Monthly Archives: May 2013

I can't tell you how the lecture went in Santa Barbara because I didn't go. I was less than an hour from departure when my knee — you know…the one I'd just said here was getting better — suddenly reacted like Lizzie Borden had taken forty whacks at it plus one for good luck. Maybe the worst pain I've ever experienced, not including writing for The McLean Stevenson Show. I called my orthopedist, cancelled out on S.B. and staggered like a zombie out to catch a cab.

So what's wrong with my joint? He doesn't know but he shot it up with short-range anesthetics and longer-term cortisone. I always thought cortisone shots worked rather quickly. That's because my only experience with them was occasionally hearing that someone had injured something in a football game so they shot him up with cortisone and sent him back in. Turns out they take a day or two to kick in…so I'm sitting here icing the knee and waiting for the day or two to pass. It doesn't hurt too much if I don't walk on it. Or exhale in that direction.

Please…don't inundate me with home remedies, suggestions, warnings that my doctor doesn't know what he's doing, etc. I suspect that if I had a splinter and my doctor was about to remove it, someone would write in and say, "Omigod! That's the worst thing you can do for it! I know someone who did that and he wound up losing both his arms up to the socket, plus his cat died!" I know people mean well when they do this — well, most of them do — but I can't follow fifteen sets of advice. I'm going with my doctor and don't need people trying to lower my confidence in him because they once went to one who tried to take their appendix out through their left nostril.

Anyway, the students in Santa Barbara were not deprived in the least by my not being there. They had Laraine Newman and Gregg Berger — two of the smartest, most talented people I know — to discuss voiceover work and careers in show biz. My apologies to the class and its instructor, Cheri Steinkellner, but you really didn't need me…and if I had been there, all you would have gotten out of me was shrieks and moans and many newly-invented cuss words.

I'm telling you for the last time: Frank Ferrante — he of the incredible Groucho imitation — is performing a benefit tomorrow at La Salle High School in Pasadena. Tickets are still available over on this page but may not be for long. It's a rare chance to see Frank in the Los Angeles area. He rarely gets to Groucho around these parts and may not be doing it for another year or so. I've raved enough about his show that by now, you should get the idea that I think it's one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen. Others agree.

The wonderful Laraine Newman and I are driving up to Santa Barbara today to speak to a band of college kids at U.C.S.B. about how to break into show business. I still feel like someone who should be attending one of those lectures, not giving it. Anyway, posting here will be light as I need to prep for the trip, then make the trip, then get back from the trip, etc.

I also need to nurse a very sore knee that's been giving me problems since Sunday: Fine when I sit, agony when I put any weight on it. I hobbled to an orthopedic specialist on Tuesday who x-rayed and poked and said "Hmm" a lot and told me I had a very sore knee. Until I got to him, I'd been putting ice on it and taking ibuprofen. His recommendation? Put ice on it and take ibuprofen. I did for two days to no improvement. Then yesterday, my primary care physician guy said to ditch the ibuprofen and switch to naproxen, aka Aleve. Seems to be helping.

The cause seems to be the long hours I spend at this here computer, forgetting to get up and walk around every half-hour or so. I think I'll see if I can find a little program that will run in the background and then pop up an on-screen window every 30 minutes to remind me to budge from my chair. Someone must have written such a thing and if they didn't, I will.

Once again, I feel I should remind folks that if someone you've heard of dies and I don't post an obit, it doesn't mean I disliked the person or didn't respect their work. It probably just means that others on the 'net seem to be adequately covering the passing and I don't have any insights or anecdotes to add to the general mourning. I started writing obits about obscure performers and comic book creators only on the basis that if I didn't do it, no one on the entire wide, wide world web would. I'm happy to say that's no longer the case…and I no longer feel the obligation to write something immediately or at all. End of reminder.

I'll be back later — more likely, tomorrow — to report on the road trip. Oh — but before I go, one last plug for Frank Ferrante…

Did you know that a lot of "oldies" music hits now exist primarily in re-recorded versions? The original artists (or an approximation, thereof) go into a studio and do their best to generate a new version that replicates the original. Why? Let Dave Mandl explain it to you.

The lovely Michele Hart sent me the link to this and all I could think was, "Jeez! How many people are going to make this same film?"

A number of folks have been criticizing President Obama lately, saying that the reason Republicans have blocked darn near everything he's tried to do is because he hasn't properly shmoozed and wooed them. That, of course, presumes that the Republicans are shmoozable and wooable. Norm Ornstein thinks they aren't.

Here's another one of those great photos taken on the set of The Dick Van Dyke Show. And while we're at it, here's one of Adam West on the set of Batman.

Another day, another damned obit of a veteran comic book artist. This time, it's Jesse Santos, who died April 27 at the age of 83.

Jesse Santos was a superstar of Filipino comic books. He began drawing professionally at the age of 14 and during World War II, spent much time as a "sidewalk artist" drawing portraits of American servicemen stationed in the Philippines. They caught the attention of Tony Velasquez, who was regarded as the "Founding Father" of the Philippine comics industry. Before long, Santos was drawing for Halakhak Komiks, which was the first serialized comic book published in his country. He was soon in many of them — an amazingly prolific artist who was often entrusted with the all-important job of designing and rendering the covers.

In 1969, Santos has the opportunity to emigrate with his family to the United States, which he did, settling in Los Angeles. He was glad to be there but he was unable to connect with the U.S. comic book industry and wound up returning to his roots in a poor-paying job: He sat all day at Farmers Market, the famed local landmark, doing drawings of tourists.

One day, two men stopped at his little booth and admired several science-fiction paintings that Santos had on display to show the world what else he could do. The men, impressed with what they saw, asked him if he'd ever considered doing comic books. He told them in his flawed English, yes, he'd drawn one or two comic books per month for twenty years in his homeland. Within a matter of days, he had quit the caricature job and was drawing comic books again.

The two men were Chase Craig and Del Connell, editors for Western Publishing Company's line of Gold Key Comics. They assigned Santos an educational comic that required diligent historical research and soon, he was drawing a new newsstand comic the company had decided to launch — Dagar the Invincible, created and written by Don Glut. It was successful and was soon joined by another Glut creation, The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor. On the latter, he replaced Dan Spiegle and proceeded to make the character quite his own.  The editors at Western loved Jesse's work and he was one of the few artists on their adventure-type comics who was engaged to paint the covers of comics he illustrated.  His paintings were especially striking.

Even before Western shut down its comic line in 1984, Santos drifted into animation design. He worked on many programs but his artistry especially dominated the Legend of Prince Valiant animated series produced in 1992. The list of other shows where his art could be seen include The Bionic Six, Jem, Blackstar, Dino-Riders and Tiny Toon Adventures.

I always enjoyed seeing Jesse's work and also talking with him, though the latter could be a bit difficult as his English never got to be very good. He was a jolly man who clearly loved to draw and I think that's evident in his work, much of which has recently been reprinted by Dark Horse Comics. I'll bet it's around for a long time. Sorry we didn't have Jesse for even longer.

A new production of Pippin is currently on Broadway. It opened to decent reviews, grabbed 10 Tony nominations and does not seem to be playing to any empty seats. I'm intrigued because I was never that fond of the show and regarded it, the two times I saw it, as a triumph of staging over substance. This new version, as you'll see below, comes on stronger with the staging gimmicks. It's like what Barnum would have looked like if Fosse had directed it…and I'm not sure if this makes me want to see it or avoid it. I'll try to decide before the next time I get to New York. In the meantime, here's the show's "sizzle reel." And it does sizzle — but then so do the steaks at Denny's…

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight were missing for a decade and presumed dead. We should have known that at least Amanda was alive. How? Because Sylvia Browne, the self-professed "psychic" who's never right about anything, said that thanks to her awesome powers, she knew Amanda was dead. In fact, she told Amanda's mother who died shortly after.

I can kinda understand why some people believe in psychic powers. I just don't understand why anyone believes she has any.

Michael J. Ryan is the head of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He writes…

Thanks for your tribute to Ray Harryhausen. I should point out that it was not only writers and artists who were inspired by Ray, but many scientists, especially paleontologists (at least my generation), myself included. I had the pleasure of hosting Ray, Diana, and Vanessa for a week in Alberta back in 1995. I took Ray on his first (and only dinosaur dig) and I can't say that he enjoyed it much — too much sun and too much kneeling on the hard ground. One of these days I'll post the photos of that dig.

Yeah…shoulda mentioned that. Ray Bradbury, who was a close friend of Harryhausen, always noted that when his chum did dinosaurs, they weren't just for purposes of entertainment. They were so well-researched and authentic that they were also a science lesson.

A few weeks ago on Letterman, magician Ricky Jay spoke about some of the giants of his profession who'd inspired his work. They ran a short clip of one — Al Flosso. What did this Al Flosso do? He did this…

The new play Alec Baldwin recently did on Broadway will close five weeks before it was supposed to close. In this essay, he blames it primarily on critic Ben Brantley of the New York Times. It's an old story and not always fair to attack the reviewers when your show fails…but I suspect in this case, there's some truth in what Baldwin wrote.

A running gag on The Daily Show is that most of the time when one of its reporters reports from out in the field, that reporter is about five yards from Jon Stewart, standing in front of a green screen so they can be Chromakeyed into the appropriate background. Here we see CNN doing something similar. It's Nancy Grace and Asleigh Banfield reporting from the field, pretending they're in different fields when they're probably about five yards apart. I've got a feeling we're going to see this on Mr. Stewart's program this evening.

J. David Spurlock, who runs the Wallace Wood Estate, has announced the death of comic artist Dan Adkins last week. Adkins was 76, having been born in Midkiff, West Virginia in 1937. He was a draftsman in the Air Force and later a commercial artist — but one with a long interest in comic books, especially the EC Comics of the early fifties. In the late fifties, he became active in science-fiction fandom, contributing drawings to various fanzines and publishing one of his own called Sata. His illustrations also turned up in s-f pulp magazines of the early sixties like Galaxy and Amazing Stories.

In 1964, he began working as an assistant to Wally Wood. As an artist, Adkins was something of a chameleon who picked up the drawing styles of other artists. That made him an ideal employee for Wood with whom he worked on dozens of projects, most notably the early issues of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Sometimes, Wood pencilled and Adkins inked. Sometimes, it was the other way around. But most often, they both did both on the pages and Adkins wrote a few scripts, as well. He assisted Wood on several jobs for Creepy and Eerie and then began drawing stories on his own for those publications.

In 1967, Adkins began working for Marvel, at first pencilling and inking his own work with occasional stories for X-Men, Doctor Strange, the Sub-Mariner series in Tales to Astonish and other features. The work was nicely rendered but readers began to notice a sensation of déjà vu about it. Much of it was created by tracing the work of other artists — not an unprecedented tactic in comics but rarely quite this obvious and often. Something of a controversy erupted in fandom over the morality of Adkins signing his name to drawing that were so much the work of other artists and Adkins wrote to several fanzines to defend himself. "Swiping" was, he noted, a time-honored tradition in comics.

That was so but a few of the artists from whom he swiped complained and Marvel lawyers began to worry about possible legal action from other publishers. The firm had threatened action against others who'd lifted designs from the pages of their books and feared that if nothing else, Adkins' swiping would undermine any claims they might make in that area. Editor Stan Lee was also uncomfortable with Adkins' storytelling. The pages looked great but, he felt, Adkins had a tendency to draw the image he had available for copying rather than the image called for by the storyline. By mutual agreement, Adkins cut back on his pencilling and did more inking of other artists' work. Paired with the right guy — say, Gil Kane or John Buscema — the end product could be quite impressive.

In the seventies, he was an Art Director for Marvel, focusing most of his attention on their line of black-and-white magazines. Before and after that job, he ran a little studio arrangement from his home, employing other artists to assist him with his comic book work for Marvel and several other publishers. Most of his aides were young "discoveries" of his and so he gave early assignments to several who went on to impressive careers in comics, including Val Mayerik and Don Newton. He drifted away from the business in the eighties, occasionally doing commission work for his many fans. He had a lot of them.

I only met Dan Adkins a few times — not nearly enough to say I knew him. Those who did spoke well of him as a person and as a hard-working artist who cared about his craft. We note and mourn his passing.