Mayor Kevin Faulconer of San Diego is throwing his weight behind a plan to expand the existing San Diego Convention Center. There was another proposal out to instead build a new "campus" facility a few blocks away and the Mayor says that a new feasibility study has convinced him the better bet is to expand what's there — i.e., the building we fill each year for Comic-Con International.
One possible barrier to this happening is that local voters would have to approve an increase in the hotel tax. I'm not sure why they would vote that down since most of them would never pay it and there would be great benefits to the community to expand the city's convention. But voters did veto something of the sort a few years ago so maybe they would again.
In any case, expansion or no expansion, I continue to believe that Comic-Con ain't gonna relocate for a long time, if ever…and that the periodic rumors that it will move are about as likely as President Lincoln Chaffee. Thanks to Douglass Abramson for pointing me to this article which is all about that new study.
So there's this county clerk in Kentucky who stopped issuing marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized Gay Marriage last June. I guess the message was that if gays insisted on getting married in her area then nobody was going to get married in her area.
Back when this was a real debate in this country, a lot of folks against Gay Marriage insisted that legalizing it would destroy Straight Marriage. A lot of us thought this was nonsense but we failed to reckon with this woman. She hates Gay Marriage so much, she's willing to subvert Straight Marriage.
She's lost every court battle and must appear in court on Thursday to show cause why she should not be slapped in prison or fined. I assume if the judge sets a fine for every day she doesn't issue the licenses, her supporters will use online crowdfunding to pay her fine so she'll hold out as long as the bucks roll in. But she is going to lose this battle and she has the brains of a shrimp if she ever thought it would go any other way.
This is an entry to Mark Evanier's list of the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968. For more on this list, read this. To see all the listings posted to date, click here.
Jim Backus
Most Famous Role: Mr. Magoo.
Other Notable Roles: Almost none unless you count the genie in the Bugs Bunny cartoon, A-Lad-In His Lamp.
What He Did Besides Cartoon Voices: Dozens of character roles in radio, movies and television, including several regular series like Gilligan's Island, I Married Joan and even The Jim Backus Show. The dozens of films in which he appeared included Rebel Without a Cause and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He also appeared in hundreds of commercials and probably made as much money dubbing the voice of "The Little Old Winemaker" for Italian Swiss Colony Wine as he did playing Quincy Magoo.
Why He's On This List: Few theatrical cartoons got so much of their charm and humor from a voice as did the Magoos. Backus was allowed to ad-lib during recordings and his muttered asides made sure the cartoon was funny even if the visuals and gags sometimes were not. Tex Avery once called Backus as Magoo the single greatest bit of casting in the history of animation.
Fun Fact: The U.P.A. cartoon studio, where Backus most often recorded his Magoo dialogue, was next door to the Smoke House, a still-extant Burbank restaurant where animation folks were known to gather. Before a recording session, voice director (and occasional co-actor) Jerry Hausner would take Backus over there to the bar for a few drinks. Hausner would ask him after each one, "Is Magoo here yet?" and Backus might answer, "I think he might arrive after one more gin and tonic." When Backus was sufficiently Magooed, they'd go over to the studio and record, and would sometimes return to the bar area of the Smoke House afterwards for what Backus called "the wrap party."
This is a partial reprint of an item I posted here a few years ago but with some stuff expanded and altered.
As noted here, last Friday would have been the 98th birthday of Jack Kirby. On the long, long list of Jack's many accomplishments — down around #1,253 which was creating a character who had one line in a Green Arrow story — is that Jack was one of the three people most responsible for me getting into the comic book field. The other two were a gentleman named George Sherman who worked for the Disney Studios and a gentleman named Chase Craig who worked for Western Publishing Company. Last Friday would have been the 105th birthday of Chase Craig.
Chase edited thousands of comic books for Western Publishing which were published under the Dell and later the Gold Key imprint. Since titles like Walt Disney's Comics and Stories and Uncle Scrooge were selling in the millions per issue back in the fifties, there was a time when more people were reading comic books edited by Chase Craig than those of any other editor alive.
And by a very wide margin. There were individual Craig-edited comics of the day that sold more copies per month than all the comics edited in that same month by Stan Lee or Julius Schwartz or maybe both of them put together.
His comics were reaching a much narrower audience by the time I met him in 1970. Comic sales had declined everywhere and despite having superstar characters like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, Western was having trouble getting its wares distributed. So were DC and Marvel to some extent but DC and Marvel didn't rely wholly on newsstand sales for their income. To some extent, publishing comic books was for them a loss leader to promote their characters for merchandising. They didn't make money off the Wonder Woman comic book. They made it off licensing the Wonder Woman t-shirts.
With comparable newsstands sales, Western didn't fare as well. The revenues from the Mickey Mouse t-shirts went to Disney, not to them.
Photo by Mike Barrier
In 1970, my friend/partner Steve Sherman and I were assisting Jack Kirby with his new comics for DC. Our buddy Mike Royer was working for Chase, inking comics and sometimes penciling or writing them. Mike happened to mention to us that Chase had mentioned to him that Western was looking for ideas for new comics. Mike had nothing in mind to submit to them but he thought we might want to.
We decided to take a crack at it. Emboldened by our proximity to the all-time greatest creator of new comics the industry has ever seen, we whipped up written presentations for about a half-dozen new comics. Steve phoned Mr. Craig, got us an appointment and we ventured to the Western offices, which were located on Hollywood Boulevard directly across the street from the famed Chinese Theater.
Chase was very nice and treated us like seasoned professionals, which we were not. He said he'd take a look at our ideas and pass them on to the many other folks in the company who would have to approve any new books. Then he'd get back to us.
As I later learned, Western did want new comics but it wasn't as simple as filling that want. To get one approved by all the folks in that company who then had a say would be like getting an unanimous vote today out of Congress on anything meaningful.
Western did many things very, very well but they were quite conservative about publishing decisions. If Western and Marvel each put out a new bi-monthly comic at the same time and got the same encouraging sales reports, Marvel would instantly up the book to monthly and start planning spin-offs. Western would say, "Hey, let's keep an eye on this for a year or two and if these numbers hold up, we could try publishing it eight times a year!"
So they wanted new comics but they really didn't want new comics. They certainly didn't want ours. They were rejected with about as polite a turndown as any writers ever received anywhere. For some reason, it didn't dawn on me that Chase edited lots of ongoing comics that needed the services of writers. I cannot for the life of me tell you why I didn't think to go back to him and submit ideas for his Woody Woodpecker or Pink Panther comic books. I can't even tell me that.
If it had occurred to me, I might have been dissuaded by a brilliant but cranky artist named Alex Toth who drew for various publishers and animation houses, never for any one for very long. I occasionally visited Alex back then. He loved to sit for hours and talk about comics and so did I. When I mentioned that my partner and I had submitted some proposals to Chase Craig, he exploded.
Chase Craig? Alex had drawn years earlier for Chase and he hated the guy, thought he was an idiot, thought he was unethical, etc. Later because of his explosion, I learned two very important lessons in life…
One was that Alex felt that way at one time or another about darn near every single person with whom he ever worked. The problem wasn't always them but it was always, to some extent, him. He was one of the most talented people I ever knew but also one of the most insecure and self-destructive.
The other thing was that in this world, you have to go by your own impressions and experiences. If you're warned away from someone, you might be wise to keep that warning in mind. It might well be right and you can perhaps avoid or minimize the damage if you are on guard. But you also can't assume it's totally true or that your experience will be the same as their reported experience. Chase Craig was utterly wonderful to me.
I started working for him because I was working for George Sherman…and I started working for George Sherman because of Mike Royer. Him again.
Chase Craig edited Western's line of comics based on the Disney properties. The Disney Studio sold stats of all that material to the various publishers in other lands who published Disney comics. In most of those countries, there was more demand for Disney comics than there was in this country. Western didn't produce enough material to fill the demand so a division on the Disney lot in Burbank bought scripts and art for additional material that was only published overseas. George Sherman was one of the editors in that division.
Mike Royer had been asked to write for them but he couldn't because he'd just landed a dream position. He was taking over as the inker on Jack Kirby's books for DC Comics, a job that I had a lot to do with. To thank me for my help, Mike arranged for me to submit material to George who liked what I did and encouraged me to write more. I did. Lots more.
I wrote scripts for George for a while and it was slow-going because he was out for weeks at a time due to the illness that took his life but a few years later — in 1974. Before that sad event, he'd come back from medical leave and find his desk piled high with Evanier submissions.
I joke that he referred me to Chase just to get rid of that drain on his health but the truth is, I'm sure, that he felt guilty about his slow response time on every script. One day, he was talking to Chase about perhaps improving the quality of the material Western was producing and Chase lamented that a couple of his best writers had left him or were burning out. George said something like, "Hey, I've got a kid here you oughta know about," and he sent Chase copies of scripts I had done for him.
So it was that on one day outta the clear blue sky, Chase Craig called me and asked, "Can you write Super Goof stories for me the way you write them for George Sherman?" Well, I could sure try.
I sold him a few, then he had me write an emergency, had-to-be-done-almost-overnight issue of The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. After I handed it in, there came this extraordinary (for me) moment in the office depicted above. He leaned back in his chair and said, "You know, if you were able to write four or five comics a month for me, I could probably use them."
Then there was a pause — and I really remember that pause because of what came after — and he said, "I could really use you on Bugs Bunny."
This will all mean nothing to most of you and perhaps it shouldn't. But somewhere out there, there's a fellow professional writer who'll identify. He or she will recall the instant when they thought, "Hey, I really may be able to make a living in this business." That was mine.
For Chase, I wrote Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Porky Pig and Beep Beep the Road Runner and Woody Woodpecker and Scooby Doo and many others. I largely moved away from the Disney titles, which was financially foolish on my part. Chase occasionally rejected a script — usually because I didn't have an idea but I wrote it anyway. If he bounced a Daffy Duck script, it went into my filing cabinet and I never got paid for it. If he bounced a Donald Duck script, I could sometimes turn around and sell it to George Sherman. But I didn't think that way. I just felt more comfy with Daffy than Donald.
He was a very good editor. I knew that then and later, when I had some very bad ones, I appreciated Chase even more. He played no power games. He never changed a word to show he was in charge, only when he thought it had to be changed and he was usually right. When I screwed up — and I did, many a time — he explained why to me in a polite, respectful manner.
We discussed matters like adults and I could sometimes talk him into my point of view. All in all, it was probably a more pleasant experience to have Chase reject one of my scripts, as he occasionally had to do, than to have certain other editors I've had buy one.
Chase retired around 1974. Soon after, he came out of retirement to edit a new line of comics for Hanna-Barbera. In one of the most amazing moments of my life — I wrote about it here — he hired me to write them. He did it for a while, got bored and then retired again, passing the whole job on to me.
Early in my new responsibility, I went to my filing cabinet and hauled out the pile of scripts he had rejected back at Western. It wasn't a huge stack but I figured there had to be some good ideas in there that I could use on the H-B comics. There were two Scooby Doo scripts that Chase had bought but which had never been published or even drawn because Western lost the rights to do Scooby Doo comics. In my capacity as editor, I immediately purchased them from myself. But among the scripts Chase had rejected, I didn't find a single plot, joke or line of dialogue I could recycle. That was how good an editor Chase was.
In the last few years, I've become very sparing in the use of words like "mentor" and "protégé" when I write about my years with Jack, Chase and a few other talented folks who I've been blessed to have in my proximity. While those nouns might apply in some senses, I see them frequently used by a "new kid," consciously or not, trying to claim a piece of someone else's greatness. Not always but too often, it's like "Hire me because I was that guy's protégé so I'm therefore in his league."
Nope. One thing I did learn from both Jack and Chase is that your work is your work. It stands or falls on its own merits, if any, and who you know or knew doesn't make it one iota better. When I write a joke, no one laughs at it because I've worked with a lot of funny people. (Sometimes, no one laughs at it at all but that's a separate matter…)
I write a lot about Jack Kirby and from the reaction I get, I don't think it's humanly possible to write too much about Jack Kirby. But Chase was very important to me too and from now on, every August 28 when I write about Jack, I'm also going to write about Chase. I don't believe they ever met but they had these things in common…
They were both responsible for some of the best and most popular comic books ever published. They were both very nice men. They were both born on August 28th. They both employed Mike Royer and thought he was one of the best, most professional and reliable artists in the business. And they both helped me an awful lot towards whatever kind of career I've had since I got out of high school.
That last thing-in-common may not matter in the slightest to you. You may even see it as the greatest failings of each. But it sure matters to me.
This morning, I went out to Cal State Northridge and did that lecture about Jack Kirby that I told you about. It was interesting talking about Jack to a roomful of folks who didn't really know much about who he was. I'd guess that applied to about 80% of those present. The talk was streamed live on Periscope and I believe it will soon be online in a more conventional manner. As soon as someone tells me where it is, I'll let you know.
Mark Rothman is pretty sure he saw Jimmie Komack in the Damn Yankees number I posted earlier today. Mark writes, "He's the one at the beginning who says 'Okay, so how do we make him famous?' He doesn't dance, and spends the rest of the number in the back, second from extreme stage right." Okay, if my pal Mark says that's Jimmie, that's Jimmie. In the meantime, check out Mark's blog where he's been happily recovering from a stroke. You can tell he's improving as he gets crankier.
I'm starting to feel burned out on the whole subject of Donald Trump so I may write no more about the guy for a while. I will though link you to where Jonathan Chait predicts that Trump will not get the Republican nomination but will launch a third-party assault. That would sure shake things up…and what else is Donald Trump good for if not that?
While you're over there, assuming you go over there, also check out Chait's piece on Dick Cheney's criticisms of the Iran deal. Cheney's administration got nowhere with Iran…just caused it to get more and more nuclear capability. And now he's faulting a deal to not cut them back because it's not good enough. Apparently, any time you sit down to negotiate with an enemy, if you don't achieve total surrender from them on every point, you're Neville Chamberlain empowering Hitler. Better to let them get stronger than do that.
Gotta go nap then write. So I'll post a John Oliver video link and then you may not hear much from me here until tomorrow. Ciao.
Our friend Shelly Goldstein (chanteuse extraordinaire) is often mentioned on this blog. We mention her today to congratulate her for winning the weekly captioning contest in The New Yorker. The way it works is that they print a cartoon sans caption and readers send in their suggestions. Usually, the least funny one seems to get selected but maybe they've changed judges because Shelly's is pretty amusing. Anyway, she wins bragging rights and nothing else so I figured I'd brag a little for her. Nice work.
On a fifties TV show, actress Rae Allen re-creates a number she introduced in the original production of Damn Yankees. Whoever posted it says it's from the Colgate Comedy Hour salute to George Abbott, which showed scenes from that Broadway classic and also from one of Abbott's previous shows, Pajama Game.
That episode aired on July 10, 1955. The IMDB listing for does not list Rae Allen in the cast but does list my old employer, Jimmie Komack, who was also in the original production of Damn Yankees. If he was on that special, he's in this number but I'll be darned if I can spot him in it. Damn Yankees opened on Broadway on May 5, 1955 so if this is from the 7/10/55 special, it's probably all the original cast
Note one lyric change, doubtlessly made because this was done for network television and may have clashed with the sponsor's sensibilities. In the original song, Joe Hardy is described as "as fresh as Listerine." Here, he's "as [something] as gasoline." We are accepting guesses as to what that word is.
Yesterday, I was a bit tardy getting to the Kirby exhibition at Cal State Northridge. Here's why. I went first to visit a friend in the hospital, then got in my car and told my GPS to take me to Cal State Northridge. I pretty much knew how to get there without the GPS but I like having it suggesting streets to me and tracking how close I am to my destination.
It told me to take a left on Tampa instead of a right and I thought, "Huh? Well, maybe it knows some better route to me that's not obvious." Every so often, it helps me that way. So I followed its directions for about five minutes and I kept thinking, "This is taking me in the wrong direction."
Then I noticed. From the hospital to Cal State Northridge should have been about fifteen minutes. The GPS was telling me I was 65 minutes from my destination.
I pulled over and checked it. It had the right address but somehow there was a disconnect between the address showing on the screen and address to which it was taking me. I was being steered to a totally different location out in the hills of Agoura.
I canceled it out and programmed in the address again: 18111 Nordhoff St. Sure enough, my GPS pointed me to an address that seems to somewhere out on Lindero Canyon Road in Agoura. What to do now? Well, even though I don't think there's any such address, I programmed in 18113 Nordhoff and — wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles — it gave me correct directions to the actual campus of Cal State Northridge. Weird.
As it turned out, I didn't even follow that route. I figured out my own. If you're going to go see all that peachy Jack Kirby artwork, don't bother with any address on Nordhoff. Get to Reseda Boulevard and then go east on Plummer St., which is about a half-mile north of Nordhoff. Drive east on Plummer and it'll take you past the Art Gallery. Park in the lot to the right of it.
And never — never! — follow your GPS mindlessly. You may think it's guiding you to the Lincoln Memorial in our nation's capital when it's really taking you to some address on Lindero Canyon Road in Agoura. I have a feeling that's the home residence of some guy who designs GPS devices and he has his daughters outside selling overpriced lemonade to hot and bewildered Cal State Northridge students.
Lots of Democrats and Republicans are agonizing over Donald Trump's current lead in the polls. A lot of each don't want him to be the Republican nominee and for conflicting reasons. It also bothers some of both that the Old Rules don't seem to apply to this guy. He says and does things that would doom anyone else's candidacy and he still creeps upwards in the polls.
The latest example of that: Trump always brags about his deep commitment to The Bible. He even goes so far as to say that it's even a better book than his own Art of the Deal. But asked to name his favorite passage, he came up empty. He couldn't even say if he preferred the Old Testament or the New Testament. With any other candidate, that would be a deal-killer for a lot of folks who aren't fleeing from Trump because of it but who can shrug or call it a "gotcha" question and continue to support him.
I would like to suggest one reason for his popularity. I've seen a hundred offered but if someone has suggested it's as simple as I'm about to, I've missed it. It's that he looks like a winner and the people running against him do not.
I mean, come on. President Bobby Jindal? President Ben Carson? President Rand Paul? Are you kidding? Even President Jeb Bush is starting to look like a joke.
I really think it may be that simple. If you are a Republican, you probably have a whole list of things that you want to see the next president do. Trump's stated positions — and he hasn't stated all that many — may or may not promise you all of yours. (Last we heard, he wants to ban assault rifles and not close down Planned Parenthood, though I would expect both of those to change.)
But we are now so polarized in this country along partisan lines that you probably figure that with any Republican in the White House, you'll get at least some of what you want and with any Democrat, you'll get zero. In fact, the Democrat will probably do the exact opposite of many things on your wish list. Even the worst Republican will probably not make those matters any worse. He might not repeal Obamacare but at least he won't expand it.
So I think the reason Trump is doing so well is that at this point, he looks more like a winner than any other option. And it won't do Chris Christie or Mike Huckabee a bit of good to try to top him with anti-abortion or anti-immigrant rhetoric because neither of those guys looks like they have a prayer of winning.
So yeah, Trump was a Democrat not so long ago and he was pro-life and he doesn't conform to the list of positions that every Republican candidate has had to assert or risk a dequalification. So what? He might just be the only one who can beat Hillary.
This can all change and I'm sure it will. It's a long time until the election and Hillary could grow or shrink in strength. She might not get the nomination at all. (Eight years ago at this time, she seemed inevitable.) Other Republicans could still emerge or John Kasich could suddenly get a transfusion of charisma or it could come out that Trump has personally performed late-term abortions…or something. I still don't think The Donald is going to be The Nominee.
But I think what will do him in is when he starts to look like a Loser. Because when he starts to look like one, he will become one.
When I worked for Jack Kirby in the early seventies, my partner was a very clever, nice gentleman named Steve Sherman. We later went our separate ways with Steve becoming an expert maker and operator of puppets. And by one of the umpteen weird coincidences in which my life abounds, there have occasionally been TV projects where I was hired to write and Steve was hired to do puppets.
That's me on the left, Steve on the right at last night's official opening of "Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby," an exhibit in the main gallery at the CSUN Art Galleries on the campus of Cal State Northridge in Northridge, California. The word balloon in the photo was on a gigantic blow-up of one of Jack's panels. Steve was not really saying those things.
The exhibit is up through October 10 and features more than a hundred pieces of Jack's artistry, lovingly curated by Professor Charles Hatfield, the man behind a course offered at CSUN called "Comics and Graphic Novels." He did a splendid job.
If you are a fan of Jack's work, you will want to see this exhibit. Steve and I were not the only Kirby-connected folks who were impressed by it last evening. The place was packed with writers and artists and other creative folks who'd either worked with Jack or just been inspired by him. The other day, I wrote a piece here about how personally invigorating it was to be around Kirby and/or immerse yourself in his work. That was the undercurrent in the gallery last night.
I am awaiting more photos that people took there and promised to e-mail to me so I'll be writing more about the event. It was so wonderful though I had to say something now. Personally, anything that gives me even a molecule more of insight into Kirby is something worth experiencing.
I had seen most of those pages before. I'd even touched and worked in meaningless ways on a few of them. Still, a piece of art is different when you see it professionally framed and even a bit more different when you see it in a museum setting, displayed on a wall in a manner that underscores its importance. The context simultaneously says something about the work while holding it to a higher standard. Boy, those pages were impressive there.
I probably need to apologize to a few people there. I was a bit overwhelmed by it all. I get very happy in an eye-moistening way when I see Jack being properly celebrated and recognized for what he did. Parts of my mind were in other places and I had trouble coming up with the names of a few people I encountered at the event, especially just after I arrived. If you were one, forgive me. I know who you are. I was just having a little trouble remembering who I was.
I'll probably go back a few times before October 10. In fact, I'll be back there tomorrow at 10 AM to participate in an event called the Curator's Talk — Charles Hatfield and me talking to a roomful of folks about Kirby. I think it's open to the public. The whole exhibit certainly is and it's free, though you'll probably pay six bucks to park on campus. If seeing the exhibit gives you even a dab of Kirby-fueled inspiration, that might be the best six bucks you ever spend. If not, it's still worth it for the pretty pictures.
Ed Kilgore writes about the campaign against "political correctness." I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the term and an occasional puzzlement as to what some people mean by that but first, here's a key except from Mr. Kilgore's piece…
The Trump supporters and proto-Trump supporters I know are upset by things like having to listen to Spanish-language messages on customer service lines, not being able to call women "chicks" without someone frowning at them, and having to stop telling racist jokes at work. That's what "political correctness" is code for: having to worry about the sensitivities of people who were invisible or submissive not that very long ago.
That's what I sometimes (note the "sometimes") think is being said when someone condemns "political correctness." They're saying they should have the right to say bigoted things without anyone thinking they're a bigot. They certainly should not suffer any personal consequences from it. It reminds me of when Sarah Palin was arguing that if someone like the head of Chick-Fil-A made anti-gay comments, it had a "chilling effect" on the rights of free speech for him to lose business because of them.
My concept of Free Speech works kinda like this: Mutt has the right to say he thinks gays are evil or Jews are mercenary devils or the Holocaust didn't happen or women should stay barefoot, pregnant and underpaid. And Jeff has the right to say he thinks Mutt is an asshole and to shun him or to not patronize his business or whatever. (I also don't think boycotts are usually effective but if it makes you feel better to not buy paper towels made by the Koch Brothers, that's your right.)
I do sometimes agree with people who complain about "political correctness," such as when someone is way overreacting to a joke or trying way too hard to not offend people with skin the thickness of fishnet. When I use a gender-specific pronoun to discuss who might be our next president, I usually say "he or she" but if I say "he" only, that does not warrant a scolding as if I'd said no woman could possibly be qualified.
I am generally anti-censorship. To the extent demands for "political correctness" are being used to stop people from expressing their opinions, I'm against them…but it's evolving away from that. Demands for "political correctness" are becoming demands that if someone says racist or sexist things, we not brand them a racist or a sexist.
And there also seems to be an undercurrent of belief out there that if a statement is "politically correct," it could not possibly be correct. No, it's not automatically wrong if it offends no one…and it's not automatically right if it does, either.
Jack Kirby would have been 98 years old today. Here's a photo I'll bet most of you have never seen.
It was taken in late 1969, not long after I met Jack and not long before he rocked the comic book world by quitting Marvel and signing on with DC. I can't think of a single current analogy in comics or in any medium which would be a comparable jolt. I wanted to write here something like, "It would be as if [Name] quit CBS and went to work for NBC" or "It would be as if [Name] quit the Yankees and went to work for the Dodgers." But no names I could plug into those sentences would equal the impact of the news back then.
This photo was taken either by me or my friend Steve Sherman. It was taken in a party area at the Brown Derby restaurant on Vine Street in Hollywood. That's right: It's Kirby at the Derby. Jack, Steve and I had all gotten involved in that year's Toys for Tots campaign for the U.S. Marine Corps — a most worthy cause that collected donations of toys and steered them to kids who might otherwise have been forgotten by Santa. Jack donated his artistry for that year's Toys for Tots poster.
The guys in the costumes were friends of a promoter we'd all gotten involved with. That's a real long story that is told in this long, long biography of Jack I'm writing that has been a long, long time in coming. No, I don't know when you'll be able to buy a copy but I'm finally able to finish it and am attempting to do so.
Suffice it to say this promoter guy was trying to prove to Marvel that he could make their characters a lot more famous than they already were. He'd convinced the Marines to put Marvel heroes on the poster and he'd gotten some local costume companies to make three costumes under the impression that they were donating to the charity. In truth, he intended to use the suits afterwards for other purposes that would benefit his own enterprises.
Someone out there will be interested in this: He persuaded Western Costume — the biggest company ever in that business and the leading supplier of wardrobe for TV and movies — to agree to make a Captain America costume. Then the folks at Western discovered that they already had a Captain America costume, perhaps the only one then in existence. The one they gave him was the one made for actor Dick Purcell in the 1944 Captain America movie serial. That's it above with ear holes cut into the head piece since Cap's ears didn't show in the serial. And no, I have no idea whatever became of it.
Anyway, Jack was at the Derby for a press event to kick off the Toys for Tots drive and when either Steve or I set up this photo, Jack immediately went into the above pose, explaining that you couldn't just stand passively when you were being photographed with Thor, Spider-Man and Captain America. No, you sure couldn't. So consider that a picture of four super-heroes. I'm not sure the one with the cigar wasn't the most incredible of the four.
That's about all I have to say about this photo but I have an unlimited number of things to say about Jack, starting with the fact that he was one of the nicest people I ever knew and easily the one who most deserved the label of "genius." Some folks didn't pick up on that right away because he talked like a guy in an old Warner Brothers movie about the mob and his mind careened from topic to topic with restless abandon.
This is hard to explain but being around him, I came to the conclusion that his brilliance had a lot to do with being able to make unusual associations. He would take two or more seemingly unrelated concepts or elements — things mere mortals like you and I would never connect — and he'd connect them and arrive at something very, very wonderful. You might never be able to discern the starting points; never be able to fathom how he linked A to B and wound up with a C that resembled neither…but he did.
He talked like that, too. I'd be chatting with Jack about, say, Richard Nixon. Nixon was a big topic for everyone in 1969 but more so for Jack who created many a super-villain using but one of Nixon's odd quirks as a starting point. Jack, like so many of us, was fascinated that such a twisted personality could somehow ascend to be President of the United States. (Thank Goodness that these days, no one that warped ever even becomes a serious contender for the job.)
So I'd be talking about Nixon with him and suddenly I'd be talking about cling peaches with him. Or Mount Kilimanjaro. Or staple guns or something…and I'd go, "Huh? What the hell was the segue and how did I miss it?" Sometimes, days or even years later — and I'm not kidding about the years — I would figure out how we got from Topic A to Topic B. Sometimes, not.
There's a quote from Stephen Sondheim that I like. He once said, "The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is that you know there's a solution." There was always a solution with Jack. Alas, those of us who live in one world at a time were sometimes unable to figure it out. Still, it would not shock me if at some point, some great Kirby Villain started life because Jack started musing about Nixon with a staple gun.
Those two qualities of Kirby's — the Cagneyesque way of speaking and the seeming disconnects in his speech — caused some people to miss how smart the guy was. One of many reasons he left Marvel shortly after this photo was taken is that so many important people there thought he was kind of demented and treated him as a useful idiot.
He told them that characters like the ones surrounding him in the picture would someday be billion-dollar properties appearing in major motion pictures and known the world over. As a vital contributor to the existence of those characters — in many cases, the main creative force — he wanted a piece of that action. This he was denied by men who sounded like Mr. Bumble registering shock that Oliver Twist wanted a smidgen more gruel. And being limited in the visionary department, they of course never dreamed the material would be as lucrative as Kirby said it would be…so they had to grab 100% of what there was while they could. Ergo, no cut for Kirby.
People ask me these days: "What would Jack have said if he was here to see Thor and Captain America and the Avengers and other characters he helped launch become super-heroes of the box office?" That's real easy to answer: He would have said, "I told you so."
He did. He really did. I can't swear he would have imagined Ant Man doing quite as well as he has but the others? Absolutely. He predicted it to me and to Steve and every single day to the wonderful Mrs. Kirby and to others. He predicted lots of things I doubted or at least questioned at the time but have lived to see come true.
I get accused at times of gushing too much about Jack. Fine. If there's anyone I've ever known who deserved a surplus of gushing, it was Jack Kirby. I still think at times I'm underestimating the guy. His work has endured and its popularity has grown to the point where I'm sure it will affect generations as yet unborn.
Tomorrow, I go out to Cal State Northridge in the Valley for the formal opening of a major exhibition of Jack Kirby artistry. You might assume I'm attending to pay tribute to a man who meant so much to me and you'd be right…
…but I'll confess to something. I also write about Jack and host panels about him and attend events about him for selfish reasons. Not only was Jack supremely creative but little flecks of that were contagious. When you were around him, you just plain felt more creative. It was not just me and it was not just people who became professional writers or artists or filmmakers or whatever. He treated everyone as an equal; as someone who at least potentially could make something wonderful. He stood on fertile ground and when you were with him, you did too.
I was seventeen when I met this man. I was already earning money as a writer but I had no particular confidence that the jobs I'd gotten weren't flukes and that I could continue in my chosen profession for the rest of my life. That I finally decided I probably could had a lot to do with being around Jack, seeing how easily it poured out of him and — and this was key — understanding how hard he labored to bring all those good ideas to fruition. Not only was his brain amazing but so was his work ethic. That was one of countless things I learned from him, not that I am always able to apply it.
I felt smarter and more creative around him. The stories and art he left us still have that impact on me as does just writing about him and thinking about him and nurturing my connection to him. I may even be a teensy bit smarter now than when I started writing this blog post but even if I'm not, I feel like I am and that counts for something.
I think I've told this story here before but after Jack died in 1994, I heard from lots of people who wanted to tell someone (anyone!) how much Jack inspired their lives. Most of that rightly went to his widow and life partner, a wonderful woman named Roz who made it possible for him to do what he did and protected him when no one else would or could…but I got a few of the letters and calls. I understood the ones from artists and writers and guys who made movies or wrote gaming software. I was a little surprised at first to hear from a spot welder who wanted me to know how Jack's work inspired him to become a better spot welder.
It wouldn't shock me to run into that spot welder at the gallery showing. I'll bet you everyone who goes out to Cal State Northridge to see that exhibit — like everyone who immerses themselves in the voluminous, perpetually in-print works of Jack Kirby — comes away from the experience a little smarter, a little more creative, a little more confident. If you ever got to meet Jack, you understand totally why that is. If you never had that honor, ask anyone who did. We all feel the same way.
