My e-mailbox this morning is full of all sorts of questions about the work Jack Kirby did for DC Comics in the seventies known as his "Fourth World." It was an extraordinary body of work which — though Jack did a belated, truncated ending to its main storyline — I will always regard as comics' greatest unfinished symphony. I believe I would still love it even if I hadn't (a) been present to witness its creation and (b) gotten to know and love its maker.
I am aware there are those out there who prefer other Kirby work — or in some cases, no Kirby work at all — and I'm fine with that. I am not a salesperson for it. If you try it, it will either sell itself to you or it won't…and it doesn't matter much to me if it doesn't. I just like the fact that it has remained in print for so long (even though many at DC then proclaimed it a flop) and the characters have appeared in/on toy shelves and TV and movies (even though DC's merchandising division back then thought Jack was nuts to think that could ever happen).
I'll be answering questions about Jack's creations and discussing it tomorrow evening (Wednesday) with Pop Culture Man Arlen Schumer. The audio podcast commences at 8 PM Eastern Time (5 PM where I am) and can be heard by clicking here.
That show is kind of a prelude to an online video lecture Arlen is doing the following night (Thursday) at 7 PM Eastern, celebrating and speaking about the Fourth World:
Join Pop Culture Man Arlen Schumer tonight as he explores the comic book origins of these unique Kirby characters and stories, and how they've been a steady influence on pop culture over the decades — most notably on George Lucas' Star Wars franchise!
Tickets for Arlen's talk are available now at this link. I'll be watching.
Here are the Seekers singing their 1967 hit "Georgy Girl" at some sort of amphitheater back then. Well, they're not really singing. They're lip-syncing to the record in what I'm sure was supposed to be a venue for live performing.
Or are they? Maybe they did perform it live at the show but someone took the record and laid it in over the film of the live performance. But I don't think so because the mouth movements are a little too perfect matching the record…and that bass player looks like he isn't even trying to look like he's really playing. But then we also don't seem to hear the orchestra behind them that seems to be playing along during portions of the song, though I think we do hear them playing the exit music. Would those violin players be playing along with a record? Would their microphones even be turned on during a needle-drop?
I always used to be amused when recording artists did lip-sync performances on TV shows and had to deal with the fact that at the end, the song didn't end. It faded out. So one person in the band would still be mouthing the words when others had given up and you can sometimes spot them realize they should still be moving their mouths and they resume. The Seekers get cut off pretty quickly at the end by a little fanfare note.
I dunno. We're not hearing them perform live but did the people in that audience hear them sing and play live? Hard to tell but I still like this song…
P.S., A Little Later: Ah, here's the answer, sent to me by my pal Kurt Busiek. Someone took the video of a live concert with live singing and laid in the record to create something more like a video. Thanks, Kurt. But I still think that bass player looks like he isn't playing…
Fifty years ago this month, my friend Steve Sherman and I were of very little help in assisting the editor who had hired us as his assistant editors on his new line of comics for DC. That editor was, of course, Jack Kirby and the line of comics he was launching would for reasons no one has ever been sure of, come to be known as his "Fourth World" comics. Don't try to tell me you know where that name came from. I didn't know, Steve didn't know and Jack didn't know, If we didn't know, you didn't know.
The first couple issues of Jimmy Olsen by Jack had already hit newsstands. I don't think Jimmy Olsen was considered one of the "Fourth World" books and Jack didn't but if you want to, fine. Doesn't bother me any. The inarguable first one to make it to the racks was Forever People #1 that December and I think the last parts of it went to press in October of 1970, a half-century ago. The last thing in was a text page that Steve and I wrote in our capacity as Jack's assistants. Jack approved it, sent it in for inclusion and then a certain person back in the New York office threw it away.
This Person — there's a reason I'm not identifying him — decided that though Jack was contractually the editor of his comics and it said he was the editor on his comics, he wasn't really the editor of his comics. Anything he (This Person) wanted to change, he could change without consulting or even informing Jack. So a number of things were changed on Jack's comics and Kirby was among the last to know. One of them was that This Person decided the text pages for Jack's comics should be done in New York. He tossed our page and had Marv Wolfman write a new one…as Jack, Steve and I found out when Forever People #1 appeared on newsstands here in Southern California.
Jack complained. This Person back there at first blamed Marv for the decision, which was ridiculous. At that point, Marv didn't have the power at DC to correct a spelling error. But after some arguing, This Person agreed that Steve and I would henceforth do the text pages. He had also ignored Jack's request to put our names in the indicia as assistant editors. (The indicia is that little block of text they used to have at the bottom of page one where among other vital info, the editor was credited.) Jack demanded he do it, T.P. said he would and then he didn't do it. This went on for around two years of Jack reminding him constantly and him saying he would and then it never getting done. This Person finally gave in and did it…and with my superb timing, it was the month after I stopped working for Jack.
These particular things didn't bother me. Honest. They didn't and they don't and I'm only telling you about them for your amusement…and to make the point that things were done to Jack's work behind his back. Those things bother me still…like the redrawing of his drawings of Jimmy Olsen and Superman.
I am very proud of my itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, microscopic connection to such fine, oft-reprinted comic books as Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle. They were cancelled well before they should have been, dismissed as low sellers because they weren't putting Marvel out of business…and I guess because some people in the office just didn't like them. I do not know how many times they've been reprinted since in this country and others — someone count it up and let me know — but they've made DC a whole lot more money than some comics of the day Jack was told he should be emulating because they sold better.
A new series of reprints of the Fourth World books is just beginning with the release of a paperback of the issues Jack did of Forever People. If you've never experienced this material, here's a link where you can order this book. But I should warn you of a couple of things. One is that at the moment, the Amazon page says — and this is a cut-and-paste…
For the first time in 20 years, Jack Kirby's Forever People reprints the amazing comic book writer and artist's fantastical black-and-white tales of a group of young, otherworldly adventurers.
It's not the first time in twenty years these stories have been reprinted. They were all in the Fourth World Omnibus series issued in 2007-2008 and some of them are in the lovely Absolute Fourth World book that DC issued recently and which is still very much in print. And I don't know about the copy you'll be able to get when this new Forever People book is released on November 10…but the advance copy they sent me is in full-color and very nicely done full-color.
Also, when you get it: It says on the Table of Contents page that the covers of #2 and #6 were inked by Mike Royer when they were actually inked by Vince Colletta.
This is a great time to revisit and celebrate this work. Tomorrow here, I'll tell you about an online interview I'm doing on Wednesday evening all about Mr. Kirby's Fourth World and about an online visual lecture about it that you can enjoy on Thursday evening. And I still can't believe it's been fifty (five-oh) years.
So we're now in the period when half the news stories you see are going to announce largely-meaningless statements and actions but present them as if they have now made a huge difference in the outcome of the vote…you know, like "Your candidate drinks lemonade, loses election." They'll also dredge up some tortoise in Ashtabula, Ohio who has successfully predicted the winner in every presidential election since Rutherford B. Hayes and it says Abe Vigoda has a lock on it this time.
I thought Donald Trump looked like an idiot on 60 Minutes. But then I've long since recognized that Trump can look like an idiot to me and like Jesus Christ (only wiser) to his base. I'll give the guy this: He's really good at giving his base what they want to hear. And they're real good at overlooking that which they do not want to hear when he says it.
Nice to hear from White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that "We're not going to control the pandemic." And why might that be? "Because it is a contagious virus." When did they figure that out? Is that one of those things Trump told Bob Woodward back in February and they've been waiting 'til now to tell us?
I'm running a backup program on my computer right now and it's reallocating resources such that my P.C. runs about as fast as I do, which is not too fast. Typing this is taking way longer than it should so I'm going to sign off for now. Happy Last Week before what could be Our Last Week.
Two hours ago, I (properly masked, of course) popped into a Ralphs Market to get a few items. I was in the checkout line with my few items when a man in the adjoining line began screaming. He was not totally coherent but I gather he was ordering us to all vote for Donald Trump because — this was his argument not mine — people in the "stupid states" were voting the Biden-Harris ticket and we have an obligation to save America by making sure Trump wins California. In case you're curious: Yes, he had a mask on.
Speaking as someone who probably has more chance of winning my state's 55 electoral votes than Donald has, I don't think that's so. And even if the guy in the checkout line has the power to convert every single person he can scream at between now and November 3rd, I don't think Donald is carrying the Golden State. Donald doesn't either. I'd hate to think how many commercials and ads you folks in the swing states are being deluged with from both sides. We're getting almost none of it out here because Biden didn't think he needed it and Trump decided to spend his campaign money in states where he had a prayer.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the guy in the checkout line campaigning for his guy but come on. Politics is supposed to be The Art of the Possible. The Survey USA poll, which is the main one that surveys California, has Biden at 65%. Which is why I'm not out in the streets of Wyoming with a Biden placard today.
Anyway, I had a few minutes before they'd start ringing up my groceries so I just listened to the guy rant for a minute or two. Some of it was about Black Lives Matter and some of it was about Hillary and some of it was about Kamala and there was something in there about pedophilia…but I didn't know what the f he was talking about and neither did he. Pedophilia is a terrible crime/sickness and it's a shame people now think it's just an accusation to be hurled wildly at anyone you hate for any reason. How about if we save that one for when there's actual evidence of child molestation?
Someone said to the ranter, "You're wasting your time." Other voices agreed. I leaned over and asked, "Could I make a suggestion? Trump's not going to carry California but he's got a shot at least in Florida. Why don't you get on a plane to Orlando or Miami, find a Piggly Wiggly market and be real annoying and rude to shoppers there?"
And the guy, so help me, said "Y'know, that's not a bad idea…"
Hello. One of these days, the way voting will work is that you will send in your ballot via mail or some sort of online website…and before you tell me that online voting cannot be error-free or tamper-free, remember that (a) neither is the old polling place method and (b) companies like Wells Fargo and American Express can make online banking error-free enough and tamper-free enough to use it to move zillions of dollars around. At some point, you have to trust some arrangement to count your vote.
After your ballot is officially received, you can receive a little e-mail or log into a site like I just did that told me…
And I could then request that since my ballot is in, I receive no more mail trying to sway my vote, no more robocalls, no more door-to-door persuaders, no more political ads on my computer screen or my TV screen, no more messages from Donald Trump thanking me for the past support I've never given him, no more political commercials if I turn on my radio, no more leaflets on my front gate and I don't have to look at billboards, bumper stickers, skywriting or your lawn signs. It would be a felony with a stiff minimum sentence — oh say, ten years behind bars answering support questions for Brother Printers — if you show me any trace of the election. Or is that too lenient?
I asked Leonard Maltin if he ever met Paul Frees on live Instagram/Facebook chat Sunday and he said no. Leonard mentioned your name and he said you haven't twirked with him either. Is this true and if it's not, do you have any Paul Frees stories that you can share?
Well, I'm not sure anyone ever met Paul Frees on live Instagram/Facebook chat on Sunday but I think I know what you're asking. I "met" Paul Frees on the phone for brief (very brief) conversations twice but never in person and never for very long.
I have always felt truly fortunate that I grew up on cartoons with voices by Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, June Foray, Don Messick, Stan Freberg, Bill Scott, Jimmy Weldon, Julie Bennett, Shepard Menken, Dick Beals, Gary Owens, Chuck McCann, Frank Buxton, Arnold Stang, Marvin Kaplan and a few others…and in my alleged adulthood, got to meet and work with Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, June Foray, Don Messick, Stan Freberg, Bill Scott, Jimmy Weldon, Julie Bennett, Shepard Menken, Dick Beals, Gary Owens, Chuck McCann, Frank Buxton, Arnold Stang, Marvin Kaplan and a few others. I'm sure everyone reading this can understand why that would be meaningful on several levels.
By the time I got into the animation business, Paul Frees had largely gotten out…and had totally gotten out of Los Angeles. He'd moved up to Tiburon, California, which is near San Francisco. He said the air there was much better for him and June told me that Paul had reached the stage in his life where he had an awful lot of money and not an awful lot of desire to work.
He did work once in a while. If you offered him enough money, he might (might!) agree to go to a studio somewhere near his home and record there. June told me that on rare occasions, someone would offer Paul so much loot that he'd fly down to Los Angeles to record something, record it and then fly right back. I recall her complaining once, "He was down here last week for three hours and he wouldn't even delay his flight home to have lunch with me."
One time when I was visiting Daws Butler (one of the nicest and most talented people I ever met), we got to talking about Paul and he spent a lot of time telling me how great Paul was. Before I left, the phone rang and it was Paul…and Daws put me on the line with him for a few minutes. Paul spent most of that time telling me how great Daws was.
Paul Frees
At the time, I was head writer for a program called The Krofft Superstar Hour which ran on NBC on Saturday mornings for not-very-long. We were taping shows and our cast included Lennie Weinrib and Walker Edmiston, who worked off-camera supplying the voices of many of the Krofft characters. Lennie and Walker were two more guys I knew from their voicework when I was younger, though both of them did more on-camera work than off. Walker, who I wrote about here and here and other places, had a great kids' show on local TV in Los Angeles for a time.
At the time, he was supplying the voice of Ludwig Von Drake for a series of educational filmstrips or recordings or something that some division of Disney was doing. Mr. Frees, of course, had originated the role of the eminent Professor Von Drake but he wasn't tempted by the scale fee that Disney was offering for these projects. Walker, who did a pretty fair imitation of Paul's voice as Ludwig, was the go-to second choice.
Most voice actors work under an unwritten Code of Honor not to imitate another voice actor while that person is alive and possibly available. Walker abided strenuously by that rule. So what would happen is that Disney would call and ask him if he could come in next Tuesday and record a few tracks for them and Walker would say — every single time — "I can but I have to check with Paul first."
Walker Edmiston
The guy at Disney would say, "Walker, you don't have to check with Paul. He's fine with you doing this for us. He's said yes the last twenty-three times you asked him." Which was true but Walker felt he still had to check with Paul. He'd call Paul and Paul would say "Fine" and Walker would thank him and go in and do what Disney needed him to do as Ludwig..
A week or two after my chat with Frees at Daws' home, Walker came into my office where we were doing The Krofft Superstar Hour. We were on a break from taping and he asked if he could use my phone to call Paul Frees up in Tiburon. I said, "Yes, if I can say hello to him." Walker called, got Paul's permission to talk like him and then put me on the speakerphone.
Paul remembered me from the call with Daws and in that second (again, brief) conversation, I asked him about doing his impression of Peter Lorre on a Spike Jones record. Paul told me how he'd do anything for Spike and how when he met Peter Lorre, Mr. Lorre said, "You sound more like me than I do" and they spent some time teaching each other how to sound more like Peter Lorre.
Paul, Spike and Peter
The story was told, of course, with Paul playing both roles. He played Paul Frees imitating Peter Lorre and he also played Peter Lorre talking the way he really talked…and he even played Peter Lorre trying to sound more like Paul Frees imitating Peter Lorre. It was one of the many "Boy, do I wish I'd had a tape recorder running" moments of my life.
The call ended soon after and that was my last-ever contact with Paul Frees, who passed away in 1986. Before he went back to work that day, Walker demonstrated for me how he occasionally did Peter Lorre and said that what he (and everyone else who imitated Peter Lorre) was doing was an imitation of Paul Frees imitating Peter Lorre. Walker did that in a lot of cartoons so somewhere out there, there's probably someone who thinks they do a great imitation of Peter Lorre but they're really doing an imitation of Walker Edmiston doing an imitation of Paul Frees doing an imitation of Peter Lorre.
Here is the Spike Jones record on which Paul Frees imitated Peter Lorre. Paul's part starts around a minute and a half into it but for the full effect, listen to the whole thing…
Okay, I watched it. I agree with what seems to be the consensus, at least of commentators I've come across. Trump may have helped himself with a few voters by not being such a maniac but he's running out of time to correct the trajectory of this election and he didn't do that. Biden helped himself more by continuing to be more presidential, by continuing to disprove the claims that he's senile and out of it, and by simply running out the clock. This thing has already been decided — in voters' minds if not in early voting.
None of the stuff about Hunter Biden or the alleged dirty-dealing of Joe changes anything. First off, folks don't understand it. Secondly, it doesn't fit the picture that even those who don't like Joe Biden's politics have of the man himself. Thirdly, he's not the one fighting like mad to hide his personal financial information. Fourth, it's all from dubious sources and most of it came from outta nowhere just when the folks spreading it were desperate for something like this.
And fifth and most important: None of it makes Donald Trump a better president. The largest part of the Biden-Harris vote is simply people who think Trump has been very bad for this country, both in terms of honesty and competence, and that it can't endure four more years of him. Even if Biden's son is as corrupt as Trump and Giuliani insist, that doesn't make Trump a good chief exec. The voters who think he botched the COVID-19 response and has inflamed racial tensions still think he botched the COVID-19 response and has inflamed racial tensions.
Everyone's saying Trump's trying hard to replicate 2016 but it isn't 2016. Then he was running to say we needed an outsider to change the direction of this country. Now, he's saying we need the same leadership we've had for four years so as to not change the direction of this country. It pretty much comes down to that.
I didn't watch it. Well, I took a couple of brief peeks but basically, I didn't watch it…so if you came to this site to read what I had to say about it, what I have to say about it is that I didn't watch it.
The last few days, I've been logjammed on a script and writing less-pressing things than what I should have been working on. I finally got unlogjammed and around an hour before Debate Time, I decided not to spoil it by watching Donald Trump try to convince America that there will be no COVID-19 and a great replacement for Obamacare just as soon as he gets re-elected. The man is bad at so many things let's acknowledge how expert he is at being a major distraction. Besides, I figured, the debate will be watchable on YouTube and a hundred other places for the rest of my life. No reason to spoil my writing momentum by watching it now.
Writing this is also a distraction. I'll be back as soon as I get more pages done. In the meantime, I'll bet you can spend hours reading Fact Checks.
Today is the MOST important day in this Election so far.
The FINAL Presidential Debate is TONIGHT and President Trump is going to have to overcome OBSTRUCTION from the biased Debate Commission. They're threatening to cut his microphone for TELLING THE TRUTH and they CHANGED the topics.
It's obvious they want Sleepy Joe to win. But, the President has never let Left-wing media bias stop him before and he's not going to start now. President Trump wants to do something so HUGE that even the Do Nothing Democrats and Fake News won't be able to SILENCE US.
The President of the United States wants TODAY to be our best fundraising day EVER!
We know this is a big goal, but you've NEVER let him down before, and we know you never will. It's going to take EVERY supporter stepping up if we're going to succeed, and President Trump needs to know that he can count on you, Mark.
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The Debate Commission is biased. The Moderator, of course, is biased. Any reporters or commentators who say Trump isn't great and perfect and always right? Biased. And I've never let Donald Trump down before and I never will.
Election Day looms before us and many voices are warning us that it could be many days after November 3 that we know who won. Well, maybe. It has a lot to do with how long it takes certain states to count their ballots and announce the totals. If the states where Trump is expected to do well report in first, he could well take an early lead. There could also be court challenges and other matters that challenge or halt the counting. There could be recounts.
On the other hand, there are a lot of "must win" states for Trump like Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania. Presently, the forecast by The Economist gives Biden a 67% chance of carrying Arizona, a 78% chance of carrying Florida and a 90% chance of carrying Pennsylvania. Nate Silver's 538 site, using a different model, pegs those numbers at 68%, 72% and 86%…not that far off. If/when one of those three states reports a Biden victory, it's just about over for Donald. Watch this video and see how a member of Mr. Silver's squadron explains it…
So what do we think will happen in the final debate tonight? We can expect Trump to be Trump because, despite all the pundit talk over the last four years of him "pivoting" or putting on a different face for a certain purpose, he's never shown that he knows how to be anything but the Trump that thrills his base. So he'll be asked about Health Care and he'll rant about Hunter Biden. And he'll be asked about COVID-19 and he'll yell he's done everything right and he'll bitch the press hasn't asked "Sleepy Joe" about various imagined scandals.
He's really not running against Joe Biden, you know. He's running against The Press and all those powerful forces that have conspired to make him look like an outta-control, self-obsessed, incompetent liar. That seems to be his closing argument; that and the claim that The Pandemic is almost over.
And I'm absolutely not ruling out something bizarre like Trump walking off the debate or refusing to participate or showing up for it dressed as Katharine Hepburn or something…
