If you're driving the 5 Freeway to or from San Diego and seeking nice, not-expensive places to dine, I have two suggestions. A few years ago, Carolyn and I lucked into a nice little Japanese eatery in an outdoor shopping center just off the 5 in Solana Beach and now we try to stop there every time we're in the area. It's called the Samurai Restaurant and it's about a half-hour north of where the Comic-Con is held — 22 miles to be more precise. They're open for lunch 11:30 AM 'til 2:30 PM on weekdays, dinner from 5 PM to 10 PM every day.
And you've seen me rave here about the Five Guys hamburger chain, which is ubiquitous in parts of the East Coast but just now starting to edge into California. There's been one in San Diego for a while but it's on a military installation and not open to the public. They've just opened one that we can all visit at 2445 Truxtun Rd., San Diego, CA 92106. That's about six miles (maybe fifteen minutes) from the Convention Center but if you're on the 5 heading to or from S.D., you'll be passing about two miles from the place. (There's also a Five Guys in Carson, just off the 405, for those of you who'll be heading south via that route. Despite appearances, I do not own stock in this company.)
This is coming out in October. It's a 272 page hardcover called MAD's Greatest Artists: Sergio Aragonés: Five Decades of His Finest Works, featuring the silly drawings of my best pal (male division) and the fellow some call the best cartoonist in the business. Frankly, I think compliments like that are like loaded pistols. I wouldn't point one at a friend. But some people do call him that and nobody seems to argue much.
I believe the way this book started out was that someone said, "Hey! Let's put out a book containing everything Sergio has ever drawn!" That sounded peachy until the publisher realized they were talking about maybe a 22,000 page book...and that would have only covered this century. So they scaled the notion down to everything Sergio had drawn for MAD...and that would only have been around a 7,000 page book which still wasn't practical. Finally, inevitably, they decided to just do a "best of" collection and this is it. I'm not sure just what's in it but there's no way they could have selected that many pages of Sergio that wouldn't be worth buying. Advance order it from this link.
I seem to have solved my iPhone problem...the one I described here. When it first cropped up, I tried doing a hard reset. It didn't help. I appealed here for help. Several billion of you wrote to suggest I try doing a hard reset. Not that I really expected a different result but I tried doing another hard reset. Sure enough: Didn't work. I tried doing another and another. The sixth or seventh somehow cleared up the problem. Why? Beats the heck outta me. But it's working now so I'm not going to ask questions. Thanks, all.
As I'm sure you've heard, a Portland-area massage therapist has accused Al Gore of sexual misconduct in a 2006 encounter. I don't know what really happened there and neither do countless folks on the Internet who've weighed in on the matter. I especially like the ones who admit there's no proof either way and we'll have to wait to see what the investigation says...and who then proceed to convict or exonerate Gore, depending on whether or not they believe in Global Warming.
Like I said, I don't know what happened there. Presumably, Gore knows and the woman in question knows, and perhaps they've said enough to certain associates or investigators that those folks have opinions that are worth something. But if you're not in that select group and you think you know, you're wrong. Even if your theory eventually turns out to be correct.
The late comic artist Wally Wood was one of those brilliant-but-tortured talents. When he was at his best, nobody was better...but he suffered for his deadlines and drank in self-destructive quantities. If you're interested in the sad story, Jim McLauchlin has written an overview of the man's life and too-soon death.
Wood struggled with his work and was rarely paid what it was worth. Like many comic artists, especially of his generation, he was always looking for ways to increase his output...to spend less time on a page and therefore make more $$$ per week. He often doodled out little staging tricks and pinned them up near his drawing board or shared them with his assistants. Years later, one of those assistants, Larry Hama, assembled the visual notes into a page called "Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work." You can read the story of its invention here and download a copy of the page.
(You will notice references to "ben day." That's an outmoded term referring to a fine dot pattern that like a half-toned photo, reads like grey on the printed page.)
And once you've read the page, you can watch the movie...
July 1, 2010
