Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Will It Float?

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.

• Posted at 9:07 PM · LINK

Stan Overseas

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

• Posted at 9:03 PM · LINK

22 Pearls

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.

• Posted at 2:54 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

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.

• Posted at 2:46 PM · LINK

Hoosier Daddy?

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.

• Posted at 2:19 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

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.)

Someone spliced an old Porky Pig Looney Tunes ending onto this print but I'm pretty sure it didn't have that in the first place. Everything before that is authentic. For more on the history of Private Snafu, without whom we wouldn't have won that war, see this post.

• Posted at 1:24 PM · LINK