Hey, how about some photos from the Quick Draw! game we played at Comic-Con a week ago yesterday?  Each year, we have three fast 'n' funny cartoonists competing.  This year, it was Scott Shaw!, Tom Richmond and Emma Steinkellner.  Here's a photo of Scott Shaw!, Tom Richmond and Emma Steinkellner…

During Quick Draw!, I bring various folks up to play a game in which they try to guess what the heck the cartoonists are drawing. Here, trying to guess what the heck the cartoonists are drawing is one of my favorite comedians, Dana Gould. As you can see, he didn't have any idea at the moment Bruce took this picture and neither did I…

During the game, I sometimes bring up three more cartoonists to collaborate with the three we already have in stage. Here are two of the tag-teamers from last Saturday…

The gent on the left is Lalo Alcaraz, who is responsible for the popular newspaper strip, La Cucharacha. The gent on the right is Greg Evans, who is responsible for the popular newspaper strip, Luann.

And here's the third bonus cartoonist, Steve Leialoha, whose work should be familiar to everyone who's reads comic books in the last few decades, especially Howard the Duck. He's talking with Scott about I-have-no-idea-what before (or maybe after) they briefly swapped places to draw. If you've never seen us do Quick Draw!, it's always a lot of fun. And very, very difficult to get a seat for even though the room has an awful lot of seats in it.

I'll link to just about anything with Buster Keaton in it.  In the late fifties, he made a whole bunch of commercials for Alka-Seltzer with Dick Beals supplying the voice of Speedy, the Alka-Seltzer mascot.  Buster was the perfect choice for these ads because he always looked like a guy who needed an Alka-Seltzer — or something…

To read the previous chapter of this tale, click here.  To go back and start at the beginning, click here.

Before we proceed, I should mention something. As far as I know, there are no recordings, either audio or video, of this panel and no transcripts. If any exist, I would love to have copies of them. But for now, I'm doing this from memory and this panel was a little over 22 years ago. So what I remember is what I remember and the dialogue that follows is highly approximate.

Just before I started the panel, Julie Schwartz waved me over and whispered, "Don't forget Forry and me. This is a Ray Bradbury panel but it's not exclusively a Ray Bradbury panel. Ask us questions about our associations with Ray and make sure we all get to talk." I promised him I would. He also said, "Ask me to tell you a secret thing about Ray that only I know. I've got a real good answer. And ask Forry what impact Ray's work had when it started appearing in science-fiction books and anthologies of the day. Forry's got a real good speech he gives about that."

I told Julie I would do as requested, then I started the panel. Julie got a big reception when I introduced him.  So did Forry. When I introduced Ray, the audience clapped and cheered so loudly, I thought we might get a call from Tijuana asking us to hold it down for God's sake. I think I started — remember, I'm doing this from memory — with "Julie, you were Ray's first agent. How did you come to represent him?"

Julie thought for a moment and then he said, "I think he submitted something to me." Then there was a long pause that indicated that was all he was going to say on the subject.  In my head, I heard this sound effect.  So I went to Ackerman. "Forry," I said, "what was the impact of Ray's work when it started appearing in science-fiction books and anthologies of the day?"

Forry thought for a moment and then said, "Big. Very big." And that was all I was getting out of him just then.  Again, I heard this sound effect.

So I went to Ray: "Ray, how did it feel when you made that first sale?" And Ray, who was one of the best public speakers it has ever been my honor to speak with, launched into a six-minute discourse on what it means to a beginning writer. It was fascinating, passionate, engaging and the audience hung on every single word like Harold Lloyd dangling from the minute hand of a big clock. A wonderful speech.

So then I went back to Julie and, remembering what he'd asked me to ask him, I said, "Julie, I'll bet there's a secret about Ray that you know and nobody else does. Can you tell us what it is?"

Julie thought for five or ten seconds and then said, "What would that be, Mark?" Again, I heard…well, you know the sound by now.

I quickly moved on to Forry. I'm not sure what I asked him but I think it was "You attended the very first science-fiction fan convention. What do you remember about it?" Whatever I asked, his answer was something like, "Very exciting." That was the totality of his reply and it was more Sad Trombone in my noggin.

Okay, back to Ray! I asked him something and he responded with another fascinating, passionate, engaging story that must have lasted five or six minutes. I watched the audience and they were listening to and loving every syllable the man uttered.

And that was how it went — or at least, that's how I remember it went. I'd ask Julie a question and get a short, uninteresting reply. Then I'd ask Forry a question and get a shorter, even less interesting reply. Then I'd ask Ray a question and he'd go on for several minutes of wonderful oratory with the audience eating every bit of it up. This would ordinarily not be a problem for the person in my position because the audience was loving about 85% of what was being said.

But I knew that if it was all like that, Julie Schwartz would be pissed at me — not at himself but at me — because it was a Ray Bradbury Panel where the other two guys said almost nothing. He would not fault himself for not swinging at anything I threw his way. He would just blame me. About two-thirds of the panel was over and I was trying to think what I could do in the final third to rectify matters…and I actually came up with something that felt like it might work.

It didn't. It made things worse. In the next part, I'll tell you this it-sounded-good-at-the-time idea and how it didn't work. Hang in there, folks. We're almost through this long, long tale but we have a few more Sad Trombones to get through.

Here are two more photos from the Cartoon Voices panel from last Saturday at Comic-Con. First up is a shot of our honored guest, Mari Shimizu, who I'm told was absolutely thrilled with her reception…

And then here's a shot of Candi Milo, one of the American voices of Astro Boy, meeting the lady who originally voiced the character in Japan. Candi was moved to tears and she wasn't the only one in the house who was…

I've received a number of questions as to how Mari's appearance was arranged. The man we have to thank for that is Craig Miller, a writer-producer I've only known since about 1967. Craig was, in fact, a founding member of the Los Angeles Comic Book Club, an organization which I've written about on many occasions.

Craig contacted me about six weeks ago to tell me Mari would be at Comic-Con as part of a delegation of folks from Japan involved in the field of animation. I believe it was his idea to have her make an appearance on the Cartoon Voices panel and, of course, I said, "Absolutely!" When I called Candi and asked her if she'd be at the con, she said there was no force in this world powerful enough to keep her away from meeting Mari. After that, it was just a matter of a lot of e-mails, text messages and figuring out the choreography. If you run into Craig Miller someday, thank him for helping make possible one of the most memorable moments on any of the eighty zillion panels I've hosted.

As you are utterly aware, we took a historic photo at Comic-Con last Saturday with thirty-five cartoon voice actors. Well, thirty-four and me plus a couple we can't see well enough…but it was still historic. The occasion was to welcome Japanese Voice Icon Mari Shimizu, to Comic-Con and America.

A lot of folks are asking who's who in the pic so let's try to identify them all. I think (emphasis on my uncertainty) I can get about two-thirds of them but I could be wrong about a few.

Some of you are sending me educated guesses so we'll make this a contest with absolutely no prize. If you click on this link, your screen (hopefully on a big monitor, not your phone) will fill with a big version of the photo with everyone numbered. I'm #1, Mari is #26 and you can send in your guesses for the rest of us to this e-mail address. I'll play detective and compare the lists and arrive at what I think are the correct identifications — which I'll post here along with names of whoever got the most right.

That person will win absolutely nothing. In the event of a tie, all the winners will receive absolutely nothing. So go to it, voice actor fans!

Glenn Kessler, the Fact-Checker for the Washington Post, is throwing in the towel and retiring, at least from that position. In his last column, he assesses the state of fact-checking in American journalism and comes to the conclusion that an awful lot of people really don't care if what a politician says is true or not. Guess who brought Kessler to that conclusion.

There are many, many stories to tell about last week's gathering in San Diego but I thought I'd get started with a few photos…

The first of the nineteen panels I hosted or appeared on at Comic-Con was an easy one: Just me and my longtime pal Leonard Maltin sitting there, telling stories from our lives.  He told about meeting Buster Keaton.  I told about meeting Leonard Maltin.  We both told about meeting Groucho Marx and other famous/funny folks.  If we'd been splitting a pizza as we talked, it would have been just like any of the first three dozen times Leonard and I got together.

I'm not going in any sequence here. Saturday evening, there was a lovely memorial for our friend Peter David which — fittingly because this was Peter — was full of very funny stories.  The folks in the back row here, left to right, are Paul Levitz, Maggie Thompson, Tom Brevoort and Chris Ryall.  The front row is George Takei and me.  I had a much better time at this event than my face would indicate.

At Comic-Con, I host a Cartoon Voices Panel on Saturday and another one on Sunday. This is the Sunday panel from the con just past and the back row here consists of David Errigo Jr., Gabe Kunda, Michael Scott Action, Kaitlyn Robrock and Vincent Martella.  The front row is Abby Trott, Maurice LaMarche and me.  Again, I was happier than my face would suggest.  So was Maurice.  This was one of the funniest panels I've ever moderated.

There's a long story behind this one. It's from the Saturday Cartoon Voices panel and on it, I had Dana Gould, Audrey Wasilewski, Fred Tatasciore, Jim Meskimen, Benni Latham and Gregg Berger. Just those six. But after a wonderful discussion and script reading, I began to make like the announcer on The Price is Right and call other voice actors to "Come on' Down!" We had a Special Important Surprise Guest and I thought we should have a bigger welcoming committee to honor her appearance.

So I brought thirty or more actors down to the front of the stage, then I introduced that Special Important Surprise Guest. It was Mari Shimizu, one of Japan's leading voice actresses and the original voice of Astro Boy. The place went wild. I interviewed her a bit — we were tight on time — and then the place went wild again when I brought out Candi Milo, a recent voice for Astro Boy in America. Mari and Candi hugged and cried and a lot of folks in Room 6BCF cried, too. A very happy occasion! We then all went out in the hall and took the above group photo.

What's that? You say it's too small? Well, click on it and it'll get much, much bigger. Then, you'll be able to pick out Mari, three in from the right in the second row from the front.  Candi, holding an Astro Boy toy is on the right end of that row.  I'm the guy on the left with the hat and cane, and also in there I see…well, would someone like to take a stab at identifying everyone else in this photo?  We'll have more to say about this panel in the near future.  It was pretty unforgettable.

You can also copy this photo to your computer and/or post it anywhere you like or link to it here…but if you do, please explain what it is, who our Special Surprise Guest was and also credit my buddy Bruce Guthrie.  I'll have more Comic-Con photos here in a day or so but none will be as special as this one.

I am incapable of discussing White House turmoil for more than a few lines without referencing the Watergate Scandal. One of the things Nixon did wrong in handling it — and of course, there were many — was to not answer every accusation in real time. The strategy was to let his opponents amass their evidence and formulate their version of what happened…then Nixon would come forth with his version, which would knock down every point in their case. This did not work.

Regarding L'affaire Epstein, Trump is taking the opposite approach, trying to knock down every bit of evidence and every charge the minute it surfaces. The result is that he has no coherent explanation for anything; just a lot of factoids and falsehoods whipped up on the spot to answer each day's new revelations…and in so doing, he's creating the next day revelations. His answer the other day about why he and Epstein supposedly parted ways — Epstein purloined employees including sex-trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago — creates more questions. And his answers to those questions will create more and more and more…

I found (and did a little tweaking on) the above graphic online. I have no idea who made it but I thought it was a pretty good explanation of the practice of gerrymandering districts so the gerrymanderers' party gets more representation than they probably should.

Gerrymandering is, of course, an ancient tradition in any city, township, state (whatever) that elects anyone with a party affiliation. It's not new. What is new though is for the gerrymandering folks are doing to not try to pretend they're doing something other than what they unreservedly are. There are now those within the Texas G.O.P. who are practically bragging about doing it.

Gavin Newsom says if they do it there, he'll do it in California and gain even more seats for Democrats. It's fighting fire with fire…and I wish we could elect leaders in this country without fire. That wasn't the idea behind America.

To read the previous chapter of this tale, click here.  To go back and start at the beginning, click here.

There are many rooms at the San Diego Convention Center in which one can conduct a panel. The biggest room on the West Terrace of the Upper Level is Room 6 and it has movable walls so it can be carved up into various shapes and sizes. Wide open, it can accommodate 4,000 people for theater-style seating but these days, it's sliced into three rooms for Comic-Con: 6A, 6BCF and 6DE.

The 2003 panel this article is about was in 6A but it was a different 6A — smaller as I recall it — than the 6A in which I've moderated panels in recent years. The previous year, when I did the panel with just Bradbury and Schwartz, we were in a configuration labelled 6BDEF and I think it sat around 2500 people.

I arrived at 6A on Saturday, July 19, 2003, fresh from a Groo panel. The first thing I noticed was that 6A was probably too small for the event I was about to host…and it was. Every seat was quickly filled and I was told we turned away hundreds who wanted in. I also noticed that it did not have an elevator lift to its raised stage. If what some convention staffer told me was correct, I had the only panel all day that had panelists in wheelchairs and it was in the only meeting room that had a raised stage but no wheelchair lift. Lovely.

Forrest Ackerman, Julius Schwartz and Ray Bradbury all arrived in wheelchairs. Ackerman (age 86 and a half) and Schwartz (one month past 88) were able to climb the stairs but Mr. Bradbury (just shy of 83) was not. There was a brief discussion with several concerned audience members chiming in as to what to do. Several folks volunteered to carry Ray up the stairs and Ray was willing to try that but I wasn't. I decided I didn't want to be the moderator of a panel in which someone, however well-meaning or strong they were, dropped Ray Bradbury.

I insisted Ray remain in his wheelchair and be positioned in front of the stage along with a chair for me. Forry and Julie would answer from the microphones placed in front of them on the stage. I would ask my questions from a microphone I'd hold add then I'd hold it in front of Ray to catch what he said when he spoke.

Here's a photo from that panel so you can see how it was set up. Forrest Ackerman is at upper left on the stage, Julius Schwartz is at upper right, Ray Bradbury is…well, you can figure out which one is Ray Bradbury, can't you? And I guess I should say that the lovely/talented Jackie Estrada took this photo and that I now weigh 135 pounds less than I did then…

And there was one other microphone there but it's not in this photo. A microphone on a tall stand was placed in the center aisle of the audience. It was there so that if/when I decided to open the floor to questions from the audience, the questioners could line up there to ask whatever they wanted to ask. I don't do that very often for reasons we'll get to but it's a nice option to have.

I didn't pay much attention to him at the time but a guy we'll call Putz was already hovering at the mike, awaiting the moment when he could ask the first — and if he'd had his way, only — question of the panel. I have no idea what the guy's actual name was but I'm calling him Putz for reasons that will become too, too obvious around Part 6 of this serialized story. But first, we have to get through Part 5…

STEP RIGHT THIS WAY TO PART 5

Over at IGN, Roy Schwartz wrote a pretty good article about the resemblances between the character "The Thing" in Fantastic Four and the guy who designed and drew him, Jack Kirby. Almost all the heroes Jack created or co-created, including even some villains, have a certain amount of Kirby in them. Some, like Ben Grimm (aka The Thing), Nick Fury and just about any protagonist in Jack's Fourth World, are more obvious than others but there was a lot of autobiography in there. And like I'm quoted in the article saying, I often re-read a Kirby comic I've read a zillion times and suddenly spot a dose of self-reference in it I'd never spotted before.

The article contains a reproduction of a Hanukkah card that historians cite to prove that in Jack's mind, The Thing was and is Jewish.  I suspect Jack must have said that in some interview once, as well.  But some people don't know the history of the card.  They think it's something the Kirbys designed and printed up to send to all their friends. Or something Jack issued to declare the character's faith to the world.

Nope. There was only card like this and it was sent to a good friend of the Kirby family, David Folkman. What happened was that David sent a Hanukkah card to the Kirbys and they — Jack and Roz — decided to reciprocate. Roz bought a printed Hanukkah card in a store and Jack added the drawing. I don't think Jack intended it as a public declaration of Ben Grimm's religion. It was just something they sent to Dave Folkman who later shared it with the world.

Here's another great juggler — Kaito Tanioka…

To read the previous chapter of this tale, click here.  To go back and start at the beginning, click here.

In order to explain how the Ackerman/Schwartz/Bradbury panel came about in 2003, I need to explain how the Schwartz/Bradbury panel of 2002 came about.  The following is an excerpt from an article I posted here in 2012.  If you've read it and remember it, you can skip this excerpt.  If you never read it, you can read it here.  Hey, you might enjoy it.  Either way, here's the excerpt…

[Schwartz's] retirement came shortly after Jean, his wife of 34 years, passed away. He filled both voids in his life to some extent with fandom — going to conventions, working on his memoirs, getting himself interviewed, etc. Mostly though, it was the conventions. It was oddly appropriate that Julie "lived" for the conventions as he was one of the founders of science-fiction fandom. S-F fandom later branched off into comic book fandom so he could claim some parentage of that whole institution, as well. He went to every con that would have him and even a few that wouldn't. Attending the annual monster in San Diego was, of course, the high point of his year.

For a time, he came out on the DC Comics dime, all expenses paid by his longtime employer. In the nineties though, they could no longer find it in the budget to fly him out and put him up. The con made him a Guest of Honor and paid his way out once or twice and I think Julie paid his own way once or twice…but it was an expense he could not justify on an annual basis. If he'd been a veteran artist instead of an editor, he could probably have made money there selling artwork. But he just wanted to be there to be there and he couldn't really afford it. So what did he do? He called folks he thought might have some clout to persuade the convention to bring him out…and he called us a lot. I'm pretty sure I got the highest number of these calls. One year, Harlan Ellison phoned me and we compared Schwartz Calls as of late. I was the clear victor, having received ten in the last two weeks whereas Harlan had only received seven.

"Make a deal with you," he said. "We'll split the cost of flying him out and the cost of the hotel…anything to stop these pain-in-the-ass calls." I agreed but it never came to that. I and maybe some others beseeched by Julie nudged the convention into covering the cost of Schwartz that year. I believe this was 2001.

The following year, Julie didn't need us. He had an idea…and an ingenious one it was. Instead of placing umpteen calls to folks like Harlan and me, he put in but one…to his friend and one-time client, Ray Bradbury. As I mentioned here before, Ray was one of the first Guests of Honor at the Comic-Con International, dating back to well before it was called the Comic-Con International. He would come down for one day — usually Saturday — and give a talk and work the dealers' room. The convention and its attendees were of course very glad to have him there. In 2002 to help Julie, Ray decreed that his appearance in San Diego would be a joint speech/panel with Julius "Can you get the con to fly me out?" Schwartz. Informed this was what Ray wanted, the con had little choice but to fork up the bucks to bring Julie out. It was not a huge burden.

Score one for Schwartz: A clever notion on his part. I liked it because it would create an interesting program event, quite different from Ray's usual presentations, not that there was anything wrong with them. But I really liked it because it meant I didn't get all those calls from Julie nagging me to talk to the con about bringing him out, nor did I get all those calls from Harlan telling me Julie was nagging him to talk to the con about bringing him out.

A win for all, even the convention. Julie did phone me about the con but it was to ask me to be the moderator of this panel. I, of course, declined. I said, "You and Bradbury on stage? You don't need me up there. Every second I speak will be a second neither of you is talking. Save me a seat in the front row."

So after that, I no longer got calls from Julie nagging me to get the convention to make him a special guest. I instead got calls nagging me to agree to be the panel moderator. I dealt with these calls by employing the only possible strategy that would make them stop: I agreed to be the moderator. The resulting program item at the 2002 Comic-Con was wonderful and people loved it and there was then very little resistance the following year when Julie tried a similar tack to get his way paid to the convention…

He contacted whoever he contacted at the con and said something like, "Hey, how about if this year's Ray Bradbury Spotlight is him, me and Forrest Ackerman? It would be magical the way last year's panel was magical!" Whoever he contacted saw the wisdom in that and it was arranged, complete with the same moderator. Julie had again engineered a way to get the convention to pay his way out to San Diego.

A week or two before the con though, he called and said — and I could tell it killed him to utter these words — "I won't be coming out."

I asked him why and he told me how his legs had been failing him. There was just too much walking involved in attending Comic-Con, he explained. I replied, "We shouldn't let that stop you from being here. The convention has a very dedicated team of people who love to push wheelchairs and –"

He cut me off. "I will not be there in a wheelchair!" I asked him why not and he said, "Because old men are in wheelchairs." I told him, "Julie, you're 88 years old. You are an old man." He still balked so I said, "Tell you what. Come out, sit in the wheelchair and I'll arrange for a woman with large breasts to push you around in it." He pondered it for a second then said, "That might work."

He came out and we got him a wheelchair and an appropriate person to push it…but throughout the entire con, I never saw him in being pushed for any real distance in the wheelchair. I did however once see him pushing the wheelchair with the large-breasted lady seated in it.

Okay, next chapter we get to the panel itself…

CLICK HERE TO SPRINT TO THE NEXT CHAPTER

If you were in San Diego this last weekend, you saw many a big building covered in a wrap that advertised something — usually a movie. And hey, do you want to know something interesting about those giant wraps? They're illegal!

Did you ever see Alexander Koblikov juggle? You should…