Sword-and-sorcery had a BAD reputation in the late 70s/early 80s; here's more evidence

In Flame and Crimson I advanced the claim that one of the principal reasons behind the demise of sword-and-sorcery was its poor reputation. I was mainly referring to critics and academics and cited many which were regularly lampooning the subgenre, but publishing houses were beginning to consider it anathema as well.

I feel pretty confident in that claim, and believe I backed it up pretty well in the book, but here's some more evidence courtesy of James Maliszewski of the Grognardia blog. This post includes some screenshots of an interview conducted with the late, great Greg Stafford in the pages of White Dwarf #17, published in early 1980. Here Stafford relays a story about submitting a sword-and-sorcery story to the editor of a semi-pro 'zine, and meeting with a harsh rejection slip stating that "all S&S is the same hackwork."

Worse, Stafford mostly agreed with the assessment.

The cool bit is that he used that rejection as fuel, and a springboard to create a highly innovative role-playing game, Runequest, which I played the hell out of back in the 80s. 

If it took a kick in the balls to S&S to produce Runequest, that rejection slip was probably worth it. 

But, like a kick in the balls it doesn't hurt any less.

It's an interesting post, and leads to unanswered questions about sword-and-sorcery and whether it can continue as a viable art form. How do we maintain its traditions and archetypes and themes, while not falling into the same repetition and pastiche trap that led to its demise in the mid-1980s?