Here's some of that old footage — in this case of Los Angeles in the late forties or early fifties — which someone has enhanced and colorized and they've also added a phony audio track. I love this stuff. You'll notice that the first area we tour has an awful lot of pawn shops in it and most areas in these videos have cafeterias.

I miss cafeterias. As a person with multiple food allergies, it's so nice to see your meal before you commit to pay for it. These days, you rarely see them and I can't think of one that still exists and is convenient to me. I used to like the Souplantation chain because their outlets were a little like cafeterias.

I also liked buffets for the same reason but since my gastric bypass, they really aren't cost effective. While at Comic-Con, I'll probably be breakfasting at my hotel's breakfast buffet where they charge something like $35 per person…and I'll be able to eat about as much food as I could get at a Denny's for eight bucks.

In the absence of a good cafeteria, the best I can do is a food court or a place like Farmers Market where you can pick and usually see what you want. The trouble, of course, is that at most food courts, everything — regardless of the cuisines being offered — tastes like that tasteless Sbarro's grub that's often your only option in an airport when you're in a hurry. Apart from the cafeterias, I'm don't see much that I miss in these videos of old Los Angeles but they sure are fascinating…

As far as I know, all of my panels at Comic-Con are still on and still as advertised. All fourteen of them…and my knees are starting to ask the question that so many folks ask me: "Why the hell are you on fourteen panels?" An honest answer would include the fact that I like doing them, I like being at Comic-Con and I don't know what else I'd do with myself there if I didn't have all these panels to do there.

I am dealing with a slight walking problem. If I have to summon a wheelchair assist I will but I'm going to try to not do that. Fortunately, most of those panels are close enough to one another that I could crawl from one to the other. Just understand if you see me walking like Tim Conway's old man character.

As I know I've mentioned here before, I was attending a convention back in October of '73 when the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" occurred and I didn't get to watch it unfold on TV in real time. I'm a little concerned that during Comic-Con, I might miss the third Trump Indictment but I figure I'll be around for the fourth or fifth or however many more there are. It's just about the only TV show you can count on being there during the strikes.

I'm not watching a lot of TV these days and every time I do turn it on, I see Chris Christie, who is now somehow on more often than Steve Harvey. I didn't know it was possible to be on TV more than Steve Harvey and the strike won't slow him down because most game shows are still in production. Former Governor and Bridge-Blocker Christie is very entertaining and he knows that attacking others will always get you air time in a 24/7 news channel world — a lesson he learned well from Donald J. Trump.

Christie's appearances are all pretty much the same because everyone asks him pretty much the same questions. I'm waiting for someone to ask him, "You say you won't consider a third-party run because only the Democratic and Republican nominees have any chance of winning. If the Democratic nominee is Joe Biden and the Republican nominee is Donald Trump, who will you support and will you again be claiming that by supporting Trump, you're just trying to make him a better president? That worked so well last time."

More later here maybe after I finish packing.

From 1/2/2008, a once-again-timely Top Ten list from Late Night with David Letterman…

There would have been more on this blog the last few days were I not scurrying to finish assignments and prep for Comic-Con — two time-fillers which will persist for a while. The convention starts Wednesday night and I'll post my ridiculous schedule again here on Wednesday morning. Obviously, I'd like to lure you to events I'm on but my main recommendation to attendees is to study the entire schedule and make a list. List the events you want to go see and list some alternates if you can't get into some of your first choices.

I also recommend taking it easy, not trying to see and do everything and accepting the simple reality that there's no way you can see and do everything. Whoever's The Flash this month might be able to manage it but not you.

This is my 55th one of these and it took me until around #20 to realize and learn to live with this. I had a much better time there once I didn't think I had to be everywhere and see everyone…especially as the convention expanded and there were a lot more everywheres and everyones. I also learned and accepted this for Disneyland the second or maybe third time I went there.

People keep writing and asking if my Cartoon Voices panels are still going to happen as planned. As far as I know, they will. I expect my convention to be pretty much like they always are. Your convention, if it centers around seeing TV and movie stars promoting their upcoming projects, may be a little different. Honestly, I've never had the slightest interest in previews of any kind. If I'm looking forward to a movie, I would prefer to experience it when it comes out with no idea of what I'm going to see.

But that's just me. And that's one of the great things about Comic-Con. You can ignore 90% of it and still have plenty to do. The folks who complain that there isn't enough there about comic books haven't done what I recommend above and read the schedule. I think some of them are really complaining that the mainstream press pays more attention to the movie stars…and they're complaining to the wrong people about that.

And then every year, I seem to hear from someone who's upset that I no longer host panels of the great writers and artists who did comics in the forties or fifties. Apparently, we should not let a little thing like these people dying prevent us from having them appear at the convention. I sometimes feel that if we all sat around in a circle and held hands and I could find the right magic words, we could maybe get Jack Kirby to show up for a few minutes. There certainly is enough of his spirit in that convention center when we're there.

So I gotta go pack. I gotta finish my notes. I gotta think of more silly challenges to put to our dueling cartoonists in Quick Draw! I may even finish a paying assignment that an editor of mine wanted to have today before he leaves for Comic-Con even though he's not likely to do anything with it — not even read it — before he returns home. I could probably rename an old PDF and send it to him and he wouldn't notice until a week from tomorrow. Since I don't think he reads my blog, I just may.

Here's a hunk of The Tonight Show from 5/18/73. It starts after Johnny has spent time with Sid Caesar and now he brings out Art Carney…so right there you have three of the most talented guys ever on television. It ends with them jamming — Johnny on drums, Sid on saxophone, Art on the piano. They don't play especially well but there's something charming about it…

Some of you have suggested and others have politely kept to themselves the notion that I'm outta my ever-lovin' mind to be host or panelist on thirteen (13!) panels at Comic-Con. You're absolutely right and to prove it, I have added #14 to my schedule. I will be the host/interviewer for this…

Sunday, July 23 — 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM in Room 7AB
FRANK MILLER: AMERICAN GENIUS
Comic-Con Special Guest and legend Frank Miller, one of the comics medium's most important creators, returns to San Diego for an all-access and in-depth discussion. Be here for this exclusive panel that will give you insight into one of the genre's most influential people. With his publishing line, Frank Miller Presents, and details on the upcoming Frank Miller: American Genius documentary, there will be much to cover!

I am reminded of one time a billion years ago when I got to spend some time with Sammy Davis, Jr. He had just done an appearance in some special and he said he had to fly from Vegas (where he was appearing) to New York (where the special was being shot) and then back again to Vegas (where he was still appearing). I asked him why he'd done that and he said "Because Frank asked me to and you don't say no to Frank."

He was talking about Sinatra, not Miller, but I kinda understand now.

As I've mentioned, the current strike by the Writers Guild is my fifth since I became a member in 1976. There have also been a number of times when the old contract had expired, a new one was looking impossible and we went through the angst and prep and worries of a strike…but it was averted at the last minute.

In each strike, I have lost something. I did not ask myself "Was what we gained worth what we lost?" because that's impossible to calculate. It's hard to put a dollar figure on work that might have happened if not for the strike and what ancillary benefits you might have derived from it if it did happen. One time, I was up for a very good job on a very good TV series but the job went away because of the strike. I have no idea how much I would have made off that job or what it would have led to.

Another time, I was writing a movie when the strike interrupted things. After the strike, I finished that script and I did get paid but by then, the folks at the studio who'd been enthused enough about the idea to hire me were no longer at that studio. Their replacements, of course, were totally disinterested in advancing a project championed by those who'd been fired so the movie was never made. I have no idea what that might have done, good or bad, for my career.

You also have to factor in what we all might have lost if taking the rotten offers that precipitated those strikes had led, as it almost certainly would have, to much rottener offers in the future. If I had more time, I'd explain how I believe the terrible deal the WGA accepted to quickly end the 1985 strike (two weeks) made inevitable the 1988 strike (twenty-two weeks) over an even worse offer.

In 2015, I had my right knee replaced. People asked me — they still ask me — if it was painful. Yes, at the time it was but I didn't have any other option. Not having it replaced would have been far more painful and would at some point have left me unable to walk at all. That's not a bad analogy to going on strike.

How do you get through a strike? Well, I got through my first four as I'm getting through this one: By not getting all my income from companies that deal in what the Writers Guild covers. The WGA does not represent writers of comic books, animation writing for certain companies, books, articles, etc. I wish it did but it doesn't. And since it doesn't, I have other sources of income.

During the long '88 strike, I was picketing and even working on the strike in various capacities…but I was also writing and voice-directing the Garfield and Friends cartoon show. My agent at the time referred to me as "Our working client" and "The sole support of the agency." Right now, I have a WGA-covered project that is "on hold" but I have other things to write. Some are paying gigs. Others are things I may — emphasis on the word "may" — sell at some time in the future. That's one of the great things about writing: If no one's paying you to do it, you can still do it. You just may not get money for it or may not get it immediately.

I also have a Comic-Con to prep for. It doesn't pay but it keeps me busy.

I do have friends or colleagues in the profession who are hurting…or who may be hurting if the strike lasts long enough. A couple of them are too new to the business to understand what I learned on or around my second WGA strike: That these things are sometimes, like getting your knee replaced, a necessity. Also — and this is important to remember and accept — when you assume the job description of Writer, it's possible to have prolonged periods of no income when there isn't a strike. That's not only possible but probable and it applies to actors too.

We all feel for those who are hurting and I'm optimistic that it will all end with an acceptable deal. I'm just not predicting when that will happen nor am I putting any stock in any of the hundred different predictions that are circulating. A couple of them must be right but we don't know which ones so we just have to tough it out.

This includes putting up with the most maddening part of it: Hearing some guy who gets paid a zillion dollars a week tell us that the business is hurting and there's simply no money to give to us. When I hear this — and we always hear this — I always think, "Your only responsibility is to make as much money as possible for your company. If it's doing that badly, shouldn't you be fired?"

While we're toughing it out, it would help to think about preparing for the next one. If we take a terrible deal this time, the next one will come sooner and be a whole lot worse.

Not only will there be a next one but there may also be non-strike periods for most of us when our incomes flow to a trickle for a time, perhaps for no visible, foreseeable reason. When you're a writer or an actor, that happens too. And by the way: My orthopedist tells me I'm going to need to have my other knee replaced in the next few years.

Two or three months from now, Rudy Giuliani and I will have something in common. Neither one of us will be practicing law.

Hey, do you own a good condition copy of the Marvel Super-Heroes Special #1 from 1966? Wanna loan it to someone for a prestigious event? A friend of mine is assembling an exhibit at Comic-Con next week and needs to borrow a copy. This friend is utterly trustworthy and will treat it with loving care and will also cover things like postage and insurance and whatever else it takes. He needs it by Tuesday morning so if you happen to be in San Diego or will be there by then, that would be ideal.

If you might be willing/able to help him out, drop me a note and I'll put you in touch with him. He can give you more details. I will just vouch for his integrity. And who knows? You may even be able to find someone who'll vouch for mine.

UPDATE: My friend found what he needs. Thanks.

SAG-AFTRA is joining my union, the Writers Guild of America, on the picket lines. As you may recall, I expressed some worry about the current president of SAG-AFTRA, Fran Drescher. I said here on Wednesday, "She has not yet shown her members that she understands the responsibilities that come with the title and I sure hope she masters them in a hurry — like by later this evening." I am pleased to say she did…

It's a shame my partner Sergio Aragonés decided a few months ago to skip Comic-Con this year. He could have been the biggest star in the building.

To those who've asked: No, none of the thirteen panels I'm hosting or appearing on have been canceled. In fact, I just picked up a fourteenth one.

An amazing new entertainment/sports venue will open in Las Vegas this September and its amazing exterior is drawing mucho attention…so much so that many folks in town are worried about something. They're afraid that it will be such a distraction to drivers that it will lead to a serious increase in traffic accidents.

I have no opinion about this but it does look like something that will be hard to ignore. It's called the MSG Sphere, it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.4 billion bucks to build and — well, just look at what they got for their money…

I'm hearing conflicting things about whether soap operas are covered by the strike or not so I took out the sentence about that. Once again, if you need to know if a certain kind of acting job is on strike, CALL THE UNION!

Sometime in the next few hours, it will be announced that SAG-AFTRA is calling a strike, probably immediately. There are a couple of bad reasons why they might say something like "The strike starts in 48 hours" but I don't think anyone expects that to happen. So for the first time since Ronald Reagan was the president of the Screen Actors Guild, both the actors and writers are on strike — and over approximately the same issues.

But not all the actors will be on strike. Animation voiceover is under another contract and that has not expired. Here's what Bob Bergen, one of the workingest voiceover actors in the business posted on Facebook…

• TV/Basic Cable Animation is NOT impacted by a TV/Theatrical strike as TV/Basic Cable Animation is a stand alone separate contract!
• New Media Animation made for TV is NOT impacted by a TV/Theatrical strike!!
• Nickelodeon Animation is NOT impacted by a TV/Theatrical strike as Nick is a stand alone separate contract!!!
• Animated Features ARE impacted by a TV/Theatrical strike and you may NOT work on an animated feature!

Here is a very simple piece of advice to anyone in the union who may be unsure as to the status of their employment: CALL THE UNION!  Do not believe posts on social media or word-of-mouth.  CALL THE UNION! There's a spectacular amount of erroneous information out there and as I mentioned in yesterday's post, you need to not believe what you hear from uninformed or unidentified sources.

Why is there a strike?  I have no idea why they happen in the wrought iron industry but in the show biz unions there is only one scenario and it works like this.  Let's take it step-by-step…

1. A contract between the AMPTP ("The Producers") and a union or guild expires as contracts eventually do.
2. At the AMPTP, they employ a squadron of lawyers and professional negotiators who specialize in this kind of bargaining.  They make an assessment of how little they can give to the labor organization in order to nail down a new contract.  Their job is to arrive at the contract that gives the fewest increases and achieves whatever rollbacks they can get…and that's really all they care about.  They don't care about damaging the industry or harming the quality of the product or alienating the talent or usually even what a prolonged strike will do to the studios.  That's their employers' concern. These negotiator folks are judged solely by the simple numbers in the final deal.
3. So they make this assessment of the union's strength and solidarity and resolve and they work with the Producers to formulate an offer.  The union wants ten dollars.  The negotiator people tell their bosses, "I'll bet I can get them for six.  So we'll offer five and scare the hell out of them to the point where they'll settle for six."
4. And sometimes, they're right.  It works just as they said.  But sometimes they're wrong and the union stands firm at ten or offers to come down no lower than to eight-point-five.  And if both sides refuse to budge, the union has no choice but to go on strike.
5. And for a while, the negotiator folks may say, "Don't worry….after a week or two, they'll be on their knees begging to take six.  I may even get them for five."
6. But the union doesn't fold the way the negotiators predicted and pretty soon, the member producers of the AMPTP are fighting among themselves because the shutdown isn't hurting them all equally.  Some want to go back and offer seven or eight but they have this rule of unanimity.  They all need to agree on an offer.  Also, some of them care about certain issues more than others.
7. In the '88 Writers Guild strike which lasted 153 days, the rumor was (and here I am spreading a rumor after urging you all not to believe them) that Paramount and Disney were fighting over certain issues relating to compensation from video cassettes.  You may remember video cassettes.  Disney was more militant about not giving an increase on them than Paramount — or maybe it was the other way around. Eventually, largely through backchannel communications, agreement was negotiated within the AMPTP and they made an offer that was acceptable (barely, of course) to the WGA. And the strike ended.
8. Now, you might ask, "Was it worth it to the writers? Did the increase they finally got make up for what they lost during those 153 days?" And an argument could be made that it didn't, at least in the short run. But that isn't the right question to ask. You have to also consider the big picture and the long run. Because if we'd taken the rotten deal first offered by The Producers, we'd have gotten a much rottener offer when that contract expired and the negotiator people told their bosses, "I'll bet I can get them for three this time!"
9. Strikes happen because the "experts" underestimate the will of the labor organization. They get settled and become less likely to happen the next time when the labor organization doesn't allow themselves to be viewed as weak.

It is unfortunate that it has to be done this way but the unions did not design this system…and I'm not saying unions are always in the right.  There are bad unions and badly-run unions out there.  But as with so many things in life, the rules of engagement are dictated by the people who write the paychecks.

It's especially unfortunate for the collateral damage.  When production shuts down in the TV and movie business, camera operators and makeup artists and the stagehands and the caterers and the people who clean the offices (etc.) get laid-off because of a battle from which they do not stand to directly benefit.  For some reason, a lot of them blame the union for not taking a bad deal and don't blame the folks who formulated that bad deal and tried to force it on the union.  We all wish there was a way that these people did not have to suffer but no one's come up with one yet.  And we aren't the ones deciding that since production has shut down, their services aren't needed.

This post has gone on way longer than I expected so I'll just close with this one thought: If you are on strike and you're scared and feeling desperate, posting on social media that you're scared and desperate will just prolong the strike.  The negotiator people and others in management who want to hold firm on their unacceptable offers will find three or four of those tweets or posts and print them out and show them to the folks in management who want to settle.  They'll say, "See?  Everyone in the union is scared and desperate!  We've got them right where we want them!"

You're right to be frightened.  No one knows how long this thing will last.  This is my fifth Writers Guild strike and if I've learned anything, it's that predictions are worthless and a lot of them are just made to try and demoralize the opposition.  But if you are frightened, find others in your union who can hold your hands and comfort you.  It's human to be worried but please, keep it the hell off social media because you won't be helping your union.  You'll be helping the people whose job description is to try and crush your union.

A strike by SAG-AFTRA, otherwise known as "The Actors," looks pretty close to inevitable at this point. The precise date may be moved by a day or three but all indications are that it's gonna happen and that the main issue will be Artificial Intelligence, otherwise known as "A.I." And it may be a long one. In the past, the AMPTP, otherwise known as "The Producers," has had some success with their divide/conquer strategy.

They give some faction within a Guild (writers' or actors') what they want and then that faction is ready, perhaps even eager to take the deal and go back to work. Like they give sitcom writers something they crave and the sitcom writers want to end the strike even though the folks who write features or variety shows or daytime dramas or something else still have unaddressed demands. This time though we have A.I. — an issue which seems to matter enormously to writers and actors in all genres, of all ages, of all genders, of all income levels, etc. It matters to Tom Cruise and it also matters to the supporting player who hasn't worked since Love American Style was canceled.

So brace yourself. And here is the best bit of advice I can give to anyone who is affected by the strikes: Don't believe rumors. In fact, that is so important that I will type it again, this time in all caps and boldface: DON'T BELIEVE RUMORS.

This is sometimes tough to do because rumors tend to fill voids of information. Negotiations and the inner works of labor disputes require a lot of closed doors and secrecy and neither side showing all its cards, even to the folks they represent or talking to the press at certain junctures. When you have situations where you don't know anything, it is too easy to fall for something that kinda looks like information even when you have no idea of its source. This leads me to another point that is so important it warrants not only all caps and boldface but even underlining: FALSE INFORMATION IS WORSE THAN NOT KNOWING ANYTHING!

This is so easy to forget. Let's say you are walking around lost and you run into me and you ask me how to get to the place you wish to be. Let us say that I have no idea, which is often the case when questions are put to me. The responsible thing for me to say is, "I'm sorry, I don't know." The irresponsible is if I say, "I think you go south for five blocks to Melrose, turn left and then drive six miles to Sepulveda, hang a right and it should be on your left in a quarter-mile or so!"

That happens. People do that, passing off as facts speculation or hunches or some story that someone heard from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone (etc.). This is dangerous. It's like if your doctor has no idea what's causing your stomach pains but he doesn't want to admit that so he takes out your gall bladder.

Recently, I had a debate — maybe you'd call it an argument — with someone on a comic book forum who was quoting past sales figures that I knew to be bogus…or at least, probably bogus. I e-mailed to tell him the numbers he was citing were almost certainly not real. He wrote back, "Maybe so but they're the only numbers we have."

In other words: False information is better than no information. Except, of course, we know it isn't. In a situation like a labor strike, it's tough enough to know what to do when you have absolutely accurate info. If you factor in false information, you are almost certain to reach false conclusions. Yeah, once in a while it turns out that removing your gall bladder does stop the stomach pains but that's not the way such decisions should be made.

And there are a few other points I should make. One of them I wrote about here before and I'm just gonna cut-'n'-paste from that. Back during the '88 Writers Guild strike — actually, during all the many Writers Guild strikes through which I've lived — I kept finding myself in this conversation with some writer who was sure he had the key to victory…

HIM: We have to be tough.

ME: Okay, fine. We'll be tough. What are you suggesting we do?

HIM: I just told you. Be tough. Let them know we won't give in. They're tough. We have to be tougher.

ME: I get that. How would you suggest we express this toughness? What should we do that we aren't doing yet?

HIM: Win. Get in there and fight and battle and be tough. They'll give in, trust me. All we have to do is be tough.

I could never get any of these tough-minded people to suggest an action on our part…or if they did, it was something we were already doing. I guess it made them feel vital and powerful to think they'd actually come up with a solution. There's a saying that "hope is not a plan." Well, neither is an attitude.

A close relative of that approach is something else I wrote about, in this case here. This is the kind of conversation I often heard during Writers Guild strikes. "HIM" is a complaining member of the Guild. "ME" is not really me but it might be someone on the Guild's Negotiating Committee…

HIM: Our committee should get in there and negotiate!

ME: The producers refuse to negotiate.

HIM: Then we should insist they negotiate.

ME: The producers refuse to negotiate.

HIM: Then we should get in there and be real tough and demand they negotiate.

ME: The only weapon we have against them is to strike.

HIM: Don't strike! Negotiate! Demand they negotiate! If I were on that committee, I could force them to negotiate!

ME: How would you do that?

HIM: By being tougher than they are!

And lastly, I'll give you one more piece of take-this-for-what-it's-worth advice. Every actor or writer has an agent and/or a lawyer and/or someone they rely on to make deals. When there's a strike, almost every one of these counselors will tell their clients something like "The trouble is you have bad people representing you. They don't know what to do. Why, if I were representing your guild in this, I would long since have gotten you every single thing you guys want including having Jeff Bezos personally come to your homes and clean all the leaves out of your rain gutters!"

That's the easiest thing in the world to say and I dunno…maybe not the easiest thing to actually do. He or she might be right that the folks negotiating on your behalf are not good at it…or not as good as the folks negotiating on behalf of The Producers. They're almost certainly not as experienced at the game. Still, I have a lot of trust in the Writers Guild representatives.

I have no opinion of the SAG-AFTRA reps at the bargaining table but they should not be confused with Fran Drescher, who as SAG-AFTRA President, will be the spokesperson and "face" of the union during a war. She has not yet shown her members that she understands the responsibilities that come with the title and I sure hope she masters them in a hurry — like by later this evening.