Monthly Archives: May 2004

Back in the sixties as I approached the age of eighteen, a much-discussed topic in this country was The Draft. I don't mean to suggest anyone was talking about it because of me…but with the war in Vietnam killing so many American soldiers, and with so many questions about whether the battle was worth it, the topic was inevitable. My recollection is that the debate generally (there were exceptions) broke down as follows: You had your right-wing, conservative, mostly-Republican faction arguing that The Draft was a good thing; that any young man should be proud and delighted to go off and fight wherever his nation's military advisers wanted him to fight. Some, including the father of one of my closest friends, suggested that there was something wrong — in a moral and character sense — with anyone who had the slightest hesitation about military service. Against this viewpoint, you had your left-wing, liberal, mostly-Democratic faction suggesting, often cautiously, that The Draft was immoral and perhaps unconstitutional, and that simply as a practical matter, we would be better off with an all-volunteer army. It would be composed of folks who actually wanted to fight and perhaps make a long-range career in the military instead of resenting how it was disrupting their lives.

I followed the debates with obvious self-interest. As I recall, many in the first (right-wing) group reacted to the notion of a Volunteer Army as if liberals had suggested unconditional surrender to the Commies. During the '68 election, Hubert Humphrey was asked about ending The Draft and he gave an evasive, non-response along the lines of, "Well, as president, I'll look into the practicality of that." He was immediately bludgeoned by the opposition — Spiro Agnew, mainly — arguing that to even raise that possibility was an act of treason that proved Humphrey was unfit for office. Later on, of course, the Nixon-Agnew administration presided over the dismantling of The Draft, thereby taking pride in what they had previously dismissed as an abomination. I thought at the time that if a President Humphrey had done that, Nixon and his mob would have called for impeachment and for everyone responsible to be shot at sunrise. But it was okay when they did it and it seemed to work fine. It has taken until now for there to be any serious talk in this country about reinstating The Draft.

One of the big arguments in the sixties against a Volunteer Army was its cost. Some suggested it was distasteful and unwise to try and pay soldiers enough to make the military an attractive career alternative. I remember a guest on the old Lou Gordon talk show actually arguing that a good soldier was there out of patriotism, not avarice, and that as pay scales went up, the character of the American Soldier would go down. Gordon asked him how he felt about draftees who didn't want to be there at all, and the guy fumbled out some double-talk about how no one really didn't want to go to Vietnam…that was a lie of the liberal press. When reality fails you, blame the media.

The thing that really struck me as odd at the time was that the same folks arguing that it was wrong to throw money at soldiers were the ones admonishing us to "support our troops" by not opposing the war. They were also the same folks who attacked politicians as "weak on defense" if they didn't throw enough money at Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas, DuPont and other makers of military hardware. There was this idea that soldiers should accept low pay out of patriotism…but we shouldn't expect American Business to not make as much profit as possible off the war. We should not skimp on buying the most sophisticated, expensive planes in the world but we should not waste government money on the folks who fly them. Even today, politicians are attacked for opposing certain weapons systems…but it doesn't seem to be a sin for them to cut military pay or veterans' benefits.

I am no longer worried about The Draft destroying my life but I would hate to see it destroy anyone's. Our government is spending a ton of money on the war in Iraq (see here) and I don't think anyone doubts that a lot of it is either being spent foolishly or is just going into the pockets of suppliers and outside contractors. Before we bring involuntary conscription back to this country, I'd like to see us try to steer some of those Halliburton profits into the pockets of our fighting men and women. I think we should drop the hokey patriotic rhetoric that serving your country should be sufficient reward…and actually pay the military what it takes to have a first-rate, eager-to-serve army of sufficient size and morale. And I refuse to listen to any more admonitions to "support our military" from people who, when it comes to spending money, aren't willing to support our military.

When The Odd Couple first went on TV, I had a friend who had a connection to get us in to watch rehearsals. We'd go over to Paramount and sit in the bleachers and watch Tony Randall and Jack Klugman rehearse. What struck me about them was the thoroughness of two smart men who were both very committed to their craft. Actors who work on a sitcom know that the more days there are until the filming or taping, the more likely the script they're doing is going to be revised, often completely. On one show I worked on, none of the performers ever took the pages seriously until the day before…sometimes even the morning before the live audience arrived.

Not Tony and Jack. Even four days prior to filming, they took the script at face value, performing it as if that was the material they had to make work. It was fascinating to watch, especially when they'd pause and discuss each line and in an utterly selfless manner. I'm sure one of the things that made that show work — that made almost everything either man did work — was that they put the material ahead of their own stardom. Tony would suggest things to Jack and vice-versa and both would ask pointed questions: What did this line mean? What was the character's motivation for doing whatever he did? How could that information be conveyed via a different attitude or physical reaction? It was the first time — and one of the few times — I got to see dedicated, thinking actors think out loud and function as an ensemble. There is no doubt in my mind that each of them improved the other's performance.

Another key reason for that show's success was its fine crew of producers, writers and directors. One of them was my pal Frank Buxton and I awoke this morning to find this note from Frank in my e-mailbox…

I just wanted to make a huge acknowledgment of Tony Randall's life. His total dedication to our production of The Odd Couple was inspiring. He would work with us writers and directors all day and late into the night trying, as we all were, to make it the best we could possibly do. He was like a terrier. He'd grab hold of Felix Unger and shake him and bark at him and never let go until he was exactly right. He could be a pain in the ass, sure, but a great and productive pain in the ass as you can see from the results. I cherish my years on the show and having been a part of Tony's success.

It's often hard to say why someone has the career they have. But Tony Randall's was as long and successful as it was, in part because of that dedication. The obits I've read so far this morning all do a decent job of summarizing how expansive that career was, but fail to convey how many eras of show business and changing trends it spanned. He was always there and now he's not there…and I already miss him.

A number of people like those in this article are urging John Kerry to "go big" in his campaign. I'm not sure if they want this because they think it will win him more votes or if they just want him to put on a show. Either way, I tend to think it may be too early for what they suggest. We have a long way to go before Election Day. I am more inclined to agree with this weblog post by Joshua Micah Marshall and view it as a wise early strategy. Of course, I would like the guy I vote for to stand for a lot more than John Kerry seems to represent…but I think there's plenty of time for that. When your opponent is suffering a steady stream of self-inflicted wounds…that's a good time to keep your yap shut.

June 6, a group called Aid for AIDS is hosting a fund-raising Tony Awards Party in Los Angeles. While I'm sure it's a good cause, I'm a bit baffled by the sales pitch. A full-page ad that keeps appearing in Variety makes the same claim they make on their website: "The Only Place on the West Coast to See The Tony Awards Broadcast Live via Satellite from New York."

Uh, the only place not counting my house. Or the home of almost anyone in California, Oregon or Washington who owns a satellite dish.

Do they really think no one else can watch the broadcast live out here? Or am I missing some subtle nuance in their ad line?

Another great in the world of animation and comic book art has passed. Jack Bradbury died last Saturday after battling renal failure for months. He was 89 years old, having been born December 27 of 1914. Bradbury's art career began at age 20 when he went to work for the Disney Studios as an in-betweener and soon graduated to the rank of animator. Several key scenes in features were his handiwork, including the stag fight in Bambi, the Pegasus family gliding in to a watery landing in Fantasia, and Figaro walking across Gepetto's bed in Pinocchio.

In 1947, following a brief stint in Friz Freleng's unit at the Warner Brothers cartoon studio, he began a long association with Western Publishing. There, he illustrated hundreds of children's books, including Little Golden Books and others published in the millions, and also appeared in most of their comic books published under the Dell and Gold Key labels. He was the main artist on Pluto stories but could and did draw almost every animated character they published. His renderings of the Disney characters were so "alive" and so faithful to the source material that Walt Disney himself reportedly told the Western editors that they didn't need studio approval of anything that Bradbury drew. When Dell adapted the Time for Beany puppet show into a comic, producer Bob Clampett (who knew a little something about good animation-type art) specifically insisted that Bradbury be the man to transfer his characters to the printed page.

As good as his work was for Western's comics, many of his fans prefer the hundreds of comic book stories that Bradbury drew for a "shop" arrangement run by a cartoonist named James F. Davis. Working in his own style instead of some studio's, Bradbury drew strips like Spencer Spook and Hucky Duck for Ha-Ha Comics, Giggle Comics and others published by Nedor, Standard and ACG. (Davis also drew the Fox and Crow comic books and occasionally got Bradbury to fill in for him.) Some of today's top animators and young cartoonists have sought out Bradbury's work as a masterful example of how to pose a character and achieve maximum expression.

Eye problems and personal matters forced Bradbury to curtail his drawing after around 1970, but he continued to work intermittently for the Disney folks, mostly consulting and occasionally drawing for merchandise, especially coloring books. He was one of the greats and I'm sorry to hear of his passing. (Thanks to Dave Bennett for letting me know and supplying some of the above info.)

Tom Lundin sends the following e-mail which felt like it oughta be posted here and answered…

I think condemning (however lightly) Roy Lichtenstein's use of preexisting source material for his artwork is somewhat disingenous and misses the point. Many fine comic artists themselves made use of published photographic material cribbed from magazines, newspapers or other sources and traced them with an Artograph projector, recomposing the images along the way to create a derived work. (Today, we'd call it "repurposing", but whatever you call it, it's a time-honored artistic technique. The Rules of Attraction website has an excellent history of photorealistic comics.)

As artists are wont to do, Lichtenstein took that technique one step further — pushing the artistic envelope a little and, perhaps, pushing the intellectual property boundaries a little more — by enlarging the essence of certain comic panels as standalone works of art.

That his derived works commanded thousands of times more money than the original art is less a comment on his art skills than a reflection of the relative value a culture places on various forms of art, entertainment, or sports. Art is what people say it is, and it's worth as much as they're willing to pay. In comic form, pages of art were worth 10 or 12 cents. In canvas form, one panel was worth a few thousand dollars.

Part of an artist's raison d'etre is often to try to make society look at something from a new perspective. You can't look at a picture of a Campbell's soup can label today without thinking of Warhol — well, I can't, anyway. So, too, Lichtenstein tried to redefine the comic panel in acrylic colors and larger-than-life size. Is it art? Is it new? Is it copying? Is it valuable? Is it wrong? The questions that the artist forces us to confront are often as much a part of the art as the object itself.

Well, the main thing I'd disagree with in the above is a personal aside — the use of the word "disingenuous," since I meant exactly what I said. Beyond that, we are into the shady world of to what degree a work of art can parallel another without being classed as plagiarism. The standards are murky and can only be adjudged on a case-by-case basis. I assume you agree that it is possible for someone to so totally copy the work of another that it does become an act of theft. All of the standards and questions of art can still apply, and the derivative work can still have its own value…but underscoring it all is that one artist has signed his name to work that was substantially created by another. I also think there's a substantive, obvious difference between basing a drawing on photographic reference, even when a tracing device is employed, and tracing another man's drawing. In the case of Lichtenstein and the comic artists from whom he borrowed, we're talking about exploiting an image that the other artist conceived from his own imagination. When Lichtenstein replicated a Russ Heath comic book panel, he was selling a visual that Heath conceived and transferred to paper, but doing so with neither credit nor payment to Heath.

That Lichtenstein's work has a standalone merit is not, I think, in dispute. Though I suspect his popularity was based more on transitory fad than on substance, people did buy his work and cram into galleries to view it. Apparently, they still do, so I wouldn't question that he did make people look at something from a new perspective. I just feel that he crossed the line between taking inspiration from an existing source and passing someone else's work off as his own.

A number of articles about the Abu Ghbraib prison scandal (like this one) have mentioned a famous and frightening incident in psychological research…the prison experiment helmed by Dr. Philip Zimbardo in 1971. You can learn all about it over at Dr. Zimbardo's website but for those who don't want to make the trek: Two teams of apparently ordinary college students were selected. A mock prison situation was set up with one team functioning as guards and the other filling the role of prisoners. Within a very short time, the "guards" became inexplicably brutal to the "prisoners" who felt so put upon that they began plotting rebellion. It all got so ugly that Dr. Zimbardo was forced to terminate the experiment prematurely.

In the early eighties, a TV show I was working on did a story on the experiment and I got to meet and interview Dr. Zimbardo and view all the existing film and photos. The doctor still seemed shaken by the whole story but he was also puzzled that it had had so little impact on the policies and perceptions of actual prisons. Psychologists, he said, had devoted thousands of hours to discussing what it had all meant but the reaction of those involved with real incarceration was along the lines of, "Yeah, so?" It did not seem to matter to most that prisons might make criminals even more anti-social and psychotic…or that even the guards came out less human than when they went in. Soon after, when this country experienced an uncommon level of prison riots, it still did not seem to matter.

There does seem to be a parallel between Dr. Zimbardo's faux guards turning savage and the reportedly-undertrained military guards abusing Iraqi prisoners but I doubt it will be explored. During a war, there's never time to pause and ask why people act the way they do. And when we're not at war, we don't like to think about it.

Just fixed the link on the previous posting. Sorry…and thanks to all who caught my error.

Here's the latest article by Seymour Hersh on the prison scandal. No matter what your view is of it all, Hersh is at the center of this story so you might as well see what he has to say.

To all who've volunteered to tape the show tomorrow for Sergio, my thanks. I have someone recording it.

Longtime artist and editor Gill Fox died this morning after several months of illness. Fox was born November 29, 1919 and started his professional career with a brief stint at the Max Fleischer cartoon studio. Labor unrest drove him away from that industry and into the then-new field of comic books where he drew for the earliest DC books and for the Harry "A" Chesler shop. In 1940, he became an editor and frequent cover artist for Quality Comics. His covers for Plastic Man are sometimes presumed to be the work of Jack Cole and his covers for Torchy (like the one at left) are often credited to that strip's main artist, Bill Ward. He eventually moved on from comic books to advertising cartooning with the Johnstone and Cushing Agency. One of his best friends there was an artist named Dik Browne and he eventually helped Browne when he began drawing the Hi and Lois newspaper strip.

Fox himself later segued into newspaper work and was intensely proud of his late work as a political cartoonist. His friend Jim Amash did the definitive interview with Fox and Alter Ego magazine and you can read part of it here. The man was a respected artist, extremely well-liked by his peers and pals, and a lot of cartoonists are in mourning today.

I'm watching On the Record With Bob Costas and they're doing a segment on the anniversary of the movie, Airplane. Co-director Jim Abrahams just mentioned that David Letterman screen-tested for the role of Ted Stryker, the hero ultimately played by Robert Hays. Does anyone think the movie would have worked with him in that role? I sure don't.

Speaking of Mr. Letterman: I enjoyed his show last night…the one taped at 4 AM. But he has to be really disappointed at the ratings this morning which were no higher than usual and maybe even lower. I also enjoyed an interview he did earlier in the week with John McCain. Dave is a better interviewer of political figures than many folks who do it full-time.

Robert Spina writes…

I couldn't help but notice you expressed no opinion of the "rightness" or "wrongness" of how Lichtenstein made his living. Or if "right" and "wrong" even apply here. It has always bothered me that Lichtenstein seemingly made his greatest fortune on the backs of some of the most talented, yet underpaid and under-represented artists in the field we hold so dear.

It bothers me, too. I should have made that clear. There was some degree of plagiarism in there in the sense of passing off someone else's work as your own. Lichtenstein did have the idea of enlarging comic book panels that way, and he worked out a way to replicate the dot patterns via (I believe) some sort of template. But otherwise what he was selling was the artistry of Mssrs. Romita, Heath, Colan, etc. He was hardly the only one to crib their work and his exploitation doesn't bother me as much as some of what their immediate employers did. But yeah, I thought it was wrong. I also thought that if you'd paid John Romita to do a comic book panel that size, you'd have gotten a much better painting for about a tenth the money.

Beginning in the late fifties, Roy Lichtenstein became famous for what some later called "pop art" paintings, many of which were enlarged comic book panels. Over at this site, a gent named David Barsalou displays some of the results of a long-term research project, which was to find the original source material for Lichtenstein's paintings. Most of them appear to me to be panels by John Romita, Russ Heath, Mike Sekowsky and Jerry Grandenetti. Needless to say, Mr. Lichtenstein made a lot more money off his versions than the real artists did from creating the originals.

As far as I know, there is no record of Roy Lichtenstein actually drawing comic books even though he was traipsing about New York from around 1951 to 1957 looking for commercial art jobs. Jack Kirby claimed that Lichtenstein applied for work at the Simon-Kirby studio during this period but that his samples weren't good enough. I'm not sure I believe that but it's at least possible.

This is really just for folks in or around San Francisco. My partner, master cartoonist Sergio Aragonés will be interviewed on the local TV series, Latin Eyes, this coming Sunday, May 16. The show airs on KRON, Channel 4, twice that day…at 10 AM and again at Midnight. It's all themed to Latin American viewers but the telecast is in English. If anyone up there is willing to record it for Sergio, please let me know.