If there's anything positive to be extracted from the death of Robin Williams, it's that people are talking about the subject of Depression. I'm no expert but I do know it's a problem that needs to be recognized, and not just every few years when someone you wouldn't think would kill themselves kills themselves. Folks who have it, mild or severe, need to know that there is help out there for them and it isn't a sign of personal failing to seek it. If someone wanted to build a lasting tribute to Mr. Williams, I would think a good way would be to see that the topic continues to be addressed long after the news of his passing scrolls off our blogs and from our minds.

I received this e-mail from someone who asked to be identified only as Mike…

I'm sure you are going to have many people write to you over the next few days about depression, about its insidious effects, the differences between sadness and depression, etc.

I'm writing since I was surprised that you used the exact word that my physician used several years ago to describe my battle with clinical depression — "compartmentalize." It was this exact thing that I could no longer do. For me depression reared its ugly head as something that prevented me from being rational. It hit me in such a way that even trivial issues consumed me.

When I finally decided to find help, I described to my (new) doctor my symptoms. The first thing he said to me was that I could not "compartmentalize" any longer and that I was describing a very common symptom of depression. I knew there was something amiss, but not in a million years would I have called it "Depression." After trials with different medications, we finally hit on one that helped. Now I have the ability to put all things into perspective — to "compartmentalize" those feelings and not have them consume me.

Just like those who have untreated mental illness may not understand that they have an illness, "normal" folks many times can not understand things like Depression. In this case, the exact thing you do to cope was the one thing I couldn't — until I received help.

I sometimes tell people that I can't begin to solve a problem unless I can scale it properly and see it as precisely the right size of problem. Thinking it's bigger than it is or even smaller than it is does not lead you to a solution.

Often too, it helps me to ask the question, "Why am I depressed about this?" The most dejected I've ever been in my life was a brief period in 1988 when a lady I loved very much died unexpectedly…and I mean unexpectedly. Did not see that one coming. No one did. So I got all sad and upset and down and I stopped writing — I have to be really bad off to not write — and I sat around my house for a few days, talking to no one, staring at bad TV and only eating what I had in my cupboard. Then two realizations, one on top of the other, lifted the whole thing off me.

One came when I was watching a rerun of some old cop show. I think it was a Hawaii Five-O. Someone was planning the funeral of a murder victim and they said, referring to some preparation, "She would have wanted it like this." That phrase hit me like a two-by-four to the kisser. When someone dies, we take it as a sign of respect for the deceased to do what they would have wanted. Well, I realized, my loved one wouldn't have wanted me sitting around all day, eating tuna sandwiches and watching Jack Lord play cop. That was one of the reasons she was a loved one…because she cared so much about my welfare.

Half of my despair went away at that moment and the other half followed soon after.

The liberation I felt over the first part got me to thinking about my general numbness and I got to asking myself, "Why do I feel like this?" The only answer I could come up with went roughly as follows: "Because you lost a loved one and this is how you're supposed to feel when that happens."

I don't often talk to myself but at that moment, I told me, "That's not a good enough reason. No law says you have to feel the way you think you're supposed to feel. And besides, you know you're going to get over this sooner or later. Why not save time and make it sooner? At the very least, you'll eat better." By that evening, I was writing again.

I'm not suggesting this will work for everyone — or even for me in other circumstances — but it's what worked then and there. To get to either solution, I had to step outside my dejection a bit, view it from that vantage point and get a realistic sense of its size. That's a lot of what compartmentalization is all about. You need to know the dimensions of something in order to file it away or begin to solve it. And often I find, when you do get a fix on its specifications, you realize that it's small enough to be ignored and that it will solve itself. Those are the good kind of solutions.

There was Too Much News yesterday so I'll be posting almost nothing today. Not unless a friend or another great comedian dies. Let's hope I don't have to post anything.

But before I go: I received a message asking — and we all know what prompted this — what advice I had for other writers about coping with depression. I'm the wrong guy to ask about this since it's not a problem that's ever seriously afflicted me. I have plenty of others but not, I'm happy to say, that particular one. When I'm feeling down, I'm usually able to figure out the what and the why and to "compartmentalize" it, putting it in its proper perspective. Almost always, that convinces me it's not as big a problem as I thought.

I do know though that one should not rule out medical advice because a depression may have more to do than you think with the kind of thing a doctor can correct. Or it may not. The point is that if it's beyond your ability to solve, get help. Do not think you've failed if you have to get help. That's what help is there for.

I really have no idea what was up with Robin Williams and I doubt any of the folks now telling us about his problems have much insight into him, either. Insight into the general topic of depression, sure…but not him in particular.

Years ago, a wonderful man I knew named Lorenzo Music would volunteer one or two nights a week to answer a suicide prevention hotline. During the days, he was the voice of Garfield and did oodles of commercials but evenings, he would "give back" that way. He told me that he would sometimes get a call that went like this. He'd answer and ask what the problem was. The caller — this was all anonymous on both ends — would say…

My life is a shambles. My wife has left me and I lost my job and I need an operation I can't pay for and my kids hate me and my car just died and I'm drinking way too much and I don't know what to do. I want to just end it. I want to just…hey, did anyone ever tell you you sound a lot like that cat on TV?

And from there, he said, it usually got better.

Not one baby panda…not two baby pandas…but three baby pandas!

There are some very nice tributes on the 'net tonight for Robin Williams, a man who sure made a lot of people laugh. His was dependable comedy, which is why when it came time for Johnny Carson to book a lead guest for his last regular Tonight Show, he said, "Get Robin." He probably could have gotten anyone to sit in that chair but he knew no one was more reliable. And it says a lot for Carson that he didn't try to top his guest or prove he could be just as funny. He let him soar.

As I said, I hope you got to see Mr. Williams live. I don't think any of his TV appearances did him justice because there was a wonderful immediacy to him in person. I honestly don't know how much of what emanated from his mouth was spontaneous and how much was planned…but almost all of it seemed to come out of nowhere. When he was on, you paid attention. There was always something coming that you didn't dare miss.

I assume someone, maybe TCM, will quickly slap together a Robin Williams Film Festival…and while I wouldn't mind seeing Good Morning, Vietnam or Awakenings or a few others again, I'd rather see HBO re-air all his stand-up specials, especially that first one where so many people discovered him. It aired and was released on home video under a couple of different names but the most frequent seems to have been Robin Williams: Live at the Roxy, even though it was taped and not broadcast live. It's the one where in the end, he brings John Ritter up on out of the audience to do some improv and one senses a wide disparity between what Mr. Williams can do on a stage and what Mr. Ritter can do. You find yourself feeling sorry for Ritter because that was Robin's crowd, Robin's room and Robin's game…and no one else had a chance up there. (There's a poor quality video of it on YouTube. I'll let you find it.)

For a lot of us, that was our intro and we saw Robin get…well, I won't say funnier because he hit a ceiling on that special. Maybe "more polished" would be a better term. I liked on some of his later shows how he'd go into levels of self-parody, parodying himself and then parodying himself parodying himself and sometimes, he'd even parody himself parodying himself parodying himself.

People likened him to Jonathan Winters and the lineage was obvious. But he was also a unique performer who on stage took nothing seriously. How sad that it all ended so seriously today.

Five minutes ago, I sent a bad taste e-mail to a comedian friend whose material occasionally came out of the mouth of the (now) late Robin Williams. It said, "Now Robin's stealing from Freddie Prinze." My friend just wrote back, "Robin's probably pissed that he's not around to steal that."

Even this friend thought that Williams was brilliant…and perfectly capable of improvising without borrowing. He was a controversial figure among other comedians, admired by many, criticized by others. The consensus was that he was capable of brilliant acting and brilliant comedy; not so capable of letting anyone else on stage get a funny word in edgewise. The times I saw him live, he left the audience exhausted, partly from laughing, partly from his sheer energy. One night at the Comedy Store, I watched him do a surprise, unannounced set that went on and on and on, eating up the scheduled comics' time and leaving them an audience that was too tired to listen to quieter — and probably cleverer — material.

They're calling it an "apparent suicide" and I will not pretend to understand the Why of that, though many others will. They'll blame chemical imbalances, drugs, career swings, general insanity, relationship problems, the works. Speaking generally, it has been my observation that when rich 'n' famous people kill themselves, it's because they're not happy and don't have the rationale that poor, non-famous people have. Poor and non-famous people can always say, "Well, of course I'm depressed. I'm poor and non-famous. If I were rich and famous, then I'd be happy." But when you're rich and famous and respected and still miserable, what possible remedy do you have to believe will change things?

That may or may not have been what happened with Robin Williams. I don't know. I don't know that we'll ever know. I hope you got to see him perform live because that was quite an experience.

I think I announced this here before I was supposed to, but here's the formal ad…

That stands for "Frank Ferrante Plug." I haven't plugged my pal Frank here for a while, mostly because he's been doing his Groucho show in Australia. But he's back in the states — in particular in Washington, where he's doing an extended run through August 24 at the ACT Theater in Seattle. Info and tickets are available here and here's a little article about the engagement. Every time he performs anywhere, I get at least one e-mail from someone who went and wants to thank me.

It has not been formally announced and tickets are not yet on sale but on January 11, 2015, Frank will be doing one performance at the Gindi Auditorium at the American Jewish University here in Los Angeles. This is a very nice place up on Mulholland, not far from the Skirball Cultural Center. I'll provide more details as we get closer to the day but Frank doesn't play L.A. very often so if you live here and have always wanted to see him, this may be your best opportunity. And if you love Groucho or if you've just always wanted to see an Italian kid play an old Jew at a Jewish University, you'll enjoy it. A lot.

Speaking of Republicans: Harry Shearer recreates Richard Nixon as he preps and delivers his resignation speech…

And here's the real footage. I think Shearer did a better job capturing Nixon…

Back in this post, I talked about the attempts in 1979 to get Animation Writers out of the Animation Union and into the Writers Guild. That attempt failed, as did a later attempt with which I was also involved.

Of the '79 attempt, I wrote, "Craft severance is very difficult to achieve and it's even harder when…the National Labor Relations Board is full of Republican appointees, as it was then so soon after Nixon." Correcting me, Gregory Thompson wrote me to say…

The NLRB was Democrat controlled in '79. Three Democrats and two Republicans, with a Democratic chairman. I suspect you were just doing a little reflexive G.O.P. bashing and assumed Republicans sided with the big studios. But I also doubt either party would have had much stake in a dispute between two labor unions.

He's right about the first part, I am amazed to learn. I was told what I was told at the time and it apparently was not true. But the second attempt in the early eighties was blocked by a Labor Board with Reagan appointees on it…and that was a very anti-labor N.L.R.B. Even one of the lawyers opposing us gloated that he'd win because of it…and he did. We triumphed easily at the local level where Democrats prevailed and it was overturned at the national level where Republican appointees held the power. The overturning made so little sense, it was later overturned but by that point, it didn't do us any good.

I no longer venture near labor law — my Norma Rae days are behind me — in part because it struck me as a rigged game. The guys in power would rule the way they wanted, regardless of the law or the evidence. And in neither case was it really a dispute between two labor unions. The opposition to us in the second case was the employer, a non-union animation company we were attempting to unionize.

In the 1979 matter, we wanted to leave a union that did a bad job of representing us and instead join one that would do a good job. The bad union fought us but their case was funded and directed by the employers. When I testified in that case, the lawyers on "their" side of the courtroom were from Disney, Warner Brothers, etc.

One of the many great things that happened at Comic-Con was the debut of The Sakai Project, a new book celebrating the work of our friend Stan Sakai. That's reason enough to do this book but there was an added purpose. The book is a fund-raiser to help out the Sakai family with bills relating to the illness of Stan's wife. Sharon Sakai, a lovely and wonderful woman, has an inoperable brain tumor. It has left her blind and deaf and while the Sakais do have health insurance, it does not cover every expense related to this horrible, horrible condition.

The book was a hit at the con…so much so that it kept selling out and more copies had to be FedExed in each day. And why shouldn't it be a hit? It's a beautiful book containing 262 artists, including most of the best ones working in comics today. Fred Patten gave it a very nice review and he reminds you that it will sell out soon and become quite a collector's item.

If you live in or around Los Angeles, you have a great opportunity to not only get the book but to get it autographed by quite a few of those artists plus the clown who did the foreword. I haven't seen it announced anywhere but this coming Saturday, August 16, a bevy of us will be appearing at Meltdown Comics up on Sunset to write our names in the copies you purchase. I'm not sure exactly who'll be there but I'll be there and Sergio Aragonés will be there and I bet Scott Shaw! and Bill Morrison and Tone Rodriguez and Stan Sakai himself will be there and I hear quite a few others will be present, as well.

It all happens from 4 PM to 6 PM. If you're in the area, there will never be a better time to buy one of these…and not just to help out the Sakais. You'll be doing yourself a favor at the same time.

Above is a photo from some sort of fancy dinner affair held on March 19, 1955. The people in the photo are, left to right: Joe E. Brown, Ray Bolger, Howard Keel, Connie Russell, President Dwight David Eisenhower, Lena Horne and Liberace. A pretty impressive gathering.

The most impressive person in there who isn't the Leader of the Free World is probably Ms. Horne, who was an amazing talent…and as you can see, she's wearing an impressive and amazing dress. A friend of mine who is related to Lena Horne has that dress and has just put it up for auction on eBay.

Have you ever longed to own a gown that adorned the lovely form of Lena Horne? That was once between President Eisenhower and Liberace? This could be your last chance.

Thirteen scientific terms you might be using wrong.

In 1993, the Kennedy Center honored Stephen Sondheim. Here's the little musical segment they did in salute to the man…

There's scattered talk of the House Republicans impeaching Barack Obama. So far, it looks like just another thing that's said just to fire up the folks in what Jon Stewart calls "Crazy Base World." Claiming they could prove he was born in Kenya has kind of lost its power so they have to come up with something…and who knows? Some of the things that were said to appease that group, like shutting down the government, have gotten out of anyone's control and actually happened. Lately, the threat seems to go something like this: "We absolutely loathe and hate everything about this 'president' and he'd damn well better not do anything to make us hate him more."

Joe Conason reminds us that the drive to impeach Bill Clinton started almost from the moment of his election, long before he'd ever met Monica Lewinsky. It empowered and enriched a lot of people who started the crusade to impeach Clinton before they even had a clue what the High Crime or Misdemeanor might be. A lot of those people are still around, still craving that empowerment and enrichment.

WonderCon Anaheim 2015 will be held April 3-5 at the Anaheim Convention Center. This again is Easter Weekend.

I haven't heard anything about WonderCon returning to San Francisco, other than that if it does, it would be in addition to Anaheim, most likely in the last three months of the year. I believe WonderCon Anaheim is here to stay.

Comic-Con International 2015 will be held July 9-12 (with Preview Night on July 8) at the San Diego Convention Center. If you have a 2014 badge, it may help you register for it so don't throw it away. I don't know why it's so early in the month this time.