G.T. Labs

Jim Ottaviani

He really is that tall: meeting Lyle Lovett, once, for a second

Since he has a new album out today, the first in ten years, here’s a Lyle Lovett memory:

My first full-time professional career was as a consulting nuclear engineer. Kind of like Sherlock Holmes’ “consulting detective”, maybe, but practiced in places where they’d only put nuke plants. So when, during the job interview, the company asked if I was open to travel I should have figured that they weren’t going to send me to London or Tokyo or some other cool city.

Anyway, when I wasn’t living in an extended stay hotel room out in the middle of nowhere I lived in Philadelphia, but I didn’t like it there either. It is a cool city, but it turns out I like living near big cities, not in ’em. I’m currently not far from Detroit, and can get to Toronto or Chicago in a few hours, and that’s how I like it.

One of the fine things about Philadelphia was the music scene. I saw performers ranging from the Indigo Girls (not so great live, at least on that tour) to John Lee Hooker (so so great live). I’m not sure I’d even recognize this version of me now, but record hunting on South Street was a thing I actually did many Friday nights.

And the radio was terrific. WHYY, home of Fresh Air, for news and WXPN for music. Around 1990, towards the end of my time there, the latter did the unthinkable for a college station and hired a professional morning host named Michaela Majoun. Professional, as in she showed up on time and didn’t leave your clock radio to serve up absolute dead air when the alarm went off so you didn’t wake up in time for work, an experience I had with previous college stations…looking at you WCBN in Ann Arbor. (Yes, I hold a grudge.)

I had an invisible crush on her. Or at least her taste in music, and between her and Terry Gross she locked me in as a public radio listener. So much so that I started sending money in to pledge drives. And at some point, I decided I should volunteer to help take those pledges, so one morning in the spring of 1990, I think, I got up even before her show began and stumbled over to Penn’s campus to answer a land-line and eat stale bagels and glance over to the broadcast booth when it was quiet to see the magic happen.

It was fun, but Ms. Majoun didn’t have much time to hang out, meaning her good taste wasn’t going to literally rub off on me. So when my shift was over and I had to head for the door and the day job, I got a wave and a mouthed “thank you,” which was cool.

On the way out I stopped for a drink of water, and with head down, out of the corner of my eye I saw that the person waiting to get a drink after me was wearing a truly fine pair of cowboy boots. I wore a truly utilitarian pair of cowboy boots when I was on site at the nuke plant — they were quite comfortable for a full day on my feet, it turns out. So I appreciated ’em, and as I lifted my head from drinking I was about to compliment the owner when I realized I had to keep looking up. And up. And then up some more. When I reached Lyle Lovett’s eyes I realized I had to keep looking even further if I wanted to see all the hair, but I stopped myself from doing that, stuttered out “I really like your new album,” and he gave that crooked smile he has and out of the corner of his mouth he drawled “Well, thank ya verruh much.” and maybe we shook hands, but I don’t remember anything more than that the encounter carried me through the rest of the day.

Through to now, in fact.

There’s no point to this story, I guess, but there is a take-away: go listen to “If I Had a Boat” now and read your copy of “Becoming Duchess Goldblatt” tonight (trust me) and wake up to your local public radio station tomorrow and discover something new and cool.

The (First) Year of the Dog

After wanting to have a dog in my life basically all of my life, it finally happened a year ago today. That’s when we had Bella in for an sleepover, in part to find out whether she and Pepper (our cat) would get along…or at least tolerate each other. That went fine, and when the next day arrived we decided to tell the person we adopted her from that unless they objected, it might be less confusing if she just stayed.

In for a penny, in for 35 pounds.

Everyone shed some tears that day — she’d been well-loved at her previous home, but circumstances had changed there and she needed a new place. So we abandoned our original plan, which was to wait a while longer and then adopt an older, non-shedding breed/mix. What we ended up with is an energetic** three year old Australian Cattle Dog, Golden Retriever, Miniature American Shepherd, Pomeranian, Beagle, Portuguese Podengo Pequeno, etcetera etcetera mix. Yeah, we did the DNA test thing, and they may as well have just returned a verdict of “Breed: Dog.” She has all the fur colors you could ever want to find, and we do find them everywhere, so I’m sure at this point our respective microbiomes are all well integrated too.

She’s not perfect — Bella had spent almost no time on a leash until she moved in with us, and that coupled with a very strong “OMG I SMELL RABBITS DON’T YOU SMELL RABBITS LET’S GO GET ALL THE RABBITS!” attitude makes her a challenge on walks. And though I can get them both to eat treats out of the same hand at the same time without any fuss, she’s too jealous of attention given to Pepper. There are other non-ideal aspects, but most are in the “Hey, dogs are gonna act like dogs, so whaddaya gonna do?” category.

(For instance, there are days when we feel like we’re on the wrong side of the window in Patrick McDonnell’s “Mutts”.)

All that aside, we think her life is better here, but she loves to be loved so Bella probably would have done fine anywhere. She sure has made our lives better, though, so here’s to you sharing the same happiness we feel (and that she feels) when we see her run or flop over or meet a new friend. And every new person’s a friend.

 

** Energetic is okay! Bella arrived just as my human running partner needed an extended time off to heal up from some injuries. So in this first year she and I logged 74 runs for 339.6 miles together. It would have been more except we didn’t run together for the first two months: she was a country dog and her feet needed to get used to sidewalks and roads.

In those 74 runs I’ve tired her out exactly zero times.

E.O. Wilson: 1929-2021

 

It seems, to me anyway, like I should have something to say about E.O. Wilson.

I worked with him to adapt his memoir Naturalist into comics, but we weren’t close collaborators. He already knew our editor Rebecca, he saw Chris’ art samples, he read my outline and some sample script pages and he trusted we’d do a good job.

We did spend time on the phone together when I finished the script, and then again when Chris’ pencil art were complete. He made suggestions (many of which were factual corrections of the “That person had a mustache at the time.” variety, some of which were of the “Oh wow. Yeah, of course I should have done it that way!” variety), and then he once again stepped away. That was gratifying, in that a person who could have easily asserted his ego and stature to make our job harder simply didn’t. I think he was secure in the knowledge that his book was both superb on its own, and could become good comics. I hope it’s not just my own ego talking when I say that I think it did.

One of the biggest challenges, and the thing I’m most proud of, is the way we ended the graphic novel. His original book had, as I recall, three good places to end, but for our adaptation we didn’t have the space to include everything. (We used less than 1/4 of the words from his original, and even with over 1200 panels-worth of picture we couldn’t show everything.) So I had to pick one, and I didn’t pick the same last lines as his original text. I didn’t even pick the last lines of a paragraph.

This made me nervous. A self-taught comics writer like me doesn’t feel qualified to edit a world famous scientist with two Pulitzer Prizes.

But my experience with Ray Bradbury had prepared me to do this, and conversations with my friend and collaborator Leland Myrick did too.

You can read my Ray Bradbury story here, and I can summarize what Leland taught me more succinctly: sometimes you have to think of comics as poetry. Efficiency and precision in your choice of inked line can produce the same effect as a poem’s concise yet expansive choice of words.

I’m not going to tell you what I landed on for the closing scene, and last line of this new look at E.O. Wilson’s life, but I’m proud of what we did, and grateful that Professor Wilson (he said I could call him Ed, but…) recognized that sometimes the best ending doesn’t always appear on the last page, and that inspiration can speak softly.

Anyway, I’ve told the story above before, since it’s the memory of working with him that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

The whole experience was fun. No fancier word needed.

So, Professor Wilson. I wish I could have met you in person. There, at least, I think I’d have been able to muster the courage to say this, this way:

Thank you, Ed.

Can you make money doing comics, or, d’esprit de l’escalier…

As I await some new contracts, a question about one’s best ad-libbed line** came up on Facebook the other day, and I realized I actually had one! So, here it is:

A few years ago I gave a talk about comics to a group of wealthy alumni of the university where I work. This happened down in Florida, where these alums — a.k.a. prospective donors — are contractually obligated to live during the winter.

Most of the speakers are professors, there to make the audience proud of the cool research done up here in Michigan. I think I was there to provide something lighter, along the lines of “Look, isn’t it amazing how a librarian can do interesting things too?”

So I talked about comics in general and Primates in particular, and it went well enough that I let my guard down during the Q&A. That’s where one of the snowbirds rich enough to speak without filters asked, in an incredulous voice, “Do you make any money at this?”

Without wasting any time thinking it through, I said “Usually only middle-schoolers ask how much I get paid for writing, but how about this. I’ll show you my tax returns if you’ll show me yours.”

The shockwave generated by the development officers’ group cringe at the back of the room measured about a 7 on the Richter scale, but fortunately the audience burst out laughing and everybody left happy. And I still get paid for both writing and librarianing.

 

 

**As opposed to those times when you only think of what you should have said much later, e.g. when you’re heading downstairs and out of the building, per the French phrase d’esprit de l’escalier, or “wit of the staircase.”

Favorite Books I read in 2020

Everybody responded differently to 2020’s awfulness, and I know many couldn’t concentrate on reading. I found that I could, and got even more comfort (and yes, escape) than usual from it.

Not counting books I read as research, I clocked in at 13 graphic novels and 80 prose works (46 fiction, 34 non). Here are my favorites, in case you need some recommendations for the coming year.

Fiction

Circe by Madelaine Miller
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
In the Woods by Tana French
The Necessary Beggar by Susan Palwick
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Nonfiction

Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch
The Falcon Thief by Joshua Hammer
Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Lucky Dog Lessons by Brandon McMillan
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and Gregory Hays (trans.)
Midnight in Chernobyl by Andrew Higginbotham
Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars by Kate Green
The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson
Vesper Flights by Helen MacDonald
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

Graphic Novels

Prince of Cats by Ron Wimberly
Rusty Brown by Chris Ware
Silver Surfer Black by Donny Cates and Tradd Moore
Slaughterhouse-Five by Ryan North, Albert Monteys, and Kurt Vonnegut

I also read a lot of old comic books (ostensibly because I’m weeding the collection, but in part just for fun) and, as mentioned, a bunch of books for future projects. Here’s hoping you found comfort in something this year as well, and that next year is a better one.

The bar for that is set low…

NATURALIST: How many endings? Only one.

 

One of the biggest challenges of adapting E.O. Wilson’s Naturalist (available Nov. 10, but you can pre-order it now!), was in picking the right spot to end. He had, as I recall, three good endings in his book, but for the graphic novel adaptation we didn’t have the space. So I had to pick one, and I didn’t pick the same last lines as he used.

This made me nervous. As a self-taught comics guy, I didn’t (and shouldn’t!) feel qualified to edit a writer like him, a world famous scientist with two Pulitzer Prizes.

But my experience with Ray Bradbury had prepared me to do this, and conversations with my friend and collaborator Leland Myrick did too.

You can read my Ray Bradbury story here (it’s long), but I can summarize what Leland taught me succinctly: sometimes you have to think of comics as poetry. Efficiency and precision in your choice of inked line can produce the same effect as a poem’s concise yet expansive choice of words.

I’m not going to tell you here what I landed on for the closing scene, and last line, of this new look at E.O. Wilson’s life, but I’m proud of what we did, and grateful that Professor Wilson (he says I can call him Ed, but…) recognized that sometimes the best ending doesn’t always appear on the last page, and that inspiration often speaks softly.