The award-winning comic artist Todd McFarlene and Eddie Vedder met when Pearl Jam hired McFarlene to direct the animated video for their 1998 song ‘Do The Evolution.’ As Todd recalls, Eddie had brought a briefcase for three days when he came to check out the editing bay. He recently spoke to Rolling Stone and revealed what was inside this mysterious briefcase.
During the music video shootings, Todd McFarlene and Eddie Vedder worked closely. Eddie wanted to work with Todd after watching the ‘Spawn’ animated series and felt an animated video for ‘Do The Evolution’ would be a good idea. As Vedder was interested in video editing, he wanted to go and see the process. It turns out that he brought a briefcase every time he went to the editing bay.
“The other sort of silly story I have about that,” McFarlane said, “which has nothing to do with music, is how on all three days Eddie came to the editing bay, he brought a briefcase. He looked professional. On the third day, I’m like, ‘Eddie, I don’t mean to pry, but you keep bringing this briefcase with you, but you don’t do anything with it. Why not just leave it in the car?’ ‘Oh, my God, Todd. I’m glad you finally asked.’”
He continued, revealing what was in the case, “He opened it up, it clicked, and inside the briefcase were two brand-new baseball gloves and one brand-new baseball. He knew I was left-handed, so he had a left-handed glove for me. Eddie’s a baseball fanatic. So am I. I paid for my college with a baseball scholarship, so he knew I was a ballplayer. He was like, ‘I was wondering if you wanted to play catch during one of the breaks.’ And to this day, I keep wondering if I’d never asked him about the briefcase, would he have just left that third day and never opened it up?”
“Now, it was also unseasonably hot that day,” recalled Todd. “About 10, 12 minutes into it, I think he’s going to croak. He’s breathing heavily, and finally, he’s like, ‘OK, Todd, you need to take a break?’ And I’m like, ‘No.’ And then he asked again, ‘You need to take a break?’ And then I could see, ‘Oh, he needs to take a break.’ It was like, ‘Eddie; you should probably get a glass of water.’ I remember him sitting down, and I go, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m going to kill Eddie Vedder here tonight. Maybe we should call it quits here.’ But I liked Ed’s enthusiasm on all fronts: music, sports, editing, all of it. He was super involved in a way that was not impeding anything we were doing.”
So, Eddie Vedder’s briefcase had two baseball gloves and one baseball in it. It turns out that he knew Todd was playing baseball and brought a left-handed glove just for him. As both were baseball fanatics, they played until they were out of breath. This proved to Todd that Eddie has an admirable enthusiasm for music, sports, and editing and wants to be involved in everything.
