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I woke up this morn to a mess o' e-mails asking me for my take on the news that Disney is buying Marvel for four billion bucks…and some are also asking me to speculate on how Jack Kirby would have felt about this.

Jack, I think it's safe to say, would have been unsurprised at the pricetag. One of the many ways in which he was a visionary is that in the sixties when Marvel was catching on, he was utterly alone in his belief that the stuff he and the others were creating for chump change had that kind of lasting value. Many of his monetary frustrations flowed from the fact that he was trying to negotiate with people who thought the material was a passing fad…so they personally had to grab as much money as possible before the whole thing went the way of the old Doc Savage pulps…and that when he spoke of the future in Disney-sized terms, that was just Ol' Jack being looney again. Marvel's original owner Martin Goodman sold out pretty darned cheap in 1968 to the firm's first corporate overlords. He never imagined his company would be worth twenty million smackers, let alone four billion…but Kirby did.

So Jack would have nodded at the amount and recalled unfulfilled promises of financial participation…and he would not have been a happy man. Then again, I think if Jack had been with us these last fifteen years, Marvel would have long since cut him in with what would to them have been a microscopic reward — and to him, all the money in the world.

As for what I think: I think I don't know. I don't even know what this means for me. I own four shares of Disney stock and two of Marvel stock. I may clear like eight, nine dollars on all this.

I doubt Disney has a lot of firm plans for the X-Men and the rest of the Marvel properties at this time. Most of the biggies are encumbered with existing deals. Sony has the movie rights to this one, Fox has the film rights to that one, etc. Everything the Disney folks might want to do for a while will be subject to current contracts, though they'll find some ways to begin intermingling the characters in the public mind…photo-ops with a guy in a Spider-Man suit posing with a guy in a Mickey Mouse suit. Stuff like that. Down the line, I suspect the word "Marvel" will become about as unimportant to the Fantastic Four as "Hanna-Barbera" is now to Scooby Doo.

And though we won't see evidence of this for a while, the publishing of comic books (those things on paper with staples in them) at that company is a few notches less important than it was last week. And it wasn't all that important last week.

From those who attend the annual Comic-Con International in San Diego and think it's too crowded, one often hears the wish the facilities could be expanded. I'm not sure why. I mean, it's not like the place is so small now that there's nothing to do there during the con. I can understand hoping that more hotels and parking spaces would be built…but a bigger convention center will just mean a bigger convention…and there's already more to see and do than any of us can handle.

That might be good news for those who are habitually late in reserving their badges or exhibit space — they'll have a better chance of getting in — but I'm not sure what it means to the rest of us.

Wait. I take that back. It will probably mean some higher fees. As this article explains, the folks who decide such matters are about to address a proposal for a $753 million expansion of the center which would add 1.27 million square feet, approximately a 50% expansion. There would be 385,000 square feet of new exhibit and meeting space, which would more than double the present size of 204,114 square feet. That all sounds great but someone's going to have to pay for it and as the article says, they're looking at options like increasing the hotel taxes, taxes on cab rides and taxes on food at nearby restaurants.

Even that might all be good news if the expansion improves the hotel, parking and transportation problems associated with convention attendance. I want to wait and see if that's the plan before I cheer on the proposals for making it all get bigger. If the ratio of attendees to available rooms and places to park one's car doesn't get more favorable, this is probably not a good thing.

Nevertheless, no matter what happens, the con will still be better off in San Diego than it would fare in any other city, especially Las Vegas.

Aaron Barnhart (hi, Aaron!) assesses the lay of the land as we approach the debut of The Jay Leno Show in prime time.

And Tom Shales discusses what's up with Conan O'Brien. I rarely agree with Shales and think he's wrong to say, with regards to the ratings, that "…he's in much better shape than Leno was at the beginning." Leno never finished third and even at his lowest had a lot more viewers. But I half-concur that the show feels too prepared and scripted, and that O'Brien interrupts his guests too much.

The problem — and I say this as a fan of the guy — is that Conan is trying too hard to be the comedy star of his show. He seems to not understand that principle that Shales cites; that the host gets credit for the funny things his guests say or do. When I watch the show, I keep being reminded of a variety special I worked on years ago. We surrounded the host with very funny guest stars and had him function like Jack Benny or Mary Tyler Moore — the central figure/anchor playing off all the eccentric, colorful people. The day before rehearsals started, he came to us and said, "Hey, I'm the star of the show. I should have all the punchlines."

I really liked Conan on Late Night but not so much in his last year or so. He seemed to think viewers were tuning in to hear him do catch-phrases and funny voices, and that guests were there to give him the chance to get laughs; not the other way around. He also seems curiously detached from his own monologue material. Leno came out and told jokes and made them sound like his own observations. O'Brien doesn't seem particularly interested in any of what he says. He acts like since he's the host of The Tonight Show, it's part of his job to come out and read those cue cards. (At least, he seems to have gotten over his habit of the first few weeks of constantly reminding us that he's the host of The Tonight Show.)

There are other problems. Everyone says his new studio is beautiful and it is…but it feels like a cold, vast place. Andy Richter seems to be a mile from him and the audience is off in the next zip code. It all adds up to Conan just not being as much fun to watch as he used to be. I agree that he had to change his act a little to move up to the earlier hour. I just don't like what he changed it to as much.

Once again, I have accurately predicted the future.

Where I am, it's still 93° — Fahrenheit, fortunately, though it could pass for Celsius. But it feels hotter because if you look to the north, you see huge, off-white clouds of smoke from fires in Glendale, La Crescenta, La Cañada Flintridge and Altadena. The fires are nowhere near me but it's still scary. People live up there. People are being evacuated from their homes. Many of them are now sitting in rescue centers wondering if they'll have homes to return to.

Crews are up there fighting the flames…and you can only hope that California's budget problems haven't reduced the effectiveness of that effort. Even if you're not threatened — even if no one you know is threatened — you want to think that everything that can be done is being done. I sure hope so.

I'm sorry to report that cartoonist Marty Murphy passed away on Wednesday evening. I'm also sorry to report that I don't have a lot of biographical info to pass along here. Marty was a highly-regarded and well-liked creator of funny pictures but there doesn't seem to be a lot of history available on him.

He worked extensively in animation…for a long time, at UPA on shorts and on Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, for which he was one of the main storyboard artists. He later contributed to a number of Hanna-Barbera shows including Hong Kong Phooey, Mumbly and especially Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home, which was particularly designed in the Murphy style.

The last few decades, he was one of the privileged few gag cartoonists in the world to be published in Playboy. He was in almost every issue, often with the funniest gag. I told him once he had the best one and he replied, "I have to be funnier than anyone else to stay in Playboy. I can't draw sexy women."

A nice man, a funny man. There's a memorial service in Hollywood Monday evening and I'll bet the place is full of funny and talented cartoonists. Because that kind of person really loved Marty.

Elections in the Writers Guild are usually contentious and there are times when you wonder why anyone good braves the personal invective and decides to run at all. Our current one isn't quite as bad as some but it's heading in that direction. This article in the L.A. Times will give you a good overview of the current squabbling, which has less to do with the next negotiation than it does to do with the last one.

For whatever it's worth, I'm voting for Elias Davis and (mostly) candidates on his slate, including a few Board members who are also endorsed by his opposition, John Wells. If our silly term limits rule didn't prevent him from running for a third term, and if he wanted a third term, I'd be voting for two-term prez Patric Verrone. I have never really understood the value of any term limitations for any meaningful elected office anywhere. It's like we're saying, "Just in case an elected official does such a good job that we really want to keep him in office, we have to make sure that at some point, we can't have him."

Hey, when you have a moment, go over to the website of my buddy Leonard Maltin and read the story of how a "lost" Frank Capra movie was saved and restored. For those of us who've been saddened over the years by the deterioration and loss of old movies, it's exciting what's now being done via digital technology. And not only are movies being restored but they're also being preserved forever.

And while you're on Leonard's page, keep reading. Lots of good stuff there, including his piece on the Oliver Hardy Festival as well as that TV Stamps unveiling that we both attended.

The folks who run the Mid-Ohio-Con have assembled a nice birthday remembrance of Jack Kirby.

I'll be a guest at their fine convention October 3-4 in Columbus, Ohio. My pal Gregg Berger, one of the best cartoon voice actors out there, is also on the guest list so I imagine we'll be doing some sort of panel about acting for animation. The whole guest list is pretty impressive even if I am on it. This is always one of the best conventions…large enough to have something for everyone, small enough to not overwhelm you. Those of you who complain about monster-sized conventions would do well to attend Mid-Ohio-Con.

Our pal Jim Brochu gets a nice piece in the Washington Post all about that show of his that I keep telling you to go see if it's anywhere near you.

Hey, did you order a copy of June Foray's autobiography yet at www.juneforay.com? If you didn't, don't delay. June signed a huge pile of them Wednesday and they went in the mail that afternoon and are now en route.

If you have ordered, please read the following…

The folks offering the book have discovered a PayPal glitch. One of our friends thought he'd ordered the book but he really hadn't. He received an e-mailed receipt from PayPal that said the order was placed on Dec. 31, 1969. It had no transaction number on it. His account was not debited. And the folks fulfilling the orders on www.juneforay.com did not receive anything — no money, no notice of the order.

If you ordered a book, check your receipt or better still, check if PayPal actually deducted the fee from your account or charged your credit card. If no money was deducted from your account, your order was never transmitted.

If you can't tell that way or you just want to make sure, drop an e-mail to juneforaybook@gmail.com and say, "I think I ordered a book." If there's no record of you having ordered a book, someone will let you know that so you can order again.

Sorry about this but it seems to be PayPal's fault. An awful lot of orders have been received and filled…but at least one seems to have evaporated.

Since it's part of the season at the Ahmanson Theater downtown and I'm a subscriber, Carolyn and I went last evening to see Spamalot. It was my third time, her second….and we took along our friends Earl and Denise, who'd never seen it before. We all enjoyed it very much. Not that this means a lot but I enjoyed it a bit less than the production I saw with the National Touring Company in Columbus, Ohio and a lot more than the one I saw in Las Vegas. Carolyn liked this one better than Columbus.

The difference for me was partly in the audience and partly in the cast. The audience in Columbus seemed more like it was full of die-hard Python fans who knew little or nothing about the show in advance and therefore had many delightfully-unexpected moments. The audience at the Ahmanson seemed a tad less Python-savvy and I got the feeling that a lot of them had either experienced the show before or had seen and heard enough about it that they knew what was coming. That's always a problem with a show that depends a lot on surprise and has been around for a while.

Some members of all three casts were good but I thought overall, the folks in the National Touring Company were a bit stronger. John O'Hurley is playing Arthur here and he's quite good…and even slips in a reference to J. Peterman. The fellow playing Patsy, Jeff Dumas, is also extremely talented.

The show's here through September 6 and if you're local and haven't seen it, try to go. I don't know how much longer it will be possible to see a full-scale production with all the sets and costumes. Any month now, we'll start getting the local and community college stagings that will of necessity be produced on a thousandth the budget. I suspect some of them will be very funny and very creative because the material will lend itself to ingenious interpretations. But you oughta see it once in all its fully-mounted glory.

There's a lot of talk about changing the law in Massachusetts to allow a temporary Senator to be appointed quickly to sit in Ted Kennedy's seat. Not all that long ago, the law was changed to prevent then-governor Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican to take the other Massachusetts seat if John Kerry was elevated to the White House. Now some of the same folks want to change it again so there'll be a Democrat there to vote the way Kennedy would have voted the next few months, especially on Health Care Reform.

(And by the way: Don'tcha just love how some on both sides are already twisting themselves into Rold Gold Pretzels trying to use Kennedy's passing in the Health Care argument? Democrats are saying, "This was what Teddy called 'The cause of my life.' Let's pass it in his honor!" Okay, a little shameless but I don't think Kennedy would have had a problem with it. The hard part is guys like Hatch and McCain who with one breath will speak of their dear, dear friend and then in the next sentence, spin how it's in his honor that they're going to oppose what he championed. The current talking point seems to be to claim that if he'd been more active lately, Ted would have shaped Health Care Reform into something that would have had bipartisan support…)

Anyway, I don't know what to think of changing the law in Massachusetts. The arguments for and against all seem to me to have merit…so I wonder if maybe the larger answer is that we need to get rid of this recurring dilemma. Every time there's a Senate vacancy, there's a big to-do about how it should be filled and must an appointed successor be of the same party and should it be a caretaker or someone who's qualified for the long run and what if the governor appoints himself?

Why don't we just have Vice-Senators or something of the sort? How about if when someone runs for Senator, he or she designates — as part of the ticket so voters are voting with this knowledge — someone who'd be next in line for the seat if there's a need? It doesn't have to be someone who also gets a job in the government, though the elected Senator would be free to hire him or her on staff. We just have someone on Student Standby…someone the voters choose at the same time to jump in if there's a void. If the Vice-Senator dies or chooses to no longer be in the "on deck" circle, there'd be a process to pick the new person…and that could be done in a more leisurely, less contentious environment. At the same time, we'd say that if you're a Senator, you can't quit or run for higher office unless your successor is in place.

I know, I know. They'll never do it because it makes too much sense…and maybe because they won't want to rule out the possibility of exploiting a vacancy for political gain. But it would make so much sense. The easiest way to deal with most problems is to figure out how to not have them in the first place.

Hey, remember how I mentioned that Fred Kaplan would be a guest Thursday evening on Tavis Smiley? Well, the show was taped, Fred reports, but it won't air on Thursday. It's preempted by programming relating to Ted Kennedy. The Kaplan interview will be rescheduled and I'll try and let you know when.

Tim Hogdson writes…

Getting older is a bitch, isn't it? Particularly when you not only start forgetting things but also begin to remember things that never happened. In your otherwise even-handed little appreciation/reminiscence about Ted Kennedy, you say: "…in 1979 [Kennedy] was thinking of challenging incumbent Jimmy Carter for the presidency…I also recall a certain relief a few months later when he decided not to run. I just didn't want to invest that much time and emotion in a guy who seemed so likely to disappoint us on some level. Since then, of course, they all have."

Kennedy did in fact launch an insurgent Presidential campaign against Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter on on November 7, 1979. The campaign self-sabotaged almost from the outset (do you remember the infamous CBS interview with Roger Mudd when Kennedy couldn't answer a straightforward question about why he was running for the Presidency?). In the event Carter won 24 of the Democratic primaries in 1980, Kennedy just 10. But Kennedy didn't end his campaign until the 1980 Democratic Convention in New York. Despite the overwhelming odds against an upset victory, his team firmly believed they could force through an amendment to the party's nominating rules and free delegates from being bound by primary results. They couldn't. The Kennedy move was defeated on the first night of the convention and the Senator withdrew from the race. He went on to deliver perhaps the most electrifying speech of his career on the second night of the Democratic gathering before folding his tent and stealing away back to Washington (or maybe Hyannis), offering only the most tepid endorsement of Carter before he left (and making a complete mockery of the notion of party unity in the process).

Anyway, I won't go on. Probably 29,000 other people have pointed out this little memory glitch.

Well, not quite 29,000. So far, it's yours and one other. But yeah, I shorthanded in writing that piece last night and I shouldn't have. What I actually recall is that about two months after that dinner meeting, the person who was organizing the Comedy Writer Squadron for Kennedy called and said that the plans were off; that Kennedy was not going to mount a serious challenge against Carter…just a "favorite son" candidacy to give himself some leverage at the convention.

I dunno if that was ever Kennedy's intent. It certainly was not what he went on to do. He did mount that serious challenge that she'd told me he was abandoning but he did so without the gang of joke writers that had been assembled. I was never asked again and neither were the others I knew at that dinner. I also recall a great disappointment in Kennedy (and my own relief that I hadn't invested a lot of emotion in him) when he gave that grudging, minimal endorsement of Carter.

That's kind of what I was trying to get at. Too often, we channel our passions towards some leader who looks like he's different, like he won't let us down. And then of course, they all do to some extent. We may not admit it. I have Republican friends who are in spectacular denial about what Bush-Cheney did because, I guess, it's too painful. I also have friends (Democrats, mostly) who strike me as too hasty to give up and admit defeat or betrayal. Ted Kennedy took his supporters on a roller coaster ride, up and down, up and down. I suppose that's better than one who only goes down but still…