Monthly Archives: September 2020

Your one Trump link on this blog for today is to Robert Reich's list of 40 promises that Donald has broken. And none of them are small ones.

Thank you for all the nice comments on my overlong-but-fun Conversation with Max Maven. I know we sent some viewers scurrying to YouTube to check out some of the magicians we mentioned. Coming Up: On Tuesday, September 8, I will do a Conversation with Carl Gottlieb, chatting with a fine screenwriter (Jaws, The Jerk and many others), and a man who was on the premises or very close-by for some of the most important advancements in comedy since the sixties.

Then on Tuesday, September 15, there will be a Conversation with Dennis Palumbo. Dennis was my partner when I broke into writing for television and I'd say we'll discuss all the fights we had amongst ourselves but I don't think we ever had one. We parted friends and he went on to become a screenwriter (like of your favorite movie, My Favorite Year) and a mystery novelist and a psychotherapist, mainly for folks in show business who need such assistance. I'm sure he has no shortage of clients. You will enjoy this webcast but not as much as I will.

No plans for any more Cartoon Voices Panels yet. There will be more. I just don't know when. I have promised Shelly Goldstein she can interview me one week like Sergio did and I've also agreed to do one with Scott Shaw! so those lurk in my future. Several other fine folks have agreed but I don't have firm dates yet.

That's it for now. I am off to Costco where I expect to bring back cases of supplies, a rotisserie chicken and probably at least one Tales From Costco. I always come home from there with more anecdotes than paper towels.

I'm still wondering where all the great plate-spinners of the future will come from. I'm speaking of skilled artists like Charlie Callas…

On comic book message boards, I see a lot of what seems to me like misplaced, useless anger about comics done long ago. For example, in 1967, longtime Flash artist Carmine Infantino was promoted into a management position at DC Comics and no longer had time (or probably the interest) to draw the Flash comic. He had drawn all its previous issues since the hero was revived in 1956 so his style was very much a part of that comic.

As one of his first decisions in his new position, Infantino announced he'd selected Ross Andru to take over that strip. Ross was an experienced artist — a good one, I felt — but an odd choice. His style was quite different from Infantino's and clearly he was not selected to continue but to change the look and feel of that comic. If fans love something, they usually do not like having the look and feel of it changed on them. They often get mad…

…and in this case, at whom did they get mad? Why, at Ross Andru, of course, and some of the mad people couldn't have been madder if Ross had come to their homes and killed a beloved housepet or sibling. A few are still mad at him. A few weeks ago on Facebook, someone posted a message that read in part, "I'm furious at what Marvel is doing with the X-Men lately but it's still not as bad as when Ross Andru took over The Flash."

And just in case you missed the year mentioned above, let me remind you: Andru took over drawing The Flash 52 years ago. The man died in 1993. He was put on that comic by the guy he replaced and in the industry back then, freelancers didn't have a whole lotta say in their assignments. If the company wanted you inking Green Arrow, you inked Green Arrow. It seems to me that if you're angry that he didn't draw that comic like Carmine Infantino, your argument is with Carmine Infantino…who is also no longer with us.

Also: This was over a half-century ago. If Mr. Andru had robbed a liquor store or committed assault, the Statute of Limitations would long since have rendered his crime a distant memory. But getting assigned to the wrong comic? That's something you just don't forgive.

Richard Kelsey wrote to ask…

You have been to every Comic-Con and probably a lot of other comic conventions. Is shopping still a part of the convention experience for you? Is there still a comic or other type of collectible that you try to find when you go to a convention? Or is that no longer a factor for your trips to conventions?

If the latter, when was the last time that you shopped and found something at a convention and what was it?

Once upon a time, I bought lots of stuff at every comic convention I attended. Of course also, once upon a time, I had empty space in my home. For reasons of Nowhere To Put Stuff, I had to curtail my purchasing. Also, as I became more active in the business, I was placed on a lot of comp lists and as I wrote columns and blogged, I was on more lists to receive review copies. So some things I might once have purchased came to me free and some, I just decided I could live without.

I stopped filling in missing issues in my comic book collection. At some point, I reached the stage where anything I wanted but didn't have was going for a price I wouldn't pay. Many of you are nodding your heads in understanding. So I wasn't buying old stuff and the new stuff I wanted and didn't receive gratis could be easily ordered online. My purchasing at conventions went way, way down…some years, to Zero.

An awful lot of what I did buy at the Comic-Con in San Diego when I did buy, I bought from Bud Plant's wondrous display. For a long, long time, Bud Plant Books had the biggest/best spread of new books filled with comics or new books about comics. I also bought a lot of stuff from Bud via mail order…which I preferred because I didn't have to carry it around the con for hours, then back to my room, then down to my car (assuming I had a car there that year) and then into my house. A couple of years there, I walked around Bud's booth, took notes and then placed an order they would ship to me when they got back to their base of operations.

Bud finally stopped exhibiting at San Diego. 2017 was his last year there and with great luck, that was the year I decided to take along a certificate I had from him for credit. I'd found it some time earlier in a folder in my file cabinet and thought, "Hey, I ought to take this down to the con and use this up." And then I forgot and I forgot and I forgot until finally in '17, I remembered.

I have no idea why but I had around $250 worth of credit on it. I took the slip to his booth and asked one of Bud's salesfolks if there'd be any problem honoring it. It was dated 1993. The fellow's eyebrows hit the ceiling but he checked with Bud and Bud said sure, of course, fine. I then wound up buying about $600 worth of books and paying the difference so I think — I hope — Bud made a profit on my redemption. That was the last purchase of anything notable (anything except food and beverage) I recall making at a convention. It was also the first in quite some time.

I'm going to try limiting myself to one Trump-related post a day. Today, it's this article by William Saletan. One of my long-held peeves — and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, not in reference to our current White House occupant — is folks who talk tough. As I've learned, talking tough and being tough are often two separate things and in my experience, most who talk tough aren't tough. They're just trying to scare others from challenging them or crossing them or somehow putting them in a situation where they would need to actually be tough. Because they aren't and they're terrified of being exposed in that regard.

On to matters that are happier to think about…

Tonight at 7 PM PDT, I'll be chatting online with Max Maven, a superb magician. There are some magicians who just dazzle you with their sheer skill. There are some who make you laugh. There are some whose performances make you think, often for long periods after you see them do what they do. Max checks all three boxes with what he does on stage. You can watch our conversation right here while it happens or come back later and watch replays-on-demand.

I'm lining up future guests. Just got a commitment from someone I really, really wanted but he can't do it until October. I've also had requests for more interviews of me and I'll schedule another one of those before long.

A lot of questions are coming in about the platform I use for these webcasts. When I started, many pandemic months ago, I looked at several options and selected Streamyard, which is one that a lot of webcasters are using. I use that for webcasting and Zoom for business-like private conferences. Since I decided on Streamyard, many new options have entered the marketplace and all the ones that were already there have done considerable upgrading…so I have no idea what I'd pick if I went shopping today. But I'm very happy with Streamyard.

I have a Zoom conference at 11:45 and I need to shave 'n' shower and pick out something nice to wear from the waist up so I'll be back here later with something to say. Assuming I think of anything…not that that usually stops me.