Democrat delegates dancing in the aisles to "Johnny B. Goode." Why do we need to see this?

My cleaning lady missed it so I just showed her Bill Clinton's speech last night at the Democratic Convention. I liked it more the second time, though I still don't quite understand one line…

Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America say to him what he has always said to America: Send Me.

Doesn't that passage contain a little of what that eminent authority, Daffy Duck, once described as Pronoun Trouble? I think what the former president meant to say was more like this…

Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America take him up on his generous and brave offer, "Send Me!"

But despite that, I liked the speech more this time. And it struck me for months now, we've been hearing that Hillary had this secret plan to swoop down and snatch the presidential nomination (and later, the vice-presidential nomination) or that she and Bill were plotting to sabotage Kerry so that he wouldn't be running for a second term in '08 when she plans to run for president. One reader of this weblog has sent me dozens of Hillary-related conspiracy theories…and I don't see any evidence that any of these alleged plans were ever put into play.

I hope the Democrats send Bill Clinton out to give as many speeches for Kerry as he has in him. He's a much more interesting speaker than anyone else we're likely to hear in this election. Even Bush supporters seem to be urging everyone to look past their guy's obvious discomfort with the English language. Earlier on MSNBC, I heard someone try to spin that as a positive, the idea being that his inability to give a polished speech proves that he's a "regular guy." I don't fault anyone for being born into wealth and privilege — this year, I'll probably vote for someone who was — but let's not get any more ridiculous than absolutely necessary.

(Here's a link to the text of Clinton's speech and a non-C-Span video version.)

Here's a report on the Comic-Con International by Randy Lander. And yes, I've decided to only link to coverage that mentions at least one of my panels.

One odd thing that happens to me at comic book conventions is that I mysteriously lose my ability to recognize people. Even when I encounter someone I've known for twenty-plus years, I find myself staring at their badge to double-check who they are.

I think it's connected to a telephone habit of mine which can best be described by example. I'm calling my friend Joe who recently divorced a lady named Susan and married a lady named Betty. (This is a hypothetical case.) As I'm dialing, I remind myself that if a lady answers, I should address her as Betty, not as Susan. Then a lady answers and I suddenly think to myself, "Wait! Do I have them reversed?" And I start stammering, "H-hello…uh…" because I am momentarily afraid to address Betty as Betty, even though I know her name is Betty.

At a non-convention gathering, I have very little trouble recognizing and greeting people by name. At a convention though, dozens and dozens of folks I barely know say howdy to me and I start getting them confused with those I do know. Someone says, "Hi, Mark," and as an involuntary reflex, I instantly think, "Is this someone I'm supposed to know?" and my eyes make a desperate grab for their badge…even if the person is among my best friends. If, as occasionally happens, they're wearing a badge with someone else's name on it, I either address them as somebody else or freeze up because I sense something is amiss. This year in San Diego, a lot of people were wearing badges that were not clipped-on or pinned but were instead on a little lanyard around their necks. This made it easy for the badge to be backwards and, just my luck, about 85% of them were. That really throws me off.

All this is my way of apologizing to you if you were one of many people I ran into and immediately looked at your badge. I may or may not have recognized your lovely face but if I did, that rarely stopped me from eyeing the badge, just to make 100% certain before I spoke that the name in my head matched the person before me. It's not personal. It's just what conventions do to me.

Several folks have written to suggest I catch tonight's speech by Senate candidate Barack Obama…so I will.

Watching as much of the Democratic Convention as I could stand, I found myself longing for the days when conventions involved at least a smidgen of suspense. You still had all those boring speeches where the speakers said — over and over in increasingly less colorful manner — what everyone in the hall wanted to hear. But at least you had cutaways to a bigger story about who'd get the nomination(s) or what kind of floor fights were looming. Alas, in '68 and even more in '72, America looked at the Democratic gathering, got the idea that those guys couldn't run their own convention (let alone, the country) and moved towards the G.O.P. That led to the notion that conventions had to be rigidly stage-managed and all the battles settled before they began. In 1972, you also had the embarrassment of a vice-presidential pick who had not been properly vetted. After Tom Eagleton, presidential candidates knew that they had to select their running mates well in advance and after exhaustive research…so that part of the conventions was prearranged, as well. Which left us with just the boring speeches.

Most were pretty tedious tonight, hitting all the talking points but not accomplishing much beyond that. Jimmy Carter said some pretty scathing things about George W. Bush but did so in such a bland monotone that he failed to excite a convention hall full of people obsessed with seeing Bush defeated. Al Gore was better…but the trouble with Al Gore is that he's Al Gore. No matter what he talks about, you can never get far from the fact that this guy got more votes and was only denied the White House on questionable grounds.

I kept waiting for Bill Clinton to come out and show everyone how it's done. While he easily had the best speech of the night, he failed to do more than articulate the shortcomings of the Republican party. The case for John Kerry, which I keep waiting to hear, never got much deeper than that he's a helluva guy, a war hero…and he isn't George W. Bush. That's enough for much of America, maybe even most of America…but I'm not sure it's enough for an electoral majority.

Don't think I'm going to watch tomorrow night, except maybe for Ron Reagan's speech. Then on Wednesday, I'll watch John Edwards who, I'm guessing, will tell us that John Kerry is a helluva guy, a war hero and that he's not George W. Bush. Thursday, I'll watch Kerry and maybe Max Cleland. (Here's the schedule.) If you're interested in any of these and miss them on TV, C-Span has online clips available for a while. So far, only Bill Clinton is worth the effort.

Reports on the Comic-Con are popping up all over the Internet. Check out Ken Plume's coverage over at IGN Filmforce. And here's Greg Hatcher at Comic Book Resources taking in the Golden/Silver Age Panel. If I see any good reports that don't mention me, I may list them, too.

A reader named Paul Lewis sends this message that I figured was worth a public reply…

Should I still want to go to the San Diego CC? Even though I've never been there before, the horror stories I'm hearing make me want to pass. Has the Con simply outgrown the convention center and San Diego? What I don't understand is why the con is held in a city that isn't a major hub airport. I wish Chicago or Dallas was the site of the industry's largest convention, then the airfare would be reasonable for all.

Fast answer: No. Do not let any "horror stories" stop you from attending next year's Comic Con International. Most of them spring from not planning ahead. I mean, if you decide to go at the last minute, you're going to pay serious kruggerands for your lodging and wind up with an ugly commute. But the travel problems are no worse than vacationing anywhere in Southern California in July, and the tales of a crowded Exhibit Hall pertain mainly to a few hours on Saturday when you ought to be upstairs watching one of my panels. (Someone sent a tip: Forget about seeing the middle of the hall on Saturday…but things aren't bad on the far ends.)

I don't think the con has outgrown the San Diego facilities but obviously, if each year is 20% above the previous, that day will come. A lot of the talk this year about the crowds had to do with fretting about what will happen then. Perhaps it is nothing to worry about. Not that long ago, if you'd told people it would reach 80,000-100,000, they'd have predicted an Armadgeddon that has never come to pass. (In fact, I heard several comments this year that on-site registration never went smoother, and I did not see any block-length lines as were common in '03.) The folks who run the convention have proven very resourceful at crowd control, and I know they're working on it. So please don't let anything I say here discourage you from attending. Just do a little planning, get your room early and understand going in that there is no way you can see everything.

Why the con is in San Diego is a long story involving a gent named Shel Dorf, who founded it in 1970 and who lived (and still lives) in San Diego. For a long time it was there because Shel was there and because the other folks who operated the convention were there. You do have major conventions in other cities and there's kind of an understanding among some cons not to invade one another's turf. There's also the matter of facilities. The Comic-Con International is very important to San Diego and the folks there in charge of luring conventions to the city offer terms that probably make it appealing to stay. You can't just up and move a convention to another burg. You have to find available space on the desired dates, then negotiate a thousand different things ranging from hotel prices to facility fees and civic support. That is sometimes difficult to do.

I should also add that while airfare to San Diego may not be as cheap for some as it is to Chicago, a pretty substantial percentage of Comic-Con attendance is folks driving down from Los Angeles, including a generous portion of the TV/movie biz. Take that away and you'd have a very different convention…maybe not the industry's largest and maybe not too dissimilar from others that already exist. Even though I may carp about traffic on the 5, there's a reason so many of us make that drive each year.

Just turned on C-Span to see if anything's up with the Democratic Convention and there's Walter Mondale, way back in '84, giving his acceptance speech, listing things that will occur during the Mondale-Ferraro administration…even mentioning a few that might not be attainable until their second term. I'd forgotten what a terrible, colorless speaker he was. There's nothing wrong with what he's saying — even Republicans would have agreed with about 80% of it — but he makes it all sound like your high school vice-principal reading out of a book of regulations. The delegates cheering him at the end, singing and swaying to the song "Celebration," sure don't look like they're about to run out and topple an incumbent. And of course, they didn't.

While I was writing the above, they had a quick clip of Barry Goldwater in what I guess is some sort of Cavalcade of Losers. Senator Goldwater had the opposite problem as a speaker but managed to achieve the same result.

Here's a nice piece by Michael Kinsley about how Democrats shun the "L" word.."L" as in "Liberal." I especially liked this paragraph…

You would not know from the Democrats' three decades of defensiveness about themselves and the label liberal that the Democratic candidate got more votes than the Republican one in each of the past three presidential elections. Another way of putting this is that the candidate the world labeled a liberal, whether he admitted it or not, got more votes than the candidate who proudly labeled himself a conservative.

Woke up this morning and went down to do a couple of panels before I realized I was home.

Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall tells us that the administration of George W. Bush has a pretty bad record on the environment. Like anyone didn't already know that.

Well, I spent more of it on the freeway than I'd have liked. Rolled out of the hotel in San Diego a little after five, pulled up at the old homestead close to Midnight. In there were one stop at a favorite Japanese restaurant (Samurai Of Japan, in the shopping center at 979 Lomas Santa Fe in Solana Beach), one stop in San Clemente for supplies and to let a traffic jam abate, and one stop in Lakewood to get out and walk around the car a few times. Some traffic is described as stop-and-go. This was more like stop-and-stop-and-stop-and-go-a-little-and-stop-again. Anyway, it's nice to be home even though as I write this, my right foot is tapping on a brake pedal that isn't there.

About two dozen e-mails informed me that my Day Two posting somehow disappeared from this site, and one of you (David P. Murphy) was nice enough to send the text of it, fresh from his browser cache. I have reposted it in its proper time sequence.

Only two panels today…so you can tell I've begun sloughing off. First up was the Julius Schwartz Memorial, with Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Elliot S! Maggin, Marv Wolfman, Mike Carlin and Forrest J Ackerman. Forry, who only knew Julie for a hair over seventy years, closed the proceedings by addressing Julie…and showed great affection and trust in his old friend by calling upwards, not down. He said (approximately), "In twenty or thirty years, I'll be joining you and I'll need an agent." Before that, we all swapped stories about the legendary comic book editor…who, by the way, has now been reincarnated as the old guy in the Six Flags commercials. I believe Alter Ego is going to be printing a transcript of this panel and I'll let you know if and when they do…or if not, who does. (We had one nice surprise guest in the audience: Joanne Siegel and her daughter Laura. The widow of Superman's co-creator had only nice things to say about Julie, the long-time editor of The Man of Steel.)

Then I spent 75 minutes interviewing two great comic artists, Frank Springer and Tom Gill. Tom's long and impressive career is chronicled in the new issue of Illustration magazine, complete with testimonials from a small but impressive fraction of the illustrators (mostly but not exclusively from comic books and strips) who apprenticed with and/or studied under this man. Frank Springer deserves a few testimonials of his own but for now, we have to settle for the interview I conducted, which traced his history from assisting George Wunder on Terry and the Pirates, on through drawing on his own for Dell, DC, Marvel, National Lampoon and many more. Two delightful gentlemen.

With such a minimal panel schedule, I was able to wander the hall, which seemed a bit crowded for a Sunday. One comment I heard from a couple folks was that the quality of material in the so-called "Small Press Area" was way up and so, apparently, were sales. In fact, most of the dealers I asked said they were quite happy with the amount of commerce they'd conducted in the past four days.

I enjoyed meeting a lot of readers of this weblog, including many with whom I've exchanged e-mail. Most of you look a lot better in person than you ever did in my mail program.

So I guess that's it for my 35th San Diego Comic Convention…and after the first half-hour on the freeway, it felt like I might as well turn back and wait for #36. That one will take place July 14-17, 2005. If you're going to need a parking space, you might want to leave for it soon.

I was upstairs hosting panels during the peak afternoon hours so, they tell me, I missed the heavy traffic. It was pretty bad, some said, and I heard a few friends wonder out loud: What is the breaking point for this convention? Every building has its limits and if the San Diego Convention Center, large as it is, hits its maximum capacity, what do they do? I suggested they equip some of the video gaming booths with live ammunition. That might thin the herd out a bit.

We had packed houses for all four panels I did up in Room 6AB, which seats a couple thousand people. First up was Quick Draw! with Scott Shaw!, Jeff Smith and Sergio Aragonés. The idea of this game, if you've never seen it, is that we get three swift cartoonists up there, drawing on projection devices so that everyone can see what they're drawing. Then I throw challenges at them, sometimes taking suggestions from the audience. Not much more I can say about this here except that the audience sure seemed to enjoy most of it.

Then we had the annual Cartoon Voice Panel, this year with Neil Ross, Gregg Berger, Tom Kenny, Billy West and Joe Alaskey…five of the best in the biz. I stuck them with reading (without prep time) a script from the old Adventures of Superman radio show…and they all sure rose to the challenge. Someone made the comment after that if all radio dramas sounded as silly as this one, they'd still be around. Someone else remarked that the best thing about the panel was the obvious respect the five actors had for one another. Again, not much more I can report other than that Billy West — with all concurring — decried the notion that some producers have about installing "names" in animated projects, hiring folks who are known for their on-camera work. It does sometimes work — the leads in Shrek, for instance — but what happens a staggering percentage of the time is that top-notch voice actors are bypassed for folks who, in that capacity, are highly inept. A star name may help with a marketing campaign…but 8.5 out of ten times, the producer has to then accept for an inferior performance by someone who, though perhaps very gifted in some capacity, is simply operating outside their area of expertise. Anyone who saw our little panel today can testify what a seasoned, experienced voice actor can bring to a role.

Next up was my annual interview with Ray Bradbury. We discussed Michael Moore, the space program, Ray's passion for writing, the late Julius Schwartz, Ray's life before he sold his first story, his screenplay for Moby Dick, the time he found a "dinosaur skeleton" (actually part of an old roller coaster) on the beach, and many more topics. I even got him to tell the "Mr. Electrico" story that he told last week on the Dennis Miller Show by pointing out that we had a larger audience. The crowd was mesmerized, to say nothing of the interviewer.

Lastly, we filled darn near every seat in the house for our "spotlight" on the first lady of cartoon voice acting, June Foray. Aided by three fine voice talents (Chuck McCann, Gregg Berger and Joe Alaskey), we re-created a couple of golden moments from the Rocky & Bullwinkle program and quizzed June on an incredible career. At one point, I ran her through a list compiled by animation historian (and current voice of Bullwinkle J. Moose) Keith Scott. It was a partial accounting of radio shows on which she was heard and it included…let me just change margins here…

The Cavalcade of America, A Date With Judy, Sherlock Holmes (with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce), Mayor of the Town (with Lionel Barrymore), The Whistler, The Billie Burke Show, The Rudy Vallee Show, Stars Over Hollywood, The Al Pearce Show, This is My Best (with Orson Welles), Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge, Baby Snooks (with Fanny Brice), Dr. Christian (with Jean Hersholt), I Deal in Crime (with Bill Gargan), Jack Haley's Sealtest Village Store, Glamour Manor (with Kenny Baker), Phone Again Finnegan (with Stu Erwin), The Charlie McCarthy Show (with Edgar Bergen), The Dick Haymes Show, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Bob Hope Show, The Penny Singleton Show, Presenting Charles Boyer, Tex Williams's All-Star Western Theater, Red Ryder, The Screen Directors' Playhouse, The Screen Guild Theatre, The Lux Radio Theater, The Great Gildersleeve, My Favorite Husband (with Lucille Ball), Richard Diamond: Private Detective (with Dick Powell), and Martin Kane, Private Eye.

And we had a nice montage of June's career, assembled by my friend and co-host Earl Kress. It included her work with Stan Freberg on "St. George and the Dragonet," plus clips from a Donald Duck cartoon ("Trick or Treat," with June playing a witch named Witch Hazel), a Bugs Bunny cartoon ("Broomstick Bunny," with June playing a witch named Witch Hazel), plus episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Garfield and Friends, Baby Looney Tunes, The Smurfs and a few others. We even tossed in a clip from an episode of the original Twilight Zone ("The Living Doll") in which June voiced a doll named Talky Tina who does the world a service by murdering Telly Savalas.

There were a lot of memorable moments today but if I could only save one, I'd save the sound of that huge audience, standing and cheering June Foray at the close of that event. It was almost an explosion of pure love and respect, and I can't think of anyone more deserving.

Good night, everyone.

Day Two of the Comic-Con International was a lot like Day One: Crowds, booth babes, costumed folks, people marvelling at the turnout and/or hotel prices, bad fast food…and I may be wrong but I think I actually saw someone selling comic books. One thing I find fascinating about this event is that it's many conventions in one, and you kind of have to find the convention you wish to attend. Depending on where you go in the massive hall, it's a gaming convention, it's a convention about upcoming movie releases, it's a convention about comic books that are about to come out, it's a convention about comic book history. Or collecting animation art or comic art…or about publishing your own comics. Whatever you want, it's probably here somewhere. You just have to look 'til you find it.

To an awful lot of folks, it seems to be a convention about trying to get work in comics. On my way out of the restaurant at dinner, I ran into the head guy at one of the companies — I won't say who — and he mentioned how weary he was of being "followed around" (I think that's the term he used) by guys with portfolios who won't believe they aren't good enough…or that even if they are, he has no project on which he can give them work. He expects a certain amount of that, says he, but this year it has been worse than ever.

To those who are turned away, I know, it seems like the editors and execs are insensitive, and that the only problem for them is merely saying "no" so many times a day…but there's another side to it. It's not easy in an emotional sense for most people to have to constantly dash someone's dreams, tell them they won't be getting the job that will fulfill their dreams and get them off the unemployment line. Yes, there have been one or two editors in comics who seemed to enjoy it — again, I won't say who — but for most, it ain't easy.

And yes, I know it comes with the job. But it's something I rarely see mentioned and I thought it was worth bringing up…especially since it was so thoroughly on this fellow's mind.

On to my Panel Report: Did four of them today, starting with the Spotlight on Jack Adler. Good attendance, lots of information dredged up and disseminated. Adler is the guy who invented many of the techniques used for coloring and color-separating comic books for decades. Like many old-timers I've interviewed, he was worried he wouldn't remember anything and, of course, he remembered almost everything, though occasionally with a wee bit of prompting. I hope some magazine like Alter Ego (or better still, Alter Ego itself) will not only print a transcript of the panel but will dispatch an interviewer to talk with Jack longer than I could today.

Second panel of the day: Spotlight on Chuck McCann. Folks, you had to be there. Very funny man with very funny stories. We showed clips, including a hilarious TV sketch with Chuck as Clark Kent having a helluva time changing out of his civvies and into Superman. A lot of people also loved a series of commercials we ran and were surprised to learn that Chuck was the original voice of the "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" cuckoo and his grandpa. Many recalled the memorable series of ads for Right Guard deodorant where Chuck was in the medicine chest, greeting the fellow next door with a cheery, "Hi, guy!" But they were amazed by one we showed that had Chuck bantering with Groucho Marx as the guy next door. (It never aired, Chuck said, because the ad agency decided Groucho, who was in his seventies at the time, presented the wrong image for a product that wanted to appeal to young men. Idiots.) There were other great moments but, like I said, you had to be there.

Then came the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel with Dave Gibbons, Walt Simonson, Mike Royer, Paul Ryan, Steve Rude and a few members of the Kirby family. The clan presented what they're calling the "Jack Kirby Award" for — and as a recipient, I can quote from the lovely plaque I was presented — "…dedication to the Kirby legacy." My ex-partner Steve Sherman got one, as did his brother Gary, inkers Mike Thibodeaux and Mike Royer, publishers Mike Richardson and John Morrow, author Ray Wyman, cartoonist Scott Shaw!, publisher-musician Glenn Danzig, art collector Dave Schwartz…and I'm doing this from memory so I'm probably omitting someone. (Oh, yeah — Marty Lassick.) Then the artists from the panel discussed how Jack had influenced their work and you'll read all this when John Morrow publishes the transcript in The Jack Kirby Collector.

Last panel of the day: A Tribute to Bob Clampett, the great cartoon director and producer. We were joined by his daughter Ruth, animators Milt Gray and Leo Sullivan, and animation historian Jerry Beck. It's late so I think I'll write more about this one in a day or three, rather than rush the topic.

Before I left the convention hall for the day, I wandered down to Artist's Alley. Remember what I said a moment ago about how you have to find your own convention? Well, that's where I found a lot of mine. It's like they took the old San Diego Convention and hid it waaaaay down at one end of the building. I chatted with Gene Colan, Frank Springer, Mike Kaluta, Tom Yeates, Al Gordon, Ken Steacy, Jack Katz, Ramona Fradon and others who were selling sketches and artwork and art folios. If you read this before you come to the con, make sure you make the hike down to that time zone…because despite all the things there are in that place to see and do, I didn't enjoy anything more than mingling with some great artists.

I'm going beddy-bye now. Four more panels tomorrow. Hope to see some of you at some of them.