Monthly Archives: October 2009

Monday morning on Turner Classic Movies, we get four Harold Lloyd talkies — Movie Crazy, The Cat's Paw, The Milky Way and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. They're followed by the two compilation films that Lloyd assembled in the sixties to remind the world how good he'd been — Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy and Harold Lloyd's Funny Side of Life.

Of the first four, I like Movie Crazy the best. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock is interesting as the product of two fading careers (Lloyd's and that of director Preston Sturges) but there's something forced about it…and Lloyd had long since outgrown his own part. It's worth seeing though, and markedly better than the re-edited, shorter version, Mad Wednesday, which runs from time to time.

One of the many things that makes me optimistic about Obama succeeding with his agenda is that so much of the opposition is controlled either by looneys or by sane Republicans who are terrified of pissing off the looneys. Lately, there's been the perverse amusement of watching the teabagger crowd turn on Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina. Graham toes the Conservative line about 96% of the time but since that 4% involves partnering with John Kerry to do something about Climate Change, Graham is a traitor, a quisling, a RINO, a sell-out, a socialist, a fascist, an enemy of the people, etc. At a recent rally, he mentioned something about negotiating on some piece of legislation (health care, I think) and a woman jumped up and yelled, "God does not negotiate!"

Well no, He doesn't. That's because He's God and there's no one to negotiate with. He's also not a member of a minority party that doesn't have the votes to advance its own agenda very far. He can get His way without having to drum up swing votes.

Fruit bats like that lady do not typify the Republican party…but she may typify the kind of voter the G.O.P. doesn't dare alienate. I don't think there's much chance that Republicans will nominate Sarah Palin in 2012…but they're probably going to have to genuflect to her (or someone else who emerges to fill the same role) in much the same way that Democrats once had to kiss the feet of Jesse Jackson. No one wanted Jesse on the ticket but no one wanted to alienate his supporters.

My friends who voted for Obama are driven up the wall by the teabagger crowd that thinks Medicare is not a government program and by the birther crowd that thinks Obama is still being born in Kenya…and I'll admit those mobs are exasperating in their way. But think how annoying it would be to have Obama attacked by people with genuine issues. Or to have the Republican leadership not genuflecting to the nutcase right. There's a very sane, non-nutcase Conservative movement out there and if it ever got control of the Republican party, it might get something done.

Which doesn't mean the Democrats should get cocky. Right now, they're like the Yankees: Winning the occasional game because of the opposition's errors.

A troop of cartoonists, including a couple of pals of mine, is currently in Germany on a USO tour of military bases. A press release tells us that their ranks include Jeff Bacon (Broadside and Greenside), Chip Bok (Akron Ohio Beacon Journal, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time and Newsweek), Bruce Higdon (Army Times, Army Magazine, Soldiers Magazine), Jeff Keane (The Family Circus), Rick Kirkman (Baby Blues), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm), Michael Ramirez (Investors Business Daily), Tom Richmond (MAD Magazine) and Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury).

It's a great effort and you follow them on Tom Richmond's blog, starting with this message. There's a slide show of a visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center over on this page.

Ken Levine tells you how to decode Hollywoodspeak. He knows of what he writes.

George Tuska, whose career in comics dates back to 1939 and his work in Will Eisner's studio, died around midnight on October 16 at the age of 93. The son of Russian immigrants, Tuska was born in Hartford, Connecticut on April 26, 1916 and grew up to attend the National Academy of Design. Even before graduation, he was assisting on the Scorchy Smith newspaper strip and making his way into the then-new form known as the comic book. In addition to the Eisner-Iger shop, he worked for a half-dozen other publishers and studios, including Fiction House, Fawcett, Harvey and Standard.

Drafted into the army, he served during World War II working as a technical illustrator at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. By the time he got back to New York and civilian life, the trend in comics was swinging from super-heroes to crime comics. He went to work drawing gangster stories for Lev Gleason and quickly became the star artist for that publisher's best-selling books, including the ironically-titled (because of how well it sold) Crime Does Not Pay. Not only did he draw most lead features and the occasional cover but other artists imitated his style. One, an illustrator named Pete Morisi, went so far as to call Tuska and ask for permission to draw like him. Tuska was flattered and told him to go right ahead.

Though Lev Gleason kept him busy, Tuska chose to freelance occasionally for other publishers, especially for Stan Lee at Timely Comics. When the comic book industry imploded in the mid-fifties, he segued to newspaper strip work, taking over Scorchy Smith for a time, followed by a long run drawing Buck Rogers. In the sixties, he was tapped to draw for Tower Comics on T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and returned to work for Stan Lee at the newly-successful Marvel line. Lee found him to be a valuable utility man and he worked on many titles including The Avengers, X-Men, Captain America and Daredevil. He was the first artist on Luke Cage, Hero for Hire and became the primary artist on Iron Man for some ten years. From time to time, he picked up assignments for DC, where he was usually assigned to "team" comics including Challengers of the Unknown, Teen Titans, Justice League of America and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

At times, Tuska was regarded as a solid "work horse" artist — dependable but not spectacular. One month, DC assigned a Legion story to a young artist who was considered "hot" in the business but who was not particularly reliable. The young artist missed his deadline and at the last minute, the DC editors turned to Tuska to quickly draw the same script. To the relief of the staff, Tuska delivered efficiently…and the same day his pages arrived in the office, the young artist suddenly delivered his — so DC had two versions of the exact same story. The editors studied both, decided that Tuska's was more skillfully drawn…and published the Tuska version. In the late seventies, they also employed him to draw a newspaper strip featuring Superman and other star characters called The World's Greatest Superheroes.

Tuska was much admired by his fellow professionals for his drawing skills. A few openly admitted to envy at something else. Apparently, as Al Williamson once put it, "George couldn't walk into the office without all the secretaries wanting to sleep with him." But Tuska remained faithfully wed to his charming wife Dorothy for 61 years. He is survived not only by her but by three children and an unknown number of grandchildren and great-grandchilden.

I had the honor of interviewing George at the 1997 Comic-Con in San Diego — not an easy task for he was almost completely deaf for the last few decades of his life. Al Williamson was one of many peers who asked to be there to honor Tuska and at one point, Al called him, "The artist everyone wanted to be when I got into the field." George spent the rest of the convention being mobbed by fans and doing sketches of his past characters. That was his main source of income for the last twenty years and he had a constant stream of commission orders…proof of how many fans he had and how much his work was enjoyed for some seventy years.

The Most Inappropriate Halloween Costumes Possible. And that they are.

Got little kids? Or think like one? This Saturday morning, a new animated series is debuting on NBC — Shelldon, produced by Shellhut Enterprises of Thailand, designed to promote themes of friendship, teamwork and respect for the land. It's all part of the network's educational/information block, which is called QUBO.

Why am I mentioning this? Because one of the main writers of the show (and its story editor and theme song author) is our friend, the outrageously talented Shelly Goldstein. I haven't seen the show yet but I've seen lotsa other things Shelly's done and they've been terrific. I've set my TiVo for it. Maybe you should do likewise.

Earlier this year, I attended a performance of a now-legendary (in some circles) production of A Christmas Carol at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. My friends Paul Dini and Misty Lee had an extra ticket and they invited me, little realizing they were inviting me to experience a theatrical disaster. Many of the advertised stars were not present and the ones who were didn't know their lines and had to cope with sets that didn't work or weren't in the right place at the right time. It was screw-up after screw-up after screw-up and that wasn't where the troubles ended. The Los Angeles Times reported on much audience anger and on a stage crew that was claiming to not have been paid…or at least, not paid when they were supposed to be paid.

Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong went wrong…and you'd think that the producer-director behind it all would never again try anything of the sort. Wrong. He's selling tickets now for an all-star production of A Christmas Carol that is scheduled to play Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore.

The original announcements (and some still online) say that F. Murray Abraham will portray Ebenezer Scrooge with Timothy Hutton as Bob Cratchit, Stockard Channing as the Ghost of Christmas Past and Mrs. Cratchit, Wayne Knight as the Ghost of Christmas Present and George Wendt as various characters. James Garner is to play Charles Dickens, narrating the story from a writer's desk at one side of the stage. At least, that's how it was two weeks ago. The other day, it was announced that despite the ads, Hutton and Channing will not be part of the show.

I actually hope the folks behind this production get their act together. A lot of folks were disappointed at what played the Kodak last Christmas and it would be nice to think that won't happen again. They seem to be off to a good start, losing two of their stars this far ahead. When Paul, Misty and I went to see the show, we didn't find out Gene Wilder and Jane Seymour weren't in it until we were in our seats.