Still updating by hand while I wait for the "automatic update" functions of this weblog to be fixed. It's outta my hands at the moment but I didn't want you lovely folks to think I'd forgotten you. I feel like I'm in a house without plumbing or electricity: The Search function isn't working, the Permalinks are out of commission, and new postings are not scrolling off onto the Archive pages. But I am here for you.

The news about Julius Schwartz all seems good. Harlan Ellison's Message Board is the place to go if you want to read more.

Given the limitation of emotion it is possible to convey in an e-mail, several of you managed to seem uncommonly aghast at the fact that veteran character actor Charles Lane is still alive. Last I heard, he was. He will be 99 years old in about six weeks.

And while we're at it, let's all throw our voices to wish a Happy Birthday to the world's greatest ventriloquist, Paul Winchell, who turns 81 tomorrow. That still seems rather young to me when I recall that the last time I saw Paul in person was at a birthday party for the great Señor Wences, who was 100 that evening. In fact, Paul introduced me to the guest of honor by saying, "I'd like you to meet a ventriloquist older than me."

But enough about old guys. I've posted a column of mine that was originally published in March of '00. It summarizes some thoughts that I had at the time when I would occasionally mention a current political situation in a comic book I was writing and people would react like I'd slipped in a few mystic Voodoo Hex symbols guaranteed to cause paralysis of the genitalia. Here's the article and obviously, I'm posting it because I think some of what it says is still relevant.

Back with more when things are fixed here in the spiderhole. And isn't it cute how swiftly that noun joined our collective vocabulary?

Yet another member of the cast of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World has passed away. Madlyn Rhue had a tiny but memorable role as Spencer Tracy's secretary and was later a regular on one of my favorite "trashy" TV shows, Bracken's World. Her career and life were hampered by Multiple Sclerosis but she kept on working as long as she could. A brave lady.

Every so often, I get an e-mail asking me which members of the cast of that legendary film are still with us. Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Peter Falk, Dorothy Provine and Edie Adams are all around. So are Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan. I am awaiting my annual Christmas card from Arnold.) So are Stan Freberg, Carl Reiner, Don Knotts, Barrie Chase, Charles Lane, Nick Georgiade, several stunt people and Jerry Lewis. That's a small percentage of the cast but it's more than most folks seem to expect when they ask that question.

Still doing manual updates here but I wanted to mention that and I also wanted to post a TV listing. Some time ago, I told this story about something silly that occurred back when I was working on Welcome Back, Kotter. Even though the anecdote doesn't have much to do with the episode (and even though it wasn't one of the better episodes done while I was there), several folks asked me to let them know when it was on again. Well, TV Land is running it this coming Sunday evening. It's called "Hark, the Sweatkings" and it airs at 9:30 PM on my TV. Check, as they say, your local listing. In fact, look over the whole schedule. TV Land is running a marathon of Christmas episodes this weekend, including episodes of shows not normally on their schedule.

By the way: If you catch the Kotter episode, the uncredited guy playing Santa Claus in the closing tag was one of the writers, a lovely man named Neil Rosen. Neil worked on a number of TV shows but his first love was the theater. The minute he made some real money in television, he and his friend Pat Paulsen bought and restored the Cherry County Playhouse in Traverse City, Michigan. This was (and still is) one of those theaters that imports TV stars to intermingle with local actors and if you look over their list of past productions, you'll see some fascinating bits of stunt casting. (Bob Keeshan in The Wizard of Oz? Jamie Farr in My Fair Lady? Don Knotts in Harvey and Last of the Red Hot Lovers? Buddy Ebsen in The Last Meeting of the Nights of White Magnolia?) Neil died way too young but he'd be proud to know the theater is still up and running and featuring John Davidson in Chicago.

Also: I didn't see it but several folks have told me that The Simpsons did a brilliant parody this year on Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. I've set the old TiVo to record that episode when it runs again on Monday the 22nd.

The Internet comics community is erupting with news that famed DC editor Julius Schwartz is hospitalized and hovering near death. A few folks have even started offering condolences, and I'm getting e-mails asking if I've heard anything. (As we all know, no one in the comic book business is actually deceased until Evanier posts the obit…)

I know no more than Harlan Ellison has been posting on his message board, which is that Julie is hospitalized with pneumonia. Given that the man is over 88, this is obviously cause for concern. But I might spread a little cautious optimism by pointing out that Julie has been hospitalized for pneumonia before and still managed to make it to subsequent comic conventions. I would also remind all that in May of 2002, a lot of the same forums were reporting on the impending death of Julie's friend, Forrest Ackerman, and Ackerman is still with us. And I always remember a day a few decades ago when two comic fans I knew said, "We have to go visit Carl Barks before he dies." Barks was in his mid-seventies then and he not only lived to age 99, he managed to outlive both of those comic fans.

I spoke to Julie about a week ago and he sounded the way he always sounds…cranky and old. But he sounded that way when I met him in 1970. Whenever I hear more, I'll post it here. In the meantime, let's not bury the guy before we have to.

Of less importance: I am still hand-coding my posts to this weblog, which is why there haven't been many of them. I hope to have this situation cured in the next few days, during which time you may see some bizarre, incomplete things on this page as I do the reinstall. Don't be baffled if things occasionally are a little odd. Or let's just say "odder than usual."

Do you get the feeling that not one human being in this country really cares about bringing Saddam Hussein to justice for moral reasons? All anyone seems to care about is how it might affect the possible re-election of George W. Bush.

Fellow party guest Gordon Kent, who got her card, informs me that the maker of Incredible Balloon Creations at the party last night was Shellyann Blanchard. If you're having an event in the Southern California area and want to hire a true artisan, I think this page will tell you how to contact her. I would have asked her to create a Groo balloon but I was afraid it would stab all the other balloons.

Last evening, I attended a very nice Christmas party at the home of my good pal, Paul Dini. The place was packed with interesting and beautiful people but one impressed me enough to cause me to haul out my pocket Nikon. For entertainment, Paul had engaged a young lady who spent the evening making balloon animals…but not the usual giraffes and horsies. This woman (and I regret I didn't get her name; I'll call Paul tomorrow and get it and post it) was taking ordinary balloons and turning them into spiders and beavers and odd, intricate creatures. They were really stunning. One person handed her a little toy Daffy Duck from Paul's den and challenged her to replicate it with balloons. As you can see, she did…in about six minutes.

That's all made from plain ol' skinny balloons and a few rubber bands. The bulging eyes are one white balloon filled partway and bisected by the uninflated section of a black balloon that forms part of Daffy's body and the back of his head. Then she used a black marker to draw eyeballs on it and isn't that just brilliant? Maybe it was the simplicity and speed that got to me but I thought, "I've got to take a picture of that and run home and put it up on my website." Even though I'm still coding these damn pages by hand.

It may not look it but we have had a system crash here and I am unable to update this page automatically. I'm posting this one message by hand…and boy, is it awkward. There probably won't be many new messages here until I get the software fixed, which may take a day or three. Or more. But it will get fixed. (And the Search function is out of commission until then, too. Sorry.)

I hereby retract my earlier praise for how (I said) Governor Schwarzenegger had reversed his predecessor's silly policy about not granting paroles. According to this article, it seems we were premature to think there was a change.

Actually, the only change in the governor's mansion has been that our chief exec now has biceps, an accent and sexual harassment lawsuits. Otherwise, it's still Gray Davis in there. (Thanks to Tom Hegeman, creator of the immortal comic character "Shyster" for the link.)

As several of you have informed me, I'm not the only one who had trouble redeeming his free vacation from the Ralphs Market chain. Yeah, but I'm the only one with a Sergio-decorated Ralphs Club card.

Each year at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, I host this fun panel called "Quick Draw." We get Sergio Aragonés up there and Scott Shaw! and two other swift cartoonists and I throw challenges at them. It's kind of like Whose Line Is It Anyway? with drawings and without Drew Carey, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady and a very large staff of comedy writers billed as "Creative Consultants." Anyway, the cartoonists in the "Quick Draw" panel have overhead projectors putting what they sketch up on large screens so everyone can see. This year, kidding around during set-up, I started sticking items from my wallet under the lens and I projected my Ralphs Club card. For those of you who don't have the privilege of membership in this esteemed organization, it's a card you flash when you go to a Ralphs market. You get a few items at a discount and they get to chart a profile of your buying patterns. Deep within the Ralph's corporate headquarters, there's a computer that knows exactly how many Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches I've purchased there and what flavors.

Sergio, being Sergio, grabbed my card and in about 1.8 seconds added the little editorial cartoon you see above. Since then, when I hand the checker my Ralphs Club card, I've gotten a wide array of snickers and giggles, plus some odd reactions. One checker actually asked, "Is that the guy from MAD Magazine?" Another insisted on calling the Manager over and showing it to him to make certain that we had not voided the card with Sergio's enhancement. (The Manager laughed out loud.)

It turns out Sergio was anticipating my recent experiences with Ralphs. There's a supermarket strike on in Los Angeles and it's not going well for anyone, except maybe the markets that aren't on strike. The union struck the Vons chain which is part of a coalition with the other two major retail outlets, Albertsons and Ralphs. The latter two locked out the union workers and the strike was on. After a month or so of no progress, the union withdrew its pickets from Ralphs, figuring that it would put pressure on the other two markets if their main competitor wasn't suffering as much. The move does not seem to have made much of a difference. A month later, the strike remains deadlocked and Ralphs has lost $145 million in third quarter sales because of the strike. This may be because even without pickets, customers don't want to go to a non-union market…or it may be because they've gone and discovered that Ralphs is now a terrible, terrible market.

I've always done most of my shopping at Gelsons anyway, but Ralphs is handier for a few items. Last week and today, I stopped into different outlets and found, first of all, that the shelves were only about half-filled. The Ralphs I went to last week was out of most kinds of bread. The one today didn't have any carrots. These are not exotic items. At the one last week, I bought a chicken and while the date stamped on it was still in the future, the chicken turned out to be seriously past-tense and went into the garbage as soon as I got it home.

Today, the checker mixed up my purchases. I bought one can of cranberry sauce and was charged for two. But then I also bought a can of soup for which I wasn't charged, so it almost balanced out. I bought twelve packages of luncheon meat, got down to the car and found they were not in my bags but about six items I hadn't purchased were. I took them back and the bagger realized he'd mixed my purchases in with the lady after me, who went home without her flour or her dishwashing liquid but with a dozen packets of honey-roasted turkey she may not have wanted. There were a few other screw-ups but basically, it was a pretty unpleasant place to market. No wonder they're down $145 mil.

While I'm at it, I might as well mention that I have a pre-strike bone to pick with Ralphs. Last July, I won a prize in their "Great Escape" promotion, which gives me two free nights in a hotel in one of 38 cities. I was given a voucher and told to either mail it in with my choice of city or phone the "Reservations Center." The voucher told me I had to do one of these two things by August 15 and I would receive my prize. It further said, "All travel must be completed by December 15, 2003." So I tried phoning the Reservations Center for two weeks and received naught but busy signals. Finally, around August 6, I got a recorded announcement that said they were no longer processing vouchers via phone and that I should mail it in. I mailed it that same day and that's the last I've heard of my free vacation. When I called the Reservations Center throughout September and October, I got a new recording that said that prizes would soon be mailed out. Mine has never come, the Reservations Center number is now a disconnect, and when I recently called the main Ralphs office, I got a lady who said she didn't know anything about any contest and that everyone there who might was too busy because of the strike to talk to me. I'm hoping they're out stocking the shelves with bread and carrots.

Recently, a comic book company called Crossgen announced the cancellation of many of its titles and the delay of the rest. Prior to that, there had been reports that some of its artists were having trouble getting paid. I think it's fair to assume that the company is in some amount of financial trouble and that this flows from insufficient sales.

Yesterday, an e-mail from a reader of this site asked me for my view as to why their books haven't sold better. I'm afraid I can't advance any sort of theory. You see, despite the fact that I am an active participant in the comic book community, including going to conventions and comic book shops, I have never seen a Crossgen comic book. I couldn't name a Crossgen comic if you pointed a howitzer at my vitals and I only know the names of four people who have worked for them…

I know Barbara Kesel was involved in some sort of editorial capacity. I know this because at some convention a few years back, Barbara handed me her business card and it said "Crossgen" on it.

I know Mark Waid wrote some scripts for them. I know this because Mark told me this over lunch one day.

I know George Perez drew something for them. I know this because I ran into George the last time I was in New York and when I asked him what he was up to, he said he was drawing something for Crossgen.

And I know Robin Riggs was inking for them. I know this because several Internet message boards erupted with tales of Robin allegedly not being paid, or not being paid on time or something of the sort.

That is everything I know about Crossgen. I couldn't tell you what comics those folks, fine talents all, did for them. Couldn't tell you who else worked for the firm, and obviously I wouldn't even know that the four above-named people had worked for them if I had not spoken personally with the first three and if Robin had been been paid on time. I know absolutely nothing about Crossgen via the usual means by which potential customers hear about a comic book company and its wares. When I've gone into a comic shop the last few years, there may have been Crossgen books available there but if so, they were not prominent enough for me to notice. When I've received fanzines and read comic news websites, I've seen the name of Crossgen whiz past but never in a context that caused me to actually read the item. If any of my friends have read Crossgen books the last year or three, or however long the company's been around, no one has mentioned them to me.

Now, I'm sure this bespeaks volumes about my naivete. Perhaps I had to walk through cons with blinders on not to be overtaken by the Crossgen Age of Comics. But it must also say at least a little something about the importance of another comic book company that published whatever it is they published, which I'm guessing were books designed to appeal to the superhero and s-f crowd.

I am absolutely not putting down the creative content of those comics. Since I haven't seen them, I have no opinion of how good they were. There have been plenty of wonderful comics done that I've never read and maybe these books should go on that list. But given their reported problems, I'm obviously not the only person out there who wasn't paying attention. That might be a function of insufficient promotion. It might be a function of the quality of the books. Or it might be that they were offering a product for which there simply was no demand, or a demand that has already been quite satiated. Sight unseen, I'm guessing the last of these.

Michael Kinsley on the problems the Democratic candidates have now in criticizing Bush's Iraq policies.

The other day, I linked to this MAD Magazine piece about a George W. Bush action figure. A lot of message boards and other weblogs have linked to it and discussed it, and I'm amazed how many folks didn't realize that there really is a George W. Bush action figure of him in that flight suit. In fact, I think MAD got hold of a real one and photographed it to make their ad parody. Some also wondered if MAD had been that hard on Clinton. The answer, I think, is that they've been getting a little tougher on each succeeding president but, yes, they were pretty rough on Bill and Hillary. I can't think of anyone anywhere who's even vaguely in the business of political humor who didn't rip the Clintons. They made it pretty easy.

It almost isn't a matter of liking or disliking a politician; it's a question of access points, and eventually all public figures provide them. Right this minute, if someone hired me to write jokes about Howard Dean, I don't know what I'd write. He hasn't done anything egregiously stupid…yet. He seems to have flip-flopped on a number of issues and he seems to be a bit reckless with what he says, but he hasn't done enough of that for people to laugh in agreement if you write about those things. Same thing with Gephardt, same thing with Kerry or whoever. At some point, we'll decide that the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, has certain flaws that are exploitable for humor, the way Dan Quayle was dumb, Bill Clinton was horny, Al Gore was dull, Bob Dole was ancient, etc. For a time, it looked like the prevailing caricature of George W. Bush was going to be either of a Word Mangler or a Drunken Frat Boy, but it seems to be edging towards Phony Macho.

Some say that whoever the Democratic nominee is, the Republican machine will leap to portray him as weak, dishonest and, if possible, unpatriotic. I just hope, if they succeed in convincing America that the guy has negatives, they're not those. It's going to be a long, nasty campaign and it would be nice if the late night shows didn't wind up just recycling old Al Gore jokes and changing the names.

Having posted many messages about how I don't like Governor Schwarzenegger's financial shenanigans, I should admit that he has done one thing that I like. He has indicated that he intends to allow the state's Board of Prison Terms (i.e., Parole Board) to do its job and to appoint members who do not simply believe that criminals should remain behind bars until they rot. The board was weighted to that belief and on the rare occasions that they recommended someone for release, Gray Davis would invariably overrule their decision, making some wonder why they even held parole hearings. The system doesn't work and it's time someone admitted it and fixed it. So good for Governor Arnold on that one.

A few months back when Robert Stack passed away, I posted this anecdote about how he got the job as Eliot Ness on The Untouchables. Briefly, in case you don't want to go read it, the story is that producer Desi Arnaz had cast his old friend and understudy, Van Johnson, as Ness. As Desi (and others) later told the story, Johnson's wife, who acted as his manager, called up at the last minute and tried to put the squeeze on him for more money, and Desi refused. The tale makes it look like Mrs. Johnson tried to pull a fast one and in so doing, royally screwed up, costing her husband the lead in what turned out to be a very successful series.

That's how it's always told. But I love seeing anecdotes debunked (when appropriate) or clarified, so I was delighted to receive this e-mail from Schuyler Johnson, offspring of Van and Evie Johnson. Schuyler agreed to let me share it with you…

I accidentally found a web site attributed to the masked blogger and he quoted some info from you regarding a story about Van Johnson, Desi Arnaz and Evie Johnson. Please allow me to clear up the fiction. My mother had nothing whatsoever to do with that decision, That was my father's wish and he asked her to make that call for him. He often made her do things that he deemed unpleasant but necessary to his career. She is not at all the person portrayed in this account and it is my father who is the villain in the piece. Thank you for letting me clarify another fictional story that has been accepted all these years.

Well, I'm not sure he's that much of a villain, but this does make perfect sense, and it's a good reminder that a lot of people play Good Cop/Bad Cop, where the person you think is the heavy is really acting for or with the other party. There are a lot of show biz stories where an agent or manager seems to make some foolish or unethical demand on behalf of the client, and I often wonder if the client was really as unaware as he or she tried to seem. Anyway, thanks to Schuyler for coming forth with that info, and I apologize if by repeating it, I perpetuated a bad image of your mother.