Monthly Archives: December 2003

The next few days, I'm going to post a mess of reviews, most of them recommendations, for new books about comic book writers and artists. A wide void is suddenly being filled, and while any book about some of these people is welcome, most of those we're getting are very good and pretty damn exhaustive. My fave so far is Bill Schelly's Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder. Binder was a writer of comics and science-fiction, the former including (but not limited to) a long stint as the major writer of the original Captain Marvel, followed by many years of Superman scripting. He contributed many key concepts and characters to both franchises. His Superman writing, for instance, included the first stories of Supergirl, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Krypto, Brainiac and the city in a bottle, Kandor. I never met Mr. Binder but I felt like I knew him through his scripts, and thanks to Bill Schelly, I feel like I know him even better now. Bill did the kind of diligent research job that can only be driven by passion for a subject, and he got to darn near everyone who's still around and had any info at all on the late Otto Binder. The result is a complete portrait, not only of the man but of the industries in which he worked when he worked in them. If I were you, I'd run over to Bill's website and order me a copy. And while you're there, pick up copies of any of Bill's other books that you don't have. They're all as good as they sound.

The calendar may be about to say 2004 but it's starting to look like 1984 (the book, not the year) as the PATRIOT act gets expanded once more. According to this article, if the FBI now wants to know anything about you and what you do with your money, all they have to do is hand a letter to whoever you do business with that says you are suspected of involvement in terrorism. They never have to prove you have any connection to any such activity. They just have to say that they think you might be, and the other party has to hand over all info on you, and is forbidden to tell you they have done this.

What do you want to bet that, in the cause of stopping terrorism, John Ashcroft and his minions will use this to inquire into every conceivable kind of financial transaction except the purchase of weapons?

Speaking of lettering, as I think I just was: Richard Starkings practically invented the lettering of comic books via computer. If you've been thinking of purchasing any of the splendid fonts he sells over at Comicraft, there will never be a better time than tomorrow. New Year's Day only, he has 'em discounted to a price matching the year, thankfully with a decimal point between the zeroes. He who hesitates pays more.

How about a good interview with Tom Orzechowski, who's one of the best letterers the comic book business has ever seen?

In honor of the new year, NBC has decided to cause trouble by shifting most of their weeknight prime-time shows a minute or two one way or the other. You may think (to pick one example) their Monday night schedule is three one-hour shows: Fear Factor at 8:00, Las Vegas at 9:00, Average Joe at 10:00. Nope. Fear Factor starts at 8 but it's a 59 minute show. Las Vegas starts at 8:59 and runs for an hour. Then Average Joe starts at 9:59 and runs for 61 minutes. On Tuesday, we have The Tracy Morgan Show at 8:00, Whoopi at 8:30 and then Frasier at 9:00…but Frasier is now a 31 minute show so the following program, Happy Family, starts at 9:31 and runs for 28 minutes. This enables Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which is a 61 minute show, to start at 9:59. On Wednesday, Ed and West Wing start at 8:00 and 9:00 but West Wing is a 59 minute show so Law & Order starts at 9:59. It's just as screwy on Thursday and Friday.

The first problem with this, of course, is that if you try switching channels during the evening, you'll wind up missing the beginning or end of some show. You have even more problems if you want to record a show for later viewing. Most TV listings seem to be ignoring these subtle adjustments but TiVo has the accurate times. This is great if you're not changing channels but if you do, it can get messy. If you tell TiVo to record Frasier, and then to switch over to ABC to record Less Than Perfect, it will not accept the second show because it will tell you they overlap…which they do.

So let's say you decide you want to get the entirety of Frasier even at the expense of the first minute of Less Than Perfect. You could accomplish that with the time-padding options of TiVo. It takes some effort to program but it can be done. Pad the recording time of Frasier by one minute at the end. Set Less Than Perfect as a manual recording beginning at 9:35 and then set "Start Recording" to 4 minutes early. Then Frasier would end at 9:31 and Less Than Perfect would start recording one minute into the show…which is, of course, less than perfect.

But there are some combinations that don't work. On Monday night, CBS airs Still Standing from 8:30 to 9:00 while NBC has Las Vegas from 8:59 to 9:59. What if you wanted to record both shows and chop off the last minute of Still Standing? Well, you can't. TiVo can pad the end of a recording 1 minute or 2 minutes but the next increment is five. You can't set a manual recording to end at 8:59. The best you could do is 8:57.

Obviously, this problem is even worse for folks who are trying to record with VCRs that program in five-minute increments. And there are other problems for everyone, like remembering that a favorite show starts at 9:59, not 10:00. There are no upsides for us. I'm skeptical that there's any great advantage for the network but I know there are none for us. Someone needs a serious beating. (Thanks to Earl Kress for calling this to my attention.)

My favorite place to see stand-up comics in the Los Angeles area is not in the Los Angeles area. It's the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. That is not as far as it sounds. The room is friendly, the prices are reasonable and the food is decent. Only the parking is sometimes a drawback, especially on the kind of days when folks flock to the beach.

Jay Leno, who can obviously play any comedy club he wants, chooses to bypass at least a half-dozen that are closer to his home and play the Comedy and Magic Club most Sunday evenings. When he does essentially the same act in Vegas, it's sixty bucks a seat with no opening act. In Hermosa Beach, it's around $25 and he has two comics on before him, one of whom is usually the wonderful Jim Brogan. If you're looking for a good place to take outta-town visitors (even older folks), you can't do much better. Here's a link to the club's website.

And here's a real tip which isn't up on the site yet. February 4th, 5th and 7th, Lewis Black is performing at the Comedy and Magic Club. I think he's the sharpest of the "newer" comedians and even though I saw him just last August, I have reservations to see him again. If you want to go, don't wait until they post the information. They'll probably be sold out before they announce his appearance, but they are selling tickets if you phone the club. Black is doing one show on Wednesday, one on Thursday, none on Friday, then two on Saturday. (I'm guessing he's doing Bill Maher's show on Friday night. Or something like that.)

If you're not familiar with Mr. Black, here's a link to a recent commentary he did on gadgets for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. And while you're over there: Here's a link to a very funny Jon Stewart spot about Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter, or click this one to see him discuss the news coverage of Saddam Hussein's "spiderhole." I don't know about your TV set but it's the cleverest show on mine.

If this article is to believed, an honest lady police chief is being fired for the outrageous offense of giving honest answers to a reporter's questions. I assume there's another side to this story and if anyone sees one online, I'd love to read it. But in the meantime, it sure looks like the kind of thing we all ought to protest.

Lex Passaris suggests I link to an obituary for Dick St. John, who was one half of the musical act, Dick and Dee Dee. The obit lists their main hits but somehow omits the fact that they performed the infamous song, "Bupkis," written by Rob Petrie and "Sticks" Mandalay. It was originally credited to Buzzy Potter but this was corrected on later pressings.

Jimmy Breslin on the way images of our war dead are being hidden from the American public. I hear conflicting reports as to whether this is standard procedure or unprecedented but either way, I think it's putting politics above respect.

As noted, Comedy Central recently aired a marathon of what they claimed were the "50 best" episodes of Saturday Night Live as selected by visitors to their website. They never posted the actual list anywhere but someone sent me a rundown of which episodes were run.

And as expected, there were none from the first five seasons since Comedy Central didn't have the rights to those. There were none from the last three for the same reason. There was one from 1980, one from '82, one from '86, one from '87 and one from '88. The vast majority were from the years 1996-2000, with eleven episodes from 1997 alone.

Now, this may be because the viewing (and voting) audience on the Internet is younger than we think and inclined to favor the years when they first discovered SNL. It may be that Darrell Hammond voted a few thousand times. Or it may be that the voting was kind of a sham and the folks at Comedy Central just put on whatever they felt like showing. My natural suspicion of polls conducted on the Internet leads me away from the belief that there's a substantial number of people who really assessed all the choices and came to the conclusion that SNL has never been better than it was a few years ago.

Then again, look at who we elect in this country.

For some time now, a major frustration in the comic strip community has been the failure of Mort Walker's International Museum of Cartoon Art. Walker started it in 1974 and it moved about before settling into a beautiful and permanent (Mort thought) home in Boca Raton, Florida in 1992. But tourists didn't flock to the place in sufficient number and it closed in 2002. Since then, the collection has been in storage while Mort and the other operators tried to unload the Florida building and find a new location.

Dirk Deppey over on the ¡Journalista! site is reporting (here's the link) that arrangements are being made to house a human rights museum in the Boca Raton structure…so that presumably means Walker is out from that financial encumbrance. And I hear from another source that they're close to announcing a new venue where the collection of rare and exemplary comic strips can be made available to the public…a very tall structure in New York that all by itself attracts tourists and that once housed a couple of comic book companies, including Timely (Marvel) Comics…

Years ago, I was a serious player of Blackjack, usually in Las Vegas. The way I played it, I usually won but it required a helluva lot of time, study and concentration, and it eventually came to feel not just like work, but work that I did not enjoy. At the time, I was way ahead but well aware that if I continued to play, at some point my luck would turn bad and I'd give back all my winnings and maybe more. I knew that if that happened, I'd feel compelled to keep playing until I got ahead again, which would be even less pleasant work.

So just like that, I stopped playing. Gave it up. I continued to go to Vegas because I like Vegas but my last dozen trips, the only gambling I've done has been a few bucks in slots, just to see how some of the new model machines worked. And I never went for Craps or Roulette or any of the others in the first place.

If I hadn't retired from Blackjack back then, I might do so now. Several of the casinos have quietly changed their rules, generally on single deck games, so that a "natural" (Ace plus a 10-value card) no longer pays 3:2. Now, it pays 6:5, which may seem like a teensy change but really isn't. This article will explain why it's harder to come out ahead now than it used to be. Since they seem to be getting away with this, you can expect more rules and payoffs to change in the house's favor.

Creeping exploitation is occurring in many areas of the town. There are still cheap places to stay and eat, but buffet prices are rising and a lot of the newer hotels and fine restaurants are amazingly expensive, given that it's Vegas. Meanwhile, most of the major showrooms are continuing with an unofficial policy of sneaking ticket prices upward. The best Lance Burton tix are now $66 each, the Cirque du Soleil show at the Bellagio is $99-$150, and Danny Gans, whose show consists of one guy on a stage backed by a small band, charges a hundred bucks a seat. A hundred is what you'll pay for the worst seat to Elton John's show, which has a top of $250. So far, the price increases do not seem to be hurting attendance at most ongoing shows so the hikes will probably be ongoing, as well.

A few years ago, the conventional wisdom was that with so many casinos opening all across the country, Vegas might be on the cusp of extinction. Now, even without Bill Bennett's money, the town is doing better than ever and a dozen new "megaresorts" are planned. What may be extinct is good, cheap shows and buffets. That, and winners at Blackjack.

Here's an interesting site. Some analysts claim that they've identified certain indicators that tip off the gender of the author of a given piece of writing. The Gender Genie attempts to apply those rules to a hunk of text (preferably 500 words or more) that you upload. I tried ten pieces from my online articles and postings and each time it said they were written by a guy. See if it works for you.

Vince Waldron (a fine author, whose website is a haven for us sitcom fanciers) writes in reference to our earlier item on the series, Hank…

Just saw the Hank piece question, on which I have no more to add. (I think that one may have been before my time.) However, I did have a "wait a minute!" moment when I saw the publicity graphic you included in your listing, which showed Hank pondering one of life's ponderables next to a statue of Rodin's Thinker. Surely I'm not the only fan of old tv who found the juxtaposition of Hank and thinker more than a tad reminiscent of a motif frequently employed in the opening bumper of another series that featured a campus cut-up named Dobie.

Yeah, that's interesting. I don't recall "The Thinker" ever being a part of the TV series. It may have turned up only in that one publicity photo, which Hank star Dick Kallman also used on the cover of a record album he had out at the time. Hard to believe though that no one involved with Hank realized they were replicating a key visual from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which had gone off the air not long before and was still quite visible in reruns.

…although I'll tell you an odd thing. One of the producers of Hank (and I think he directed some of them) was my old boss, Jimmie Komack. And in 1977, when CBS hired Komack to produce a revival of Dobie Gillis, Jimmie enraged Max Shulman, Dwayne Hickman and everyone else involved in the old show by bragging that he'd never seen the original series. Hickman, Bob Denver, Frank Faylen and Sheila James all signed on to the pilot/special because Max Shulman had co-written (with Eric Cohen) a very funny script that was true to the spirit of the original but, I thought, quite accessible to anyone who didn't know the old show. It also struck me as quite contemporary, but Komack decided that everyone involved was too fixated on replicating a series no one remembered and he was worried it wouldn't be modern…so he tossed the Shulman-Cohen script and had a new one written by two other writers who didn't particularly recall the old series.

The result was a deservedly-unsold pilot called, appropriately enough, Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis? and if you ever run into Dwayne Hickman and want to see him turn a lovely shade of scarlet, ask him about it. (Actually, don't, 'cause he's a very nice guy. Here's a link to his website, by the way. His autobiography, which you can purchase there, is a pretty good book.)

I guess this really has nothing to do with the Hank photo but in the world of weblogging, if something pops into your head, you post it. By the way, the above story has one of those EC Comics endings. A few years later, when Jimmie might have been trying to sell a new sitcom to CBS, he had a teensy problem: The guy you pitched to then at CBS was Dwayne Hickman.

While I'm posting: Tom Wittick wrote to ask if I knew anything about Dick Kallman. Well, I know he was a musical performer before and after his time in Hollywood. He spent a lot of time after Hank playing the Robert Morse role in productions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, then he replaced Tommy Steele in the lead of Half a Sixpence on Broadway, then took it on the road for a while. He worked a lot actually, bouncing around between movie and TV parts and stage, plus he also played Vegas a lot. Somewhere in the mid-seventies, performing dried up and he became a dealer in rare paintings and antiques until 1980 when he was killed in a robbery of some of his wares. Sad ending for a pretty talented guy.

Happy 81st birthday to "Smilin'" Stan Lee, guru of the Marvel universe. I hope I have half his energy when I'm his age. Hell, I wish I had half his energy these days. Maybe if I did, I would have gotten around to posting this yesterday, which is when his actual birthday was. I'll try to atone with this quick anecdote: Years ago at a comic convention, there was a very lovely lady who was dressed as a then-popular Marvel character named The Valkyrie. She was stunning, and Stan couldn't resist going up to her and saying, "Hi, I think I created you." The lady was nice but she said, "I think Roy Thomas created me when he was writing The Avengers." Stan was crushed (who wouldn't be?) but then, as he started to walk away in shame, a nearby fan piped up and said, "But Valkyrie used to be The Enchantress, and the Enchantress first appeared in an issue of Thor that you did with Jack Kirby!" Stan brightened up and told the lady, "Ha! I knew I'd created you!"