Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Bad News

Sad to hear that director-writer Bob Clark and his son were killed in a car crash this morning. Actually, it's sad when anyone's killed in a car crash but it's especially wrenching when (a) it's a guy who directed a couple of your favorite movies and (b) it was because of a drunk driver. As you may recall from past postings here, I think people who drink 'n' drive should be spanked hard. It's truly a reprehensible thing to do, getting behind the wheel when you're tipsy. I don't believe it should be easily forgiven, even when the culprit doesn't kill anyone.

Clark directed and co-wrote A Christmas Story, of course, and I don't have to tell anyone who's seen it what a treasure of a film it is. But he also directed two other movies I like a lot...the 1980 Tribute, starring Jack Lemmon and based on Bernard Slade's play. It came and went with little notice but I thought it was a fine film.

And I'm sorry...I like Porky's. I laughed a lot at it, especially the scene in the principal's office. If you don't think it was a well-made movie, just watch any of the 7,000 imitations that were made in its wake. You can even watch the two excrutiating sequels, only one of which Clark worked on. If you do, you'll see that the original Porky's hit a note that all the others missed. It's the only one of those pictures about horny high school memories and fantasies that seems to depict someone's actual horny high school memories and fantasies.

I never met Bob Clark but I liked his work. So it feels like I've lost yet another friend to drunk driving.

• Posted at 11:07 PM · LINK

Kirby, Kirby, Kirby, Kirby!

I've been writing a lot lately about one of my favorite topics, Jack Kirby. In the last month, four separate pieces about the man some call the greatest comic book creator of all time have made their way through my copy of Microsoft Word...and for four separate publishers. Here's a rundown of them in no particular order...

1. DC Comics is bringing out a complete, hardcover, fancy, lovely (I expect) series of four volumes that will reprint all of Jack's "Fourth World" material in a format that would have made him very happy, indeed. When Jack launched The Forever People, The New Gods and Mister Miracle, it was on the premise that someday, the series would be collected in real — as opposed to comic — books. This was then a radical, almost inconceivable idea. Of course, he imagined a much longer storyline with a more developed ending but he'd still be delighted. I know I am. Anyway, I'm consulting on these and writing Afterwords, which means that I turn up in the rear of each volume to tell you what you just read. This fine article by Ian Brill in Publishers Weekly will tell you more. It comes out early next month and if you can't wait, you can order a copy of Volume 1 by clicking here. You can also pre-order Volume 2 while you're at it. Amazon is offering another one of their exciting package deals where you can purchase two books at once for exactly the same price you'd pay to order them separately, thereby saving yourself one mouse click.
2. Neil Gaiman — despite the fact that I took him to a mediocre Chinese restaurant a few years ago or perhaps because of it — asked that I pen the foreword to Marvel's forthcoming collection of his (and John Romita's) take on Mr. Kirby's 70's series, The Eternals. I was delighted to do so because Jack's brainstorm was in fine hands and I got to write a little about him and the history of that comic along with blessing the Gaiman/Romita extension. This book comes out the same time as the one above and you can snag your copy by clicking here.
3. I just wrote yet another installment of my ongoing column on J.K. for The Jack Kirby Collector. I don't have to tout this publication to anyone with the slightest interest in Kirby so I'll just mention that you can order the latest issue here. My piece in this one is about Jack's speed in producing comics and about his relationship with a young artist named Joe Maneely who was killed in a tragic train accident in 1958.
4. Lastly, but hopefully not leastly, I'm putting the finishing touches on Kirby: King of Comics, a very fancy book by Yours Truly which comes out before the end of the year from Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Here's a page on that company's website with not much more information than I've given you here. And here's some exciting news: There's a place there you can pre-order at the full price if you have a yearning to pre-order and can't wait until you can pre-order from Amazon for less. I'm very pleased with how this book is coming out and I won't say any more now because I expect to become a bore and a nag (both at the same time) about this project.

So there you have them: Four times lately when I've written about Kirby...five, if you count this item. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish my income taxes. Maybe I can sneak a mention of Jack in there, too.

• Posted at 10:15 AM · LINK

Blow Daddy

I'm going to reprint this news article in full...

Richards Denies Snorting His Dad's Ashes

April 04,2007 | LONDON — Keith Richards was joking when he claimed to have snorted his father's ashes along with cocaine, a spokesman said Wednesday. "It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File under April Fool's joke," said Bernard Doherty of LD Communications, which represents the Rolling Stones. Doherty declined to say any more about why Richards made the statement in an interview with NME, a pop music magazine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," the 63-year-old guitarist was quoted as saying. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

Uh, why was the earlier report a news item? Didn't reporters and editors understand it was a joke? You did, right?

• Posted at 8:57 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Since we've been talking Popeye here lately, let's make today's feature a Popeye cartoon. This is Little Swee'pea, which was released to theaters on September 25, 1936. Jack Mercer and Mae Questel provide the voices and that's all you need to know...

Oh, yeah. I should mention that this print starts with the A.A.P. logo. Associated Artists Productions was a company that acquired theatrical material and distributed it to television. They got a mess of Popeye material in 1956 and slapped their own title cards on the front of the cartoons to replace the Paramount logo. I'm not sure what they did but you'll notice that these Max Fleischer Popeye cartoons (most of 'em) start with the ship's doors opening and closing...and somehow, when the A.A.P. logo went on a lot of them, the music was adjusted so the sound of the doors closing was out of sync. On this print, it's okay but on a lot, it ain't.

Anyway, after you get past the A.A.P. title card, it's all original equipment. Here we go...

• Posted at 2:21 AM · LINK

Today's Political Thought

As this article explains, Garry Trudeau is now doing a Doonesbury sequence about the many and varied positions of Republican presidential wanna-be Mitt Romney. The storyline points out that Romney has reversed a lot of his past opinions about things like gay rights and stem cell research. He has now moved to positions more in keeping with the hardcore Republican base for, I suspect, the same reason John McCain now shamelessly panders to that group. You may not be able to win the presidency with those positions but you sure can't win the Republican nomination without them.

I haven't paid enough attention to Romney to have an opinion as to whether he's sincere in his "evolved thinking" or not. I'm just wondering aloud if "flip-flopping on the issues" is going to be a serious charge against anyone in the next election. After eight years of George "Stay the Course" Bush, even the staunchest Republicans may be a little leery of a guy who brags about never changing his mind.

• Posted at 12:42 AM · LINK