I awoke this morning with a burning need to know more about Vic Lockman so I did a little detective work and tracked down a phone number for his son, David. David was delighted to hear that I had written a blog post about his dad and is going to work with me to build a complete history of his father's career. This will include stuff I didn't know about like Vic's work with Hank Ketcham on the Dennis the Menace comic books and his work on commercial comic books. We won't be doing this right away but we will be doing it.

I'll also try to pick up info on Vic's father. David informed me that his grandfather was the great magician Earl Lockman, a contemporary and cohort of Harry Houdini. I probably should have made the connection. Look at Vic's logo above and compare it to Earl Lockman's calling card…

When I get the time (ha!) I'll hit up the library at the Magic Castle and learn what I can about Grandpa Earl but I already know he invented many tricks that others later performed. I also recall that he was a technical advisor and supplier-of-magic-props for the 1953 movie Houdini which starred Tony Curtis…and I believe he was an artist himself.

David says that orders are being filled for the Christian books on www.viclockman.com so you can order from them with confidence. And watch this space for more information on the greatest comic book writer that you probably didn't hear about until this morning, Vic Lockman. Just don't start watching immediately for it. Might be a few months before we can do the man justice.

I am informed that cartoonist and comic book writer Vic Lockman died last June 1 at the age of 90. This may be the first obit published on the 'net of the man who just might have been the most prolific comic book writer of all time and the least well-known. A great many folks who consider themselves expert comic book historians who will read this and say, "Who the heck was that?" I'm afraid I can't tell you much about the man other than what little follows.

He wrote thousands of comic book stories for Western Publishing Company beginning around 1950. These were for their Dell and Gold Key comics. For an explanation of the relationship between Dell Comics and Western Publishing, click here.

Mr. Lockman was also an artist who occasionally penciled what he wrote, usually puzzle pages or one-page gags. More often, he would letter and/or ink a story that someone else had penciled. Most often, he just wrote.

For which comics did he write? Lockman stories ran among scripts by others in all the Disney comics, all the Warner Brothers comics, all the Walter Lantz comics, all the Hanna-Barbera comics and any other "funny" comics produced out of Western's Los Angeles office. He was the main guy behind a seventies comic called The Wacky Adventures of Cracky and he has been credited with creating the Disney character, Moby Duck. For years, a division of the Walt Disney company in Burbank was also producing comic book material for European publishers who needed more pages than they got by translating all the Gold Key books. Lockman also did hundreds of scripts for them.

After Western shut down its comic book division in 1984, he wrote a few scripts for later American publishers of Disney comics but he seems to have redirected most of his efforts to his other endeavor — comics for the Christian marketplace. More on them in a moment. First, let's discuss how many stories Lockman might have done for non-religious comics…

I can't give you a precise total but I'm sure it was a staggering number. In a self-promotional piece Mr. Lockman issued in the mid-seventies, he claimed he wrote one script a day, Monday through Friday, for a total at that point of around 7000. We don't have a clear idea of what time period he was basing that on but if you figure five scripts a week and 52 weeks per year, that's 260 scripts annually. As noted, he started around 1950 so if he'd adhered to that schedule, he would have written 7000 scripts by 1977 — and he was actively producing scripts for Western and the Disney foreign comics program in 1977. At that rate, he might have hit 8000 by the time he stopped writing.

I'm skeptical anyone could keep up that pace but it's not impossible. He was probably counting the Christian comics and also scripts that his editors at Western and Disney didn't accept. When I was writing for Western, they rejected about 15% of what I wrote and my editor there, Chase Craig, used to tell me, "Don't feel bad. You should see how many of Vic Lockman's scripts I turn down." Lockman might have sold some of his rejected Disney scripts for Western to the Disney foreign comic program (or his rejects from them to Chase) but some of them probably went unpublished. And since he had no other place to sell his rejected non-Disney scripts for Western, they were presumably never published. Those all would be impossible to count.

Further complicating that count is that in the fifties and sixties, so much of what Lockman did for Western was one-page puzzle and gag features. He did hundreds upon hundreds of them. Was he counting each of those as a "story?" Probably.

That's important to consider if we weigh his output against that of Paul S. Newman, who was recognized by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific comic book writer of all time. They credit Paul with more than 4,100 published stories totaling approximately 36,000 pages. If each of Lockman's one-pagers is to be considered a story than he might have topped Newman in total stories but lost to him in total page count. It's kind of an Electoral College situation.

Newman was able to present sufficient documentation to get the Guinness people to accept his claim. I doubt that kind of proof could be assembled for Vic Lockman — or for that matter, for two other contenders for the title: Charlton Comics writer Joe Gill or Archie writer Frank Doyle. I would not doubt for a second though that Lockman was one of the five most prolific comic book writers of all time, probably one of the three most prolific…and possibly Numero Uno.

And I could not begin to estimate his productivity for the Christian marketplace. His vast catalogue of books, many of which he published himself, included titles such as Biblical Economics in Comics, a multi-volume series called Catechism For Young Children With Cartoons, God's Law for Modern Man, How Shall We Worship God?, Psalm Singing for Kids, The Big Book of Cartooning (In Christian Perspective) and hundreds of self-published tracts. I have — shall we say? — problems with some of his lessons but it's obvious Mr. Lockman was a very sincere and talented cartoonist.

He sold many of these through his website and you can still see them there, though I have no idea if anyone is still filling orders. In some of them, he argues, a la Judge Roy Moore, that his interpretation of God's word is the only true one and that it outranks any law made by Man. In my brief contacts with Mr. Lockman — two phone calls almost 30 years apart, nothing in person — he was cordial to me until he began to proselytize and I declined to convert on the spot.

The second of these conversations was a few years ago when I called to sound him out as a potential recipient of the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, which I administer and which goes to writers who have not received sufficient recognition and/or reward. Since Lockman certainly qualifies for lack of recognition, I wanted to see if he'd consider accepting it should the judging committee select him some year. I am not sure I completely understood his response but it was unmistakably negative about the award and the whole concept of celebrating comic books that do not celebrate God's covenants.

Each year, the Finger Award goes to one recipient who is alive and to one posthumously. I decided not to propose Mr. Lockman for the "alive" one until such time as a few nominators did. Since we started the award, we've received over a thousand nominations for around 250 different writers. We have received one or less for Vic Lockman…which kind of proves he has not received the attention he deserves. Maybe we can do something about that with the posthumous award one of these years. A career like he had is absolutely deserving of attention.

Two of the actual puppets used in the 1964 TV Christmas special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And this of course is the perfect time of year to be selling Santa Claus.

Asking price? Ten million dollars…which is probably like fifteen times what the original special cost to produce. Or make an offer.

A bunch of talented folks are raising the dough to produce a pilot/presentation for an animated version of the popular web-comic Goblins. They're almost there but they have less than 24 hours to raise the last few bucks via IndieGoGo. Take a look at what they have to say and then go to this page to get behind the effort!

Todd VanDerWerff writes about why A Charlie Brown Christmas continues to be one of the most popular TV specials ever done. He says it's because it quotes the Bible without being preachy. I think that's part of it. Affection for the characters in the Peanuts strip is another part. The music is yet another, and some of it is pretty funny.

Also, the show is refreshing and maybe a little closer to our own personal realities in that it's one of the few Christmas specials that isn't about a grouchy, Christmas-hating person who learns the meaning of Christmas and stops being grouchy. People — in this case, children — just start being more considerate of others…and it doesn't take visitations by three ghosts to make it happen. I like that.

Much is being written about the new tax law. And it would appear there's a whole lotta lyin' going on.

The fine journalist and human being Heidi MacDonald investigates a quote attributed to Jack Kirby: "Kid…Comics will break your heart." Apparently, some folks think its origin was in an encounter Jack had with artist James Romberger at a convention in New York in the 80's. Others wonder if he said it at all and also note others who supposedly said it, including Charles Schulz.

I kinda doubt Schulz said it. Every time I was with him, he seemed absolutely delighted with what drawing comic strips had done for his life but I have no hard evidence that he did or didn't say the line in some context. I can however solve the Kirby question real easily: Yeah, he said it. He said it many times and he said it long before he said it to James Romberger.

I heard him say it, though not directly to me. When I met Jack, I had no expectation of working in comics or working in comics as much as I eventually did. What he said to me was more in the nature of encouragement to keep thinking of comics as something to do for a while before moving on to other things. But I heard him say the line or variations of it to others — mostly kids who approached him at San Diego Cons. I can't give you any of their names because I think they all took his advice.

Well, some of them did. Around 1971, a young artist named Wendy Fletcher visited him and showed him her drawings. I don't think he said the "break your heart" line to her but he told her not to get into comics, urged her to pursue other illustration work and gallery showings (as he did to Romberger) and told her, "If I catch you working in comics, I'll spank you."

Wendy did later work in comics. After she married Richard Pini and became Wendy Pini, they created and she drew Elfquest and other wonderful things. Jack did not spank her. I think he may have congratulated her for doing such fine work and retaining ownership of it. There were many variations of his advice. He especially urged folks he thought were talented to not see drawing someone else's creations for DC or Marvel as a real career.

I should also point out that Jack's advice fluctuated. There were times he was happier in the field than he was at other times. When he did say things like that it came from a frustration not with the form of comics, which he loved, but with the working conditions, bad compensation and loss of control of one's work he encountered. He probably said it much less (if at all) in the last years of his life when he could see creators sometimes holding onto copyrights and making real good money in comics.

And I doubt he was ever as dour as the above drawing (by New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks) made him out to be. He usually said such things with a feisty, defiant manner. Jack was a pretty feisty, defiant guy.

This is the most popular thing I've ever posted on this weblog. In fact, it's so popular that proprietors of other sites have thought nothing of just copying the whole thing and posting it on their pages, often with no mention of me and with the implication that they are the "I" in this tale. Please don't do that — to me or anyone. By all means, post a link to it but don't just appropriate it and especially don't let people think it's your work. This is the season for giving, not taking.

Yes, it's true…and I was very happy to learn from two of Mel Tormé's kids that their father had happily told them of the incident. Hearing that was my present…

I want to tell you a story…

The scene is Farmers Market — the famed tourist mecca of Los Angeles. It's located but yards from the facility they call, "CBS Television City in Hollywood"…which, of course, is not in Hollywood but at least is very close.

Farmers Market is a quaint collection of bungalow stores, produce stalls and little stands where one can buy darn near anything edible one wishes to devour. You buy your pizza slice or sandwich or Chinese food or whatever at one of umpteen counters, then carry it on a tray to an open-air table for consumption.

During the Summer or on weekends, the place is full of families and tourists and Japanese tour groups. But this was a winter weekday, not long before Christmas, and the crowd was mostly older folks, dawdling over coffee and danish. For most of them, it's a good place to get a donut or a taco, to sit and read the paper.

For me, it's a good place to get out of the house and grab something to eat. I arrived, headed for my favorite barbecue stand and, en route, noticed that Mel Tormé was seated at one of the tables.

Mel Tormé. My favorite singer. Just sitting there, sipping a cup of coffee, munching on an English Muffin, reading The New York Times. Mel Tormé.

I had never met Mel Tormé. Alas, I still haven't and now I never will. He looked like he was engrossed in the paper that day so I didn't stop and say, "Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you how much I've enjoyed all your records." I wish I had.

Instead, I continued over to the BBQ place, got myself a chicken sandwich and settled down at a table to consume it. I was about halfway through when four Christmas carolers strolled by, singing "Let It Snow," a cappella.

They were young adults with strong, fine voices and they were all clad in splendid Victorian garb. The Market had hired them (I assume) to stroll about and sing for the diners — a little touch of the holidays.

"Let It Snow" concluded not far from me to polite applause from all within earshot. I waved the leader of the chorale over and directed his attention to Mr. Tormé, seated about twenty yards from me.

"That's Mel Tormé down there. Do you know who he is?"

The singer was about 25 so it didn't horrify me that he said, "No."

I asked, "Do you know 'The Christmas Song?'"

Again, a "No."

I said, "That's the one that starts, 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…'"

"Oh, yes," the caroler chirped. "Is that what it's called? 'The Christmas Song?'"

"That's the name," I explained. "And that man wrote it." The singer thanked me, returned to his group for a brief huddle…and then they strolled down towards Mel Tormé. I ditched the rest of my sandwich and followed, a few steps behind. As they reached their quarry, they began singing, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…" directly to him.

A big smile formed on Mel Tormé's face — and it wasn't the only one around. Most of those sitting at nearby tables knew who he was and many seemed aware of the significance of singing that song to him. For those who didn't, there was a sudden flurry of whispers: "That's Mel Tormé…he wrote that…"

As the choir reached the last chorus or two of the song, Mel got to his feet and made a little gesture that meant, "Let me sing one chorus solo." The carolers — all still apparently unaware they were in the presence of one of the world's great singers — looked a bit uncomfortable. I'd bet at least a couple were thinking, "Oh, no…the little fat guy wants to sing."

But they stopped and the little fat guy started to sing…and, of course, out came this beautiful, melodic, perfectly-on-pitch voice. The look on the face of the singer I'd briefed was amazed at first…then properly impressed.

On Mr. Tormé's signal, they all joined in on the final lines: "Although it's been said, many times, many ways…Merry Christmas to you…" Big smiles all around.

And not just from them. I looked and at all the tables surrounding the impromptu performance, I saw huge grins of delight…which segued, as the song ended, into a huge burst of applause. The whole tune only lasted about two minutes but I doubt anyone who was there will ever forget it.

I have witnessed a number of thrilling "show business" moments — those incidents, far and few between, where all the little hairs on your epidermis snap to attention and tingle with joy. Usually, these occur on a screen or stage. I hadn't expected to experience one next to a falafel stand — but I did.

Tormé thanked the harmonizers for the serenade and one of the women said, "You really wrote that?"

He nodded. "A wonderful songwriter named Bob Wells and I wrote that…and, get this — we did it on the hottest day of the year in July. It was a way to cool down."

Then the gent I'd briefed said, "You know, you're not a bad singer." He actually said that to Mel Tormé.

Mel chuckled. He realized that these four young folks hadn't the velvet-foggiest notion who he was, above and beyond the fact that he'd worked on that classic carol. "Well," he said. "I've actually made a few records in my day…"

"Really?" the other man asked. "How many?"

Tormé smiled and said, "Ninety."

I probably own about half of them on vinyl and/or CD. For some reason, they sound better on vinyl. (My favorite was the album he made with Buddy Rich. Go ahead. Find me a better parlay of singer and drummer. I'll wait.)

Today, as I'm reading obits, I'm reminded of that moment. And I'm impressed to remember that Mel Tormé was also an accomplished author and actor. Mostly though, I'm recalling that pre-Christmas afternoon.

I love people who do something so well that you can't conceive of it being done better. Doesn't even have to be something important: Singing, dancing, plate-spinning, mooning your neighbor's cat, whatever. There is a certain beauty to doing almost anything to perfection.

No recording exists of that chorus that Mel Tormé sang for the other diners at Farmers Market but if you never believe another word I write, trust me on this. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

This video takes me back to the days when I used to play a lot of Blackjack in Las Vegas. I was card-counting, not so much for the money but more as a personal challenge to see if I could do it. It turned out I could but it often took me an awful long time to get more than a few bucks ahead and it eventually stopped being fun, especially after it would take me four hours to get $250 ahead. That was when I'd think, "I could have made more money going up to my room and writing a script on my laptop."

Also, this was back when casinos allowed smoking and even when you could find a no-smoking area, it reeked of Marlboros. I really, really don't do well around cigarette smoke…or any kind of smoke.

And another unpleasantness was that when I was winning, it upped my fear that some casino employee would suddenly give me a tap on the shoulder and ask to speak to me somewhere else. Ejecting a player is called "backing-off" and it was tough to focus on the card counts when I was afraid I was about to be backed-off. You need to act nonchalant as you glance at what the other players at the table are getting and act even more nonchalant when you drastically raise or lower what you're wagering.

I was finally "backed-off" — once — in a downtown dive called The Las Vegas Club and maddeningly, it was because of a "win" that didn't even involve counting. The dealer just happened to deal Blackjacks to everyone at the table and the Pit Boss (or Casino Host as they preferred to be called) decided something was amiss and it had something to do with the watch I was wearing. It was a big Casio thing that we then thought was the scientific marvel of the century because it could store 99 phone numbers. The "count" wasn't even particularly good when all those Blackjacks happened but the P.B. didn't care. He shut down the table to all and while the other players were free to move to other tables and continue playing, I was told I was barred "for life" from the Las Vegas Club.

Please note: I am still in this world and The Las Vegas Club is not. It took a while but they're tearing it down now and that's all my doing. Let this be Fair Warning to all who would mess with me.

As much out of boredom as anything else, I gave up gambling not long after my banishment from that place. When I took Amber to Vegas back in June, she wanted to learn how Video Poker worked and I lost ten bucks teaching her. That was the first time I'd gambled in close to forty years. Despite going there a lot, I am still "ahead"…and how many people can say that?

This video is allegedly of a Blackjack player in an unidentified casino somewhere getting backed-off for card-counting, as allegedly shot by a hidden camera. This is pretty much how it works for real but there's still something about the video that feels phony. Maybe it's just that the player seems to have almost been trying to get stopped so they could get this footage for some kind of documentary. But it also might have all been staged for the camera. The Pit Boss certainly looks the part. About half of all male Pit Bosses look as he does, like Chris Christie.

You might think it's fake that the player tries to talk the Pit Boss into either reversing his decision or refunding his lost money. After all, a guy who's smart enough to count cards oughta be smart enough to know that that has never, in the history of mankind, worked. It didn't work for Albert Brooks in Lost in America and it's never worked for anyone. Among the many reasons is that the Pit Boss does not have the power to completely rewrite the rules of his employer and profession. Still, most card-counters mostly think they can outsmart The House — and some do. This guy, as you'll see, does not…

What does the new tax law do? It drastically reduces the tax burden on really rich people, including a lot of lawmakers who wedged in provisions that help their particular financial situations. That seems pretty evident and we do not seem to have heard from many real economists — maybe even any — who think it won't drive the deficit way, way up. Remember when Republicans thought that was a horrible, disastrous thing to do? Kevin Drum has many of the bad features of this bill in easy-to-comprehend lingo.

Hey, what about those women who claim that Donald Trump sexually abused them? It seems to be the position of the Trump Administration that since he won, that means the nation is fine with whatever he did. William Saletan quotes a whole mess of polls that say that the country is in no way fine with it.

Trump is now claiming that the new tax bill fulfills his campaign promise to repeal Obamacare. Jonathan Chait explains why that's a lie.

And Trump claims that Republicans were 5-0 in Congressional elections before Alabama when in fact, as the A.P. notes, they were 4-1. I think there's a rule in his White House which is to never admit defeat. When you lose, just lie and say you won.

FactCheck.org lists some of the biggest lies of 2017…from Trump and others.

Fred Kaplan explains about Trump's new National Security Strategy. You may be shocked to hear that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and, of course, make us less secure.

Last September, as you probably know, a bunch of us put on a big event in the theater at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills.  Its purpose?  To honor the late 'n' lovely June Foray. Last Monday night, we had a little invitational dinner at the Smoke House restaurant in Burbank for some of those who contributed to that evening. I'll identify the attendees in the above photo, starting with the folks who are standing…

At far left is my associate/assistant John Plunkett who associates and assists with so much of what I do. Then as we move left-to-right, we find animation expert Jerry Beck. Then — oh, look! — there's TV expert and host of Stu's Show, Stu Shostak He's is in the hammerlock grip of voice actor Bob Bergen.  Bob is, of course, the voice of Porky Pig and many other characters and he's one of the best teachers of cartoon voicing.  Peeking over his shoulder is Marian Massaro, who was our main announcer at the event.  You've heard Marian announcing some of the major awards shows on TV and countless commercials.

Then the fine-looking lady dressed like a zebra is chanteuse extraordinaire Shelly Goldstein, who has been oft-mentioned on this blog as a first-rate writer and performer and next to her is Joe Campana, a superb film editor who did some of the superb film editing for us.  Then the guy in black is Neil Ross, voice of dozens of your fave cartoon characters and our other announcer that evening.  Neil does most of the commercials and award show announcing that Marian doesn't do.  And way over on the end is one of the greatest guys I know, Disney exec Howard Green. This is not to suggest anyone else in the photo is not a great guy or gal.

I'm the fellow who's seated and for some reason, I'm holding Howard Green's "to go" order.  To my right and your left is the lovely Amber Payne.  She's the Amber I've written about on this blog the last few months.  Finally: To my left and your right is the lovely Jeanine Kasun, spouse of Stu Shostak and host of her own podcast, Baby Boomer Favorites with Jeanine Kasun.

Three other points or maybe more…

• If you've been thinking you might want to make a living as a voice actor or announcer, go visit Bob's, Marian's and Neil's websites and click on the links that play their demos. That's your competition.
• The Smoke House is a fine place to eat and it also has some interesting connections to the worlds of animation and comic books. I wrote about them in this article.
• But every time I write about it here, I get e-mails from folks scolding me for spelling its name wrong.  Go look at their website, people.  They spell it "Smoke House," "Smokehouse" and "SmokeHouse" there, sometimes varying it on the same page.  If they can spell it any way they want, I can spell it any way I want.
• But however you spell it, it still has the best Garlic Cheese Bread in the world. In fact — and this is true — that's all that was in Howard's "to-go" order: Garlic Cheese Bread. This dinner was paid for with a $500 gift certificate we had and I was thinking maybe we should forget about the steaks and chicken and salads, and just get $500 worth of Garlic Cheese Bread.

And one more point: A lot of other folks helped out, including animation expert Tom Sito, who wasn't there because some lunkhead (the guy holding the Cheese Bread in the photo) accidentally gave him the wrong time to be there. We were and are grateful to all who pitched in to help. It is an additional tribute to June that so many folks volunteered to help, many of them saying, "I just want to be a part of it." Thanks to everyone who was.

As we've mentioned, MAD magazine — a New York fixture since its inception in 1952 — is relocating to Burbank. Many of the same freelance writers and artists will continue to work for it. Sergio is drawing marginals even as you read this…but only one of its editorial staff members is migrating.

Joe Raiola, a clever guy who's been there since no one would even think of ridiculing Donald Trump, is not among that one. So he favors us with an exit tune and since this is an embed from Facebook you may have to click a little X next to a speaker icon to turn on the audio. (If the embed doesn't play at all in your browser, try clicking on this link.)

I have raved here in the past about Puppet Up!, a live show produced from time to time on the old Chaplin movie lot in Hollywood by the Henson Company. Basically, it's a mostly-improvised and mostly-raunchy puppet show performed by talented puppeteers who know how to think on their feet and have it come out via their hands. It is not for kids or the easily-offended and it is hilarious.

When they do this show is quite unpredictable and when I asked a Henson insider about this, he said, "Every so often, for no visible reason, Brian Henson says, 'Hey, let's do that again.'" Well, they're doing it again — two shows on Saturday, January 27 at 6 PM and 9 PM, and one show on Sunday, January 28 at 5 PM. They will sell out so if you're interested, go order tickets now. I'll be at the Saturday 9 PM performance.

• This space reserved for a joke about the new animatronic Trump at Disney World grabbing Daisy Duck by the gizzard, stealing the 7 Dwarfs' gloves and telling so many lies that the other animatronic presidents all demand he be moved to Fantasyland.

Hey, let's visit Katz's Delicatessen in New York…something I haven't done in close to two decades. I have a strange feeling nothing has changed there in all that time except the prices.

I remember great food but way too much of it. Half of one of their sandwiches is plenty and then the other half becomes a problem. You don't want to throw it away but you also don't want to carry it around with you the rest of the day. The last time there, I carried it around the rest of the day — even to the other restaurant where I had dinner and then to the Broadway show after — and finally threw it away when I finally got back to my hotel room. That's so much better than just leaving it on the table at Katz's.

I also recall a strong vibe there of being told how I had to eat the foods I wanted to eat: You have to have sauerkraut on your hot dog. You have to have spicy brown mustard on your pastrami or corned beef sandwich or hot dog. You have to put sour cream on your latkes. Those of us with major food allergies don't like that attitude even when it isn't pressing us to eat something we shouldn't.

And I notice that every latke recipe on the 'net seems to call for all-purpose flour. Was my non-Jewish mother the only latke-maker in the world who used matzo meal instead?

But I still liked the place so let's go to Katz's. Make sure you don't lose that ticket they give you on the way in or boy, will you be in trouble…