I just read a number of articles on whether Bernie Sanders still has a chance of grabbing the Democratic nomination. It looks like he does but that chance also looks pretty slim. Nate Silver lays out how slim it is. It could be over on Tuesday if Biden wins big in Michigan.

Daniel Larison summarizes the problem with Trump's response to the coronavirus crisis. If you don't want to read the whole thing, just read this…

The president needs people to think that everything he does is perfect, so he is incapable of acknowledging his failures and prefers to vilify accurate reporting about those failures. He cannot help but mismanage the government response because he cannot put the national interest ahead of his own selfishness. An untold number of Americans will be paying a steep price for the president's unfitness for office in the weeks and months to come.

Perry Bacon Jr. discusses why Elizabeth Warren didn't make it. Seems to me that it came down to one of those self-fulfilling circular prophecy things. The polls suggested she was not the best candidate to beat Trump and they said that because so many voters opted for Joe and Bernie over her and they felt that way because the polls suggested she was not the best candidate to beat Trump and they said that because so many voters opted for Joe and Bernie over her and they felt that way because the polls suggested…

A buddy of mine, Bill Kirchenbauer, now has his own podcast. I've known Bill since before he set foot on the Tonight Show stage, did his act and had Johnny Carson say of him something like, "That's one of the funniest new comedians we've had on here." I don't remember the precise words but I remember how Bill's career skyrocketed the next day. He appeared everywhere and had his own sitcom for a while and he's a funny guy with much to say.

As I write this, the first three shows of the Kirchenbauer Haffenhauer (to the Second Power) are online on this page and elsewhere. Go hear Bill and his sidekick Jason Ouellette talk about stuff.

• I lost an hour of sleep last night. It wasn't because of Daylight Saving Time. It always happens when I realize Donald Trump is still in office.

I haven't done one of these in a while because the last few times I've been to Costco, nothing interesting happened. Yesterday afternoon though, it was kind of interesting to be there with the Coronavirus Scare on. On my way in, the lady at the door who checks to make sure you're a member was announcing over and over, a list of items which the store was out of (like hand sanitizer) or rationing (like water and toilet paper).

There was a long line in the back of the store to get the rationed items. It apparently moved slowly because a number of folks didn't just want to put the one package of bottled water in their carts and move on. They wanted to argue they should be allowed to buy as many as they wanted. One woman began yelling because she saw a couple get two so she demanded that she could buy two even after it was explained to her that the couple had two Costco accounts.

I didn't get too near this because, maintaining a well-stocked home, I wasn't seeking anything that was sold out or in limited supply. They had plenty of rotisserie chickens, cases of cat food and other necessities of life. I did though have to fight for that case of cat food.

I picked it up in one corner of the store and placed it in my cart. Ten minutes later, I was over in the opposite corner of the store — about as far from the pet supplies aisle as one could be — and I left my cart for about thirty seconds to grab a few nearby items. When I returned to my cart, a man close to my age was taking the cat food out of it and putting the case into his. I said, "Excuse me. I think that's my cat food."

The guy said very firmly, "It's not yours. You haven't paid for it yet."

I said, "But it's got my name on it."

He looked quizzically at the case and asked, "What's your name?"

I said, "Friskies Paté. But my friends all call me 'Frisk.'" He laughed, put the case back into my cart and said, "I'm sorry." Then he reached out to shake hands and I extended my fist so we bumped knuckles. Until this scare is over, I'm not shaking hands with anyone except people who have been tested and Howie Mandel. The Friskies Thief said, "I just didn't want to walk all the way over to the other side of the store."

I said, "Get in the baby seat and I'll push you over there." He laughed again and that was the end of that.

I was expecting to see people shopping with masks on but I didn't. The most noticeable sign of virus concern at Costco apart from the line for certain supplies was that they've eliminated the free samples. Folks seemed disappointed but they understood. I heard a woman in a Bernie Sanders t-shirt say, "They could at least give out free samples of hand sanitizer" and I told her, "…a product that is in no need of special promotion these days."

On the way home, I stopped at a Von's Market for a few things they either don't stock at Costco or they stock them in bundles too large for me to deal with. Again, items were being rationed. Here's a photo that I took of a sign that was at all the checkout counters…

I read the rationed items out loud: "Liquid anti-bacterial soap…liquid hand sanitizer…gloves…face masks."  The cashier said, "I don't know why we need that sign up.  We've been smack out of all those things since the middle of last week."

The woman behind me in line said, "We just ordered hand sanitizer online.  They wanted $20 for a container that's usually three dollars."

The cashier said, "Honey, you don't need that.  We've still got bar soap on the shelves.  Hot water…soap…that'll get the job done."

Just to be silly, I said, "I see you're limiting each customer to five gloves.  Shouldn't that be an even number?"  Nobody laughed.  They all gave me one of those "Can he possibly be that stupid?" looks so I grabbed up my groceries and headed for the car.  On the way out, I saw they had a little stand with a Purell® dispenser next to where you select your shopping cart. I briefly considered stealing it but decided not to. Someone else will…probably that lady in the Bernie Sanders t-shirt.

As I've said here, I like some of what Bill Maher says on his show…some not all. One thing I liked this week was his latest "New Rules" segment about the money that candidates accept or don't accept from donors. Just in case you didn't catch it, take a look…

I feel like I've read comic books for all 68 years and five days of my life but I probably started around age six, commencing with Disney-type and segueing into super-heroes and other adventure books. By the time of my segue, a few of the DC comics I read were featuring letter columns and before long, most of them did. I began writing in to them and one day when I purchased an issue of Aquaman, I discovered a letter of mine had been selected for publication.

I told that story here but I didn't tell you when it happened. The comic was Aquaman #28 and records show that it went on sale on Tuesday, May 3 of 1966. That was a life-changing day for me. The letter was stupid and of course, I didn't get paid for it…didn't even get a free copy of the comic book…but that wasn't the point. Something I had created on my little manual typewriter had been published.

Three years and two months later, I made my first real sale as a professional writer and I can trace, though possibly not explain, a mental connection from one event to the other. And in some ways, what I do now is the same thing as what I did with my letter-writing then. The output now is longer and, I fervently pray, better…and I usually get paid. But it's still just me sitting at a more expensive keyboard writing something that I hope someone will want to publish or produce.

A lot of folks who began writing comic books in the late sixties and seventies wrote to comic book letter pages before that…which makes it odd that if you read comics these days, you may never see a letter column in any of them. And the few that are there seem to be written by some intern who had about as much to do with the creation of that issue as you did.

The exceptions are few and I'm not sure how many comics ever have them at all but there aren't many. One main reason they had them in the first place is that comics which sold any of their copies via subscription had to contain a page of text to get a good postage rate from the post office. Before letter pages, they wrote text stories that almost no one read.

Letter pages were more popular with the readers and those creating those comics liked the (mostly) praise they got and some of the suggestions therein. Also, you could pay someone next-to-nothing — or in the cases of some I've assembled, nothing — to assemble one. Those arcane postal regulations went away and so did most subscriptions…and eventually, so did letter columns. But I still kinda like them, especially when you're writing to, as I often could in the sixties, the editor or someone actually involved in the making of that comic book. Call it loyalty to something that once served me well.

We had them for a long time in the various Groo comic books and a lot of people clearly liked them. They liked writing the letters, they liked seeing if theirs got published, they liked seeing them in print…they even liked how I sometimes insulted them in my responses. We didn't have them in the last few Groo projects and I've decided it's time to change that.

This summer, the long-awaited Groo Meets Tarzan mini-series is coming out from Dark Horse, followed closely by another four-issue Groo mini-series which is already well into production. I expect there will be a lot more of this stuff coming out next year and I want to have letter columns in every issue. That means I need letters. That means you need to write them.

Want to see your letter published in a Groo letter page? Then you'll need the address: letters@groothewanderer.com. Once again, that's letters@groothewanderer.com. No physical mail because that would mean either my assistant or I would have to retype it. If you can read this, you can send e-mail and I can cut 'n' paste.

Tell us any silly thing that relates, however remotely, to Groo the Wanderer or his dog or Sergio or anything dumb…but stay away from current events. When these books go to press, they don't come out for a few months after and the way current events are going these days, what's funny in April may be tragedy by July.

There's no pay but you get to see your words in print and I'll probably write something rude in reply…and then there's this: Each issue, I'll pick the cleverest letter and the person who sent it in will receive a tiny original sketch of Groo by Sergio Aragonés, signed by Sergio and me.

It's the least we can do…and I'm not being gracious when I say that. I mean it really is the least we can do except to send you absolutely nothing, which is what we've done in the past. So write. Tell us how Groo comic books have changed your life…or that they haven't, in which case you should be sending us something minimally thoughtful instead of the other way around.

As longtime readers of this blog know, I am a fan of a soup that they have available during the month of March at Souplantation restaurants, which are also called Sweet Tomatoes restaurants in some cities. The soup is usually called Classic Creamy Tomato Soup and this month on their website, they say they're offering Classic Tomato Soup, which I assume is the same thing…but these days, you never know. Maybe to save money, they got rid of its creaminess, which I do not believe was ever achieved with actual cream.

You can find out by going, as I will do in the next few days, to one of their outlets and having some. I know where they're located near me but if you don't know where they're located near you, this page will lead you to that information. If you sign up for their Club Veg, they will send you e-mails with discount coupons to a place which already serves a pretty cheap meal if you don't have a discount coupon.

And now the Emerald City Comic Convention has officially been postponed until summer with new dates to be announced. This was probably wise but it may ratchet up the sense of panic many have about the epidemic.

Reader Ron Kasman suggested something I should have thought of in the piece I wrote earlier about the virus. He suggested linking you to this page which would seem to the best possible source of information about it all. It's the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pay special attention to their page on Prevention and Treatment and their page on Risk Assessment and here's their Summary of what's going on and…

…oh, hell. Just read the whole site. And bookmark it. And don't listen to friggin' Larry Kudlow, a prominent economic adviser who proves it's possible to be a prominent economic adviser without ever being right about anything in your entire life. It wouldn't surprise me if this guy announces that Tulsi Gabbard has the nomination sewed-up.

I don't follow baseball and haven't in years. When a friend suggests we go take in a Dodgers game, I've been known to say, "I'd love to go next time Sandy Koufax is pitching." That was about when my interest ended and I really only had it in the first place because my father did. Now that Vin Scully is completely out of the picture, even my microscopic interest in the sport is gone.

But! I do kind of like exciting moments in baseball. No game has enough of them to get me to watch an entire game but I sometimes like to watch highlights, especially from back when Mr. Scully was making them feel like even higher highlights.

So let's go back to October 25, 1986 and Game 6 of the World Series. It's the bottom of the tenth inning, the Mets are one run down but they have the tying run on third and the winning run on first — and Mookie Wilson coming to the plate. You may have seen this before but if so, I'm sure you want to see it again…

I just got a flurry of e-mails asking me how I think the coronavirus is going to affect comic book conventions. There's one taking place this weekend — The San Diego Comic Fest — and someone wrote to ask if I'd canceled my appearance there for fear of catching the sickness. Nope. I never planned an appearance at this one so there was nothing to cancel. If I'd decided to attend, I'd probably be there now.

I might be shaking hands less and washing mine more but I think I'd go. It's hard to decide though because a lot of folks who are telling us what's up don't seem to know what's up. Even if I thought Donald Trump was good at some aspects of his job, I don't think I'd listen to him on the topic of communicable diseases…and I wish the news media would put their cameras less on him and more on a kind of person you may have heard of called a "doctor."

This might be a good place to remind you that I make my living writing silly things. I am not a doctor, nor do I even play one on TV. And I'm hesitant to say much about this because I think in this world, and especially since the Internet was invented, we're getting too much of our information from people who don't know how to say "I don't know" when they don't know.

But I think it's safe to repeat what I've gleaned from watching and reading about this, and you because you're smart, probably already know all this: You should not shake hands too much if at all, should not touch your face or put your fingers in or near your mouth much, should not be around folks who are coughing or sneezing, should not cough or sneeze at people, and should wash your hands often. Oh — and they're saying that twenty seconds of soap 'n' water is better than Purell® but Purell® is fine. Most of that was good advice before there was any such thing as a coronavirus.

As for comic conventions…my first thought was that we all just oughta cosplay as Spider-Man or some other character who wears gloves and has his nose and mouth covered by a mask. That way, we could all be there and the only drawback would be that every con would look like this…

A few folks seem to have canceled on the Comic Fest this weekend. The bigger story is up north at the Emerald City Comic Con which takes place in Seattle, WA next weekend. There have been a lot of reported cases of the virus in Seattle and as a result, a lot of exhibitors, guests and attendees are opting to not attend. A PDF message from the operators of the convention can be read here.

I would like to think that this will not be the norm forever and we'll somewhat normalize even until an effective vaccine is available. Everyone on TV who is not President of the United States is telling us that may take at least a year if not longer. Right now, we're all a bit clueless on how bad this thing will be and how the risks compare to the kind of risks we choose to take with other sicknesses or activities which could be dangerous.

It's hard to tell, for example, if a new report of cases detected in a certain area is because the virus is spreading or because the amount of testing is increasing. The panic level might decrease as we become better informed. I sure hope so.

It's five weeks until I'm supposed to attend WonderCon in Anaheim and I'm planning on going. We'll know more by then. Comic-Con in San Diego is 138 days from now. We'll know even more by then. And as I was writing this, I received this e-mail from Steve Thomas…

What do you think the chances are that San Diego Comic-Con could be cancelled due to coronavirus? That's a lot of people from around the world gathering in one place, and California has already declared a state of emergency.

I think the chances are darn close to zero…but we'll see where this thing goes. I assume some people will skip big, crowded events for quite some time and will opt not to go. If they already purchased badges and decide not to use them, they can get a refund until May 13 and maybe that date will be extended.

Given the trillions of people who complain they can't get badges for Comic-Con, I assume any that get returned will be grabbed up by someone. Exhibitors may have a more difficult consideration. If you have a spot in the hall each year, you can keep it until you miss a year, at which point it becomes someone else's spot.

But we'll know a lot more about this sickness well before then. Until I see or read evidence that it is not the wisest approach, I intend to live my normal life but to do all those things I listed in the fourth paragraph in this posting. I expect there will be a Comic-Con International and I expect to be there. I may be dressed as Spider-Man but I'll be there.

It's being reported that comic book artist Frank McLaughlin passed away last night at the age of 84.

Laughlin broke into comics around 1960 working both on staff and freelance for Charlton Comics in Connecticut. For a time, he was the Art Director there. He quickly formed a friendship (and intermittent creative partnership) with Dick Giordano that would last until Giordano's passing in 2010. They often assisted each other and many jobs that were credited by one show handiwork — sometimes, overwhelmingly so — of the other.

Older fans recall McLaughlin from JudoMaster, a short-lived super-hero title that he did for Charlton in 1967, tapping into his personal expertise in the martial arts. Over the years, Frank assisted on newspaper strips including The Heart of Juliet Jones, Nancy and Brenda Starr, but most of what he did was to ink comic books for DC and Marvel. Paul Levitz, who ran things at DC Comics for a long time, posted this on Facebook…

Frank was a total professional, always to be counted on for a solid job no matter how tight the deadline was, and no matter how dense the underlying pencils were. I was particularly a fan of how his line complimented the pencils of Dick Dillin and Irv Novick, two of DC's busiest pencillers in the years when they and Frank worked on stories I wrote or edited.

Frank also taught comic art at various schools. I did not know him well but never heard anyone in the entire field say anything but good things about him. And he sure leaves behind a huge body of work that readers enjoyed for years and will continue to enjoy in reprints.

If you want to see how bad the Trump administration is handling the coronavirus crisis, read Rod Dreher, who's about as right-wing as anyone I've ever linked-to on this blog. He's especially aghast at Trump saying we should listen to him and not all the doctors because he has a "hunch." If many doctors were in agreement that you needed a certain operation and a guy who lives on KFC, didn't know how many people die from the flu and thinks windmills cause cancer said he had a "hunch" you didn't, what would you do?

Meanwhile, I'm reading a wide array of "experts" explaining how possible it is for Bernie to get the nomination. Their assessments range from "highly" to "im-." It's kind of chilling to realize that the top three options to be our president at the moment are — and I stole this list from a tweet I just read —

• A 73-year-old conspiracy theorist who rambles incoherently and lies constantly
• A 77-year-old who rambles and sometimes loses his place
• A 78-year-old socialist who just had a heart attack

Of the three, I'd prefer the third option but I'm not unhappy with the second. An imaginary friend of mine was saying he's sure Trump is going to drop Pence as his veep mostly because Donald needs someone to blame for the inadequate handling of the coronavirus matter. Then he added, "Our best hope is that one of these old white guys picks a really terrific running mate, wins the election and then steps down or dies." I have too much class to say something like that so I'll just pretend a friend of mine said it.

Kevin Drum, who's one of the more level-headed pundits I read, thinks Joe Biden is now unbeatable for the Democratic nomination…and that's before anyone knows how many delegates Bernie's going to get out of California, where he's expected to do well. Kevin thinks it's obvious. I dunno.

I do want to say that I like Mike Bloomberg more as a gracious conceder than I ever did as a candidate.

In the meantime, you're probably on the edge of your chair over the real important vote last night: Whether voters in San Diego would approve a measure that would raise the hotel tax to pay for a big expansion of their convention center, the place where Comic-Con International is held. The latest totals (which seem to be final) are saying the Yes votes were 63.6% and the No votes were 36.4%. The measure needed a two-thirds majority to pass so it came damned close but didn't make it.

The late composer Meredith Willson wrote "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" and all the songs in The Music Man and The Unsinkable Molly Brown — tunes like "76 Trombones" and "Til There Was You" and "I Ain't Down Yet." But for some, his most memorable tune was one that was drilled into them in their school gym classes in the early sixties.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy launched something called The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Willson volunteered to compose an exercise-oriented theme song, which was recorded by Music Man star Robert Preston. It was called "Chicken Fat" and it was distributed by the zillions to physical education classes across the country.

I'm not sure if the idea was that it was supposed to motivate you to exercise on your own or if you were supposed to exercise to it. I was nine when it came out and I know it was never played in my school. I don't think it would have inspired me to drop and do push-ups but given the selling skills of Mssrs. Willson and Preston, it might have tricked me into buying band instruments from some guy who couldn't play a note of music.

Here's a music video someone made recently with the longer version. The kids in this video don't look like they need to exercise or want to exercise or even want to be in this video but there's a strange creature walking around who won't let them leave until they do…

If you want to know why Joe Biden just had the best night of his political life as a non-veep candidate, read Ezra Klein. Here's an excerpt…

It's not that Sanders is running a weak campaign. But he is, in a way, running the wrong campaign. He's the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination — at least he was until tonight — but he's still running as an insurgent. The political revolution was supposed to close the gap between these realities: If Sanders could turn out enough new voters, he could sweep away the Democratic establishment and build his own party in its place. But going all the way back to Iowa, that strategy failed. Sanders won as a Democrat, not a revolutionary, and he needed to pivot to a strategy that would unite the existing Democratic Party around him.

But it's hard to move from treating the Democratic Party establishment with contempt to treating it like a constituency, and so far, the Sanders campaign hasn't.

I don't think last night was as disastrous for Sanders as some of the pundits, on MSNBC especially, made it out to be. He may turn out to have made an impressive showing here in California — after all, he got my vote — but since that's unreported yet, it was mostly just good news for Biden. Also, the media loves comebacks. If they'd been counting Sanders out and he'd bounced back big, most of them would have been just as orgasmic.

Seems to me it's all about that question with which I was wrestling: Do I support the person I wish were in the Oval Office or do I support the one most likely to get there? I'm guessing Biden did well because more voters came down on the side of the latter. I wish someone could fabricate a poll question that would give us some insight into that.

I like Bernie. I voted for Bernie. But Klein's right that Joe's trying to unite the party around him and Bernie's trying to get everyone in the party to just surrender to him. That's a tougher sale, especially to voters who think the most important goal in this election is not to pass the Sanders agenda but to get rid of the Trump one first.