A number of folks have written me in response to the previous item to say that Texas has the legal right to split itself into five states any time it wishes and without the consent of Congress. I don't think so.
It's true that when Texas was annexed in 1845, the terms of annexation seem to have included such a right. But then you have to consider Article IV, Section 3 of a little document called the United States Constitution. That particular section says…
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
I don't see any reason why those Terms of Annexation overrule the Constitution on this point. I'd be curious as to how the U.S. Supreme Court, even at its Scaliziest, could rule otherwise. I'm also wondering if the Texans who agreed to join the U.S. in 1846 bothered to read the Constitution of the nation they were signing onto.
It looks like we're going to have a ballot initiative in my state to turn my state into six states. There seems to be two main premises behind this. One is that instead of all of California being represented by two senators in Washington, the same body of citizens would get twelve senators. That, of course, is why Congress will never agree to allow this to happen and why if it did, Texas would start carving itself up into ten separate states and New York would be twelve and Alaska would have one state per otter and so on.
The other notion is that since California is such a diverse state, you could have more localized representation. The problem with that, of course, is that you'd have to set up six new governments and everyone would be arguing over the boundaries and claiming they were being gerrymandered out of having a voice.
And there's kind of a third, unspoken premise here. The slicing and dicing would create richer states and poorer states. The tax dollars collected in the richer states could then be spent to improve life in the richer states without any of it going to aid those in what would become the poorer states.
This is never going to happen even if somehow the people of California can be hustled into voting for it. But a lot of time and money will be wasted campaigning for and against it and voting and there will probably be loads of legal challenges to this or that aspect of it in our courts. If this were an E.C. horror comic, it would all end with the guy behind it being split into six separate parts.
I have a number of messages asking me what I think about the new line procedures to get into Hall H at Comic-Con. What I think is that in all my years of Comic-Congoing and being involved in programming, I have never set foot in Hall H and so have no interest in it. (Hall H is where they have most of the "big" presentations involving Hollywood and, once in a very great while, comic books.) I was once asked to moderate an event in there but it conflicted with another I preferred doing so I have no experience with any aspect of Hall H other than that its line sometimes snakes through where I want to walk.
I do have an observation though, which is that for a lot of congoers, Comic-Con International is all about Hall H, Ballroom 20 over at the Hilton and, once in a while, a "big" media-oriented panel in 6BCF. And that's really it. They couldn't care less about anything that happens in a smaller room because it's not likely to involve Current and Forthcoming Movies and TV Shows. I have visited websites that discuss the con as if the other aspects of it don't exist.
Which is fine. One point that I often make to people is that Comic-Con is like a dozen different conventions all occurring at the same time and you kinda have to find the one that interests you. Go to the right parts of the hall and attend the right panels and it's a Gaming Convention. Or it's an Anime Convention. Or it's all about Game of Thrones. This year, being the 75th anniversary of Batman, I think you could attend a decent Batman Convention there for four days.
There are also a couple of conventions happening outside the hall, attended by thousands and thousands of people who couldn't score badges to get inside. Lots of fun things out there, too.
After the con each year, people send me a lot of complaints about their experiences. And I would say that at least half the time, what seems to be the problem is that they got upset or distracted by all the goings-on there that weren't of interest to them. They sound like me ranting because a delicatessen serves cole slaw…and they need to get over the fact that the convention is not run just for them.
I'm fine with all that as long as I can find a convention in there I want to attend. And so far, I've been to every single one of those San Diego gatherings since they commenced in 1970 and I've always found the convention I wanted to attend. Sometimes lately, it's hiding behind a whole group of people dressed like Storm Troopers and/or Princess Leia but it's always there. Someplace.
I recently found out that Paul Maher died in January of this year at the age of 62. I am not surprised. In fact, I'm surprised he made it that far.
I'd lost track of Paul over the years and the last time I saw him — it must have been eight years ago at least at Comic-Con — he was sick and barely able to walk. He was selling pieces from his vast collection of memorabilia to raise money for the next in a long series of operations…and I made two observations about him.
One was that no matter how bad things got for him — and they got pretty bad at times — he remained at least outwardly optimistic. The next operation would be the one that would not only save his life but put him back to some amount of good health again. Just as he'd been convinced that the operation before that would make everything right and the operation before that and the one before that…
The other noteworthy observation came when I tried to purchase a few things, partly because I wanted them but partly to help his cause. All his adult life, Paul was a maniacal collector. By that, I mean he had to have everything relating to his chosen mania, which was Children's Television, and he had to have multiple copies. I kept taking cash out of my wallet and Paul kept trying to give me the items for nothing because he knew they'd be going to someone who loved and appreciated them.
This is a man who, let's remember, was trying to raise money for an operation he believed would save his life. I had to force payment on him…and even then, he insisted on giving me discounts off the marked prices.
Paul Maher loved cartoons, kid shows, anything for kids. He had a special place of worship in his heart for folks like Sheriff John and Engineer Bill and other hosts of local kids' shows when he was growing up.
He would go anywhere and spend anything, including money he didn't have, to accrue such items, all in furtherance of his goal. That was to somewhere, someday have a Museum of Children's Television. It would be nice to think that had he not had to deal with the stark reality of a bad heart, that dream would be open and operating somewhere today.
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Lantz and Paul Maher
Paul was for a time a professional mime and puppeteer. For a while there, he worked up at the Universal Studios Tour, playing Charlie Chaplin for tourists and posing with them for photos. Interesting story how he got the gig: He took the tour one time and noted that in the post-tour area where the patrons milled and saw exhibits, there was a guy staggering about dressed as the Frankenstein Monster. There was a woman dressed like Marilyn Monroe. There were other Hollywood icons but no Chaplin.
Having decided that would be his new career, at least for a while, Paul found his way to the fellow at Universal who could hire such a person and made his case. He was turned down.
"No" had an interesting definition to Paul Maher. It more or less meant, "Not now, you'll have to try harder." He went home, devised a Chaplin suit for himself and the next day, he reported for a job he did not have. This meant stuffing the Chaplin outfit in a satchel, going up to Universal and paying to ride the tour…and then after the tour, when he got to the post-tour area, he'd go to the men's room, change into Charlie and spend the rest of the day tramping about, performing and posing.
After a few weeks, someone at Universal noticed that their Chaplin impersonator was a big hit and decided to find out who'd had the bright idea to hire him. It turned out no one had. Security guards hauled him off to an office where he was interrogated, threatened with arrest…and ultimately hired.
A few years later, he turned up at Hanna-Barbera, which is where I met him. His bio (link somewhere below) says he was there six years but I recall it more like six months. With the same kind of perseverance that got him the Chaplin gig, he pestered Bill Hanna into creating a position for him: Librarian/Archivist. There are many stories about why he was let go but they pretty much came down to his becoming obsessed with rescuing Hanna-Barbera history from its warehouse and storage rooms. He took his mission way too far, overstepping his bounds and displeasing Mr. Hanna.
He had more longevity when he landed a similar position with Walter Lantz, the then-retired producer of Woody Woodpecker and other cartoons. Lantz had tons of material in storage and Paul organized and catalogued it all…and wound up owning crates of Woody Woodpecker toys and dolls and comic books, most of them autographed.
Every time he came across an artifact of Children's Television, he wanted it signed by everyone with even a tenuous connection to the show or characters depicted. When he found out I'd worked on Scooby Doo, he started bringing me boxes of Scooby Doo merchandise to sign. He'd hand me a Scooby doll and I'd say, "Paul, I had nothing to do with the design or manufacture of this doll." He'd say, "You wrote his comic book and TV show. Please sign it." He would call Daws Butler or June Foray or some other great of the animation or kidvid fields and ask if he could drop by and get "some things" signed. Paul was a hard guy to refuse even though when he did show up, he'd have hundreds of items for them to write on.
At one point, he told me he had over 3,000 Woody Woodpecker comic books — multiple copies of many — all autographed by Mr. Lantz. He also had thousands of similarly-autographed toys. If you were ever wondering what Walter Lantz did in his last years, there's your answer: He wrote his name on things for Paul Maher.
In 1980, I helped him organize a one day event — a Festival of Children's Television at the Bonaventure Hotel downtown. It was a benefit for the L.A. Children's Hospital — a day of films and talks and appearances by former kid show hosts and folks in animation. Paul did a great job with the P.R. and a great job rounding up guests and exhibits and it was an amazing gathering. Alas though, it didn't raise much money for the hospital and it didn't get enough attention to bring forth a backer for the museum he had in mind to build, which was more or less the reason Paul did it. More on that museum idea in a moment.
Then not long after that, he bought Walt Disney's garage.
According to Disney history, when Walt moved to Southern California in July of 1923, he lived with an uncle in a house at at 4406 Kingswell Avenue in the Los Feliz area. Walt's original idea was to find some way to break into the moving picture business and when he had no immediate success, he decided to make his own. In the rear of his uncle's home was a one-car garage and in it, he set up a small animation studio. It had to be small because the garage was very tiny. After a while, he moved the operation into a room in a real estate office a few blocks away.
One day in 1981, Paul Maher was looking at slides of historical landmarks and he saw a photo of the garage, which to him was "The first Walt Disney studio." Some would insist that Walt's first studio was back in Kansas, and the current Disney Studio more or less recognized the realty office as its founding location. Still, one could say that garage was Walt's first studio, at least in California.
Paul did not live far away so he went to the address and discovered that the house was being renovated and that the garage was slated for demolition. Instantly, he decided it had to be saved and he had to be the one to do it. He located the owner and offered to buy the garage and move it. The owner agreed to a selling price of $6400, which is what it would cost to build a new garage in its place some day…but Paul also had to agree to lease the house for several years. He didn't have that kind of money but he signed the deal anyway and moved in. The garage would remain at that address as long as he did.
For over a year, Paul tried to stay afloat in a house he couldn't afford as he tried to use the garage to attract someone or some group with money. His first choice was that they would finance his dream — a Museum of Children's Television with him as the curator, his collection as the core of the exhibits and Walt Disney's First Studio (arguably) as the star attraction. As his financial situation got more precarious, he began to focus on his second-choice dream: Selling the garage to someone who'd pay him a lot of money for it and put in on display somewhere appropriate.
That didn't happen, either. He called newspapers and sent out press releases and bombarded people at Disney and…well, there were no offers.
One day in the midst of this, I gave into Paul's urging and went over to see the place. He sat me down in this home he couldn't afford and told me more about the museum. In his mind, he was but months from breaking ground on it and all the stuff in that house — crates and crates of photos and comic books and coloring books and toys and records — would be on display there. Then he took me out back to show me the garage. It was small and very old and there was nothing about it to indicate that either Walter Elias Disney or even any animation equipment had ever been inside. Once we were, Paul said, "I'll leave you alone in here for a while" and he went back into the house.
I thought he was making a phone call or using the bathroom or something…but after twenty minutes, I went back in there and found him doing paperwork. "Done already?" he asked.
"What did you think I was doing out there?" I asked.
He looked at me like I'd asked a very stupid question and he answered, "Meditating." Then he explained that Disney artists and fans had been coming by and asking if they could just stand out in the garage — there was nothing on which to sit — and try to somehow get in touch with the spirit of Walt Disney or the greatness of the cartoons that had begun in that sacred building…or something.
I said, "It's an old garage."
I didn't mean that in a bad way. That's simply what it was: An old garage. It was perhaps a historically significant old garage but it was still an old garage. We went into the house, Paul showed me more of his latest acquisitions in the area of animation collectibles, and then I went home.
Soon after, he revved up his P.R. skills again to publicize an auction of the garage with a minimum bid of $10,000. He told me he expected to clear ten times that but he didn't. There were no bids at all. Soon after though, a group of Disney fans raised and offered $8500 and Paul took it, broke his lease on the house and moved out. At great expense, the garage was removed from its foundation and relocated to a storage facility while he and its purchasers looked for a suitable place to exhibit it.
I kept getting updates from him. One day, he phoned to report the garage was going to be in a special exhibit at Disneyland. Then he called me a week later to say it was going to be on the Disney Studios lot somewhere near the Animation Building. Wherever it went, that would only be its temporary location. It would eventually stand in the Museum of Children's Television. The garage eventually wound up at the Stanley Ranch Museum in Garden Grove, which is operated by the Garden Grove Historical Society. As far as I know, it's still there, just a few miles from Disneyland.
Paul wound up working for a time as a caretaker or manager or in some capacity at the Wattles Mansion, which is a huge, preserved home in Hollywood that is the centerpiece of a park. It's a cultural monument used for film locations and private functions. At no point has it ever been turned into a Museum of Children's Television as Paul had hoped. At some point, he and his collection moved to Las Vegas.
In the nineties, he suffered an aortic aneurysm and began devoting his entire life to saving his entire life. He had a series of operations and treatments and that's when he began selling off items he'd earmarked for the dreamed-of museum. He died (like I said) earlier this year and his estate is still selling off remnants of that wonderful collection.
You can read more about Paul Maher at this site. I really liked the guy. Even people who thought he was pushy when he expected them to autograph hundreds of comic books and toys liked Paul…for the most part.
His heart, faulty though it was, was always in the right place even if his enthusiasm never quite found its proper location. It was so sad to see him devote so much time and energy and what little cash he ever had to further a dream that never materialized. It was even sadder to see him after his medical problems had made it difficult to walk and talk and he was getting by on sheer determination. Fortunately, he had a lot of it.
Oh — and an awful lot of Woody Woodpecker toys signed by Walter Lantz. I hope they found good homes. Paul would have been happy to know that.
Mushroom Soup Monday is a newsfromme tradition dating back to the late 1800's. It's a day when the proprietor of this website tries to get other more pressing (i.e., paying) jobs done and feels a tad less guilty that he hasn't posted anything here. Just what this has to do with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, no one can say.
A few loose ends before we start. A number of folks wrote in about that unaired Woody Allen film. A couple, like Bill Freiberger, noticed the presence of an intriguing cast member. Here's Bill…
In the list of actors who appear in Men of Crisis, you left one out, Richard M. Dixon. Dick Dixon was a Nixon impersonator who appeared in all sorts of things during the Nixon presidency. He was in posters, ads, movies, and TV shows such as this one. Although most of the news footage is actually Nixon, in the scenes where Woody Allen interacts with the President, it's Dixon. Dick had a nice run appearing as the President up until Watergate basically ended his career. At that point, he opened one of the first comedy clubs in the country, Richard M. Dixon's White House Inn, on Long Island. Many comedians got their start at his club including Eddie Murphy, Rosie O'Donnell, and Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling. I also started my comedy career there but to a much lesser degree. I thought your readers might want to know a bit more about this unique character actor who only played one character.
There's usually one of those guys for each White House occupant — there were a couple of prominent George W. Bush impersonators including George W. Bush — but I haven't seen one frontrunner Obama imitator. Maybe there's still time in this administration. I may take a cue from John Boehner and sue the president over this. It would make at least as much sense as his actual lawsuit.
I got some nice comments on my long piece about Al Feldstein but was especially pleased by one posted on Facebook. It was from Al's widow, Michelle…
Thank you Mark, for a very real look at my husband. Your article is so right on. Yes, you knew him. Often people who would meet him would say to me I expected him to be funny and he isn't. My daughter's friends would expect funny and be disappointed. However, he was wonderful and the last 25 years of life he felt were the best. His funds have been put to good use with the animal rescue program here at the ranch. He fully funded this and was the first to look at an animal and say, "Have you called a vet yet?" Thank you again, Mark. I also know how much he respected you and always looked forward to seeing you at cons.
And I should have mentioned that a number of the links I've posted here — some of the real Liberal ones — were sent to me by Al. He was quite a firebrand that way, especially when he came across a news item in which some guy who was already a billionaire had figured out a barely (but shouldn't be) legal way to wrest more cash from really, really poor people. Once in my presence, someone asked Al if he regretted leaving the editorship of MAD. His answer went something like this: "Most of the time, no. But every now and then, I read some news item that gets me so incensed, I wish I could call in a writer and Mort Drucker and do a story about it."
Lastly for now, a couple of folks have written to ask where I'll be during Comic-Con. I always think that's a funny question because everyone who attends gets a Program Guide listing all the panels. If you're there and you have one, you can always look at it and see where I'll be for at least sixteen of the hours that the convention is open.
During the other hours this year, I have some meetings and some interviews to do. During Comic-Con, I always get tagged to be videoed for four or five documentaries on comic book history, at least one of which is eventually completed and released.
On Friday morn from 10 AM to 11 AM, Sergio Aragonés and I will be signing copies of Groo Vs. Conan at the Dark Horse Comics booth. Other times, Sergio Aragonés will be at Table I-7 in the hall and occasionally, I will be right beside him at table I-8, which I'll be sharing with my longtime pal, Scott Shaw! I don't like to sit much during a convention but when I do this year, that's where I'll usually be.
And now, on with Mushroom Soup Monday! I'll be back today — just not very often…
Thursday, July 24 – 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Room 4
SPOTLIGHT ON BILL FINGER
I am on (but am not hosting) this panel to celebrate and discuss the unbilled co-creator of Batman. Also on the dais will be Bill's granddaughter, ATHENA FINGER as well as MICHAEL USLAN, LEE "Catwoman" MERIWETHER, MARK TYLER NOBLEMAN, JENS ROBINSON, DR. TRAVIS LANGLEY and TOM ANDRAE.
Thursday, July 24 – 1 PM to 2 PM in Room 5AB
BATMAN IN THE SEVENTIES
In celebration of Batman's 75th birthday, panelists look back at a crucial decade in the life of the Caped Crusader. It was a time of change as new writers and artists brought forth new interpretations of this classic character. On hand to discuss it are many of the those who were there: NEAL ADAMS, DENNY O'NEIL, MICHAEL USLAN, LEN WEIN, and ANTHONY TOLLIN, along with moderator MARK EVANIER.
Thursday, July 24 – 2 PM to 3 PM in Room 9
JULES FEIFFER GOES NOIR
Oscar-Pulitzer-Eisner Hall of Fame winner JULES FEIFFER turns to the noir genre with his new graphic novel, Kill My Mother. Come hear a conversation with this comics pioneer who started with Will Eisner, went on to become one of the world's most-read comic strip creators, and eventually conquered the Broadway stage and Hollywood. Now, preview his return to his first love with a daring new work that stretches his talent yet again. Questioning by comics historians MARK EVANIER and PAUL LEVITZ, as well as audience members.
Thursday, July 24 – 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 8
THE SERGIO AND MARK SHOW
Usually, this is the panel where SERGIO ARAGONÉS and MARK EVANIER make empty promises of more Groo the Wanderer to come. This time though, there actually is new Groo with the release of the long-awaited Groo Vs. Conan miniseries from Dark Horse, to be followed closely by a new series of new Groo stories and a new series of old Groo stories and you'll hear all about it at the panel with Sergio and Mark and STAN SAKAI and the world's hardest-working colorist, TOM LUTH.
Friday, July 25 – 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 8
A CELEBRATION OF WALT KELLY'S 101st BIRTHDAY
Last year, we had such a good time celebrating the 100th birthday of the creator of one of comics' great newspaper strips that we've decided to keep the party going. Kelly's magnum opus, Pogo, is now receiving its first ever complete reprinting in an Eisner-winning series from Fantagraphics Books. Let's remember him with DAVID SILVERMAN (The Simpsons), JEFF SMITH (Bone), comic historian MAGGIE THOMPSON (Comics Buyer's Guide), film critic LEONARD MALTIN, CAROLYN KELLY (co-editor of the Complete Pogo series and Walt's daughter), and moderator MARK EVANIER (Groo the Wanderer).
Saturday, July 26 – 11:45 AM to 1 PM in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
It's still the fastest, funniest panel in the whole convention! Once again, your Quick Draw Quizmaster MARK EVANIER pits three super-speedy cartoonists against one another as they go mano a mano and Sharpie to Sharpie to create great cartoon art right before your very eyes. Competing this year are (as usual) SERGIO ARAGONÉS (MAD magazine, Groo the Wanderer) and SCOTT SHAW! (The Simpsons) and they're joined by Disney Legend FLOYD NORMAN, plus a couple of surprising surprises!
Saturday, July 26 – 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES I
Each year, moderator MARK EVANIER gathers together a bevy of the most talented cartoon voice actors working today and invites them to explain and demonstrate their artistry! This year's lineup includes JIM CUMMINGS (Winnie the Pooh, The Penguins of Madagascar), JOSH KEATON (The Spectacular Spider-Man, Green Lantern), SHERRY LYNN (Wall-E, Ice Age), ARIF S. KINCHEN (MAD TV, Grand Theft Auto), DAVID SOBOLOV (Transformers Prime, Avengers Assemble) and COLLEEN O'SHAUGNESSY (Toy Story 3, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes).
Saturday, July 26 – 4 PM to 5 PM in Room 28DE
ABRAMS COMIC ART PREVIEWS
I am on (but not hosting) this panel to spotlight great new books about comic art coming from one of the world's great publishers of volumes about art, Harry N. Abrams Books. Or at least, I'll be on the first part of this panel before I have to run and host…
Saturday, July 26 – 4:30 PM to 6 PM in Room 5AB
THAT 70'S PANEL
It was a time of change in comics with a new generation intermingling with the old and taking command. Hear what it was like from STEVE LEIALOHA (Howard the Duck, Spider-Woman), LEN WEIN (Swamp Thing, The New X-Men), WALT SIMONSON (Manhunter, Batman), LOUISE SIMONSON (Creepy, Eerie), ANTHONY TOLLIN (Batman, Superman), and more, plus moderator MARK EVANIER (Groo the Wanderer, Blackhawk).
Sunday, July 27 – 10 AM to 11:15 AM in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
Each year, we set aside time to talk about Comic-Con's first superstar guest and the man they call The King of the Comics, Jack Kirby. Jack left us in 1994 but his influence on comics, film, and this convention has never been greater. Discussing the man and his work this year are LEN WEIN, SCOTT SHAW!, CHARLES KOCHMAN (editorial director, Harry N. Abrams Books) and Kirby family attorney PAUL S. LEVINE, plus members of Jack's family. And of course, it's moderated by MARK EVANIER.
Sunday, July 27 – 11:30 AM to 12:45 PM in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES II
Yesterday's Cartoon Voices panel will have been such a hit that today we'll have to do another one with different but equally talented actors from the world of animation voicing. Once again, moderator MARK EVANIER has assembled an all-star dais that will include GREGG BERGER (The Garfield Show, Transformers), VANESSA MARSHALL (The Spectacular Spider-Man, Young Justice), FRED TATASCIORE (The Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness), DEBRA WILSON (MAD TV, Family Guy), ROBIN ATKINS DOWNES (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Thundercats), and maybe someone else.
Sunday, July 27 – 2 PM to 3 PM in Room 25ABC
COVER STORY: THE ART OF THE COVER
What does it take to make a great cover for a comic book? Let's ask five top artists…all folks who've created some of the best. Come hear the "shop talk" of MARK BROOKS (Amazing Spider-Man, The New X-Men), AMANDA CONNER (Power Girl, Harley Quinn), JAE LEE (Before Watchmen, Batman/Superman), STAN SAKAI (Usagi Yojimbo, 47 Ronin), and FIONA STAPLES (Saga, Trick 'r Treat). Moderated by MARK EVANIER.
Sunday, July 27 – 3 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 25ABC
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
Interested in a career doing voices for animation and video games? There are plenty of people around who'll take your money and tell you how to go about it…but here's 90 minutes of absolutely free advice from folks who work in the field. Come hear cartoon voice actor BILL FARMER, talent agent SANDIE SCHNARR (AVO Talent) and others, along with your moderator, voice director MARK EVANIER (The Garfield Show).
As always, participants and times and everything is subject to change. I suggest that if you want to get into the Cartoon Voices panels or Quick Draw!, you get there well before their start times. Tuesday would not be a bad idea.
Evanier's fearless weather forecast for Comic-Con International…
Clear and sunny. Daytime temps between 70° and 75°. Nighttime temps between 68° and 70°.
For those of you who still think the con should move to Las Vegas, it'll be 108° to 115° there at the same time with nighttime lows in the nineties. (Just for reference: In Vegas, 114° is the temperature at which the strippers' chests all melt. Even the male ones.)
The Comic-Con International schedule for Sunday programming. I know where I'll be from 10 AM to 11:15 and then from 11:30 until 12:45 PM and then from 2 PM to 3 PM and from 3 PM until 4:30. Where will you be?
Recently, my partner Sergio Aragonés had ten minutes with nothing to do so he drew a big Groo poster. Folks who've seen it and know how he draws are stunned. "He spent ten minutes on that?," they gasp. I tell them, "Well, that includes the break he took in the middle of it to go make a chicken salad sandwich." "Oh," they say. "That makes more sense. Chicken salad sandwiches take time."
No, seriously: He spent a ridiculous amount of his life on it and so did Tom Luth, who did the coloring. Together, they created one of the best things either of them has ever done and it's available in a limited edition. By "limited," I mean it's going to sell out soon and then people will be writing me to beg me to help them get one and I'll have to crush their dreams. Do not make me crush your dreams.
Sergio will be selling and signing them at his table at Comic-Con International, which is I-7 in the Dealers Room. (Possible Point of Interest: If you look over at Table I-8, you may find me if I'm not off doing a panel…which probably means you won't find me there.)
I think he's taking too few of them to the con and will sell out but that's his problem…and maybe yours if you want one. It's also your problem if you want one but won't be at the con. Here is the solution to that problem. You can order one online. He will probably also have some left when he appears at the Boston Comic Con, which is August 8-10. But this thing is going to sell out so act now if you want one. Don't even take the time to make a chicken salad sandwich.
Dick Shawn introduces Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks doing the Two Thousand Year Old Man. I'm not sure where this is from but it may be a Colgate Comedy Hour special from 1967…
NBC is doing a live telecast of the Broadway musical of Peter Pan for this Christmas and they've just announced who'll be their Captain Hook: Christopher Walken. Boy, I think that's a good idea. And I still think that if and when someone revives Damn Yankees, he's their devil.
When Al Feldstein died at the end of April, I was too swamped with work to write a long piece about him. Al was obsessive about meeting deadlines so I used that as an excuse to defer this piece.
Al was a fascinating, talented man whose career more or less divided into three acts…
Act One came when he was writer-editor of most of the EC Comics from 1948 to 1955. Before that, he was a journeyman comic book artist — not a particularly great one — who like most was trying to make a living in a business that seemed stacked against the guys who created the product. Publishers paid X dollars a page. An artist could, if he worked long hours, produce Y number of pages per week. X times Y was not a bad living wage…but it has never been the American Dream to be content with "not a bad living wage" for your entire life and how long can you work long hours, anyway?
It was especially not satisfactory to those who grew up, as Al did, in the Depression. Another of those men, a fine artist name Jim Mooney, said this to me one time in an interview…
If I put in a sixty hour week at the board, I could usually finish seven or eight pages a week. That's pencils and inks. That paid decently. I could support a family on that as long as my health didn't falter and the publisher didn't go under. I was nervous about relying on those two things. We all were. I wanted to get ahead, to get some cushion in the bank so I wouldn't be in trouble if the work suddenly stopped or if I got sick. Hell, I just wanted to be able to cut back to forty hours a week. But doing comics, there didn't seem to be a way.
That was the dilemma that Mooney faced, that Feldstein faced, that they all faced: How do you parlay this thing you can do into some sort of meaningful financial security? Feldstein took a giant step in that direction in the late forties when he connected with William M. Gaines, publisher of EC Comics. He became Gaines' main editor and they concocted one of the best-selling lines of comics at the time — Tales from the Crypt, Crime SuspenStories and all the rest. Gaines made money and some of that trickled down to Feldstein.
Act One: Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein in 1950.
They were good comics, some of the finest ever done. And all time, Feldstein was looking for what he might do next, what might pay even better. Because like everyone, he wasn't content with just making a weekly wage. He wanted that cushion in the bank. He wanted to amass enough funds to see himself and his family through emergencies and for them to live better. He also thought it might be nice to have enough money that he could someday retire.
One of the interesting things to me about those comics is that all the artists in them signed their work. That was not true at any other comic company of the day. Some companies discouraged that but even at the ones that didn't care, most artists did not sign what they drew. EC did encourage it and even did little spotlight pages on their artists, promoting them.
Still, in marked contrast to what Stan Lee would do less than a decade later, Feldstein did not put his name on what he wrote. He authored something like 80% of the stories that ran in the comics he edited but he didn't slap "Written by Al Feldstein" on any of them in the color comics. He mentioned it from time to time deep in the letter pages so it wasn't a secret. He just didn't call a lot of attention to that because, you know, that was just his current job.
He had fantasies of getting into something else, perhaps some other form of publishing that paid a lot better and offered more possibilities of getting rich. Maybe, if and when that opportunity presented itself, he'd want people to forget he'd written The Vault of Horror. There were some best-selling novelists around then who quietly omitted from their bios that they'd once scripted comic books for a few bucks a page. There were also those people in the world who felt that whoever was behind those horrible horror comics should be in jail.
Act One of the Feldstein story ended when the horror and crime comics did…when political, societal and mostly business pressures forced those comics off the racks. Reluctantly — because Gaines treated his employees like family members — he let Feldstein go. Al went off to try and sell novels and TV scripts and to just find anything.
Act Two was all about MAD. Harvey Kurtzman was MAD's first editor and MAD was the only surviving remnant of Gaines's publishing empire after the comics went away. It was a magazine and it was a successful magazine but it wasn't coming out on time. Kurtzman was a slow, almost obsessive worker who'd spend days to get one page just the way he wanted it. Deadlines came and went with no issue of MAD going off to the printer.
He also had problems with the way Gaines ran the company. Emboldened by an offer from Hugh Hefner, Kurtzman went to Gaines and demanded 51% of the business. Gaines refused, Kurtzman left, and Gaines hired Feldstein back to run MAD.
It had to be Feldstein. Gaines was this compulsive guy who, like I said, ran his business like a family. To the extent possible, he did not want to deal with new people in his life. He did not want to expand. (That was one of the many business differences with Kurtzman.) He wasn't going to go out and hire a stranger. He needed someone he knew and someone who could meet deadlines. Feldstein was that man.
Al went right to work. He not only had to get MAD onto a bi-monthly schedule, he had to do it without much of a staff since Kurtzman had taken most of his people with him. But assemble a new staff Al did. Before long, he'd found Mort Drucker and Frank Jacobs and Bob Clarke and Dave Berg and Don Martin (Don Martin!) and all the rest of The Usual Gang of Idiots…and MAD was coming out regularly.
It was a good magazine. Some still argue it wasn't as good as what Kurtzman did and to me, that's like debating whether one great pizzeria's better than another great pizzeria. Fine. But Feldstein's MAD was very, very successful as both a cultural icon and a money-maker. Sales went up and up and so did Feldstein's compensation.
Al was shrewd enough to capitalize on Gaines's reticence to employ new people, especially in the all-important post of Editor-in-Chief. At a couple of key junctures — mainly when Gaines was dickering to sell MAD to a corporation — Feldstein demanded a larger piece of the money pie and Gaines acquiesced. At the time, MAD was selling around 600,000 copies an issue, which was very good. Gaines agreed to give Feldstein an escalating series of bonuses linked to MAD's sales figures. The money would really have been great for Al if the magazine's circulation got up around the million mark…and sure enough, a few years later it did.
Before long, it hit the 1.5 million mark and then the 2 million mark and it seems to have topped off for a time around 2.3 million before beginning a slow 'n' steady descent. By that time, Al Feldstein was probably the highest-paid editor in the world. He was making a lot more off Gaines's magazine than Gaines. Al was the only creative person at MAD who had a deal linked to success.
Act Two ended around 1984 when Feldstein began to see the circulation, not just of MAD but all magazines, dropping. He decided not to ride it down but to retire…to a ranch in Montana to build a new career for himself as a painter of western scenes. He had achieved what he wanted to achieve at MAD: He was very, very wealthy.
I first met Al Feldstein in the middle of Act Two, visiting the MAD offices where everyone seemed happy and friendly and very much in tune with the spirit of the silly magazine they produced up there. Everyone except Al Feldstein, that is. He was polite but curt. He was willing to take time to meet me because I was a friend of Sergio Aragonés but for no other reason…and after pleasantries were exchanged, he made it clear I was wasting his time and he had a magazine to get out. Others in the office told me that was just how Al was. He was the only one there who worked with his door closed.
Act Two: A photo I took of Al Feldstein in the MAD offices in 1975.
I guess I was a little surprised and maybe disappointed. I expected the editor of the world's greatest humor publication to have a great sense of humor…and he really didn't. He had a very strong social conscience and a lot of the magazine's morality — its disdain for weasely politicians, its campaign against smoking, etc. — came in no small part from Feldstein.
But the funny came from the writers and the artists and an awful lot of it came from an associate editor named Nick Meglin. When the "editor" said something funny in the letters page that was possibly another associate editor then working there, Jerry DeFuccio, but it was more likely Nick. It was almost never the editor, Al Feldstein.
Meeting most of the major MAD contributors of that generation, I came to have a pretty good sense of who was doing what on that publication. Feldstein was certainly not goofing off, letting underlings do the hard work while he napped and collected the biggest check. He worked very hard editing and adapting scripts into visual format, laying out pages and such. For a long time, he'd "spec" the type in the balloons on the typewriter in his office, figuring out exactly how to space the lines so they'd fit together properly on the page. He did an awful lot of work on most pages…
…but it really didn't involve being funny. At best, it involved how to present someone else's funny for maximum impact.
MAD paid its people decently but it was no secret that Gaines paid his editor super-super-well. Some (not all) felt that Feldstein was reaping a disproportionate share of the riches; that the "split" was not fair. The fact that Al was not a warm, friendly guy perhaps exacerbated those resentments a bit. One longtime MAD writer told me that it bothered him a lot that so much of the reward for the magazine's success went to the guy who ran the restaurant efficiently and not to the chefs who created and cooked the wonderful meals.
Once in a while when Feldstein was interviewed, he described himself a "total mercenary, a guy who's just in it for the money." No one was sure if he meant that as a joke or a confession. During our brief encounters then, I could see why it was hard to tell.
Things began to change when we got into Act Three. For several years, Feldstein stuck with his paintings…which were very good, by the way. Then he began making the rounds of comic conventions with two obvious goals in mind. One was to promote and sell those paintings — the western scenes but more often paintings he also did recapturing the EC days. He did re-creations of old covers of Weird Fantasy and scenes of the hosts of the EC horror comics. That was one objective.
The other was to reaffirm his legacy. After years of only caring about the check — or at least saying he did — it had started to bother him a lot that, first of all, no one seemed to know he had written most of those great EC Comics. They were being adapted for movies and television then and even when his name was mentioned, it wasn't mentioned enough to suit him. He was furious one time when a magazine did a major overview of the adaptations EC had done of Ray Bradbury stories and omitted all mention of Al Feldstein, implying the artists had done the script conversions. It also bothered him that a lot of people thought Harvey Kurtzman deserved all the success for MAD, at least on an editorial level.
I spent a lot of time with Al at conventions in various cities. I probably did a half-dozen one-on-one interviews and had him on eight or nine panels. We sometimes dined together because he didn't seem to have a lot of friends at those cons. He was bright. He was fascinating. And in retirement, he was a much, much nicer person than he was up at the MAD offices. Some folks he encountered who'd worked for MAD were amazed to discover that Feldstein had become — or was at least trying to become — one of the boys.
Some time ago, I wrote here in four parts about arranging for him to meet Ray Bradbury on stage at the 2002 Comic-Con International. Here is a link to the fourth part and it starts with links to the first three. It was a very emotional moment that included Al breaking down and shedding real tears. When certain of his old associates heard about it later, they didn't believe it. That was not the Al Feldstein they knew but it was, for the most part, the Al Feldstein I knew.
Act Three: A photo I took of Al Feldstein at a comic convention in 2002.
Al was right that he didn't get sufficient credit for writing all those EC Comics. His own fault for not putting his name on them? Probably — but he still deserved more recognition than he received, even if all that may have mattered to him at the time was the paycheck.
And not to take anything away from Harvey Kurtzman, who was also a wonderful man with a stellar body of work, but he got a lot of kudos because MAD survived so long and it survived so long because of Al Feldstein and people hired by Al Feldstein. It was a wonderful magazine that became an important part of the social consciousness and sense o' humor of a couple of generations. (By the way, it's still — under its present regime — a pretty good publication.)
I don't think Al has received enough credit for that magazine. Some of the folks who worked under him think he received too much of the money but I'm not taking sides on that one. I really only mention the dough because I think it's wonderful when anyone who started in the hardscrabble days of comic books created something of great value and managed to actually get paid what their work was worth. We can all name so many who did not.
Still, before Al died, if you went to Google and typed in "editor of MAD," almost all the hits on the first few pages would be for Kurtzman, who left the publication in 1956. That's a function of how often people wrote about Harvey and MAD as opposed to Al and MAD. Al is only in first position at the moment because of all the recent obituaries.
He should stay on or around the top because MAD was a terrific and much-loved magazine when he was on or around the top of its masthead. I think all those guys deserve a lot of credit and it shouldn't be at the expense of each other.
Above on this page are two photos I took of Al 27 years apart. As I mentioned, when I met him up at the MAD offices, I was kind of disappointed. That magazine meant a lot to me and I didn't expect its editor to act like an accountant who had to get back to his ledgers. It took me a long time to fully understand and appreciate his contribution to that magazine since by then, I was well aware that he wasn't responsible for the funny. That came from Frank Jacobs and Al Jaffee and Mort Drucker and Don Martin and Larry Siegel and Tom Koch and Bob Clarke and Jack Rickard and Stan Hart and Dick DeBartolo and Sergio Whatzisname and Lou Silverstone and Dave Berg and Don Edwing and dozens of others and especially Nick Meglin.
I don't think I really got it until I researched and wrote MAD Art, a book about the making of that magazine. That was the year before I took the second photo above of Al. By then, I'd learned how hard he had worked and that, no, he may not have contributed the funny but he hired the guys who supplied the funny. He got great work out of them and he didn't get in the way of it like so many people in his position might have done. Instead, he selected the funny and he edited the funny and he laid out the funny and he made sure it stayed that way…and he got it to press on time. He couldn't have done it without all those other people but they couldn't have done it without him.
And by the time I learned that and took that last photo, Al Feldstein had changed. I didn't really like the guy in the red pants in the first of the two photos. But I definitely liked and respected the one in the second. A lot.
