As many of you race to secure rooms for the Comic-Con International in July, let us remember that there's another great California comic convention in February, and it's even operated by the same folks. This year's WonderCon occurs in San Francisco the weekend of 2/18 to 2/20 and as you can see at the convention website, I am among the guests.

I'll be taking it relatively easy and only moderating seven panels at WonderCon. One will be a tribute to the late, great Will Eisner. Another will be our festive "Quick Draw!" game, and there will be a Sergio/Mark panel and a Golden/Silver Age panel. The latter will feature Russ Heath, Creig Flessel and Arnold Drake.

One of the things that's getting me to San Francisco this year, apart from the fact that WonderCon is always a great convention, is that Arnold will be present. Long before I met him, he was one of my favorite writers. (Not that this is likely but if DC Comics ever launches a reprint series, where the idea is to present great stories regardless of the "commercial appeal" of the characters or creators, they could do no better than to tap the five Showcase issues of Tommy Tomorrow published in 1962-1963. They appeared, as did too many comics of those days, without writer credits so it was years before I knew they'd been written by the co-creator and/or writer of the Doom Patrol, Deadman, Stanley and His Monster and so many of my favorite DC Comics of the sixties. Later, I met Arnold and found him to be among the most articulate, interesting comic book creators I've ever known.

Arnold will sit for a one-on-one interview by me, and will also be on a panel on Kids' Comics I'm hosting with, we're hoping, Gail Simone, Amanda Conner, Scott Shaw! and Bill Morrison. There will also be a panel on the fine art of drawing comic book covers with, tentatively, Neal Adams, Alex Ross, William Stout, John Cassaday and Adam Hughes. I'll post a full schedule as we get closer to that weekend.

A P.S. on my earlier item about how Mary Poppins was the only Disney movie for which Daws Butler recorded a voice. This is probably true, though I should have mentioned he was up for one other job there.

For about about a half century, comedy legend Stan Freberg told folks that when Mr. Disney was casting voices for his version of Alice in Wonderland, he'd been personally cast by Walt to play the Jabberwocky, but the role was cut. This was doubted by some. While a lot of unrealized or abandoned Disney movie sequences still exist, at least in rough sketches, there was then no evidence of any "Jabberwocky" scene in the movie.

Well, of course, it turned out Stan was right. Years later, historians unearthed some papers that listed Walt's casting ideas: Freberg with Daws Butler and The Rhythmaires, which was a singing group headed by Jud Conlon. The paperwork is reproduced among the extras on the current Alice in Wonderland DVD.

The Rhythmaires are heard in the final movie, and Freberg is allegedly heard in a few tiny parts…but it does not appear Daws ever recorded anything for the film. At least, he never mentioned it to any of us. He did do some voices in the 1966 TV version of Alice in Wonderland that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, subtitled "What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?" That's the one that had Sammy Davis Jr. as the Cheshire Cat, Zsa Zsa Gabor as the Queen of Hearts, and Bill "Jose Jiminez" Dana as the White Knight. It also had pretty good songs by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse (same guys who wrote the score for Bye Bye Birdie and other hits) and I'm surprised it's never been released on home video. Here's a web page about it.

Getting back to the Disney Alice: It's interesting that Disney would have thought of casting the Freberg-Butler duo at the time, which would have been around 1949. (The movie was released in '51) Both men were doing cartoon voices but had yet to really establish their reputations, either individually or collectively. Stan didn't even make his first comedy record until '51. They were first teamed on the Time for Beany puppet show, which went on the air in February of '49…so that must have been what caused Walt to think of them, not only as worthy performers but as a duo. Shows you, I guess, that Walt really did have a knack for spotting talent.

There's a new book out about Daws entitled Daws Butler, Characters Actor, and I hear it's good. But I haven't received my copy yet.

Online hotel reservations for this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego opened this morning. If you're even contemplating attendance of this fine convention, get over to the site and book a room immediately. Tomorrow may be too late.

And if you don't do this, don't whine to me in June that you're paying $400 a night to share a cot at a Motel 6 with three guys in Klingon suits, none of whom have bathed since DeForest Kelly died.

The search for Saddam Hussein's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction has been quietly abandoned, the Washington Post reports. [Registration maybe necessary] Here are a couple of excerpts from the article, and I want to discuss the third paragraph I'm quoting…

The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.

[…snip…]

Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring. President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons, and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United States.

[…snip…]

Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence official said that possibility is very small.

Okay, question: Is Bush disappointed for any other reason than that it means he and his men were spectacularly wrong about a key reason (some would say "main reason") we are now immersed in a war that is costing us a lot more American lives and dollars than anyone anticipated? I mean, isn't it good news in a way that it showed it isn't always necessary to go to war to disarm a tyrant? Sanctions and inspections, which were previously mocked as wimpy, ineffective tactics obviously worked a lot better than some had thought. Isn't that preferable to the conclusion that they couldn't possibly stop someone like ol' Saddam from getting nukes and passing around biological timebombs?

Isn't "he never had them" better news for us than "he had them but he smuggled them out to those al Qaeda affiliates"?

Floyd Norman, who was working at Disney's when the film was made, comes through with a nice little article about Mary Poppins.

Have I mentioned that the new DVD is quite wonderful, with all sorts of extras and behind-the-scenes footage? In fact, they could have omitted the movie and this new disc would be worth buying, just for the bonus features.

(Yeah, I did mention it, a week or two ago. But it's worth mentioning again.)

One bit of Mary Poppins trivia that is not included: As we animation buffs all know, Pinocchio was the only Disney movie for which Mel Blanc recorded a voice. (The story is that he did a whole voice track for Gideon before the decision was made to make the character mute, so all that remains of Mel's performance are a couple of hiccups. There are historians who think Mel can also be heard in a couple of miscellaneous lines from other characters.)

Well, Mary Poppins, in case anyone ever asks you, is the only Disney feature for which the great Daws Butler recorded voices. He's only recognizable briefly as one of the penguins and as one of the turtles, though Richard Sherman — co-composer of all those great songs — is pretty sure Daws was also one of the buskers in the "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius" number. (Also heard among the voices of animated characters are J. Pat O'Malley, Dallas McKennon, Thurl Ravenscroft and Jimmy MacDonald.)

I really like the 1968 movie, Oliver, but I always thought there was something a little creepy about the singing voice of Mark Lester in the title role. Some time ago in an interview, Mr. Lester admitted that he'd been dubbed, though he didn't say by whom. And maybe now we know why he didn't say: It was a girl.

By the way, the current DVD release of Oliver is a good transfer. For years, we had Beta and VHS versions that were made off a poor quality negative that was poorly color-corrected, awkwardly cropped in places…and which actually had one reel of the film (about ten minutes) printed mirror-image, reversing left and right. The Laserdisc release finally got it right and the DVD continues that tradition.

You know who that is? Of course. That's veteran character actor Charles Lane, who made a very nice living in motion pictures and TV shows, usually playing a mean old man. One generation knew him as Homer Bedloe, the mean old man who was always trying to shut down the Hooterville Cannonball on Petticoat Junction, but every generation has known him as some mean old man. A graduate of the Pasadena Playhouse, Lane began his film career around the time talkies came in, usually playing a hotel desk clerk. Before long, he was working almost every week and before he retired, he'd racked up a total of at least (at least!) 250 film appearances. That's all the historians have found, and I'll bet that's not even a complete list.

It's not just the number of films that's impressive. It's how important so many of them were. The list includes roles in It's a Wonderful Life, 42nd Street, The Twentieth Century, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Big Store, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Music Man, State of the Union and our fave, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Mr. Lane is, you may be amazed and delighted to know, still with us. Later this month, he will mark his 100th birthday and some friends of his are gathering congratulatory letters and cards from his many fans.  You can send an e-mail to [E-MAIL ADDRESS EXPIRED] there and they will print it out and add it to the pile to be presented to Mr. Lane…or if you want to send a paper-type letter or card, send an e-mail there and ask for the postal address. (His birthday is January 26.)

I know this site is read by a lot of folks in the news media, particularly in the entertainment divisions. Wouldn't it be kind of a nice idea to pay some special attention to this event? Mr. Lane is one of a kind, and it's not just a birthday but an entire career that merits celebration.

Where's Gallagher? [Warning: Link to website that asks you for your age and zip code.]

Here's an article that answers the musical question: Whatever happened to Shecky Greene?

Here, straight from Mark Kausler's digital camera, are scenes from yesterday morning's Soupy Ceremony. Nice to see how happy Mr. Sales appears in the pics.

And I'll also mention that Mark has made a wonderful animated short called It's the Cat, which has generated some "Oscar buzz." It's being shown next Saturday at 10 AM at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater at the Motion Picture Academy as part of an all-day progam of semi-finalists in the Short Subject category. I saw it in rough cut/pencil test form a year or two ago and it sure struck me as worthy of one of those little golden statuettes.

When I was a lad, I liked nothing better than watching Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy. I watched them on TV, especially for about a year in L.A. when one of our local kid show hosts, Engineer Bill, ran their shorts every afternoon on Channel 9. I watched them at whatever revival houses ran their work. I even bought 8mm silent movies of them from companies like Blackhawk Films and Atlas Films, and watched them over and over and over. That's the box for an Atlas Film above, scanned right off one I bought when I was ten or eleven. Most Atlas their offerings came in two versions — the 50 ft. reel, which gave you a little less than four minutes of the movie, and the 200 ft. reel which ran around fifteen. This one was Come Clean, a two-reeler edited down to about a fourth of one reel.

As I found, even badly-edited, chopped-up, fuzzy-imaged Stan and Ollie was better than no Stan and Ollie. It's more than a little amazing that we can now own entire movies on DVD…but back then, we had to settle for this.

I couldn't get up to Hollywood Boulevard today to see Soupy Sales receive his star in the cement but my friend Mark Kausler (only one of the great animators working today) made the soggy trek. He sent this e-mail and gave me his okay to post it here for all…

Because of your website, I did something today I've never done before, attended a Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. Of course, it was the one for Soupy Sales. Only love could get me across town in the pouring rain to see anybody, but for Soupy I made an exception. He definitely does not look well. He's wheelchair bound, and had an eerie sort of fixed smile on his face. When he tried to thank everyone for coming, he could barely talk above a whisper. The only sentence fragment I could hear clearly was: "I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for coming…", he repeated this phrase several times. He did muster up enough strength to push a partial pie into Johnny Grant's face, which I couldn't see very well for the solid wall of backs between me and the scene, but I'm sure that'll be on the news. Marc Summers, who hosts Unwrapped on Food Network was there, and Peter Marshall made an appearance. Summers actually mentioned Clyde Adler and Frank Nastasi, which shows that he knows his stuff. He did a pretty fair White Fang and Black Tooth, as well. Anyway, who knows if I'll ever see Soupy again? I'm glad I made the pilgrimage at least once. The fan club goes on.

And in a subsequent e-mail, Mark mentions that the crowd sang "Happy Birthday" to Soupy, who turns 79 tomorrow. I understand that later in the afternoon, Soupy dedicated an exhibit of his props and memorabilia at The Hollywood History Museum. (For those who don't know: Johnny Grant, the gent with his puss covered in shaving cream above, is — this is his actual title — "the Ceremonial Mayor of Hollywood and Chairman of the Walk of Fame Selection Committee." He's a local personality and fixture of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and he hosts the star dedications.)

Sorry to hear that Soupy seems to be no healthier than the last time I saw him. He's never quite recovered from a bad fall he took at the 1995 Local Emmy Awards in New York, and I'm not sure what else is the matter with him. I'm glad to hear that Mark could barely see because of the "solid wall of backs," because that means there were a lot of people there. Soupy deserved a big crowd, and I hope it gave him a sense of how loved he is.

The Bush administration has apparently decided that a good use of your tax dollars is to make cash awards to subsidize right-wing talk radio and TV. So far, this report in USA Today has gone undenied and has even been more or less confirmed…

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same. The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Had this been done by a Democratic administration, especially one headed by a guy named Clinton, Republicans would be incensed, shouting about bribery and misuse of government funds and attempts to manipulate Free Speech. But Democrats don't know how to work Outrage to their advantage and Republicans look the other way when their boys do this kind of thing. No one will probably make much of Armstrong Williams's low ethics in the matter, either. Not unless other alleged journalists are upset that they didn't get the same deal.

Congrats to USA Today, for which Armstrong sometimes writes, for breaking this story. Even if they only did it to get out in front of the pack, they deserve some credit. CNN has still never mentioned Robert Novak's family ties to the publisher of a number of right-wing books he's touted on their channel.

Above left is the cover of Fantasy Masterpieces #4, a reprint title that Marvel put out back in 1966. At the time, it was reprinting the original Captain America stories by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, in part because the publisher was then anticipating legal action from Simon and somehow thought it would help to reprint and re-copyright the old stories without credits. Unlike Simon, Kirby was working for Marvel at the time and he drew new covers for these issues…until he learned they were being printed with the names of Simon and Kirby removed. Jack objected, on his behalf but also on Joe's, and he was basically told to just shut up about it. It became another in a long list of reasons that he chose to leave Marvel a few years later.

He was told that if he wanted to continue with the firm, he would have to sign a contract he found noxious in many ways, including a clause that would have given the company the absolute right to credit or not credit him for anything he had done or would ever do for them. Based on how Joe Simon had ceased to exist, Kirby was certain they would eventually do it to him, and he likened it — admittedly, an overwrought comparison — to how the Russians had erased the name of Nikita Khrushchev from their history books after his ouster. (Simon did sue, eventually settled and his name was eventually mentioned again in Marvel history and allowed to remain on reprints. More recently, he sued again, settled, and now I'm told this credit is contractually guaranteed.)

The cover to Fantasy Masterpieces #4 is interesting because it was one of the last things Jack inked during this period of his career. He generally did not like taking the time to ink what he'd already drawn in pencil, and employers preferred to get as many pages out of him as possible. But what happened here was that Jack did the cover for #3 (which contained the first Simon-Kirby reprints) and Frank Giacoia inked it. After it was completed, someone remarked that it looked like the modern Captain America, not the Golden Age Captain America, and they wondered if Jack could make the covers look more like the 1941 version. Jack said, in effect, "Not in the pencilling. That has to be done in the inking." So to prove it, Jack inked the cover to #4. You can get a better look at the drawing by clicking here, which will show you an enlargement of it that I cribbed from Fred Hembeck's site. It may have been the last time Jack ever inked anything for conventional comic books. Thereafter, Giacoia returned to inking the covers until Jack refused to do them any longer.

The drawing is reprinted as an illustration in the current, highly-recommended issue of The Jack Kirby Collector. Unfortunately, it is erroneously captioned as a Kirby/Giacoia effort, which circumvents the nice bit of history that it represents. We can forgive TJKC editor this error since he makes so few in his fine publication and since he's had his mind on more important matters, lately. Last Monday, he and spouse Pam welcomed a new Morrow, Hannah Rose, into the world. I'll even forgive that the wrongly-credited illo adorned my column in that issue, so people who think I made the mistake are writing me messages that say, approximately, "Evanier, you dip! You should know that cover was inked by Kirby." The things I do not know are many, and include an awful lot of things more important than who inked the cover to Fantasy Masterpieces #4…but I do know that.

Okay. About the same time I was posting the rumor that Paramount Home Video was about to announce a DVD of the 1959 Li'l Abner, Paramount Home Video issued a press release announcing a DVD of the 1959 Li'l Abner. It comes out April 19, as does a DVD of Darling Lili, another interesting movie for which many were clamoring.