[Groop]Gene Colan & Mark Evanier

[Kevin Hall]

Hmmm...Larry charged me with telling about the surprise birthday party.
I originally didn't say much because this is the Groo list, not the Gene
Colan list. The folks on the Gene Colan list heard all about it from a
number of us. :) But, then again, there's always the Evanier angle...

I told you guys in my initial report how blown away I was by Mark. His
love & knowledge of comics is nothing short of astounding. And the
amount of stuff he accomplishes: panels, websites, dealing with
Groopers, writing for television, writing for comics, etc. causes one to
wonder if Mark hasn't found ways to violate normal space-time to get
everything done.

But here's the funny part: Mark's human. I don't know if any of you have
had this particular experience, but I've been blessed to have it at
least 2 or 3 times this past year: You have a larger than life image of
a larger than life person, but then you get to meet that person, or even
better yet spend some time with that person, and you find out that
they're just another person hanging onto this spinning rock called Earth
just like the rest of us! Then the second part of the equation hits you:
they still do the things they do even though they are simply human.
Which makes what they do even MORE superhuman!!

Imagine finding out that Superman wasn't invulnerable. Imagine finding
out that he did it all through hard work, sweat, being careful,
practice, etc.  It can be a real revelation.

Onto the actual party: I contacted Mark a number of months ago and told
him that Gene was coming up on his 75th birthday. Many of you on this
list won't be familiar with Gene. He's probably best known for doing
Daredevil for over 100 issues and Tomb of Dracula for 70 consecutive
issues in the 70s. He's also won fans doing Iron Man, Sub-Mariner,
Howard the Duck, Batman, Wonder Woman and others. He's been drawing
comics for around 55 years and has done Westerns, Romance, Horror,
Archie, War, Detectives...basically every genre that exists. He's also
one of the first, if not THE first, artists who've had their work
reproduced in comics *directly* from their pencils without being inked.
Well, I thought Gene deserved a birthday surprise, so I asked Mark if he
could put me in touch with the proper Con people to start arranging
something like that. So, what does he do? Adds Gene's Surprise party to
his already Herculean list of panels that he has to deal with! Well, I
was feeling horribly guilty, and I apologized to Mark. He told me to
relax that this was something important & worth doing. What a guy!

Fortunately, Gene doesn't check out all the info on the Cons & reads
very little in terms of fanzines & comics columns. In other words, the
only way Gene might have heard about the whole thing in advance was if
someone said something directly to him. Well, Mark ran info on it on his
website and in his CBG column. In the official San Diego Con program the
following ad ran:

   4:00 New Art Techniques -- An incisive discussion of
   how high-tech pencil erasers have changed the way in
   which comic books are drawn. With Murray Fassbinder
   (president and CEO of the Snorp Eraser Co.), Hal W.
   Carter (inventor of the CartEraser), William
   Franjipanoski (advocate of using lumps of cheese for
   erasing), and comic book artist Gene Colan. Moderated
   by Mark Evanier. Room 8

Mark's been reading too many Mad magazines or hanging around with Sergio
too much or something!! :) I think just about everybody (excluding Gene)
realized that something else was up when they showed up for that panel.
Mark started asking Gene about using erasers and how important they
were. Gene being the perfect gentleman & unsuspecting straight man
started talking about erasers & erasing techniques. The audience was
having trouble keeping a straight face. Finally, Mark makes some offhand
comment about Gene having been drawing for quite a number of years. Gene
said yes around 50-55 or something like that. Mark then makes some
comment about how old that would have to make Gene. Gene replies that
he'll indeed be turning 75 very shortly. Mark makes Gene pull out a
driver's license to prove it. By this time the audience is rolling on
the floor. And I hear my cue to bring in the cake. We all sang Happy
Birthday to Gene, Gene was genuinely touched, and then we spent about an
hour with Mark talking with some of Gene's colleagues about his work. A
superb moment, a great memory for Gene (& a number of fans), and this
was just one little hour and a half segment of what Mr. Evanier was able
to accomplish this year.

Yeah, he's just a regular guy. And I'm darned proud to have gotten to
meet him in person! Hope you all have the privilege sooner or later.

Kevin

PS Due to the extreme level of sincerity & seriousness in this post, the
next 5 posts by me will be absolutely pointless, extremely silly, and
one of them might even be funny!!