Category Archives: To Be Filed

The Comic-Con International schedule for Sunday programming. I know where I'll be from 10 AM to 11:15 and then from 11:30 until 12:45 PM and then from 2 PM to 3 PM and from 3 PM until 4:30. Where will you be?

Recently, my partner Sergio Aragonés had ten minutes with nothing to do so he drew a big Groo poster. Folks who've seen it and know how he draws are stunned. "He spent ten minutes on that?," they gasp. I tell them, "Well, that includes the break he took in the middle of it to go make a chicken salad sandwich." "Oh," they say. "That makes more sense. Chicken salad sandwiches take time."

No, seriously: He spent a ridiculous amount of his life on it and so did Tom Luth, who did the coloring. Together, they created one of the best things either of them has ever done and it's available in a limited edition. By "limited," I mean it's going to sell out soon and then people will be writing me to beg me to help them get one and I'll have to crush their dreams. Do not make me crush your dreams.

Sergio will be selling and signing them at his table at Comic-Con International, which is I-7 in the Dealers Room. (Possible Point of Interest: If you look over at Table I-8, you may find me if I'm not off doing a panel…which probably means you won't find me there.)

I think he's taking too few of them to the con and will sell out but that's his problem…and maybe yours if you want one. It's also your problem if you want one but won't be at the con. Here is the solution to that problem. You can order one online. He will probably also have some left when he appears at the Boston Comic Con, which is August 8-10.  But this thing is going to sell out so act now if you want one.  Don't even take the time to make a chicken salad sandwich.

Dick Shawn introduces Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks doing the Two Thousand Year Old Man. I'm not sure where this is from but it may be a Colgate Comedy Hour special from 1967…

NBC is doing a live telecast of the Broadway musical of Peter Pan for this Christmas and they've just announced who'll be their Captain Hook: Christopher Walken. Boy, I think that's a good idea. And I still think that if and when someone revives Damn Yankees, he's their devil.

When Al Feldstein died at the end of April, I was too swamped with work to write a long piece about him. Al was obsessive about meeting deadlines so I used that as an excuse to defer this piece.

Al was a fascinating, talented man whose career more or less divided into three acts…

Act One came when he was writer-editor of most of the EC Comics from 1948 to 1955. Before that, he was a journeyman comic book artist — not a particularly great one — who like most was trying to make a living in a business that seemed stacked against the guys who created the product. Publishers paid X dollars a page. An artist could, if he worked long hours, produce Y number of pages per week. X times Y was not a bad living wage…but it has never been the American Dream to be content with "not a bad living wage" for your entire life and how long can you work long hours, anyway?

It was especially not satisfactory to those who grew up, as Al did, in the Depression. Another of those men, a fine artist name Jim Mooney, said this to me one time in an interview…

If I put in a sixty hour week at the board, I could usually finish seven or eight pages a week. That's pencils and inks. That paid decently. I could support a family on that as long as my health didn't falter and the publisher didn't go under. I was nervous about relying on those two things. We all were. I wanted to get ahead, to get some cushion in the bank so I wouldn't be in trouble if the work suddenly stopped or if I got sick. Hell, I just wanted to be able to cut back to forty hours a week. But doing comics, there didn't seem to be a way.

That was the dilemma that Mooney faced, that Feldstein faced, that they all faced: How do you parlay this thing you can do into some sort of meaningful financial security? Feldstein took a giant step in that direction in the late forties when he connected with William M. Gaines, publisher of EC Comics. He became Gaines' main editor and they concocted one of the best-selling lines of comics at the time — Tales from the Crypt, Crime SuspenStories and all the rest. Gaines made money and some of that trickled down to Feldstein.

They were good comics, some of the finest ever done. And all time, Feldstein was looking for what he might do next, what might pay even better. Because like everyone, he wasn't content with just making a weekly wage. He wanted that cushion in the bank. He wanted to amass enough funds to see himself and his family through emergencies and for them to live better. He also thought it might be nice to have enough money that he could someday retire.

One of the interesting things to me about those comics is that all the artists in them signed their work. That was not true at any other comic company of the day. Some companies discouraged that but even at the ones that didn't care, most artists did not sign what they drew. EC did encourage it and even did little spotlight pages on their artists, promoting them.

Still, in marked contrast to what Stan Lee would do less than a decade later, Feldstein did not put his name on what he wrote. He authored something like 80% of the stories that ran in the comics he edited but he didn't slap "Written by Al Feldstein" on any of them in the color comics. He mentioned it from time to time deep in the letter pages so it wasn't a secret. He just didn't call a lot of attention to that because, you know, that was just his current job.

He had fantasies of getting into something else, perhaps some other form of publishing that paid a lot better and offered more possibilities of getting rich. Maybe, if and when that opportunity presented itself, he'd want people to forget he'd written The Vault of Horror. There were some best-selling novelists around then who quietly omitted from their bios that they'd once scripted comic books for a few bucks a page. There were also those people in the world who felt that whoever was behind those horrible horror comics should be in jail.

Act One of the Feldstein story ended when the horror and crime comics did…when political, societal and mostly business pressures forced those comics off the racks. Reluctantly — because Gaines treated his employees like family members — he let Feldstein go. Al went off to try and sell novels and TV scripts and to just find anything.

Act Two was all about MAD. Harvey Kurtzman was MAD's first editor and MAD was the only surviving remnant of Gaines's publishing empire after the comics went away. It was a magazine and it was a successful magazine but it wasn't coming out on time. Kurtzman was a slow, almost obsessive worker who'd spend days to get one page just the way he wanted it. Deadlines came and went with no issue of MAD going off to the printer.

He also had problems with the way Gaines ran the company. Emboldened by an offer from Hugh Hefner, Kurtzman went to Gaines and demanded 51% of the business. Gaines refused, Kurtzman left, and Gaines hired Feldstein back to run MAD.

It had to be Feldstein. Gaines was this compulsive guy who, like I said, ran his business like a family. To the extent possible, he did not want to deal with new people in his life. He did not want to expand. (That was one of the many business differences with Kurtzman.) He wasn't going to go out and hire a stranger. He needed someone he knew and someone who could meet deadlines. Feldstein was that man.

Al went right to work. He not only had to get MAD onto a bi-monthly schedule, he had to do it without much of a staff since Kurtzman had taken most of his people with him. But assemble a new staff Al did. Before long, he'd found Mort Drucker and Frank Jacobs and Bob Clarke and Dave Berg and Don Martin (Don Martin!) and all the rest of The Usual Gang of Idiots…and MAD was coming out regularly.

It was a good magazine. Some still argue it wasn't as good as what Kurtzman did and to me, that's like debating whether one great pizzeria's better than another great pizzeria. Fine. But Feldstein's MAD was very, very successful as both a cultural icon and a money-maker. Sales went up and up and so did Feldstein's compensation.

Al was shrewd enough to capitalize on Gaines's reticence to employ new people, especially in the all-important post of Editor-in-Chief. At a couple of key junctures — mainly when Gaines was dickering to sell MAD to a corporation — Feldstein demanded a larger piece of the money pie and Gaines acquiesced. At the time, MAD was selling around 600,000 copies an issue, which was very good. Gaines agreed to give Feldstein an escalating series of bonuses linked to MAD's sales figures. The money would really have been great for Al if the magazine's circulation got up around the million mark…and sure enough, a few years later it did.

Before long, it hit the 1.5 million mark and then the 2 million mark and it seems to have topped off for a time around 2.3 million before beginning a slow 'n' steady descent. By that time, Al Feldstein was probably the highest-paid editor in the world. He was making a lot more off Gaines's magazine than Gaines. Al was the only creative person at MAD who had a deal linked to success.

Act Two ended around 1984 when Feldstein began to see the circulation, not just of MAD but all magazines, dropping. He decided not to ride it down but to retire…to a ranch in Montana to build a new career for himself as a painter of western scenes. He had achieved what he wanted to achieve at MAD: He was very, very wealthy.

I first met Al Feldstein in the middle of Act Two, visiting the MAD offices where everyone seemed happy and friendly and very much in tune with the spirit of the silly magazine they produced up there. Everyone except Al Feldstein, that is. He was polite but curt. He was willing to take time to meet me because I was a friend of Sergio Aragonés but for no other reason…and after pleasantries were exchanged, he made it clear I was wasting his time and he had a magazine to get out. Others in the office told me that was just how Al was. He was the only one there who worked with his door closed.

I guess I was a little surprised and maybe disappointed. I expected the editor of the world's greatest humor publication to have a great sense of humor…and he really didn't. He had a very strong social conscience and a lot of the magazine's morality — its disdain for weasely politicians, its campaign against smoking, etc. — came in no small part from Feldstein.

But the funny came from the writers and the artists and an awful lot of it came from an associate editor named Nick Meglin. When the "editor" said something funny in the letters page that was possibly another associate editor then working there, Jerry DeFuccio, but it was more likely Nick. It was almost never the editor, Al Feldstein.

Meeting most of the major MAD contributors of that generation, I came to have a pretty good sense of who was doing what on that publication. Feldstein was certainly not goofing off, letting underlings do the hard work while he napped and collected the biggest check. He worked very hard editing and adapting scripts into visual format, laying out pages and such. For a long time, he'd "spec" the type in the balloons on the typewriter in his office, figuring out exactly how to space the lines so they'd fit together properly on the page. He did an awful lot of work on most pages…

…but it really didn't involve being funny. At best, it involved how to present someone else's funny for maximum impact.

MAD paid its people decently but it was no secret that Gaines paid his editor super-super-well. Some (not all) felt that Feldstein was reaping a disproportionate share of the riches; that the "split" was not fair. The fact that Al was not a warm, friendly guy perhaps exacerbated those resentments a bit. One longtime MAD writer told me that it bothered him a lot that so much of the reward for the magazine's success went to the guy who ran the restaurant efficiently and not to the chefs who created and cooked the wonderful meals.

Once in a while when Feldstein was interviewed, he described himself a "total mercenary, a guy who's just in it for the money." No one was sure if he meant that as a joke or a confession. During our brief encounters then, I could see why it was hard to tell.

Things began to change when we got into Act Three. For several years, Feldstein stuck with his paintings…which were very good, by the way. Then he began making the rounds of comic conventions with two obvious goals in mind. One was to promote and sell those paintings — the western scenes but more often paintings he also did recapturing the EC days. He did re-creations of old covers of Weird Fantasy and scenes of the hosts of the EC horror comics. That was one objective.

The other was to reaffirm his legacy. After years of only caring about the check — or at least saying he did — it had started to bother him a lot that, first of all, no one seemed to know he had written most of those great EC Comics. They were being adapted for movies and television then and even when his name was mentioned, it wasn't mentioned enough to suit him. He was furious one time when a magazine did a major overview of the adaptations EC had done of Ray Bradbury stories and omitted all mention of Al Feldstein, implying the artists had done the script conversions. It also bothered him that a lot of people thought Harvey Kurtzman deserved all the success for MAD, at least on an editorial level.

I spent a lot of time with Al at conventions in various cities. I probably did a half-dozen one-on-one interviews and had him on eight or nine panels. We sometimes dined together because he didn't seem to have a lot of friends at those cons. He was bright. He was fascinating. And in retirement, he was a much, much nicer person than he was up at the MAD offices. Some folks he encountered who'd worked for MAD were amazed to discover that Feldstein had become — or was at least trying to become — one of the boys.

Some time ago, I wrote here in four parts about arranging for him to meet Ray Bradbury on stage at the 2002 Comic-Con International. Here is a link to the fourth part and it starts with links to the first three. It was a very emotional moment that included Al breaking down and shedding real tears. When certain of his old associates heard about it later, they didn't believe it. That was not the Al Feldstein they knew but it was, for the most part, the Al Feldstein I knew.

Al was right that he didn't get sufficient credit for writing all those EC Comics. His own fault for not putting his name on them? Probably — but he still deserved more recognition than he received, even if all that may have mattered to him at the time was the paycheck.

And not to take anything away from Harvey Kurtzman, who was also a wonderful man with a stellar body of work, but he got a lot of kudos because MAD survived so long and it survived so long because of Al Feldstein and people hired by Al Feldstein. It was a wonderful magazine that became an important part of the social consciousness and sense o' humor of a couple of generations. (By the way, it's still — under its present regime — a pretty good publication.)

I don't think Al has received enough credit for that magazine. Some of the folks who worked under him think he received too much of the money but I'm not taking sides on that one. I really only mention the dough because I think it's wonderful when anyone who started in the hardscrabble days of comic books created something of great value and managed to actually get paid what their work was worth. We can all name so many who did not.

Still, before Al died, if you went to Google and typed in "editor of MAD," almost all the hits on the first few pages would be for Kurtzman, who left the publication in 1956. That's a function of how often people wrote about Harvey and MAD as opposed to Al and MAD. Al is only in first position at the moment because of all the recent obituaries.

He should stay on or around the top because MAD was a terrific and much-loved magazine when he was on or around the top of its masthead. I think all those guys deserve a lot of credit and it shouldn't be at the expense of each other.

Above on this page are two photos I took of Al 27 years apart. As I mentioned, when I met him up at the MAD offices, I was kind of disappointed. That magazine meant a lot to me and I didn't expect its editor to act like an accountant who had to get back to his ledgers. It took me a long time to fully understand and appreciate his contribution to that magazine since by then, I was well aware that he wasn't responsible for the funny. That came from Frank Jacobs and Al Jaffee and Mort Drucker and Don Martin and Larry Siegel and Tom Koch and Bob Clarke and Jack Rickard and Stan Hart and Dick DeBartolo and Sergio Whatzisname and Lou Silverstone and Dave Berg and Don Edwing and dozens of others and especially Nick Meglin.

I don't think I really got it until I researched and wrote MAD Art, a book about the making of that magazine. That was the year before I took the second photo above of Al. By then, I'd learned how hard he had worked and that, no, he may not have contributed the funny but he hired the guys who supplied the funny. He got great work out of them and he didn't get in the way of it like so many people in his position might have done. Instead, he selected the funny and he edited the funny and he laid out the funny and he made sure it stayed that way…and he got it to press on time. He couldn't have done it without all those other people but they couldn't have done it without him.

And by the time I learned that and took that last photo, Al Feldstein had changed. I didn't really like the guy in the red pants in the first of the two photos. But I definitely liked and respected the one in the second. A lot.

This last week, my cousin David was visiting Los Angeles on a research trip. Having written best-selling books on Bobby Darin, Tony Bennett and other fine singers, he's switched his focus to comedy and is currently authoring a biography of Woody Allen for a major publisher. I'll tell you more about it as we get closer to its publication date, which is early next year.

It was David who told me about this film…and for God's sake, don't click this link until you have 26 minutes to devote to it because you're going to want to watch the whole thing. In 1971, Mr. Allen wrote, directed and appeared in a short film that was to air on PBS — a rather devastating look at the administration of one Richard M. Nixon. Due to cowardice and/or political pressures, it never aired on PBS but you can watch it below.

As you'll see, it includes a lot of familiar faces from Allen's earlier films like Louise Lasser and Diane Keaton, plus character actors like Conrad Bain, Graham Jarvis and Dan Frazer. (I think there was a law for a time that you couldn't film a movie or TV show in New York without hiring Dan Frazer. He was in several of Woody's.) It's a real good film and it reminds you of something that people forget about Woody Allen, which is that he was a real good comedy writer. He got where he is today because of that.

So here it is — Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story…

Brian Beutler on this silly lawsuit John Boehner is filing against Barack Obama. You get the feeling that moderate Republicans are sitting around and thinking, "I've got to come up with some meaningless gesture to reassure the Tea Party idiots that I hate Obama and am doing something to bring him down"?

The Saturday programming schedule for Comic-Con has been posted. Look it over. Note what you want to see. And try to figure out how I'm going to be on two panels at the same time. (Don't worry. I've done it before.)

And here we have the Friday programming schedule for Comic-Con. For some reason, I'm only hosting one panel on it but I make up for that on other days.

As you probably know, there was a period in this country when the Big Boogeyman — the cause of all that was wrong with society and especially the cause of juvenile delinquency — was comic books. Most of the publishers of those evil things either went out of business or formed something called the Comics Code which assured parents that the comics their kids bought had been sanitized for their protection.

There's a new documentary out called Diagram for Delinquents which chronicles this time in America. It's very good and I say that not because I'm in it here and there but because it's just plain very good. You can purchase a copy in many different forms over on this page and you can view the trailer for it below…

Forgot to mention this yesterday: The Thursday programming schedule for Comic-Con International is up and available for your perusal. Scope it out, make note of what you want to see, include my panels on that list and get ready to do Friday later today.

Bill Cassidy is a state Senator from Louisiana and a fierce crusader for "abstinence-only" sex education in schools…which I have long felt is about the biggest crock of self-deception out there. Teaching horny kids to refrain from sexual activity as a means of avoiding pregnancy, disease and other consequences has never worked very well, it will never work very well, and there will always be parents who are so personally disturbed by this reality that they won't give up on it.

Thanks to folks like Cassidy, Louisiana is very big on teaching abstinence, which surely has a lot to do with the fact that Louisiana is one of the few states where teen pregnancy has not declined and has probably increased. And you can probably guess where this is headed: Cassidy has just announced that his teenage, unwed daughter is pregnant.

This of course reminds us of Sarah Palin having a teenage, unwed daughter. I always thought that if it had been Barack Obama who had one instead of Ms. Palin, the 2008 election would have been about one thing: Republicans insisting that a man who'd let his daughter get that way was an abominable parent and "If he can't run his own family, we cannot trust him to run our country." It probably would have been nastier than that and Palin's would have been the loudest voice saying such things.

Personally, I think not teaching your kids about Safe Sex while pretending that "just say no" is a viable strategy is an indicator of bad parenting. Even worse is what some parents seem to do these days which is to screw their kids' sex lives up forever by convincing them it's evil and terrible and you'll be consigned to Hell for all eternity after your genitalia falls off. That's real bad parenting. Just as Abstinence Education is a real bad way to deal with teenagers and what their hormones are telling them.

This is kind of interesting. In 2010, the BBC Proms organization did an evening of Stephen Sondheim music with a huge orchestra and a huge chorus and a huge cast in a huge building…and I dunno. There's something about doing some of those songs in that situation, out of the storyline of their shows and with everyone in formal wear, that just seems amiss to me. This is the closing number — "Side by Side by Side" from Company performed not as an acting piece (I don't think anyone is playing Bobby) but as just a song performed because it's a good song. Which it is but…well, watch it and decide for yourself.

The crowd loved it and at the end as you'll see, Mr. Sondheim came onstage to hug many of the performers. I wonder if he was thinking, "Gee, that's not a bad song completely out of context…"

A couple of folks have written to ask if I can recommend good barbecue places in and around Los Angeles. I'm really not the ideal person to ask that because my tastes are changing and so, it would seem, is the definition of good barbecue. I used to like sweeter sauces than I do now so I'm not even sure if I still recommend all the places I've favored in the past but haven't visited lately. And many restaurants — BBQ and non-BBQ — seem to be ramping up the hot/spicy factor in their cooking, which is a big negative to me.

There's a business called Bigmista's that makes the rounds of farmers' markets and events. Their food looks great. The guy who runs it is funny and clearly dedicated to great barbecuing and very skilled at it…but even asking for his chow at its mildest, I've gotten food that's just plain too spicy for me. The same is true of both locations of Bludso's — the fancy one on La Brea and the not-fancy one in Compton.

Those are probably the two most raved-about sources of 'Q among local BBQ enthusiasts and I'm not saying they're wrong; just that what they're after when they seek great barbecue is not what works for me.

Years ago if you'd asked me about this topic, I wouldn't have hesitated to send you out to Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler Texas BBQ, way out on Sepulveda and once well worth the drive. Harlan Ellison took me there my first time, told me it was the greatest barbecue in the world…and back then, he may have been right. But the business changed hands or suppliers or something and…well, my last three visits there were a crapshoot. One was mediocre, one was as good as ever and one was a take-out order than I took home, took two bites of and then stuffed it down the garbage disposal. Really. It was so tough and tasteless as to be inedible. Even my InSinkErator said, "What is this stuff?"

I have not been back in close to two years. I think I'm afraid to go back. If I do and it's bad, I will have to scratch that place off my list forever. If I don't go, I can still think of it as a place where I might once again have the best brisket I've ever eaten.

My fave place for a time was Porky's down on Manchester Boulevard in Inglewood. They did great food and great business but the owner had a dispute with the landlord and he closed down that location to concentrate on his outlet in San Pedro. That's a little too outta-the-way for me but next time I'm in the area, that's where I'm eating. I worry because the last time I ate at the Inglewood store, he was starting to go spicy on me.

I kinda like J.R.'s Barbecue down on La Cienega but my last two times there, which were a while ago, they too were edging towards the volcanic. Not far from them is J-and-J Barbecue which is a two-in-one shack — see the photo above — that looks like it's been a Los Angeles landmark longer than the La Brea Tar Pits. One side of the shack does hamburgers. The other side sells ribs and chicken and other barbecued delights from an ancient smoker. I'd put this place near the top of my list except for one very silly thing…

Their food puts me to sleep. I'm not kidding. Every time I've been there, I doze off as if drugged…and it isn't just me. I took Sergio Aragonés there one day, cautioning him that something about their smoking or their sauce did that to me. We dined, enjoyed our meals tremendously, went back to my place…and then, within a half hour, I had to go in the bedroom to nap and Sergio stretched out on the floor of my office and went off to dreamland. In my lifetime, I have taken exactly one actual sleeping pill and it had zero effect on me. J-and-J Barbecue puts me out.

This is not completely a negative. Sometimes, a great meal and a nap are what you want. I just can't usually fit that into my day.

There's a small chain in and around Inglewood called Phillips' Barbecue that is take-out only and I've been known to visit two of its three locations. I find it a bit of a hassle at both to park, order, wait a long time and make real certain they give me the mild sauce because the hot stuff could weld the fillings in your upper teeth to the fillings in your bottom teeth. The "take-out" aspect is preferable because their food comes drenched in sauce and after you eat it, that's how you'll be.  It's easier to eat at home where you can change into old clothes first and then hop into the shower after.

A lot of folks think Phillips' is the best anyway and when it's good, that's an understandable position. But in my experience, it's been variable…not quite as much as Doc Hogly's but enough to send me to a nearby competitor…

When I'm in that area and in that mood, I'm more likely to stop at the Woody's Barbecue at Market and La Brea. There are three other Woody's but I haven't been to any of them. That Woody's has a few tables but it's mostly for take-out and I find it easier than Phillips' to take-out. The cuisine is very similar and there apparently is or was some family connection in the two chains that I won't pretend I understand. But it's pretty much the same dining experience including the part about the food and you both being drenched in sauce.

Other places I've tried? The Lucille's Smokehouse chain is okay, though verging on Too Spicy. Tasty Q was seriously Too Spicy and the web has conflicting reports on whether it's still open…which doesn't matter to me 'cause I'm not going back either way.  The one time I took home its food, the InSinkErator began making Shemp Howard sounds and gasping for water.

The Kansas City Barbecue Company out on Magnolia seems to be changing its name to The Barbecue and it's okay for a quick sandwich. It is not related to the Kansas City Barbecue Company in San Diego, right near the convention center, which is a great place for ribs 'n' chicken, especially the chicken.

The Outdoor Grill located next to a car wash over in West L.A. is also a decent place for a modest barbecue experience. I haven't been to its other location. And I think that covers every local place I've been to which isn't long out of business.

Don't bother writing with your personal local recommendations because if they sell ribs, they're already on my "to do" list. And if you live in this area and you crave hot 'n' spicy, don't listen to me at all. The fellow who owns Porky's told me a few years ago that he felt the whole culture of barbecue was heading in that direction and the Big Mister who runs Bigmista's seconded that opinion. If they're right, I probably won't be eating a lot of BBQ in the future. If you feel as I do, maybe we'd better enjoy it while we can.

I got through Mushroom Soup Monday without having to post an obit of anyone I'd ever met. Yesterday, we heard about the passing of Richard "Dick" Jones, who was a great star of western (and some non-western) movies…but more impressively, the voice of Pinocchio in the Disney flick with that name. Jones died Monday night after a fall at home in Northridge. He was 87.

He was a kid actor, starting on screen when he was seven, and he had a pretty good career until he hit his forties, the roles started becoming fewer and he decided to get into real estate. I got to chat with him a few times at parties and film festivals and I could never quite get over the fact that I was talking to the star of Pinocchio. No one who met him seemed able to get over that. Still, he was a delightful gentleman with a great laugh and I'm sure sorry I won't get to hear it again.