CR 022: Bruce Eric Kaplan on Finding Gratitude in Development Hell

The television writer-producer discusses his return to cartooning, gaining clarity through journaling, and his new book, “They Went Another Way.”

Bruce Eric Kaplan is no stranger to the entertainment industry. A longtime cartoonist for The New Yorker, Kaplan also worked as a writer on Seinfeld and was an executive producer on HBO’s Girls and Six Feet Under. Still, nothing could have prepared him for the events of 2022. On hiatus from cartooning, Kaplan was spending much of his time trying to get a slate of projects off the ground, one of which was a May-December romance he’d written for the small screen. Glenn Close was interested in the project, as was Pete Davidson. Many, many meetings with executives were held over Zoom, yet the project seemed to be perpetually stuck in neutral. It was, Kaplan says now, different from past professional experiences. “When I started doing this a million years ago, there were three networks,” Kaplan says. “You had an idea. Your agent set up meetings, say, on Thursday and Friday, with the three networks. You went to them; you pitched an idea. You found out at the end of the day Friday if one, al…