Monthly Archives: July 2010

My buddy Jim Brochu is still playing Zero Mostel in a hit off-Broadway show of his own devising. Here, he writes about the experience of meeting Zero and becoming him.

Fred Kaplan says Mitt Romney doesn't know what he's talking about. I think we all knew that already…

Several websites are reporting on the passing of veteran comic book artist John Calnan. They're wrong. He is alive and well in Florida and would like the 'net to know that. Calnan worked for Treasure Chest and DC Comics, and even drew Batman for the latter in the seventies…a pretty good artist about whom I know very little. But I do know the rumors of his demise are not true.

I thought I mentioned this before but I guess I didn't. Any day now, a new product will be announced that many of you will want. It's a GPS — a global positioning system that you put in your car and it tells you how to get from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. Perhaps you already have one.

Yes, but you don't have one that speaks with the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam and many other Warner Brothers characters. What a great idea…although I'm afraid that when you engage the Bugs voice, it'll keep telling you to turn left at Albuquerque.

I got my first word processor around 1981 — not a computer…a word processor. It was a Lexowriter and it did not play games or balance my checkbook or go online or even handle graphics. It just processed words and it did that very well for about three years. I followed this with my first computer, a Toshiba with a built-in monochrome (greenish) screen and no hard disk. It had two drives for 5¼" floppy disks. One disk always had to be the DOS-based word-processing software, a program called Spellbinder. You saved your work to the other floppy, then swapped things around and backed up that floppy to another floppy. If you were prudent or paranoid — with computers of that era, you were right to be both — you then backed-up your backup to yet another floppy.

Why did I use Spellbinder? It came with the computer…and I'll say this for it: It served me well, though for the longest time, its makers issued no upgrades and no improvements. I found out later that Spellbinder had been written by one man and he'd been killed in a car crash, casting his company into a kind of DOS-based limbo for a few years there. Those of us who used it had to sit and watch the industry evolve without us. When I moved to a faster computer, Spellbinder got slower, like I was trying to drive a horse-and-buggy on the freeway.

Other programs were emerging and every one of them did oodles of things Spellbinder would not do…and another problem was that I seemed to be the only human being on the planet using it. Friends would give me discs containing things they wrote in Wordstar, Word Perfect or Microsoft Word and I couldn't open their files, nor could I convert my Spellbinder files to anything they could open on their computers. When my pal Steve Gerber and I collaborated on a script, we might as well have been writing in different languages.

Finally, Spellbinder announced a major upgrade that would morph it from plain old word processing software to full-fledged desktop publisher. I sent the money and eagerly awaited its arrival only to experience a massive disappointment. The new, improved Spellbinder was a disaster — slow, clunky, complicated and likely to crash if you wrote a word containing more than three syllables. In fact, the program not only crashed, it took the Spellbinder company with it.

Orphaned, I migrated to Wordstar 3.0. Why? Well, for one thing, it was the Number One word processing software at that time. Having felt like an alien presence in the growing world of personal computers, I yearned for maximum compatibility. Foolishly, I thought, "Well, Wordstar's never going away on me." Also: For twenty bucks, you could buy a program that would convert all your Spellbinder files to Wordstar. Wordstar 3.0 was soon followed by Wordstar 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0. Each had more features and each was less useful to me.

At one point in there, the Wordstar people came up with something called Wordstar 2000 which a lot of us bought, foolishly thinking it had something to do with Wordstar. It was a completely different program that served no purpose except to make the last version of Spellbinder look workable by comparison. If you wanted to write the word "cat" in Wordstar 2000, you had to type the "c," save the file, reboot, reload the program and then type the "a."

Okay, so it wasn't quite that bad. But it felt quite that bad.

There was also along the way, a program I thought was a great idea. It was called Wordstar Easy and it was basically Wordstar for Absolute Friggin' Idiots. An otter could have written a Harlequin romance novel on Wordstar Easy…and many probably did. It was Wordstar stripped-down to its raw skeleton — no fancy fonts, no fancy formatting, no inserting pictures. For the sheer act of writing prose, nothing I've worked on has been as fast and simple. I'd mastered the current version of Real Wordstar and it was actually fine…but I'd write in Wordstar Easy and then if I needed to format something for a fancy printout, I'd load it into the full program and make it pretty-pretty.

A great idea…but since no one else seemed to think so, its failure added to Wordstar's decline. Then came Wordstar for Windows, which wasn't even a fair fight. The Wordstar people had to compete with Mr. Gates' Word on Mr. Gates' operating system. The ref stepped in, stopped the fight and that's when we all knew it was time to abandon ship.

Battered and bloody, I fled in desperation to where I should have gone years earlier — to Microsoft Word. What had kept me from it, I suspect, was that when Gerber had me test-drive the current version on his computer, it seemed awfully mouse-oriented. The muscle skills involved in writing had not yet fully evolved for me from my typewriter days. Barring the growth of a third hand (somewhat unlikely), I didn't think I could work with a mouse…and Word then didn't seem too efficient without the active involvement of one of them little plastic rodents.

Still, I felt I had to learn it even if it took forever. Forever, in this case, turned out to be about a day and a half. Also, by then Microsoft Word was a better program and we PC users were all now living in a world of Windows. I've been generally happy with Word, though I liked Word 2000, which I used until last year, better than the version I'm currently using, which is Word 2007. The main advantage though is that I no longer have to worry about being incompatible with anyone else. Almost everyone I work with can open and use a file in Microsoft Word, and for the few who can't, I merely need to export my file in Rich Text Format or import their RTF files. I can even swap with someone who works on one of those MAC things you hear so much about.

I feel oddly, and I'm sure foolishly, secure with what I have now. Intellectually, I know that twenty years from now, I'll be writing this same piece recalling the primitive, long-defunct software of 2010 and I'll be struggling to convert my current word processing files to whatever the format is then. (I still have stuff in Wordstar 4.0 I need to translate to Word.) But for now, it feels like settled law and I'm relatively in sync with everyone else in my little corner of the technological universe. This really is what it's about. The fact that I can write scripts with all this software and make a living is of secondary importance…if that much.

The other day here, I wrote about how my then-partner Steve Sherman and I had a great trip to New York in 1970; how we visited the offices of DC Comics, Marvel Comics, MAD Magazine and Steve Ditko, and how we attended the 1970 Comic Art Convention at the Statler Hilton hotel. Over on Facebook, Steve (Sherman, not Ditko) posted the following…

I think that was also the first time I was on a plane. I think it was a 747? I just remember the service was great. How the hell did we get from the airport to NYC? Today it costs like $100 bucks by cab!! I do remember all 3 us shoved in that little room. But we didn't care. We had comic book fever. : )

I think it was Steve's first time on a plane but it wasn't a 747, at least on the way there (we came back separately). The 747 was new at the time and everyone wanted to fly on it. American Airlines had one or two per day heading back to New York and we couldn't get tickets on the one we wanted to fly on…so we were booked on the flight after, which was not a 747, and we were allowed to wait "standby" for openings on the 747 flight.

We didn't get on it and neither did someone else. There was a family, the father in which was making an 8mm home movie documentary of their trip aboard the 747 to New York. He filmed his wife walking up to the gate and made her do multiple takes. Then he filmed his kids running up to the window and pointing at the huge plane they would soon board. Then he filmed his wife going up to the gate attendant and checking in…

Finally, he was at the big window filming the 747 as it pulled away from the jetway and began to taxi out towards the runway. This was about the moment when he realized that he and his family were supposed to be on that flight. He began yelling for them to stop the plane and bring it back. He had tickets for that flight, he kept shouting…and what's more, his dog was on it in the baggage compartment. Various American Airlines employees had to calm him down, explain that the plane could not come back…but they'd put him on the next flight. His dog got to ride on the 747 but he didn't.

We were on that next flight and I remember a couple of things about it. Back in those days, I used to always carry in my breast pocket, a Koh-i-Noor rapidograph technical pen filled with India Ink. We were about halfway through the flight when I looked down and noticed a huge black stain spreading on my shirt. I guess it had something to do with the change in air pressure in the cabin. I spent a lot of time in the plane's lavatory trying to get the ink out of the shirt (impossible) and scrubbing my chest.

Another thing I remember is that the flight got "stacked up" over New York. We had to circle an extra hour or so before they had an open runway on which we could land. During this time, the amateur filmmaker was stalking the aisle, trying to persuade the flight attendants — we called them "stewardesses" back then — that we had to land immediately because his dog was waiting for him. They got him back to his seat but the second we touched down, he was out in the aisle again, charging for the door, demanding they let him off right away even though we were still taxiing to the gate. The fellow was a lot more entertaining than the in-flight movie, which was Paint Your Wagon.

Upon landing, we grabbed our suitcases and went out to the taxi line. There, we encountered that most unusual species, the New York Cab Driver. The guy at the head of the line wouldn't agree to take us into Manhattan until we agreed to tip.

He took us in via the Van Wyck Expressway, I believe. About ten minutes into the trip, he mysteriously pulled off onto the shoulder, turned off the meter and got out, rearranged our luggage in the trunk, got back in and resumed driving…but without restarting the meter. It took Steve and me a minute or two to figure out what was happening: As far as his cab company was going to know, this was a ten-minute trip. But he was going to charge us approximately what the meter should have read and pocket the difference. It meant a bit of haggling over the amount once we got to the Statler Hilton and I believe we wound up paying a bit more than the proper fee.

But at least we got there. We checked in and then went out for dinner at a little Horn & Hardart's Cafeteria on W. 33rd where I had a baked half-chicken that was doing a dead float in a sea of grease, plus I had a side of mashed potatoes. I have no idea why I remember this or why I'm telling you. Then we walked around the neighborhood for a while and went back to the room where I made one more futile attempt to get the ink out of my shirt before we crashed.

That was my first trip to New York, not counting the one when I was seven. I found the city fascinating but challenging. Everything was a challenge, either because I didn't know my way around or because something was just difficult. Getting places was a challenge. Getting something to eat was a challenge. At the same time I thought that, I was thinking, "This city is worth the challenges." I really liked just being there. I just needed to spend enough time there to learn where things were and how things worked. It took a few more trips before I felt that way, at least with regard to the limited portions of Manhattan I visit. I need to get back there soon…

Here are three artifacts from the 1970 Comic Art Convention in New York. At above left is a poster designed by artist Gray Morrow. As I recall, the drawing was one Morrow had done when auditioning a year or two earlier for the job of drawing a proposed Medusa comic book for Marvel. (For those of you not up on this stuff: Medusa is the lady with the hair.) He didn't get the gig. It went to another artist and when Stan Lee didn't like what that guy drew, they rejected his pages and had the pilot issue instead drawn by Gene Colan…and then they scrapped the entire project. Anyway, the most interesting thing about Morrow's poster is probably the cost of admission to the convention: $1.50. I think that was a buck and a half per day but it's still a pretty low price, even for 1970.

At above right is the cover of the program book — a drawing of the Sub-Mariner by his creator, and one of the con's two Guests of Honor that year, Bill Everett. The other was Carmine Infantino. And below is an ad which ran in the program book…a piece I don't recall ever seeing anywhere else. It was penciled by Sal Amendola and inked by Dick Giordano. Pardon the fuzziness in the center where the book wouldn't lie flat on my scanner. (Marvel had an ad in the book that year too but they didn't do anything special for it.)

Here's a brief profile of Merwin Foard, who has the thankless job of Broadway standby, currently covering two roles (Nathan Lane's and one other) in The Addams Family. I saw Mr. Foard go on in place of Brian Stokes Mitchell in the 1999 Broadway revival of Kiss Me Kate and he was terrific. (So was Stokes. I saw both of them.) I also saw Foard in the non-standby role of Richard Henry Lee in the 1997 Broadway revival of 1776 and he stole the evening. Please, somebody…give this man a regular lead in something.

Bart Lidofsky writes…

My major reaction to the Al Gore sex revelations (or lack thereof) is that it really doesn't matter to me, and it shouldn't matter to anybody who is not directly affected. Frankly, the only time that revelations about a public figure's private life makes a bit of difference to me is when it involves hypocrisy. Al Gore has never made any representations of being sexually faithful, or wanting other people to be so. John Edwards, on the other hand, made a big deal of his strong marriage with his wife, so it was relevant with her. I found it somewhat creepy how the press landed on Paul Ryan for daring to have sex, and with his wife of all people, but have little problem with publicizing the records involving Larry Craig's conduct in propositioning an officer for gay sex (or doing an incredibly good imitation of it) while maintaining a solid voting record against gay rights.

I think I disagree with this. Al Gore is being accused of doing something which is (a) a crime and (b) extremely stupid. If it were just a matter of cheating on one's wife…well, that isn't a crime and that shouldn't matter to us. But when a public official breaks the law, that is a matter of public concern. If Gore were accused of robbing a liquor store at gunpoint, would you say it wasn't any of our business? Or that it was only our business if he had been crusading against the robbing of liquor stores so his actions therefore constituted hypocrisy?

And for emphasis: I am absolutely not suggesting Gore is guilty. I am dismayed at how many folks have jumped to convict or exonerate in a case about which they know darn near nothing. I'm also generally sympathetic to Gore because he seems to me to hold the record for having his enemies make up bogus stories about him that were then sold as fact to a large swath of the American public. This and other accusations about him may be true but there seems to be a different standard for the guy…a great willingness out there to instantly believe any negative thing about him.

If (note the "if") there is actual proof that he molested the lady, that's a public issue. Everyone can decide for themselves how much weight they wish to give it in their consideration of Al Gore but it's not the same thing as marital infidelity. It also may be our concern if we invest emotion and loyalty and donations in a leader who then does something as outright reckless as that. My disappointment in John Edwards was all about that. In the Post-Monica Era, anyone who aspires to public office, or tries to lead in other ways as Gore has, has to know such things do come out and your opponents milk them for all they're worth. To screw around is to play Russian Roulette…and when they lose, they take our cause with them.