Monthly Archives: May 2008

Bill Neville just sent me this. John McCain's medical records were opened briefly for press inspection this morning and CNN has an article up that lists the medications that he's taking. Here's the list and this is the exact same order they're given on the CNN website…

• Simvastatin, a cholesterol-lowering medicine
• Hydrochlorothiazide, for kidney stone prevention
• Amiloride, which preserves potassium in the bloodstream
• Aspirin, for blood clot prevention
• Zyrtec, an antihistamine, which he uses as necessary for nasal allergies
• Ambien CR, used as necessary to help him sleep when traveling
• A Multi-vitamin tablet

You will notice I've boldfaced the first letter of each item. This is not exactly how it's traditionally spelled — Captain Marvel didn't have the double "a" — but if you take those letters in the order CNN listed the medications, they spell out…

I'm still turning up on radio and radio-like talk shows to discuss Jack Kirby and that there book I done writ about him. Tomorrow (Saturday), I'll be doing it on Pop Culture America, which is heard on Blogtalk radio. The show starts at 3 PM Eastern time, Noon out in my neck of the woods, and I should be on around a half-hour into the proceedings and talking for maybe 15-30 minutes. This link will take you to a page that will probably get you there and have reruns after the fact.

As you probably know, veteran comic book illustrator Gene Colan is ill and facing mammoth pharmaceutical bills and other related expenses. Gene is so beloved that a huge number of his friends and colleagues are pitching in to help him out. One way you can help — and maybe pick up a treasure for yourself in the process — is by bidding in the benefit auction currently being held. You'll want to go over to the blog of Clifford Meth for details. Bid high because you'll never get a better chance to help one of comics' true living legends.

This is for those of you in Los Angeles. Next Wednesday evening, May 28, there will be an exhibit of the artistry of Will Eisner at Storyopolis — an art gallery and bookstore in Studio City. Here are the details and admission, they say, is free. The event opens at 7 PM and around 8:00, there will be a panel discussion on Eisner's work with (I believe) Denis Kitchen, Jackie Estrada, Sergio Aragonés and Yours Truly. And maybe other folks, I don't know. Anyway, it's Eisner and it's free and what more do you need to know? The "free" part alone does it for me.

This is the weekend of the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards Weekend. Cartoonists from all over the world are converging on New Orleans for panels, parties and awards. The awards will be given out Saturday night and that includes the most prestigious, the Cartoonist of the Year award, which is known as The Reuben.

The Reuben is, more or less, a Lifetime Achievement award and this year's nominees are Dave Coverly (who draws Speed Bump), Dan Piraro (who's responsible for Bizarro) and Mad magazine's own Al Jaffee. Wiley Miller, who draws the comic strip, Non Sequitur, has announced that his strip this Sunday will congratulate the winner by name. That strip, of course, was drawn some time ago and will have been printed before the award is announced. So how could he know who'll win?

Because everyone knows who'll win. Al Jaffee will win. It's such a foregone conclusion, it makes you wonder why it's taken 'til now for him to even be nominated. Piraro and Coverly are deserving but they'll both win in some future year. This year, it's Al's turn.

A bit of a fuss — much more than is warranted — is being made over that New Yorker cartoon that was based on an old Jack Kirby drawing. As you may recall, (we mentioned it here) cartoonist Harry Bliss did a drawing that readers were invited to caption. He used a monster from an old issue of Tales to Astonish and a number of folks recognized it and, as reported in this newspaper article, are expressing some level of outrage.

I cannot speak for Mr. Kirby but I seriously doubt Jack would have considered this to be plagiarism. It's one drawing put into a new, funny context. It's also an obvious and famous drawing (I included it in my book) and it's not like Mr. Bliss could have expected everyone would have thought it was his design. The joke in the visual is that it contrasts so totally with his own style.

On the other hand, I think someone at the New Yorker is guilty of a bit of bad sportsmanship. Readers were invited to submit captions for the Bliss cartoon and quite a few entrants wrote to me that they'd submitted lines like, "What's that? You say you're the lawyer for the Jack Kirby estate?" Someone at the magazine must have noticed the name of Kirby popping up in many entries…and if they didn't know who that was or get the connection, they should have researched it and found out. Then they should have realized that one of the Kirby reference submissions would have been funnier than any of those they picked, and it would have carried Bliss's joke to a logical, honest punchline. So that's where I think the "wrong" lies…and let's be honest. It's a pretty trivial "wrong."

One of the quiet joys of David Letterman's show is the Paul Shaffer play-on. Mr. Shaffer always selects an appropriate song to perform for a few bars as a guest enters…and "appropriate" can mean a groan-inducing pun or a nugget of musical trivia.

The other night, Letterman's guest was Senator Jim Webb, who's touring the nation to promote his new book and to hint that he'd make a dandy running mate for Barack Obama. (I think he would, by the way.) Shaffer played him on with "Macarthur Park." I wonder how many people made the connection.

You don't have to write me and cite it to prove to me you did. I assume you did because you're smart enough to read this site. I'm just wondering how many other people got it.

I don't know quite how this stuff works but Tom Wolper sent me a link to listen to today's installment of Fresh Air straight to your computer. On most systems, if you right-click on that link, you should be able to save it to your harddisk for later listening. That will give you the entire hour, including the Nixon guy. I come in at about 25 minutes and 20 seconds into the show…

This is funny. I was the second guest today on Fresh Air. The first was Rick Perlstein, the author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. I don't know Mr. Perlstein or his book but apparently, those who burnish and defend the name of Richard M. Nixon are not happy with what Mr. Perlstein has written.

Over at the weblog of The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation, Frank Gannon — a longtime historian and defender of R.M.N. — writes the following…

At least on the basis of this radio interview, the author and historian and author turns out to be an effective and engaging author and polemicist. Fresh Air itself — inadvertently to be sure — provides an editorial comment by pairing Mr. Perlstein and Nixonland with another author and his book: Mark Evanier's King of Comics — a book about the comic book artist who created such Marvel superheroes as the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, and X-men.

So it turns out that Fresh Air had a theme today: comic book renderings of superheroes and supervillans.

It might interest Mr. Gannon to know that my book is actually titled Kirby: King of Comics and that it's about a man named Jack Kirby. When I recorded the interview on Monday, we taped way more than was aired…and one of the exchanges that was dropped was a discussion of how when Mr. Kirby created one of his great master villains, Darkseid, he based much of the character on the man he thought was then the most dangerous and sinister human being alive…Richard Nixon.

I don't know if that section of the discussion was dropped because they decided to have the Perlstein interview occupy the other half of the hour. But if they'd left it in, we could have had a real theme show.

Here's a link to the Fresh Air segment today featuring an interview with me about Kirby. It runs a little under twenty minutes.

American Airlines has announced that, as of June 15, it's an extra $15 to check a suitcase on one of their flights. That's for your first suitcase. They already charge $25 for a second suitcase. This does not apply to international flights or to full fare coach, business and first-class customers and AAdvantage Gold, Platinum and Executive Platinum members. But it applies to most of our tickets. One can assume that most other airlines will follow the model.

One can also assume a certain amount of chaos as more people try to go the carry-on route. I don't think I've been on a flight in the last few years where the overhead bins weren't jammed to capacity, and folks had to check their carry-ons because there was no room to carry them on. So here's my question, and the first news reports of the new fee don't address this. Let's say I bring a carry-on and there's no room in the bins for it. What then? If the flight attendant says, "Sorry, sir…we'll have to check that bag," does that mean I have to pony up the fifteen bucks? Because I didn't crush and push and manage to get on the plane ahead of other people?

If the answer is yes, that'll make boarding a more cutthroat competition. If not, then let's all bring carry-ons and just check them for free at the gate. Either way, it sounds like a lot of additional problems getting the planes in the air on time.

And, uh, doesn't more carry-ons mean a longer wait at security screening points? For everyone?

American also announced they'd be cutting a number of flights…and they have some additional new fees for us. It will cost more for traveling with pets, oversized baggage and reservation services, and more to make a reservation if a human being on their payroll is involved — $20 if you use the A.A. call center reservations and $30 if you book at the airport ticket counter.

I have a feeling this will cause so many problems that the airlines will soon announce that — to serve us better — they're going to drop the fee for checked baggage and just raise ticket prices across the board to compensate. Which may be exactly how they intend this to all play out.

Amazing to see news photos this morning of Senator Edward Kennedy walking out of the hospital where he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. To see the non-stop news coverage yesterday, you would have thought he had days (maybe hours) to live and would only depart the doctor place in a horizontal position. Maybe we'll have Teddy around for this election, after all…