Monthly Archives: July 2013

Owing to insane traffic, Sergio was an hour late yesterday picking me up for the drive down here to San Diego — which for the next four days, might be better referred to as Comic-Con Nation. The con doesn't occur only in that huge (but not nearly huge enough) building by the bay but all over the town. It was bumper-to-bumper much of the way down the 5, the result (I imagine) of Opening Day at Del Mar Racetrack. Starting this morning, it'll be bumper-to-bumper due to us.

Preview Night, which for some reason is not just called Opening Night of Comic-Con International, was a nice preview of crowded aisles. I hereby make my annual observation that the hall would not be nearly as crowded if (a) people with cellphone cameras and elaborate or scanty costuming did not stage photo-ops anywhere they wanted regardless of where others are trying to walk, and (b) half the attendees weren't shouldering a free goodie bag the size of a Toyota Corolla. Limit the bags to the size of your average trick-or-treater's and you could get another 3000 people in that place.

Speaking of crowds: The best thing I can say in their defense is that they seem to be keeping people like my old pal Mike Gold away. Mike, sounding very much like Charles Lane screaming at you damn kids to stay off his lawn even though it isn't his lawn, complains there isn't very much here about comics. When folks make that complaint, I have two responses…

1. I somehow seem to be able to spend 4.5 days at each one of these things talking mainly about comic books. Last night, I dined with a nice gathering of folks from TwoMorrows and we talked comics. Later today, I'll be moderating panels about the Superman comics edited by Julie Schwartz and another about my work on Groo the Wanderer and other comics with Sergio Aragonés. Tomorrow in one, I'll be interviewing my old pal Tony Isabella about his time writing for DC and Marvel, then later I host a panel about the work of Walt Kelly, creator of (I say) the best comic strip ever, Pogo. I've been doing panels like these at this convention for 20+ years and the rooms always seem to be full…though never with anyone who I later hear bitching that there's nothing there about comics.
2. Hey, you don't think there's much here about comic books? Go visit the DC and Marvel booths. There isn't much there about comic books, either. It's hard to have a convention that focuses mainly on comics when the two largest publishers have long since decided they don't focus mainly on comics.

Still, I think Mike has the right idea: You don't like what the con's become, stay away. It's not like you'll be missed and the place will seem empty without you. There are cons with a different ratio of comics-to-other media and a lot of them could use your business.

And also drop by Comicmix, the fine website that Mike and other folks I know operate. They have some great articles about comics past and present, and also about things like Star Trek and the Lone Ranger movie. It's like a good comic book convention: You just have to look and see what interests you. I always find plenty there, just as I'll find more than enough as I embark on Day One of Comic-Con International 2013. (Day One? My God, I feel like I've been here a month already. A year if you count freeway time…)

Thursday, July 18 – 1 PM to 2 PM in Room 5AB
SUPERMAN: THE JULIUS SCHWARTZ ERA
In celebration of Superman's 75th Birthday, we look back at the Man of Steel in Comics' Bronze Age. In 1970, veteran editor Julius Schwartz assumed command of the primal hero and charted a course for a new generation. To discuss it, we assemble many of the writers who worked with him in keeping Superman flying high: GERRY CONWAY, MARTIN PASKO, MARV WOLFMAN, ELLIOTT S! MAGGIN and Moderator MARK EVANIER!

Thursday, July 18 – 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM in Room 8
THE SERGIO AND MARK SHOW
Same guys, same panel, same stupid barbarian. The folks who've brought you Groo the Wanderer (and vow to do so again soon) will tell you what's up with that and what's up with all their other silly projects. Featuring the world's most honored cartoonist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS and his faithful sidekick, MARK EVANIER, plus the creator of Usagi Yojimbo, STAN SAKAI, and the world's hardest-working colorist, TOM LUTH.

Friday, July 19 – 10 AM to 11 AM in Room 9
SPOTLIGHT ON TONY ISABELLA
Comic-Con Special Guest TONY ISABELLA is the man who brought you Black Lightning, It the Living Colossus, The Shadow War of Hawkman, The Champions and so many more memorable comics, plus his long-running column in Comic Buyer's Guide. He will be ruthlessly interrogated about them and other milestones of his career by his longtime friend, MARK EVANIER.

Friday, July 19 – 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM in Room 8
A CELEBRATION OF WALT KELLY'S 100th BIRTHDAY
The creator of one of comics' great newspaper strips, Walt Kelly, would have been 100 years old on August 25th of this year. His magnum opus, Pogo, is now receiving its first ever complete reprinting in an Eisner-nominated series from Fantagraphics Books. So it's a good time to remember him with Kelly fans JEFF SMITH (Bone), Paul Dini (Batman), comic historian R.C. HARVEY, MAGGIE THOMPSON (Comic Buyer's Guide), CAROLYN KELLY (co-editor of the Complete Pogo series and Walt's daughter) and Moderator MARK EVANIER (Groo the Wanderer).

Saturday, July 20 – 10 AM – 11 AM in Room 4
REMEMBERING JOE KUBERT
We lost one of comics' most beloved and respected creators in August of '12. Joe Kubert started drawing comics when he was twelve years old and didn't stop until he'd inspired and taught a couple generations how it was done. Come hear all about this extraordinary man from folks who knew and worked with him: SERGIO ARAGONÉS, NEAL ADAMS, PAUL LEVITZ, RUSS HEATH, TOM YEATES, JON COOKE and your Moderator, MARK EVANIER.

Saturday, July 20 – 11:45 AM to 1 PM in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
It's the fastest, funniest panel in the whole convention! (Well, some folks think it is — mainly Sergio and Mark..) Once again, your Quick Draw Quizmaster MARK EVANIER pits three super-speedy cartoonists against one another as they go mano a mano to create great cartoon art right before your very eyes. Competing this year are SERGIO ARAGONÉS (MAD Magazine, Groo the Wanderer), SCOTT SHAW! (The Simpsons) and this year's Special Guest Quick Draw-er, NEAL ADAMS (Batman, X-Men). Plus a couple of surprising surprises!

Saturday, July 20 – 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES I
Each year, Moderator MARK EVANIER gathers together a bevy of the most talented cartoon voice actors working today and invites them to explain and demonstrate their artistry! This year's lineup includes SCOTT MENVILLE (Teen Titans Go, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), GREY DeLISLE (Scooby Doo, Pound Puppies), CHRISTOPHER COX (Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Family Guy), DAVID BOAT (Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Family Guy), MICHAEL LEON-WOOLEY (The Princess and the Frog) and KARI WAHLGREN (Bolt, Tangled).

Saturday, July 20 – 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM in Room 5AB
THAT 70'S PANEL
It was a time of change in comics with a new generation intermingling with the old and taking command. Hear what it was like from MARTIN PASKO (Superman, Swamp Thing), TONY ISABELLA (Black Lightning, The Champions), VAL MAYERIK (Man-Thing, Howard the Duck), ELLIOTT S! MAGGIN (Superman, Green Arrow), GEORGE PEREZ (Teen Titans, Justice League) and Moderator MARK EVANIER (Groo the Wanderer, Blackhawk).

Saturday, July 20 – 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM in Room 5AB
SPOTLIGHT ON LEONARD MALTIN
He's been called America's most knowledgeable film critic and historian, and he's the author of more than a dozen books of motion pictures, in addition to his annual (and best-selling) Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, a book no lover of film can be without. This year, he's a Comic-Con Special Guest and for this hour, he'll be interviewed by his longtime friend, MARK EVANIER.

Sunday, July 21 – 10:00 AM – 11:15 PM in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
Each year, we set aside time to talk about Comic-Con's first superstar guest and the man they call The King of the Comics, Jack Kirby. Jack left us in 1994 but his influence on comics, film and this convention has never been greater. Discussing the man and his work this year are NEIL GAIMAN, TONY ISABELLA and Kirby family attorney PAUL S. LEVINE. And of course, it's moderated by MARK EVANIER.

Sunday, July 21 – 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES II
Yesterday's Cartoon Voices Panel will have been such a hit that we'll have to do another one with different but equally talented actors from the world of animation voicing. Once again, Moderator MARK EVANIER has assembled an all-star dais that will include BOB BERGEN (Porky Pig), ALICYN PACKARD (The Mr. Men Show, Poppy Cat), MAURICE LaMARCHE (Futurama, Pinky and the Brain), CANDI MILO (Dexter's Laboratory, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends), NEIL ROSS (G.I. Joe, Transformers) and maybe someone else.

Sunday, July 21 – 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM in Room 25ABC
COVER STORY: THE ART OF THE COVER
What does it take to make a great cover for a comic book? Let's ask four of the top artists…all folks who've created some of the best. Come hear the "shop talk" of JERRY ORDWAY (Superman, The Power of Shazam), GARY FRANK (Action Comics, DC Universe: Legacies), DAN JURGENS (Superman, Booster Gold) and CHRIS SAMNEE (Daredevil, Thor). Moderated by MARK EVANIER.

Sunday, July 21 – 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM in Room 25ABC
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
Interested in a career doing voices for animation and video games? There are plenty of people around who'll take your money and tell you how to go about it…but here's 90 minutes of absolutely free advice from folks who work in the field. Come hear cartoon voice actors GREGG BERGER and CANDI MILO, agents PAT BRADY (C.E.S.D.) and HEATHER VERGO (Atlas Talent) and your moderator, voice director MARK EVANIER (The Garfield Show).

This is from Paul Dushkind…

I enjoy reading about the late night hosts, but you haven't addressed the issue: could Leno, who was under contract to NBC, have turned down a return to the Tonight Show if he wanted to? Conan seems to think he could have.

Well, I never read Jay's contract — and I doubt Conan did, either — but if the Bill Carter book is correct, yes, Jay could have refused to go back to that time slot. I'm not sure why anyone could or should have expected him to…but I believe he could have.

You know, the whole debacle was based on a number of flawed premises, starting with a prediction within NBC that in that last five years of the Leno Tonight Show, Jay's ratings would fade, whereas Conan's popularity would soar. If anything, the opposite occurred. But another big problem was that both Jay and Conan made key errors in their contracts. Conan did not secure a time-slot guarantee — something that was fairly standard in deals like that. He had no contractual assurance that his Tonight Show would air at 11:35, thus making it possible for NBC to consider sliding him later.

Leno's omission was even more curious, given how obsessed he was with remaining on the air continuously. At all costs, Jay wanted to avoid being off TV for an extended period, which is what would have happened if he'd rejected the offer for the 10 PM show and anything else NBC offered him. He couldn't immediately have gone to Fox or ABC or elsewhere. NBC had him under contract and while they would have had to keep paying him megabucks for the duration, they could have kept him off television, interrupting his continuity with the viewership, causing much of his staff to scatter if he didn't elect to keep paying them himself, etc. Obviously, one of the main appeals of the 10 PM offer for Jay was that it kept him in the same place (same offices, same studio, same parking space, etc.) and got him back on television much quicker.

What he should have done when he made his deal to do that last five years of The Tonight Show was to hold out for terms that would have made him a free agent the minute he was no longer appearing five nights a week on NBC. And if he didn't get it then, he really should have gotten it when he made the deal for the 10 PM show since he had even more clout at that moment. He didn't. Instead, his lawyer secured for him an unprecedented "pay and play" deal which seemed to suggest he could sue NBC for breach if they took that show off the air. But the meaning of "pay and play" was so unprecedented and to go to court would have been so messy and time-consuming that no one took that seriously as a threat. Jay seems to have ruled it out because it could have keep him off TV for years…so I'm not sure what the point of it was.

I suspect that some who fault Leno for his conduct in replacing Conan are operating on the theory that Jay, once his 10 PM show was axed, said to NBC, "You owe me all this money so I demand you kick O'Brien off and give me back The Tonight Show." But that would have been suicidal of the network if they didn't think Jay would have done a lot better there than Conan…and there's no evidence such a demand was ever made. Indeed, in the Carter book, when Jeff Gaspin tells Leno that the 10 PM show is being terminated and proposes the half-hour at 11:35, Leno asks if NBC will release him from his contract if he refuses. Gaspin says no. Assuming that's true, Leno at that point had two choices: Agree to a new show for them or just wait out the expiration of his contract for a year or two. If he'd chosen the latter, he would have made a lot of money for doing nothing but he would have been off television for a long time…and of course, his staff would have lost their jobs.

So NBC offered Leno a half-hour show at 11:35 and planned on bumping O'Brien's Tonight Show to 12:05…to which Jay said, "If Conan's in, I'm in." Some say that it was even wrong for Leno to say that…and they're assuming, I suppose, that if he'd refused to ever return to 11:35, NBC would have left Conan there indefinitely. Do we believe that? I don't. I think they would immediately have started lining up someone else for to host The Tonight Show. They had to have someone.

In 30+ years, there had never been a moment when NBC didn't have at least one person (sometimes, two) in the "on deck" circle for The Tonight Show. During Carson's tenure, it changed from time to time — at one point, Bob Newhart or Joey Bishop; at another, David Brenner or McLean Stevenson; later, Joan Rivers and, of course, Leno. And for much of that time if Johnny had suddenly quit or died, there was David Letterman. There was always a host-in-waiting, even though unlike the Conan situation, canceling Johnny due to low ratings was generally not a concern. Throughout Leno's run as host, they always had Conan.

So then one day, they have Conan behind the desk and it's too soon to think about Jimmy Fallon moving up. Conan's fans have claimed the ratings weren't as bad as NBC insisted, especially since his numbers with younger viewers were decent. Clearly though, NBC was not happy with them. The NBC/Conan relationship probably reached the point of no-return when the President of NBC Sports (and a former dabbler in late night programming) Dick Ebersol got sick of seeing Conan's handlers and friends blaming Leno. He took to the pages of the New York Times to call the then-current Tonight Show "…an astounding failure by Conan."

I think it's silly to say Jay had some obligation to Conan to not be available to go back to late night. I don't see what Jay owed Conan other than to hand off The Tonight Show to him with graciousness and good ratings…which he did. Would you have been as polite as that to the guy who hadn't hesitated to bump you from the best job you ever had? But leave you out of it and let's say Jay did for some reason decide to sacrifice a large chunk of his career, as well as the jobs of his staff, to help Conan. Suppose he'd said. "Nope! I'm not going back to 11:30." That might have bought O'Brien a little more time on the air but the following would also have happened…

NBC would have started looking for his replacement. And they would have started looking hard and fast because it can take a while to find the right person and put his or her show together. They were already displeased with Conan's ratings and so were the affiliates. (Carter says that when the network polled station owners as to who they wanted at 11:35 at that point, not one voted for O'Brien.) NBC had to be worried the numbers would drop even more, damaging perhaps their most valuable franchise and time slot. So without Jay as an option, you would have heard they were talking to Jon or talking to Steve or talking to Jerry or talking to lots of people about taking over for Conan. Folks within NBC like Ebersol who had decided Conan had to go would have leaked it to the press. Other comedians who dreamed of taking over The Tonight Show — i.e., almost all of them — would have had their managers planting stories that they were under consideration.

I was always a big fan of Conan O'Brien and his whole operation — Andy, the writers, the producers, everyone. Conan was, is, and will remain a major talent in television and a stunning success story. He was a guy who wound up in an impossible situation — an unknown replacing David Letterman — and really made it work. But I wasn't fond of his Tonight Show and obviously, I wasn't the only one. At some point, the suits at NBC wanted to get him out of the 11:35 time slot and if possible, ease Leno back in. Maybe that was a wrong decision or at least a premature decision…but my main point here is it wasn't Jay's decision. Jay doesn't program that network.

It's amazing how little power that guy had there given his winning year after year after year. Ordinarily when you're in first place, you're safe. Jay was in first place when he didn't have the power to stop them from offering his job to David Letterman. He was in first place when he didn't have the power to stop them from actually giving it to Conan O'Brien. Later, he was in first place when he didn't have the power to stop them from giving it to Jimmy Fallon. But apparently someone's premise is that when his 10 PM show flopped and he was at his greatest point of failure, he had the power to get NBC to dump Conan O'Brien.

People faulted the guy for even being available but if it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. The network gets what it wants and if they wanted Conan to stay, he would have stayed and if they wanted him to go, he would have gone. Had Jay refused the slot, Conan would have been a walking deadman, carrying on a few more months while rumors swirled about as to who NBC was courting to replace him.

I'm sorry it went down that way. The one time I met Conan O'Brien, he was funny and eminently likeable. Given all the network promised him, I think he deserved a lot better. But that's true of a lot of people in television. It's kind of how the industry operates and it's the reason he had a contract that they had to settle to the tune of $45 million. He had it better than many folks. There are people who get screwed over and don't get $45 million as a consolation prize…and almost none of them get another show months later. Some of the news stories about the whole mess acted like he was the first person to ever suffer the disappointment of having his series canceled.

This'll probably be the last message on this topic for a while. I'm aware it's Old News and no longer of interest to many…but it's bugged me for some time that people who don't like his comedy (or are on opposite him) were trashing the guy. Let's move on to other topics. It's Comic-Con Time!

Someone has found a lost treasure: It's a print of Buster Keaton's 1922 two-reeler, The Blacksmith, with much footage that differs from the version some of us have seen for years. It was not unusual for European prints of silent films to differ from American ones. In fact, it was common. They often shot silent films with two cameras right next to each other so they could wind up with two first-generation negatives — one to retain in the U.S. and make prints of and one to send to Europe so it could be duplicated for that market. Usually, the two negatives were edited alike but there were sometimes differences. This Keaton find sounds like it varies a lot from what we've seen here. Read all about it.

I've been negligent in plugging Stu's Show here but tomorrow, he's got a great guest — Sheila James Kuehl, best known for her portrayal of Zelda Gilroy on the classic TV series, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She was adorable and funny as you know on that show…and if you don't know, order yourself the new boxed set and see for yourself. I find a lot of programs from that era that I once enjoyed don't hold up very well. This one does. The dialogue is sharp and witty, and the performers deliver it with expert precision.

I met Sheila some time back and found her to be one of the sharpest, smartest actors I'd ever encountered — and not just sharp about acting. She was working in administration at U.C.L.A. at the time and not long after, she went off to law school and then on to a career in politics and public service. I believe she was the first openly gay person elected to the California legislature and she's been a tireless worker, not just for gay rights issues but for things like health care and homelessness. She is apparently planning to run for the seat currently held by Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and I intend to vote for her.

She'll probably be discussing (mostly) her TV career with Stu tomorrow, which is fine. She did other things than Dobie and you'll want to hear about them all. As usual, you have two choices of how to listen to Stu's Show…

There's the free way. "Tune in" while they do it live tomorrow (Wednesday) at 4 PM Pacific, 7 PM in the East, other times in other climes. The show runs a minimum of two hours and sometimes goes longer. This is the best way to hear it because not only is it free but it somehow seems more participatory even if Stu doesn't get around to taking phone calls. Listen in at the Stu's Show website.

You can also listen to it the pay way. Go to that selfsame website after the live webcast. There, you can download it or any of hundreds of wonderful episodes for a measly 99 cents each. But to get the real deal, order four for the price of three. In fact, while you're there, you might want to order Stu's fine interview of Dobie himself, Dwayne Hickman. But you'll enjoy any Stu's Show you download. Even the ones where the guest is me.

Here's another musical number by the Golddiggers from, I believe, their 1970 summer series that occupied Dean Martin's time slot. The song is "Elegance" from Hello, Dolly — and has everyone here heard the rumor that this song wasn't written, like the credits of that musical said all the songs were, by Jerry Herman? Some claim, though I believe Mr. Herman denies, that he had at least one ghost-written tune forced on him by the producer, David Merrick. There was this one and the claim is that it was written by Bob Merrill. Mr. Merrill, of course, wrote a number of fine Broadway scores and also worked as lyricist-only with Jule Styne on Funny Girl and, more importantly, Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol. Talented man.

So did he write this or did Jerry Herman? Beats me.

I have written here before of how I used to trespass in the NBC Studios in Burbank in the early seventies, wandering from studio to studio, trying to look like I knew where I was going and belonged there. I watched Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In tape. I watched Bob Hope do his specials. I watched Johnny Carson, when he brought his show out from New York, tape. I watched Flip Wilson rehearse. And I watched The Dean Martin Show rehearse, which of course meant I never saw Dean…there. I saw him once when I went as a legit audience member but never saw him at rehearsals…which was okay because I usually did see either Lou Jacobi or some other great comic actor. Or sometimes, there were The Golddiggers or their spin-off group, The Ding-A-Ling Sisters. No hardship watching them practice in leotards.

Perhaps you have figured out that I had…well, I guess at age eighteen, I was too old to call it a "crush." What I was doing was trying to strike up a conversation with a certain Golddigger and deftly segue into a suggestion of dinner. I suppose I had other things in mind but was quite willing to settle for dinner. Hell, I would have settled for conversation over a Milky Way bar from the vending machine in the hallway and I had all sorts of witty banter locked and loaded should the opportunity arise then…which, of course, it didn't. (Don't watch this clip and try to guess which one I had my eye on. She's not in it.) But I did develop a fondness for the act quite apart from any physical attractions towards the ladies. Here they be…

Twin baby pandas! Do you hear what I'm telling you? Twin baby pandas!

57 Amazing Behind the Scenes Photos from Iconic TV Shows. Some of them aren't that amazing but some are. There's one of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy on the set of Star Trek reading MAD. That is, of course, the issue that featured "Star Blecch," the first parody MAD did of that TV series.

If you haven't had enough of the George Zimmerman case — or still haven't decided what to think of it all — I have two more articles for you to read. And I'm going to suggest that if you read one, you read the other. They present two ways of looking at the case, both of them valid to some extent. They both think Zimmerman used bad judgment and caused the death to occur but was not technically guilty under the law.

One is by William Saletan. He thinks an awful lot of what people believe they "know" about the case is just plain wrong. I think he's wrong on at least one point. He says Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law wasn't invoked in the case but as the other article notes, and as former State Senator Dan Gelber points out, the instructions to the jury of how to apply the law roughly summarized "Stand Your Ground." But Saletan is a sharp guy and I can't dismiss all he writes about the way evidence was misrepresented in the press.

Then we have Ta-Nehisi Coates, telling us that what was at fault in this case was the way the laws are written; that they favor anyone who shoots another person and then says, "I felt threatened." It sure sounds that way. And the folks running around now claiming that Zimmerman should never have been charged really seem to want it that way.

This is one of those inspirational videos — a true story with the moral that if you don't give up, you can't be defeated. I'm always leery of that advice because I think there are times in life when you can't win and it's self-destructive to not give up on one goal and redirect your time and passion to another, more attainable one. I mean, if I decide my goal is to be elected Miss Teenage U.S.A., that's not going to happen and it won't be because I gave up before I got my dream. Dreams are great but they need to be grounded in some reality. I know some folks who I think pissed away their best years and a lot of attainable successes because they obsessed on an unattainable — or at least, unlikely — goal.

But this one is about a runner with an attainable goal: To finish the race he starts. Obviously, since I'm telling you what I just told you, he makes it. How he makes it may cause you to get a tear or two on your monitor…

We're at the point where about half the things I say to people include the phrase, "After Comic-Con," as in, "That'll have to wait until after Comic-Con." The other half include some variation of the phrase, "Hope to see you down at Comic-Con." I can feel myself entering the mode where I am unable to talk to anyone face-to-face without first scanning their torso for a badge and the name on it. I don't know why I do this. I can have known you, as I've known some folks I'll see at the con, for 30+ years. If you come up to me at the convention, I will read the name on your badge before I talk to you like you're you. One time, I called one of my best friends by the wrong name because he was wearing someone else's badge.

I have a tightly-packed schedule of where I'm supposed to be and when, devised with the awareness that my knee may make it a little harder for me to scurry about the hall like I usually do. The knee is better but unpredictable. It hurts a bit on stairs but will also inexplicably hurt for no evident reason…and I haven't subjected it to too much stress yet. So I think I'll be scootering about at times, mowing down rows of people dressed like The Joker and Harley. I've decided to skip most of the off-site parties to which I've been invited but that's fine. They're usually too loud, too crowded and too difficult to get to. Last year, I found myself at one that was very uncomfortable in terms of noise, density of population and unidentifiable hors d'oeuvres. Trying without much success to be heard by the person to whom I was allegedly speaking, I yelled, "Why are we here?" He yelled back, "Because we were invited and other people weren't!" That, I've come to realize the hard way, is not a good enough reason to be anywhere.

I highly recommend advance-study of the programming schedule. There are a lot of programs and panels about comic books as comic books, not as movies or TV programs. I mention this because the 'net is full of articles and preview lists of the panels that spotlight TV shows and motion pictures but which mention few (if any) of the panels about actual comics. A few of those articles lament how there isn't enough attention paid to comic books…and then proceed to pay no attention to comic books. I am not complaining; just reminding you that the panels you want to see may well be there but it could take a bit of research to find out about them.

The list of panels I'm hosting, most of which are actually about comic books, is here. I will repost it in a day or so for those of you too lazy to click or scroll. If you have an iPhone and are attending, you should have the new, updated Comic-Con International app. It's chock full o' great, useful info.

Also, if you're attending, note that we are now looking at a 40%-50% chance of a thunderstorm or two on the weekend. At the moment, the greatest likelihood is Saturday night through Sunday morning. Even if there's no precipitation, the nearness of storm clouds could muggy things up a bit. So watch out for rain if only because nothing smells worse than a damp Klingon.

My father was a very honest man. Absolutely, utterly honest. Once, he found a wallet in the street with a few hundred dollars in it. He took it home, looked up the number of the person it belonged to and arranged to return it to them…with every buck still in it. He did things like that all the time. All the time.

In his role as an officer for the Internal Revenue Service, he was occasionally — very occasionally — offered bribes. The offerers of those bribes were foolish to try this. My father was not the kind of guy to go along with something like that…and even if he had been, there was very little he could do to "help" the offerer. He didn't have the power to tear up your tax bill or waive penalties or anything. About all he could do was to try extra-hard to not have his supervisors be too rough on you…and he did that anyway for most people.

There were, he heard, other I.R.S. agents who occasionally took bribes anyway. They'd grab the cash or, more often, some item of considerable value and tell the briber, "No promises but I'll see what I can do." And then they wouldn't do anything because, at least for those at or around my father's level in the operation, they couldn't do anything.

Once, a fellow who owed the Internal Revenue a few hundred thousand bucks offered my father a new car. It was not stated overtly as a quid pro quo. My father didn't have to do anything to get this new car but accept. Then, if he wanted to, (ahem!) he could maybe do whatever seemed appropriate to aid the fellow with his tax dilemma. Nudge, nudge.

My father said no. Even if there were no strings attached, he could not and would not accept anything of value from someone he had a case against. When the man tried to force the gift on him, my father reported it to his superiors and they took the appropriate action. This kind of thing happened three or four times in his career with the I.R.S. and he was not unique. No one in his office had ever been accused of accepting a bribe. Until one day, he was.

It came out of nowhere. He'd had a case against some guy who'd swindled the government out of millions. My father took it as far as he could, then it was reassigned to lawyers (my father was not a lawyer) higher-up in the I.R.S. to handle. At some point, the deadbeat began throwing out allegations that several I.R.S. agents, my father among them, had accepted large sums of cash or merchandise. I guess the premise here was that he'd drag the department through the mud until they agreed to drop the charges against him…or something.

My father was shocked, angered and even a bit worried. He knew he'd done no such thing but until it could be verified, he didn't sleep too well.

Vindication took about two months. A special investigator was appointed and he went through all my father's finances — checking account, bank account, etc. It was a much more thorough audit than the I.R.S. ever performed on a civilian and it even extended to me. To make sure that no bribe money had been paid to him via his spouse or son, they had us turn over all of our records, as well. A forensic accountant (I think that's what he called himself) at an outside agency received the data, then phoned me up several times to ask questions like, "What was this $300 you earned the first week of August for?" I told him in that instance, "That was for an issue I wrote of the Daffy Duck comic book." He was amused by my sources of income but it all checked out.

All of the accused Internal Revenue employees were cleared and their accuser wound up doing hard time. The matter was over but my father had a hard time letting it be over.

A few weeks later, he was talking about having some work done on his car and he said, "Guess I'll have to postpone it until I have the dough." Making a joke I immediately wished I could take back, I said, "Hey, why don't you use some of that bribe money you have stashed away?" He gave me a look that clearly indicated he didn't find that funny. I apologized and never made reference to it again.

But he'd bring the matter up every so often. He had been totally cleared but somehow, that wasn't enough. I think he wanted the investigators to do more than say, "There is no evidence that Bernard Evanier ever accepted cash or any item of value from his accuser." He wanted them to issue a statement that said something like, "Not only didn't Bernie Evanier take a bribe but our investigation has determined he is the most honest I.R.S. agent ever and anyone who thinks he'd do something like that is out of their friggin' mind!" I'm not sure even that would have gotten him to stop talking about it.

I don't mean he spoke of it all the time but it had a way of coming up, even after he retired from the agency. He'd be discussing the Lakers and what a lousy season they were having and suddenly, out of nowhere, he'd make some odd connection like, "People keep accusing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of not doing more on defense. That's as ridiculous as that guy accusing me of taking a bribe."

My father's best friend in that I.R.S. office was a fellow named Howard…a real nice man, I thought. They had lunch almost every day when my father worked in the office and they switched to every Wednesday after he retired. Howard, who still worked there, would come by and pick him up and off they'd go to some deli or sometimes for Chinese. Howard would report on the latest doings in the office and my father would mutter something about that crook who'd accused several of them. Howard, who had not been among those accused, would tell him to drop it, forget it, get over it. This went on through years and years of Wednesday lunches.

Then one Wednesday, Howard didn't show up for their usual date: No Howard. No call. No nothing. I had moved out of the family home by then but I happened to be there visiting. I asked him, "Are you sure he didn't tell you he had to skip this week for some reason?"

"No, no," my father said. "Last Wednesday when he dropped me off, I distinctly remember him saying, 'See you next week!'" I suggested he call the office and he did. He called and reached a secretary there he knew very well, then asked if Howard had come into work that morning.

"Didn't he tell you?" she asked. "Didn't anyone tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

She said, "Howard was fired after he was convicted last year of taking a bribe. We heard he surrendered on Monday and began serving his prison sentence."

"Stunned" does not begin to describe my father's reaction. He practically went into a sensory coma. Howard had been indicted almost two years before and placed on suspension. He'd been through a trial where he was found guilty, then been through a few unsuccessful appeals before giving up and telling people, "Yeah, I did it."

For the last few months, he'd been well aware of the date when he would be tossed in the slammer for two-to-five years. And still, every Wednesday, he came by, took my father to lunch and told him what was up with the folks at the office where he actually hadn't worked in over a year. Not a word about being on trial, being convicted, being sentenced to prison…any of it. They just sat at Nate n' Al's Delicatessen and talked about the Lakers.

We found out Howard was doing his stretch in the California Institute for Men in Chino. That's about an hour's drive east of Los Angeles. I told my father that if he wanted to go visit Howard, I'd drive him out there some day, maybe even a Wednesday. He thought about it for a second and then said, "No…I'm not sure I could look him in the face. And with my luck, he's probably sharing a cell with that prick who accused me of taking a bribe!"

Here's another one of those National Press Club Luncheons. This one's from 1995, the guest speaker is Bob Newhart and he's awfully funny…

Got about a half-dozen e-mails this morning from folks who are pleased with the verdict in the Zimmerman case. Two made a decent (for me) case that we don't know exactly what happened and that the prosecution couldn't prove the scenario that Zimmerman was the aggressor. The other four seem to know exactly what happened and are sure that the victim was wholly to blame for what happened and didn't give Zimmerman any choice but to kill him. I'm sure the next time an armed man kills an unarmed black kid, they'll feel the same way.

I find myself caring more about the George Zimmerman case now than I did before the verdict. I'm not sure I understand it and would love to hear the jury's theory — if indeed they have one — of what happened between the two men. Did they think the kid with the candy had threatened the life of the guy with the loaded gun? Or was it just their interpretation of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law…which sure strikes me as an invitation for paranoid people to claim "I felt threatened" after they blow away anyone who causes them to feel that way. I dunno.

I see a lot of folks cheering the verdict on Twitter and Facebook and even two in my own e-mail. I'm sure there are people celebrating this who aren't showing an ugly streak of racism but I haven't seen them yet. I see people who feel an injustice was done to George Zimmerman for even questioning that he was right to kill a young black male.

Years ago, I found myself one evening engaged in a friendly (I thought) debate with a fellow writer of comic books. We were discussing the Death Penalty, a topic on which I have a raft of conflicting feelings…but one clear one is this: If we're going to execute people, we ought to do an airtight job of making sure we execute only guilty people. I felt this way before we had the avalanche of DNA tests that proved a lot of folks on Death Row were innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. My faith in our judicial system went down further after those exonerations…and it's taking another hit tonight. Anyway, it seemed to me that "we shouldn't execute innocent people" was one of those obvious truths — the kind of which you say, "Who could possibly argue with that?"

Well, this fellow did. He said to me, "No one on Death Row is ever innocent." I asked about the many exonerations. He said, "Oh, those people may not have committed those specific crimes but everyone on Death Row is a loser who probably hasn't been caught for the crimes he has committed." And then to further shock me, he added, "Especially if they're poor and black or Hispanic."

I remember that. I also remember the sound of my jaw hitting the linoleum. The fellow realized he'd let his racist side show and he quickly tried to back-pedal from what he'd said but there was no unringing that bell. I heard it loud and clear. It's made it difficult to associate with the guy ever since.

I got those two e-mails tonight from folks I know who were pleased about the Zimmerman verdict. One believes the prosecutors simply didn't make a sufficient case…and that may be true. I think there probably was a sufficient case to be made but not having been in the courtroom, I don't presume the jury heard one. This correspondent of mine considered the whole matter tragic, especially the loss of a young man's life. I respect that way of thinking. Tragic indeed, regardless of who was at fault.

The other e-mail was from someone who seems pretty happy Trayvon Martin is dead because, you know, he was a druggy gang member who probably deserved it. Martin may not have been guilty of something at that moment but he was foolish enough to go up against an armed man so he brought his death on himself. Or so this guy believes. I don't think I'm going to consider him a friend any longer.