Let's see if Abe's still with us.

Now and then, we like to tackle the really important matters here at newsfromme. Here's one. Large size jars of peanut butter are misshapen.

Figure 1 above shows a typical large size jar of peanut butter. As you have no doubt observed if you've ever handled one, once you get down below about the halfway mark, it's very difficult to get the peanut butter out, especially if you have large hands. When you grip the handle of an average knife, about seven inches of blade protrudes. This is your scooping capability. The rim of the jar blocks your hand from going in deep enough to get the peanut butter from the bottom of the jar. When you try, you miss much and you also get peanut butter all over your hand, transferred from the rim of the jar. This is not efficient.

Figure 2 is a representation of how peanut butter jars should be once they exceed a certain size. The proportions are approximate but this is meant to depict a jar which by volume would contain the same amount of peanut butter at, one assumes, the same price. Note the wider mouth would allow your hand free access to the bottom of the peanut butter jar, enabling you to scoop out every last bit of peanut butter.

The world would be a better place if the manufacturers of peanut butter would take heed. Yes, I know some of them are preoccupied by the news that their product contains salmonella, which can kill people. Those companies are doing their customers a service by not enabling them to unjar as much peanut butter as possible. They would in fact be well advised to configure a jar that prevents buyers from getting any peanut butter at all out or failing that, they could remove the salmonella from their product. However, those who make and sell peanut butter without salmonella would be well-advised to look long and hard at Figure 2. Thank you.

My longtime friend (30+ years) Tom Stern writes about that photo I posted of the Flesh Gordon premiere, and also about the one I took of Harvey Kurtzman…

There is a very simple reason you don't remember taking that picture at the premiere of Flesh Gordon: you didn't take it. I did. We had both gone that day to Westwood; you to write about the movie, and me to take photos for you.

And while I don't have a photo of the young lady who wanted to play Little Annie Fanny, I do have some of the woman who decided to get her body autographed. I still remember Harvey's reaction, which was to yell "Whoopee!" flip the marker in the air, catch it in mid-spin, and write (starting on her hip) "Best of Luck from Harvey Kurtzman and Little Annie…" (pulling down the back of her shorts) "…Fanny."

I remember that. Harvey looked like it was the high point of his life…and I believe that woman's ass is up for bids in the next Heritage Auction. Anyway, my apologies for thinking I took that photo. I was there and I had a slide of it amidst hundreds I did recall taking at other locales so I assumed what anyone would assume.

Then: You all might recall a discussion here of a man named Lionel Ziprin, whose obits said he wrote Dell Comics. We were wondering which ones he'd written and I just received this from J. Reed…

I knew Lionel Ziprin and spoke with him about his comic writing for Dell. He never told me about any of the WW II titles he worked on. He did tell me that he wrote several issues of Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle but was uncredited. One issue that he told me about featured a creature that could pull itself apart into 22 pieces and be reformed as something else. This was an allusion— for Lionel anyway, probably not to the readers of Kona — to the kabala and the formation of words from the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Does that ring a bell?

No, but I haven't read a Kona in twenty-some-odd years. I'll bet I hear from someone who knows which issue, though.

In any case, this would indicate that Ziprin worked for Dell in the mid-sixties, so the bio of him had events somewhat out of sequence. The war comics he wrote were probably for Dell's titles of the same period like Combat…so some of those books which have usually been credited to Paul S. Newman were probably written by Mr. Ziprin.

And since he worked for Dell then, he had to have been misremembering or exaggerating when he said he got ten dollars a page for his scripts. Dell paid around half that in the sixties. He was also far from reality when he said, "…I was America's best-selling writer of comic books, my comic books sold in the millions of copies." Dell, back in the fifties, did have a few comics that sold in the millions — mainly Disney titles — and it's unlikely but possible that he worked on a few of them. Dell of the sixties was an entirely different company (see explanation here) and it never had a comic that sold above around 300,000 — and even that was rare. Kona sold about half that.

Thanks for the info, though. These people never received the credit they deserved. Sorry Mr. Ziprin didn't get more before he left us.

I'm still awaiting a verdict in the Phil Spector trial…waiting to see if he's acquitted and I go on my long-discussed killing spree. Illness has befallen the jury and in the last eight days, they've only deliberated about 30 hours. That's about 29 hours and fifty minutes more than seems necessary to me but maybe they're padding their parts, playing Old Maid in there while they make it look like they're giving Spector the benefit of every possible doubt. Or maybe they just want more of those big $5-a-day checks. The way the economy's going these days, you never know.

Actually, even if Spector is found Not Guilty, he's already consigned to a certain kind of prison. For years, he's been notorious in his field as a dangerous maniac…but he was a dangerous maniac who was tolerated and accepted because he had money. More effectively, he was involved in projects that could make you a lot of money if you were around him. Folks in most businesses (not just show biz) will tolerate a lot of insanity in their midst if it comes with fame and/or fortune, especially fortune. News reports say Spector has spent just about every nickel he had on his defense. As a producer, his career was already on the downslide and, I dunno…I have the feeling that today's music superstars will not be rushing to work with him on future projects.

This is, oddly enough, not something that pleases me a lot. Innocent people sometimes wind up on trial and even if they're cleared, their lives and bank accounts are destroyed. I don't think Spector is innocent or anything close to it but the judicial system still shouldn't work that way. If you are acquitted, you ought to get at least most of your life back.

Sorry if this is short notice for you or if you see it too late. Here I am once again to tell you about an interesting movie that's airing on Turner Classic Movies. Please note that I am not saying this is a good movie. I leave that to you to decide. I'm just telling you it's interesting.

In the early eighties, Paramount Pictures paid a lot of money for the rights to turn the best-selling book, The Joy of Sex into a movie. They did this even though no one there had the foggiest notion of what that movie might be…a condition that persisted through dozens of pitches and scripts and development deals. If you'd been in the industry during those years, there was about a one-in-three chance you'd be asked if you had a concept via which to turn The Joy of Sex into a movie. At the time of John Belushi's death in 1982, Paramount had semi-convinced him to star in an as-yet unwritten picture with that name.

One of many folks who had tackled the challenge was the actor, Charles Grodin. For some reason, they asked him if he had an idea…and he pondered for a while and decided he did. It was hilarious, thought Grodin, that a big studio had paid all this money for The Joy of Sex and didn't know how to make a movie out of it. So he wrote a screenplay for a movie about a big studio that pays a lot of money for The Joy of Sex and doesn't know how to make a movie out of it.

Many people thought Grodin's screenplay was brilliant but these were all people who didn't work for Paramount. The ones at Paramount didn't see the humor in the situation and added it to the towering pile of rejected Joy of Sex scripts. Grodin reacquired it and spent many years of his life trying to place it elsewhere. Finally, because a lot of big star friends agreed to appear it in for low money, he got it made as a low-budget independent. William Asher directed.

Among the big stars in it (some not for long) were Steve Martin, Penny Marshall, Gilda Radner and Grodin himself. Walter Matthau had the lead. He was a last-minute replacement when Grodin's first choice — I'm not sure who it was — failed the insurance physical they make you pass if you're going to star in a movie. Given that cast, you'd think it would have a big opening in many theaters but MGM/UA, which was then in a heap of internal trouble, decided they had a flop on their hands and released accordingly. It only played in a handful of houses in a couple of cities and didn't do much business. A few critics loved it. A few more hated it. The majority probably never got around to seeing it…but you can.

Movers and Shakers runs on one of the Encore channels (Encore Love, for some reason) very early tomorrow morning. It's 4:05 AM on my satellite. I have no idea if you'll like it or not. I'm not even sure if I like it or not. But it sure is interesting.

Starlog, a magazine which has been covering the world of science-fiction and fantasy for 33 years, has announced the "temporary cessation" of its print edition and a shift to an Internet-only presence, at least for a while. I have no inside info here but I would imagine that its many contributors and fans are taking "temporary cessation" to mean what it usually means in the publishing world: "Cancelled, probably forever." I can't think of too many publications that ever left the newsstands and returned, at least under the same ownership. Issue #374 is the last in the paper format and from here on, they'll try and make a go of it online.

I wish them luck. I only followed the magazine intermittently but whenever I picked up a copy, I was struck by generally smart, well-researched reporting that didn't pander. When you're writing about current fantasy movies and TV shows, there's a temptation to cater to the geeky element that such enterprises usually attract…to focus, as one of my friends once put it, on the Spock ears and not on the actor wearing them. Starlog sold to that crowd without, I'd like to think, insulting or losing those who like their journalism with a few more ounces of dignity. I always especially liked their habit of focusing on the so-called "little people" on a film or program — behind-the-scenes folks and supporting players who have much to offer even if they haven't the marquee value.

Presumably, this approach will continue so you might want to keep an eye on their website. And my buddy Lee Goldberg, who pretty much launched his career writing for Starlog, has some thoughts. I fear we're going to be saying goodbye to a lot of hard copy before '09 is out.

For those of you still toying with the idea of attending the Comic-Con International in San Diego this July…

The four-day passes are sold out. Saturday is sold out. Friday will be sold out soon. Thursday and Sunday will follow. Long before the convention convenes, tickets will be as scarce as Dick Cheney supporters. Amtrak train reservations to S.D. may also be hard to come by.

Last year, I got an awful lot of calls and e-mails from folks asking if I could get them into the con. Don't make me say no to you. Get your tickets now while there are still tickets to get.

I'm not going to embed it but if you'd like to see Lawrence O'Donnell kick the derriere of Pat Buchanan in a debate, here's a YouTube link. The topic is whether a Catholic University should invite a president (in this case, Barack Obama) to speak there even though he is pro-choice about abortion.

Here's another photo that I found and didn't recall I'd taken. This is at the 1977 San Diego Comic Convention — or whatever they were calling it that year. It changed names but it was the annual event we now know as Comic-Con International. This was taken by the pool at the El Cortez Hotel, back when congoers had the opposite problem: You could get a hotel room. If you ever stayed at the El Cortez, you know why that was not a good thing.

The gentleman at the left is Don Rico, a Golden Age comic book writer-editor who went on to quite a career as a novelist and screenwriter. Don was a good friend of mine and he's a person I still miss a lot. The gent at right is Harvey Kurtzman who was, as any fool can tell you, the founding editor/creator of MAD and of many fine comics that didn't use the word, "Potrzebie."

As you can see, this was taken by the pool. Shortly after I snapped it, a young lady in brief swimwear ran up to Kurtzman, thrust her chest in his face and asked if he didn't think she'd be perfect to play his character Little Annie Fanny in a movie. If you went solely by the chest, she was probably qualified. As much as I loved Don Rico, I wish I had a photo of Harvey with the woman instead of with him. Maybe there's one in the slide boxes I haven't opened yet.