Yes, yes...hard to believe we're already talking about next year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. Well, we have to. Four-day memberships have already sold out. One-day memberships go on sale tomorrow and they'll surely be gone long before the event itself, which takes place July 22-25 with the gala Preview Night on July 21. Hotel reservations through the con will not be available 'til the middle of March and I'm told the situation should be somewhat better — more rooms, more organization — than in years past. They'll still sell out but it may not be quite as maddening for some.
I call your attention to the new issue of the Comic-Con magazine. You can read or download it via this page. A fine, must-read publication.
The guest list for the con continues to grow...and also does for the WonderCon, which is being held in San Francisco April 2-4. I am a Special Guest at both, as is my mejor amigo, Sergio Aragonés. But don't let that stop you from attending either con or both of 'em. You can have a very good time at either one. I always do.
Here's a terrific bargain. Two years ago, I was recommending a 1200 page book called MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin. This is a fancy, two-hardcover-volumes-in-a-slipcase set reprinting everything Don Martin ever did for MAD Magazine (paperbacks, excepted) along with articles, sketches and other goodies. It was well worth the $142 that was then the going price.
So you can imagine how great it is now that you can order a copy for $25 — or even less if you have one of them Barnes & Noble cards. They caution that some copies have "slight markings from the publisher and/or stickers showing their discounted price" but big friggin' deal. It's still a steal at that amount. So here's the link to order your copy of MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin. Enjoy.
Quick aside: This is such a good deal that it prompted me to reactivate my affiliate status with Barnes & Noble so I could post a link and get my tiny, tawdry commission if you click through here. Longtime users of this site may recall that once upon a time, I discontinued affiliate status with B&N because they were embedding rather suspicious-looking spy stuff in their links. They no longer do that...or at least, it's no longer as suspicious as the cookie components of most links on the web. So I'm back with them and if you want to order anything from those folks, go through the little box I've added in my margin. It won't cost you any more and you'll be giving us here at newsfromme.com a tiny taste. Thanks.
This is the time of year when the hit counter goes berserk as folks access my story about a Christmas-time encounter with the legendary singer-songwriter, Mel Tormé. It took place at Farmer's Market (seen above) and you can read the piece at this page of my site. You can also find it on quite a few other sites where folks have copied it without my permission, including one guy who introduced it as if it had happened to him. For some, Christmas is a time of taking.
Ezra Klein charts some of the stats on how many people die each year in this country because they don't have health insurance. One might quibble with some numbers and their interpretation but clearly, the totals are horrible and well into the "we gotta fix this" category. I think we will eventually...but it'll take much longer than it could or should, with many suffering and/or dying before we do. I honestly do not understand the reluctance to do what has to be done in this area, especially coming from folks who believed everything possible had to be done to prolong a human life when that life was Terri Schiavo's.
Thanks for the informative and funny article about screeners. Now, since you get these things, can you tell us who the nominees will be for Best Picture?
Certainly. As you may have heard, there will be ten nominees this year in this category. The ten nominees will be, in alphabetical order: Avatar, An Education, Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, Nine, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, and Up in the Air. And by the way, we're probably lucky that Billy Crystal isn't hosting the ceremony. He and Marc Shaiman would probably get hernias trying to whip up song parodies about all of those.
Hey, here's another Tom Lehrer treasure. In 1967, he was hired to appear in an industrial film, commissioned by folks who were making Dodge automobiles to be shown to those who were selling them. Let's watch an excerpt...
December 15, 2009
