• Trump disapproval at 51%. Know what might help? Signing bill that takes away millions' health care and gives huge tax cuts to rich people.

• Gallup places Trump popularity behind cholera and slightly ahead of projectile vomiting. Of course, that's during his "honeymoon" period.

Following the grand Internet Tradition, the 24,001st post here is an episode of everyone's favorite game show. Let's play Numberwang!

Once I put up this post, a little counter that I can see but you can't will say that there are exactly 24,000 posts on this blog.

And despite what you might think, less than half of them are about Donald Trump, Frank Ferrante, people who've just died and/or cole slaw.

The San Diego Chargers are moving to Los Angeles.  There is no human being on this planet who cares less about football than I do so this is of interest to me for one and only one reason: It ends any possibility that the demands of that team's owners to make more money will jeopardize Comic-Con.  In fact, it means that Comic-Con is now probably the most important "event" in San Diego and has more clout than ever.

In an e-mail to me, my pal Douglass Abramson reminded me that San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer really, really wants to be Governor of California.  As is, he probably stands about the same chance of attaining his goal as I do of becoming Lord Great Chamberlain of the United Kingdom but Faulconer could lower his chances if he presided over the loss of both the city's NFL franchise and its biggest tourist magnet. So maybe that convention center expansion will finally happen.

Apparently, I was wrong. Republicans did everything humanly possible to support Barack Obama when he took office and all that crap about blocking his agenda and him actually being born in Kenya came from racist Democrats.

A person I like a lot sent me an impassioned e-mail to please, please, please for the good of America, stop bashing Trump and give the man a chance to do some good. "We need to be united because we're all in this together," my friend wrote. "And if he succeeds, we all succeed."   I immediately thought of eight things to say in reply…

1. Trump has never been reticent to bash others.  He calls people losers, liars and idiots.  He calls women "fat pigs" and other lovely terms designed to bring us all together.  When he can, he hurls an insult that someone's business is failing because in Trumpworld, if your business isn't successful, no one should listen to you about anything — an odd position for a man who's had so many bankruptcies and failed enterprises. It would be different if the man was trying to reach out to others but he only expects others to reach out to him. So why exactly should anyone avoid divisive rhetoric when the guy with the gigantic bully pulpit doesn't?
2. You way overestimate my power and influence.  This blog reaches a microscopic fraction of the world.  If Trump's efforts can somehow be harmed by me posting that I don't like the guy, those have to be the most feeble, fragile efforts in the history of politics.  I'm not even a pundit with a following.  I work on Groo the Wanderer, remember? I can't even get restaurants to stop serving cole slaw.
3. You call what I do bashing? I have one of the more moderate anti-Trump voices out there. I don't compare him to zoo animals or presume sexual aberrations.  Go to Google and enter any obscene thing you might call someone you loathed, then add the name "Trump" and run a search.  See how many hits you get.  See how much nicer I am than most of them.
4. Most people in this country already don't like Trump.  He has a 37% approval rating which is disastrous for a guy who's supposed to be enjoying his honeymoon period.
5. I didn't do that to him.  No blogger did.  He did it to himself and he continues to do it to himself.  People think he's a liar because he tries to convince them that he got a huge victory and that he can't release his tax forms because he's under audit and dozens of others.  (Here's a partial list to help you out.)  People think he treats women badly because there are tapes of him bragging about it.  People think he's slippery and dodges questions because…well, watch yesterday's press conference.  I don't blame him for attacking the press because his only defense is to try and get people to disbelieve the reports of what he's said and done.
6. One of the reasons I don't like Trump is because I don't believe "if he succeeds, we all succeed." Nothing about Trump has ever made me think he cares if anyone succeeds but him. He strikes me as a guy who pays lip service uncomfortably to helping the poor and the needy and the sick and even the middle-class because he wants some of their votes and as much of their respect as he can get. But even his personal charity to aid others turned out to be a sham and not a particularly helpful sham.
7. When Barack Obama took office, you had Rush Limbaugh declaring "I hope he fails" and Fox News declaring his presidency an irreparable disaster before it was a month old and you had G.O.P. leaders plotting to block every single action of his possible to try and make him a one-term president. I'll scratch this off the list if you can show me where and when you objected to that and wrote how we needed to not bash the incoming prez and to unite behind him.
8. Lastly, at least for now: I don't think you want me to stop criticizing the guy for the good of America. Like I said, I don't mean that much. I think you just like the other things I post here and to get to them, you don't like having to scroll past me linking to articles about what he's actually saying and actually doing. You know he's lying left and right and that he's installing unqualified insiders in his cabinet, replenishing the swamp he promised to drain, plus he's flip-flopping daily on positions and running up a long list of conflicts of interest. That's got you even more worried than some of us are. We only have to worry about what he and his mob will do to the country. You have to worry about that and about how duped you'll feel if there's a disaster.  Because you voted for this person.

I am probably going to cut back on the political stuff but not because my friend doesn't like it.  It's because I don't want to think about this stuff as much as I do.   I have to dial that back before I can dial it back on the blog…and work on that, I shall.

Today on Stu's Show, Stu Shostak will be talking with authors Mark Wanamaker and Michael Christaldi about the history of Paramount Pictures. That means they'll be talking about the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Mae West, Hope and Crosby, Hope without Crosby, Crosby without Hope, Betty Boop and Popeye, Star Trek and some of the best movies ever made. It's kind of amazing how much history passes through one of those studio lots so there'll be plenty to talk about.

Stu's Show can be heard live (almost) every Wednesday at the Stu's Show website and you can listen for free there and then. Webcasts start at 4 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM Eastern and other times in other climes. They run a minimum of two hours and sometimes go to three or beyond. Then shortly after a show concludes, it's available for downloading from the Archives on that site. Downloads are a paltry 99 cents each and you can get four for the price of three…a consideration with is of paramount importance.

I awoke this morning to seven e-mails from Trump backers telling me that the "golden showers" story about Trump has been thoroughly debunked and proven to be a hoax. The story most related to me about who perpetrated the hoax and how sounds to me like a hoax itself. As I said yesterday, the original story sounded like a hoax, too. I just watched some of Trump's press conference and most of it sounded like a hoax, as well.

At least two of the folks who wrote me, I recognize as having written me years ago telling me that there was definitely something to the story about Obama not being born in the U.S. There was no proof that was ever true just as there's no proof that Donald paid hookers to wee-wee for his enjoyment. But there's certainly some political advantage to keeping certain probably-false rumors in play. Trump did very well pushing the idea that he was just inches away from having solid proof that Obama was a Kenyan.

I understand why the Kellyanne Conways of the world go out and insist that every single negative thing you've heard about Trump is a blatant lie and every bad thing about his opponents has been proven beyond any doubt. She's being paid to do that and she surely sees great opportunities for career advancement if she does it effectively. I don't understand why some people are willing to abandon their credibility and their sense of what's true and isn't true without compensation.

I think Donald Trump is a terrible, uninformed and dangerous man who cares about the popularity and wealth of Donald Trump…and nothing else. His recklessness and his willingness to say and do just about anything makes it real easy to believe — or sell to anyone seeking more reasons why he is unfit for office — just about any story about him being a pig or a misogynist or a swindler. But they can't all be true. Not every bad thing said about any politician is true.

In Trump's case, I think those of us who want to argue that he's a terrible, uninformed and dangerous man have plenty to work with just from what he's actually said and done. There's no need to make stuff up or to believe unverifiable stories out of nowhere…especially if he keeps having press conferences like the one today.

Want to know how to break into writing for comic books? Well, I have a link for you but it won't tell you step-by-step how to do that. It's an essay my pal Kurt Busiek wrote a few years ago about he did it…and what he wants you to learn from it is that everyone's route is different. This applies to any kind of freelance writing or drawing and it probably applies to acting and directing and a lot of other positions…and not just in comics, There is no one pathway. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you may be able to find a path that works for you.

The British cast of Jersey Boys performs a 12.5 minute sampler from their show. I wonder how many people who see this show know that Frankie Valli is still around and still performing…

I don't want to spoil anyone's fun but — well, first let's acknowledge what this is all about…

Russian intelligence officers planned to blackmail Donald Trump with knowledge of his alleged "perverted sexual acts," a new report obtained by Buzzfeed alleges. The unverified report by a person claiming to be a former British intelligence official alleges that Russian officials intended to blackmail Trump with evidence of him allegedly hiring multiple sex workers to perform "golden showers" in front of him. The hotel where the acts allegedly occurred were said to be under Russian surveillance.

Is this true? I don't know. You don't know. It's highly unlikely we'll ever know for sure.

But it's true enough for jokes. I mean, Al Gore never claimed he'd invented the internet…and George W. Bush was never as dumb as thousands of jokes made him out to be…and the number of women with whom Bill Clinton had affairs stretched to absurd numbers in the jokes. There's one kind of reality for reality and another kind for jokes.

Those jokes landed because there was just enough truth in them. Gore did make some grandiose claims…Bush did say some stupid things…Clinton wasn't a faithful husband…so the jokes registered with people. If you swapped things around — say, if you did jokes about Clinton being dumb or Gore being horny — they wouldn't work. (You can make jokes about any politician claiming credit for things he didn't do…)

So do we think Donald Trump paid hookers to pee for him? We can't be sure but we know he doesn't act like a guy who would never do that. We're dealing here with a man who loves to grab pussies and walk in on beauty pageant contestants when they're getting dressed and to just plain order people around. He also doesn't act like a guy who'd pay the hookers what he'd agreed to pay them for their…er, performance, which is the only thing sleazier than ordering the performance.

This is another one of those things that I don't have to have an opinion on. I do think it's something that fits in so well with the image some (most?) people have of Trump, that it ain't going away. If anyone reading this is close to Donald, keep him away from the TV this weekend when Saturday Night Live is on, at least until the end of the cold opening.

If I absolutely have to have an opinion as to whether or not it's true, I'd go with no. I would also note that the worst part of the story would not be the sexual perversion but the idea that the new leader of our nation was and I guess still is being blackmailed.

But I'll stick with no. Why? Because the last eight years, I've seen how easy it is to believe — and even firmly believe — bullshit about people you don't like. I've met people who were as certain as certain could be that Barack Obama was a Muslim terrorist who hated America and was determined to destroy it. (Did you see his speech tonight? That's not a terrorist, folks. That's a president.)

Still, there are people out there who believed it was proven fact that he was gay, that his "First Lady" was a man, that his daughters were adopted and/or junkies, that he palled around with domestic terrorists and said many, many things he never said.

Since a lot of the people who fervently believed and spread those accusations are either now Trump supporters or Trump himself, there's the temptation to believe all the negative, wafer-thin evidence about The Donald…and I don't wanna be like them. If I have to pick, I'll pick erring on the side of not believing unproven accusations. So unless and until we have actual video of Trump and the whores in that hotel suite, I'm going to assume it's not true.

It's just true enough for jokes. Because, boy — when you're dealing with a personality like Trump and an allegation like this — they are soooo easy!

• If you thot pussy-grabbing jokes about Trump were easy to write, check out the paying-whores-to-pee jokes. Thanx, Russian Intelligence!

As I read various forums on the 'net, I see a lot of arguments over who wrote a certain comic book or created a certain character. What often strikes me about these debates is that the various combatants are using very different definitions of the word "write." If you and I are going to have a constructive discussion on any topic, it helps if we're kinda speaking the same language.

Anyone who has worked in the TV and movie business has seen these arguments about writing and odd claims about what constitutes writing. For instance: When I was working on the old sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, a woman who worked in a non-writing capacity on the show casually suggested that we do an episode in which Gabe Kaplan's character shaves off his mustache and everyone treats him differently. That was all she had, or intended to have, but when the producer said, "Hey, that's not a bad idea," she let it be known that should would expect the writing credit on any episode in which Mr. Kotter was sans facial hair.

She wasn't going to write an actual script…and even if she had, every word of it would probably have been rewritten by the show's producers and story editors, along with changes by the cast. That happened with almost every script, even the ones we ourselves wrote. But as far as she was concerned, she had already written whatever episode would be written. Lest there be a problem with the lady and any lawyer she might engage, the idea was never used.

This happens a lot…people thinking that suggesting a line or idea constitutes writing. It doesn't. It's not nothing but it usually isn't enough to be credited as the writer or to receive some billing that dilutes the credit of the person who did most of the work on the script. In TV or in movies — in any collaborative medium, in fact — "Written by John Doe" doesn't mean Johnny wrote every word and had every idea.

I've occasionally given a joke or suggestion to a friend who's writing a script or vice-versa. I don't go around telling people I was the unbilled co-author, nor does that friend when he or she gives me something I use. Even if you sell a novel to a big publishing firm, you'll probably have an editor who will suggest things and help shape and polish your novel…but you're not about to share the credit for it with that editor. Making a suggestion is not the same thing as writing. Rephrasing a line of dialogue is not writing.

Sometimes various participants in a TV show or movie who actually wrote large amounts of dialogue and description on paper receive no official credit and believe they are wronged. This can never be eliminated but many decades ago, the Writers Guild of America laid down some rules about this. You can read them here. They also set up an arbitration process that reviews the various drafts of contested projects and decides how the rules apply on that TV episode or film.

There are those who have problems with some of the rules, especially when decisions go against them. There have been lawsuits when someone felt that the rules were not correctly applied. I cannot tell you that the process doesn't get it wrong at times or that I agree with all the rules but I can tell you that I vastly prefer these rules to no rules. "No rules" is what I work under on most animation projects and that gets very messy.

I have occasionally had to fight to prevent sharing credit on one of my scripts with someone who contributed little or nothing. Once, I was something like the eighth (but final) writer on a project. Seven guys before me had written drafts that had been tossed. When mine went untossed and into actual production, the head of the studio added another writer's name to the title page, giving that fellow equal credit with me on a script that was 100% by me…and by that, I mean that apart from that title page, the version that was distributed to everyone for production was Xeroxed from the paper that came out of my word processor.

I had never seen the other writer's work and so had taken nothing from it but the studio head felt this other writer had worked very hard when it had been his turn and was deserving of some credit because of that. The fact that the other writer was his son had, of course, nothing to do with that. How could it? When I objected and hinted at involving attorneys, he decided that maybe his son didn't need the credit after all…but I shouldn't even have to object, let alone threaten. And sometimes, these disputes are not settled so easily.

At least though, even if the WGA rules do not apply to most cartoons, the process is close enough that we can unofficially apply some of those guidelines. I once won an argument over credit on a TV special by citing WGA rules as a precedent. I persuaded all parties involved that if we did go through the WGA arbitration process, I would win. It's a little tougher though in the "no rules" world of comic books for two reasons…

1. Comic book scripts and the processes by which we create them are not as close in form and procedure to the kinds of scripts the WGA covers. In this series, I'm going to try applying some of the WGA rules to comics but they don't all fit perfectly.
2. Comics have a long history of work being published with no credits and in many cases, the publishers kept no records of who did what or lost what they did have. There have also been comics published with credits that I know were wrong or incomplete, in some instances not because of what anyone actually did but because of who was in charge. This has created some very odd precedents in the field.

Credits only started appearing with some regularity in comic books of the sixties, though some even lacked them into the eighties.  Some of the writers and artists didn't particularly care.  Some companies didn't allow credits or didn't think to have them.  At many companies where the artists could have signed their work, many didn't.  Stan Lee wasn't the first editor to put credits on his comics but he definitely started a trend that grew into an industry standard.

Maybe in a follow-up to this post, I'll write about why some creators didn't want their names on their work but most of their reasons went away when reputations and having a following began to matter more.  Also, comic book companies began paying when work was reprinted and they often didn't know where to send the check for older, uncredited material. They have sometimes paid the wrong person for work that was miscredited.

What I'm mainly interested in though are not the honest mistakes but the cases where the credits are arguable in the first place. If I come up with the briefest idea of what the story might be about and then you develop it further and the editor adjusts it and then someone else figures out what happens in each panel and someone else writes the dialogue…well, who wrote the story? The answer depends on how you define the rules…only there are no rules.

The more I've wrestled with the questions, the more I've come to realize that in the example in the preceding paragraph, "Everyone" is the worst possible answer. It denies the dignity of the credit and it trivializes the 75% of the job that one of those contributors may have contributed. But then again, singling out one person might also be wrong and you also have to recognize that some stages of the creative process may have been done by people who are truly collaborating as a team.

By that I mean, they were writing together — perhaps in the same room for much of the process — and it may not be possible to separate what each of them did. It also may be difficult due to disputes over what it means to write a comic book and both guys may be right according to different (and self-serving) definitions.

And by the way, I wrote this all by myself but before I posted it here, I sent it to my friend Roger to give it a look and he suggested dropping one paragraph and he caught a few typos. That does not make him the co-author of this post.

Jonathan Chait, the reading of whom is often recommended here, has a new book coming out about Barack Obama. As you can see in this excerpt, it basically argues that he was a great president and that his "legacy" cannot be expunged as easily as his opponents probably wish. You can order the book from this link.

Chait is making the rounds promoting the book — he'll be on with Trevor Noah tomorrow night — and I suspect we'll see a lot of folks in the coming weeks saying how good Obama has been for America. Which means a lot of deranged tweets from you-know-who trying to demean the man against whom he'll be judged.