Friday, August 8, 2003

Happy to Hear...

A. Whitney Brown is the man who said, "I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants." A. Whitney Brown is the man who said, "The saving grace of doing humor is that if you fail, no one is laughing at you." A. Whitney Brown is the man who said, "A group of white South Africans recently killed a black lawyer because he was black. That was wrong. They should have killed him because he was a lawyer." A. Whitney Brown is the man who said, "The past is what actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down."

A. Whitney Brown is the man who said, "There are a billion people in China. It's not easy to be an individual in a crowd of more than a billion people. Think of it. That means even if you're a one-in-a-million type of guy, there are still a thousand guys exactly like you."

A. Whitney Brown was a writer and occasional cast member on Saturday Night Live during what are still my favorite years of that uneven show. He often did the smartest material on the program some weeks, the smartest material on all of television. But a few years ago, he seemed to completely drop off the map and disappear. Every time I glanced at the shelf with my copy of his book, The Big Picture, I wondered what had become of him and whether we'd ever see him again.

Well, I'm happy to say...he's back. Now, if he'll just come in this direction...

• Posted at 11:26 PM · LINK

Superman's Pal, Jack Kirby

I want to get away from politics and back to things like comics here, so I'm going to link to Bill Sherman's review of the new reprint volume, Jimmy Olsen: Adventures by Jack Kirby. (I'm linking to the version posted at Blogcritics instead of at Bill's own site because there seems to be something wrong with his permalink there.) It's a wise, perceptive review, like all of Bill's are except when he doesn't like something I did.

I am way too close to the trees to have an objective opinion on Kirby's odd run as writer-artist (and sometimes editor) of Superman's Pal. I helped on these stories in tiny ways and was around when Jack did them. I will say here, since there wasn't room to do so in my introduction to this collection, that Jack himself was not entirely satisfied with the material, and not just because DC insisted on heavily retouching his work. The problem was — and Jack had this same problem at DC more than a decade before when he drew Green Arrow — that no one could decide if the mission was to continue the previous, duller version or to plow it all under and start fresh. Jack was not the guy for the former job. He was capable of a great many creative tasks but seamlessly blending into someone else's interpretation was not one of them. So allowing himself to be tossed into a key position in DC's Superman franchise was probably a mistake. He might have been able to do a great Superman but it wouldn't have been the same Superman that everyone else was doing. The moments of joy in what he did are probably all those where he didn't feel pressured to not be Kirby.

Anyway, I recommend this book and the follow-up volume to anyone who wants to read some odd Kirby work. For genuine, unfettered Kirby, buy the collections of New Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle, and The Fourth World that are still in print (though, alas, still in black-and-white). And to read more about Mr. Kirby, visit this page.

• Posted at 11:49 AM · LINK

For Those Of You Keeping Score...

Here's the up-to-the-minute list of folks who are running for governor of California. More to come.

• Posted at 2:57 AM · LINK

August 9, 2003 • Current • August 7, 2003