This is the best E-Mail I ever got regarding Valiant:
Hello Joe -- Congratulations on your Jim Shooter interview. Having edited the transcript of a telephonic interview with Jim conducted by a local (South African) comic dealer for his store 'zine soon after Jim was ousted from Valiant, I can vouch that what I heard then is the same as that which came through in your interview. Some doubt has been expressed about Jim's version of events, but hell, I don't care -- the pleasure his Valiant Universe has given me more than makes up for it. I went through something very similar to Jim although in a completely unrelated business field, and when he talks about the effect this had on his health, I know he's telling it true -- especially the 'ponytail' anecdote. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder -- Jim had it in spades.
I followed him to Defiant and Broadway. And now I understand that he's launched Daring Comics... Well, I'll be waiting. Will you be covering Daring?
As Fabian Nicieza says, There are always two sides to a story, but as someone who is still waiting for Barry Windsor-Smith's Storyteller #10 to appear, it looks like only Jim can sustain a vision.
Unlike Jim, I have enjoyed what Fabian did with his VH2 -- Shadowman and Quantum and Woody and, especially, Master Darque. Hey, I even think the new Turok has incredible potential... The 'Solar' one-shots and Limited Series rank with Jim's Alpha and Omega as among the best comics ever written. I miss the Valiant Heroes, VH1 and VH2. Luckily, I have virtually all of them, and, because they're so good, they will survive, in their easily accessible boxes, always providing the same pleasure as before, during those times when I don't know or care if Joseph is Magneto or not.
Living here in Africa one does not get much chance to meet comic book creators although I did get Jim's pen on Archer & Armstrong #0. But what chance does any publisher have if Wizard doesn't cover them? The Golden Age, the Silver Age, through to the Wizard Age, where if it's not in Wizard and it don't have long legs, a butt, and a cleavage, it's no good. In my opinion Wizard might not have started the speculator frenzy but it fed it and fed on it and got fat doing so and ultimately brought the industry to the mess it seems to be in at present. VH2 didn't succeed -- not because the comics weren't any good, but because of the Valiant/Acclaim burnt-my-fingers syndrome that still lingers -- and because Wizard kept mostly away from it, just in case.
Thanks for a chance to allow me to air my views, Joe. Good luck and keep doing what you seem to do so well. Maybe, just maybe, if all us Valiant fans can make enough noise, hey, that Universe will return. Make a noise and it will come? It worked for Star Trek once...
Erik Grossman egrossma@colognere.com Cape Town, South Africa.