Monthly Archives: October 2024

Do vice-presidential debates even matter?  I dunno.  In '88, Lloyd Bentsen slapped the shit out of Dan Quayle in theirs and Bush/Quayle still won.  Then again, the current election is not behaving much like past ones. I thought JD Vance scored some points in tonight's veep debate by not coming off as quite the crazed maniac that he's seemed like recently. Of course, he's not the one on that ticket who's running out of time to temper his image. No one who thinks Trump is a lying looney is going to think, "Hey, I'm going to vote for that guy. His running mate isn't quite as bad as I thought."

But Vance didn't do a good job back-pedaling from "They're eating the dogs! They're eating the cats!" and he looked like the biggest weasel on the planet dodging the question of whether Trump lost the last election.

And I'm probably as amazed as you are that after years and years of doing everything possible to declare Obamacare a disaster and get rid of it, Trump has now decided to claim credit for it working as well as it has. His fervent supporters — and all those red states that have never fully embraced it — have got to be pretty confused over that.

Walz wasn't as great a debater as some of us hoped he'd be. He managed to make a strong case that what Vance is wrong about Abortion but if that issue matters to you in the slightest, I think you already know what side you're on. He also came off as avuncular and honest and he had an answer to the question about Iran and Vance didn't. It wasn't a rout like Harris v. Trump but I think Vance seemed more like a human being and the folks who make up Kamala's campaign commercials got a number of juicy quotes they can use in next week's ads.

That may be the only thing that matters in a vice-presidential debate: Did someone say something that can be used against them and their ticket? Other than that, it'll all be forgotten in 48 hours.

Gary Cundall sent me this, inspired — I assume — by the photo I ran here yesterday…

Did Carl Barks and Jack Kirby know each other? If they did, were you ever around them when they were hanging out? Do you know what they thought of each other?

I just happened to be around at what I believe was the only time they met. It was at some Comic-Con International — don't ask me which one — and while Barks was not an announced guest, he and his wife showed up for a day and sat at a table where Bruce Hamilton was selling the kinds of things, including Carl's work, that Bruce used to sell. Carl was not mobbed because I don't think most people who would have killed to meet him knew he was in the hall so I was sitting there, talking with the Barkses.

Jack and Roz strolled by and I don't think I was the person who did the introductions. I think Bruce did that. Carl and Jack met and if I'd had a cell phone at the time, there would be a photo here of that moment. I would describe the interaction as cordial and mutually respectful. They were two men who wrote and drew comic books but very different comics for different publishers. They were about as far apart as two people could be and still be technically in the same profession and it wouldn't have surprised me if neither had ever read the other's work.

But they were both aware of the great reverence in which so many people held each other and that was pretty much all they had in common. So small talk was exchanged and each wished a long life and prosperity to the other and then Jack and Roz headed on to the table where Jack was stationed. That was that.

A lot of folks assume that everyone in comics knows everyone else in comics even though it's an industry where many people work alone in their own homes or studios and mail, FedEx or e-mail their work to the office. Even if they go to conventions, they don't meet everyone. At the very first meeting of C.A.P.S. in 1975, I introduced a writer and artist to each other. They'd worked "together" for 20+ years through an editor and had never actually met.

In the early days of conventions, it was customary to put all the professionals on one panel — there usually weren't that many around — and often, they were folks who'd never met or even worked for the same company. I moderated one where Gil Kane and Julius Schwartz — who had worked together a lot — got to talking about DC Comics and how it was run and such. An artist seated next to me whispered in my direction, "I have no idea what these guys are talking about." He'd drawn a lot of comics but he'd never worked for DC, didn't know anything about the people Gil and Julie were discussing. And then when I started asking him about his work for other houses, Gil and Julie were whispering to each other, total disinterested in anything he was saying.

Kirby and Barks knew of each other and each knew the other had loads of fans. That was about it between them.