From the New Jersey Star-Ledger…

A Mass for Warren Kremer, 82, of Bloomfield will be at 10 a.m. Monday in St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Bloomfield, after the funeral from Frank Halpins Brookdale Funeral Home, 1284 Broad St., Bloomfield. Mr. Kremer died Thursday in Mountainside Hospital, Glen Ridge. A professional cartoonist for Harvey Comics in New York City for 35 years, he was the companys primary cover illustrator and the artist for Richie Rich, Casper and Hot Stuff Comics before retiring in 1989. Born in the Bronx, he lived in Bloomfield for 47 years. Surviving are his wife, Grace; sons, Richard W. and Peter R.; daughters, Maryanne Kremer-Ames and Suzanne Petrozzino; a sister, Anita Sudol, and two grandchildren.

So he passed away on Thursday, July 24. Note that his son Richard W. is the one he said inspired the name of Richie Rich.

With all this mourning of ol' Ski-Nose, let us recall that this is not the first time the death of Bob Hope has been reported. Back in '98, an erroneous report on a website led to a Congressman announcing Bob's demise on the floor of the House. This in turn led ABC Radio to broadcast this report, complete with an obit that had obviously been prepared and was ready to go…

Doug Gamble was one of the many writers who toiled in the service of the late Mr. Hope. Here are some of his memories.

By one accounting, Warren Kremer was one of the five most prolific cover artists in the history of comics, the other four being (in no particular order) Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert and Dan DeCarlo. By any accounting, he was one of the most prolific producers of interior pages, as well. He did zillions for the Harvey Comics Group, mainly of Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Wendy the Good Little Witch, Hot Stuff and Stumbo the Giant. Some said the Kremer style was the Harvey style. Born in 1921, he worked in pulp illustration and animation before discovering comic books. When he did, he plunged right in.

He started working in a more realistic style, primarily on horror comics for Harvey. As Harvey segued into the kind of comic for which they would become famous, Kremer learned he could draw that way and actually preferred it. He quickly became their keystone artist, claiming to have created or at least co-created many of their most popular characters. (Kremer's son was named Richie and he said he named Richie Rich after him. Company founder Al Harvey was known to dispute this.)

Kremer worked for Harvey for decades, drawing not only their comics but designing toys and merchandise for their characters and even dabbling in some of the TV animation of Casper. When Harvey shut down in the mid-eighties, Marvel absorbed some of their key personnel and did the "Star" line of comics for a few years. Kremer drew many issues for them, including books based on the comic strip Heathcliff and the Ewoks from the Star Wars movies. About the time the Star line folded, his health forced him to cut back his drawing. In the early nineties, he worked occasionally on merchandise projects for the new owners of the Harvey characters but eventually had to stop drawing altogether. The last time I spoke to him (about six months ago), he was dismayed that his health forced him to decline an offer to be a Guest of Honor, all expenses paid, at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. But he was elated that Marvel had found a huge stockpile of his original art for the Star Comics which they were about to ship back to him. I have conflicting reports as to when he passed away but it was in the last few days.

I did not know the man well but I am in awe of his sheer productivity over the years, and his ability to set and maintain a high standard. An awful lot of you knew and loved his work even if you didn't know his name.

Several folks have written me with suggestions of stars who might qualify as Elder Statesmen of Comedy. They include Carl Reiner (age 80), Mel Brooks (77), Dick Van Dyke (78), Howie Morris (84), Rodney Dangerfield (81), Don Rickles (77), Bob Elliott (80), Art Carney (84), Red Buttons (84), Jonathan Winters (77), Stan Freberg (76) and Alan King (75). Buzz Dixon and Fred Hembeck both mentioned Professor Irwin Corey who is, of course, 143. One could call all or some of those guys our Elder Statesmen of Comedy, if only by default. But I think it's significant that not one of the names mentioned was over 84. We used to have a lot of great comedians in their late eighties or even their nineties. Henny Youngman was 92 when he died, Berle was 94, Hope and Burns were 100, etc. Maybe I'm stretching things but it seems like there's a gap here.

Speaking of great older comedians: I just got back from my doctor's office where I was introduced to one. I was hustling past the nurse's station on my way out when I recognized an extremely short female patient there as my old pal, comedienne-voice actress Mitzi McCall. She was chatting with an older male patient she just happened to run into there in the office and she introduced me to him. She said, "Mark, do you know Shecky Greene?"

Do I know Shecky Greene? Not personally, no. But I got to tell him — and this is absolutely true — "Mr. Greene, I want you to know that not only do I think you're terrific but my father did, too. My father was a very frugal man and when he went to Las Vegas, he wouldn't spend money on shows because shows cost too much. You were the one exception. He wouldn't pay to see Frank. He wouldn't pay to see Dino or Sammy. He wouldn't pay to see Frank, Dino and Sammy. But he'd pay to see you, and he'd come back from Vegas raving about how fabulous you were and doing absolutely terrible re-creations of your best material."

Mr. Greene said, "I was getting $7.50 a seat then, probably."

I said, "Okay, so he wasn't frugal. He was cheap. But he would have disowned me if I hadn't liked you."

So there's another Elder Statesman of Comedy, I guess. Shecky Greene, by the way, is 77. I didn't see his charts but he sure doesn't look it.

So what happens if you decide to answer one of those e-mails that offers to put millions into your bank account? Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie decided to find out. Here's part one of his little experiment and here's part two. Thanks to Greg Hatcher for pointing it out to me.

Spinsanity, one of the few political websites with the integrity to criticize in both directions, dissects the Bush claims about the uranium and the criticisms thereof.

The Management of this website is again attempting to buy a piece of frivolous, impractical electronics equipment via funds that nice, decent people donate to show their appreciation for this page. As always, we promise that the money will not be used for food, clothing, shelter or any necessity of life. It will be spent on a toy that a 51-year-old man shouldn't be wasting his time with. You can give to this worthy cause by PayPal or by going to Amazon.Com via our links and spending money over there. Thank you.

Here's a photo from the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. Left to right, that's Michael Chabon (author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay), Marvel Comics guru Stan "the Man" Lee, longtime Marvel artist Sal Buscema, longtime Spider-Man artist Larry Lieber, Archie artist Stan Goldberg, and me. In the front row, we have Wendy Pini (co-creator of Elfquest) and one of Kirby's favorite inkers, Mike Royer. The photo was taken by the other co-creator of Elfquest, Richard Pini, and can also be seen over on their website along with plenty of other peachy things.

Of all the Jack Kirby Tribute Panels I've done at conventions since Jack passed on, this may have been the best. Everyone had meaningful, insightful things to say…like the way Wendy spoke of showing her artwork to Jack when she was just starting out. He decided she was too good for what was then a very bleak, confining business and he told her, "If I ever catch you working in comics, I'll spank you." She went on to do some wonderful comics as it happened, and every time she saw Jack after that, she said, "I'm ready for my spanking, Mr. Kirby." Stan Goldberg spoke about how when he was coloring Jack's work for Marvel in the sixties, he'd go out to lunch with Kirby and inker Frank Giacoia. Crossing streets, Stan and Frank would walk on either side of Kirby to protect him because, they joked, if he got run over, there'd be no company left. Sal Buscema, who never got to meet Jack, spoke of the challenge of carrying on a Kirby-designed character. Larry Lieber, who scripted those early monster comics Jack drew for Marvel for a time explained that Jack could even draw a rock and make it interesting. And the two Michaels both spoke of what Jack's work had meant to them — Chabon, of how it had inspired his Pulitzer-winning novel; Royer, of how the aroma of Roi-Tan cigars, which permeated the drawings he received from Jack to work on caused him to take up cigar-smoking.

A big treat was the "surprise" appearance of Stan Lee who was nice enough to accept my invite to stop by. Now that Bob Hope is no longer available to make surprise walk-ons, I think the mantle should be passed on to Stan. He does a good surprise walk-on.

You'll be able to read the full text of all that was said when The Jack Kirby Collector gets around to running a transcript. For now, I just wanted to show the photo, mention how good it all was, and thank all the participants for participating. Next year will be the tenth anniversary of Jack's passing but, in part because of folks like the ones on the panel, it feels like he's still around. And in a way, he is.

As everyone knows, newspapers write obituaries of famous people well in advance. Here's a striking example.

The obit that the New York Times just ran on Bob Hope was authored by Vincent Canby.

Vincent Canby died on October 15, 2000.

Earlier, we were talking about the occasional need to leave an e-mail address when you sign up for some Internet service. My pal Josh Jones has set up something which may help you in some situations…

It's www.spam.la, which is a completely spammable domain. Use anything@spam.la as a fake e-mail address. "Anything" can be anything. You can enter fred@spam.la or GeorgeBush@spam.la or popeye@spam.la or any name you like. Any replies don't go to you. They go to a message board Josh has set up at http://www.spam.la.

This won't help you with sites that want to send you a confirmation e-mail to validate the address you leave, but it may be of value in some situations. And if you get a longing to read junk mail, there's plenty there to enjoy.

And more proof that this is a stupid, messy process.

At 2:50 this afternoon my time, I posted this item about how Darnell Williams, a convicted murderer in Indiana, was being denied access to DNA testing that might have proved him innocent. (He was scheduled for execution this coming Friday.)

At 3:04, Reuters moved this report that announced that Governor Frank O'Bannon has stayed the execution and ordered the DNA testing.

I'm not going to suggest that this website was responsible. But you never know.

If you're over at that Library of Congress website looking at Bob Hope stuff and you get through early, you might want to take a gander at this online exhibit. It features some of the lesser-known works of another legend — one who didn't live quite as long as Bob.

My buddy Paul Harris does a terrific radio show on KTRS in St. Louis. He is now doing a terrific weblog which he calls The Bucket. Just bookmarked it on my "Daily Visit" list and so should you.