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The Spider-Man newspaper strip does not mention Jim Shooter as plotter
Ferran Delgado
16 October 2016
The first book compiling the Spider-Man strip carried two short interviews with Stan Lee and John Romita, and none mentioned Shooter doing the plots and even loose layouts.
The intro promised by Lee in his interview is missing, maybe it ran in the second book that I don't own after the fiasco of the first, which carried the strips rotated.
How Shooter started
Ferran Delgado
February 2018
From Jim Shooter's blog
https://web.archive.org/web/20150103155450/http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/06/secret-origin-of-jim-shooter-editor-in.html
"Somewhere along the way, the Spider-Man syndicated strip launched. John Romita was doing the art. Stan wrote the dialogue—but he didn’t want to do the plotting. He hired Len Wein to plot the strip.
That was considered quite an honor, reaffirming Len’s status as our number one writer, or at least number one not counting Roy, who was unavailable.
It didn’t work out. Stan didn’t like Len’s plots. I don’t remember much about those strips except that there seemed to be a lot of Spider-Man dangling outside Jonah Jameson’s window exchanging snappy patter."
...
"Stan asked Archie who was the number two writer. The politically correct answer Archie gave was former EIC Marv. Marv turned the gig down. Somehow, it had gone from being an honor to being a chance that Stan would decide you were no good.
Stan asked Archie to put together a list of Marvel’s writers, ranked in order. Archie left himself off. He was too busy to plot the strip, though, for my money, he was obviously the best choice, having written Secret Agent Corrigan for years.
Archie’s list included 33 writers. He put me at number 33. I’d like to think it was because I had a staff job. I’d like to think he didn’t want me taking time away from editing. But maybe he just thought I sucked. Dunno.
Anyway, Stan asked EVERYONE ON THE LIST except me. Everyone turned him down. Finally, in desperation, he called me to his office. Looking as though he had a tremendous headache, he asked me if I’d plot the strip. I said sure.
Then, looking as though his headache was worsening, he explained to me what he needed me to do. Slowly, and in small words. As if he were trying to prep a chimp. Sundays had to fit in continuity, yet stand alone. They had to add something, but something non-essential to readers who only read the dailies. 16 week arcs. Big events mid-week. Teasers. Etc. I kept saying, “I know Stan.”
After that, Roy Thomas
“I have, after all, been acknowledged by Stan as working with him on the SPIDER-MAN newspaper strip, which I’ve done since the turn of 2000… some 12-13 years now.
https://thecomicsdetective.blogspot.com/2012/12/roy-thomas-more-corrections-suggestions.html
Why Roy Thomas? Why now?
Michael Hill
I see a dramatic change in the relationship between Thomas and Marvel between Jack Kirby Collector 18 (1997) and Comic Book Artist 2/Alter Ego (1998). In the former, Thomas says "Later I saw Stan’s plot for Fantastic Four #1, but even Stan would never claim for sure that he and Jack hadn’t talked the idea over before he wrote this." In the latter, Lee claims it precisely and for sure as if on cue, and as if it never occurred to him that there would be a question about it. (Remember Kirby got there first in TCJ: "I’ve never seen it, and of course I would say that’s an outright lie." Clearly this needed to be refuted, and making Thomas publish a retraction was the way to do it.) Maybe this led directly to Thomas working on Spider-Man.
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