Annual “year”-end post! My 2023 book-writing year ran not from January through December, but late February ’23 to early February ’24. This is a remnant of using winter break as a final push back when I was in an academic calendar. First up, the non-book things:
HUB COMICS
My comic book shop hosted three writer/artist talk/signings, plus a party, and Free Comic Book Day. We also exhibited at two conventions. And some not-local G.I. Joe fans reached out for IDW G.I. Joe recent/back issues, so we did a little mail order.
SHORT FILMS – HUB COMICS
Every Tuesday night, every single week of last year, I, with the help of my three wonderful employees, wrote, performed in, shot, edited, and posted a one-minute ad for my comic book store. Most are about an important or anticipated new release for that week. Some are neutral and informative, many are funny in that dumb way, and some are actually funny. You can guess in which category this one falls:
VIDEO ESSAYS – ATOMIC ABE
I’m Executive Producer in a small operation. My partners in New York continue to write, produce, edit, and voice-over for our funny and carefully researched video essays on television and film. We’re at over 36,000 subscribers and this year netted an additional almost-2 million views. I look forward to the day when we can release a video that doesn’t just make a tiny, indirect G.I. Joe reference (such as to a voice actor who appeared elsewhere), but a meaty, proper video about G.I. Joe. Maybe that’s 2024?
ANIMATION RESTORATIONS
Historian Tommy José Stathes has been producing animation restorations of silent era and public domain animation from the 1910s and 1920s, and I’m a behind the scenes partner in the endeavors. Not sure if the NYT has a pay wall, but here’s a big feature on Stathes from December. If you can’t access that, here’s a screencap of the digital headline, and a scanned excerpt of the hard copy:
(I tip my hat to Paige Darrah, who wrote the profile, and photographers Janice Chung and Gabby Jones.) The Times piece focuses on Stathes as a collector and film exhibitor, and I noted the day after the article went online, all the comments were along the lines of “too bad these films aren’t being preserved!” Don’t worry, Internet, Stathes is absolutely preserving these films! Yes, 16mm prints are getting scanned at 2k, and 35mm ones at 4k. Stathes has created a few programs for Turner Classic Movies, and through his company, Cartoons on Film, releases vintage shorts on disc. These are proper, careful, and beautiful restorations, not those cheap ones I used to see in chain store bargain bins. While my favorite animation is 1980s American television, 1950s theatrical Looney Tunes, and Weimar Republic fine arts works of the 1930s and ’40, Stathes is filling in and making accessible an important part of the history of the animated film. And most old films — live-action and animation — have degraded, been burned, or been thrown away, so it’s not just important work, but urgently, vitally, awesomely important work. I am pleased to be involved with Tommy José Stathes on this.
DOCUMENTARY
This is not G.I. Joe-related, or toy-related or comics-related, for that matter. And it’s separate from Atomic Abe and Stathes’ work. It’s too early to reveal anything, but there’s a director in New York combing through old footage and lining up interviews. I’m Executive Producer, and we’ll have something to promote later in the year.
PODCASTING – TALKING JOE
Mark LastName and I continue to record our two-hour-plus inspections of both older Devil’s Due G.I. Joe comics from 2005 and 2006 as well as all the new Skybound Joe comics. We average about four episodes each month, so Mark manages to post a new episode almost every Thursday. “Regular” episodes are just us, but sometimes we have guests from Joe fandom, like Josh Eggebeen or Wordburglar. Other times it’s well-known podcasters, like Brad and Lisa Gullickson of Comic Book Couples Counseling. And still other times we interview interesting people who worked on G.I. Joe comics, like Rod Whigham, Joe Casey, Mike O’Sullivan, or Michael Kelly.
BLOGGING
I posted 14 articles here at ARealAmericanBook! this past year. That’s pretty good! Most were con reports, which probably aren’t the juicy visual bits you want of behind-the-scenes Hasbro history or comic book original art or animation artifacts, but in terms of hours and effort, those con reports take more time to write, and maybe more time for you to read, so perhaps it’s a bigger payoff. And if you can’t make it to a convention, I hope I can offer you a glimpse into that experience.
CONVENTIONS
I attended several Joe cons! That’s JoeFest, JoeLanta, and Assembly Required. And I wrote about them here and here and here. I was remarking to my wife that while I love those trips, they take away a few days from being at home and writing, and it’s sometimes hard to quantify how much they benefit my book, even if I know I’m going to run into interesting and helpful people. She said “Well, it’s sort of your job to attend,” which sure was food for thought.
INTERVIEWS
This year I conducted five new interviews. Two were follow-ups with animation people to whom I spoke years ago, but as I’ve written and rewritten, I needed a fact, timeline, or recollection clarified. Three interviews were with new people, and offered insights for my manuscript, and now that I look back, represent voices that really needed to be in the book. In the past, both here and on a convention panel or two, I have said that I was just about done with interviews and I didn’t need to gather any more oral history. That’s a bit of a moving target, but yes, I really am at the end of the interviewing stage. And I made two visits to different advertising people here on the east coast who I phone interviewed separately a few years back. It was great to sit with them for a few hours each, offer my appreciation, see what they do/what they did, and retrieve a few small audio artifacts that I can imagine sharing with an audience at a store or venue during a future book tour.
RESEARCH
This will make for a nice, separate blog post, but a chunk of January and February was spent at Harvard University’s Gutman Library reading through hundreds of press releases and newspaper and magazine articles, all in search of about three specific facts and one new paragraph in my book. It’s been wonderful, and there’s still more to do there, and more collating to be done with what I’ve found.
WRITING
In the general category of “writing,” like anything that involves me sitting at the computer and pushing my book forward, I started contacting generous folks who over the years have contributed photographs and artwork, to send them releases. The other term for this is “waiver,” where they say “yes, you can reproduce this thing that I own,” and in several cases, “yes, I grant you permission to include a photo of me.” A few people have been hard to pin down — everyone is busy! — but more than three dozen people have said “yes” and then sent back signed releases. Where someone hasn’t responded, or in a case or two, where someone looks like they might not say “yes,” there’s some anxiety. It’s one thing to have my book designer lay out the project with no limitations, but it’s another thing to make compromises — what would I do in this chapter without that photo of so-and-so? But for all the nice writers, artists, designers, producers, managers, musicians, and executives who’ve said “yes,” it’s a lovely feeling. And each case represents me popping up a year or 15 later and saying “some time ago you sent me this jpeg or mailed me this photograph, I wanted to formally follow up, and to let you know this is still a going concern, and I’m much closer to the finish line.” I feel quite close to all the people I’ve interviewed and borrowed items from because I see their names on my hard drive, and regularly move around their quotes or contributions. But in actuality, that exec I talked to on the phone in 2006 and who emailed me a photo in 2009, has had little reason to think of me since then, so I appreciate the chance to reconnect, even if fleetingly.
I own a book store, and keep a sketchbook, and don’t read comics on tablets, so you probably know I like physical paper. In a few cases, it’s been easier to mail a Joe alum a printout of the release form, along with an SASE. It’s a nice feeling when one arrives back in my (actual, metal) mailbox.
But no laurel-resting here, as there are many more people to remind/nudge/ask again, and more to find!
WRITING-WRITING
This is perhaps the meat of the entire blog post. This past year I made significant changes to Chapters 1 through 4, and editor Nick took a maybe-final pass on Chapters 1 and 2, while reader Chris Murray took a maybe-final pass on Chapters 1-4. I also made smaller but important adjustments to almost every other chapter. I’m also even closer to a first draft on Chapter 20, which is the finale. A first draft on any section of the book after so many years may be a red flag, like “you’re still figuring out some of this?” But A) Chapter 20 is pretty complex because it doesn’t cover one or two years, but a longer span, and B) whereas Chapter 1 is on its 8th draft and Chapter 4 is on its 10th, the finale won’t need as much revision. I’m better at writing than I was when I started, and can imagine the final chapter needing only two or three passes.
THAT WRITER GUY IN NEW YORK
If we cross paths at conventions, or every six or eight months when I visit New York City, I look up this guy, who I’ve now known for 23 years. We get lunch, and talk about things besides G.I. Joe. One day I’ll post more about his funny stories. But for now, and this is less G.I. Joe-history-book update, and more Tim-2023-update, it’s always lovely to spend an hour or three with Larry Hama. A week back, after lunch, we went to a landmark international market. I have never seen so many varieties of hot sauce. Only in New York!
WHAT’S NEXT
A few dozen more waivers. Final revisions on Chapters 5-19, finishing the first draft of Chapter 20, having my editor read it, and then the other two readers read it, handing it all off/back to my designer.
A Real American Book! 