Zeke Zekley, R.I.P.

A great cartoonist named Zeke Zekley died yesterday at the age of 90, and others in his field are sadly phoning one another to ask, "Have you heard?" Zeke was born in Chicago on February 11, 1915 and grew up in Detroit. His first cartooning job was at age 18 for the Detroit Mirror which, he used to joke, promptly went out of business. He freelanced for a time, then moved to California where he quickly got a job at Disney…only to be laid off two weeks later when the studio shut down for the summer. Broke and desperate for work, he happened to be doodling on the tablecloth in a restaurant one night when a man noticed his work and introduced himself as the brother of George McManus.

McManus was one of America's most widely-read cartoonists with his newspaper strip, Bringing Up Father, and he was in desperate need of an assistant. Zeke was quickly hired and the two men became close friends, with Zeke eventually drawing and even writing more of Jiggs and Maggie than McManus. (Well into his eighties, Zeke was still able to draw those characters in a manner most would find indistinguishable from their maker.)

Zeke worked with McManus for years and it was assumed that when McManus died or retired, Zeke would take complete control of the strip. This did not happen. In 1954, McManus died and King Features Syndicate elected to give the job to an outsider — a move that was unpopular with other strip cartoonists and which caused some of them to make contractual demands about who would take over their strips after they passed away.

Zeke recovered from the disappointment and went on to create his own strip for the McNaught Syndicate — a Blondie clone called Dud Dudley. More than a few people could not remember if the comic strip character Dud Dudley was drawn by cartoonist Zeke Zekley or if the comic strip character Zeke Zekley was drawn by cartoonist Dud Dudley. Either way, the strip only lasted a year, which was a shame since it was one of the cleverest of the many strips that attempted to emulate the success of Blondie and Dagwood. Zeke tried a few others — Peachy Keen and a panel called Popsie — which also never caught on.

After that, Zeke devoted most of his energy to his own company, Sponsored Comics, which produced comic books for commercial and advertising purposes. He produced comics that were given out at McDonald's and at regional stores, and many other venues. For a time, he handled PS Magazine, the Army's semi-educational book that Will Eisner had done for years.

Zeke was a great guy, generous with his time and talents. He employed a great many cartoonists but was not above sitting down at the board and drawing or lettering pages himself. Funeral services will be held on Monday afternoon in Los Angeles. Drop me a note if you'd like details.

Senator Al?

Here's a nice piece over on Salon about Al Franken and the possibility that he will run for a Senate seat in Minnesota in the not-too-distant future. Of note is this quote from Jesse Ventura…

The moment [Franken] declares his candidacy, he has to go off the radio. He has to look forward to having his entire past exposed. He'd better come clean and be honest with it. If he's done drugs in the past, he better be honest about that. He better be honest about things he did at Harvard, if he has anything in the closet.

You know, I wonder how much stuff like that matters anymore. I mean, certainly "things in the past" get used by your opposition to try and convince people that you're a bad, immoral person. But how much did reports of past drug use and orgying hurt Arnold Schwarzenegger? How much did rumors of past cocaine use and dirty business dealings hurt George W. Bush? It's been a long time since Ted Kennedy had any trouble getting re-elected. And if Bill Clinton were to ever run for Mayor or Governor of New York, he'd win in a walk. For that matter, Jesse Ventura managed to get into office without being faulted for past steroid use and his violent past and all the lying and fakery that's involved in professional wrestling.

I'm wondering if the Conventional Wisdom isn't coming down to this: If you have a history of questionable deeds, a certain group will yell a lot about them and argue that it disqualifies you from public service…but those are people who weren't going to vote for you, anyway. Another group, who've decided to vote for you if for no other reason than your party affiliation, might not like what you've done but they'll decide it doesn't matter. (I am talking here of misdeeds that can be said to be truly in the past and largely victimless, like sexual escapades or drug use. I don't mean something like you killed a guy…) Given the choice of two, wouldn't you rather vote for the reformed drug addict and male hustler who shares your views, as opposed to the clean-cut ex-minister who wants to make everything you like illegal?

That leaves the middle…the otherwise undecided. Bringing up your sordid past might sway a few votes but does it make a huge difference to voters? I suppose in some parts of the country, some past deeds would matter a lot, but I sense the trend is moving towards people not caring. Arnold carried some pretty Conservative/Pat Boone districts of California. I think in some cases, it's a matter of us being so cynical that we presume everyone on our ballots has something shameful they're concealing. If it comes out that the candidate sold drugs to school kids and was sexually involved with a sheep, we say, "Well, that's not so bad…unless, of course, the sheep was a minor."

Two other things about the Salon article. One is that in it, he tells a joke that Buddy Hackett told him. It's the exact same joke that Buddy told me once at a party and which I quoted in this piece. Buddy sure got a lot of mileage out of that joke.

And the other thing is that it's on Salon. If you don't subscribe, they make your purchase a day pass or sit through tons of ads or trim someone's hedges or…well, I don't know what they make you do to read articles there. I subscribe. There's lots of great free stuff to read on the Internet but I still feel Salon is well worth the bucks.

Somebody Loves Me?

A few years ago, I had a flurry of odd calls at my home. The phone would ring on one of my many incoming lines, I'd answer it and I'd hear a woman's voice say, "Oh, sorry. I have the wrong number." And then the party on the other end would hang up…only the party seemed to be a computer of some sort. The woman's voice was recorded.

I theorized that this was some sort of "fishing" expedition on the part of some firm that was compiling phone numbers to sell to someone. Perhaps they were looking for phone numbers that would be answered by fax machines. Perhaps they were trying to separate data lines from voice lines…something like that. But obviously, the mere fact that I answered the phone gave them whatever information they were seeking.

Recently, I have begun getting odd text messages on my cellphone. First off, it's odd that I'm getting text messages at all since only a few people have my cellphone number and none of them are set up to send a text message. But these communications come in every day or two, usually in the evening, and they say things like, "Going to bed. I love u" and "Cannot do lunch tomorrow. I love u." They are not from anyone I know.

The text messages are accompanied by the sender's phone number. I tried voice-dialing that number but it goes to a modem/data line, which is even odder. In theory, it should go to someone's cell phone. I thought of sending a text message back but the modem line thing made me suspect it might be a scam to locate cellphone numbers that are set up to receive text messages. I'm afraid that if I write back, I will validate my number and it'll be sold to hundreds of companies that will send me text messages offering to refinance my home or enlarge my breasts or enlarge my home or refinance my breasts or something. I'm assuming that if some real human being is text-messaging their loved one at the wrong number, they'll find out about it soon enough.

It reminds me of a time about 15 years ago when some guy kept phoning my house and asking for Donna. I did know a Donna then, but she wasn't here and I quickly determined that the caller was passionately in love with, and desperate to talk to some Donna I did not know. Something had gone wrong between them and he was certain that if he could just talk to his Donna, they could straighten it all out and get back together and eventually marry and have kids, etc.

At first, he called over and over, refusing to believe that he had the wrong number. He was certain I was lying to him and that his Donna was in the next room, avoiding him. I thought of saying something like, "Yeah, she's here but she's in the pool having sex with a bunch of accountants," but he sounded so serious, I was afraid he'd open his wrists.

I finally convinced him he really and truly had the wrong number, and he read me the number he thought he was dialing. It was one crucial digit different from mine. He apologized and hung up to dial the correct number…and sure enough, he got me again. This happened three or four more times in a row, like he was accidentally dialing not only the wrong number each time but, oddly, the same wrong number.

Finally, I told him something was probably wrong with his phone dial. The two was registering as a three. He said, "No, it's this damned faulty redial button. Every time I push it, I get you."

Donna was smart to get out when she did.

Recommended Reading

Over at IGN, Peter Sanderson continues his report on the memorial service for Will Eisner. And if you're a fan of sixties Marvel history, you might want to read Fred Hembeck on a mystery from the annals of Tales to Astonish. And if you do, you might want to read Fred's next column, coming soon, where he finds out more of the story.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam…

Tomorrow night's 60 Minutes Wednesday will have a feature on the new Monty Python Broadway musical, Spamalot. And tonight's Charlie Rose Show, which runs tomorrow in some parts of the country, includes an interview with its director, Mike Nichols.

Today's Political Rant

As mentioned earlier, Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) has introduced a bill that would make it illegal (!) for the National Weather Service to make its forecasts available for free on the Internet. The National Weather Service is supported by those of us who pay taxes, and its data is the foundation of all weather forecasting across the continent. There are private weather services that take the NWS info and supplement it with additional data, as well as processing the NWS data through different computer models. There are others that do a fair amount of their own forecasting but even those firms have derived their computer models by studying NWS data, and their forecasts are always done with one eye on what the NWS says. So basically, what the private weather services sell is information derived from the work of the NWS. Santorum's bill is based on the premise that it is "unfair competition" for the NWS to give away this information because it might make it harder for private companies to charge money for their versions of it.

The most prominent of the private companies is AccuWeather, which is based in Santorum's alleged home state of Pennsylvania. (He actually lives in Virginia, a fact you'll probably hear mentioned often as re-election time draws near.) Is anyone surprised that the top execs of AccuWeather have donated a couple thousand bucks to the "Santorum in 2006" campaign?

This is out-and-out, unabashed bribery. Sometimes, when a representative takes money from the cheese industry and then pushes for a law that benefits the cheese industry, there's a rationale: The legislation was long overdue. Others have noted the problems it's intended to fix. The beneficiaries are just supporting that benevolent cause. Something like that. But in this case, no one was pushing for this change. In 50+ years, no one thought it was bad for the National Weather Service to be making its findings available to the public. It's just Santorum taking money for screwing the public…and his price is darned cheap, at that.

Yeah, this kind of thing happens all the time, and about bigger issues than the weather forecast. But it still ticks me off.

The Kreskin of Komix

The other day here, I noted that Garry Trudeau has a tough job in Doonesbury, writing topical material that has to go to press way in advance. As noted, he's had a pretty amazing track record of not having his "projections" go awry. What happens between the time he sends a batch of daily strips off to his syndicate and the time they see print rarely renders them untimely.

As Ray Arthur noted to me in an e-mail just now, the Trudeau Luck is holding: Today's Doonesbury strip is about George W. Bush pledging his friendship and support to the embattered Tom DeLay. And today's developments in the DeLay situation are being summarized in news stories with headlines like Bush Gives DeLay Show of Support. A nice bit of prognostication there, in a strip that was probably drawn two weeks ago.

Special Two-Way Wrist Radio TiVo Alert!

chestergould01

Here's a nice picture of the creator of Dick Tracy, Chester Gould. It's my way of alerting you to an upcoming What's My Line? treasure on GSN. Mr. Gould was a guest on the 4/22/56 episode of that venerable game show, and I think it's the one GSN is airing early Wednesday morning.

Also, if you're a fan of great ventriloquists, you might want to watch or TiVo the following night's (day's?) show, which should be the one from 4/29/56. Paul Winchell is on the panel, with Jerry Mahoney popping up every now and then from under the desk, and the mystery guest is Edgar Bergen with Mortimer Snerd. Winchell was always in awe of Bergen and was genuinely thrilled when he figured out who it was.

A lot of fascinating people popped up on What's My Line?, which is one of the reasons I enjoy watching these hoary reruns. If you watch over the week or two, you'll see appearances by Frank Lloyd Wright, Ronald Reagan, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Liberace, Bob Hope, Margaret Truman, and the bodybuilder whose torso adorned many a comic book advertisement…Charles Atlas.

Public Appeal

My pal Ken Plume is looking for something and I'll bet someone reading this can help out. It's a cartoon by the famous pre-war British editorial cartoonist Paul Crum (real name: Roger Pettiward). It depicts two hippopotamuses, their noses above water, and one is saying something like, "I keep thinking it's a Tuesday." A collection of his work was printed in '85 entitled The Last Cream Bun and we assume it's in there. Ken needs a scan and he's a good guy…so if you have access to this and would like to get thanked profusely in an article, drop a note to me and I'll forward it on to Ken.

Possible TiVo Alert!

Early tomorrow morn — 8:30 AM on my satellite dish — TV Land is running the episode of I Dream of Jeannie that guest stars Dave Barry. This alert is for those of you who want to see the late comedian and cartoon voice actor in action. See this earlier posting for background details.

3 Down, 22 To Go…

Just came across a box that UPS delivered Friday and which my cleaning lady apparently brought in. How nice to find the third volume of The Complete Peanuts, which takes us into the 1955-1956 period. This was when Mr. Schulz really started figuring out what he wanted to do with his characters. Charlie Brown starts to act like Charlie Brown, Lucy starts to act like Lucy, etc. He's still fiddling with their relative ages but as soon as Linus gets a few years older and Sally Brown miraculously develops, we'll be through that era of indecision.

Another nice thing about the strips in this volume is a personal one. As a kid, I avidly collected the Holt, Rinehart and Winston paperbacks of Peanuts strips. They were a dollar each at a little shop called Bookhaven that used to be on Westwood Boulevard, about halfway between Wilshire and Santa Monica. It was a folksy little bookstore run by two older women and it looked like someone's living room. On all but the hottest days, they'd have a fire going in a fireplace, and their dog would be sound asleep next to it. Bookhaven dealt mainly in rentals of current best sellers — books too new to be obtainable at the public library — and my parents went there almost every Saturday to take something back and get something new to read. I'd usually go and if there was a new Peanuts paperback out, or a B.C. collection or anything of the sort, it would be purchased for me, and it would be read over and over and over. I can recall enjoying many of the strips in this new third volume of The Complete Peanuts while sitting in one of those easy chairs in Bookhaven, waiting for my folks to make their selections.

Also nice to see ol' Pig-Pen on the cover. Pig-Pen didn't appear often in the strip, even back then, and it seemed like Schulz would later forget about him for decades at a time. I always liked the character…though I must admit that as a youth, I guess I was laboring under a misperception. Around '68, Schulz introduced Franklin into the strip and the press noted that Peanuts was now integrated; that there was finally a black kid in the neighborhood. I recall reading that and realizing that when I was younger, I'd kind of vaguely assumed that Pig-Pen was a black kid. I'm not sure where I got that impression. Maybe it was the way Schulz drew his hair. Maybe he appeared somewhere in color and they put a lot of brown on him to represent mud. Non-Caucasians have endured some enormously clumsy representations of their skin colors in comic books and strips, including being colored the same as Caucasians, so you never know about some of them. Anyway, I had my great moment of racial awakening when I realized I was mistaken about Pig-Pen, and whenever I see one of those movies where in the last reel, it's revealed that someone has been "passing for white," I think of him. I believe there were one or two early Peanuts strips where I wasn't sure Pig-Pen wasn't a girl, too.

Is there anything I can quibble with about this book? Well, I still think the art direction is a little too much the style of the books' designer, Seth, as opposed to Charles M. Schulz, but I suppose that ship has sailed. Also, the promotion on the Fantagraphics website says that this edition is supposed to contain "an epilogue by series editor Gary Groth," but I can't find one in my copy. Still, the book's a must-have, so I'll just throw in an Amazon link and suggest you click on it.

Gas Guzzling

And how much will it cost a resident of Los Angeles to drive to the new Zankou Chicken? Find out here.