{"id":26069,"date":"2019-07-19T08:42:39","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T12:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=26069"},"modified":"2019-07-19T08:42:39","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T12:42:39","slug":"mark-evanier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2019\/07\/19\/mark-evanier\/","title":{"rendered":"Slurp matzoh ball soup with Will Eisner Award-winning writer\/editor Mark Evanier as Eating the Fantastic turns 100"},"content":{"rendered":"

And now we are 100! And who better to be a guest on Eating the Fantastic’s 100th episode than writer\/editor Mark Evanier, who as this episode goes live, is currently taking part in so many panels<\/a> at San Diego Comic-Con he should earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Evanier<\/a> started his comic book career way back in 1969, and over the years has written issues of Blackhawk<\/em>, Groo the Wanderer<\/em>, DNAgents<\/em>, and (like me) Welcome Back, Kotter<\/em>. He worked as Jack Kirby’s production assistant, which eventually resulted in his award-winning book Kirby: King of Comics<\/em>. He’s won multiple Will Eisner Awards, as well an an Inkpot Award and a Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award.<\/p>\n

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But Mark has also led a whole other life writing for television, working on live-action shows such as The Nancy Walker Show<\/em>, The McLean Stevenson Show<\/em>, and Welcome Back, Kotter<\/em>, plus animated series like Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo<\/em>, Thundarr the Barbarian<\/em>, Dungeons & Dragons<\/em>, and The Garfield Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Our meal took place at Canter’s Delicatessen <\/a> in Los Angeles, resulting in a sense of terroir greater than any other episode. As you\u2019ll hear, he\u2019s eaten there with both Jack Kirby and Stan Lee over the years \u2014 though not together \u2014 and he has plenty to say about both of them.<\/p>\n

We discussed the lesson he learned watching Stan Lee write one of his famous Bullpen Bulletins pages, how his first sale to Laugh-In<\/em> magazine led him to believe he could make it as a professional writer, the lunch at which Jack Kirby swore him to secrecy about quitting Marvel, the inker Kirby would have chosen if he was allowed to choose only one (and why it wouldn’t be Vince Colletta), his stupefied reaction when Sergio Aragon\u00e9s placed the original art for the first issue of MAD<\/em> in his hands (and how Mark later stupefied Jerry Lewis), whether he can imagine a world in which Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could have ironed out their differences, and much, much more.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at Canter’s Deli —<\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at the iTunes store<\/a> — where I hope you’ll be tempted to download some of the 99 previous episodes.<\/p>\n

2) Listen using the RSS feed of http:\/\/eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com\/rss<\/a> on the device of your choice.<\/p>\n

3) Or check it out via the embed below.<\/p>\n