Monthly Archives: July 2003

I haven't seen a copy yet but The Groo Odyssey is out now. It's another collection of old Groo stories by Sergio Aragonés and Yours Truly — four of them, done back when we were published by Marvel/Epic. (We did ten solid years of monthly issues for them — all produced on schedule by Sergio, letterer Stan Sakai and myself, almost all colored by Tom Luth — and I still sometimes hear people say, "Creator-owned comics never come out on time.") Anyway, if you like what we do, you can buy this book from Amazon by clicking here. If you've never tried Groo, you can buy this book from Amazon by clicking in the same place. And if you have tried Groo and don't like it…well, what can I say? You're young. You'll learn. Meanwhile, over at his webpage, Bill Sherman gives us a nice review and wonders why this volume doesn't contain the traditional silly text page by me. I'm kinda wondering the same thing at the moment.

And to answer a Frequently-Asked Question: There is no announced release date for the next Groo mini-series, but we're starting to work on it now. Once I know when it's coming out, you'll know. Thank you.

There it is: The window card for the greatest Broadway musical that never really existed…at least not with Lorenzo Saint DuBois in the lead. This is a prop created for the 1968 movie, The Producers, and the credits for music, choreography and art direction on it are for men who actually filled those functions on the film. The designer listed there, Charles Rosen, has put a number of items from his personal collection up for auction with a firm called Profiles in History. They, in turn, are offering them for purchase via eBay. One is the card seen at left. Another is a page that purports to be Mel Brooks's original lyric sheet for the song, "Springtime for Hitler." There's also a bound copy of the script, a fake Playbill, a poster and a bunch of set design sketches. I'm not going to be bidding but if you'd like to — or if you'd like to window-shop and browse some of the interesting information accompanying these items — here's a link to the auction.

Also up for grabs are props and costumes from a number of science-fiction films and TV shows, including a Superman costume worn by George Reeves, a head of E.T., the robot from the Buck Rogers TV series and other things you can't afford.

But getting back to The Producers: The most interesting item (to me) is this one, which is the original screenplay, dictated by Mel to his assistant, Alfa-Betty Olsen, and studded with hand-written changes by both of them. Ms. Olsen's name may be familiar to you since she later had a decent career as a comedy writer, often teamed with Marshall Efron, and also did some acting…plus, there was a character named after her once on Get Smart. A lot of folks hailed her as the unsung hero of The Producers since she not only helped Brooks assemble the screenplay but did a lot of the casting, as well. This original of the screenplay is apparently from her files, and I hope it doesn't disappear into someone's private collection. It would be nice to see an arrangement made with Brooks and other interested parties to reprint it in a big book, complete with all the cross-outs and altered lines. Flaunt it, baby. Flaunt it.

As is common knowledge in the comic book business, Bob Kane did not draw all the hundreds of Batman comic book stories adorned with his signature. He did illustrate the early stories, albeit with increasing assistance — but early on, the character caught on big and DC wanted to publish more material than Kane could produce, even with folks like Jerry Robinson and George Roussos helping him. So an arrangement was made with Kane and DC's editors began hiring others (like Dick Sprang) to draw Batman stories that Kane had nothing to do with, even though they were usually signed with his name. Later on, Kane decided he didn't want to spend his days slaving away at a drawing table so, as part of a settlement with DC regarding the rights to Batman, he worked out a deal that made this possible.

They negotiated a contract whereby Kane agreed to produce a specified number of pages for DC each month, and to receive a high-enough page rate that he could hire someone else to ghost the work and live very well off the balance. He engaged a wonderful man named Sheldon Moldoff and thereafter, DC sent scripts to Kane, Kane sent them to Moldoff, Moldoff drew the pages and sent them to Kane, and Kane delivered them to DC and picked up the check. Once in a while, especially at the outset, Kane seems to have done a smidgen of art correction on Moldoff's pages — but for a decade or two, the work Kane handed in to DC was 90% Moldoff.

DC often reprints stories that originally appeared with incomplete or erroneous credits. They can usually manage to figure out the writer credits on material that originally appeared without any and to identify uncredited artists. In the past, they have sometimes credited Moldoff on the material he ghosted for Kane…but recently collections do not do this. A hardcover anthology released in the last month lists Bob Kane as the artist on stories that no one disputes are primarily or wholly the work for Sheldon Moldoff. People are writing me to ask why.

I have spoken to no one at DC about this but I'll bet I can guess. DC paid Kane to do that work in the first place. That he subcontracted to someone else is one of those cans of worms that no one is eager to open, and not just because of Bob Kane. A lot of comic book artists over the years have employed assistants or ghosts. To just cite a few examples here, there were a number of artists like Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta and Sal Trapani who were primarily inkers. When someone gave them an assignment to pencil a story, they would often hire a friend to do the pencilling for them — for example, stories that were obviously pencilled by Steve Ditko and inked by Sal Trapani appeared in Strange Adventures #188 and 189. Sometimes, artists would share assignments: A lot of stories inked by Giacoia or Joe Giella feature pages by the other. Gil Kane, when he got behind, would sometimes have Mike Sekowsky pencil a few pages of Green Lantern or Atom. Plenty of guys have employed assistants who could come forward to argue credits, demand royalties, dispute copyrights, etc.

As students of the art form, we can and should identify credits and let nothing stand in our way but certainty. But DC probably has to recognize the legal realities, which is that their business relationship on any given story was with a certain person. Lawyers are probably getting nervous that it could lead to a lot of headaches and perhaps it already has. My guess is that it's neater and safer for them to not get into it. So it's up to us independent historians to identify who done what.

Even a lot of cartoon and comic book buffs don't know the name of Gene Hazelton, but he was one of the top guys in the animation business and he later drew the Flintstones newspaper strip when it was at its peak. Today, another fine Flintstone-drawer, Scott Shaw!, tells us all about the one comic book Gene ever drew. [Warning: The locale to which you'll be redirected sometimes has some very annoying pop-up ads. But Scott's piece is worth braving them.]

The op-ed section of The Christian Science Monitor just ran this article that says, in essence, that it matters very much that the U.S. has been unable to locate the alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that we must not allow the President (any of them) to be able to send us to war simply because he thinks it's a dandy idea. The author of this commentary is a leading conservative spokesguy working for a leading conservative organization but the argument is almost identical to many advanced by liberals, and I believe it to be correct.

MSNBC just fired Michael Savage, a gent whose on-air "political commentary" lived up to his assumed surname. The official reason was that he had crossed some line of propriety when he told an abusive caller to "get AIDS and die." But of course, the real reason he was sacked was that his ratings were in the toilet…far lower than those of the show that had been axed to make room for him. His "act" was always what it was, the network knew the kind of remarks he always made, and that's what they bought in the first place.

The thing I never see discussed with regard to folks like Savage is this: It is an act, at least to some extent. Talk radio, from whence he came, is full of people who realized one day that a certain kind of hysterical ranting, especially keyed to certain issues, was the way to attain fame and fortune. The few times I heard Savage, he struck me as a guy who was well aware that if he didn't fill the airwaves with crazed invective, he'd probably be assistant manager at a Wendy's somewhere. There is a marketplace mentality to almost every kind of entertainment, whereby suppliers imitate what seems to be selling. Right-wing bigotry and trashing liberals is often quite commercial, and Savage has done quite well for himself in the bookstores and on radio with that routine. (When people ask why there's no significant liberal talk radio, I think the answer is simple: No one's gotten rich doing it. As soon as someone does, there'll be dozens more.)

Whether Savage or any of those folks really believe what they spew is almost beside the point. Probably to some extent, they do. It is not uncommon in the world to start believing your own hyperbole. Years ago, I produced a TV special which involved Vince McMahon and a couple of the top W.W.F. wrestlers. The main thing I learned about wrestling was that even though the feuds are scripted, they tend to become true in some ways. We had Hulk Hogan and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper on the show and we literally could not have them in the studio at the same time. The real human beings had grown to detest each other in much the same way that their ring characters then did. I guess if I were being paid to scream at you, call you names and body-slam you to the canvas, you might not become too fond of me.

Tomorrow, if I were lusting for cash and recognition and all the things people get into broadcasting for, I might decide talk radio was my easiest point of access. And I might look at recent success stories and emulate what's working, perhaps kicking it up a notch or three to get attention. It might only mean exaggerating my own viewpoints a bit but it might also mean inverting them. Either way, if I went on the air and had to fill a lot of hours flogging my worldview, keeping it interesting and getting attention, my opinions would change. I'd get reinforcement from those who phoned up to cheer me on, and another kind of reinforcement from the jerks who called up to tell me off. If attacking Hillary Clinton (to pick an easy target) got me better ratings, better money, book deals, etc., I might spend a lot of time attacking her and finding reasons to attack her. And since I didn't want to feel like a complete hypocrite when I went to bed each night, I'd probably decide that, yes, I might be exaggerating occasionally in order to keep it interesting but that I really believed what I was spending my life yelling about.

This kind of thinking — the motive of success over sense — seems so obvious to me when I see a Michael Savage, an Ann Coulter, a Bob Grant, etc. I even see it in liberal pundits and performers, though there's still more money in demonizing Clintons than there is in Bush-bashing, so there's less of that at the moment. But it will change. Do we really think that Arianna Huffington experienced a sudden catharsis that moved her from all the way from the right-wing to the left? Or did she maybe realize that the conservative punditry was getting overpopulated, that she could not compete with the Coulters of the world and that it might be smart to stake out the "attractive female activist" side of that street before it got too crowded? Pendulums do swing and there will soon be a liberal Michael Savage and — who knows? — it might even be Michael Savage.

Eric Gjovaag operates a terrific Wizard of Oz website and he writes to correct a dumb error I made in the item before last and have already fixed (I typed the name of Jack Haley Jr. when I meant plain ol' Jack Haley). He also informs me…

As for Ray Bolger, the dancer he saw was Fred Stone, who had first gained fame as the Scarecrow in the original 1902 stage production of The Wizard of Oz. Bolger didn't see Stone in The Wizard, however, but a later show. So far as I've heard, by the way, the story is true — at least, I haven't heard anyone say it wasn't. Bolger's main argument for playing the Scarecrow was that his style of dancing was much more fluid and suited to the Scarecrow than the Tin Woodman. I doubt he suffered much less from the make-up, even the Scarecrow make-up and costume were a pain in the keister…

I'm under the impression that a number of folks who knew Bolger believed that his main reasons for wanting to play the Scarecrow were the ones I cited. At the moment, the only "source" for this I can recall was an actor I knew who had worked a lot with Bolger, but I believe I read it elsewhere, as well. In any case, the Scarecrow was obviously the big dancing role and it sure looks like a more comfy costume. If you had to spend months under hot lights in one of those costumes, which one would you have preferred? But thanks, Eric. Wonderful website you have there.

Those of us who attended the wonderful seminars at the Museum of Television and Radio were quite familiar with its president, Robert Batscha. Dr. Batscha did as much as any human alive to preserve our broadcasting heritage and to find old tapes and kinescopes and make them available to historians and fans. How sad to find his obituary in the newspaper.

As we all know, the late Mr. Ebsen was at one point slated to play the Tin Man in the 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz. Actually, before that, he was going to play the Scarecrow and Ray Bolger was going to play the Tin Man. But Mr. Bolger announced that he had his heart set on playing the Scarecrow and told some tale about how he had once seen a great dancer on stage doing a Scarecrow Dance and ever since that moment, had dreamed of someday playing a Dancing Scarecrow. It seems to be commonly believed that the story was malarkey; that Bolger wanted the Scarecrow role because (a) it was a bigger part, (b) it was a better showcase for a dancer, and (c) it would involve much less painful make-up.

Whatever Ray's motives, Buddy agreed to swap and, just to prove that no good deed goes you-know-what, Ebsen nearly died from the original version of the make-up. He wound up in a hospital and Jack Haley stepped in to play the Tin Man in a much less lethal form.

Anyway, this is all interesting but it's not the interesting fact I thought I should post. The interesting fact is that the pre-recording of the songs had been done before Ebsen was replaced. The Tin Man's solo was recorded anew with Jack Haley but none of the other songs were. So when you hear the foursome singing, "We're Off to See the Wizard" in the movie, you're hearing the voices of Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr…and Buddy Ebsen.

Not much to say about Buddy Ebsen, who is dead at age 95, except didn't he have a great couple of careers there? Not many performers work so much and for so long. Not many star in three successful TV shows — in his case, Davy Crockett, Beverly Hillbillies and Barnaby Jones — and are so universally loved. I'm not sure what Mr. Ebsen's last performance was but it may have been a sketch he did for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They were doing little fake previews of TV shows of the future and one was something like Barnaby Jones Fights Martians…with Buddy Ebsen still in the title role.

I'm guessing he was around 90 when he taped the spot and the best part of it was the whoop of joy from the audience when they saw him, even though the segment was pre-recorded. Maybe Jay will rerun it tonight. (Hey, Marvin! If you read this in time, go down the hall and suggest it to someone.)

I met Buddy Ebsen a few times, never for very long. He was charming and polite and rabidly right-wing, though not the way a Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter does it. Buddy's worldview was pretty much locked into 1940. That version of America had worked for him and he didn't see why it shouldn't work for everybody. It was pointless to debate him and no one attempted it, not even when he referred to John Wayne as a "war hero." I think Buddy could have said the world was flat and everyone would just have smiled at him and nodded.

I took one of the occasions to ask him about Walt Disney, who was a good friend and employer to him over the years. I'd always heard that the Disneyland animatronics started with an idea of Walt's to create a robotic Buddy Ebsen that could dance for people. At the particular moment I brought it up, Mr. Ebsen was being assaulted by someone else asking geeky questions about the Hillbillies show: Was Jethro really that dumb? Why didn't Elly Mae wear a bikini in the cee-ment pond? Stuff like that. At the mention of Disney, Ebsen lit up — and not just because he was freed from the previous line of questioning. He spoke warmly of his good friend Walt calling him every so often and saying, "Will you come out and dance for us?" Walt didn't have a choreographer and didn't seem to understand (or care) that you don't just tell a dancer to dance…you tell him what he's supposed to dance about. But Buddy went out to the studio several times and did something in front of Walt's cameras, and later he'd go back and see various puppets clumsily replicate what he'd done. He told me, "When I go out to Disneyland and I see all those puppets like Abraham Lincoln and the bears performing, I think 'I started that.' But you know, Walt never did get a puppet to dance like I did."

Years ago, before the Internet was the place to be, some of us communicated via computer bulletin boards — the kind you accessed by plugging your 2400 baud modem into your phone line. I operated a couple of different Bulletin Board Systems that catered mainly to writers. This was great because I made a lot of friends and the services did a lot of good for a lot of people. It was occasionally bad because if you get a batch of writers together, even online, egos and feuds erupt. On a computer forum, there are always a few who will start posting messages that some individual — who may or may not be participating in or even aware of the B.B.S. — is a liar, a thief, a plagiarist, a drug user, a sexual deviant, etc. This kind of thing happened a number of times with different players and different accusations of perversion and/or unethical, possibly criminal activity. Usually, the "flame" messages were posted late at night, often on Friday or Saturdays, and it took me a while to realize that many were probably posted under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Almost invariably, I — as the sober operator of the system — wound up in the middle of the fray. In theory, I was just supplying the hardware and configuring the software…but if Writer #1 slandered Writer #2, Writer #2 would usually direct some or even all of his outrage at me. Often, Writer #2 threatened to sue me or slug me. Once, the insulted writer was also a producer who announced he would do everything in his power to destroy my career because his had been attacked on a system run on a computer that I owned. In all of these cases, by the way, you could count on Writer #1 — the one who composed the offending message — not coming to my defense, not offering to help out in any way. He posted the message but it was my problem.

No lawsuits were ever filed but when I set up and briefly ran a system for the Writers Guild, suits were often threatened and I found myself consulting with a number of lawyers. I kept asking them if one could really be sued if one operated a public computer-based forum on which someone felt they'd been defamed. The response I got was invariably double-talk. For some reason, most attorneys were unwilling to admit what I finally realized was the truth; that it was a new area of law with very few precedents, and that no one had any idea how some court might rule on the inevitable test cases.

Now, more than two decades later, the Internet is a way of life and the laws of libel or slander (I'm not even sure which it is on the 'net) have yet to fully shake down. As this article by John W. Dean makes clear, the law is still thrashing it out. That it's still going back and forth convinces me I was wise to get out of the B.B.S. business when I did.

That's right: Another update. We have moved the Cartoon Voice Panel from 3:30 Saturday afternoon to 4:00! That's 4:00 PM, Saturday afternoon, July 19 in Room 6B. We've also added Kathy Garver to the gathering. You may know Kathy from her role as Cissy on the TV classic, Family Affair, but she's also an accomplished performer of animation voices, including roles on Spider-Man and Super-Friends. (While we're on the subject, here's a link to her web page.)

The change allows me time to host another panel that day…and yes, I know I'm doing five in a row but I couldn't turn this one down. It's an hour with three of the most important figures in the history of science fiction…fantasy master Ray Bradbury, historian/editor Forrest J Ackerman, and agent/editor Julius Schwartz. I'll tell you a little more about this one in a day or three, but you might want to jot it down now on your calendar. It's from 3:00 to 4:00 the same afternoon but in Room 6A.

Here's the current list of the panels I'm doing at the convention.

I was unable to find that great website devoted to The Music Man but a reader of this site did. Here's the link and while you're there, check out the memos from the director, the production budget and some audio files of Meredith Willson and his spouse performing the score. (Thanks, Lee!)

At least, this one's recommended if you're interested in reports that the Bush administration cited an obviously-erroneous intelligence report in justifying the need to invade Iraq. Here's an article by the gent who was dispatched to investigate that claim before it was made.

The other day, I recommended that if you wanted to squander at least a half-hour of your life, you could go over to the Garfield website and play a walkaround adventure game. It's called Garfield's Scary Scavenger Hunt and it's very clever but not so involved that you'll spend the rest of your life glued to the keyboard trying to solve it. (Anyone here remember a computer game called Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time? Several comic books I wrote would have had a few more issues had it not been for that game.)

Anyway, the Garfield game is winnable and it isn't a bad way to introduce kids to the concept of computer gaming. But I'm also aware that sometimes even the most brilliant of us can get trapped in these things, unable to figure out how to win but also unable to stop thinking about it until we do. So I've written out the solution — a "walkthrough" that will tell you what you have to do to win so you can get on with your life. If you need a copy, drop me an e-mail.