Little Golden Books
More Like “The DORK Knight,” Am I Right?
Did you know that 2019 is Batman’s 80th birthday? It’s true! What would happen if the Caped Crusader actually WAS a burden on society – er, I mean an elderly person? Here’s a Nerdist article about my upcoming MAD Magazine story, “What If Batman Were Actually 80 Years Old?”
It’ll be published in the pages of MAD #9, which comes out on August 6th. Artist Pete Woods illustrated the story, and he did an incredible job. Check out the Nerdist piece (and my “What If Batman…” story in its entirety) via the link above. And click on the thumbnail on the right to see a sneak peek of the first page!
Here are a few more announcements, but if you’ve been to my blog before, you’ll know that afterwards I’ll reward your patience with a humiliating anecdote from my writing career. (So keep reading!)
Two weeks ago, at San Diego Comic Con, I signed copies of Star Wars Adventures #23. Here’s a picture of me at the signing, which took place at the IDW booth! (I wrote “Majordomo, Major Problems,” the Tales from Wild Space backup story in that issue. The story was illustrated by the amazing Drew Moss.) I’m not the only person who’s excited about Star Wars Adventures #23. The issue got a wonderful review from SciFi Pulse.
Journalist Jonita Davis interviewed me for The Black CAPE, an online publication that caters to older millennial and Gen X film and TV nerds. In the interview, I talked about “Majordomo,” as well as some of the Little Golden Books I’ve written for Penguin Random House (e.g. The Doctor Strange Little Golden Book).
In other news, I wrote the recent Scholastic children’s book Hungry Shark: The Official Shark-Tastic Guide, which is a guide to all of the characters in the Hungry Shark video game franchise. The book was the subject of a blog post on the Scholastic blog, as well as a post on the Ubisoft blog. (The Hungry Shark games are developed and published by Future Games of London and Ubisoft.)
And now that you’ve made it through the gauntlet of my announcements, I shall reward you with a humiliating anecdote. However, this anecdote will not involve my writing career. No, this anecdote is from before I even had a career. This anecdote comes from my childhood! (Ooo, spooky, right?) And it has to do with Batman, so it’s relevant to the “Batman at 80” theme of this post! Anyway, here goes…
1989 was Batman’s 50th anniversary. That’s why the first Tim Burton Batman movie was released in June of that year. But at the beginning of 1989, a TON of Bat-merchandise was unleashed upon the general public, in anticipation of the film.
Guess who bought as much of that merch as humanly possible? Guess who bought as much of that wearable merch as humanly possible? Oh, it was me, dear reader. It was me.
Allow me to elaborate: One day (in 1989), I showed up to school wearing ALL of the following:
- A Batman baseball cap
- A Batman sweatshirt
- A Batman T-shirt, worn UNDER the sweatshirt *
- A Batman belt
- Batman socks
- Batman shoes
- A Batman doll **
* See, just in case I had to remove the sweatshirt, I still wanted to show that I was an enormous Batman geek. Hence, the T-shirt.
** Okay, you can’t really WEAR a doll. But I gripped the doll tightly in one hand, signifying that it was part of the ensemble.
Yes, I showed up to school wearing all of that…stuff. And since the Batman sweatshirt was black, and so was the baseball cap, and so were the shoes and socks, I also wore black pants. They weren’t black BATMAN pants, but I’m pretty sure I was just hoping that I could somehow WILL them into being Officially Licensed Batman Pants.
How did I show up to school like that and not get endlessly bullied?
I mean, I DID get bullied, sort of, in that people walked up to me, their eyes bulged, and they exclaimed “Wow.” Then they got their friends, showed THEM what I was wearing, and their friends ALSO said, “Wow.” So I became the freak of the day, a sideshow-style curiosity that my fellow students could use to brighten up their otherwise dreary lives. Yay for them!
And it’s not like I didn’t bring it upon myself. If you drive an ice cream truck and you drive by a school, the kids are going to shout, “Hey, ice cream!” If you dress like a weirdo and walk through a school the kids are going to shout, “Hey, weirdo!”
That’s what I get for dressing up like the world’s shortest Batman movie poster. And as I’m typing this, I’m realizing that this probably also explains my present-day reluctance to wear any item of clothing that has a fictional character – or a logo advertising a fictional character – emblazoned on it. It’s a rule I have. I don’t wear clothes that turn me into a walking billboard.
But I’m trying to break that rule, especially when sticking to said rule hurts other people’s feelings. For example, as I sit here typing this blog post, I’m wearing a Star Wars T-shirt which has a picture of Han Solo and Chewbacca on it. Laid over that image is a page from the Star 
Wars screenplay. My wife bought that for me. Since I’m a writer, and I’ve worked on a few Star Wars-related projects, she thought I’d like it.
And I do. If I didn’t wear it, she would be upset by that. But what about my rule?
I mean…
I guess I can break it, just this once…
Right?
I Can FEEL Your Anger! It Gives You Focus! Makes You Stronger!
You know what? As a writer, often I really try to get into the heads of my characters. And sometimes, I take it too far. For example…
Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s a couple of announcements (and THEN, as usual, I’ll tell you an embarrassing anecdote from my writing career).
- MAD Magazine: I wrote a humor piece called “The Bad Roommate,” which was illustrated by David DeGrand. It appears in MAD #7, on sale now!
[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”8″ display=”basic_thumbnail” show_slideshow_link=”0″]
- Last month my Avengers Little Golden Book The Threat of Thanos (illustrated by Shane Clester) appeared in a Barnes & Noble ad in celebration of the film Avengers: Endgame! (Click on the thumbnail to see the whole ad)
- Hungry Shark: The Official Shark-Tastic Guide, written by yours truly, comes out on June 25th, 2019 from Scholastic. Barnes & Noble included the book on their list of “Guides & Novels for Your Gamer.” (Seriously, what’s with Barnes & Noble hyping all of my books lately? Not that I’m complaining…)
- Star Wars Adventures: Recently I wrote a Tales from Wild Space comic book story called “Majordomo, Major Problems,” which was illustrated by Drew Moss. “Majordomo” is an 8-page backup tale in Star Wars Adventures #23, which comes out on June 26th, 2019 from IDW Publishing.
Now that that’s out of the way, I believe you’re owed a humiliating anecdote about my writing career. And you shall have it:
As a writer, often I really try to get into the heads of my characters. For example, when I was a staff writer on the television series TruTV Presents: World’s Dumbest, I found that in order to write jokes for Gilbert Gottfried (who was one of the cast members), you had to yell the jokes out loud AS Gilbert Gottfried. In other words, you had to do an impression of Gilbert Gottfried, to figure out how he would say a particular joke.
And that’s something I’ve done quite a few times in my career. When I was writing the scripts for the House M.D. video game, I did an impression of Hugh Laurie, in his “Gregory House” voice. As “Hugh Laurie,” I acted out each scene, talking into a digital recorder. Then I played it back in order to see if it sounded like something the character would actually say.
When I used to write Bart Simpson comic book stories for Bongo Comics, whenever Krusty the Clown was in a story, I found that it was really helpful to brainstorm one-liners for Krusty by doing a terrible Krusty impression and ad-lib some jokes while talking into the digital recorder. More recently, when I wrote my LEGO Star Wars books for Scholastic, I liked to put a few Emperor Palpatine jokes in each book. And sometimes the jokes were written IN Palpatine’s voice, especially if Palpatine was narrating a section of the book. That meant doing a really terrible, over-the-top Ian McDiarmid impression, and it really helped make the Palpatine jokes and Palpatine narration even funnier.
But what I’m really getting at is that – as I type this – there’s a digital recorder right next to my laptop. On that digital recorder’s files there’s hours and hours of audio of me doing the absolute WORST Hugh Laurie, Krusty the Clown, and Ian McDiarmid impressions. And when I was writing the House scripts, I was also doing impressions of the OTHER House cast members. So there’s audio of me doing awful Omar Epps impressions, awful Lisa Edelstein impressions, awful Robert Sean Leonard impressions. Oh, you have no idea. And you WILL CONTINUE TO have no idea. Because nobody will ever hear those audio files. I guess this isn’t really a humiliating anecdote as much as it’s a POTENTIALLY humiliating anecdote.
But if you ever need something to blackmail me with, just steal the digital recorder, okay?
The Worst Voicemail Message In Human History
This is my first blog post of 2019, and I’m trying something new: I’m going to end each blog post with an embarrassing anecdote taken from my long and storied writing career. But first, a blatant plug of a new project. To wit:
Over the past few years, I’ve written three LEGO Star Wars books for Scholastic. I hope that I get to write more at some point. My third LSW book, The Official Force Training Manual, came out in October 2018. Recently, Jonita Davis over at the Black Girl Nerds website interviewed me about the three LEGO Star Wars books I’ve written.
Also, here’s an appreciation piece I wrote for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the life and legacy of Stan Lee, shortly after Stan died in November. I knew Stan a little bit (I interviewed him for my book From Krakow to Krypton). Also, I’ve written several children’s books featuring characters he co-created, like Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, The Avengers, and so on. So I think I have a unique perspective on Stan and his work.
And now, my embarrassing anecdote: When I was first starting out as a freelance writer, I was an entertainment journalist for Primedia Youth Entertainment Group. They published various teen and tween magazines, like Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, and BOP. I wrote for all three of those publications.
At a certain point, I discovered I was pretty good at wangling interviews with pop stars (e.g. Justin Timberlake). Because I knew quite a bit about hip-hop and R&B, I interviewed a few rappers for those magazines as well.
And somehow, I got Timbaland’s phone number.
If you don’t know who Timbaland is, well, he’s a rapper, songwriter, and music producer. His real name is Tim Mosley. I think I was trying to interview him for an article I was writing on Destiny’s Child. (Remember, this was a long time ago, when Destiny’s Child was still a thing.) Anyway, I got Timbaland’s phone number. I didn’t know any of Tim’s “people” (e.g. his agent, his manager, his personal assistant). So I had no choice. I just had to call Tim DIRECTLY. Which you’re not really supposed to do when trying to get a hold of a music-industry celebrity. But I had no other choice. So I called him. He didn’t pick up. And I left him the following voicemail message:
“Hi, Tim? Uh, I mean, Timbaland? This is Arie Kaplan. I’m an entertainment journalist and I’m trying to reach Timbaland. Timbaland, I don’t know if this is your direct number or if this is your assistant’s number. But if it’s not Timbaland’s number, I’m trying to get in touch with Timbaland. So if Timbaland could please contact me, I’d really like to interview Timbaland for the cover story I’m writing on Destiny’s Child for Teen Beat. Anyway, if this IS Timbaland, I hope you’re doing well, Timbaland. Thanks for your time, Timbaland!”
Wow. Think I said the word “Timbaland” enough during that painfully long, rambling, awkward, insane voicemail message? BTW, if you’ve never met me and you don’t know what my voice sounds like, please realize that as I kept saying the word “Timbaland” on that voicemail message, I was acutely aware that I sounded about as cool as Larry David would’ve sounded saying it. As I said, Tim never responded to that message. I bet you’re not surprised to hear that.