Saturday, March 3, 2007

WonderCon Report

Second day of the con: Same as the first, only a lot more people there. Around 2:00 in the afternoon, you could have lifted your feet off the floor and just let the crush of humanity carry you down the center aisle. But off to most sides, it was a bit less cramped and most people didn't seem to mind a lot.

I did three panels, starting with a nice chat with Nick Cardy, one of the great comic book artists. Here's a link to Nick's website and if you browse about, you'll agree with the way I introduced him: No one ever drew handsomer men or sexier ladies. We discussed his work for DC, particularly on Bat Lash, and Nick narrated a slide show of his paintings and advertising work. He did some real nice movie posters but the paintings he did for his own edification were even better.

Then came a Mad panel with Sergio Aragonés and Al Feldstein. Al was Editor-in-Chief of the rag for more than a quarter of a century, back when it was selling more than 2.5 million copies per issue. (Current sales are a lot less...like 2.4 million less.) Al was fascinating and some publisher is missing a bet by not making a grab for his autobiography, which he's still trying to find a home for. It's the story of how he went from writing and editing horror comics that almost killed the industry to helming the best-selling humor magazine of all time. He took over Mad after its original editor, Harvey Kurtzman, departed with most of the staff. In an amazingly short span of time, Al stepped in, restaffed and reinvented the magazine and it became a success in so many ways, including its influence on a generation or two. Somebody, please. Publish this man's book so his story can be properly documented and shared with the world.

Lastly for today, I did an interview with Gene Colan. Here's a link to his website — and come to think of it, here's a link to Al Feldstein's website.

Everyone who ever read Marvel Comics knows what a class act Gene has always been. He drew most of the major Marvel titles at one time or another but particularly distinguished himself on Iron Man, Daredevil, Tomb of Dracula and Dr. Strange. We discussed all that and how movies had played such a vital role in his work. People write a lot about the intersection of those two media, film and comics, but it was never more visible than in Gene's work, especially in how he "lit" his world and positioned light and shadow. If you were there and had as much fun listening to Gene as I did interviewing him, you had a great time.

I roamed the hall after that and enjoyed talking to an awful lot of people whose names I won't itemize. If you were among them, it was a pleasure to chat with you. Maybe I'll see the rest of you there tomorrow.

• Posted at 11:44 PM · LINK

In the Days of the Mob

Steve Duin reports on the panel I did yesterday at WonderCon with Gerard Jones.

• Posted at 11:05 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Our cartoon today, kids, is called Betty Boop and Grampy. It was released August 16, 1935 during a time when the Max Fleischer Studio was loading Ms. Boop's cartoons with new and/or guest star characters who might warrant being spun-off on their own. There were a couple of other films with Grampy but he didn't catch on.

The most interesting thing about this cartoon is probably its use of the table top background camera in which a small, three-dimensional model took the place of the usual painted background in some scenes. It was one of Max Fleischer's many inventions and some have suggested, based wholly on speculation, that Grampy's own inventiveness was inspired by Max's tendency to cobble together new devices. Maybe so.

Mae Questel did Betty's voice while Grampy's voice was supplied by someone named Everett Clark, about whom I know absolutely nothing. Jack Mercer — who was best known for playing Popeye — can also be heard in there somewhere. The animation is credited to Dave Tendlar and Charles Hastings but a number of other fine artists worked on it.

The other night, sitting around with some other animation folks, we got to recalling Dave, who passed away in 1993. He was a colorful, affable gent who finished out a long career in cartoons the way a lot of cartoon creators of his era did...working at Hanna-Barbera. He'd been one of the main animators on the classic Popeye shorts and in 1978, when H-B got the rights to produce a TV series of the squint-eyed salt, Dave was excited at the prospect of getting back into the Popeye business. He started warming up and lobbying the art directors to let him design the whole show...and was then crushed when the decision was made to ship the production off to a studio H-B had in Australia. One time after that, I went up to visit another artist whose table was right across from Dave's and I heard him sitting there and sketching, muttering under his breath just like the early Popeye did. Dave had been assigned to a show called Casper and the Space Angels. It starred what was ostensibly the same Casper the Friendly Ghost that Dave had once animated for Famous Studios but he was still moaning, "Why am I drawing this when I should be drawing Popeye?"

He was right. He should have been drawing Popeye. But as you'll see, he did a good job drawing Betty Boop and her eccentric grandfather, too. Have a look...

• Posted at 8:36 AM · LINK

Everything's Relative

Several of you have written to tell me that the Federal Anti-Nepotism Act of 1967 would prohibit President Hillary Clinton from choosing her husband as Secretary of State. The law, which I must admit I'd never heard of, is summarized as follows...

A public official is prohibited from employing, appointing, promoting, advancing or advocating for appointment, employment promotion or advancement any relative for a civilian position in the agency in which the public official is serving.

So if I understand this correctly: If Bill Clinton had a different state as his place of legal residence, Hillary could pick him as her running mate and he could become Vice-President...but could not serve in her cabinet. Or the Clintons could get a divorce (thereby making hundreds of past tabloid headlines retroactively accurate) and then he could be Secretary of State. Seems kind of odd to me but I guess someone was worried that Robert Kennedy would become President and put Teddy in the cabinet the same way J.F.K. made Robert his Attorney General.

Anyway, I stand corrected on the technicalities of the matter and I still would be happier with William Jefferson Clinton running our foreign policy than anyone we have now. Maybe President Barack Obama could make him Secretary of State.

• Posted at 12:15 AM · LINK