Monthly Archives: November 2020

I love Comic-Con International and have naught but admiration and gratitude for the folks who run it every year…well, every year there isn't a deadly pandemic killing people.

But I'm a little puzzled about something, not about the con directly but about the Comic-Con Museum, which has struck me as a very confused work-in-progress since the parent organization acquired control of an empty museum building in Balboa Park in 2017.  The original idea of a Comic-Con museum — I thought — was for a place that would have presented and preserved the history of the convention and all the creativity and creators and wonderment associated with it.

That would have been in a much smaller building than the one they now have in Balboa Park. At some point, that premise morphed into a larger vision devoted not to the con but to all the art forms it embraces…another worthy idea.  Comics — in all the forms the annual convention celebrates — deserve a year-round brick-and-mortar monument to the importance of the art form and the men and women who have contributed to it.

My puzzlement flows from something the museum has established called the Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame.  I guess I thought it would involve the creators at least as much as the creations. An art museum recognizes the artists, not the paintings…or at least makes the inseparable connection between the painting and the painter. The Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame kicked off to coincide with the 2019 Comic-Con International and the first inductee was Batman. If you want to honor great characters, that's as fine a choice as any.

The Batman exhibition was…well, it was loud.  It was so loud I had to leave it due to a headache that kept going POW! and ZAP! on my Cerebral Cortex. It was loud enough to wake Cesar Romero and he's been dead since 1994.

But the whole experience was impressive as an exhibition of Batman toys and Batman props and Batman "pop art" and Batman memorabilia and there was an extremely noisy carnival-type machine outside where you could "fly" a little on air jets as Batman did in no appearance of his I've ever seen. Someone did a helluva job putting the thing together. I am only complaining about two things…

1. The Noise.  (Tijuana called three times to ask them to for God's sake, hold it down.)
2. That there wasn't more attention paid to Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Sheldon Moldoff, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Gardner Fox, Dick Sprang, George Roussos, Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino, Denny O'Neil, Dick Giordano, Jim Aparo, Frank Miller, Jack Schiff, John Broome, Joe Giella, Frank Robbins, Jim Mooney, Irv Novick and at least eighty other talented folks I could name.  You know: The people without whom there would not have been so many comic books of our beloved Batman from which all that commerce could evolve.

But…okay.  Batman is great and Batman is important and there was artwork on display from comics written and drawn by a few of those folks and maybe if I could have stayed in that building for five more minutes, I would have found some real love shown for the guy we try to remember each year at the con by giving out The Bill Finger Award. I guess the event was a smashing success in many ways.

So now let's turn our focus to this year's Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame and discuss which iconic creation is to be feted. I made up a little graphic of six of the many characters I think everyone would agree match up with their mission statement — and I quote — "To honor these timeless icons who have made a significant impact on popular culture." Here are the six…

Okay, I know what you're thinking: "Superman? Fine.  Bugs Bunny?  Fine.  Popeye?  Of course.  Snoopy?  No question.  Spider-Man?  Sure.  Pac-Man?  Uhhh…"

I understand your hesitation. Pac-Man has never been a property of any significance in comic books or comic strips. There was a Pac-Man cartoon show but whatever fame Pac-Man has does not flow from the characters in it. It was a fine video game and its impact on that industry is undeniable…but it's kind of a game, not a character.

It's the creation of a videogame designer, not a cartoonist or writer, and it was conceived not to tell clever, entertaining stories but to play a game. It's a great game, no question, but so is Monopoly™ and they wouldn't honor Rich Uncle Pennybags, the mustachioed gent on the box or the little metal dog that scampers around the board, passing "GO" and collecting $200 each time he does.

You're right. Pac-Man doesn't belong in that list. So why did I put Pac-Man in with the other six? Because Pac-Man is this year's honoree…

The Comic-Con Museum is thrilled to announce PAC-MAN™ as the second inductee into the Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame.

Born in 1980 and widely considered the original digital game mascot, PAC-MAN™ made a profound impact on the video game industry, the role of storytelling in games, and popular culture as a whole.

For an entire generation, PAC-MAN™ ignited a love of video and arcade games. Those of us who were there for the start of PAC-MAN™ remember going to the arcade and lining up for a chance to play while our friends stood around and cheered on. We were able to connect with PAC-MAN™ on an emotional level in a way we hadn't with other video game characters.

True, it made a profound impact on the video game industry…and if this were the E3 Museum, that would make perfect sense. The role of storytelling in games? You chase the ghosts around until you die and then you put in another quarter. That's the story.

Popular culture as a whole? You could say that about The Beatles, Elvis, the Kardashians, Deep Throat, McDonald's, psychedelic drugs, Coca-Cola, cell phones and a thousand other things that we could all name. And yes, video games have a place at Comic-Con but that started when they began telling comic-book-type stories and introducing characters who were designed to look like they came out of comic books…characters with faces and voices and colorful costuming.

People are already writing me to suggest that Pac-Man must have been selected because the owners of the property made it rain quarters on that building in Balboa Park. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't even know if that would make the choice more or less logical. I just know I don't get this.

I really liked the Cathy Rigby version of Peter Pan. It toured America for years and I saw it several times. Here she is doing a number from it on the 2009 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. Mr. Lewis shows up at the end…

"Gary" (who apparently has the same e-mail address as I do) and I just received copies of this message from donaldjtrump.com…

Gary,

The support from American Patriots, like YOU, for President Trump is INCREDIBLE.

Across the entire Nation, Trump supporters are showing up BIG TIME and sending a RESOUNDING message to the Left that they want FOUR MORE YEARS of their ALL-TIME favorite President.

The President appreciates your support, and now we are reaching out to remind you that he will NOT give up. President Trump will NOT allow this Election to be STOLEN from him, and more importantly, from YOU.

The Trump Campaign has the strongest legal team EVER put together to FIGHT BACK against these blatant irregularities in key battleground states. All we need now is YOUR SUPPORT.

Please contribute $5 IMMEDIATELY to stand with YOUR President against potential VOTER FRAUD. >>

I wonder how many of those who want FOUR MORE YEARS of Trump really consider him their ALL-TIME favorite president, especially these days. I have a hunch a sizeable percentage of them still prefer Reagan and maybe a couple of others. But of course, Donald always has to be Number One in everything. He even presumes that Gary (despite the fact that he doesn't exist) and I (because I'd rather support Gary) have shown him INCREDIBLE support.

Also, he used to ask me at least for donations of $100 and up. Now, he's down to asking for five bucks, none of which — if articles about how donations are being handled are correct — is going to fight potential (italics mine) VOTER FRAUD.  That's potential VOTER FRAUD.  They're not going after any real VOTER FRAUD.

And the e-mail includes this graphic of how the election stands today…

How do you get Trump at 232 and Biden at 227?  Simple: You just "uncall" all the states where Trump is disputing the call.  That would include Georgia, which has just certified its 16 electoral votes for Biden.

And don'tcha love how it's PRESIDENT Trump in a heroic-looking photo but it's not VICE-PRESIDENT Biden and they picked a photo where he looks kinda clueless?

• Trump is going to pardon the Thanksgiving turkey for insider trading, colluding with foreign powers and/or interfering in investigations of his administration. Just to get in practice.

My e-mailbox continues to swell with pleas from the Trump forces to send money to help them stop "The Left" from stealing the elections. I have a friend who is far more Liberal than I could ever be who says, "If 'The Left' were going to steal an election, we would have stolen it for the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren ticket…and we also would have taken the Senate while we were at it."

I'm actually getting two of almost every e-mail the Trumpsters send out — one to me and one to someone named "Gary" who they think is reachable at the same e-mail address. Never mind cleaning up the registered voter rolls. They need to fix their damn mailing list.

Many of the messages tell me about the mountains of proof they've amassed about dead people voting, machines changing Trump votes to Biden votes, vote totals not adding up, observers who couldn't see everything but saw counters changing ballots, etc. I don't think any lawyer representing Trump's interests has presented any of this incontrovertible evidence to any judge. I wonder why that is.

I suspect Trump has given up trying to actually overturn the election. It's always dangerous to assume his thought processes are logical but if in this case they were and he thought he could prevail, he would have hired a lead attorney way more experienced with current election law than Rudy Giuliani. I'll bet there are many who would have had a better shot in court. The trouble was they wouldn't have done all those wild theatrics on the news…and right now, winning before a judge is way less important than keeping The Base riled up and believing Trump won and is being cheated.

And, oh yeah — they want those donations. Gary may send them something but I won't.

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I continue to largely isolate. I go almost nowhere, a restraint made easier by a knee that sometimes doesn't want me walking far on it or driving. And also it helps that there aren't too many places I want to go at the moment. Thanksgiving Day, I'll don a mask, go do curbside pickup of a feast at a local restaurant. Then I'll bring it back here so one friend and I can eat turkey together. Usually, I get invited to about a dozen large dinner gatherings but this year, everyone I know is too wise to have one.

Someone claiming to be a pollster called to ask if I was going to take a COVID vaccine when it's available in my area. I've stopped talking to folks who claim to be pollsters because a couple who've phoned were clearly just mining for information on my buying habits and bank account.

This one, I talked to only long enough to discover that the acceptable answers to her question were "Yes, I will take the vaccine" and "No, I won't." There was no option to say, "I'll wait until I see which one or ones are available, read up about them and, most of all, consult with my physician." Which seems to me like the wisest answer but she could only accept one or the other.

And today, kiddos, we bring you the tale of Walt's Bran Muffins as told by the man who stole them, Floyd Norman…

Just another day or two of reduced posting before I should be back to my normal pace. In the meantime, let me call your attention to the New York Times obit for our friend Ken Spears. It contains a lot of things I didn't even know about him.

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Years ago, I worked for a man who was being sued…and he could have made the whole suit go away by paying $100,000 to the guy suing him but he decided to fight it. It wasn't a matter of principle. He just kept talking to lawyers who told him they could make it cost-effective to fight: Pay the attorney $10,000 and he'd win or at least and get the settlement price down to $25,000 or thirty.

So he paid the lawyer and he didn't win. And he paid another lawyer who said he could win and that lawyer didn't win either. And then there was another lawyer who said he could win and that guy didn't win either. The man being sued wound up paying the whole danged $100,000 plus court fees and penalties and (of course) the lawyer fees and his outta-pocket costs easily topped $200,000.

I think a version of this is now happening with the outgoing (no matter what he does) President of the United States. But maybe he considers the loss of money and respect from most of America an acceptable trade-off for keeping his base thinking he didn't lose and that he got cheated…and admiring him as a fighter to the end.

And he may also have been wrong when he said that we wouldn't hear any more about "COVID, COVID, COVID" the day after Election Day. For some reason, I still see occasional mentions of it in the news.

Here's our friend Floyd Norman with a story from back when he worked at the Disney Studio — back when it was really the Disney Studio because Walt ran it…

Dealing with stuff I gotta do today…

Jordan Klepper filed this report on the "Million MAGA March." And of course, it wouldn't really be a pro-Trump rally if they weren't claiming they had a million people there and all the official sources were saying it was more like 5000-7500. And these are the people who are now claiming the votes weren't counted accurately…

I hope you folks like pictures of mushroom soup cans. I'm busy with something so I may not be posting much more than these for a few days. But you don't need me to tell you that Trump's "Stop the Steal" campaign is ridiculous and that it's crashing and burning or that people are dumb not to wear masks when they mingle. I'll be back to regular posting when I get some assignments done and — dare I fantasize about it? — a few good nights of sleep.

And you just knew Randy Rainbow was going to do something like this…

Yesterday (Monday) I received nineteen e-mails from the Trump organization telling me…

• I'm a true patriot for my past support of my favorite president, Donald Trump…
• He got over 73 million LEGAL votes whereas "Sleepy Joe" got mostly illegal ones…
• Leftists hate me and wish I was dead…
• Every single thing printed by the FAKE NEWS is a lie…
• If I don't want to see those hateful leftists steal the election, I need to step up and donate money…
• …because they have mountains of proof of the cheating and crookedness.

…and in one message, they addressed me several times by my first name, which was sometimes "Mark" and sometimes "Gary."

How ugly was Rodney Dangerfield?

In the last few days, I've received something like twenty fund-raising e-mails from the Trump campaign telling me that they have incontrovertible proof that the Trump-Pence team won big. I don't get why they don't seem to be presenting any of that to judges. They keep losing and/or withdrawing cases due to lack of evidence…or the fact that even if the ruling went their way, it would only change less than half-a-percent of the votes.

There's good (we hope) news about another vaccine for COVID-19. This one from Moderna seems to be even more effective and a lot easier to transport and administer. But I still think we shouldn't cheer too much about any of these announcements until testing is over. Me, I'm waiting until my personal physician thinks there's something I should take. Then I'll decide for me.

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Years ago, I began receiving e-mails from students saying they're writing some sort of master thesis or report on either the comic book business or the cartoon business or the writing-for-teevee business and they want to interview me for whatever the thing is that they have to write. I said yes to the first request and then when others came in, I said to myself, "Well, I did it for the last guy…I guess I have to do it for this guy."

I've done a number of them. Some took a little of my time and some took a lot and a few took way more than necessary. (One supposed student, I suspect, wasn't writing an assignment but just said so to get me to answer questions about how he could get a job in the comic book business.)

This year, I've received a sudden flurry of these requests — so many so that I had to say no to someone. And after I did, when others came in, I said to myself, "Well, I said no to the last guy…I guess I have to say no to this guy."

So while I'm flattered that someone thinks I have some knowledge worth basing a class paper or thesis on, I've decided to stop doing assisting everyone. I actually don't think anyone has ever asked me for my "take" on anything (that's the word most of them use — take) that they couldn't find out by spending some time on this blog.

If your professor-type person insists you actually interview an expert, just tell them I answered your questions and referred you to paragraphs you could quote from my website. I won't tell.