Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Groo Gets In

Groo the Wanderer makes an unexpected cameo in today's installment of No Business I Know, a new comic strip by Doug Crepeau and Kevin Hopkins. Here's where you can see it. (Thank you for telling me, Buzz Dixon.)

• Posted at 8:33 AM · LINK

Last Schwartz Story For Now...

Throughout the thousands of years Julius Schwartz edited comic books, he worked with a wide array of writers. Some were good and he helped make their output great. Some were not so good and he still helped make their output great...or at least, better than it probably would have been with any other editor. One of the great things about Julie was that he never lost his enthusiasm for what he did. Even near the end of his career, he greeted each new story as a fresh challenge and if it came out good, he was as happy as any newcomer. Happier, even. But though he loved most of the writers who contributed to his comics, there's no question which of them was his favorite. John Broome was the guy Julie called his "best writer and best friend — not necessarily in that order." Back in Julie's agenting days, John had also been a client, and they were an odd pairing. Broome was humble, shy, self-deprecating and never very sure if what he was writing was all that good. Julie was opinionated, enthusiastic, and not at all reticent to tell you or anyone that a given piece of work was good or bad. Most of the time, he told Broome the work was good...and since Broome was too fond of Julie to question his judgment, he figured, "Maybe my writing isn't so bad, after all."

At a time when DC more or less required its writers to come into the New York office for meetings, Julie accommodated John's yearning to travel. They'd sit down one week and plot out not the next story Broome would write but the next dozen or so. Then John would fly off somewhere and bat out Green Lantern scripts while camping out on the Champs-Élysées. Julie was happy to make this lifestyle possible for his friend but as he readily admitted, "Part of me wanted to make him stay in New York so we could have lunch together a couple times a week." When Broome finally had his fill of comics and moved overseas to stay, Julie missed him terribly. They saw each other occasionally when Broome was passing through the U.S. of A...but the intervals grew greater and greater.

In 1998, Schwartz and Broome had not seen one another in more than ten years. That was one of the reasons that a comic fan named Rich Morrissey had one of the all-time great ideas in the history of comic fandom. He decided to bring Broome, who was then living in Japan, to a Comic-Con International in San Diego. He wanted to reunite two old friends but there were other reasons, as well, one semi-selfish: He simply wanted to meet the great John Broome, a writer whose work he'd loved, and pepper him with questions about his work. He felt others should also meet Broome and that the writer (who'd never been to a comic book convention in his life) should be honored by one while he was around to be honored.

Unfortunately, Rich got the idea too late to fit into the convention's budget so they told him to wait until the following year. He didn't want to wait so he called a lot of us and dug into his own pocket and somehow through donations, he raised the funds to bring Mr. and Mrs. Broome in from Japan. The moment John and Julie saw one another and embraced made it all worth it. So did a panel I was honored to moderate in which a packed house (most of them, professional comic book writers) listened to John and Julie reminisce, along with artist Murphy Anderson, who illustrated many of their stories. A partial transcript of this wonderful panel can be found here.

As it turned out, we were all fortunate that Rich didn't wait for the 1999 con. John Broome passed away the following March, months before that year's Comic-Con International. (And sadly, Rich Morrissey, though still a young man, died unexpectedly just two years later. Some of us still haven't recovered from that one.)

I thought Rich did a wonderful thing for all of us, getting Broome over here for what John himself called, "the greatest weekend of my life." And if it wasn't the greatest weekend of Julie Schwartz's life, it was darn close. Julie loved being honored but I think he was even happier seeing his friend being honored. I think that may be one of the character traits that is necessary to be a good editor: You have to be willing to see others get the applause and to comfort yourself that you helped make it possible.

I do not particularly believe in an afterlife except for theories like the following: It's great to imagine Julie Schwartz and John Broome being reunited now, getting together and going to lunch...being as happy for all eternity as they were for that weekend. I just hope Morrissey isn't pestering them with too many questions about The Flash.

• Posted at 12:29 AM · LINK

The Best Car Wash in the Universe

So the other day, my gas tank's just about on Empty and the car's so dirty, I'd forgotten the original color. Time to get it washed. I pulled into a nearby car wash and told the attendant to fill it with Super Unleaded and to give me the plain, garden-variety, no-frills, no Spraywax or ArmorAll wash. A few minutes later, as my auto rolled through walls of suds, I paid the bill, which was $29.65 and browsed about the Gift Shop, checking out the greeting cards, sunglasses and about 9,000 different kinds of air freshener.

A few minutes later as I went to tip the attendant and get my clean, wet car, it suddenly dawned on me that $29.65 was darn cheap for a full tank of gas and a wash these days. A check of my receipt revealed that I had paid $11.95 for the "Full Service Wash" (their cheapest) and I'd gotten 16.065 gallons of gas @ $1.099. A buck-nine for gas???

I checked the sign out front: Super Unleaded was $2.09 per gallon. I walked over and checked the pumps. They all said $2.09 except for the one my gas had come from, which said $1.09. I pointed this out to the attendant who reacted pretty much the way you'd react if I told you that Martian warriors had landed. There was disbelief. Then there was shock. Then there was all-out horror. Apparently, the pump had been mis-set for days like that.

Managers were summoned. Yelling commenced and I'm pretty sure someone was fired. In the midst of it, I interjected and offered to pay the sixteen bucks I'd been undercharged but someone — he may have been the guy who owned the place since he seemed to be doing the firing — said, "No, that's okay. You're honest and it was our mistake."

Returning to my car, I laid a big gratuity on the guy who'd swabbed it down with rags. He asked me what all the fuss was and I told him, including the part about someone being fired. He moaned in sadness. "Friend of yours?" I asked. He said, "No...I was just meaning to get my car filled with gas here this morning."

• Posted at 12:28 AM · LINK

February 11, 2004 • Current • February 9, 2004