I've mentioned Ed Bluestone a number of times on this blog — a very funny (I think) stand-up comedian who never quite got the attention and bookings I thought he deserved. Before he did stand-up, he worked for a time for the National Lampoon and reportedly was the guy who devised one of the most-imitated covers…the one with a photo of a cute dog and the threat, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."
I'm embarrassed that I completely missed the obits last year for Mr. Bluestone. They said he died from complications of a stroke on October 24 and that's depressing. He had a unique style and unless you hang out a lot at comedy clubs, you don't know how rare that is. So many guys who think they "have what it takes" turn up with mediocre imitations of whoever's hot at the moment and, too often, they crib their material from other comics who aren't as visible.
One night at the Improv, I heard a guy who was unknown and has rightly remained that way…but he had a couple of lines that made me think, "Hey those sound like Ed Bluestone jokes" and it turned out they were. Shamelessly stolen from Ed. But that's how special Ed Bluestone was. He had a way of thinking that was different from other comics and we always need more of that.
I'm sorry I missed the reports of his demise. I'm also sorry I can't find one of his best spots on the web to embed here. This one is the best I can do at the moment. It's pretty good but one of these days, I'll find and feature him at his best and you'll really understand why I liked him so much…
Good afternoon and welcome back to the great new game that's sweeping the nation, "What Does Mark Think Is Wrong With These Pictures?" It has far surpassed the previous game that was sweeping the nation before yesterday, "Playing Pickleball Against An Otter." And before we dive into it, let me just remind you of the rules for "What Does Mark Think Is Wrong With These Pictures?" as I explained them here yesterday…
You look at these two drawings of Batman, then you guess what I think is wrong with them. Simple? Good. Here they are one more time…
Click on the above images to make them larger on your screen
I won't keep you in suspense any longer. Here is what Mark thinks is wrong with these pictures…
THE ANSWER: They're not drawings of Batman. They look more to me like drawings of Superman in a Batman costume.
Consider for a moment the key difference between those two popular characters: Superman is from another planet. He has super-powers that include super-speed, super-strength, x-ray vision, sometimes a kind of heat vision, super-hearing, the ability to fly and total invulnerability.
Now, consider the super-powers that Batman has: None.
He can't do any of those things. But he is pretty smart and he is pretty driven and he can do great but human-level physical feats. He also has developed an identity that…well, as he put it in the most reprinted and parodied origin story of all time in comics…
Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible…
Criminals fear him because he comes out of nowhere to stand against them. Often, they wonder if he's human. He's scary because they don't know who or what he is…and we love his adventures because in every one of them, he's risking his life, even if he's only going up against one drug smuggler with a pocket knife. Superman can't be harmed by a thousand thugs, each armed with The Guns of Navarone.
Superman poses for pictures. Batman doesn't…but in those photos above, he's posing and looking friendly. And look at the muscles on that guy. They're the exact same muscles those artists would draw on Superman, the guy who can juggle Buicks…and I'm not faulting the artists. Not really. Pretty much everyone who has ever drawn super-heroes draws the same muscles-on-top-of-muscles body over and over, just changing the costume. There are exceptions. Spider-Man is (usually) slimmer than most and has more distinct poses. The Hulk is wider and has bigger hands and feet. Plastic Man is…well, plastic. But almost all the men in super-heroic comics have always been built the same as each other…with bodies that would make Mr. Universe jealous.
Stare at the Batman drawings again, especially the one on the left. Would it surprise you if a Batman with that body pulled off his outfit and it was really Superman in disguise? The Batman on the right is on a rope connected to God-knows-what but he sure looks like a guy who knows how to fly. The rope isn't even taut. He looks weightless. He looks clean. He looks happy. He does not look like a man trying to strike terror in the heart of anyone unless there's some guy tied to the other end of that rope.
I'm not saying these are not very good drawings. Carmine Infantino (who penciled them) and Murphy Anderson (who inked them) produced wonderful work even though Carmine didn't like Murphy's inking and Murphy didn't like inking Carmine. In a more fair and just industry, they would have been teamed with others…or done both halves of the art jobs themselves. I just think this is bad casting the way great actors are sometimes assigned the wrong roles. Infantino drew some good Batman stories and he drew a slimmer crimefighter with a slimmer physique. For some reason though, when he drew Batman for a poster, he drew a smiling powerlifter.
Anyway, that's what Mark Thinks Is Wrong With These Pictures. If you disagree, that's fine. And since we may not have another round of "What Does Mark Think Is Wrong With These Pictures?" for some time, you may have to go back to "Playing Pickleball Against An Otter." I hope you don't mind…and by the way, I asked the otter if he knew what I thought was wrong with the Batman pictures and he got it right away. Smart otter.
I'm not watching or reading a lot of news or political chatter at the moment but on a whim, I read this article by Rich Logis and thought it was spot-on about what we're facing in this country right now, Trump-wise.
Years ago, I wrote a comic book story about a new executive in the top job at a TV network. When he took over the office of the guy before him, the guy before him said something like, "I've left three sealed envelopes in the desk for you. The first time you get in trouble, open Envelope #1 and do what it says. The second time you get in trouble, open Envelope #2 and do what it says. And then the third time you get in trouble, open Envelope #3 and do what it says."
The New Exec thanks him but doesn't think he'll need whatever advice may be in those envelopes. Then a week or three later, he gets in terrible trouble because some decision he made has gone sour and he's panicky until he remembers those envelopes. In the spirit of "What have I got to lose?", he opens Envelope #1 and there's a piece of paper inside that says, "Blame your predecessor." So he blames his predecessor and that gets him through the crisis.
A few weeks later, there's another disaster and he panics until he remembers the envelopes. He opens Envelope #2 and there's a piece of paper inside that says, "Blame your predecessor again." So he blames his predecessor again and that gets him through the new crisis.
A few weeks later, there's yet another catastrophe and this time, he doesn't hesitate. He rushes right to Envelope #3, opens it and there's a piece of paper inside that says, "Prepare three envelopes."
I think those who put the felon-predator back in the Oval Office will grant him a lot more than three blamings of his predecessor but at some point, some of them will figure out that things were never as bad during the Biden Administration as they were led to believe and there are just some things Trump promised that are beyond the jurisdiction of any President of the United States. And meanwhile, he — and his family of friends — are getting richer and richer and richer.
Yesterday was apparently National Moose Day and I have no idea what anyone is supposed to do with that information. Do you buy someone a moose and if so, how do you wrap something with antlers? Do you buy something for a moose and if so, what do you buy the moose and what do you do if, like some of us, you don't happen to have a moose in your life at the moment? I suppose you could celebrate National Moose Day by walking around all day dressed as a moose but how would that make it different from any other day?
About all you can do, I guess, is celebrate the Jay Ward cartoon studio and its superstar, Bullwinkle J. You-Know-What. And that's what Peter Bosch has done over on the 13th Dimension website. It's a real good article except that it makes the all-too-common error of thinking that Al Kilgore did a lot of the art on the Dell comic books of those properties. I debunked that notion here but it persists widely on Ye Olde Internet.
From 1959 to 1961, the great Ernie Kovacs had a weekly half-hour prime time game show on ABC called Take a Good Look. It was an odd game show because, at least the times I saw it, nobody won much of anything…or if they did, it didn't have much to do with winning a game. It was mostly a celebrity panel trying and (usually) failing to solve puzzles that Kovacs and his crew whipped up in little pre-taped skits and…well, you'll understand if/when you watch this episode from March 16, 1961. It was also the last episode.
The panel on this one consists of Cesar Romero, Hans Conried and Jacqueline Susann. This was some time before Ms. Susann became famous for her best-selling novel, Valley of the Dolls, and I can't understand why she was on the program unless it had something to do with her being married to the producer. As you'll see, it's not much of a game and the clues don't make a whole lot of sense…but everyone on it seemed to be having a good time and I guess that was the point of it all…
Longtime New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is now former New York Times columnist Paul Krugman…some sort of dispute about how the Times' editors were editing his work. He quit and now he writes for Substack. If you wanna read him, go here and sign up. Very smart man.
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In the sixties, DC Comics did a revamp of their (now) billion-dollar property, Batman. The character had previously been drawn in a somewhat cartoony style not unlike what Chester Gould had done quite successfully with Dick Tracy in the newspaper strip of the same name. Commencing in 1964, the Caped Crusader was drawn in a more realistic form by the award-winning artist Carmine Infantino. He was also drawn by a couple of other artists who were either ghosting for Bob Kane or drawing the hero's appearances in comics in which he was not the star character. Whichever it was, they were trying to reach the same kind of realism as shown in Infantino's covers and stories.
During that period, Mr. Infantino penciled these poster drawings which have been reissued in many forms over many years. The inking on them was done by Murphy Anderson and a lot of fans will tell you he was the best inker that Infantino ever had. A lot of them love these drawings and if the original art for one ever came up for auction — as far as I know, neither has — I'll bet it would sell for some large number containing five or six digits to the left of decimal point.
I think there's something wrong with these drawings and it's always bugged me when I've seen them…and it is not (repeat: not) that in the one on the right, areas of the character's costumes are blue when they should be grey. In fact, this is not about the coloring at all and it's not about the hero not having eyeballs either.
We are now going to play a popular, widely-beloved and never-before-played-by-anyone game that I just invented called "What Does Mark Think Is Wrong With These Pictures?" I'm asking you to guess what I think is wrong with these pictures…not what you think is wrong with these pictures but what I think is wrong with them.
Do not send me your guesses. Keep them to yourselves. But visit this site tomorrow and read what I think is wrong with these pictures, keeping in mind that you may not agree with me. The correct answer is not what you think is wrong with them. It's what I think is wrong with them. So lower your I.Q. long enough to think like me before you make your guess — and remember, you can make the pictures larger by clicking your little mouse on either — then check in here tomorrow to see if you're right. Thank you.
Here are a bunch old animated commercials, none of which I remember. I dunno who did the voice in the Twinkles commercial but the first one for Peter Pan Peanut Butter has Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards narrating and he's heard in a couple of others in his most famous voice role as Jiminy Cricket. The narrator of the second commercial for Peter Pan Peanut Butter is Bill Thompson, the voice of Droopy Dog, Touché Turtle and many others. The kids in the third Peter Pan Peanut Butter commercial are June Foray and Dick Beals.
And then there's one with June Foray as Pinocchio and couple with Mickey Mouse and I pretty sure Mickey isn't voiced by Walt Disney and I don't think by Jimmy MacDonald either. Then there's a Kellogg's Corn Flakes spot with Daws Butler and (maybe) Dallas McKennon. And now, some words from our non-sponsors…
You're such a consistent blogger, and it's clear you are paying regular attention to what's happening on YouTube and certain online reporting and blogging spaces. On the other hand, you don't strike me as someone who would be particularly interested in what's happening on platforms like X, Instagram or TikTok.
I'm curious what social media platforms you are part of, and which ones you pay the most attention to. What is your daily social media routine like?
My daily routine is no routine. I have a whole mess o' bookmarks and I just randomly pick ones to visit and often, one site leads me to another. I do post comic book covers daily on Instagram and often do a little following of those who follow me. I was active on Twitter when it was Twitter but when it became X, I became scarce there. I went on TikTok to sign up my name and I don't think I ever went back and…well, you can kinda tell where I've been by what I link you to.
I'm on Facebook and YouTube a lot…and Facebook often leads me to other crevices of the World Wide Web. I also, because of the blog, get a lot of e-mails from folks linking me to things they think I'd find of interest.
A few years ago, I opened an e-mail account under a bogus name and I subscribed (or somehow got on the mailing lists) for dozens of websites covering a wide range of viewpoints. They range from loathers of Donald Trump and his kind to folks who I think are up on Mount Rushmore, clearing brush to make room for his puss to go right next to Lincoln's. Once or twice a week, I will wade into the mailbox for that account and read whatever snags my interest.
I also have Google Alerts set up to show me, in that account, headlines that pertain to about two dozen names and keywords.
But like I said, I don't have a real routine. I just kinda jump around, hyperlinking my way from here to there and being very skeptical about most of what I encounter. And I don't really use the "social" part of social media to meet people because I already know enough people. Some days, I feel like it's way more than enough.
I just read your update about your ankle and it occurred to me that you have not posted about your backyard cats in a while. I imagine you are in no position to feed them. How are they doing? Hope they are OK.
Sorry to say, Glen, they're not OK. They're probably all deceased…though it's not as sad as that probably sounds. I'm fairly sure that all the feral cats that ever found their way to the AYCE buffet that used to be in my backyard lived much longer lives than most strays do. Of the four in the photo below, three passed away on the premises and Max just stopped coming around a few years ago and I think it's safe to assume he's gone too. Max is the large grey one on the right and he ate so much, I was thinking we might have to get him a gastric bypass.
I fed a succession of ferals in my backyard for years and every time one disappeared or died, there were still others showing up for food so I kept putting food out for them and that attracted more cats…and possums…and raccoons…and some neighbors told me they spotted the occasional coyote. Finally in 2021, there was an extended period with only one cat and when that one died, I decided it was the right time to stop putting out chow. It would only attract raccoons and raccoons tended to relieve themselves a lot in my backyard and pee in the pool. It smells so much better out there now.
And that decision had the added value of relieving me of the responsibility. They would get fed if I still had that hungry menagerie out there. I do get around and I have lots of folks visiting me — and two cleaning ladies — but I don't have to worry about feeding felines if there's a moment when it's not possible. And yes, I do miss them…but I think it's better to not attract them here if I can't be as consistent as I used to be. I'd sometimes feel guilty when I was away from home for a while and when I returned, they were sitting on the porch with that "We've been here an awful lot time waiting for dinner" look.
Hey, it's the latest installment of Everything You Need to Know About Saturday Night Live, bringing us up to Season 20, which led to another one of those "Is this the last season?" crisis points. Since they're now celebrating fifty years of SNL, the show obviously survived but this was one of several periods in its history when it felt like it wouldn't…
I've occasionally mentioned my longtime friend Dan Gheno on the blog. I've known Dan a lonnnnng time and have been delighted to watch him become one of the most respected painters of portraits in the field today. I'm also amazed that his career survived the days when he would pencil covers for fanzines and I would ink them. Here's a recent interview with my pal.
Almost simultaneously, two separate followers of this site sent me this graphic with a quote attributed to Stan Lee and asked me if he'd really said it. Apparently, this quote and the graphic have been going around the Internet for some time but escaped my gaze until the other day…
Here's my answer: I don't know if he ever said it but I know someone who did…me. In fact, with the word "tits" in place of "boobs" and in reference to the question of whether Marvel Comics on TV would ever replace Marvel Comics on paper, I said it to Stan over lunch one day.
That's my joke…or at least, I think it's my joke. Every so often, you make one up and later discover that someone else made it up first…and maybe it's a coincidence or maybe you even heard it without recalling that you did. Even if Stan got it from me, he may not have realized it. But of course, I'm not sure he ever said it. Does anyone have proof he did?
Keeping on the topic of Broadway musical numbers performed on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, here from the 1980 telethon is Sandy Duncan performing a number from Peter Pan. I saw her do this show with Christopher Hewett as her Captain Hook and she was pretty good…
And now here from the 2009 telethon, we have Cathy Rigby — with more cast members plus flying — performing part of the same number and part of another from Peter Pan. I saw her version of the show a couple of times and she was even better than pretty good…
In the previous post, I said that I didn't think Burke Moses was the gent playing Gaston in the excerpt of Beauty and the Beast performed on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. Well, Galen Fott — who seems to know a lot about such things — wrote me and seems sure that it was Burke Moses. I've decided he's almost certainly right. (By the way, Mr. Moses was not only great as Gaston but I saw him play the title role in Li'l Abner in a limited-run revival of that show in New York and he was real good as a hero, too.)
The fires in Southern California are still awful and still far, far from where I live. The National Weather Service is forecasting somewhere between a quarter and a half-inch of rain this weekend which will be wonderful if it happens. It would be enough to dampen things down but not so much as to create major mudslides. Mudslides are always a problem after big fires.
I'm not watching the news much and have nothing to say about the first days of Trump II that others aren't saying more eloquently and with more outrage than I can muster at the moment. Kevin Drum posted a good scorecard of where this country stood, statistic-wise, on the last day of Joe Biden's presidency. This might be handy to keep around. Inflation, for instance, is at 2.7%. A former friend of mine who loves everything Trump does even if it's illegal, was insisting inflation was at something like 20% under Biden and will be celebrating if Donald gets it down to 5%.
Posting here may be sluggish for a few days but we'll get it back up to speed.
