Match to Flame 244

 My other strip Crankshaft had been under option by various and disparate Hollywood entities for quite a long time. They ranged from the Disney Corporation (twice) to the Weintraub Entertainment Group to movie producer and author Richard Crystal to actor George Kennedy. Kennedy even went so far as to be made up for the role by a Hollywood makeup artist, and the result was jaw-droppingly cool. For a long time as well, I’d had this backstairs idea about Les’s book Lisa’s Story being picked up by Hollywood to be made into a TV show or movie, and Les having to go to Los Angeles to write the script and watch a pilot being filmed. Chuck and I were at Luigi’s (Montoni’s) at one point going over scripts when he looked up and said: “You really don’t care about any movies. You just want to go out there and watch how they’re made as research for your story.” Bingo! My interest didn’t lie with deal points, setup bonuses, episode fees, or onscreen credit (well, maybe a little bit a lotta bit on that last one there). I just wanted someone to exercise their option on Crankshaft so I could go to Hollywood and observe a movie being made for my “Les in Hollywood” story. However, as Hollywood is wont to do, after we dated on and off for a while, she broke my heart. And how do you mend a broken heart? Why, you just go ahead and write the story anyway, and boy, Bette Davis, did I ever do that. This thread held way more for me than I had originally imagined. It starts slowly with Les going to Hollywood to watch Lisa’s Story being made, and where he meets the actor who is going to play him in the movie, Mason Jarr (ta-da—the right moment). The story eventually sprawls like a Los Angeles suburb leading to Les, Cayla, Pete, Darin, a couple of characters from Crankshaft, Westview High’s most popular girl Cindy Summers, and even the high school computer from those bygone days all decamping to the West Coast for a slew of Hollywood-related stories. It encompasses some of my favorite stories ever, from a desperate actress climbing the famous Hollywood Sign in Griffith Park to a visit to the cave in that same park that was the was the entrance to the underground city of Murania in the movie serial The Phantom Empire. You just never know where a thread is going to take you.

From The Complete Funky Wikerbean Volume 15