Mark Evanier's Blog, page 101

ASK me: Juggling

From Phil Rushton…

I guess there are as many ways of writing as there are writers but I was interested to hear that you are currently writing two books at the same time (does the subject of the non-Kirby one also have a surname beginning with 'K'?).

Personally, I find it hard to switch my attention between different tasks when writing so I couldn't help wondering how you go about dividing your time between these projects. Also this led me to wonder how Jack Kirby generally approached the business of writing (assuming that drawing was an essential part of the same process for him): did he tend to have several jobs on the go at any one time, or — as I suspect — did he approach each new story as a kind of journey that had to be completed at speed before moving on to the next tale — kind of like the Casey Jones of comics?

Early on in what we sometimes laughingly call my career as a (mostly) freelance writer, I made a decision. It was to never have all my income come from one source…and in 52 or 53 years of doing this, I never have. This decision was partly because I wanted to write a lot of different things — comic books, animation, live-action TV, books, etc. And I also realized that if I worked for a lot of different folks, it wouldn't be such a crisis if one fired me. So, for example, in July of 1983, I had these three comics on the stands featuring my work…

Those were three different comics with three different kinds of stories done for three different publishers with three different artists and three different script formats. Not only that but at the same time, I was a staff writer on the TV show That's Incredible! and I was story-editing the Richie Rich cartoon series for Hanna-Barbera and I think I may have been writing a variety show pilot for Sid and Marty Krofft and/or some cartoon scripts for Ruby-Spears Productions.

When you decide to do so many different things for so many different outfits, you have to keep jumping from one project to another and back again. You don't really have a choice. You just learn to do it. There are obvious downsides to this but in a way, it can be exhilarating. When you tire of one project or you hit a roadblock in your thinking, you can just go work for something else for a while.

And I never worried about losing 100% of my income if one of those comic books were canceled or one of those studios decided to replace me. I probably couldn't carry all those loads today but in 1983, I was 31 years old and still paying off on the house I'd recently purchased. (Also in 1983, I wrote the pilot for the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show and for another Saturday morning show from which I removed my name…and I think there was something else.)

Like I said: You just learn to do it. It helps if you're organized and able to get ahead on some of your assignments.

Jack Kirby did not work at all like that. First off, he almost always worked for one company at a time. There weren't that many he could work for and the few that were willing to pay him decently wanted exclusivity before they would guarantee him steady work.

Secondly, the way he worked best was to put 100% of his attention on one story at a time. He kept everything in his head and it unnerved him when, as sometimes happened, they'd call and tell him to stop work on that story for Comic Book A and to instead knock out a story for Comic Book B because their schedule suddenly demanded it. It was by no means impossible for him but I think he worked better to finish one before even thinking about the next one.

When Jack was working on continued stories, as he often was, he'd have to jump from Part 1 of a storyline in Thor and then do Part 2 of a storyline in Fantastic Four and then do one standalone story for Captain America and then do Part 2 of that Thor storyline and then do a story for a Fantastic Four Annual and then do Part 3 of the ongoing storyline in the regular Fantastic Four comic and so on. I wish (and he wished) that the business would allow him to do all four parts of the Fantastic Four story and then all three parts of the Thor story and so on. But it never worked that way.

I hope that answers your question, Phil. And no, the "other" book I'm working on is not about someone with a surname beginning with "K" — and no more guessing. You'll find out in a few months here.

Today's Video Clip

In 1947 when it didn't look like there'd ever be any other Marx Brothers movies, Groucho appeared sans siblings in a film called Copacabana. It wasn't a very good film, nor was Love Happy which featured Groucho, Chico and mostly Harpo a couple of years later. But Copacabana did have about six minutes of Groucho near his prime and I've embedded them below.

This clip is a tiny bit outta sync but trust me, this is still better than sitting through the whole movie…

A Note From Afar on the Political Scene

I'm not reading much about the election or the cabinet or what went wrong or will go wrong or any of that. But from what I have seen, I get the idea that now that Trump has won the 2024 Presidential Election, his next goal is to win the 2020 Presidential Election.

Tales From Costco #14

I haven't done one of these for a while but then I haven't been inside a Costco for a while…a long while. When COVID started, I went in and stocked up on paper towels and toilet paper, which were occasionally hard to come by for a time. I went in once to use a coupon that had to be used in-person. And since then, I've done all my Costcoing by home delivery, usually once a week. I get a rotisserie chicken plus enough other stuff to reach the Free Delivery amount of $35, which is usually a cinch to reach.

Almost sad to say, I especially haven't been to a Costco this year due to my busted ankle. It's mostly healed but since January, I haven't left my home except to visit (a) various doctors' offices and medical facilities or (b) Comic-Con International in San Diego. The two necessities of life for me. Cruising the Internet though, I know what I'd find if I did now visit a Costco. I'd find dozens upon dozens of people with their cell phone cameras out making videos they'll put online telling us what's new at Costco, what's on sale at Costco and what's healthy at Costco.

It feels like the Worldwide Web now has more of these videos than it has videos of porn. The recent hurricanes that hit the American Southeast were not covered as extensively and immediately as what the various self-appointed Costco Reporters let us know what to buy and not to buy at their local Costcos.

The two most ubiquitous ones are probably The Deal Guy, Matt Granite, whose beat also covers Amazon, Dollar Tree, Walmart, Sam's Club and anyplace you can get stuff cheap, and the guy behind Flav City, Bobby Parrish, who also covers Trader Joe's, Aldi, Walmart and a few other outlets that sell food that's healthy — or that he considers healthy. Most of the new Costco Reporters on the 'net were probably inspired by the success of these two gents.

I admire the help-people-be-healthy motives of Mr. Parrish, though maybe not quite enough to completely overcome my justified (I think) skepticism of getting medical/health advice from folks who are not certified, been-to-medical-school-and-gotten-their-licenses doctors. Bobby seems like one of the more informed ones but the majority of non-doctors out there lecturing us on this stuff create what sound to me like those Sovereign Citizens who read something on the Internet and decide you can't possibly be arrested for driving without a drivers license. I have no numbers to back this up but I believe the number one cause of death in this country is bad medical advice.

I watch Bobby's videos but I can't apply much of his counseling to my diet. He recommends we replace most other oils in our diets with Avocado Oil, which may be good advice for some folks but I'm very allergic to avocados and my Nephrologist has told me to avoid their oil. I have the same problem with almonds and almond flour, which Bobby endorses mightily, and quite a few other things non-doctors tell me to ingest. Artificial sweeteners are all bad for me but for a while I tried Stevia and monk fruit (not technically artificial sweeteners but they serve the same purpose) and they gave me terrible headaches which stopped immediately when I stopped the Stevia and monk fruit.

Friends who want to cook for me — a very bad idea, by the way — often ask me what foods I can't eat. The list is very, very long and it includes just about everything Bobby urges us to buy. We used to agree on one item: Rao's Marinara Sauce. He loved it and I loved it…and I still love it but it's no longer on the "Bobby-approved" list. Apparently, since the Campbell's company acquired the product, they've made a change. Instead of olive oil, they're now using a blend of olive oil and "refined olive oil" and in Flav City, the latter is a no-no.

Bobby urges a switch to Paesana Organic Marinara Sauce — which he can get at his Costco in Florida (I think that's where he lives) but I can't get it in mine or any local markets. I may start experimenting with other brands once I've used up all the Rao's in my cupboard but I'm kinda flying blind on this. Reading labels might not always tell me if "olive oil" means "olive oil" or it means "olive oil mixed with some unspecified amount of refined olive oil." A friend of mine who's in the same quandary says, "I'll believe the change in Rao's is truly harmful when Bobby takes down the dozens of videos he still has on YouTube that recommend it."

I'm not saying his recommendations might not be solid for you or even the vast majority of humans on this planet. I guess I'm just frustrated because I live in a world where most people who tell you what to eat and what not to eat seem to think everyone can eat everything.

An awful lot of them also seem to think everyone can cook as easily and as well as they can. No matter how bad the additives to a Costco rotisserie chicken could possibly be, it's a lot safer for me to eat one of them than any chicken I might prepare at home. Bobby recommends home-cooked chicken too but the last few times I tried, I was like a rhinoceros attempting to dance hip-hop. I ended up with chickens that were like leather on the outsides, raw on the insides and the steam coming off them formed into a little skull and crossbones hovering over what I had prepared. Every time I decide not to cook anything more elaborate than rice, I may be saving my life.

Today's Video Link

When I die, I want a funeral procession that looks exactly like this…

Suppressing the Truth on Television

This originally ran here on October 4, 2016 and since then, I get occasional e-mails asking me where on this overstuffed blog of mine they can find "the post about how you got into trouble because of what you had Garfield saying." So here it is again…

Just noticed someone posted this to YouTube. Back when I was doing Garfield and Friends on CBS Saturday mornings, I had this idea of having the opening titles end each week with Garfield saying a different line. I wrote hundreds of these — way more than we needed — and at each recording session, I'd have the late/great Lorenzo Music read a new batch. Since Garfield's mouth didn't move, it was easy to have the editors just drop one into the beginning of each show.

Twice, I got in trouble. One time, I had Garfield say hello to "all you lovely Nielsen families out there." Apparently, directly addressing people with ratings boxes on their sets is a no-no. It's viewed as an attempt to rig the ratings. NBC complained when I did that and the Nielsen folks wound up voiding the ratings for that morning. The Wall Street Journal wrote about it in an article I quoted here. As I pointed out, they were outraged but had somehow waited to object until the seventh time the show had run.

The other time, it was the season opener of the year when NBC dropped all its cartoon shows and went for more "teen" type shows like Saved by the Bell. Garfield started his season on CBS by saying, "Don't bother checking NBC, kids! They're not running cartoons anymore!"

This time, NBC complained the Monday morning after the first time the show was broadcast. I'm not sure why they objected since it was true, and I'm not sure why CBS ordered us to replace the line for reruns but it only ran the one time.

Anyway, someone apparently had an audio tape of it and someone else apparently laid that audio over a clip from one of our main titles and here it is…

Today's Bonus Video Link

Here's Alton Brown with another way to cook your Thanksgiving turkey that's way too dangerous…

Just Have To Say…

I'm a little mystified at the choice of Conan O'Brien to host the Academy Awards next year. The New York Times says John Mullaney turned it down and I have to wonder who else did. O'Brien has been so far out of the public eye lately that he couldn't have been the next choice. I used to say that in order to host the Oscars you had to be either a big movie star or Johnny Carson but it's been a long time since the Academy thought that way. I'm not sure what the thought process is these days but it isn't that.

Mushroom Soup Friday

I'm awake and declaring this a Mushroom Soup Friday, meaning that Mark's gotta work on an assignment and won't have time to post much on this blog today. There's a whole worldwide web out there so you can probably find something else out there to read while I bear down hard on what I have to do to make a living.

And don't think I'm complaining. I'm a very-grown man and I picked this profession of my own free will. I do not like writers complaining about how hard they (sometimes) have to work. To me, that's like a guy who wanted to be a plumber complaining about having to fix toilets or a fellow who chose Sushi Chef as his profession bitching about having to cut up raw fish all day. When it seems like writing is hard work, I always remind myself of the immortal words of that great philosopher, Super Chicken…

See you later, folks. Maybe.

Today's Video Link

It's another Everything You Need To Know About Saturday Night Live. In this case, it's Everything You Need To Know About Saturday Night Live Season #17…as the show takes an unmistakable turn from the Phil Hartman/Jan Hooks/Dennis Miller period to the Chris Farley/Adam Sandler/David Spade years. Farley may still hold the record for becoming a major, recognizable player on the show quicker than any other New Hire…and not because of his weight but because of his energy.

I never had that kind of energy in my entire life. And I sure don't after sitting at the computer until this hour of the morning…