Startled/shocked to awake this morning to the news that editor-writer David Anthony Kraft had passed away. The saddest thing you may read this week are these words posted on his Facebook page by his wife, Jennifer Bush-Kraft…

For those who didn't know, David and I had been battling COVID pneumonia since April 28th. Yesterday morning, in the wee hours, he was too tired to fight anymore. He died quietly, holding my hand and looking into my eyes.

David, whose age is given as 68 or 69 by various sources, was a writer-editor-publisher-agent-critic. He came into comics in the mid-seventies with a background as a rock music journalist and worked, mainly for Marvel, on dozens of comics and special projects. The comics included The Defenders, Man-Wolf (in Creatures on the Loose), The Savage She-Hulk and Captain America among others. He tapped into his rock experience to script two acclaimed Marvel specials, one telling the life story of The Beatles; the other, an adaptation of the movie, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

He also worked for DC and Atlas, and founded Fictioneer Press, which published many acclaimed science-fiction authors and his popular magazines, David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview and Comics Revue. A very industrious, smart guy.

Others who knew him better than I did can tell you more about him. But I would expect that everything you hear from them will be flattering to the man and express grief over his loss. And here's a reminder that while COVID-19 seems to be going away, it's still taking a lot of good people with it.

In this post, I featured a video by the C.C.H.S. Trombone Choir and I said I didn't have any idea what the "C.C." stands for. Well, I do now. Reader-of-this-site Michael Draine writes that it's the Concord-Carlisle High School in Massachusetts. He says, "That's the high school I briefly attended, and dropped out of. I haven't heard of the Trombone Choir before, though I live one town over from Concord." Boy, you people know everything.

Once again, my buddy Charlie Frye does stuff that I can't do and you can't do…

Republicans appear to be telling Democrats, "If you raise taxes on corporations and top earners, we'll just cut them back when we regain power." As Jonathan Chait notes, this is a true statement even if Democrats don't raise taxes on corporations…

Republicans are going to cut taxes for rich people the next time they hold power, regardless of what Democrats do. Over the last three decades, Republicans have made clear that they believe the perfect response to a slowing economy, a rapidly growing economy, a budget deficit, a budget surplus, war, peace, high inflation, low inflation, or deadly pandemic is to give rich people a nice big tax cut. It's their religion.

So, yes, if Democrats raise taxes on the rich, then Republicans will cut taxes for the rich next time they gain power. For any X, the statement, "If X, then Republicans will cut taxes for the rich next time they gain power" is true.

There are a number of key issues that define the difference between the two major parties. This is a big one. And I'd be very surprised if any prominent Republican would deny it. Some of them would probably be very proud of it.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is from the C.C.H.S. Trombone Choir and I haven't a clue what the "C.C." stands for but it was also suggested by Bill Lentz…

Tomorrow morning at 10 AM my time (Pacific) I will be ruthlessly interrogated by Dan Shahin on the popular webcast, Comic Book News with Dan Shahin. Once it's over, I will post a link to the whole thing…unless, of course, I make a ridiculous fool of myself and/or confess to a felony or even a misdemeanor. But if you want to watch live, here's a link.

Next Tuesday evening, I will be a return guest — my fourth time! — on the SDConCast, which appears on The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog. I'll post details and a link on Monday.

I have no plans at present to do any more webcasting of my own but I will be recording/hosting three panels for Comic-Con@Home, like I did last year. This is the online version of what would have been the 2021 Comic-Con International in San Diego were it not for that COVID thing you may have heard something about. I'll be bringing you a Cartoon Voices panel, a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel and a Groo Panel. If you are fully-vaccinated, you will not have to wear a mask in order to watch them unless you're Rick Schroder.

It's always a shame when we lose a smart, funny man. Paul Mooney was a smart, funny man.  You'd have to be to be best friends with (and an occasional writer for) Richard Pryor.  Paul's own stand-up act was also a masterwork of comedy.  A lot of it was about race but a lot of it wasn't.  It deserved a lot more attention than it got.

We worked together a couple of times…even got nominated together for an Emmy which we didn't win.  We were beaten by Mister Rogers and every time I ran into Paul after that, he had a new theory about how it was all rigged and we really won.  It sounded like Donald Trump explaining these days how he really won the 2020 election except that Paul was kidding and Paul was funny.  And like me, he thought losing to Mister Rogers was kind of a nice, funny way to lose.

I didn't see him at all for the last ten-or-so years and I don't think many people did.  We heard he was not well and that his performing career was probably over.  Very sad.  And it was very sad to hear that he died this morning from a heart attack.  He was 79.  And like I said, he was a smart, funny man and it's always a shame to lose one of those.

Stephen Colbert has recently been hitting his guests with something he calls The Colbert Questionert — pronounced so the last word rhymes with his name. It's fifteen questions that are designed to…well, he says they're to enable him to better know his guests. I think it's a way to fill time and pretape segments that they can run when he takes a day off. But one of them is "You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: What is it?"

I got to thinking how I'd answer that. I think I'd pick the last movement from Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 11, often known as "Alla Turca" or "The Turkish Rondo" — or maybe if the rules allow, I'd pick the whole sonata. In any case, one of my favorite renditions of the Rondo is the one recorded by the Canadian Brass. Here it is for those of you who can't take another video of the Flintstones theme…

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is by the Gomalan Brass Quintet, also suggested by Bill Lentz…

The posting here of a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup means that Mark has a busy day of deadlines to meet and/or conferences in which he must participate. In this case, it means both. Expect no new content — even though he'd love to write about how delightful and funny he always found Charles Grodin to be — but some pre-written things may pop up. Mark shall return to you after he gets out of his deadline pit and the third person.

A couple of you are outraged that the rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme I posted here — the one by the Anonymous Brass Ensemble — was not by any brass ensemble but was instead a computer-generated file in MIDI format. Hey, I never said it was real brass. Nevertheless, Bill Lentz suggested I "atone" with real brass, like in this video by NEA Jazz Masters Delfeayo, Ellis and Jason Marsalis…

• When I'm in a room where some people are wearing masks and some aren't, I like to pretend I'm at a meeting of the Justice League of America.

Things need to be written here today so you won't find a lot of new material on this blog. This might be a good time to see if there's anything else on the entire Internet worth reading besides my silly postings.

Like if you're interested in the California Recall thing, you might want to read Gabriel Debenedetti on where we are and how we got here. More and more, this is looking California Republicans just trying to get a do-over on the last gubernatorial election — which they lost by a wide margin. Unless Governor Newsom does something really dumb — and he did, at least once — the outcome of this one looks like it'll be Déjà vu — all the same people wanting him in, all the same people not wanting him in.

And Kevin Drum, whom I often link to here, has an interesting overview on why the Pandemic: It's wrong to try and blame it on the C.D.C., wrong to blame it on the F.D.A., wrong to blame it on Obama and even wrong to blame it on Trump. He also thinks it's wrong to see Vaccine Hesitancy as something that relates to the current Trump-dominated political scene.

I'll be back when I'm back.

Two songs from Wicked…

Our pal John Ficarra, who was an editor for MAD Magazine back when there was a MAD Magazine, holds forth on the subject of heteronyms. I tend to rebel against them but then I always was a rebel. Thanks to Bruce Reznick for letting me know about this.