My late father, who was one of the gentlest and kindest men who ever lived, used to watch Crossfire on CNN, hoping someone would finally haul off and belt Robert Novak. Dad called him the perfect example of a guy who thinks that the world should revolve around him and his friends making as much money as possible, and that there is no concern that even comes in even a close second. He was also amazed that Novak could be regarded as a reporter and pundit when he continued to get so much so wrong so often. I have seen nothing to suggest my father was wrong.

Take a look at this. Novak is driving along in a black Corvette. He hits a pedestrian and keeps on going. A man on a bicycle sees this, chases Novak down and tells him he hit someone. Only then does Novak stop. He says, "I didn't see him there."

The bicyclist apparently had to stand in traffic to block Novak from leaving the scene. Later, describing the accident, he says he watched as a, "black Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed onto the windshield."

Police came and gave Novak a citation. One does suspect that if it had been you or I or anyone who wasn't a well-connected, famous media celeb, we'd be taken to a little room and told that we had one phone call. Gee, I wonder what Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart are going to say on their shows tonight.

And it's off to San Diego with me. Those of you who fret for the well-being of Lydia, the cat I feed on my back porch, needn't fret. The housesitter will make sure she is well-fed, and I have an array of plumbers and tile guys rebuilding a bathroom and portions of my kitchen whilst I'm down in S.D. hosting panel after panel. So she will not starve for food or attention. (And remind me when I get back to tell you all about Max, a new feline who's joined the throng at the backyard supper dishes. Max is obviously aware that I write the Garfield cartoons and thinks, wrongly, that if he hangs around and gets morbidly obese on the Friskies I put out, he too will enjoy such stardom.)

I have no idea how much, if at all, I'll be posting at the con. Friday, I have three business meetings, an hour of book-signing, four panels to host and one I've promised to visit, plus I have a dinner date and then I'm presenting an award at the big awards gala, dashing out to do a video-type interview, then dashing back to the awards show. Saturday is busier than Friday. I will however try to get a link up here whenever Fred Kaplan posts whatever he's going to post on the current doings with Iraq. Read back on this guy's old articles, people. He's called just about everything exactly right. Wouldn't be nice if we could say that about anyone in our government?

If you see me down there, say hello…and forgive me if I seem distracted at the moment. That's my natural condition, even when I'm not at a Comic-Con International. Each year, it seems, I come back to find one person on the Internet who thinks I snubbed him or her because they said howdy and didn't get what they felt was courteous attention. That is so unlike me and it bothers me that it ever happens. Let's see if I can get through this con without it happening again.

Mark is facing reality: I have too much to get done before the convention…so posting will be light to non-existent the next few days.

If I owe you an e-mail and it can wait 'til after the Comic-Con, it will have to wait 'til after the Comic-Con.

Also, please: Do not write to ask if I can get you into the con and/or get you a hotel room and/or arrange for you to meet Sergio. I can't do the first two…and you can manage the third on your own.

I shall return.

Are you following what's been going on with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and his interview in the German magazine, Der Spiegel? You may not have been because most of the American press is treating it with all the importance of Dog Bites Man. Basically, al-Maliki said in the conversation that Barack Obama's sixteen month timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq made sense to him. The White House then called to demand that al-Maliki "clarify" (i.e., retract) his remarks…and a spokesguy for Iraq issued a half-assed statement that said al-Maliki had been misunderstood, though he didn't say about what.

I won't say much more about it. You should go to whatever news sources you trust and see what they're saying about it…and if they're not saying anything, you should trust them a lot less. Speigel is standing by its story and there's apparently tape…and the statements attributed to al-Maliki are pretty unambiguous. So either the magazine just fabricated quotes — which the Iraq rep is not charging — or the prime minister of Iraq is laying out an exit strategy for the U.S. that happens to more or less mirror the Barack Obama proposal that John McCain keeps saying is not workable and not in Iraq's best interests.

But go read up about it. Whatever happened there, it's a much bigger story than the press is admitting. Then again, the Washington Post has more pressing, important news to cover. They're only up to Chapter 8 of a 12-part front page series on the disappearance of Chandra Levy.

Hey, how about some tips for Comic-Con? I have some general convention tips on this page. "Professor" Scott Tipton has some advice over on this page. And Tom Spurgeon has the Encyclopedia Britannica of San Diego Convention Tips over on this page. Listen to what Scott and Tom say except that both are seriously deficient in recommending attendance at my panels.

Speaking of which: I get a lot of e-mails asking me why there isn't a memorial/tribute panel for so-and-so, who died this past year. There are two answers to that, both pretty simple ones. One is that too many people in comics have died in the last twelve months. Maggie Thompson's going to get up at the Eisner Awards ceremony Friday evening and read the list…and with luck, we'll be outta there in time for Saturday Night Live.

The other reason — and maybe I shouldn't say this but I say a lot of things I shouldn't say — is that a lot of these memorial panels don't get much of a turnout. I've hosted a great many of them and I'd say with half (or thereabouts), I look out at far too many empty seats, wondering where the people are who'd told me how important it was that the con — whatever con it was — have some sort of remembrance of their dear, departed pal. But they're not there. They're down in the Dealers Room selling stuff at their table or promoting product or whatever.

So we don't do a lot of these. This year, I'm hosting the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel because…well, he was Jack Kirby. Reason enough. Immediately following it, allowing for back-to-back memorials, I'm hosting an hour devoted to the late Dave Stevens.

The Kirby panels are by now more than eulogies. They're historical records of an important guy, and we also have a lot to discuss each year in terms of upcoming Kirby reprints. Even deceased, Jack has more stuff coming out than most artists who are alive.

This year, I've asked Joe Ruby and Ken Spears to be on the panel to discuss a period in Jack's career about which most of his fans know little. In the late seventies, Jack felt distanced and in some ways a prisoner of the comic book industry. To stay in it at that point would have meant doing some things he really didn't want to do…so he got into animation, instead. Contrary to a spectacularly uninformed article that a prominent person in the cartoon biz wrote many years ago, Jack was enormously happy working on Saturday morn cartoon shows and he later said that, for a number of reasons, the change saved his life. Most of this work was done for the Ruby-Spears Studio on shows that included Thundarr the Barbarian, Mr. T, Chuck Norris's Karate Kommandos and many that did not make it to air. Joe and Ken will be telling us all about those days.

I've also asked the great comic book artist Jerry Robinson to be on the panel…and you may have seen Larry Lieber listed. Larry was going to be on it and wanted to be on it…but he has to catch an early flight Sunday morning. So I'll be surprising you (and possibly, myself) with someone else.

Dave Stevens was, of course, a good friend and a good guy and (of least importance) a good artist. I do expect a good turnout for the tribute to him. I'm not sure who all will be speaking. I'm going to just let anyone who wants to say something have three minutes at the microphone. We've only got an hour, which means more like 45-50 minutes, so it won't be nearly enough time. We also have a lovely slide show and a few other treats.

Here are the listings for these events…

Sunday, July 27
10:00-11:00 Jack Kirby Tribute — As we do every year, friend and family of the great Jack Kirby to remember the man some call The King. Participating this year are animation producers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, and comic book legend Jerry Robinson. And it's all hosted by — who else? — Mark Evanier, author of the recent book, Kirby: King of Comics. Room 7AB.

11:00-12:00 Remembering Dave Stevens — The industry was shocked and saddened at the loss this year of one of our great creative talents. Emcee Mark Evanier chairs an hour of remembrance by Dave's fans and friends as they talk about the creator of The Rocketeer…a great artist who left us much too early. Room 7AB.

And since I mentioned Ruby and Spears, I should note that Earl Kress and I will be interviewing them on Friday about their work…first at Hanna-Barbera where they went from being film editors to writers to producers to practically running the studio. These are the guys who started Scooby Doo and dozens of other hit shows, plus they created shows for other studios (like Bigfoot & Wildboy and Electra-Woman and Dynagirl for the Kroffts) before founding their own studio. Here's the official description for that panel…

Friday, July 25
2:00-3:00 That '70s (Animation) Panel — Comic-Con special guest Mark Evanier talks to animation legends Joe Ruby and Ken Spears — of Ruby-Spears Productions — about their amazing output of television cartoon shows in the '70s, '80s, and beyond. Meet the men who gave you Thundarr the Barbarian, Scooby Doo, Dynomutt, Fangface, Jabberjaw and so many more. Room 8.

More panel previews tomorrow. (I can't believe the convention is so soon. Each year, I wonder if there isn't some way to get it postponed for a couple weeks…)

There are, to me, many fine reasons why John McCain should not be president. One biggie is that he has been a tireless advocate for the belief that the government should never interfere with anything that big investment entities want to do to try to get bigger, but that it should stand at the ready to bail them out — with billions of our tax bucks — whenever they crash and burn. To them, our government is like a demented insurance company that says, "Take whatever risks you like and if it doesn't work, we'll pay for it." McCain proclaims something quite different in many of his speeches but when it comes down to voting and using his position to advance causes, he always sides with the Enron crowd.

Robert Scheer calls him on it. The notion that Phil Gramm could be advising McCain, let alone be considered his probable Secretary of the Treasury, says it all. Gramm is to fiscal responsibility what Andy Dick is to manners.

A number of folks attending the upcoming Comic-Con International in San Diego are planning on boycotting one of the main hotels and gathering spots, the Manchester Grand Hyatt. There's a gentleman named Doug Manchester who (it is said) "built" the hotel — and presumably they mean in a financial sense, not by sawing lumber. Mr. Manchester is an occasionally-outspoken voice against gay rights and recently donated $125,000 to the cause of Proposition 8, a November ballot initiative in California that seeks to reverse the recent court decisions permitting same-sex marriages.

I happen to think full and total gay rights, wedlock included, are long overdue in this world. I also happen to think they're inevitable and that the folks opposing them are like the George Wallace contingent of the late sixties that thought there was still a chance to return racial minorities to the rear of the bus and separate but equal water fountains. (The analogy to racial minority rights is not exact in all aspects but the wrongheadedness of those who stubbornly refuse to grow up and accept reality is the same. Twenty years from now, if you suggest gays shouldn't marry, the reaction of most decent people will be like if you say today that interracial marriage is wrong.)

I've decided not to boycott. If it makes you feel better, fine. I think the impact on Mr. Manchester will be microscopic and it might even have the opposite effect. The Hyatt is not going to have a single vacant room during the con no matter what any of us do, and the bars will be pouring as much liquor as they ever have. As a general rule of thumb, I don't think boycotts are a good idea unless there's a decent chance of them yielding a headline, "Business suffers mightily from boycott." If you can't achieve that, you just reinforce the reverse: It seems to prove that the world doesn't oppose the position you're protesting, and that there's no economic downside to advocating it. After the con, Mr. Manchester will not be sorry he gave that $125,000 and there might even be press reports that will suggest it's because the anti-Proposition 8 movement isn't as strong as some think.

In truth, I think there's an ever-increasing chance he will be sorry, but not until November. The latest polls suggest Proposition 8 losing…and a loss in California could well mean the beginning of the end for the move to deny gays the right to marry in this country. There will surely be some states that will resist for decades — in Utah, they'll probably say you can only marry several people of the same sex but not one — but the momentum will all be towards acceptance. Gay Marriage opponents won't even be able to say that it's all a plot of immoral judges who legislate from the bench; not after the voters of the nation's most populated state have endorsed the practice and rendered it democratic. If gays are free to wed in California, they'll eventually be free to marry anywhere. Recent polls also suggest that Americans across a wide swath of age, politics and geography don't see what the big deal is about gays serving openly in the military.

Proposition 8 is not necessarily doomed to defeat. There are polls that show a closer race. But if it does lose, we who think it's antiquated bigotry will be quite happy it was put to a vote. We may even want to thank Mr. Manchester for throwing his support behind a bad initiative at a time when it was likely to get voted down. If I see him at the Hyatt, I may mention that.

Last night, a packed house at the Motion Picture Academy enjoyed the new, restored version of Mr. Disney's Sleeping Beauty. In fact, we saw it as no one else has ever seen it. The new digital restoration involves an even wider screen than the movie had when it was first released in 1959.

It was one of about five dozen movies made in the Technirama process which involved an extremely wide screen. The Disney craftsmen composed the movie for the ratio of 2.55:1 but for reasons I didn't understand (it sounded like some sort of technical screw-up) portions of the image on either side were lopped off and the film was released in the ratio of 2.35:1. There's nothing that important in the margins that have been restored for this new version but it was still exciting in an odd way to realize you were seeing more of Sleeping Beauty than anyone ever saw before. You can make up your own filthy-minded joke.

In his introduction to the presentation, Leonard Maltin said that we were in for a stunning visual treat. He was right. Boy, that's a great-looking picture. I guess it always was but the restoration is sharp and amazing. They're bringing it out on DVD and Blu-ray later this year and I guess we'll all buy it. But it's also getting some theatrical release — next month at the El Capitan in Hollywood for one night, then longer runs all over…and I don't care how big a TV monitor you own. Go see this one on a real big screen.

Leonard also remarked that at the time of its release, the film received some harsh reviews which called it cold, impersonal and confusing. Leonard thought this was wrong and he and I usually agree…but I think I side more with the critics who found flaws. I don't think the storyline works all that well, either as a love story or as a fantasy. Let me put up my SPOILER ALERT warning and then I'll tell you why.

As a love story, there's a problem: It's about a princess who was betrothed at birth to a prince. For years, she's unaware of this commitment or even that she's a princess…until one day she meets him by chance and, unaware he's her hubby-to-be, she falls instantly in love with him. And by "instantly," I mean it's about forty seconds of idle conversation and a few dance steps…so it all happens in the shallow end of the pool. But it's not really about finding love or about either of them ever maybe loving someone else because they never do. It's not a romance that really relates to anything that could ever occur to any of us since few of us are betrothed at birth. It's just a contrived problem that pertains occasionally to members of royalty.

As a fantasy, the scenario isn't much crisper. There's a horrendous villainess but we never know quite what makes her so rotten. She gets mad at not having been invited to a celebration but she was evil before that. Then she casts a curse that says that the princess will die at or around sundown of her sixteenth birthday. Three magic fairies decide (I'm not sure why) to forsake their magic for the next sixteen years and live with the princess in a cottage in the forest…and then they decide to start doing magic again and to bring the princess back just before sundown of her sixteenth birthday. Why don't they keep her away a few days longer? I have no idea.

The princess falls victim to the curse just as predicted (nice job of protecting her, fairies) but way back at the birth, one of the fairies cast a spell to alter the curse so that instead of the princess dying, she will merely sleep for all eternity or until her true love kisses her, whichever occurs first. This might be kinda interesting if she didn't have a true love around to kiss her but as it happens, she does. It's the guy she's been engaged to since the day she was born, the fellow she just happened to fall madly in love with about an hour before.

So all the fairies have to do is go get that guy and arrange for him to lay a big wet one on the title character. But before the fairies go fetch him, they decide to put everyone in the kingdom to sleep so that…uh…I guess I don't know why they do that. After the screening, I asked a few friends who were there and they didn't know, either. I assume there's a reason and maybe I read it in the comic book version or some novel adaptation way back when but if it was in the movie, we all missed it.

Finally, the prince has to battle monsters and spells and many near-death threats to go kiss the princess and save the day…which he does, though it seems like the three fairies do most of the heavy lifting.

Ultimately, I guess I didn't care about any of the characters in the film except maybe the fairies…and the movie really isn't about them. It's about a curse we don't understand and a princess we don't see much of. I still recommend the DVD and better still, a visit to an actual movie theater. Take a kid if you have one. One of the more delightful aspects of last night's screening was hearing the occasional "ooh" and other audible responses of the children present.

I think I see why this one was not regarded as the equal of some of the other Disney classics and why — in addition to the fact that it cost so darn much to make — it lost money. The reason I recommend it is that the animation and artwork is so wonderful. The screening was followed by a panel discussion and a display of artwork done for the film, and I believe the forthcoming DVD will have a considerable amount of such material. That's yet another reason to get it.

Creig Flessel, a pioneer artist of comics, has passed at the age of 96. He had suffered a stroke recently and that's all we know about the cause of death.

Flessel was born February 2, 1912, in Huntington, Long Island, New York, the son of a blacksmith. He attended Alfred University in New York, which is where he met the future Mrs. Flessel, graduating in 1936. One of his classmates, he always noted with pride, was Charles Addams.

His first job in comics was assisting cartoonist John H. Striebel on the newspaper strip, Dixie Dugan. This also brought him a career in advertising art, as Streibel was doing a lot of it at the time, mostly featuring the characters from the radio show, Vic and Sade. Over the years, Flessel would bounce back and forth between the two fields: When he wasn't doing comics, he was drawing for advertising, primarily for the Johnstone-Cushing agency. Over the decades, he did thousands of magazine ads and commercial storyboards, primarily but not exclusively in comic strip form.

His non-advertising cartoon appeared over the years in publications as diverse as Boy's Life and Playboy, but it was his work for the early DC Comics that made the most history. His first work for them appears to have appeared in More Fun Comics #10, cover-dated May of 1936. He drew a strip in the first issue of the historic Detective Comics and drew the covers for issues #2-17, along with many other covers for early DC titles. His work also appeared inside many comics for the firm, and he drew many stories of the Sandman in Adventure Comics, and created a character named The Shining Knight, who appeared in the same title.

In 1940, DC editor Vin Sullivan moved over to the newly-formed Columbia Comics, and Flessel began to freelance for him there, as well. In 1943, Sullivan formed his own company, Magazine Enterprises, and Flessel signed on as associate editor. He returned from time to time to DC, drawing for them again briefly in 1949, in the late fifties (mostly as an inker on Superman-related comics) and then in the early seventies, he worked on comics that Joe Simon was editing for the firm, including Prez.

All this time, he was primarily engaged in advertising art, though he occasionally assisted Al Capp on the Li'l Abner newspaper strip and from 1960-1971, he drew another strip, David Crane, which he took over from J. Winslow Mortimer. The National Cartoonists Society honored him in 1992 with its Silver T-Square Award for extraordinary service and the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and Jeanne Schulz honored him just last year with the Sparky Award, named for Jeanne's late husband, Charles Schulz. Creig was also a nominee for this year's Hall of Fame Award at the Comic-Con International.

In 2000, he and his wife Marie (yes, the spouse he met at Alfred University) moved from the East Coast to a home in Mill Valley, California to be closer to their son Peter and several grandkids. (They also had a daughter, Eugenie, who followed in Dad's footsteps by becoming a successful illustrator.) Creig never stopped cartooning and was often a guest at comic conventions, where I had the pleasure of interviewing him and chatting on many occasions. He was a delightful man who acted like you were doing him a favor to ask for an autograph or to pose some question about his long, long career. Condolences to his family and also to us, his friends and fans.