Monthly Archives: January 2008

For those of you interested in animation and especially in Disney animation: An interview with our pal, Disney Legend Floyd Norman.

I think I picked an interesting week to poll the readers of this site as to who they thought would be the Democratic nominee for the post of Prez. Early on, Hillary Clinton took an early lead and for several days, Obama was around 31% and Edwards was around 16%. But even before he announced he was getting out of the race, the numbers for Edwards dropped into the single digits and Obama began picking up what I'd guess was most of that support plus some from each of the other choices. For what it's worth, I selected Hillary when this poll went up but if I had to make a prediction today, I'd probably flip a quarter…or maybe pick Obama. It feels that close to me.

I'm not even sure who I'm going to vote for in the Democratic Primary next week. A couple of the candidates who are on the ballot but out of the race probably reflect my views better than either Clinton or Obama but I don't see the point of a "symbolic" vote for them. No one ever notices how many votes the withdrawn candidates get so the symbolism doesn't register anywhere that matters.

Here are the results…

I know a lot of folks keep coming to this site to see if there's any news on the strike…so for you people: There's no news on the strike. At least nothing I've heard. The rumor mill says they're still having informal talks. That's probably true. At least, we'd probably hear if it wasn't. The rumor mill further says those talks are going well. That may be one of those news items based on nothing. In any case, there's no indication as to when those talks might turn into real negotiations, which would presumably be a matter of formalizing the terms.

Meanwhile, officials of the Screen Actors Guild are criticizing what they know of the Directors Guild settlement and asserting that they will not allow it to become a template for their own, upcoming negotiations. One might infer they're saying that now because they know that the WGA reps are accepting a large chunk of the DGA deal, at least as a rough model even if some of the terms and numbers change. And one might be dead wrong to infer that. We don't know. The DGA deal has, probably unfortunately, become the AMPTP's starting point for bargaining. Any union (not just WGA or SAG) is going to have to do a certain amount of pushback against it.

When will we hear something? Your guess is as good as anyone's. I still think an immediate goal is to make enough progress in the next week or so that the WGA will feel comfortable about granting a waiver that will allow the Academy Awards to have a real writing staff. I'd certainly trust our leadership to make that determination and to trade that off if they feel they're making genuine gains. Still, the fact that one or both sides wants to make a deal ASAP doesn't mean that's going to happen. So sit tight.

This is a blanket "thank you" to all the folks who wrote in with suggestions and/or offers of help with my computer virus problem. Lucky me, I had two at once. From what I can tell, the first one somehow managed to bypass and then disable my virus program. It should not have been able to do this — it's an old, known virus that the software is supposed to protect me from — but it did and that opened the door for the second. Both infected my main computer and the first one got onto my main computer, my secondary computer, two external Maxtor harddrives and three SanDisk cruzer flashdrives. Quite an ambitious little fellow, I'd say.

Cleaning involved my regular virus program, an online virus scan and two other virus programs which I downloaded and ran in trial mode. Collectively, they identified both viruses — albeit under an array of different names — and removed the one that was only on one computer. Getting rid of the other was a little harder. I had to go in and manually kill processes, delete hidden files, delete registry entries and restore a few files from a recent backup. All four pieces of anti-virus software I used claimed they could remove this second virus but for some reason, none of them could. Still, they gave me the info that enabled me to research the virus and then figure out how to do the manual scrub job.

End of story? Unfortunately, no. I got the virus off my main computer but not before it nuked something in the boot sequence. I'm pretty sure all the data's there…I just can't get to it. To deal with this, I took the easy way: Shipped it over to my computer guy and told him to build me a new computer, boot the old one off another drive and then transfer my data over. I was about due for a new P.C., anyway. It should be here by the weekend.

But thanks to all who offered help. A couple of you suggested I chuck the Windows systems and defect to the World of Mac, where viruses are pretty much non-existent. True…but I think I have too much invested in this software in terms of knowledge, money and emotion to start cross-dressing now. And you'd better all be glad I feel this way because if I ever did switch to a Mac, someone would surely invent a killer virus for them…a bad one that would nuke your data, destroy your system and tell everyone you went to high school with that you wet the bed.

…for a commercial…

The Koo Koo Roo restaurant chain used to have great food but that's in the past. Stop going to them and being disappointed.

How are you at identifying TV themes? If you're good, you oughta do well on this game.

Here's another opportunity to vote in our poll which closes tomorrow night. If you've already voted and would like to change, you can do that.

It's been interesting to watch over the last week as John Edwards has dropped about thirteen points, Barack Obama has gained about thirteen points and Hillary Clinton has stayed about the same. Make of that what you will.

Over on his site, Michael Barrier has posted something that interests me greatly…and if you're interested in how to write comic books or even animation, it should interest you. As you may have seen me pontificate many a time, there are many ways to write a comic book script. This is because there are many different kinds of comic books and many different kinds of people who write and draw them with many different modes of talent and expertise. It has long amazed me how many people who work in the field or so aspire learn one way and thereafter believe it is the only way. In some cases, it's not that they think it's the best way. They literally think it's the only way.

Well, one way is for the writer to just sketch the whole thing out on typing paper, doing simple drawings and writing in the copy. I would guess that a solid majority of "funny animal" comics — and maybe even a majority of those about similarly "funny humans" — have been done that way. It was especially prevalent in years past at any company where most of the writers were gagmen or animators who were moonlighting or escaping from jobs at a cartoon studio, and some even wrote adventure or other non-funny comics this way. (Somewhere here, I have a copy of Don R. Christensen's sketched script for a Magnus, Robot Fighter.) Still, I have met experienced comic book writers and editors who deal exclusively in typed scripts and are stunned when they see one executed in this manner. They act like they spotted a unicorn.

Sketched scripts also confuse fans and historians, who think that the guy who did the script did layouts or breakdowns and is therefore deserving of co-credit for the resultant artwork. Well, maybe he is and maybe he isn't. This is a more subjective call that can vary not only from job to job but from panel to panel. As you'll see on the example before us on Barrier's site, the artist sometimes followed what the writer did and sometimes didn't. In such jobs, the artist nearly always has the freedom to just take the idea of each panel and stage the action however he or she may prefer.

What Mike has posted is a twelve-page Porky Pig script for a 1948 issue of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. The script was written by one of my mentors and early employers, Chase Craig, who was an editor for several centuries at Western Publishing, the company that produced these comics. It was drawn (and also lettered, by the way) by Roger Armstrong, who was one of Western's best artists and one of Chase's favorites. The two men had a very odd, occasionally contentious relationship and working with both of them in the seventies, I kept finding myself in the middle of squabbles. Through them all however, Chase's admiration for Roger's drawing was undiminished.

As you can see, most of the changes Roger made were a matter of flipping the action from left to right or vice-versa, and probably for the better. I've seen examples where the artist stayed closer to the sketched versions and also where he changed almost every panel; also, cases where the sketched script was more or less detailed. For the record, I don't think "sketched" scripts warrant the writer receiving partial art credit except maybe in cases like with Harvey Kurtzman or Jack Kirby, where as writer (or plotter usually in Jack's case) he roughed things out on the final drawing paper. I believe this despite the fact that as you can see, Roger got a lot of his ideas for poses and attitudes from what Chase drew.

I guess this raises the question of whether a better comic book results if it's written by someone who sketches out the story, as opposed to someone who types. My experience at Western Publishing (and with Chase and Roger) suggests that no one who was doing comics in that era thought it mattered to the end product; that the determination was made wholly on the comfort of the writer. Some guys couldn't type or preferred not to so they sketched. Some couldn't sketch or preferred not to so they typed. Some (including Chase Craig) could go either way so they just worked in whatever manner they felt like using at that moment.

Some writers even drew because they thought it was more fun to draw. One of the main writers for Western for many years, a gent named John Brady, not only sketched out his scripts but partially colored them with colored pencils. I once asked Chase why Mr. Brady wasted his time doing that since it was so meaningless, since no one involved in the coloring of the printed comic would ever see what he did. His answer was along the lines of, "He just likes doing it. I guess it helps him create. Some guys have to be wearing a certain shirt or facing north or drinking lemonade in order to work. John needs to use his colored pencils." Chase didn't care one bit if a writer sketched or typed and didn't think it mattered to the final product, especially when the artist was going to be someone he respected as much as he respected Roger Armstrong.

Back from picketing. It was WGA-SAG Solidarity Day today on the front lines at Fox, which meant I not only saw a lot of writer friends but actor friends, as well.

A few correspondents have asked exactly why it is we picket. There are a couple of reasons, one being that it's traditional. The other labor unions in town expect it of us, and if we didn't picket, everyone would be saying, "Those spoiled writers think they're too good to picket" or maybe "The writers aren't really behind their guild's strike. They don't care enough to come out and picket." We also picket for the news value, to keep the story in the headlines and to remind everyone that we're still out, that we still don't have anything close to an acceptable offer for our services.

There were a lot of news cameras out there today. For a time, I was picketing behind a gent who had the letters "WGA" shaved into the back of his head, and three separate camera crews practically mowed me down, trying to get some footage of that. Also, there was some woman there…I have no idea who she is and neither did any of the folks with whom I was then picketing. But she's apparently a regular on some popular series and she was surrounded by cameras and microphones and from what I could hear, she was saying all the right things. (The "buzz" on the line, for what it's worth, is that the Screen Actors Guild hates the DGA deal even more than most writers, and that they're determined to accept nothing even remotely in the same ballpark.)

And I guess we also picket for ourselves. None of us like being on strike but there's some wonderful camaraderie and mutual reassurance that happens there, marching with folks who are solidly on your side. I have never believed a syllable of those rumors that the Guild was divided on this issue, that there were gaggles of top screenwriters and show runners poised to break the strike and flee the Guild. Those tales are absolute Bandini, through and through. But if I ever did believe them for a second, a visit to a picket line like today's would calm any concerns.

It was actually quite pleasant, especially since I did something that was, for me, rather smart. The last time I went over to picket Fox, I drove around for half an hour, unable to find a parking space in the same zip code. Today, I was shrewder.

Fox is on Pico Boulevard. So is one of my favorite restaurants. I went and parked on the street near the restaurant, went in and had a bowl of Turkey Rice Soup…then I jumped on the #7 Pico bus and let it take me about two-thirds of a mile to the picketing. When I was done, I hopped the same bus going the other way and let it take me to my car. Total cost? $1.50 for the bus (75 cents each way) and four bucks for the soup. I actually didn't have to have the soup in order for the plan to work but I thought it was a nice touch.