Mark Evanier's Blog, page 269

Today's Video Link

My favorite singer, Audra McDonald, offers us "The Stars and the Moon"…

Tuesday Morning

A person who shall remain nameless got me hooked on the game of Wordle for about an hour yesterday. In that hour, I played it about fifty times and discovered four five-letter words which, when I entered them in sequence, usually made the puzzle solvable by the third one, sometimes by the second one and certainly by the fourth. Then once, the first word I entered turned out to be the secret word so I solved the puzzle without solving it and that's when I lost interest and become unhooked.

I had a nice chat last night with my pal Brad Ellis, who among his other credits was a musical director on Glee and, in an on-camera capacity, the unspeaking piano accompanist. He's doing great these days and we have a project we want to work on together. Something to think about for 2023.

Lately, I find myself wondering how much of the Denial of Election Results by Losers is actually believed by those Losers. It's starting to look like a good business model for politicians whose careers might be over because of their loss but who can now keep a certain percentage of their supporters on board and donating money by crying, "I wuz robbed!" All you have to do is tell your voters that you have a mountain of evidence that you won. Of course, then you might have to go to court and either (a) not present it there or (b) present it and watch the judge dismiss it as without merit and talk about sanctions.

December 27 might be a good time to get a head start on your New Year's Resolutions. Then you can break them and be done with them in time for them not to mess up New Year's Eve for you.

Lastly: It may change but right now, the weather forecast is calling for a big rainstorm in Southern California on New Year's Eve which might increase traffic accidents…or maybe save the lives of those who'll be wise enough not to venture out in it. Either way, it's supposed to clear by about 6 AM Sunday morning which might feel kind of magical if that's when the annual Rose Parade started. But whenever January 1 falls on a Sunday, the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl get delayed until Monday. Something to do with not wanting to compete with folks going to church.

ASK me: Marvel Inkers

I have a bunch of questions about inkers in comics like this one from Joe Frank. Those of you who have no interest in this stuff just skip these posts…

Loved both recent columns about Jack Kirby and his Marvel era inkers. Plenty I didn't know, especially that Steve Ditko would've ever recommended or requested George Roussos. I thought George did him no favors, to put it mildly, on both Dr. Strange and the Hulk. Nor Jack, for seven months, on the Fantastic Four. I am curious about two other inkers of that general time frame.

First, Wally Wood. If he was inking others, towards the end of his roughly one year Marvel run, why not Jack on the Fantastic Four or Thor? I know he did the Daredevil figures in F.F. #39 and the cover to Journey Into Mystery #122. He inked a number of Jack's covers and they were beautiful. Really standouts. Because they worked together so well on Challengers of the Unknown and Sky Masters, why not a reunion or a regular gig? Did Stan think Wally was of greater benefit over Don Heck (the Iron Man story in Tales of Suspense #71 and a three issue Avengers run in #20-22)?

Secondly, Frank Giacoia did wonderful work over Jack: F.F. #39, Journey Into Mystery #115 and many episodes of the Captain America strip. Why not enlist him? I've heard he was easily distracted. Was that it? I look at the Cap art and it was tremendous. Joe Sinnott was my favorite but Frank often came very close.

A lot of the questions as to why didn't this inker ink that comic have to do with two factors: Money and schedules. Frank Giacoia was working for several publishers at the time, most of which paid better than Marvel. He was trying to keep all his accounts happy and sometimes he had to say no to someone and sometimes, that someone was Stan Lee.

If he had promised to always make time for Fantastic Four, I'll bet he could have been the regular inker from #39 on…but he couldn't. It's the same reason that sometimes your plumber has to say, "Sorry, I can't fix your leaky faucet today. How about next Monday?" And you have to get someone else. If Marvel had paid better then, Frank might have been more willing to say no to the editors at DC or Western or wherever.

Also: Readers forget that all the comics that came out in the same month weren't always drawn the same month. At times, Kirby was way ahead on his books. He might be penciling the issue of Fantastic Four that would come out in November at the same time someone was drawing the issue of Sgt. Fury that would come out in August.

So maybe Wally Wood has just finished an issue of Daredevil. He turns it in and they have some time before he needs to start on the next one. And maybe Stan is too busy with other matters to discuss what's going to be in that next issue…but Wally wants to go home with some work so he can earn money. There's no issue of Fantastic Four ready to be inked but there is an issue of The Avengers sitting there that Dick Ayers is too busy to get to.

That's how an awful lot of these decisions were made. Wood was not assigned to draw Daredevil in the first place because Stan thought, of all the books Marvel was putting out, that was the best place for Wally. Wood was assigned to the comic because it needed a new artist the day he came by to look for work.

Here's an actual example. Around this time, Stan very much wanted to have Joe Sinnott start inking Fantastic Four but Joe, as I mentioned in another post, was working for Archie and Treasure Chest and Dell. When Marvel raised their rates a bit, he agreed to ink some things for them and one day, he called up and said, "Hi! I'll be ready to take on some work from you on Wednesday if you have anything."

But there was no issue of Fantastic Four waiting for an inker at that moment. Colletta was inking what would turn out to be his last issue, #43. Kirby hadn't drawn #44 yet or maybe it hadn't been dialogued and lettered yet. So that's why Sinnott inked X-Men #13 and the Captain America story in Tales of Suspense #71 before they had an F.F. for him to ink.

You can't always coordinate these assignments the way you want. If you look at the first issue of The Avengers that Wally Wood inked (#20) and at that Iron Man story you mentioned and at the Human Torch story Wood inked in Strange Tales #134, you may be able to discern something they all have in common…

In each case, Wood's name in the credits was lettered in by Wood himself. That's his lettering in there, not that of the man who lettered the rest of the credits. That means that when the story was lettered — the last step in the assembly line before it goes to an inker — they either didn't know who'd be inking it or they put someone else's name in there and Wood had to change it. Again, it was a matter of "This artist needs work right now and that story needs an inker."

It wasn't always that way. Stan (and Sol Brodsky who had some say in who inked what during this period) did have preferences but sometimes they couldn't assign their first choice or someone suddenly needed work.

As for Thor, people keep asking me why Stan kept Colletta on as its inker for so long. They don't seem to want to accept the obvious answer: Stan liked the way Thor looked when Colletta inked it. That was a creative decision, not one necessitated by scheduling concerns.

It may have helped that Colletta got a slightly lower page rate, thereby freeing up some bucks in the budget that could be spent on better-paid inkers like Sinnott, Wood or Giacoia. But Colletta inked Thor for many years for the same reason Carmine Infantino hired him to ink all of Jack's work for DC in 1970. The guy in charge thought Colletta was the best choice for the job. It involved him being cheaper but it also involved him being super-reliable and, as I keep telling people, they liked the way the art looked after Colletta inked it.

The fact that you might not doesn't mean that they didn't, just as Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby liked the way their work looked when George Roussos inked it.

Today's Video Link

David Letterman's Netflix series recently featured an interview Dave did with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Netflix is making it available for free viewing…

Monday Morning

Oh, why can't Christmas last twelve days like in the song? I don't want lords a-leaping or geese a-laying. I don't even want more presents. I just want more of the good spirits and friendliness of the past few days.

Today, I'm allowing myself to look a bit at the news sections of the 'net. If you're unclear on what "The Hunter Biden Laptop Scandal" thing is all about, this article seems like a good, balanced explainer.

Red State Governors are again busing migrant workers to places where those migrants may not wish to go. This sounds like a very cruel, heartless thing to do and according to Kevin Drum, that's the whole point of it. Some voters want politicians to treat these people like animals.

William Saletan breaks down what Donald Trump was doing on January 6…you know, instead of calling in the National Guard to stop the destruction and violence.

Leaving that kind of politics: I have a number of e-mails asking me if I think the Writers Guild is going to go on strike when the current contract is up on May 1 of 2023. My answer is that, first of all, there's always a chance the Guild will strike if the Producers offer a terrible deal. They've done it before and we'll do it again if they do. You can't say if someone is going to accept an offer if you have no idea what that offer will be.

But generally, I haven't paid enough attention to this matter to have an opinion worth offering here. I used to be very much involved in WGA matters and now I'm not. This article summarized the situation in the middle of last November and I see no reason to think things have changed…or will until we get much closer to the first of May. Fingers crossed, the Guild won't get an offer that will be unacceptable.

Lastly for now: I continue to be amazed at how readers of this site can sometimes come up with information that I thought was impossible. Recently in this article, I posted a photo of me at some single-digit age posing, none too comfortably, with a Department Store Santa. In various posts here, I mentioned that I had no idea which department store it was, though I mentioned that my family most often shopped at Robinson's, Bullock's or The May Company. I thought it was a question that could never be answered.

And then I got an e-mail from Jon Francis, who lives in Redondo Beach. He writes, "The picture with Santa Claus shown on the 21st was taken at Bullock's. I have a picture of me with the same Santa, still in the original folder. Santa is making the same finger up gesture." Wow. Thanks, Jon.

Hanukkah in Santa Monica – Night 8

It's the last night of Hanukkah. Let's spend it in Santa Monica with the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. This may be my favorite rendition of Tom Lehrer's song…and if you're sad it's over, just go to YouTube and do a search. You'll be amazed how many people have made videos of this tune.  Now that it's public domain, expect a lot more…

'Tis the Season

This is a rerun of a piece I published here on Christmas Day of 2010 but I have made a few changes in it. It's about a gift exchange with a TV producer for whom I once worked and when I first posted it, I disguised his name with a pseudonym. He was still alive then and while I thought he would have a sense of humor about me telling the tale online, I wasn't sure. Even before he passed away, I decided I was worrying needlessly and when I asked a close friend of his about it, the friend said, "Oh, Alan would laugh about that now." So I went back this time and inserted the real name…

There could still be a late arrival but it looks like this is going to be the first Christmas in quite some time when no one sent me alcohol. All my friends know I don't drink that stuff…not even beer or wine. Somehow, each year, one or more friends forget and I wind up with a bottle or three that has to be given away. Once in a while, the recipients of this regifting are very impressed with the rarity and price of some wine or liqueur and very glad that I don't appreciate or want it.

In the eighties, the rerouting of such gifts was easier. My mother worked each holiday season at Jurgensen's, a gourmet-type grocery and liquor store in Beverly Hills. Until they promoted her to a job that anyone else could have done, she was the head gift-wrapper…and let me brag: My mother in her prime was the best gift-wrapper you ever saw. They were exquisite.

If you were fortunate enough to get a gift wrapped by my mother, you might well not open it because what was inside could not possibly be as beautiful as the exterior. I sent out some expensive gifts back then and it only dawned on me later that I could have gotten away with giving bags of garbage if I'd had my mother wrap them. No one would ever have found out.

Anyway, when I was working on Welcome Back, Kotter, my mother and I invented the Instant Gift Redirect. Our Executive Producer Jimmie Komack used Jurgensen's that year to send wine to everyone he knew. My mother spotted my address on a list and called me up and said, "I have a bottle of Chateau Lafite Something [I forget the name] here for you from Jimmie Komack. What do you want me to do with it?"

"Send it to my agent," I told her and I gave her the address and told her what to write on the card. The next day, she called up to say, "I have a bottle of wine here for you from your agent. What do you want me to do with it?" I told her to send it to Jimmie Komack.

We did this for years…as long as she worked for Jurgensen's. Sometimes, it wasn't as neatly symmetrical as that but it spared me having a lot of bottles around I didn't want. Often of course, I received wine that didn't come from Jurgensen's but we had a solution for that, too. I'd take those bottles over to my parents' house when I visited and my mother would sneak them into Jurgensen's and send them out for me via Jurgensen's delivery methods.

After we did this for a while, she felt guilty so she told the manager and offered to have the costs deducted from her paycheck. The manager laughed, decided it was a great idea and he began bringing in unwanted bottles that had been delivered to his home and having them sent out to others.

My favorite moment in all this came when I was working for Alan Lansburg, a very important TV producer and, by his own admission, a wine snob. The one time he allowed me into his home, I was subjected to a ritual that was apparently required of all visitors — a tour of his wine cellar. It was huge and temperature-controlled and filled with bottles that he fingered like rare Ming Dynasty artifacts.

Though I tried to explain to him that I did not know one wine from another, he would cradle one and say, as if it was the most impressive thing one could possibly say, "This is a 1947 Bordeaux from the hinterlands of [Somewhere-or-Other] and it was bottled on a Thursday by the infamous Maria." Then he'd wait for me to adopt a jealous expression and indicate that I realized what an awesome thing that was to own.

I learned to just go "Wowww" a lot. I also learned that he took his wine seriously. Didn't even snicker when I asked, "Hey, you got any Manischewitz around this dump?" and followed it up by inquiring, "What's a good year for Ripple?"

So, getting back to Jurgensen's: That same year, my mother called and said, "I have a bottle here for you from Alan Landsburg. Where do you want me to send it?" I thought for a second and told her, "Send it to Alan Landsburg." I thought it would make a nice Christmas present…give Alan back his own wine.

It saved me shopping for something. It saved me getting it delivered and paying for it and it also saved me having to figure out to do with that bottle of wine. But the best moment came when we went back to work after the holidays. Alan came by my desk to thank me for the wine. Then he leaned in carefully and said, "Listen, next time you send out wine to people as a gift, check with me and I'll suggest a few. It's important to make a good impression in this town and you don't want people to think you're the kind of guy who'd give out that kind of wine."

Mark's Christmas Video Countdown – #1

I just love this little video. It was designed by R.O. Blechman as a station break for CBS back in 1966 and every year, I get e-mails asking me to post it again. You can read all about Mr. Blechman here but first, watch this…

Hanukkah in Santa Monica – Night 7

It's the next-to-last night of this. Here's Michael Feinstein. Join him in the second chorus if you're so inclined…

Mark's Christmas Video Countdown – #2

Cartoonist Joshua Held created this video several years ago using The Drifters' recording of "White Christmas." I feature it here every year and before I do, I get e-mails from people asking me when I'm going to post it. The answer is "Now." Someone recently remastered it in 3-D — with Mr. Held's blessing, I hope — but I prefer the original 2-D…