Front and back covers of MARVIN, published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd., with endorsement quotes from Lucie Arnaz and Joel Grey.
Cover of MARVIN, the graphic novel adapted, written and illustrated by Ian David Marsden, winner of 1st Place in the 2020 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards Graphic Novel category.
A holiday scene from MARVIN: young Liza Minnelli gives her mother Judy Garland a carefully wrapped Christmas gift, and Judy is not quite prepared for what she finds inside.
Interior comic pages from MARVIN, showing the young Marvin Hamlisch moving between music practice, school life and the affectionate pressure of a very ambitious household.
A sepia-toned flashback from MARVIN recounting how Max and Lilly Hamlisch, Marvin’s parents, navigated mounting danger in Austria before escaping toward safety.
A family-history spread from MARVIN: Lilly Schachter keeps her Jewish identity close in Vienna, later becomes a New Yorker, and learns during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade that American crowds require “elbows.”
Promotional image for MARVIN, showing Ian David Marsden with the published graphic novel and the finished cover artwork for the 2020 Schiffer Publishing edition.
Interior pages from MARVIN about the practical terror of an early film-scoring assignment: not enough money, too little time, and no obvious way to write fifty-eight seconds of fear.
The printed MARVIN graphic novel, showing selected interior pages, the closing epilogue on Frances S. Goldstein and the book’s “About the Illustrator” section.
The published edition of MARVIN, photographed with its cover and several interior spreads from the Schiffer Publishing graphic novel.
Robert Crumb’s full-page handwritten critique of Ian David Marsden’s graphic novel Marvin: Based on The Way I Was. Sent from Sauve in 2021, the letter offers detailed artistic feedback as well as humorous commentary on music, color choices, and steamship research.
From a promotional MARVIN sequence: Quincy Jones visits Dr. Lester Coleman, who uses the appointment to make a sixty-second pitch for Marvin Hamlisch.
A young Marvin Hamlisch reaches the limit of polite humiliation, tears up the song he has brought to a producer, and walks out. The emotional consequences arrive a few panels later.
A sequence from MARVIN about the unexpected chain of events that led producer Sam Spiegel to hire Marvin Hamlisch for his first feature-film score, The Swimmer.
A page from MARVIN in which the famous stopwatch solution works, Marvin returns to school, cookies become medically defensible, and a classroom piano changes everything.
A tense pre-Marvin family-history spread: Max and Lilly Hamlisch leave Austria, and a suspicious officer on the train finds not contraband but a saxophone — to his own embarrassment.
A comic page from MARVIN recounting one of Hamlisch’s childhood misadventures: a baseball mishap, a spectacular black eye and, naturally, a piano performance the next day.
A family escape sequence from MARVIN: Max gets out first, Lilly is forced to leave the apartment, and the house money survives only because she hides it inside a bathroom light socket.
A childhood page from MARVIN: piano lessons with Edgar Roberts, long days split between school and Juilliard, stickball with friends, and, when possible, Hopalong Cassidy on television.
A childhood disaster from MARVIN: denied his emergency cookies before snack time, young Marvin kicks Miss Morrison and instantly imagines the scandal reaching the front page of The New York Times.
A pre-Marvin family-history page from MARVIN: his father’s original plan to continue to Chicago changes in New York, where the family’s American life begins.
Endpaper artwork for MARVIN, built from small black-line vignettes drawn from scenes across Marvin Hamlisch’s childhood, family life and musical career.
A page from MARVIN moving briskly from songwriting fury to theatrical rescue mission, then back to a childhood memory of an urgent call from the rabbi.
Award announcement image for MARVIN, winner of 1st Place in the Graphic Novel category of the 2020 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards.
MARVIN: Based on The Way I Was by Marvin Hamlisch, published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd., received 1st Place in the 2020 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards Graphic Novel category.
Ian David Marsden with MARVIN, the graphic novel he adapted, wrote and illustrated, published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. and awarded 1st Place in the 2020 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards Graphic Novel category.
Ian David Marsden with MARVIN, the graphic novel he adapted, wrote and illustrated, published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. and awarded 1st Place in the 2020 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards Graphic Novel category.
A promotional MARVIN image from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade sequence, where Lilly Hamlisch’s encounter with the phrase “make elbows” marks another small step in becoming American.
The finished printed edition of MARVIN, showing interior comic pages, the published cover and the “About the Illustrator” page from the Schiffer Publishing edition.
A wryly compressed career moment from MARVIN: one producer encounter ends badly, the ulcers begin queuing up, and then David Merrick appears, begging him to write a show.
Promotional announcement for the release of MARVIN, using a comic excerpt from the graphic novel alongside the book cover and bookseller references.
Marvin Hamlisch works against the clock, composing music to picture with a stopwatch, piano and Moviola — an early lesson in the precise mechanics of film scoring.
Promotional artwork for MARVIN, using a theatrical scene of young Hamlisch at the piano during a stage production — the music came early, and very publicly.
A promotional MARVIN scene from the Hamlisch family’s early New York years: Lilly beams over the new baby; Max performs the traditional fatherly ritual of worrying about money.
A scene from MARVIN recalling Robert F. Kennedy’s appearance at a party where the young Marvin Hamlisch was playing piano.
Young Marvin’s schedule was not entirely Juilliard and piano lessons. He also found time for Hopalong Cassidy on television and stickball in the street.
Promotional collage for MARVIN, combining the finished book, interior comic pages and the cover artwork of Ian David Marsden’s graphic novel about Marvin Hamlisch.
MARVIN featured in Schiffer Kids’ 2020 catalog, alongside a full comic page from the graphic novel and the publisher’s seasonal children’s-book presentation.
A promotional MARVIN comic built around a childhood New York misreading: Grant’s Tomb becomes, in Marvin’s imagination, the final resting place of a failed Juilliard student named Grant.
A promotional MARVIN comic built around musical timing: fifty-eight seconds can feel radically different depending on whether they are shaped like Chopin, Jaws or Cary Grant running from a crop-duster.
A comic scene from MARVIN: stranded on the roof after an ill-considered experiment, young Marvin attracts help from the street below — and eventually the superintendent with the keys.
A promotional MARVIN image of Hamlisch racing toward the next deadline, having already written nearly half the picture before the producer realizes it.
A celebratory “The End” image from the MARVIN film-scoring sequence: the picture is finished, the glasses are raised, and the young composer has survived the ordeal.
A promotional image from the MARVIN film-scoring sequence, referring to The Swimmer, the 1968 Burt Lancaster film for which Marvin Hamlisch composed the score.
A promotional MARVIN image with two episodes from Hamlisch’s youth: the unexpected fact that Christopher Walken was a schoolmate, and Marvin discovering he could compose a song almost on demand.
After finishing the score, Marvin’s pains subside — a small moment of physical relief after the pressure of his early film-composing work.
A page from MARVIN recounting an early professional near-break: Marvin plays confidently for Liza Minnelli, waits six anxious weeks for news, then learns from Buster that the Carol Burnett production has been postponed.
The epilogue of MARVIN returns to Frances S. Goldstein, Marvin Hamlisch’s formidable Juilliard teacher — a woman whose approval he wanted badly, and whose importance he understood more fully years later.
The published edition of MARVIN, shown open to several interior spreads and the book’s “About the Illustrator” page.
Portfolio spread for MARVIN, pairing the published cover with a childhood page in which young Hamlisch moves between piano lessons, Juilliard, Hopalong Cassidy and stickball.
Cover presentation for MARVIN: Based on The Way I Was by Marvin Hamlisch, adapted, written and illustrated by Ian David Marsden and published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
From MARVIN: six weeks of silence after a promising audition, followed by the least consoling professional update imaginable.
A wonderfully lopsided weekend in MARVIN: Judy Garland’s limousine delivers the teenage songwriter home, his mother buys him blue silk sheets, and by Monday he is back on the bus to school — already writing songs in earnest.
A page from MARVIN recounting an absurdly rapid rise in social altitude: a mysterious call, Sam Spiegel’s suite at the St. Moritz Hotel, Hollywood guests, Harold Rome, Betty Comden, Adolph Green — and Bobby Kennedy making an appearance.
A reflective moment from Marvin: Based on “The Way I Was”, as Marvin visits the tomb of Ulysses S. Grant with his father — from Ian David Marsden’s graphic novel.
The closing page of MARVIN, returning to Frances S. Goldstein — the formidable Juilliard teacher whose approval Marvin once badly wanted, and whom he later visited near the end of her life.
A film-music joke created for the promotion of MARVIN, using Jaws and North by Northwest to explain how much emotion a short stretch of music can carry.
After the “mad kicker” incident, things improve. Marvin receives a stopwatch, is allowed to eat when hungry, returns to class with confidence, and discovers that a piano has materialized at school.
A promotional MARVIN image about film scoring: the practical objection, the Jaws example, and the deceptively difficult business of writing music that mirrors fear on screen.
Young Marvin considers Grant’s Tomb and arrives at an entirely plausible explanation, at least by the standards of a child attending Juilliard.
Three pages from MARVIN, adapted, written and illustrated by Ian David Marsden, including a key rooftop conversation between young Marvin Hamlisch and his father.
Sample interior pages from MARVIN, moving through childhood pressure, comic mischief and the brief liberty of summer.
Marvin Hamlisch composes to picture with stopwatch, piano and Moviola — learning that film music is measured not only in emotion, but in seconds.
Marvin hails a Checker cab and heads off to play the music he has already written — rather more of it than the producer expected.
Marvin Hamlisch asks his friend Quincy Jones for advice after producer Sam Spiegel offers him $2,500 to compose the score for a feature film. Quincy’s verdict is admirably direct.
Cover of MARVIN: Based on The Way I Was by Marvin Hamlisch, adapted, written and illustrated by Ian David Marsden.
A page from MARVIN covering Marvin Hamlisch’s first serious film-scoring opportunity: Sam Spiegel’s underwhelming offer, Quincy Jones’s firm advice, a better deal, and the arrival of a rented Moviola in the apartment.
The main cover artwork for MARVIN, the graphic novel about Marvin Hamlisch adapted, written and illustrated by Ian David Marsden.
Full book cover for MARVIN: Based on The Way I Was by Marvin Hamlisch, published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
A page from MARVIN about the crowded architecture of a gifted child’s week: piano lessons, public school, Juilliard, Hopalong Cassidy, and whatever stickball could still be rescued from the schedule.
Cover illustration for Marvin, a graphic novel by Ian David Marsden based on The Way I Was by Marvin Hamlisch — published by Schiffer Publishing.
Waterstones retail listing for MARVIN: Based on The Way I Was by Marvin Hamlisch, the graphic novel adapted, written and illustrated by Ian David Marsden.
Barnes & Noble listing for MARVIN: Based on The Way I Was by Marvin Hamlisch, the graphic novel adapted, written and illustrated by Ian David Marsden.
