Yesterday was great, even though Marv Wolfman and I wound up hosting a Gene Colan Spotlight without Gene Colan. Through some miscommunication, Gene and his wife Adrienne were still at their hotel when he was supposed to be over in Room 8 at the Convention Center, being quizzed by Marv 'n' Mark. Amazingly, it went rather well without him…or at least, almost no one left as Marv and I just talked about Gene's awesome body of work. He arrived in time for the following panel, also hosted by moi and which Marv was on, which was about comics in the seventies. Since Gene drew comics in the seventies and we still had most of the audience for the Gene Colan panel there, we folded him into that one and pressed on.

Following that, I moderated a terrific panel which gathered together Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson and Lew Sayre Schwartz, the last three surviving Bob Kane ghost artists on Batman. It was the first time all three were together, the first time Lew and Shelly met. For those of us obsessed with Golden Age history, it was Candy Store Time.

The highlight of my day was the presentation/talk by Stan and Hunter Freberg, delivered to a turnaway crowd in a nowhere-near-large-enough hall. Stan was (and remains) one of my big idols and when I'm asked in the future to rattle off my fave Comic-Con moments, don't let me forget the joy of being able to introduce him and his lovely spouse to a huge room of Freberg fans. The time ran out way before the anecdotes he was prepared to tell and we never even got to the video clips he brought, except to open with the Warner Brothers cartoon, "Three Little Bops." So I think we need to have them back. Like, every year if they can stand it.

The Eisner Awards were held this year in a new venue — a lovely ballroom over at the new Hilton Bayshore, right next to the Convention Center. The hall was better, the hors d'ouevres (I was told) were better, the mood was better…but some folks were unhappy because the cellphone reception inside was such that one could barely Twitter. Bill Morrison did his usual fine job as emcee and his wife Kayre was stunning in her role as Prize Model or whatever the proper title is for looking great and handing out statuettes. I got one but the best part for me was still Frank Jacobs of MAD Magazine accepting the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Writing, a lifetime achievement honor presented by Jerry Robinson and myself. When oh when will someone wise up and publish a collection of Frank's brilliant poems and song parodies for that mag?

Have to run and do five (ohmigod, five) panels today, starting with Quick Draw!, which is always a fun sprint to the finish line. I hope for your sake you're here at the Comic-Con today. Because if you are, you're having a real good time.

A couple times yesterday, I found myself trying to articulate just why it is I enjoy this convention so much. Me trying to articulate anything is always dicey but it goes something like this: It's invigorating to be in an environment where so much is happening, where so many people are having such a good time, and there's so much raw creative energy filling the space. Yeah, it's loud and if you hit the wrong aisle, it can take upwards up a month to traverse ten feet…but you're not a prisoner of any of that. You're in it because you love it and I'm a little weary of folks who bitch 'n' moan about it year after year after year. This is what Comic-Con is, people. No one brought you here at gunpoint.

I wouldn't/couldn't live in this environment all the time…but four days per year is invigorating. Look left and there's someone you want to meet or haven't seen in way too long. Look right and there's something you want to buy. Behind you is a kid in a brilliant homemade costume. And up ahead of you, just down that row you can barely squeeze through, there just may be an exciting career opportunity. (Or not. I think the surest way to let yourself down, and maybe even to make it not happen, is to come here expecting to land a job. If it does occur, great, but you need to let it be one of those unexpected bonuses in life.)

Years ago, I wrote a piece about Guilty Pleasures and why I think they're emotionally dishonest. There's some really stupid movie that you know is stupid but you love to watch it again and again. You're afraid to just admit that…afraid someone else will say, "Oh, you like that kind of crap?" So you call it a Guilty Pleasure and somehow you're supposed to be able to enjoy it without it counting against you. That's trying to have it both ways, which is how too many people want to have their Comic-Con. They can't wait to be here and when they leave, they can't wait for the next one. But to cut themselves away from the herd, to pretend they're somehow above what some see as geekery of the highest order, they belittle the con and join the throngs who dismiss it all as the Grand Festival of Nerd-dom. (I tried typing that with one "d" and no hyphen and it didn't look right.)

This is the 40th one of these and it's my fortieth…a fact which some seem to envy. It means I got a larger piece of cake than they did, or maybe that I found this wonderful mystical land before them. I've had my gripes with the convention and there were years there I didn't enjoy it as much as I felt I should. Those years were all before I came to realize that my problems were mostly with me; that I was approaching it with the idea that the con was there to entertain me and enrich my collection and career. When I figured out it was just a place I could have a good time — that's when I began to really have good times at these things. And I became unafraid to admit that I love this convention.

Gotta run. Four panels to do today, one of them the Stan & Hunter Freberg Spotlight, plus there's the award ceremony tonight and I'm presenting. Also, June Foray's autobiography makes its debut (and June arrives to sign it) and I have two meetings and one interview and don't you think I'd better stop blogging and get over there? If you're around, say hello. I'm easy to spot in the hall. I'm the one with the badge and the big smile.

This is being quoted on a couple of other sites but I felt like putting it here, as well. Yesterday on Keith Olbermann's show, political reporter Howard Fineman said the following, and no one seems to be leaping up to disagree…

I talked to people on the Hill all day today. I talked to Republicans as well as Democrats. Republicans claim they have a plan. They don't. They claim they're going to have a plan. They won't. Their whole strategy…is to stand on the sidelines with their arms folded while the Democrats try to work this thing out. That's their whole strategy.

I think the health care system in this country is in dire need of repair. I think people are losing their lives or at least their homes because they simply can't afford proper treatment. Whether the Democratic plan is ideal, I don't know, though the arguments against it I'm hearing sound to me like they're coming from folks who haven't read it but since they don't want any Democratic plan to succeed, are just making up bogus reasons to fear it. In any case, it's apparent that the G.O.P. plan is no plan; that they just want to leave things the way they are. And you know…if I were a Congressman or Senator devoid of conscience and I got that much money from the drug companies, I might too.

Ken Levine, who knows of what he speaks on baseball and comedy writing, writes about the latter…specifically, how actors can and should suggest changes in a script in a constructive, non-tantrum manner.

You do get, especially from seasoned amateurs, a lot of "ego" notes where someone pretends they're just concerned with the health of the show…but what they really want is a bigger part or to lose that joke that suggests they're getting chubby. I've worked with actors who seem to find all sorts of structural flaws in any script where someone else gets a laugh.

The big problem is usually a performer who's way too quick to say of the material, "This needs a rewrite" or, even worse, "I have to save this." In the seventies, a lot of sitcoms were harmed, I believe, by all those articles that said the cast of All in the Family was tossing out the script each week and either demanding a new one or improvising/writing in their rehearsals. That seems to have been true at times on that show but it led to actors on many sitcoms thinking that your final draft was merely their starting point and it was up to them to start rejecting material and maybe rewriting on their feet…and the sooner they got this process started, the better.

That kind of thing becomes self-perpetuating. It can lead to the writing staff deciding, perhaps sub-consciously, not to put as much effort into the scripts that are handed out on the first day of rehearsal, and to save the effort (and good lines) for the drafts that will be generated later in the week. On one show I worked on, if you came up with a good line early in the process, the producer would say, "Save that one 'til the day before we tape." Because if you put it in too soon before then, it would never make it to Tape Day. Weaker table drafts, of course, merely heighten the actors' feelings that they need someone — themselves or the staff — to do rewrites. Rightly so.

There have been, of course, shows that were famous for trusting the writers and sticking largely to the script as written. M*A*S*H appears to have been one, and no program was ever more successful. (Then again, All in the Family was no flop.) Some actors are good at spotting valid weaknesses in a script and some, quite frankly, aren't. There was an interview once with Donald Sutherland where he said that for the first decade or so of his career, he'd argue over every line with the director and/or writer. Then at some point, he decided — just as an experiment — to skip all that and just do the lines as written and directed. His ultimate conclusion was that it made no difference. The final product was no better or worse because of it.

Anyway, in his piece, Ken cites the actor Nick Colasanto as having just the right approach to suggesting that his lines could use some work. The best I ever encountered was when I did a show way back in the mid-seventies with Eve Arden. She only said it twice to me but I gather it was her standard line when she thought her part needed another pass through the typewriters we then used. She said, "I'm sorry. I can't make this work. You're either going to have to teach it to me the way you want it, rewrite it or hire a much better actress." Maybe it was how she said it that made us rush to rewrite. And then she was genuinely grateful for what we gave her instead.

The other day, discussing ways of getting around San Diego, I mentioned the pedal cabs (or pedi-cabs, as seems to be the more popular name) they have down there. My buddy Dana Gabbard directed me to this article in the L.A. Times that discusses the problems of these vehicles. Many are unlicensed, some have been known to go where they're forbidden to go, and there have been a couple of fatal accidents. Maybe they're not such a good idea after all…

Happy to say, the medical news is good for Gene Colan and he will be at the Comic-Con in San Diego, after all. So the announcements of his panel and appearance being cancelled are now, themselves, cancelled. Gene should be on the Golden Age Panel on Thursday at 3:30 in Room 8, and I'll be interviewing him (with the help of Marv Wolfman) in that same room on Friday at 11 AM. Yay.

Thanks to all who volunteered for Freberg Duty. I got over 75 applicants and will be calling on a few of you. But you should all go by the table (AA-01 in Artists Alley) and say howdy to Stan and Hunter Freberg. They'll be selling autographed photos, books, and CDs of the best comedy album ever done, Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America.

Here's another one of these links to my schedule…

If I look different to you today, it's probably because I'm on my backup computer. Since this looks to be a very busy week, what with the convention and all, naturally my hard disk had to crash, which it did at around 3 AM this morning. It looked at me, looked at the list of things I need to get done, decided this would be the perfect time and quit dead on me. They do that deliberately, you know.

Fortunately, I have this clever system of backups that ensures I lose nothing when this happens and can move over here to the backup with very little loss of data. Unfortunately, I still have to shlep my main computer over to my techno-wizard friend today because what's wrong with it seems to be beyond my only-goes-so-far expertise. Near as I can tell, the thingamabob is out of alignment with the whatzis. In fact, I'm hoping we don't need to do a low level reformat of the whatzis.

All of this means you may not see a lot of posting here for a while…an announcement I make with great trepidation. Because two-thirds of the time when I say it, someone really important dies and I'm back here doing obit postings…and we've sure had enough of those lately.

In other news: As you all know, Stan and Hunter Freberg are making their first-ever appearance at the Comic-Con and folks are really excited. As well they should be. Is there any devout fan of Freberg who's attending who'd like to donate a couple of hours to helping me help them? I'm especially looking for someone who's going to be there by late Wednesday and can help set up for Preview Night. Drop me a note.

And there seems to be a slight chance that Gene Colan will be at the con after all. He has a doctor's appointment this afternoon and maybe, just maybe, they'll clear him to go. Stay tuned for the verdict, probably later today.

Okay, I'd better go get the main computer over to my computer expert, who's over in the Palms area. If you're anywhere near there and in need of the number of someone who can fix or build a PC for you, I've got just the guy. Write me for his contact info. I'm heading over there now, just as soon as I put on some pants. That's usually a good idea.

The man in the photo above left is actor Bill Daily, star of I Dream of Jeannie and the even-bigger-hit TV series, The Bob Newhart Show. And somewhere here, I have pics on Bill on other shows, always being very funny. The man at right is actor Jack Riley, who's also done a million things but is probably best known for that same Newhart series, as well as hundreds of commercials and cartoons and movies and…well, both men have done an awful lot.

They'll be discussing their careers on Wednesday on Stu's Show, the anchor program of Shokus Internet Radio. Stuart Shostak will be interviewing them and taking your phone calls live between the hours of 4 PM and 6 PM Pacific Time, which translates to 7 PM to 9 PM on the East Coast and to other times in other places. Jack's been on before but this is Bill's first time so I'm guessing the emphasis will be on him. Sound like something we'll all want to listen to.

How you do such a thing: This is not a podcast. It's like any radio. You have to listen when it's on. When it's on, go to the website of Shokus Internet Radio and click where you're told to click, damn it. The show reruns every day until the following Wednesday but you'll enjoy it more if you listen when they're there. And listen to the station at other hours, too. Stu has some darn good stuff on and you can tune in, minimize the window it's in, then do other things on your computer while you listen. I often do.