Search Results for: About ME

Thanks to Greg Hatcher over at Comic Book Resources who declared last Saturday "Mark Evanier Day" over there and wrote something nice about me. I was disappointed to find that the banks were all open on my day and the big parade was pretty anemic: Just a couple of homeless guys pushing their shopping carts down my street. But, hey, I'll take what I can get.

Also, there's a podcast online where you can hear me talk about myself for forty-one minutes and seventeen seconds, which is around forty-one minutes longer than the topic is worth. It's over at My Comic Crush, a fine new show to listen to, hosted by the delightful Vickie Sebring and co-hosted by her lucky spouse Scott Sebring. We spoke mostly about Groo the Wanderer and have I mentioned that the first issue of a new Groo mini-series will be out on or around the first day of Comic-Con in San Diego? If I haven't before, I just did.

Lastly: If you're anywhere near Pasadena, you might want to hustle over to Vroman's Bookstore the evening of June 24 — and this one isn't about me much. It's about my good buddy Paul Dini, who'll be there that evening at 7 PM to sign his new graphic novel from DC: Dark Night: A True Batman Story. It's a chilling (because it's true) story about a brutal mugging that Paul experienced and how the incident intersected with his then-current work of writing Batman. I have an advance copy and it's likely to be the most talked-about comic novel of the year. It's powerful, it's honest and it's a must-read.

What do I have to do with this? I'm the host/M.C. of the event and I'll be interviewing Paul there before he sits down to autograph copies of it. You'll want a copy and you'll want it signed by the guy who wrote the story and lived the story. See you there.

As you may have read here, I'm appearing at the Miami Book Fair International, which runs November 16-23 this year. I'll be there the last two days and I believe I'm speaking and signing books at some time they haven't told me yet on Sunday, November 23.

The book I'm there to flog is a new one which is coming out officially on November 15, though they're selling some copies (I hope) today at the New York Comic Con. It's a collection of artwork from the operation run by two great men of comics, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. You can read about it and order a copy here. You can also be amused at my listing in the Miami Book Fair's authors list and the sizzling revelation it gives away about the book…

Comics/Graphic Novel
Evanier, Mark
The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio
A collection by the husband and wife team who created memorable characters such as Captain America and Sandman, invented romance comics, and raised the standard for the genres of western, crime, and horror comic books.

And you probably though Same-Sex Marriage was a fairly recent invention. My word, Joe and Jack were pioneers at everything!

In other news: If you're like me, you're interested in way more podcasts than you can possibly hear in eight lifetimes. Well, one that I've been enjoying lately is Man Vs. Art, hosted by artist and animator Raul Aguirre Jr. Raul speaks frankly and from experience about the problems and joys of creating the kinds of things he creates so well…the challenges that you face in this world of ours if you care about producing work of which you can be proud.

And since this posting is entitled "Stuff About me," it stands to reason that the guest on his latest edition is me. We had a nice conversation, much of it about that Kirby guy I used to work for. We also talked about Scrappy Doo and my work for Hanna-Barbera and other cartoon studios, as well as working with Sergio Aragonés on Groo the Wanderer. If you have time, you might enjoy it.

So one day, my dear friend Carolyn and I were at a Red Lobster restaurant.  I think it was the one out in Canoga Park and I think this was in September of 2010.  We were in the area where you wait for the hostess to say "Your table is ready" and to escort you to it…when suddenly, who should we run into but June Foray and her sister?  June was delighted to see us and the feeling was mutual.  "What a lucky coincidence," someone said and we instantly decided to all dine together.

I informed the hostess that instead of two parties of two, we would instead be one party of four.  She said, "Well, in that case, it may be twenty minutes or more before we'll have a table for four available."  June said, "That'll be fine" but I insisted, "No, it will not be fine.  Do you know who this is?"  I motioned to June, who looked a bit uncomfortable at the fuss I was making.  I announced, "This is June Foray, the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha of 'Boris and Natasha,' Granny on the 'Tweety and Sylvester' cartoons and so many more.  You can't keep an important person like June Foray waiting twenty minutes or more for a table!"

June whispered to me, "It's okay, Mark.  Don't make a scene."

I said, "This calls for a scene, June.  I will not stand for you being forced to stand like this."  I turned to the hostess and demanded that she seat our party immediately.  "You can't treat an important person like June Foray like this!"

Cringing, June said, "Please, Mark.  I don't mind waiting!"  And then the hostess said, "Well, maybe I could seat you in our private dining room here. It seats way more than four people…"

June said again, "I don't mind waiting" but I said, "Well, I do." And I ordered the hostess to take us immediately to the private dining room.  Despite June's insistence that this was not necessary, the hostess showed us to a private room.  As it turns out, the private room was occupied.  All but a few seats in it were occupied by friends of June who stood and yelled, "SURPRISE!"  Everyone was in on it, including June's sister (who insisted they have dinner at that Red Lobster that evening) and the hostess (who was tipped well for playing her part just as we rehearsed it before the Foray sisters arrived).

There was a big banner that read "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JUNE!" and everyone there was wearing little cut-out paper hearts that proclaimed much the same thought and there was a cake about the size of the Birthday Girl.  Here's a photo of that Birthday Girl with the cake…

But we didn't eat the cake until after we'd eaten Cheddar Bay Biscuits and whatever else Red Lobster serves.  Then came the cake.  Then there were toasts and speeches.  The speeches were mostly funny but they were also about what a wonderful lady June was, short in stature but a giant in the talent department.  Then a lot of photos were taken.  Here's one of June with some other folks who supplied voices for cartoon characters…

The back row consists of Gregg Berger, Gary Owens and Will Ryan.  The front row is Bob Bergen, June and Janet Waldo.  Also present were other actors and some animators and a few animation historians and friends of June.  Everyone who ever loved cartoons was a friend of June.  And here's a photo of my wonderful companion Carolyn, June and myself…

I miss both of those wonderful ladies…and from the picture above, I also miss Gary, Will and Janet.  Carolyn, by the way, had a much better time than her expression in this photo would suggest.  She loved how we almost had to drag June into her Surprise Party and she loved how delighted June was to realize that I was not being a pain-in-the-butt to the nice hostess; that it was just a scene we staged to amuse her.

Carolyn took a piece of the birthday cake out to the hostess since she was, in a way, part of our celebration.  The hostess — I seem to recall her name was Amy — thanked Carolyn but asked if there was any way she could have June's autograph. And of course, that was quickly arranged. I had ticked off for her earlier, a list of just some of the characters June had voiced in her amazing career. When I got to Cindy Lou Who from the animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Amy trembled a bit and said, "Really?"

She told June, as she'd told me during our rehearsal, how much that cartoon had meant to her. She still watched it every Christmas because it connected her with memories of her family and watching it with grandparents and an uncle who were no longer around. And come to think of it, I probably like the story of June's party because it connects me with people who are no longer around and I never want to lose those memories.

June did the voice of Cindy Lou Who for Amy — and Amy could not have been more thrilled. And June was thrilled because Amy was thrilled and all of us there were thrilled because June was thrilled…and it was easily the best time I ever had at a Red Lobster. Everyone there enjoyed it and it wasn't just because of the Cheddar Bay Biscuits…although they were pretty good too.

If you're at all into comic books, you've doubtlessly heard about the bankruptcy and sale and reorganization and major layoffs and insolvency and battles over inventory, yadda yadda yadda, involving Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. For years now, that firm has been at the center of the network of comic book shops and other retailers…and it isn't just comic books. It's hardcover books and toys and games and other merchandise. I've received a lot of ASK me questions ASKING me what it all means, what's going to happen, will the industry survive.

I only feel confident answering that last part: Yes, the industry will survive. There are people out there who want to buy what Diamond has been distributing and there are companies that want to sell what Diamond has been distributing and that's all it takes: Supply and demand. Things will change but then they're always changing in this marketplace…

…and that's about all I know. People say I have vast knowledge about comics but…well, not about distribution, I don't. I've had it explained to me several times by folks who might as well have been speaking Swahili for all I've been able to absorb. There are many subjects that my brain just won't allow on the premises and that's one of them. So you can stop writing and asking me about the details of what happened, what's going to happen and how it all works.

I even went so far as to call a friend of mine who seems to know all about this kind of thing and to ask him what I could or would say here. He said, "Tell 'em it'll all work out and the business will still be in business." Well, that I did know. But then he added, "It's going to take a lot of patience as everything's put back together and since so many books are printed overseas, Trump ain't helping matters with his stupid tariffs. So tell everyone to be patient and to support small publishers."

Okay. Be patient and support small publishers. And stop asking me to explain it all. I am of no help.

Hey, remember Kilmar Armando Abrego García? The man that ICE and its associates deported, then admitted he'd been wrongfully deported but it was impossible to bring him back, then they brought him back and now he's getting some Due Process and standing trial? I know, I know…so much has happened lately that it's hard to remember what you were outraged about just a few weeks ago.

So he's on trial and the case against him is said (by this attorney) to be "wobbly." In public, Attorney General Pam Bondi said they had an airtight case against him for a whole list of nefarious crimes. Well, now that it's in court, they aren't even prosecuting him on some of those crimes and the proof for the others looks, like the man said, wobbly.

So what is the Trump organization going to do? Well, they might be able to stop the trial if they deport him again. Read both links in that order.

Here we have an intriguing question from the fine funnybook artist, Christopher Cook…

Hey, Mark! In your youth, did you have any cartoon crushes? The cartoon girls who you wish were real so you could get to know better? The girl you'd readily offer a shoulder to cry on?

My first cartoon crush was Betty Rubble. I melted when she was crying in the episode were she and Barney try to adopt Bamm-Bamm. Since then, I've had cartoon crushes in my teens and, unhealthily, adult years. These included Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Melody (from Josie & the Pussycats), Velma (from Scooby-Doo), Dotty (from Clue Club), Brenda Chance (Captain Caveman), Lydia Deetz (Beetlejuice) and Blossom (The Powerpuff Girls, which I got to work on for DC Comics for eight terrific years).

If we're just talking animation, no. I had a lot of what you might call "crushes" in my teen years but they were all about flesh 'n' blood ladies — a few at school, some on TV. The latter list included, in no particular order, Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara Eden, Yvonne Craig, Julie Newmar, Susan Silo, Judy Carne, Sue Ane Langdon, a couple of Golddiggers on The Dean Martin Show…it was a long list and some of those infatuations didn't linger after the object of them had her TV show canceled.

But cartoons? I can't think of one. I guess the thinking — to the limited extent that I was thinking — went something like this: If you're going to fantasize about a woman from afar, it's healthier to go with the one-in-fifty-million chance of even meeting a real person (like Mary Tyler Moore) rather than the zero-or-less-in-a-million chance of Betty Rubble coming to life and then I get to meet her. Oddly enough, I eventually met — in some cases, briefly — most of the real ladies on my list. A lot of things have happened to me, good and bad, that I never imagined were possible.

The closest I came to crushes on females who were drawn, not born, were a few comic book characters but only when drawn by certain artists. I was fond of Supergirl but only when drawn by Jim Mooney, Kurt Schaffenberger, Mike Sekowsky or Bob Oksner. I was fond of Wonder Woman but only when drawn by Mike Sekowsky. I was fond of Mera in the Aquaman strip but only when drawn by Nick Cardy.

In fact, I was fond of any female character in a comic book drawn by Cardy, Sekowsky, Dan Spiegle, Wally Wood, John Romita or one or two others just as long as the lady depicted wasn't wearing a mask. A good analyst could probably spend hours explaining me not being attracted to any woman wearing a mask. My Yvonne Craig crush was limited to her portrayals of Barbara Gordon, not Batgirl.

I can't think of a character in the world of animation that ever did it for me…although when I was the writer-editor of a Jetsons comic book, I did have the artist draw Judy Jetson in a bikini. Does that count?

If you want to know how our bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities turned out — and wouldn't that be a nice thing to know? — Fred Kaplan has written an article that's free from partisan spin and premature conclusions. Those two flaws seem to be the trouble with most of what we've heard so far. The truth is that there's a lot that just plain isn't known yet and there are folks out there unwilling — or unable because of their job descriptions — to wait for solid information.

To put it in simpler terms: Fred's article is entitled "The Iran Strike Seems to Have Been More Effective Than Initial Intel Suggested." It may be a while before it is known how much more effective.

John Oliver needs to record his show the same day it's broadcast.

Daniel Klos sent me this…

Following up on your recent Jim Backus posting, you said that you briefly met him at a party. I'm assuming it was a party with other show biz folks? For those of us who have never been (and likely never will go) to a Hollywood party, what are they like? Are they like a networking event in other industries? I'm guessing that there are usually people there of varying levels of fame.

Do people get starstruck at these parties? Or do most people check their egos at the door? Particularly for someone like you who grew up in Los Angeles and were regularly around people that most of us would consider celebrities of varying degrees (e.g., meeting Jerry Lewis at the dentist; living next door to an actress on The Andy Griffith Show; meeting Richard Chamberlain at a neighbor's house; working for Jack Kirby as a teenager). Have you ever gotten starstruck?

First off, as a kid, I "met" (if you can call it that) Jerry Lewis for about twenty seconds at my pediatrician's office, not my dentist's. I was seven, he was pretty rude and as I think back on things, maybe that encounter was the reason that I was pretty shy around celebrities when I was young. And now that I think about the previous sentence, maybe it wasn't that I was shy around celebrities so much as that I was shy around strangers in general.

I remember — and this was after the Jerry encounter — my mother and I ran into Frances Bavier in a Newberry's five-and-dime shop. She was, of course, the lady who played Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show and my mother said hello to her and told her we were next-door neighbors to her co-star on that series, Betty Lynn. Ms. Bavier couldn't have been nicer but for some reason, I was as afraid of her the way you'd be afraid of Godzilla. But then I was that way around strangers who weren't on TV, too.

Eventually, I outgrew most of that and I got over a big speed bump, vis-à-vis celebs the day I met Groucho Marx. At that age, he might have been the biggest star (to me, at least) I could have met then…and the fact that I didn't make a total and utter fool of myself gave me confidence in that area. As I mentioned in another piece on this blog, not long before Stan Laurel died, I turned down an opportunity to go to his apartment for a visit. What stopped me? A deep fear that I'd make a total and complete fool of myself…and be reminded of that every time I watched a Laurel & Hardy movie for the rest of my life.

"Show Biz Parties" — there has to be a better name for them than that — are pretty much like any parties. In the early seventies, my main lady friend was a physical education instructor and we went to a lot of parties involving her friends, mainly from the places she worked. As with any parties anywhere, it's a little awkward for me to be in someone else's home with many people I just plain don't know and with whom I may not share any common interests. A lot of those parties were indistinguishable from what you call a "Hollywood party" with, sometimes, one or both of these two exceptions…

One is that if you're around people who are on TV or famous at that level, you have to deal with the issue of recognition. A few years ago at a party, I fell into a conversation with a lady and it was a very pleasant, friendly, funny conversation. We hadn't been introduced and about ten minutes into the chat, I stopped and said, "Oh, I should introduce myself. My name is Mark Evanier and you are…?"

She said "Anita Gillette" and I was embarrassed because I knew that was. I'd seen her on the stage, thought she was wonderful and it somehow didn't occur to me that evening that the woman I was talking with — the one who looked and sounded exactly like Anita Gillette — was Anita Gillette. She was very sweet about the non-recognition but I still felt a bit ashamed of myself. That kind of thing never happened at the parties where my girl friend who taught Phys. Ed. was introducing me to other folks who taught Phys. Ed.

The other difference in parties full of folks "in the industry" (as some say) is what you asked about "networking." This is best explained by my umpteenth recycling of my one story about Betty White. It appears on this blog with only slightly less frequency than the story about Mel Tormé and the Christmas carolers and the notices of where Frank Ferrante is next appearing…

Some years ago, I was at a party full of Hollywood-type people and I was introduced to Betty White. Told that I was the producer of The Garfield Show, she instantly said to me, "Why haven't I been on The Garfield Show?" I smiled and said, "Because you're on everything else!" I don't think any TV actor at whatever age she was then has ever been in more demand than Betty White was at the time.

We wound up talking about other things and parting. Then a little later, she came up to me and said, "I hope you know I was only half-serious when I asked you, 'Why haven't I been on The Garfield Show.'" I said, "I assumed as much but just out of curiosity…what about the other half? You're on like twenty-seven TV shows these days. We pay scale to all our guest stars. If I did want to hire you, are you even available? And are you available for that money?"

She thought for a second and said, "No, I guess I'm not. The money wouldn't matter all that much but I just don't really have the time." Then she asked me, "Do you have any experience with feral cats?"

I told her about the small herd of them I feed in my backyard. She said, "Well, then maybe you're aware of this. Looking for food is hardwired into most feral cats. Their lives revolve around finding the next meal so even if you feed one and she stuffs herself, a minute later, she's thinking, 'Where is food? Where do I find food?' They can't help themselves. I'm afraid most actors are like that. Even when they have a job, they're thinking, 'Where is my next one?'"

"When we were doing The Golden Girls, there was a point where we were picked-up for two more seasons and I had all these other things I was doing. I was turning down offer after offer because I just didn't have the time open. And still, there were moments when a little voice in me was wondering, 'What are you going to do when this ends?' Actors…at times, we're all like feral cats!"

A party full of industry people can sometimes have that Feral Cat Factor. I'm especially conscious of it during those periods in my life when I have a position that someone who's not working might think can lead to them working. Not always…maybe not even most of the time…but sometimes, it can add an uncomfy subtext to the interactions. As I mentioned here recently, I leave parties when too many people have had too many cocktails. I've also left because of this.

Those two exceptions aside, "Show Biz Parties" — at least the ones I've been to — aren't much different from any parties someone in another line of work might attend. One of the first things I learned about the entertainment field is that there ain't nearly as much glamour on the inside as folks on the outside assume. Or if there is, it's at parties to which I am not invited.

Trump called yesterday's U.S. air strikes on Iran a "spectacular military success" — which, I suppose, it may have been on some level, I dunno. I do know that Trump calls every single thing he does a "spectacular success," even when it clearly isn't. I don't see this move being described as a "spectacular military success" by anyone important who has the option of not saying that.

There are many scary elements to this but perhaps the scariest is the possibility that it was not a move intended to solve the crisis in that region of the world but rather the crisis in Donald Trump's ego. I sure hope this article by Bill Curry isn't right. Here's a key excerpt…

Trump needs attention like Dracula needs blood, and the Israel-Iran war, in which the U.S. has now become an active participant, struck at the worst possible time in his feeding cycle. On Saturday, June 14, he’d just staged a disastrous military parade — presumably to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, but actually held in his own honor — at which there was no John Phillips Sousa, no red white and blue bunting and, worst of all, no adoring crowds. There were only camouflaged soldiers in a silent procession closer to the Stations of the Cross than a Fourth of July parade.

Meanwhile, millions of his severest critics were throwing a raucous bash in honor of our democracy. The "No Kings" rallies may have been the biggest protest ever held in America. A palpably joyous celebration, it was everything Trump dreamed his parade would be, and just like his parade, it was all about him, only not in a good way.

But read the whole article…or don't if the idea of this "leader" leading us into war scares the bejeesus out of you.

Graeme Burk sent me this question and I don't think he's going to like my answer…

My Ask ME question! I was surprised to find you listed among the contributors in Maurice Horn's The World Encyclopedia of Comics, which was a much loved book when I was a kid (it seemed like every bookstore had a copy of it in the late '70s and early '80s, along with Crown's reprint books for Superman and Batman). I don't remember you contributing to it (Joe Brancatelli did most of the comic book related things). Do you remember what you contributed and what it was like working with Maurice Horn, the editor? I have tremendous sentimental regard for this book and would love to know more!

I don't remember much about what I contributed to it but all the listings I wrote were signed with my name or initials or something. I haven't opened my copy of it in a couple of decades. What I do recall is that my friend Joe Brancatelli had dumped upon him a long, long list of entries they needed him to write in a short, short amount of time for not-very-good money.  He then enlisted me to help out and do a dozen or so of them, maybe less. At first, I dealt with Joe, who was and still is smart, a very nice guy and someone committed to high standards of journalism. Then I dealt with Maurice.

I had nothing to do with the book beyond those few entries I wrote but when I received a copy, I found an awful lot of misinformation. I even found errors had been added to some of the listings I wrote.

Today, I could mount a slight (very slight) defense of the book. At the time, very little had been written about the history of comic books and it was in some ways, a starting point. Isn't there a saying that goes something like, "History has to be written wrong before it can be written right?" Something like that? Well, if there isn't, there should be.

A lot of erroneous "facts" came from folks who'd created the comic books and strips that were being chronicled. In one of the few "going to the source" interviews conducted for the book, Joe talked with Bob Kane and Bob claimed to have been born in 1929. This, of course, caused Joe to then ask, "So you were twelve when Batman was created?"

Kane insisted that date was right but Joe knew better so that was one untruth that didn't make it in the book. Others did though, some from bad sources like Bob, some from articles that were not as accurate as they might have been. Today, there's been a lot more comic book history excavated and peer-reviewed and there's more skepticism applied to what sometimes comes from inflated egos, diminished memories…or even publishers who for legal/business reasons don't want the history to be accurate.

I spoke to Joe before I wrote this blog post to jog my memory and he pointed out a foundational problem with the book. Mr. Horn and his closest associates were vastly more interested in comic strips (like in newspapers) than comic books and more interested in comics around the world, not so much the ones in this country. They kind of looked down on American comic books and didn't know a whole lot about them, which is why they needed contributors like Joe and me. If they'd interviewed Bob Kane, they would probably have printed that he was born in 1929.

Joe and I both disavowed the book. I think some of the other contributors did as well.  At one point, I wrote Mr. Horn and asked — politely, I thought — that my name be removed from any future editions or updates. I don't think I have his reply letter any longer but I recall that it didn't address my request. Instead, he said that I was fat and stupid…which I thought was kind of a reasonable response.

One of the last times I even thought about the book was in the late eighties when I wrote a special for NBC that, in a segment that never made it to air for reasons of length, mentioned a whole bunch of cartoon characters. NBC had a policy then that every script had to be submitted to a research firm — there were several in town and I assume there still are — that would do a light "fact check" on the contents.  If you made reference to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the report would say something like, "Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States."  Just in case you'd mentioned him without knowing that.

More importantly, if you named a character "Jeremiah Nostrilhair," they would report, "We can find no reference anywhere for a Jeremiah Nostrilhair so the name can be presumed fictitious." This allegedly gave the network some sort of legal protection if after the show aired, some person named Jeremiah Nostrilhair came forward and threatened to sue. It demonstrated that the network had done its due diligence and at least made an effort to make sure they were not thoughtlessly besmirching the good name of Nostrilhair. I guess.

So this script I wrote for NBC was submitted for "research" and back came a report identifying all the references I'd made to that whole bunch of cartoon characters and the "research" was full of mistakes. I don't know why but I felt the need to call the research company and tell them so. A semi-nice lady assured me that they were super-competent researchers and with the self-assuredness of anyone now working in the Trump Administration, she told me that they never, ever, How Dare You Suggest Otherwise? got anything wrong.

I asked for her source and she told me that they always on such matters consulted The World Encyclopedia of Comics from Chelsea House Publishers, "widely-accepted as the definitive authority on the subject." That was her description of it, not mine.  I told her it was not widely-accepted as that and when she argued that it was, I called her attention to my name listed as one of its contributors. Did you ever hear the blood drain out of someone's face over the phone?

Ms. Nostrilhair (or whatever her name was) replied in a mutter, "I'll look into it" and hung up. That might be the last time I thought about the book until I received Graeme Burk's e-mail the other day asking me about it. But I'm glad to set the record a bit straighter and it gave me an excuse to call my friend Joe and catch up with him.

Joe told me something else about the book that I don't think I knew before. On the spine on the dust jacket, the name of the book is of course printed in big letters and as you can see, they have a little drawing of Pogo Possum running to add a missing "C" to the world "encyclopedia." Here — take a look…

See it there? Joe says that was not someone's creative idea because they thought it would be cute or funny. According to him, the dust jackets for the book were printed and then someone noticed that the word "encyclopedia" was spelled wrong.  A letter "c" was missing.  This is not a good thing to do when you want people to put trust in the accuracy of your reference book.  The spine is the first thing they see when the book is on the shelf in some library.

They didn't want to throw them all out and redo them so they grabbed the Pogo drawing from I-don't-know-where, cloned a "c" from elsewhere in the name and ran the dust jackets through the press another time to add Pogo and the missing "c."

I wish I'd known that back when I was talking to the lady at the research company.  It would have been fun to point that out to her and she might even have called me fat and stupid…which I would have thought was kind of a reasonable response.

Here's a pretty simple question from "Karl," who didn't sign his last name. Karl wants to know something about Jim Backus, the actor you may remember from Gilligan's Island or from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or from voicing Mr. Magoo or from about eighty thousand other things. Here is Karl's question about Jim Backus…

Did you ever meet Jim Backus?

My answer: Kind of, sort of, not for long. It was at a party around 1985, give or take a year. He was a guest, I was a guest, we were introduced. We talked for maybe three minutes before our host, who seemed very proud to have Mr. and Mrs. Jim Backus at his party, spirited Mr. Backus away from me to introduce him to others. Later, Backus more or less "held court" as the focus of attention, telling stories. He was a wonderful storyteller and everyone at the affair was glad to play audience for him.

I don't want to shock anyone or lessen their admiration for the man but I should mention that he during this party, he consumed a fair amount of what I believe is often referred to as "alcohol" — and no, I did not hear him say anything about Old-Fashioneds. As he downed drinks, he became progressively funnier and there was a growing tinge of Quincy Magoo in his voice until he finally began talking as the character. It was kind of a slow Jekyll/Hyde transformation before our eyes.

I had no other opportunity to speak with him before I left the party, partly because I had to be somewhere else and partly because I usually leave parties where too many have imbibed a bit too much. I don't drink that stuff. I have no objections if others do as long as they don't harm others. Alas, I've witnessed too many times when drinkers did harm others — in a few cases, seriously — or at least turned into unpleasant assholes. Jim Backus, at least in my presence, didn't reach that stage and was quite amusing.

There are all sorts of things I would have liked to ask him but that was not possible in the three minutes we chatted…and now that I think of it, it may have been more like two minutes. When we started recording episodes of Garfield and Friends and I was hiring the voice actors, I inquired as to his availability and an agent told me that Mr. Backus was in poor health and wasn't taking such jobs except for…I believe the term the agent used was "an obscene amount of money." We didn't have an obscene amount of money in the budget so Jim Backus went on the list of veteran voice actors I tried to hire and couldn't. Quite a few of them were also in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

So that's my answer: I kind of met him but not for long. I thought he was one of the great comic actors and that night at that party, one of the funniest men it was ever my privilege to hear tell stories.

And hey, isn't it weird that the family name was Backus? He didn't change it to that and it's almost the name of Bacchus, the Roman god of agriculture, wine, fertility, revelry, and drama. I don't know about the agriculture part of it but based on the anecdotes he told that evening and ones that others have told about him, Jim Backus was sure good at all those other things.

Kamden Spies wants to know…

While I know a lot about comics, I don't know a lot about the magazine distribution end of the industry. Throughout comics history, lots of titles transition from one to another. For example, a title like Wacky Duck at Timely in 1947 ended with issue #7 but its numbering continued as Justice, a crime comic. Moon Girl, A Romance at E.C. became Weird Fantasy. Why are titles of the books changed instead of cancelling them and starting the numbering from scratch? Also did this make a difference to the subscribers of these titles?

Once upon a time, comic books sold a fair amount of their press runs via mail subscriptions. Most charged the same price — $1.20 for twelve issues of a comic that sold for a dime on newsstands — and some of those offers came with a bonus prize of some sort, especially on Dell Comics. Walt Disney's Comics and Stories sold a huge number of copies that way.

Such deals were possible because the post office offered a discount rate for magazines. They called it Second Class Mail but now it's called Periodicals. To qualify for Second Class Mail, comic book publishers had to do certain things…like there was some odd ruling that your publication wasn't a magazine unless it had at least one page of text in it. That's why comics of that era all had one-page text stories in them…and that requirement was later filled with a letters page since it cost less to print letters than to pay someone to write a text story. At times, a comic didn't qualify as a magazine if it was all full of one feature so that was why, for example, the Uncle Scrooge comic book always featured a short story of Gyro Gearloose.

And the publisher had to pay a deposit for each publication that had Second Class mailing privileges. The problem with that was that if you canceled a comic, you'd have to wait a few months for the postal folks to refund your deposit. So some publishers tried to sneak a new magazine in under an old deposit. They'd continued the numbering and claim that, in one of the examples you cite, Justice wasn't a new comic but rather a continuation of Wacky Duck.

(To answer a question someone will ask if I don't say this here: Nowadays, we know that a #1 issue will often sell especially well because some folks will buy extra copies in the expectation that those issues will be more valuable someday. But back then, there was no such speculation and a #1 issue often sold less because if was a first issue. Some retailers were hesitant to give a new comic adequate display on their racks. So continuing the numbering of a canceled comic as a different book also helped get around that obstacle.)

The tale of Moon Girl was even more convoluted than you describe. It started as Moon Girl and the Prince. Then they made the slight change to calling it just Moon Girl. Then they decided that maybe a crime comic would sell better so they renamed it Moon Girl Fights Crime. Then they decided that maybe a love comic would sell better so they dumped Moon Girl completely and called their new love comic A Moon…A Girl…Romance. Each time, they tried to trick the post office into viewing the new book as a modification of an old one so no new deposit was required.

Finally, they decided to drop that one and start a new book called Weird Fantasy but they kept the numbering going in the hope that the post office wouldn't notice. In this case, they did…and a new deposit was required.  Sometimes, they got away with it and sometimes, they didn't.

I don't know how often subscribers complained. I guess it depended on how much they liked or didn't like the new comic they were suddenly receiving. I know when I was a kid, a relative offered to buy me a subscription to any Dell comic. I selected Looney Tunes but due to some processing error, I began receiving Tom & Jerry. I didn't mind much. If they'd sent me issues of Annie Oakley then, I might have minded.

Michael Grabowski wrote to ask me this question about Mae Questel, who did loads of cartoon voices in her day…and commercials such as for the product she's clutching in a photo below. She voiced a lot of popular characters but the two biggies would be Betty Boop and Olive Oyl. In fact, she even voiced Popeye in one short…

All your talk about Boop! lately got me wondering if you ever had the chance to direct, work with, or otherwise encounter Mae Questel. Tangentially related, can you say anything about what it's like to get voice actors to sing in character when there are musical bits? I'm thinking of the typical voice actor, such as Ms. Questel, Mel Blanc, or Dan Castellaneta, rather than professional singers hired just for the musical parts.

Nope. Never met or had any contact with Ms. Questel. When I was voice-directing and casting the Garfield and Friends cartoon show, I indulged my inner child — who usually is not that "inner" — and hired a lot of veteran voiceover specialists including Shep Menkin, Marvin Kaplan, Dick Beals, Dick Tufeld, Bill Woodson, Stan Freberg, Julie Bennett, Don Messick, Larry Storch and others. Our producer Lee Mendelson was nice enough to pick up the considerably-added expense of me going to New York to record a couple of cartoons with New York based talent including Arnold Stang and Eddie Lawrence and I tried to book Mae Questel but she was unavailable — for what reason I do not know.

Since she was based in N.Y., I didn't have much opportunity to cross paths with her. When Hanna-Barbera out here did a new Popeye show in 1978, I did get to briefly meet Jack Mercer, who voiced the sailor-man for many decades. He flew in from the East Coast several times to record shows and I think he also did some from New York. I didn't get to meet Mae Questel who reportedly auditioned to play Olive but didn't get the job. The rumor in the H-B halls was that the studio didn't want to pay the cost of dealing with (and sometimes, flying in) more than one actor who lived that far away.

Even then, Ms. Questel was pretty busy for most of her long career. She was really good at what she did, which was acting on-camera and off.

As for having voice actors sing…it's just like anything else we might ask them to do. Some of them do it real well, some don't. When a voice actor isn't an A+ singer, studios often bring in someone to be the singing voice of, for example, Yogi Bear in Hey There, It's Yogi Bear…and I always think that's a mistake. I've never had any trouble getting an acceptable singing performance out of any voice actor. Even if the voice actor isn't the greatest singer, he or she can always at least sound like the character and that's what matters.