Monthly Archives: June 2012

Bruce Bartlett cites stats that show what great shape we'd be in financially if we hadn't done all those things that George W. Bush swore would help the economy…and didn't. Frighteningly, a lot of them are things that Mitt Romney is now swearing will help the economy.

Number two hundred and fifty-six in a series…

There's a thriving but reprehensible industry out there preying on folks (kids, mostly) who have dreams of stardom. There are variations but at the core, it works like this: Someone who has little if any ability to promote your career or get you work convinces you that they are wizards at both of these things.

It's bad enough when they convince you that you should hire them as your manager and pay them 15% or more of everything you make for the next X years. It's worse when as sometimes happens, it's not X years but forever. And it's even worse when they build in some clause that they will be Executive Producer of anything for which you're hired. Sign one of those and you might just as well forget about show business forever and get a job injecting the cream filling into cannolis.

That guy won't help you one bit and if by other means you somehow luck into work, he will show up and demand that he get whatever he thinks he deserves or he'll scotch the whole deal. But you know what's even worse than that? When they expect you to pay them money up front to do all that stuff to you.

Here's a recent example of some of that happening. This is more common than you might believe. A lot of vultures get away with this because the victims are embarrassed to admit, even to themselves, that they've been victimized.

To read Part 1 of this tale, click here.

Ray Bradbury's first literary agent was a man named Julius Schwartz. At the time — we're talking 1939 here — Schwartz was probably the leading agent specializing in science-fiction, largely because he was the only agent specializing in science-fiction. Though he sold Bradbury's first story and many other works by important names of the genre, agenting s-f was not a lucrative endeavor. A few years later, Schwartz happily gave it up and became a comic book editor for the rest of his life. He worked for DC until his retirement in 1986 and for several years after.

His retirement came shortly after Jean, his wife of 34 years, passed away. He filled both voids in his life to some extent with fandom — going to conventions, working on his memoirs, getting himself interviewed, etc. Mostly though, it was the conventions. It was oddly appropriate that Julie "lived" for the conventions as he was one of the founders of science-fiction fandom. S-F fandom later branched off into comic book fandom so he could claim some parentage of that whole institution, as well. He went to every con that would have him and even a few that wouldn't. Attending the annual monster in San Diego was, of course, the high point of his year.

For a time, he came out on the DC Comics dime, all expenses paid by his longtime employer. In the nineties though, they could no longer find it in the budget to fly him out and put him up. The con made him a Guest of Honor and paid his way out once or twice and I think Julie paid his own way once or twice…but it was an expense he could not justify on an annual basis. If he'd been a veteran artist instead of an editor, he could probably have made money there selling artwork. But he just wanted to be there to be there and he couldn't really afford it. So what did he do? He called folks he thought might have some clout to persuade the convention to bring him out…and he called us a lot. I'm pretty sure I got the highest number of these calls. One year, Harlan Ellison phoned me and we compared Schwartz Calls as of late. I was the clear victor, having received ten in the last two weeks whereas Harlan had only received seven.

"Make a deal with you," he said. "We'll split the cost of flying him out and the cost of the hotel…anything to stop these pain-in-the-ass calls." I agreed but it never came to that. I and maybe some others beseeched by Julie nudged the convention into covering the cost of Schwartz that year. I believe this was 2001.

The following year, Julie didn't need us. He had an idea…and an ingenious one it was. Instead of placing umpteen calls to folks like Harlan and me, he put in but one…to his friend and one-time client, Ray Bradbury. As I mentioned here before, Ray was one of the first Guests of Honor at the Comic-Con International, dating back to well before it was called the Comic-Con International. He would come down for one day — usually Saturday — and give a talk and work the dealers' room. The convention and its attendees were of course very glad to have him there. In 2002 to help Julie, Ray decreed that his appearance in San Diego would be a joint speech/panel with Julius "Can you get the con to fly me out?" Schwartz. Informed this was what Ray wanted, the con had little choice but to fork up the bucks to bring Julie out. It was not a huge burden.

Score one for Schwartz: A clever notion on his part. I liked it because it would create an interesting program event, quite different from Ray's usual presentations, not that there was anything wrong with them. But I really liked it because it meant I didn't get all those calls from Julie nagging me to talk to the con about bringing him out, nor did I get all those calls from Harlan telling me Julie was nagging him to talk to the con about bringing him out.

A win for all, even the convention. Julie did phone me about the con but it was to ask me to be the moderator of this panel. I, of course, declined. I said, "You and Bradbury on stage? You don't need me up there. Every second I speak will be a second neither of you is talking. Save me a seat in the front row."

I said that. So how did I wind up hosting this panel? Beats the heck outta me. But I did and it led to me being traffic cop for one of the three-or-so most memorable moments I have ever witnessed in a two-thirds-lifetime of going to comic book conventions. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Click here to jump to the next chapter of this story.

For those who missed the Tony Awards — or didn't stick it out 'til the end — here's Neil Patrick Harris's closing number…

One interesting aspect of the Tonys is how they act as a two (plus) hour infomercial for Broadway. Shows that get to present a number on the telecast carefully consider what moments from their show might drive folks to the ticket windows…and some marginal shows stay open in the hope of a post-Tony bump. As a result, a number of shows usually close right after the Tony Awards and that might happen this year since a lot of shows are limping along playing to 60%-70% of capacity. That's worse than it sounds. A show playing at near 100% of capacity like The Book of Mormon or (still) The Lion King is not selling very many (if any) tickets via discounters or at the TKTS booth, whereas a show playing at 62% is probably selling most of its seats at half-price or thereabouts.

So far, the only impact the awards seems to have had on what's closing is that Clybourne Park, which won for Best Play, is not. It's extending its limited engagement, which was supposed to end August 12, to September 2. We'll see if anything closes. Maybe not since a number of the nominees this year, like the revivals of Follies and Death of a Salesman, had already closed.

Speaking of Follies: When it came time for them to present a number on the telecast, they had Danny Burstein do a slightly-truncated version of "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues." I thought he and that number were terrific on stage a few weeks ago; not nearly as terrific on the Tony broadcast. I dunno if it was the lack of context or the cuts or Burstein's energy level but it was only about half as wonderful. That happens.

Number two hundred and fifty-five in a series…

Ratings for Sunday night's Tony Awards were pretty bad. Some will fault the host or the production but I think that's ridiculous. People watch or don't watch the Tonys based on how they care about the shows that are nominated and want to see the excerpts. It really isn't all that different from sports. If you have two top teams with players that are in the news a lot and those teams meet in a game that might determine who wins the pennant, that game will have more tune-in than a game between two last-place teams with unknown players. No one complains that low ratings are because the crew that covers the game — the sportscasters, the director, etc. — didn't do a good job.

In past years, the Tonys got more tune-in because people had heard about The Producers or heard about The Book of Mormon. Some probably watched last year because the Spider-Man musical was so notorious at the time and there was a number from it. Even though there was a performance from Spider-Man this time, it's old news now. And Newsies and Once may be fine shows but they just haven't generated the excitement outside Times Square of past leading contenders.

I thought the telecast was fine and the worst thing you can say about it is that Neil Patrick Harris's opening song wasn't quite as exceptional as his opening song last year. Also, some people are reportedly complaining that the "In Memoriam" segment was presented during a commercial break and not televised. I still think N.P.H. is the best awards show host I've ever seen…and yes, that includes Johnny and Bob and Billy and everyone else. Hope he does it next year and the year after and the year after…

In the early fifties, EC Comics adapted a number of Ray Bradbury's short stories into comic book form with his permission. Before that, they adapted a number of them without his permission. The way most of their science-fiction, horror and crime comics were written was that publisher William M. Gaines would come up with what they called "springboards." A springboard was a rough plot and Gaines, who was not a writer but thought he knew a good story, would come up with dozens of them.

Some were original and some came from movies he'd seen, books he'd read, radio shows he'd listened to, etc. In other words, plagiarism. But it was usually that soft kind of plagiarism in which you take some, not all of the source material and you change it a lot and by the time it's completed, it isn't that much like the material you ripped-off. Sometimes though, it was more obvious.

Several days a week, Gaines's main editor-writer Al Feldstein would have to write a story for one of the comics he produced and Gaines would "pitch" springboard after springboard to Feldstein, hoping to interest Al in one of them. Al was fussy but he usually found one he liked and he'd go off and write it and then a fine artist like Jack Davis or Wally Wood would draw it. Once, he wrote one without realizing it was stolen from not one but two of Ray Bradbury's short stories. EC took "The Rocket Man" and "Kaleidoscope" and merged them into a story for Weird Fantasy #13 that wound up being called "Home to Stay."

Not long after its publication, the burglary was noticed by Mr. Bradbury but he did not go screaming to lawyers. He noted that the adaptation was well-done and that the two stories had been rather cleverly intertwined, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, so to speak. Suing might cost a lot, he knew, and there probably wasn't much money to be collected…so he tried another approach. He wrote Gaines a letter that said, in essence, "You seem to have neglected to pay me for the adaptation of my work." Gaines sent a modest check, a brief correspondence ensued and EC wound up adapting many of Ray's stories on an official basis.

It was a mutually-beneficial relationship. Bradbury loved what they did with his work and he protected his copyrights and probably attracted some new readers to his books. EC got the prestige of his name on its covers. That seemed to boost sales a bit but it was probably more valuable that it gave EC a thin film of moral cover. The company was then under some volume of siege for the content of its comics and it helped a bit to tie their product in with Bradbury. He was, after all, a popular writer whose books were turning up in libraries and who had works in prestigious mainstream magazines. How could you dismiss EC's Tales from the Crypt as "trash" when one of its stories was being read in another form in schools? To say nothing of the fact that a lot of the non-Bradbury stories were not all that different in tone and taste from the Bradbury ones.

That didn't save EC's line from extinction, nor was it intended to. But Gaines thought it helped a little for a time.

During this period, Bradbury had little contact with Gaines and none whatsoever with Al Feldstein. When EC Comics ended in the mid-fifties, Feldstein and Bradbury had never met. They didn't meet in the sixties or the seventies or for the rest of that century.

In 2002, they finally met. It will probably take me three parts to tell this story but bear with me. It will be worth it.

Click here to jump to the next chapter of this story.

Michael Kinsley on the current U.S. attitude about going to war in or against other countries. A lot of folks on both sides of the political aisle are "fur it" or "agin' it."

Number two hundred and fifty-four in a series…

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have their first joint-byline in 36 years on this article that looks back on the Watergate Scandal and what that was all about. I'm afraid that the overriding lesson of Watergate was "Don't get caught."

Frank Bruni discusses the growing support for Gay Marriage among not just Republicans but more importantly, the kind of Republicans who control the G.O.P. agenda by donating large sums of cash to candidates. If you want to read an article that will convince you that same-sex couples will be freely marrying in a lot more states soon, this is the one.

I'm still in Full-Press-Deadline Soup-Can Mode but I always come back from those for an important obit or an important bargain.  Our pal Vince Waldron calls to my attention that Amazon is now selling The Three Stooges: The Ultimate Collection for 45 bucks.  That's the complete run of their 190 Columbia shorts plus a mess of other appearances, features, etc. on 20 DVDs…so it works out to something like three cents for each poke-in-the-eyes and a dime for every time a Stooge found a live clam in his chowder.

Most of these DVDs were put out as solo releases but three, which mainly feature solo shorts of Shemp, Joe Besser and Curly Joe DeRita, are "bonus" discs not presently available as a standalone purchase.  So in a scenario all-too-familiar to those who've collected other film or TV series on DVD, those who purchased the individual releases are now feeling collectors' pressure to buy the boxed set, duplicating all their previous acquisitions, to get the bonus discs.  Makes you feel like a Stooge, don't it?

Even if you already have some of this material, $45 is quite a bargain.  Order here.  I don't think this is a one-day deal but if you're gonna buy, you might as well buy now. I wouldn't expect the price to get any lower.

Mark is very busy now and I expect this condition to persist for a few days…too many to even spend the few minutes I spend on my breaks writing things for this site. There won't be much here for a while but perhaps you'll find something else on the Internet to read. There are, after all, other sites.