Mark Evanier
Encyclopedia
Mark Stephen Evanier is an American
comic book
and television
writer
, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby
biography, Kirby: King of Comics.
and contrasting that with the portrayal of a writer's life on The Dick Van Dyke Show
.
. Several years later Evanier began writing foreign comic books for the Walt Disney Studio Program, then from 1972 to 1976 wrote scripts for Gold Key Comics
, along with comics for the Edgar Rice Burroughs
estate.
In 1974 he teamed with writer Dennis Palumbo and wrote for a number of television series, including The Nancy Walker Show
, The McLean Stevenson Show and Welcome Back, Kotter
.
After the cancellation of Kotter, on which he was one of the story editors, Evanier and Palumbo amicably ended their partnership. Evanier subsequently wrote for the Hanna-Barbera
comic book division and a number of variety shows and specials, and he began writing for animated cartoon
shows, including Scooby Doo, Plastic Man
, Thundarr the Barbarian
, The ABC Weekend Special, Richie Rich
, The Wuzzles
, and Dungeons & Dragons
. But he is most noted in animation for his work on Garfield and Friends
, a seven-season series for which Evanier wrote or co-wrote nearly every episode and acted as voice recording director. For the past couple of years, Evanier has also been the co-writer and voice director of The Garfield Show
.
Evanier credits himself with convincing Jack Kirby to stop using Vince Colletta
as an inker, and considers himself one of the "main vilifiers" of Colletta.
He also wrote a script and provided "'technical advice' about comic books" for Bob
, Bob Newhart
's unsuccessful third sitcom
for CBS
.
He has produced a number of comic books, including Blackhawk
, Crossfire
and Hollywood Superstars (with Dan Spiegle
), Groo the Wanderer
(with Sergio Aragonés
), and The DNAgents
(with Will Meugniot
). For the Spiegle comics, Evanier contributed lengthy essays on the entertainment industry. He also wrote the New Gods
series of 1989-1991.
For many years, Evanier wrote a regular column, "Point of View", for Comics Buyer's Guide
.
Evanier's illustrated Jack Kirby
biography, Kirby: King of Comics
, was published February 2008 by Abrams Books. It won the 2009 Eisner Award
for Best Comics-Related Book.
and underwent gastric bypass surgery
. Having peaked at around 344 pounds
(156 kg
) by then, he has since lost nearly 130 pounds (45 kg) by June 2007 and is grateful for the overall health benefits, though he had to learn to adjust his eating habits.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
biography, Kirby: King of Comics.
Early life
Evanier is of ethnic Jewish heritage. He chose to be a writer after witnessing the misery his father felt from working for the Internal Revenue ServiceInternal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
and contrasting that with the portrayal of a writer's life on The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff....
.
Career
Evanier made his first professional sale in 1969 and almost immediately was taken on as a production assistant to Jack KirbyJack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
. Several years later Evanier began writing foreign comic books for the Walt Disney Studio Program, then from 1972 to 1976 wrote scripts for Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...
, along with comics for the Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
estate.
In 1974 he teamed with writer Dennis Palumbo and wrote for a number of television series, including The Nancy Walker Show
The Nancy Walker Show
The Nancy Walker Show was a short-lived situation comedy produced by Norman Lear and starring Nancy Walker. It aired for half a season on ABC, premiering on September 30, 1976 and running until December 23, 1976. The series was a starring vehicle provided to Ms...
, The McLean Stevenson Show and Welcome Back, Kotter
Welcome Back, Kotter
Welcome Back, Kotter was an American television sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan and featuring a young John Travolta.It originally aired on the ABC network from September 9, 1975 to June 8, 1979.-Premise:...
.
After the cancellation of Kotter, on which he was one of the story editors, Evanier and Palumbo amicably ended their partnership. Evanier subsequently wrote for the Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
comic book division and a number of variety shows and specials, and he began writing for animated cartoon
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
shows, including Scooby Doo, Plastic Man
Plastic Man
Plastic Man is a fictional comic-book superhero originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. Created by writer-artist Jack Cole, he first appeared in Police Comics #1 ....
, Thundarr the Barbarian
Thundarr the Barbarian
Thundarr the Barbarian is a Saturday morning animated television series, created by Steve Gerber and produced by Ruby-Spears Productions. The series ran 2 seasons, 1980-1981 and 1981-1982...
, The ABC Weekend Special, Richie Rich
Richie Rich (1980 TV series)
Richie Rich is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that aired on ABC from 1980 to 1984. Based upon Harvey Comics' popular Richie Rich comic book characters, shared time slots with Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, The Little Rascals, and Pac-Man over its original broadcast...
, The Wuzzles
The Wuzzles
Disney's Wuzzles is an American animated television series created for Saturday morning television, and was first broadcast on September 14, 1985 on CBS. An idea of Michael Eisner for his new Disney television animation studio, the Wuzzles are crossbred animals which sport a combined appearance of...
, and Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons (TV series)
Dungeons & Dragons is an American fantasy animated television series based on TSR's Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. A co-production of Marvel Productions and TSR, the show originally ran from 1985 through 1987 for three seasons on CBS for a total of twenty seven episodes.The show focused on a...
. But he is most noted in animation for his work on Garfield and Friends
Garfield and Friends
Garfield and Friends is an American animated television series based on the comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. The show was produced by Film Roman, in association with United Feature Syndicate and Paws, Inc., and ran on CBS Saturday mornings from September 17, 1988 to December 10, 1994, with...
, a seven-season series for which Evanier wrote or co-wrote nearly every episode and acted as voice recording director. For the past couple of years, Evanier has also been the co-writer and voice director of The Garfield Show
The Garfield Show
The Garfield Show is a CGI animated television series that premiered in France on France 3 on December 22, 2008. English-language episodes started airing on Boomerang UK on May 5, 2009. It premiered in the United States on Cartoon Network on November 2, 2009 at 3:00pm...
.
Evanier credits himself with convincing Jack Kirby to stop using Vince Colletta
Vince Colletta
Vincent Joseph Colletta was an American comic book artist and art director best known as one of industry legend Jack Kirby's frequent inkers during the 1950s-1960s period called the Silver Age of comic books...
as an inker, and considers himself one of the "main vilifiers" of Colletta.
He also wrote a script and provided "'technical advice' about comic books" for Bob
Bob (TV series)
Bob is an American television situation comedy starring Bob Newhart. It was the actor's third series for CBS and proved to be far less successful than The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, his previous outings with the network. It lasted a season and a half, running from September 18, 1992 until...
, Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart
George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
's unsuccessful third sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
.
He has produced a number of comic books, including Blackhawk
Blackhawk (comics)
Blackhawk, a long-running comic book series, was also a film serial, a radio series and a novel. The comic book was published first by Quality Comics and later by DC Comics. The series was created by Will Eisner, Chuck Cuidera, and Bob Powell, but the artist most associated with the feature is Reed...
, Crossfire
Crossfire (Eclipse comics)
Crossfire is a comic book series created by writer Mark Evanier and artist Dan Spiegle originally for Eclipse Comics. It was a spin off from DNAgents, which was also written by Evanier.-Plot:...
and Hollywood Superstars (with Dan Spiegle
Dan Spiegle
Dan Spiegle is an American comic book and cartoon artist and illustrator . He has had a long career in drawing comics based on movie and television characters, and has worked for companies including Dell Comics, DC Comics and Marvel Comics.-Life and career:In his second year of high school,...
), Groo the Wanderer
Groo the Wanderer
Groo the Wanderer is a fantasy/comedy comic book series written and drawn by Sergio Aragonés, rewritten, coplotted and edited by Mark Evanier, lettered by Stan Sakai, and colored by Tom Luth...
(with Sergio Aragonés
Sergio Aragonés
Sergio Aragonés Domenech is a cartoonist and writer best known for his contributions to Mad Magazine and creator of the comic book Groo the Wanderer....
), and The DNAgents
The DNAgents
DNAgents is a comic book created by writer Mark Evanier and artist Will Meugniot and published by Eclipse Comics in 1983. It was later picked up briefly by Antarctic Press. In June 2006, old issues were collected into DNAgents Volume 1....
(with Will Meugniot
Will Meugniot
Will Meugniot is an American writer, storyboard and comics artist, film producer and director.- List of works :* The DNAgents * Exosquad * G.I. Joe: Valor vs...
). For the Spiegle comics, Evanier contributed lengthy essays on the entertainment industry. He also wrote the New Gods
New Gods
The New Gods are a fictional race appearing in publications by DC Comics, as well as the title for four series of comic books about those characters. They first appeared in New Gods #1 , and were created and designed by Jack Kirby....
series of 1989-1991.
For many years, Evanier wrote a regular column, "Point of View", for Comics Buyer's Guide
Comics Buyer's Guide
Comics Buyer's Guide , established in 1971, is the longest-running English-language periodical reporting on the American comic book industry...
.
Evanier's illustrated Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
biography, Kirby: King of Comics
Kirby: King of Comics
Kirby: King of Comics is a 2008 biography of Jack Kirby written by Mark Evanier. The book won the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book. Published by the art book publisher Abrams Books, it is extensively illustrated with Kirby's artwork, including original art comic pages with production...
, was published February 2008 by Abrams Books. It won the 2009 Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
for Best Comics-Related Book.
Personal life
On May 26, 2006, Evanier checked into Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and underwent gastric bypass surgery
Gastric bypass surgery
Gastric bypass procedures are any of a group of similar operations that first divides the stomach into a small upper pouch and a much larger lower "remnant" pouch and then re-arranges the small intestine to allow both pouches to stay connected to it. Surgeons have developed several different ways...
. Having peaked at around 344 pounds
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
(156 kg
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
) by then, he has since lost nearly 130 pounds (45 kg) by June 2007 and is grateful for the overall health benefits, though he had to learn to adjust his eating habits.
Comics
- Sergio Aragonés Destroys DCSergio Aragonés Destroys DCSergio Aragonés Destroys DC is a comic book written by Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier and published in 1996. The book is a satire of DC Comics characters. They also produced an equivalent at Marvel Comics, called Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel....
(with Sergio AragonésSergio AragonésSergio Aragonés Domenech is a cartoonist and writer best known for his contributions to Mad Magazine and creator of the comic book Groo the Wanderer....
, one-shot, DC Comics, June 1996) - Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel (with Sergio Aragonés, one-shot, Marvel Comics, June 1996)
- Superman & Bugs BunnySuperman & Bugs Bunny-The DC Superheroes Meet the Looney Tunes!:In Metropolis, Clark Kent and Lois Lane are investigating reports of a mysterious giant plane when they encounter Mr. Mxyzptlk. He causes a 'Czarbucks' coffee shop to grow out of the ground like a plant and then starts 'seeding' the whole city with...
(DC Comics, July–October 2000)
Awards
- 1992: Won "Best Humor Publication" Eisner AwardEisner AwardThe Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
for Groo the WandererGroo the WandererGroo the Wanderer is a fantasy/comedy comic book series written and drawn by Sergio Aragonés, rewritten, coplotted and edited by Mark Evanier, lettered by Stan Sakai, and colored by Tom Luth... - 1997: Won "Best Humor Publication" Eisner Award for Sergio Aragonés Destroys DC and Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel
- 1999: Won "Best Humor Publication" Eisner Award for Sergio Aragonés Groo
- 2001: Won "Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award"
- 2009: Kirby: King of Comics won "Best Comics-Related Book" Eisner Award
External links
- Evanier's official website
- news from me is Evanier's blogBlogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
- Comic Geek Speak Podcast Interview (October 2005)