Monthly Archives: July 2004

One of the "most-heard" voices in the world, Jackson Beck, passed away this morning, five days after his 92nd birthday. Beck's list of credits was staggering. In the Golden Age of Radio, he was heard on dozens of shows including Easy Aces, The March of Time, Mark Trail, Grand Central Station and dozens more, but he was most identified in the title roles on The Cisco Kid and Philo Vance and as the narrator on The Adventures of Superman. In the world of animation, he was not the first voice of Popeye's arch-nemesis Bluto but he voiced more cartoons in that role than anyone else, continuing on through the years when Bluto morphed into Brutus (as explained here).

He was also the voice of Buzzy the Crow and of King Leonardo and his arch-nemesis, Biggy Rat among many other animation jobs and he appeared in many non-animated films. Woody Allen, for instance, used him as the narrator of his first feature, Take the Money and Run, and in key roles in other films. (In Radio Days, he dubbed the voice of the radio newsman reporting on the little girl who'd fallen down a well.) Mostly though, he did commercials — thousands of them, including long associations with Brawny paper towels, Thompson's Water Seal and Little Caesar's Pizza — in one of the longest, most prolific careers any announcer has ever had. Many who met him at Old Time Radio conventions (where he often participated in re-creations of classic shows) knew him as a friendly, affable gentleman. Many more just knew the sound of him. Want to hear that sound? Here's an audio sample of Mr. Beck doing the opening for a 1966 Saturday morning series. It's a voice we'll all miss.

They're saying that as soon as the Democratic Convention is over, the White House will announce that this year's federal deficit will top $420 billion…a new record. The buzz is that (a) they're waiting to announce this so that Kerry cannot use that statistic in his speech and (b) that this will be spun as encouraging news since they had once forecast a hundred billion more.

The first point puzzles me a bit. How difficult would it be for Kerry to say, "The White House has so mismanaged this economy that they will soon have to announce the highest deficit in the history of this country"? Does he need a precise number to hammer them on this point?

I don't think the "not as bad as we feared" defense will get very far, except with folks who are already determined to support Bush no matter what and need something to say. I think it was Barry Goldwater who once said that you can't leave your supporters without a way to defend you. If the news is bad, you have to give them the "spin" (he didn't use that word) so they don't look too foolish for standing with you. One of the main things that eroded Nixon's support during the Watergate mess was that people who yearned to believe and promote "his side" of it often did not know what it was and were left speechless when his critics attacked. I sure get the feeling that a lot of Bush defenders aren't happy with the excuses they've been given to make for the deficit, the sloppy pre-war intelligence, the claims of torture, etc…

If you want to know why Teresa Heinz Kerry told that reporter to "shove it," you'll want to read Joe Conason.

C-Span has a video of the Barack Obama speech up on their website. There's a slightly better copy and the text on the Chicago Tribune website, though you have to register (it's free) to access it. This link will take most browsers directly to the speech, assuming they have Real Player installed. This link will take you to the page with the text and a link to the video.

To all those who wrote to tell me that Barack Obama was a great speaker and that I should watch him: You were right. I'll post a link to it when there is one.

The article I wrote for Variety about Comic-Con International can be read online here. Contrary to its byline, I am not on the Variety staff.

Ian Brill talks about what he did in San Diego.

Democrat delegates dancing in the aisles to "Johnny B. Goode." Why do we need to see this?

My cleaning lady missed it so I just showed her Bill Clinton's speech last night at the Democratic Convention. I liked it more the second time, though I still don't quite understand one line…

Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America say to him what he has always said to America: Send Me.

Doesn't that passage contain a little of what that eminent authority, Daffy Duck, once described as Pronoun Trouble? I think what the former president meant to say was more like this…

Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America take him up on his generous and brave offer, "Send Me!"

But despite that, I liked the speech more this time. And it struck me for months now, we've been hearing that Hillary had this secret plan to swoop down and snatch the presidential nomination (and later, the vice-presidential nomination) or that she and Bill were plotting to sabotage Kerry so that he wouldn't be running for a second term in '08 when she plans to run for president. One reader of this weblog has sent me dozens of Hillary-related conspiracy theories…and I don't see any evidence that any of these alleged plans were ever put into play.

I hope the Democrats send Bill Clinton out to give as many speeches for Kerry as he has in him. He's a much more interesting speaker than anyone else we're likely to hear in this election. Even Bush supporters seem to be urging everyone to look past their guy's obvious discomfort with the English language. Earlier on MSNBC, I heard someone try to spin that as a positive, the idea being that his inability to give a polished speech proves that he's a "regular guy." I don't fault anyone for being born into wealth and privilege — this year, I'll probably vote for someone who was — but let's not get any more ridiculous than absolutely necessary.

(Here's a link to the text of Clinton's speech and a non-C-Span video version.)

Here's a report on the Comic-Con International by Randy Lander. And yes, I've decided to only link to coverage that mentions at least one of my panels.

One odd thing that happens to me at comic book conventions is that I mysteriously lose my ability to recognize people. Even when I encounter someone I've known for twenty-plus years, I find myself staring at their badge to double-check who they are.

I think it's connected to a telephone habit of mine which can best be described by example. I'm calling my friend Joe who recently divorced a lady named Susan and married a lady named Betty. (This is a hypothetical case.) As I'm dialing, I remind myself that if a lady answers, I should address her as Betty, not as Susan. Then a lady answers and I suddenly think to myself, "Wait! Do I have them reversed?" And I start stammering, "H-hello…uh…" because I am momentarily afraid to address Betty as Betty, even though I know her name is Betty.

At a non-convention gathering, I have very little trouble recognizing and greeting people by name. At a convention though, dozens and dozens of folks I barely know say howdy to me and I start getting them confused with those I do know. Someone says, "Hi, Mark," and as an involuntary reflex, I instantly think, "Is this someone I'm supposed to know?" and my eyes make a desperate grab for their badge…even if the person is among my best friends. If, as occasionally happens, they're wearing a badge with someone else's name on it, I either address them as somebody else or freeze up because I sense something is amiss. This year in San Diego, a lot of people were wearing badges that were not clipped-on or pinned but were instead on a little lanyard around their necks. This made it easy for the badge to be backwards and, just my luck, about 85% of them were. That really throws me off.

All this is my way of apologizing to you if you were one of many people I ran into and immediately looked at your badge. I may or may not have recognized your lovely face but if I did, that rarely stopped me from eyeing the badge, just to make 100% certain before I spoke that the name in my head matched the person before me. It's not personal. It's just what conventions do to me.

Several folks have written to suggest I catch tonight's speech by Senate candidate Barack Obama…so I will.

Watching as much of the Democratic Convention as I could stand, I found myself longing for the days when conventions involved at least a smidgen of suspense. You still had all those boring speeches where the speakers said — over and over in increasingly less colorful manner — what everyone in the hall wanted to hear. But at least you had cutaways to a bigger story about who'd get the nomination(s) or what kind of floor fights were looming. Alas, in '68 and even more in '72, America looked at the Democratic gathering, got the idea that those guys couldn't run their own convention (let alone, the country) and moved towards the G.O.P. That led to the notion that conventions had to be rigidly stage-managed and all the battles settled before they began. In 1972, you also had the embarrassment of a vice-presidential pick who had not been properly vetted. After Tom Eagleton, presidential candidates knew that they had to select their running mates well in advance and after exhaustive research…so that part of the conventions was prearranged, as well. Which left us with just the boring speeches.

Most were pretty tedious tonight, hitting all the talking points but not accomplishing much beyond that. Jimmy Carter said some pretty scathing things about George W. Bush but did so in such a bland monotone that he failed to excite a convention hall full of people obsessed with seeing Bush defeated. Al Gore was better…but the trouble with Al Gore is that he's Al Gore. No matter what he talks about, you can never get far from the fact that this guy got more votes and was only denied the White House on questionable grounds.

I kept waiting for Bill Clinton to come out and show everyone how it's done. While he easily had the best speech of the night, he failed to do more than articulate the shortcomings of the Republican party. The case for John Kerry, which I keep waiting to hear, never got much deeper than that he's a helluva guy, a war hero…and he isn't George W. Bush. That's enough for much of America, maybe even most of America…but I'm not sure it's enough for an electoral majority.

Don't think I'm going to watch tomorrow night, except maybe for Ron Reagan's speech. Then on Wednesday, I'll watch John Edwards who, I'm guessing, will tell us that John Kerry is a helluva guy, a war hero and that he's not George W. Bush. Thursday, I'll watch Kerry and maybe Max Cleland. (Here's the schedule.) If you're interested in any of these and miss them on TV, C-Span has online clips available for a while. So far, only Bill Clinton is worth the effort.

Reports on the Comic-Con are popping up all over the Internet. Check out Ken Plume's coverage over at IGN Filmforce. And here's Greg Hatcher at Comic Book Resources taking in the Golden/Silver Age Panel. If I see any good reports that don't mention me, I may list them, too.

A reader named Paul Lewis sends this message that I figured was worth a public reply…

Should I still want to go to the San Diego CC? Even though I've never been there before, the horror stories I'm hearing make me want to pass. Has the Con simply outgrown the convention center and San Diego? What I don't understand is why the con is held in a city that isn't a major hub airport. I wish Chicago or Dallas was the site of the industry's largest convention, then the airfare would be reasonable for all.

Fast answer: No. Do not let any "horror stories" stop you from attending next year's Comic Con International. Most of them spring from not planning ahead. I mean, if you decide to go at the last minute, you're going to pay serious kruggerands for your lodging and wind up with an ugly commute. But the travel problems are no worse than vacationing anywhere in Southern California in July, and the tales of a crowded Exhibit Hall pertain mainly to a few hours on Saturday when you ought to be upstairs watching one of my panels. (Someone sent a tip: Forget about seeing the middle of the hall on Saturday…but things aren't bad on the far ends.)

I don't think the con has outgrown the San Diego facilities but obviously, if each year is 20% above the previous, that day will come. A lot of the talk this year about the crowds had to do with fretting about what will happen then. Perhaps it is nothing to worry about. Not that long ago, if you'd told people it would reach 80,000-100,000, they'd have predicted an Armadgeddon that has never come to pass. (In fact, I heard several comments this year that on-site registration never went smoother, and I did not see any block-length lines as were common in '03.) The folks who run the convention have proven very resourceful at crowd control, and I know they're working on it. So please don't let anything I say here discourage you from attending. Just do a little planning, get your room early and understand going in that there is no way you can see everything.

Why the con is in San Diego is a long story involving a gent named Shel Dorf, who founded it in 1970 and who lived (and still lives) in San Diego. For a long time it was there because Shel was there and because the other folks who operated the convention were there. You do have major conventions in other cities and there's kind of an understanding among some cons not to invade one another's turf. There's also the matter of facilities. The Comic-Con International is very important to San Diego and the folks there in charge of luring conventions to the city offer terms that probably make it appealing to stay. You can't just up and move a convention to another burg. You have to find available space on the desired dates, then negotiate a thousand different things ranging from hotel prices to facility fees and civic support. That is sometimes difficult to do.

I should also add that while airfare to San Diego may not be as cheap for some as it is to Chicago, a pretty substantial percentage of Comic-Con attendance is folks driving down from Los Angeles, including a generous portion of the TV/movie biz. Take that away and you'd have a very different convention…maybe not the industry's largest and maybe not too dissimilar from others that already exist. Even though I may carp about traffic on the 5, there's a reason so many of us make that drive each year.