Evan Dorkin

World's Funnest: Earth Prime Sequence Script w/Art by Stephen DeStefano (Pg 29)

Added 2023-01-08 03:55:44 +0000 UTC

For those who don't know (or don't care, bless you), Earth Prime is the "real world" in the DC Comics Universe. it's "us". It's where DC Comics are producded and the heroes and villains are all fictional. It's this hellhole right here, and the basic joke was that it freaked out Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk hard enough for them to both find something to agree on in the course of the chase throughout the dimensions.

I asked Stephen DeStefano to do the art for the page, Stephen's an old friend and some of you might remember him as being one-fifth of instant Piano. Stephen moved into animation full time after finding comics a hostile place for his cartooning, he's worked on a ton of cartoon projects you've heard of, go look it up. We did a short piece together for a Superman "Who's Who"-style one-shot (A catalogue of The Toyman's wares available for sale to gangsters and villain organizations), and Stephen did the storyboards for Welcome to Eltingville. Stephen is a hugely talented person and one of the best people I know. I should drop him a line, but I'm in a spiraling anti-social freakout phase right now, so, I won't.

Anyway, Earth Pain-In-The-Ass. We had an artist, and I believe, the process for the page was in the pitch and accepted, if not on paper than in verbal agreement. Boy, man, lady and the tiger, Mr. and Mrs. North, all the jackals of Botswana and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily Circus, was I was ignorant of the myriad ways corporate America and DC Comics can suck the life out of things. I was worried that we'd have trouble putting the page together because it was (slightly) unconventional. For DC, at least. The page eventually turned into a huge pain in the ass, bogged down by red tape, hand-wringing, slow gears grinding, and DC getting cheapskate on us.

Now, I get it that World's Funnest was not a cheap book to produce. I'm sure Alex Ross and Frank Miller cost them a lot more than me and Jay Stephens and Stephen. And who knows with some of the other folks. But we had some A-listers on board. And DC did not want to pay for pictures. Not even the cheapest-ass clipart (or whatever it might be called) pictures. They wouldn't allow me to pay for photographs. And they wouldn't allow me to take the photographs. or get someone to do it for me for free. Or allow me to access any pictures I might be able to wrangle. It became a series of back-and-forth, Kafka-esque exchanges between editor Joey Cavalieri and DC, and myself and DC. It seemed idiotic. It went past Joey, past art director Mark Chiarello, maybe past Mike Carlin, to Paul Levitz, and whoever else had to sign off (or say no). There were certain rules and things, apparently there would be cats and dogs living together and all that hell opening up stuff if we went ahead with our fiendish plan. As far as I can remember, they were never really adequately explained to me. It felt like the usual corporate statis and fear you would run up against at DC (and Marvel, and other places) that never seemed to make sense. Whatever was going on, it was a lot of hitting our heads against plaster walls, and it looked like I was going to have to come up with a new page. And I didn't have an idea for a new page, and at that point we couldn't jus extend another sequence. They wouldn't let me use Vertigo, which was the only other idea I had on paper or in my head.

Finally someone in a decision-making position (Levitz, I assume) understood that we couldn't deal with a hole in the book at such a late moment in the schedule. And they relented and someone arranged for DC to get some photographs from somewhere of NYC for Stephen and letterer Tom Orzechowski to work over. And the page got done.

A few notes: This is one of the few segments that I don't have decent documentation of, the photocopies of the art and lettering are pretty rough. Apologies for that.

Also, as you can see in the script, we didn't request a photograph of The twin Towers. That's come up a few times as it does look weird to have them destory the World Trade Center given what happened afterward. It's a little creepy, and I didn't even think about it until a fan pointed it out during a convention. A few people have brought it up since. I do wish it was a different photo in there.

In hindsight, I also wish I didn't put Julius Schwartz in the book. I thought it would be funny to have a shot of the DC offices so the imps could see their "home" and the fact that they exist in comics but not in real life there. It helped cement the gag. And to have a real person as an in-joke, someone who was involved with the Silver Age comics, as well as Earth prime stories. I believe editor and writer Andy Helfer arranged for Schwartz to be in the photo (Andy took the photograph). I didn't think Schwartz would do it, because Schwartz was a pain in the ass. I didn't not like him, personally, as a fan and as a professional every interaction with him was obnoxious and uncomfortable. And, as it turns out, he was far worse in his behavior with some women in the industry. So, yeah, I wish he wasn't in there, it's cringey to see him. I'll likely discuss him in a separate post one of these days, maybe a video post once I get those up and running. So, I won't get into it in detail here. He accomplished a lot in comics and a lot of people just handwaved and said, "Oh, that's just the way Julie is." because of that work. He was an asshole and he hurt people and shouldn't get a pass because he ushered in the DC Silver Age. Oh, quickly, in regards to the photo session for the comic -- he was an absolute dick and a bit of a bully almost the entire time. I'd already experienced his gruffness and irritability, but this was the only time I had to 'work" with him and he made me a nervous wreck and threatened to quit at one point for no reason other than to push people around and be difficult. But don't worry, that was just how Julie was! Especially when everyone puts up with bullshit from geniuses or their heroes or whatever.

Razza frazza rashin' frashin'...

Anyway. Here's the script. Next time we do this we'll visit the Fifth Dimension. Not the singing group. The actual, very real Fifth Dimension. Where imps come from.

WORLD'S FUNNEST - LAST IMP STANDING

SCRIPT FOR PAGE 29 - EARTH PRIME SEQUENCE

Stephen DeStephano for drop-in art.

JOEY - As we discussed on Monday, because of the possible difficulties with this page, we'll need to nail down how we're going to do it, and IF we're going to do it, asap. I don't want the higher-ups yanking the page and screwing up the script after it's done, leaving with me a hole in the book after the fact. Again, Mark Chiarello seemed to think this page doesn't present a problem as far as production goes, I think our hurdle will be in acquiring the photographs for the backgrounds. See the "Art Notes" below for my thoughts on that.

ART NOTES:

- EARTH PRIME is going to be an amalgam of photographs with dropped in images of Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk, lettering balloons and SFX. We'll be needing five photo images -- the same shot used for panel five will also be used for panel six. (Photographs we'll be needing: One of the sky. Three shots of NYC. One shot from inside a DC office -- if possible, featuring Julie Schwartz.)

- I don't know how the photos themselves will be obtained -- I know there's photo clip-art services as far as the NYC and sky shots go, but I'm unsure how that sort of thing works, what it costs, and more importantly what we're budgeted for. I also have no idea if we'll be able to shoot our own new material, mainly the proposed shot from inside a DC office. So I guess we'll need to sit down with some art-direction people and go over this stuff asap. My assumption is that we'll have to work the page layout out with Stephen after we see what we can do in regards to the photos. I do hope we can work this out as I think it will be a great segment that will really add to the book. Honest.

PANEL ONE

A stacked, page- length panel, featuring a photograph of a gray, cloudy sky for the background, something very moody. BAT-MITE floats near us in the immediate foreground, he's looking straight down off-panel, stunned and dazed at whatever it is he sees below. In the background behind him, a livid MR MXYZPTLK "pops" into the sky, shaking a fist at the transfixed Mite. Mr. Mxyzptlk appears as he did whenever Earth Prime stories were most prevalent, I'm assuming 60's/70's? (FYI, Mxy's last line of dialogue to Bat-Mite on the previous page was: "OH, YEAH? WELL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE -- ?")

1) MXY: -- YOU'RE A DEAD MITE! YOU GOT THAT, SHRIMP?! D-E-D DEAD!!

2 ) MXY: HEY! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?! I'M THREATENING YOU OVER HERE!

3) MXY (slightly smaller): ALL RIGHT, HOMUNCULUS, WHAT'S THE GAG? JUST WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU STARING AT --

SFX (by Mxy) - POP!

PANEL TWO

A bird's eye shot of the small, overwhelmed imps, high up in the air over a big, impressive photo of skyscraper-filled mid-town Manhattan. A nice, forced perpective overhead shot would work best, but we'll obviously have to see what we can get ahold of. Bat-Mite points down as Mxy reacts in horror.

4) MXY (tiny): -- DOWN...

5) MXY: (even tinier) ...THERE...

PANEL THREE

The disturbed imps float down closer into the city, huddled closely together like terrified children as they stare at the skyscrapers around them. Both of them are in the exact same positions, looking in the same direction together as they descend, like scared teenagers

walking down into the basement in a cheap horror film. (If possible, and depending on the photo we get, perhaps we could manipulate the shot so we can see the imps reflected in any office windows in the background?)

SILENT

PANEL FOUR

A photograph shot inside a DC office filled with Superman and Batman memorabilia and props and posters. JULIE SCHWARTZ sits at a desk by a window, he's on the phone or working on something, or both. Outside the nearby window we can see a curious Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite peering into the office, both looking very disturbed and confused. If we can't take new photos, we'll substitue another shot over the city. If Mr. Schwartz isn't interested in appearing, we can substitute someone else or just shoot an empty office. I'd prefer to have Mr. Schwartz as he often seemed to cameo in Earth Prime stories and I think it's a good gag that'll go over well.

SILENT

PANEL FIVE

A shot of the imps over a photograph of Times Square (or some busy nearby area, if we'd need to avoid showing any billboards/marquees/advertisements etc). Both imps look ill and frightened as they survey the scene from the air.

6) BAT-MITE (small): I-I DON'T LIKE THIS PLACE. IT'S WRONG...

7) MXY (small): Y-YEAH --

PANEL SIX

Same exact shot. Bat-Mite is turned completely away from the scene, he nervously covers his eyes with both hands so he can't see anything. .Mxy turns away from the scene as well, he's covering his face with one hand but still nervously peers back through parted fingers. His other hand is held out towards the scene, and he snaps his fingers at the photograph with the demeanor of someone lighting a firecracker they're afraid might go off in their face. His fingers have a little "snap" burst around them, as his magic causes the background photograph to warp or break up or fade away. We can look into using some computer trickery to manipulate and "break up" the Earth Prime shot in an interesting manner.

8) MXY: -- LET'S JUST PRETEND WE NEVER SAW ANY OF THIS...

9) BAT-MITE: O-OKAY...GOOD IDEA --

SFX (Mxy's fingers) - SNAP

SFX - POOF!!

And so goes Earth Prime. Our two little imps next get involved in an argument which leads to Mr. Mxyzptlk destroying the Fifth Dimension, insuring that he cannot say his name backwards and be sent home, as there is no longer any home to return to.

Previous WORLD'S FUNNEST retrospective posts can be found here. Hopefully the links work. Search "WF retrospective" if I goofed.

- The original pitch for World's Funnest (aka, Last Imp Standing) is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-64684036

- Brian Bolland's cover with original, alternate colors can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-65353388

- The Silver Age era script (pgs 1-18), w/Dave Gibbon's inks: https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-1-65064249

- The Phantom Zone sequence (pg 19) w/Mike Allred's inks: https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-66166610

- The Golden Age Introduction part 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-66906681

- The Golden Age Introduction part 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-2-67170515

- The Golden Age era (pgs 20-21), w/Sheldon Moldoff's inks: https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-67320529

- Earth 3 (pg 22) w/pencils by Stuart Immonen and inks by Joe Giella:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-3-67916213

- Earth X/Freedom Fighters/Quality Comics (pg 23-24) art by Frank Cho

https://www.patreon.com/posts/worlds-funnest-x-69815979