For those in Southern California! This is your last (maybe next-to-last) reminder that tomorrow night, you can hear a great from the Golden Age of Comics. Jerry Robinson, one of the key Batman artists from the character's earliest days, is the guest curator of "ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1950," an exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center. You can see it there until August 9 but if you go tomorrow evening, you can hear Jerry as he's interviewed by Yours Truly. That program commences at 8 PM and you can click here to get tickets.

And, speaking of Carol Channing, lemme tell you what I did last evening. The Magic Castle up in Hollywood, of which I am a longtime member, is launching a series of events called "Cabaret at the Castle," with musical performers appearing. The inaugural show, performed on Monday and Tuesday, featured the legendary Carol Channing. She's 88, she's just getting back to work following a hip operation…and she's still captivating.

The intimate audience was packed with stars, including Lily Tomlin, Florence Henderson and Donna Mills. Joanne Worley was there, too. Joanne Worley was Carol Channing's understudy for Hello, Dolly and the story is that when they met, Ms. Channing told Ms. Worley, "You're very lovely and you're very talented and you're never going on." (And she never did. Over the years, Carol Channing did over 5000 performances of that show and never missed a one of them.)

Last evening, a loving audience heard her sing her big songs, tell anecdotes from her life and even do some uncanny impressions. And not only did she sing to us, we sang to her. During her rendition of the title song from Hello, Dolly, Carol sang the part that Dolly sings to the waiters. Then, when she got to the part that the waiters sing to Dolly, she said, "I can't sing that because I'm Dolly…so you all sing it to me." And we did — quite well, I might add.

These two performances were a benefit. She and her husband Harry Kullijian (who joined her on stage) have a charity that's looking to promote the arts in California's school system. You can read all about it at their website which, I'll warn you, plays "Hello, Dolly" the minute you go there. I don't know where else she'll be doing her one woman show, which is entitled "The First Eighty Years are the Hardest," but if she does it near you, go. No, she doesn't sing as well as she once did but she's still wonderfully entertaining and very, very funny.

Flying back from and forth to San Francisco these last few days got me to thinking a lot about air travel. I don't understand this rule about how you can bring three ounces of liquid on a plane but not four ounces. I understand the regulation was established after authorities (in Great Britain and Pakistan) uncovered and nipped a plot to blow up planes by mixing a "…British sports drink with a gel-like substance to make a potent explosive that could be ignited with an MP3 player or cell phone." But if it's okay for me to bring on three ounces of liquid but not four…and if it's okay for you to bring on three ounces but not four…couldn't we work in tandem, each bring on three ounces and then combine them on the plane so I have six ounces? Seems to me this is just a way to force terrorists to buy more tickets on planes they want to bring down.

Has anyone ever thought to color-code seat belts? Whenever I sit down on a plane, I have to figure out if this buckle is mine or it goes with the seat belt on the seat next to me. How about putting little bands on the ends of the belts, just above the buckle part, so you'd just match yellow to yellow or red to red or whatever?

I wonder if people who fly U.S. Airways are paying special attention now to that little speech where the pilot introduces himself, just to see if they got Sullenberg. And if they're more nervous when they don't.

Years ago when you picked up your suitcase at Baggage Claim, most airports made you show someone a claim check to get out of the area with what you claimed was your luggage. Some didn't and I always wondered: Was there a reason to presume folks were more honest at some airports? Now, none of them check — at least, none of the airports I've been to in years — and I'm still wondering. Was luggage theft never much of a problem and it was a waste of time to have someone checking tags against claim checks all those years? If it was a problem, when did it cease to be? Or is it just a matter of the airlines no longer caring if someone grabs your Samsonite and flees with it?

Bottled water is a business with a tremendous mark-up and everyone knows it, so you feel like a true pigeon when you're paying $2.50+ for a bottle of Dasani once you get past Security. I'll bet some failing airline could attract an awful lot of customers if they announced that on their planes and in the waiting areas, you could get Crystal Geyser for a buck a bottle.

Lastly: I used to enjoy opening the in-flight magazine and scanning the lists of the World's Great Steakhouses. There were usually several different lists and once in a while, I'd see the name of one I'd been to…or might conceivably ever visit. But we're getting carried away with this concept. Recently, they started having ads for the roster of the World's Great Italian Restaurants and the World's Great Sushi Restaurants…and now they've gone farther and they have doctors in there: The World's Great Surgeons, The World's Great Plastic Surgeons, etc. The American Airlines mag this month has a page of The World's Great Physicians. Apparently, there are only four of them. You know, if I didn't know better, I'd suspect people were paying to be on those lists.

Actually, I felt like I was home at the WonderCon but I'm home for real now. Great time. I'm well aware that my convention reports here might as well be a macro since they're all the same. I keep going to great conventions, being treated well, seeing good friends, hosting fun panels, etc. I'm not quite to the point of hoping for a disaster of a con so I'd have something different to write here.

WonderCon was medium-crowded on Friday and Sunday, wall-to-wall on Saturday. I heard people saying that with the economy tanking, the higher-priced merchandise was going unbought but dealers were doing well with the low-end items. They certainly didn't suffer from a lack of turnout.

My favorite moments from the con? Well, I received an in-person apology from someone who's been writing me vituperative e-mails for years, telling me what a great man George W. Bush was and how it's pathological hatred to suggest otherwise. This gent is now more negative on the subject of Bush than I ever was. I also had a nice reunion with a friend of mine, Daniel Will-Harris, who I haven't seen in too many years. Everyone who knows anything about computers has a friend who knows more than they do…someone they can call in hours of dire technological emergency. I am that friend to many people and when I'm stumped, I call Daniel — and not just because he knows his way around a crashed desktop. I need to set up a little tickler program to remind me to call certain people when I don't need their help.

We had a nice panel on Sunday called The Art of the Cover, a thing we also do at San Diego. It's a real Shop Talk event where we gather together a group of artists who excel at drawing covers — in this case, Jim Lee, Aaron Lopresti and Dave Johnson — and project and critique their work. Some attendees love it because they learn a lot about composition and art materials and design; others enjoy the mutual respect and the insights they gain into how artists approach their work. I sure learned a lot by listening to Jim, Aaron and Dave.

Monday morn, I taught a four-hour class in Animation Voice Work at VoiceOne, a top school and recording studio in San Francisco. Some very promising talents there. Then Carolyn and I went to our favorite dim sum restaurant in S.F. (this one) and went and got on a plane. And I think that's all I have to report here. Yeah, I know: Nothing all that exciting. Maybe that's why I enjoy things like WonderCon. They're exciting but not in a surprising way. Or something like that.

I haven't yet watched Jimmy Fallon's first outing in the Late Night slot and may not get around to it for a few days. But I think I agree with Aaron Barnhart who thinks NBC will give the show every chance to succeed and its early ratings may not matter much.

Speaking of impersonator shows: I was surprised years ago to learn that there was a professional Paul Lynde impersonator out there, touring with a show about the man. Turns out, there are two.

Those of you who are sick of hearing me gush about Frank Ferrante, go find something else on the Internet to read. In fact, I'll make it easy for you. Here's a link to a porn site for you.

For the rest of you: Saturday evening, I took a mob to see my pal Frank turn himself into Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush right before our eyes at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. The place was full of WonderCon attendees, and not just those I brought.

The transformation is in itself amazing. Frank enters as Frank and as one member of my party commented, "He looks nothing like Groucho." And then he does a little of this and a little of that…and next to me, my friend Paul Dini gasped out loud. Suddenly, right there on stage, we had Groucho Marx. In person.

What's really stunning, and perhaps I've said this when I've raved before about Frank, is that he not only looks like Groucho — that part's not that hard — but he moves like him, he sounds like him, he dances like him, he sings like him…

And here's the amazing thing: He even thinks like him.

Much of the show is ad-lib, bantering with the audience…and even when Frank is in his script, he doesn't get very far before he's off it, making asides and then making asides about his asides in the grand tradition. The utter lack of self-importance is so comforting. Another member of my expedition, the lovely artist Wendy Pini, made this observation to me this morning. She said, "I was never a big fan of Groucho but Frank made me love him. Frank brought out the pixie in him." This is the younger Groucho that Frank is playing — from (roughly) Cocoanuts through half-past A Day at the Races, which is when Groucho was his pixiest.

Oh, and I should mention Frank's excellent pianist and straight man, Jim Furmston. Jim adds just the air of dignity that Groucho was always so good at getting rid of.

Everyone in my group had a good time, especially me. Matter of fact, I liked Frank so much I'm going to see him again, a week from tomorrow. He's doing one show, a matinee, on March 8 at the La Mirada Theatre in La Mirada, California…and Frank tells me that Miriam Marx, Groucho's daughter, will be in attendance. For details on how you can be, go visit this website. And for the whole schedule of where Frank will be and when he might be in your neck of the woods, check out this page.

Note if you will that on March 15, he'll be at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois. This is where the Marx Brothers were once on the bill with a monologist named Art Fisher. Mr. Fisher had this thing for nicknames ending in "o" and during a backstage poker game, it is said, he began referring to Julius Marx as "Groucho," to Adolph Marx as "Harpo" and so on. The names somehow stuck and Show Biz History was made. Needless to say, Frank continues to do the name of Groucho proud.

[Edited to fix a questionable factual assertion I made when I wrote this, on account of I'm exhausted.]

And hello this time from San Francisco. I flew back here yesterday morning on a plane full of Korean teenagers who were loudly rehearsing scenes from High School Musical. There's gotta be an F.A.A. regulation prohibiting that kind of thing.

The con was just where I'd left it but busier than the day before. I got back in time to host three panels in a row — a one-on-one with Gary Friedrich, a three-on-three (I guess you'd call it) with Sergio Aragonés and Stan Sakai and my ever-lovin' self, and a one-on-one with Roy Thomas. At the first, Gary spoke with disarming candor about his career writing for Marvel in the late sixties and early seventies, and how it ended due largely to alcohol abuse…or as Gary put it, "My becoming an unreliable drunk." He's thirty years sober and writing again, so the whole thing has as much of a happy ending as might be possible. If I were running a publishing firm today, I think I'd hire Gary to write some stories for me…including one that was painfully autobiographical. The audience at our panel was certainly riveted by the honesty of his narrative.

The panel with Sergio and Stan was fun, as those things always are. And I could have spent several more hours quizzing Roy about his long, colorful career. Mike Friedrich, who wrote for Marvel in the days when Roy was in charge, dropped in to heckle him about not supporting Barack Obama, even though Obama was a reader of Conan back when Roy wrote the comic.

Then in the evening, I took an expedition to see Frank Ferrante do his uncanny Groucho show at a local Jewish Community Center. But I'll write about that in a separate post because it's Sunday morn and there's another day of WonderConning to be done. See you later.

Hello from…well, not from San Francisco, where the WonderCon is taking place this weekend. I was there Friday afternoon but at the moment, I'm home in Los Angeles in the natural habitat of my office. In about seven hours, I fly back to S.F. to host more panels, see more friends, etc. It's a great convention, even if you have to commute.

A nice turnout today…but I was telling people, "If you want to move, do it today because you won't be able to, tomorrow." A huge turnout is expected…and yet, a couple of dealers I talked with said that for the first time in many years, they're seeing a noticeable dip in prices. It's not so much on the real rare, high-end comics or artwork but the bad economic news seems to be prompting a downturn in, as one of them put it, "the kind of merchandise that the guy across the aisle is also carrying." I didn't poll the whole room or even a huge sample…but that's what some were saying.

I did a nice panel today with Gary Friedrich and Roy Thomas discussing what some of us think were the glory days of Marvel. Later, I started a one-on-one interview with the lovely Wendy Pini but was called away. My apologies to Wendy and all those I ran out on.

Gotta get to bed. Good night, Internet.

The folks at Heritage Auctions have, as they usually do, copies of Amazing Spider-Man #1 from 1963 up for bid. It's been called to my attention that when they list one of these, they always say, "Steve Ditko cover (Jack Kirby layouts) and art." Not that it's a huge deal but I think this is wrong. Ditko, of course, drew the insides but I'm pretty sure the cover is Kirby and Ditko, not Ditko working over Kirby layouts. I stand by my oft-made statement that once Jack was no longer working in the Simon-Kirby studio, I don't think he ever laid out a cover for anyone else. He pencilled hundreds that others inked, and sometimes his covers were significantly revised by others. But I know of no case where he laid out a cover and then someone else pencilled over his layout.

If there's been any recent movement in the Screen Actors Guild situation, it's been kept quiet. As of now, the two warring factions within the guild are kind of circling one another, figuring out ways to mend whatever fences seem mendable. They had a scintilla of unity when the moderate group, which has taken over the negotiations and which is more eager to make a deal, didn't fare any better in their quest. The studios are trying to keep the actors divided and to make it more difficult for the two parties of SAG to come together and then to re-engage with AFTRA. They may be at least partly successful in this but right now, nobody's budging.

Meanwhile: The Writers Guild is putting Jay Leno through a kind of trial, discussing whether he violated strike rules when he allegedly wrote material for his show during our walkout. At arm's length, it might seem like an open-and-shut case that he did but there are a number of factors involved here. One is that there's some ambiguity in the distinction between writing for the show and writing for one's self. If a performer thinks of what he's going to say in front of the cameras five minutes before he says it, that's probably writing. If he thinks of it five seconds before, that's probably an ad-lib. I'm oversimplifying but you get the idea.

Or if Leno wrote jokes for his standup act during the strike and went down and did them at the Comedy and Magic Club, the guild is fine with that and, in fact, has no jurisdiction. If during the strike, The Tonight Show booked a standup comic to come in and do his act, that's not considered writing, either. But if Leno writes and tells a joke in Vegas and then uses it in his monologue on the show during the strike…well, again, there's room there to argue if he's writing for the show.

It is also worth noting that in the past, the WGA often looked the other way when some very prominent stars, including Mssrs. Carson and Letterman, committed the same supposed breach, and there are some very famous movie stars and screenwriters who could have been brought up on charges but weren't. I was on a committee many years ago where two WGA officers got into a yelling match over whether the Guild was going after the "little fish" and ignoring the whales. There were (then) a couple of cases where that seemed to be true. (I should also add that I researched this matter when I did an article last year on scabbing for New Republic and found that in past WGA strikes, there was a lot less of it than you might have imagined.)

Among those who know him, Leno has a pretty good reputation for ethics and apart from this little matter of going back to work during it, he was a strong supporter of the strike. He met with WGA leadership before he did, and I suppose the disposition of this current inquiry will hinge on what was said then and how it may have been interpreted or misinterpreted. Someone will also probably take into account the enormous pressure he was under, not only in terms of the staff of his show being laid off but with NBC probably threatening to sue him for breach of contract as a performer.

The guy was in a "no win" situation and I still like him. But I do have to say that I was disappointed when he went back and that I'm glad my guild is not pretending it didn't happen.