My deadlines and I could ill afford the trek but I had to do it, had to drive down to Brea last night and see Frank Ferrante make like Groucho again. I took along my friend Earl Kress and he was just as impressed as I was, first time I saw Frank. If you knew what a pain it is to drive to Brea, you'd have a good idea of how much I enjoyed the loving and uncanny re-creation of the grouchiest of Marxes that was going on down there.

Abetted by a superb piano player named Jim Furmston, Ferrante walks on stage, turns himself into Groucho and proceeds to Groucho all over that stage for about 90 minutes. He tells great anecdotes as Groucho. He sings and dances as Groucho. Most impressively, he talks with the audience, ad-libbing as Groucho. The best compliment I can pay the guy is to say that in all three categories, he succeeds.

It's quite amazing. I suppose that with enough work, a decent stage performer could master the Groucho moves and learn all those anecdotes. A decent mimic could replicate the voice. But Ferrante goes beyond an imitation, somehow tapping into something primal and essential about Groucho. About three minutes in, you forget it's a guy in a Groucho suit. It's just Groucho. You don't even wonder to yourself, "Hey, how is he able to think like Groucho?" That's not something a mere impersonator could learn.

What don't I like about the show? Well, I don't like that he does it in outta-the-way (for me) places like Brea, for God's sake. He also doesn't do it often enough. Much of the year, Frank is employed as the lead performer in Teatro ZinZanni, which is a fancy and bizarre show performed in San Francisco and Seattle — Frank's usually in San Francisco — in a nightclub setting. But if and when he Grouchos near you, run and see him. According to his schedule, his next Grouchoing will be July 1 in Clayton, New York and July 8 in Mission Viejo, California. Mission Viejo is like Brea only more so.

Anyway, I'd better stop before you get the idea that I like this guy's show. If he's in your neck of the woods, go. And tell 'em Groucho Mark sent you.

The L.A. Times has a great obit on Will Elder, in part because of some rare photos. There are a couple of errors in it, however. The editor of Mad is quoted as talking about what a great job Elder did drawing the classic Mad story, "Superduperman." As we all know, "Superduperman" was drawn by Wally Wood. Also, an illustration identified as being from the first issue of Mad is not from the first issue of Mad.

Here's another one in The Washington Post.

Also, Paul Levitz of DC Comics has some interesting thoughts to offer about the EC guys. Pay special attention to what he writes about establishing the proper creative environment for work, as I think that's an important point that's often overlooked. If you want your people to create great work, you have to allow them to work in an arena where they feel great work will be recognized, appreciated and even — and I'm not kidding about this — not something for which they will be punished.

Throughout the month of June, I'll be signing Kirby: King of Comics at a number of comic book shops in the Southern California area. First up is Meltdown Comics in Hollywood on June 7 from 2 PM to 4 PM. There will also be a Q-and-A if anyone has any Qs. Details on the signing are here and the address of the store is over here.

That's a Saturday. Then on Wednesday, June 11, I'll be out at Hi-De-Ho Comics in Santa Monica. Details to come.

Also, I'll be talking about Kirby next week on Fresh Air on NPR. Details of that to come, as well. I don't know about you folks but I'm sure gonna get sick of me.

It's been a while since I've mentioned it here but I'm a big fan of TiVo. I bought one of the first ones and have never been anything but delighted with the machine, the service and the very principle of time-shifting and storing shows the way it does. Everyone I know who's got one is happy with theirs, though maybe not with the cost of month to month service. A year or two ago, TiVo stopped offering lifetime service for a flat fee, and some who make the monthly payments find it an annoying burden.

Well, guess what, TiVo Town! Lifetime service is back! For $399, you can get it on your TiVo…and I guess I oughta explain what that means. It does not mean your lifetime. It means the lifetime of the machine for which you purchase it. As long as that particular TiVo is operational, you don't have to make the monthly payments.

How long might that be? Well, I've had my current TiVos for long enough to make lifetime service a bargain. You may keep yours for quite a while. When TiVos wear out, the usual reason — maybe 95% of the time — is hard disk failure. You can have a company like Weaknees slap a new hard disk in your machine or sell you a kit to do it yourself…and the lifetime service can continue!

On the other hand! One of these days, TiVo's going to come out with a new model that will be so super-duper peachy fabbo that you may want to pitch your old one and get a new one. We've heard rumors of better TiVos for some time but no firm announcements. Next year? The year after? I dunno. I suspect — don't hold me to this — that when TiVo does bring out a true "new generation" model, there will be some offer whereby one will be able to transfer one's lifetime sub to a new machine. But that also may not happen.

Right now, here's how the math works. Regular service is $12.95 a month, $129 per year or $299 for three years. So for the $399 lifetime service to be cost effective, you'd have to keep the machine close to four years. (A few other things to consider: One is that they can raise prices at some point and that's not unlikely. Lifetime service means you don't have to worry about that…or about paying bills periodically. Also, if you have more than one TiVo, you can get a discount for additional subscrptions on the same account. You can prepay $99 per year on your second unit or if you buy lifetime service for $399, lifetime service on additional TiVos is $299 apiece.)

So does lifetime service make sense? You can figure it out as well as I can. I just thought I'd mention that option is available again.

We're directing you to a nice piece in The Independent (over in London) by Tim Walker all about Jack Kirby.

Will Elder, a founding artist of Mad Magazine, has died at the age of 86. No word on the cause but I heard months ago that he was in a nursing home and not expected to live even this long.

Will Elder was born Wolf William Eisenberg September 22, 1921 in the Bronx and grew up there. One of his childhood friends was Bess Myerson, who was later a beauty queen and a panelist on TV game shows like I've Got a Secret. Elder was an inveterate practical joker (Bill Gaines, the publisher of Mad, once described him as "our only contributor who lived a life as crazy as our magazine") and when Myerson was crowned Miss America, Elder happily bet his friends — who did not know of his connection to her — that if they went to a public event where Miss America was appearing, she would take one look at him and throw her arms around him and smother him with kisses. The friends bet, Miss America did shower Elder with kisses, and the friends paid up. Elder later called it "the most satisfying money I ever made."

He made most of the rest of his money directing his impish sense of humor onto drawing paper. At Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, he met and bonded with a fellow student, Harvey Kurtzman, and also became friendly with several artists who would figure into his later career, including Al Jaffee and John Severin. Elder would describe his life after those days as "following Harvey wherever he went." For a time, it was into an art business called the Charles William Harvey Studio, which the two of them formed with an artist named Charles Stern. The studio did work for Prize Comics and other companies before dissolving as Kurtzman and Elder became exclusive to the legendary EC line of comics.

For EC, Kurtzman edited, wrote and occasionally drew two war comics. Elder's style was not particularly suited for war or anything too serious but he gamely inked pencil art by John Severin for various EC titles, including their prestigious science-fiction line edited by Al Feldstein. Occasionally, Elder would even try drawing a horror story on his own but that was not his genre.

His genre turned out to be Mad, founded in 1952 and the perfect vehicle for Elder's talents. He was not only its lead artist, working over Kurtzman scripts and layouts, but he contributed many ideas and the general mindset of the early Mad artistry. Elder is generally given most of the credit for founding what Kurtzman described as "The Chicken Fat School of Art," and I don't know quite what that means, either. It has something to do with filling the panels with little background gags and signs so that you have to read each story several times to get all the jokes.

Elder drew many of the most memorable stories in the comic book issues of Mad, including classic parodies of Archie, Wonder Woman, The Shadow, Mandrake the Magician and many more. When Kurtzman quit in a financial dispute, Elder went right along with him, working on virtually everything Harvey did after that. The path went from a fancier version of Mad for Hugh Hefner called Trump to a cheaper, self-published version of Mad called Humbug to an even cheaper publication called Help! Eventually, Kurtzman and Elder put most of their energy into what was at the time, the most expensive-to-produce (per page) comic strip/book ever, "Little Annie Fanny" for Playboy.

Annie appeared intermittently in Playboy from 1962 through 1988. That and occasional advertising jobs kept Elder happily occupied, though later he and Kurtzman returned to Mad for a few jobs. Several books of his work have been published in recent years, including Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art (a biography with art), Chicken Fat (an art and sketchbook) and two volumes that reprint the entirety of "Little Annie Fanny."

I interviewed Will Elder twice — once at a Comic-Con International in San Diego, once by phone. The former was on a panel at the 2000 con and when he arrived for it, he explained that he was feeling poorly and not up to participating. I persuaded him to at least sit up front with me and his fellow Mad contributors, Jack Davis, Al Feldstein and Jack Mendelsohn. I said, "If you don't feel like talking, you don't have to." He agreed.

All through the panel, I bypassed him in the discussions but would occasionally whisper to ask him if he felt up to saying something. He kept saying no so the talk proceeded without him. Near the end though, he agreed to answer one question if I made it easy. I asked him something simple. He answered it and got a big laugh. He then went on talking for about the next fifteen minutes, delighting the crowd and obviously feeling a lot better because of it. After the panel, several attendees scolded me for not involving him sooner.

I have never figured out if he really didn't feel up to speaking or if some sort of practical joke was being played on me. All I know is that Will Elder was a delightful funny man…in person as well as (obviously) on paper.

Across Ye Olde Internet, there's been a massive outpouring of affection and concern for Gene Colan, the longtime comic artist. Gene, who's drawn as many pages of fine comic books as any man alive, has a failing liver and other complications, and the relevant news sites have erupted with the sad news. (Some of them, by the way, are wrongly reporting that Gene is hospitalized. He is not. He's resting comfortably at home, getting what I'm sure is the best care possible from his loving spouse, Adrienne.)

Obviously, it's dreadful that a great guy/artist like Gene is in failing health. It's especially ghastly that he and his wife are looking at staggering pharmaceutical bills that will not be covered by their health insurance. I'm not sure why they don't have better nsurance — lack of funds, one might assume — but the reason doesn't change the fact that the Colans have this crisis.

There's not a lot out there that makes me mad but I find myself increasingly upset at what some call The Health Care Crisis in America. I know folks who, quite literally, have lost everything due to illness. The widow of a prominent comic book artist called me once to thank me for the obit I'd posted here and said, "I think the cause of death should have been listed as 'not being able to afford good medical care.'" Getting sick can be beastly expensive, more so than prudent planning can possibly cover.

We all have the issues that matter to us in upcoming elections. A biggie for me is that I think we have to do something about the cost of health care in this country. If we don't do it out of strictly humanitarian reasons, we oughta do it because sick people without insurance are a drain on all of us, on all of society. I'm not sure if Single Payer is the way to go, or if other proposals would be preferable…but letting the expenses spiral upwards and outta control is simply unacceptable.

In the meantime, there are things you can do for the Colans. Keep an eye on the weblog of Clifford Meth for all the latest info. Gene has given us so much over the years, it's more than fitting that we all give back.

Just read over what I wrote last night. I think it stopped being funny about 3:30.

Anything you write is funny if you stay up late enough.

Good night, Internet. See you in the morning…or maybe the afternoon.