We know plenty about the movies of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy but very little about their wildly-successful tours of Europe. Crowds turned out in Elvis/Beatles numbers and the performances they gave were packed.

Some of this is covered very well in a half-hour radio special on BBC4 by film historian Glenn Mitchell, who managed to find many "lost" recordings of Stan and Ollie. You can hear it for the next few days at this link. Don't delay.

Clips from my Comic-Con panels — all of them unauthorized and most of them very much out-of-sync — are turning up on YouTube. But I thought it was worth linking to this one. It runs a minute and a half and it's from Sunday's Cartoon Voice Panel. Bob Bergen is the current voice of Porky Pig and many of the Warner Brothers characters. I asked him about one experience he had doing the voice of Luke Skywalker for a Star Wars radio program.

I asked yesterday about what was omitted via a bad edit during Keith Olbermann's Tonight Show appearance the other night. My spies tell me it was an explanation of Bill O'Reilly's defense of Nazi killers during World War II…essentially the same story told on the page to which I linked.

Why was it cut? That, they can't tell me. Maybe for time.

I guess I should mention that it's official: The Dungeons and Dragons cartoon show, which I worked on back in my misspent youth, is coming to DVD shortly. On or about November 7, it's coming out from the Ink and Paint company — a "complete" set which will include all 27 episodes plus a "making of" documentary and a number of special features. I'll put up an Amazon link as soon as that's possible.

David Segal on what Woody Allen's up to these days.

Here's a perfect example of why we love Stephen Colbert…

I've received (actual count:) 569 e-mails since I left for the San Diego Con. I've answered about fifty of them. I won't get to them all but if yours warrants reply and you haven't received one yet, that's why. I also have a looming deadline to contend with…and it's kinda warm. Plus, my dishwasher is broken. You can't expect me to answer e-mail when my dishwasher is broken.

Our daily Video Links will resume in a day or two.

Last night, Jay Leno had Keith Olbermann on his show. The main topic was Olbermann's ongoing feud with Bill O'Reilly.

At one point, Olbermann mentioned how O'Reilly keeps "defending" some Nazi killers from World War II (this page explains what that's all about). Then suddenly there was a bad edit and Leno was asking him if he'd ever met O'Reilly.

Wonder what was cut out there.

What with doing ninety-seven panels, I didn't have a lot of opportunity in San Diego to take photos. But you kinda have to make the time to snap a giant figure of Batman made completely out of Lego blocks.

Back in February, I broke the sad news that The Old Spaghetti Factory in Hollywood was soon to be demolished. Here's a flashback to that item. My pal Corey Klemow writes…

Went to eat at Spaghetti Factory tonight and asked the server when they were closing. She said they were going to close at the end of this month, but they struck a deal that will allow them to remain open for two more years. More opportunities for garlic butter and for spumoni, yay!

And more opportunities for me to get up there for one more meal. I don't eat spaghetti these days but it might be back on my menu within two years. Nice of them to keep the place open for me.

I posted a message the other day about Global Warming here, figuring that — given past response to any current events comment here — I'd receive a few hundred agreements and arguments. Perhaps because much of this blog's readership was standing in lines at the San Diego Convention Center, I received a grand total of one message. It's from Roger Taylor and here it is, along with my response…

In response to your comment about the high temperatures we've been having, are you going to tell me that if we have some record cold days we will be plunging into an ice age? This planet is always changing and also always "fixing itself." Let's not forget how Greenland got its name (hint: it wasn't because humans were making it warm).

Money spent on preventing "Global Warming" would be much better spent elsewhere: feeding hungry people, disease research, security from people who want to murder and maim as many people as possible under the guise of their "religion"…

The premise of the Global Warming theory is that what is happening is making our weather more extreme — more droughts, more floods, wetter storms, bigger snowstorms, etc. So record cold days would be more evidence that Global Warming is occurring, not less. ("Global Warming" is probably an unfortunate popular name for what should be called something like "Extreme Climate Change." The popular name allows people to dismiss a perfectly valid theory, overwhelmingly supported in the scientific community, every time it snows.)

Yes, the planet is always changing and repairing itself. If Global Warming is occurring, it will doubtlessly correct itself, perhaps in a few thousand years. The threat is not that the planet will be irreparably damaged but that an awful lot of people will suffer and die before the correction takes place.

In other words, Roger: I think you're completely misrepresenting the theory you're arguing against.

And you seem to have missed my point, which I'll restate here because repeating myself is ever so much easier than thinking of new things to post on this blog. It's that I hope people like you are right. I hope Global Warming is a myth. I hope that before I die, we can all have a good laugh about it and file it away with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and Bill O'Reilly's integrity. But if someone comes up with evidence of a possible problem that might cause millions of people to die, you don't wait until the case is airtight. We invaded Iraq because Saddam's pending nuclear arsenal seemed probable (or at least possible) and we couldn't take the chance. There's way too much evidence of the kind of thing Mr. Gore is talking about to not take action as if it's definite. The potential loss if all those scientists are right is just too great.

Okay now, I have something really important to post about so I'm going to go on to the next item…

I never met Jack Warden. I have no neat anecdotes about Jack Warden. But I did want to say that I never saw him not be wonderful in whatever he did…especially And Justice For All… and his dual role in Used Cars. The latter had the greatest dying scene in the history of movies. I hope his real exit wasn't as tumultuous.

Amtrak ran a bit late but the train was way more comfy than flying…and given how long in advance airlines want you to check in now, not that much longer. Hey, how about driving? Nope, no way, forget about it. The older I get, the less I like to drive anywhere and especially long trips. So the train was jes' fine for us.

What to say? I liked the Hyatt a lot more than Heidi MacDonald but she's basically right about everything else. The big story was, of course, the teeming mass of humanity (I'm being a bit loose with the language here) that descended — or in some cases, tried to descend — on the convention center. A tip for next year's con: Register in advance or don't go.

And by the way: I'm not sure that there isn't some convention rule against this but if there isn't, I'm going to throw out a free idea by which someone could make themselves a ton o' money: Sell bottles of water cheaper than the convention center vendors. Your basic 16.9 ounce bottle of Crystal Geyser drinking H2O (those little bottles that all say they're filled by someone named "CG Roxane") sell for about 25 cents each at the market near me and they're even cheaper at Costco. Those are retail prices but even if you paid that, you could sell them for $1.25 each and make a tidy profit, even after paying for your table and a couple of tubs of ice. The concessions at the convention center were getting $2.50 for a bottle of water…and it was even worse than that.

You get in line, wait five or ten minutes and finally, when you reach the front, you say, "Two bottles of water, please." And you figure they're going to hand you, for your five dollars, two of the 16.9 ounce bottles they have on display. Logical, right?

Only they don't do that. They hand you two twelve ounce bottles of Dasani…which, first of all, isn't as good a drinking water (purified as opposed to natural spring). And secondly, instead of getting 16.9 ounces for your $2.50, you're getting twelve ounces. For two and a half bucks, they can't give you the slightly larger size which costs them maybe two cents more? Plus, of course, it's sort of misleading advertising…and you'll usually go along with it because you're thirsty and tired and you need to be somewhere for a panel and you don't really want to spend another ten minutes in line to see if the next vendor over has larger bottles. (Based on my unscientific survey, they did not.) In a hall where one could find plenty of rip-offs, this was the rip-offiest.

Hmm…I think I just complained about that for more paragraphs than it's worth. But that's sometimes the kind of guy I am.

I'll write more after I unpack.

This year's Comic-Con International is a thing of the past. Some thoughts in no particular order…

• A tip I should have given you was to wander way, way, way down to the end of the hall that included the area known as Artists' Alley. Lots of talented creators — including some real veterans — were there, most selling published art and sketches. It was the part of the con that most felt like a COMIC BOOK convention.
• Some woman was heard incessantly on a very loud, piercing public address system, making unnecessary announcements and scolding people who did naughty things like pulling a wheeled suitcase through the hall. (John Romita, a legendary comic artist in his seventies, told me he was admonished twice for this.) I know the lady was only doing her job but ten more of those announcements and I think someone would have formed a posse to hunt her down.
• Stop complaining that the food that's available in the convention center sucks. It's supposed to suck so you'll go out instead and patronize the local merchants. It's only there for people who really, really can't get away and have to be satisfied with sucky food.
• Why is it I couldn't locate the ten or twelve people with whom I had to talk business but I couldn't take twelve steps without running into Len Wein?
• The surgeon who performed my Gastric Bypass Surgery has a long waiting list and is in no need of more patients. But if he ever is, he could find plenty of candidates by setting up a booth at the con.
• Shopping carts. We need shopping carts. And one of those services like they have in some malls where when you're done shopping, you take all your purchases to them and they deliver everything to your home for you.
• I attended the first San Diego Con in 1970. There were fewer people there that year than I saw lined up yesterday to get into the DC display area.
• There were some great panels and presentations at the convention…and I'm not just talking about the twelve I was on. If I hadn't done them, I could have found way more than twelve I wanted to attend.
• It's always nice when I get to meet a veteran comic artist I've never met before but whose work I've always admired. Everett Raymond Kinstler is a charming, classy gentleman.
• Please, people…and this isn't just about parties at comic conventions. It applies to all parties everywhere. If people are going to be standing around talking, we don't need music. We really don't. You can never hear it and it always makes it harder to hear the folks you want to chat with. I especially feel sorry for live musicians, sitting or standing there, playing their hearts out…and no one can hear what they're doing well enough to enjoy it.
• Kyle Baker is brilliant. Everyone should buy his books.
• There were lots of other brilliant creators in that hall. I'll try to mention some more of them in the coming days.
• Hotels in San Diego must all be fabulous. At the Quick Draw! panel, looking for a "pet peeve" to use as the basis of a cartooning challenge, I asked anyone in the audience who had poor accomodations to raise their hands. In a room of several thousand people, no one did.
• Remind me to tell you about the gorgeous, stunningly-built super-heroine parading through the hall…who I think was a guy.
• Lastly: I'm weary, I'm tired of fighting my way through crowds, my feet hurt, I spent way too much money…and I can't wait 'til next year. If you weren't there this time, you might want to block out July 26-29 on your calendar. And start looking for a hotel room now.

I managed to avoid the main hall for most of yesterday…my reward for doing all those panels upstairs. But reports of people jammed together like (make up your own analogy) were common. Reportedly, the convention closed off registration at 1:00 PM and radio stations began telling folks not to bother showing up if they didn't have advance registration.

Apart from the crush, everyone seems to be having a very good time. The only unpleasantness I've witnessed in 3+ days here stems from people who are hired to direct traffic (foot traffic within the convention center, the automotive kind outside) and somehow turn into screaming, power-mad maniacs. You could almost forgive them if they actually seemed competent at controlling that traffic but the ones who yell the loudest are the ones who are making the problem worse, not better, especially at the intersections outside the con. Something about donning an orange vest seems to drain civility and I.Q. points from a man's mind.

I was very happy with my panels yesterday even though the most memorable part of the Golden/Silver Age gathering was probably Irwin Hasen, the artist responsible for Wildcat and Dondi, telling of how a gangster once got him a prostitute. Talk about your Secrets Behind the Comics.

Got a business-type meeting at ten so this will have to do for now. Stay cool, everyone.