Monthly Archives: April 2012

From Gary Cundall comes this question of the greatest importance…

I did a search for this before I wrote this and I didn't find the answer. I'd like to know how did you meet Sergio Aragonés and how did you start working together?

Back in the late sixties, we had a comic book club that met every Saturday at the Palms Recreation Center in West L.A. I was the president and we had about 50-60 members over the three or so years of the club's existence. During that time, the one and only guest speaker we ever had was Sergio. One of our members spotted a piece about him in Life magazine that mentioned he lived in Los Angeles. It turned out Sergio was listed in the phone book so this member called him up, secured an interview for a fanzine he was then trying to publish and arranged for Sergio to come to a meeting. So I met him at that meeting, albeit briefly.

Over the next few years, I ran into Sergio a number of places and to my amazement, he remembered me. So we got to be friends that way. Together with a wonderful writer-editor named Don Rico, we founded the Comic Art Professional Society. At the time, Sergio was beginning to do some comics of his own creation and copyright, and at first, he teamed with Don to supply the dialogue. That didn't work out to the satisfaction of either so he turned to me and there was really no grand decision. He just came over to my apartment one day and said, "Hey, will you help me with this thing I'm working on?" and I (of course) said, "Sure," and suddenly we were collaborators. Groo started soon after that, followed by other endeavors…and I guess this is a pretty boring story but that's how these things sometimes come about. Maybe one of these days, we'll make up a better story and I'll write it and Sergio will draw it and we'll both swear that's how it happened.

Fred Kaplan fears that things are going to heat up in the Middle East…like, say, Israel launching an attack on Iran. Ah, just what we need: Something more to worry about…

CNN has Obama nine points ahead of Romney. Pew has him four ahead. Gallup has Romney in the lead by four. I can't find Rasmussen at the moment but I gave up following them in November of 2010 when they said Daniel Inouye would win re-election to the senate by 11 points and two days later, he won by 40 points. I don't know how you miss by that much and remain in the same line of work. Imagine if your weatherman missed the forecast by 29 degrees. Would you listen to him tomorrow?

Anyway, what all these polls have in common is that they don't mean much now. I mean, they're interesting but we don't even know who Mitt's running mate will be or what the economy will be like in November or what wars we'll get into or out of. I'll betcha that the day before Election Day, you'll be able to name ten "issues" that are much-talked-about with regard to why this guy would be a better Chief Exec than that guy…ten "issues" that aren't even on the radar at the moment. At this point in the last election, Sarah Palin wasn't even a factor.

Barring the revelation that he's actually a Nazi War Criminal (see Drudge Report around early October), I expect to vote for Barack Obama. I have many complaints and disappointments about his presidency — most recently, revelations about Gitmo policies — but the current Republican agenda is just too scary. What I think I'm going to work on for myself is not paying too much attention to the campaign until…oh, around early October. I did something wise — for me, anyway — when the whole O.J. Murder Case started. I said to myself, "This could consume a lot of my time and passion if I start following it now."

So I didn't start following it then, which was the beginning of the case. I joined it in progress about two weeks before we got near a verdict. That was more than enough and it spared me all the ups and downs and ups and downs and caring about a matter that seemed unlikely to result in a sane, satisfying outcome. To invest my emotions in that one seemed like an unwise investment and I'm starting to feel like this presidential election is something I want to avoid, at least until it becomes unavoidable. I think Obama's going to win but, you know, there will be people voting against him because they have solid, inarguable proof that he's from the planet Remulak and each of their votes cancels out one by someone sane. I don't think I want to ride that roller coaster for that long.

I'll follow the election. You can't not follow the election. But just for my own sake, I don't think I want to think anything has much meaning until around Columbus Day.

Michael Kinsley conducts a class on class warfare.

Paul Collins on the woes of the United States Postal Service. I think it would be a shame to let the post office atrophy…and I can't help but wonder what impact that would have on the economy and especially small businesses.

That said, I must admit that going to the mailbox is no longer the important part of my day that it once was. There are important letters and notices in there but it's sometimes hard to find them among the advertising. For some reason, one can opt out of receiving a paper bill from the Department of Water and Power but I can't opt out of getting three or four of each of the hourly catalogues issued by the Hanes Underwear people. I wonder how much thought has been given to a serious rate hike on this stuff. If we got a two cent increase on the mail sent to offer me new credit cards, we could retire the national debt faster than you can say "0% introductory APR."

The latest in the legal battles over the Archie comic book company.