Category Archives: To Be Filed

The forecast for San Diego calls for highs around 80 and lows around 64 the entire time. Since the convention center is on the wharf, it should be a few degrees cooler than that but not much. At the moment, the chance of any precipitation looks to be zero and the humidity should be mild except around Stan Lee.

Let me remind all attendees: If the noise and the recycled air in the room begin to get to you, it's possible to go outside the hall without encountering security guards or mobs of people outside smoking. Take any escalator to an upper floor of the convention center and go out back. There are some lovely terraces out there with fresh air, places to sit in the sun or shade and a great, peaceful view of the harbor. I've been known to duck out there for five minutes between back-to-back panels because the change of atmosphere is refreshing. You are not a prisoner of the convention. Don't act like one.

The lovely Shelly Goldstein, whose recent birthday I managed to forget, sent me this link. It's Groucho Marx presenting awards at the 1968 Tony ceremony and no, I don't get some of the references either…

William Saletan tracks Mitt Romney's "evolving" (i.e., changing with the winds) stance on whether a mandate is a tax or a tax is a mandate or if either is bad or whatever.

Seems to me the flip-flop since the SCOTUS decision worked like this: The Supremes said 5-4 that the mandate of "Obamacare" was really a tax. Romney's forces decided they had to argue against that because then people would say, "Oh, then when Romney championed that mandate in Massachusetts, he was raising taxes." And "raising taxes" is an obscenity with Romney's base. It's fine with them to spend money on things like wars and oil subsidies and plunge us into further debt that could/should be paid for with a tax hike. And it's bad but not that horrible to impose a mandate that some must pay, just so long as it's not imposed by a Democrat. But "raising taxes," regardless of the amount or purpose, is evil. So the Romney camp felt they had to argue that the fees that a small group of people (mostly rich ones) must pay under the Affordable Care Act were not "taxes."

And then some Republican strategists decided that it would serve them better if those fees were considered "taxes." Then they could argue that Obama had broken his promise not to raise taxes on the Middle and Lower Class. With these folks, the only thing worse than raising taxes is breaking your promise not to raise taxes because then you're not only a tax-hiker, you're a liar and we can't believe anything you say about anything. So Romney had to come out and say it was a tax and in order to do that, he had to develop a silly explanation that no one believes (but many will try and sell) that what he did in Massachusetts was still a mandate.

What I think Obama oughta do is take a quote out of this article I just linked to. When asked about raising taxes, he oughta point out that few will be paying the amounts and then add…

I can't really explain this any better than Mitt Romney did when they asked him about the tax penalties he instituted in Massachusetts to pay for its very effective health care plan. He said, and I quote, "We said, 'Look, if people can afford to buy it, either buy the insurance or pay your own way. Don't be free riders and pass on the cost to your health care to everybody else.'"

And it's starting to look like the G.O.P. strategy will be to try and convince everyone that they'll lose their homes paying for this TAX that goes to pay for health care for illegal aliens. Oh, and about those Death Panels…

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is still playing on Broadway, doing much better box office than its makers probably expected at some points. There's apparently even a plan afoot to break out a touring company or open the show in another city or something…and no, I still haven't seen it. I was going to say, "I'm still waiting for one friend who has seen it to tell me they liked it" and that would be true…but I also haven't been anywhere near New York lately.

The production probably set some record for budget overruns but as Playbill notes, it's also set a record for the most lawsuits connected with any Broadway show. Here's a timeline.

About once a month, I'm contacted by someone — usually a reporter — who wants my aid in arranging for them to interview Steve Ditko, the co-creator of Spider-Man. I always tell them I doubt anyone can arrange that but if someone can, it sure isn't me. I corresponded with Mr. Ditko for a while and spent parts of two days with him in 1970 but had a falling-out with him in the early eighties and that was that.

He's adopted a policy of not allowing photos or interviews…and depending on his mood, he may or may not talk or correspond on an informal basis with those who call or write him. Usually the answer to even that is some polite version of "Leave me alone." Most of those who've had contact with him in the last decade or so seem to have concluded it's all a matter of quirky eccentricities disguised as claimed principles.

In the meantime, reporters who contact me are often convinced that their fierce determination and professionalism will trump whatever it is; that they will be the person to whom Ditko "opens up" and tells all. Hasn't happened, doubt it ever will. But the less the reporter knows about comics, the more determined he or she always seems to be that they will break through to him and succeed where others have failed.

Reed Tucker knows a lot about comics — though I believe his factual recital of the creation of Spider-Man (the part where he tells the parts he believes to be undisputed) is wrong. But he did make a good try to chat with Ditko and all he got out of it was a story about how you can't chat with Ditko.

In a way, it's a shame. The man has every right, of course, to refuse publicity and interviews but it's one of the reasons so many people think Stan Lee created Spider-Man all by himself. From Ditko's occasional letters in print, it's obvious this bothers him greatly…and it would bother anyone. But Lee is a great interview and Ditko is a non-interview and if you don't wave to the search party, there's a real good chance they're going to overlook you. I don't expect this to ever change. And nowadays when I talk about the many injustices in how the comic book industry has shorted major talents on money and/or credit, I've moved Ditko way down the list.

Fred Kaplan doesn't think much of Romney's ideas regarding foreign policy. I suspect Mitt's big idea in this area is to move his money from Switzerland to the Cayman Islands.

Simon Powell sends in photographic proof of what I said earlier; that Sergio often has beautiful women flocking to be near him.

I don't know the young lady's name and neither did Simon but the character she's dressed as is Power Girl, a DC Comics heroine who debuted in in All Star Comics #58 (1976) by Gerry Conway, Ric Estrada and Wally Wood. I believe she was designed by Joe Orlando but her appearance was refined by Wood in her first appearances.

Fans noticed that her chest seemed to grow from issue to issue. I was around once when Woody was asked about this. He said that it was his intention to add about a half-inch to her bustline every issue and see how long it would be before someone told him to stop. Wood only did eight or nine issues and I think someone told him to stop around his sixth…but I'll bet if he'd stayed long enough on the title, he'd eventually have made up for lost time.

UPDATE: Jamie Coville sends in an identification of the lady. She's a Canadian entertainer named Liana Kerzner, better known as Liana K. Thanks, Jamie.

As a big weather-watcher and subscriber to the Weather Underground website (which I've plugged here in the past), I am a bit worried to hear it's been acquired by the folks who operate the Weather Channel. I rarely watch the Weather Channel or visit its site so I can't assess their accuracy…but when I do tune them in or visit their site, it always strikes me that they tend to look at weather from way too far back.

The future of weathercasting is, I'm sure, in delivering forecasts and data that are specific to zip codes and precise areas. A forecast that covers all of Southern California is of little use or interest to me; not unless the weather is so extreme that they can say it won't rain anywhere in Southern California or that it will rain everywhere. On days when rain is possible, the latter is usually not the case. Usually, it's that it will rain somewhere and I'd kinda like to know where. Granted, a TV station can't have its people up there saying, "We see a small storm moving down Melrose Avenue…" but if you compare the Weather Channel site to Weather Underground, W.U. is moving in that direction and Weather Channel deals in blanket predictions that cover a large area and are therefore of less use.

It's way too soon to forecast W.U. becoming more like W.C. instead of the other way around. But we are issuing a Watch.

If you take time out on this Independence Day to watch the movie 1776 — or even if you just regard it fondly as I do — you may enjoy this brief interview with the late Peter Stone, who authored the book of that fine musical. I think Mr. Stone is wrong in his assessment of how closely his play adheres to the facts but he sure wrote a nice piece…

The Comic-Con folks have juggled around a few program items so Keith Knight can appear on the Quick Draw! panel…so that problem is solved. I will repost my panel schedule at least once before the con and you'll see that everything is as it was except that some additional panelists have been added to some events.

It's time to start final preps for the gala event…time for me to haul out my annual joke about how I'm trying to arrange for them to postpone the con for a few weeks because I'm not ready. Every time I say it to someone on the convention staff, they reply, "Oh, do you think we can do that?" It is not usually visible to you because they do it so well but those folks really, really work like crazy to pull this thing off every year. My unique position as a constant guest, an attendee of every one of these and the guy who participates in more programming items than anyone else gives me a vantage point to learn a lot about how the con operates. I don't know everything but I see enough to be thoroughly impressed with how they do the impossible each year. The efficiency makes it look effortless but trust me: It's not.

Other sites are sending folks here for tips on how to "do" the convention. I refer you to these I put up a month or so ago and I stress the one about not stressing. Accept that it is going to be crowded, that you won't be able to get into everything you want to see, that parking and traffic will be bad, etc. You may be able to make some of those things less frustrating via some advance planning, especially about what to go see and how to get to and from the convention. Every year, I hear from folks who are genuinely surprised that the freeway to San Diego is crowded on Saturday morning — which I suspect it is even when the con isn't occurring — and that there are somehow no open parking spaces right in front of the Convention Center.

Oh, this might interest you. My partner Sergio Aragonés will be at the convention, probably at his table the entire time except when he's on a panel or off in the Men's Room. I assume he'll be at his usual location, which is space I-7. Hang a right at Scott Shaw! and you can't miss him. His table just consists of him sitting there, doing sketches for money and autographs and selling a few books, and there's usually this odd person named "Gary" hanging around, helping him out.

I am webmaster of his website and any e-mail people send to it comes to me. Lately, because he is technically an exhibitor at the convention, he's been getting ad-type mail from agencies that offer — I guess you'd call them employees to staff one's exhibit. There's one that has photos of cute women you can hire to be at your booth, handing out flyers or dressing in sexy costumes or whatever. I wanted to write back to them and explain that Sergio doesn't have to pay to have cute women around him. He also got one from an agency that represents NBA, NFL and MLB stars — famous pro athletes — offering their services if it will enhance your convention presence. So Sergio could hire a linebacker or a shortstop to be at his table. I think I'd like to see either a model or a sports figure standing next to Sergio as he sits there for 4.5 days drawing Alfred E. Neuman and/or Groo for people. Maybe we could save money and dress Gary up as Princess Leia or Kobe Bryant. Or both.

Have a safe 'n' sane Fourth. And look forward to the YouTube videos of people being maimed for life by stupid fireworks handling. Nothing says "America" like drunks with cherry bombs.

My pal Ken Levine writes a nice piece about Andy Griffith but gets one thing wrong. He says they mimicked Griffith's voice for Huckleberry Hound. Not so. That was a voice Daws Butler had been doing in cartoons for years before it was assigned to the mouth of Huck Hound. It was a voice animation directors (especially Tex Avery) loved and they often hired Daws, who could do a zillion voices, just for that one. This was years before Mr. Griffith had burst onto the national scene and anyone knew who he was.

The voice itself was basically Daws's own with a North Carolina drawl that he said he picked up from a neighbor of his wife Myrtis back when they began dating. At Hanna-Barbera, they did base voices on celebrities — Doggie Daddy sounding like Jimmy Durante, for instance. But this was not a case of that.

Republicans say they want to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act.  That's half right.  They want to repeal it but as Jonathan Chait notes, the "replace" part is fantasy.  They don't have an alternative plan or any real desire to come up with one.

Pete Barbutti was on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson an estimated 17,408,226 times, give or take 17,408,134. I love this bit he did one of the times he appeared with Johnny…

I mentioned here the other day the panel we're going to be doing at Comic-Con about how to break into the field of cartoon voice work. I got a lot of messages from people who said they wish they could be there for it and is there any way they could get a video or even an audio of the panel. No, there isn't. But there's plenty of good, solid advice out there if you know where to look for it. As a general rule, listen to people who actually work. For instance, Dee Bradley Baker has set up this website full of tips and counseling. Dee (who'll be on our Cartoon Voices II panel on Sunday at Comic-Con) works all the time. So does Bob Bergen, who teaches on the side. This article tells you a number of things that his students learned in a recent class.

Bob is an example of someone who works a lot in V.O. and also teaches. There are others in this category like Gregg Berger and Bill Farmer and Brian Cummings and I think Charlie Adler is still teaching. There are others and they provide useful information for what it seems to me is a reasonable price. There are also V.O. classes and coaching available from folks who don't work very often…and some who have less paid hours at the microphone than some of their students. A few of them charge what does not seem to me like a reasonable price…and more annoying is this: If you have very little talent, a reputable tutor will say to you, "I'm sorry. Even if you spend a lot of money on lessons with me, you will never make much (if any) money in this business." The not-reputable tutor will say, "My God, you have so much potential! With a little seasoning and coaching, you could be getting all the jobs Rob Paulsen gets. All it will take is…uh, how much money did you say you had in the world?"

I am not saying everyone with little or no working experience is a crook. Some of them, I'm sure, are quite helpful and honest. But my observation is that almost everyone who is a crook is in the category of not working very much if at all. So notes of caution and skepticism about those folks are not unwarranted.

After every election in recent memory, you hear the losing side screaming about "voter fraud" and claiming that their guy was defeated because a whole kennel full of cocker spaniels were allowed to cast ballots. Our pal Kevin Drum says that actual voter fraud is very rare and that most of the current efforts to extinguish it are efforts to get certain groups of humans — the kind unlikely to vote your way — to not vote at all.