I never look at my Wikipedia page, mainly because anyone can post anything there and have things accepted as fact:
Professional and personal disagreements eventually led to his removal as editor and his leaving Marvel. Marvel’s editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter, later recalled, “I fired Jim Owsley because his tenure as an editor was a train wreck. When I fired Jim Owsley, he thanked me. Seriously. He said, ‘Thank you.’ He admitted that he just wasn’t good at the administrative stuff (i.e., schedules). P.S.—there was plenty of work for him as a writer, so it was not such a big deal. In fact, it was like giving him a raise. He … [was] meant to be a writer, not an expediter.”
So, now, I guess I can run around the web trying to un-quote people or correct derogatory mentions, but chasing your tail is a real waste of time. I have to respond to this quote if only so somebody else can update my Wikipedia page with a quote from me.
Jim Shooter was my mentor and a tremendous friend. The last thing I’d ever want to do is say anything negative about him personally. People who turn on or lash out at friends who’ve helped them are, in my view, complete jerks. Jim opened huge doors for me, and I will be forever grateful.
Everybody’s entitled to their own memories but not their own facts. As Spider-Man editor, I never missed shipping. If my tenure was “a train wreck,” it was because I never missed shipping, which meant throwing in fill-ins as needed. And they were usually needed because Jim was driving me crazy. That was his job– drive the editors crazy by rejecting everything that came across his desk. Nothing was ever good enough, no writer ever talented enough. If my watch was a train wreck, it was Shooter himself piling driftwood on the tracks. Read the rest of this entry »
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