I think I agree with Thomas Oliphant in his take on the whole Swift Boat controversy.

The New York Times, which has never run comic strips, offers this article about troubles in the newspaper comic strip business.

Well, I'm glad to see that Campaign Finance Reform has done such a fine job of protecting us from "attack ads." I haven't seen any negative commercials…have you? Making candidates say "I approved this message" has also been very successful in preventing them from not taking responsibility for the irresponsible bashing of their opponents.

We all knew this election was going to get dirty but somehow, I didn't think it would be this nasty until a week or two before Halloween. Here's what I see as the new timetable…

WEEK OF AUGUST 23: MoveOn.org runs commercials showing Bush not only reading My Pet Goat to school children on 9/11 but dressing up in actual goat costume to do so.

WEEK OF AUGUST 30: Governor James McGreevy holds shocking press conference to announce support for John Kerry because he has "hair to die from" and there are rumors he may be French. McGreevy also reaffirms that he is gay and that he will resign his office as soon as he finishes redecorating it.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 6: Democrats reveal that for the last month, Dick Cheney's "undisclosed location" has been the only movie theater in the country still showing the film, Catwoman. Cheney admits to more than 435 viewings of what he calls "an unfairly-maligned classic of the cinema" but denies reports that, confused and infatuated, he awarded a seven billion dollar "no bid" contract to Halle Berry.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 13: In reponse to relentless questioning from Helen Thomas, White House press secretary Scott McClellan says Bush will not comment on 527 ads that insist Kerry sang back-up vocals on 1974 pop hit, "Billy, Don't Be a Hero." McClellan adds gratuitous insult about Thomas's bra size.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 20: Kerry sticks tongue out at Bush, inserts thumbs in ears, waves fingers and goes, "Pookie-pookie-pookie!" Bush, during campaign swing through Ken Lay's living room, responds with old "I'm rubber, you're glue" line. Ralph Nader pulls ahead in most polls and celebrates by buying a second suit.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 27: In unexpected development, Gallup organization locates "likely voter" in Illinois who supports Alan Keyes. Poll is described as having a "margin-of-error of plus or minus one looney."

WEEK OF OCTOBER 4: Kerry campaign releases documents that prove that Bush spent missing months of his National Guard commitment appearing on TV sitcom Bewitched as the little-remembered third Darrin.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 11: The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth all suddenly remember Kerry bragging in 1969 about someday nailing a ketchup heiress and "scoring them big burger-basting bucks." The group's leader, John O'Neill, begins to show signs of fatigue when he goes on The O'Reilly Factor and accidentally spends forty minutes attacking the character of Jim Carrey.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 18: New York Times breaks exclusive story that contrary to public perception, there is still a war going on in Iraq. Article appears on page D-23, between a report on the economy and an article on nuclear proliferation in Korea.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 25: Bush accuses Kerry of cross-dressing, robbing a liquor store and running a crack house out of at least one of his eleven mansions. Kerry accuses Bush of molesting small animals, being on the grassy knoll during the Kennedy assassination, and quietly selling three of the blue states to Red China. In an even more scathing exchange, John Edwards accuses Dick Cheney of being Bush's running mate while Cheney accuses Edwards of being on the Democratic ticket. All four deny all charges while John McCain, speaking at Bush rally, repudiates everything Bush has said, then hugs and endorses him.

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 1: America's voters, disgusted by months of negative campaigning and lies, decide en masse that they don't want any of these guys. No one goes to the polls or mails in an absentee ballot but Bush somehow manages to get several million votes in Florida and any state serviced by Diebold voting machines. United States Supreme Court is on vacation but they have left behind instructions that, by a 5-4 margin, any election challenges are to be decided in favor of the Republican. Population of Iraq decides that if this is democracy, they'd rather have Saddam back. Instead, since he isn't available, they elect Alan Keyes who moves there just in time to qualify as a resident. U.S. Democrats declare they're angry and vow to fight harder next time. Or maybe the time after.

I subscribe to an e-mail service that sends out weather forecasts. This morning at 8:39, they sent out one that began…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN OXNARD HAS ISSUED A TORNADO WARNING FOR CENTRAL LOS ANGELES COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA UNTIL 915 AM PDT

AT 825 AM PDT…NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR WAS TRACKING A LARGE AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO 7 MILES SOUTH OF GLENDALE… OR ABOUT NEAR DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES… MOVING NORTHEAST AT 20 MPH. THE TORNADO IS EXPECTED TO BE NEAR PASADENA BY 850 AM PDT…MOUNT WILSON BY 905 AM PDT

…and then there were instructions on how to take cover during a tornado. By the time you read them, you would have received the following e-mail that I received one minute later…

PLEASE DISREGARD THE PREVIOUS TORNADO WARNING. NO TORNADO EXISTS.

Many things changed the comic book industry in the early eighties but none more than Pacific Comics, a San Diego-based firm founded by Steve and Bill Schanes. Pacific had an amazing rise and fall, and on the way up, they had the top execs at DC and Marvel scurrying about, trying to make their companies "creator-friendly." By the time Pacific (and a few other like companies) had crashed and burned, comics were a somewhat better field to work in…and for some, no longer a field from which one had to escape.

For that and other reasons, the saga of Pacific is an important story so I want to direct you to this historical piece written by Jay Allen Sanford, who worked there for a time. A few "facts" do not jibe with my understanding but most of it seems pretty sound. Thanks to Rob Rose for pointing it out to me.

You may recall that on his recent tour, Eric Idle kept a witty, engrossing day-to-day online diary. It will soon be out in book form. You can pre-order it from Amazon by clicking here.

In the meantime, Mr. Idle has written a Broadway-style adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and it will be heading for Broadway early next year. He is keeping a less formal but still interesting online diary about this venture, as well. Here is the first installment and here is the second.

I've solved my e-mail problems…I think. At least, I've found all the mail that was sent to me the last few days. Now, if you wrote and I haven't replied, it's only because I'm a lousy correspondent.

Still haven't solved my cell phone problems but that may take a little while. Anyone here have any experience with the Motorola V400 phone? I need to "trade up" to a newer model from either Nokia or Motorola and the V400 looks like a goodie. (Needless to say, there will be better models out in a month or so…but when will there ever not be better models out in a month or so?)

Posting may be light here for the next few days but I will report back on the experiments my friend Earl and I have been doing on video editing software. I'll also run some of your messages on colorization. I just have to catch up on deadlines and e-mail. Oh, yeah…and sleep. Sleep would be nice.

So what's former Saturday Night Live cast member Joe Piscopo doing these days? You're in for a surprise.

Nice little article on Dan Castellaneta.

I'm having some problems with my e-mail. If you sent me something in the last day or two and haven't received a reply, I may not have received it. I'll tell you when things seem to be fixed and perhaps you can send it again.

Here's a pretty good dissection of the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" commercial and the response produced by the MoveOn people.

In 1971, Jack Kirby made a kind of half-hearted effort to get into publishing his own work. He and his son Neal formed a company called Communicators Unlimited, with myself and my then-partner, Steve Sherman. Jack really didn't have the funds to be a publisher, the rest of us were woefully low on know-how, and others did their best to convince Jack it was a bad course for him…so Communicators Unlimited only issued a couple of folios and prints, plus one rather nice book. Copies of Kirby Unleashed now go for a nice piece of change in the rare occasion that you can find one. Fortunately, you don't have to go hunting. This December, TwoMorrows Publishing will bring out what I'm sure will be a lovely facsimile of this legendary biography/portfolio created in Jack's studio using his own files. Best of all, Steve and I will get the chance to correct some of the dumber typos we made. Sounds like a must-have to me.

If you're going to a Target store between now and Sunday, and if that Target store offers digital photo service on the premises, you might want to print out and take along this coupon. It's for 25 free digital prints and I don't see any catch.

There are quite a few veteran comic book artists who've retired to Florida and who found themselves in the path of Hurricane Charley. One of them, Nick Cardy, was evacuated from his home town to another city…and then Charley made an unexpected turn, missed the town where Nick's home is and slammed into the city to which he'd been relocated. But Nick is fine and insofar as I can tell, so are all the other artists who live in the state. Deep exhale.

On the topic of colorization, I've received…well, more messages than I have time to answer, either one-on-one or in some proper posting here. It's a complex subject because it gets us off on the topics of, for example, who has the creative moral authority to say that a proposed change in a movie or TV show is proper? Or if we agree that a certain alteration in a movie is "wrong," should that be a matter of law or merely of consumer avoidance?

I don't have set-in-stone opinions about much of this. I do think that an awful lot of what is done to old movies in their conversion for free TV or home video constitutes a revision of the original work. One example of many: The mania of film buffs to locate and restore excised footage — even scenes the filmmakers wanted out — makes for a change that I think is sometimes greater than colorization. But that's generally considered an act of preservation and respect, not of desecration.) The point I was trying to make was that the old dire prophecy that a colorized It's a Wonderful Life would obliterate the original has not occurred. To me, the only problem with those new Three Stooges DVDs that offer both colorized and original versions is the price tag.

I'll write more about this when I have a chance. Today, I'm spending way too much time arguing with a company that wants me to pay $338 more on a cellular air time contract for a phone that no longer works. They'll gladly replace the busted phone for $199 or I can get it for $49 if I sign with them through August of 2006. You can just imagine how happy this makes me.