Monthly Archives: April 2021

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is by the Hungarian Border Guard Orchestra…

There's a lot of criticism circulating of the Centers for Disease Control, mainly that they said at first masks were not necessary when COVID-19 came along and then switched and said they were. I don't quite get why this was so horrendous. I just thought, "Okay…so it's turning out to be worse than they first thought." Lots of problems do.

Kevin Drum has a post up which some would probably think makes him an apologist for CDC mistakes but I think he's just trying to explain why they weren't as outrageous as some think.

What prompted the decision by the owners of the Pacific Theater chain in Southern California to announce the closure of all their theaters including the beloved Cinerama Dome? This article in the L.A. Times says it's accumulated rent debt. And that's almost certainly it.

But I continue to be optimistic that some if not all of the theaters will resume operation, probably under different ownership. Indeed, the article says, "While most industry insiders expect prime locations such as the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard to eventually return under new operators…"

I see many articles online about how wonderful it was that Joye Murchison Kelly and her husband came out to Comic-Con in 2018 to be honored with the Bill Finger Award and lots and lots of loving applause. I agree with that but I feel like I'm getting too much credit for making that happen.

That we knew at all of Ms. Kelly is due to the detective work of Jill Lepore, author of the book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Several different folks suggested Joye for the Bill Finger Award, then the Blue Ribbon committee that decides on the award — Jim Amash, Scott Shaw!, Kurt Busiek, Charles Kochman, Marv Wolfman and Yours Truly voted that she should have it and comic historian Richard Arndt got me in touch with her.

Jackie Estrada, who supervises the Eisner Awards for Comic-Con, expedited all this. The major sponsor for the 2018 awards was DC Comics, our supporting sponsors were Heritage Auctions and Maggie Thompson, and I persuaded Dan DiDio (who was then running DC Comics) to raise their contribution so Joye and her husband Jack could be flown first-class. Once Joye was here, many folks helped take care of her and Jack, and made their trip wonderful but I have to mention Trina Robbins, Anina Bennett and (again) Maggie Thompson. And of course, the Bill Finger Award has a lot to do with the late Jerry Robinson (who invented it) and the lovely Athena Finger, granddaughter of Bill…

…I'm probably leaving someone out. If you met Joye at that convention and made her feel honored and welcome, I'm leaving you out. The point is that the credit for that presentation should be divided up — as the credit for creating Batman wasn't for far too long.

Mark Rouleau sent me this question…

Ok, so as the kids these days say, "unpopular opinion!" I don't care for any of the inkers who inked Kirby, including Kirby. I've come to this conclusion after seeing so many of his uninked pencils in various locations. 10 out of 10 times I prefer the uninked pencils. There's so much detail, texture, and finesse in the pencils that I cringe whenever I see it compared to the final, inked versions. Also, it seems like any inker who inked Kirby always used a heavy hand. Not sure if it was just the style of the time, or if something else was going on.

So I guess my question is, is it even possible for DC or Marvel or whomever to publish uninked Kirby issues? I'd love to see (for example) The Demon done entirely in pencil, especially as the hardcover version has several teaser pages of just that. I realize that, the comic book biz being the way it is, my odds of seeing such a thing are about the same as you appearing in a nationwide cole slaw ad, but is it possible? Thanks for any insights you have, thanks for the blog.

Yes, it's possible but not with a whole lot of stuff. Most of the work that Jack did prior to around March of 1971 was never copied in the pencil stage. He did not own a copier and even if he'd wanted to spring for one, it was nigh impossible (or maybe even just impossible) to find one that could copy pages the size of comic book original art.

DC and Marvel had big photostat cameras and with great trouble and expense, they could make copies of artwork if, for example, Jack needed a copy of a page from one issue as reference before he could draw the next issue. Any time you see a copy of a pencil page by Kirby or anyone from this period, it was probably made on one of those stat cameras for such a reason. And it was a rare survivor because most of those stats were thrown away when they'd served their immediate purpose.

So when Jack (or anyone) mailed pages into the office, if those pages were lost in the mail, there was no backup. Or if the office mailed them to an inker. Or if the inker mailed them back. It was a source of constant worry for publishers and every so often, something did disappear.

When I was working for Gold Key Comics, an entire completed issue of Bugs Bunny that I wrote vanished en route to the printer because, I suspect, some mailman should have turned left at Albuquerque. Fortunately, the company then worked so far ahead of publication that there was time enough to wait a few weeks to see if it would turn up.

And then when it didn't, I had Xeroxes of my scripts and they were able to have the whole thing redrawn. Interestingly, the artist who'd drawn those scripts the first time asked if someone else could do the redrawing, even though he'd be paid in full again. He just thought it would be too boring to draw the same scripts twice. I was kinda flattered by the implication that it wasn't boring to draw my scripts once.

Anyway, I'm rambling here. The fear of something getting lost in the mail lessened a bit for Kirby in early 1971 when his son Neal was working for a company that sold copiers that could copy pages up to 11" by 17", which was the size DC and Marvel comics were drawn then. It would not have worked before 1968 when the art was larger.

Jack got his copier about the same time Mike Royer took over as his main inker from Vince Colletta, though there was no connection to that change. When Jack finished an issue, his penciled pages would be fed into the copier in his studio, one by one, and copied onto 11" by 17" copier paper. Jack might do it. His wife Roz might do it. One of his kids might do it. Steve Sherman, who assisted Jack along with me might do it. I might do it.

I was always nervous doing it. The pages did not lie on a flatbed for copying. You fed them into a slot and they traveled through the machine, bending around rollers and — 99% of the time — they were ejected from another slot while the copy came out of yet another slot. The penciled pages were curled a bit but they could easily be flattened.

1% of the time, they jammed and it was necessary to open the machine and do delicate surgery to extract the page, hopefully intact. A few times, they were not intact and Jack had to redraw a ruined page. That never happened when I made the copies but that was just dumb luck. I know I would not have been blamed if it had happened but I was still jittery whenever I had to feed Jack's pages into the beast. Some time later, he got another copier that was more reliable.

A lot of those copies no longer exist. Some were thrown away. Some were given away. Some were stolen. No one attached a great value to them at the time because, well, even Jack with the greatest imagination in the world never imagined anyone would want to publish them.

They were just tossed in a box and if Jack later needed to refer to a page, he'd fish around in the box until he found it or have someone else do it. As far as I know, no copies were ever needed to help reconstruct a page that had gotten lost. All the ones we know of have been entrusted to the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center which scans and restores what can be restored.

Some of them have been printed in various places — mainly The Jack Kirby Collector magazine and in two books…

They are Captain Victory: The Graphite Edition from TwoMorrows and Jack Kirby: Pencils and Inks from IDW. There may be others in the future but keep in mind that full books do not exist in pencil of many of the comics Jack drew. When he drew double-page spreads on one sheet of paper, as he usually did, those pieces of paper did not fit into his copier.

Like you, I'm an enormous fan of Jack's art in pencil and have been since I first saw it in his studio in July of 1969. I think most of his inkers have done as fine a job as humanly possible but, yeah, there's something amazing about the raw pencil art. I wish more of it had been preserved but we should be glad we have as much of it as we do.

New York Times obit for Joye Murchison Kelly. I'm so happy we got this woman to Comic-Con to receive the Bill Finger Award.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is by the FMU Jazz Ensemble at Francis Marion University in South Carolina…

• I just set up a webcam in an empty room in my home so I can do ZOOM conferences with my imaginary friend.

What the hell has just happened with Afghanistan and why? Read this and Fred Kaplan will tell you what the hell has just happened and why.

And you know who just came out against "endless wars" like the one we've been waging in Afghanistan? The American Legion, that's who.

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Changing Subjects: Not this weekend but next, we're probably going to see something historic…the lowest-rated, least-cared-about Academy Awards ceremony in history. And while this will be blamed on The Pandemic and how few of the nominated movies anyone has seen, I hope Show Business perceives what seems to me another important reason. I think America has finally gotten bored watching wealthy/successful people give awards and excessive praise to each other.

Awards will never cease as long as there are people in the world who dream of winning them. But maybe we can stop acting as if they're really, really important.

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Last Topic: Someone wrote to ask me what I'm watching these days in Late Night. My TiVo captures Bill Maher, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert, though I rarely watch more than the opening and closing of Maher's show and the opening of Colbert's. I may watch more of Colbert if I like a guest, which I do about a third of the time.

I watch highlights of Meyers, Kimmel, Corden and Fallon on YouTube, especially Seth's "A Closer Look" segments. I'm liking Kimmel's monologues more and more…and the other night, he capped his off with an interview with James Adomian doing a hilarious Mike Lindell impression. If Saturday Night Live did that, they would have gotten someone who had a big hit movie out instead of Adomian and it would have been a third as effective.

Back in August of 2010, we wrote here about how the venerable Hotel Pennsylvania in New York might be going away. It didn't. But it might now.

The building, which was once the largest hotel on the planet, opened in 1919. It had a special sentimental attachment for the comic book community because so many comic conventions were held there, including the first one I attended, back in 1970. But it survived and part of it even became a TV studio. Jordan Klepper did one of his short-lived programs for Comedy Central there and many others have, as well.

But it looks like its time has come. This piece will tell you about the current plans for it. Maybe it will survive again.

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is by Jacob Collier, Jacob Collier, Jacob Collier, Jacob Collier, Jacob Collier, Jacob Collier and Jacob Collier. In that order…

Someplace back on this blog, there may be a real old comment in which I wrote something nice about Tucker Carlson. If there is, I should have retracted it some time ago. He said something wise and reasonable every once in a while back when he was the Conservative Voice on the old CNN series, Crossfire.

I once thought that was evidence he had some smarts and decency but in hindsight, he probably hadn't learned yet how to pander to the kind of folks who watch Fox News. Or maybe it was that he wasn't on Fox then or maybe they just weren't as bad then.

He's been out there speculating — "just asking questions" as folks often say when they want to spread fibs but be able to deny culpability later — that the vaccines are a big hoax. And here is the sane response to that, much of it from Dr. Fauci.

There are people in the media who say insane things and seem to actually believe them. There are also folks who say insane things and don't necessarily believe them but, you sure get the feeling, believe that saying those things is good for their careers. The size of the audience and therefore the paycheck is all the justification they need.

There are also people who start in the second category but something in them steers them into the first. I remember when I worked with the famed wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Offstage, out of the ring, Roddy was a very nice, smart guy who would tell you frankly that he was out there talking trash and participating in scripted events because for him, the alternative was working on a loading dock somewhere for minimum wage. Apart from a lot of physical abuse, he lived quite well.

And one thing he said that stayed with me was that all too often, he found himself believing his own bullshit. He spent so much time in the ring and in interviews yelling about how much he hated Hulk Hogan that he actually started hating Hulk Hogan.

I dunno if Carlson has gone from the second category into the first yet. I just know he's never convinced me he'd be saying that stuff if he could get more take-home pay somewhere by saying the opposite.

When I wrote the previous message, I typed "I'm not watching the news too closely but I gather that the case against ex-cop Derek Chauvin in Minnesota is pretty weak." As quite a few of you figured out, I meant to type "I'm not watching the news too closely but I gather that the case against ex-cop Derek Chauvin in Minnesota is pretty strong" and I have corrected it.

Thank you to the (so far) eighteen people who knew what I meant and my apologies to the three of you who thought I was nuts to think the case was weak. And my main point, of course, was that the stronger the case seems in the press coverage, the more outraged people will be if this man gets off with a slap on the wrist or less.

One of the reasons for so much unrest on court decisions these days is that, more and more, there is cellphone video footage of the incidents. The Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles back in '92 probably would not have happened — or at least been so severe — had there not been video of the police beating the bejeezus out of Mr. King, thereby making the cops' acquittal seem more like the fix was in.

The New York Times has a good obit up for Frank Jacobs. Take note of the part about how Frank's song parodies for MAD led to a very important Supreme Court decision.

I'm not watching the news too closely but I gather that the case against ex-cop Derek Chauvin in Minnesota is pretty strong. This increases the likelihood that he will be found guilty of something and therefore the fear of massive rioting if he isn't.

It also seems to me that Tucker Carlson is about five broadcasts away from presenting his case that the only people who should be allowed to vote in this country are non-vaccinated White Republicans who donated to the Trump campaign.

Speaking of donating to Trump: Many of you have congratulated me on not doing so in spite of the deluge of e-mails his campaign sent me. Some advertising is pretty easy to resist, people. I am also not donating to the pro-Republican operation that's now deluging me with similarly-worded entreats, obviously sent via the same mailing list.

With each passing day, we're all a little happier to not be Matt Gaetz.

I kinda understand the people who are refusing to be vaccinated because they don't want anything unusual in their bodies…GMO-modified food, eggs from chickens that don't eat worms, anything that has ever been near the Monsanto factory, strangers' body parts, etc. I have a tougher time with the ones who think it's a political statement or strategy as Amanda Marcotte describes.

Lastly for now: The San Diego Convention Center website still says that the "Comic-Con Special Edition" on Thanksgiving Weekend has an expected attendance of 130,000. That's gotta be someone just typing in the usual number for normal Comic-Cons without trying to estimate what this one will be…assuming it happens at all. The convention center has a long list of other cons scheduled beginning August 3 and none of them are listed for more than 40,000. Most are way less. That suggests to me there's still some question as to how much of the convention center will be fully functional and available this year.

Here's my pal Charlie Frye again…and I'll tell you one of the things I love about what Charlie does. There are lots of guys around who can do amazing (to me) physical feats involving strength, balance, coordination, tons o' practice, etc. There are also lots of guys who can do great magic tricks.

Charlie intermingles the two. A lady friend I took to see him once watches these videos and then calls and says to me, "Don't tell me how any magic tricks are done. Just tell me which is a magic trick and which is a feat he actually did!" I love that…and the fact that he always has a punch line. There's always a surprise at the end. Oh — and he's funny, too. That helps.