Michael Kinsley on voting for the party over the person. An area he doesn't get into is that this has become of increasing importance because of the "winner take all" mentality that now pervades Congress and the White House. The party that wins now controls everything and freezes out the party that lost, even if they lost by a hair. It didn't used to be like that.

A few years ago, I was entranced by some footage I saw on a news show. It was on Halloween or maybe a day after. At some zoo, the management brought in a few truckloads of pumpkins and fed them to the animals, mostly notably the hippopotami. A man with a shovel was scooping up pumpkins and throwing them into the hippos' mouths the way you'd put coal in a furnace. And the hippos were chomping them down like mouthfuls of cheese puffs.

This past weekend, the Los Angeles Zoo had an event called the "Stomp 'n' Chomp," the premise being that at announced hours, certain animals would be treated to a pumpkin snack. The elephants, it was expected, would mostly step on them and/or kick them around like footballs before eating them. The bears would toss them around before dining. And the hippos…well, I knew what the hippos would do and I wanted to see them do it in person.

Through a connection, I arranged for us (my friend Carolyn and me) to get V.I.P. access to the festivities. We not only got to watch hippos gorge on pumpkins but we were taken into the pen to feed them the rest of their diet — Romaine lettuce and apples. Here's a picture I snapped of Carolyn's hand lobbing a head of greenery into the gaping maw of a hippopotamus named Otis. Or maybe this hippo is Maggie and the other one in the photo is Otis. Whichever one it was, it kept opening its mouth to almost a 90° angle, waiting like a trash compactor for us to throw more food in. We did…as long as the supply lasted.

We also got an amazing and impressive guided tour of the zoo's hospital where ill or injured animals are treated. The facility seemed spotless, modern and well-equipped to handle anything from a pachyderm to a pismire. (There's a room full of medicines that they call "the pharmacy." When we were taken in there, I joked that I could use some Prilosec. The "pharmacist" grinned and pointed to a crate of it on a shelf. Turns out, they give it to some animals with stomach problems.)

I was glad I saw the clinic because I've occasionally thought there was something wrong with zoos; that it was a shame for the animals not to be roaming free in their native habitats. I still think there's something to that, but I hadn't realized what excellent medical care they receive in a zoo like this one. A creature in the wild that breaks a leg might as well be dead. In the zoo, they get surgery and a splint…and of course, the zoo feeds them well and protects them from the elements and being eaten by other animals. That's not the whole story but it's obviously something to consider.

After that, we were driven over to the rhinoceros pit and taken in the back way. There, we got to pet Rhonda the Rhinoceros — amazing skin that could use a daily application of Neutrogena — and feed her chunks of melon. Here's a photo that I took of Rhonda from about three feet in front of her…

Later, we wandered around the zoo for as long as our feet could stand it. The Los Angeles Zoo is a very nice place with a friendly atmosphere and a nice selection of critters to look at. The place was a little crowded — it's their pre-Halloween weekend and it was crawling with kids. (Most of the boys were pirates or super-heroes. All of the girls were princesses.) But really, my only criticism was that the meal I got at a snack bar turned out to be largely inedible. The hippos ate a lot better than I did.

We only saw about a third of the place so we'll be heading back soon. It's one of those places that you take for granted: It's always there so you figure, "I can go next month." I'm sorry I put it off as long as I did because it really is quite a nice place to spend an afternoon. Especially if they let you feed the hippos.

Jack Kirby died in 1994. That's far enough back that we now have a whole generation of comic book readers who never had the opportunity to meet the man. If you went to a San Diego Con before that, you could usually have talked with Jack because he was totally accessible to anyone who wanted to talk to him. And if you didn't go to one of those conventions but you passed through Thousand Oaks, California, all you had to do was phone the Kirby home and you'd probably get an invite to drop by, and some of those visits could last well into dinner. He and his wife Roz were enormously gracious to anyone who was interested in his work…too gracious with some who abused the privilege. (There's an amazing interview with Roz — as yet unpublished — that someone conducted shortly after Jack passed away. In it, she let fly with some of the anger she'd developed towards some of the people who exploited Jack his last decade or so, under the guise of friendship or partnership.)

Anyway, there are now a lot of people around who are interested in comics who never talked with Jack, which is a shame. Interviews were recorded with him but they don't give you a real sense of the man because Jack was terrible at being interviewed. Great at drawing and thinking up the wildest stories in the galaxy…bad at being interviewed. One of the reasons Stan Lee got so much of the attention for their collaborations is that Stan, by contrast, is a great interview — glib, funny, able to speak in sound bites, etc. Jack always got very serious and tense when a microphone was in front of him and especially when there was a video camera or an audience larger than about ten people. In everyday life, that magnificent brain of his was known to ramble from topic to topic, often with no visible segue, sometimes changing planets three times in a single sentence. When speaking before a crowd or into a microphone, however, he strained to focus and make logical, direct points…and since that was not the way he naturally thought, what came out was halting and humorless…and it usually wasn't logical or direct, either.

Still, that's all we have left of his actual voice and obviously, I'm mentioning all this because today's video is a short interview with Jack. It's from the 1987 documentary, Masters of Comic Book Art, and the gentleman you'll see introducing it is Harlan Ellison. The whole thing, with intro, only runs a little over five minutes. I don't think you get much of a sense of what Kirby was like…but I'm not sure any piece of film or video exists that does it any better. So take what you can get…

Any discomfort I felt at the Michael J. Fox political commercial for Claire McCaskill (as discussed here) has of course been displaced by the attempts, by Mr. Limbaugh and others, to smear the guy. This is how the game is played these days. When someone comes out and tells you something you don't want to hear, you have to argue that the viewpoint isn't real so it doesn't count. Claiming that Fox was acting or exaggerating his symptoms comes from the same mindset that insists, every time some military veteran denounces the war, that the guy really didn't serve with any honor so what he says really doesn't count.

My negative reaction to the ad was tempered a bit more when I read here — and I'm assuming this is so — that the spot came about because Fox himself heard McCaskill give a radio address regarding stem cell research. He then produced the commercial, sent it to her and asked her to use it if she felt so inclined. In any case, it doesn't look like he's being exploited in any way.

Several folks wrote in to say that my unease was surely due to not having seen Michael J. Fox like that before. Well, no. I've known people who suffered from Parkinson's and other conditions that produce similar symptoms…and I had seen Fox interviewed when his body seemed way out of his control. I forget where but I had. Others wrote that the tastelessness is because it's a raw appeal to emotion over intellect. That's true to some extent but it's also true of about 60% of all the political commercials out there.

I finally decided that what made me a bit squeamish when I first saw the ad was my sense of where it would lead. Obviously, Michael J. Fox would be attacked for it. Obviously too, if there was any sense that it might have gotten his candidate some votes — whether she won or not — there'd be similar ads, trotting out the ill and infirm to say, in effect, "Don't vote for Candidate X or I'll die." Given the low standard of "truthiness" in campaign ads these days, you could probably find a way to make that case against any incumbent.

The most interesting (to me) argument against the commercial is the one that deals with it not as political weaponry but as something that gives "false hope" to people with conditions like Fox's. This argument is advanced by people who believe that embryonic stem cell research is a scientific snipe hunt with little or no chance of ever yielding a cure for anything. I have no idea if this is true…or even if the research is anywhere near the point where that could be judged. However, I will note that folks like Limbaugh who say this often get hysterical when someone suggests shutting down the development of the "Star Wars" missile defense system in spite of a certain paucity of evidence that it will ever work. Still, it sounds like such a wonderful remedy for such a troubling problem that I think some people just don't want to turn loose of the comforting thought that a Miracle Cure may be possible. Let's hope that embryonic stem cell research never seems that hopeless.

George F. Will on what's going on in Iraq and how everyone seems to know it but Dick Cheney.

Continuing with our Film Festival of Flintstones commercials for Welch's products, here's Fred enjoying their grape jelly. Again, that's Alan Reed as Fred but the announcer is played by Art Gilmore, whose voice was heard on more commercials, radio shows, movie trailers and TV spots than any human who ever lived. This can't be the only time he ever voiced an animated character but I can't think of another.

I received the following from Len Wein, who co-created Wolverine and wrote the comic book he mentions below…and who, more importantly, owes me many lunches and his undying gratitude for my friendship. Len writes…

FYI, the Wolverine image on the stamp is from the splash page to Giant-Size X-Men #1. It's both penciled and inked by Dave, though the version on the stamp is probably from a bad stat. You can check out any of the 42 million reprints of said issue for verification if you'd like.

BTW, I own the original art from this page. Trust me, the original looks better.

Who cares? It's only a UNITED STATES POSTAGE STAMP. Why should they bother getting a clear image on it? For that matter, why should they not print their expensive hardcover reprints from eighth-generation stats? Really, I don't know why consumers (and the artists themselves) aren't more outraged at the bad reproduction we often get when anything is reprinted.

In the meantime, several folks have identified the source of the Iron Man portrait stamp. It's from Avengers West Coast #50, pencilled by John Byrne and inked by Mike Machlan. So I think we've now identified all of the art sources and there's one more name that should be mentioned.

I've also heard from people who've written to the website address of the United States Postal Service about this and have gotten back a form response. It tells them that if they believe a correction is necessary to a stamp, they should write (paper-style) to a certain address. That's fine but I think the burden of correcting these errors should lie with the Marvel people. You can't expect the U.S.P.S. to know the difference between John Buscema and Gene Colan but someone at Marvel should. There's some individual at that company who's in charge of working out the details of this arrangement with the postal people and that person needs to put things right.

I don't mean to change the subject from something truly important like who inked the panels that are going on Marvel Comic postage stamps. But Frank Rich has a good column this weekend on where we are with Iraq. Reading the whole thing at the New York Times site requires one of their TimeSelect subscriptions but I can quote these paragraphs…

It is also wrong to liken what's going on now, as Mr. Bush has, to the Tet offensive. That sloppy Vietnam analogy was first made by Mr. Rumsfeld in June 2004 to try to explain away the explosive rise in the war's violence at that time. It made a little more sense then, since both the administration and the American public were still being startled by the persistence of the Iraq insurgency, much as the Johnson administration and Walter Cronkite were by the Viet Cong's tenacity in 1968. Before Tet, as Stanley Karnow's history, Vietnam, reminds us, public approval of L.B.J.'s conduct of the war still stood at 40 percent, yet to hit rock bottom.

Where we are in Iraq today is not 1968 but 1971, after the bottom had fallen out, Johnson had abdicated and America had completely turned on Vietnam. At that point, approval of Richard Nixon's handling of the war was at 34 percent, comparable to Mr. Bush's current 30. The percentage of Americans who thought the Vietnam War was "morally wrong" stood at 51, comparable to the 58 percent who now think the Iraq war was a mistake. Many other Vietnam developments in 1971 have their counterparts in 2006: the leaking of classified Pentagon reports revealing inept and duplicitous war policy, White House demonization of the press, the joining of moderate Republican senators with Democrats to press for a specific date for American withdrawal.

That's why it seemed particularly absurd when, in his interview with Mr. Stephanopoulos last weekend, Mr. Bush said that "the fundamental question" Americans must answer is "should we stay?" They've been answering that question loud and clear for more than a year now.

Rich seems to think that right after the election, Bush and Company will not be so worried about seeming weak or appearing to reverse course and will hurry up the withdrawal from Iraq. The idea is that they will do everything they can to make it a non-issue before this nation (the U.S. of A.) elects its next president. I'm not sure why he (or anyone) thinks that but it's probably a nicer prediction than the one that has America making an all-out blitz to quickly "win" — in whatever way could be spun as a victory.

Martin Gately tells me that the art for the Wolverine stamp is from the first page of Giant-Size X-Men #1. This comic was pencilled and inked by Dave Cockrum…so that credit's right.

John Kowalchuk recognized the source of the Spider-Man portrait. It's from the cover of the book, Marvel: Five Fabulous
Decades of the World's Greatest Comics by Les Daniels and it was drawn by John Romita. So that one's right, too.

I've decided to be really anal and annoying about this. The new Marvel postage stamps (as discussed here) credit John Buscema with the Hulk image. Reader Joe Frank found its source. It's off the cover of The Incredible Hulk #200 and that cover is signed "Buckler & Romita," meaning Rich Buckler and John Romita. John Buscema had nothing to do with it.

And let's also notice that the Hulk has no stomach muscles in the stamp. This is because the drawing was clipped from that cover and someone had to paint out the image of Bruce Banner that was superimposed over the Hulk. But the person who took out that figure only partially completed the drawing to fill in the empty space…so the Hulk has non-washboard abs or whatever you'd call 'em. There are supermodels who'd kill for a tummy that flat.

Okay then. Let's review and correct the twenty stamps, starting with the ten that depict Marvel covers of the past…

• Amazing Spider-Man #1 (Credited to Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) – I think they got this one right.
• Marvel Spotlight #32 (Credited to Gil Kane) – First appearance of Spider-Woman. Gil pencilled it but he sure didn't ink it and I'm not sure who did. Might be Klaus Janson. John Romita did a lot of retouching on it, however.
• The Incredible Hulk #1 (Credited to Jack Kirby) – Probably right.  Kirby definitely pencilled it and it looks like he inked it, too.  If he didn't, Paul Reinman did…but my money's on Jack.
• Captain America #100 (Credited to Jack Kirby) – Jack pencilled it and Syd Shores inked it. This is the famous cover where Shores got carried away and redrew Captain America's face in his own style…because, as we all know, Jack Kirby never knew how to draw Captain America. Marvel wound up taking a Cap head from an earlier Kirby/Sinnott story and pasting a stat in to put the hero's head back to Jack's style.
• Sub-Mariner #1 (Credited to John Buscema and Sol Brodsky) – They got this one right, probably because I identified Brodsky in an article I published some time ago. And I just have to say that I wish one of their two Sub-Mariner images was by the character's creator, Bill Everett, just as I wish one of their Spider-Man images was pure Steve Ditko.
• X-Men #1 (Credited to Jack Kirby) – Actually by Jack Kirby and Sol Brodsky.
• Daredevil #176 (Credited to Frank Miller) – Correct, I think.
• Fantastic Four #3 (Credited to Jack Kirby) – Kirby and Brodsky again.
• Silver Surfer #1 (Credited to John Buscema) – John Buscema and Frank Giacoia.
• Iron Man #1 (Credited to Gene Colan) – Colan inked by Johnny Craig.

And here are the ten that depict these characters in portraits…

• Spider-Man (Credited to John Romita) – I don't know where that drawing's from but it sure doesn't look like Romita inking to me. I'm not even all that sure he drew it unless it's John Romita, Jr.
• The Incredible Hulk (Credited to John Buscema) – As noted, this is from the cover of The Incredible Hulk #200 and it's by Rich Buckler and John Romita.
• Captain America (Credited to John Romita) – Again, as noted, this is from the cover of Tales of Suspense #59 and it's by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers.
• The Thing (Credited to Jack Kirby) – Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott, from an interior page of Fantastic Four #53.
• Spider-Woman (Credited to Carmine Infantino) – I don't think Infantino had anything to do with this. As far as I know, this drawing was done to be the corner cover box on the Spider-Woman comic series that started in '78. It first appeared on the cover of #1, which was drawn by Joe Sinnott, but I believe the corner box was the handiwork of John Romita. And you know, we wouldn't have to do most of this if Marvel had just shown these stamp designs to John Romita before finalizing them. He could have identified most of these and could even have drawn some stomach muscles on The Hulk.
• Sub-Mariner (Credited to Gene Colan) – This is a John Buscema drawing, a fact which Gene Colan himself noted this morning on the Gene Colan Mailing List. I'm going to demonstrate how much useless knowledge I have about old comics by telling you that it's from a unique 4-page pin-up section that ran in Fantastic Four #128. Ah, but that's not the real trivial part of the story which I'll post here tomorrow if I remember. Anyway, the drawing was pencilled by Buscema and inked by John Verpoorten.
• Silver Surfer (Credited to Jack Kirby) – Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott, taken from the mirror world and the cover of Fantastic Four #50.
• Elektra (Credited to Frank Miller) – Someone will need to double-check me on this but I think this is from a panel in Daredevil #168, my copy of which is in a box under another box behind a whole bunch of boxes. If it's from that issue, it was pencilled by Frank but inked by Klaus Janson.
• Iron Man (Credited to John Byrne) – I don't know this one but that looks like Bob Layton inking to me.
• Wolverine (Credited to Dave Cockrum) – It's Cockrum but it's either from a very fuzzy stat or someone else inked it. Does anyone know the source of this drawing?

For that matter, does anyone have any corrections to or arguments with my list? An artist's work appearing on a stamp is a very big deal. Some of the artists represented on the DC stamps called it one of the great honors of the careers. It would be nice to let the Marvel artists who are represented and/or their families have a thrill that has the proper names attached.

Fred and Barney selling Welchade Grape Drink. Alan Reed does the voice of Fred. The dinosaur's sounds, the dialogue by the vendor and the voice of Barney all come from Mel Blanc. More than that ye need not know…

Here's another report on last Saturday's CAPS Banquet honoring Jack Davis and some other guy who draws for MAD.

We have long since lost our sense of amazement that there seems to be no paying gig beneath the dignity of William Shatner. In fact, we have a certain admiration for the fact that the man doesn't take himself that seriously. In that sense, his new project should have much to admire.

David Letterman had Bill O'Reilly on last night in a show taped the previous Monday. If you didn't see it, I'll summarize: Dave was practically yelling at O'Reilly about the Iraq War and how senseless it seems to him to keep getting American soldiers killed for reasons that, to him, don't make any sense. Bill largely avoided engaging the host in direct terms, preferring to joke to the audience that their relationship wasn't as sour as it appeared; that they really went bowling together all the time. To the extent he responded, O'Reilly fell back on his old line of insisting that "geopolitics" are too complicated to be understood by anyone who thinks we could or should just pull out of Iraq. That was not a bad tactic, given how Letterman constantly jokes about how little he comprehends of what's in the news.

It's nice in a way to see David Letterman passionate about anything but if he thought he was influencing the opinions of any significant number of viewers, he's probably wrong. Telling O'Reilly — here's a quote — "You're putting words in my mouth, just the way you put artificial facts in your head" is funny but Letterman also brags that he's never seen O'Reilly's show or read his new book so the insult lacks a certain gravitas.

The bottom line, of course, is that both men got what they wanted. O'Reilly, who's very smart when it comes to moving product, got the plug for that new book and probably looked like a hero to his target audience for being willing to venture into enemy territory. Rush Limbaugh hasn't done that in years…and wasn't even any good at it when his opponents couldn't razz him about his drug use. Letterman got a promotable guest and better than his usual ratings. (He had a 4.0 compared to a 4.2 for a Tonight Show rerun opposite him.)

Anyway, nice to see my old pal Jeff Altman in the guest chair after Bill. I couldn't help think that they consciously decided they had to follow a guest Dave clearly despises with one that he loves. Jeff tried a story about a time he and Dave went to a guy's house so that Jeff could see an old car he might purchase. The telling of the anecdote got a little awkward as Jeff, apparently on the spot, decided he'd better not mention that the fellow selling the car was Jay Leno.

To view a video of the O'Reilly segment (and a fact check on what little Bill did say, as scored by an admittedly Liberal site) go here.

Last year, as reported here, the United States Postal Service announced (and earlier this year, issued) a sheet of postage stamps featuring ten characters from DC Comics. I almost typed "properties from DC Comics" because the images were obviously selected with merchandising considerations in mind. Many fans wondered why one hero was selected over another, and the answer is that at any given moment, the company has reasons to promote one hero over another. Some of those would include making sure the heroines are represented, which is not a bad reason.

To no one's surprise, a pane of Marvel stamps has just been announced for 2007. No specific release date is given in the press release you'll find if you scroll way down this page, but I'm guessing it'll coincide with that year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. One hopes that Marvel will do what DC did, which was to foot the bill to arrange the presence of the artists who are still with us and whose work is depicted on the stamps…or at least, as many of them as were able to attend. In Marvel's case, it won't be as many.

Before they can do that though, we have to correct some of the artist identifications on the press release…and these names are also being printed on the obverse side of the stamps. They have a Sub-Mariner portrait credited to Gene Colan when it's actually by John Buscema. They have a Captain America portrait credited to John Romita when it's actually by Jack Kirby. (That one's off the cover of Tales of Suspense #59, which was done years before Romita came back to Marvel.) I think the Spider-Woman drawing is Romita not Infantino and the Hulk drawing — I'm not sure where it's from — may have been pencilled by John Buscema but the linework and face are definitely John Romita. Some of the cover images are credited to both penciller and inker and some only to the penciller. Joe Sinnott, Frank Giacoia and Syd Shores are therefore among the uncredited. It would be nice to get these right, especially if Marvel's going to spring to get some of these folks — the few who are still with us — out to San Diego.

Also, continuing with my complaints, the art has not been treated well. The ten cover drawings have been squished to fit the stamp proportions. (This was done with the DC stamps but it was not as overt.) Also, there's an art oddity in there…and yes, I know this is quite trivial. The Silver Surfer stamp is a flop. I don't mean it's a failure. "Flop" is the term when a drawing is flipped mirror-image. In this case, it's the cover of Fantastic Four #50. Years ago, someone pulled the drawing — by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott — and flopped it to fit some specific composition in an ad or piece of merchandising. It's been used and re-used over and over since then and no one's ever bothered to flip it back or to return to the original. The drawing works that way, of course, but it's a wee bit off in subtle ways.

Lastly, since I'm being an unrelenting kvetch here, I'll complain about one more thing. Marvel has routinely employed some very talented letterers and there are also many wonderful fonts out there that replicate great comic book hand lettering. There is also a very common, awful font called Comic Sans that no one would ever use in a Marvel Comic because it's so ugly and sloppy. Whoever designed these stamps used Comic Sans for the new lettering.