Category Archives: To Be Filed

So I'm reading all this stuff about the Hobby Lobby case in which the Supreme Court will have to decide if it infringes on a company's religious freedom to have to offer its employees a health plan that includes access to contraception. I don't see anyone anticipating a decision based on unbiased principle. Everyone's expecting that the Conservative justices will find some way to justify slapping down Obamacare on this while the Liberals on the bench will figure out a way to justify supporting it…and the swing votes, to the extent there are any, will act out of self-interest. Remember the good ol' days when a judge interpreted the law as written, even when it led him to a conclusion he might have personally wished was otherwise?

Years ago, I was involved in a Writers Guild matter that involved the National Labor Relations Board. This was about the time that Reagan appointees were beginning to dominate it and they were unashamedly anti-union. I had occasion one evening to sit and talk with a man named Roger Goubeaux, who was the director of the local N.L.R.B. office. He was a nice man — a dead-ringer for Wilford Brimley — who had devoted his life to labor law. He was not happy with the Reagan appointees or the whole tone of Washington.

I did not record our conversation — which was personal, not official — but he said something that has stayed with me to this day. It went pretty much like this…

If they want to rule against you, they'll rule against you. Everyone in Washington these days works backwards from the desired result. They decide what they want the outcome to be and then the written law has to be twisted and turned to get to that outcome. It's like if a union wants to paint their meeting place green and management for some reason doesn't want them to be able to paint their meeting place green. The people who have to rule on this now…they're pro-management. So they look at the law and it says, "A union may paint their place of meeting any color of their choosing." Then they hand the law to some clerk in the office and say, "Here, write a brief that explains how this law says they can't paint the place green" and that's how they rule.

He said that to me in the early eighties. I wonder what he'd say today.

Can anyone point me to a recent case where someone prominent, be they pundit or politician, has ever done this? A judge or court rules against them — gives them an outcome that is contrary to their wishes — and they say, "Well, that's what the law says. It shouldn't say that but it does."

The folks at Comic-Con International today announced…

Robert Kanigher, Bill Mantlo, Jack Mendelsohn to Receive 2014 Bill Finger Award

Robert Kanigher, Bill Mantlo, and Jack Mendelsohn have been selected to receive the 2014 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. Ordinarily, the blue-ribbon committee chaired by writer/historian Mark Evanier selects one posthumous award and one for a living individual. This year, the committee voted unanimously to break precedent and present two awards to living individuals, Mantlo and Mendelsohn.

The Bill Finger Award was instituted in 2005 at the instigation of comic book legend Jerry Robinson. "The premise of this award is to recognize writers for a body of work that has not received its rightful reward and/or recognition," Evanier explains. "That was what Jerry Robinson intended as his way of remembering his friend, Bill Finger. Bill is still kind of the industry poster boy for writers not receiving proper reward or recognition." Evanier will present the awards at the 2014 Comic-Con International, assisted by Bill Finger's granddaughter, Athena Finger.

"This year, the judges couldn't decide between two living recipients so one said, 'Why don't we just give it to both of them?' And we decided to give it to both of them," Evanier explains. "They're two men who deserve the honor and we figured, why make one of them wait until next year, especially in light of the fact that Bill Finger would have turned 100 this year? And as for our posthumous recipient, Robert Kanigher, that one's long overdue."

Robert Kanigher wrote his first comic books in 1942 and quickly became one of the most prolific talents in the field. His early work included Blue Beetle, Steel Sterling, and the original Captain Marvel. Then in 1945, he went to work for All-American Comics as an editor and writer and segued to DC Comics when it absorbed All-American. In 1946, he began a 35-year association with Wonder Woman, serving as the character's editor for 22 of those years and writing hundreds of her adventures. As the main editor of DC's war comics line, he created and/or wrote Sgt. Rock, The Haunted Tank, Captain Storm, Enemy Ace, Johnny Cloud, and dozens of other series. He wrote the first story of the 1956 Flash revival that is often cited as the beginning of the Silver Age of Comics, and his list of co-creations also includes The Metal Men, The Sea Devils, The Rose and the Thorn, and Black Canary. He worked on most of the major DC features up until his death in 2002.

Bill Mantlo went to work for Marvel Comics as a production assistant and colorist in 1974 but quickly found his niche as a writer, initially of fill-ins. Within a few years, he had written at least an issue or two of almost every major Marvel title and also took on many regular assignments. The regular books included long and popular runs on Micronauts and Rom: Spaceknight, and readers hailed his work on such titles as Ka-Zar the Savage, The Incredible Hulk, Moon Knight, and his co-creation (with artist Ed Hannigan), Cloak and Dagger. Another co-creation was the Guardians of the Galaxy character Rocket Raccoon, soon to be part of the major motion picture. Mantlo used his income from comics to go to law school, and in 1987 he passed the bar and began working as a public defender. In 1992 while rollerblading, he was struck by a car and suffered what was described as "irreversible brain damage." He currently resides in a nursing facility. His Finger Award will be shipped to his brother and caregiver Michael, who will present the plaque to Bill.

Jack Mendelsohn got his start in comics interning for Jerry Iger in 1942. His earliest identified credits as a writer are for DC's More Fun Comics in 1946 and Animal Antics in 1947. Other early writing appeared in comics published by Ziff-Davis, Pine, and the Archie company, and then for EC Comics when he scripted their in-house imitation of MAD called Panic. Later credits include comics for Dell and Western Publishing of Nancy and Sluggo, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Miss Peach and Beetle Bailey. He wrote the Felix the Cat newspaper strip for a time and also wrote (and sometimes drew) Felix comic books. His own newspaper strip, Jacky's Diary, was the subject of a Dell comic book he wrote and drew, and the strip has recently been collected between hardcovers by IDW Publishing. Mendelsohn also had an extensive career in animation (including work on the screenplay for the animated feature Yellow Submarine). His live-action writing credits include Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Carol Burnett Show and Three's Company.

The Bill Finger Award honors the memory of William Finger (1914-1974), who was the first and, some say, most important writer of Batman. Many have called him the "unsung hero" of the character and have hailed his work not only on that iconic figure but on dozens of others, primarily for DC Comics.

In addition to Evanier, the selection committee consists of Charles Kochman (executive editor at Harry N. Abrams, book publisher), comic book writer Kurt Busiek, artist/historian Jim Amash, cartoonist Scott Shaw!, and writer/editor Marv Wolfman.

The major sponsor for the 2014 awards is DC Comics; supporting sponsors are Heritage Auctions and Maggie Thompson.

The Finger Award falls under the auspices of Comic-Con International: San Diego and is administered by Jackie Estrada. The awards will be presented during the Eisner Awards ceremony at this summer's Comic-Con International on Friday, July 25.

In case you didn't hear about this: Recently, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp released a proposal for tax reform. Camp is a powerful Republican so you might think all he'd propose was to lower taxes on the rich and raise them on the lower and middle class. That's how "tax reform" is usually defined in his circles…but no. He was going to lower the top rate on the wealthiest Americans but to make up for it, there would be some increased taxation on the largest banks. The largest banks promptly declared Nuclear War on the proposal and we have since seen Camp and his plan stomped into the ground. He and it have been given the kind of beating designed to make sure that no one anywhere is ever foolish enough to suggest such a thing again. Jonathan Chait has more.

This week, IDW Publishing is releasing the first issue of a four-issue mini-series of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Each issue features a complete tale of Moose and Squirrel in two parts with a brief adventure of Dudley Do-Right, both written by Yours Truly and expertly illustrated by Roger Langridge.

I'm doing this somewhat to scratch a long-held itch. For years and years, going back to the days when Jay Ward and Bill Scott were still around, I kept being approached — and in some cases, actually hired and paid — to write projects with characters from their studio. In fact, when Bill passed away, we were in the middle of one. He was, as you probably know, the head writer/producer of most of what Jay's company produced and Bill was also the voice of Bullwinkle, Dudley, Mr. Peabody, Fearless Leader, Super Chicken and so many more. At the time of his death in 1985, he and Frank Welker and I were writing a screenplay for a live-action Dudley Do-Right movie for MGM.

This had nothing to do with the one made by others in 1999 with Brendan Fraser. The actor everyone wanted for ours was Marius Weyers, who was so funny in the film, The Gods Must Be Crazy. He was never approached but he sure looked the part…and the idea was that his voice would be dubbed by Bill, and all the other actors in the film would be dubbed by June Foray, Paul Frees, Daws Butler, Frank Welker and other cartoon voice professionals. MGM bought the idea and was even willing to press on with it after Bill died but then we ran into a rights problem.

Having a deal with Jay Ward turned out to be not enough. Back then, the control of those properties was a morass of competing claims and partners, silent and otherwise. Most animation historians will tell you that the reason Jay Ward stopped producing cartoons was that he was fed up with having to deal with network interference. That was certainly a reason but another was that he didn't want to, or maybe couldn't deal with the lawyers and the various alleged owners if he wanted to do anything with his most famous properties…and that was all anyone seemed to want out of him.

Anyway, our project disappeared into that morass…and I'll tell you how messy it all was. A few years later, I was approached by a major animation producer who said, "We have the rights to Rocky and Bullwinkle, and we want you to write a special for us." I said fine, terrific, I'll do it. Before we got around to the part where I sign a contract and they pay me money, a different major animation producer called me and said, "We have the rights to Rocky and Bullwinkle, and we want you to write a special for us." I said yes to them, too.

For a brief time, I hoped I could get them both to pay me for writing the same script but the attorneys began duking it out and all plans were off. Much the same thing happened a couple of other times. It got so when someone called and asked me to write Rocky and Bullwinkle for something, I'd say yes and then think to myself, "Well, let's see how long it takes this one to collapse." Boris Badenov couldn't kill Moose and Squirrel but for a time there, the legal profession was doing a darn good job of it.

What's changed? Well, eventually, a wise and dedicated lady named Tiffany Ward stepped in, spent pots of dough on lawyers, and managed to free Rocky and His Friends from various claimants. Now, controlling her father's characters free and clear and alone, she licenses 'em to the right folks to do good things with them. I hope our comic proves to be one of them.

So that's one comic book I'm writing these days. Another is Groo the Wanderer, which will be returning to the comic book racks shortly. I'll post a message soon about that. And I'm still writing most (not all) of the Garfield comic book published by Boom Studios. Solicitors and dealers advertise it like everything in it's by me but a clever gent named Scott Nickel, who works for Jim Davis, pitches in when I'm swamped with other tasks or am just plain running low on lasagna jokes. I don't like to write too much about what I have coming out because I don't want this to be one of those blogs…but one of these days, I'll write a little more about this comic and why you should buy every issue of it.  In the meantime, Rocky & Bullwinkle #1 comes out this week.

A gentleman named Jonathan Keogh assembled this…a montage of more than a thousand movies. You'll want to watch it full-screen and probably a few times. It's an extraordinary feat of editing.

I don't wish to be negative about it because I'm sure Mr. Keogh spent more than five hours on it…but I wish there was a little more sunshine and fun in it. There is much beauty and laughter in filmmaking and he seems to have selected a disproportionate amount of pain and ugliness. But I still admire the effort…

I'm getting another flurry of calls from contractors and/or folks who want to sell me Solar Power for my house. My number got on some list someplace and the calls come hot and heavy at times. From what I can tell, about 25% are from actual contractors…that is, folks who actually would do the work if I was interested in having work done on my premises, which I am not. The other 75% are people who are just cold-calling to try and earn a commission. They answered some ad somewhere — probably on Craig's List — that said they can make $XXXX dollars a week…and it turned out to be this: "Here's a list of names and phone numbers, here's a prepared speech. Call people. If they're interested, you turn it over to us and if we close a deal, you get a commission."

And since the person needs money and has no other prospects, they give it a whack. One suspects it isn't very lucrative and that no one has ever made anything close to the advertised $XXXX. So I feel sorry for these folks but since I already have a great contractor, I figure the nicest thing I can do for them is to end the call quickly so they can get on to the next one. Of course, that's also the best thing for me.

I get especially annoyed with the ones where their script calls for them to say, "We spoke to you last August and you were very nice to us. You said to call you back next [this month] and you'd be ready to start some work on your home." Usually, I just tell them they're lying but when a fellow called a few minutes ago, I decided to lie back at him. He said his firm did all forms of home construction and repair. I asked if he, himself, was the contractor because I'm sick of these calls from kids who answered an ad somewhere who don't know anything about construction. He unconvincingly assured me he was a contractor.

I asked him if his firm can do Floor Candling. If there is such a thing, I don't know what it is. I just made it up. Nevertheless, he told me his firm was quite experienced in Floor Candling. I asked if he, himself, had done the Floor Candling or if he subcontracted it out. I added, "Because I don't need a contractor for that. I can call a Floor Candling firm directly myself." He told me no, he'd candled quite a few floors in his day. I said, "Great. Now, when you come over to give me an estimate, that's all I want done. I don't need my ceilings strip-screened and I don't need my walls krebulized or anything like that. I just want an estimate on having my floors candled. When can you be here?" He said he'd have to check his calendar and call me back.

Let's see if he does. I have a few questions I want to ask him about the specific techniques he employs when he candles floors. Like, does he strip the filaments off the bleen or does he coat the entire flooring with Baker's Wax?

This is the third part of the story of my grandmother's passing. If you haven't read Part One and Part Two, you could do worse than to do that before you tackle this one. (I thought this was going to be the final installment but I have one more left in me after this…)

The funeral was set for Wednesday. Monday, as mentioned, my mother and I flew to Hartford and checked into a Holiday Inn a few blocks from the airport. On Tuesday, we had four stops to make…

Stop #1 was the office of the lawyer I'd engaged via phone to monitor my grandmother's affairs and, more importantly, to leverage her into the Assisted Living Facility where she happily spent the last years of her life. We discussed the disposition of her estate, which consisted of almost nothing, and handled the kind of paperwork that's necessary when someone leaves this world for good.

Stop #2 was the Assisted Living Facility. We collected some of her remaining belongings and designated others to be either thrown away or put to use elsewhere in the building. Two visits before, I'd bought my grandmother a very nice radio that she played every night. One of the nurses there told me of another guest there — a woman close to my grandmother's age and perhaps her best friend on the premises — who'd been asking about fifteen times a day, "What will become of her radio?"

"I think she'd really like it," the nurse told me. So I went to this woman's room with it, introduced myself and told her, "I think Grandma would have wanted you to have this." As I set it up for her, she told me, "Thank you so much. It will remind me of her every time I play it. I'll never forget…"

…and she meant to finish that sentence with my grandmother's name but couldn't come up with it. "I'm sorry," she said. "Please remind me."

I scattered some tip money amongst the staff and thanked them and then we moved on to Stop #3. Stop #3 was the church where the funeral would be conducted the next day. There were forms to fill out, papers to initial, decisions to make. A burial site had already been selected but we had to okay a tentative design and text for the headstone. It was at this moment that my mother learned that her birth father had not been her mother's first husband.

She'd thought her mother first married in 1920. It turned out there was an earlier marriage — in 1916. Or at least, that's what the church records said. The proposed draft of the headstone listed the first names of all three husbands and my mother decided to remove them all. It just seemed odd to her to have that name on there of someone she'd never heard of.

Then we met with the priest who'd be officiating at the funeral the next day — a serious, older gent who had a reaction when he learned that I was not Catholic and that my mother had strayed enough from the church to have married a Jewish man. I'm not sure how to describe his reaction. It was not overtly negative or critical…but it definitely was a reaction. The best I can do is to suggest you imagine a salesman who has devoted his life to selling Chryslers and he learns you buy only Cadillacs. He forces a smile and thinks to himself, "Another sale we should have had."

He asked all sorts of questions to gather material for his speech. He asked me all about my life and career, and he had another one of those hard-to-describe reactions when he learned I was in television and yet another when he learned I was unmarried with no desire to father children. I think he was straining to not say, "None of that would have befallen you if you were part of my church." After a few more questions, he had what he wanted from us and then it was on to Stop #4.

Stop #4 had nothing to do with my grandmother. My mother and I merely decided that we couldn't travel to Hartford and not visit my last remaining uncle, Uncle Seymour. Uncle Seymour was 94 — a very sweet, if slightly nervous man who from some angles looked exactly like my father, who'd died six years earlier. None of my other uncles looked that much alike but every so often during our visit, Uncle Seymour would turn a certain way and there would be my father…alive again for a moment. It shook me the first time but after that, I kind of enjoyed it.

Uncle Seymour was living, as my grandmother had, in an Assisted Living Facility. His was a little different from hers because his was a Jewish Assisted Living Facility. It was a lot like the non-Jewish Assisted Living Facility except that at the Jewish Assisted Living Facility, everyone was yelling at everyone else.

There was not only Yelling but there was Pre-Yelling and Post-Yelling. Pre-Yelling precedes the actual Yelling. It's when the person yelling yells something like, "Now, listen to what I'm gonna tell you! I'm gonna tell you now so pay attention!"

Then after the Pre-Yelling would come the Yelling, which would be followed by the Post-Yelling. Post-Yelling goes something like this: "All right, I've told you! Remember what I told you and don't make me tell you again!"

I heard a lot of that there…but not from Uncle Seymour. Uncle Seymour was delightful and happy to see us and we were glad to see him, even though all three of us knew it was probably the last time. (Which it was. He passed away two years later.)

My mother and I sat for about a half-hour with him in his little room. He kept talking about how proud he was of the two writers in his family — his son David and me. He had several shelves of large print books and on one, there was a copy of David's latest novel and a Groo graphic novel I'd worked on. Ours were the only two that weren't in large print format…but then I can't imagine Uncle Seymour reading (or understanding) Groo. The copy was just there so he could see my name on it. He talked a lot about how much he enjoyed seeing my name in the credits on TV.

That's one good thing about having an odd last name. If you're Bob Johnson, your name on a book or a screen doesn't uniquely indicate you and your relatives can't get too excited about seeing your shared surname on something. After all, they see it lots of places where it isn't you. But any time Uncle Seymour saw "Evanier" anyplace, he could swell with pride. He was almost certainly related to whichever Evanier it was.

By an amazing coincidence, my life abounds in coincidence. They just happen to me. As my mother told him about her mother, I picked up and idly paged through a large print TV Guide on a table next to me and I happened to notice something. An episode I'd written of Superman: The Animated Series was on that afternoon. In fact, it was on Channel 5 in about 45 minutes. When I told Uncle Seymour, he got way more excited than the news warranted. "Is your name going to be on it?" he said.

Come to think of it, he may have said, "Is our name going to be on it?" but either way, the answer was yes. "Is it going to be on at the beginning or the end?" he asked. I told him the beginning and I remembered how my father used to always ask the same two questions.

It started at 2 PM and it was about 1:10 as he excitedly got to his feet and began to lead us out of his room. My mother and I followed him out into the hall, down a large corridor, then this way and that way and this way again through the complex. He knew where he was taking us. He didn't seem sure how to get us there but he was going to get us there a.s.a.p. Via the longest-possible route I'm sure, we soon arrived at what I guess you'd call a Rec Room.

About thirty people over the age of 80 were sitting around, watching Days of Our Lives on a TV set. Uncle Seymour walked in, walked right up the set and changed the channel from 4 to 5.

For a moment there, I feared Uncle Seymour was not going to live to see 95. All the people watching the soap opera began yelling, "Seymour! What are you doing?" and "Hey, we were watching that!" Uncle Seymour gestured to me — so now it was my fault — and said, "This is my nephew from California! He wrote a TV show and his name's going to be on it and we all have to watch it!" Before Uncle Seymour and I could be caned to death, I hurried over and changed the TV back to Days of Our Lives.

"We have plenty of time before my show's on," I told Uncle Seymour as I steered him to a chair. My mother sat down just far enough away from us that she could deny being related to us in any way.

We all sat there watching Days of Our Lives for the next forty minutes. I had no idea what was going on but someone was leaving someone and some woman was losing her man to some other woman and everyone was wondering if someone else, or sometimes they themselves was pregnant.

Every time a scene looked about to be ending, Uncle Seymour would say, "We have to change the channel" and he'd start for the set. I would gently force him back into his chair and say, "We have plenty of time" and he'd say, "I don't want to miss your name." When the show went to commercial, he'd leap up and say "It's time!" and I'd guide him into sitting back down and I'd say something like, "We still have twenty-two minutes! It doesn't take twenty-two minutes to change the channel from 4 to 5."

As we sat there, I had a strong sense of "I wish I hadn't started this." The TV set did not have a very large screen and the average eyesight in the room was only above Quincy Magoo's because I was there. Most of those "watching" it were more listening to it…

…and I remembered how fast the credits flashed on that show: On and off in what seemed like an eighth of a second. It was more than that but not by much. During each commercial, Uncle Seymour would tell all his friends that they had to stay and see his nephew's name on TV. I think he was prepared to plant himself in the doorway — much like George Wallace trying to block racial integration — if anyone tried to leave. The difference was that Uncle Seymour would have succeeded.

Watching him…sitting there looking like my father from most angles, I was reminded how happy my father was when he saw my name on TV. He somehow had it in his head that a week my name was on TV was a week my career was thriving and I was making money, whereas a week he didn't see my name on the screen was a week when my income was zero. I explained to him over and over that I often was paid in April and the show aired in August but the concept somehow didn't take.

My pleasant little mental flashback was interrupted by Uncle Seymour asking, "Is it time yet to change the channel?"

"No," I'd tell him. "Seventeen more minutes."

Finally, credits rolled on Days of Our Lives. "Quick," Uncle Seymour shouted. "Change the channel!" As I changed it, he ordered everyone in the room to stay put.

A man about his age told him, "Seymour! I have to go take a leak!" Uncle Seymour said, "You can take a leak later. This is your one chance to see my nephew's name on TV."

The man said, "I'm incontinent!" Uncle Seymour said, "We all are. You got your diapers on? Just sit there!" I was thinking, "Well, at least they won't have to look at my name for very long." I got up and stood next to the set in a way that blocked no one's view. I said, "Now, I'm going to point to my name and show you where and when to look. It won't be on for very long."

I looked over and my mother was laughing her ass off.

The show started. Every time writing came on the screen, someone would ask, "Is that it? Is that your name?" and I'd say, "No, just keep watching. I'll show you where to look!"

Finally, the "Written by…: credit came on for a flash and I pointed and shouted, "There!" And a whole room of old people reacted like some nearly-extinct rare bird had swooped past the window and disappeared: "I saw it!" "Where was it?" "I think I saw it!" "Can you show it again?" "What did it say?" "I saw the first part!" "Was that it?" Quite a few asked, "Why do they make the writing go by so fast?"

Uncle Seymour got up and, beaming with pride, said, "That was my nephew's name." A few of his assembled facility-mates were impressed. Most slowly filtered out of the room. One elderly woman made a point of stopping to tell me, "I really enjoyed seeing your name, young man."

Another asked, "Will your name be on tomorrow?" When I told her no, she shook her head as if to say, "Too bad you can't hold a job" and she walked out.  No one, including Uncle Seymour and my mother, had the slightest interest in actually watching the program…which neither surprised nor bothered me.

It was time for us to go. I just had to wait for my mother to stop laughing.

We said our goodbyes to Uncle Seymour and hugged him and lied to him. The lie was when we said we'd see him again. Every time I told my grandmother I'd see her again, I wondered if it was true but this time, I was fairly certain. And besides, if I had come back to visit Uncle Seymour, it would not have been to see him again. It would have been to see my father again. That was the last time I saw either one of them…and as we left the building, I could hear the people yelling.

Michael Hiltzik notes that we hear a lot of bogus, collapsible tales of Obamacare being a disaster but don't hear nearly enough about its many successes. And Sahil Kapur notes that Republicans who want to "repeal and replace" are having a hard time coming up with the "replace" part. Hey, you can't beat something with nothing.

This is your Soup Reminder. It's to remind you that you have a little more than a week to get yourself to a Souplantation or Sweet Tomatoes restaurant (here's where they are) for a bowl or nine of their Classic Creamy Tomato Soup. I like this soup a lot and regret that they only offer it one month per year. Fortunately, it's a month with 31 days in it but it's still not enough. Here's a coupon that's good today and tomorrow for two folks to dine there for $19.78.

I am not a shareholder in Souplantation. I just spend a lot of money there…on soup.

• I'm kinda hoping that at some point, someone told Fred Phelps there would be Gay Marriage in Michigan and he said, "Over my dead body!"

The world's greatest spy (Cookie Monster) teaches you how to follow directions…

I will be a guest-type person at WonderCon in Anaheim, California from April 18 to 20. I will be hosting six panels or events, including a panel with Sergio Aragonés, a Cartoon Voice panel and a panel on the history of Hanna-Barbera with folks who worked there in the sixties, plus I'll be speaking on Writing for Animation. The full programming schedule will be available shortly on the convention website.

Whenever I speak on Writing for Animation, I start the "class" by letting the audience vote: Do they want to hear about how to write scripts? Or do they want to hear about how to get jobs? The vote is always close enough to 50-50 that I wind up splitting the time to cover both. I assume it will go that way this time.

It's not on their website yet but I will also be a guest at the Phoenix Comicon in guess-what-city on June 5-8. I've never been to this one but I'm told a great time is had by all, so I've decided to accept their invite and go have a great time. I will be doing some panels but I dunno about them yet.

Then I will be in my usual role at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. which this year runs July 24-27, meaning it actually starts the night of July 23 for those who score Preview Night badges. I will be hosting 243,000 panels…or an average of one per attendee. It'll be a while before we hear about them…but in a week or two, they should be announcing this year's recipients of the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, and I think a lot of folks are going to be delightfully surprised at the selections.

And that's it for my dance card at the moment.

• Just saw they're going to start running one of my first TV gigs, Welcome Back, Kotter on Me-TV. Oh, good. I can use the dimes.

Teller (of "Penn &…") just won a significant victory over someone he felt was infringing on his "rose" trick. Magic tricks cannot be copyrighted but pantomimes can…and Teller managed to convince a judge his pantomime had been purloined. Good for him.

The management of this site agrees with Chris Hayes. People with zero evidence about what happened to that missing plane should stop using the situation to promote some fear-based agenda…