The second day of Wondercon in Oakland was, as expected, packed. Me, I spent most of the day moderating panels. First, we had a wonderful event in which we more or less played Whose Line Is It Anyway? except (a) with cartoonists instead of actors, (b) with me in the Drew Carey role and (c) without the "contestants" having most of their responses planned in advance.
Braving the fray were Sergio Aragonés, John Romita, Jr. and Mark Texeira…and it all went very well, and I think we're going to try it again in San Diego. Then I hosted a Golden Age Panel that consisted of Julius Schwartz, Irwin Hasen, Creig Flessel, Russ Heath and John Romita. A great panel but I can't think of anything particularly quotable, other than Mr. Flessel's explanation of how he managed to get paid by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, the founder of DC Comics. Flessel went to work for Major Nicholson (as he was called) in 1936, making him darn near the first-ever comic book — as opposed to strip — artist. The Major was notorious for not paying his bills and Sheldon Mayer, who worked for him at the time, later referred to him as "not only the first man to publish comic books but also the first to stiff an artist for his check." I asked Flessel if he got paid and he said, "Yes…but taking my drawing board up and working in the office. If I'd mailed it in like the other guys, I think I'd have had a problem."
My third and final panel of the day was about Humor in Comics, with Sergio, Paul Dini, Pat McGreal, Batton Lash and Bill Morrison. Again, not much is quotable here, though we seemed to all enjoy a chat about characters' "voices" in comics. When I used to write Bugs Bunny comic books, I had a theory that readers, when they read such a comic, always read the dialogue in their heads with Mel Blanc inflections. The folks who read Bill Morrison's Simpsons comic books are almost all, I presume, imagining the voices from the TV series when they read a comic page. This is a major difference from most super-hero or adventure comics. Does anyone reading Batman imagine the voice of any actor who has played the role? I don't think so. (However, Pat McGreal agreed with me that the Donald Duck of the comic book — which he now writes for Egmont Publications overseas — sounds nothing like the Clarence Nash "duck" voice we all know from the cartoons.)
I'd report more but this is coming to you from a hotel room and Check-Out Time is looming large. Next and final Wondercon Report in about twelve hours.