Monthly Archives: September 2017

Someone — I know not who — has been posting the above graphic around social media. In case your screen is too small, I'll quote it and then explain why I think it's wrong in so many ways…

Dear Comic Book Creators,

What many of you don't seem to get is that there are nearly 80 years of history behind the iconic characters you write, draw and edit about.  You DON'T OWN these characters.  The public does.  But, you are the CARETAKERS of these pop-culture icons.  That's literally your job to take care of them for the public (a.k.a. your customers).  You may have forgotten this.

We're not trying to pick a fight with you.  We're just reminding you to take good care of our beloved characters.

— Your Customers

Okay, here's what's wrong with this letter…and keep in mind, the following is written by a guy who has been reading comics for around sixty (60!) years and has winced at many comics that, I thought, defaced characters I loved…

1. This message is misaddressed. If anyone needs to be scolded, it isn't the folks who write or draw the characters in question. It often isn't even those who "edit about" them, whatever that means. It's the current management of the company that holds the copyrights and trade marks. They are the ones with the final authority as to whether classic characters are altered, darkened, killed, made insane, forced to undergo a sex change, turned into Lego blocks, etc. They make the decisions as to who writes and draws the comics and how those people should or should not handle them.
2. The public does not own these characters. I mean, in a sense, the public owns public domain characters but in a more real sense, nobody owns public domain characters. Anyway, this open letter obviously does not refer to public domain characters. It refers to characters that companies own and it is built on the premise that it's clear they don't own them. But they do.
3. The letter uses "we" a lot but I suspect it's written by one person who thinks a lot of people agree with him or her and that their viewpoint is widely-held. I cannot prove it but I further suspect he or she is wrong about the consensus.  Some of the best-selling comics of the last decade or three have been comics which I'd bet the writer of this screed believes did not take "good care" of those beloved characters.
4. And our job is not literally to take care of them for the public but to do versions of them on which the current public wishes to spend dinero.  It would not be unreasonable to look over recent sales figures and come to the conclusion that a large chunk of the buying public does not want to buy Your Father's Hulk or Your Mother's Wonder Woman.  They want a version tailored to present-day sensibilities of pacing and/or intensity and/or sex and/or violence.  That means change.
5. Moreover, you will not find a whole lot of consensus among the folks you call Our Customers as to what is the right way to handle these characters. Take Batman, for instance. There are those who say the proper, faithful way to do Batman — the mode most faithful to the Kane/Finger original — is to make him dark, angry, realistic, obsessed, filled with rage…and in some ways, as crazy as the villains he battles.  Visually, it would be the way Frank Miller and Neal Adams (to name but two of many) drew the character to great fan approval. And there are those who think Batman oughta be drawn in the semi-cartoony Dick Sprang style with more separation of hero and villain, and with less grit and ugliness.
6. Thus, if you say "take good care of our beloved characters"…well, that's easy to say in the general.  It's a little more difficult to agree on when that's being done and when it's not.  I've been reading comics as long as 95%+ of those who'll read this message and I've seen lots of Batman comics (or Superman or Spider-Man or Iron Man or Doctor Strange, etc.) that were hailed as faithful to the characters but struck me as quite the opposite.
7. And lastly in this numbering, I've also seen a lot of comics that I thought were quite unfaithful to the source material but pretty good comics, nonetheless.  That counts for something, doesn't it?

As long as characters and franchises are passed around from one creative person to another, there will be variations and you and I will read some issue of Batman and say, "Jeezus!  What was that writer thinking?  That's not my Batman!"  But it may very well be someone else's Batman.  That is never going to change and right now, I don't get that the marketplace particularly wants it to change.  Seems to me a lot of readers enjoy seeing diverse, imaginative variations on classic characters.  Quite a few of 'em sure love to see a new artist come in and draw the players as they've never been drawn before.

There's a bit of advice to comic book creators that I coined years ago which somehow gets attributed to other folks but I'm quite certain I said it first.  It's to "Never get possessive about characters you don't own."  You will wake up someday and someone else will be doing them and what's more, they may start by undoing everything you did.  I have friends who wrote Superman or Batman or some superstar protagonist for some time and started to feel like those were "their" characters.  But they weren't.  Those writers were like baby-sitters who'd forgotten they hadn't given birth to those particular babies and so it was traumatic to have them snatched away.

Maybe I need to extend that advice to readers, as well.  Once the creator of a strip or a comic or a character has exited the scene, no writer has more moral right to that property than any other writer who might be given the assignment.  You as a consumer may vastly prefer one writer's interpretation over another — I certainly have my favorites — but everyone is not only replaceable but certain to eventually be replaced.  And if you don't like a certain ongoing series as done by a certain current writer or artist, it may not be because they've forgotten they don't own those characters, it may be because the folks who hold the copyrights and trade marks want them changed that way.

Or it may be that the current writer or artist isn't very good.  That happens, too.

This made me smile.  It's a real short chat with my pal, the late Lorenzo Music — writer, producer and the voice of  Carlton, Your Doorman and Garfield, Your Cat.  This is from when Lorenzo had just started supplying the voice of the lasagna-loving loafer and before he decided to not let his face be seen anywhere, which was mainly an attention-getting device. I miss the guy so I was glad to see and hear him again…

Fred Kaplan says that Trump would be nuts (and self-destructive) to trash the Iran nuclear deal. The motivation here would seem to be that the Great God President Trump has to win and he has to save the country from some "accomplishment" of his predecessor.

Jordan Weissmann says that while the move to repeal Obamacare may be dead in the Senate, Trump is still doing all he can to kill it by sabotage. The motivation here would seem to be that the Great God President Trump has to win and he has to save the country from some "accomplishment" of his predecessor.

Betsy DeVos thinks we do too much to protect victims of sexual assault on college campuses. We need to do more to protect the kind of man who brags about kissing women who don't want to be kissed by them and who grab them by the pussy. Anna North explains.

Andrew Sullivan suggests something that I was thinking; that Trump's recent small-but-noticeable gain in his approval rating is due to his newfound willingness to make deals with Democrats. One hopes Trump sees it that way but he probably thinks it's just his awesome personal charisma.

• ‪If John McCain kills three more evil Obamacare repeal attempts, I'm going to forgive him for Sarah Palin.‬

A rave review for Frank Ferrante in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum from The Wall Street Journal. And a rave review for Frank Ferrante in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum from Newsworks.

The Wall Street Journal review is behind a paywall for some so I'll quote one excerpt…

Mr. Ferrante plays Pseudolus, the scheming Roman slave whose role was created on Broadway by Zero Mostel, and it's hard to imagine anyone doing a better job. Not only is Mr. Ferrante a marvelous performer, but he's also staged "A Funny Thing Happened" with explosive comic punch, and he's put together a cast of old pros who understand the style as well as he does. Ron Wisniski, who plays Senex, the victim of his skullduggery, could just as easily have slipped into Mr. Ferrante's toga and made an equally strong impression. The fact that this is self-evidently not a one-man show is a big part of what makes it so good. So is Robert Andrew Kovach's colorful set, which looks like a "Fractured Fairy Tales" background drawing and makes you smile as soon as the curtain goes up. The 11-piece pit band, led by John Daniels, plays Jonathan Tunick's dapper orchestrations with gratifying finesse.

Contrary to how it may seem at times on the blog, I am not Frank's agent nor do I have any monetary interest in this show. (Full Disclosure: We did not pay for our tickets last night but I can't be bought, at least not that cheaply.) I post these reviews just to prove that I am not saying it's great just because he's my friend. Others loved it, as well.

I'm not sure how much I want to write about the June Foray Celebration a bunch of us threw at the Motion Picture Academy last Tuesday night. The Internet is already close to bursting from all the self-congratulation crammed into it…but the five of us who threw the bash (Jerry Beck, Bob Bergen, Howard Green, Tom Sito and myself) are darn proud of what we done did, and lots of people seem grateful that we gave the late 'n' lovely Ms. Foray such a special, sincere salute. I was most impressed by the turnout. To see so many important folks from the world of animation assemble like that was really stunning.

Did I mention here that I was the M.C. for the evening? I was the M.C. for the evening…and also the person in charge of the rundown so I was able to minimize my on-stage time. The first rule of something like this is that it should be about the deceased and only about the deceased.

I go to a fair number of Show Biz Funerals and there always seems to be at least one speaker who cannot resist the urge to get up there and deliver an infomercial about themselves, especially if the hall is filled with Very Important People. One time at the send-off for a somewhat-famous stand-up comedian, a less-famous stand-up comic took the stage and began his speech by saying, "He was a great guy and very supportive of his friends. Every time I was on TV, he would make a point of calling me up and telling me how good I was."

We wanted none of that so I said no to a number of people who wanted to speak — at least one of whom is royally pissed at me for denying them the chance to perform before a crowd of industry folks, some of whom have hiring power. I said no to a greater number who selflessly wanted to salute our beloved June for all the right reasons. If I'd said yes to all of them, we'd still be there. Our on-stage speakers were Nancy Cartwright, Jerry Beck, Keith Scott (who came all the way from Australia on his own dime just for this), Bob Bergen, Charles Solomon, Tom Sito, Floyd Norman, Tony Bancroft, moi and the daughters of Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones and Jay Ward. That would be Hope and Sybil Freleng, Linda Jones and Tiffany Ward.

In the audience at one point, we had voice artist Misty Lee and a cameraman who was shooting video that was appearing simultaneously on the big movie screen. We gave Misty five minutes to get as many voice actors as possible to say something brief about June and among those who did were Bill Farmer, Russi Taylor, Gregg Berger, Teresa Ganzel, Fred Tatasciore, Bill Mumy, Tony Anselmo, Laura Summer, Debi Derryberry, Katie Leigh and Billy West.

The highlight of the show for most folks was when we brought up ten women to speak briefly about what June meant to their careers and/or their lives. Nine came up and after each one spoke, she moved over to pose next to a big picture of June we'd placed onstage on an easel. Then I asked several other women who'd participated in the show to come up and join them for our photo-op. Then I introduced our tenth woman who was going to speak in this segment…Lily Tomlin.

We did a fairly good job of keeping Lily's presence a surprise. She wanted to participate and we gave her the choice of sitting through the entire show or just sneaking in for her spot. She said she wanted to see the entire show so we snuck her into the second row during the first cartoon (Broomstick Bunny) and surrounded her with tall people, including me when I was seated. When I announced her name from the stage, there was a satisfying gasp of delight from the crowd. Then she came up, said the perfect things and joined the group for the photo. Here is a small version of that image. It'll get bigger if you click on it…

Here's who's who, L to R: Debi Derryberry, Marian Massaro, Nancy Cartwright, Grey Griffin, Debra Wilson, E.G. Daily, Vanessa Marshall, Lily Tomlin, Photo of June, Laraine Newman, Teresa Ganzel, Audrey Wasilewski, Candi Milo, Julie Nathanson, Kari Wahlgren, Misty Lee, Laura Summer, Russi Taylor and Katie Leigh. Let me know if you ever see another assemblage of talent like that in one JPG.

Of course, we showed cartoons…and some clips of June's work in front of the camera, along with footage of her being interviewed about her life and work. It was difficult to assemble some of that stuff — Jerry Beck did most of the heavy lifting — but even harder to decide what to leave out. For reasons of time, I cut a Fractured Fairy Tale at the last minute and our projectionist was not happy because she, like all of us, loves Fractured Fairy Tales.

Many, many people helped out. We read a list that evening but I wanted to mention two of them here. Seeking to not have the klutzy M.C. on stage much, I had most speakers introduced by our off-stage announcer — a lady whose voice you know from many of the major award shows — Marian Massaro. And other announcements were handled by another award show voice (and frequent cartoon actor) Neil Ross. Oh — and the clips of June talking about her life were excerpted from the documentary, The One and Only June Foray, produced by Gavin Freitas.

People keep asking if the event will be released on DVD or posted online so they can see it. No, it will not be, at least in full. We showed too many film clips for which we only had permission to run them then and there. Excerpts from the speeches will probably be released online but no decision has made yet about doing this.

Throughout the evening, I was busier than a Fact-Checker at a Donald Trump speech and I should apologize to the many friends and acquaintances who I either ignored or didn't give enough attention because I had 9,944 things to do at any given moment. It was an exhausting endeavor but well, well worth it. June deserved the best and I hope we came close to giving her that.

Yesterday, two friends of mine and I took a day trip to Philadelphia from Baltimore, which is where we'll be attending the Baltimore Comic-Con today, Saturday and Sunday. I'll tell you more about our afternoon in a day or so but I wanted to briefly mention that in the evening, we saw my pal starring in a production of my favorite musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Forum. It's at the Walnut Street Theater and boy, is it good. A longer rave will follow but I just wanted to tell you that if you get anywhere near Philly between now and October 22, use this link and get tickets. Really, really hilarious.

• In Philly at the Liberty Bell. You'll be happy to know Trump hasn't sold it to the Russians…yet.

Like it says: Mark has a busy day ahead…so no posting 'til (probably) tomorrow morn. But I'll try to make up for it with a long one about Tuesday night's June Foray extravaganza and my adventures since then.

For now, I just want to say that the G.O.P. Health Care Bill — which I should probably type as G.O.P. "Health Care" Bill since it removes so much of it from so many people — really sucks. So will the next one and the other after because the whole idea here is to establish that if you get sick, the government really doesn't give a damn. The people who want this to pass have that in mind and nothing else.

See you later. And by "later," I probably mean Friday.

The Hollywood Reporter has posted Steve Stoliar's account of last night's June Foray Celebration. It includes the historic group photo we took of a bevy of top voice actresses. I will have more to say about the photo and the evening when I am not posting from an airplane.

Wow. I'm home and exhausted from one of the longest days of my life but I had to thank everyone who made the evening so amazing. I'm talking of course about the event we did last night at the Motion Picture Academy. It was a pretty elaborate show and I'll leave it to others to say how it went.

In a day or two here, I'll post an amazing group photo we took of voice actresses who came up on stage to salute June. Let's see if I can do this from memory: Vanessa Marshall, Audrey Wasilewski, E.G. Daily, Julie Nathanson, Kari Wahlgren, Debra Wilson, Candi Milo, Grey Griffin, Laraine Newman, Misty Lee, Nancy Cartwright, Marian Massaro, Russi Taylor, Laura Summer, Debi Derryberry, Katie Leigh, Teresa Ganzel and our special surprise guest, Lily Tomlin.

Is that eighteen? I'm too tried tonight to count that high so you do it. In fact, I'm too tired to fix the typo in the preceding sentence. Anyway, if it's eighteen, it's all of them. I'll thank the men when I write more about the event.

The next couple days are going to be incredibly full of Things I Must Do, including many I want to do, like tonight's June Foray Celebration at the Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. So this is notice that I may not post much here for a while. Before I go…

The Emmys got fairly low ratings last Sunday night. I was going to write a post on why that might be but my friend Ken Levine went and did it for me. I do think a big factor is that America is simply getting tired of award shows the same way it got tired of beauty pageants. They'll tune in if they think something way out-of-the-ordinary might happen but not if it's just the usual multi-hour ritual. What was the big news out of the show Sunday night? That Stephen Colbert and others made a lot of nasty comments about Donald Trump? Hey, I like nasty comments about Donald Trump and even I wouldn't sit through a three-hour show to hear ten minutes of them.

I don't think I agree with all of Ken's bitchy/snarky review of the telecast but I did a speed-watch of the proceedings thanks to TiVo so I may have been too forgiving.

I have no idea what Donald Trump's new verbal attacks on North Korea will lead to. Gathering from the online punditry I'm reading so far, neither does anyone else — and that includes "in the White House."

A while back here on the blog, I answered a question from someone who wanted to know how the great cartoonist Jack Davis pronounced his last name. I said it was just "Davis" — the obvious way. I added that I'd never met anyone named Davis who pronounced it "Day-vees." I have since heard from several people who have met someone named Davis who pronounced it "Day-vees" and even some people named Davies who pronounced it "Day-vis." Well, Jack pronounced it "Day-vis."

Much to do. I will be back to you after I've done some of it.

• That quake was God punishing Hollywood for all the Trump jokes at the Emmys. (Somebody's going to say that. It might as well be me…)

In the world of Barbershop Quartet competitions, a group called Main Street is among the big winners. They're famous for their medleys of current or recent rock hits turned into old-fashioned barbershop versions and each year, they update it. Here's their latest…

The folks who are madly tweeting about how horrible the Emmys were last night are taking this thing way too seriously…

"Some shows and people didn't deserve to win!" Of course. Isn't that always the case? This is not an exact science. It's all opinions and not everyone's tastes are going to match yours. Why on Earth would you think they should or could?

"It's sickening watching all those overpaid, untalented phonies acting all smug and self-obsessed." Then don't watch. Don't watch the Emmys and don't watch anything on TV or go to movies. Because you do know that if someone is overpaid, untalented, phony, smug and self-obsessed on the Emmy Awards, they're almost certainly overpaid, untalented, phony, smug and self-obsessed all the time. They're just not all gathered together and dressed as well.

"The show was boring." If you don't like stars coming out, reading banter off TelePrompters and handing out awards, you're like someone who hates golf but watches golf matches. Why do you do that to yourself? A large percentage of any awards show is people coming out, reading banter off TelePrompters and handing out awards. That's the premise of the show you chose to watch instead of something else. Actually, I thought this year's show was about as good as Emmy telecasts ever get.

"I didn't know any of those people." Those are the actors, producers, directors (etc.) who for good or ill represent current television and that's who the Emmy telecast is about. The folks on the show weren't selected because someone wanted to piss you off by peopling the stage with people who work in the present industry.

"It was too political!" Translation: They did a lot of jokes about the guy you voted for. Look me in the eye and tell me you would have griped about jokes where you agreed with the premise.

"It was too long." Award shows are always too long, especially the most popular ones because the networks can charge premium rates to advertisers during those shows. And the longer the show is, the more spots they can sell. You're choosing to watch a three-hour show and then complaining it was three hours. If you must watch, don't watch it live. Capture it on your DVR or TiVo and then watch later, fast-forward button at the ready. You actually have the ability to shorten the show but you have to do it. They won't.

This post is getting too long so I'll stop and just say I thought Stephen Colbert was a terrific host and the writers gave him a pretty sharp monologue.

And I'll mention my favorite line of the evening. It came from John Oliver the second time he went up to accept an Emmy. The first time, he included Oprah Winfrey in his thank-yous not because she'd done anything but because she was sitting right in front of him in the first row and felt he had to mention her. His second time up there, Ms. Winfrey was elsewhere, an extra was where Oprah had been…and Oliver was quick-witted enough to thank "Oprah's seat-filler."

Anyway, it's just the Emmys. Unless you're up for one, they really don't matter.