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.

Livio Sellone, who sends me way too many questions, sent one I decided to answer here…

We all have heard of Jim Davis, right? The creator of the Garfield franchise! Ah…Good ol' Jim Davis. He gave birth to one of the greatest and most charismatic characters ever, Garfield, and his seemingly stupid pal Odie, whose purpose is to accompany Garfield on his many adventures and he's usually the victim of Garfield's nasty pranks. Jon Arbuckle is just a loser (just like you portrayed him in the Garfield and Friends cartoon), and I find him boring, so I don't feel the need to compliment Jim Davis for creating Jon Arbuckle.

So anyway…let's get to the point, old chap! I'm gonna ask you a very personal question: but how is Jim Davis as a person? Is he a nice and kind person? Just wanted to know. Is he../uhm.. (I don't want to be offensive) greedy as some people in the internet say? Cus, you know, he created Garfield with the sole purpose of making money. He knew Garfield would be a very marketable character.

How is Jim Davis as a person? You must have worked with him when you were writing episodes for Garfield and Friends and The Garfield Show.

Those two shows were by far the happiest experiences I ever had in the animation business and that would not have happened if Jim was not a very nice and very wise human being. I can't give him all the credit. Our other two Executive Producers — Lee Mendelson and Phil Roman — had a lot to do with it as did others. But all the benevolent, smart people in the world can't do much if the guy with Ultimate Veto Power is going to be non-benevolent and non-smart.

Yes, I worked a lot with Jim but he also gave me and others a lot of freedom and trust. I wish certain people I'd worked with in the cartoon biz could have seen the results and understood the correlation. The whole success story that is Garfield is not just because Jim hit on a great character. It's because he worked his tail off and also hired good people to assist and advise him and because — and this was key — he understood the appeal of his creation.

At other cartoon studios and in comics, I have worked with folks who owned or were in creative control of great characters and were clueless as to why people loved those characters. Just in the upper echelons of Hanna-Barbera — I'm talking now about people who had power there but weren't Bill or Joe — I worked for and with folks who viewed the output just as "product" and it was "product" they didn't (and probably couldn't ever) understand.

You often saw the results of this attitude in the cartoons but a better example of it was in the merchandising of Yogi, Scooby, Huck, Fred and Barney, and all the rest.  75% of it was badly-made, badly-designed, badly-drawn and often creatively wrong for the characters.  By contrast (and to my joy), there was no bad Garfield merchandise.  It was all well-made, well-designed, etc.  I watched Jim reject offers that the guys in that division of H-B would have grabbed.  There was a little closet in Jim's office building that held boxes of proposed Garfield toys and other merchandise that he'd rejected because its designers didn't meet the standards he demanded.  At Hanna-Barbera and a few other studios I worked for, they never rejected anything if the money was right.

So I got along great with Jim. Here's a very old photo of us together and — believe it or not — the person wearing the Garfield mask was Lorenzo Music. Honest…

Having spent way too much of my life following and reading about the O.J. Simpson Murder Case, I feel like I should have something pithy and interesting to say on this, the day his death has been announced. But I don't. Nothing clever, nothing incisive, nothing witty, nothing worth posting here. Except maybe this…

As you can see, I'm well aware I paid too much attention to that trial. And I'm probably about to make the same mistake with Mr. Trump's.

New York Times obit for Trina Robbins.

Did I make it clear what a delightful person she was? The only downside of knowing her was because I also know the great comedy writer Treva Silverman — another funny and delightful lady. At least once, I called Trina "Treva" and at least once, I called Treva "Trina." It's kinda like David Letterman's Uma/Oprah joke.

Some (not all) of our problems have abated. Normal posting will resume here shortly. We thank you for your patience and will make it up to you…somehow.

A lot of people who are ranting about "illegal aliens" in this country need someone to explain to them that that term does not apply to anyone who was born somewhere else and lives here now. It applies to some of them but not all.

If Donald Trump is successful at selling Bibles, I'm going to try selling all the books that I've never read.

A reader of this site, Karl Williams, sent me a whole bunch of questions for this "ASK me" feature. They're good questions but not the kind I'd build a whole long post around so I've decided to answer them in bulk here. The next voice you hear will be that of Mr. Williams…

You used to host wonderful Golden Age Panels at Comic-Con. I understand why you can't do them anymore because so few people are still alive who did comics in the forties and most of them won't make the trip. But if you could assemble one last Golden Age Panel with ghosts, who would you have on it?

Jerry Siegel, Jerry Robinson, Bill Finger, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and Will Eisner.

Is there any Golden Age writer or artist who's alive who you never got to interview and you'd still want to?

Yes. Jules Feiffer.

Leaving aside Jack Kirby, who do you think was the most talented artist to ever work in comic books?

Oh, I can't answer that. It's especially hard because I have as much respect for the artists who drew funny animal comics as I have for the ones who drew adventures and super-heroes and how do you compare what Wallace Wood and Neal Adams did to what Carl Barks and Harvey Eisenberg did? (A pet peeve of mine is when someone makes up one of those lists like "The 50 Greatest Comic Book Artists of All Time" and you can tell the listmaker knows most of the hundreds and hundreds of super-hero artists and about three of the ones who did funny comics.

Since I'm evading your question, I'll make up for it with a story that I may have told here before. This was at some Comic-Con in the eighties, I think. I had lunch with a wonderful artist and a bit later, I was walking through the main hall and I came upon a gathering of about eight of the "hottest" artists then working in comics — the kind of guys who'd make most Ten Best lists. Felling impish or maybe just curious as to what their reaction would be, I said, "Well, I just had lunch with the best artist at this convention."

They all glared at me with defiant looks and challenged me to tell that person's name. I fearlessly said "Mort Drucker" and there was dead silence for about four seconds as they thought it over…then they all agreed.

Who to you is "the" Superman artist?

There's something about the work of Joe Shuster and his many ghosts/assistants that I find unequaled by those who followed. It isn't that they drew a great Superman so much as that they drew him in a world where I found it easiest to accept that Superman existed.

That was in the forties, of course. In the fifties and sixties, I loved the work of Curt Swan and Wayne Boring. I know a lot of people — especially those who came to Superman after Boring was gone — don't like his version but I have to admit that most of my favorite Superman stories of those decades were drawn by Boring and he handled drama better. Then again, I thought Swan drew better pin-ups and covers of the character. And later on, I really liked what Ross Andru did, especially when not being inked by Mike Esposito. There were a few others.

Favorite Jack Kirby inker?

IMHO: By far, the best artist who ever inked Jack Kirby was Jack Kirby…though if I was his editor, I think I'd rather have him pencil two or three comics a month instead of penciling and inking one or two. I also think Neal Adams was the best inker for Neal Adams, John Buscema was the best inker for John Buscema, etc. There are a few exceptions to that but not many. But if Jack didn't ink Jack, my five favorites were — in alphabetical order — Bill Everett, Frank Giacoia, Mike Royer, Joe Simon and Joe Sinnott.

Karl sent me a lot more of these questions and I'll get to them at some future time. In the meantime, here's this little box…

John Oliver made his offer to Clarence Thomas — quit the Supreme Court and get a luxury motorhome plus a million bucks a year for life — on the telecast of Last Week Tonight on February 18. The offer was good for 30 days so time's up and I would imagine when Mr. Oliver does his next show this Sunday, he will have something to say about that.

I'm not bothered by Trump getting off the hook for that $454 million bond he can't post. The fine in this case was probably going to be reduced on appeal anyway and now that he has ten days to post a $175 million bond instead…well, that's not exactly pocket change. If and/or when he loses his appeal, he'll probably have to come up with some amount between those two numbers…and as Kevin T. Dugan notes, Donald still has money problems aplenty.

Jonathan Chait has an interesting article about the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The program is succeeding in almost every regard and all the predictions of doom and destruction it would cause have turned out to be — surprise, surprise! — dead wrong. Chait says that the G.O.P. still wants to nuke it, if only because it was a "win" for Democrats but they don't want to run on that. They want to talk as little as possible about what they might do about it. You know what that means.

One mistake tourists make when they come to Hollywood is thinking there's a Hollywood that one can go visit. There's a big sign on a hill. There are studio tours and TV tapings. There are many great sightseeing opportunities not actually in any area that can be described as "Hollywood." But if you get in a cab and tell the driver "Take us to Hollywood," God knows where he's going to let you off.

You might find yourself on Hollywood Boulevard, which has about as much to do with the place that makes movies and TV shows as Sunset Boulevard has to do with the sun going down. You can go to the Chinese Theater and see which stars of the past had the same size feet you do. You can walk down said Boulevard and see a lot of their names embedded in the Terrazzo. You can even pay to have your photo taken with an unauthorized Spider-Man in a homemade costume that doesn't get his boots right.

(A year or three ago when I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard, reading the stars' names in the pavement. I decided for no particular reason to take a photo of the name of the first star I came across who I'd worked with. It didn't take long to find one and take this picture…)

It is truly The Street of Disappointments. Big ones. It's also sometimes dangerous. You might get swindled by a conman, mugged by a thug or — worst of all — accosted by someone who works for Jimmy Kimmel who'll drag you into a bit where you can't help but come across like Gomer Pyle.

I've been around that street for much of my life. There used to be great bookstores there for the comic book collector. There used to be a lot of great restaurants there instead of just The Musso and Frank Grill. There used to be parking spaces.

And I think in all my years, I've only had one real incident of seeing "stars" outside of Musso's. I told it back in this post and now that I review it, I see that I accidentally left out the punch line. Here's what I said then…

One of my favorite "star-spotting" memories occurred not far from the Musso & Frank Grill. Across the street and down a bit is the Hollywood Magic Shop, which like most magic shops caters to a lot of amateurs and beginners. But it also serves many celebs and seasoned professionals, and one day in the seventies when I was walking by, I spotted two men standing out front — Orson Welles and Carl "The Amazing" Ballantine. Carl was heckling tourists who walked by and Orson was roaring with laughter at everything Carl said, which is still not an uncommon response around Ballantine. I stood there for maybe ten minutes, taking in the show until a huge convertible pulled up at the curb and Welles, with great effort, went over and got in. Years later, when I became friends with Carl, I reminded him of that day and thanked him for that moment. It was one of the rare times Hollywood Boulevard was ever as colorful as we all wish Hollywood Boulevard was.

And here's the punch line which a professional writer of comedy would have thought to include: After Welles departed, Carl started to walk off, then turned and announced to me, "My next show is at three o'clock!"

So you get what I'm aiming at here: That street is a pretty crummy place to be that famous and I don't think anyone disagrees. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and other such agencies agree so much that they've been drawing up plans to refurbish long stretches of it and so far, all the announced proposals or plans or whatever they are sound terrible to me. Most include narrowing (yes, narrowing) one of the slowest-moving streets in town so they can widen the sidewalks to encourage more pedestrian traffic and more restaurants with sidewalk dining.

In so doing, they will eliminate an awful lot of parking spaces, thereby breaking an immutable rule of Los Angeles: People here never go anywhere it's difficult to park. It's an obvious reason for many businesses failing.

And nothing in the proposals I've seen does much to make the Boulevard either safer or more interesting. I'd suggest they start the renovations with three things: More off-street parking lots and structures, a friendly police presence and having Disney build some Carl Ballantine animatronics to heckle passing tourists. That's about what it would take to get me up there to do more than dine at Musso's.

Recently, the Disney organization announced this year's roster of "Disney Legend" inductees. They are, in no particular order: Kelly Ripa, Angela Bassett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Miley Cyrus, Martha Blanding, James L. Brooks, James Cameron, Harrison Ford, Mark Henn, Frank Oz, Joe Rohde, John Williams…and Steve Ditko. More than a few folks have written to ask me…

A lot of people seem to feel it's inappropriate for Steve Ditko to be named a Disney Legend. How do you feel about it?

I kinda feel if it makes his family happy — and I'm hearing it does — fine with me. True, he doesn't seem to have ever worked for Disney but that does not seem to be part of the criteria to be designated as a Disney Legend. You just have to have played a major role in something that made the corporation a lot of money or will. If them's the rules, he's qualified.

Would the notoriously fan-shy artist have welcomed the honor? Probably not. He probably would not even have liked people printing and circulating the few photos of him that are around but his most devoted fans ignore that. (I saw one of them on Facebook say that the Disney honor is wrong because Ditko always shunned awards. I have a hunch the person who said this expressed no displeasure when Mr. Ditko was named to The Hall of Fame and would have been outraged if the artist had been snubbed.)

Yes, Ditko shunned awards and interviews and after he attended one of the first comic book conventions, comic book conventions. He also was upset to the point of actually speaking out — well, writing a few angry letters — when his role as co-creator of Spider-Man was denied or ignored. I'm not pretending to be able to speak for him but since the Disney organization will probably own and exploit the hell outta Spider-Man and Dr. Strange for all eternity, it might help keep Ditko's name attached that they've now formally recognized his contribution.

Yes, it's that time of the year again — the time when I, on behalf of the blue ribbon committee that has no blue rubbons, solicit nominations for the annual Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. We will select someone who is alive for the honor and there will also be a posthumous award…and if it goes as it usually does, someone who doesn't know what the word means will suggest someone who is very much alive should receive the posthumous award.

(A Tip: If you have a good candidate for the posthumous award, try and suggest someone who would be an appropriate person to come pick it up — a relative, a co-worker, someone.)

All past nominations will be considered so if you nominated someone in the past, you need not submit them again. Basically, we're asking if any new names have occurred to you.

This is an award for a body of work as a comic book writer…someone who is or was unrecognized and/or unrewarded for that body of work. It is not for your favorite artist. It is not for someone who wrote a few stories. It is not for someone whose talents have been honored over and over and who got very, very rich and/or famous writing comics.

It is also not for anyone who has received this award in the past. The full list of such people can be read over on this page.

Here's the address for nominations. They will be accepted until April 15 at which time all reasonable suggestions will be placed before the committee and we'll make our decisions. They'll be announced before this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego and the awards will be presented then and there. That is all.

From Daniel Klos…

Random question if you're ever looking for a quick blog post: When sitcoms are filmed before a live studio audience, do they play the theme song for the audience prior to filming in order to get them in the proper mood?

Quick answer: Occasionally. I haven't been to any sitcom tapings (or filmings) for a few decades but when I did go, they sometimes played the theme. They sometimes had a little video reel they'd show the audience featuring great moments from earlier episodes and it might include the theme song. They sometimes had live musicians playing music as part of the warm-up and they'd often play between scenes and somewhere in there, they'd perform the theme song — without the lyrics if the theme song had lyrics.

Before a taping of All in the Family, they'd roll out a little piano and Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton would perform the theme song, "Those Were the Days," live just for the live audience. I haven't heard of a show doing anything like that in years but it wouldn't surprise me if one did.