Jane Friedman, WRITER'S DIGEST publisher: Mr. Media Radio Interview

BY BOB ANDELMAN

I was a little nervous when I received an email from Jane Friedman, the publisher of Writer’s Digest magazine and books.

She was responding to my interview with one of her authors, Mike Sacks, the author of And Here’s the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft.

Sacks was unhappy with a number of things about the way Writer's Digest published his book and wasn’t shy abut discussing it.

I thought Friedman was going to give me an earful about what a sack Sacks was and how neither of us understood anything about publishing decisions.

Much to both of our surprise, she actually agreed with a number of the things we discussed and was interested in continuing the conversation. I was only too happy to do so; this show, after all, has hosted conversations with the editors and publishers of Smithsonian, Playboy, Success, Cooking Light and many others.

AUDIO EXCERPT: "You could see the change in our magazine as well as the books we published over the last 10 years. We actually felt this affect long before we saw it coming up in the industry as far as newspapers and magazines closing. Our books and articles on freelance work, newspaper journalism, magazine journalism, those sales were falling off dramatically. But what was selling was anything related to novel writing, finding an agent, anything more creative writing related... Most people aspire to write a novel. That's where our market has shifted."  

And, as a guy who makes his living writing books and magazine articles, I certainly have an interest in the topic.

As for Jane Friedman, she is publisher and editorial director of the Writer's Digest community at F+W Media in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she oversees all facets of the Writer's Digest brand, including Writer's Digest magazine, Writer’s Digest Books, annual market guides, online education, events, and competitions. Her blog, "There Are No Rules," discusses how writers can succeed in an era of change in the writing and publishing industry.


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Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Josh Neufeld, A.D.: NEW ORLEANS AFTER DELUGE graphic novelist: Mr. Media Radio Interview

There are all kinds of journalistic storytelling styles, starting with your basic who/what/when/where and why.

There is also “if it bleeds, it leads.”

And let’s not forget the “New Journalism” class of the 1960s and ‘70s, exemplified by everyone from Tom Wolfe to Truman Capote it used dramatic literary techniques to add depth to the reader’s involvement.

These days, some bloggers and tweeters have taken short-form journalism to new highs—and lows.

But how many people think of comic book and graphic novel creators as part of journalism? I see a few hands raised, but not nearly enough.

I would suggest to you that a wave of artist and writers who once would have been relegated to the comic book ghetto are creating compelling journalism in hand-drawn pictures these days. A recent guest on this show, Brendan Burford (Syncopated), publishes a series of what he calls “nonfiction picto-essays”—essentially journalism in sequential art.

The latest example I can recommend to you is Josh Neufeld’s new book, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. It’s the story of a handful of very different residents of the Crescent City in the days leading up to and the months following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Reading it, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll come away with an informed perspective about the lives of average Americans dealing with extraordinary challenges.

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Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Jim Butcher, THE DRESDEN FILES novelist: Mr. Media Radio Interview

I am NOT the world’s biggest Harry Potter fan. The only book in the series that I’ve read is the first, which my wife and I took turns reading aloud to my daughter when she was just learning to read herself.

Since then, they’ve consumed each and every book in the series and re-read the books and re-watch the movies over and over.

So I wasn’t sure how interested I’d be when I received the graphic novel version of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files. More magic? Oy.

But let me tell you, this is one cool series. I love the notion of a wizard operating within the almost real world of Chicago, working at arm’s length from both the police and organized crime. If Harry Potter’s continued into adulthood and into the real world of modern London, I’d probably give them another look.

The Dresden Files began and continues as a series of novels. It was also, briefly, a syndicated television series. If you need a jumping on point, try the graphic novel, which is adapted by Mark Powers and drawn by Ardian Syaf. And then you can follow me backward into reading the books.

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Copyright 2009 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Michael Uslan, THE DARK KNIGHT, THE SPIRIT executive producer: Mr. Media Audio Interview

Kids, if you want to grow up to be a successful executive producer of movies like Michael Uslan ("YOU-slin") did, the key is education – and patience. Lots and lots of patience.

Uslan secured the rights to make Batman movies years before Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, and Jack Nicholson dreamed of working together.

And he couldn’t give away the rights to Will Eisner’s The Spirit.

But his patience and determination paid off. This year, the sixth Batman movie – The Dark Knight – and first Spirit movie will come to a multiplex near you, joining previous Uslan productions such as Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Batman Begins, Catwoman, Constantine, National Treasure, Swamp Thing – well, you get the idea.

And he’s not one to rest on his laurels, either. Uslan’s current projects in development include Shazam!, The Shadow, and Constantine 2.

If you love comic books, and especially movies made from comic books, please welcome Michael Uslan to Mr. Media.

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© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Jonathan Riggs, PRISM COMICS LGBT GUIDE TO COMICS editor: Mr. Media Interview

Jonathan Riggs is my guest for this hour of Mr. Media. I began the show with some trepidation - I was late getting back from the bank for one thing and almost missed the show entirely! - and I know absolutely nothing about the narrow market for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered comics.

Hell, when I was a teen reading comics, I didn't know there was any such thing as "gay." And it was only a few years ago someone told me the backstory on the name of the band "Queen."

What planet am I on, anyway?

But this was actually a fascinating interview and Riggs - the editor of both the 2008 Prism Comics: Your Guide to LGBT Comics and Instinct magazine - made for a great guest.

Prism Comics, incidentally, is a nonprofit organization that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) comics, creators, and readers. Besides publishing the annual resource guide, Prism Comics hopes to acquaint comics readers with a wide range of creators who present good stories that readers can really relate to and that reflect their own experiences.

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© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

David Hajdu, THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE author: Mr. Media Audio Interview

Run for your lives!

Hide the women and children!

There’s a Ten-Cent Plague loose upon this fine land!

My guest today, David Hajdu, is the author of a new book that – at the very least – probably has the best title of the year, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America.

In this book, Hajdu looks back at a hysterical period in American history – one of many, to be sure – when comic books were considered such a threat to our way of life that the industry nearly vanished.

Hajdu is also the author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, and Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina. He teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism with another friend of the Mr. Media podcast, Sree Sreenivasan – and is the music critic for The New Republic.

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Dennis O'Neil, "Batman" comic book writer/editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic (1997)

Originally Published March 10, 1997

Is it fair to speak the word "Batman" in the same breath as Hamlet?

"There is no one right way to do this character any more than there is one right way to do Hamlet," insists Dennis O'Neil, editor of nine Batman and Batman-related titles for DC Comics. "I realize I'm beginning to sound pretentious, but there are a lot of ways to play Hamlet; there are a lot of ways to play Philip Marlowe to get more contemporary. These characters last because something in them strikes a responsive chord in a lot of people."

Bob Kane may have created Batman, but that was 57 years ago -- ironically, the same month, May, and year, 1939, O'Neil himself was born. "Enough to make you believe in astrology," he jokes. For the last 11 years, the caped crusader's care and feeding has rested with O'Neil.

O'Neil knows this character pretty well, too, having written more than 120 of his adventures since 1968. One of the modern deans of his medium, O'Neil wrote the "Bat-bible" which all Bat-writers have followed for the past decade, whether in comics, animation or film. He also authored the comic book adaptation of the upcoming Bat-film, Batman & Robin, due in theaters this summer.

Also on O'Neil's resume: he has been a guiding force in introducing social issues to comic books, from writing the now classic "Green Lantern-Green Arrow" series on drug abuse 25 years ago to shepherding this month's focus on date rape in the pages of "Robin."

The name of Hamlet came up when O'Neil was asked about the current condition of the Dark Knight, who has weathered permutations ranging from the campy Adam West TV show of the 1960s to the dark and dreary Tim Burton movies of the 1980s. A very different Batman appears in the current cartoon series, "Batman, The Animated Series."

"Any time you take something from one language to another or from one medium to another, you have to really rethink it," O'Neil says. "The Batman cartoon universe is different from the comic books and our Batman is different from the movie universe. I think if I were a disinterested observer, I would find it interesting to see diverse interpretations of this same idea."




O'Neil first spun the character in the months following the cancellation of the ABC "Batman" series in 1968. Since then, Batman and Bruce Wayne's world has been a dark and tortured place.

"We gave the book psychological underpinnings," O'Neil recalls. "They were always implied in the whole idea of Batman, but what we did was bring it to the foreground and put emphasis on them."

The Caped Crusader turned completely humorless and bleak in 1993 when a bad guy named Bane broke his back and nearly killed him in a year-long story called "Knightfall." That incident led to the arrival of a violent new Batman named "Azrael" and an updated costume outlined by sharp edges and an arsenal of high tech new Bat-gadgets, all of which were roundly booed by readers.

O'Neil says that trying out someone other than Bruce Wayne as Batman was a product of the times in which we live.

"We wondered if our notion of hero was outmoded," he says. "Looking at other media, not only comics but popular movies, heroes seemed to be not a whole lot different than the villains in that sometimes the only qualification for heroism that the hero seemed to posses was the ability to commit wholesale slaughter and wisecrack about it. Which is antithetical to my idea of hero. I've always thought physical prowess has to be balanced by some kind of soul.

"We'd been wondering for a long, long time, with his stricture against killing and his Boy Scout morality, if our hero was outmoded," O'Neil continues. "So instead of continuing to avoid the question, we decided to confront it and put out there a Batman who was as genuinely nuts as our Batman was sometimes accused of being."




Throughout that stunt, O'Neil's greatest fear was that readers would actually like the Azrael Batman. "I don't know what exactly we would have done," he admits. "I might have schemed myself out of a job."

But readers hated Azrael in the role.

The storyline consumed 1,164 pages by O'Neil's count -- more than a year in real time -- before Bruce Wayne once more donned his traditional cowl.

"It validated the kind of heroic ideal that Batman has always represented," O'Neil says. "And it told me that at least as far as our audience is concerned, although they may applaud and enjoy the bloodletting, slaughter-type characters at the movies, they could still appreciate an older, nobler idea of what a hero is."

That's why Batman keeps coming back, stronger and ever more intriguing, while his friend Superman struggles through marriage, a ponytail and an electric-blue new costume and powers.

"I think Batman attracted more really good talent over the years," O'Neil says of a perceived creative disparity between the two characters. "Having written both characters, it was that invincible thing that made it difficult for me to handle Superman -- both to identify with him and to write dramatic stories. The nature of melodrama is that the hero has to be in really bad trouble once in a while. There must be conflict and conflict implies that he goes against equals. That's simple, Basic Writing 101. I always found it easier to fulfill those requirements with Batman.

"One of things you heard as an undergraduate 40 years ago was 'Write what you know,' " he says. "Well, I've never stood on a rooftop at 3 a.m., waiting for a grotesque maniac to show up. If I had, the New York Post would have covered it. I think the germ of truth (in Batman stories) is implied."

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.