Something like twenty-five years ago, I met a very nice gent named John Morrow who wanted to start a magazine devoted to Jack Kirby.  If I'd had even a smidgen of Jack's prescience, I would have said, "This magazine will last for over a quarter of a century and will become the cornerstone of a pretty nice-sized publishing empire issuing all sorts of books about comics and related arts."

But I don't have Jack's wisdom and, let's be honest, neither do you.  You would have thought then like I did; that John would get a couple of issues out and then the whole thing would fade away.  Now, The Jack Kirby Collector is past issue #76, John is also publishing Alter Ego, Back  Issue, Comic Book Creator, Draw, Retro Fan and many others, along with some of the best books about comics.  And he's about to publish The World of TwoMorrows, a history of his big little operation.  He's asking your help on this one.

John has a Kickstarter going for this book.  Instead of waiting for it to come out and trying to grab a copy before they sell out, back it now and be guaranteed a copy for a lower price than you'll pay after publication.  It's a good deal for you but it's also a good deal for one of the most important publishers putting out books about comics.  Here's the link to find out more and to back this worthy project.

P.S. And I probably should mention that The World of TwoMorrows includes an introduction by me.  But back it anyway.

Amazingly, this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego convenes in 93 days. It'll be the fiftieth of these conventions and the fiftieth I've attended so to celebrate, I'm going to host 50 panels. Or less. Probably a lot less.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. It's about how for some time, there's been a battle going on in San Diego over a proposal to increase the hotel room tax to pay for a proposed expansion of the convention center. Currently, the tax is 10.5% but under the new plan, it would go to as high as 15.75% in certain portions of the city.

Funds from the tax would enable the convention center to expand from approximately 800,000 square feet to about 1.2 million. Most of the increased space would be entirely filled by cosplayers dressed as Harley Quinn.

No, I'm being silly but the numbers are roughly correct. There was supposed to be a vote on the plan in November of 2020 but the City Council has just voted to move it to the March 2020 ballot. Comic-Con is currently signed to remain in San Diego through 2021. I have no idea how or if the earlier decision about the expansion will impact the extension of the current contract but it'll probably mean something.

I have mixed feelings about Bernie Sanders, both about his electability and also the practicality of some of his proposals.  But I watched his recent Town Hall on Fox News and the man did a real good job of presenting his positions in a sane, hard-to-argue-with manner. "Hard to argue with" does not mean "impossible to argue with" but it ain't bad.

Here's the first half hour and if you like that, you can watch the rest of it at this link.

The other day here, writing about possible presidential candidates, I wrote, "I like what I've seen of [Pete] Buttigieg but it's way too early in the mating game for me to pledge my heart to anyone."

As I typed that line, I reminded myself of an evening back when I was 23 or so. I was in-between lady friends when a buddy of mine talked me into going with him to a bar out on Van Nuys Boulevard in the valley here. As a lifelong non-drinker (still), I am almost never seen in bars but the appeal of this one, he said, was not the beverages. It was the near-certainty that when you left, it would be with a member of the opposite sex with whom you would, to use a euphemism for having sex, "sleep."

He was so sure we would both — as he put it — "score" that he insisted we take separate cars. I was curious about what such a place was like and also curious about how I would respond to such an environment. If it did work the way he promised, could I bring myself to depart with some lady I'd known less than an hour? That did not sound like me. At that age, everyone I'd dated was someone I'd known since at least high school.

It turned out I couldn't, in part because the get-to-know-someone ritual seemed to center around the consumption of significant volumes of alcohol. Sitting there with my 7-Up, I felt awkward because I knew I looked awkward…and I looked awkward because I felt awkward. Awkward is never enticing. I also wasn't all that attracted to any woman on her third Mai Tai. I kept thinking that some of the pairings I saw departing together wouldn't make it as far as bed if there were alert policemen in the area equipped with Breathalyzers.

Anyway, George and I were amidst folks aged 20-50, most of them dressed and coiffed better than that rathole of a bar warranted. If it had not been a place where everyone was out to impress the opposite sex, I think The Incredible Hulk could have passed the dress code there.

Everyone was drinking while nibbling on Chex Mix and being ultra-ultra-charming as they table-hopped from one potential companion to another. The conversations were loud and you couldn't help but eavesdrop on some of them. No matter what the alleged topic was, the subtext was always "So…shall we go to your place or mine?"

The oddest thing though was how every time the front door opened, every single person in the room stopped to check out the latest arrival. Everyone had to see which gender was entering the mix and gauge how attractive that new entrant was. If it was someone of the other gender, was that person more attractive than your already-present options? If they were of your gender, were they competition for you?

Near us was a guy in a beige leisure suit (it was that era or slightly past it) and he'd been "entertaining" — I am using that word loosely — a decent-looking lady. The door opened and he stopped in mid-anecdote to check out what we all saw was a tall, voluptuous blonde coming in. With nary a nod to the woman he'd been talking with, he immediately bee-lined for the blonde, cutting-off all other guys who were trying to get to her first.

The woman was roughly a "10." That's according to the official Cruel and Shallow Rating Scale of Female Appearance which you're supposed to abandon when you graduate college. I actually heard others in the bar, including other women, whispering "Ten."

The lady that the guy in beige abandoned without so much as an "Excuse me" was maybe a "7" on that scale but she was not alone for long. Almost immediately, Leisure Suit Larry's chair was taken over by another fellow who'd left the "5.5" he'd been chatting with. It was that kind of place…everyone trading up or at least trying to.

I can't tell you how outta-place I felt there and not just because of the liquor, though there was that. I kept wanting to leave but George kept wanting me to stay. In this room, nothing looked more pathetic than one guy sitting by himself. I kept saying, "There's no one here who interests me" and George kept saying, "It's way too early to fall in love." That was the line I was remembering when I wrote about the presidential race.

At some point, I guess I blinked and missed the proper moment to fall in love. It came a little after 11 PM and it was like the bartender rang a bell which you couldn't hear if you didn't have a couple of drinks in you. Suddenly, four-fifths of those present upped and departed, two by two. Some of them seemed to be taking whoever they could get and leaving with their sixth choices. Two women looked us over, decided they weren't that desperate and left to go…somewhere.

I left alone and so did George…and he was quite depressed about it. I felt a tad insulted but also kinda glad that I didn't have to now put on an act and nurture the shallowest of relationships with a woman who was drunk enough to find me cute enough.

And since the parallel popped into my head the other day, I'm having trouble not thinking of the battle for the Democratic Presidential Nomination as a much different process. I don't have to fall in love now. Someone better may still walk in the door and, if not, someone already in the room will start looking better to me. This time though, I'm not leaving alone. If Trump or even Trumpism gets another term, I may have to take up drinking.

If you've never seen a professional, fully-staged production of the Monty Python musical Spamalot, don't watch this. It's not that. It's a production mounted by Overland High School, a performing arts school in Aurora, Colorado. If you have seen the show done by pros…well, you still won't want to watch all of this — it's an hour and 48 minutes — but you might enjoy skipping around and marveling at the ambitiousness, effort and occasional raw talent on display here.

I would have thought even seasoned professionals could not assemble anything resembling Spamalot with ten times the budget these folks probably had, plus you have to add in the handicap of beginners in difficult roles and that they couldn't say "shit" and other words normally heard throughout this play.

I'm impressed by the ingenuity, the enterprise and by the fact that some of these kids are pretty good for their age and experience. One day, folks will watch this video to see the young, amateurish beginnings of someone who has become a real and true star on Broadway. I'll betcha Nathan Lane and Audra MacDonald were once in things like this.

So jump about. The "Not Yet Dead" routine starts at 7:50, the "Camelot" number is at 26:10, the battle with the Black Knight is at 58 minutes in and the "Jews" number commences around 1:03:40. If you do not set your expectations too high, you too may be impressed. When I went to high school, I doubt our drama department could have pulled off ten minutes of this let alone the whole danged play…

Very sad news about the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. I've never set foot in Europe but you don't have to have visited the place to know that it's a magnificent building filled with history and art treasures…and one which is of great importance to so many. You don't have to buy into the religion or all that has been done in its name to weep over this. You certainly don't have to figure out some way to spin this as a "win" for your causes or beliefs.

• Looking forward to the "public" version of the Mueller Report which will be released later this week. I'm guessing the word "exonerated" won't be redacted but the word "not" which precedes it will be.

Okay, so why is Mr. Peanut on the packaging for Planters Cashews? It's bad enough he's selling his family — his whole species, in fact — urging you to purchase and devour his kind. But shouldn't that be sufficient for him?  Why is he on the cashews? And why isn't there a Mr. Cashew?

Or was there once and he was murdered, shoved into the roasting pits by some unidentified goober with a top hat, cane, gloves and a monocle?  Thereafter, Mr. Cashew's family was horrifyingly chopped up into halves and pieces, and now Mr. Peanut is selling them, too.  Has anyone looked into this?

Is his goal here to boost cashew sales so that peanut sales will diminish?  Is he like Daffy Duck urging Elmer Fudd to shoot rabbits instead of ducks?  Somebody help me with this.  I can't be the only person sitting up night after night wondering about this kind of stuff.

As we are all well aware, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested the other day on suspicion of computer hacking, rape and impersonating David Letterman. This brings up all sorts of ethical questions. Is this man a journalist whose alleged transgressions ought to be tolerated in the name of Free Speech? Or is he a trafficker in purloined documents with no more rights than a guy who deals in stolen cars?

One thing I do know: The vast majority of people are thrilled and delighted when leaks of private documents embarrass or harm their enemies, and outraged when they themselves are harmed. Just about no one stands on any principle larger than that.

Emily Stewart sums up the two sides of the argument, shedding genuine light on it and making me more confused than ever on where I stand on this.

Julien Neel, the one-man singing group, favors us with this fine selection…

Here's Frank Rich explaining why William Barr is a bad Attorney General, why Joe Biden is a bad candidate and why Pete Buttigieg may be a very good candidate.

I agree with Rich on the first two. Barr is there to work for the interests of D.J.T., not U.S.A., and Biden increasingly reminds me of his lookalike, McLean Stevenson: An excellent supporting player but not a star. I like what I've seen of Buttigieg but it's way too early in the mating game for me to pledge my heart to anyone.

Dave Gordon writes to ask…

I've been reading with interest your postings on the dispute between the WGA and "agents who package," and was wondering if this dispute might spill over to other workers "in the biz" who work through agents, such as actors and directors. Do you have any insight about this, or information from actor or director friends?

This will definitely impact actors and directors and perhaps others who are not going to let the WGA get a piece of packaging fees (or whatever comes of this current mud-wrestling) and not get that piece for themselves.

We have a thing in this town called Pattern Bargaining, which essentially means that when one of the three major guilds — WGA, DGA and SAG/AFTRA — gets or loses something, a corresponding get/loss is almost inevitable for the other two. If the writers get $100 more, the directors will get $100 more and the actors will get an even greater amount since any film or TV show will have many more actors than it has writers or directors. Other labor organizations may benefit as well.

There are occasional exceptions to this but they are rare. Often, the producers seek to capitalize on this by configuring what they give up so it is more meaningful to one guild than another. When Cable TV was coming in and it was apparent they'd have to make a deal to compensate writers, directors and actors for working in this new marketplace, they came up with a formula that worked for directors but did not work for writers. Then they gave it to the DGA and tried to force it on the WGA…and we had to strike to not take that bad-for-us deal. We finally won but it took an ugly strike to achieve it.

The WGA tends to be the union that most often fights these battles first, which is why we strike more often than the other two. The Directors Guild never strikes. The actors strike rarely. It was kind of inevitable that when the issue of packaging became a cause célèbre, it would be the writers who would be the first to charge into the fire. In a way, I'm proud of my guild for being so bold but we do tend to get singed more than the others.

If you have high cholesterol, maybe you'd better not watch this video. Just seeing the luscious hunks of beef served at Peter Luger's Steak House could cause you to need a massive injection of Lipitor. Peter Luger's is probably my favorite restaurant in the country and the "probably" is because I haven't dined there in more than ten years. I'm just assuming it's still as good as it ever was. If you go there, remember these seven things…

1. They don't take credit cards.
2. Look all you want at the menu but you're going to order the steak.
3. The German Fried Potatoes are about as good as any side dish you will ever eat.
4. I don't eat desserts but if you do, you're going to want to leave room for dessert.
5. When they deliver your steak to the table, don't dive in. Let it sit for at least five minutes to finish cooking and to rest.
6. And the plate itself will be so hot that it will do to your flesh what it did to the cow's.
7. But the shlep to Brooklyn and the hassle of making a reservation and the price…it's all worth it.

So let's visit the place where the best steak in the country (some say) is served and devoured…

Talks have broken off between the Writers Guild of America (the folks who represent writers) and the Association of Talent Agents (the folks who represent their agents). The issue on the table is packaging — when the agency that represents you, the writer, also represents (or is) the production entity. The contention here is that when you're in this situation, your agent's main loyalty is to the show or movie, not to you. Your agent(s) could actually profit by not getting you top dollar for your services or by advising you to accept terms or offers that are in the best interest of the movie or show, not you.

This has been going on for a long time in this town. I'm not entirely sure why it has become a battle to the death right now but the membership of the WGA recently voted 7,882 to 392 — that's 95.3% — to take a stand on this. There's a new document agencies must sign and in it, they agree not to engage in packaging arrangements. The agencies responded by saying they have to do business that way in the changing marketplace wherein they deal with mega-corporations. They proposed settling the dispute with a list of concessions which include sharing packaging fees with writers and increasing transparency in where the money comes from and where it goes.

The deadline in these negotiations was extended once but expired today. Today, the WGA told the ATA that their offers were woefully inadequate in terms of scope and numbers. WGA members are now being told that if they are represented by an agency which has not signed onto the new agreement — which is almost all of them, including the major agencies/packagers — they must fire their agents. They can do this by signing a letter online via DocuSign and the WGA will deliver them.

So you know what side I'm on but — full disclosure — this does not directly affect me since I don't have an agent at the moment. If I did, I'd fire him or her if I had to. I was with three different agencies over thirty years but none of them were "packagers" while I was with them. I declined all offers of representation by agents who did that kind of thing because I was always at least a little suspicious of such arrangements. At times, I became quite aware how a writer can be horribly wronged when his or her agent has this kind of conflict of interest.

To be fair, some writers profited greatly from these arrangements but many did not. The practice needs to be eliminated or at least changed in ways that will prevent all that wronging. Since I haven't followed the current brouhaha closely, I have no idea how likely a compromise is…or if it comes down to a big game of "Chicken," who'll flinch or cluck first.

I do know it's going to be messy. And I hope that we don't wake up and find Show Business sprawled on the pavement unmoving while the police draw a big chalk outline around it. I'm imagining every agent in town is on the phone, trying to sell the whole thing as a new series with "CSI" in the title and a lot of his clients in key positions.

Ten minutes of conversation with the real Bob Fosse, much of it about All That Jazz. There are parts of that movie I love and parts of it that make me cringe but every bit of it is kinda fascinating…