Monthly Archives: August 2011

Speaking in my role as an unapologetic shill for the Five Guys hamburger chain, I proudly announce that they've just released a free app for the iPhone. They already had this available for Android…but now us iPhone users can find out where the nearest Five Guys is with just a tap or two. It was worth buying the iPhone just for this.

Obituary for Del Connell in his hometown (current hometown) newspaper.

We are pleased as punch to announce that Volume One of Pogo has gone to press. We have printer's proofs and it looks sensational. Or to put it another way, it looks worthy of the great newspaper strip (some would say the greatest) created by Mr. Walt Kelly.

Some of Pogo has been reprinted before, not always in the best possible manner. Now, all of it will be republished — every daily strip and every Sunday page with the latter in color — in twelve volumes being issued by Fantagraphics Books. This is not as simple as someone saying, "Hey, let's reprint Pogo" and making a deal to do so. Much of the material does not exist in pristine, ready-to-print form and the earlier a strip is, the more likely it had to be located and painstakingly restored. That takes time, which is why the release date of this book was announced and changed, announced and changed, announced and changed, etc.

But now the first one's at the printer and subsequent volumes oughta be a lot simpler. (That sentence was hard to type with fingers crossed.)

My friend, the lovely Carolyn Kelly, lovingly supervised the loving restoration of her lovely father's lovely strip and she also did the lovely design of this lovely book and its lovely dust jacket and the lovely imprints under that lovely dust jacket. Sure sounds like a labor of love to me. Not that the contents need any help but the strips are supplemented by a foreword from writer (and friend o' Walt's) Jimmy Breslin and essays/annotations by Steve Thompson, R.C. Harvey and myself. If I were you, I'd read all that text stuff after I read the strips themselves about eleven times.

Each volume contains two years of Walt Kelly's magnum opus. Since the first year started in mid-year, there's room in the book to also include the pre-syndication Pogo strips he did for The New York Star, a short-lived newspaper for which he worked. This gives you the chance to observe from Day One and watch as it develops steadfastly from a darn good newspaper strip to something a lot better than just "darn good." Working on this collection, that was my constant thought: "Gee, it just gets better and better, doesn't it?"

That's about all I need to say about the contents. I am not sure when exactly the book will ship. Amazon is cautiously saying mid-December but it'll be well before that by at least a month or two. It'll be soon enough that you can order a copy in confidence of holding one in your hand before long. (Ignore the old cover design on the Amazon listing. The real one is above.) I'll caution you that if you buy Volume One, you're going to want Two through Twelve. I don't want to claim that Pogo was the best newspaper strip ever done. But if you want to say that, I sure won't give you an argument.

Several folks have e-mailed me to state what should have been obvious…the reason Jim Henson is a Disney Legend now and wasn't a few years ago. There's a new Muppet movie coming out now and there wasn't a few years ago. So I guess the question now is when does Frank Oz become a Disney Legend? And then what about Jerry Juhl and Dave Goelz and Jerry Nelson and all the other Henson associates whose characters are now Disney property?

For over twenty years, I've been a subscriber to The Las Vegas Advisor. It used to be just a newsletter that arrived in my mailbox each month. Now, it's that for some but for most of us, it's a website that covers Vegas. Unlike about 90% of the press coverage of the hotels and casinos there, LVA is not advertiser-supported and therefore indebted. Most of the publications that cover that industry tell you that the buffet at the Imperial Palace is delicious and the Crazy Girls show at the Riviera is the sexiest thing in the world. Neither of those statements is true but when your publication depends on the good will of the hotels, you write things like that. LVA is truly independent and while I don't always agree with their rules and reporting, it strikes me as utterly honest and therefore valuable.

Their website has many useful sections open to all and some sections that are only for us subscribers. One that falls into both categories is their Question of the Day. Each day, the experts at LVA answer some question about Vegas history or Vegas etiquette or Vegas customs or whatever. Each day's question is free to read on the day it first appears and then it goes into the subscriber-only archives. Except this weekend.

This weekend, the archives are open to all. Go there and browse around while you can. There are over 1,500 questions answered there so you're sure to find many that will interest you.

There's a moment in the movie and Broadway show 1776 (book by Peter Stone) when John Hancock is speaking with Pennsylvania delegate John Dickinson, the leader of the Conservative movement in the Congress at hand. Mr. Dickinson is denouncing John Adams and others who are advocating independence from Great Britain…

Dickinson: Be careful, sir. History will brand him and his followers as traitors.

Hancock: Traitors to what, Mr. Dickinson? The British Crown? Or the British half-crown? Fortunately, there are not enough men of property in America to dictate policy.

Dickinson: Perhaps not. But don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor. And that is why they will follow us.

You get the feeling that the 2012 election in this country will be all about testing that premise?