The fine PBS TV series Nature, which brings us amazing footage and narratives, supplements its work with a comic book that's available to classrooms, educators, students, etc. This coming Sunday, they debut a new and engrossing episode, "The Wolf That Changed America," which I highly recommend. You can see a preview of it here and you can read or download the Nature comic book adaptation — scripted by me, drawn by Tom Yeates — on this page.

Hey, wanna do a nice thing for a stranger? Sure you do. After all, you're a nice, decent human being. The stranger is a lady who must be terrific because her son is a great guy and a pal of mine. Go read this and then send a postcard to spread a little cheer where it'll do some good.

Every week, I get a couple of e-mails just because of an article I wrote about Soupy Sales. This is the piece Soupy reprinted in his autobiography, even though I got the name of his director wrong…and therefore, it's wrong in his autobiography, too. (It's corrected in my online version.)

Soupy was and is much-loved and a lot of folks ask me how to get in touch with him so they can send fan letters, and I have to tell them I can't help. Though I've met the man a few times, I don't really know Soupy and don't want to hand out the only contact info I have for him, which is apparently his home address. However, the other day on his radio show, Howard Stern said Soupy was in poor health. He gave out an address (the address of the publisher of the National Enquirer and the Globe) and said Soupy would welcome fan mail sent to him at that address.

A friend of Soupy's sent me that info and suggested I post it…and earlier today, I did. Soon after, another friend of Soupy's — apparently, a closer friend — wrote to say that Howard was outta line, that Soupy's health is not as bad as Stern suggested. In fact, just the other day, he made an appearance to receive an award at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Here's a link to an article about the event.

It's true that Soupy, who's usually seen in a wheelchair, is not as well as we'd all like…but there's poor health and then there's Poor Health, and I'm happy to see he's still out and around and especially that he's getting awards. Talk about a guy who inspired an entire generation…

Comic Book Resources has posted this article about the War Comics panel I moderated last Saturday at The National in New York. As happens about 90% of the time with these, a line is misattributed. The line about Lee and Kirby bickering over the content of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos was said by me, not Dick Ayers. But other than that, it's a good report.

A while ago here, I posted a message about Soupy Sales, specifically about an address to which Howard Stern is telling people to send fan mail. I'm now hearing from friends of Soupy that one should not listen to Howard Stern. I'll take that message down and will post better info later.

If you're interested in the Minnesota Senate recount — or just in what kind of ballot markings become arguable in such a situation — here are some examples of challenged ballots. Only one or two struck me as really controversial but I guess if my candidate's election were at stake, I might be seizing on every possible explanation as to why a given ballot should be viewed to his advantage.

The 2008 Presidential Election seems to be over. Missouri's electoral votes have gone to John McCain and that means that Barack Obama's final total is 365 votes, a number that no one guessed in our Guess Obama's Electoral Total contest. Around fifty of you guessed 364 and Richard Bensam was the first of these. One person — Ellen Bischoff — guessed 366. So I hereby declare a tie. Richard and Ellen will share the total lack of any prize in this competition and may divide up the bragging rights as they see fit.

Turning to the Senate: Ted Stevens of Alaska has conceded and today, the entire Senate gave him a standing ovation in honor of his years of service. One wonders how many felony convictions you have to have not to get a standing ovation from your colleagues in the Senate. I'm guessing if your crime is money, there's no limit and if your crime involves sex, it's one.

I don't think it would be that big a Magic Number for the Democrats to reach 60 seats in the Senate, except maybe as a symbolic point. True, 60 Democratic votes means the Republicans can't easily filibuster but if the Dems have anything worthwhile to offer, they oughta be able to get one or two G.O.P. defections…so 58 or 59 oughta do it. Still, we watch the two remaining Senate races for the sheer "story" of it all. It would be nice to see Saxby Chambliss defeated in the Georgia runoff, not because he's a Republican but because he won in the first place with that shameful ad attacking Max Cleland. You know that ad…the one John McCain condemned as morally indefensible before he started campaigning for the guy who put it out.

I always look at these situations, at least in part, from the standpoint of "If this were a movie, what would make the climax most exciting?" In this case, it would be for Martin to beat Chambliss in Georgia so the "60" number would hinge on the recount in Minnesota. They're saying they might declare a victor there by the end of the year (!) and with a race this close, I'm guessing it'll come down to whenever that last vote is recounted and the election is certified.

(And by the way, isn't it just bizarre that Bill O'Reilly is telling his viewers that the election is over and that Norm Coleman has been certified as the winner? I know O'Reilly hates Al Franken — he's not alone — but doesn't everyone understand that they're doing this recount because Coleman hasn't been certified? Isn't that just, you know, a demonstrable lie on O'Reilly's part? I thought the guy was smarter than that.)

If you're interested in following the Coleman/Franken recount, this is the page to do that on. My guess is it's going to be up and down there for weeks, with a lot of court battles over whether Mrs. Harriet Turkeybaster's ballot, which she marked with lipstick, should be counted or if it should be discarded like Mr. Niles Hooperman's ballot, which he marked in pork gravy. It is significant that the recount is already showing that a hand recount yields inarguable differences from when the same ballots were counted by machine. If your bank found that a human audit changed the results of the counting of money even by a nickel, they'd instantly junk those machines. But in this country, we tolerate a little approximation in our elections. I mean, it's not like anyone's vote is that important…

I've wondered here occasionally if anyone ever actually falls for those Nigerian Inheritance e-mail scams we all get. The answer, it would seem, is yes.

Thanks to reader Charles Apple, I have some more for you on Stan Lee's medal at the White House.  You can see it on this page.

The relevant speechifying of the day found a Military Aide (that's what he's called in the transcript) announcing, "The 2008 National Medal of Arts to Stan Lee, for his groundbreaking work as one of America's most prolific storytellers, recreating the American comic book. His complex plots and humane super heroes celebrate courage, honesty, and the importance of helping the less fortunate, reflecting America's inherent goodness." Not a bad way to put it…but I'll bet Stan would still have rather received this next January 21.

I've been away and not reading comic book sites so maybe this is old news…but Stan Lee was among those honored the other day at the White House as recipients of the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal. Good for you, Stan, but I think it's a few months early. Barack Obama is the one who's said to be a big Spider-Man fan.

Legendary comedy writer Irving Brecher has died at the age of 94. Mr. Brecher created the radio and TV series, The Life of Riley, and wrote several notable movies, including Bye Bye Birdie and two with the Marx Brothers. (Brecher performed another service for the Marx Brothers, by the way. He looked a lot like Groucho and at least once, when that particular Marx Brother was unavailable for a publicity photo shoot, they painted the eyebrows and mustache on Brecher and had him fill in.)

Here's a link to an obit. I'll just add that I met Mr. Brecher on a couple of Writers Guild picket lines and he was funny and feisty and loyal to his union and he had great stories about working with the Marx Brothers, Milton Berle and others. I hope some of them are in that book he has coming out.

I never hesitate to complain about airlines here so, in fairness, let me tell you about our flight home from New York. Carolyn and I flew back on American Airlines flight 21 this evening. It was supposed to take off at 7:15 PM. It did. Actually, it took off a few minutes early.

It was supposed to arrive at 10:50 PM. When we touched down, the pilot announced that our gate was not available to us so we had to wait. The plane sat on the tarmac for a good ten minutes, then finally rolled into a gate and we got off. I tell time by my BlackBerry/cell phone, which was off until I got into the terminal, but when I finally did look, it was 10:12. I phoned the limo driver who was coming to pick us up and he was still twenty minutes away. Here's the flight status which I just grabbed off the American Airlines website…

As you can see, it shows us landing at 9:58. I'm not sure if we actually landed at 9:48 and then we had the ten minute wait or if we landed at 9:58 and it took us until 10:08 to get to the gate. But we got in either 52 or 62 minutes early. I tend to believe the 52 just because…well, come on. Over an hour early on a New York-Los Angeles flight? But the 52 is pretty impressive, too.