A chat with Jim Shooter: Silver Bullet Comic Books has the first installment of a two-part chat with former Marvel editor in chief Jim Shooter:

SBC: "Why do you think there's such a negative consensus of books that were written during the '70s?"

Shooter: "Most of them sucked. There was a lot of talent around, but precious few people had gotten any training besides having read 10,000 comic books. No one was doing much about it. A lot of the old guys who knew the craft had retired or died by the seventies. The industry was awash with relative beginners. The pay was terrible. People who had training, experience, and skill -- Archie Goodwin, Roy Thomas, Denny O'Neil, and survive to do much teaching, even if they were in a position one might think would require that.

"There is also an attitude endemic to the comics business that I've never seen anywhere else -- it often seems that the newer and less skilled a creator is, the more he or she resists being taught anything or told anything. There is a profoundly arrogant how-dare-anyone-tell-me-anything syndrome rife among the creators in comics. A feeling that any wisdom of the ancients passed on to them is somehow an attempt to control them, or deny them their "creative freedom." It's bizarre.

"Therefore, a lot of bad work is/was done due to ignorance. Three guys who come to mind who didn't have that attitude by the way, who eagerly soaked up every piece of information available then went on to be innovators are Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz and David Lapham. No surprise to me that they did so well."

Shooter also discusses creators' rights, licensed properties, The Legion of Super-Heroes, his dispute with Gene Colan, Jack Kirby's original artwork and more.