Today I get the opportunity to ask Erik Sternberger 20 Questions. I met Erik at a local IXDA "chat'n'pancakes" where we got into some really interesting conversations about storytelling, as you do. Erik is clever and fun to chat with, but that is just about all I know of him. So, this 20 Questions interview is pretty much an excuse for me to get to know Erik better and potentially make a new friend (honestly, that is what everyone of the 20 Questions interviews are). So, without further ado... let's get into the questions.
(Editor’s note: wow… this panini press we are in right now is something else. The interview took a full 10 months to complete. It was hard for me to get focused and actually pay the attention necessary to complete a full interview. The slowness of this interview [and 3 other interviews] is wholly and completely due to me. Mental health is real, yo.)
As most of you know, my first career was as a cartographer, so place and geography tell stories to me. So, I was born outside of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was moved to Montgomery, Alabama on my 3rd birthday, the family moved to Birmingham, AL the following year where I grew up. I left Alabama for Ohio for college in Northeast Ohio. Moved to Columbus, Ohio for grad school and grew some roots here with a family. I have been in Columbus, ever since. Question 1: What is your geographic story?
My geographic story is a lot shorter than yours, but I can tell it long. I was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a place described as "great to be from", and went to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. I then took an internship in NYC at DC Comics where I lived in Brooklyn. I came back to finish my last semester of school before moving back to NYC, when the Internet Bubble burst, so I ended up not having anything to go to in NYC anymore and was asked to stay working for Purdue, which I did for.a bit, then I got a job offer from back in my hometown of all places, so I went back to Fort Wayne for six years. When I was desperate to get out of town (again) I had a recruiter reach out asking if I'd want to move to Columbus, Ohio (Technically, geographically Westerville.), a city that was never on my radar, but I've called home for 12.5 years now.
I think you sell yourself short on the geographic story piece.
Question 2: If you could live anywhere, where would you choose?
That's tough. There have been a few places I would want to live, and more I would never want to live. I won't name those for the sake of the people that have to live in them. ;) With "Work From Home" being more and more of an obvious perk in the future for employers, I would love to get like 30 acres of land in Colorado, near enough to a city where I can still get goof Thai food, and just live where I can see wild animals on my property. I'm still trying to talk my wife into it, but she's pushing for a coast and wants to avoid snow. As long as it's not Florida, she might win. Oops. I violated that part where I said I wasn't going to list the places I won't live.
I miss the mountains. I want to see mountains so badly now. I love me some Colorado.
So here we are at my typical question 3...
Question 3: Cake or pie? which specific kind and why?
I agree, I'm more of a mountains fan, than of the beach. I do however like a dramatic coastline. Give me Big Sur, or Maine over the beach any day. That's probably why I prefer the OBX if we are going to a beach.
My favorite cake is donuts. My favorite pies are rhubarb and grape because my grandmothers made the best rhubarb and grape pies. Those very specific pies are my favorites. I'm generally more of a fan of any dessert that incorporates fruit over something with chocolate.
Where mountains meet the sea is amazing. I am all about a fjordic landscape.
Donuts are a class unto themselves. They are above the cake v pie debate. There is no reason to compare any dessert with donut, because the toroidal bit of heaven will always win. The rhubarb and grape pie sounds pretty amazing. I didn't really know what rhubarb was for the longest time... my loss.
Question 4: Is there a food that you cannot help but eat if it is around? For example, there is always room for street tacos.
The aforementioned donuts, or any pizza that doesn't have mushrooms on it.
I have had to be gluten free for a while now and there are 3 things I miss from my days of gluten. The first and foremost is donuts. I miss them so much. GF donuts suck, and anyone trying to tell you differently is a liar and a cheat. Pizza crust that has just a little bit of chew to it. GF pizza crusst are typically dry and crackerlike or they are not like pizza crusts. Cauliflower crusts are fine, but don't let anyone tell you they are "just as good." Those people drank bleach at some point in their childhood and don't deserve to remember good pizza crusts. The third is good bread. GF bread is sand that is being held together by some glue. It sucks. Ok, enough, "woe is me, for I cannot have the glutens."
Question 5: Do you remember what the first comic you ever read is?
One was a World's Finest where Superman and Batman were fighting a ...cult(?) of some kind and there was a Cloud Thing in a crystal ball that could control minds. A de-powered Superman convinced Batman that the thing was Joe Chill (the mugger that killed his parents) and he hit it with a Batarang, breaking the globe and dissipating the smokey cloud thing. Pretty generic. The other was DC Comics Presents 47 where Superman and HeMan crossover. The third was Superman 377, and the fourth was Detective Comics 519. I was a real DC kid until maybe 5th grade.
I started out Marvel and only came to DC through popular culture and some graphic novels. I remember having subscriptions to Marvel books though. They would come wrapped in this weird brown paper sleeve. I used to check the mail everyday for the books I was subscribed to.
Question 6: There are many people out there who feel that the DC movies have just missed the mark, do you agree with that and why?
I had several Marvel subscriptions as well. They came polybagged with a cardboard 'backer' when I subscribed. Each backer had my address on one side and a line-drawing of a character on the other. I colored them all with markers to try my hand at being a colorist and pined them all up on my wall. Man, I hadn't thought of that in a while.
I have many opinions on the DC movies, but also know some of the people involved, so there are some things I can't really speak on... BUT, I will say I think there has been a lot of issues when it comes to cohesiveness mixed with patience. Everyone in Hollywood wants to pattern their shared Universes after Marvel, but forget that Marvel originally just wanted to make Iron Man and not go broke. They worked in some easter eggs, but they didn't have all the Avengers cast before Iron Man came out. The irony, of course, is that because DC tried to run before they could walk they ended up having to delay so many projects that if they had just planned out a slower, more measured approach, they could be launching Justice League now in 2021 and ride Marvel's wave that just crested with a Hopeful message as America moves out a very dark period. Right now The Justice League would be perfectly positioned to tell a storyline about truth, coming together, and how a group is stronger than individuals.
In many ways the DC superheroes that continue getting movies made about them are the superhero archetypes. I think it would be interesting if DC decided to not create a connected universe as much as embrace the iconicness of the characters and stories and disconnected everything. Each movie or set of movies should be self-sustained and stand on their own. Then no one actor is shackled with a long-term contract for a single character. The movies could play with some of the Elseworld concepts. Who wouldn't love to see a Gotham by Gaslight movie?
Question 7: Since you are a writer... What book would you punch a baby to write for?
That's a tough one. I love the 'lesser' characters because you can do so much with them. Look at some of the greatest superhero runs in comics, so many are on "2nd Tier" characters like Daredevil, Flash, and Green Lantern. (and yes, Captain America slipped to that pre-Avengers Movie as well) You're actually allowed to play with them. There is only so much you can do with Bruce Wayne to change him, which is why there are, I think 6 Robins at this point?
I'm going to say Fantastic Four. I wrote a spec script on how I'd do a F4 Movie just because I had to get the idea out of my head and I could do something like that with the comic. It was never my favorite comic, but I'd love to write something where one arc would be world breaking, see the face of God stuff, and the next arc is that Johnny accidentally shrunk the kids while having a subplot of an underground Fight Club for Monsters running through them both. The Family will always be who they are over the long-arc of a series, but they leave you a big canvas to paint on.
There are 6 Robins, aren't there. it is amazing how the robins continue to age up, but Batman stays a consistent 42.
I have always felt that the Fantastic Four should be told as a 60's period piece, but I don't think "Phase 4" of the MCU is going to go period piece with them (especially since they just mentioned that SWORD is no longer doing manned space flights because of issues with the astronauts. (from WandaVison without spoilers). My theory is that the FF are from a sword mission gone awry, but that is for another time.)
I know you are a writer, and one of the things necessary to being a writer is that writers need to be reading things. Question 8: Are you reading anything right now that you would recommend? That you wouldn't? What are you reading?
A 60s FF would be great. i'd personally love an Agents of Atlas series set in the 1950s. It's a deep cut, but you should check out the series from Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk they did using that team.
Which, I guess is a good segue to books. I'll try not to talk to long on this. I read 39 books and listened to 11 audiobooks in 2020, so I could go on... (I've finished 3 so far in 2021).
The second book in the new Star Wars High Republic series is actually being delivered today. I decided when Disney rebooted The Canon when they took over the franchise I would start reading those books from the jump. They have mostly been great. I've discovered some wonderful new authors, who also tend to have great Twitter accounts. I also just ordered George Saunders' new book where he guides the reader through Russian short stories and finished Mike Monterio's collected essays "The Collected Angers" on Sunday. I try to rotate random books as to not get stuck in favorite genres like Sci-Fi. So, maybe every 3rd or 4th book is Sci-Fi...and at the rate Star Wars books are coming out, half of them fall in that category. I love to mix in autobiographies of comedians and am sad that I don't think I have anymore Elmore Leonard books to read. The book I recommend to people all the time is "The Spaceman of Bohemia" which you should read before the newly announced movie is made. (Staring Adam Sandler and a Director of Breaking Bad and Chernobyl. Which, honestly amazingly fits.) The book I would never recommend is "Armada" by Ernest Cline. I liked Ready Player One when it first came out and I read it at the beach, so I tried reading this one at the lake and dropped it off as a donation on my way back into town. It's so god awful it made me go back and look at RP1 with a non-nostalgic eye and now I don't care for it, either. Max Berry's "Company" is a really fun book as well if you want a hyper-surreal satirical version of The Office.
I need to be reading more. Lately I have only been reading books by people I "know." People I have either met in real life or people that I know online. I really need to branch out a bit and look for other authors.
Question 9: Are you specifically writing anything at the moment? Do you typically have multiple projects going concurrently or are you a one project at a time guy?
At the moment, I am (attempting to work up the gumption to) start the second draft of a screenplay I have been working on for a while. I spent six months researching material for it and almost a year writing it, mostly because it really accidentally mirrored real life too much and freaked me out. I based on the research of how some Social Media Monitors suffer PTSD and/or can become radicalized by all the stuff they see Clockwork Orange Style. I write from an outline, and my outline literally has someone attempting to kill a US Congresswoman thinking she is part of a conspiracy after being egged on/inspired by an Alt-Right talk-show host. So, kind of half-predicting the whole QAnon thing and then seeing it happen parallel to what I was writing, just like one beat behind me was really, really weird. I am usually writing one script, researching, or making notes outlining my next one when I don't have time to sit and write, and then in-between drafts of the new script I am working on making updates, revisions, and smaller draft re-writes of other scripts. I have a whiteboard behind my desk where I track all of these things, and what state each project is in.
I should get a whiteboard...
Question 10: Fill in the blanks. I find that I am mostly _____. Others feel that I am mostly _____.
I find that I am mostly listening. Others feel that I am mostly not paying attention. I get called out for this all the time. As a trained improviser, I'm very good at active listening and being able to do one thing and take in information from a second source at the same time. This has led to people thinking I'm not paying attention, or that I am bored and not engaged. But, I am. I swear! Usually I'm asked "well, what did I just say then?" and I repeat it. :)
I always had to be drawing and sketching while listening. My teachers and bosses hated it, but it was a way to get my brain box to work better.
Deceptively simple question... Question 11: Are you happy? (overall, would you say that you are more happy than you are not?)
I would say that I am more happy than I have not. I have been knocked down a few times by life and I've always managed to be able to get up. I don't surround myself with a lot of people, but I know the ones I have around me have my back. I'm certainly able to look around my life and think "oh. this could be 10% better", or whatever, but on the whole, when I lay down in bed with my wife and anywhere from 1-3 dogs, I sleep very well.*
*As long as I don't eat or drink alcohol too soon before bed. I am over 40 now.
It is amazing how simple "happy" can be. I really enjoy my "second sleep" on the weekends where my doggos wake me up around 7:30 in the morning so that they can sleep on my legs as I sleep on the couch. Super simple, and yet amazingly delightful.
Question 12: going back to the topic of Donuts... what is your dream dozen donuts? mix and match from various doughnut vendors.
oh wow. This might be the hardest question, yet. I'm much more of a cake donut fan, but a super warm Krispy Kreme, or a maple-glazed and filled long john is also great. Duck Donuts is great, and I was happy when they came here, and I like some of the simpler ones like lemon blueberry. I will say that when the boutique donut scene exploded I loved all the crazy donut combinations, but now I just mostly like a simple donut. With two exceptions. Mini-Cake donuts that are (let's be honest) tiny cakes are great, and anytime I am in Austin I make sure to hit Voodoo Donuts because they are amazing.
So, 1 Krispy Kreme, 2 from Duck, 3 from Voodoo, a blueberry cake, a maple glazed long-john, 2 mini-donuts from like Dragon Donuts, and two of my mom's beignets
I am pretty sure my son wants to know more about your mom's beignets. He truly loves beignets. He's made some from scratch before, but would love to get a family recipe at some point. (seriously, we might talk later about this).
This is a weird build up and an odd question, so please bear with me... Story telling started as tales/songs/poems around a fire, became ritual cave paintings, became written stories to be shared by the elite who could read, were shown to people in theatres, were democratized as the hoi polloi learned to read, showed up in the local cinema, were played on the radio, moved over to TV, started being told via interactive games, became more democratized again with the advent of online uploadable platforms.... Question 14: where do you see the next frontier for story-telling to be? Is there an emergent platform that is ready to start telling stories (understanding that every single mode mentioned previously, is still available and vital... we aren't replacing methods, we are adding to)?
I can ask her for them. They were iced, so they were somewhere between a cross of a beignet and a long-john. They always made a huge mess in the kitchen.
I actually had an instant answer to your story-telling question. I think it's going to be something we chase. I think that the channels and ways we take in stories are fragmenting so much, that 'brands' are going to need to push their product in as many ways as possible. (Am I being cynical, maybe, but follow me.) Disney broke ground with this with the MCU. 10 years of movies that all tie together to a climax, then spin out into tv shows, then back to movies. It is now about to be perfected by them and Lucasfilm with the new Star Wars: The High Republic content. Basically, Disney pulled together six (I think) authors and they brainstormed for months (years?) to create a new era of Star Wars to tell stories in. They even hinted at it in an audio play that came out before the announcement. Then they announced 1) A series of novels 2) A series of YA novels 3) A series of Early Reader books, 4) 2 comic book series, and as hype and popularity grew eventually, 5) a cartoon, and 6) a radio play. The stories are all intertwined. The whole first wave of products tied into the same inciting incident and the huge cast of characters is passed between all mediums. So, the lead character from the novel I really liked might not even be in the next novel, but instead in the radio play with something affecting their motivations due to a plot point in the comic. And, who knows they could even die in a mobile game in the future.
All that to say, the future of storytelling is non-linear and something that will use all possible mediums to tell a complete story. It will start with brands like the MCU and Star Wars, but as those who consume storytelling grow to expect it, it will be something open to all storytellers. The trick will be to see this as an opportunity. Like, why not hire a cosplayer to portray a character in your story and have them put out tiktoks as a diary? Let's get creative!
Number 1: I will definitely ask you for the recipe, and My son, while enjoying baking, it is one of the messiest kitchen people I have ever known to exist.
Number 2: You may want to patent the actor cosplaying TikTok diary thing, because I think you hit the nail on the head. I see what you are saying about storytelling becoming more of a non-linear multi-channel process.
So far Disney has been good stewards of the Marvel Properties, and somewhat okay stewards of the Star Wars universe. I know that it is useless to discuss if the acquisition of IP's is a good thing or a bad thing, because it is a thing that has already happened. Question 15: How do you think the consolidation of IP's under one massive umbrella will eventually affect the story-telling potential of those properties?
I wish I had a property for the TikTok Diary, but that was off of the top of my head. The day job is consulting for a digital marketing company, and I try to push weird stuff like that all of the time. If someone ever buys one of my scripts, I will be a machine for them doing promo. haha
That's an interesting angle to the question. The interesting thing I am finding is that the more confident the IP, the more they are using it to tell different stories. Like, Marvel keeps altering their characters to try and be closer to the MCU versions to attract fans to the comics, but that hasn't really worked for 20 years. And then they have to figure out how Nick Fury had an illegitimate Black son, then have him lose the same eye because everyone loves Sam Jackson in the role. (Based on the Ultimate Universe Nick Fury) which makes it confusing for fans of the books for 20 years that love, say Tony Stark as Iron Man, not just a suit. It's such a weird cycle because Marvel has made great comics to inspire movies and we shouldn't have to tell the exact same stories.
Now, Star Wars is doing some really interesting things, imo. They are using the books to create a hugely diverse universe of new characters around the movies and are not trying to be something for all people, but thoughtfully tie-in. Hell, the books around Episode 9 were SO much richer than the movie, and fix multiple things that are wrong with it. The books and comics with Star Wars do such a great job of saying "Hey, this is a big universe, and not everyone is a straight human." Whereas Episode 9 took such a cowardly way out of "two women kissing back in the background of a celebration scene" so it can be edited out for the Chinese box office and not cause some Tucker Carlson rant on "wokeness". . The books have so many same-sex, pan-sexual, asexual, etc characters which makes sense in a universe where humanoids whose genitals line up across hundreds of species line up close enough. Donald Glover's performance as Lando implies fluidity, the books cement it. Rebels shows an interspecies romance at its core. So, I think the story-telling potential of these IPs filters up from the formats where artists can tell their stories in ways that might be considered 'risks' the more mainstream the medium gets because no one cares about 'four-quadrant appeal' for a novel.
I have not jumped into any of the newer non-live action Star Wars things (aside from the Bad Batch), or even looked at "The High Republic" content. I have a difficult time with how much things do not change in the SW universe. If you look at Old Republic tech, it is the same as High Republic tech, which is remarkably similar to Clone Wars tech, which reminds me of Rebellion Era tech, that is the exact same as New Republic era tech. Question 16: Are the technical achievements in the Star Wars universe just completely stagnated, and how would you explain that away from a storytelling perspective?
Ha. That's an interesting question. One of my absolute favorite things is watching sci-fi movies from the 70s and 80s and seeing what they thought the future would be like. Aliens is my absolute favorite. It is just a bunch of white dudes sitting in a smoke-filled room with crt computer monitors looking over dot-matrix printouts. The collars on their 80's suits were slightly different, and they had interstellar space travel, but no one thought of iPads. I think when it comes to Star Wars, or any other imaginary universe we all fall into the same patterns. "This is the way we have always done it." I think that's why once you build one giant laser-firing space station you end up building three. I think we are about to see some issues with that right now with employers wanting to "get back to normal" instead of embracing some of the new things workers proved were possible. Look, we're never going to push the boundaries of getting some cool home teleconferencing holographic video if we're all jammed in open-concept office's shoulder to shoulder on long workbench-like desks.
What is weird about my current work culture is that even when people were in the same building (even in the “before times”), they were remotely attending meetings from their desks because there were not enough team spaces to collaboratively work together. So… the powers that be are forcing the workforce to return to the office so they can meet remotely in the same space.
I’m thinking this is the return to office plan, there will be many people who will look elsewhere for employment.
Question 17: if you could have anyone alive or dead over for dinner, what would you serve for dinner?
I don't know what it would be specifically, but I would make it all vegetarian just to prove that meat isn't needed for every meal. I am, by no means, a militant pescatarian, but I think a lot of people eat heavy on the meat due to not knowing how to cook anything else. I have long called bacon a "culinary lens flare" as it is often used to cover up the flaws of subpar dishes as opposed to adding to them thoughtfully.
I find that cheese has consistently been used more as a cover up for weak culinary capability than bacon. That being said, in the early 00's there was a resurgence of bacon on everything. I have been trying to do at least one day a week sans meat, but it hasn't been going as great as I would like.
Okay, it is time to flip the script. Question 18: Do you have any questions for me?
One question for you. What would be the hardest non-essential thing for you to ever give up. (I won't include pets or anything, since I can consider them essential for mental health.)
The hardest non-essential thing to fit be to give up would be drawing. It is an activity I need to do more but not being able to do it at all would be devastating.
Here we are at the penultimate question. Question 19: what are you taking from these 20 questions that you did not bring in with you?
An increased level of friendship.
I can definitely live with that. When all this blows over, let's grab a bite to eat/drink and toast to the making through this weird AF time.
Question 20: What's next? Be as concrete or metaphorical, as long term or short term, and vague or precise as you want!
Definitely down for a toast, be it with a drink, or actual toast. My current client is OHLQ, so I am looking at drink recipes almost every day.
Next? Hm... I think "next" is actually future planning. I think that there is so much in flux with work and what that will look like in 2022. I love working from home (having been a freelancer prior, I'm used to it) and also love my job and I'm looking forward to how those continue to merge. In preparation for that, we just bought land up in Michigan. We now have land that is nestled between Lake Michigan and a state forest with multiple kayak launches. So, "next" is just proper planning and putting out steps together to build out there and eventually go live in nature and work remotely for good.
Come to think of it, maybe "next" should actually be learning how to grow more things in my garden other than grapes and hot peppers…
Perfect! I envy those of you who can have gardens of food that will not be eaten by a wild roving pack of deer.
Thanks so much for doing these 20 Questions with me. They were absolutely great. Now we just have to figure out when to share a drink or cheesecake.
Erik is an amazing guy. He is a great writer… and a better guy. Check him out on the twitters (@zapthunder), on his website (ErikSternberger.com), and on the Instagrams (@erik.sternberger). Give him a follow and enjoy. You are welcome, Internet.
To recap:
This interview took some time
What’s happened since my last post
I have a heel spur that has aggravated my Achilles, so my leg is in a boot
I hate the boot, I have, on suggestion of my delightful daughter, named the boot “Nelson”
“Nelson” sucks
I have 2 other interviews in the can
So, get ready for some posts from me again
Woooo, I am back on the horse, Bay-Bay
I am super out of practice on the whole blogging thing
See you suckers next week
You aren’t suckers
I love you dearly
Have a great week
It has been too long