One of the joys of being at the Comic-Con last week was spending time with Mike Peters. Mike is this brilliant friend of mine who draws editorial cartoons and a splendid newspaper strip called Mother Goose and Grimm, and he's just as funny as anything he does on paper…which is pretty danged funny. We worked together years ago on an animated version of his strip and every moment around Mike was a moment I would have paid to experience. Most of the time, I just let him talk and I make like Oliver Hardy, pretending to be annoyed when I'm actually loving every minute of it.
I did that for an hour at the convention on Saturday, ostensibly moderating the Mike Peters Spotlight. I have never felt as useless and unnecessary in my entire life. I asked Mike something like, "How are you?" and he talked for the next twenty minutes about everything under the sun except how he was. Over on this site, you can see a few minutes of that one-sided conversation.
Just before that panel, I hosted one with four folks who were vital to MAD Magazine in its earlier days…and three of them still contribute to said publication. The one who doesn't is Al Feldstein, who was the editor there from 1956 to 1984. Still gracing its pages are Arnie Kogen (who started writing for MAD in 1959), Al Jaffee (there since '55) and Sergio Aragonés (a relative newcomer, having joined up in 1962). Someone shot shaky, handheld video of some or all of the proceedings, and they've posted the first 40 minutes of the panel to YouTube in six parts. I've aggregated the six parts into one video embed and here it is for your dining and dancing pleasure. Here they are…the Usual Gang of Idiots! (Well, some of them, anyway…)
