I was so swamped last week that I forgot to mention that I dropped by the gala signing last Wednesday evening for the new Gary Owens book…which, despite what I said here, is not his autobiography. It's a book about how to build a career in the voiceover and announcing business and while it contains many amusing anecdotes, Gary's actual autobiography is actually planned for release some time next year. Anyway, Gary had an overflow crowd of devout fans and friends turn out to buy this book and get it signed, the "friends" including Ruth Buzzi, Jonathan Winters, Fred Travalena, Chuck McCann, Howie Morris, John Rappaport, Steve Landesberg, Thom Sharp, Ronnie Schell, Jo Anne Worley, Jack Riley and quite a few others I'm forgetting.

The formal event was held in the parking lot of Dutton's bookstore in the Valley, which is right next to a Popeye's Fried Chicken stand. For about a half hour there, if you'd gone through the drive-thru at Popeye's, you could have been entertained by those folks as you waited for your jambalaya and biscuits. (Mr. Winters and Mr. Travalena were especially in top form.)

Once again, you can order Gary's new book, which will tell you all about the voice business, by clicking here. Ignore all that humble stuff he put in there about being fortunate and getting lucky breaks and all. I understand why he says such things, him being such a nice, modest guy and all. But the honest truth is that Gary Owens has worked incessantly for more than four decades because he's so good at what he does. This is not to say one cannot learn from him…but it's like if you took putting lessons from Tiger Woods. It helps to remember that much of his success is because he's better at it than just about everyone else.

Also: While I was there, I got to chat with Fred Wostbrock, a top Hollywood agent who represents some of the above-named stars. That impresses me but not as much as his uncanny expertise on the topic of game and quiz shows. Fred was a co-author of The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows, which is one of those must-have volumes…and he has a new book about to debut, The Ultimate TV Game Show Book. This is a compendium of trivia that I've already ordered. If you've found your way to this website, you're probably the kind of person who'd be interested in this kind of stuff, too.

On October 17, John Cleese is hosting a show called John Cleese's Wine for the Confused which, in this online video, he says is on The Food Channel. Mr. Cleese is himself confused since his program is actually on The Food Network…but I intend to watch, anyway. I've never had a drop of wine in my life but I'll watch anything John Cleese does. Even if he is in men's clothing.

It's amusing to see all the Kerry and Bush partisans running around, trying to lower expectations for their guy in the coming debates. As I understand it, the idea here is to say, over and over, that your candidate's opponent is a master orator and that it will be a major victory for your candidate to just hold his own. Of course, immediately following the debate, you'll be out there declaring that your boy hit a grand-slam and utterly humiliated the loser at the other podium.

The thing I like least about debates is…well, there are two things. One are those post-debate interviews where — surprise, surprise — the Democratic party spokesperson comes to the unbiased conclusion that the Democrat won handily, while the G.O.P. spokesperson declares without prejudice that the Republican was the big winner. I'd give major props to anyone with the candor to say, "Well, of course, even though my guy lied his butt off, contradicted all his past statements and accidentally confessed to several sex crimes, I have to stand here and insist that he won in a walk."

The other thing I can't stand is during the debate and it's the stark, pointless insistence on rules. Two grown men who seek to lead the country ought to be able to stand or sit there and just talk and ask each other questions and rebut points on any subject without someone saying, "You have 42.5 seconds to address only this one narrow topic and no other." The only reason they have rules is because one or both debaters wants to hamper his opponent's ability to confront him head-on. I'd have a lot of respect for any candidate in any race who said, "I'm in favor of none of us who are on the ballot having any say in how the debates are run. Let's just let some non-partisan organization decide how many there are, where they're held and how they're conducted…and I'll be there and do it their way." Anything less is a sign of cowardice.

Michael Kinsley discusses whether Osama bin Laden favors Bush or Kerry.

You oughta check out Jim Hill Media often because they're always posting some neat article, usually Disney-related. Today, I was interested to read this unofficial review of the new Mary Poppins stage musical that's previewing in the U.K. But I also like all of Floyd Norman's columns on the animation business and Jackson King's pop culture pieces and…oh, heck. Just go there and read everything.

I've written hundreds of comic books, some of which I can barely bring myself to look at. You can tell because I signed the misfires with my pseudonym, "Tony Isabella." But if only by sheer luck, some comics turned out well, and the ones that people most often tell me they liked were in the Crossfire series, published back in the eighties. Well, there's now a new paperback that reprints the first six issues in black-and-white. It's not that big a gamble. Even if you don't care for my Hollywood-based crime tales, you can savor the artistry of Dan Spiegle, one of the true greats of comic book illustration. It should be in most comic book shops by now or you can order from Amazon via this link. Hope you like it. And I hope even more that you buy it.

We recommend reading Nancy A. Youssef on the topic of civilian casualties in Iraq. Assuming the numbers quoted are accurate, or even close to accurate, we're sure killing a lot of innocent people, including children in this country we're supposedly liberating. But of course, that couldn't possibly increase any hatred of America among the kind of people who plan terrorist activities, right?

The Directors Guild of America has signed a new three-year deal with the AMPTP This dashes the hopes of some that the three "above-the-line" Hollywood labor organizations would negotiate, at more or less the same time and in support of one another, deals that addressed a number of neglected areas, including but not limited to increased home video fees. It was a foolish hope. The DGA especially likes to engage in quick, non-confrontational negotiations. As often as not, they make their gains by accepting some new precedent which is good for them and bad for the other crafts. One of the nastier Writers Guild strikes of my life (there have been many) came about when someone figured out a formula for pay TV compensation that benefitted directors but screwed the writers when it was applied to them. The WGA was in the middle of its own negotiations that year when the DGA suddenly swooped in and made a deal based on that director-friendly configuration.

We have this thing in Hollywood called "pattern bargaining," which essentially means that if one union accepts something, the onus is on the others to accept it. In this case, once the directors had settled, the producers took the position of "The DGA took this pay TV formula so the WGA has to take it," and we wound up in a messy strike, trying to resist taking that rotten (for us) deal. Not long ago, the Screen Actors Guild was forced to accept a DGA-accepted clause that had little impact on directors but which lowered overtime pay for day players and extras.

I guess it sounds like I'm slamming the DGA, but I'm really not. Unions have to do what's best for them at that moment, not what may benefit others in the long run. In a couple of cases, including the just-signed deal, there have been other considerations. The directors' Health Plan Fund is in very bad shape and was in dire need of a quick infusion of cash, which their new deal seems to supply. I just think some of us need to turn loose of the notion that the three guilds will ever link arms, sing a few choruses of "Together, Wherever We Go" and march in lockstep to an across-the-industry revolution. It'll never happen.

At the same time, the Writers Guild — which is still working without a contract — has just come through another in a long series of bitter elections. As usually happens, we had two slates of candidates, one representing the approximate status quo in leadership; the other, dissatisfied with that and determined to march off in new, bolder directions. I found myself in the odd position of agreeing with a lot of the complaints of the rebels, but feeling they lacked the pragmatism or leadership to bring them about. So I voted with the stay-the-course crowd, as did most of the Guild. I think we're probably in trouble, no matter what. Sometimes, it's just a matter of deciding which captain you trust more to be in command when the ship hits the iceberg.

Boy, CBS is really getting no respect these days. The above is a screen capture I just did of an item on Google News. Maybe they oughta just rename the whole network that way.

Ellen Goodman asks the musical question, "How Exactly Are We Safer?" This is a very good question.

Unless they screw around just to annoy us — always a possibility — Game Show Network will broadcast the final network episode of What's My Line? in the wee small hours of tomorrow morning. The program debuted February 2 of 1950 and lasted until September 3, 1967 — an amazing run, especially when you consider the low-budget simplicity of it all. I remember my father detested the show. He thought the people on it were pompous and evocative of that mindset of, "If you aren't part of New York society, you're nothing." But I found it fun on those rare occasions as a kid when I could stay up late on Sunday night and watch it. (It aired at 10:30 PM) There was something charming about the banter and about how seriously the host, John Daly, would attempt to enforce the rules of a silly game. Daly, who was a newsman at heart, was an unlikely pick to preside over a game show but somehow, his literal-mindedness and convoluted rulings added a certain fun.

The most fun, of course, came each episode when the panel would don blindfolds and Daly would invite the Mystery Guest to "Enter and sign in, please." I suspect a lot of folks watched the show just for that…to see some celebrity disguise his or her voice to try and stump the panel. (Sometimes, you could tell that the celeb would deliberately give it away so the game could end and they could have more time to plug their new movie or TV special.) Since the show was done live, there was often a certain amount of suspense backstage over whether the Mystery Guest would actually show up on time. In a few instances, they cut it very close. Had the guest not arrived, there were contigency plans to use either the producer, Mark Goodson, or the show's announcer, who was usually Johnny Olson. And there was a special, "last resort" emergency procedure if none of those could work and they were really desperate. It was to have John Daly himself sign in as the Mystery Guest and just pretend he had some famous star seated next to him.

Throughout the show's run, they sometimes came close to using this but never did…so as the last Mystery Guest on the last show, Daly was drafted. There was no point in "saving" the idea for the future, and it seemed a highly appropriate way to end the series. If you tune in or TiVo the show tonight, you should see how it went.

Some time in the next day or three, Variety and/or Hollywood Reporter should run the news that Sergio Aragonés and I have sold the motion picture rights to our silly comic book character, Groo the Wanderer. We've made a deal with a company called I.P.W. that seems to us trustworthy and eager to do right by the property. In the 23 years Groo has been around, we have been approached over and over with offers but never with one we felt we could accept. There were a couple that fell apart because the producers were having internal problems…and in one case, a key player in the deal died suddenly, ending what could have been a very interesting adaptation. At other times, we've been offered contracts that were either woefully deficient in the cash department or, worse, in the category of Creative Control.

Having poured large chunks of our lives into the comic, we were not about to hand it over to someone else who might think, "Hmm…the Olsen Twins are hot. Maybe Groo could be two blonde ladies." So we waited and waited…and then, about eight months ago, we suddenly had a flurry of intriguing and competing offers, and we finally accepted this one, which is more like a partnership arrangement that will keep us both involved. If you care at all about the particulars, they should be making the rounds soon. Just remember that Sergio and I are only working on the screenplay at the moment and that this thing is a long way from turning up at your neighborhood Cineplex. That's assuming it ever does, and I certainly would never assume that about any movie project from anyone. I'll let you know more when there's more to know.

This comes under the category of "Someone's gotta say it." To me, the saddest part of the whole tale of the Dan Rather and the bogus letters is not that CBS News was embarrassed. I think every major news outlet ought to be embarrassed about a number of things they've proffered as legit the last few years. Nor is it that Bush supporters have probably been able to convince some folks that because one chunk of evidence was phony, a lot of the charges about the man's National Guard Service have to be phony, as well.

No, what saddens me is that this is how Dan Rather, who was once a very good reporter, is going to go out. I hate the idea of retiring people just because they get old, but it's been a long time since Dan Rather has been Dan Rather. Just as politicans who are around too long start to look like the David Levine caricature and sound like the Dana Carvey impression, so it is with newsmen. Their quirks intensify and they become lampoons of themselves. At least a decade ago, someone should have lovingly tapped Mr. Rather on the shoulder and told him it was time to become a Special Correspondent, doing essays and nostalgia pieces like Mr. Cronkite.

Rather once earned his nickname of "the reporter the White House hates" but he earned it fair-and-square — by broadcasting stories that showed that government officials (at the time, Nixon and his mob) were fibbing to us. We should all be in favor of the press doing that, and not just when we want to see the current regime tossed out of office. Or at least, we should be in favor of it when the reports stand the test of time, and it did turn out that Rather was largely right, and the Nixon Administration was largely wrong. Still, Rather has never been as good at the anchor desk as he was asking tough questions of those in power.

His rise from field reporter to anchor and editor-in-chief of The CBS Evening News owed a lot to his enemies. Rabid Conservative groups circulated petitions and pressured advertisers to get him removed from his post as White House Correspondent. CBS had a normal "tour-of-duty" schedule and Rather was due to be rotated to another assignment…but they kept him on the White House beat longer than planned, just because they didn't want to be perceived as giving in to that campaign. Later, when Walter Cronkite announced his retirement, the choice came down to Mudd or Rather, and rumor has it that CBS felt Mudd was better suited to the job. But again, Rather's critics were crusading against him and again, CBS didn't want them to be able to claim they influenced the decision. Reportedly, the network toyed with splitting the job between Mudd and Rather, but Mudd balked at sharing so they gave the whole thing to Rather. If Rather's detractors had only shut up, he probably wouldn't have landed the (then) most prestigious post in the news business, and CBS wouldn't have kept him in it to this day.

The last decade or so, he's gotten…weird. It isn't just the odd, folksy bromides or the mounting seriousness or even the crying on Letterman. It's just that he's become this robotic presence who makes every story sound the same, and who seems way too detached from the human side of whatever he reports. In all likelihood, he was due for retirement soon, just because of the way CBS News has atrophied the last half-dozen years. Alas, now that Conservatives are again calling for his head, he'll probably stay around longer just to deny them their victory. They'll have to take comfort in the fact that as long as he's there, CBS news coverage will become more and more irrelevant.

Tom Lammers writes (and I am grateful to him for this data)…

The Atlas globe logo appeared on the cover while Goodman's books were still distributed by Kable News. The Atlas globe logo was added to covers beginning with the November 1951 issues. Kable News' "K" logo and the North American map that symbolized the independent distributor's union to which Kable belonged remained on the covers through the August 1952 issues. This 10-month co-existence of the Atlas and Kable symbols suggests to me that Atlas was not just a distributor's mark. The fact that it continued to appear on covers through Oct 1957 cover date, even though Goodman closed his distributorship down on 1 Nov 1956 in favor of distribution by American News. The interior page bottom margin blurbs ("For the best in [whatever] tales, look for the Atlas globe on the cover!"] also supports Goodman's intention to use it as a product identity.

I didn't mean to suggest that Goodman never intended "Atlas" to be a company brand-name…but he didn't push that notion a lot; not to the extent DC or Harvey or EC or almost any other company put a big company logo on all their books.

Years ago, the late Don Rico (who was an editor there for many years) explained to me why Goodman listed some of his comics as published by Canam Publishing and some by Vista Publishing and so on. I didn't fully understand the reason and don't remember enough of it to give a coherent recapitulation…but it had something to do with a New York state law back then that gave certain tax advantages to small businesses. It apparently saved money for Goodman to claim he had fifty or sixty small businesses, as opposed to one large one. Rico also said — and this may have been a theory on his part — that Goodman was out to separate his assets so that if some grouping of titles lost too much money, he could declare bankruptcy for the "company" that published them without impacting the rest of his line. In any case, he may have not played up the Atlas insignia too much because he wanted to be able to claim he really did have separate companies that just happened to have the same owner, same offices, same staff and same distribution. Like I said, I don't fully understand this.

However, if he added the Atlas symbol to his covers ten months before Atlas began distributing his own titles through his own company, that suggests to me he did intend it primarily as a distributor's mark. He must have known a year before he shifted distribution that it would happen so, I'm assuming, he slapped the Atlas name on there to begin establishing the identity of his forthcoming distribution company. He left it on when he shifted to American News Service because, by then, it did have that value for product identity…but when American went under and he moved over to Independent News, he chucked the Atlas name. So at that point, it was more important to get rid of it to disassociate himself with his old distribution than to keep it to denote his product line. And to those of you who come here for the non-comic book postings, my apologies…but this is the kind of thing some of us think is important.

Before Marvel Comics was Marvel Comics, it was a company of many monikers. A man named Martin Goodman owned it, though he had some of its components in his wife's name. In the early forties, most of its publications were the output of Timely Publications. Eventually, for some obscure legal reason, Goodman's comics were published by an array of at least 59 front companies ranging from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications, Inc. The distribution company he owned was named Atlas and since its logo appeared on all his covers, fans took to referring to the company as Atlas Comics. Even after he changed distributors and the Atlas seal disappeared, readers referred to the line as "Atlas" until such time as the Marvel logotype was established on his covers. (Within the industry, almost no one used the Atlas name, by the way. Artists and writers would say they were working for "Timely" — a name that remained on the office door, long after it was off the comics — or they'd say, "I'm doing a story for Goodman" or "I'm doing a job for Stan Lee.")

Atlas published thousands of comics of all kinds: ghost comics, westerns, war, funny animals, etc. For the most part, Goodman's modus operandi was to see what was selling for his competitors, then to clutter the stands with like product, crowding others off the newsracks. Most of his comics were concocted under the editorial supervision of Stan Lee but, generally speaking, and with occasional exceptions, the stories in them were of minimal interest — never very bad but rarely very good. That may have been less because of the competence of the writers than the restrictions of format, which called for short, non-connected tales with simple premises and, wherever possible, gimmicky endings where the punishment fits the crime.

Of more interest today is the artwork in these comics. Goodman did not pay well but in a time when the comic book industry was wildly unstable and included some less-than-honest publishers, he usually had work available and his checks always cleared. As a result, just about everyone who worked in the New York comic book talent pool passed through his titles and some of the better artists — men like Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Russ Heath and Dan DeCarlo — did an awful lot of pages. This makes a lot of their comics fun to collect and study…and if you can't afford to collect, you can at least study covers at two online galleries. Nearly 3000 cover images can be viewed at the Atlas Tales site and another 600 (including much overlap) are at The Timely-Atlas Cover Gallery. The scans don't always do justice to the material but they may give you some idea of how good some of the artistry was on some of their books…and you'll get a sense of Goodman's "flood the stands" style of publishing.

And there's a large point of irony to be noted: Goodman sold Marvel in the late sixties, though he planned to stay on and run it with his son, Charles Goodman. Both Goodmans were squeezed out and in the mid-seventies, they launched a new company and called it Atlas Comics. DC and Marvel promptly increased the number of titles they published and neatly crowded the new Atlas off the newsstands, just as efficiently as the old one had smothered many of its smaller competitors. It was another of those gimmicky endings where the punishment fits the crime.