Monthly Archives: February 2006

An outfit called Classic Comics Press has just announced that they'll be reprinting the full run of Leonard Starr's great newspaper strip, Mary Perkins On Stage. I think that's its official name. It's my understanding that some newspapers labelled it On Stage, some called it Mary Perkins and some used the double-barrelled moniker. By any handle, it's most deserving of collection.

The strip began on February 10, 1957 and ran until September 9, 1979. Some readers probably skipped it over, thinking it was just another soap opera. While it was occasionally that, Starr was quite determined to give himself something more exciting to draw than people kissing and crying. The storylines roamed the world, verging into taut adventure and intrigue, and those who followed one sequence usually got hooked and stuck with it forever — a modest but fiercely loyal readership. It also didn't hurt that Starr, along with his friend and occasional collaborator Stan Drake (The Heart of Juliet Jones) drew the best-looking women on the comic strip page. I'm looking forward to seeing them collected even though this could be another time I'm signing on to buy a series of books for many, many years.

Number one in a series.

Folks write in now and then ask me what current comics I'd recommend. There are many but today's plug is for Supernatural Law, a clever strip by the best-dressed man in comics, Batton Lash. You can experience it two ways — on paper and online — and while I prefer it on paper, the online version is free and it'll at least give you a chance to sample the exploits of Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre.

The second storyline for the webcomic, "The Life-Partner of Frankenstein," has recently been completed and can now be read in full at the Supernatural Law website. In the story, a descendant of the original Dr. Frankenstein carries on the life-creation work of his family…and we all know what trouble that always causes. In this case, the trouble is a monster named Henry, who craves a mate so Doc Frankenstein whips one up and she's named Freda but then…oh, just go read it. Don't let me spoil it for you. You'll enjoy it. Batton blends fantasy and law better than anyone this side of Justice Scalia.

I don't intend to fill this site with medical news since mine is usually just as boring as yours. However, this story is too good not to share…

This morning, I was back in an embarrassing gown at Cedars-Sinai, having a procedure which is known as an Upper G.I. Endoscopy. Basically, they knock you out and stick a little camera down your throat to check and see if all is well in your stomach. This is not as unpleasant as it sounds, it's over in a jif, and all reports from within the Evanier tummy were good news.

So it's before they wheel me in to have it done. I'm lying on a rolling hospital bed/gurney with an I.V. in one arm and a machine that constantly takes my blood pressure strapped to the other. The nurse draws the curtain back and the man on the next gurney over can see me and I can see him. He is a rather well-known TV personality-actor, and someone I have met briefly on a few occasions. He recognizes me, I recognize him. We exchange greetings and he tells me he's there for the same thing I'm there for, except that in his case, they're going in the other end.

We speak for a few more minutes and then an orderly comes and starts wheeling him off to the appropriate room. As he departs, he yells back to me, "I DON'T WANT TO READ ON YOUR WEBLOG THAT I HAD A COLONOSCOPY THIS MORNING, EVANIER! DO YOU HEAR ME? I DON'T WANT TO READ THAT ON YOUR WEBLOG!"

I haven't set foot in the place for, I'm guessing, twenty years…but I still feel a sense of loss at this news: The Old Spaghetti Factory in Hollywood is closing down this summer. It's located across the street from the KTLA TV studio where I worked a lot in the late seventies. The Old Spaghetti Factory, which was then relatively new, was a good place for lunch — decent spaghetti for a decent price in fun surroundings.

The cartoonist group I co-founded, C.A.P.S., had a banquet there once and we actually had some members complaining the food was too cheap. Our first banquet was at the Sportsmen's Lodge out in Valley and some groused that the meal was poor and that it cost too much. On both counts, they were right but there was a reason. If you go into almost any hotel and book a banquet, what your group will be served will be of lower quality than a comparable meal in the hotel coffee shop, and will cost more. So after the grousing over that event, I suggested we hold a dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was five bucks a head, I think, for a plate of spaghetti with meatballs, a salad and all the bread one could stuff — this was late seventies, remember — and everyone loved the food. I was just congratulating myself on my choice of venue when a group of members approached me and said, "You know, Mark — we're trying to elevate the image and stature of cartoonists, and it's kind of embarrassing for us to have our banquet in a place where the dinner is five dollars a plate." I shoved their faces in the lasagna and walked out.

The building up on Sunset Boulevard has a colorful history. It was originally the Los Angeles home of the Columbia Broadcasting System, back when it was just radio, back before they'd built a larger building a few blocks west on Sunset. (That building is also supposed to be demolished soon, I hear.) In 1935, CBS moved out and left behind all their equipment, which was then used by the new inhabitant — The Max Reinhardt Workshop of Stage, Screen and Radio. By the early fifties, it was a Studebaker dealership and then Gene Autry bought it and opened his TV-radio company there. When Autry moved across the street, it had a few short-term tenants before the Old Spaghetti Factory moved in with its unique style of interior decoration, complete with indoor train cars in which you can sit and swirl pasta.

Word is they'll be tearing the place down later this year to begin building condos, probably with retail stores on the ground floor. I don't understand this new trend in Los Angeles of erecting condominium complexes in commercial areas but I guess some people like living over a Walgreens in a heavy traffic area.

Yes, I know other Old Spaghetti Factories dot the landscape…although the only other one I ever went to more than once, the one right across from the convention center in San Diego, closed a year ago. But the one in Hollywood was just kind of "our place," once upon a time, and I guess I'm sorry I've neglected it all these years. Maybe I can get back there for a lunch before it all comes crashing down.

(My thanks to Jim Nestler, who's a Professor of Biology at Walla Walla College in Washington, for letting me swipe the above photo from his website. When I go up to Sunset for that lunch, I'll try and take a few of my own.)

First, the good news: I am told by one of my spies that the next service release of the TiVo software will add an undelete feature. You'll get a new folder on your screen that will say "Recently Deleted" or something of the sort, and when you delete a recording, it will go there and be recoverable until its space is needed for something else. This is a very good idea. The next service release is also supposed to incorporate some Internet-type features for those of us who have our TiVos hooked up to a high-speed Internet connection. These will include getting your local weather forecast and the ability to purchase movie tickets through your TiVo.

Bad news? There's no release date yet for the Series 3 TiVos, which will work with High-Def TV. And when they do debut, they may be without the Tivo to Go and multi-room capabilities. That might make me hold off on getting one…that is, assuming they ever come out and there isn't something better out on the market by then. So far, no one's done a personal video recorder as well as TiVo but let's not forget. There was a time not so long ago when no one had come up with a better piece of word processing software than Wordstar 4.0. Then someone did.

As we all know, some casinos have been established on ships in order to avoid anti-gambling laws. They take people out beyond the three-mile limit where the nearby authorities have no jurisdiction. Okay. Now, the question is can you trespass on copyright laws if you're out at sea and therefore not in some country that is bound by them? That's what a new lawsuit is going to try and find out.

As we warned you, it became possible at 9 AM this morn to book online hotel reservations for this year's Comic-Con International through their website. I haven't monitored the activity but others are reporting that by Noon, all the main hotels were sold out and the remaining rooms were off in distant zip codes. More rooms will become available later (especially around June 8, which is when credit cards are charged) but the scramble is on, and many will find no room at the inn.

This year, the convention rates for a single at the Hilton, Marriott or Hyatt hotels that are within walking distance of the convention center range from $175 to $219 a night, and they're sold out of those. A lot of people have already booked at those and other hotels without going through the convention even though that means a higher pricetag. Lodging near a convention center is usually contracted under a promotional arrangement designed to encourage conventions to come to town and give them loads of business. Each hotel will commit to making X% of their rooms available at a convention rate, then they'll sell the rest at higher prices — whatever price they can get. The convention rate for the Westin Horton Plaza, which is six blocks from the convention center, is $160 per night and I think they're sold out, too. Some online hotel bookers are currently saying they can get you in there for $465 a night and we can only guess what they'll charge for any rooms that become available in late June.

This, of course, creates a powerful financial incentive for the hotels to keep that X% as low as possible. The more rooms they don't make available via the convention plan, the more they can get for them. In future years, we may see fewer and fewer rooms available at a convention rate, and there's really nothing anyone can do about that.

It's rather amazing, in a way. I've been attending comic book conventions since 1970, the year of the first one in San Diego. I've gone to them all across America and recall a time when many hotels didn't want them and the ones that did take them were hesitant and treated us like a second-class booking. We were a young, non-spending crowd. We didn't come in with lavish expense accounts and run up huge bar tabs. We didn't book huge banquets or cocktail parties or take the higher-priced suites. We were a little rowdy and we had a tendency to disturb the "real guests." I even remember one hotel accepting a comic convention booking and then, when some other group wanted the place on the same dates, reneging on the commitment.

Sure ain't that way these days. Just in the hotel rates alone — never mind the cash we throw around in restaurants and on taxis and other local merchants — the convention has a major impact on the economy of San Diego. As Jack Kirby — who predicted all this way back in 1973 or so — would say, "Never underestimate the power of comics!"

Good to hear that the gentleman who was on the receiving end of Dick Cheney's shotgun blast is doing better. I frankly don't understand the appeal of "hunting" as he and the Veep practice it…and I put that in quotes because a friend of mine would have wanted it that way. He's a championship hunter with a whole trophy room into which I will not go because I can't stand to see all those mounted animal heads. On the phone the other day, he said (approximately), "What these guys were doing was not hunting. Hunting requires some skill and stamina and in some cases, a little personal risk. These guys were at a club where they arrange it so anyone can kill some birds and pretend it's hunting."

Either way, I don't see why anyone would enjoy it…but then, I never figured out why people enjoyed the original Star Trek, either. So I'm content that there are just some things in this world that thrill others without thrilling me, which is fine. We don't all have to love everything the same way and to the same degree.

A lot of websites seem to be getting all Grassy Knoll on us with theories as to why there have been the odd delays in announcing the news and in Cheney making any sort of public statement of regret. I admit it's odd but in these situations, the simplest explanation is the most likely. It may just be taking a long time for someone to teach Dick Cheney how to utter the words, "I did something wrong." This whole administration has had a bad tendency to confuse never admitting errors with always being right. They won't even admit that they might have been wrong to act on faulty intelligence. It's kinda like, "Whatever we did was correct, even if we didn't know what we were doing at the time." One presumes he will not take that approach in his interview on Fox News later today.

I just finished a by-phone guest appearance on the fine New York radio show about comics, 'Nuff Said! It's been on for years, hosted by some combination of Ken Gale, Ed Menje and Mercy Van Vlack, broadcasting (now) over WBAI, which is listener-supported radio. For some reason, they thought having me on would bring in the pledges and I hope we got a couple. Over at their website, you may be able to locate info on how to hear old broadcasts. It's worth looking because there are some real gems in there.

While I was talking on the radio, I was simultaneously posting an old article on my website here. It's this one, a report on the 1996 (I said 1997 earlier) party celebrating the 100th birthday of the great ventriloquist, Señor Wences. I didn't write much in there about how Rickie Layne and Velvel did what I now think was Layne's last public performance…but he was there and folks who remembered him and Velvel from The Ed Sullivan Show were thrilled to see him there.

Okay, going to bed. And I just realized my doctor reads this weblog and will scold me for staying up so late. I'm still recuperating.

The hotel reservation service for this year's Comic-Con International opens tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM, Pacific Time. A few weeks ago, someone inaccurately reported it as 9:00 AM, Eastern Time, and a couple of my local friends were irate because they figured that meant getting up to be ready at 6 AM.

I don't know how many rooms will be available but it would not surprise me if they're all gone by the time the late risers log in. The last few years, I've had friends calling me in despair. They didn't get in quickly and found themselves faced with the choice of staying in New Mexico and commuting…or paying a per-night figure roughly equal to the price of a near-mint Action Comics #1. I cannot help these people. You have X number of hotel rooms near the convention center and Y number of people who want one, and Y is at least ten times X, maybe twenty or thirty times. It's simple math.

But don't give up too quickly. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a lot of people, well aware of the inevitable shortage, long ago made any kind of reservation they could get — sometimes, several — and they'll be cancelling some as we get closer to the date. Some hotels (I don't mean the ones available through the con) may be holding back rooms 'til later. Last year just before the con, when everything south of Disneyland seemed booked solid with a waiting list, a friend of mine innocently called a hotel within walking distance of the convention center and got a room at a decent price. The person who took the reservation told him, "For weeks now, we've been laughing at people who call and ask what you asked, but someone just cancelled."

So don't despair. But also don't call me.

Anyway, the gold rush begins tomorrow at the Comic-Con website. Let the games commence.

I just realized that the last two items I posted here kind of go together. I hadn't heard about the death of Rickie Layne when I posted the link this morning to the video of Rod Hull but they were both great performers who manipulated very rude and funny puppets.

Just thought I'd mention the connection before dozens of you take the time to write in and make note of it.

Ventriloquist Rickie Layne, who made 38 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show with his wooden friend Velvel, died Saturday at the age of 81. As this 2002 article in The Jewish Journal explains, Layne (born Richard Israel Cohen) owed his stardom to a recommendation from singer Nat King Cole.

Some additional details not in the article: The Sunset Strip nightclub mentioned in the piece was Ciro's, which was in the building where The Comedy Store is now housed. Cole's wife, Maria Cole, was playing there and her opening act, fresh from the Catskills and Miami hotel circuits, was Rickie Layne and Velvel. On October 23, 1955, Nat and Maria did the Sullivan show and told Ed about the wonderful Jewish comedian and his dummy with the Yiddish accent. Sullivan said he ordinarily liked to see an act before he booked it and that he wasn't travelling to the West Coast, where Layne was then working, for some time. Nat said, in effect, "Trust me on this one, Ed. Book the guy. If you don't love him, my next appearance with you is free."

Sullivan took the offer and Rickie Layne appeared on the January 1, 1956 episode of Ed's show, which was called Toast of the Town back then. Layne's lips moved more than Edgar Bergen's even but Velvel was hilarious and the act was immediately booked again, with many appearances to follow. Of all the acts that appeared on Sullivan's long-running variety series, only four others — Wayne & Shuster, Topo Gigio, Jack Carter and Myron Cohen — made more appearances than Rickie Layne and Velvel. He was one of Ed's main "go-to" guys when a given episode seemed in need of an extra comedy spot. (The Jewish Journal article says he made 48 appearances. It was actually 38.)

Alas, Layne's career did not much survive the end of the Sullivan program. He barely worked after the late seventies. His last public performance seems to have been in 1997 when there was a show/party at The Improv in Hollywood to celebrate the 100th birthday of the great Señor Wences. I should post an article I wrote at the time about that wonderful evening, but one of the things that made it special was the appearance of Velvel. Not long after, I was fortunate to attend a private party for Rickie Layne that celebrated his life and career, and to hear him tell wonderful tales of his years playing the Borscht Circuit. It was amazing how many hotel and showroom owners couldn't quite grasp the fact that the insults (and demands for better pay) that came out of Velvel's mouth actually were the views of Mr. Layne.

Oddly enough, the other day in the hospital, I watched an Ed Sullivan special on that in-house comedy TV channel I mentioned and saw a few seconds of Velvel in great form. I wish someone would assemble a special or a DVD of those acts presented in full. With so many people like this leaving us, those clips are all we have to remember the great art form represented by variety performers like Rickie Layne. And, oh yeah — Velvel, too.

One of the most-accessed articles I have on my site here is this one about the late Rod Hull, who performed an odd but hilarious act with his creation, Emu. Richard Schultz tips me off about this brief online clip of Rod in action — not the best example of the Hull technique but it may give you some idea of what he did.

There have probably been funnier moments on television than the opening of tonight's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, as they covered the story of Dick Cheney's hunting accident. But I sure can't think of one just now. They have a video clip up over at Crooks and Liars.