{"id":18028,"date":"2010-02-09T23:35:03","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T04:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=18028"},"modified":"2015-01-19T17:28:49","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T22:28:49","slug":"bad-news-for-isaac-asimov-fans-good-news-for-steve-gerber-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/09\/bad-news-for-isaac-asimov-fans-good-news-for-steve-gerber-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad News for Isaac Asimov Fans, Good News for Steve Gerber Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following up on my discovery of a tape of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/2010\/02\/05\/a-never-before-heard-early-70s-george-carlin-interview\/\">my 1972 interview with George Carlin<\/a>, I decided to see whether I could locate tape for another interview I&#8217;d done that year, one   <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/2008\/01\/05\/happy-belated-birthday-isaac-asimov\/\">I conducted with Isaac Asimov<\/a> for a high-school underground newspaper. Check the two of us out below.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine my thrill when I managed to find a cassette tape labeled:<\/p>\n<p><center>ASIMOV<br \/>ELECTION DAY 1972<br \/>NOV 7<\/center><\/p>\n<p>And imagine with what excitement I inserted that cassette into a  tape recorder.<\/p>\n<p>Then imagine the disappointment as I heard &#8230; <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/ScottEdelmanIsaacAsimovInterview.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/ScottEdelmanIsaacAsimovInterview-300x214.jpg\" alt=\"ScottEdelmanIsaacAsimovInterview\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-18029\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/ScottEdelmanIsaacAsimovInterview-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/ScottEdelmanIsaacAsimovInterview.jpg 532w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;. 45 minutes of piano music.<\/p>\n<p>OK, I thought, maybe the interview only took up  the <i>other<\/i> side of the C-90 cassette tape. So I turned it over and heard&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;the voice of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/2008\/02\/11\/steve-gerber-1947-2008\/\"><i>Steve Gerber<\/i><\/a>!<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d interviewed Steve, as I&#8217;d interviewed so many of Marvel&#8217;s writers, back in 1975 when I worked there  and (among other things) edited <i>FOOM<\/i>, the company&#8217;s fan magazine. I&#8217;d decided that  rather than have a standard news section on oncoming comics, I&#8217;d print edited transcripts of the writers talking about what was around the corner. I didn&#8217;t think I&#8217;d kept any of those tapes.  So I was stunned to discover that the tape marked ASIMOV contained, not a lengthy Isaac Asimov interview, but rather 31 minutes of Steve talking about <i>Crazy<\/i> magazine and his work on <i>Man-Thing<\/i> and <i>The Defenders<\/i>.  <\/p>\n<p>Parts of that interview appeared in <i>FOOM<\/i> #9, the March 1975 issue. The audio contains  a bit of background traffic noise from an open window, and a couple of quips from Don McGregor, but I plan to share it in the future anyway. (Sorry, Don!)<\/p>\n<p>And what of Isaac Asimov? I&#8217;m embarrassed to admit that once things wrapped up with Steve, Isaac&#8217;s voice could finally  be heard. Sadly, it was only the concluding five minutes of the interview&#8212;which meant that 19-year-old me had reused the tape and recorded over that precious interview with Isaac! I&#8217;m mortified, and apologize for the me of yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Please don&#8217;t hate me! Well &#8230; go ahead and hate me &#8230; but not too much.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, the folly of youth!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following up on my discovery of a tape of my 1972 interview with George Carlin, I decided to see whether I could locate tape for another interview I&#8217;d done that year, one I conducted with Isaac Asimov for a high-school underground newspaper. Check the two of us out below. Imagine my thrill when I managed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-18028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-isaac-asimov"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18028"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18033,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028\/revisions\/18033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}