The late Robert Goulet had a long, successful career in show business. In the last decade or so, he became the subject of a number of jokes that I suspect flowed from the fact that he did some movies and shows he probably should not have done. Nevertheless, I thought he was a tremendous talent. If a magic genie granted me the power to have any singing voice in the world, it would be a toss-up between Mel Tormé and this guy. And I think he, the band and the back-up singers were all live for this number…and given that it was The Dean Martin Show, probably expected to get it in one take…
Comic-Con's A-Coming!
Hard to believe but it's 54 days until the 2012 Comic-Con International commences. Actually, it's 53 days until Preview Night when the hall is filled with attendees. I don't know why we talk of the con opening on Thursday when it's about as open as it gets on Wednesday evening.
I am in no way an officer or official or representative of the con. I'm just a guest and a guy who does a lot of panels. But I get a lot of questions and I'll try to answer some here…
If the con is sold out, how do I get tickets? It is sold out, true. If you keep your eye on the con website, you may see some more become available. Tickets are non-transferrable so if someone who has some decides they can't use them, they'll usually get a refund from the con itself which will then put them up for sale. You might also talk to exhibitors. Someone who purchases a booth gets a certain number of passes for those it will have staffing their exhibits. They may have more passes than they need.
What if I buy those super-expensive tickets on eBay? You'll probably regret it. Some of them are counterfeit and even the real ones are, like I said, non-transferrable. The con has turned people away who arrived with what they thought were legit tickets.
I have a pass. How do I get a hotel room? Keep looking. As with tickets, more may become available through the convention website. Another thing to do is to spend a bit of time on Google. If I needed a place to stay, I think I'd try that. The convention center is serviced by a very efficient trolley system and the Pacific Surfliner train on the Amtrak line can get you within walking distance (or a cheap taxi ride). I would look at those maps and see what's available along those routes.
Hey, have you heard anything about whether WonderCon is moving back to San Francisco next year and when it is? I've heard it's likely but not certain. For some reason, the Moscone Center in San Francisco won't commit to dates as far in advance as most other convention centers. The convention does want to return to that city by the bay.
Getting back to San Diego, what should I be doing now to prep for that convention? Firm up your travel plans, especially if you're flying. (Note that I've retired my usual joke about how if you need a parking space, leave now. But it's still applicable.)
Do you need any more nominations for the Bill Finger Award? Not for this year, thanks. The committee has made its selections and I'm very pleased with our picks. The names will be announced in the next week or so on the convention site and on this one.
How many panels will you be moderating at this year's Comic-Con? I'm currently at 13 and I expect to add a few more. They will include as usual: Two Cartoon Voice panels, another panel on how to break into that field, Quick Draw!, a panel with Sergio and me, Cover Story, the annual Jack Kirby Tribute and some spotlight interviews of guests. There will probably not be a Golden Age/Silver Age Panel because as I've explained here, there just won't be enough qualified people at the convention to populate such a thing.
If you have more questions about the con — and you probably do — I refer you again to the convention website. It's real good and full of useful info, more of which will appear there in the coming weeks. I highly recommend giving it a good once-over just before you attend. It's especially helpful to study the Programming Guide before you get there and I'll let you know when it's posted…probably 2-3 weeks before the con. Which (gasp!) isn't that far off.
My Tweets from Yesterday
- Today's potatoes are from Clawson Farms in Shelley, ID. Or so five men would like me to believe. 21:52:53
Great Photos of Stan Laurel and/or Oliver Hardy
Number two hundred and thirty-six in a series…
Birth Marks
This is another one of those "I don't get this" matters. The Secretary of State in Arizona, a man named Ken Bennett, is now saying he might not allow the name of Barack Obama on the ballot in the upcoming presidential election; not unless he has some solid proof that Obama was indeed born where he says he was born. I don't get why he's making a public issue of this.
Bennett says he's not a "birther." Well, of course not. He can't afford to be because he's going to have to accept proof.
We all know who the birthers are. They're people who desperately want to believe that Barack Obama was never really President of the United States. They're not like those of us who didn't like George W. Bush. We liked the idea of Bush not getting a second term but we only briefly indulged our fantasy that proof would come out that Gore had gotten more votes in Florida. Once it was apparent that no such proof would be forthcoming — not that Bush had won fairly but that it couldn't be proven he had — we dropped the matter. Birthers are still demanding recounts of the recounts of the recounts.
Birthers never give up. No matter what proof comes out that indicates Obama was born where he says he was born, they just say "It's an obvious forgery" and it emboldens them to demand something else they can claim is fake. They demand Obama play their game while at the same time fixing the rules so he can never prove what they demand he prove.
Mr. Bennett doesn't have that luxury. At some point, his opposite number in Hawaii is going to send him the kind of affirmation that Secretaries of State always accept from each other. He'll be told Hawaii stands behind Obama's birth certificate and what's Bennett going to do then? Challenge the right of Hawaii to verify its own documents? Argue that the Secretary of State there really isn't the Secretary of State there?
So what I don't get is why he went public with his "Obama might not be on the ballot" thing. He may earn some points from the Birthers in his state today but before long, he's going to disappoint them and be condemned as a sell-out who's joined the conspiracy to keep a Kommie Kenyan in the White House. Not one of them is going to say, "Well, I guess if Ken Bennett accepts Hawaii's word for it, we ought to."
Maybe we oughta start a movement claiming that Ken Bennett isn't eligible to be Secretary of State. And whatever proof he provides of birthplace or residency, we'll just say it was obviously created last Tuesday in Photoshop…probably by the same group that's trying to convince us that Jan Brewer is governor there.
Ernie Chan, R.I.P.
I am back, alas, with an obit. Ernie Chan, one of the most prolific comic artists in American comics of the seventies, has died at the age of 71. His death (from cancer) comes right after the passing of his Filipino colleague Tony DeZuniga just last week.
As mentioned then here: In the early seventies, DeZuniga opened the door for the many comic artists in the Philippines to work for the publishers in this country, starting with DC Comics. Due to the different economy, DC found themselves able to get professionally-drawn comic book pages for a fraction of what they paid American artists. The work also was often quite excellent and work by Filipino illustrators filled DC's ghost, war and western comics. To the great frustration of management, those artists rarely seemed to be able to produce what the company wanted for its mainstay, the super-hero titles. Time and again, DC tried those artists out on Superman, Batman or other such features and the result was usually unsatisfactory. Ernie Chan, whose name then was Ernie Chua, was a rare exception.
Ernie "got" the style that was wanted. In fact, he did it so well that when he relocated to the United States — for personal reasons and to earn American rates — he wound up doing hundreds of covers for DC and drawing the Batman feature for several years. Readers also knew him for his long association with Conan the Barbarian at Marvel, finishing the pencil work of John Buscema and sometimes drawing stories on his own. He was fast and dependable and very much in demand.
I believe I met Ernie at the San Diego Comic Con (now the Comic-Con International) in 1976. He and Alfredo Alcala were doing wonderful color sketches for fans at bargain rates to raise money to help an ailing artist-friend back in the Philippines. I commissioned one from each and as Ernie worked on his, he told me proudly how he'd just achieved U.S. citizenship and had taken the opportunity to change his surname from Chua to Chan, restoring the original family name that had been changed against their will — I don't recall just why.
I asked him if he was going to start signing his comic book work as Ernie Chan. He said he was trying to decide that. People knew him as Chua and there was the thought that one should keep one's "brand" intact. As he was very close to finishing my piece, I asked him to sign it "Ernie Chan" and he did…and before the con was out, he decided to sign all his drawings that way. So I think I have very first drawing by Ernie Chan. I'm sorry to hear that now someone someplace has the last.
Soup's On!
It's been a while since I had to do this so I'd better explain: There's a widespread Internet Custom that no one but me practices. When you're swamped with Things To Do…when you're busier than John Travolta's legal staff and you won't be blogging at our usual pace, you put up a picture of can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. This is a clear and well-understood way to tell the world, "I'm busy! I won't be posting when you might expect me to be posting!" I will be back in a day or three when things calm down…or when I have to post a sudden obit, whichever occurs first. Aloha!
Today's Video Link
PBS debuted that documentary about Johnny Carson this week. In case you didn't see it (or can't in your area), I've embedded a window below which, at least for a while, should show you the entire two-hour presentation.
I thought it was generally very good…a bit too fawning in some areas. I think there actually are areas where Carson gets too little credit — his wisdom about how to manage his show, for instance. Or his role model for stand-up comedians of a couple of generations. But there were points in the doc where it got a bit repetitive hearing what he meant to those who advanced their careers on his show. I'm also a bit skeptical about the psychological deductions, especially trying to explain Johnny in terms of his mother. Was this analysis of the Carson psyche a view held by those close to him? Or was it the construction of someone who barely if ever knew or talked with Johnny? It sounded like the latter.
The other thing I'll kvetch about is that documentaries about comedians seem to always cut the clips too tight. It's like they have a piece of video with a straight line set-up and then the funny reply…and they just use the funny reply because, well, we've got a lot to cover and that's the part people laugh at. The video of Johnny's last appearance — the cameo on Letterman's show — would have been so much more meaningful if they'd showed the set-up with Calvert DeForest so you could see what a surprise Johnny's entrance was and that he didn't just walk out onto the stage as a star appearance but as the punch-line to a nicely-constructed joke. In fact, here's the whole clip of that spot with Dave…
They always seem to do this with documentaries about comedians. You get the feeling someone is saying, "This is going on PBS. We can't leave a lot of jokes in!"
But there was a lot in there. I'll probably watch it again this weekend and may write more about it. I may also write something about why I think Ken Tucker misses the whole point of Carson in his Entertainment Weekly review. It isn't that Johnny did this or that better or worse than Steve Allen or other talk show providers. It's that Johnny connected with America in a way that none of the other guys ever did…or probably ever will. Even if we thought they were funnier, they never mattered to us as human beings the way Carson did.
Anyway, here's the special in case you need to watch it here…
Go See It!
Hey, check out this slide show of photos from the earlier days of Las Vegas. I wish I'd been around in those days.
My Tweets from Yesterday
- Yes, I worked with John Travolta. No, he never asked me for a massage. 13:37:40
Great Photos of Stan Laurel and/or Oliver Hardy
Number two hundred and thirty-five in a series…
Recommended Reading
Mitt Romney's plan for Medicare is vague, probably deliberately so. The less you divulge of a plan some people won't like, the less likely you are to lose the votes of those people.
Patrick Caldwell summarizes what we know of it. It pretty much comes down to privatizing the system so that the government-run system loses strength and the funding it would get goes to privately-owned, for-profit insurance plans. And the elderly would have to pay a lot more out of their own pockets to get comparable care and coverage. Okay, so Grandma might not be able to afford all her prescriptions but we do have to help the insurance companies make more money and keep taxes low for the wealthy.
Today's Video Link
James Lipton gives Mitt Romney advice on how to come across as a more "authentic" human being. This is a little like Newt Gingrich counselling couples on how to have a long, faithful marriage but here you are…
Ellen Twain
I didn't think to mention one nice thing about Ellen DeGeneres getting that Mark Twain Award: It reminds us that groups like that so-called "One Million Moms" can stomp their considerably-less-than-two-million feet and denounce someone as a bad person…and fail spectacularly to hurt that person. They demanded J.C. Penney fire her as spokesperson. J.C. Penney said no. J.C. Penney sales went up. One Million Moms crawled away from a confrontation that proved how little power they had. And now Ellen's receiving one of the biggest honors she could possibly receive. I still think they should be honoring folks who have a larger body of work but it never hurts to point out that groups like that are all bark and no bite…unless someone panics at the barking.
My Tweets from Yesterday
- TSA agents did a complete pat-down of Henry Kissinger at the airport. Found six harbor mines, three nukes and Jill St. John. 13:43:45