Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Must See Lee

Have I mentioned here that my pal Lee Goldberg (a prolific writer of TV and books) has a weblog? That it's full of info on the writing business? That you oughta visit it every day or so? I don't think I have so I will now. Lee has some nice memories of the late Charles Rocket in this post, by the way. (Hey, Lee! We're about due for another lunch...)

• Posted at 10:37 PM · LINK

We Report, You Deride...

I am told the entire debut episode of The Colbert Report can be watched online at this link. You'll need to have Windows Media Player installed with the sarcasm filter turned off.

• Posted at 8:39 PM · LINK

Tom Gill, R.I.P.

Veteran comic book and strip artist Tom Gill has died of heart failure at the age of 92. Gill was born in Brooklyn and his career as a professional artist began with a staff job at the New York Daily News. He was never certain what year but he was there in time to draw a map of Pearl Harbor that ran in the paper the day of the infamous bombing. He later worked for the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune and for the latter, he drew a short-lived strip about a cab driver named Flower Potts. Around 1948, he began drawing for comic books and notched a 20+ year run on the Lone Ranger comics for Western Publishing (Dell, Gold Key). He did dozens of other comics for Western, specializing in westerns and — as he put it — "anything with a horse in it." His Fury comics, based on the TV series about a stallion, were especially striking and other artists used them as reference for horse-drawing. Gill also drew comics for Harvey, Toby Press, Marvel and other companies, and illustrated a fair amount of childrens' books for Western. When the Man From U.N.C.L.E. TV show was big, Gill illustrated dozens of books and activity books based on the series.

Of all his many accomplishments, Tom was proudest of his 50+ year stint as an instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. There, he taught over 2,500 students, many of whom went on to become prominent in the field of comics, advertising design and animation. A few of them assisted him on his comic book work before graduating to their own assignments, including Joe Sinnott, Herb Trimpe and John Verpoorten. He was also justifiably proud of his work with the National Cartoonists Society, serving several terms as its vice-president. The N.C.S. awarded him its coveted Silver T-Square award in 1964 and its award as Best Comic Book Artist in 1970. (He was then primarily doing the Bonanza comic book for Gold Key. A few years earlier, he drew a few issues for the company of The Owl, a new super-hero creation of Jerry Siegel.)

I met Tom at a New York convention about ten years ago. Veteran artist Dick Ayers, who sometimes worked with him, introduced us by telling me, "You're about to meet one of the real giants of our business." He was right, but Tom sure didn't conduct himself like he thought he was a giant. He was funny and charming and genuinely pleased that I knew who he was...and when I told him how much I admired the work of some of his students, like Joe Sinnott, he beamed with pride. Last year, we had him as a Guest of Honor at the Comic-Con International and I got to spend time with him and interview him. He had a true love of art and cartooning and talent...and it showed.

Here's a link to the Reuters obit and here's a link to a recent article about Tom. He was just what Dick Ayers said he was.

• Posted at 7:50 PM · LINK

Briefly Noted...

Comedy writers who have to write topical material pray for news items that lend themselves to dozens of easy jokes. This one is worth at least a solid week of Leno monologues.

• Posted at 1:42 PM · LINK

All Attitude

I think Stephen Colbert's one of the ten-or-so funniest people to grace my Sony Trinitron this century. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is probably my current favorite show and he's probably the best thing on it apart from Stewart...so you figure a whole half hour of the guy has gotta be great, right? Well, I'm still assuming it will be and that the first outing of The Colbert Report was an okay first step. I mean, someone's going to figure out that Colbert's snotty screen personality needs more "normality" to play against. Out there alone, he's like Costello with no Abbott, and the whole show plays at the same snide attitude without interruption. The correspondents on The Daily Show are funny because they have Mr. Stewart there to play straight and to represent our amazement at the bizarre things they say and do. On last night's first Colbert Report, it was the other way around: Because he's the host, Colbert's odd style becomes the norm and his guest, Stone Phillips, was the guy who was out of sync with the rest of the world. Not as humorous that way.

Based on the promos, I was expecting The Colbert Report to be more of a parody of The O'Reilly Factor and other shows where the host sells a worldview and berates all who challenge it. Perhaps that's what they have in mind. (Bill O'Reilly, by the way, is Jon Stewart's guest tonight.) I wouldn't judge a show of this kind by its first episodes. After all, it took a long time for The Daily Show to become The Daily Show. Still, I have to admit I was a little disappointed by how much of the first Colbert Report was just Colbert arching that eyebrow towards Camera One. I hope this won't be another in the long list of shows that prove some people are just better as Second Bananas.

• Posted at 12:24 PM · LINK

October 19, 2005 • Current • October 17, 2005