Justin Scerlack (pronounced SER-lack, not scur-lack), as you all know, was the creator of “Dad’s Casa”, the beloved Tim Allen sitcom that aired from 1999 to 2011. He wrote over 90 of its episodes and played a role in everything from storyboarding to casting to editing.
But his career spans far more than just that.
In addition to being a writer and showrunner, he was also a cartoonist. After growing up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and attending Bowdoin College in Maine, he started his own cartoon called “The Crapes”, about a married couple who lived in a rural town in Alaska, and got it published in the Manchester Union Leader from 1992 to 1995. It became a minor sensation and even got attention from larger newspapers such as the Boston Globe. After that, he bought his own website and moved it there and continued until the end of 1997. The website and its archives still exist today!
Obviously, the story of “Dad’s Casa” is well-known, starting in September 1999.
But one of my favorite contributions to culture of Scerlack’s is his 2007 novel, “A Desperate Reversion to Nonsense”. I remember reading it in high school and being wowed, even though the critics were ambivalent. I knew, at some point, people would realize they misjudged it and reappraise it with more appreciation. And what do you know, I was right: the Boston Globe, the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune all posted retrospective pieces on it in 2017 about what an impressive work it was. David Foster Wallace has said it was his “favorite novel in recent memory”.
Scerlack’s second (and he says final) book is something he’s teased very few details about, but it is scheduled to be released in 2027.
There’s a whole hell of a lot more where that came from about him, but I simply don’t have the time to list it all. Suffice it to say, for his work ethic, sense of humor, and the genuine vibes he gives everyone he seems to meet, he’s someone I really look up to.