Mark Evanier


Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, known for his work on the animated TV series Garfield and Friends and on the comic book Groo the Wanderer. He is also known for his columns and blog News from Me, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, such as his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, .

Early life

Evanier identifies as Jewish. His father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic. He chose to be a writer after witnessing the misery his father felt from working for the Internal Revenue Service and contrasting that with the portrayal of a writer's life on The Dick Van Dyke Show. He graduated from University High School in 1969.

Career

Evanier was president of a Los Angeles comic book club from 1966–69. In 1967, he suggested the titles of the officers of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. He made his first professional sale in 1969; that same year, through a mutual association with a Marvel Comics mail-order firm, he was taken on as a production assistant to Jack Kirby. 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—including one memorable story, "The Greatest of E's", where he revealed that the E in Wile E. Coyote stands for "Ethelbert"—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, on which he was a story editor.
with Roy Thomas, Joe Sinnott and Stan Goldberg, at the Big Apple Con in Manhattan, November 15, 2008
After leaving Kotter in 1977 and amicably ending his partnership with Palumbo, Evanier wrote for and eventually ran the Hanna-Barbera comic book division. He also wrote a number of variety shows and specials, and he began writing for animated cartoon shows, including Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, Thundarr the Barbarian, The ABC Weekend Special, Yogi Bear's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper, Richie Rich, The Wuzzles, and Dungeons & Dragons. 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. Since 2008, Evanier has been the co-writer and voice director of The Garfield Show, which won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for June Foray.
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 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, Groo the Wanderer, and The DNAgents. For the Spiegle comics, Evanier contributed lengthy essays on the entertainment industry. In 1985, he launched the DC Challenge limited series with artist Gene Colan. He wrote the New Gods series of 1989–1991. Evanier collaborated with Joe Staton on the Superman & Bugs Bunny mini-series in 2000.
For many years, Evanier wrote a regular column, "Point of View", for Comics Buyer's Guide.
Evanier's illustrated Jack Kirby biography, , was published in February 2008 by Abrams Books. It won the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book. Evanier collaborated with Aragonés and Thomas Yeates on the Groo vs. Conan crossover for Dark Horse Comics in 2014.
In 1970, Evanier attended the Golden State Comic Con in San Diego, the first annual gathering of what came to be known as Comic-Con International. Evanier is one of a small group of people who have attended every year. In 1973, he first hosted a panel at the yearly event and the volume soon escalated to the point
where he was hosting as many as fourteen over a four-day convention. They usually include Quick Draw!, which pits fast cartoonists against one another to respond with drawings to challenges Evanier throws at
them; the Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, Cover Story, and several panels about the art of providing voices for animated cartoons. For years, he hosted the annual Golden Age Panel featuring artists and
writers who'd worked in comic books in the 1940s but it ended after 2010 due to a lack of available panelists and was replaced by That 70's
Panel, celebrating comic book creators from that era. Evanier also serves as Administrator of the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. Several of the panels he hosts at Comic-Con also appear at the annual WonderCon in Anaheim, California.

Personal life

On May 26, 2006, Evanier underwent gastric bypass surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Having peaked at around 344 pounds by then, he subsequently lost nearly 99 pounds by June 2007.
From 1998 until 2017, Evanier was in a relationship with Carolyn Kelly, daughter of the famed cartoonist Walt Kelly, creator of the award-winning comic strip, Pogo. Together, they arranged with Fantagraphics Books to reprint, for the first time, the entirety of Pogo's run as a newspaper strip, fully restored and issued in a series of 12 hardcover volumes. Volume 1 was published in 2011, co-edited by Kim Thompson and Kelly; Kelly painted the covers and designed the books, with Evanier as a consultant. Subsequent volumes were delayed by the medical issues and deaths of Thompson and Kelly. Before Kelly died on April 9, 2017, Evanier promised her he would see the series through to its conclusion. Volume 4, issued soon after, included a foreword by author Neil Gaiman about Evanier and Kelly, and additional volumes are currently being released.

Awards

Archie Comics