Category Archives: Uncategorized

Stan Lee comes out against the censorship of videogames. Good for him.

I attended a lovely dinner Sunday night. Each year, the Comic Art Professional Society based in Los Angeles honors a "great" in the field of comics or cartoons and this time, the honoree was Russ Heath. Popular choice. Russ began drawing comics in 1947 and is still at it, still proving he's one of the true craftsmen of the field. Most folks probably hear his name and think of his long stint drawing war comics for DC, especially Sgt. Rock and the Haunted Tank feature in G.I. Combat, but he's worked for everyone on anything, including much art for National Lampoon and on the Little Annie Fanny strip in Playboy.

All of this was recounted by a bevy of speakers, that bevy consisting of Paul Power, Michael Gross, William Stout, Scott Shaw! and myself. The topics ranged from analysis of his work to sheer awe at the neat stunt he managed to pull off while working on Little Annie Fanny. One time when deadlines were nearing meltdown, Harvey Kurtzman called Heath in to assist in a marathon work session at the Playboy Mansion in Chicago. Russ flew in and was given a room there, and spent many days aiding Kurtzman and artist Will Elder in getting one installment done of the strip. When it was completed, Kurtzman and Elder left…but Heath just stayed. And stayed. And stayed some more.

He had a free room as well as free meals whenever he wanted them from Hef's 24-hour kitchen. He also had access to whatever young ladies were lounging about…so he thought, "Why leave?" He decided to live there until someone told him to get out…and for months, no one did. Everyone just kind of assumed he belonged there. It took quite a while before someone realized he didn't and threw him and his drawing table out.

As I related in my speech, when I was 14 years old, I used to take comic books over to my friend Randy Jacobs' house. His parents didn't allow him to spend money on comics but it was okay for him to read mine. And while he read mine, I read from his secret (his parents didn't know about it) stash of Playboy magazines. Well, maybe "read" is the wrong word here. In truth, I mainly looked at the pictures. If you've ever been a 14 year old boy, you know that few things can look as wonderful as Miss October when you're that age.

One day, Randy and I made an incredible discovery. One of the best artists in the DC war comics I brought over was this person named Russ Heath. And on the Little Annie Fanny strips in Playboy, the credits said that one of the artists was Russ Heath. We were shocked because we assumed that if you drew for Comics Code-approved comic books, you were barred from drawing naked women anywhere. I think Randy even suggested, "Maybe it's a different Russ Heath" but I knew. The tanks were drawn with the same meticulous care as the breasts. And later, when I got to know Russ, I realized they were drawn with the same painstaking research. I also found out something else amazing about him.

In one issue of Playboy that Randy had, there was a pictorial on the Playboy Mansion, which was then in Chicago. There was a photo of one of Hef's movie screenings in his private screening room. It was furnished with two-person love seats that faced the screen and in each love seat, there was some male crony of Hef's with his arm around his gorgeous date. Right in the middle of the photo was a handsome guy to be envied, cuddling up with Miss Whatever Month She Was. I had no idea who that man was or what he did but I wanted to be him.

Flash forward to years later and, yes, I know you can see the payoff on this from a block away. Russ and I are both working at Hanna-Barbera and one day, we're out to lunch and he's telling Tales From the Mansion. He happens to tell about one time they dragged him away from his drawing board to take part in a photoshoot in Hef's screening room. I instantly thought of that cool guy in the love seat and when I got home, I hauled out that issue. (Yes, I have a copy. I have every issue of Playboy, in large part because I always try to have every issue of everything. Keeping this set up is easy because years ago when I did a show with Hefner, I told him I had every issue to date and he said, "Well, let's keep your collection going" and he gifted me with a lifetime subscription. Every time I see him bragging about having sex with his six current girl friends, I hope he meant my lifetime and not his.)

Well, anyway, you see where this is going. The guy in the photo? Russ. Before that revelation, I only admired him as a great artist.

It was, as I said, a lovely dinner. CAPS President Pat McGreal presided, Bongo Comics editor Bill Morrison was the M.C., and Sergio Aragonés presented Russ with the CAPS achievement trophy, which is called The Sergio. Looks just like him, too.

The whole event took place at the 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant which adjoins Van Nuys Airport out in the valley. It seemed apropos to honor a guy who's drawn so many war comics at a venue themed like a U.S.O. hall circa World War II. And there was fitting entertainment. A George C. Scott/General Patton lookalike arrived in uniform and delivered a speech that dressed Russ up and down. He also slapped Pat McGreal. And then there were three very talented ladies called The Lindy Sisters. They are young and lovely and they sing and move an awful lot like The Andrews Sisters, warbling well-known songs of the World War II era. The crowd loved them…and I was told, by the way, that they really are sisters named Lindy.

Here's a link to their website and here's a video clip of them performing at some event with Dean Mora's splendid big band. Sunday night, they sounded even better than they do in this video but you'll still enjoy their performance…

As you've no doubt noticed, I run a lot of obits on this site, particularly of veteran comic book creators. This is not something I do happily but because for a long time, if I didn't do it, no one did. Over the years, I've developed a certain set of rules for myself over how solid the sourcing has to be before I'll announce here that someone has shuffled off this mortal coil.

For a couple of months now, I've been told by various folks that Jerry Grandenetti had passed…and given his age (he was born in '27) and reports of ill health, that seemed more than possible. But no one who told me about it seemed to have a source that traced back to his family or some verified news report so I didn't announce it here. I still don't know of one but the news is now being e-mailed all over the comic book community and public obits are starting to appear, presuming it is so.

With all that in mind: Jerry Grandenetti began his career as an assistant to Will Eisner on The Spirit. Fresh out of the Navy, he began calling on comic book companies with an eye towards making some money in that field before moving on to loftier artistic ambitions. The editors at Quality Comics sent him to Eisner where he started by erasing pages and eventually worked his way up to drawing on them. During much of this time, he studied at Pratt Institute and that training, plus the influence of Eisner, shaped him into an artist with a unique, organic style. Writers he'd later work with like Robert Kanigher and Archie Goodwin raved about his ability to stage scenes and tell stories with angles and shots that no other artist would have imagined.

Grandenetti worked for almost every company that was around in his days but is probably best remembered for his work for DC. He did a long stint for Kanigher who edited the DC war comics and was a particular favorite of that editor. (Kanigher was notorious for disliking the work of most comic artists, including some who worked for him for years and years. But he liked Grandenetti.) In the sixties and seventies, Grandenetti did some striking horror work for Creepy and Eerie, some of it under his own byline; other jobs, ghosting for Joe Orlando. He ghosted for Orlando on sixties' DC comics like Scooter and The Inferior Five, then worked on his own for House of Mystery and other "weird" comics of the sixties and seventies. When Joe Simon returned to DC to edit comics like Prez and Championship Sports, Grandenetti drew almost all of them. And when he wasn't doing comics, he had a lucrative career going in advertising.

I never met Mr. Grandenetti but I always admired his work…and I find it hard to write about him without using the word "unique" a lot. His work in comics was always striking and fresh and it reminded me of something I once heard said about a certain actor, which was that "He'll take the script and for good or ill, do something with the part that no other actor on this planet would have done with it." I hope reports of his passing are untrue. But (sigh) they probably aren't.

The folks at Hyundai have a new car out called the Hyundai Equus. I'm guessing the car was named in a meeting where someone said, "You know what would really sell a lot of cars? A name that would make people think of speed and flight and a glorious feeling of freedom!"

And then somebody else around the table said, "No, we need a name that suggests sex and passion and heat and how if you drive our car, members of the opposite sex — or even the same sex if you're so inclined — will flock to you."

Whereupon the head of the company signals for the floor and in a slow, deliberate voice says, "You're all wrong. We have to give people the mental image of horses having their eyes gouged out."

This a photo from the early seventies of Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott. This was, I think, the second time they'd ever met in person. All those years in the sixties when Jack was drawing Fantastic Four and Joe was doing such a superb job with the inking, the two men neither met nor even spoke. Their first conversation was a phone call in 1970, after Jack had left Marvel, and I got them on the line together. A few years after, Marie Severin introduced them at a New York convention…and then the next time they were at a New York con, I brought Joe over to say howdy to Jack and I snapped this pic. Joe understandably sometimes tells interviewers that I got them together for the first time at a New York con but that's not exactly how I remember it.

Anyway: If you were in a roomful of comic book folks and you said, "Joe Sinnott was the best inker ever in comics," I don't think a lot of breath would be wasted in debating the point. You'd get even less dissent if you said, "Joe Sinnott is the nicest person who was ever in comics." I might suggest I was more deserving but no one else would. And even I admit that Joe is a great guy.

That great guy is about to have a hip replacement. The old one's done worn out and he gets a new one next Friday. If you know Joe, you love him. If you don't know Joe but you know his work, you love what he does. Either way, you might like to send a get-well card or note to cheer him up and on. That address is…

Joe Sinnott
P.O. Box 406
Saugerties, NY 12477

As I said, the surgery is on Friday. His fine son Mark tells me he's looking at about four days in the hospital and week or two at a rehab center, followed by a long recuperative period at home. So Joe's got plenty of time to read your cards and letters. It would be a small gesture for a big talent.

The afterlife of Harvey Pekar. I hope wherever he is, there are donuts.

Recently, a J.D. Power survey of the 20 largest airports in the U.S. ranked LAX 19th and apparently a major reason was the food. It has never, in all my memory, been good.

Once upon a time, it was mainly these generic, you-never-heard-of-them-anywhere-else cafeterias operated by a company called Host. Host apparently still has the concession out there but a decade or two ago, attempting to upgrade and hold onto the contract, they ditched the no-name cafeterias and brought in the likes of McDonald's and Burger King. That they were a step up should give you some idea how lousy it used to be there.

Admittedly, you're not going to get gourmet cuisine in any airport but I've been in others and it's usually not this bad…though I do recall a stopover once in Cleveland. My mother and I were flying east to attend her mother's funeral and we had a three-hour layover in that city's airport. I went up to a nice lady at our departure gate and asked, "What's the best restaurant in the airport?"

She said, "Across from Gate D-10, there's a Burger King."

I said, "No, we've got a couple hours here. What's the best restaurant in the airport?"

She said, "Across from Gate D-10, there's a Burger King."

I said, "That's the best restaurant in the airport?"

She said, "That's the best restaurant in the city." True exchange. I swear.

Clevelanders: Don't write me like you did en masse last time I told this story somewhere. That was her opinion, not mine. (Also, from checking that airport's website, I see they no longer have a Burger King. I think there's a Pizza Hut there now, which is kinda like the transition from Shemp to Joe Besser.)

Anyway, a war seems to be going on over the future of food at LAX. Other outfits are trying to outbid Host by promising to bring in better eateries that will generate more revenue. Host is, in turn, lining up new food vendors in an attempt to keep their domain.

I have no idea how it's going to shake down except for my hunch that those of us with the time and need for a quick bite before our flight will still have the choice of a place that looks like Wendy's (or is) versus a place that looks like Sbarro's (or is). At a time when few airlines serve in-flight meals on most flights, I wonder how come so few food merchants at airports offer what seems to me like an obvious, needed service: Box lunches.

On my recent flight to Indianapolis, I took along a corned beef sandwich from Canter's Delicatessen, makers of (I think) the best ones in Los Angeles. I packed it and a couple of those unopenable envelopes of mustard and when the flight was about a third of the way there, I hauled out half a sandwich, somehow got the mustard open and applied it liberally…

And then I started to notice people smelling and staring.

The plane wasn't crowded and I had a row to myself. If I'd had folks on either side of me, it would have been worse. As it was, I had to contend with a gentleman seated across the aisle staring at me, moistening his lips and vicariously savoring every bite.

Every time I put the partially-eaten half-sandwich down, I thought he was about to lean over and ask, "You gonna finish that?" Or maybe he'd say, "I hope you brought enough for everyone." The people in the seats ahead of and behind me kept craning their necks to see what it was they were smelling. I guess I was lucky I didn't bring a pickle.

Then a flight attendant came by dispensing snacks. That made it worse because the passengers around me looked at their little bags of microscopic pretzels, then they looked or smelled my Canter's repast…and really felt disadvantaged.

The flight attendant asked me, "Where'd you get that?" I told her I found it in the seat-back ahead of me, wedged right between the SkyMall catalog and the ominous white bag. When that failed to elicit even a chuckle, I told her, "Canter's Delicatessen."

She said, "That's kind of thin." I told her, "Well, since I'm not, it's really a reduced Canter's corned beef sandwich. I had Gastric Bypass a few years ago so I can't eat an entire Canter's sandwich. I get one and four extra slices of bread. Then I rearrange and I wind up with three corned beef sandwiches, each with a manageable quantity of meat in it. This is half of one of those."

I let her peek at the other, untouched half in a little plastic box in my laptop case and in exchange, she gave me three bags of the tiny pretzels. As she continued down the aisle, she said something about how smart I was. Apparently, I was the first person to ever think of bringing a sandwich onto a Southwest Airlines flight.

After I finished Part One of said sandwich, I listened to a podcast on my iPhone and read some paperwork I'd brought onto the plane. About 90 minutes passed and I happened to notice the guy across the aisle glancing at me. Every minute or so, he'd peek over my way and at one point, our eyes met and he realized he had to explain what he was doing. He said, "I'm waiting for you to eat the other half sandwich so I can enjoy the experience from here."

No, I didn't give it to him. But I let him watch.

Our pal Jim Brochu, who's still starring as Zero Mostel in a smash off-Broadway show, is in good company this morning as the New York Times asks performers about memorable encounters. Jim could probably fill an entire issue of the Times with his.

Barack Obama's speech this evening doesn't seem to have pleased anyone. Pro-Obama folks thought it was wishy-washy and unfocused. Anti-Obama folks don't like anything he does. Fred Kaplan sums up some of the things wrong with it.

But at least the Iraq War is over…sort of. Was anyone happy with that whole thing? Can anyone explain what we accomplished that was worth all those lives and resources? I mean, apart from stopping Saddam Hussein from using those Weapons of Mass Destruction? Some reporter with Nexis access oughta dig up all those jokes and comments that once dotted the press and Internet about how weapons inspectors like Hans Blix had to be deaf, dumb, blind and bribed not to have found solid evidence of them because even the stupidest person in the world knew that Saddam had 'em. Did you see anyone ever apologize to Mr. Blix and his fellow inspectors? I didn't.

Earlier today on CNN, I saw two people (no one famous) saying that it was too soon to withdraw troops. One was some guy at a truck stop, whose rhetoric was not unlike John McCain's. Someone once summarized McCain's Iraq strategy as: "We stay until there's absolutely no reason for us to stay…and then we continue to stay." I thought that was an unfair exaggeration until I heard a McCain speech that said pretty much that.

The other person was a very sad lady whose son died in Iraq. Her argument was that if we leave now, her son and all the other fallen soldiers will have died in vain. So we owe it to them to stay (i.e., get more soldiers killed) until we accomplish something — anything! — that justifies her loss. That's a sad argument for any war. If some demented leader sent our troops to fight a war that everyone thought was pointless and unwinnable, you could still use that argument as a reason to keep it going. And someone would.

This site offers us The Top 10 Clips of Jon Stewart Destroying Fox News.

Anybody here watch the Chabad Telethon last night? I apologize for not reminding you it was on…but frankly, strictly as entertainment, it stopped being exciting, and therefore something to which I looked forward, back when Jan Murray gave it up. I guess downsizing has hit everywhere because this year, instead of doing a six-hour telethon to raise the usual six million dollars, they did a three-hour telethon to raise the usual six million dollars. And I'm not forgetting, by the way, that the six million is the point of it all. Chabad does very good work and they need and deserve that money. The telethon succeeded in its main goal…and it probably succeeded in its secondary goal, as well. That's to tell everyone who tunes in about Chabad and what it is and does.

A distant third is to entertain but that's what I'm going to write about here. Jan Murray was a great host and I'm afraid they haven't had one of those since. Fyvish Finkel came close while the hands-down worst was Dennis Prager, who never seemed to figure out that he was presiding over a TV program. This year, the "host" was Larry King and I put that in quotes because as a general rule of thumb, you have to show up at a telethon in order to be its host. Mr. King was not present, having pre-taped a number of segments that were interspersed throughout the proceedings, grinding them to a turgid halt.

So the host wasn't there. Most of the entertainers weren't there, being represented primarily by clips from previous telethons. I'm not even sure the studio audience was there. A lot of the laughter and applause sounded pretty canned to me. Happily, Rabbi Cunin and other, dancing members of his profession were there…and the donations apparently were there. I guess it's an enormous achievement that they still made it to their target tote with half the time and probably less than half the production budget.

Maybe I'm making too much of this but it's always sad to see another remnant of live television disappear. The telethon was broadcast live but so much of it was pre-taped that it was like they're trying to wean themselves off the live part. I suppose it's inevitable…and frankly, it hasn't mattered much since Jan Murray went away. Next year, they might as well just pre-tape the whole thing, including the part at the end where they announce they're raised the usual six million dollars.

Just saw this online…

STORY REMOVED: US–Jeremiah Wright-Ark
By Associated Press

The Associated Press has withdrawn its story about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright referred to people who wrongly believe Obama is Muslim as "sycophants," not psychopaths.

A corrected story will be sent shortly.

Sycophants…psychopaths…what's the difference?

Here are some good, short video interviews with Laraine Newman, one of the smartest and best performers I know.

As loads of folks have informed me, one can purchase the complete Sky King on DVD if one wishes to spend $258 for it. I liked the show but I don't think I liked it anywhere near that much. If you did, or if you just want to know more about it, there's info on the series and info on ordering over at the Sky King website.

Have you been watching Pawn Stars? I admit: I got kinda hooked on it and I have my TiVo grab all new episodes off the History Channel. I find it rather entertaining, mostly due to the personal charisma of the folks who run that hock shop in Las Vegas, and to the curiosity factor in the items they buy and sell. But when I see it referred to as a "reality show," I instantly respond with: "I don't think so."

I haven't spent much time in pawn shops. Long ago, when I was a kid getting interested in photography, I found them to be great places to buy cheap camera equipment so I hit up a couple. Then one time when I was in Vegas in the mid-eighties, I went into one downtown, just off Fremont Street. I was walking past and I noticed a framed Milton Caniff original in the window. It was a nice illustration of Steve Canyon done for I-don't-know-what-purpose and I couldn't read the sticker with the price on it. Intrigued, I went in and wound up having a nice conversation about comics with the proprietor. I didn't buy the piece — he wanted way too much for it — but I learned what having a pawn shop in Vegas is all about. It's all about people who split tens at the Blackjack table or are sure they have a foolproof system for Roulette.

I also noticed the owner had one framed celebrity photo on the wall behind the cash register. It was a photo signed personally to him by Redd Foxx.

No one is ever desperate for cash on Pawn Stars except, every so often, a guy who needs to make $X to marry the lady of his dreams. Maybe that's because folks who are in financial trouble won't go on camera or maybe it's because the show wants to offer up a benevolent, scrubbed image of the business. As it is, it's kind of like Antiques Road Show with an occasionally-dysfunctional family. The show's star Rick, who runs the pawn shop, is either the nicest, most honest pawn shop owner in America or he's been carefully sanitized for our (his?) protection. Here's a scene that happens over and over again…

Fella walks in with an item. Rick says, "Well, what have we here?" The seller says, "This is my pearl-handled, transistorized veeblefetzer from the Ming Dynasty." Rick asks some stock questions about where'd you get it, why do you want to part with it? Then he asks, "Do you know anything about veeblefetzers?" and the seller either knows very little or nothing. Whatever he knows, Rick knows more and delivers a quick history lesson that sure sounds like he's reading it off a TelePrompter hooked up to Wikipedia. Then he asks, "So what do you want to do with it? Sell it or pawn it?" 95% of the time, the seller wants to sell.

Now, one of two things happens. Either they proceed straight to the haggling or Rick says, "Well, I don't know enough about veeblefetzers to make an offer but I got a buddy who knows everything about them. If it's okay with you, I'd like to get him down here to take a look at it." The seller says sure…and then later in the same episode, we have the following scene. Some buddy of Rick's, who's an expert and who apparently has nothing better to do than drive over and tell Rick what it is he may buy, comes in, sees the veeblefetzer on the counter and says, "Is that it?" Assured it is, the expert immediately tells Rick and the seller exactly what it is, when and where it was made, the name of the person who first used it for veeblefetzing and what it's worth —

— and unless that worth is "almost nothing" or less, the seller believes him. He doesn't pause to wonder if maybe because this "expert" is Rick's buddy, he's lowballing in order to lower what Rick will have to pay for the veeblefetzer. "Hey, thanks for stopping by," Rick says. And then the expert leaves and it's on to the haggling…

Rick asks, "How much did you want to get out it?" and the seller names a price that's about 90% of what the expert cited. Rick says, "Hey, I have to be able to resell this thing and make a profit." He offers 25%. They meet somewhere closer to 40% unless the item is among the one in three that Rick says is "One of the coolest things I've ever had in the shop," in which case it's more like 65%. Then they shake hands and the $100 bills are dispensed.

That's one scene that they do almost every week. Another is where Rick buys some old item that needs serious repair and then takes it over to a buddy (Rick has lots of buddies) to refurbish. Rick's a great businessman in the store but he keeps taking pieces of junk out for restoration without putting a limit on how much he'll pay for the work. In the last scene of the episode, he goes over to see the finished product. It always looks incredible and the price for fixing it up is always low enough that Rick will be able to get his money out and then some. The other way some episodes end is that Rick or his son bought some really odd gun and they go to see if it can be fired.

That the show is this repetitive and artificial but I still enjoy it says something, hopefully not about me. It taps into our natural interest as to whether that junk we've had out in the garage forever is worth anything. Rick seems like a smart, honest guy and we'd like to believe that's how people are in this world, even those who operate pawn shops. And everything moves at a fast clip and gets tied-up, neat as a bow. If you haven't sampled Pawn Stars, give one a peek. You might enjoy it. And if you have watched it and didn't like it, don't bother tuning in again. If you've seen one…