Jan 12, 1997 (woowoo, our first question!! Derek gets
a no-prize!)
hey Evan! How did you like working on the Bill & Ted comics for marvel?
I liked them quite a bit, by the way. -- Derek, chumwad@cdsnet.net
Evan: Derek -- thanks for asking about Bill and Ted -- I actually enjoyed working on the series a lot, which was a surprise to me as I'm not a fan of the Bill and Ted movies. In fact, I still haven't seen the first one, just the sequel which I adapted as the kick-off for the series. I originally figured I'd stay on the series for about four issues, but I ended up having a good time coming up with the stories and creating new characters so I worked on every issue until its cancellation, save for #8 which I only did the cover for (I was behind schedule so #8 ended up being a fill-in). Marvel, and my editor, Fabian Nicieza, left me alone and let me do whatever I wanted -- since the book was a lousy seller and a licensed comic nobody paid attention, so I just wrote and drew the book as I saw fit. I drew one page left-handed as part of a gag, cretaed Fight-Man as a throwaway joke which ended up as a 48 page one-shot, and got to make fun of the comic industry, the music industry, fans and plug bands I liked -- and get paid for it. I liked my inkers and was allowed almost total control over the series so what wasn't to enjoy? I still kind of miss the characters I created for the book, and when I tell readers of my Slave Labor books that I honestly liked doing the series they think I'm crazy -- "but it's Bill and ted's -- from Marvel!" Usually these people haven't read the comics. And the series was nominated for an Eisner to boot, so all in all it was a great experience. Glad you liked the books, and thanks for the question, Derek.
Feb 13, 1997 [For evan] I read the comic book adaption of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (my VERY FIRST Evan Dorkin comic) before I saw the movie and it made the movie quite depressing considering all the funny bits I enjoyed most did not appear in the movie. How much of it was made up by you (if any) and what are some of them (an example: I loved the ending in your adaption where Denomolos got nuked by the two B&T robot heads and went to hell. Was that your baby or was that in the original screenplay?)? -- Vu Ha, VuHoaiHa@aol.com
Evan: I followed the screenplay I was given very closely, actually, it was the second one I was given after a series of rewrites. I worked very hard on getting everything into the comic that was in the movie, it's almost scene for scene for the most part, though condensed -- a very serious adaptation of a very stupid movie. The reason being that I despise movie adaptations of comics, they never add anything or adapt the film in a satisfying manner, they're just tossed off "sure-seller" licensed crap. I wanted to do my best on it -- even though I knew nobody would care about the project, I wanted to like it. The book works on the whole, it could've looked better, but the script rewrites and a new release date for the movie really cramped the schedule, several inkers were used, and there's a brace of pages hacked out by some folks and then the end was rushed, by me and in the inks. Which ended up pointless in a way, as the entire scripted ending was cut from the film and changed, for the worse I think. I saw photos of the ending that were sent to me in xeroxes so I could draw from them, so much of this must have been filmed. Whatever, the film bombed, no one read the comic books, the tv series sucked, the cartoon sucked, and nobody says "Excellent" anymore, and I still haven't seen the first film.
Feb 24, 1997 [For evan] I recently picked up MAD DOG #1 and #2 in the bargin bins at a comic shop. How many issues did the MAD DOG series run. I love hunting for your "obscure" works. -- Floyd Parton, comics1@msn.com
Evan: This is a book that should be more than obscure, it should be burned. Mad Dog ran six issues, it was a flip-book with two stories per issue, a "serious" one which I scripted, and a comical one done by Ty Templeton. The Mad Dog character was the fictional hero that Bob Newhart's character drew in the sitcom Bob, a stinkeroo about a comic artist that folded pretty quickly on CBS a few years ago. My work on Mad Dog is hack-city, the only comic job I'm honestly embarrassed and ashamed of (other than a two-page convention hotel room hack job I did for a horror anthology ten years ago, but that's another miserable story). Basically, I accepted the Mad Dog gig as a favor to Fabian Nicieza (he'd gotten me my first steady work at Marvel on Bill and Ted, and also got Fight-Man approved without a pitch or plot) and was asked to write a Frank miller-esque parody of grim moron comic characters who have wooden cliched inner dialogues. Somehow this became changed to straight dumbass superhero stuff, and I was feeling trapped and ended up hacking the six scripts out. I originally had a semi-detailed full-story worked out, but after my first full script was pencilled and a major plot point was left out, I finished the job Marvel-style, detailed plots at first, thinner plots and dialogue when I realized it didn't matter, the book stunk, my work was uninspired, and the art was a hack job. However -- Ty Templeton's strips are pretty funny, so pick these up in the quarter bin and shred my half of the book. Please.
Feb 26, 1997
[For both] Do you see your increased involvment in SGCTC and Superman
merely as something to help pay the bills? Or do you see yourselves leaning
more towards animated work in the future (not that I'm worried, or anything!)?
-- Rob Jeremias, bakaboy712@aol.com
Sarah: Well, we would pretty much never take a job we didn't want to do anyway. True, the animation jobs pay the bills (not help pay, pay), but at the same time we're getting a lot else out of them. For one thing, it's a different medium, and not only is it fun to participate in animation, honestly the feedback is so different from comics, it's really nice for a change. And a major part of it is, for me anyway, that we have definite ideas that we try to get across in our work -- and the comics audience is so small there's a lot of preaching to the converted going on there. We can slip a lot of stuff into the television work we do, and while it might not be so direct, it's reaching an amazing amount of people compared to the comics work we do. You don't have to worry about our leaving comics though!
Evan: As far as I'm concerned, the animation work, Space Ghost in particular, is pretty much our day job rather than comics -- and it's been that way been for about a year and a half now. I used to support my personal work with various mainstream comics gigs, occasional magazine and book work and art sales, so comics was pretty much all I did. Nowadays the animation gigs cover our bills and support our small press books, but they also are something we've enjoyed working on a lot. It's not drudgery, even if it can get frustrating and hectic -- and we get decent feedback and an audience for the material, unlike many of our comics projects. Space Ghost isn't far removed from what I do in some of my comics, and Superman is fun because it's uncomplicated meat-and-potatoes superhero stuff -- which I enjoy, despite reports to the contrary. Basically, I don't feel we have a definite plan regarding our animation career, we'd like to see it continue but we're also commited to our comics projects, including several mainstream ones we're possibly doing this year related to our animation work. We're pretty much stuck on a suicidal dual-career for a while, until comics die out or we're unemployed in the tv biz. I doubt we'd ever leave comics, the projects we do can't be done elsewhere, they mean too much to us, and we have total control of our comics. If we could support ourselves on them, there's be no real reason to do much of anything else.
Apr 1, 1997
[For both] YEEHAW! It's been months since I've typed "Evan Dorkin" and "Sarah
Dyer" into a search engine, and today I was pleasantly suprised by a link
to this site. I am way happy that y'all have your very own site and an email
account to boot. Anyway... thanks for all your great work over the years!
The question: what's up with Space Ghost these days? I am sadly lacking cable
tv these days, so I'm outta the loop. Are you two working on it? Is it even
in production? P.S. PLEEEZZZ make the text input box on this page (interact.htm)
bigger. Unless of course you get some sort of sadistic kicks out of forcing
people to type into a leetle tiny space. um, oh yeah... -- Mattie,
Langenberg@leapnet.com
Sarah: Well, AHEM, as it says on the page about our other work (just goofing on you!)....Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast is going strong, with no end in sight. A whole season is being shown this summer, plenty more episodes have been ordered, we basically work on the show as much as we want -- if we wanted to do nothing but write scripts for them they'd be happy. We might not be...we've got several new shows in various stages of production. There's no news at the moment on videos or anything though, so you'll just have to make friends with someone who's got cable! Yes, sadistic kicks! Plus, theoretically it would encourage brief, succinct questions. Although if Evan doesn't have to be brief, I guess no-one else does either..
Evan: How's this for brief?
Sarah: Ha ha ha.
Apr 23, 1997
[For both] I don't have access to the WB Network (since I can't afford cable),
so I still haven't seen the new Superman show. I do, however, read the tie-in
comic from DC (good stuff!). So the news of a possible Supergirl special
written by youse guys is quite exciting, since I won't be able to see the
shows (unless they come out on video). So my question (finally!) is this:
Which version of Supergirl are you guys doing? My hope is for the old-school
pre-Crisis Linda Danvers Supergirl. I don't care much for the "Matrix" Supergirl
of recent years, and I admit I haven't even looked at the new series by Peter
David, since it was apparently just going to be more of the same. Consider
this a vote for the "one true Supergirl"! -- David Butler, dbutler@law.uiuc.edu
Sarah: Well, actually, the WB network is a broadcast network, it just isn't in a whole lot of markets. Now to Supergirl -- the special is now underway, so I don't think it can be stopped now. I can't go into real detail on Supergirl until the character appears on TV, but I can assure you that while she is not identical to the "old-school" Supergirl, she is definitely close. Some minor changes had to be made in her background, but in general I think she's really what the old Supergirl would have been like had Kara gotten here in 1997.
Evan: All I'll add here is that Mike McAvennie at DC said we can discuss the project to the point that Brett Blevins is pencilling it, and Brett has storyboarded for the actual show. He's in fact boarded several acts of episodes we wrote, including Livewire, who he drew for Superman Adventures #5 (I think it was #5). The book will be a nice 52 pages, and we're all working to provide a good solid read that will be fully understandable to those who haven't seen the two-part Supergirl intro. Fun for kids, not dumbed down for adults. No monkeys will be in it, but you can't have everything.
Apr 25, 1997
[For both] What is up with the Superman Animated Series?!?! I haven't seen
the Livewire episode yet, or any new episodes for quite some time. Did I
miss it? When are they going to show new episodes? HELP!!! Thanks! -- Graham
Fuchs
Sarah: Well, the arcane ways of programming are beyond me, because they decided to only show the first 13 or so episodes for a year. This fall, they will start showing all the new episodes, and as soon as we know more we'll post the info. I think "Livewire" will be shown pretty early when the shows start up, so keep an eye out!
Evan: All the shows we worked on will appear after the new fall season kicks in. "Livewire" is completely edited, scored and finished according to Paul Dini, and supposedly reaction to it at WB is pretty positive. The other shows we wrote for are "Monkey Fun" which is a Titano episode, and the two-part Supergirl episodes. I don't know what the desks at WB were thinking, myself -- the show got great buzz and reviews and they're sitting on it. A friend of mine told me the other day he'd almost forgotten the show exists, because there's no reason to tune it in because it's the same thirteen shows over and over. I just hope the spark reignites when the fall season kicks in, because I think it's a good show and the episodes get stronger as the writers found the right voice for the characters and the Superman "world" got set up and introduced.
Jul 11, 1997
[For both] Do you have any idea whether Space Ghost is going to be transmitted
in the UK? -- Marcus Hill, marcus@ma.man.ac.uk
Sarah: Not a clue. It's been ona few times, as I understand it. I believe the big problem is that Murdoch controls cable or satellite broadcasting over there and of course, he and Turner loathe each other.
Evan: Transmitted in the UK...sounds like a disease epidemic. Not a clue..that's big business stuff.
Jul 17, 1997
[For evan] Hey Evan, we ever gonna see Fightman again??? It was a great book,
and I'd love to see more of it. -- Jon Lazar, jlazar@ramapo.edu
Evan: Glad you liked F-M, but since he's a Marvel property (and I decided I wouldn't work for them anymore about four years ago or so) and one that didn't make a ton of money, don't hold your breath for more adventures of Fight-Man. I plotted a sequel, but low sales meant no dice for it. Ironically, those low sales (around 30,000 I was told) would make the book a "smash" today. A "Fight-Man 2099" 10 page story was almost done for 2099 Unlimited, Joey Cavalieri okayed the pitched idea, but I never had the time to do the story -- which was about F-M finally getting paroled because it was cruel to keep him in jail for a century after the end of the first book. Poor Fight-Man, at least I can write Space Ghost with him in mind -- a bullying, egotistical, clueless superdoink.
Jul 15, 1997
[For both] Hey!!! Love you both just so much... How goes your Space Ghost
work? Is there any way on earth or beyond I can get those on tape since my
f****** cable company refuses to believe my bomb threats and bring me the
Cartoon Network? Heaven bless you both.. miss your stuff so much, I am forced
to crack open the checkbook and order more of your books.. probably your
sinister plot after all.. You're in league with the cable people! I knew
it! Or else it's the bathtub gin getting to me. love and kisses, kimi,
kimi@vaporizer.com
Sarah: Space Ghost goes fine! In fact, we've just seen final versions of our latest two episodes. There are currently no plans to put episodes out on tape, but who knows? In the meantime, don't worry, I'm sure your cable company will give in sooner or later -- how can anyone not have the Cartoon Network?
Evan: The shows we've scripted for the new season that are completed are "Anniversary" (which just aired), "Pilot" and "Zorak". A fourth script, "Hipster", was just turned in. We're starting a new episode shortly, and should be doing one a month until at least March or so. For some reason the Cartoon Network people still like us, go figure.
And I'm sure someday the episodes will be made available on tape, this is America after all, and every pile of crap on a spool is released on tape eventually.
Jul 20, 1997
[For evan] Do you think there ever would be a possibility of seeing space
space ghost interview MILK & CHEESE? Or adleast run rampant on the show
some time? Thanks 4 your time -- Smaxx Landing
Evan: Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...nope.