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What happened to Jim Warren?

Started by RedRaven,

12 posts in this topic

RedRaven

RedRaven

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I've read the gossip ,Tibetan Monastery etc, read Jim's comments in which he describes a vague sickness which sounds a bit like Frazetta's thyroid condition (although Frazetta never chopped up a Sopwith Camel), but I've never heard definitively what caused his decline which then led to the fall of Warren publishing? Does anybody know ?

 

From what Jim has said it sounds like hypothyroidism (which often leads to depression as well). However, no one has ever stated this and my guess is only slightly better than the Tibetan Monastery hypothesis.

 

Jim Warren's medical history is none of our business but in this case it seems tied intimately to the last chapter of a very important volume in the history of comics and graphic illustration. For that reason I can't help but wonder...

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heinlein99

heinlein99

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I've wondered about this too several times over the past few years.

 

You're right that it's none of our business, but for the sake of history and human knowledge, I'd like to find out.

 

I've got the Warren Companion book and have read several other articles and interviews, and all I can figure out is that it was apparently some sort of illness that both exhausted and depressed him. Such things usually don't last ~25 years, however, so one has to wonder. Was he going bankrupt anyway? Did he feel his life threatened? Who knows?

 

In any case, I think he's a great candidate for having a biography written.

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That Ron Dude

That Ron Dude

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I just read the story in "CityPaper" and it gave me information that I had never heard before. I am suspicious though. I suspect that almost all of the information was supplied by James Warren himself, with little attempt to find people who could deny it or corroborate it.

 

In short, I don't believe any of it and won't until someone says to me, "I was there and it happened just like that". I remember him as a colourful character who wanted the world to see him as a colourful character, perhaps much more colourful than he really was. I don't remember ever hearing a good word about him. I visited Captain Company/Warren Publications to deliver a story for a friend years ago. It struck me as a hole in wall business ran on a shoestring. I thought a comic publisher couldn't be any smaller until the black and white boom of the eighties showed me how wrong I was.

 

He had three stages of publishing. 1) The guys left over from EC. 2) An entry level job for would-be Marvel and DC contibutors as well as guys on their way out and guys who wanted to do stories without much editorial control and 3) Spanish and Philipino artists who worked cheap.

 

He made an important contribution to the world of comics, at the time.

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RedRaven

RedRaven

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And in a more current vein, after fighting so hard to win his properties back from Harris (He won back Creepy n Eerie but not Vampirella) why has he simply sat on them for the last 5 years and not at least gifted us with some Trades????

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RedRaven

RedRaven

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Does anyone know how the properties ended up with Harris? Was it a bankrupcy sale? How did he get them back? Was it a purchase or a court-order? I would love to know.

 

Harris got the properties as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. Warren got Creepy and Eerie back after he sued Harris. I believe the settlement was out of court but I'm not entirely sure on that, could've been court ordered but my memory fogs.

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