This link will allow you to download a PDF file that's a visual guide to the many different sizes and shapes of pasta. Finally, you'll be able to tell your Rigatoni from your Rotini.

Today is Free Comic Book Day, meaning that if you go to a participating comic book shop, you get something for nothing. Not a bad deal by any means.

Most publishers have created a special giveaway comic for the day. There's one from Dark Horse Comics that contains a short but (I hope) sweet Indiana Jones story by me. I usually don't tell you to go out and buy my comics but it doesn't seem unclassy to suggest that you seek out one when they're free.

Barack Obama's first 100 days…Facebook style.

On BBC Radio 4: Salman Rushdie, of all people, hosts a show celebrating the 70th anniversary of the movie, The Wizard of Oz. And if you want to hear it, better hurry. It'll only be up for a few more days.

Comic book and animation artist Ric Estrada died this morning, the result of a long, losing battle with cancer.

Ric was born February 26, 1928 in Havana, Cuba and began selling his work at age 13 to a popular Cuban magazine called Bohemia. He attended University of Havana where, he always claimed, another student was Fidel Castro. Via a relative, he developed a friendship with Ernest Hemingway, who took an interest in the young artist's work and encouraged him to relocate to New York. Ric moved there at age 20 but never stayed in one place for very long, travelling the world and living briefly in dozens of other cities. Whenever he was back in Manhattan, he managed to work in comic books, including two of his proudest jobs…stories for the EC war comics edited and written by Harvey Kurtzman. Other companies that were glad to have his art included Hillman, Western Publishing, St. John and Ziff-Davis.

Ric occasionally dabbled in newspaper strips, including assisting on Flash Gordon and drawing some of the Flash Gordon comic books. Most of his comic book work was done in the sixties and seventies for DC, primarily on romance and war comics. But there was a period where (against his preference, he said), he was assigned to super-hero titles, primarily as a "rough penciller." Ric didn't like super-heroes and didn't feel he had the flair for them, and he also didn't like producing anything less than finished artwork. Still, that was where he was told his services were needed so he pencilled comics like All-Star Comics, Freedom Fighters and Karate Kid.

He did not feel capable of producing the kind of tight pencil art that most other artists did for such assignments so, on mutual agreement with his editors, he did something looser. He was paid less than if he'd done complete pencil art and his understanding was that the other artists who finished the work would be paid extra. Years later, Ric was extremely upset to learn that several of those artists weren't paid the higher rates, and that they resented Ric for not doing his portion of the work. A sensitive man, he apologized to at least one of the "finishers," who accepted Ric's explanation and declined an offer of money right out of Ric's own pocket.

Despite the grief it caused him and his own dissatisfaction with the work, it was often quite wonderful…though not as grand as when Ric was allowed to be Ric. Besides, Ric was never satisfied with his own work. In the seventies, he did several war stories for DC's combat titles that garnered great praise, particularly from his fellow artists. It was hard to tell Ric how good you thought they were without him blushing red and giving you an honest, humble argument.

Though Ric drew several of my scripts for DC in the seventies, we didn't really meet until the eighties when he moved to Los Angeles and worked for the Hanna-Barbera studio as a designer and layout artist. He was much-loved about the building…and repeatedly flattered as younger artists sought him out to praise his comic work. We did one non H-B project together (a super-hero story, despite his preferences) and talked often of doing others which, I'm sad to say, never reached fruition. After leaving H-B, he relocated to Utah but managed to make it several years to the Comic-Con International and to occasionally sit on panels I hosted there.

Ric was married three times and had eight children. One son, Seth, is currently producing a documentary on his father. You can find out more about it at the Ric Estrada website and view some of the raw footage on this page. I hope to add my voice to it because Ric was one of my favorite people and one of my favorite artists. It's amazing how often those two things go together.

Las Vegas is reeling this morn at the news. Headliner Danny Gans — "The Man of Many Voices" — died in his sleep last night. No cause has been given for the passing of the 52-year-old entertainer.

Gans had an amazing career. He'd started as a professional baseball player, mainly with the Durham Bulls. (He had a small role in the movie, Bull Durham.) An injury forced him to find another career and he became an impressionist. Though barely known outside Vegas, he was a phenomenon in that town, his success measured mainly by his ticket prices.

The show featured Gans, a tiny live band and no one else…and you'd figure tickets for something like that would be around $25 or $30 each. But he started selling out each performance so they raised prices a bit…and when he continued to sell out at the higher price, they raised it some more. And some more. And some more. At some point, he passed the level of $100 a seat. There are now a lot of shows in Las Vegas at that level but at the time Gans rose to it, there were very few and they all featured huge, expensive casts and special effects and costumes. The Danny Gans show was just Danny Gans and the musicians…and still he managed to fill a 1,250 seat theater at the Mirage for almost every performance. He recently opened a new showroom at the Encore with a top ticket price of $120.

I saw him once and he was very good, rolling through a staggering roster of impressions in about 75 minutes. Still, the presentation felt to me overpriced…and my ticket had been comped. I suppose what I admired most was that this guy had come out of nowhere and built this huge stardom out of nothing. Vegas is always full of impressionists….and Gans's success had spawned an extra wave of copycat impersonators. He was better than any of them (possible exception: Bob Anderson) but not that much better. Still, if you can't respect hype in Vegas, where can you respect it? Gans was great at it. He could not only sound like the superstars…he could charge like them.

Around 6:30 this evening, I was in an indoor parking lot in a fancy building in Beverly Hills. I was waiting for the valet to fetch my car, which they'd apparently parked in Gallup, New Mexico. It took a while.

As I was waiting, I witnessed the following. In a prime parking space about 20 feet from me, there was a very new, very shiny, very expensive Lamborghini. I do not know enough about such vehicles to tell you the model or year but I have a sense it was the top of the line, whatever that is. Admiring it from nearby were two rather attractive young ladies in their early twenties. We shall call them, for the purpose of this anecdote, Thelma and Louise.

After staring at the car, Thelma and Louise had a hurried and whispered discussion and then they went over to the man in charge of the valet parking area. They whispered some things to him, he grinned and nodded in agreement, then he went over to his podium and fetched the key to the Lamborghini. He unlocked it, opened the door and allowed Thelma to get inside.

Thelma promptly removed her shirt, under which there was only Thelma. Louise had pulled out a little digital camera and as Thelma posed behind the wheel, Louise took about six photos. Then Thelma untoplessed herself, hopped out of the car and the valet guy relocked it. The ladies thanked him and scampered off as the attendant returned the key to the rack in his podium.

I was thinking of asking him if I could do that too but then my car arrived.

This one's about what's up with Pakistan. I'm glad Fred understands this stuff because I sure don't.

Got an e-mail this AM from Shane Shellenbarger, who follows this blog and writes me from time to time…

Holy Moley! Imagine my surprise when I went to your blog this morning and saw a photo of Don Newton, Tony Newton (Don's son), David Lee (as The Phantom) and myself as Captain Marvel.

I believe that was the same costume contest at the El Cortez in which John Clark (Another Rainbow/Gladstone and Gemstone) appeared as The Shadow.

It was also the same costume competition in which the actress now known as Brinke Stevens made her convention "debut" in a Vampirella outfit. I took about twenty photos of her then because every guy I knew — some then working on the Vampirella magazine, some not — wanted a pic with her.

Jim Van Hise also wrote me to confirm, as I think I now remember, that the other young man with an "S" on his chest is Don's son. And several folks wrote to mention how much they missed Don. He looks so right in that Superman suit because he was truly one of the good guys.

Digging once again into my horde of newly-rediscovered photos, we have this one from an early San Diego Comic Con…from back before they called it Comic-Con International. The year is 1973 and we have four folks who entered that year's masquerade. I have no idea who three of these people are but the larger of the two Supermen is a gent who'd been teaching high school art and also doing some drawings for amateur magazines about comics and science-fiction.

A few attempts to crack DC and Marvel to work as a comic illustrator had yielded naught but rejection so he'd set his sights a bit lower. At the time of this con and photo, he'd just sold his first professional work to the smaller, lower-paying Charlton Comics Group. His hope, he told me, was that he'd learn his craft with the Charlton work and become noticed enough to step up to big pay at one of the majors. It took about three years but that's exactly what happened.

He had a pretty good career drawing Batman, Aquaman, Captain Marvel and other popular comics until his untimely death in 1984 at the age of 50. He was a great guy and a great talent and I'm sorry I only got to work once with him. His name was Don Newton. If you'd like to know more about him, there's a whole website devoted to the man and his work.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that this country is finally going to arrive at some form of Universal Health Care…and all because (a) Arlen Specter got cancer, (b) he couldn't win as a Republican, and (c) Al Franken got 312 votes more than the other guy in a recount.

Ken Tucker writes with the following question…

You write about the late night talk shows a lot, so I thought you might be the one who could answer a question I have about them, which I don't remember you ever talking about in your blog (though maybe I missed it).

The question is, why are all the musical acts for both Letterman and Leno now relegated to the very end of the show, in the 12:30-12:37 slot? It was never this way in Johnny's day — there were a variety of acts at all times through the show.

Yes, a lot of the acts are bands that the hosts aren't going to sit down and talk to, so maybe it makes sense to have them at the end, but last night Letterman had Dolly Parton on, and talked to her early in the show, but then had her come back at the very end (after he had talked to a different guest in the meantime) to perform her song.

You'd almost think there was some rule that they could pay the musicians less if they don't come on until after 12:30!

It makes me wonder what will happen with Jay's show when he's on at 10:00. I can't image him waiting until 10:55 to put on a musical guest, unless they think somehow that will be a good lead-in to the news on the local stations!

Anyway, if you have any inside scoop on why they do this, I'd love to read about it in your blog.

It's not all that mysterious. Research, including the kind where they measure the ratings many times within the hour, has yielded the following belief: That when the musical guest starts performing, a large chunk of the audience decides to either go to bed or switch channels and see what else is on, mainly the former. There apparently is a chunk of viewers out there who will tune in for the musical guest…so you book one most nights to get those viewers. But there's also a sizeable chunk who'll decide it's time to turn in…so you book them at the end of the show.

This has been "learned" over the years. In fact, back when some at NBC wanted to dump Leno, one of the arguments advanced was that Jay and his crew hadn't heeded network research that proved this principle. One night, he had Garth Brooks perform in the middle of the show, and this was cited as not knowing how to program a talk show. Nowadays, when Brooks does the show, he talks first and — as was the case with Ms. Parton — comes back later to perform.

I doubt this will be the format when Leno hits 10:00. What I'm hearing is that they plan a show that will be mostly comedy, especially at the end. With an 11:30 show, you don't waste your strong comedy bits near the closing because your audience is inevitably going to be smaller then. But that rule doesn't apply to a 10:00 show so Jay will probably try to close strong, and whatever music they have will come earlier in the proceedings.

That, by the way, may be key to whether the Leno experiment will be judged a success. Traditionally, of course, the measure of a prime time show is how its ratings are in relation to the programs on opposite. That will matter for Jay, natch, but because the programming concept is so new and potentially dangerous for the 11:00 local newscasts across the country, he really needs to deliver audience to them. If the ratings for those shows go up, Jay's show may be judged a hit even if it never wins its own time slot.