Monthly Archives: March 2021

In December of 2018, we were mourning CBS Television City in Hollywood. It had been sold to a real estate developer who had plans to trim down the part of the operation where television shows are done and to add in lots of retail outlets and a hotel and touristy attractions and such.

Well, that mourning is now looking premature and unwarranted. If this article is true, the plan now is to expand the TV production facilities, going from eight studios to at least fifteen with additional support functions and offices. The new commissary they mention would also be nice since the one that's there hasn't been upgraded since the staff of The Danny Kaye Show was lunching there.

I doubt they'll be allowed to expand as much as they say they want to expand and I suspect they don't really want to. These developments always ask for more than they expect to get…but I like the idea of the place being upgraded as a television production center rather than to become another big shopping center…especially since there already is one on that block.

As I said, I don't know anything about this "Comic-Con Special Edition" that's going to take place in San Diego on Thanksgiving weekend other than the dates, the fact that it's not Comic-Con International and the fact that it'll be in the San Diego Convention Center.

I may be more interested in the San Diego Convention Center than you are. As you know, it's been housing and serving a lot of San Diego's homeless population during the pandemic. That's winding down now and the folks who are there are being relocated…but new tenants are arriving…

The San Diego Convention Center, repurposed as a temporary overflow facility for unaccompanied migrant children, will house girls between the ages of 13 and 17, federal officials said Saturday, hours before the first 500 arrivals were expected to arrive from Texas and Arizona.

The linked article goes on to say that the Convention Center will begin hosting actual conventions in August. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria is quoted as saying, "…what we know right now is there is no use for this facility (until August) and this is a public asset. People in this city own it. It can sit here vacant, doing nothing, or it can do something on behalf of thousands of kids who need it." A convention center in Dallas is housing males of the same age seeking asylum.

Here's what it looks like down there in S.D…

This is about all I know about it at the moment…

COMIC-CON ANNOUNCES DATES
FOR NOVEMBER CONVENTION

The Event Will Be Held At The San Diego
Convention Center Over Thanksgiving Weekend

San Diego Comic Convention today announced dates for their November convention. Comic-Con Special Edition will be held as a three-day event over Thanksgiving weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, November 26-28, 2021 at the San Diego Convention Center. It is our hope that by Fall conditions will permit larger public gatherings.

Comic-Con Special Edition will be the first in-person convention produced by the organization since Comic-Con 2019, and the first since the onset of the global pandemic COVID-19. The Fall event will allow the organization to highlight all the great elements that make Comic-Con such a popular event each year, as well as generate much needed revenue not only for the organization but also for local businesses and the community.

"While we have been able to pivot from in-person gatherings to limited online events, the loss of revenue has had an acute impact on the organization as it has with many small businesses, necessitating reduced work schedules and reduction in pay for employees, among other issues," said David Glanzer, spokesperson for the nonprofit organization. "Hopefully this event will shore up our financial reserves and mark a slow return to larger in-person gatherings in 2022."

As details are still being finalized, badge cost, attendance capacity, and related information will be forthcoming.

This is not Comic-Con International. It's Comic-Con Special Edition, a different convention produced by the same organization, just as they also produce WonderCon. More details to come.

Hope you enjoyed one or more of the panels I hosted for WonderCon@Home and posted here earlier today. They'll be on this website indefinitely so you can watch 'em all when you have time.

I've received a few e-mails from folks who like watching panels like these — not just ones I host — and wish all conventions would share their programming online this way. I expect that day will come but not for a while.

It complicates things a lot. It's pretty easy to just get all the panel participants and those who want to see the panel to schlep up to Room 16A (or wherever) at 3 PM (or whenever) and just do a panel. To put one online, you have to have a camera crew and set up audio and run wires and deal with what happens when attention goes to a screen and make sure there's a good Internet connection, which they don't always have in these places. Someone has to "direct" in some manner.

Wait. There's more. If you show clips from TV shows or movies, there are copyright issues involved with putting the panel online. And some convention centers and hotels have union contracts that mean that union personnel has to be brought in to do much of this.

It all gets very complicated and I'm not saying it can't be done or even that it won't be done…but it won't be the norm for a while.

And there's another matter that concerns me. To explain it, I have to quote something I've posted on this blog before. It's about a guy who approached me one year at Comic-Con in San Diego to bitch that too much of the programming was about things other than comic books and there especially wasn't enough about the history of the art form…

[He] was upset that so much of the Comic-Con wasn't about comics and he felt, I guess, that I'd concur and would rush off to do something about it…maybe throw Robert Downey Jr out of the hall or something. Instead, I told him about that great panel we did on the Golden Age of Batman with Jerry Robinson, Sheldon Moldoff and Lew Schwartz. If you're interested in the history of comics, it doesn't get any more historical than that. I then said to this fellow who was complaining about the con not being about that kind of thing, "I didn't see you there."

And so help me, he replied, "I couldn't be there. I had to get in line to see the 24 panel with Kiefer Sutherland."

I love doing panels about the history of comics. I love watching them and I love hosting them and I wish there were more of them. And you know why there aren't more of them at conventions? Well, part of it is that a lot of cons don't invite and pay for the kind of folks who would be interviewed for such panels but it's the same question: Why don't they invite more of those folks and why don't they have more panels with them?

And the answer is very simple. It's that comic conventions do not program for empty seats. The above anecdote is about a guy who said he wanted to see such panels but apparently didn't want that enough to show up in the panel room for one. I'm afraid there are a lot of people who are like him. They say they care about comic book history but they don't show up to fill the seats, which is the only meaningful way you encourage conventions to invite more folks of historical significance and to have such panels.

I know there are a lot of these people because they keep saying to me, "Gee, I really wanted to catch that. Did anyone record it?" Sometimes, they say, "I'll have to catch that on YouTube" and they're startled when I tell them it won't be on YouTube because it wasn't recorded…or wasn't recorded for that purpose.

Thousands of years ago when I last went to an actual comic convention, one fellow got somewhat irked when I told him the panel he wanted to see — but had something better to do while it was taking place — would not be available online. He said, "That's important history. Someone should have recorded it." To which I said, "Yes, and someone should have shown up for it." Because like I said, they don't program for empty seats.

Featuring Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragonés, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth…

Featuring Mara Junot, Maurice LaMarche, Anna Brisbin and Brock Powell…

Featuring Jonathan Ross and Neil Gaiman…

An acquaintance of mine who doesn't believe in wearing masks, Donald Trump losing elections or — probably — the Earth being round is mad he isn't at the Anaheim Convention Center right now. The Pandemic ain't over (new cases are still being reported) but he thinks there's not only light at the tunnel but us, too. We're there, it's over and why the hell can't he have everything back right this minute?

I like WonderCon as much as he does but I'm glad they went virtual with it and I'm glad the same folks aren't trying to have a real Comic-Con International in July. He thinks they're being too cautious. I think they aren't. If they're erring, at least they're erring on the side of Safety instead of erring on the side of Maybe Killing Grandma.

So I'm at home where, at least, the food's better and when I need to use the toilet, I rarely have to wait in line behind a guy in a Chewbacca suit. And I'm enjoying some of the online panels. The three I did will be on this site before the day is out. We're making the best of it.

In an alternate universe where COVID-19 was stopped at the borders — preferably not our borders — WonderCon 2021 would be convening tomorrow in Anaheim, not far from where Disneyland is (and has been) in full operation. But we can all attend it virtually this weekend from wherever we're sequestered.

Tune in tomorrow and enjoy the many great panels that will be available online including the three of mine that will go online tomorrow. They will also be linked here at some point. You can find the whole schedule posted here. I will, as usual, be cosplaying as Harley Quinn for much of the event…

All of these are tomorrow, Friday, March 26, all times are Pacific and all panels run an hour, give or take a few minutes…

10 AM – The Jack Kirby Tribute Panel
Mark Evanier (Kirby: King of Comics) talks about the man some call "The King of the Comics" with author Neil Gaiman (American Gods) and TV host and mega-Kirby fan Jonathan Ross. They will attempt to discuss what was special about the work of Jack Kirby and why, long after we lost him, he seems to be more popular than ever.

1 PM – Cartoon Voices
Mark Evanier (supervising producer of The Garfield Show) welcomes four of the best actors today supplying the words and sounds of animated superstars and the strange beings who inhabit videogames. They are Maurice LaMarche (Pinky and the Brain), Mara Junot (Mortal Combat 11), Brock Powell (Phineas and Ferb: Candace against the Universe) and Anna Brisbin (Final Fantasy VII Remake). There will be a script reading of a script they've never seen before and plenty of talk about their craft.

5 PM – The Groo Crew
The four guys responsible for the comic book Groo the Wanderer — Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth — talk about how and why they create the adventures of the stupidest character in all of comics, and maybe we'll get Sergio to talk about his 55 years with MAD magazine and Stan to discuss new and exciting news about his creation, Usagi Yojimbo.

Dana Carvey was on with Stephen Colbert not last night but the night before. Mr. Carvey did impressions of Dr. Fauci and President Biden — the first good ones I've heard of either gent. When I heard them, I had two thoughts, one being that Saturday Night Live has had a lot of folks who try to do impressions but very few as good as Dana Carvey.

And my second thought it that we're going to see a lot of good Fauci and Biden impressions now…but they won't be done by folks imitating Fauci and Biden. What we'll be hearing is impressions of Dana Carvey doing Fauci and Biden

This is a ten minute excerpt from Colbert's show but I've set it to start playing at the 4:30 mark where the impressions begin. If you want to watch the whole thing, just move the slider all the way to the left…

Our pal Stu Shostak found this on YouTube. It's thirteen minutes of the 1956 Broadway musical The Most Happy Fella as presented that year on Ed Sullivan's show. The Most Happy Fella was a modest hit when it debuted. It ran 676 performances, probably because of its bouncy songs by Frank Loesser (who also penned the book) and a lot of good promotion.

A lot of it was on Ed's show that night — Sunday, October 28, 1956 — and that episode got a whopping tune-in thanks to it also featuring the second appearance of Mr. Elvis Presley. There was also an episode of I Love Lucy that was practically a commercial for The Most Happy Fella…and yes, Lucy and Desi had invested in the musical.

But Most Happy Fella isn't performed much. There was one major attempt to revive it on Broadway in 1979 but it closed in about six weeks, and there've been a few scattered revivals here and there. I've never seen a production of it. A friend of mine who did said it was a lot of great songs, not a lot of great stuff between them.

Here's what may be the best of those great songs as performed by Robert Weede, Jo Sullivan and the Company…

Here's the first part of a story I just read online…

Late-night host and comedian Jay Leno has issued an apology for a series of jokes told over his career targeting Asian communities. The apology comes after a nearly 15-year campaign from the activist group Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) for remarks as recent as Variety's 2020 report that Leno cracked about Koreans eating dog meat — a complaint that offended numerous players on the set of NBC's America's Got Talent.

I suspect some will be citing this as an example of comedy being damaged by "political correctness" and/or Leno lacking guts. If there's going to be a discussion about this, it oughta include a couple of other considerations, starting with the recognition that not everything that was ever funny is funny forever. We can all cite past comedy about various racial groups that no one would do today.

They might not do it because it's in poor taste or they might not do it because audiences don't laugh at it…or both might be true. I'm curious as to whether Jay has been getting decent reactions to jokes about Koreans eating dogs lately. I know he dropped a lot of material because he thought he was too old for "flirty" kinds of jokes and too wealthy for jokes about eating at McDonald's. A lot of long-time comedians could stand to prune some of their older, outta-date ideas about what's funny.

A friend of mine saw one of the last live appearances that Don Rickles did. I asked how he was and my friend said, "Great…if you could pretend it was 1969." No one probably expected Rickles to change his act at the age of 87, nor would most of them have wanted him to…but he wasn't a topical comic. Leno is and he's also not in his eighties. One of the reasons George Carlin remained at the top of his game until he died was that he dumped bits like the one about the Indian Staff Sergeant. Seems to me this is the same thing.

This is kind of a Note-To-Self to remind me to do this every so often. Yesterday, I spent a little time "canceling" subscriptions I have to certain online services. I have a lot of these subscriptions and I've found, as most of you probably have, that if you cancel them, you get offered a much lower price to stay.

This is especially true of the subscriptions that won't let you cancel online; where you have to call a toll-free number and talk to an alleged human being. Of course, you have to be prepared to actually cancel. You may also have to turn down one lower offer to get an even lower offer.

I think I saved myself about $400 yesterday. Half of that came from one service that wanted to charge me $300 for another year. I said that was too much so they offered a rate of $200. I said that was too much and we wound up at $105. But I did this with five different services. Four of them gave me a better price not to cancel and I decided to live without the fifth…and dropping that saved me another sixty bucks. It was certainly worth the time I spent.

One tip when you do this: Always ask the question, "What is the total price I will pay including all fees and taxes?" A lot of these "lower offers" come with hidden add-on prices. And you have to be real clear on whether the reduced price also takes away some aspect of the service that you want.

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I can't think of anything to say about George Segal, who died the other day at the age of 87 except this: I didn't like every movie the man made but I always liked him. I liked him when he and his banjo showed up on Johnny Carson's show too. And I really liked Where's Poppa?

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Sidney Powell, as we all know, is that lady who was on the news 24/7 for a time claiming that she had incontrovertible proof that Trump won the 2020 election big, that voting machines were rigged, that zillions of Trump votes went uncounted and that she would soon "unleash the Kraken" in court and prove all this and sue people who were behind "The Steal" into oblivion.

And like you, I'm amused that now that a company that made the voting machines is trying to sue her into oblivion, the new line is that what she said was all "opinion" and that "no reasonable person would conclude those were truly statements of fact." In other words: "I had no proof and everyone should have known that."

I do not quite grasp why she and her lawyers think this will get her off the hook in that lawsuit. Doesn't this help the lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems make their case that her statements were untrue and she knew they were untrue when she made them? In any case, it's kinda fun to see her say, in effect, that anyone who believed her was an idiot.

More interesting to me is this paragraph in this piece about Ms. Powell's "defense"…

…there's been a change in [Trump's] approach when talking about the election, and one that was apparent in his Fox News appearance. When the former president has tried to make a case that the election was stolen from him in recent weeks, he's no longer made claims about votes being changed. Instead, he's argued that pandemic-related changes to state election laws were unconstitutional — arguments that were rejected in courtroom after courtroom when Trump's lawyers made them, including by judges he appointed.

Trump has always had this way of shifting his position without admitting that the one he's abandoned wasn't true and wasn't working. So why was he trying to get Georgia election officials to "find" more votes for him if the problem was that they'd changed the rules to allow more people to vote?

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Dr. Anthony Fauci is cautiously optimistic that performance venues like Broadway theaters will be back to full audiences by Fall.

When I mentioned him before on this blog, I got an e-mail from someone asking me, "Do you think Dr. Fauci has been 100% accurate about this pandemic?" No, I don't think anyone who has made public statements about this pandemic had been 100% accurate. Dr. Fauci, at least, seems to be qualified to say the things he's said and unlike most, when he's optimistic, he has the wisdom to be cautiously optimistic.

Since there ain't gonna be no Comic-Con International in San Diego this July, we who select the winner of the annual Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing are going to do what we did last year. We"re going to give out another half-dozen posthumous awards. We have many, many past nominations and we'll wade through all of them but this is the announcement that for about the next five weeks, we're open to more.

This is an award for a body of work as a comic book writer…someone who is or was unrecognized and/or unrewarded for that body of work. It is not for your favorite artist. It is not for someone who wrote a few stories. It is not for someone whose talents have been honored over and over. It is not for someone who got very, very rich and/or famous writing comics. And the posthumous one, which is the only kind we're presenting this year, is not for someone who is alive.

It is also not for anyone who has received this award in the past. The full list of such people can be read over on this page.

If you have already nominated someone in years past, you need not nominate them again. You can if you want but either way, they will be considered for this year's awards.

Here's the address for nominations. They will be accepted until April 30 at which time all reasonable suggestions will be placed before our Blue Ribbon Judging Committee and we'll pick six names to add to the above list. Thank you.

My buddy Charlie Frye does stuff like this. I can't do this. You can't do this. But Charlie can do this…