been. But I was younger then, and so was the world. That’s the only excuse I can offer. Sorry.”

One other key point about that sentence in the entry. It notes, “… two gay men attempt to rape Bruce Banner.” The Wikipedia entry clearly posits that the two men, Dewey and Luellen, are gay. Based on the printed text in HULK #23, we do not know that. I’m going to say that again: we do not know that. Why? Way back in 2002, Matt Seaton wrote the following in THE GUARDIAN:

“But the estimate is that at least half of male rapes are of heterosexual men (and usually by heterosexual men). Besides the inevitable feelings of humiliation and guilt that go with rape victimisation, the straight male rape victim typically experiences a loss of sexual identity.

The codes on which heterosexual masculinity rests are bizarrely differential. Consensual anal sex between men is always defined as homosexual. In non-consensual anal sex, however, agency is all. No assumption can be made about the sexual identity of the man who penetrates. If straight, he may perform this "gay" sex act coercively without compromising his heterosexual status. Yet the penetrated man is always emasculated and made de facto homosexual.” [my emphasis added]

Were Dewey and Luellen gay? The Wikipedia entry certainly thinks so, but I’m not so sure. Given Seaton’s article and others like it, I would make the counter-argument: Dewey and Luellen are not gay, but were going to rape Banner anyway. The difference is all the difference.

Okay, since I’ve now spent a few paragraphs on this, why am I bothering? The answer is simple: Wikipedia can be weaponized to attack people. Y’know, along the lines of, “Oh, you don’t think Shooter was a homophobe? Check out his Wikipedia page. See? End of conversation.” Yeah, well fuck that. I do not believe in that. If someone makes an allegation, even when it’s clouded by the authority of Wikipedia itself, they need to back that up with actual citations. Context matters. Shooter’s explanation of the HULK #23 story matters. Challenging Miller’s “… Marvel Comics (under editor Jim Shooter) was widely considered homophobic” line matters. Otherwise, if it is left unchallenged, a view is presented that, over time, solidifies as fact.

Was Shooter homophobic? I don’t know. Given his age and date of birth (1951), he might have been. Here’s a better question: was he more homophobic than anyone else from that time period? I doubt it. Hell, our culture still deals with unrelenting homophobia. Fuck people, 21 year old Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998. 14 year old Jamey Rodemeyer committed suicide in 2011. And so many others. So many others.

***

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s move on to what I actually wanted to talk about. Namely, the sensitivity of creators to Shooter’s difficult creative comments. As I noted in the beginning, I was fortunate enough to meet Jim Shooter in May 2018 here in Ottawa while he was attending the Ottawa Comiccon. We had spoken by email prior to the event; I was having a helluva time tracking down a copy of SEVEN, the comic he wrote for Intrinsic Comics back in 2007. He was kind enough to bring me a comp copy of it. I was blown away by that; he was kind enough to find the comic and bring it along with him in his luggage.

As we chatted, he graciously accepted a copy of my WOLF’S HEAD #1. That took some nerve; I wasn’t sure he’d want to be bothered by some wannabe creator he’s never heard of and I sure as hell wasn’t sure he’d want to lug my comic back home with him. But he did and he did. I was incredibly honoured by that. To be clear, due to being small press and due to Diamond Comic Distributor’s “minimum sales threshold,” each volume of WOLF’S HEAD has been released in a 60 page trade paperback format. In other words, each volume contains two issues of a normal periodical comic.

I also brought a copy of JIM SHOOTER: CONVERSATIONS with me, a collection of interviews that was put together by the University Press of Mississippi, that I was hoping he would sign. He did, but he hesitated. My understanding in talking with him is that he was not super happy with how that book initially turned out. If I’m remembering correctly (and yup, this is anecdotal), he needed the help of his longtime friend and interviewer Harry Broertjes to smooth out some problems with it.⁴ At any rate, he signed my book, we chatted quite a bit about storytelling, and that was that.

About 18 months later, he wrote me an email that detailed his comments on WOLF’S HEAD #1. I’m going to share them with you raw and unedited (except where I redacted his phone number), but before I do that I want to quote an interview he did with Joe Martin back in 1992 that was reprinted in JIM SHOOTER: CONVERSATIONS. Why? ‘Cuz it’s relevant! Here goes:

Jim Shooter: “I’m probably not the most natural warm-and-fuzzy type. I also think that perhaps since I’ve been in this business for a long time that I sometimes move too fast for people. I’ve been given advice like if an artist is doing three things wrong, maybe just tell him two of them and save one for later. That’s a good theory and it works sometimes, but sometimes it’s like, ‘You’re on stage tonight!’ I just feel like it’s not fair to the reader. The reader expects it to be right.

I run into the problem where people feel like I’m pushing too hard. But we’re performers, and we’ve got to perform. I wish my delivery was more graceful. Stan (Lee) can tell you you’re doing something wrong, and you walk out feeling like a million dollars.”

Joe Martin: “Constructive criticism is an art form in itself.”

Jim Shooter: “Absolutely, and Stan Lee had mastered it long ago. I struggle. People tell me, ‘First, you tell ’em something nice, and then you kind of ease into what they’re doing wrong.’ That’s so hard for me. I’m like, ‘Oh, uh, well…you do great eyebrows, but let’s talk about these ugly noses…’ I don’t know. I feel… hypocritical or like I’m trying to con these people, and I don’t want to do that. I’d rather be direct. Some people actually take my directness wonderfully well and have no problem with it, but there are some who take it as more confrontational. Communication is a major human problem, and I’m probably not the best in the world at it. I feel like if you check with the people who work with me and the people who really know me, then you’ll see we get along. If I was a real problem to work with, then Claremont wouldn’t be back here. Weiss and Lapham wouldn’t be here.”

And one more, this time from a 1993 interview with Marty Grosser that was was reprinted in JIM SHOOTER: CONVERSATIONS:

Jim Shooter: “I think that if you’re an editor and you do what’s right, you occasionally have to say ‘no’ to people. To the good people, the professionals, that’s fine. But the people who are hacks, they won’t like that.”

Jim Shooter’s Email To Me (Dated October 13, 2019, Comments on Wolf’s Head #1)

Dear Von,

Years later, here I am.

My comments re: Wolf’s Head #1, for whatever they’re worth at this point.

The cover:

So important.

The logo is bold and clear, I’ll grant you that. However, it has no distinctive relationship to the contents. Movie logos almost always do. Look here: https://www.nonstopsigns.com/blog/best-movie-logos-of-all-time/ Comic book logos seldom have any relevance to the contents of the book, but they should. Check out my early VALIANT logos (1991 through UNITY). It can be done, but comic book creators usually can’t be bothered.

What’s more worrisome is that the title itself doesn’t tell a potential reader anything either. “Wolf’s Head.” No wolves in evidence, no discernable reason for the title. To me, Wolf’s Head is motor oil.

So, the title offers no information.

Neither does the illustration. Fake car. Two people who look thoughtful. Nice faces. Distractingly fake wrinkles and drapery on the clothes. Nice dog.

No clue what this is about. Not even enough of a hook to make people curious.

The interior:

The first scene is heavy handed and artificial. It’s propaganda. Even if I happen to agree with your point of view, no one enjoys propaganda. It’s fine to have a character express a point of view, any point of view, but if the reader feels like he or she is being lectured by the author, it’s off-putting. Your first scene is your worst scene. It should be one of your best.

But you make your point. Lauren works with some bad cops. She’s appalled.

One more thing about the first scene. If you’re going to hurt or kill a character or characters, like the two protesters suffering police brutality, make the reader care about them first. If they’re cipher people—innocent manikins there to knocked over by Snidley Whiplash manikins—it’s hard to care. Humanize characters first. Then readers will care.

Think how they would dramatize the story point you want to make on a good TV show about cops. Hill Street Blues come to mind, which should give you an idea of how old I am. There are more recent ones I’ve heard are good, like The Shield and NYPD Blue. How would they dramatize your story point?

The rest of the tale is pretty good. There are some very nice moments. I love the idea that daughter is smart and tough, but it’s mom who has the “super power.”

My main problem with this story is that it’s not a story, it’s a history. A lot of comic book writers these days fall into that trap. Learn story structure. There are no good books about writing comics, but there are some excellent books on screenwriting, which is similar. Avoid Syd Fields. He preaches formula.

In two issues, what story is there? This: Lauren is a cop, presumably happy with that. Lauren parts company with the police, because she discovers they’re morally appalling. Lauren struggles to get another job. Desperate Lauren finally gets a job, not a good one but not morally appalling.

Other than that, it’s all set-up for stuff that may happen in the future.

People want stories. For 40,000 years, and probably for the next 40,000, people have wanted and will want good stories well told. I can explain why but not in this e-mail, it would take too long.

This I’ll say: There is a definition of “story.” There is no formula, that’s not what I’m talking about. There is a definition of “sentence,” too. Neither of those definitions limited, impeded or homogenized Shakespeare, Twain, Hemingway, Salinger, Steinbeck, Grisham, J.K. Rowling, the writers of Laverne and Shirley or anyone else.

Every unit of our language has a definition. All western languages, for that matter. They all share the same or similar syntax. The fact that “essay” has a definition didn’t bother Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, the writers at Paper Magazine or anyone else.

A lot of what you wrote is very good. Nice bits, some nice dialogue. But, it’s a history.

Nothing you did is wrong. Everything you wrote can, and should be part of the tapestry. But you need to tell stories. Bring forth your ideas, what you have to say, in stories.

Learn your craft.

P.S. Lauren does a significant amount of moralizing throughout. After the first contrived scene, however, I don’t mind it, because it’s clearly her talking, not her mouthing a lecture from the author. The fact that I agree with almost every word she says is irrelevant.

About the art: You draw well the things that interest you—faces, gestures, dogs. Things that do not interest you—clothing, cars buildings and almost everything else looks amateurish and fake. If you put as much effort into those things as you do the things you care about, you could be very good. It’s not a matter of style. Bernie Wrightson’s style was different from C.C. Beck’s, but neither faked anything. Even Carl Barks, take a look. He was drawing simple cartoon characters in a cartoon landscape, but every perspective was perfect, every proportion was perfect and on every simple, item of cartoon clothing the folds and wrinkles flowed from the stress points perfectly.

If you would ever like to talk about any of this, my number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. E-mail me your number first, so I recognize it.

This work isn’t easy. Some people think that because they can type a sentence, they can be writers. That’s a lot like thinking they can be dentists because they have teeth.

Again, learn your craft. You have talent. You’ve got the hard part down, which is having something to say, having a story to tell. No one can teach that. The easy part is also hard, which is learning the craft, but it can be learned. Go for it.

Best,

Sincerely,

Jim Shooter

***

So, there you have it. Did I have a temper tantrum when I read his email? No. Did I curl up in a ball and cry about it? NO. Shooter was firm and tough, but fair. Way back in 2010 I was reading Seth Godin. While I stopped doing that ages ago, he wrote a piece titled “Who judges your work?” Godin’s last line has always stayed with me, “The ability to choose who judges your work — the people who will make it better, use it and reward you — is the key building block in becoming an artist in whatever you do.” That is why I went to the Ottawa Comiccon in the first place; I’ve never gone before and I’ve never gone since. I only went to see Jim Shooter because I have a profound respect for his storytelling philosophy. And yup, I do feel pretty damn strongly, contra Gary Groth and folks like him, that Shooter’s storytelling philosophy is really missing from most contemporary comics.

Do I agree with every single thing Shooter wrote? No. Was I incredibly honoured that he took the time to really examine my work? Hell, yes! Did I take what he said to heart and make some changes? HELL, YES! I thought he was right about a number of things. Drapery, perspective, story, and so on. I worked my ass off to improve that and I think I’ve accomplished that, but here’s the thing: the learning never stops. We never stop growing, learning, striving. That’s the whole damn point.

What about things I didn’t agree with? Well, here’s an example where he was wrong, but in a quick twist, he was also right: the car. He was definitely wrong. It’s not a fake car at all. It’s actually a Lada, specifically based on a VAZ-2106. But! Here’s the quick twist: it “read” to him as fake and he interpreted as fake. That was one helluva lesson to learn. I was trying to do a quirky car so that Lauren, my protagonist, would drive a car that most people didn’t. It was distinctive, maybe not Batmobile-distinctive, but different than a lot of what was (and is) on the road. And I saw some of these growing up here in Canada. So I thought I was being pretty clever, but I thought wrong. Shooter’s point about it being fake trumped my clever idea. Even though he was wrong about it being fake, he was right about it “reading” fake. And that’s the point.

In a similar vein, the logo for WOLF’S HEAD. I wanted a “clear as glass” logo that one could easily read in person, but one that could also be read on a screen when using a search engine. In other words, I wanted the logo to be readable when seen as teensy little thumbnail, particularly when viewed against other images. From that point of view, the logo works. However, as with the car, Shooter is absolutely correct; the logo does not give any insight to what the series is.⁵ Live and learn.

Another was when he wrote, “You draw well the things that interest you…” Here I think he mistook a lack of interest with a struggle. I was still struggling to grow stronger and yup, I definitely struggled with perspective and the like. That’s something I realized that I had to put more effort into and I think the result speaks for itself (for some perspective examples, try here, here, and here). More broadly, WOLF’S HEAD benefitted from Shooter’s comments. In particular, I redrew some things and wound up with a new version of Volume 1. I think he would still have critiques, mainly because I simply couldn’t go in and “fix” everything that he had addressed, I think its stronger for his comments than it otherwise was. And that’s something I’ll always be grateful for.

Let’s look again at Shooter’s storytelling philosophy.⁶ In THE COMICS JOURNAL #60, Gary Groth interviewed Shooter and they had the following exchange:

Jim Shooter: “Now, there are a lot of misconceptions out there in the world about what I require or what Marvel requires. There’s always nonsense about there being a ‘Marvel formula’ even among my own writers! Apparently things have been said to these writers by editors or people before me and they have their own misconceptions which they’ve made into rules in their own minds. Whatever. But I’ve heard Marvel writers quote a ‘formula’ to me that supposedly they’ve been told to follow by previous administrations. I’ve heard people say, ‘Oh yeah, it includes a fight.’ I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. I’ve never said there has to be a fight. And certainly not a fistfight, because the most boring thing in the world to me is two characters standing there punching each other.

… It used to be very common to hear, ‘Well, if it’s any good, it’s going to die. The only way to make comics sell is to do the same old stuff.’ This is from the people who were supposed to be in charge creatively? I’m not talking about Stan [Lee], here. I’m talking about folks from my level on down. In a way I can’t blame them for seeing things that way, because they would see things go out like [Jim] Starlin’s WARLOCK and slowly die, and it was like I could never believe that it never occurred to them that there might be something wrong with that that was killing it. Like the fact that it was muddy and hard to read. And the fact that it was just a little too copy-heavy. And it was hard to pick up in the middle. And that it really wasn’t technically well-written sometimes, in the sense that it really didn’t have introduction of characters, introduction of conflicts, twists, building of suspense, reaching a climax and a resolution…”

Gary Groth: “Of course, that could be called the formula.”

Jim Shooter: “All right, if people choose to call that the formula, then fine, as far as I’m concerned there is a formula to every story ever written.”

Gary Groth: “But there isn’t, because a lot of novels don’t have that kind of formula where things are…”

Jim Shooter: “I think that anything that doesn’t have a conflict, by definition is not a story. Now if you have those things in other orders, I don’t care. If you are so good that you can start a story in the middle or start it with the end and work it inside out, that’s a tribute to your skill as a writer. It doesn’t have to come in that order. The events don’t have to be any particular type of events. Your conflict can be an internal conflict of a character, it can be a characterization story. There’s no limit. That’s just so broad as to include almost everything. That from WAR AND PEACE to ‘Little Miss Muffet.’ I think that if it doesn’t fit in there, fine, accuse me of having a formula. But I’m not talking formula, I’m talking about fundamentals of writing. If a guy wrote something in which the grammar was so bad that it could not be understood, I think that would be an equivalent situation. It’s just that this situation is less obvious, because someone will be reading a comic book and they will be understanding every word they read, they’ll be understanding every sentence, they’ll be understanding every balloon, they may even understand every panel, but it still can add up not to be a unit, a story.”

The broader takeaway is you have to have a thick skin combined with an open mind and a willingness to learn. And, of course, a willingness to fail (ahem: fall on one’s face!), something I’ve done over and over again. The only way to learn is to try, put oneself “out there,” and see what happens. My frustration with the comics industry is really about how few people are like Jim Shooter. He was not “just” a writer and a visual artist, nor was he “just” an editor, but he was a teacher.

***

Last point, because I think it’s important. Could Shooter be dictatorial? Well, yeah. In a 2016 interview with Jason Sacks, Eric Hoffman, and Dominick Grace that appeared in (you guessed it!) JIM SHOOTER: CONVERSATIONS, Shooter said, “I had to be fairly strict. A lot of people would say that I was… If you tell a guy nicely ten times or five hundred times that you have to introduce the characters, about the five-hundred-and-first time you tell them, you tell them a little louder. Maybe I was dictatorial… I was not willing to take a chance on an artist. I wanted good books. I wanted good stories. If I had a [Bill] Sienkiewicz, who wanted to try something experimental, that’s fine. If Walt [Simonson] came to me and said, ‘I want to do something a little off the wall,’ fine. If one of the younger kids said, ‘I want to do this crazy stuff like Bill does,’ no. Sorry, forget it. Once a guy proved he knew what he was doing, then fine.” In the same interview, Shooter added, “Some guys can take direction; some guys can’t. John Romita Jr. is as great as they come. He’ll listen to you, and he’ll say, ‘Oh, okay, I can do that. I see.’ Some guys aren’t ready to do that. If it’s a younger guy and he’s not ready to do that, then goodbye. But if he’s somebody who has chops and who wants a chance to show off a bit, that’s fine too.”

In Sequart’s documentary film COMICS IN FOCUS: CHRIS CLAREMONT’S X-MEN (later expanded to a feature length documentary), Louise Simonson notes that “Shooter was the only real major obstacle and, really, he wasn’t that bad. Certainly on the X-MEN he wasn’t that bad. He had his moments but…” Jim Shooter, interviewed for the same documentary, adds, “I tried to never say, ‘you must do this.’ What I would say is, ‘this is the sort of thing we need, because you created this story and it needs to go someplace.’ And so we’d [Claremont and Shooter] have these shouting matches. But it was always about the story.”

Okay, okay, but what about situations like UNCANNY X-MEN #137 (the death of Phoenix) and other situations? Shooter, in talking about #137 on his blog noted, “I told Chris [Claremont] that the ending proposed in his plot didn’t work. It wasn’t workable with the characters, and in fact was a totally lame cop-out, storywise. I demanded a different ending… The next morning, Chris stormed into my office and said that there was only one answer — they’d have to kill Phoenix. I said fine. I don’t think he expected me to say that, since killing characters just wasn’t done in those days. Chris waffled a bit, but then I became insistent! She’s dying. That’s it.”

“Demanded” is pretty dictatorial, right? And he obviously admits to it. Okay, that’s the famous one. What about something a little more subtle? How’s this? I did find one interview with Shooter where he is on the record about a dictatorial decision he believes strongly about. In FantaCo Enterprises’ July 1981 THE X-MEN CHRONICLES #1, Shooter is interviewed by his longtime friend Harry Broertjes and they have the following exchange:

Jim Shooter: “But one thing I am forcing Chris and Louise (Jones)⁷ to do is establish that Wolverine hasn’t killed anyone.”

Harry Broertjes: “That would be kind of hard to do, wouldn’t it? We’ve seen him kill people. Presumably.”

Jim Shooter: “We’re going to fix that. I don’t want the heroes killing people, and as far as I’m concerned, Wolverine hasn’t killed anyone. Chris said, ‘Yes, but he’s a homicidal maniac.’ I said, ‘Chris, that’s what you call a ‘conflict.’ This is the essence of ‘story.’’ Here’s a hero, a guy who’s on the side of the good guys, basically, who is also a homicidal maniac. God, that’s fodder for a million stories! You’ve got Professor X — he’s gotta keep this guy here because you can’t let him loose, and while he’s there, he’s a constant threat to everyone he comes into contact with. What a story device! That’s wonderful! I said, ‘If I were writing the book tomorrow, I’d immediately do a story where we see everyone Wolverine was supposed to have killed.’ Some of them were, maybe, wounded pretty bad. Some of them are, maybe, incapacitated in some way. And they get checks in the mail every month from Xavier — and one of Xavier’s big worries is, ‘God, should I do something about Wolverine? Should I use my mental powers and go into his mind and fix it? Or does that make me the worse tyrant who ever lived?’ In other words, it’s a real problem — and problems, that’s the definition of a story. A conflict resolved. Here we’ve got a brilliant conflict and there’s nothing being done with it.

The other day, I took Louise to lunch and I said [menacingly], ‘I want my story with Wolverine’s victims alive.’ ‘OK, all right,’ she said. ‘We’ve been sort of putting it off. But we’ll do it.’ I don’t know if they’re going to follow my suggestion and play out the whole thing with Xavier worrying over Wolverine and sending checks to the victims and that kind of thing. But one way or another, we’re gonna demonstrate that he hasn’t killed anyone until such time as Chris is ready to have him kill someone and then play it out, address that new conflict. OK, he’s killed someone. Now what does Xavier do? Let’s have the guy brought to trial. Let’s see if it’s OK for him to kill someone. Let’s see if it was self-defense. Or was it not necessary? And if it wasn’t, what do they do?”

Harry Broertjes: “A case of living with consequences of something instead of going off into the sunset.”

Jim Shooter: “Right. I wanna see the consequences. That’s apparently a tough concept for a lot of people at Marvel [laughter].”

Going back to the same blog entry, Shooter also noted this, “I don’t know whether most people grok this idea, but the Editor in Chief is charged with governing, managing and protecting all of the characters. It was my job to make sure the characters were in character, and I was the final word on what “in character” was. Not Chris [Claremont], not John [Byrne], not any freelancer. The company relied upon me to manage and protect the company’s intellectual properties…”

So, I think it’s fair to say that the answer to whether Jim Shooter was dictatorial or not is clearly “yes,” but with a very clear explanation about why. He had very firm opinions on storytelling, on what works and what doesn’t work, and was prepared to allow more experienced creators room to experiment, but only so far as the storytelling still worked and the characters were protected. I don’t know about you, but that makes a great deal of sense to me.

What about whether he was mercurial, that he was getting into the weeds, “fixing” things. Folks like John Byrne and Roy Thomas apparently think so. Ditto for Gary Groth. I have no idea. To me, as an outsider, this feels very much like a RASHŌMON situation, a “he said, she said” type of thing. There are far too many conflicting stories to know who or what to believe. That said, since so many accusations are anecdotal without much in the way of documented fact, I tend to come down on the “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” side of things. But that’s me. Believe what and who you want to believe.

Finally: I’ve been making comics for awhile now. There are very few professionals (broadly speaking) in the comics industry who treated me like Shooter did. Bob Schreck, way back at SPX (Small Press Expo) 2005 (I think; it might have been 2004) was one, though I doubt he’d even remember. Retailers like Paul Stock, Rory Root, and Jim Hanley are others. Creators like Craig Taillefer and a few others. Academics like Professor David Beard.

I will always be deeply grateful to Jim Shooter for treating both me and my work seriously. For taking time to read my work, analyse my work, and give me feedback. In other words, for helping me grow as a creator.

Rest in peace, Jim.

Footnotes

1 It is mildly amusing to me that Darvin’s obituary (he died on October 13, 2003) makes no mention of his role at the Comics Code Authority.

2 That New York Times piece can be found in their archive. For context, The New York Times piece noted the following, “Stan Lee, the editor of SPIDER‐MAN, said he was impelled to proceed with a story containing a subplot on drug abuse by a letter he received from an official of the National Institute of Mental Health, a branch of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The letter suggested, in part, that a public service could be performed by assisting in the dissemination of factual information on drug abuse. Although the seal of approval was refused for the proposed story, Mr. Lee said that he and Martin Goodman, Marvel’s publisher, agreed to proceed with their plans for putting out SPIDER‐MAN, which is extremely popular among high school and college students. ‘We can’t keep our heads in the sand,’ Mr. Lee said. ‘I said that if this story would help one kid anywhere in the world not to try drugs or to lay off drugs one day earlier, then it’s worth it rather than waiting for the code authority to give permission.’

3 For examples, please see https://pen.org/banned-books-list-2025/. Sadly, Canada is dealing with this, too. See https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-school-book-ban-order-graphic-novels-9.7118495

4 While I obviously can’t prove this, there is an interesting note in the book that confirms, at least to some extent, my anecdote. It notes, “The following additional information was provided by Shooter following an initial review of the draft manuscript of the present text…”

5 The series name, by the way, is a reference to the English legal system. As the second edition of BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY notes, “WOLF’S HEAD. In old English law. This term was used as descriptive of the condition of an outlaw. Such persons were said to carry a wolf’s head, (caput lupinum;) for if caught alive they were to be brought to the king, and if they defended themselves they might be slain and their heads carried to the king, for they were no more to be accounted of than wolves.” It actually fits the series extremely well!

6 Of course, you can go and read Jim Shooter’s storytelling lecture series at https://storytelling.jimshooter.com/

7 Now Louise Simonson, of course.

2019 CBC Trailblazer Award

It’s always a bit weird to be writing this, but here goes. I’m one of the winners of a 2019 CBC Trailblazer Award. With a trophy and everything! I have to admit to having mixed feelings about awards*, but it’s still pretty neat to have won one. And since this is the second award I’ve won for my art-related activities, it is another “arrow in the quiver,” especially given how hard it’s been to get to this point.


Hard?


Hell, yeah.


Art, as a career, is not the easiest thing in the world to make a “go” of, especially given the austerity-fueled times we live in. And it has taken me a long time, longer than I would have liked, to reach the point that my art is, for lack of a better word, “professional.” ‘Course, one of the interesting things about art is what one means by “professional” can take on all kinds of different meanings. It really depends on who you are and what you like.


In my specific case, I knew I was pretty rough, but we really do learn by doing.


“Doing” also meant falling on my face. A lot. I’ve covered that in a piece I wrote called “On Getting Stronger” so I won’t cover that again here.


I think one of the interesting things about the Trailblazer Award is it really is recognition for the work I continue to do around my first graphic novel, the road to god knows... Who knew, when I first self-published it almost ten years ago, it would still be finding a life now? That’s in large part thanks to the documentary film I Am Still Your Child, written and directed by Megan Durnford, produced by Katarina Soukup and the fine folks at Catbird Productions, and supported by all the creative folks behind it (including “behind the scenes” people like Alex Margineanu, Howard Goldberg, Kathy Sperberg, Stéphanie Couillard, and Sara Morley, as well as folks like Jessy Bokser, Sarah Leavens, and Marie Leavens who I shared screen time with). The film gave a “second life,” so to speak, to the graphic novel and has led to speaking engagements, panel discussions, Skype conversations, and on and on.

And, more concretely, it’s given me an opportunity to talk about my mom. Not just her battle with schizophrenia, but also the poverty we battled combined with the lack of social programs to help her. To talk about the immense courage she showed (courage I’ve really only became truly aware of as an adult) while she fought a lonely and often terrifying battle to navigate a truly unforgiving health care and social aid system. And what it was like to grow up with her, for both good and ill.


It’s funny; my mom died pretty young, at 48. And I’m slowly but surely approaching that age myself. In fact, I’ve now lived longer without her in my life than I did with her (she died when I was 20, and I’m now well-past 40 myself). But the memory of her stays with me still. That’s partially because I loved her, of course, but also because I still find, to this day, how unfair her situation was. And the fact that it never had to be that way. Despite all of the “by your own bootstraps” nonsense we live in (you know, that idea that any failure, let alone any health issue, is a sign of personal rather than societal failure), what happened to my mom was grossly unfair. What is heartbreaking to me is that the unfairness she experienced is experienced by so many other people right to this very day.


Yeah, yeah, awareness about mental health and mental illness is better. There’s more open and frank discussion around it. Sure. But poverty has not gone away. The lack of social support really hasn’t changed. Welfare rates for anyone (let alone single moms) have, if anything, gotten much worse. We can talk about “resilience” and “perseverance” as much as we’d like. We can even point to individuals who’ve managed to do just that, but what about those who can’t? There’s still a chronic lack of systemic support. There’s still a culture that desperately needs healing (don’t believe me? Look at the suicides that are still occurring in the wake of the Parkland shooting).


I’m pleased to do what I can to help. And I’m proud, damn proud, to talk about my mom. To help put a face on what otherwise might be simple dry statistics. To use my art, as best I can, to show what some of this is like. But it’s hard not to escape the idea that in a very real way, the 2019 Trailblazer Award should not have gone to me.


It really should have gone to my mom.


She died in 1994, alone and isolated. I had moved out some months before because I had to, for my own sanity and self-esteem.


What I try to stress to people, though, is that she had hopes and dreams. Things she still wanted to accomplish. Who knows what she might have done if she had managed to beat a truly vile disease and get healthier? She’d be 73 right now, probably feisty as all get out, and probably telling her own story to people, trailblazing change.


I don’t doubt that for a second. But it was not to be.

I placed, a long time ago, the grief along with the disappointment of what could have been. It is what it is and it happened a long time ago. But other people, right now, are going through similar things. And even if mental illness is not a part of it, there is still crushing poverty, a cold and often hostile health and social services system, kids going hungry, massive personal debts, and horrible unhappiness. All the celebratory economic statistics in the world doesn’t change that. There is a lack of solidarity with each other, not just with our fellow citizens but a lack of solidarity and fellowship with people around the globe (don’t believe me? Look at all the hate against immigrants and refugees we’re seeing now).


We have to overcome this.


And what about me? Well, I continue to grow and get stronger, especially with my art (both visual art and my writing, too). And with my art I try to not just focus on the past (though always to honour it), but to move forward with new stories and new adventures. One of the things about falling in love with art, with comics, and with visual storytelling, is that the growing and learning never stops.


Using comics to tell stories has been, I think, the most rewarding thing I’ve done as an adult. And I can still remember where I was when the journey started to where I am now. Harder than hell, yeah, but rewarding all the same.


I can’t wait to see what happens next.

* The late Harlan Ellison, back on the “Awards” episode of the TVOntario program PRISONERS OF GRAVITY said it best: “I think awards are bullshit. I think awards are detrimental to the writers…You win a Hugo, you win a Nebula, you win a Horror Writer’s Award, you win an Edgar, I’ve won all of them in multiples for god’s sake. What you’re getting are popularity awards. If you were a good boy that year. If you were published in the right place. If the right people read it. If stories that were five times better than yours were published in places no one saw them. Then you get an award. They’re meaningless.

They had value, years ago, as being, you know, you could put them on a cover of a paperback. “Hugo Award Winner.” Well, every book you pick up now is a Hugo Award Winner or Hugo Award Nominee. Or someone thought this should have won a Hugo. They don’t mean squat.


The minute you start thinking that you’ve won an award because you’re a terrific writer, you’re dead.”


Always good to keep in mind, right?

Postscript

Here's the CBC Video Interview with me about the Trailblazer Award:

Other Links

• Overview of my Comics: http://www.vonallan.com/p/comics.html

• Wolf’s Head (My Ongoing Comic Book Series): https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/

• Von Allan Studio Shop Page: http://www.vonallan.com/p/von-allan-studio-shop.html

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Mental illness, gender, poverty, and the Salvation Army

The following statement was sent to the City of Ottawa's Councillors in regards to the proposed Salvation Army's new shelter to be built here in the Vanier community.

To whom it may concern,

My mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was a pre-teen. She was a single mom and we often found ourselves in pretty tough situations. We were also on welfare, facing both financial difficulties as well as my mom’s struggle with mental illness.

I was born in Arnprior but my mom and I relocated to Ottawa when I was 8 years old. I’ve grown up in this city and I’ve been a resident of the downtown core most of my life. I should add that my wife and I bought a home in Vanier in 2010. So I’m not just a resident of Ottawa and I’m not just a taxpayer; I’m also a home owner not that far away from where the Salvation Army proposes to build their new shelter on Montreal Road.

Relevant to this email is the fact that I’m also in a documentary film that focuses on the children of mentally ill parents. Titled “I Am Still Your Child,” the film just started streaming on CBC and will air nationally across CBC Television in January. If you’d like, you can watch the film at the following link: http://watch.cbc.ca/absolutely-canadian/-/i-am-still-your-child/38e815a-00cec9fd824. In conjunction with the film, a number of video shorts were recently released. One of them deals with the financial impact of mental illness. It’s on the film’s Youtube page at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwaYwp3MbqQ.

When I reflect on my childhood, the reality of my mom’s health and financial situation, and the proposed Salvation Army shelter, I’m struck by the fact that my mom, being a woman, would have found no help there. And she, being a mom, would not have been able to get help for her family, either. Yes, I’m well aware that there are other shelters in the city that can and do help. At the end of the day, however, a new shelter will be constructed that will discriminate based on gender. That is unconscionable in 2017. And it is a sad, sad statement that if I was a child today, living in the same circumstances that I grew up in, my mom would not be able to turn to a brand new state of the art facility for help when she would have needed it most.

I should add that my mom did not win her struggles with either schizophrenia or poverty. She died in 1994, at the age of 48.

I would strongly urge you to pause and reflect on what a new shelter could and should be. A shelter featuring gender equality and one free of religious dogma. If it was both of those things, even if the location and the size were the same, I would support it. Because my mom might have needed it. And we know that other girls and women of all-ages and sexual orientations will need it. Desperately.

The proposed shelter by the Salvation Army is not the solution. It’s no solution at all. I urge you to vote against it.

Addendum

What I didn't add, though I was tempted, was the lyrics to Joe Hill's 1911 song The Preacher and the Slave:

Long-haired preachers come out every night

Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right

But when asked how 'bout something to eat

They will answer in voices so sweet


You will eat, bye and bye

In that glorious land above the sky

Work and pray, live on hay

You'll get pie in the sky when you die


And the Starvation Army, they play

And they sing and they clap and they pray

Till they get all your coin on the drum

Then they tell you when you're on the bum


You will eat, bye and bye

In that glorious land above the sky

Work and pray, live on hay

You'll get pie in the sky when you die


Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out

And they holler, they jump and they shout

Give your money to Jesus, they say

He will cure all diseases today


You will eat, bye and bye

In that glorious land above the sky

Work and pray, live on hay

You'll get pie in the sky when you die


If you fight hard for children and wife

Try to get something good in this life

You're a sinner and bad man, they tell

When you die you will sure go to hell.


You will eat, bye and bye

In that glorious land above the sky

Work and pray, live on hay

You'll get pie in the sky when you die


Workingmen of all countries, unite

Side by side we for freedom will fight

When the world and its wealth we have gained

To the grafters we'll sing this refrain


You will eat, bye and bye

When you've learned how to cook and how to fry

Chop some wood, 'twill do you good

Then you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye

Update

And Ottawa city council passed the Salvation Army proposal over the protests of just about everyone.

On Getting Stronger

I wrote and drew a graphic novel titled the road to god knows..., which was published in 2009 after about four years of development. The story dealt with a young teenager's struggle to cope with her mom's schizophrenia. It's pretty autobiographical; to tell the story, I drew on a lot of my own experiences with my own mom's schizophrenia. It's fictional for all kinds of reasons, but the main one was that I wanted some distance from the story.

That said, the graphic novel was self-published and, art-wise, it's rough. I think there was a lot of heart to it, but my visual art was pretty weak. Figure-drawing problems, perspective problems, composition problems, value problems...you name a problem and road had it. In spades. I came to art very late and learning to draw is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Comics require a great deal of knowledge to do well. Those problems I mentioned? Well, you need everything to work together extremely well to create a comic. If that harmony isn't there...well, you get a pretty rough comic. And that certainly was an issue with road. But we learn by doing and I'm still proud, to this day, that I managed to do it. Rough spots and all.

So I published it and it did as well as could be expected, especially given my art skills at the time. And though it still sold a bit every year, I stopped thinking about it. I moved on with my life, continued to make art and comics, continued to get stronger, but putting that rough first graphic novel behind me.

Flash forward to April 2015 and I received an email out of the blue from a writer/director who was working on a documentary film about the impact of parental mental illness. They wanted to talk with me about road. To make a long story short, the film (titled I Am Still Your Child) was made (amazing!) and I was a part of it (shocking!). And it was made with empathy and sensitivity and deals with an issue that really isn't discussed much in public at all. I was (and am) very pleased to be included in the film.

The making of the documentary led to an interesting situation. The filmmakers wanted to use artwork from the road to god knows... in the documentary. And...that was not good. I hadn't looked at the art in a number of years and, when I revisited it, I was dismayed (maybe horrified would be a better word). The art was rough. Really, really rough. And it put me in a bind; I didn't want to have road represent where I am now. That may sound weird; I think it did with the folks involved in the film, but because the graphic novel was such a personal project for me and because my art had certainly improved quite a bit from back then, the idea of seeing that art in a documentary left me cold.

So we worked out an interesting solution. I would revisit road and redraw selected pages and panels from the graphic novel that they wanted to include in the film. As it turns out, that was one helluva big job.

Some of the work was emotional; I was revisiting themes that in some ways I didn't want to revisit. For example, I was revisiting the death of my mom; the graphic novel is pretty autobiographical and while my mom died long before it was ever published, her presence is a big part of of the story for me.

Some of the work was practical; in order to keep the pages similar, I had to stay pretty close to how I did things almost a decade ago, even though I would not necessarily write or draw the same way now. That wasn't easy; how I approach composition is different now. My thoughts on how a comic book page is put together is different now. How I write is different now. And on and on. Plus there was that pesky fact that the original art was pretty rough. I could use it as a guideline, really a very loose thumbnail, but that's it. I would have to draw most of it from scratch, as if it was a brand new story.

The actual redrawn art presented another problem. By redrawing the art, I could accidentally give the impression that the new art is what the graphic novel actually looks like. I felt a little sick when that dawned on me, so the solution was to avoid it completely by making the graphic novel out of print. I realize that there still a few copies “out there,” but it's fortunately not so easy to find and hopefully anyone who sees the documentary (along with the caveat about the art in the film credits) will understand. It's one of those weird situations that is almost counter-intuitive; in a way, the documentary will bring more attention to the road to god knows... then it ever had before. But to redraw the entire graphic novel (to “fix it” if you will) would be a monumental undertaking. Even with the redraws I did for the documentary, I only wound up touching something like 10% of the book. To redraw the rest would require...well, certainly a very keen and excited publisher. For me to do that other 90%? Nope. Tempting, but nope. I would rather move forward then go backward.

Given all that, the redraws represent an interesting and fairly poignant “what if.” What if I hadn't published the graphic novel when I did? What if the entire graphic novel looked the way the redraws do? Would it have found a broader audience? Would it have found a publisher? What if?

Ultimately, who knows? We learning by doing. I did the best work I could on the road to god knows... back in 2005-2009. That the work wasn't the best is unfortunate, but that's life. If I hadn't done it, would I have given up on art by now? Who knows? Do I regret doing it? No, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wish the art in the original version was stronger. It was hard to revisit on that point alone.

You may note, by the by, that I don't say that I've gotten better. Better, in art and in life, is a judgment call that's difficult to make. Who's to say? What is better? But I know that I have gotten stronger. And that's enough.

It is pretty amazing to find that road still touches people, enough to be included in a documentary almost eight years after it was published. Enough that the book is still talked about today. I occasionally get emails, like the one I received from Megan back in the spring of 2015. And, despite my misgivings, I'm happy the book keeps touching people, even in its rough form.

And road, despite its flaws, taught me one thing. I love to draw. I wish I had found that out earlier, but I know it now. And that's not nothing.

The Redraws

What follows are a series of images from the original published version of the road to god knows... and the re-draw versions. These are presented side by side, without further comment from me.

Other Links

• Overview of my Comics: http://www.vonallan.com/p/comics.html

• Wolf’s Head (My Ongoing Comic Book Series): https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/

• Von Allan Studio Shop Page: http://www.vonallan.com/p/von-allan-studio-shop.html

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Minimum Wage and the Prices of Comics

“The truth is people are leaving anyway, they’re just doing it quietly, and we have been papering it over with increased prices...We didn’t want to wake up one day and find we had a bunch of $20 books that 10,000 people are buying.”

Dan Didio, co-publisher of DC Comics, Los Angeles Times, August 22nd, 2011.

By Von Allan

A number of comments have been written about DC's upcoming relaunch of their superhero universe. There have been articles on gender inequality (notably DC Women Kicking Ass and Laura Hudson's editorial on Comics Alliance) , Brian Hibbs has touched on the sales challenge Direct Market retailers face, and Corinna Lawson has spoken passionately about the marketing (or the lack thereof) over on Wired's Geekdad blog. I wanted to take a broader look and examine the role of pricing in the current comic book climate and why I think that pricing, more than anything else, will restrict DC's ability to grow their audience during the relaunch. In examining this, I'll be looking at the entire Direct Market and not simply DC's current plan and hopefully come to some conclusions that may surprise you. They certainly surprised the hell out of me.

Prices of comics in context

My thesis here is pretty simple. Many people have written and spoken about the high price of comics over the years. This can range from the "I remember when..." type comments to more contemporary concerns about the health of the entire Direct Market. The problem with a lot of these statments is that there's no context to the arguments. Are comics more expensive than they used to be? Sure, but then so is bread, rent, cars, movies and many other things. The issue isn't whether things have become more expensive (everything has), but to try and see the price increases in the context of something else. Whatever that is, it has to be consistent for it to be relevant. When we look at the history of comic book pricing, it turns out there is something we can compare it to. And that's the history of the Federal Minimum Wage in the United States.

Actually, it's an ideal metric. The Federal Minimum Wage was signed into law in early 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. At almost the same time, Action Comics #1 hit newsstands featuring, of course, the first appearance of Superman. In other words, comic books and the US Federal Minimum Wage have existed at the same time since the birth of the Golden Age. Due to this, it's a perfect way to examine comic book pricing. Context is everything and this gives an excellent context to what has happened with both prices and minimum wage over the past 70 years.

Minimum Wage and the Pricing of Comics

Let's get right into it. In 2010, the US Federal Minimum Wage was $7.25 per hour. Figuring a 36 hour work week (factoring in unpaid lunches), it meant that someone working a minimum wage job was earning $261.00 per week before paying any taxes. In 2010, the average cover price for a typical 32 page superhero comic was $2.99 (1). In other words, to purchase ONE comic would cost 1.15% of someone's weekly income. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it represents one of the highest price points in the history of comics. I'll show this more concretely as we go forward, but for now I wanted to compare that to another key benchmark in the history of comics: the publishing of Fantastic Four #1 in 1961. This is especially timely since the Fantastic Four just celebrated their 50th anniversary. FF #1 was cover priced at 10 cents US. The US Federal Minimum Wage in 1961 was $1.15 per hour and, figuring the same 36 hour work week, a person would have earned $41.40 per week. To purchase the first issue of Fanastic Four, a person working minimum wage would have spent only 0.24% of their pay cheque. That is a stunning difference in price. To put this even more plainly: it represents a 379.2% increase in the price in relation to minimum wage from 1961 to 2010.

Note carefully that I'm not talking about inflation. Rather, I'm talking about the nominal price not adjusted for inflation. This is critically important to understand. Real wages and real prices (i.e.: wages and prices adjusted for inflation) is a separate argument to the one I'm making here. If I do a sequel to this piece, I will explore it because it's very clear that things are worse when you factor these in.

One more example before we get to the meat of things. Action Comics #1 was published in 1938 and also had a cover price of 10 cents. The US Federal Minimum Wage for 1938 was 25 cents per hour (PDF) or $9.00 for a 36 hour work week. That means purchasing Action Comics #1 would have cost someone 1.11% of their weekly income. That's quite a lot and you'd be right to say so. BUT...Action Comics #1 (and most comics published during this period) had a much higher page count then current comics. Action Comics #1 was 64 pages long, double the current standard of 32 pages. In other words, to compare it to today means we would need to make an adjustment to reflect the higher page count. When we do that, we see that Action Comics #1 would have cost approximately 5 cents if had been 32 pages long. That would have put it at 0.59% of someone's weekly pay cheque, still quite a bit higher than when Fantastic Four #1 debuted some 25 years later but not nearly as high as where things are now. Did the sales reflect that? They sure did. As John Jackson Miller pointed out on his Comichron blog, the print run for Action Comics #1 was only about 200,000 copies. Another key point: 0.59% of weekly US Federal Minimum Wage was the highest comics would cost until 1986. 48 years. Amazing.

1938 to 2010

The two charts below illustrate this visually. The first chart shows the unadjusted page counts. It wasn't until approximately 1955 (2) that comic books had shrunk to the page counts we now know so well. Both charts are identical from 1955 through 2010, but from 1938 to 1954 I adjusted the second one to reflect a typical 32 page count comic.





1938 through to 1969 saw a remarkable change occur in pricing in relation to the weekly US Federal Minimum Wage and you can see this in the chart below. Throughout this period there was a continued downward pressure on prices. Comics became cheaper in relation to the minimum weekly wage. A teenager getting his or her first job at, say, a fast food restaurant in the 1960s could easily afford a few comics per week. In fact, in 1968 and 1969 comics were only 0.21% of the weekly US Federal Minimum Wage. Is it any wonder that a comic book was considered disposable?



From the 1970s to today

The Direct Market rose to prominence in the late 1970s and the entire decade was marked by price fluctuations and stagflation that differentiated it from previous recessions. Comics were not immune to this and they would never return to the low price ratio that we saw in 1968 and 1969. Comics were cover priced at approximately 12 cents in 1968 but by 1974 were up to 25 cents. While that is a significant increase in cover price (108.3%), minimum wage was also increasing and that helped keep the ratio of cover prices to weekly minimum wage relatively low. By 1979 a single comic book still cost only 0.38% of the average weekly US Federal Minimum Wage. In context of where prices are today, it's pretty remarkable. That said, it's important to remember what was happening during this period. Tom Spurgeon and John Jackson Miller had a good discussion about it a few years ago and Miller correctly points out that the 1970s were a period of constant change. He noted, "Retail was changing in the 1970s -- comics, which had been a loss leader for convenience stores, drugstores and the like, needed to become more profitable as the mom-and-pop store gave way to the big chains (7-Eleven, Walgreens, later Wal-Mart, etc.). The print-three to sell-one model pinched comics all the more in a period of high inflation and paper and transport price increases -- and so the structure of comics sales at the time made us more exposed to external forces."

Comics continued to increase in price throughout the 1980s, crossing their most expensive point regardless of page count in 1986. The Direct Market was firmly established and some amazing comics were made during this period. Spiegelman's Maus. Love and Rockets by Los Bros Hernandez. Moore and Gibbons' Watchmen. Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. Simonson's Thor. Sim's Cerebus was in its prime. This was also a time where the speculator bubble really started in earnest. Prices rose to reflect the craze, reaching cover prices of 75 cents in 1986, $1.00 by 1990 and $1.50 by 1994. Much has been written about how the bursting of the speculator bubble destroyed much of the comic book industry and I won't recap that here. The numbers are staggering, however, and The Amazing Spider-Man is a typical example. John Jackson Miller's website has detailed postal records on it going back to 1966. This is considered to be "Average Total Paid Circulation." 1991 saw total paid circulation of 544,900 and 1992 rose to 592,442. As the bubble burst, sales decline dramatically. 353,025 in 1994, 234,290 in 1995, 216,779 in 1996 and 159,950 in 1997. The numbers have never recovered. The most recent data is from 2008 and total paid circulation was 105,948.

What's interesting to me, though, isn't so much the collapse of the speculator market but what happened to prices during the aftermath. I started this essay with a quote from Dan Didio that I think is highly relevant here. Didio said, "The truth is people are leaving anyway, they’re just doing it quietly, and we have been papering it over with increased prices." At no point from the sales collapse in 1994 to the present have prices ever been reduced. Ever. The cover price has continued to increase in an attempt, as Didio mentioned, to deal with the decline in sales. The math is pretty simple. If a comic priced at $1.00 was selling 350,000 copies, then that's $350,000 in gross revenue. If, 10 years later, you're seeing sales of only 125,000 copies, then you're in trouble. The supposed solution is to raise the price to try to regain the lost revenue. But that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: the higher prices drive people away, especially since the US Federal Minimum Wage has not risen by the same percentages. The chart below shows this clearly.



Movies and Comics

I can hear you, though. Everything has become expensive, right? Movie tickets are a typical example. I wanted to drill into that a bit and compare film ticket prices and comic book prices in relation to minimum wage. Movie ticket prices are a little harder to come by, mainly because there are regional differences that can really affect pricing. Fortunately, Box Office Mojo keeps a history of average movie ticket prices that goes back to 1980. The National Association of Theatre Owners has data going back a bit further. We can examine and make direct comparisons from the time period covering 1974 to the present. The results are eye-opening. Film prices have always been between 2.63% and 3.53% of the US Federal Minimum Wage throughout this period. While the price ratio has gone up, the trend line is not as sharp. The chart below shows it visually:



Let's me put this in even more context. It's May 1977 and Star Wars has just arrived in theatres. You work full-time at a minimum wage job. You'd have been earning $2.30 per hour or $82.80 for a 36 hour work week. You're willing to spend about 6% of your pay on comics and movies. A ticket to see Star Wars was, on average, $2.23 or 2.69% of your pay. That's quite a bit but you still had 3.31% left over. Comics were, on average, 30 cents. You could have bought nine of them and it would have only cost you $2.70. Or 3.26% of your pay cheque. You can see Star Wars and still buy all those comics and you're just under budget.

Fast forward to May 2010. Same situation. This time you want to go see Iron Man 2. That would cost you $7.89, but you're now earning $7.25 per hour or $261.00 per week. Iron Man 2 will set you back 3.02% of your weekly pay. Not bad, not bad, especially in comparison to 1977. You also want to buy some comics. A comic now costs $2.99 or 1.15% of your pay. Two comics will cost you 2.29% of your pay. You might be able to squeeze a third one in, but you're going to go over budget to do it. Ouch.

This may go a long way in explaining something else. Namely, why haven't fans of superhero movies crossed over into becoming new comic book readers? Price may be an issue. In 1978, the first Superman movie arrived in theatres. Average film price was $2.34 and the weekly US Federal Minimum Wage was $95.40. A ticket cost you 2.45% of your weekly pay. A comic was 35 cents or 0.37% of your pay cheque. When the Tim Burton Batman film came out in 1989, movie tickets were priced pretty high ($3.99 or 3.31% of a weekly US Federal Minimum Wage of $120.60). A comic was still around 0.76% of your weekly pay. By the time Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man film arrived in theatres, things had changed. Ticket prices were $5.80 and the weekly US Federal Minimum Wage was at $185.40. Or 3.13%. Comics? They were now $2.25 or 1.21%. It was becoming harder and harder for people earning minimum wage to make the transition from movies to comics. Even if they wanted to, they can't afford to.

People wonder why comics aren't selling the way they used to? Come on. I'm not arguing that convulted storylines, "waiting for the trade" mentalities, crossovers, and the like haven't hurt comics. I'm also not saying that movies, video games, and the like haven't hurt comics, either. I think all of these things and probably more have taken their toll. But...the simplest explanation regarding what has happened to the popularity of comics is what's happened to their prices in relationship with minimum wage. They were cheap and now they're not. That's done an incredible amount of damage. It's not just that the same readership base is simply purchasing less comics, though that may be part of it. As the population in the United States has grown over the past 25 years, the readership has declined. New readers aren't being created, at least not for periodical comics.(3) Why? The answer is price in relationship to an ordinary person's pay. Price in relation to the weekly US Federal Minimum Wage.

DC's 52 Relaunch

So, here we are, at the crux of the issue. As Didio noted, DC recognizes that sales have fallen. The reboot/relaunch is an attempt to correct that. I'm pretty confident that they'll see a sales spike for at least a few months. In fact, there are already reports that the new Justice League #1 has had pre-orders of over 200,000 copies. The big question, though, is where will things be, say, 24 months after the relaunch? How about 48? I think we can now make an educated guess. 48 of the 52 titles are priced at $2.99. The other four are all $3.99. If you're working a minimum wage job and want to buy 'em all in a given month, this is what you're facing:

The 48 cheaper titles will cost you $143.52 while the other four will add $15.96 for a grand total of $159.48 before any taxes. If you're earning $261.00 per week that means you're earning $1,044.00 per month. To buy all 52 titles will cost you 15.28% of your pay. Back in 1977, to buy 52 comics during the course of a month would have cost you $15.60 (at 30 cents each). You would have been earning $82.80 per week or $331.20 per month, but all 52 comics would have cost you only 4.71% of your income. That's it. Game over. Lower wage earners will find it impossible to purchase all of these comics. They'll find it impossible to purchase half of them. It's not financially doable.

What would have worked? Here's a thought: a price drop combined with the relaunch, backed by an aggressive attempt to put comics into more venues and an advertising campaign that would have spread the good news. What would the news have been? Fresh and affordable comics that anyone can read. What did we get? A DC gamble that the new "issue number ones" combined with a simplified universe will be the draw. Perhaps they're right, but based on what I've outlined here I think the odds are really stacked against them. What should the price have been? I don't know. I think there's room for experimentation, though, and I'm disappointed that DC didn't seize the opportunity to try. Take Wednesday Comics as an example. Instead of launching a 14" x 20" broadsheet at $3.99 US that was in an entirely different format that a typical comic, why didn't they try launching a couple of monthly titles on the same newsprint but priced much lower? Say $1.50? A "done in one" type story so that everything stands alone? Something like All-Star Superman might have exploded in popularity at a price point like this. It was not to be and I, for one, find the lack of any experimentation with the 52 relaunch deeply disappointing.

Digital

Pricing is also why I don't think digital is a threat to brick and mortar retailers. At least if the prices remain comparable to print comics. The Wall Street Journal published an article back in the spring that detailed who exactly is purchasing Apple's iPad. At the time, 7.8 million people owned iPads but only 6.4% of them earned purchased an iPad while earning less than $25,000 per year. Only 11.9% purchased an iPad while earning between $25,000 and $49,999 per year. Meanwhile, 49.4% of iPad owners earned more than $100,000 per year. Simply put, those earning minimum wage (and please remember that if you're earning $261.00 per week your annual salary is $13,572.00) will not be purchasing digital comics for the iPad. They can't afford to. As Chris at the ComicShop.net recently wrote, "If you really think comic shops are slowly dying off because of the demand for digital, your privilege is showing. Comic shops are dealing with a tough economy because comic books are a luxury—the first thing that gets cut when people are trying to save money. Food or comics? There’s no app for that." He is exactly right.

The Future?

This is a tough one. Prices have never fallen. In fact, both companies are now flirting with $3.99 price points and, based on the history I outlined here, there's no doubt in my mind that will become the new benchmark in the nearish future. That would be 1.53% of a $261.00 weekly pay cheque. For one comic. Man. It's certainly no way to grow a readership. Is there a way forward? Well, it's tough. If the answer is to keep battling declining revenue by raising prices, then the answer is no. Well, unless they can figure out a way to raise the Federal Minimum Wage at the same time! Seriously, though, comics are a tricky beast. Perhaps Marvel and DC feel that the answer is to turn it to a hobby that only affluent people can afford and keep upscaling things in accordance with that. Maybe. In the meantime, people will still continue to see superhero films and publishers, retailers, and media will wonder why the millions of tickets being purchased somehow doesn't translate into more comics being sold. Well, we know why and that's something. Not much, but something. And then DC and Marvel will reboot/relaunch once again, as they've done so often in their histories.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I have a new graphic novel coming out in October 2011 called Stargazer Volume Two. There's a preview up on my main Stargazer website. Go check it out, ok? Stargazer Volume Two has Diamond Item Code of AUG111259 and an ISBN of 978-09-781237-4-1. You can find reviews, ordering information, and the like at http://stargazer.vonallan.com

Footnotes

1. Average Cover Prices of Comics: Figuring out average cover prices is a bit of a chore. What I did was use "typical" comics in a given month and average the price from there. I mostly focused on Marvel mainly because DC went through a phase, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, where they experimented quite a bit with page counts. I'll try to get this up on Google Docs so that you can better see what I was doing.

2. Page Counts: I used Action Comics to show the historical changes in page counts. A good overview can be found on Comics.org. Note that they include the front cover, the back cover, the inside front cover and the inside back cover to the total page count. This is why they note that Action Comics #1 was, for instance, 68 pages long rather than 64 pages.

3. Readership: I stress periodical comics here, because the one key thing that has grown the industry is the graphic novel. Getting firm numbers is tricky, but the growth of "book form" comics has developed new markets in both bookstores and libraries. That has helped a lot.

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