Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Public Memorial for Paul Norris

If you live in Southern California and were a fan of the late Paul Norris, you might want to make it to a public gathering in his honor. It's next Wednesday evening, November 14, in Oceanside, and it's at one of Paul's favorite restaurants. There will be an exhibit of his art but mainly, it'll be a band of his friends, fans and family members sitting around, talking about Paul. I'd be there if I could but alas, I'll be on the opposite side of the United States that evening.

If you'd like to attend, you'll be most welcome, I am sure. Drop me an e-mail and I'll send you more details, like the time and the address.

• Posted at 9:02 PM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

I'm taking twenty minutes off from an assignment that's due. Let's see how many of these I can get through in that time. I'll start with this one from Roger Green...

Are game shows affected by the writers' strike? Which current "reality" shows might be affected? And how about the news magazines such as 60 Minutes, or the Sunday morning news shows?

News shows are covered under a different contract. They may go on strike shortly but that's a separate matter. I can't tell you the precise list of "reality" shows affected nor which game shows are impacted, although I know some of both are. Jeopardy!, I'm pretty sure, is a WGA show.

Our next question is from Greg Eckler and his subject line says, "One difference from 1988"...

It comes at a time when California's housing market is in some turmoil and the California state budget is looking at a huge unexpected shortfall. A shutdown of the big industry will surely have them on edge at the State House or whatever it's called. Do you think the governor or others could/would intervene to hasten a resolution due to broader economic implications of a long stoppage?

My understanding is that Governor Schwarzenegger has declined to get involved and that may be wise, at least on his part. If he was party to a resolution, no matter what it was, he'd have someone accusing him of selling out one side or the other due to self-interest. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has offered to mediate but so far, his offers have been shunned by the Producers.

Ultimately, there's not that much any outside mediator can do apart from giving people who've said "We're not going back to the bargaining table" a way to save face when they go back to the bargaining table. In any strike, that's the main thing an outside mediator contributes. There is some value to an insider going back and forth between the two sides as, reportedly, John Wells attempted to do over the weekend. When this strike is settled, it'll probably be because one or more someones did a lot of that. But I doubt Schwarzenegger will be among them.

Next up is this message from Michael Fedoruk...

Would it not make more sense for the networks to show (or reshow) some of the shows (especially the ones from the last year or two) that they've cancelled, perhaps with a view that some of them might come back after the strike is over? I know that some shows are canned with unaired episodes. I also know that some would never come back (at least with all the original cast) but at least that would be more interesting to watch than a rerun of a rerun of the umpteenth showing of CSI:Whatever. I'm not trying to be callous to the rights of the Writers in that reruns may encourage the public to put pressure on the Producers to end the strike sooner rather than later but since these shows have already been produced what do the studios have to lose? Anyways, some residuals may be spread out a little farther by airing other shows. Just a thought.

Right now, the networks are probably most interested in coming as close to Normal as possible. There's a genuine worry that if shows disappear completely, they'd be more likely to lose audience loyalty and momentum than if they stick around in reruns. Whenever The Office runs out of new episodes, it'll go into repeats, the hope being that its loyal fans won't go off and find something they prefer at that hour. The network wants those fans to be around whenever production resumes, either because the strike gets settled or Steve Carell's balls return to their normal size.

At this point — and remember, we may be very early in the game here — the networks are most interested in projecting the message, "We don't need you...we can hold out indefinitely." If they start running the unaired episodes of Viva Laughlin, that will kind of undermine that message.

Just a little more time left so let's go to this one from Martha Thomases...

Are the producers united in their opposition to the writers' demands? Could a producer break away from their association and make a deal that goes beyond the minimum (current) WGA standards? That is, if, say, Harvey Weinstein was willing to share DVD/internet revenue, could he make an individual deal?

We don't know for sure but it's highly unlikely the Producers are precisely united. I mean, they're probably reasonably united in that they don't want to give Writers an increase in DVD money, a cut on Internet downloads, expanded jurisdiction, etc. But they're also probably yelling, even as we speak, over how cost-effective it is to take this strike and hold out and what they should offer to settle. Part of this is because these guys have different management styles but most of it is because they're not being hurt evenly. Some of them have more product in the pipeline and on the shelf. Some of them have more important projects that are now jeopardized.

A lot of what will happen in the coming weeks has very little to do with anything the Writers say or do or demand. It has to do with the member companies of the AMPTP arguing among themselves as to how to end this strike and what they're willing to give up in order to make that happen. If those guys can't agree, they can't make the offer that will do that. And they also have to figure on how to do that in a way that will minimize what they'll have to give the Directors Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and other unions who'll expect what we expect.

Here's another one from Martha — who, by the way, is a key player in a wonderful comics website called ComicMix...

There is so much evidence in the media news that there is money to be made from online advertising that I find it hard to believe that the producers actually claim ignorance on the subject. I mean, besides weekly editions of Advertising Age, AdWeek, etc., there are businesses such as (ahem) ComicMix and YouTube based on the assumption that it's profitable to put stories online. Are we supposed to believe that the MBAs who run the major studios know less than I do?

Oh, they know. No question they know...but they have to say something. It's just like when the President of the United States (any President) is caught lying or doing something incredibly stupid, the Presidential Press Secretary has to come out and say it's not a lie or that he didn't do what he did or maybe that someone else did it. Powerful people rarely admit errors and when you're negotiating with someone, they rarely admit that they have the money. I did some shows once for a producer who had so much money that he couldn't even store it all. He had to have it all scanned so he could store it on CD Rom. Still, every time we had to dicker over what I'd be paid for some project, he'd act like he didn't own eight cars and two homes, and that I was trying to bleed a pauper of his last buck.

This ties in with what will have to be the last question for now because I'm already over the twenty minutes. This is from Steve Jodele...

You've mentioned this man named Nick Counter on your blog. He's the spokesman for the Producers, I guess. What's the deal with him? Does he really think you guys are so unreasonable? Also, I heard Michael Eisner on Fox News say that this was a stupid time for the Writers Guild to go on strike and that they were asking for all the wrong things. Do you think he's right?

No, I think he's Michael Eisner. This is another one of those cases where it's insane to imagine that he could ever take any other position. Show me when Michael Eisner has ever said, "Hey, you know, this would be a great time for a union to go on strike." Or "Boy, that union really deserves what they're asking for." In his world, it's always the wrong time for anyone below the CEO level to say no to anything a studio head wants...always the wrong time for a union to ask for more.

Really, you can't take that kind of thing seriously, just as you have to view any statement from the AMPTP or even my beloved WGA as posturing in service of a desired goal. When Nick Counter comes out and says there will be no further negotiations for a long time, that may turn out to be a true statement but first and foremost, it's what he and his people think is the best thing to say at this moment from a strategic viewpoint. I met Counter during the '88 strike and talked with him and I think he expected people around him to just understand this; that it's all part of the game. He seemed like a nice guy when you were off the topic of the strike and the contract...but his role is to go out and say whatever his employers (the studios) want him to say.

It helps me to remember that there are just certain jobs in this world — like a lawyer arguing his client is innocent when he knows darn well the guy stabbed three nuns and killed a lhasa apso — where you're paid to say what you're paid to say. I'm not suggesting this is admirable or even forgivable. I've never believed that "I'm just doing my job" gets you off the moral hook when your job is to lie or cheat or hurt someone. But I do recognize that people do those jobs and that a lot of it is just like that moment in poker when you're sitting there with a pair of threes and it's in your best interests to convince the guy across the table that you have at least four of a kind, if not a royal flush. You know how candid and honest you are in that situation? That's about how candid the point men are during a labor negotiation and you can give yourself a real bad headache if you expect anything else.

That's all for now. Back to work...

• Posted at 7:57 PM · LINK

This Just In

Just got a message that says that production has shut down on the NBC hit sitcom, The Office. It seems its star, Steve Carell, has been calling in sick with what he claims is a case of "enlarged balls."

• Posted at 1:14 PM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

I'm pretty busy today — amazing, considering I'm on strike, right? — but I'm going to take breaks and answer a few questions. Here's one from Chris Carlisle...

Does the WGA represent comic books, and animation writers? Can you still write comics and animated programs, or does this strike only involve live-action tv and movies? I know this is a stupid question.

It may be but it's one I've received from a number of folks. The answer is that the WGA is only on strike against the specific areas that it covers and for which the contract has expired. It has nothing whatsoever to do with comic books or with writing novels or plays or software or magazine articles or newspaper columns or cute little predictions that appear in fortune cookies. It does pertain to some animation writing because the WGA has deals to cover some animation writing. So if you're writing cartoons, you need to check with the Guild.

A lot of people have also written to ask if I thought the strike meant that a flood of folks who previously made their livings on live-action TV shows and movies would come streaming in to write comic books and animation during the strike. Maybe some will.

I get the feeling that many WGA members aren't looking for other markets because they're still somewhat disbelieving in some ways that this strike could last for many months. Intellectually, of course, we all know that. Our last one in 1988 went 22 weeks, after all. But the purpose of Management not making a deal with us right now is to try and soften us up...scare us into accepting worse terms at some later date. And this Guild is so "together" — I still haven't heard one member say we should have taken the last offer — that we know that 60 or 90 days down the line, we will be no more likely to bite on a crummy deal than we are today. By then, we may even be more militant...if such a thing is possible.

And since we know that, a lot of us are wondering: How can they not know that? Some may think the Producers are swine-like greedheads but even folks who feel that way think we're up against shrewd swine-line greedheads who know to crunch numbers and make money. So you'd think they'd realize that all they're going to do by waiting to make a deal with us is cost themselves a lot of cash and further destroy their audience shares. You'd think they'd find some face-saving excuse to get back to the bargaining table soon and make the deal that they'll be prepared to make in January.

My guess is that some within the coalition of Producers want to but that they need to reach unanimity and haven't yet. The answer to the question, "How long will this strike last?" probably has everything to do with how long it takes the six member companies within the AMPTP to all get onto the same page. If rumors are true, in 1988, some of them were ready to settle pretty rapidly and one or two weren't.

Anyway, I don't think a lot of live-action writers have gone looking for comic book or cartoon work yet because though they're prepared for this strike to last a long time, they still don't feel like it will. If it does, we may see some low-level flooding.

• Posted at 10:37 AM · LINK

More on Paul Norris

Nice to see a lot of folks on the 'net have picked up the news about the passing of Paul Norris. I realized last night that though Paul told me that Aquaman drawing he did for me in 1995 was the first time he'd drawn the character in decades, that's not so. In 1987, DC commissioned this amazing "jam" drawing of all their major characters and Paul drew his waterlogged co-creation for that. I don't know if he forgot about that or if he was just trying to make me feel my piece was all the more special.

And I remembered two stories about Paul that I'll share here. In 1972, Gold Key Comics lost the rights to Tarzan. In a move it later regretted, the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate stopped the long-running Dell/Gold Key run and shifted their ape-man over to DC. The Gold Key version had been written since about the twelfth century by a man named Gaylord DuBois and it had been drawn its last few years by Paul. Missing nary a beat, the editors at Western Publishing (which published the Gold Key books) had them create something similar, which they did, and Gold Key began publishing The Jungle Twins. The above covers, I should mention, are paintings not by Paul but by a man named George Wilson. Paul drew the insides.

Part of what prompted this is that there had been a recent issue of the Gold Key Tarzan comic that had adapted the Burroughs kids' book, The Tarzan Twins, and that issue had sold particularly well. In fact, Western had been in talks to launch a bi-monthly Tarzan Twins comic when the Burroughs people made their move, so the publisher did The Jungle Twins instead with DuBois and Norris. Oddly, the "Tarzan Twins" issue of Tarzan had not been drawn by Norris and it was one of the very few issues not written by DuBois. Both functions were done on that one by Mike Royer.

So one day I'm up in the Gold Key offices and I'm browsing through the incoming artwork piles...and I come upon a just-finished issue of The Jungle Twins in which there's an amphibian character named Aquaman. Storywise, he isn't much like the DC Aquaman and even though he's drawn by Paul Norris, he doesn't look anything like that Aquaman...but he is called Aquaman! I go to the editor and inform him that, uh, DC Comics has a character named Aquaman and they've only been publishing him for, oh, about thirty years.

The editor was a gentleman named Del Connell, and Del just plain didn't read other comic books. Obviously, Mr. DuBois didn't, either. But before Del gives the order to change the character's name, we both wonder why Paul Norris — co-creator of the other Aquaman — hasn't said anything about it. Del phones him up to ask and Paul responds, "I didn't know if my Aquaman was still being published and I just figured you knew what you were doing."

By the way: The Jungle Twins wasn't a big success as a comic book. It started out with decent sales, actually outselling DC's Tarzan I heard, but that didn't do so well, either. There were seventeen issues of The Jungle Twins before it was cancelled in 1975. A few years later, Sid and Marty Krofft's company optioned the property for a potential live-action Saturday morning series and I wrote a pilot script that caused ABC to briefly place the show on its schedule...but then they changed their minds over there. In fact, three years running, they did that to me: Picked up a pilot I'd written and then changed their mind. The year after, it was another jungle show — an animated version of Lee Falk's comic strip, The Phantom. On and off the schedule in under a week.

It was, in the case of The Jungle Twins, quite a shame. As fans of such Krofft shows as Magic Mongo and ElectraWoman and Dynagirl are aware, Sid and Marty sometimes put some pretty attractive young ladies in revealing outfits on Saturday morn TV. In the comic book, The Jungle Twins were both boys. In my script — which had very little to do with that comic book, I'm afraid — one of the Jungle Twins was a girl and we actually got as far as some preliminary casting before the project fizzled out. If we'd cast the actress we were thinking of casting and we'd had her running around in jungle girl garb, there wouldn't have been a male in America — young or old, straight or gay — who wouldn't have been watching.

During this period, I was working with Paul on the Hanna-Barbera comics and one time when we got together, I took along a photo of this actress. Before I showed it to him, I asked, "Remember those two boys you drew in Jungle Twins? Tono and Kono?" Paul said he did. I said, "Well, if we do this show, this is what Kono's going to look like" and I handed him the picture in which the young lady was wearing about as much covering as one gets from a medium-sized Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid™. Paul took one look, grinned and said, "I must say, Hollywood has considerably improved on my work."

• Posted at 8:10 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This one's a trailer for the Laurel and Hardy feature, Bonnie Scotland, which was not one of their best features...though it's a heckuva lot funnier than this ad would make you think. For some reason, whoever wrote all the witty sales pitches made a point of saying the movie is "60 minutes long" as if being that much longer than Stan and Ollie's usual shorts is a big selling point. But Bonnie Scotland was actually eighty minutes in length so I don't know what was happening there.

Okay, so it's a crummy trailer. But some Laurel and Hardy is better than no Laurel and Hardy. Here's some Laurel and Hardy...

• Posted at 8:08 AM · LINK