Monthly Archives: November 2006

In late 1964, Marvel Comics produced a very silly "meet the staff" record to go in with the membership kit for their Merry Marvel Marching Society. I wrote about it here but now someone has added visuals to it and made a YouTube video. Thanks to Marty Golia for letting me know about it.

Carolyn and I got out of Indiana just ahead of a bad storm…this, despite some security folks at the Indianapolis Airport who thought one of her medications was suspicious. It hadn't been suspicious when she got on the plane in Los Angeles and it hadn't changed, which makes you wonder: Was the crew at LAX negligent or the crew at IND causing needless trouble? I suspect the latter. I've only flown a few times since 9/11 but my impression at every airport has been that an elaborate charade is being perpetrated; that really all they can effectively do with all that equipment is stop you from boarding the plane with a gun or knife. After the hijackings of that awful day, that did not seem to be enough…so now we pretend that making people throw away their hair gel and forcing old ladies to take off their shoes makes us safer.

As Carolyn was interrogated about an herbal potion, I waited…and watched a scene from Lewis Black's stand-up act performed before me. Black tells of watching an elderly woman in a wheelchair as she was practically strip-searched by Airport Security and asserts that "if the Enemy has recruited her to work for them, then they deserve to win." The lady I watched was physically unable to put her shoes back on — which suggests she might have had a bit of trouble overpowering the pilots and seizing control of the plane. Her travelling companion had passed through another metal detector and, having cleared security, was forbidden to go back in and assist the wheelchair-bound woman. It was all very uncomfortable…and I guess I could have understood it if I'd seen a scintilla of anything that might have stopped a genuine threat. But it was all about enforcing some very silly rules that obviously did not apply to the situation.

Doing that today almost caused us to miss our flight. If it had left on time, it would have left without us.

But pretty much everything else on the trip went right apart from one meal at a place called Max and Erma's. I've already told you about the Mid-Ohio Con. From there, it was on to Muncie, Indiana and meetings with Jim "Garfield" Davis about an upcoming project, then on the Indianapolis. As I mentioned, I was very impressed with the "Neverlost" Global Positioning System in my Hertz rental car. It was very easy to use and very helpful. Three times, I got off the prescribed path — twice, my fault for getting in the wrong lane, once because the dictated route was just plain wrong. All three times though, the system instantly recalibrated the instructions and got us right back on the path to our destination. I don't know if all G.P.S. devices are that good but if they are, I'm going to get one in my next car.

And now, it's nice to be home. There's nothing like your own bed.

Product placement at the end of shows you record. TiVo is like that friend you love even though he keeps doing things that you wish he didn't do.

Fred Kaplan on the pending Baker Report that's supposed to tell us what to do about Iraq but probably won't.

The New York Times has an obit up for our pal Dave Cockrum. I don't understand the part where Murphy Anderson is referred to as having "created the modern look of Superman, Batman, Flash and other characters at DC Comics" and I'll bet Murphy doesn't, either. That's one of those lines where you can tell the writer knows zero about the subject matter and is just misunderstanding something someone told him. I also think Clifford Meth deserves as much credit as Neal Adams (if not more) for the campaign that got Dave some cash out of Marvel Comics. But otherwise, it's a nice piece.

Timothy Noah notes the 20th anniversary of the Iran-Contra Scandal. No one else did but he does.

Today, you get another one of those slightly-randy Private Snafu cartoons which the Warner Brothers Animation Department whipped up during World War II to entertain our troops and deal with possible morale problems. Mel Blanc provides all the voices for "The Home Front," which was directed in 1943 by Frank Tashlin. Tashlin, who went on to write and direct live-action features with the likes of Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, was a pretty good cartoon director who's never quite received his due. (For more on the history of Pvt. Snafu, see this post.)

This is old news to us Carl Barks fans, but Neil Gaiman sent me this link to an article about how one of Carl's classic tales may or may not have figured into a patent dispute. In either case, it's interesting that Barks came up with the idea when he did.

The brilliant cartoonist Stan Sakai reports on a recent trip to Belgium and France. With pictures, no less.

This is probably making the rounds of all your e-mailboxes but I enjoyed it enough to stick it up here. It was forwarded to me by a fine actor named Alan Oppenheimer who has to have lunch with me soon so I can present him with some tapes of a great TV show he was featured on called He and She. Consider this a formal invitation, Alan.

1. Do not walk behind me. Do not walk ahead of me. Do not walk beside me. Just leave me alone.
2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.
3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.
4. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
5. Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.
6. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
8. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
9. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
13. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.
14. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
16. A closed mouth gathers no foot.
17. Duct tape is like "The Force." It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
18. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.
19. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving.
20. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
21. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
22. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

Jeffrey Toobin on the demise of habeas corpus. Someone needs to come up with a term to describe things like this…when a political party passes a bill which they'd fight to the death to stop if it had been the other side's idea. I really think Democrats could have killed this if they'd had the sense to have Bill Clinton propose it first.

At the risk of sounding like a Tom Slick cartoon: We're coming to you today from Muncie, Indiana where I spent the day meeting with Jim Davis on an upcoming Garfield project. This is my third-ever visit to Muncie and it's still too level for me. You'd think a guy with Jim's money could spring for a few bucks and buy the town a hill or something.

Despite being a Big City Boy, I feel quite comfy in this environment, at least as long as it ain't snowing. In the past, I made a lot of sarcastic remarks about how it's odd to be in a place where the big cultural event is watching them change the french fry grease at Arby's, or how someone found out I was Jewish and asked to have his picture taken with me. Not only did people back home expect that but the ones here seemed to expect it, as well…and I was willing to comply. The truth is that I don't find it all that different. I mean, I can find differences within walking distance of my home in Los Angeles. I don't see a place like Muncie as much more different than that. The folks I meet are as pleasant and witty and just as likely to meet any standard of "hip" as anywhere else I've been. You see some different brand names on stores — though not many — and there's less traffic here and less hurry. But you can also get that within commuting distance of Hollywood if you know where to look.

Carolyn and I had a nice drive here on Monday from Columbus, Ohio in a Hertz vehicle equipped with their "Neverlost" Global Positioning System. I'd never used one of those before and even though I had printed directions (courtesy of Mapquest), I found it helpful to have the little lady telling me to get ready to take the right fork in .5 miles or whatever. If I ever went anywhere new, I'd get one for my car at home. Then I'd see if I could reprogram it with cartoon voices…you know, maybe get Joe Alaskey, who does Sylvester these days, to record, "Sufferin' Succotash! Hang a left at the next Tweety Bird"…or have Snagglepuss telling me to "Exit, off-ramp right." The other idea would be to get one with the voice of my first lawyer. Then I'd just do the exact opposite of everything he instructed me to do and I'd get to each destination without a single problem.

Not much else to report from Muncie except that I'm having a little trouble sending e-mail out of the hotel's Internet connection. If you await a reply, it may have to wait until I'm back in my own time zone.

Whadda ya think? Wanna see another one of those Private Snafu cartoons that the Warner Brothers guys produced during World War II? Okay, just for you: Snafuperman is unusual in that it references another studio's films — the Superman cartoons being produced for Paramount we've been watching here lately — and even uses a few bars of the theme song for that series, presumably with their permission. This one came out in 1944, directed by Friz Freleng. Mel Blanc did most of the voices but there are a couple of lines in there from Tedd Pierce, who was one of the WB gag men and an occasional voice actor. (One other example: Pierce did the voice of the Bud Abbott type cat in "A Tale of Two Kitties," which we linked to here.)

Fred Kaplan says George W. Bush is blowing one chance after another to stabilize problems around the world and to benefit U.S. interests.

— as I just did — that I posted a link to an article about how webpages can be an exercise in ego, then posted a long message about how much weight I'd lost. I didn't do that intentionally.