Monthly Archives: May 2005

Jim Lampley writes about steroids in the sports world. My own feeling is that this is a bogus controversy that keeps popping up because it bothers a relatively small group of people. And every time it does, the folks in power arbitrarily humiliate and punish a few token offenders, pretend they've taken a good first step towards obliterating the problem…and then things quickly go right back to the way they were before.

Jason Czeskleba writes to ask…

On a message board I frequent, news about Mr. Gorshin's death has sparked a debate about whether the Batman TV show saved the Batman comics from cancellation. I'm not a participant in the debate, just an observer, but I'd never heard that claim before and now I'm curious if there's any truth to it. I was always under the impression that the Batman books may have been in danger of cancellation during Jack Schiff's tenure, but had recovered in sales after Julie Schwartz took over. Neither side in this debate I've been watching has been able to cite a definitive source for their claims. So I thought I'd ask you…

That's what I'm here for. Sales on Batman and Detective Comics slipped quite a bit in the 1960-1963 period under editor Jack Schiff and as this was a period when the Superman books were gaining, that was a cause for concern at DC. The numbers I've seen suggest that the bat-books weren't actually close to cancellation — many comics were selling less — but obviously, if sales on any book are dropping and nothing's done, that day will come. To ward it off, they did an editorial swap: Julius Schwartz took over those two books in '64 and Schiff got two of Schwartz's — Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures. The third title Schiff had been editing — World's Finest Comics — was shifted over to Superman editor Mort Weisinger.

Schwartz didn't turn his two books into best sellers but he did reverse the downward sales trend. Later, when the TV show came on, sales shot way up but by then, Batman and Detective were off the Endangered List. So no, the show didn't save the comic. The main effect, apart from a nice cash flow, was that the heat from the ABC series enhanced the value of DC Comics and led to its acquisition by a corporation, Kinney National Services. Nothing in the industry was quite the same after that.

By the way, I picked the above photo to run because it always struck me as funny. It's a good thing those folks are wearing masks because otherwise, someone might be able to recognize them. I have a hunch the one at right might be The Joker but of course, with the mask, who can tell?

This one's from someone who signs his message "Greg"…

Bill Maher is silly, is not that clever, and in the past has had some flat out offensive things to say. I hope he keeps revealing himself.

We don't go to war, or not go to war based on whether it's popular or not.

We don't have a draft. This president will not have a draft. I'll even predict (or be glad to make a wager!) that the the next administration won't have a draft, either.

Your friend — the one that didn't value the lives of certain people? He had, I'm sure you'd agree, an uncommonly stupid point of view. No one I know that supports what we're doing in the Middle East sees things that way. If anyone does see things that way, that kind of opinion is so ridiculous we shouldn't allow them into the discussion.

Our all-volunteer force has faced shortages before, and we'll be able to deal with it again.

We're going to be in Iraq for years to come, and I hope all of our troops do their jobs over there as best as they can.

This is not the kind of thing that people can really debate but I do find Bill Maher (generally) clever. I don't know which things he's said that you found offensive but I don't think it's possible these days to say anything of substance about important topics without offending someone. Some of the things for which he's been blasted were, I thought, unpleasant to hear but true. Which is not to say I agree with everything the guy says…but you'd be a pretty sorry topical comedian if you never get anyone upset. Either that or you're Mark Russell.

No, we don't enter into a war based on popularity polls but the will of the American people is never irrelevant to the workings of government, nor is it unrelated to the conduct of a war. If and when it's perceived that extending the war in Iraq will cause an elected official to not get re-elected, something will change.

Barring some unexpected world crisis, I don't think we're going to see the draft reinstated…but I suspect we are going to see a number of programs and laws that will pressure young men and women into military service. A friend of mine has been predicting that the Bush administration will soon invoke "ways to raise taxes that they can argue are not technically tax increases." I hope that's not so, and I hope we're not about to see ways they can press people into military service that they can argue do not constitute a draft. But I have the fear we are. We're already seeing soldiers having their tours of duty extended beyond what was planned, even if it keeps them in Iraq past the date they were scheduled to leave the Army. It's not exactly a draft but it is a move towards involuntary service. (Come to think of it, I wonder if the shortfall in recruiting has something to do with that. If I were thinking of signing up, the fact that they can just suddenly extend my tour of duty would make me think twice.)

I agree that we'll probably be able to increase volunteerism and I hope we do it, at least in part, by paying soldiers better, giving them better medical care, etc. It always struck me that we could improve our military by making some very minor cuts in what we spend for hardware (or even just trimming military pork) and diverting that money to the people who actually fly the planes, drive the tanks and so on. Someday, if I get a moment here, I'll tell the story of how, many moons ago, I expressed this view at a political seminar and it prompted an outburst of near-apoplexy on the part of Bob Dornan, who was one of the panelists.

Anyway, you're right: We're going to be in Iraq a long time. I'm pretty confident our troops will do the best job they possibly can. Wish I was as confident about the people giving them their marching orders.

One of the Gorshin obit photos that was moved by press services and featured on many websites today was the one at left from the Batman TV series. It shows Frank as The Riddler, menacing an actress named Susan Silo. As it happened, I had lunch today with Susan and she recalled Frank — as has everyone who knew him — as a gracious, talented man who smoked too much. They worked together a number of times over the years and she was always impressed with his skills. There was something about the guy — the way he commanded audience attention — that just set him apart from a lot of people who think they can do Brando. Some of their working together was in the voiceover category. One thing I should have mentioned about Gorshin was that he occasionally did v.o. work, including animation.

He was pretty good at it, though since his main career often took him out of town, he didn't do a lot in this area. In the last few years, he was one of those called upon to replicate Mel Blanc voices — Foghorn Leghorn in the 1997 short, "Pullet Surprise," for instance. I once asked him if he was ever hired to loop any of the actors he was famous for impersonating in his act — Lancaster or Douglas, perhaps? Frank chuckled and said, "Yeah, I'm in a couple of their movies but I did such a good job, I can't recognize me."

Bill Maher's HBO show is on hiatus 'til August but they went out with a terrific "New Rules" segment on the last episode. You can read the whole thing here but let me just post a couple of paragraphs from the middle where it really began to get good…

New Rule: The people in America who are most in favor of the Iraq war must now go there and fight it. The Army missed its recruiting goal by 42% last month. More people joined the Michael Jackson Fan Club. "We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit." And now we need warm bodies. We need warm bodies like Paula Abdul needs…warm bodies!

Now, I know you're thinking, but, Bill, I already do my part with the "Support Our Troops" magnet I have on my Chevy Tahoe. How much more can one man give? Well, here's an intriguing economic indicator. It's been over a year since they graduated, but neither of the Bush twins has been able to find work. Why don't they sign up? Do they hate America or just freedom in general?

I don't think this is as silly as some might have it. I knew a lot of people who were utterly gung-ho for the Vietnam War until it touched their lives in some way. Before a loved one was drafted, it was the duty of Young Americans to go and fight and maybe die over there. Once there was even the chance that one of those Young Americans might not be a total stranger — maybe even (gasp) a family member — the war was wrong, sending men to maybe die in it was wrong, et cetera, et cetera…

I could absolutely respect a consistent pro-Vietnam War position and at one time, I had one. At least, I was for that war long enough to march for it a couple of times. My position changed…oddly enough, around the time I knew I would not be drafted. Still, after that, I did not think ill of many who were advancing arguments in which I had lost faith. They believed what they believed, regardless of the personal sacrifice that might be involved, and to the extent that there are "good wars" in this world, they flow from that premise. The people I couldn't respect were the ones whose positions seemed to shift solely because they suddenly stood to lose something or someone. There was a lot of talk then about not having reverence for our troops and I felt that a dandy way to not do that was to view them not as real human beings but as expendable drones. The pro-war acquaintance with whom I argued the most after my conversion seemed to think winning that war was worth any amount of lives as long as they were poor, mostly minority, and he didn't know the fallen by name.

Polls suggest that somewhere between 57% and 54% of Americans do not think this war is worth fighting, versus 41% to 44% who think it is. I wonder what that latter number would be if we were to reinstate The Draft and arrange it so that it was a pure lottery with no exemptions, no deferments and no way for Americans to be certain that they or their family members wouldn't have to go. I'm guessing something close to single digits.

Two important articles over on Slate. Fred Kaplan tells of a recent U.S. military assault in Iraq where, he says, we did a lot more harm than good. And Jacob Weisberg discusses the Newsweek flap and the Pot/Kettle Factor.

A website called the Comics Foundry has a very good interview with Neal Adams. It's about being a comic book artist but much of what he says in it has relevance to almost anyone who's out there trying to build a career as any kind of creative talent. Here's a link to Part One and here's a link to Part Two.

Funny guy, that Frank Gorshin. The first time I saw him perform live was at a Bar Mitzvah reception for a classmate of mine. The classmate was a relative of a gent named Arthur Ellen who was a somewhat famous hypnotist of the day, performing on TV and asserting he could help people become what they wanted to be. Ellen got up at the event to put on a little demonstration and somehow — I never understood how or why — Frank Gorshin appeared on the little platform with him and preempted the hypnosis by doing about twenty minutes of impressions for the crowd: Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, the works.

I subsequently heard Gorshin on some talk show say that he owed a large chunk of his career to Mr. Ellen's therapy, so I guess that was the connection. But one thing hypnosis didn't do for Frank Gorshin was to help him stop smoking. Every time I was around him, he was going from one cigarette to the next. Once at a comic book convention, we were chatting and Frank was smoking. A security guard came by and politely pointed out a No Smoking sign. Frank apologized as if he hadn't seen it, stubbed out the Marlboro and then, the second the guard was gone, out came the pack of cigarettes again. Without even pausing in conversation, maybe not even aware he was doing it, Gorshin lit up another. So I'm not all that surprised that Cause of Death is listed as lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia. As I mentioned here, reporting on a luncheon where he was honored, everyone was urging him to quit and he said he was trying.

I enjoyed talking with Frank at comic conventions and even interviewing him once or twice in front of audiences. Naturally, everyone was asking him about playing The Riddler on the Batman TV show and some even asked him about the one episode of the original Star Trek in which he appeared. He was polite about it, in large part because he was selling autographed photos from those gigs. But he vastly preferred talking about the other 98% of his career. You could see him light up (as a performer and as a smoker) when, after answering the 93rd question about Batman, one of us would mention something where he didn't wear tights, especially his recent projects. I saw him twice playing Nathan Detroit in a touring company of Guys and Dolls with Jack Jones as Sky Masterson and Maureen McGovern as Adelaide. Apart from the fact that Nathan occasionally lapsed into a Dean Martin impression, Frank was very good…and very glad that I'd seen and praised his performance.

The core of his career was, of course, his stand-up act and I had the pleasure of seeing the whole thing once, and with a full orchestra behind him. It wasn't all impressions. He sang and he told stories and he even did a little dramatic moment — a monologue about an actor learning he's been fired and what it meant to his life. As a mimic, Gorshin had an uncanny way of getting inside Big Stars and capturing their essence, but that was only part of what he did.

My sympathies go out to his family and also to his close friend and agent, Fred Wostbrock, who took very good care of him. Gorshin's final performance will be broadcast on Thursday's episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigations but I'll bet you we see the man in reruns forever.

Brian Montopoli makes some important points about the current Newsweek scandal.

Frazetta: Painting With Fire is running many times this week on the Independent Film Channel. This is a documentary on the great painter of fantasy scenes and women with awesome rear ends. Here's what I wrote about it a year ago. If you haven't seen it and you get IFC, this would be a good opportunity.

Several folks have asked me to keep them posted of interesting folks who pop up on the old What's My Line? reruns on GSN. If you taped or TiVoed this morning's episode (i.e., the one running right this moment), you saw Jacques Cousteau and William Bendix. Tomorrow morning, we should have William Holden and the June Taylor Dancers. Friday morning, Claudette Colbert and director George Stevens are Mystery Guests. Then, jumping ahead past less exciting names, next Monday morning is an episode with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and the two men who wrote My Fair Lady, Gigi and Camelot among other wonders, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. If I forget, someone should remind me to mention again that next Thursday morning, May 26, there's an episode with Jerry Lewis (newly divorced from Dean) on the panel, and the Mystery Guest is Walt Disney.

Also: Next weekend's "classic" rerun of Saturday Night Live is the show from October 23, 1976 — a second season episode and the first time Steve Martin hosted. It's not a particularly memorable show, sketch-wise, nor is it helped a lot by musical guest Kinky Friedman. The best moments are to be found in a couple of stand-up spots by Mr. Martin that will remind you what he did well back when he did that kind of thing. Legend has it that Lorne Michaels had once resisted booking the guy because he thought his act was too silly…but Martin impressed all and was immediately invited back to host again. He returned to the post just nine shows later and made many memorable appearances thereafter.

The following weekend, the rerun is from May 22, 1982 — one of the Eddie Murphy/Joe Piscopo years — with guest host Olivia Newton-John. The highlight is probably a duet on "Ebony and Ivory" by Stevie Wonder (Murphy) and Frank Sinatra (Piscopo), and Graham Chapman makes a couple of brief, odd appearances in other sketches.

The classes sometimes seem a bit overpriced but there are some intriguing lecturers at The Learning Annex. If you're in the Los Angeles area and interested in getting into the writing of animated cartoons, my old buddy Jack Enyart (who's written a lot of them) is conducting a one night lesson on June 1. And on July 28, you can pay $40 to have Stan Lee teach you how to be Stan Lee.

Still under Ye Olde Deadline, I haven't the time to write much here today. But Matthew Yglesias pretty well sums up the way I view this whole Newsweek scandal. I'm afraid I'm not much impressed when people only get outraged over the mistakes of their political enemies and overlook similar (and more serious) screw-ups by their own side.

Turns out that what I identified as an R. Crumb self portrait over on Tom Spurgeon's site is actually a Crumb drawing of Allen Ginsberg. This is not quite as big an error as Newsweek just owned up to but I was wrong. On the other hand, I don't think it looks very much like any picture I've ever seen of Allen Ginsberg. Then again, the few times I've met Crumb, I was struck by how he looked nothing like the way he drew himself.

Just saw a paper copy of today's Los Angeles Times — yes, they still make them — and there's a different R. Crumb self-portrait accompanying Crumb's little op-ed piece. That is, it's different from the one on Tom Spurgeon's site.

You have to really be into obscure comic book credits to know the name of Al Kurzrok. He worked briefly for Marvel around 1970, mostly as a letterer but he also wrote a few stories for them, including five issues of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, a couple of western stories and some other things that never saw print. He also worked for a time for Harvey Comics…and even I'm not all that sure what else, if anything, he did — though I know this obituary gets his comic book credits all wrong. Most interesting is that he left that world behind, went into Psychology and occasionally tapped into his old skills to advance his new career. (I found out about all this via Tom Spurgeon's fine news blog, The Comics Reporter. Tom also has up a drawing of R. Crumb which I guess is the drawing that goes with the L.A. Times article just mentioned.)