Mark Evanier

 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 Service and contrasting that with the portrayal of a writer's life on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

 career

Evanier made his first professional sale in 1969 and almost immediately 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, 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 , Groo the Wanderer (with Sergio Aragonés), and The DNAgents . 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.

 personal life

On May 26, 2006, Evanier checked into Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and underwent gastric bypass surgery. Having peaked at around 344 pounds by then, he has since lost nearly 130 pounds by June 2007 and is grateful for the overall health benefits, though he had to learn to adjust his eating habits.