That interview kind of ticked me off, and I suppose I can justify their statements by noting this was an interview released for marketing purposes and so they're following a script.
Elliot Maggin, in particular, talking smack about the "Marvelous Competition" feels especially forced and phony to me, especially considering Maggin adopted and used the Marvel approach HIMSELF, with characterization-centered stories and emphasis on consistent worldbuilding and multi-comic interconnectivity, near constantly! Without Marvel, Elliot Maggin's work would be totally different and the influence of its approach is very overt in his case. Some of his punchy dialogue is such that if I put a black sticker over the writer credit box I'd swear it was Stan Lee writing it (and I really mean that as a compliment; nobody wrote dialogue like Mr. Leibowitz did).
I wrote a post about this before, but King Kosmos is quite obviously based on the blueprint of Kang the Conqueror.
Maggin may talk a lot of trash about the competition, but the fact of the matter is, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Bates on the other hand, was the more Weisengerian of the two writers, with stories based around a weird concept with a twist ending.
Cary Bates: I don't like comic writing that is pretentious - there's a lot of that going around. The reason for that is - and this has been told to me by older people, and I agree - that a lot of people grow up just reading comics, and writing comics from that. A lot of the older writers wrote other things - Edmond Hamilton wrote science fiction. Alfred Bester was in radio and s.f. - and came to comics from a varied background. People who grow up reading comics and nothing else find themselves writing a strange kind of thing inspired by comics.
Yeah, and this weak fluff might actually fly, if it wasn't for the fact he was talking about Marvel in 1974. Of all the times in comics history that this might be true, and they're saying it about Marvel in 1974? Give me a break! In 1974, we had Stainless Steve Englehart on AVENGERS, SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP, and DEFENDERS. Steve Gerber writing MAN-THING and HOWARD THE DUCK. Even the worst works of that year Marvel was putting out, Gerry Conway on FANTASTIC FOUR, or the guy that wrote KA-ZAR whose name escapes me at the moment, was nonetheless readable and kind of cool. There was Bill Mantlo, Doug Moenich, Don MacGregor, the aforementioned two Steves, and even Roy the Boy hit more than he missed. To find a similar convergence of talent, you'd have to look back to the
Renaissance.
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