Monthly Archives: September 2008

Just found out I'm also hosting a tribute to and interview of Joe Kubert at the Mid-Ohio Con. Saturday at Noon. Another good reason to be there…for you and for me.

Wanna know why some Democrats oppose the bailout bill? Read this. Wanna know why some Republicans oppose it? Read this.

For all I know, they could both be right. Like most of you, I have the financial acumen of a PEZ Dispenser and lack a clear idea of what we need or how much we need it. I sure don't like the idea of us bailing out Wall Street after so many fat cats have raped and plundered and left it battered and beaten. Nor do I like the idea of crashes that will almost certainly harm those on the bottom, perhaps severely.

This is one of those situations where I feel I have to look to our leaders — or at least, the ones I trust more than the ones I don't trust at all. Most of the elected officials who I think have been prudent and wise in the past are in support of the bailout bill…but it worries me that it's a "compromise" bill to get a lot of the folks I don't trust to sign onto it. That means it's probably not as good as it could be. I also worry because I don't trust even the people I trust to be right all the time, and none of them seem all that certain that what they're doing is right. There's an awful lot of "I ain't sticking my neck out for this one until enough of the opposition has stuck its necks out, too."

So far, the only solution I see anyone arguing with any conviction is when McCain and other Republicans insist the only answer, as it is with any problem, is to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans. That would include all the folks who made off with the hundreds of billions we now have to replace. We wouldn't want to tax any of them, would we?

Your obedient blogger will be in Columbus, Ohio this weekend for the Mid-Ohio Con…always a fun time. On Sunday at Noon, I'll be appearing on a panel about Jack Kirby (Evanier doing a panel on Kirby…what are the odds?) and I think that's all I'm doing on the program. So I guess you'll find me loitering in the exhibit hall and causing trouble and seeing friends. If you're anywhere near Columbus, you might want to attend this convention, not because of me but because everyone who goes to one of these things seems to enjoy themselves. There's a reason I go back for them whenever I can and it isn't just because Tony Isabella is so adorable.

Some numbers to keep in mind…

With no fanfare and little notice, the national debt has grown by more than $4 trillion during George W. Bush's presidency. It's the biggest increase under any president in U.S history.

On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That's a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush's watch.

And this is before we pay for the big bailouts…

Historians of such things write of the four great silent comedians: Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon. Of these, my favorite is Keaton but the most interesting one may be Langdon, whose stardom was brief and whose best work was confined to a handful of memorable films. He started out making shorts for Mack Sennett in 1924 and soon broke out of that studio's brand of fast-paced, faceless slapstick. Langdon, more so than any other silent comic, took his time on the screen. His expressive, cherubic face enabled him to connect with audiences. Back then, most of the other comedians were either expressionless like Keaton or wearing the human equivalent of clown masks. Langdon was unique and when he was good, he was very, very good.

A star by 1925 and a has-been by 1928, he bounced around the film business as a performer and sometimes a writer (for Laurel and Hardy) until his death in 1944. His story, on-screen and off, is told and told well in a book by my buddy Bill Schelly and I'm here to recommend the new, improved edition. Bill's done a tremendous job of digging up information about a great comic whose life has been sadly under-reported. I've read darn near everything ever published about silent comedians and this book told me plenty I didn't know. Order a copy here.

Comicraft, maker of the finest comic book lettering fonts, is having a "bailout sale" on Display Lettering Fonts. Good time to buy.

McCain's not going to drop Palin from the ticket. Early voting starts tomorrow in Ohio and has already begun in a couple of other states. What happens to those ballots? I don't know but it can't be good for McCain…especially since this may be another election that gets decided in Ohio.

The joint appearance of McCain and Palin with Katie Couric today was embarrassing…for her and for McCain. I know a lot of people think the Governor of Alaska is being hammered by the opposition but, first of all, that kinda comes with the job. More to the point, nothing anyone could say about Sarah Palin could make her look as bad as being treated like an idiot by her own campaign. They hide her away, keep her from most of the press…and then when she does say something, McCain goes out and retracts it and makes excuses for her. That tape of them with Couric looks like a father and his daughter sitting in the principal's office and on the way in, dad told her, "You've caused enough trouble. Just shut up and let me handle this."

Some time after the election, someone in the McCain campaign will either write or be interviewed for one of those "what went on behind the scenes" books and we may find out if a running mate switch was ever seriously considered. I'll bet it was and they rejected it as a cure worse than the disease.

She'll probably do a lot better in the debate than most people are expecting. But that's because most people are expecting her to stumble out, sound like an airhead valley girl and explain that "Roe vs. Wade" are two different ways to cross a river. The woman has got to be smarter than the current caricature…even if her own campaign doesn't seem to believe it.

That's Stan Kann on the left in the photo at left.  With him is Johnny Carson and this was probably taken at The Tonight Show on one of 77 nights when Stan Kann was a guest.

Mr. Kann was a ubiquitous talk show guest for years, appearing with Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and others. He was a concert organist and TV host who had a unique collection of old inventions and gadgets, many of them vacuum cleaners. For a time, he performed at the Fox Theater in St. Louis and appeared on a local TV show hosted by Charlotte Peters, the mother of cartoonist Mike Peters.

Kann moved to Los Angeles in 1975 but flew all over the country to make appearances. When Johnny Carson or some other host needed someone to fill a spot, they'd often call on Stan to show up with an array of his gizmos, most of which did not work when he attempted to demonstrate them. Kann was frenetic and filled with energy and often clumsy as he tried to get his exhibits operating, and audiences often found it very funny. Johnny Carson would act annoyed but he knew it was good television and would always invite Stan and his silly machines back again and again.

As this obit tells us, Stan Kann died recently at the age of 83. A memorial service at the Fox Theater is planned and I think it would be a lovely tribute to his act if the curtains refused to open and the microphone didn't work.

I spent a fun afternoon today at the Google offices in Santa Monica, giving a talk to people who wanted to know all about Jack Kirby. It was video-conferenced to other Google offices and will be a YouTube video in the next week or two. When it is, I'll point you to it in case you'd like to see me babble for an hour and knock over the microphone stand.

The visit was fascinating. I'd heard what a great place Google is to work so it was nice to see it. If I had a big company, I'd run it like that. The offices are friendly and fun, with plenty of leisure activities (videogames, pool table, etc.) and free snacks and beverages around for the employees. Lunch in the cafeteria is free and the food, at least today, was excellent. I thought of a half-dozen places I've worked and wished I could have shown the boss around the Google offices and reminded him that no company founded in the last few decades has been more successful.

Also fascinating was a display in the lobby…a screen that shows search terms people were inputting into Google. It didn't show who was typing those searches into the little box but it did show what they were searching for. I saw two searches for info on people I know — one for The Pendragons (the great illusionists) and one search for Tress MacNeille, a fine voiceover actress who I directed in a session just last week. I also saw a number of searches that indicate that a lot of people don't spell so well…and quite a few that consisted of the name of a female celebrity (or in one case, "Mini Me") and the word "nude."

In addition to the good feelings, I came home with a goodie bag that they give to visitors. Not to brag but I am now the proud owner of a Google yo-yo. I haven't thought of a joke about it yet but I have a feeling there is one.

From "Bodwell" comes this question…

You said you found much of the debate dull. In all seriousness, what would you have done to make it more interesting? And is the purpose of a debate to be entertaining?

Entertaining? Not necessarily. But I think they're interesting when they tell you things and show you sides of the participants you didn't know.

Each of these candidates — anyone who's likely to ever be in a Presidential Debate, certainly — has certain stock set pieces and mini-speeches they've developed to all the obvious questions. If you ask anyone running for President these days, "What should we do about Iraq?," they have a rote answer. We don't need a debate to let us hear that. We can hear it in any of their speeches or town hall meetings.

What I'd like to see in these debates is candidates who are knocked off their scripts. I'd like to see them asked questions for which they don't have well-honed replies. Or at least, if they do get to trot out their house numbers, have some sort of follow-up that challenges them to defend the leaps of fact and logic in those canned responses. My problem with Jim Lehrer's moderating the other night was that he kept saying it was "time to move on to the next topic" at moments when they seemed to be about to stray from the expected dialogues.

I'd like to see more of the kind of thing some people call "gotcha" questions. Reporters are afraid of them because they don't want to be criticized if and when one candidate embarrasses themselves. I don't think there are any unfair questions unless they're setting one candidate up to spike the ball on the other. Why not ask the candidates if they can briefly describe each of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights? Or name the leaders of a couple of foreign nations where the rulers' actions may affect U.S. security? The point is to ask questions where the candidate can't just parrot a rehearsed answer. I always think it's telling when a person who wants my vote doesn't know what the Minimum Wage is or what the average person pays for health insurance.

That yearning for the all-too-rare candid response is why I always liked Helen Thomas in presidential press conferences. I know Republicans hate her but she also asked blunt, uncomfortable questions of the Democratic chief execs she's covered. It's said that before Nixon went before the White House press, his aides would prepare a list of every possible question that could be asked and Nixon would prepare responses to each of them. Then Helen would always ask something that wasn't on the list. I'd like to see a debate in which most of the questions are unanticipated. That wouldn't mean avoiding the obvious pressing issues. It might mean asking about more specific aspects of them. Did Lehrer ask anything that the candidates' aides couldn't have expected?

Palin and Biden are going to get an unprecedented tune-in for a Battle of the Wanna-Be Veeps. They both have the reputation, deserved or not, of blurting out unpredictable things. It's not so much, I'd like to think, that viewers will be hoping for a live Bloopers show with someone saying something embarrassing. I think they just want to see candidates without scripts. McCain and Obama didn't have scripts or TelePrompters but they'd said some of those things so often, it didn't matter.

A gentleman named T.J. Rohr is running as a Libertarian for the 87th North Carolina State House. He's a practicing attorney currently serving his second term as a Lenoir City Council member. You can read some of his positions here on his weblog and you can make a donation to his candidacy at his website.

So why am I mentioning this? I don't live in North Carolina and though I agree with many Libertarian positions, I'm not one of them.

I'm mentioning it because Mr. Rohr is a fan of many of the comic books I write. He has boxes of Groo the Wanderer and DNAgents and Crossfire and I hope my revealing that will not cost him the election. You see, I'll shill for almost anyone who buys my comics…so if you're in North Carolina, take a peek at his platform and if you like it, give him your vote and maybe a few bucks.

So busy am I with deadlines that I could only spare about two hours today for the West Hollywood Book Fair, one hour of which was consumed by appearing on a panel I'll tell you about in a moment. The other hour was spent wandering a friendly assemblage of (mostly) small publishers and small booksellers. I missed Vince Bugliosi (who had the longest line you could imagine at Book Expo America) but he couldn't have had more people than Robert Wagner, who was there signing his autobiography…and looking every inch a movie star.

There was one fellow there who was one of bravest men I've ever seen. He had not a booth but the corner of someone's table and he was set up to urge people to support Proposition 8 in the upcoming election. That's the one that would ban gay marriage. This is in West Hollywood. Talk about having a bad corner: That's like trying to drum up support for a Klan meeting in Harlem. I saw a couple of people (all seemingly straight) being hostile to him but I saw even more pause to talk and try and understand his worldview.

I doubt he'll matter. All indicators suggest that Proposition 8 is going down to defeat…and probably not by a narrow margin, either. Even Google thinks it's time. My Conservative friends (I have more than you think) accept this…all but one whose attitude reminds me of the old joke: "He's against making homosexuality legal because he figures the next step is to make it compulsory."

There was also an area where I saw an Obama-Biden table next to a McCain-Palin table. At least when I was strolling past, no one was showing much interest in either and the folks manning them were engaged in amiable chatter with each other. It's interesting to me how little Californians care about the vote in California. They care like mad about who becomes President of these United States but the contest for California's electoral votes was over long ago. Like before we knew who the Democrat and Republican were going to be.

Then I appeared on a panel about comics which was recorded as a podcast for Comics on Comics, an endeavor with comedians interviewing folks who do comics. I appeared with Gregg Hurwitz, who among other gigs has been writing Punisher projects for Marvel. It was a fun hour and I'll link you to it just as soon as it's on ye olde web.

And that's about it. Back to those deadlines…

A follow-up to our previous posting. Earlier today, this news story was on the wires…

(PHILADELPHIA) Sarah Palin told a customer at a Philadelphia restaurant on Saturday that the United States should "absolutely" launch cross-border attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan in the event that it becomes necessary to "stop the terrorists from coming any further in," a comment similar to the one John McCain condemned Barack Obama for making during last night's presidential debate.

Now, we have this one…

WASHINGTON (CNN) Sen. John McCain retracted Sarah Palin's stance on Pakistan Sunday morning, after the Alaska governor appeared to back Sen. Barack Obama's support for unilateral strikes inside Pakistan against terrorists.

"She would not…she understands and has stated repeatedly that we're not going to do anything except in America's national security interest," McCain told ABC's George Stephanopoulos of Palin. "In all due respect, people going around and…sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's — that's a person's position…This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitive policy statement made by Governor Palin."

That's just embarrassing. McCain has spent the last three decades in an arena where everything a candidate says is fair game, including casual remarks. His reps and advertising folks pounce on every little thing Obama and Biden say and it's understood they will. What's the most charitable interpretation here? That Palin didn't know what she was talking about? That sure speaks well of putting her a heartbeat away from you-know-what. I'm surprised he didn't retract her order of the Cheese Whiz while he was at it.

Folks keep e-mailing me predictions that Palin will "resign from" (i.e., get kicked off) the ticket any day now. I've never believed that because it seemed to me that no matter how things were phrased, the rest of the campaign would have been about McCain having lousy judgment on his most important campaign decision. This would be on top of him having lousy judgment in the Iraq War. But if he has to go around "retracting" everything his running mate says, then the rest of the campaign will be about his lousy judgment in picking her, anyway. Given that McCain loves to gamble — in life and, if this morn's New York Times is to be believed, in casinos — maybe he'll try it.

So, let's see…how would this work? The post-debate polls come out Monday. Obama is 5-6 points ahead in most of the pre-debate polls. Let's say he's 8-9 up in the new ones. Palin calls a carefully-scripted press conference (no questions) Monday afternoon to announce that she has family matters to deal with, an unfair "witch hunt" of an ethics investigation, etc. No one has asked her to quit but she's bowing out for the good of the cause and God Bless John McCain. McCain "reluctantly" accepts her resignation, says he's asked the Republican National Committee to quickly convene whatever kind of quickie gathering is necessary to nominate someone new. Thursday's debate, of course, is off. Sarah Palin totally vanishes for a while, only to reappear after her term of office is up as the Oprah of Fox News.

A day or two after she quits, McCain names someone new…someone who's been a lot more carefully vetted. That would probably mean someone roadtested in past presidential races, which lets out all women. It would have to be someone sufficiently right-wing that McCain wouldn't lose all the rabid Conservatives who loved gun-totin', anti-abortion Palin. It would also have to be someone with strong Wall Street cred since that's the issue where McCain is really getting hammered. Sounds to me like Mitt Romney…but of course, that's if McCain is being logical, which has not been a sound bet lately. Or maybe he'll feel it has to be another woman, lest he lose too much of the female vote. Or maybe it'll be a real Hail Mary pass and he'll go with Larry the Cable Guy or…

Naw. It's all too much of a gamble, even for McCain. He'll stick with Palin. Unless he doesn't.