Matt Taibbi on how people today are unable to cope with differing viewpoints. I don't think this is a new thing. The difference is that people used to be more gentlemanly (or the female equivalent) about it…and almost everything.

Glen Weldon writes about gay subtext in Batman comic books. Yeah, there is some and it's difficult to explain how it got there. The stories where it's noticeable were written and drawn by a number of folks who felt pretty anonymous back then. Their names were not on the work and Bob Kane's was.

Reading those stories, it does not seem to me that any of them — not even Bill Finger, who co-created the feature and wrote more stories than anyone — were particularly interested in steering the direction of those characters or making any sort of personal statement. Their primary goal was to match each other; to all write essentially the same characters, which is what it took to get a script accepted and a check issued.

At any given time, there might have been 4-6 freelance writers producing the scripts and when you're part of a mob like that, about all you can do is to follow what others are doing. My sense is that few if any of them even gave the question of "Who is Batman?" much of a thought. One guy had written Bruce Wayne and his "ward" Dick Grayson working out together so the next guy expanded on that.

I also don't think any of them really thought of these stories took place in the real world. Sex was not part of those tales so no one considered it even as subtext. If you'd asked one of those writers about Batman's love life, they'd have reacted the same way as if they were writing Donald Duck and you asked if he was banging Daisy or where those nephews came from. The question was not relevant to what they were doing.

That was the case through the forties and fifties and some of the sixties — the stories Mr. Weldon is writing about. Later on, you had writers and artists who did try to put Batman and his adventures into a more realistic, adult world and who viewed their job more as individual efforts. Instead of trying to do the same Batman as others working on the character, most of them tried to some extent to do their versions; to shape the hero and his mythos the way they thought it should be. Denny O'Neil in Detective Comics was not writing quite the same Caped Crusader that Bob Haney was writing in The Brave and the Bold or that Frank Robbins was writing in the Batman comic.

For the reader who wants to view it all as a collective work and to see Batman as the sum of the various creators' input, there's a problem. Those writers were not all working in the same building, not all consulting and collaborating. A few of them never even met each other. Many of them were actively trying to not do the other guy's interpretation and to make Batman their own sub-creation, at least in their stories if not everywhere.

In my own experience talking with most of them, I'd say most of them thought that Batman (and Robin and the Joker and Batgirl, etc.) as written by certain other writers was terribly, terribly wrong and in desperate need of course correction. A number of artists, when called upon to illustrate those adventures also changed the way Batman and his world looked and that further changed the way writers approached their work. The biggest artistic changes probably occurred in 1964 when the old "Bob Kane" art style was dumped and replaced a look set by Carmine Infantino, then beginning in 1968 with a grittier look set by Neal Adams. And then later, Frank Miller made it grittier still.

I would guess that I could name fifty people who over the years contributed to the current definition of who and what Batman is. This would include folks who worked on Batman movies and TV shows, both live-action and animated. Weldon notes that the gay subtext of the Batman franchise has come and gone but was quite evident in the films helmed by Joel Schumacher, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.

With so many different folks putting their stamp on the characters and twisting and turning them, it would be amazing if someone didn't deliberately output a gay-tinged Batman, just as other variations have been inevitable. But I don't think most (if any) of what Weldon writes about in the earlier days was intended. It just kind of all happened the way committees sometimes create something that no participant had in mind.

As I wrote back here, I sometimes feel that corporate-controlled properties are revamped and rebooted so many different ways that they lose their underlying premises. Even the most ardent of Batman fans finds it necessary to ignore certain issues and certain appearances as not being "my Batman." In a way, that might be good because it gives everyone a chance to pick and choose what they want Batman to be. In another way though, if the character can be anything, that makes him kind of nothing.

Can you figure out how to get Donald Trump to 1,237 delegates? I mean, besides bribing them — which I wouldn't put past the guy.

Here's four minutes from the event I attended last night. Nathan Lane discusses portraying F. Lee Bailey and Connie Britton talking about playing Faye Resnick…

I asked here the other day as to what would be the correct way to type out the name of the magazine known as MAD if one wanted to refer to it as "MAD magazine." What do you capitalize? What do you italicize? I offered four possibilities…

1. MAD magazine
2. MAD Magazine
3. MAD magazine
4. MAD Magazine

I've received over 75 replies, at least two-thirds from folks who claim professional experience as editors, proofreaders, teachers of the language, etc. I'm not doing a precise tally because the overwhelming message from that response is that no one's really sure and that all answers are possible depending on the style guide of the specific publication. Of those who expressed a real answer, it was about 35% for #1, 40% for #2, 10% for #3 and the rest for #4 — but very few folks thought that there was only one right answer. So I'm just going to do whatever looks right to me when I type it. I don't have a firm style guide for this blog. Thanks to all who wrote in.

In the meantime, the A.A.R.P. magazine takes note of how many contributors to that long-running publication are senior citizens. Odd how Alfred never seems to age a day. Maybe he really doesn't have anything to worry about.

Tomorrow evening, the FX network is running the final part of American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. Tonight, I am just back from an advance screening of that episode, which was followed by a discussion with many of its stars and makers.

The series is based (sort of) on Jeffrey Toobin's book, The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson and Mr. Toobin acted as moderator for the talk. On stage were Executive Producers Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski; Co-Executive Producer Anthony Hemingway and stars John Travolta, Sarah Paulson, Cuba Gooding Jr, Courtney B. Vance, Sterling K. Brown, Nathan Lane and Connie Britton.

Mr. Lane, as you might imagine, got the biggest laugh of the evening. As you probably know, he played attorney F. Lee Bailey and after shooting was over, he received a message that Bailey wanted to talk to him. With a certain amount of trepidation, Lane phoned Bailey and as the actor reported to us, "He was very nice and charming. He just wanted to make sure that Robert Shapiro didn't come off well in the film."

Since the whole purpose of the event was to promote the show and its performers for Emmy Awards, nothing negative was said about the experience. It was a great experience and everyone was wonderful and everyone admired what everyone else did. I am not suggesting they did not actually feel this way. Most of those on stage (and a good 98% of those in the audience) seemed to feel Simpson was guilty but a few of the actors didn't want to say, which suggests they thought he might not have dunnit. The film doesn't say that but it's pretty obvious its makers think so. One of the producers — Nina Jacobson, I think — said that it was not their goal to convince anyone of Simpson's guilt. The premise was to make people understand why the trial resulted in the verdict that was handed down.

In that respect, I think it succeeds admirably. I wasn't sure at first if I'd make it to the end of this series but after about Part 5, I knew there was no turning away.

I guess I don't need a Spoiler Alert about the verdict. The last part is very powerful and at moments, very uncomfortable to watch. But if you've watched it up to this point, you'll watch anyway.

This evening, GetTV is running Woody Allen Looks at 1967, an episode of the Kraft Music Hall TV program for that year. Woody's guests include William F. Buckley, John Byner and Aretha Franklin and I recall it as being a pretty good hour.

What kind of man was Jack Kirby? Cliff Biggers has a good story that is quite typical of the man they call The King of the Comics.

I would watch more baseball if it was always like this…

Here's a question that, if only for my own amusement, I'd like to see interviewers put to the folks currently running for either the Democratic or Republican presidential nominations.

Each year before they get around to selecting their nominee, the parties debate, argue, fight, vote and then adopt a platform — a statement of what the party believes and what its goals are in terms of policy and legislation. Then they pick a nominee who pledges to run on and uphold that platform, and who then completely ignores it. I doubt any of them even look at it and I do recall Bob Dole admitting he never read it and expressing amazement that anyone thought he would.

So the question I'd like to see put to Clinton, Trump, Cruz, Sanders and Kasich is this: "Will you pledge to read and consider your party's platform and to either abide by it or issue a clear statement as to which parts of it you will not follow?" Because all five of those folks have taken stands that will probably be in opposition to their party's platform. Wouldn't it be nice if our politicians didn't pledge to honor promises they never read?

The main hotel sales for this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego open on Tuesday, April 5. "Early Bird" sales at outlying hotels opened some time ago but they now seem to be down to just one hotel that has rooms left. On Tuesday, most of the rooms in the main bloc will be snatched up in a matter of hours, if not minutes. Details are over here.

The same folks who do Comic-Con do WonderCon and they've announced that next year's WonderCon will be back in Anaheim and that the dates are March 31–April 2 at the Anaheim Convention Center. As you may recall, they held this year's at the Los Angeles Convention Center because Anaheim is in the midst of a massive expansion and construction project. They're adding 200,000 square feet of exhibit space and replacing the old parking structure with a newer, larger one.

The expansion plans can be previewed over on this website and if you go there, you may see indications that the expansion will not be completed in time for WonderCon's return. I am told that while everything may not be completed in time, enough will be to allow WonderCon to go forth with everything it requires.

This is good news as far as I'm concerned. Even though I could get to the L.A. Convention Center with an $11 Uber ride, I'd rather WonderCon be in Anaheim…even if it means a 37 mile drive through Disneyland traffic. If that seems illogical to you, you didn't make the 37 mile walk I had to make to get to some of my panels at the L.A. Convention Center. I thought at one point I was going to have to stop off and get my right knee replaced again.

Alan Zweibel remembers his friend and collaborator Garry Shandling.

Here's an entire Martin and Lewis movie for those of you who have close to two hours to watch online videos. It's the 1955 Artists and Models, directed by Frank Tashlin. Mr. Tashlin was a very fine comedy director who started directing Porky Pig cartoons and who later stepped up to Big Pay directing for Dino, Jerry, Bob Hope and others.

Apart from his presence as director, the film has several things to recommend it. First off, it's all about comic books and with the then-current belief that comic books encouraged social maladjustment among their readers. If they really had caused all American children to turn out like Jerry Lewis then the industry probably should have been closed down.

Secondly, there are some nice brief appearances by Anita Ekberg and Eva Gabor, and the longer presence of Shirley MacLaine, who was so good in everything she did back then and almost everything later.

Also, there's Eddie Mayehoff, a very funny character actor some of you may remember from another comic-themed movie, How to Murder Your Wife with Jack Lemmon. Mayehoff was a pioneer in radio and early television, as well as being an occasional star on Broadway. He was in three Dean/Jerry films, starting with That's My Boy in which he upstaged everyone else in every scene he had — a difficult thing to do since Jerry was in all those scenes. It was briefly made into a TV series of the same name starring Mayehoff in the same role, Gil Stratton (later a TV sportscaster in Los Angeles) in Jerry's role and nobody in Dean's role. That was one of the reasons Dean quit working with Jerry. He kept finding himself in the kind of roles you could readily eliminate.

I always thought Mr. Mayehoff was the best thing in most of the films in which he appeared but apparently, work in entertainment did not come with enough steadiness for him. Perhaps that's why around 1970 or so, he gave up acting and began declining whatever offers he received. He worked for (or maybe co-owned) a company that made commercials and apart from appearing in some of those, wouldn't go back in front of a camera. He also at one point was selling cars out at a dealership in Santa Monica before he retired totally and spent his remaining years entertaining at retirement homes and nursing facilities. He passed away in 1992.

So anyway, it you like Martin and Lewis movies…

What's that? You've never seen a Martin and Lewis movie? Well, you may find they're not as wonderful (or as enduring) as their success at the time would indicate. This one is about as good as they ever got. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, just watch the opening titles. They're pretty snazzy in a camp/fifties way…

As Kevin Drum documents, Donald Trump's position on abortion is evasive, incoherent and it changes hourly. And of course, if you don't like his answer to a simple, direct question then the fault is with the questioner.

Ben Carson even said that "I don't believe that he was warned that that question was coming, and I don't think he really had a chance to really think about it." Because why should a guy running for the highest office in the land expect someone will ask him about one of the five most polarizing issues in the country today?

For some odd reason, I'm semi-fascinated by televised police pursuits. I'm always curious about what's going on in the mind of the fleeing driver. That's presuming anything is, which is probably not always so. He's being chased by eight police cars and there are three helicopters overhead. Is he thinking he can get away? It's true that every once in an odd while, someone does but the odds are pretty slim.

The chances are probably something like this: 70% chance he'll be captured unharmed, 27% he'll be killed or injured in a collision, 3% chance he'll get away from police. And even if the last of these occurs, they'll probably be able to track him down later. Also of course — and this might not matter to some of them — he might kill or injure some innocent pedestrian or driver. Still, they keep fleeing, perhaps forgetting that when you run red lights and endanger the public, you rack up more charges against you. You could easily be turning ten years in prison into twenty.

But also what interests me is how TV covers these events, which are among the few things you ever see on your screen where the producers have no friggin' clue what's going to happen — and it's all coming to you live, as it transpires. You could argue that happens with sporting events but sporting events are rarely that unpredictable. Also in sporting events, you usually have some idea how much longer they're going to go on, whereas a police chase could be over in two minutes or two hours.

A police chase often gives you the chance to discover that your local news anchors really don't have much to say, especially when the chase is just officers following suspect for a long, long time with no accidents or close calls. I think I mentioned this once before but I once heard a news anchor say, as a chase went on and on and on, "We've established that there is at least one person in the car." Now, that's Breaking News.

And I keep thinking about the guy or gal at the newsroom who makes the decision as to whether to cover a given chase…and when to bail out on the coverage if it's getting dull. Once you commit and get your audience interested, it's anti-climactic to cut away and it may make your viewers very frustrated. Also, for an indeterminable period, you're pre-empting other news stories that they might want to see like the weather or the sports. At some point, especially if you opt to cover a chase during the 11 PM News, you have the problem of what to do when it's time for the show that follows and your chase isn't over yet.

Last night in Los Angeles, there was a chase that started shortly after 11 PM. It involved a suspect in a white Nissan Sentra who was reportedly armed. The local ABC and CBS affiliates rushed their copters to the scene and probably regretted it. I guess they hoped it would reach a conclusion before they had to hand off to Mssrs. Colbert or Kimmel at 11:35 but that did not happen. The chase jumped from freeway to freeway, ultimately speeding through the communities of Lynwood, Hawthorne, Paramount, Norwalk, Azusa, Irwindale, San Dimas and Rancho Cucamonga before moving into the high desert communities.

Worse, it was boring. For most of that time, the freeway wasn't crowded and there was no possibility of a crash or any sort of game-ender. It was just a bunch of police cars following a white Nissan. The reporters had nothing to say for a long period…then came one bit of information that probably made the newsroom guys realize they weren't going to be showing the end of this chase and probably shouldn't have even started.

Police had run the license plate and discovered the car was registered to an address in Victorville. And since the guy was on a freeway heading towards Victorville, that's probably where he was heading — quite some distance. The California Highway Patrol had decided the safest thing for all was to follow the guy until he got to wherever he was going…or ran out of gas.

In other words: It was likely to just be the police following him for another hour or more. No crashes. No spike strips. No PIT maneuvers. No excitement.

At 11:35, both channels shifted their coverage elsewhere. Channel 7 (ABC) announced that if you wanted to continue following this story, you could do so on their website. They made that available for a while and at some point realized that it was too monotonous even for a website. So they shut that down and called their chopper home.

Channel 2 (CBS) is a sister station to Channel 9, which is not a network affiliate. So when Channel 2 began showing Stephen Colbert, they shifted coverage to Channel 9 — which I'm sure did wonders for Colbert's ratings here. I was wondering how Johnny Carson would have responded if his lead-in had suggested people change the channel. On Channel 9, they were pre-empting a rerun of Mike & Molly instead of a first-run, might-never-be-repeated show for which, one assumes, a lot more folks had set their DVRs.

I changed because (a) my TiVo was recording Colbert and I could watch him later and (b) the coverage on Channels 2 and 9 was being done by my favorite local helicopter reporter, Stu Mundel. Stu is the Vin Scully of televised car chases. Scully can usually make the most boring, nothing-happening games interesting and so can Stu…but this one was beyond even his ability. About the only thing to note was this: The driver was fleeing from the law but when he changed lanes, he always made sure to signal with his turn indicator.

After a half-hour on Channel 9 of essentially the same, unchanging shot of six or seven C.H.P. cars following the Nissan, the only suspense was how much longer the Channel 2 helicopter could continue to bring us that image. By heading out into the High Desert, they explained, they were now nowhere near any open airfield where the chopper could land and refuel in order to get back to home base. And they were still maybe an hour from Victorville.

Just shy of Midnight, they announced that Stu and his pilot had to get back so they weren't able to show us any more of this chase and they instead ran Entertainment Tonight. Anyone who'd been watching the chase since coverage commenced had seen about 50 minutes of an adventure but wouldn't be able to view its conclusion. Ironically, on the way back to home base, the CBS copter did get some shots of a far more exciting chase involving a motorcycle but I don't think those were broadcast live.

The Nissan chase wrapped up just before 1 AM at a gas station in Victorville. Apparently, the police did lay down some spike strips that punctured the suspect's tires but he still made it to the station where much of his family was waiting for him…and there, he gave up without a struggle. It appears that something was going through his mind: A fear that when he surrendered, he'd be shot, regardless of what he did. So he phoned his family from the car and had them waiting there for him, presuming — and this is just a theory on my part — that the cops were less likely to open fire if he was surrounded by his loved ones.

If that's what was on his mind, he may have been a rarity: A fleeing driver who was actually thinking (somewhat) straight. That might even explain why he was using his turn indicator, trying to break as few laws as possible. He would have been better off giving up two hours earlier and he could have done it without being shot…but at least he wasn't under the delusion he could outrun them.