Monthly Archives: May 2003

The DVD is a wonderful invention…for the folks who market movies, at least. It has enabled them to sell me new copies of movies I already owned on VHS and/or Laserdisc. In some cases, when I really like the movie and am really stupid, they've really hit the jackpot. There are at least a dozen films I've bought in all three of those formats plus Beta, and a few where I also bought the Laserdisc twice (the regular release and then the Criterion Special Edition).

DVDs are terrific, though when I become National Video Czar, there will be a strict law that they cannot come in any form of packaging that does not fit neatly onto shelves that are spaced eight inches apart. A similar edict will apply to CDs, which must be in packaging the size of a CD. For some reason, some of the neatest CD collections come in these long, fancy boxes that fit nowhere. They make you want to slap the designer and ask what part of the word "compact" eludes him in the term, "compact disc." For the most part, I like DVDs because they're compact, because the picture quality is usually quite good and because most of them contain wonderful special features.

I suggested on my old weblog that someone try releasing comedy movies with an alternate audio track that included the sound of a live audience. Only one or two films (I'm told) have tried this, to almost no notice. I'd like to see it tried more, because I'd like the option of watching it "with" an audience. And now — just throwing an idea out there in the hope that it will land where it may do some good — I'd like to suggest something else that probably won't happen.

Back before around World War II, it was not uncommon for movies made in the U.S. to have two almost (but not quite) identical versions. They would shoot the movie with two cameras placed side-by-side. The idea was to generate two negatives of the movie so that after they got through editing the one that would be duped for America's theaters, they could edit a second negative and ship it off to Europe. Usually, the two versions would be identical in cutting and the main difference would be slightly-different camera angles and cropping of scenes. But sometimes the European print would also employ alternate takes from the camera shooting the U.S. version. Chaplin, it is said, edited two different prints of The Gold Rush and they differ in some gags. Several Marx Brothers movies exist in two versions made from different takes, and this is not generally known. Years ago, a gent named Richard Anobile published a couple of books of frame blow-ups and quoted dialogue from the Marx movies, and several British film buffs became incensed. He had, they insisted, slightly misquoted a staggering number of lines. But he hadn't. The prints of Duck Soup that were then widely-circulated in England simply had a lot of alternate lines from the prints circulated in the U.S. Chico especially seemed unable to say any chunk of dialogue precisely the same way from one take to the next.

In the case of Laurel and Hardy — whose major films are conspicuously and shockingly as yet unavailable on DVD in this country — there are the two English-language prints of most films. There are also versions shot for non-English-speaking territories, for which Stan and Ollie read their dialogue in other languages off an off-camera blackboard. Some but not all of the other cast members were changed for actors who could speak the language being filmed. (Boris Karloff was in the French version of Pardon Us, but none of the others.) In some cases, the non-English versions were longer, with whole sequences that appeared only in some overseas editions.

So what I'd like to see is companies releasing DVDs look at digging up some of these alternate versions and including them, perhaps in a manner that will allow us to switch back and forth. The DVD "angle" command might not do it since the alternate versions, even in the same language, differ slightly in length. But maybe, instead of or in addition to those wonderful "making of" documentaries and still galleries and audio commentaries and trailers, some DVD makers could include the entire movie again, only shot from a different camera. They especially need to do this if they're going to get me to buy Horse Feathers for the ninth time.

This time, it's my pal Andy Ihnatko, who includes this site in a list of ten recommended sites in this article in today's Chicago Sun-Times. The man knows. He just knows.

A fellow named Bernard Duggan writes to ask…

Hi! I read your post about Don't Give Up The Ship and saw that there is a Dell Comic adaptation. Could you tell me more about the Dell Four-Color series? How many issues were there? Was it a monthly series? What were the best issues? Did Dell ever make a Herbie the Love Bug comic? Thanks for your time!

Ah, Dell Four-Color…the series specifically designed to make comic book indexers remove large clumps of hair from their heads. Well, the easiest explanation for it is that Dell put out a lot of comics, many of which were either one-shot publications or part of a kind of "test" situation where they'd put out an issue of something and then, nine months later, put out another issue…and then, maybe a year or three later, put out yet another. For distribution reasons that I can't begin to comprehend let alone explain, they decided to number all of these miscellaneous titles as almost-sequential numbers of an irregularly-released series that was known, mainly internally, as Dell Four-Color. Most did not carry that name anywhere but there would be a little number on the first page of art that said, "O.S. 229" or whatever. (That particular number appeared on an issue of Smokey Stover. It did not mean that there had been 228 prior issues of Smokey Stover. It just meant that it was #229 in the Four-Color series.)

The first Four-Color issue appears to have been an issue of Dick Tracy in 1939, which was followed by an issue of Don Winslow of the Navy. They numbered up to #25 (an issue of Popeye), then started numbering over again with a 1942 issue of Little Joe. This numbering continued until 1962 and the last was probably #1354, which featured Calvin and the Colonel. One cannot be absolutely positive about this because they occasionally skipped numbers or even released them out of numerical sequence. Last I heard, for instance, no one had ever reported any sighting of #1351 through #1353. Don't Give Up The Ship was #1049.

To make matters more complicated, a lot of comics that appeared in the Four-Color series later spun off into their own bi-monthly or quarterly books, and the numbering sometimes retro-actively counted Four-Color issues. The first Uncle Scrooge comic was #386, the second was #456 and the third was #495. When they decided to then launch a regular Uncle Scrooge comic, they started with #4 and continued from there. In some cases, they didn't count accurately. Woody Woodpecker, for instance, appeared in 16 Four-Color editions, then started his own comic with Woody Woodpecker #16, not 17.

They were not monthly. They were not put out in any discernible pattern or frequency. Four or five non-sequential issues might come out one day, then nothing for a month. As for what were the best issues, that would depend on your tastes. I suspect most folks might name the many issues done by Carl Barks, Walt Kelly or Alex Toth but I liked a wide range of them.

All of these were done as part of a partnership arrangement that Dell Comics had with Western Publishing (aka Western Printing and Lithography). If you're interested in how that worked, you ought to read this piece that I wrote to answer the Incessantly-Asked Question about that. By the time the movie of The Love Bug came out, Western was issuing all Disney-based comics without any Dell involvement. They put out a one-shot, unnumbered adaptation of that film in 1969 and also did the sequel — both drawn magnificently by Dan Spiegle. Same guy who drew the comic of Don't Give Up The Ship. They're really stunning books, as Dan had to draw that Volkswagen about a hundred times in each and, despite having only one piece of photo reference from one view, he somehow managed to breathe life into his drawings of a faceless car and to depict it from every conceivable angle. (To see another incredible Spiegle-drawn movie adaptation, seek out the 1963 Gold Key version of Mutiny on the Bounty. Absolutely amazing.)

The Comics Journal's weblog — which is well worth a daily stop, by the way — linked this morning to my earlier item about how I don't recommend the current comic book industry as a career. This prompted an extra number of hits, as well as e-mails asking me to elaborate. So I will.

In this world, it's always great when you can turn your hobby into your occupation; when you can make your living doing something because it's a passion, rather than just a means of paying the mortgage. The trouble is that you need it to be both — and lately, I know too many very talented writers and artists who are scrounging about for work. I don't mean just beginners. Some of them are long-established talents who are almost certainly qualified to be doing Superman or X-Men or any of those books. A few have been deflected by simple, sometimes openly-admitted ageism. For others, it's simply a matter of X number of qualified people seeking work where there are Y number of openings — and X is 3 to 10 times Y. I gave up editing comics some time ago but tomorrow, if I had to find one person to write a generic ghost comic for me, I can think of at least 20 friends who would be up to the task and welcome the work.

Once upon a time, there were those of us who could line up three or four comics a month to write and even without a contract, count on that as relatively steady for the foreseeable future. Today, few are in that category — and they're all looking to line something else up. Never before has writing an established, well-known comic seemed so much like a temp job.

Now, in and of itself, that may not be a bad thing. I coined a phrase some time ago, which was to never get possessive about characters you don't own. Writing your childhood fave or something of the sort can be a dream come true, and even lucrative for a time. But you're just baby-sitting and some day soon, the parents will reclaim their kid and maybe even hand it off to another baby-sitter who'll declare your stint apocryphal. A lot of folks — writers, especially — wake up one morn and realize that they have spent too many of their most fertile, creative years building on someone else's property and/or constricting themselves by the demands of such jobs. One comic artist friend of mine, lacking work in that field and trying to break into another, believes he is at a huge disadvantage: He picked up too many bad habits drawing super-hero comics. It's not that he should never have done them. He just should have done something else, as well — preferably something that was his, in spirit if not in copyright.

None of this is to suggest that no one can get into comics these days and do good work and make a decent living. Some will. Some will also win the lottery. In the case of the lottery, most people come to it with some sense of the odds against them, and they make what one can only hope is an informed, realistic decision that the possible gains justify the definite outlays. I think that today there are a lot of kids — many of them, quite talented — who are so horny to write Batman or whatever that they do not realistically assess those odds. If they did, they might well find that some of their other dreams are eminently better investments and that if they do comics — especially of the work-for-hire variety — they shouldn't even dream of doing them full-time. That's partly for the soul and partly for simple economic survival.

R.C. Harvey has a good article up about Jules Feiffer. Go read it by clicking here.

If you have RealPlayer installed, you might like to visit Retromedia and view a lovely bunch of clips of TV show openings and vintage commercials. Fans of cartoon shows from the sixties and Sid & Marty Krofft will especially enjoy the menu.

A review of Bill Maher's new one-man show on Broadway. They kinda liked it. And Paul Krugman discusses Bush's photo-op speech aboard the aircraft carrier. He didn't like it.

Back in the sixties, the comic art fan awards were known as the Alleys, named — for no discernible reason — for Alley Oop. There was actually a little statue made and mass-produced, and I don't think I'd ever actually seen one, in person or in a photo, before this one turned up on eBay. It was presented to the Living Legend, Julius Schwartz, when he won Best Editor in 1967 for his work on DC Comics like Justice League of America and Batman. Julie seems to be clearing out a few items from his collection and apparently decided he had so many accolades he could afford to give this one up.

At least, I think it's free. At this site, you can print your own greeting cards, calendars and a few other goodies featuring Mickey, Minnie, Winnie the Pooh and other Disney stars.

If you're still interested in the Bill Bennett matter, here's an interesting aspect to it: How did the reporters who broke the story get their hands on all those internal casino documents? Hmm?

As we've noted before, one of the wicked joys of observing the American political scene is watching its leaders argue either side of a position, depending on which will serve their immediate needs. There's this kind of shameless repositioning that goes on from all sides. This week, we think putting ketchup on roast beef is an immoral, pernicious action which must be banned, and anyone who disagrees is devoid of sense, soul and integrity. Next week, when we want to put ketchup on Prime Rib, we will move promptly to the opposite viewpoint, deny any possible contradiction and throw our opponents' words back at them as an example of their (not our) hypocrisy. It doesn't bother me that people do this so much as that they all seem to have the gall to pass it off as standing on principle.

Obviously, I'm bringing this up to make a point about the Bill Bennett affair. To those who aren't following this merry square dance — with everyone changing sides and swearing consistency — this article and others drawn from it reveal that our former Drug Czar and self-appointed National Scold seems to have a little addiction problem of his own, namely gambling. Liberals like Michael Kinsley are all over Bennett, chastizing him for hectoring others according to rules he does not apply to himself.

Conservatives like Jonah Goldberg are defending him as having not broken any laws. The dynamics of the debate are perhaps inevitable when someone is being fed a taste of their own medicine. The feeder is doing that which he previously decried; the recipient is objecting to that which he previously thought was dandy when he wasn't the ox. Is there a person alive who thinks that if the revelations were about a prominent liberal moralizer — I'm assuming there are some — Kinsley and Goldberg wouldn't have written each others' columns this week?

My take on this may be worthless but, hey, it's my weblog: I think Bill Bennett has always been a pompous, phony presence in the national debate, making loads of cash from peddling an unrealistic, selective concept of "morality" to the masses. He inveighs against kids who are caught with marijuana (or Democrats caught with mistresses) but dodges matters like corporate looting and lying because those who buy his books or pay his lecture fees don't want to confront those sins. And of course, morality that you apply only when it is personally convenient and lucrative is no morality at all.

I'm even less impressed with Bennett as a gambler. Some reports say he's dropped around eight million at the slots and his defenders say that's okay because he can afford it. Of course, he can afford it because he's never tried telling the right-wing demographic anything it didn't want to hear, but let's leave that aside. His tepid claim that "Over 10 years, I'd say I've come out pretty close to even" is the kind of thing every losing gambler says to his friends, and even himself, rather than admit to major losses.

Clearly, based on his other statements, he has not come out pretty close to even. If he were, he'd be releasing tax records today to prove it. What's more troubling is that losing eight million (by some estimates) mainly on slot machines is indicative of something quite ugly. Poor and middle-class people play the slots because it affords them the possibility, however remote, of changing their lives with a Big Win.

Rich people usually play Blackjack or some other game where there's some sense that you actually triumph for a reason other than dumb luck. When they play slots, it's either because they like being pampered with the royal treatment that casinos give their big slot losers, or because they're chasing some elusive thrill. Since Mr. Bennett is already chauffeured about and treated as a celebrity in his day-to-day life, and since he's not looking to hit a jackpot so he can quit his job and buy a new house, we're left with filling…well, the kind of need that Bill Bennett would condemn you for if you filled it with sex, drugs or rock-and-roll. No wonder he was such a lousy Drug Czar.

How the hell should I know? Why don't you go Ask Mr. Breakfast?

Salon has posted the first of several excerpts from Sidney Blumenthal's new book, The Clinton Wars. Blumenthal was as much an "insider" in the administration of Bill Clinton as anyone besides (maybe) Hillary and his book appears to be generally sympathetic to Clinton and hostile to Ken Starr and the whole investigation. If you hate Clinton, that makes him an "apologist." If you don't, it makes him a valuable contributor to history. I am inclined to skew — guardedly and with some reservations — towards the latter viewpoint. I don't believe any book, pro-Clinton or con, can give the whole, unvarnished truth about anything, but Blumenthal was a lot closer to the action than anyone else who's who've written about those events. His book is already (surprise, surprise) under attack…but I'll be interested to read it. And to see if any of those who call it a "pack of lies" find anything that is provably wrong.