A number of folks attending the upcoming Comic-Con International in San Diego are planning on boycotting one of the main hotels and gathering spots, the Manchester Grand Hyatt. There's a gentleman named Doug Manchester who (it is said) "built" the hotel — and presumably they mean in a financial sense, not by sawing lumber. Mr. Manchester is an occasionally-outspoken voice against gay rights and recently donated $125,000 to the cause of Proposition 8, a November ballot initiative in California that seeks to reverse the recent court decisions permitting same-sex marriages.
I happen to think full and total gay rights, wedlock included, are long overdue in this world. I also happen to think they're inevitable and that the folks opposing them are like the George Wallace contingent of the late sixties that thought there was still a chance to return racial minorities to the rear of the bus and separate but equal water fountains. (The analogy to racial minority rights is not exact in all aspects but the wrongheadedness of those who stubbornly refuse to grow up and accept reality is the same. Twenty years from now, if you suggest gays shouldn't marry, the reaction of most decent people will be like if you say today that interracial marriage is wrong.)
I've decided not to boycott. If it makes you feel better, fine. I think the impact on Mr. Manchester will be microscopic and it might even have the opposite effect. The Hyatt is not going to have a single vacant room during the con no matter what any of us do, and the bars will be pouring as much liquor as they ever have. As a general rule of thumb, I don't think boycotts are a good idea unless there's a decent chance of them yielding a headline, "Business suffers mightily from boycott." If you can't achieve that, you just reinforce the reverse: It seems to prove that the world doesn't oppose the position you're protesting, and that there's no economic downside to advocating it. After the con, Mr. Manchester will not be sorry he gave that $125,000 and there might even be press reports that will suggest it's because the anti-Proposition 8 movement isn't as strong as some think.
In truth, I think there's an ever-increasing chance he will be sorry, but not until November. The latest polls suggest Proposition 8 losing...and another rule of thumb is that support for ballot initiatives usually goes down as the election grows nearer, not up. Also way up are Barack Obama's numbers in California. The Field Poll, which is the one most folks believe in this state except when it isn't going their way, has Obama at a 24 point lead. How strong is that? Well, McCain surely believes there's no way he can lose Texas and he's only 11 points ahead there.
The Field Poll also shows the move to defeat Prop 8 as losing by a margin of 51% to 42%. A simple majority is needed to pass. I don't know why you only need a simple majority to amend the state constitution but that's how it works...and I don't think they're going to get it. Fears that Proposition 8 would energize Conservatives to turn out and throw the state to McCain are looking pretty unfounded. If anything, the reverse may happen with the excitement for Obama bringing more Liberal voters to the booths.
A defeat in California would pretty much mean the beginning of the end for the move to deny gays the right to marry in this country. There will surely be some states that will resist for decades — in Utah, they'll probably say you can only marry several people of the same sex but not one — but the momentum will all be towards acceptance. Gay Marriage opponents won't even be able to say that it's all a plot of immoral judges who legislate from the bench; not after the voters of the nation's most populated state have endorsed the practice and rendered it democratic. If gays are free to wed in California, they'll eventually be free to marry anywhere. Recent polls also suggest that Americans across a wide swath of age, politics and geography don't see what the big deal is about gays serving openly in the military.
Proposition 8 is not necessarily doomed to defeat. There are polls that show a closer race. But if it does pass, we who think it's antiquated bigotry will be quite happy it was put to a vote. We may even want to thank Mr. Manchester for throwing his support behind a bad initiative at a time when it was likely to get voted down. If I see him at the Hyatt, I may mention that.
Last night, a packed house at the Motion Picture Academy enjoyed the new, restored version of Mr. Disney's Sleeping Beauty. In fact, we saw it as no one else has ever seen it. The new digital restoration involves an even wider screen than the movie had when it was first released in 1959.
It was one of about five dozen movies made in the Technirama process which involved an extremely wide screen. The Disney craftsmen composed the movie for the ratio of 2.55:1 but for reasons I didn't understand (it sounded like some sort of technical screw-up) portions of the image on either side were lopped off and the film was released in the ratio of 2.35:1. There's nothing that important in the margins that have been restored for this new version but it was still exciting in an odd way to realize you were seeing more of Sleeping Beauty than anyone ever saw before. You can make up your own filthy-minded joke.
In his introduction to the presentation, Leonard Maltin said that we were in for a stunning visual treat. He was right. Boy, that's a great-looking picture. I guess it always was but the restoration is sharp and amazing. They're bringing it out on DVD and Blu-Ray later this year and I guess we'll all buy it. But it's also getting some theatrical release — next month at the El Capitan in Hollywood for one night, then longer runs all over...and I don't care how big a TV monitor you own. Go see this one on a real big screen.
Leonard also remarked that at the time of its release, the film received some harsh reviews which called it cold, impersonal and confusing. Leonard thought this was wrong and he and I usually agree...but I think I side more with the critics who found flaws. I don't think the storyline works all that well, either as a love story or as a fantasy. Let me put up my SPOILER ALERT warning and then I'll tell you why.
As a love story, there's a problem: It's about a princess who was betrothed at birth to a prince. For years, she's unaware of this committment or even that she's a princess...until one day she meets him by chance and, unaware he's her hubby-to-be, she falls instantly in love with him. And by "instantly," I mean it's about forty seconds of idle conversation and a few dance steps...so it all happens in the shallow end of the pool. But it's not really about finding love or about either of them ever maybe loving someone else because they never do. It's not a romance that really relates to anything that could ever occur to any of us since few of us are betrothed at birth. It's just a contrived problem that pertains occasionally to members of royalty.
As a fantasy, the scenario isn't much crisper. There's a horrendous villainess but we never know quite what makes her so rotten. She gets mad at not having been invited to a celebration but she was evil before that. Then she casts a curse that says that the princess will die at or around sundown of her sixteenth birthday. Three magic fairies decide (I'm not sure why) to forsake their magic for the next sixteen years and live with the princess in a cottage in the forest...and then they decide to start doing magic again and to bring the princess back just before sundown of her sixteenth birthday. Why don't they keep her away a few days longer? I have no idea.
The princess falls victim to the curse just as predicted (nice job of protecting her, fairies) but way back at the birth, one of the fairies cast a spell to alter the curse so that instead of the princess dying, she will merely sleep for all eternity or until her true love kisses her, whichever occurs first. This might be kinda interesting if she didn't have a true love around to kiss her but as it happens, she does. It's the guy she's been engaged to since the day she was born, the fellow she just happened to fall madly in love with about an hour before.
So all the fairies have to do is go get that guy and arrange for him to lay a big wet one on the title character. But before the fairies go fetch him, they decide to put everyone in the kingdom to sleep so that...uh...I guess I don't know why they do that. After the screening, I asked a few friends who were there and they didn't know, either. I assume there's a reason and maybe I read it in the comic book version or some novel adaptation way back when but if it was in the movie, we all missed it.
Finally, the prince has to battle monsters and spells and many near-death threats to go kiss the princess and save the day...which he does, though it seems like the three fairies do most of the heavy lifting.
Ultimately, I guess I didn't care about any of the characters in the film except maybe the fairies...and the movie really isn't about them. It's about a curse we don't understand and a princess we don't see much of. I still recommend the DVD and better still, a visit to an actual movie theater. Take a kid if you have one. One of the more delightful aspects of last night's screening was hearing the occasional "ooh" and other audible responses of the children present.
I think I see why this one was not regarded as the equal of some of the other Disney classics and why — in addition to the fact that it cost so darn much to make — it lost money. The reason I recommend it is that the animation and artwork is so wonderful. The screening was followed by a panel discussion and a display of artwork done for the film, and I believe the forthcoming DVD will have a considerable amount of such material. That's yet another reason to get it.
Creig Flessel, a pioneer artist of comics, has passed at the age of 96. He had suffered a stroke recently and that's all we know about the cause of death.
Flessel was born February 2, 1912, in Huntington, Long Island, New York, the son of a blacksmith. He attended Alfred University in New York, which is where he met the future Mrs. Flessel, graduating in 1936. One of his classmates, he always noted with pride, was Charles Addams.
His first job in comics was assisting cartoonist John H. Striebel on the newspaper strip, Dixie Dugan. This also brought him a career in advertising art, as Streibel was doing a lot of it at the time, mostly featuring the characters from the radio show, Vic and Sade. Over the years, Flessel would bounce back and forth between the two fields: When he wasn't doing comics, he was drawing for advertising, primarily for the Johnstone-Cushing agency. Over the decades, he did thousands of magazine ads and commercial storyboards, primarily but not exclusively in comic strip form.
His non-advertising cartoon appeared over the years in publications as diverse as Boy's Life and Playboy, but it was his work for the early DC Comics that made the most history. His first work for them appears to have appeared in More Fun Comics #10, cover-dated May of 1936. He drew a strip in the first issue of the historic Detective Comics and drew the covers for issues #2-17, along with many other covers for early DC titles. His work also appeared inside many comics for the firm, and he drew many stories of the Sandman in Adventure Comics, and created a character named The Shining Knight, who appeared in the same title.
In 1940, DC editor Vin Sullivan moved over to the newly-formed Columbia Comics, and Flessel began to freelance for him there, as well. In 1943, Sullivan formed his own company, Magazine Enterprises, and Flessel signed on as associate editor. He returned from time to time to DC, drawing for them again briefly in 1949, in the late fifties (mostly as an inker on Superman-related comics) and then in the early seventies, he worked on comics that Joe Simon was editing for the firm, including Prez.
All this time, he was primarily engaged in advertising art, though he occasionally assisted Al Capp on the Li'l Abner newspaper strip and from 1960-1971, he drew another strip, David Crane, which he took over from J. Winslow Mortimer. The National Cartoonists Society honored him in 1992 with its Silver T-Square Award for extraordinary service and the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and Jeanne Schulz honored him just last year with the Sparky Award, named for Jeanne's late husband, Charles Schulz. Creig was also a nominee for this year's Hall of Fame Award at the Comic-Con International.
In 2000, he and his wife Marie (yes, the spouse he met at Alfred University) moved from the East Coast to a home in Mill Valley, California to be closer to their son Peter and several grandkids. (They also had a daughter, Eugenie, who followed in Dad's footsteps by becoming a successful illustrator.) Creig never stopped cartooning and was often a guest at comic conventions, where I had the pleasure of interviewing him and chatting on many occasions. He was a delightful man who acted like you were doing him a favor to ask for an autograph or to pose some question about his long, long career. Condolences to his family and also to us, his friends and fans.
My friend Brad Ellis dropped by yesterday afternoon with sandwiches from Canter's Deli. Brad's one of the most talented musicians I know and for some odd reason, he often lets me write the lyrics for tunes he composes. I met him when he was playing piano for Forbidden Broadway and he's since gone on to become one of the most in-demand arrangers, composers and accompanists.
One of his occasional gigs is writing arrangements for Forever Plaid, the eternal musical quartet. Here's a number he arranged for a charity appearance — a mash-up of "There Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" and "How Do You Like Your Eggs In The Morning?" The video is a little dark but you should be able to hear the singing and the playing, which are what really count. The singers, in this particular assemblage of F.P., are Leo Daignault, David Engel, Neil Nash, and Larry Raben. Some day, they'll have a reunion of every actor who's earned a paycheck in Forever Plaid and they'll have to rent Shea Stadium.
Wait. I just realized they can't. Last evening, Billy Joel (and surprise guest star Paul McCartney) played a concert at Shea Stadium — the final event there before the place is demolished. Some of the songs Billy Joel performed were arranged by Brad Ellis.
Joe Conason on why we oughta lift the embargo on Cuba. As long as I've remembered, I've been hearing that the embargo would bring about the downfall of Castro. For how many decades does it have to have "no impact whatsoever" before we question that prediction?
July 20, 2008
