9 10 196 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marion Reid Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jerry Macchia OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=MacchiaJerry_ReidMarion_1992-05-13.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Macchia, Jerry. Interview, May 13, 1992. SC060-01 00:56:55 SC060 Green Tiger Press collection CSUSM csusm Green Tiger Press Simon and Schuster (Inc.) San Marcos (Calif.) San Diego (Calif.) California State University San Marcos California State University San Marcos. Foundation California State University San Marcos. University Library Jerry Macchia Marion Reid .wav MacchiaJerry_ReidMarion_1992-05-13.wav 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/3a1e78779fdcbc6ca72de2300690f56c.wav Other audio English Interview conducted May 12, 1992 by CSUSM Library Dean Marion Reid with Green Tiger Press owner/publisher Jerry Macchia. In his interview, Macchia speaks to his experience in taking over Green Tiger Press in 1986 ; his work before taking over Green Tiger Press with a forklift company in Michigan ; shifting from a printing house to a publisher model ; the Press's original owners, Harold and Sandra Darling and Harold Leigh ; and the general history of the Press, its logo and name, and business operations. Macchia delves into the sale of Green Tiger Press to Simon &amp ; Schuster in detail, and discusses his involvement in leasing the San Marcos, California former Green Tiger building to California State University San Marcos, where the university's Foundation operations were housed, as well as overflow shelving for the library. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:00.685 --> 00:00:06.504 Publishing because you've done a lot of other things. Can you tell me how this came about? 00:00:06.504 --> 00:00:37.384 Well, very easily, I think Marion, um, I had been involved in heavy industry for all my life and worked for a large corporation back in the Midwest. And, in 1977, at that time I was a corporate vice president traveling the entire world for Clark Equipment Corporation. 00:00:37.384 --> 00:00:38.000 These are forklifts? 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:39.000 Forklifts. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:40.000 The forklift manufacturer? 00:00:40.000 --> 00:01:40.075 Yes, that's, that's correct. And, the dealership or the franchise, whichever you choose to call it for the forklift division, became available in San Diego. And having worked for a large corporation for twenty-some years, you kind of become immune to a lot of things, and I was at that stage where I was ready to blossom into something, do something I--because I was at the stage in my life where I felt I could go to a management meeting and stand in the corner on my head for two hours and nobody would know if I was there or not. So the dealership became available and I've always had somewhat of an entrepreneurial feeling. And I thought, well, this is an opportunity for me to do what I really wanted to do. So I went over and talked to the vice president of marketing, who was a good friend of mine, and he said, "If you want it, it's yours." I was on an airplane in a week and I bought the franchise in San Diego. 00:01:40.075 --> 00:01:41.495 So you came here from Michigan? 00:01:41.495 --> 00:02:36.224 I came here from Michigan, uh, took over the franchise in 1977 with a forklift division. Unfortunately six months after that, I was stricken with a spinal cord disease that was certainly unknown to me and unknown to anyone else. It was just something that just came out of the blue and apparently was there from birth and something triggered it. I woke up paralyzed one day, and I'd had this company for six months. And anyway, to make a long story short, because I don't wanna bore you with all that, I kept that company for four or five years and then the doctors decided it was best for me to retire and try to get my body back together because they said, "You're never gonna walk again," and all these kind of crazy things. 00:02:36.224 --> 00:03:48.675 So I sold the company. And I retired for two years and became bored to death, and planted tomatoes and rose bushes and, you know, swam every day and just tried to keep myself physically able to move and decided it was time to go back to work. And having been on both sides of the fence, having worked for someone and then having worked for myself, I decided the only thing for me was to work for myself, which meant I had to find a company. And I went to a cocktail party one Sunday afternoon, ran into a banker friend, and he said, I do happen to know of a company that's for sale. And unbeknownst to me, it wasn't for sale, it was about to go down the tube &lt ; laugh&gt ; , but I found that out very soon. But anyway, that's how I bought the Green Tiger. It, uh, it was told to me by a friend. I went there the next week. I had several meetings with the former owners and we came up with an arrangement that was compatible to both of us. And that's how I acquired the Green Tiger Press. 00:03:48.675 --> 00:03:55.014 So you and your family worked with this new business. How did you learn publishing? 00:03:55.014 --> 00:04:59.475 I never did learn it, and I'm not sure I know it today, to be honest about it. Uh, perhaps I'm a little unique in my thoughts about business. Most people feel that when you're in business, you're in a specialty, whatever that business is. If you're selling yogurt, you gotta be a specialty in yogurt. If you're selling, you know, JCPenney shoes, you gotta be a specialty in shoes or whatever. I don't happen to feel that way. I feel that the basics of business are the basics of business and they apply to all businesses. And therefore, I feel that you can run a forklift dealership or you can run a publishing company if you know the basics of running a business. And that's my philosophy, and that's what I did. I said, "I don't need to know the publishing business. I need to have people that know the publishing business." I need to know how to run the business. They need to know how to publish something and make it sell. And so that's the philosophy that I carried into the publishing company. 00:04:59.475 --> 00:05:10.005 Well, this seems to have worked well because between 1986 and 1990, you very much turned the company around. 00:05:10.005 --> 00:05:10.016 Yeah. 00:05:10.016 --> 00:05:16.485 And, and I don't know more than doubled the profits or the earnings. 00:05:16.485 --> 00:05:25.785 We did that. We did both. We doubled the sales and we doubled the earnings. We took the company out completely out of debt. And so it did work well. Very well-- 00:05:25.785 --> 00:05:32.932 But what kinds of things did you do that caused it to change it--well, first of all, did you keep the same people? 00:05:32.932 --> 00:08:14.000 There were a lot of--there were a lot of pluses at the Green Tiger when I bought it that I will not take credit for. That were there. But they were laying dormant. They were just laying there and nobody was doing anything with them. For example, the product line was wonderful. The name had already been established, which was also wonderful because the name was, was well known all over the world and a good name. It had carved a certain niche in the marketplace that was there, and they had good people, but they were not utilizing them. So all I really did was took advantage of what was--what was there. I did not create anything. I didn't do anything. I just said to myself, it's all right there. So all you've gotta do is use it. And, the other thing that was very important, and probably attributes a great deal to the sales activity, to the marketing, to the increase in sales was in the publishing business, at least in that one--and in most--you use independent sales reps. You, never have your own sales force unless you're a huge, huge corporation like Simon Houston. Most small publishing houses do it through independent representatives. And that's what we did. The Green Tiger had maybe sixty or sixty-five (sales reps) at the time that I acquired the company. The problem was that the sales reps were not really sales reps because they were not representing the line. 'cause they were not being paid commissions. When they did sell something, they never got paid for it. So as a result, they were a sales rep in name only. So one of the very first things I recognized, because if I have a somewhat of a marketing background, I recognize the first thing you gotta do is get somebody out to sell your product. It can be the best product in the world, but if you have no one to sell it, it's not gonna go any place. So we had a--we called all the sales reps to San Diego. We had a special sales meeting, and as they came in, we presented them with a back commission check. So they were all paid right up to that moment. They were paid for all the products that they had sold that they never got paid for. That tended, of course, to-- 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:15.845 Get their attention-- 00:08:15.845 --> 00:10:01.000 --boost their confidence in the future. We showed them what our plans were for the future. We showed them some new products that we had developed that they became very excited about. And as a result of that, we got, uh, I guess what you could say, as much attention as you can get from an independent rep, because they usually represent 30 or 35 companies. So we got their attention, I think, that way. And then what we did is, we decided that we really needed to double the sales force. So we ended up with a 160 sales reps rather than--well, we did better than double because we only had sixty-some--we ended up, when I sold the company to Simon & Schuster, we had over 160 and we went international, in addition to that. We went into England, we went into Australia, we went into Japan. We were about to go into Mexico, but we didn't. But we would have if we hadn't sold. So we did go international to some degree, and we would've gone further inter international because there was there was a lot of opportunity there. So that pretty much tells the story of doubling the, you know, the sales volume. We took advantage of the expertise that was there of some of the people, the editorial people, the--some of the marketing people were very good. We had telemarketing people that were good, but they were not being utilized. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:22.294 And we literally, from that point, cleaned house. And then we got rid of all the people, all the things that we didn't need, and that were really just kind of consuming, if that's a good word, they were consuming a lot of the good things, and they were really draining profits, draining resources with no results. 00:10:22.294 --> 00:10:25.575 Would doing the actual printing be one of those? 00:10:25.575 --> 00:10:46.995 Well, doing printing was certainly one of 'em and that's one of the very first things I got rid of. Was we got rid of the printing press, we got rid of the printers. We jobbed all of that out. We became, in the true essence, we became a publisher rather than a printing house. Which made a tremendous, tremendous difference in overhead. 00:10:46.995 --> 00:10:53.000 I read in one of the articles that you had people vote on--in order to select the manuscript. 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:54.000 Yes. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:55.664 Who voted? 00:10:55.664 --> 00:14:30.000 Well, that's a very unique situation also. And we were not the typical public publishing house because most publishers have an editorial staff and they have editors just like a newspaper. We did not, we had an editorial committee which was made up of employees. And that committee rotated, and we would've committees, we would've people serving on that committee's from accounting, for example. We would have people on that committee that could have been from the warehouse, that could have worked in the, let's say in the customer service group, could have worked in marketing, could have worked almost any place in the business. And we would put them on the editorial staff. And that was made up of as many as seven or eight people at a time. And I chairmanned that particular committee, myself, and my wife sat on that committee. Uh, my son sat on it, and we used to receive--and this, uh, this is somewhat of an astounding number, and I still have trouble with it--but we used to get in the mail unsolicited over two thousand manuscripts a year. Now that's a l--that, you know, that would fill this room very easily. From floor to ceiling, and from wall to wall. And we of course could not read all of them. And we would read--we would scan/read as much as we possibly could. And the ones that we knew were not Green Tiger at all, because we had a certain image, we ha a certain niche, we knew what we were looking for all the time. And so probably 90% of them either went back to the person that submitted it or they just got thrown away. Uh, if someone sends something to you and requested to come back and they send you the postage, then you're obligated to send it back to them. If they just send it to you and say, please read my manuscript. if you're interested, let me know. Those we would just throw away. So what we would do is, as we had time, as people had time, as the employees had time that were on this committee, they would take manuscripts and they would read and they would just do that &lt ; inaudible&gt ; . They would throw 'em this way or throw 'em this way or throw 'em away or send them back. Or they would put 'em in a save pile. The save pile was then, you know, given to others on the committee. "I think this has got merit. Read it." So every night people would go home with stacks of manuscripts, and then we would have editorial meetings, and each person would say, "I think this has merit." And we'd end up with certain group, then we would all take those and read them, and then we would narrow those down. Then we'd get down to maybe fifteen or twenty, because we couldn't afford to publish any more than that in a year because publishing a book is very expensive. So we would then get down to a point where we would actually have to vote. And we did a secret ballot vote so that no one would influence the other party. And then after the vote was taken, we would publish it (the vote) and say, "Okay, we've got seven that wants this book. We've got three that says no, we got two that says yes, we got one that says doesn't care." You know? 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:31.225 Yeah. 00:14:31.225 --> 00:15:03.695 Those kind of things. Then we would get into a discussion stage about a particular book, and some would get scrapped and some would get maybe boosted up. And that's the way we selected what we were gonna print. And if it got to where it had to be a tiebreaker, I would usually be the tiebreaker. And we got to where we would publish twenty books a year in that fashion. And we did the same with note cards and calendars. 00:15:03.695 --> 00:15:11.825 So the manus--did the manuscripts include the calendars and the note cards or that was additional? Did you get the same kind of over the transom-- 00:15:11.825 --> 00:16:44.924 Well, we did get quite a few note card-things over the transom. We didn't get too many calendars. We pretty much did that ourselves. We knew what we wanted to do. Uh, note cards, we used to get a tremendous amount of the actual images. We didn't get the verses. We'd get the images, "can you use these images in your note card line?" We'd get a lot of that. And we used them. We used quite a few, but we, we did something that probably no other publisher's ever done and probably never will do. We figured that we could get, you know, more bang for the buck, so to speak, if you take images from the books that you've already published, and if the book is successful, you can use that same film and you can use the same image and it's all you have to do is put a verse with it and you've got an note card. So we--We just kind of thought we were a little smarter, I guess. Maybe we weren't, but we thought we were smart to do that because it saved us, and we--not only did it save us, but we were able to keep our card line fresh in that manner because we already had the images and then it's all we had to do was for someone sit down and very cleverly write a little verse to go with that. Or as you probably know, we published a lot of cards that were blank. And people could write their own image. They were all message, I should say. 00:16:44.924 --> 00:16:53.075 What can you tell me about the original publishers, the original owners of Green Tiger? I assume you, you met with them. 00:16:53.075 --> 00:16:54.830 Oh yeah. 00:16:54.830 --> 00:16:56.585 And there were three. 00:16:56.585 --> 00:17:04.733 There were three. What's that? &lt ; inaudible&gt ; then there were three, then there were two &lt ; laugh&gt ; . Anyway, there were three. Uh-- 00:17:04.733 --> 00:17:06.394 And Harold and Sandra Darling-- 00:17:06.394 --> 00:17:55.018 Harold and Sandra Darling were the, were the driving force of the editorial and the creative. And she still is in the publishing field and she's very successful. And so is he. And they now have a company called the Blue Lantern Studio. It's in San Diego. She is the author and the artist of the Carl series, the "Good Dog, Carl" series. I don't know if you know that book. Well, they did a whole series of Carl books now, She's done three or four of that book. We did the first one. And-- 00:17:55.018 --> 00:17:57.194 That's where I know it &lt ; inaudible&gt ; on the lift. 00:17:57.194 --> 00:18:38.434 Yeah. The Good Dog, Carl. And that's become very successful. And her whole series of that has become very successful. So, and now they have--they started this Blue Lantern Studio to assist other publishers as consultants and that kind of thing. They branched from that into, back in publishing and their now publishing their own books again. And I--and they are selling books to people like Farrar Strauss and people like Simon & Schuster. And so they're back on the road for recovery again. 00:18:38.434 --> 00:18:40.275 Well, Harold Lee. 00:18:40.275 --> 00:18:40.625 Harold Lee. 00:18:40.625 --> 00:18:42.983 What kind of function did he have? 00:18:42.983 --> 00:18:46.000 Well, Harold Lee, Harold Lee's function basically was the financial-- 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:47.694 Money. 00:18:47.694 --> 00:19:11.994 He was the money guy. He's the guy that had the money. Uh, he believed very strongly in their talent, which he certainly was correct. He believed in the ability to sell the product. So he did fund it, and he funded it to the tune of like 80 or 85% as I remember the numbers. 00:19:11.994 --> 00:19:17.545 Okay, so back in 1970, he contributed that. And had they had a bookstore, or? 00:19:17.545 --> 00:19:44.454 There's--there's somewhat of a, of a blank in my mind about that, Marion. They had, they started, as I understand it, with a card line. No, that's not correct. They started, I believe, with what was called the Unicorn Theater. 00:19:44.454 --> 00:19:46.275 Okay. 00:19:46.275 --> 00:22:48.674 Which was a small little theater in La Jolla that they rented, and they served European foreign teas, cookies and things of that nature. And they showed European films, and they gathered quite a following. And this was back in the, like you say in the seventies. They gathered quite a following. And, I understand it was--I've never been there and didn't know anything about it, of course. And never seen it. But I understand it was quite unique. And what they did was very unique. And they'd had people coming there every night to watch these foreign films, and they would drink foreign coffees and foreign teas and that kind of thing. And they branched out from that, I believe, to the card company. And then they branched into a company, I believe it was called the Mithras, I think it was the Mithras Book company or something like that, up in, I think it was up in the Hillcrest area. And they started being a book publisher. And so they started publishing books and only a couple. And they started, as you know, with the old and antiquarian-style books. And they used, for the most part, they used public domain material. But they did gather a few artists and authors that were more current that they needed to pay royalties to. And they started publishing in that manner, and they did quite well. And, I don't really know what happened to them financially. I really can't respond to that too well, except that in 1986, they were pretty well down and out and ready to close the doors. And that's when I was told about this company. And that's when I contacted the Darlings and with Mr. Lee and I had meetings with them. They had a consultant at that time running their company. They were not running it. They were, they were doing their little creative thing. Unfortunately, Harold Lee and the Darlings physically, verbally parted ways. They became, what you might even say bitter enemies. And he went his way and picked up his toys and went home. And they stayed and tried to run the business, and he just withdrew himself from it entirely. And he did not, of course, would not fund any more money to it. Uh, as a result, it just went downhill, downhill, downhill. They didn't pay commissions, they didn't pay salesmen. They, as I understand, some of the staff, they did not make payroll. Some of the people left, some of that were very loyal, stayed. And that's kind of when I entered the picture. 00:22:48.674 --> 00:22:50.479 Oh, I'll turn the tape over. Oh, this is fine. 00:22:50.479 --> 00:22:57.993 But I don't mean to ramble, but some of these things come into my head. I'm sure you're not gonna use all this material, but-- 00:22:57.993 --> 00:23:01.214 Oh, we'll use what you choose &lt ; laugh&gt ; 00:23:01.214 --> 00:23:05.785 And what you choose, because I think that it should be a joint effort here to make it what you want. 00:23:05.785 --> 00:23:12.000 With the logo. I read something that indicated that the logo was somehow related possibly to the Detroit Tigers. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:13.535 Yes. 00:23:13.535 --> 00:23:18.184 The logo being a big Tiger head and then green-- 00:23:18.184 --> 00:23:20.000 Well, that's not the logo, that's the name. 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:21.934 Oh, that's the, okay. 00:23:21.934 --> 00:23:23.625 The name Green Tiger. 00:23:23.625 --> 00:23:24.875 Okay. 00:23:24.875 --> 00:24:38.000 And Marion, I'm not gonna swear that this is true because I don't know and it's always been a mystique because I could never get anybody to tell me the truth. And I shouldn't say the truth. I could never get anybody to really tell me where it really did come from. Because everybody I talked to said, I don't know if this is for sure, but this is what we think. This is what we heard. And the predominant story was, and is to this day, that Harold Darling, who was the founder with his wife Sandra, was and still is a very avid baseball fan. My understanding is that his favorite team at that time was the Detroit Tigers. And I was born and raised in Michigan, which was only a few miles from Detroit. And I was a Detroit Tiger fan. He is a little bit younger than I, but I don't ever remember the Detroit Tigers wearing green and white striped uniforms. But I was told that they did. Now, whether they did or not I can't say, but at any rate, I was told that that's where he came up with the name Green Tiger. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:39.424 Okay. Okay. 00:24:39.424 --> 00:24:58.000 And from that point on, it was called the Green Tiger Press. And they developed the logo was developed, I believe, by a man by the name of Richardson. It was called a Richardson Tiger. And it was green and White tiger. And that's where that logo came from. Which you've probably what you've seen on his catalog. 00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:59.755 Yeah, on catalogs, okay. 00:24:59.755 --> 00:25:12.535 And so I adopted that as our corporate logo when I acquired the company. And I just said, I think this ought to be the corporate logo. So I copyrighted it and had it as our corporate identity. 00:25:12.535 --> 00:25:22.829 Now, I understand that the Green Tiger Press had not only the printing presses back when the Days had it--the Darlings-- 00:25:22.829 --> 00:25:23.973 Darlings. 00:25:23.973 --> 00:25:31.345 Darlings. But it also had antiques. And did they have a children's book collection as well? 00:25:31.345 --> 00:25:34.674 Yes. They had a very, very large children's book collection. 00:25:34.674 --> 00:25:35.000 What kind of antiques-- 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:36.000 Very old-- 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:37.000 --do they have? 00:25:37.000 --> 00:26:35.000 Well, let's take them one at a time. The book collection, Harold Darling is a collector. By nature, I mean, that's his--that's just him. He's a collector. He collects everything. He has a great, great fondness for children's books. And when this started in his life, I don't know, but he collected children's books for many, many, many, many years, and still does to this day. He probably has the largest, most valuable children's book library in the city of San Diego. Maybe in the entire world for all I know. The last count I knew he had well over 5,000 volumes. And these will run the gamut from, you know, you name it, Wizard of Oz all the way on up to whatever you want to talk about. And, uh, original titles. And he just acquired them from all over the world. 00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:36.021 And he still has them? 00:26:36.021 --> 00:28:03.384 And he still has them. That's correct. He still has them. Now, that was an asset of the Green Tiger. However, the library being really his, he collected it, and part of his contribution to the Green Tiger was to give that to the Green Tiger as, as a monetary contribution. And it was to be used to take material from that library, and they redid many of those old books that were in the public domain. You go back to Little Red Riding Hood, for example, if that's over fifty years old and he had the original, they would redo that book. Or they would take images and make note cards from those old books. Uh, in the negotiations, we structured it so that the library really would go back to him because it really was his, and it was more, let's say, it just meant more to him than it meant to me. I looked at my role in the Green Tiger as a business venture, and although I had a great love for books also, but--and still do--but not like his. And so the really--the library should have gone back to him, and that's where it did go. And he has it today. 00:28:03.384 --> 00:28:05.958 Did the antiques come with the press? 00:28:05.958 --> 00:29:05.714 The antiques were--you're talking about tangible physical furniture type antiques, and there were many of them at the Green Tiger Press, and they all stayed with the Green Tiger press. When I sold the company to Simon & Schuster, many of them went to Simon & Schuster. The ones that they chose that they wanted, the ones they did not want, I retained, and I still have some of them today. We did call the Darlings and tell them what was left there, and if they had any fondness, they wanted something, some sentimental value, to come and take them. And they did. There were a lot of old things that were there and that I felt should have been in their hands rather than in mine. And there were some lots of signs that she had painted and she'd, you know, hand drawn, and there were some old, old cabinets and old antique pieces that they wanted, that they took. 00:29:05.714 --> 00:29:09.484 How did you come to move to San Marcos? To move the company to San Marcos? 00:29:09.484 --> 00:29:16.000 Well, I don't know if you know where we were located or not, or downtown-- 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:17.000 C and India. 00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:19.234 Yeah. Right next to the trolley. 00:29:19.234 --> 00:29:20.000 Next to the trolley. 00:29:20.000 --> 00:30:24.000 Yes. The trolley--well, actually the trolley started on Ketner and C, and India was the next corner. And we were on the corner of C and India. Well then when the renovation of downtown started, they decided to build that huge great American Plaza building on the corner of Ketner and Broadway. As a result of that, the trolley station had to be moved a block eastward, and as a result, trolley station then ended up right opposite our building. Which forced us literally to completely turn around our entire operation. We couldn't use the side doors. We couldn't because the tracks were there and they put, you know, the stations there and everything. So we literally had to do a lot of things. They were chewing up the sidewalks. The big Shapery building went up. Have you been downtown? 00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:25.974 Mm-hmm &lt ; affirmative&gt ; . Yes. 00:30:25.974 --> 00:30:41.000 So, you know. The big Shapery building went up. And in the meantime, after I acquired the company, it was owned by an elderly Chinese family. And-- 00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:43.000 The building was? 00:30:43.000 --> 00:32:29.000 The building was. And unbeknownst to me--and this is my own error--and I have no one to blame, but myself, I did not look at the lease thoroughly enough. I read the lease, but I didn't look at the bottom line. And the bottom line, there were no signatures. Meaning that the former owners never signed it. So--and there was a first option to buy the building. Well the option was valid--or it was voided because it was never signed. So I lost the opportunity to buy the building, which I would've done, but I lost that opportunity because it was not signed. And so the YMCA, which was right on the corner of Broadway and India, they, at that time, their mode was to buy that entire block. They wanted the entire block. And their purpose was, was well-founded. They wanted to build a high rise hotel, to take care of servicemen and their families and that kind of thing. So they wanted that, that Green Tiger building very badly. So they ended up buying it from this--from the elderly Chinese man that owned it. And so we entered into a lease with the YMCA. Well then the renovation of downtown started. And all these buildings, these highrise buildings were going up all around us. I mean, literally around us. Front, back at each side. Trolley was here, the big highrise here, big highrise here, another big highrise here, and then this big brand new great American Plaza going right across the street. Trolley going underneath. The sidewalks were being torn up. The jackhammers were going every day. The pile drivers were going every day. It was absolutely, it was terrible. 00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:31.000 Constant hassle. 00:32:31.000 --> 00:34:20.844 Constant. It was awful. We lost all our parking facilities. We lost our water every day. We lost our electricity every day. Our computer went out every day. It was just, it was just godawful. And as a result of that, I just said, I've gotta get us out of here. And living in North County, I naturally wanted to, to move to North County. And maybe that was a selfish motive on my part. Uh, I don't know. But with my handicap, driving to San Diego every day was certainly not easy. And because that was an hour and 15 minutes every day and every night. And that was not an easy thing. And no place to park. I had a handicapped parking place that I negotiated with the city, and then they finally tore it apart by--because they even tore the sidewalk up, you know? So I had no place to park my car. It was awful. Anyway, make a long story short, I found this building and--I looked and looked and looked and looked--and I found this building in San Marcos. That was the building that we're talking about. And, it was just a shell. There was no interior at all. It was just a shell. And the man that had--that developed that whole business park went into bankruptcy. And as a result of that, that building was foreclosed on as well as others in there. And so I negotiated a purchase for that building. And fortunately, like I say, it was not built out inside, so we were able to design it ourselves. So we designed the entire inside of the building ; the upstairs, downstairs. And we bought the building. My wife and I bought it independent of the Green Tiger, and we leased it back to the Green Tiger. 00:34:20.844 --> 00:34:25.000 So what functions did you put on the two different levels? 00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:51.934 Okay. The, the upstairs level was all office. Accounting was upstairs, the computer systems were all upstairs. The receivables, you know, all of the accounting functions, the editorial functions were upstairs. The sales functions, marketing functions were upstairs. Customer service was upstairs. The mail room was upstairs. 00:34:51.934 --> 00:34:54.614 So how many people had-- 00:34:54.614 --> 00:35:15.000 We had that pared down when we moved, we had it paired down to thirty-five, I think. In that, from that area, the balance, um, was all warehouse functions done in the warehouse. And, warehouse: we had racking, of course, from floor to ceiling and all our inventory-- 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:16.000 In the warehouse. 00:35:16.000 --> 00:36:32.065 In the warehouse, Proper. We did all our receiving, did all our shipping, all our warehousing, we did all of our quality control. We did all of our manufacturing. We did some manufacturing of cards. We built--we made all our own cards, except print. We didn't print them, but the hand-tipped cards, I don't know if you recall those or not, where you would just get a blank card that would open up like so, and on the inside would be a hand-glued image. Those were called hand-tipped cards. And we had a group of Thai ladies from Thailand, and we had six or seven of them. And they did all the quality control, and they did all the hand-tipped cards. And the quality control, they literally would go through every page of every book and we would not put a book in inventory that had a blemish, a nick in the corner--it was very, very strict on quality control. And that was one of the things that the Green Tiger image was excellent. And it was there when I bought it, and we did not let that go down, that state. 00:36:32.065 --> 00:36:42.000 What heavy equipment did you have it--on the first level? There's some heavy duty electrical outlets there. 00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:49.094 Heavy duty, well, we had our computer, for one, which was a large mainframe computer. 00:36:49.094 --> 00:36:50.735 But on downstairs-- 00:36:50.735 --> 00:36:52.000 Oh, downstairs. In the warehouse. 00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:53.000 Yeah. 00:36:53.000 --> 00:37:00.804 In the warehouse we had all the racks and they're heavy duty, of course, because they went from floor to ceiling. 00:37:00.804 --> 00:37:03.435 And those had books and paper. Books on them. 00:37:03.435 --> 00:37:05.000 Books. All books. No paper because we didn't do any printing. 00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:06.000 Okay. 00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:10.000 Um, occasionally we'd buy paper, but, but, but very rarely-- 00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:12.114 Stock of cards, group of cards-- 00:37:12.114 --> 00:37:17.000 All the cards. All the cards. All the books. Finished product now we're talking about. 00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000 Yeah. Right. 00:37:18.000 --> 00:38:04.000 Uh, always boxed, very heavy. So with the racks were heavy and, and loaded, of course, they were very heavy. We had lift trucks. We had a, what was called a shrink wrap machine, which was over backed in behind the staircase. And we had the shipping department, which was consisted of a lot of heavy, you know, heavy tables and things that nature ; scales, automatic scales, that type of thing. Nothing extremely heavy. And the computers, like I say, were upstairs. And then we had a large, that large huge carousel. I don't know if you ever saw that. 00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:05.000 I did. 00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:06.000 You did see that? 00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:07.000 Yes. 00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:20.000 Yeah. Well, we had that and I--beyond this, of course, I was--I was hoping that you could find a use for that, because it was so beautiful, I thought, but you couldn't. And I still have it, so-- 00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:21.000 Uh-huh good. 00:38:21.000 --> 00:39:00.074 We didn't, we just couldn't let it go. We still got it because it was--we designed it and we built it. We still have it. But there wasn't anything any heavier than that upstairs, except we had an old antique press that was probably--probably close to a hundred years old or older. Manual operated press with a great big huge wheel that was tremendously heavy. That was upstairs. And we had some old antique church pews and things of that nature upstairs. And, uh, nothing really heavy. Nothing beyond the press. 00:39:00.074 --> 00:39:06.000 How did you decide to sell to Simon & Schuster when you did? 00:39:06.000 --> 00:43:18.494 Well, that's an interesting, a very interesting story, Marion. I really did not have the company for sale. The company was not for sale. I felt like we had a long ways to go before we were ready to try to sell the company. And besides, we were having fun and I didn't really want to sell it. There were days that I wanted to sell it because of, basically because of my disability, because it was very hard for me some days. And, especially when we were downtown, it was extremely hard. But as I say, the company was not for sale. And one day, I guess it was in '89, might've been latter part of '88, I had a call from Simon & Schuster, and it was from the Vice President of Acquisitions from Simon & Schuster. And I don't know if you know much about the Simon & Schuster Company or not, but anyway, they are the largest publisher in the world. Book publisher in the world. They grew to be that way by a lot of acquisitions. They bought a lot of companies, although they were a large publisher to begin with. They're owned by Paramount Studios in Hollywood. And Paramount, I'm sure you know, with what Paramount owns, and they own about everything you see on television practically. And they own Simon & Schuster. Well, anyway, the vice president called me and just said that they have been looking over my shoulder for four years, and I didn't know that, of course. And they said, we like what we see, and we'd like to come out and talk to you about a possible purchase. And naturally, I was taken aback by that. And I just said, "Well, I'm really not interested in-- not in the selling mode right now. And, you know, maybe a year from now or two." And they said, well, that's fine, you know, but we're in San Diego often, and, you know, could we get acquainted and could we maybe have dinner or whatever. Well, one thing led to another, and one thing led to another. And after probably eight or nine or ten dinners, we were pretty well-acquainted. Marvelous company, uh, marvelous people and wonderful people to do business with. And, it reached a point where they just wanted the company really bad. And I guess that I had to make a business decision, and the business decision said, sell it. And so that's what I did. And, I think in the long run, I made the right decision because I think it would've--well, timing wise, it certainly was right. And I had no magic, you know, I didn't have any magic ball to look into or anything. I didn't know the recession was coming, but from a timing point of view, it was a good time. And I think from a health point of view was a good time because it was harder for me every day. And I don't think that--I don't think we could have gotten an offer like we did from anyone else for a long time. And I can't think of a better company that could have it. And because they're doing well with it. They, they've carried on, I think is as much of the Green Tiger image is as could be expected in a large corporation. Because a lot of it, a lot of the little things got lost. Uh, but everything, I know that it's being carried on pretty much the way it was. 00:43:18.494 --> 00:43:30.835 I'm gonna change the tape again. Okay, now. Well, what do you know about what's happened to the employees who worked for you for Green Tiger? 00:43:30.835 --> 00:44:15.000 Quite a bit actually. I could probably give you names of everyone that I, but I won't do that. But, there were four employees that I recommended to Simon & Schuster that they hire, because their intent was to move the company to New York, which they did. And I knew that the Green Tiger would lose all its image if some of the people didn't go. So I recommended four people. They interviewed all four people, and for various reasons, only one decided to go. 00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:16.295 But one did. 00:44:16.295 --> 00:46:49.764 But one did. And probably the most important one, the sales manager, a young lady, uh, twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old. Young lady, Rita Eggers is her name. And she's a very high energy girl and very bright girl, knows the publishing business very, very well. Uh, she know--knew how to put on trade shows. She took care of all the reps. She served on the editorial staff. She did a little bit of everything. And if she needed to go down and wrap the pack and the shipping department, she would do that. I mean, she was that type of person. So they got a very good employee with her. And I understand she since has had a promotion and she's doing quite well. She's running the Green Tiger division, as well as a couple of other smaller divisions that are associated with children's books. So she's doing well. And I think they did well by hiring her. The others, the other three that I recommended for their own whatever personal reasons, just didn't want to move to New York or whatever they were. I don't know that. The others, um, one of them who was kind of my general manager, went to work for Hardcore Brace downtown in San Diego. The controller still works with me. And, the most of the people in the warehouse kind of scattered and they all landed on their feet because they were all young people. They were all thirty-five or less. There was two elderly gentlemen, that I understand, did--they did both get jobs, out, I think even better for them because they both lived out in the East County so they didn't have to drive down that way. And the Thai ladies, I understand some of them went back to Thailand. I understand one of 'em went to Los Angeles and works now with a relative up there. And then I think a couple of them, from what I heard, went to work in Thai restaurants. So, they're going to school in addition to that. So I think most, for the most part, um, everybody just landed on their feet and came out fine. 00:46:49.764 --> 00:47:04.804 You mentioned before we started the tape that the card portion of the business did not, well, Simon & Schuster bought it, but didn't do anything with it for a while. What has happened to it? Where did it go? 00:47:04.804 --> 00:47:59.954 Well, they decided, I think after a few months that they did not want the card business. They'd never been in it. And they decided, you know, why should we do this? It's small, it's really not worth their--they're a billion-dollar corporation, so why mess around with a little three or $400,000 card business? And, so they just left it all with me. They left it in the building and they left all the inventory there. They left everything to do with the cards, and they put it up for sale. And it took a little longer, I believe, than what they had anticipated to sell it. But they finally sold it to a company in Santa Barbara, a young company--a young couple. Husband, wife--and I'm sorry. I can't, I just can't think of their names. 00:47:59.954 --> 00:48:03.000 So did you then send, ship the things--stock to them? 00:48:03.000 --> 00:49:32.114 Oh yeah. Oh yes. In fact, I was instrumental in helping sell the company. I worked with Simon & Schuster very closely on it. I took the people to the building. I showed 'em the inventory, showed 'em the film. Showed 'em the catalogs, you know, counseled them with everything that I knew about it. And they ended up then negotiating with Simon & Schuster. And they ended up buying the company. And then we helped them get everything shipped and moved. And it's there. And I understand that they just came out with their first line, I think. I think in fact, I believe it's this month. Come to think about it, it's May. And, I think they'll do well with it. I think they made a good purchase. I don't know what kind of whether--I don't know anything about the economics, so I don't know what that means, but knowing Simon & Schuster, I'm sure it was a fair transaction. And, these people were in the card business and they were very enthusiastic, and I think they'll do well with it. They were Green Tiger fans, and that's how they found out about it. So they had a lot of the books at home with, for their kids, and they had a lot of cards. And so they were kind of in that niche that buys Gold Tiger so they knew a little bit about it, and so I think they'll do fine. 00:49:32.114 --> 00:49:44.000 How long did it take to vacate the building itself? I assume Simon & Schuster didn't buy everything inside like the racks. I don't know, did they? No. 00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:48.775 No, no. Oh, yes! They did buy the racks. Yes. I'm sorry. Sure. They did. Yes., they bought the racks. 00:49:48.775 --> 00:49:51.114 So all of that was literally shipped to New York? 00:49:51.114 --> 00:51:12.914 All of it was shipped to New York. They--they bought the company in December of 1990. By March, by the end of March, everything that they wanted, with the exception of the cards, was gone. The racks, everything. We--well, one exception, the lift truck stayed until the cards because we needed the lift truck to load and everything. So the cards, when once the cards were shipped and everything was gone, then we sent the lift truck to New York. And that took to I believe October. Uh, so Simon & Schuster literally rented the building from me for almost a year. For close to a year. They rented--I shouldn't say the building, they rented partial. You know, I just, it was square done with a square footage thing, and they rented just enough square feet to keep the cards there. And there was some, there's some machinery to do with the cards, but just little things. And, so we rented that portion and then the building sat until we rented it to the university. 00:51:12.914 --> 00:51:16.255 And how, how did that happen? I know you-- 00:51:16.255 --> 00:51:16.755 The university-- 00:51:16.755 --> 00:51:21.454 You and Dick Rush got together and talked about this. And eventually the foundation has leased it. 00:51:21.454 --> 00:52:43.414 Yes. The Foundation actually leased it from me. Yes. And not the university, but the foundation. Uh, the way it really happened, Marion, I have a good friend that's on your board. In fact, I have two good friends that's on the board, the foundation board. But Bill Daniels and Tony &lt ; inaudible&gt ; , and Tony just mentioned to me one day that he would--that he had come out of a board meeting. They were looking for more facilities. And one was--I think he said something to do with books or warehousing catalogs. He didn't know. But he just said, "I think your building would fit them very nicely." And I always sat in my office and I'd look at up, and I could see the university right from my window. And I could say to my myself, gee, that they--they ought to use this. They need this building for something, you know, surely they've missed something up there, &lt ; laugh&gt ; . So anyway, I called Dick. He (Tony) told me, gave me name, a number, and he said, "Call Dick and talk to him." And so I did. And my wife and I went out and met Dick for lunch. Took him to the building and he just thought it was perfect for what he wanted. And then he--I think he had a few hurdles to cross, as you can, as you know-- 00:52:43.414 --> 00:52:44.565 We're a state agency. 00:52:44.565 --> 00:53:27.344 Yeah. He said, "I'll get back to you." And I said, "Okay, Dick, when will that be?" And he said, "Well, you're dealing with the state." And, you know, it took a few months. But anyway, then he got over the hurdles and they decided the best way was to lease it to the foundation, not to the university. And then he turned it over to Pat Parris. And I dealt with Pat, who was a wonderful person. And she has a wonderful staff also. And so I worked with Pat and then we got--we finally got it done. And then we had--we went through the hurdle of the god-ever-loving fire marshal, the State Fire Marshal. You probably know that whole story. 00:53:27.344 --> 00:53:29.085 Oh yes, I know--I know some of it. &lt ; Laugh&gt ; 00:53:29.085 --> 00:53:44.855 So we finally did that. And then they said, well, you gotta put in some doors and you gotta do this, and you gotta do that. And you probably know all about that too. So we put in those two new doors in the front, and then we just finished putting two new doors in the back. And I--in fact, I hope they're done. Do you know, are they? 00:53:44.855 --> 00:53:46.414 I don't know. 00:53:46.414 --> 00:53:57.264 I hope they are, they were supposed to have been done, I think last week. But anyway, all that got finished and I think you guys took the building over in January. 00:53:57.264 --> 00:54:02.324 Yes. We had computer equipment coming for the library the week of January 6th. 00:54:02.324 --> 00:54:03.324 I remember that. 00:54:03.324 --> 00:54:08.000 Yeah. And Pat was very concerned about it right before Christmas. 00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:11.436 Because she knew she had to have a place to put those computers. 00:54:11.436 --> 00:54:20.655 Right. And it turned out they sent them to us, to our current location, and they sent them early. So we stacked them up when somebody went away on Christmas vacation. 00:54:20.655 --> 00:54:22.295 Oh, I didn't know that. 00:54:22.295 --> 00:54:26.000 And they were already there, so that Pat had an extra week. So it just worked. 00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:28.875 Worked out. 00:54:28.875 --> 00:54:35.934 Yeah. Because we had computer installation on the 14th. The morning of the 14th. And training on the afternoon. 00:54:35.934 --> 00:54:52.264 Yes. Because I was in the building. In fact, I was there. I don't even know why I was out there. I was there for something. I guess it had to do something with the doors or something. Because we had to put that one door in the base, in the warehouse on the side. By the steps. 00:54:52.264 --> 00:54:53.635 Right, right. 00:54:53.635 --> 00:55:02.684 And I don't know what I was there for, but anyway, I just happened to go upstairs and everybody was up there in the training program. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. Well. 00:55:02.684 --> 00:55:05.514 Well, I thank you very much for-- 00:55:05.514 --> 00:55:06.494 Did we cover everything? 00:55:06.494 --> 00:55:14.655 --everything. &lt ; inaudible&gt ; , I think we have been through all of the questions. Is there anything else you'd like you ask to add? 00:55:14.655 --> 00:55:45.000 Uh, the only thing I would add, Marion, is that I've done on, I've been in business--well, I'm 62 years old, let's put it that way. And I've been in business a long time, and I've met people all over the world and I've done business with people all over the world and all I can--what I'd like to say is, and I don't know what you wanna do with this, or maybe nothing, but I'd like to just say that I've never met a finer group of people than what you have. 00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:46.000 Oh, thank you. 00:55:46.000 --> 00:55:54.824 They really have been wonderful, everybody. This one fellow that, was involved with the fire marshal, Al. 00:55:54.824 --> 00:55:55.744 Al Amato. 00:55:55.744 --> 00:56:11.445 I'll tell you. He was wonderful. But of course, everyone has been. Pat and Dick and Bill Stacy and--we've had lunch a few times together--and all of them. And you're the most recent and you're not--you're wonderful too. 00:56:11.445 --> 00:56:13.744 &lt ; laugh&gt ; . Well, thank you very much. 00:56:13.744 --> 00:56:43.000 But really, I do mean that sincerely. It's been a real pleasure for me. Well, and I just hope that we can have a long--you know, I'm not a big founder, but I'm a founder, and I feel very proud of that. I feel proud of the fact that I'm associated with the university because I think it was desperately needed, and it's gonna be more needed in the future, I feel. And I just hope that nothing, God forbid, I hope nothing happens that slows the progress. 00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:44.614 Well, we appreciate your support. 00:56:44.614 --> 00:56:51.335 Well you've got it. And I'm out beating bushes for Dick right now. In fact, that, that's one of the reasons I was in here today. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> In copyright. audio Property rights reside with the university. Copyrights are unknown. &#13 ; &#13 ; Please see the related “Preferred Citation note” for language on citing materials from this collection. &#13 ; &#13 ; Permission to examine Library materials is not authorization to publish or to reproduce the examined material in whole, or in part. Persons wishing to quote, publish, perform, reproduce, or otherwise make use of an item in the Library’s collections must assume all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of the copyright holder. &#13 ; &#13 ; The researcher assumes full responsibility for use of the material and agrees to hold harmless the University Library, and California State University, against all claims, demands, costs, and expenses incurred by copyright infringement or any other legal or regulatory cause of action arising from the use of the Library's materials. &#13 ; &#13 ; In assuming full responsibility for use of the material, the researcher also understands that the materials they examine may contain Social Security numbers, other personal identifiers, and/or sensitive material on potentially living and identifiable individuals (e.g., medical, evaluative, or personally invasive information). The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=MacchiaJerry_ReidMarion_1992-05-13.xml MacchiaJerry_ReidMarion_1992-05-13.xml https://archivesearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/resources/41 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Macchia, Jerry. Interview, May 13, 1992. Description An account of the resource Interview conducted May 12, 1992 by CSUSM Library Dean Marion Reid with Green Tiger Press owner/publisher Jerry Macchia. In his interview, Macchia speaks to his experience in taking over Green Tiger Press in 1986; his work before taking over Green Tiger Press with a forklift company in Michigan; shifting from a printing house to a publisher model; the Press's original owners, Harold and Sandra Darling and Harold Leigh; and the general history of the Press, its logo and name, and business operations. Macchia delves into the sale of Green Tiger Press to Simon & Schuster in detail, and discusses his involvement in leasing the San Marcos, California former Green Tiger building to California State University San Marcos, where the university's Foundation operations were housed, as well as overflow shelving for the library. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC060-01 Subject The topic of the resource California State University San Marcos California State University San Marcos. Foundation California State University San Marcos. University Library Green Tiger Press Publishers and publishing -- California -- San Diego -- History Simon and Schuster (Inc.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1992-05-13 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jerry Macchia Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Marion Reid Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Diego (Calif.) San Marcos (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright</a> Community history CSUSM history https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/5e54912f2da95810e3bef5c341d6234e.pdf f19c0b3193310ab2e1ac5e49d6563335 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Transcripts Description An account of the resource Written oral histories and transcripts are available for researchers that prefer the written word, or to see the whole interview in a document. Transcripts of <a href="https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/collections/show/5">audio and video files</a> are also available as part of those video files. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rios, Dan. Interview transcript, May 9th, 2017. Description An account of the resource Daniel Flores Rios, born in Hanford, California. April 10th, 1939 to Theodore and Jennie Rios, was the Chief Photographer at the Escondido Times-Advocate and North County Times newspapers. As the Chief Photographer, Rios was instrumental in transitioning the North County Times from publishing images in black and white, to publishing in color. This interview recounts Rios's career working for the Escondido Times-Advocate and North County Times. Rios also recounts how photographers were initially required to buy and maintain their own equipment and how he was able to create a deal with the newspaper to compensate photographers fairly for their equipment. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dan Rios Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Alexa Clausen Robert Sheehan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-05-09 Subject The topic of the resource Digital cameras Escondido Times-Advocate (Escondido, Calif.) Mexican Americans Photographic chemicals Photojournalists Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Escondido (Calif.) Fallbrook (Calif.) Rancho Penasquitos (Calif.) Rancho Bernardo (San Diego, Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived SC003: The Dan Rios papers Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource in copyright Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. California State University San Marcos Type The nature or genre of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC003-03 Community history Latine experience https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/010490bb4e1eee6c6b68387114144d01.png a77bcbe5e028ea6754d6a4ff36186b85 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource EvansK_250px https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/7f72e1cce3c6fed5bc5600bafc040034.png ba4bfc8c99a3d48117506493f5f2b84a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource EvansG_250px https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/20582a4d172be5bd1e5e48820e604c76.pdf 9893c4671e130fe239edd616a4ad1848 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Transcripts Description An account of the resource Written oral histories and transcripts are available for researchers that prefer the written word, or to see the whole interview in a document. Transcripts of <a href="https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/collections/show/5">audio and video files</a> are also available as part of those video files. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Evans, Greg and Karen. Interview transcript, March 25, 2025. Description An account of the resource Oral history interview of Greg Evans and Karen Evans, March 25, 2025. Greg and Karen Evans are a father-daughter team who co-create the syndicated comic strip, Luann. In this interview, they talk about their roles in creative process, the inspiration for Luann, and the evolution of the comic strip over its 40-year existence. Greg received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from CSU San Marcos in 2016. Karen Evans is also the newly elected president of the National Cartoonists Society. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greg Evans Karen Evans Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Fabbi Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-03-25 Subject The topic of the resource Cartooning -- technique Luann. Selections. Comic strip characters Comic books, strips, etc. Cartoonist Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Diego (Calif.) El Centro (Calif.) Merced (Calif.) Australia Colorado Spring (Co.) San Marcos (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg Evans and Karen Evans Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EvansGregandKaren_FabbiJennifer_2025-03-25_transcript Art and artists Community history Women's experience Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jennifer Fabbi Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Greg Evans OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=EvansGreg_and_Evans_Karen_FabbiJennifer_03-25-25_access.xml Interview Keyword This filed adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the "keywords" field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record. Comic strip;Luann;Cartoonist;Arts OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Evans, Greg and Karen. Interview March 25, 2025. SC027-075 00:00:00 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library oral history collection CSUSM csusm Comic strip ; Luann ; Cartoonist ; Arts Greg Evans Karen Evans Jennifer Fabbi moving image EvansGreg_and Evans_Karen_FabbiJennifer_03-25-25_access.mp4 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/3091fa827e01d0bf084b61797484604f.mp4 Other video 5 Introduction Oral history interview of Greg and Karen Evans, March 25th, 2025, by Jennifer Fabbi, Special Collections Librarian, University Library, California State University San Marcos. 0 ["[\"[\\\"\\\"]\"]"] 68 Summary of the “Luann” comic strip Greg Evans summarizes the evolving story of “Luann,” how Luann has aged over time, and how the comic strip is about finding your way through life. teenager ; Peanuts ; Garfield ; sitcom ; comedy 0 ["[\"[\\\"[\\\\\\\"[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"]\\\\\\\"]\\\"]\"]"] 172 Business model of “Luann” Greg Evans describe the business model of “Luann” including how the creative process has changed with technology. syndication ; humor ; digital ; Cintiq 0 [""] 258 Creative process of “Luann” Greg and Karen Evans discuss the creative process of working on a comic strip and how they collaborate as they work on the strip together. Karen reflects on her perspective of Greg’s creative process when she was a child. creative ; director ; editor ; childhood ; drawing ; artist ; family legacy ; writing ; collaboration ; process ; screenplay ; Lynn Johnston ; For Better or For Worse ; Mary Worth 0 ["[\"[\\\"\\\"]\"]"] 639 Serious issues in “Luann" Greg and Karen Evans discuss controversial content over the years. period ; censorship ; non-controversial ; teenagers ; educational ; drug dealer ; cancer ; moderate ; benign ; Zits 0 ["[\"[\\\"[\\\\\\\"[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"]\\\\\\\"]\\\"]\"]"] 1086 Greg's creative experience before "Luann" Greg Evans discusses his desire to be a cartoonist from an early age and other comic strip ideas he had before “Luann.” He also reflects on how his daughter, Karen, was his inspiration for “Luann.” Disney Studios ; Peanuts ; Playboy magazine ; daughter ; family ; magazines ; cartooning ; career ; heart ; ideas 0 ["[\"[\\\"[\\\\\\\"[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"]\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"]\\\\\\\"]\\\"]\"]"] 1420 Karen’s early experience with “Luann" The comic strip is loosely based on Karen’s life. Karen talks about her experience with “Luann” and the cartoonist community at an early age. Comic strip work is very flexible, which afforded the family to travel. travel ; Charles Schultz ; Sparky ; parents ; home ; Santa Rosa 0 ["[\"[\\\"[\\\\\\\"\\\\\\\"]\\\"]\"]"] 1770 Interaction with fans Greg and Karen Evans discuss how they have engaged their “Luann” fans over the years, including interactive content and contests. "Luann" celebrated its fortieth anniversary in March 2025, and Greg and Karen describe the fan interaction designed for this milestone. GoComics ; fanbase ; community ; comments ; San Diego Comic-Con ; National Cartoonists Society ; voting ; fashion show ; engaged ; wedding ; LuannFan ; Luanniversary 0 ["[\"[\\\"\\\"]\"]"] 2556 Creation of musicals Greg Evans discusses his creation of several musicals over the years. Luann the Musical ; musical ; A Boy and A Girl ; Wrinkles ; Quibbling Siblings ; production ; GarageBand 0 ["[\"\"]"] 2912 Jobs before "Luann" Greg Evans talks about teaching and one of his early jobs, running MaXwel the robot. El Centro ; Merced ; Australia ; teacher ; television news ; Colorado Springs ; MaXwel the robot ; Seaport Village ; San Diego Zoo 0 ["[\"\"]"] 3238 Future of "Luann" Greg and Karen Evans talk about how they see “Luann” playing out in the future. graphic novel ; television show ; three dimension ; intellectual property ; opportunities ; community 0 ["[\"\"]"] 3579 Luann's journey to college Karen Evans the interview discussing the development of “Luann” and other main characters in the later years. Luann’s journey to colleges was also an exhibit at the CSUSM University Library during summer 2016. college ; graduate ; high school ; teenager ; adult ; exhibit ; CSUSM University Library 0 [""] oral history Greg and Karen Evans are a father-daughter team who co-create the syndicated comic strip, Luann. In this interview, they talk about their roles in creative process, the inspiration for Luann, and the evolution of the comic strip over its 40-year existence. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:05.375 --> 00:00:36.945 Hello, this is Jennifer Fabbi, and today I am interviewing Greg and Karen Evans for the California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) University Library Oral History Program. Today is March 25th, 2025, and this interview is taking place at Greg Evans' Studio at his home in San Marcos, California. Greg received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from CSUSM in 2016, so aka "Dr. Evans." Greg and Karen, thank you for interviewing with me today. 00:00:36.945 --> 00:00:38.524 That's an honor.--Absolutely. 00:00:38.524 --> 00:01:03.104 Okay. So let's start out with a pretty general question. The two of you are very notable narrators as the co-creators of the syndicated comic strip, "Luann." For anyone listening, who might not be as familiar with "Luann," how would you summarize the strip? 00:01:03.104 --> 00:02:10.895 (Laughter) Right. Okay. Cut that part. Well, it's really changed and evolved over forty years. It started out as a--what they call a gag-a-day strip--very much like "Peanuts" or "Garfield." In fact, I was highly inspired by "Peanuts." The whole little kids with big heads, no parents. That's how "Luann" started--jokes about being a teenage girl. And as time went on, I introduced more characters and relationships and drama and trauma. And so the strip now has sort of evolved into a bit more of a comedic, dramatic, we call it like a sitcom, comic strip kind of a deal. And "Luann" has sort of officially aged a couple of times in the strip--had a birthday once and turned sixteen--anyway, now she's nineteen, she's in college. And new characters ; some old characters have left. But it's basically about-- 00:02:10.895 --> 00:02:12.224 Finding your way in life. 00:02:12.224 --> 00:02:15.944 Yeah. Finding your way through life. Yes. 00:02:15.944 --> 00:02:38.854 Yep. And I think a sitcom is a good way to put it, where you have a kind of a main character with Luann, that there's a whole cast around her and so there are stories that tap into all these different life experiences. What am I doing, and where am I going? It's a pretty universal theme. 00:02:38.854 --> 00:02:52.625 Okay. So would you discuss the current status of Luann including each of your roles in the creative and publishing process? 00:02:52.625 --> 00:04:19.605 Luann is syndicated through Universal Press Syndicate, which is, or--Andrew McMeel Universal--they changed their name. But there are these companies and their job is to sell comic strips and advice columns and crossword puzzles and those kinds of content to newspapers all around the country and the world. And so comic strips are a big part of what they're selling to these, to these papers. That's the basic business model, and my job is to create this strip and get it on time, uh, forever. And, more recently as newspapers have struggled, we've seen a decline in print clients, but the internet has picked up, so "Luann" is online, and there's some sharing of ad revenue and that sort of thing. So that's become sort of adjunct to the business model. I draw the strip by ha--I did draw the strip by hand on paper with markers for many, many years. I have a whole stack of 'em. Then I went digital about a decade ago and do it all now on this Cintiq with a pen. And then about-- 00:04:19.605 --> 00:04:20.605 A little over ten years ago. 00:04:20.605 --> 00:04:26.125 A little over ten years ago, she came along and complicated the whole process. 00:04:26.125 --> 00:04:52.084 (Laughter) I did. I did. So that was kind of interesting because "Luann" started when I was six. So this was very much something that was a part of how I grew up and just what my dad did. And really, when you see someone working on a comic strip, the thinking part of it often just looks like sort of staring out into space or napping plays a crucial role. 00:04:52.084 --> 00:04:53.125 And then it looks like this. (mimics being asleep) 00:04:53.125 --> 00:04:54.685 Yes. 00:04:54.685 --> 00:04:56.004 That's, that's being creative. 00:04:56.004 --> 00:04:58.483 You probably--do you wanna write those ideas down? 00:04:58.483 --> 00:04:59.584 I do. 00:04:59.584 --> 00:07:15.464 And then you'd see him drawing, and he had a home studio. So mostly what I saw as far as creating "Luann" looked like drawing. And I'm not a horrible artist, but I'm not drawn to drawing. So it wasn't something, like, I grew up thinking, oh, I wanna draw Luann someday. Anyways, flash forward, and we were driving to LA talking about the strip and how it's such a legacy in and of itself, and a family legacy, and wouldn't it be amazing if we had family that could, you know, be involved and carry it forward? And it dawned on us that there's the writing, and there's the drawing, and they don't necessarily have to come from the same person. And I've always had a draw to write and writing and storytelling. So we were like, well, maybe that would be fun. We'll give it a try. And it clicked pretty quickly. And then I appreciated how much work was happening that wasn't at the drawing board because the writing is, is crucial. So over those ten some years that I've been co co-working with you, the process kind of goes, we brainstorm big story ideas, and then it's now my responsibility to get the beats of that fleshed out. We do kind of phone and email chats. We'll meet in person--I only live fifteen minutes away. So, we'll make sure it's on the right trajectory, and then I come up with the initial draft, and it very much looks like a screenplay, where it's like, Monday is M, panel one is a 1, and then like L says, da, da da da da. Because interestingly, similar to a screenplay, like you don't put in a whole lot of details about what the set's supposed to look like or what the actors are supposed to do. That's the job of the director. So I feel like he's very much the director and takes that dialogue and then translates it. He'll do some tweaks or adjustments and then translates it into the performance, the art. And shares the art back to me. His wife, my mom Betty, plays a big role in that, too, like reviewing and making sure everything came through and the right number of buttons are on the shirts and all the pants and things. (Laughing) My mom has a really good knack for catching like, those things. 00:07:15.464 --> 00:07:22.845 She'll literally do that. She's like, in panel one, you drew seven buttons, but look, in panel three, there's only six. 00:07:22.845 --> 00:07:55.975 Yep. She's the detail, she's like the editor. And usually the process goes smoothly, but there's definitely times that we get going on the process, and the characters will rebel or come up with some angle that didn't happen until a lot of times it comes out in the drawing. Or as he's drawing, there's something that can be expressed better in the art than in the words that were originally drafted out. So you end up changing the words or eliminating words, and it's kind of a fascinating process. 00:07:55.975 --> 00:08:32.465 Years ago when I first started out, Lynn Johnston, who does, "For Better or For Worse," that comic strip, she said, "I'm not a writer, I'm just a transcriber 'cause my characters speak to me." And I, at the time, I thought, eh, that sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo. (Laughter). But it's very true. It's very true. The characters take on lives of their own, and you're writing something and suddenly, oh, Luann decided to say that or do this instead of what I thought, you know? It's a weird, interesting thing. 00:08:32.465 --> 00:09:09.384 Or a character that wasn't supposed to be in the scene shows up and suddenly you're like, wha?? Or we'll brainstorm and have the perfect idea. It's so solid, it's so good. And then I'll sit down to write it and the characters are just standing there silent. (Laughter) No, not happening, not happening today. Yeah. And you push and you prod and then eventually go, okay, maybe we have to throw this premise out. And what are we doing instead? So it's pretty fascinating, I always describe it to people, it's like writing a sitcom in haiku 'cause we have such a little space to tell this story. And I think we, we pack a lot in. 00:09:09.384 --> 00:09:17.027 And still try to be funny. It's still marketed as a humor strip. You know, it's not a "Mary Worth" kind of a thing. 00:09:17.027 --> 00:09:18.154 A heavy drama. 00:09:18.154 --> 00:09:26.000 It's not heavy drama. And we avoid politics, religion, sex-- 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:27.315 --rock and roll. All those things. 00:09:27.315 --> 00:09:44.514 Anything that's controversial, because especially these days, it's real easy to get people riled up about different things. And you don't wanna annoy your newspaper editors and readers and have them cancel your strip, so pretty benign. 00:09:44.514 --> 00:10:22.683 Well, and that, our job is, we're in the business of entertainment. So as a comic strip, in particular, I feel like we're hoping to be relatable, be intriguing, and have a lighthearted look so even when we've had serious storylines or serious conflict in a strip, we're leading towards some purposeful growth or some humor layer that we're looking at those things. Because I don't know, the world is really serious and difficult, so getting to be on this side of make the world a little better and brighter is kinda awesome. 00:10:22.683 --> 00:10:39.195 I have a follow up about this. So you talk about it being lighthearted, but over the years it's also featured some serious issues and historical moments. So would you give a few, a couple of examples of the issues you've tackled? 00:10:39.195 --> 00:12:01.284 Well, as I started doing the strip, like I said, at first it was just jokes about boys and hair and stuff. Well, after a while, I mean, how many jokes can you do about hair and boys? So, I started getting into, I realized if I'm doing a strip about teenagers, there's a certain huge world here to talk about in a responsible way. So I kind of thought, well, the strip should maybe try to be entertaining but maybe informative or inspirational in some fashion, or even educational. So fairly early on, I started doing topics along those lines. So I did one about a drug dealer that tried to get Bernice involved in his life. And probably the most significant one I did was way back in '91. Luann had her first period, and it was a two-week storyline that a lot of it was, well, a lot of Luann was right here (gestures at Karen). But I didn't want to, I didn't want to do a story about her after, you know, so I wanted to precede her on that one. Otherwise-- 00:12:01.284 --> 00:12:15.284 Yeah. "Luann," I think, was inspired often, but I always correct people it's not autobiographical or biographical to our family or my life, but that was a good thing that this storyline happened before I had my own personal experience. 00:12:15.284 --> 00:12:15.725 Yeah. 00:12:15.725 --> 00:12:18.465 Separate. Separate, but awesome. 00:12:18.465 --> 00:13:58.000 So, I approached the syndicate and said, "This is what I want to do." And they went, "No, no, no, we don't do this in a comic strip." And I said, "I think there's a way to do it." So I wrote, I rewrote, I wrote, and rewrote and sent them stuff back-and-forth it went until we finally got it. Okay. Little kids could read this and not really know maybe what they're talking about. We're not going to use the P-word or anything like that in here. However, they wanted me to do two additional weeks of just regular "Luann" strips for any newspapers that opted not to run the period strips. So I did those, and out of three hundred newspaper clients, two of 'em opted not to run the period and ran those, those other ones. If "Luann" is, you know, remembered historically for anything, it'll probably be for that series. I did get lots of email--or mail back then--from and mostly supportive. There was those who said, This does not belong on the comic page. I come to the comics for entertainment and for a laugh, and you have this. You know, How do I explain this to my ten-year-old daughter? This kind of thing. But then you get other people, school nurses who say, I get girls in here who have no idea what's going on, and they're horrified and terrified, and so thank you. This was a wonderful thing. So that was probably the biggest one we did. And then we did a thing on Mothers Against Driving Drunk is, I think it's called. 00:13:58.000 --> 00:13:58.495 I think that's, yeah. 00:13:58.495 --> 00:14:02.284 And we've done a thing for firefighters. 00:14:02.284 --> 00:14:04.105 Delta had cancer. 00:14:04.105 --> 00:14:06.475 Yeah. One of my characters had cancer. 00:14:06.475 --> 00:14:27.095 And went through treatments for that and yeah, we had a toxic--verging on an abusive--relationship that we worked through and yeah. I'm trying to think what else we've done. 00:14:27.095 --> 00:14:54.725 Are there--so thinking about this--having to create the two weeks in case someone opted out, and there were only two that opted out of three hundred. Are there any--so that feels a little like censorship to me. So is there any other time that you have wanted to do something that you have felt kind of censored in your process? 00:14:54.725 --> 00:15:42.625 Mm, not really, because I'm a pretty mild, moderate kind of a guy, so "Luann" has always been pretty, like I said, pretty benign. Although I remember early in the strip I did a joke where I used the word zits talking about, Oh, I have zits. And I sent it in, and they wrote back and said, "You know, people don't want to be eating their breakfast and their eggs and reading about zits, so can we change it to blemishes?" And I thought, what teen girl says oh my blemishes? But it was changed. Okay. Then a few years later, what comes along? A comic strip called Zits. (Laughter) 00:15:42.625 --> 00:17:29.174 Who knows, who knows? I think there's a fine line too, between feeling, and we've been, we've been really fortunate, like all the syndicates you've worked for, or worked with, have been supportive. They're--they trust, they're there to work with creators. We have an editor who reviews everything, and sometimes they'll catch things that like, you know, we've used a phrase or something that we don't know there's a larger cultural context, or like, in some places this might be misconstrued and oh, I didn't know it was used that way. So we do have editorial oversight, I guess, but very much trust in the creators and the characters and what this comic strip is. But that being said, we're mindful of who and what our audience is. Like, we are in newspapers. That's very different than a book that somebody is going to a certain section or a certain age group. If you're thinking about newspapers, they come to a home, and anybody in that home could have access to the newspaper. And a lot of the newspaper page is meant to be shared. And what's on the comics page is kind of all ages material from things that are aimed for younger readers to more adult content. So being mindful of your audience and what that experience is. And I think that's part of why for us, there have been storylines, especially as the characters have aged, like, they're nineteen-year-olds. There's quite a few things that nineteen-year-olds are interested in, curious about, or doing that we're just not gonna address because of where our material goes out and who the potential audience is. That being said, I think we've done some clever work to acknowledge that our characters are at nineteen, and there are adult things happening in their lives. And that's kind of an interesting challenge sometimes, I think. 00:17:29.174 --> 00:17:29.184 Yeah. 00:17:29.184 --> 00:17:53.884 But there are, there are, there are things going on in our characters' lives that I'm sure they would like to talk about or share, and we're just, the medium that we're in is not the right fit for that. But as far as feeling a sense of censorship, I think that zits example is the best one. (Laughter) Thankfully. Minor, thankfully. 00:17:53.884 --> 00:18:06.755 Okay, so now we're going back to the beginning. So for Greg, what was your creative experience prior to creating "Luann" and what was your inspiration for "Luann?" 00:18:06.755 --> 00:19:32.685 Well, I was born to be a cartoonist, I think. I always loved cartooning. I'd sit in my bedroom for hours on end drawing cartoons. I grew up in Burbank, not far from Disney Studios. Thought I'd get a job as an animator or something there. Later found out how good of a draftsman you need to be to be an animator. You have to be able to draw characters all positions. And I'm, I'm not that good. And then my parents took the Saturday Evening Post, and they had cartoons in there, and I loved those. And I found out somehow that wait a minute, people are doing these and getting paid to draw these cartoons? I'd like to do that too. And then discovered comics in the newspaper and "Peanuts," of course, was so huge at the time. And I thought, yeah, I could do this with my kind of limited drawing skills and my interest in writing and telling stories and jokes. This seems like a perfect fit for my particular set of talents. And so I started coming up with ideas for comic strips, probably, I don't know, when I was in college, my first ones. And I had sent single panel jokes to all the magazines. In fact, I can show you here. I sent this one. Does that show up okay? 00:19:32.685 --> 00:19:35.233 It does. I can see it. 00:19:35.233 --> 00:19:56.904 (Greg shows sketch.) This I sent to Playboy magazine when I was 11 years old. (Laughter) So it's Joe the Plumber "Pluming,"and he's getting out of his truck in the toilet seat. And there's my elaborate signature with all those blades of grass that I drew by hand. I figured I'm gonna really earn my money here. Rejected that. 00:19:56.904 --> 00:20:03.743 But I think it's important to note that he had heard some how, some way that Playboy was one of the top paying-- 00:20:03.743 --> 00:20:05.075 --Yes. They paid the most. 00:20:05.075 --> 00:20:11.914 They paid the most, which is that's true. They paid very well for their comics. So he was, you know, financially strategic there. 00:20:11.914 --> 00:20:11.924 I was, yes. 00:20:11.924 --> 00:20:14.445 How did you know that? At eleven? 00:20:14.445 --> 00:20:16.714 At eleven I wanted to make a lot of money 00:20:16.714 --> 00:20:20.275 Guessing older contacts. How would you have known that? 00:20:20.275 --> 00:20:24.914 Yeah, I don't know. Uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. (Laughter) 00:20:24.914 --> 00:20:26.605 Like, read it somewhere. No idea. 00:20:26.605 --> 00:22:09.315 Read it somewhere, you know, I was always looking for articles or information about cartooning as a career, you know, it's hard to find 'cause it's kind of a weird off the thing. But yeah, so I sent off the one cartoon and that, you know, then I waited for the bunnies to roll up in the, in the limo and Hugh Hefner {Laughter). Walk to my door and hand me my check for $250. But that didn't happen. But anyway, I submitted to every magazine, and then I started submitting to the syndicates--comic strips--and I probably submitted fifteen or so of those. Here's one of the very first ones I submitted. (Greg shows comic strip.) Real simple, Just a little two guys. That was gonna be my whole premise of the whole strip is just these two guys talking and saying funny things. How long would that have been interesting? (Laughter) I don't think so. I don't know. And then I had ideas that I didn't know anything about. Like, here's one, that was sort of an inner city thing. "Seamy Heights." (Greg shows comic strip.) "Seamy Heights," and it had cops and it had guns and all these kinds of things. Well, I don't know anything about being a cop or inner-city life. So I was coming, you know, out of my brain instead of my heart trying to come up with ideas that, let's see, I'm looking at the comics, and there's nothing here about clowns in the circus, so I'll do that. You know? Then Karen, at about age five or six one day was walking around all dressed up in Betty's dress and high heels and stuff. 00:22:09.315 --> 00:22:09.712 Gotten into her makeup, 00:22:09.712 --> 00:23:10.565 Got into the makeup, and I thought, hmm, maybe I should do something about a kind of a saucy little, little girl. And so I started working on that idea, and somehow she told me that she should be thirteen. I just aged her to thirteen instead of, of young. And because it's a lot more juicy material at that age. So, uh, and then boy, the ideas just came like crazy. I set her in this family based on our family. She, Luann, has a brother who's three years older, just like Karen does and all that. And now I was writing, it was coming from my heart instead of from my head. And I knew this, this is probably gonna be the one. Sent it off and it got accepted. So, I got to do what I always wanted to do my whole life and be a cartoonist. 00:23:10.565 --> 00:23:14.182 I love that. Coming from your heart instead of your head. 00:23:14.182 --> 00:23:14.483 Yeah. Yeah. 00:23:14.483 --> 00:23:40.000 Because it was related to your family. Right. So we've talked a little bit about how "Luann" is based on Karen, Karen's life, but not too closely. It's not autobiographical. Karen, what was this like? Were you knowledgeable of this? What was this like for you? And tell me a little bit about that. 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:56.934 Well, I guess when I was younger, before Luann started, my dad made a living running a robot for entertainment. So that was normal in my house. 00:23:56.934 --> 00:23:59.541 (Greg shows photo of MaXwel the robot.} There may be people around from longer ago. Who remember. 00:23:59.541 --> 00:24:00.845 Yeah. So MaXwel, the robot. 00:24:00.845 --> 00:24:05.704 MaXwel the robot, he was at, I did Seaport Village, I did the zoo, I did all kinds of stuff. 00:24:05.704 --> 00:26:33.815 So dad would stand in the crowd with a, with a little hidden microphone that he had, then a bag with the controls. So he'd stand in the crowd and control this robot, and the robot would do like, crowd interactions and had some music it could play and some tricks with--like, its hat would spin and jokes and this whole thing. So that was normal in my young childhood. And then it transitioned, and there were a few years that they overlapped so he was running the robot and doing a comic strip. So then it transitioned right about the time that I would've started school, that he was now staying home and doing a comic strip. So I guess my point is I didn't have this experience, where I could compare it to what most kids' dads might have been doing, or like a typical nine-to-five sort of situation. So for a long time it just seemed normal. Now that being said, I was aware that this is something where my friends knew about it, and their families read it, and we got to do interesting things relating to meeting other cartoonists. We did a trip later, when I was like nine. We did a motor home trip traveling around, and we visited, like Jim Davis and we Sparky--so Charles Schultz--lived in Santa Rosa and had an ice skating rink that's still there and put on these amazing holiday like escapades on ice. And so many years that was a Christmas tradition. We'd go up because dad had become friends with Sparky. So like, we're at a table having dinner with Sparky. I got my first pair of roller blades from Sparky because his daughter had been on the cusp, like the cutting edge of roller blades, and they were selling them there. Like you kind of realize that's, that's special. But it wasn't until maybe later in my teen years that I had a little more perspective on what, like, how unusual this is as just a career, and that the lifestyle it afforded us as a family to be able to have someone who was there working from home. Like I always had a parent who could be home because that's where he worked. And that it was flexible enough that we were able to do some, like, travel things and you didn't have to, you know, navigate the time off with your coworkers and it's such a headache. So it wasn't until I was older that I really understood how rare and unique and, uh, special it is. I think-- 00:26:33.815 --> 00:26:45.035 --Just, I think it, it's a rare job in, in the sense that you, I can bank work so I can really work hard and bank that stuff. Get it ahead, send it. 00:26:45.035 --> 00:26:47.785 How far in advance do they require that you send it then? 00:26:47.785 --> 00:26:48.714 Six weeks. 00:26:48.714 --> 00:26:49.464 Oh, okay. 00:26:49.464 --> 00:26:57.224 Six weeks. But when we took that motor home trip, I worked ahead a whole three months, sent it off and-- 00:26:57.224 --> 00:26:57.825 Off you go. 00:26:57.825 --> 00:27:04.424 Off we go. And I don't, I can't think of many other jobs where you can, you know, where you can do that. 00:27:04.424 --> 00:27:39.000 And without having to be like, let me get permission. This is a special, special circumstance. I mean, all the syndicate just needs 365 days of work to put out. And, how you get it done. I mean, I know there are some other cartoonists that will do, we know one that he does six months of the year. He writes a whole year and draws a whole year of his material. And so that the other six months he can do any other travel or work projects or creative things he wants. Some people are very seat of the pants and others are, they're banking, and they have years of work in advance. It's really interesting. 00:27:39.000 --> 00:28:07.835 Yeah, some of 'em will do, instead of one strip a day, they'll do two. So in no time they're way ahead. And then there's other cartoonists, who don't get inspiration until the FedEx truck is pulling up to their door. (Laughter) And then there's others like Garry Trudeau who does "Doonesbury." So his is very topical and timely. So, he's right on deadline, everything is Fedexed, overnighted, and that kind of thing. 00:28:07.835 --> 00:29:05.065 So, yeah, now I--and even as I got older and realized this was rare and special--it wasn't until I started working with him that I understand not only how it's rare and special, but what just unique storytelling and a unique model as a creative it is. I'm so grateful for as long as we can hold onto the syndication model because we have, there's a team and their job is to handle distribution and promotion and sales. And our job is purely creative. And that's increasingly rare as a creative person. You've gotta have, you know, you're out there hustling and hustling or self-publishing or trying to hold people's attention and to have a, a creative outlet where we still do have, there are a lot of our fans are still getting newspapers, and it's our creative materials delivered literally to their doorstep every single day. 00:29:05.065 --> 00:29:07.825 And then put into the bird cage on the bottom. 00:29:07.825 --> 00:29:17.984 Yes. I was gonna say we're very humbled, but yeah, we are, we're, we're literally humbled as well. So yeah. That's pretty awesome. 00:29:17.984 --> 00:29:28.634 So speaking of your fans, you have quite an active fan base and I am wondering how you interact with your fans. 00:29:28.634 --> 00:30:58.526 Yeah, that has changed a lot. And when did GoComics launch, fifteen years ago? It's longer than we think. So GoComics is the website where "Luann" shows up online, and that is, our syndicate still does the newspaper side, but they had the forethought to go, this is, we need a, a backup plan. So they have the largest online presence for comics. and that was really interesting because when you're in the paper, you would get letters, but outside of that, you don't know if your fans are even reading it or what they think. But now there's an online comments section, and we don't spend a whole lot of time there 'cause it'll make you crazy trying to navigate people. But we have a very, very passionate fan base, and it's kind of neat to go in and see how people respond, what they latch onto, what they completely misunderstood, which is always really curious, I guess. I mean, we have some fans on there that are like, I've been reading this from day one and I've--they've read the whole archive--digital archive--if it's available. I've read it multiple times through. And their version of Bernice, the main character, is just like, how they perceive her based on their life experiences and their interpretation is so different from how we're meaning her to be portrayed. So it's kind of-- 00:30:58.526 --> 00:31:27.724 --And what's really fun about these online comment community is, you know, previously yes, I'd get mail from here, there, and everywhere, but the readers didn't interact in any way. Now these readers, they're, they're involved not just with the strip, but with each other. And so you'll see little birthday greetings or oh, sorry about your dog, or, you know, those kinds of things. Oh, hey, here's a new recipe. You know, so it's not always about, just about "Luann." So. 00:31:27.724 --> 00:31:32.585 It's, it's a real community. It's a real community. They watch out for each other and-- 00:31:32.585 --> 00:31:49.825 -- Yeah. Yeah. And they, they tend to push down the trolls and the, and the negative kinds of people and keep them, because I don't think there's anybody at the syndicate that's reading every comment and pulling things out. 00:31:49.825 --> 00:33:20.805 No, they have like a moderation system, but you kinda' have to flag somebody, and then they'll come in to intervene. But we have a very sort of, somehow our commenters, and I think it's partially because of, like we described the tone of what the strip is, they want it to be a friendly community, and while they're open to everybody having different opinions, they don't appreciate it when people are being particularly negative or harsh or, you know, attacking each other. So it's kind of, it's kind of inspiring. So we have that going on. And then we've been going to Comic-Con for a number of years. Dad's been going to San Diego Comic-Con for decades, and I started going again with him. And so we have fans that always find us every year at Comic-Con. We're at the National Cartoonists Society booth, so it's like a little bit of a treasure hunt to find us, because we don't have a "Luann" booth that you could look up in the directory. But that's always really fun to see some of our longtime fans that have become friends and how have you been and what have you been up to the last year? And then we have people miraculously who wander through Comic-Con and find us and are fans and some that didn't know about us that become fans. And that's, that's pretty special 'cause you're interacting live with people. So we enjoy that. And then a few years back, well, let's see, we started some fan interactions. So the first one was the fashion show. Is there anything before that? 00:33:20.805 --> 00:33:23.881 Or voting? I think it was voting. 00:33:23.881 --> 00:33:24.843 Oh, right. 00:33:24.843 --> 00:33:25.795 So Luann was-- 00:33:25.795 --> 00:33:27.404 twenty-eight years ago 00:33:27.404 --> 00:33:42.809 --gonna go to the prom or something. And Gunther wants to take her, but she wants to go with Aaron Hill. Which one should she pick? Or how should it, I forgot what the exact question was. But we posed this question to the readers in the newspaper. So they had to send a postcard-- 00:33:42.809 --> 00:33:47.164 --Like choose your own adventure? 00:33:47.164 --> 00:33:58.954 Yeah. And then, and mail it in. And then six weeks later there were results, and here's how it went and showed the results. 00:33:58.954 --> 00:34:15.425 Yeah. And a lot of people participated. So all the postcards got sent, I think sent to the syndicate, but it wasn't like one or two. So, you know, hundreds of people sent in votes of Gunther or Aaron, and the storyline proceeded according to their winning votes. 00:34:15.425 --> 00:35:03.232 And then the fashion show--that was a huge thing. I had this idea of let's do a fashion show but involve readers in some fashion, in some way. So it was, there was a thing in the strip that said there's gonna be a "Luann" fashion show if you'd like to submit drawings of the characters, and it doesn't have to be the characters, but let's see your fashions. You know, oh my gosh, we got sixty thousand--we got some incredible number of drawings. Some people, you know, some, it was a crayon thing on a napkin, but others was like, somebody sent patterns that you would put and cut, you know, cut the fabric from to make the thing. And, uh, it was, it was just amazing. 00:35:03.232 --> 00:35:04.039 It was awesome. 00:35:04.039 --> 00:35:04.832 It was just amazing. 00:35:04.832 --> 00:35:05.019 This was in like-- 00:35:05.019 --> 00:35:08.905 Then we had the fashion show in the strip, and we were able to show a whole bunch of these drawings. 00:35:08.905 --> 00:35:12.244 --ninety-four or ninety-five, maybe. 00:35:12.244 --> 00:35:12.938 The year? 00:35:12.938 --> 00:35:13.492 Yeah. 00:35:13.492 --> 00:35:14.324 Yeah, I think so. 00:35:14.324 --> 00:35:54.387 But the point being, it wasn't something you could email in or digitally upload. So this was all physically mailed. And I remember, again, it was sent to the syndicate and then they shipped it and sitting in the living room with just a sea of submissions and so amazing to see what people were up to. Little notes they'd include and how they interpreted characters, those who had, you know, drawn a Luann or Crystal or whomever it was, and address them in these fashions. So it was really cool. And then those fashions, he kind of translated that more directly into the strip. So-- 00:35:54.387 --> 00:35:55.605 How did you choose? 00:35:55.605 --> 00:35:56.715 I don't know how you chose it. 00:35:56.715 --> 00:36:54.525 Yeah, I don't know. That was tough. I mean, some of the stuff was inappropriate. Of course, those, but yeah, no, there was a lot of good stuff, and I wanted to show as much as I could. So I talked to the syndicate, and I said, "Is there a way that we can divide the country, all my clients into like a quadrant? So all the newspaper clients up here where submissions came from, and those winners they'll get that in their paper?" So I did four different versions of this two-week presentation of this thing. And so it was able--the great result of that was some kid would get notified that your, your thing is in the paper. And oh my gosh, they'd do a big story, a local story about the local kid who made it into "Luann." It was really cool. 00:36:54.525 --> 00:36:55.313 It was super cool. 00:36:55.313 --> 00:36:56.339 It was a lot of fun. 00:36:56.339 --> 00:36:57.108 Yeah, it was super cool. 00:36:57.108 --> 00:36:58.271 Yeah. That was, that was a huge-- 00:36:58.271 --> 00:37:01.815 It makes me wonder now when we look at GoComics, so it has the archive on there, but it only has one-- 00:37:01.815 --> 00:37:04.367 It would only have one of those. 00:37:04.367 --> 00:37:05.789 One of those. I wonder which one of those they chose. 00:37:05.789 --> 00:37:08.635 Good question. I, yeah. I don't know. 00:37:08.635 --> 00:37:10.914 Like, gotta dig up the other three. 00:37:10.914 --> 00:37:12.585 Yeah. 00:37:12.585 --> 00:37:21.164 So the fashion show was a success and then many years later, Brad and Toni would've been the next one, right? 00:37:21.164 --> 00:37:22.184 I think so. 00:37:22.184 --> 00:40:22.695 So Brad and Toni--Luann's brother, Brad, and his girlfriend Toni--dramatic dating story, evolution of Brad as a human being. They're getting ready, they get engaged, and fans were so into the story of this couple and their life and Brad's growth from this kind of like pointless slob to a firefighter. And he had all this purpose. And so we decided we wanted to do some wedding stuff. So we built out luannefan.com. That's how it got started, as a place for us to build these wedding-related activities. So we posted photo albums, which were collections of chapters in their dating story 'cause they dated seven, eight years in the strip. So you could go back and revisit from the beginning and reread these strips collected together. We had a wedding wishes, so people could send in their wedding wishes and good thoughts for Brad and Toni. And people wrote these lovely, you know, advice. And it's been so inspiring watching you as a couple. I mean, these people are so real to us and to our, to our readers. It was just sweet. As firefighters, we had them, instead of gifts you could choose, you know, sort of a gift registry. You could donate to a firefighters fund. And people did do that. And then the big thing was a wedding dress competition. So, similar to the fashion show, submit your designs, but this time we had digital technology so people could upload their designs and then upvote what--so it wasn't us choosing-- up vote, up vote, up vote. And that was pretty neat. I think we ended up with like forty-six thousand votes on wedding dresses and six hundred some dress designs uploaded. And a lot of neat participation. And then the winning dress design was translated. And that's what Toni wore in the wedding with a little, you know, call out and congratulations. So that was really cool. So we have a lot of fan interaction. And then we revived the Luann Fan a few years back and have started a monthly newsletter that we send out where we're sharing some, you know, little behind the scenes stories and tips--not tips--tidbits about, you know, how the current storyline came to be or oddball stuff from our lives. Just as a way to engage with fans. So that's been awesome. We just did our fortieth anniversary and big positive, happy wishes from fans and people wanting to join the newsletter and people sending great, beautiful, sweet comments on online. Very lucky to have a wonderful fan base. 00:40:22.695 --> 00:40:23.835 Forty years. 00:40:23.835 --> 00:40:25.005 Yeah. Forty years. 00:40:25.005 --> 00:40:32.715 I got a chance to look at all of your stuff from, from the day, from the Sunday. The video that you did and-- 00:40:32.715 --> 00:40:34.125 Yeah. 00:40:34.125 --> 00:40:35.864 It's really cool. The Luanniversary. 00:40:35.864 --> 00:40:36.958 The Luanniversary. 00:40:36.958 --> 00:40:37.621 Yeah. 00:40:37.621 --> 00:40:40.594 The one good thing about naming her Luann. 00:40:40.594 --> 00:40:40.605 Yeah. 00:40:40.605 --> 00:40:53.414 It translates to LuannFan is catchy and Luanniversary is perfect. Otherwise a lot of people, it's a hard name to remember or spell correctly. Too many spelling variants. 00:40:53.414 --> 00:41:11.914 Right. That one n gets me every time. (Laughter) Now I remember. Okay. I'm gonna switch gears a little bit. So Greg, you have a long history with CSU San Marcos and can you tell us about your CSUSM connections? 00:41:11.914 --> 00:41:15.284 Connections with San Marcos? 00:41:15.284 --> 00:41:16.244 With CSUSM. 00:41:16.244 --> 00:43:49.936 Oh, with, with university. Yeah. Well, let's see. We moved here in 1980, and that's five years before the strip started. And I ran the robot. And then got the strip going. And a couple of, a couple of interesting things, too, about San Marcos. People have asked me, where'd the name Luann come from? I didn't have a name for this character. I just knew I wanted something kind of not, she wasn't a Tiffany, you know. And I was driving around one day and there was a construction company that used to be in San Marcos called Louetto Construction. And they had their truck sitting out somewhere. Lou, I like the Lou part, not the etto. Uh, so Luann and then Aaron Hill, Luann's heartthrob, where we lived before we lived here, we lived sort of on a hill. And our son, Gary, his best friend lived on the adjacent hill. And his name was Aaron. Aaron Hill. I mean, how high two As, and then a hill. So that's the ultimate, the ultimate thing. Then I don't remember how I met Meryl Goldberg exactly, I can't recall. But she's the one who said, "You know, you should write a Luann musical." I said, "I should?" Okay. Well, when I was a kid, I took piano for about a year-and-a-half and hated it and quit. And I wish I hadn't, but I, you know, I can kind of find notes and chords a little bit. So I thought, well, I don't know, maybe I could write some songs, and I could certainly write a script. I mean, it's what I do anyway. So I took a bunch of actual "Luann" gags and situations from the strip and sort of wove 'em together into "Scenes in a Teen's Life" idea for a musical. And it was put on by Rancho Buena Vista High School, over at the California Center for the Arts. We did it there and turned out really nicely. So yeah, that was, I think, sort of my start with the relationship there. And then, I think it's when the art building opened. Yeah, the art building had opened-- 00:43:49.936 --> 00:43:50.815 --the Arts Council? 00:43:50.815 --> 00:44:02.014 and I think that's where maybe I met Meryl there at that. So anyway, kind of got involved with all of that. And then the, you know, the fundraisers and-- 00:44:02.014 --> 00:44:09.114 I think some of it, I would imagine, overlaps with mom's connections in San Marcos. 00:44:09.114 --> 00:44:09.795 The university? 00:44:09.795 --> 00:44:13.255 Is that how some of that would overlap? 00:44:13.255 --> 00:44:30.614 I think they're a little bit separate. My wife Betty was on the city council and ran for mayor. And then she was on the Vallecitos Board, uh, Water District Board. So we've had deep connections here in the city. 00:44:30.614 --> 00:44:41.164 I was just thinking if she would've been part of connections with Cal State because I know she was as a city council person like involved in why the university got to be here and-- 00:44:41.164 --> 00:44:55.235 Yeah, I don't know, a little. She certainly was there when the city hall was built. Mom was part of that whole thing, so, yeah. 00:44:55.235 --> 00:45:04.594 What about, so you mentioned that you had written the "Luann" musical, "Luann the Musical." You have written some other plays too, right? 00:45:04.594 --> 00:46:02.000 Yeah. So that one was kind of fun to do. I mean, I didn't realize that nobody writes a musical. But, you know, I have my little keyboard, and I use a program called Garage Band. So you can layer in sounds and drum lines and this basic stuff, and I write these little songs, and then I hire a guy to do the arranging so that a band, you know, can play these things. So yeah. I wrote a "Luann" show, and then I wrote one called "Wrinkles" about getting old, and it premiered, I think at the Lawrence Welk Theater. Appropriate. "A Boy and a Girl," about two infants born on the same day. And then their relationship as they grow older. And Sibling, uh-- 00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:03.364 "Quibbling Siblings." 00:46:03.364 --> 00:46:09.045 "Quibbling Siblings," which is about a brother and a sister who do nothing but argue all the time. 00:46:09.045 --> 00:46:10.105 Okay. 00:46:10.105 --> 00:46:20.315 And those have all been put on locally. And a few places have done the "Luann," it's available beyond just like the local networks. And so there are places that have put on-- 00:46:20.315 --> 00:46:40.045 Yeah, "Luann" got picked up by a publisher, and it's out there, and it's probably been done, I don't know, twenty times over the years. "Wrinkles" is also with a publisher, but it's never been, she never managed to get it produced. And the other two are sitting on my computer. 00:46:40.045 --> 00:46:43.485 I did get to see "A Boy and a Girl"--at the Patio? 00:46:43.485 --> 00:46:44.071 Yes. 00:46:44.071 --> 00:46:46.125 Oh, at Patio. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:46:46.125 --> 00:46:49.295 I want to say maybe it was 2019. It was right before Covid. 00:46:49.295 --> 00:47:09.324 Right before Covid. Our scale for everything--before or after Covid. Yeah. "A Boy and a Girl" was fun 'cause that one, we got to--so before Dad wrote a musical, there was a "Luann" musical created by someone else in early nineties? Late eighties? 00:47:09.324 --> 00:47:10.525 The late eighties, probably. 00:47:10.525 --> 00:48:09.954 Late eighties. And the young woman who played Luann locally in the eighties grew up to be a very successful actress and performer here locally. And, came on and directed and developed "A Boy and a Girl." So that was kind of a cool roundabout thing. Like this person who, it's not like there was some deep connection back from the eighties, but over time, turns out, here's Bets showing up in our lives. Back again. And helping develop "A Boy and a Girl." And that got staged in the garage here for the first production. You gotta' figure out all the staging and how do you block this and what do we do and let's rehearse it. 'Cause it's, that was pretty cool. I thought that was cool. I got to stage direct, so I learned what that means. And I was like, this is a lot of work. (Laughter) 00:48:09.954 --> 00:48:17.644 Well you think writing a comic strip is hard. Try writing a good musical and it's really hard. 00:48:17.644 --> 00:48:30.284 I have to go back to the robot and ask about the robot. How did that come about? Did you build the robot? Did you, how did that come about? And you said that you donated it to CSUSM? 00:48:30.284 --> 00:50:31.284 Yes, I did. Okay. Yes. When my wife and I were both, went to school and got degrees to be school teachers. So, my first job was out in El Centro. I was a school teacher, and Betty was in Merced. She was a school teacher. We got married, we were in El Centro. I think it was Betty who saw a notice about Australia, shortage of teachers down there. They're getting Americans to come down and teach. We signed up, We got accepted, and Betty and I taught in Australia for two years. Came home. Now what? And I found out I'm not a good teacher. I didn't really enjoy it. Betty's awesome. I'm not that good. what should I do? Well, we ended up, for some reason in Colorado Springs, we ended up there. Oh, I know. There was a possible teaching job for me there, which didn't pan out. Oh-oh, now what? Well then there was an opening at a local TV station for a part-time, split-shift job running the camera for the evening news. So I would go in, yeah. So I would go in and stand at the camera with the headphones on for half an hour at five o'clock for that one. And then go home and then come back for the nine o'clock, do the same thing, and aim the camera and stand there and then go home. And that's what I did there. The station that I worked for, for some reason, decided to buy a robot. It was built by a guy there locally, and this is what he did. He sold these little R2-D2 kind of robots 'cause Star Wars was huge. So the station bought one, and they needed someone to run this thing. Because it is like a RC car, a little radio-controlled thing. And I had a van and they said, "Greg, why don't you go ahead and run this robot around?" 00:50:31.284 --> 00:50:33.083 It was like a promotional idea. 00:50:33.083 --> 00:53:28.000 It was a promotional thing. Yeah. So, I would go out with this little robot and show up at different events, you know, to promote the station. That's what I did. And I found out, oh, I'm pretty good at this. I'm not an actor, I'm not a performer, I'm not a comedian, but put me behind the scenes, and I can do okay. So standing in the crowd with a little microphone and saying funny stuff, and it's coming out over there, and the robot is moving and interacting with the crowd. That was perfect for my nature. That suited me very well. And I did a good job at it. And we had been wanting to come back to California. We really missed--we were--Betty and I were both natives, and we had the kids in Colorado Springs and we were, let's go. So packed up, bought a robot of our own from this guy, and landed here in San Diego and thought, okay, here we go. What do I do? So I started just going to the local malls, and I'd go around with this robot and bit by bit, I got contracts to come back and do things and do that. And so I was at Seaport Village every weekend for years, and I was at the San Diego Zoo entertaining the lines of people, while they were waiting to go in. I did the California State Fair. I did a lot of corporate events and parties and all just tons of stuff. I was really busy to the point where I, I bought a second robot thinking I could franchise this thing and find someone, you know, to run the other (robot). Well, that's hard. You need someone who's basically unemployed because your gigs come up all the time, and who has a van and who has a strong back and could lift this robot? So the franchise idea didn't go anywhere. I just always wanted to be a cartoonist, anyway. Thank goodness that got going. Yeah. Then I retired MaXwel, and Meryl said--you know--Meryl, she's always got an idea. "Well, you know, maybe you could donate it to the University. We could find someone who would run it and he would represent the ARTES program. And so he would go to schools and promote art and maybe we have an assistant who goes with him and together they're doing"--you know, she had all these ideas, and they got a van. And I made a wrap to go on this van that had MaXwel and then all this kind of artsy sort of things all over the van. And I had lost track of whatever became of that program. I don't know. Yeah. So that Max, I have two robots. That MaXwel is, I don't know where, and the other one is in our shed-- 00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:29.000 You still have-- 00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:31.000 in a box. Ready to go.. 00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:33.784 Maybe that's what I should be learning to do. 00:53:33.784 --> 00:53:35.074 You should. Yeah. 00:53:35.074 --> 00:53:36.744 I'll follow your career. But in reverse. 00:53:36.744 --> 00:53:39.644 Can you grow a beard? It is helpful to have the beard. 00:53:39.644 --> 00:53:44.000 Beard is helpful. I'll look into that. There's some sort of injections, I'm sure. 00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:48.715 Something. Hormones (Laughter) 00:53:48.715 --> 00:53:57.945 Okay. Well after forty years of blood, sweat, and tears, what is the future of "Luann?" 00:53:57.945 --> 00:54:00.204 Future of Luann? 00:54:00.204 --> 00:54:06.704 Mmm. 00:54:06.704 --> 00:54:10.835 Keep going. That's it. That's it. I don't know. We're-- 00:54:10.835 --> 00:54:12.474 You have a huge family legacy. 00:54:12.474 --> 00:54:25.425 Yeah. We love what we do. He loves what he does. It's all he ever wanted to do, and he gets to do it. And I think working together has kept it interesting. 00:54:25.425 --> 00:54:46.945 Yeah. At this point I thought I'd be phoning it in, you know, but it's engaging and fun more than ever because of working together. And as long as newspapers survive or the internet can keep things going, and there's an income to be made, I'll keep doing it until I keel over. 00:54:46.945 --> 00:55:39.750 Yeah. (Greg mimics coughing) Oh, stop it! (Laughter) So that's the idea. And then, who knows? Like we've toyed with various spinoff or add-on ideas with, you know, when graphic novels came onto the scene, there was a lot of, you know, we should do a "Luann" graphic novel. Or, you know, Brad and Toni should spin off into their own comic strip, or more than once, there's been efforts and some traction on a "Luann" TV show of some kind. But that relies on Hollywood, which is the most unreliable planet on the planet. And, we've talked about ideas for, you know, extra material or content that our really hardcore fans would genuinely feel excited to, you know, subscribe to or purchase things or, I don't know if you wanna show them Puddles. (Gestures to plastic model of the "Luann" dog, Puddles) This is a random, there's a group here in North County of cartoonist-type creative people that get together just for fun. And one of the gentlemen is a very talented sculptor. He comes from the automotive industry, and in his retirement, was kind of looking for a new way to do something interesting and creative and decided let's do a "Luann" thing. And this is a 3D-printed project that six months, seven months? 00:55:39.750 --> 00:56:16.000 Yeah. 00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:38.885 Been such a cool thing watching, watching Dad get to like try to envision these characters in three dimensions and work with Tony on how do you translate the back of Luann's head, or what's the scale of all of this when, you know? When you're drawing it, it stays a pretty consistent scale, but actually mathematically to set-- 00:56:38.885 --> 00:56:52.764 You can, when you're drawing, you know, you can, I can cheat, but what dog from the back has their eyeballs sticking up like that? (Laughter) No. Where's the eyelids? 00:56:52.764 --> 00:56:57.164 So who knows? Who knows what we'll-- 00:56:57.164 --> 00:57:35.224 "Luann" has never been a real licensable character or intellectual property as far as T-shirts or clothing or stuff like that. You know, not, it's not a "Peanuts," "Garfield" kind of a cute thing that you can dress up or stuff like that. So we've never really had anything like that. Books for a while, and then they're not really doing books much anymore of comic strip collections. So that's sort of gone to the side. So, really just focusing on doing the best strip we can do every single day 'cause we owe it to the readers. 00:57:35.224 --> 00:57:36.045 That's true. 00:57:36.045 --> 00:57:37.804 Yeah. That's our job. 00:57:37.804 --> 00:57:39.465 Yep. 00:57:39.465 --> 00:57:50.594 Is there anything else that you would like to cover in today's interview? Anything that we missed? 00:57:50.594 --> 00:58:31.994 I just have to say that for such a strange career, it has opened doors and opportunities beyond imagination. Just creative people that we've met, or connections that we've been able to make, opportunities because we have flexibility. As a kid growing up, I have such an appreciation now the longer I go into my adult life, that I had parents, who were able to very bravely pursue kind of risky things like robots and cartooning, but stuck with it and made it work. And-- 00:58:31.994 --> 00:58:41.784 Yeah. My parents were like, hold on, five years of college to be a teacher, and now you're gonna go be a--run a robot? 00:58:41.784 --> 00:58:43.304 What? 00:58:43.304 --> 00:58:45.505 What? Gregory what are you thinking? 00:58:45.505 --> 00:59:05.385 Yeah. And then I think the community, just the cartooning community, our fan community, the creative community, and then the community that you guys, in particular, having been here and raised a family here, built with San Marcos as a home base. Like you've said, all of "Luann" has come from San Marcos. 00:59:05.385 --> 00:59:26.364 Yeah. Yeah, it has. That's and what a great place to live, you know, I mean, doing this job that you can live any anywhere. And so why not pick a gorgeous place to live? And I forgot to mention the exhibit at, at the library, too, the "Luann" exhibit. 00:59:26.364 --> 00:59:32.144 I had a question about it, but I--You didn't always know that Luann would go to college. 00:59:32.144 --> 00:59:34.000 That's true. 00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:38.505 Right, and so how, "how did that come to be?" was my question. 00:59:38.505 --> 01:01:40.824 How did Luann come to college? Well, so she started out at thirteen, and it was his decision to turn her sixteen. And I think that was because she had stopped being thirteen over--I wrote this up, I looked it up at some point. I feel like she was thirteen for like thirteen years. And after that it was kinda like, she's outgrown this and at sixteen, she could start to drive. So that might open up some new opportunities. So she was sixteen for another dozen some years. And right at the time that I came in, my version of the story, and then you can tell your version of the story, but my version of the story is when I started working, you were feeling kind of burned out. Like you'd been telling teen high school drama stories for at that point, you know, twenty-four years or whatever. And just were kinda' what else do we do with it? And these characters are, we've done all the dynamics over and over in different ways. And that was part of where the conversation of, Well, what if we bump them to college? What would that look like, and how would we do it? And that was an interesting decision in the sense that "Luann" doesn't move in any sort of structured like time frame. It's not this many years of "Luann" is equal to this many human real life years. But we recognized when we decided to graduate her that her senior year had to move in real time. Like you can't just sort of weirdly linger in your senior year indefinitely and be like, oh, my final prom again. So that was kind of, that was kind of crazy. That's the only time "Luann" has really moved in real time is that one year of senior year of high school. And then we had to do a lot of specific planning for what--we only have 365 days of comics. So what core events happened in that senior year? So that was my version of it. 01:01:40.824 --> 01:01:58.284 And what do we do with the characters? Because they had all been in this nice, neat package at this school. Right. The teachers, Mr. Fogarty, everybody's right there. Well, are they all gonna' graduate and go to the very same college? Wouldn't that be-- 01:01:58.284 --> 01:01:58.695 Wouldn't that be great? 01:01:58.695 --> 01:02:14.244 A coincidence? Well, that's not gonna happen. Of course not. So some went to the junior college like Luann did, some went to the university, and about five characters sort of just left the strip and-- 01:02:14.244 --> 01:02:15.813 They moved on with their lives, really. 01:02:15.813 --> 01:02:30.474 Yeah. And new characters came in. So it was a big adjustment. So now we have different universes in the strip that are happening at the same time, but don't maybe necessarily overlap. So it's a little more of a challenge, I think. 01:02:30.474 --> 01:02:31.268 Yeah. 01:02:31.268 --> 01:02:31.664 To write. 01:02:31.664 --> 01:03:56.000 And that's where you think sometimes I feel like, when I came along. I am, I tend to think much more complex than what fits into a comic strip. So I have to work hard to dial things down. But yeah, moving them out into college and making hard decisions--like the core of "Luann" for so many years was Luann and her two best friends with Bernice and Delta. But when we started thinking about it, going back to characters telling you what's gonna' happen to them, there was no way--Delta was so driven and global and passionate. We just couldn't see her staying at her hometown university. And so she's, she's currently off at Howard doing amazing things, I'm sure. But it was such a shocking thing to think about splitting up these three core characters and yeah. Yeah. Like how do you, how do we, what? But that Delta just genuinely wasn't going to be sticking around town. So she's out, maybe she'll show up someday and tell us what she's been doing. But awesome things, I'm sure. 01:03:56.000 --> 01:04:05.224 And just for those listening, we're referring to an exhibit that was done at the CSUSM Library called "Luann Goes to College" (actually titled "Luann's Journey to College). 01:04:05.224 --> 01:05:30.014 Yes. So that was a cool experience, 'cause it was neat to, we put together strips that kind of show this evolution of "Luann" going from my high school self preparing and going into college and to have that showcased on a university campus I thought was particularly special because even if you're a transfer student, that's just a fresh experience for you. And being a freshman in particular is such a strange stage in life of being like, I'm an adult and I'm out doing my thing, but I don't feel fully like an adult. And I think nineteen--eighteen and nineteen--nineteen is the most interesting to me because you are still a teen. You're nineteen, you're a teenager, but you're eighteen-nineteen, like you're an adult. You've kind of gone out on your own, but you're not fully figuring it all out by nineteen for most people. And then you haven't hit the all-important twenty-one. So your social life is still, you can't access anything that's twenty-one and up, whether you choose to drink or not. But just there's, there's activities that aren't available to you. So this is like weird little limbo land. Being like a teen-adult. So yeah, that was a neat exhibit to put together. 01:05:30.014 --> 01:05:30.585 Well. 01:05:30.585 --> 01:05:40.655 Yeah, we've always had a great relationship with the university, and we really appreciate it. Yeah. And it's really an honor to be asked to be part of this oral history. 01:05:40.655 --> 01:05:53.744 Well I just wan to thank you so much today for sharing your creativity, your passion, your relationship. I think it's really beautiful the way that you two work together and collaborate. 01:05:53.744 --> 01:05:58.784 Our matching shirts. Yep. Mom got us these for Christmas, so we thought it would be good to wear them today. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en video Property rights reside with the university. Copyrights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. This resource is licensed for noncommercial educational use using CC NC-BY 4.0. Please contact Special Collections at archives csusm.edu if you need reproductions made. &#13 ; &#13 ; Please see the related “Preferred Citation note” for language on citing materials from this collection. &#13 ; &#13 ; Permission to examine Library materials is not authorization to publish or to reproduce the examined material in whole, or in part. Persons wishing to quote, publish, perform, reproduce, or otherwise make use of an item in the library’s collections must assume all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of the copyright holder. &#13 ; &#13 ; The researcher assumes full responsibility for use of the material and agrees to hold harmless the University Library, and California State University, against all claims, demands, costs, and expenses incurred by copyright infringement or any other legal or regulatory cause of action arising from the use of the library's materials. &#13 ; &#13 ; In assuming full responsibility for use of the material, the researcher also understands that the materials they examine may contain Social Security numbers, other personal identifiers, and/or sensitive material on potentially living and identifiable individuals (e.g., medical, evaluative, or personally invasive information). The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=EvansGreg_and_Evans_Karen_FabbiJennifer_03-25-25_access.xml EvansGreg_and Evans_Karen_FabbiJennifer_03-25-25_access.xml https://archivesearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/resources/19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Evans, Greg and Karen. Interview March 25, 2025. Description An account of the resource Oral history interview of Greg Evans and Karen Evans, March 25, 2025. Greg and Karen Evans are a father-daughter team who co-create the syndicated comic strip, Luann. In this interview, they talk about their roles in creative process, the inspiration for Luann, and the evolution of the comic strip over its 40-year existence. Greg received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from CSU San Marcos in 2016. Karen Evans is also the newly elected president of the National Cartoonists Society. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-075 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-03-25 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greg Evans and Karen Evans Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Fabbi Subject The topic of the resource Cartooning -- Technique Comic strip characters Luann. Selections Comic books, strips, etc. Cartoonist Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Marcos (Calif.) El Centro (Calif.) Merced (Calif.) Australia Colorado Springs (Co.) San Diego (Calif.)  Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a class="Hyperlink SCXW191720648 BCX0" href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg Evans Karen Evans Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Art and artists Community history Women's experience https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/a8a1f90cbd2908f9886a3aeb3bbc3e4f.mp4 c747c7aaa2c3b6ceae6297856be54261 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral history of Alex White, April 18, 2024 Description An account of the resource Alex White is a Chamorro activist who experienced a two week long Chamorro immersion program histed by the Prugraman Sinipok organization. In this interview, he speaks on his experiences growing up in Colorado, his engagement with Chamorro culture, and his path to learning the Chamorro language. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alex White Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Robert Sheehan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-04-18 Subject The topic of the resource Language revival Chamorro language Chamorro (Micronesian people) -- History Chamorro (Micronesian people) -- Social life and customs Colonization -- Spain -- Oceania Colonization -- Japan Colonization -- United States -- Guam Decolonization -- Guam Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Guam San Diego County (Calif.) Colorado Language A language of the resource English and Chamorro Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Alex White License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context WhiteAlex_SheehanRobert_2024-04-18 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Community History Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Alexa Clausen Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Daniel Flores Rios OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=RiosDan_ClausenAlexa_2017-05-09.xml Interview Keyword This filed adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the "keywords" field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record. Times-Advocate newspaper;North County Times newspaper;North County, San Diego;Wild Animal Park;San Diego Zoo Safari Park;Photography;Black and white negatives;color negatives;dark room;color theory;color separation;digital camera;digital cameras;Rollieflex;Yashica;Nikon;Photoshop;Chromega;Rancho Bernardo, CA;Penasquitos, CA;Fallbrook, CA;San Diego, CA;Escondido, CA;Wildfire;Advertising;marketing OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Rios, Dan. Interview May 9th, 2017 SC003-03 00:39:31 SC003 Dan Rios papers CSUSM csusm Escondido (Calif.) ; Fallbrook (Calif.) ; Penasquitos (Calif.) ; Rancho Bernardo (San Diego, Calif.) ; Photojournalists ; Digital cameras ; Photographic chemicals ; Mexican Americans Times-Advocate newspaper ; North County Times newspaper ; North County, San Diego ; Wild Animal Park ; San Diego Zoo Safari Park ; Photography ; Black and white negatives ; color negatives ; dark room ; color theory ; color separation ; digital camera ; digital cameras ; Rollieflex ; Yashica ; Nikon ; Photoshop ; Chromega ; Rancho Bernardo, CA ; Penasquitos, CA ; Fallbrook, CA ; San Diego, CA ; Escondido, CA ; Wildfire ; Advertising ; marketing Daniel Flores Rios Alexa Clausen .wav RiosDan_ClausenAlexa_2017-05-09.wav 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/1c3ee8d55ddb0829d191f2f592e8217e.wav Other audio English Daniel Flores Rios, born in Hanford, California. April 10th, 1939 to Theodore and Jennie Rios, was the Chief Photographer at the Escondido Times-Advocate and North County Times newspapers. This interview recounts Rios's career working for the Escondido Times-Advocate and North County Times.&#13 ; &#13 ; As the Chief Photographer, Rios was instrumental in transitioning the North County Times from publishing images in black and white, to publishing in color. He recounts how photographers were initially required to buy and maintain their own equipment and how he was able to create a deal with the newspaper to compensate photographers fairly for their equipment. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:03.000 --> 00:01:11.000 Ok, good morning, we are now recording. Uh, this is Alexa Clausen with Dan Rios on our third session interviewing regarding his career, the Times Advocate and North County Times. It’s May 9th, 2017, and, uh, just by way of introduction, today we are going to focus a little bit more on the technical aspects that Dan had encountered and worked with. Based on what he said that during his interview as a young man as a photographer, he was hired because he had a specialty and knowledge of color. And he had brought his portfolio, and the bosses said “Yeah, we’re moving in this direction and you’re the guy. So, maybe from that starting point in the status of the color for this newspaper and where they were going and your involvement, if we could start there? 00:01:11.000 --> 00:04:32.000 Yeah, ok. Yeah, uh, I was hired, May of 1968 and that was one of the questions asked me was whether I knew how to do color and I had specialized in color my last year, semester, in college. And I shared my portfolio and the day after that I was hired. Uh, I started working the dark room as their first full-time photographer. They had had a part time photographer, and they had a reporter/photographer named Mary Jane Morgan who would take pictures, process the film, and print things on what was called a Photo-rite machine. It was basically a large Polaroid. The paper had the emulsion built in. You exposed the paper, feed it through this machine and it would come out in print. Umm, it was never fixed or finished. It was just air dried as an instant print, and it would be used for the reproduction. They had gone off-set, and they would, the uh, production department, would screen it- what was called 'screening' these pictures. And read them in the paper. Well, I started and uh, thought this was not the, the right way to go, so I installed regular processing chemicals and paper. But we did use the Photo-rite machine to proof everything, make contact prints instantly so the reporters and advertising could select the photos, and I would print them. Uh, during this time, uh, Keith Seals was the production manager and asked me if I knew how to do color separations. And I had, uh, played with this in college and I told him I would do research, and I’d get back to him, and I did. And I came up with this process of using color film with color filters, with the enlarger, and using panchromatic paper-it, which is, uh, registered all colors of the spectrum. As opposed to orthochromatic paper which only registers, uh, blue light. Red light doesn't register, hence the red light in the dark room. You can work in the dark room without damaging the papers cause, it would not be sensitive to red light. Well, panchromatic paper is sensitive to all colors of the spectrum. So, I would have to work in total darkness. And I would expose, and I played around with this, and I would expose these different papers. Four papers. The black, the cyan, the yellow and the magenta- in different sheets of paper and process them and come with different images using the enlarger and different filters. Colored filters. And then giving them four sets of prints. And, I had to use this home-made device to register. I would punch the papers and then I would align them with the punches on the, on the surface of the enlarger. Um, I would hand these papers over to black and white prints to the production department. They would screen them all, uh, because they were all different. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:33.000 Yeah 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:42.000 Using the filters and come up with the separations. Uh, prior to that, we would send color transparencies to Monrovia. The newspaper in Monrovia, 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:43.000 Ok 00:04:43.000 --> 00:05:12.000 And they would separate there at 133 lines per inch. But they would take two-three weeks to come back. So, we had to plan there was no instant color in the paper. We had to plan for Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, stuff like that. Very sporadic. I remember Keith Seals telling me once that his dream was to be able produce, reproduce half column color mug shots every day in the paper. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:13.000 Wow. 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:16.000 Eventually, we got to the point where we did that. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:43.000 Well, we did this color separation system of mine, uh, for a year, year and a half. And maybe even longer. Uh, we got better equipment in the, uh, in the production department to scan my, uh, my separations. And I remember when the Wild Animal Park cause I was taking pictures there from groundbreaking to ribbon cutting. 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:44.000 Oh, sure! 00:05:44.000 --> 00:06:46.000 And, in fact I had shot the color, the cover in 4” x 5” color transparency. And we did send that out to be scanned and separated. But we had a collection of all these color negatives. And when grand opening of Wild Animal Park, I spent maybe 30 hours straight in the dark room separating each negative from Friday afternoon till Sunday about noon. Came home a couple times, had supper, took a shower and went back. At the end of my session there on Sunday afternoon I couldn't feel the floor. I was hallucinating. I had been in the dark so long, working so many hours. So, Monday when the crew came in, they started separating. And that was a special section that we put out for the Wild Animal Park. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:50.000 Now, how, uh, was the color technology going forward elsewhere? 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:51.000 Yes, uh, yes. 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:58.000 And, and were you able to merge your color separation system with what was coming forward? 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:18.000 No, no. Eventually the company did research and there was a man in Escondido who would do color separations for us, for color slides, color positives. And we quit my separation, thank God. Cause it was, it was a, ah. 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:19.000 It was too labor intensive. 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:20.000 Yeah, it really, really was. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.000 Plus, you’re exposed to all that, the chemicals. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:33.000 Yeah, the chemicals never bothered me, they were harmless, unless you drank them, I suppose. But eventually they bought a machine to do color separation in the Production Department. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.000 When do you think this was? What year? 00:07:36.000 --> 00:08:10.000 Hmm, mid-70's, late 70's. Yeah. Um, but when I started there, um, I brought my own equipment in and I had 4” x 5” cameras, and 2” and a quarter cameras, and 35 mm cameras, and strobe lights, and light stands, and lighting equipment. Uh, when I got there, I think the paper had three Rolleiflex cameras that, uh, everybody used. Um, they were continuously being broken. Man handled and uh... 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:11.000 Yep, that’s the problem… 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:46.000 So, I went to Ron Kinney, and I said to him. Oh, to back up. Eloise Perkins was going on vacation, and she wanted her own camera. So, I did a little research and found out that there was a Japanese company Yashica that was making a twin lens reflex camera for about 70 dollars, 78 dollars I think, I got her one. Whereas the Rolleis were costing 500 to 700 dollars apiece. This is 1968, 70, 71. I don't know how much it would be in today's dollars. But it would be massively expensive. 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:50.000 Oh, it would be $10,000… 00:08:50.000 --> 00:09:03.000 Yeah, so she started using her own camera and bringing the film in. And my god, I couldn't believe the negatives were as sharp or sharper than the Rolleiflexes, from a 70-dollar camera. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:06.000 But you continued to use your own equipment? 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:42.000 Yes, right. And I was using their Rolleiflex. Till I got one for myself and, uh, I bought some new strobe lights because the one they had was not adequate. But finding out how sharp, just, just a fine piece of camera the Yashica was, I went to Ron Kinney and I asked him: We are spending all this money repairing these three Rolleiflexs that we have, why don't we just buy a Rollei… a Yashica for each of the reporters as their own camera? 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:43.000 Right, the cost of… 00:09:43.000 --> 00:10:32.000 The repair bills went down to nothing because they would take care of their own cameras. And we supplied the film, the processing, the printing all they did was take... And some reporters refused to take pictures. If they, if they were forced to, I remember one columnist, overexposed the film so badly that you could see the sun through them. Because he did not want to take pictures, this was his way of rebelling. He says, “I'm not a photographer, I'm a writer, I'm a columnist.” And, then the company would make the reporters take their own pictures when they went on assignment if I wasn't available. But this one reporter, absolutely refused. And he came from San Diego. I think he started in the (19)20's or (19)30's- the San Diego Sun or the Union, the Tribune. 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:36.000 AC: So he was of the school that you send a photographer with the person. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:11:09.000 Yeah, right, yeah. He was not going to mix the professions. The other reporters, they didn't care. Some reporters were pretty good. Bill Kane was pretty good, Eloise was good at taking pictures of monuments, and Kenny Russell was pretty good. There were some reporters that were pretty good photographers. Mary Jane Morgan was pretty good. But when I got them each their own camera the repair bills went down to nothing. And then we had the three Rollies, the two Rollies stayed in the shop for emergencies, back-ups. 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:16.000 Now, at any point with the color, now they would take black and white or would they take rolls of… how did that work? 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:19.000 No. No color, it was all black and white. All 2 and a quarter inch negatives. All black and white. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:30.000 Ok, ok, ok. But were you and some of the other photographers the only ones who were allowed to, uh… was there ever color film introduced? 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:34.000 Oh yeah! We had color film when I first started. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:38.000 Right, right. But when… who was allowed to go use color. If there was a special project. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:39.000 Just me. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:50.000 Because it was expensive. So, if they knew there was a special edition, then you’d take the color? 00:11:50.000 --> 00:12:47.000 Yes, right. Uh, eventually after we hired the dark room technician, Lowell Thorp and then we hired Jim Baird, super photographer. Personality, eh. Then the regime had changed, it was changing at the time. So, we started shooting, eh, we shot, Jim Baird shot strictly 35 mm. And, the film had improved considerably at that point and our chemicals, cause we had experimented with different chemicals to get the finer grain and the negatives sharper images. I eventually went to 35mm also. And, uh, but we also, we shot the color at the 2 and a quarter inch because it was better for reproduction. By then we had our own reproduction and color separation system in the production department. 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:50.000 What years were you migrating to the 35 mm? 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.000 I think it was the mid… mid (19)70s. Mid (19)70s yeah 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:58.000 And then what about the percentage of color being added to the paper? 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:07.000 Oh, it was, it was 5% at the most. It was just special sections, special assignments, uh, special events in town… that we would plan. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:12.000 And then when did all that start changing? 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:54.000 Probably the mid to late (19)70s and the beginning of the (19)80s. Because as I had said, Keith Seals dream was to run half column color mug shots. That, to him, seemed like a total waste of effort and time, but that was one of his dreams. And eventually we did that in the (19)80s, mid-(19)80s, type thing. And then we got pretty prolific. And then the, uh, the Ocean Blade, the Blade-Tribune started running color. And their color was better than ours. The reproduction bolder, brighter. And by then the San Diego Union started running color also. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.000 So, they had better equipment, or they had better processing? 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:38.000 Uh, better processing. So, Keith Seals would attend these conventions and come back with new techniques and new machinery. He would bring back a representative from different organizations for better processors and better color separation machines and stuff. So eventually we improved considerably. But then we started adding more photographers and eventually, uh, we started shooting primarily color negative film because then we could run that in black and white and color. We had an option. 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:40.000 When do you think that was? 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:48.000 I think the mid-(19)80s, late (19)80s. AC: [00:14:43}Ok, so you used the color film, but if you wanted it to be black and white… 00:14:48.000 --> 00:15:53.000 Yeah, the scanning could convert it to black and white. Uh, then we started shooting…we had been shooting color negative and then eventually we turned to color positive slides. And we did that for quite a number of years. Up until the 90's, I think. And then I believe that’s, and I’m not sure, but one… that’s about the mid-(19)90s, the late (19)90s we went to digital, and it was all color. It was a combination of a Nikon camera, an AP got some manufacturer [to] come up with these digital backs. And I think the memory cards were about 250 megabytes. And you couldn’t erase selectively, you had to erase the last image, then you had to reboot. Each photographer was given two cards. So, we had to be very careful what we took pictures of, we couldn't just machine gun because you were very limited. 00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:58.000 Right! Your memory was limited, oh that must have been frustrating. 00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:12.000 It really was! And we would have to come in, and this is what I was trying to learn. And I really didn't want to learn computers. I had no knowledge of computers. I didn’t want to learn computers. I just wanted to finish my career with film. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:15.000 In those days, to my memory, it wasn't as easy as it is now. 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:17.000 Oh god no. 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:21.000 To do the downloading and all...This was not… Just… 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:28.000 For someone who knew computers, it was probably… I had to write out a list of steps, I think there were twenty steps 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:29.000 That’s the way it was. 00:16:29.000 --> 00:17:13.000 From, from putting the card in the reader, to finding, and I had no idea the folders, and files and clouds and… Oh my God, it was so frustrating. I would go in my shift, from 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM – 3 o clock or 7 to 2:30- 3 o clock. Depending on when I took lunch breaks… But I would go in at 5 o'clock in the morning just to play with the computer. And one of the young kids in the computer department gave me a piece of advice, he said, “whatever you do, you’ll never break the machine. Just shut it down, turn it off and restart it. You're back to square one.' It was such a relief in my mind because I was so nervous, touching buttons, pressing anything. 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:31.000 To my memory, when it was new to me that if you got stuck in loop, to back out was murder. So did they have a day, that all of a sudden, they’re like, “OK, all of your old cameras that took traditional film, you're done. Starting Monday, we're all going to digital?” 00:17:31.000 --> 00:18:35.000 Yes, and at that point, um, when there were six or seven photographers in the pool, we were told that we would have to buy our own equipment. And I went to the owners at that point, I think it was Tom Nolan, I think, and I said, ‘This is unjust,’ because the reporters had computers. And I said, “The computers, they’re not buying their computers, why do we have to buy equipment?” So, we rather, got a compromise, where they would rent our equipment, we would buy the equipment, and they would rent it. They would insure it, and they would repair it, but we would have to buy our own equipment. And it worked out pretty well. Because I would buy gray market, which is not officially imported by the franchise, and they were cheaper. But if the company is gonna pay for the repairs, what did I care if the company, err, manufacturers would not stand behind... You'd have to ship it back to Japan to... 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:37.000 So, what were you using? Did you stay with Yash… 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:40.000 Nikon. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:43.000 Because you had mentioned the Yashica camera. 00:18:43.000 --> 00:19:46.000 Yeah, and uh, eventually, uh, the reporters had the Yashicas. And, then we had the 2 and a quarter Rollies and they were pretty limited. I had a Coma 6 which was a single lens 2 and a quarter. It wasn't as good as the cameras I wanted, it wasn't as sharp as I needed. So, I went to the Production Manager and asked if I can come up with a proposal to buy, I think, four sets of Hasselblad cameras which are 2 and a quarter, single lens reflex. And, he said, 'yea, let me talk to the powers to be and write up a proposal.' And I did. I think I had four sets of them. The camera, a couple bodies, three lenses, filters, other little do-dads that went with it. So, he presented it to the Company, and they agreed. I think they probably spent $20,000. dollars. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:48.000 And they were all for digital? 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:50.000 No, no no. These are still film. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:52.000 This is your Nikon with film? When you went to Nikon. 00:19:52.000 --> 00:20:25.000 These are the Hasselbald, yeah. Hasselblad. I wanted to go to Hasselbald to have the interchangeable lenses. The wide angle, the telephotos that type of thing. And we stayed with those and then when we went to 35mm. That's when we had to buy our own equipment. There was one photographer, John Nelson[RS1], I remember who must have had 5,000 dollars’ worth of equipment stolen from him, from his car. [He] came in, no equipment, no job. 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:28.000 Sounds like an inside job. Someone knew to follow him. 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:48.000 Yes, somebody just robbed his car and stole everything. Someone just took it out of his car. So, we all loaned him spare pieces until he had the money to buy his own, type of thing. And really, he wasn't insured at the time. So, he struggled. Because of that equipment, no job. 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:54.000 Now when they moved to using digital cameras, they stayed with Nikon? 00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:45.000 Yes. It was a monster of a camera. It was a Nikon camera with Nikon lenses and stuff. But it had a huge back. It looked almost as big as a 4 x 5 camera. And that’s the one they had. I think it had 250 megabytes of memory in each card. We got two cards each. I believe each camera, each setup cost $20,000. And this is the mid-90's, late 90's. I remember one photographer was taking picture by a pool and he fell in the pool with the camera. David, uh, David… I forget his name. And it ruined the camera. The camera was worthless after that. 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:53.000 Well, ya. But they didn't send you for training. They didn’t say to you like “There’s a conference for photographers and journalists.”? 00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:10.000 No. Gave us the cameras. I don't even remember if a representative came in and told us how to run those. I think we learned by ourselves. I don't remember any training at all. At all. We were doing the digital and the 35 and learning. There’s a period of learning. 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:13.000 Migrating over. 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:35.000 Yea and I hated it. But I knew it was the future. So, I would come in two hours extra and play because we had the Photoshop. We had the earlier version of Photoshop, and I'd play around with that trying to learn the buttons. And, uh, I've got it in my computer now. But I never have learned the whole system. It's so massive. I just learned enough to... 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:42.000 Well, every time I see one of those adult education classes they’ve got, you know, an Intro to Photoshop blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:44.000 And it’s just so massive… 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:46.000 Yeah, yeah. It’s its own specialty. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:50.000 Yeah. You can get a Ph.D. just learning what it has in it. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:56.000 So, there was really, seemingly, no concern to bring you along immediately into this. 00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:09.000 No, it was gradual. Gradual from 35mm color. At that point we were shooting color negatives again because they could be transformed to black and white and color. 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:14.000 So, who was the last person standing who had their old traditional camera? 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:50.000 Oh, I know, uh… oh god… what is his name? A photographer who used to cuss. Because there's no latitude in the digital, there was no latitude. There were no grays. There was darks, colors, or no color. And, God, he would get so frustrated. I would feel so sorry for him because he would try to manipulate the images the way we did in the dark room. There just was no latitude. No latitude in the digital. And it was just so frustrating. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:53.000 Yeah. You are right. When you start to Photoshop that stuff, it is time consuming. 00:23:53.000 --> 00:25:10.000 Oh, God, yeah. You could spend hours. And if they were… I could go in the dark room and print 25-30 color 8x10's in an hour. And manipulate them, and burn them, and dodge them, and color correct them. And, we had this automatic color processing machine. At one point during the mid-80's they remodeled the dark room, and they put five color enlargers. Each of the photographers wanted their own enlarger, and it was a Leitz, a very expensive 35mm enlarger. I said no, I want a 4 x 5 enlarger. I want a Chromega, and a color analyzer, and digital timer. And I got it and put it in the back of the dark room and that was my enlarger. And nobody fooled with my enlarger. I had it zeroed in where I could print 25-30, 8x10 color prints in an hour. It was just bang, bang, bang. I would read them, analyze them, expose them, put them in the processor, and go do another one, go do another one, another one in an hour. 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:11.000 You were like a little copier machine. 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:22.000 Oh yeah! And by the end of the hour, I had 25-30 color prints. Beautifully printed, stabilized, dried, color corrected. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:33.000 Now these are when they planned, they had… this is in the time they were planning… when the color… which weekend magazine or whatever would have color? 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:42.000 Yeah, right. Well, no, actually we were doing this in the dark room, we were doing color every day. We were running color every day. Everybody was shooting color. Everybody was printing color. 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:46.000 So, when do you think they did everyday color? By the 90's? 00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:50.000 Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:53.000 I was just thinking of when we came to Escondido. 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:55.000 It was all color. 00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.000 You know, I’d be three. But it seems like there was a lot of… 00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:03.000 Right, yeah. I think if we ran black and white, it was unusual. Mostly the AP stuff. 00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:06.000 But it was new to a lot of people. 00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:07.000 Oh, yeah! 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:11.000 It was kind of exciting that your newspaper had color. 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:30.000 Oh yea. And it was offset. Then at that point they started using recycled paper. Which was gray dull, and the color didn't pop anymore. Prior to that we were using virgin stock. And it was pure white paper, and the color just shot out, it just shouted at you. 00:26:30.000 --> 00:27:01.000 Now when you were assigned just black and white or color. I was going to ask you, when you’d be assigned. You know how the paper had a Rancho Bernardo edition, and it had a…you know, for sections of town. And, then those would be divided up according to, uh, who… which photos and who got the photos and who went where. Was it all done out of Escondido for these various editions? 00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:03.000 Yes. 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:15.000 So, if someone was going to cover Penasquitos or Rancho Bernardo then that… the photographer would be assigned there by assignment or that was kind of their territory? 00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:46.000 Uh, there were reporters assigned to Rancho Bernardo, Penasquitos, the coast, Fallbrook, San Diego. And they would make their own assignments. They would hand it in to the uh… Because we had a drawer, where the reporter would just put in their assignments. And, then we would just select the assignments which photographer would go where and do what. And that was all shot in color, at that point, color negative. 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:52.000 But it wasn’t necessarily on your part that you knew who, what assignment was going to come up, right? 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:57.000 No, no, no. Every day we would go to this drawer and all the assignments were in there. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:03.000 Because for a few years, you got a lot more work from an Eloise [Perkins]. But as the paper went forward, and things changed and got bigger there was a whole different… 00:28:03.000 --> 00:29:01.000 Oh yeah, we had more and more photographers and we split the pot among the five or six photographers. Each photographer had two assignments, three assignments a day. Whereas when I started, I would be doing seven, eight, nine assignments a day and processing. At this point, we had purchased…because we were doing color positive, color negatives also, but mostly color negatives and we had a machine, had an automatic color processing machine. Prior to that Lowell Thorp had commissioned a manufacturer to give us a hot water tank and we would process all our film manually [by] color temperature by running hot water through this tank and keeping the temperature at, I think, it was 100 degrees and we would agitate manually each tank as it went through the process. 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:07.000 Oh, I mean… today that would be considered like you’re using stone tablets. DR: [Shows his wrist with scars] 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:08.000 You got burned? 00:29:08.000 --> 00:30:27.000 No. Carpel tunnel. I developed carpel tunnel by doing that. Because we had these tanks that were holding reels of film in it. And, we would have to do this [twisting motion with wrist] for about a half hour processing - and then wash them and dry them and then proof them. And, uh, eventually when we got Lowell Thorp, he would do all this as the technician, dark room technician. And, uh, he would then print. But some of us would go in there and do our own printing. And this was before we got the new dark room, and Lowell had retired by that point. So, each photographer was in charge of doing his own color processing, film processing and his own color printing. Since I had been doing it forever, I was in charge of teaching the other photographers the color balance, and what it needed. Some prints were too yellow, too cyan, too magenta. I'd tell them what they needed to correct the color. It's what's called color balance. And so, I was basically… and a lot of photographers had knowledge, they could figure it out for themselves most of the time. 00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:31.000 And it probably seems archaic now. These old systems? 00:30:31.000 --> 00:32:27.000 Oh God yeah. You see photographers now with their digital cameras. They’ll take a picture and look at the image. Take a picture look at the image. Then you took hundreds and hundreds of shots. And through your experience and past knowledge you knew what was gonna work and what wasn't going to work. So, you went to the dark room. I remember once, and this was taboo. I bought a Nikon camera with an automatic exposure. You just put it on automatic and just shoot your life away. You didn't worry about f-stops, or shutter speeds or anything else. You just click, click, click. It's digital cameras now. And I remember there was a big fire north of Escondido. And, uh, I think there were three or four photographers covering it. And we all came back, and we’re all dirty, and smoky, and smelly. I had even gotten a brush of the fire retardant, which is gooey and thick, orange all over. And this other fellow, Ernie Cowens, taking pictures for television and I saw the plane coming dropping a load and Ernie was facing away from it. And I said, “hey Ernie a load of fire retardant is coming in, you had better hide your camera.” He turned around to see what I had said, and it just covered his camera. His film camera, his movie camera. He had to rush down to San Diego to get it cleaned and fixed. It just landed—and it was heavy, heavy stuff. Anyway, we all came back, and we processed the film, and we were shooting color transparencies then. And I had shot maybe 10 rolls, 12 rolls of film. And each of my frames, the exposure was right-on. Dead-on exposure with the automatic. And I selected some frames that I liked and left it. 00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:31.000 Well, that was a new era, it marked a new era. 00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:38.000 Yeah, yeah, the automatic. But that was taboo. See? You weren't supposed to do that, you were supposed to be a professional. You were supposed to take a reading. 00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:40.000 As the fire retardant is coming at you! 00:32:40.000 --> 00:34:35.000 Yeah, yeah exactly. Take a reading and adjust your camera and shoot. That was the professional way to do it. Me, I said, “I want to try this automatic thing.” And the camera was so dead on. The ten rolls of film, I bet the exposure was incorrect maybe in 5 or 10, 15 exposures. And I selected the prints that I wanted and by this point my shift was over. It was 5, 6 o clock and my shift had ended at 2:30. So I came home, took a shower and cleaned clothes and had dinner. The next morning the paper ran, and a bunch of my photographs were on it. A big spread, a color spread. But my boss, Will Corbin asked me into his office, he had all my slides on his desk. 'What did you do that the 'other ones didn't. He had all my strips of transparencies on his desk. He said 'Why are your exposures correct, and the other ones have blotching, over exposed, under exposed, missing…' And I told him. I said, “That shot was automatic, instead of manual.” He said, 'I have to talk to the other photographers, they are wasting a lot of film.' I don't know whether he did or not or if they took his advice or not but, uh. And I shot automatic from there on. I would just… I mean, why… I mean I would set the f-stop, or I would set the shutter speed and then the camera would compensate by... If I needed a huge depth of field, I would knock it down to F - 22 to F-16, if I wanted it to stop motion, I would set it at 4,000 per second. And the let the diaphragm take over. So, you didn't lose total control of the camera. And if I would shoot manual, I would shoot manual. 00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.000 And good god, you know, you’re at a wildfire in a Santa Ana. 00:34:39.000 --> 00:35:00.000 Right. You're not fiddling around with f-stops and shutter speed. But I see the photographers now, the professionals. They’ll take a picture and look at the image on the back of the camera. And I just kind of…. They have no idea what photography is. 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:17.000 Now we are at 35 minutes and that's generally where my transcribing load stops. But did you have anything else on the color? Now we can always add this in on the other tapes. 00:35:17.000 --> 00:38:21.000 No, the other thing, because I retired in 2000, at one point I kind of got burned out. I had been taking picture for, sheesh… 40 years. And my curiosity run out. My mojo had run out and I think my photography showed it. I was kind of burned out. And I think it was one of the bosses, Rich Peterson came to me and says, “You know, I’ve got…” Rich Peterson was approached by the advertising department. Because we were never allowed to take pictures for advertising. If editorial took pictures, advertising could never use them. If we took pictures of mug shots of politicians, and the politician liked the photo, they couldn't be used in their advertising. So, advertising apparently went to Rich Peterson and says, 'We want to hire one of your photographers to work for the advertising department, primarily - solely. And the photographs belong to us. So Rich Peterson had asked me if I would be interested in that. And at that time, they were changing the regime there and they were trying to mess with my schedule. My schedule had always been 7 to 2 -3 o'clock in the afternoon. I'm an early person. I wake up early, I work early, I function early. Later in the day, I'm wiped out. So, he asked me if I was interested in taking over the position as advertising photographer. He said, 'go talk to the advertising manager', and I did. I found out what the requirements were. They had reps and they would talk to the advertisers, and they would request photography. They would bring me…assign it to me. I worked my own hours. Whatever I wanted. I would call them and set my time. It was a cushy job. And it was a Monday through Friday, sometime Saturdays. I set my own hours. It wasn't what I had started out to do, but I finished my last two or three years doing that. And when I got sick in July of 2000, when I quit. That's what I was doing. And my last day at work, because I still had my equipment there in the dark room/studio/photo office. I went in 5:00 o'clock in the morning, picked up all my equipment and everything I owned, put it in a big box and hauled it out. I wrote a message to all the photographers of the North County Times, 'thank you for your help and friendship, good-bye, Dan Rios.' And I hung it on the door. Never went back to the building. Ever, to this day. 00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:22.000 They didn't throw a party? 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:23.000 They wanted to. 00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:24.000 You wouldn't let them. 00:38:24.000 --> 00:39:28.000 No. At that point there were so many people that I didn't know. So many new people in the management. So many people I had been friendly with, and a lot of the people that I had grown with over the years, had retired and left. So, there really was nobody. So, the personnel director, Peggy Chapman, called me and said, 'we are going to give you a party’ I said, 'no I don't want a party.' I felt hypocritical. She said, 'what can we do for you?' I said, 'you can buy me a lap top computer.' Because at that point I had gotten into computers. My stepson had bought me one, and we had bought another one and I thought a laptop might be nice. So, they send me $300 to buy me a laptop computer. This was the 2000s, but then computers then, laptops were 8-900 dollars. But it helped. I bought some other stuff, I didn't buy the laptop. I didn’t buy they laptop till way later. 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:29.000 Shall we stop here? 00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:31.000 Yeah, sure. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en audio Property rights reside with the university. Copyrights are retained by the university. &#13 ; &#13 ; Please see the related “Preferred Citation note” for language on citing materials from this collection. &#13 ; &#13 ; Permission to examine Library materials is not authorization to publish or to reproduce the examined material in whole, or in part. Persons wishing to quote, publish, perform, reproduce, or otherwise make use of an item in the Library’s collections must assume all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of the copyright holder. &#13 ; &#13 ; The researcher assumes full responsibility for use of the material and agrees to hold harmless the University Library, and California State University, against all claims, demands, costs, and expenses incurred by copyright infringement or any other legal or regulatory cause of action arising from the use of the Library's materials. &#13 ; &#13 ; In assuming full responsibility for use of the material, the researcher also understands that the materials they examine may contain Social Security numbers, other personal identifiers, and/or sensitive material on potentially living and identifiable individuals (e.g., medical, evaluative, or personally invasive information). The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=RiosDan_ClausenAlexa_2017-05-09.xml RiosDan_ClausenAlexa_2017-05-09.xml https://archivessearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/resources/8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rios, Dan. Interview May 9th, 2017 Description An account of the resource Daniel Flores Rios, born in Hanford, California. April 10th, 1939 to Theodore and Jennie Rios, was the Chief Photographer at the Escondido Times-Advocate and North County Times newspapers. As the Chief Photographer, Rios was instrumental in transitioning the North County Times from publishing images in black and white, to publishing in color. This interview recounts Rios's career working for the Escondido Times-Advocate and North County Times. Rios also recounts how photographers were initially required to buy and maintain their own equipment and how he was able to create a deal with the newspaper to compensate photographers fairly for their equipment. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC003-03 Subject The topic of the resource Digital cameras Escondido Times-Advocate (Escondido, Calif.) Mexican Americans Photographic chemicals Photojournalists Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-05-09 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dan Rios Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Alexa Clausen Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Escondido (Calif.) Fallbrook (Calif.) Rancho Penasquitos (Calif.) Rancho Bernardo (San Diego, Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource in copyright Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. California State University San Marcos Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived SC003: The Dan Rios papers Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Community history Latine experience https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/5092b218abace83b431090029a7e6156.mp4 a205228f558cac4907cf362f9015344a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral history of Geoffrey Gilmore April 14th, 2021 Description An account of the resource Oral history interview of Dr. Geoffrey Gilmore on 2021-04-14 for the Black Student Center Oral History Project at California State University San Marcos. Dr. Geoffrey Gilmore was the Associate Vice President of Student Academic Support Services at California State University San Marcos until December 2021, where he focused on service to underserved student populations in earning college degrees. In his interview, Dr. Gilmore touches on the issues facing Black students within academic spaces and his experience helping students to succeed on a university level. Dr. Gilmore also discusses his own history as he moved from Los Angeles to Seattle, and back to California. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Geoffrey Gilmore Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sierra Jenkins Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-04-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Marcos (Calif.) Los Angeles (Calif.) Seattle (Wash.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Geoffrey Gilmore License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GilmoreGeoffrey_JenkinsSierra_2021-04-14.mp4 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Black Student Center Oral History Project Subject The topic of the resource Activism, Student Anti-Black Racism California State University San Marcos, Black Student Center Student Success, Black Black experience in America Black experience Black Student Center Oral History Project https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/57472b9333efa19b9ebe8960b41ee200.jpg 78719f1ce978bea4311b31c24fd55ffe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Joe's Pluming cartoon Description An account of the resource This cartoon was submitted by Greg Evans to Playboy Magazine when he was eleven years old. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greg Evans https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/66a2b1c382db3edb43d61109e166cfd7.jpg a7bdc4a3ce73b3f1bb934a178c6fb8c9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Two Guys comic strip Description An account of the resource This is a photograph of one of Greg Evans' early ideas for a comic strip. https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/fb841c79c6e1cf90c170666c56a9e32a.jpg b9f360d9a7e6e072fc17c96afa546cf8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Seamy Heights comic strip Description An account of the resource This is a photograph of one of Greg Evans' early ideas for a comic strip. https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/c77ab444004d9f888e5725e96492b391.jpg e80723aa476b5a493714592d62bdf4cc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource MaXwel the Robot Description An account of the resource This is a photograph of MaXwel the Robot. Running this robot for entertainment purposes was one of Greg Evans' early jobs. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Evans, Greg and Karen. Photographs, March 25, 2025. Description An account of the resource Four photos related to the oral history of Greg and Karen Evans. Photograph #1, "Joe's Pluming Cartoon," was drawn by Greg Evans for submission to Playboy Magazine when he was eleven years old. Photograph #2, "Two Guys Comic Strip," is one of Greg Evans' early ideas for a comic strip. Photograph #3, "Seamy Heights Comic Strip," was one of Greg Evans' early ideas for a comic strip. Photograph #4, "MaXwel the Robot," is a photograph of a robot. Running MaXwel the Robot for entertainment purposes was one of Greg Evans' early jobs. Click on the thumbnails to view the full images in more detail.