That's the address of the new official website that Joe Bevilacqua and Lorie Kellogg have erected in tribute to one of the all-time greatest actors — and I don't just mean cartoon voice actors. Daws Butler was also a very fine actor, period. That he plied his trade voicing Huckleberry Hound (seen above), Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Augie Doggie, Snooper, Blabber, Cap'n Crunch, Hokey Wolf (also seen above), Elroy Jetson and so many more — including the smarter-than-average bruin at left — was a happy fact for the cartoon field. As I've written many times, he was one of the nicest men I've ever met and, for those who were privileged to take classes with him, a wonderful teacher.

So I'm delighted that Joe and Lorie have expanded their collection of Daws facts and curios into a standalone website, and that Ben Ohmart and Joe have compiled a new book of Butler scripts. He was the best.

On or about Friday, I should be posting here the schedule of panels I'll be moderating at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. (Click here for info on how to be among the 70,000+ to attend) This year, I'm moderating ten, which is down from my previous high of twelve…but I'll also be appearing on one other.

Right now, I'll just tell you that there will be "spotlights" (one on one interviews) with Larry Lieber, Sal Buscema and Stan Goldberg. There will be the Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel with all three of those gents plus some others. There will be the annual Golden Age Panel on Saturday (looks like that'll be Paul Norris, Harry Lampert, Mart Nodell, Irwin Hasen, Howie Post, Murphy Anderson and Julius Schwartz). There will be a panel on Seduction of the Innocent, the deathless book by Dr. Fredric Wertham, and we'll be showing some video footage of Doc Wertham that has been unseen since 1967. There will be a panel on my work with Sergio Aragonés and another on the history of Dell and Gold Key Comics.

And I especially want to plug two events. On Friday afternoon, I'll be presiding over "Quick Draw," which was a smash hit last year. Basically, we get four of the funniest, fastest cartoonists in the business and with the help of the audience, I throw challenges at them which they have to meet with rapid-fire sketching. If you've seen us do this, you know what a wonderful thing it can be.

And then late Saturday afternoon, we have the Cartoon Voice Panel to end all Cartoon Voice Panels — one of the greatest arrays of top folks who speak for your favorite animated characters. They'll be performing scripts and taking your questions, and it oughta be wonderful.

More info in 48 hours. Or maybe a little after that.

Just cleaned up some sloppy phrasing on the item (two back) entitled "Dem Weapons."

My pal Nat Gertler has a weblog devoted to his observations about television. Check out Nat's TV.

Here's Josh Marshall on the evidence (circumstantial but damning) that the White House knew, when G.W.B. mentioned the Nigerian Uranium connection in his State of the Union Address, that those reports were phony. And over here on his weblog, Marshall makes the case that the thinking in or around the Oval Office went roughly like this: We aren't sure Saddam has these weapons but he might, so to get America behind the war effort, we'd better fib and say we're absolutely sure that danger is imminent.

Something like that.

The thing that bothers me about all this…well, two things. One of course is that so many people who flew into High Outrage over Bill Clinton's comparatively-minor truth-warpings are ready to spin or ignore any damn thing the Bush Administration says, no matter how poorly it stacks up against the evidence. Perhaps this shouldn't surprise me by now. Maybe we have actually reached the stage in this country where people — at least those actively involved in politics — are emotionally incapable of admitting that "their guy" lied. Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter; Lying is only something the other team does. (The only exception to this seems to be when it looks like "your guy" is going down anyway. Then it's okay to pile on and try to claim a fragment of Moral High-Ground. You certainly want to call him a liar before he actually admits it.)

The other thing that bothers me is another one of those "pox on both parties" issues. There's some odd variation on the principle of schadenfreude that has to do with wishing ill on your enemies even if it brings harm on the nation and its people. It would be like a Republican (a few years ago) hoping that Clinton's economic plan would bring on massive unemployment because that would help the G.O.P. reclaim the White House. Or it would be like a Democrat (today) hoping that the economic picture will get worse because it will harm Bush's chances in '04. These are pretty sick things to be wishing.

The other day, cruising The Corner (a conservative weblog — and one often worth reading), I came across a post by its ringleader, Jonah Goldberg, on reports that new documents on Iraq's weapons plans have been seized…

Man, oh, Maneshevitz, it would be nice if this leads to huge stockpiles of WMD. But we've been burned on promising stories before, so we'll see.

Beyond the fact that a guy named Goldberg ought to be able to spell "Manischewitz," there's this: Wouldn't the best thing for America and the world be if we didn't find huge stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction but rather, deduced that all the non-war actions (inspections, sanctions, etc.) had worked to eliminate them? I know some folks think those tactics are wimpy and unreliable but isn't the cause of peace and security a little better off if it turns out those methods prove to be more effective than previously thought?

Yes, there's a certain embarrassment for Bush and Company if the weapons aren't there…but most of that embarrassment has already occurred and won't be undone. Clearly, our intelligence — the specifics Powell cited before the U.N., for instance — is already discredited. We clearly didn't know what Hussein had or where he had it…and even if it turns out he had something, few are going to believe that we didn't invade based on faulty evidence. That's assuming we even find something and that anyone besides die-hard Republicans doesn't believe we didn't put it there.

If we do find W.M.D., those folks will celebrate — but only because it will help George W. Bush, not the world. The world is better off if the end of this story is that the sanctions and the inspections and maybe even the 1998 bombing of Iraq are why our guys ain't finding all that stuff that Hans Blix was ridiculed for not being able to find.

My mention that I once sat for Mr. Hirschfeld brought mail. Glenn Hauman, Phil Fried and Shelly Goldstein* all asked that I tell the tale of sitting for The Line King and/or that I post the resultant drawing. I have done this before so I'll refer you all to this posting. There you will be greeted by a portrait of a man with three Ninas in his hair. That is me.

*Chanteuse extraordinaire

As we all know, the Martin Beck Theater in New York has been renamed for the great caricaturist and Nina-hider, Al Hirschfeld. Here's one of the few news reports I can find about the renaming that includes a photo of the new marquee.

It's a lovely gesture for a lovely man. (I had the honor of sitting for Mr. Hirschfeld a few years ago when he sketched me and just to be in his presence for a few hours was a joy.) But why couldn't they have done this when he was still around to see it?

I'm sorry. That's the last time I'm going to whine about this.

Michael Kinsley explains the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. Quick summary: Nothing's changed. Everyone's still double-talking.

Sorry…I'm behind on these. In my recently-released book, Mad Art, I praise many of the "new generation" of artists who have joined The Usual Gang of Idiots in MAD Magazine. One of the most impressive is a gent who is quite worthy to have his caricatures appear alongside those of Jack Davis and Mort Drucker…and that's about the best compliment I can give a guy who draws silly likenesses of people for a living. His name's Tom Richmond and you can see a sample of what he does so well over at his website.

I just read Sidney Blumenthal's book, The Clinton Wars — which like most book titles that are underlined on the Internet can be ordered from Amazon by clicking its name. I may say more about it here later but I have been saved the task of writing a review now since Richard Cohen has written one that summarizes my feelings exactly.

While I'm at it: I'm currently working my way through An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek. Portions of it are a little dry, especially as it works its way through bare bones historical details. One thing that does interest me is Dallek's account of Lyndon Johnson accepting the vice-presidential nomination in 1960. All the other books I've ever read have said that L.B.J. was dragged kicking and screaming into the second position on the ticket and they quote various Democratic officials as bracing him and telling him that for the good of country, party and Nixon-defeating, he had to accept what he considered a humiliating offer. Dallek however has Johnson manuevering to be picked, telling a friend that taking the veep slot was the only conceivable route for him ever to become President. I dunno if this is the truth or if the other version is correct — and with Johnson, it was not out of the question for two mutually-exclusive facts to be true — but this intrigued me.

More details have been posted about the July 31st book signing in Glendale, California. This is the unveiling of a new book of scripts by the late, great voice actor Daws Butler, Scenes for Actors and Voices. Several of Daws's fine students will be demonstrating what these scripts sound like when expertly performed.

Spinsanity looks at the skewed rhetoric on both sides of the debate about those alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction.

…but I do know that they rerun everything forever. So I wasn't worried that I didn't set the TiVo for their big 2-hour special on the history of super-heroes last night. It runs again several times this coming weekend. A hint if you're going to try to catch it: Some airings list it as Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked and some list it as an episode of a show called History's Mysteries. My guide says it's on Saturday at 5:00 PM and 9:00 PM and Sunday at 3:00 PM. Depending on your time zone and cable company, things may vary.

Vince Waldron (who was, by the way, the first person to respond to my fishing for donations so I'll plug his website) writes to ask…

Nice of you to note that the powers that be in the big apple finally got around to renaming the martin beck to honor the recently departed Al Hirschfeld. But this begs the question, who was Martin Beck, anyway? By the way, didn't Broadway just displace some other guy to make way for the Neil Simon moniker on one of their other marquees a few years back? Sheesh, but they're fickle.

Martin Beck was a vaudeville promoter and businessman. The theater was built in 1924 and he died in 1940 so he had 16 years of seeing his name on the place. But he was a pretty obscure theatrical figure so it's kind of amazing they didn't decide to rename the place long ago. The Neil Simon Theater was originally the Alvin, named for two producers — Alex Aarons and Vinton Freedley.

Maybe I'm sensitive to this point because I have a last name few can pronounce…but it seems to me that getting a business named after you is partly a function of having a simple name. "Martin Beck" is a simple name. It sounds like it belongs to someone of great importance. "Neil Simon" is a name everyone can remember and pronounce — "Driver, drop me off at the Neil Simon."

"Al Hirschfeld" is a good name. Anyone who could possibly have any interest in going to the theater can remember "Al Hirschfeld." But supposing that instead of international relations, Zbigniew Brzezinski had gone into the theater and been just as important as Martin Beck or Mark Hellinger or John Golden or any other person who got their name on a theater. Do you think anyone would have ever named a theater for Zbigniew Brzezinski? Would you tell a taxi to take you to the Zbigniew Brzezinski? Could you call Directory Assistance and get the number of the Zbigniew Brzezinski?

Just a thought.