Another funny, wonderful man has…well, you know how this goes by now. Funny, wonderful men keep dying on us. This time, it's Louis Nye, who was best known for his long association with Steve Allen. I have a wonderful story about Mr. Nye but no time to post it right now. I'll try to put […]
I went ahead and subscribed for a year to TimesSelect even though most of the political columns seem to turn up for free somewhere on the 'net. Here's a link to the column by Frank Rich for this last weekend. […]
Driving around this morning, I listened to about twenty minutes of Rush Limbaugh and twenty minutes of Al Franken, and I came up with an idea that I think will help both shows. Rush needs to borrow Al's fact-checkers and Al needs to borrow Rush's drug-suppliers. […]
I am told by several correspondents that the footage I linked to which contained the Smurfs being bombed was not a minute and half commercial. It was, rather, a news report that included the thirty (or so) seconds of the Smurfs' village being annihilated. I suppose that means that the actual commercial is fully (or […]
Time to pre-order Volume Four of The Complete Peanuts. There's no real point to me doing a sales pitch for these Fantagraphics collections because if you bought the first two books, you're in for the long haul. They've got you. You have to buy every new release, especially the next few in which you'll see […]
There's no point in me trying to paraphrase this. Here's the lede from this article… The people of Belgium have been left reeling by a public service commercial featuring the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes. The 25-second commercial is the work of UNICEF, and is to be broadcast […]
I find it amazing to type that TV Guide as we know it is coming to an end. The issue currently on the newsracks is the last in the traditional digest-sized format on cheap paper. Next week, it becomes an eight-by-ten-and-a-half inch magazine full of color — i.e., less handy to use but more conducive […]
In 2000, I worked (briefly) for Stan Lee Media, the Internet company that collapsed soon after, sending some of its financial heads to prison for various forms of stock fraud. Today, The Washington Post has a long article about Stan Lee Media and what went on when it underwrote a gala fund-raising event for Hillary […]
For some reason, I'm fascinated by ads for old Vegas showrooms, especially from back in the days when you could pay what now seems like next-to-nothing and see not only a headliner but two acts you'd heard of. Most showrooms stopped featuring headliners during the eighties and the ones that kept them either got rid […]
I asked about the Spider-Man credo, "With great power there must come great responsibility" and boy, did I get answers. As to the question of whether Winston Churchill said it, the answer apparently is no. What he said was "The Price of Greatness is Responsibility," which was the title of this essay. This was pointed […]
Read More… from With Great Quotes, There Must Also Come Many Letters…
I have a silly question that I should know the answer to and don't. An oft-quoted line from the Spider-Man comic book goes as follows: "With great power comes great responsibility." Was that line (reasonably) original to the comic? Or is it a quote from somewhere else? I have a vague idea that it was […]
Read More… from And With Medium Power Comes Not-So-Great Responsibility
Comic book retailer Brian Hibbs has prevailed in a lawsuit against Marvel Comics. Here are the details but if you don't want to click over there, I'll give you a quick summary: The contract by which comic stores used to receive their comics from Marvel specified that they could return unsold copies if the books […]
Posting here's been light because (a) my cable modem keeps cutting in and out and (b) my brain seems to be hard-wired to the cable modem. Things will normalize soon. […]
The L.A. Times obit [reg. req.] for Hamilton Camp is up. It says the cause of death is still to be determined but that he fell on Sunday. I was told it was a heart attack but perhaps that is not so. Whatever it was, it robbed us of a very talented man. A lot […]
The L.A. Times [register, baby] has an article about the closing of Book City, a wonderful clutter of old volumes located up on Hollywood Boulevard. The piece blames the changing nature of the neighborhood, and that may be a factor, but I think they're missing the real cause here. Old book shops have been in […]