The report of the Select Committee on Intelligence is full of redactions and omissions, but there are a lot of interesting things left. Here's a link to a fully-searchable Adobe PDF file of it.

If you surf political websites, as I do when I need to get away from the more realistic worlds of comic books and animation, you may come across ads that say "Stop Stan Lee!" These have nothing to do with the Editor Emeritus of Marvel Comics. There's a very Conservative Republican State Senator in Kentucky named Stan Lee. Here's his website…and in the interest of equal time, here's the website of his main opponent, Ralph Long.

We're about two weeks from the official release of the DVD set of Garfield and Friends, Volume One, and reviews (like this one) are beginning to appear. I wrote almost everything on this set…which is not, by the way, the first season. There are 24 half-hours on this new DVD release. We did 13 half-hours in the first season, 26 in the second season…so this set has the whole first season plus almost half of Year Two. There were 121 half-hours total so if these sell well enough to go the distance, they'll put the whole body of work on five volumes. You can do your part to make that happen by ordering a set or ten, which you can do at Amazon by clicking on this link. You will also be contributing to the Circle of Life: Most of the money I make from my Amazon cut and my royalties will probably go to buying DVD sets of other TV shows. It's all part of the Ecology of Home Video.

If you haven't seen this yet, take a few minutes and enjoy a clever bit of Flash animation and political humor. It's a parody of "This Land Is Your Land…" performed by Mssrs. Bush and Kerry. And it's awfully good.

The programming schedule for this year's Comic-Con International has been posted and once again, Programming Director Gary Sassaman has done an incredible job of assembling an array of panels, interviews, screenings, lectures and happenings. If you'd like to see which events you're going to miss because they're on opposite other events you want to see, here are links to what they have planned for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In that order.

However, you can make your life simpler by just attending all the events I'm moderating. I've thrown together a decorative page that lists them and you'll find it here.

Tonight around 20 minutes after Midnight, C-Span 1 is rerunning the Howard Dean/Ralph Nader debate. (An online video is also available on the C-Span Website.) The theme, more or less, was Dean's contention that Nader ought to get out of the presidential race, lest he suck up enough votes to get Bush 'n' Cheney another term. Against this, Nader defended his candidacy as good for the country and even for the Democrats.

On this particular controversy, I have no opinion. I would (surprise, surprise) like to see Bush defeated but I'm not sure that Nader won't do more to make that come about by staying nominally in the race, bashing the incumbents in terms that would be beneath the dignity of Kerry and Edwards. I'm also not sure that Dean isn't right and that Nader should get out, well before November if not immediately. I thought both men made some good points and both said some evasive, disingenuous things. Nader keep tapdancing around — and I don't think he even denied — the assertion that he will only get on some ballots due to Republican organizing…but Dean also didn't seem able to refute the claim that Nader is saying important things that no one else is saying. I found the whole back-and-forth interesting even though it didn't cause me to make up my mind for either view.

Another aspect that I found interesting was that from where I was sitting, neither man won, nor did either land any real decisive punches. Before I watched it, I read on several websites that Dean had mopped the floor with Nader…or that Nader had left Dean broken and bleeding. I am always amazed at the capacity of some folks to see their side "winning," no matter what. When we get around to the Bush-Kerry and Edwards-Cheney debates, it is unlikely that anyone will do such a poor job that their partisans won't be out there, claiming their boy clobbered and humiliated his opponent. They're already demonstrating the same blind cheering interest when their guy is 2 points ahead in a poll with a 3-point Margin of Error.

Stan Lee guests on Dennis Miller's CNBC show on Friday, July 16. The A&E Channel reruns the episode of Biography about him (and with me among the interviewees) early the morning of Sunday, July 18. And then the weekly Variety that comes out the following day features a special section on Stan and another special section on the Comic-Con International. I wrote an article that will appear in the latter.

Okay, it's time we stuck you with this one to think about. Let's say you go on the game show Let's Make a Deal, and you have your choice of three doors. Behind one is the grand prize of a car. Behind the other two are goats. You pick a door. Let's say you pick Door #1. Your host, Monty Hall, knows which door conceals the car and he then opens one of the other doors — let's say it's Door #3 — and he says, "As you can see, the car is not behind Door #3. Would you like to stay with your choice or would you like to switch to Door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch? Or do you have just as good a chance of winning if you stay with your original choice?

The answer seems obvious…but given how much argument this question has prompted, maybe it's not. Here's a link to one of many websites that tackles the problem…and even allows you to play Let's Make a Deal first. You'll enjoy it more if you put on a ridiculous costume first. (Never mind. What you're already wearing will do just fine.)

We continue to recommend The Daily Show With Jon Stewart as the cleverest show on television. Lately, we've especially enjoyed this report by correspondent Samantha Bee on a man who's making a documentary against Michael Moore. We also recommend this commentary by Lewis Black on folks who are merchandising the death of Ronald Reagan. (Stay tuned for the punchline at the end.)

If those links don't work, go to this page of the Comedy Central website and look for the clips entitled "Dislike Mike" and "Reaganomics." Better still, just watch The Daily Show.

Over on his weblog, Jim Henley asks some pointed questions about how Ditko's well-known Objectivist philosophy meshed with the famous theme of "With great power, there must come great responsibility." Well, one answer is that it didn't. Ditko quit the company, remember — and while a lot of that was because he felt the publisher was reneging on promises of financial participation, some of it was certainly because he felt that he was basically writing the stories and drawing them, and that Stan Lee was then warping what he wrote with the dialogue, occasionally requiring that panels be redrawn to take the story in a slightly different direction. There are a couple of other things that could be said to clarify what seems like a conundrum to Jim, and I say all this having interviewed just about everyone at Marvel in those days who could be interviewed, and even spending an afternoon or two with Ditko.

Both might deny it today but I sure got the impression that at the time, Ditko wasn't quite as militant in his beliefs as he later became and that Lee wasn't all that Liberal. Lee was a lot less Liberal than Jack Kirby, which prompted many an argument, especially when Jack thought he was writing the story and Lee, in the dialogue stage, altered an important (to Jack) underlying philosophy. Someone once made the interesting remark that when Stan worked with Kirby and Ditko, he was caught in the middle: Too Conservative for Kirby and too Liberal for Ditko.

Also, it's been many years since I read any Ayn Rand, but I doubt she would have argued with the basic wording that "With great power, there must come great responsibility." She certainly recognized that, if only as a basic function of nature, some people do have a lot more power than some other people and must decide how to deploy it. She probably would have disagreed with the customary way in which those reponsibilities are generally interpreted in comics, placing an obligation to one's self much higher than any duty to society. But she would not have denied that there was great responsibility to be considered, and I'm not sure that if you take the Ditko Spider-Man stories as a finite set (i.e., don't view them through the prism of later issues), there's that much conflict. Ditko did later concoct several heroes who, though more openly spouting Rand-style views, still put on masks and went out to fight crime. Even Objectivists think it's a good idea not to have violent criminals roaming the street and I don't know that you can always separate that mission from one of pure altruism.

For that matter, the notion of Spider-Man as a wimpy anti-hero is more an invention of Marvel's press coverage than of anything in the published comics, much like the oft-cited but non-existent scene where the hero can't go to his prom and/or go out and duke it out with the villain due to acne problems. That was mentioned so often in articles about Marvel that Stan once called to ask me which issue he'd done that in, and was surprised when I told him, "Never." I don't believe the Lee-Ditko Spider-Man had "feet of clay." He had doubts and worries (mainly in the dialogue, not in the elements Ditko contributed) but apart from a couple of selfish moments in his origin story, he never backed down on confronting Dr. Octopus or the Green Goblin…or questioned that the bad guys were the bad guys. Ditko may even have rationalized the occasional thought balloons of self-doubt as reflecting the kind of confusions that any growing boy experiences before coming to the "right" way to look at the world. And then at some point, along with the money situation, it became intolerable for him.

I can't speak for Ditko. Haven't talked to him in more than twenty years, in fact. But I think the answer can be found in just reading those issues of Spider-Man and looking at the hero's actions…and remembering that the word balloons are Stan talking, not Steve.

For what it's worth, it looks like those of us attending the Comic-Con in San Diego in two weeks will do so under mostly clear skies. Expect highs in the mid-seventies, lows in the low-sixties.

And while we're at it: No, I don't know where you can find a hotel room at this late date.

Steve Ditko, the co-creator of Spider-Man, doesn't do interviews but that didn't stop the author of this article from quoting some personal correspondence with him. I hope he got Ditko's permission to do this.

It's less than two weeks until a lot of us will be truckin' on down to San Diego and the Comic-Con International. Here's what I'll be doing there and where I'll be doing it…

THURSDAY, JULY 22

1:00 PM – 2:30 PM / Room 8 • SPOTLIGHT ON MIKE ROYER
He started assisting the great Russ Manning and moved on to become Jack Kirby's favorite inker on many important works, including The New Gods. Along the way, his work also appeared in Creepy, Vampirella, Tarzan and dozens of other comics. We interview a true professional, MIKE ROYER.

2:30 PM – 4:00 PM / Room 8 • THE ANNUAL GOLDEN/SILVER AGE PANEL
Every year, we gather together several of the industry's greats. This time out, come meet TOM GILL (The Lone Ranger), FRANK SPRINGER (Nick Fury), GENE COLAN (Daredevil), FRANK BOLLE (Doctor Solar), SID JACOBSON (Harvey Comics), JACK ADLER (DC Production Crew) and HARRY HARRISON (EC Comics), who between them have logged over 300 years in comics!

4:00 PM – 5:30 PM / Room 8 • THE SERGIO AND MARK SHOW
What would a Comic-Con International be without SERGIO ARAGONES, MARK EVANIER, STAN SAKAI and TOM LUTH giving you the lowdown on the world's stupidest barbarian, Groo the Wanderer, and other weird projects they have in the works? (It would be the same but with one less panel.)

FRIDAY, JULY 23

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM / Room 8 • SPOTLIGHT ON JACK ADLER
You may not know his name but if you read DC Comics in the fifties and sixties, you know his work. JACK ADLER was the main colorist and the inventor of many of comics' most innovative techniques. We'll talk with him and view photos he took over the years in the DC offices.

1:00 PM – 2:30 PM / Room 5AB • SPOTLIGHT ON CHUCK McCANN
If you grew up in New York, you probably remember his brilliant, ground-breaking kid show. Otherwise, you know him as one of the funniest comic actors in the business. CHUCK McCANN will share funny clips and even funnier stories with the audience. A not-to-be-missed event!

2:30 PM – 4:00 PM / Room 8 • THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
It's been ten years since we lost the man they still call "The King of the Comics" and hail as its most influential artist. Let's celebrate his life with DAVE STEVENS, DAVE GIBBONS, MIKE ROYER, PAUL RYAN, WALT SIMONSON, STEVE RUDE and members of the Kirby family.

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM / Room 8 • REMEMBERING BOB CLAMPETT
He was one of the great directors of Warner Brothers cartoons and he went on to innovate kids' TV with Beany and Cecil. Come hear animation historian JERRY BECK, historian-animator MILT GRAY, animator LEO SULLIVAN and daughter RUTH CLAMPETT as they gather to view rare film footage and to recall the creative force known as Bob Clampett.

SATURDAY, JULY 24

12 NOON – 1:30 PM / Room 6AB • QUICK DRAW!
We take three swift cartoonists and throw challenges at them. They draw as fast as they can and the results are always hilarious. This year, the combatants are MAD Magazine's SERGIO ARAGONES, Simpsons comic artist SCOTT SHAW! and the creator of Bone, JEFF SMITH.

1:30 PM – 3:00 PM / Room 6AB • THE ANNUAL CARTOON VOICE PANEL
Witness a demonstration of the art form with JOE ALASKEY (Duck Dodgers), DEE BRADLEY BAKER (The Fairly Odd Parents), GREGG BERGER (Men in Black), TOM KENNY (SpongeBob SquarePants), NEIL ROSS (Transformers), BILLY WEST (Futurama) and many more!

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM / Room 6AB • RAY BRADBURY
Catch up with the world's most acclaimed author of science-fiction and fantasy (The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, et al) as he honors us with an hour of his time and discusses his past, your present and everyone's future.

4:00 PM – 5:30 PM / Room 6AB • SPOTLIGHT ON JUNE FORAY
She's not only Rocky (pal of Bullwinkle) and Granny (owner of Tweety), she's the undisputed queen of cartoon voicing. We'll interview JUNE FORAY and then have a reading of vintage cartoon scripts with her, CHUCK McCANN, JOE ALASKEY and others as we re-create a Rocky & Bullwinkle episode!

SUNDAY, JULY 25

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM / Room 8 • TRIBUTE TO JULIUS SCHWARTZ
We remember one of the industry's great editors and the man who launched the Silver Age of Comics and helped start fandom. Come hear FORREST J ACKERMAN, LEN WEIN, ELLIOTT S! MAGGIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, MIKE CARLIN and others.

1:00 PM – 2:30 PM / Room 8 • SPOTLIGHT ON TOM GILL & FRANK SPRINGER
Two great comic artists, together. TOM GILL is one of the great western comic illustrators (for years, the artist for The Lone Ranger) and an acclaimed teacher of comic art. FRANK SPRINGER has drawn everything from Batman to Spider-Man and everything in-between. Come hear them interviewed about two incredible careers.

Please remember that everything in the above is subject to change. Keep your eye on this weblog and when you get to the con, consult your program guide and various announcements posted around the exhibit hall.

One of my favorite commercial illustrators was the late Bob Peak. You may not know the name but you know the style. The repros on this website do not do his work full justice but are still enjoyable.

A lot of people have savaged Michael Moore's movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, and I agree that Moore left himself open to a lot of criticism. But in the negative reviews I've read — and I've read a lot of them — I don't think I've seen any criticism or fault found with two of the film's most memorable elements. One is the footage of Bush in the classroom on 9/11, doing nothing constructive after hearing our nation was under attack. Defenses of his inaction seem pretty feeble…he didn't want to panic the children, he was confident Dick Cheney was in command, etc. Most of the time, Bush partisans just seem to change the subject.

The other thing that doesn't get addressed is what some think is the most important material in Moore's film, which is the story of Lila Lipscomb, a Michigan housewife who believed in one set of values when her son went off to fight in the Iraq war and another after he was killed over there. This article affords some insight into her sad story.