Monthly Archives: September 2022

Before you read this, you'll want to have read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9. Whew!

Alex Toth was one of the ten-or-so best artists ever in comics.  He may even have been in the Top Five. But he was a difficult man to work with, which is why he never worked for one editor or one employer for very long. It was that way with his career in comic books and also in his more-lucrative career in TV animation. Three times during my own, briefer period of working for Hanna-Barbera, I walked down to Alex's office to see if he wanted to go to lunch and I found out he'd quit.

When he was at his best, no one was better…and even at his worst, he was better than a lot of folks at their best. But, well…

As I mentioned eight hundred chapters ago here, Alex was in genuine awe of the work Dan Spiegle was doing on Blackhawk. Alex did not like most of what was then being done in American comic books and would go on long tirades about terrible artwork he saw on certain books, some of which looked jes' fine to me. But he sure liked Spiegle, a contemporary of his who worked in some of the same traditions. There was a period when both men were working on similar material for Dell Comics. Until experts straightened it out, the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide identified a number of Dell books drawn by Dan as by Alex and vice-versa.

After Wildey and Sekowsky began working on Detached Service Diary stories for Blackhawk, Alex told me he wanted to do one…but he had conditions. He wanted to pencil-only, which was okay, even though there was a good chance he'd hate whatever the inker did. I asked him to give me the names of a few inkers he liked and I'd try to get one of them but he said, "No, I want to see what someone new will do with my pencils. DC always gives my work to Frank Giacoia and I love Frank but I'm tired of him. You pick someone new you think will do a good job." He also wanted to do the story "Marvel Method."

Others will tell you there are two ways of writing a comic book. There are actually quite a few but some people in the field only know of "The Full Script Method" and "The Marvel Method." In "The Full Script Method," the writer composes a script that specifies the number of panels on each page, and what the artist is to draw in each of those panels.  Then the writer also writes out the captions, word balloons and sound effects. The artist then follows those instructions…not that he or she can't occasionally fiddle with this or that to make it better.

"The Marvel Method" is called "The Marvel Method" because, though it was employed here and there earlier, it was popularized when Stan Lee worked with guys like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko in the early sixties. It's usually described roughly as follows: "The writer writes out a plot outline and then the artist decides how to tell that story in panels, draws it out that way and then the writer composes the dialogue to fit the pictures." That's how a lot of writers who were not Stan Lee have since done it, and sometimes their written outlines are very detailed.

Stan's weren't, especially when working with Kirby or Ditko or any artist he thought was really good at plotting out a story. Often, he'd let them devise the entire plot and then, verbally or with notes, they'd explain the story to him and he'd write the copy. And when he did have input before drawing commenced, it would usually be in a story conference with the artist, the two of them exchanging ideas, and then the "outline" would often be verbal, not written.

There are pros and cons of both methods and of the others. I am of the opinion that the effectiveness of each has everything to do with the particular strengths of the writer and artist involved…and often with the nature of their relationship. I think a lot of poor stories have resulted from a tag-team employing the wrong method.

There are artists who do not do well working "Marvel Method" and any writer who's worked a lot that way can tell you painful tales of trying to dialogue pictures that simply weren't telling the story he or she wanted to tell. I have occasionally been placed in the position of having to write dialogue on pages that did not display any story I could fully comprehend but I didn't have the time and/or the power to have the pages redrawn. I was not Stan Lee, the editor-in-chief of the company, and not every penciler is Jack Kirby.

Actually, no one is Jack Kirby these days and some people who can draw very nice pictures don't have a great sense of plot or storytelling. And every so often, you encounter one who doesn't care. I once had to write the copy on pages drawn by an artist who admitted to me that all he cared about was the art looking cool so he could sell the original art for more money. If the story didn't make a lick of sense, readers would blame the credited writer, not him. (Don't try to figure out which story it was. I was happily not the credited writer on it. I was ghosting for a friend who couldn't figure any coherent narrative either but didn't have the power or time to demand redrawing.)

In these articles, you have seen me rave about the skills of the main Blackhawk artist, Dan Spiegle. He was amazing. But he did not do well working, as some writers and editors tried to force him into, "Marvel Method." Some of the best artists in comics were roughly analogous to Laurence Olivier. Lord Olivier was hailed as one of the greatest actors of his century but he had no gift for improvisation. He could brilliantly interpret any script he was given but he had to have it all written down for him.

I got the best out of Dan by giving him a complete, full, everything-spelled-out script with occasional rough sketches. I did not specify camera angles very much because he was better than me or anyone in his selection of them. But it was like they tell young film directors: There's such a thing as giving your actors too much direction and such a thing as giving them too little. A good director knows how much to give and it may not be the same amount with every actor.

Toth was on a kick to work "Marvel Method." A few years earlier, we'd done one successful (I thought) collaboration with him working off my full script. This time at his insistence, I gave him an outline and then I discussed the story with him. He assured me he liked the plot and then went off to draw it all out in pencil.  Soon after, he turned it in to me, saying he had a great time and was eager to do another.

Here's where it all went off the rails. When I sat down to go over it…well, it was the story I'd outlined and it was the story we'd discussed…but only sort of. There was, of course, nothing wrong with the drawing. Alex Toth simply did not do poor drawings. But it was what he'd drawn that gave me a problem. To tell a certain story, you need to convey certain information and he had just not conveyed certain story points in his staging, nor had he left me opportunities to insert them into the dialogue. To make what I hope will be my last movie analogy here, it was like he'd filmed my screenplay but he'd replaced certain key scenes with improvisations of his own.

I went painstakingly over the pages and made notes of panels I felt I needed Alex to revise. It wasn't much — way less than a half-hour of work for a guy as fast as he was — but I was somewhat scared to ask him. I'd heard him carry on about idiot editors and stupid producers who demanded what he thought were inane changes. But what had to be done had to be done. I drove to Hanna-Barbera, all the time mentally rehearsing the calm, respectful way I could explain to Alex why he had to redraw what I needed him to redraw.

When I got there, his office was empty and someone told me he'd just quit again.  I'd missed it by minutes.

I decided that on my way home from H-B, I'd stop at Alex's house and make my little speech. But before I left to do that, Don Jurwich came into my office. Don was the current producer of Super-Friends, a series Alex had largely designed and for which he still did a fair amount of artwork — model sheets and storyboards. He asked if I was available to write an episode of the show and before I could even answer, he told me what had happened with Alex.

Alex had been drawing storyboards for the series. Storyboards, in case you've never seen them, are like comic books with the dialogue under the panel instead of in word balloons. They're a visualization of the material and every artist who thereafter works on that episode is following the staging and camera angles indicated by the storyboard artist. Alex was a very, very good storyboard artist.

But in this case, he'd also taken it upon himself to play story editor. He found major faults with the script and in boarding it, he'd rewritten a few large chunks of the story including the dialogue that went with those chunks. Let us call that "Script A." He handed in that storyboard for Script A and before he went over the board, Don gave Alex the next episode, which we shall call "Script B."

Alex read it over, thought B was worse than A, and sent it back to Don with the following note…

In the meantime, Don had examined the board for Script A. Thirty minutes or so before I found Alex's office empty, Don was in it telling Alex that he'd have to redo most of the storyboard for Script A. The network had approved it as written and much Hanna-Barbera money had been spent to have the show's large voice cast come in and record all the lines, including the ones Alex had then changed. Everything had to be put back the way it was…

…and it was, though not by Alex. He'd started yelling at Don and Don had started yelling back…and I later heard the story from Alex and his account matched exactly, differing only in recollections of which of the two men had hurled which profanities and threats of physical violence at each other.

As Don told me his version, I suddenly decided this might not be a great day to go to Alex's home and ask him to redraw pages on that Blackhawk story.

If I'd had a week or two to let him cool down, I might have but I didn't. I had an inker waiting and before it went to him, I had to get it lettered. I'd promised Alex someone who wasn't Frank Giacoia and hadn't inked his work before. There were plenty of good people in that category and one of them was Steve Leialoha. Steve was (and remains) a superb artist and as such is always in-demand. But when I called him in San Francisco and offered him the chance to work with Alex Toth, he couldn't say no. He told me, "I have a little window of opportunity open." If I could get him the pages by a certain date, he would be thrilled to ink them.

So I went home and did the best job I could at writing captions and balloons that would make the story make sense. I just read it again for the first time in many years and I did a worse job than I remembered…and I remembered doing a pretty poor job. I also — with a chutzpah I couldn't summon up today if my life depended on it — did a little repenciling of a few things. No one has ever noticed but I, an artist about a thousandth as skilled as Alex Toth, changed a few things Alex drew.

I would not do that today. I did a lot of things back then I would not do today, along with some I couldn't do if I wanted to.

I sent the pages and my script off to DC Comics in New York with a note to have them lettered and sent to Steve Leialoha and I gave them his address. An assistant back there had them lettered and then gave them to Frank Giacoia to ink.

No one told me this. I found out on the day before Steve's "window of opportunity" opened and he phoned to ask me when he'd be getting the Toth pages to ink. I called New York and found out that Frank had already done that. When I asked the assistant there why Frank and not Steve, I was told, "Frank came by and he really needed work. That was the only thing we had around to give him." Ernie Colón was still the editor of Blackhawk then and he'd okayed it even though he'd also okayed sending the job to Steve Leialoha. Steve, thankfully, forgave us both.

I don't think I ever made those mistakes again, at least not all on one story. I also never wrote an episode of Super-Friends. The regular writer had a contract to write them all and that was fine with me. I'm not so sure I could have lived up to Alex's recommendation in that drawing so even later when that writer didn't have all the episodes locked up, I declined other offers to write for the show.

And perhaps because of that, I managed to stay friends with Alex after that Blackhawk story, though I don't think we ever mentioned it. Maybe that's another reason we stayed friends. My visits with him increased for a time after his wonderful wife Guyla died in 1985 and he went through periods of wanting to be alone, alternating with periods of very much wanting not to be alone. But the more we talked, the more we had arguments — often about politics — and I increasingly felt a friendship-ending one was coming.

Also, Alex had enablers for his darker hermitic periods — fans who did his shopping so he didn't have to actually leave his house. I was thinking that those of us doing him favors like that were not doing him any favors, and that those who were telling him over and over what a friggin' genius he was were making it harder and harder for him to just sit down and draw a comic book. I finally decided to end our conversations and my visits before things turned ugly.

Some time after Alex passed in 2006, Howard Chaykin wrote in an article, "I am and have been for many years an avid admirer of the work of Alex Toth. I knew him — not all that well, but well enough to realize at a certain point that avoiding contact with Alex Toth was a positive and healthy lifestyle choice." I knew Alex for a longer time than Howard did and it took me longer to arrive at the same conclusion. But I think I also had some better times with Alex. The non-complaining Alex could be as fine a human being as he was an artist.

In 2015 as the first step in fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming Robotman, I had my right knee replaced. During the operation, I somehow picked up an infection and they had to go back in and change out the metal gizmo they'd put in there. This was about as much fun as you'd imagine.  And then after I was discharged from a rehab center, a male nurse came to my home every day for two weeks to give me a shot of some antibiotic I couldn't pronounce. Naturally, he noticed all the comic books on the shelves and on the walls and everywhere.

He said to me, "I had a patient ten or fifteen years ago who had comic books all over his home. I think he wrote or drew them or something. But he was the angriest man I ever met in my life. Every time I was there, he was yelling and cursing about something."

I then asked this male nurse, "Uh-huh. And how long did you treat Alex Toth?"

He laughed, amazed that I'd guessed correctly. Then I told him, "That man just might have been the most talented human being you will ever meet. Or at least inject."

Click here to jump to the next part…and no, it's not the last one.

I seem to be binging old 90-minute Tonight Shows here. This one is from November 7, 1975 and the guests are Gene Kelly, Shecky Greene, Ronnie Graham and Stockard Channing. This is before Stockard had done Grease and she wasn't on the show to plug anything in particular. Johnny would have on guests just because he or someone thought they'd be amusing conversationalists.

I call your attention to Ronnie Graham, who was a comedy writer and cabaret performer…and a very funny man. For a while, Johnny would have him on often to just play his silly songs. I met Mr. Graham briefly on a few occasions and he was just delightful to be around. This link will take you directly to his performance which I think is quite wonderful. (In case you don't know, his second song is about Abe Beame, who was the mayor of New York City from 1974 to 1977. In '75 when this show aired, the city was in the midst of a huge financial crisis and Beame's popularity rating was somewhere below that of flea-and-tick season.)

Or you can watch the whole show from the start below…

Could Donald Trump declassify classified documents just by thinking about it? According to this article and this article, legal experts say no and they point out that he didn't seem to think that when he was president. One should remember that when Trump explains in interviews and speeches how he really won in 2020, he is advancing theories and claiming facts that his own lawyers rarely (if ever) bring up in court.

He's got one set of explanations for his followers and another, very different one for judges…or anywhere he or his lawyers could be charged with perjury. If they ever do assert in court that Trump could declassify via the Vulcan Mind Meld (or whatever he claims), it'll probably just be a stalling tactic, as opposed to something they think is a winning tactic.

Here's a pretty good explainer of how Trump and his attorneys screwed-up by demanding a Special Master and nominating Senior Federal Judge Raymond Dearie to fill that position. Judge Aileen Cannon, who initially ruled in Trump's favor about the classified documents, has been overruled and slapped down pretty hard for her decision…and you wonder if any further Trump-appointed-or-favoring judges are going to think thrice before they bend his way.

This is not a prediction but it's sure looking like the chances of Trump winning the presidency again are getting slimmer and slimmer. But he might just run because of all that donation money he'd be able to pocket.  Lately, it sometimes feels like he cares about that as much as he cares about, say, staying out of prison. And I'm sure we all would enjoy a debate among Republican candidates that included Donald and also Mike Pence.

And finally and non-Trumpian, here's some solid info on the new COVID booster shots. I'll be getting one soon. And a flu shot.

Ah, yes…Saturday morning. When I used to get up, scamper out to the living room and watch cartoons on CBS, ABC and NBC — with the volume set just low enough that it wouldn't awaken my parents in their bedroom. Actually, it wasn't all cartoons. There were shows with real human beings in them. I remember watching Captain Kangaroo's first show. Many years later, I got to meet Bob Keeshan, who of course played that role, and I of course told him I'd seen his first episode. He nodded as if (a) he believed me and (b) he was pleased. He later told me everybody he met claimed to have seen that first episode.

That meeting took place on Stage 33 at CBS Television City where, years later, I went to see Red Skelton tape his TV show and Carol Burnett tape her TV show and I saw Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher there and many other shows. Its main tenant for many decades now has been The Price is Right and at some point — probably because they didn't want to give its host a raise — it was renamed "The Bob Barker Stage."

Amazingly, other shows still tape in there when The Price is Right doesn't need it. I think Real Time with Bill Maher may still be in there on Fridays. I was there on a Saturday morning (appropriately enough) in 1985 because we were taping the wraparound intros for a season's worth of a Saturday morn series I worked on called CBS Storybreak. Mr. Keeshan had flown out from New York to host them as himself, not the Good Captain. Captain Kangaroo had been recently cancelled after almost thirty years on CBS. This and other jobs he did for them were the network's way of keeping him "in the family," which usually means "off the competition."

It only took a few hours to record thirteen intros and thirteen outros that morn. It could probably have been done faster but Mr. Keeshan declined the use of a TelePrompter. He said, "I have to use those from time to time but I don't think I ever sound genuine. I think I always sound like I'm reading."

And then I said, "Well, we certainly don't want to inspire kids to read" and everyone laughed including Keeshan/Kangaroo. The stated premise of the CBS Storybreak series was to encourage the reading of books.

Before each intro or outro, he'd read the script out loud and someone would time it and then say something like, "We need to lose fifteen seconds" and the producer and I would cut whatever lines needed to be cut. Once we had the script down to time, Mr. Keeshan would read it aloud a few times, then step in front of the camera. We'd roll tape and he'd do it from memory. Having done five hours of television each week for thousands of years, he'd gotten to be pretty good at this.

There were a number of breaks for technical problems so there was plenty of time to talk to this man who I can't bring myself to refer to as "Bob," even though he politely asked all of us to stop with the "Mr. Keeshan." One of the first things I asked him about was Mr. Mayor. Years ago on this blog, I wrote the following…

During the 1964-1965 season, he turned up on CBS Saturday morning with a show called Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor looked and sounded exactly like Cap'n Kangaroo but he was a different guy in a different outfit and with a different set and supporting cast. (The set had a wonderful, elaborate toy train layout.) At the time, I wondered why Bob Keeshan was playing one guy Monday through Friday and a different but similar character on Saturday. When I finally met him, it was one of the first things I asked about and he told me the following story…

It seems that when Captain Kangaroo was launched, Keeshan had an unwanted partner. I think (but am not sure) he said it was related to the fact that the Captain had evolved out of the Tinker character [which he had done for another station] so someone who had a business interest in that show wound up with a percentage of Captain Kangaroo. As he explained it, Keeshan was having trouble with this partner and finally decided he wanted to have total ownership and control of his character. He tried to buy out the partner's interest but when the guy declined, Keeshan threatened to give up Captain Kangaroo and to create a new character…one in which the partner would not share. The partner said, "You wouldn't dare," and Keeshan decided to go ahead with his bluff. When CBS decided they wanted to add a Saturday morning installment of Captain Kangaroo, Keeshan insisted he would do it as Mr. Mayor.

And he did. It was essentially a way to convince the partner that he was serious about abandoning Captain Kangaroo. "I was prepared to do that and continue as Mr. Mayor," he told me. "But what I really hoped was that it would convince him to sell out his interest in Kangaroo." That was how things played out. The partner sold out his share and the following season, the Saturday morning hour of Mr. Mayor was replaced by an hour of Captain Kangaroo. I always thought this was a fascinating story…how close Captain Kangaroo came to disappearing due to a business dispute.

All the CBS Storybreak intros were done by about 1 PM, which was just in time to avoid the producers having to break for lunch or pay a meal penalty. Mr. Keeshan, who'd flown in the night before and was flying home the next morning, had an appointment to be interviewed by someone for something after we were done. Our producer asked him what he had planned for that evening. He said, "Oh, I'll probably just get room service at my hotel, read a book and then turn in early." I suddenly found myself asking him if he'd like to go to dinner.

To my delight/surprise, he said yes. At 6 PM, I met him in the lobby of his hotel and we walked two blocks to RJ's, then one my favorite restaurants…now, a nearly-forgotten memory of Beverly Hills. I was curious if anyone would recognize Captain Kangaroo in his street clothes and no one did…visually. But our server and the party in the next booth recognized him by his voice. He said that he was rarely recognized in public but when he was, it was by his voice.

He quizzed me as much about what I did as I quizzed him about his career, including the years he spent playing the non-speaking role of Clarabelle the Clown on the original Howdy Doody show. What amazed me was him telling me that during the years he did that show, he assumed it was the end of his show business career and when that gig ended, he'd be going into the insurance business…or somewhere. "There's not much room on television for someone who can't talk on camera," he said. "And back then, I couldn't and didn't think I could learn."

Somehow though, he did. I said, "For a guy who couldn't talk, you seem to have done pretty well." He sighed and mentioned "Buffalo" Bob Smith, his boss on Howdy Doody and its star. "And you know, he still refuses to admit that Captain Kangaroo was any sort of success."

We talked a lot about the current state of programming for children. It did not please him and his views on what children should be watching did not coincide with mine. I kept saying things like, "I watched tons of shows that feature what you call hostility or violence and I think I turned out all right. It's been almost a month since I knocked over a liquor store and shot the manager."

That's what you do when you find yourself in a debate with someone you really like. You try to make them laugh. At least, that's what I do.

But it was a respectful and friendly debate…and he really liked the restaurant, which in addition to great food had a happy, festive mood. The only real fight we had was over the check — a battle he won by pointing out that CBS was paying all his expenses for the weekend. Then I walked him back to his hotel and that was the end of my relationship with Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan.

It was a very nice evening and I got to thinking about it when I woke up. I thought it might be a good story to post here on a Saturday morning…which I would have done if I'd finished it before Noon.

I can't embed today's video on this site but you can click the link below and go watch it on YouTube. You should.

It's another complete Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from back when the show was ninety minutes. This one's older than the last one I posted and it even has commercials in it. The guests include Alan King and Raquel Welch (who join Johnny in a sketch mid-show) and Pigmeat Markham. This one aired June 19, 1968 and you'll be impressed with how good the picture is on this video.

Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham was a popular comedian for many years, mostly on the "Chitlin' Circuit" of night clubs and theaters that catered mostly to black audiences. He enjoyed a national notoriety in the late sixties when the Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In TV show usurped his "Here comes the judge" routine and for a while, added him to their cast.

You'll notice a couple of different things about the Tonight Show format. For a time, each episode started with Ed McMahon welcoming viewers and promising Johnny would be right out…and then throwing to the first commercial break. This got a commercial break out of the way so they didn't come quite as often during the show. Johnny stopped doing that when he started getting more competition and the shows opposite him started with the show itself.

Also in '68, Johnny's show wasn't followed by anything that he or the network cared about. Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show didn't start until October of '73. Before that, local stations either programmed reruns or old movies after Johnny…or signed off the air. As a result, the mood of the last part of The Tonight Show sometimes had a kind of "time to go to bed" mood, as this episode does, ending as it does with the band playing a sleepy rendition of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix…"

The pace of the whole show is a bit slower than later years but there are some fun moments in it, including a Rexall commercial with Louis Nye. Enjoy, won't you?

I just fixed a real stupid mistake in the most recent chapter of the Blackhawk journal. I wrote a paragraph about how I wished Dick Dillin, who drew Blackhawk for several centuries, was still around when I did my silly little run on the comic. Then I decided to delete that segment but I only deleted part of it and then I merged it with another section about writing a story that Gil Kane was supposed to draw but didn't and…well, I wound up writing that I wrote it for Dick Dillin. Which I wouldn't have done because he passed away a few years before. I have fixed the text so it is now correct. Sorry.

Lorne Michaels discusses what's up with Saturday Night Live, which is about to lose a number of key cast members.

Before you read this, you'd be a fool not to have read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8. In that order…

When we started doing the Detached Service Diary short stories in Blackhawk, other DC editors started calling to ask me to give Detached Service Diary assignments to certain artists drawing their comics. There was a reason for this.

Several DC artists had contracts that guaranteed them steady work. The minute they finished one assignment, they were to receive a script for their next job. Artists who only make money when they're drawing don't like to sit around with nothing to draw.

So one Tuesday, Len Wein called me and asked if I'd like to have Jim Aparo draw a Detached Service Diary. I thought Jim Aparo was a superb artist so of course, I said yes. Len asked, "Can you get me a script for him by tomorrow?" and he explained why the rush…

Aparo was drawing a book for Len. I think it was Batman and the Outsiders but I may be wrong about that. Whatever it was, Mr. Aparo was about to deliver the finished art for an issue — all 23 pages of it.  All DC books then contained 23 pages of story and the next day, Len had to FedEx Aparo the 23-page script for the next issue.  So what was the problem?  Simple: Len didn't have that script. The writer of whatever book it was hadn't turned it in yet.

Sending Aparo a script to draw was not a problem. There were several editors there who had scripts that were as yet unassigned and they'd have been pleased to have Jim Aparo draw those scripts. The trouble was they were all 23 pages in length. The stories for my Detached Service Diary series stories were six or seven pages.  They were at the moment the only stories being produced for DC that were less than 23 pages.

Jim Aparo was one of those dependable, like-clockwork artists. He penciled, lettered and inked one finished page per day. Len explained to me, "The next script I need him to draw will be in any day now. The way the schedule is, I can't afford to lose him for 23 work days." If Mr. Aparo drew a six-pager for Blackhawk, Len would only lose his services for six work days — and by that time, that next script would be in. Made sense.

Len's call came in about 3 PM my time. I was on my way to a 4 PM doctor's appointment so there was no way to write the script and get it to Federal Express by 6 PM, which was the cut-off time for overnight to New York. Ah, but I could get it to the post office out by the airport by 10 PM that evening. 10 PM was the deadline for Express Mail to be delivered the next day in New York City.  Many a time back then before fax machines and e-mail, I made the drive to that post office to overnight something to a publisher in Manhattan.  I usually got there at 9:59 and the same nice lady each time would take my envelope and sweetly tell me not to cut it so close next time.

I told Len he'd have a script to send Jim Aparo, then I figured out a story on my way to and from the doctor's office and as soon as I got home, wrote a script I thought would be perfect for Jim Aparo. It was a breeze to get it to that airport and into the hands of that lady well before 10 PM. I think I got it there at 9:58. The next morning, Len called to say he'd received it…

…but as luck would have it, he'd also received that next 23-page script for his book. Jim Aparo never did draw that script or any script for Blackhawk.

But that was okay because a few days later, I got a call from DC editor Julius Schwartz, who had the exact same problem Len had had, but with Curt Swan. The following day, Julie had to send Curt his next assignment and that next script was late. Julie asked if I'd like to have Curt Swan draw a Blackhawk back-up. Well, of course, I'd like that. Name me a writer who wouldn't have wanted Curt Swan drawing a script of his. I decided the script that was perfect for Jim Aparo was even more perfect for Curt Swan and I told Julie that Len had a script of mine that was ready-to-go…

..and Julie said, "I know. I have it in front of me. Len's the one who gave me the idea."

I told him it was fine to send it to Curt…and he would have except that the next day before he did, the 23-page script Julie wanted him to draw arrived. So Curt never drew a script for Blackhawk either.

But that was okay because it wasn't long before I got a call from Pat Bastienne, who was an editorial coordinator for DC, asking if I'd like Gene Colan to draw a Detached Service Diary for Blackhawk. I asked her whose script was late for whatever comic that Gene was drawing and she told me. Deciding the script that was perfect for Jim Aparo and more perfect for Curt Swan was super-perfect for Gene Colan, I told her, "Fine…send him my script.  If Julie doesn't have it, Len probably does."

By now, I knew how this would go and so do you.  Gene never drew a script for Blackhawk while I was doing it.  (He actually did draw a Detached Service Diary tale once but not for me. He penciled the one in Blackhawk #211 back in 1965.)  I think the script that Aparo, Swan and Colan didn't draw wound up being drawn by Don Newton. The script for whatever comic Don was then drawing for DC was really and truly late and mine was super-super-ultra-deluxe perfect for him.

In the meantime, Len or Marv talked Howard Chaykin into drawing a Detached Service Diary story which turned out quite well, I thought. I got one drawn by Dick Rockwell, who was then the ghost artist on Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon newspaper strip and I persuaded Will Meugniot, Pat Boyette, Mike Sekowsky, Doug Wildey, Richard Howell, Joe Staton, Ken Steacy and Alex Toth to all do short stories.

These were all artists who were not drawing a regular monthly book for DC so it was easy. The one Mike Sekowsky drew had been perfect for Irv Novick when I wrote it…and I wrote it because a script for another book Irv drew was running late, just as Pat Boyette's had been perfect for Gil Kane because a script for a book Gil drew was running late.

Also, there were a couple Detached Service Diary tales drawn by Dan Spiegle, one of which he finished and inked over my rough pencil layouts.  He made it passable and professional in spite of that handicap.  My time on Blackhawk ended before I could give scripts to Al Williamson, Ernie Colón and Murphy Anderson, all of whom wanted to do stories.

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, there came a day when DC was using Dan Spiegle for so many other assignments that he couldn't draw a certain issue of Blackhawk in time. So what we did was to have him draw a short sequence to introduce three Detached Service Diary stories from the pile of those that had been completed by then. The editor at that point was Ernie Colón…I think. Let me check…

Okay, I checked and it was Ernie Colón and it was Blackhawk #260, sporting a great, generic Howard Chaykin cover. Len, in his capacity as Cover Editor for DC, had had Chaykin do a few of those "it'll fit any issue" covers, just in case. Ernie and I picked the Detached Service Diaries that had been drawn by Chaykin, Dick Rockwell and Alex Toth for that issue.

I've written so much here about how happy I was with how those Blackhawk comics turned out, I should probably tell you about my least favorite story from that run. It was the one drawn by Toth and much of why it was my least fave was my fault.  I'll tell you about that next time.  This series is running way longer than I'd intended…longer even than my run on Blackhawk did.

Click here to jump to the next part of this long, long tale

An elephant got stuck in a muddy trench and couldn't get out. Watch what happened…

• My lawn didn't get mowed this week. I think Ron DeSantis kidnapped my gardener and sent him to Martha's Vineyard.

As I tweeted, I watched a bit of the Alex Jones trial today. Mr. Jones was on the witness stand probably doing every single thing his attorneys told him not to do. If you ever have to testify in a court of law, watch some of this trial and get a good lesson in how not to behave. Apparently, nothing has ever happened to this man that was not the result of large groups of people conspiring against him.

And like you, I've never understood everything Donald Trump says and now it's getting worse. The F.B.I. raided Mar-a-Lago because they thought they might find Hillary Clinton's e-mails there? Isn't that the least likely place to find them? If Trump had them, he sure wouldn't keep that a secret. I think when Trump doesn't know what else to say, he just reflexively says something about Hillary's e-mails.

The next part of the Blackhawk history will be along tomorrow or maybe Friday.

• I watched a little of Alex Jones testifying today. Every time I tuned in, the judge and his lawyers (HIS) were admonishing him to not talk so much.

• Donald Trump said he could declassify top secret documents just "by thinking about it." Barack Obama should announce that he thought about declassifying all those documents in Hillary's e-mails that Trump is still screaming about.

Let us flashback to the time, not only to when Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show but to when The Tonight Show started in most time zones at 11:30 PM (not 11:35) and ending at 1-in-the morning. Johnny's last 90-minute program was September 12, 1980 and this one is from December 20, 1979. At the time, it seemed like the shortening — which Johnny demanded as a condition of his new contract — was a bad idea…but he was right and those who thought he wasn't were wrong. An hour soon became the standard length of a talk show.

The guests on this one are, in order of appearance: Bruce Dern, David Letterman and opera star Judith Blegen. When was the last time you saw a talk show make time for an opera star? After her song, Ms. Blegen sits and talks with Johnny…and when these days do you see a talk show give panel time to a musical guest in the latter part of the show?

The guests are preceded by Johnny's monologue and by a couple of segments in which Johnny and Ed McMahon play with new Christmas gift items. Again, talk shows don't do that anymore. Most don't have sidekicks who participate in bits. Most don't do segments that depend to a great extent on the ad-libbing skills of the host. Johnny had pre-written lines for spots like this but he still had to think a lot on his feet.

You may not want to watch all of this but you may enjoy watching some of it…

Was President Biden right to say The Pandemic is over? Well, it depends.