Monthly Archives: July 2017

Next year's Comic-Con in San Diego will be held July 19-22 with Preview Night on July 18. Based on the traffic this year, I may start my journey down the 5 Freeway some time around Halloween.

No, actually I just thought I should give you the dates and tell you that if you want to go, start thinking about it soon. This page will tell you a few of the basics. I hear from a lot of people who don't plan ahead. They miss all the opportunities to score badges, then they write me three weeks before the con and ask me how they get in. The answer is that they probably don't.

You don't have to start working on it now but don't miss the general badge sales. That's the easy way to do it. And also consider WonderCon Anaheim in 2018. It will be held March 23–25 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Also a very fine convention.

The wonderful wit of W.C. Fields…

Joey Wohl has a question worth answering here…

I'm glad to hear you'll be at the Baltimore Comic-Con in September. Would you be good enough to explain on your site why you don't do more conventions? I notice you're always at Comic-Con and WonderCon.

Lotsa reasons, Joey. First off, those two conventions invite me every year and others don't.

Moreover, they invite me to do lots of panels, which I enjoy doing. I've been to cons where I felt kind of useless. Most guests are given a table where they can display their wares, sell autographs or books or sketches and sign a lot of things. I don't like selling things and this is not a criticism of those who do. I just don't want to be in the retail business. When I have a book out, as I do now, I'll sign copies for some dealer who can move a lot of copies but I won't be the dealer myself. The "business model" of inviting guests to conventions presumes I'm going to do that so I don't fit in.

Also, I can drive to Comic-Con in San Diego and WonderCon in Anaheim, whereas others require air travel and take me farther away from Los Angeles. The last three or so years, I didn't travel much because I didn't want to be that far from my friend Carolyn and for years before that, I didn't want to be too far from my mother who also needed me around for medical-type emergencies.

And another "also": I'm not fond of travel. I may never visit anywhere that is more than about a 7-hour plane ride because I cannot imagine anything that would be so wonderful it would make up for sitting on an airplane for seven hours. I don't fit in those seats too well, especially since my knee surgery which makes it necessary to flex my right knee often.

On my recent trip to Vegas, I couldn't — and that was okay for the hour-long flight but I'm not sure I could do a lot longer. Baltimore is five hours and whereas I used to always try to fly non-stop to save time, I'm going to see if I can get them to book flights with one or maybe even two stops so I can get out and walk around a bit.

Lastly, I've been going to comic conventions for a long time. The recent Comic-Con International was my 48th of those and I used to do three or four other cons per year.

One thing I used to love about these gatherings is that at each one, I would meet — and often spend quality time with — some people who had written or drawn comics that I'd loved when I was just a reader of them. There are very few of those people I haven't met. So there's another reason I don't go to a lot of cons and I'm also not that active in current comics, which is yet another reason. But the biggie is that a lot of them don't ask me and when they do, all they want to do is have me sit behind a table. Thanks for the question.

President Donald Trump removed Anthony Scaramucci from his role as White House communications director just 10 days after bringing him on, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Anyone surprised? Not if they read Matt Taibbi's column last Friday.

It's gotten so that every time one of these news items breaks during the day, I find myself wondering if shows like Colbert's, Seth Meyers' and The Daily Show have recorded their shows for that evening and if not, how much time do they have to rewrite?

A cat supposedly watching a scary movie. The cat is probably watching its owner dangling something or otherwise evoking the expressions but it's still fun to see…

I wasn't going to post one of these today but there are too many good articles up…

In the past, I've written here how much I dislike people who "talk tough" and how rarely they seem to actually be tough…or for that matter, effectual. Guys who talk tough are always trying to win an argument by bullying, as opposed to being right. This article by Kevin D. Williamson has something important to say about that with regard to Trump and some of the folks around him. Give it a click, especially if you've seen Glengarry Glen Ross.

And after you read that, read Matt Yglesias explaining why Anthony Scaramucci fits right into the Trump administration.

Jeffrey Toobin explains what it is about Jeff Sessions' job that Trump has never seemed to understand.

And lastly for now: Bernie Sanders agrees with Donald Trump on one thing. And probably only one thing.

The Internet darn near exploded last week with the news that June Foray had passed. She was so dear and so wonderful that a lot of people seemed to be having trouble processing the information that a woman who was 99 years and 10 months old had died, like that was impossible. I suppose some of it is that she is so omnipresent — in the shows we watch and in our minds — that it's difficult to think of yourself as living in a world where there is no June Foray.

She was also so accessible and friendly to all. I must have counted a hundred different photos of her on Facebook, posing with some person who was proud to say June Foray was their friend. I know exactly how you all feel. As I said, those of us who were fortunate enough to know her will forever brag that we knew her. And people will respond like we'd told them we knew the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus…or even Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

I've received a lot of inquiries about a public memorial and here is the answer: Plans are just starting to come together to have one, probably in a very large room because so many people will want to attend. It will not be in the next few weeks. When things are firmed up, I will post the details here.

Whenever and wherever it happens, get there early. The place is going to be packed. I'm thinking Hollywood Bowl with maybe overflow seating at the Greek Theatre.

This is a great find for some of us. It's an unsold game show pilot from around 1977 called The Smart Alecks, hosted by Allen Ludden and with a panel consisting of Don Meredith, Pat Carroll and a new comedian named David Letterman. The "game" isn't very impressive but a lot of you will be interested in this video because of Mr. Letterman.

Me, I'm interested because the first contestant is an old friend of mine, Don R. Christensen. Don, who passed away in 2006, was one of the most prolific comic book writers of all time. He also drew a lot of comics, sometimes under the name "Don Arr," and worked intermittently in animation. He worked for Disney from 1937 to 1941, then spent a few years in the Warner Brothers cartoon studio, primarily in Bob Clampett's unit. At some point, he connected with Western Publishing Company and began working on Dell and later Gold Key Comics. He wrote for all their funny animal comics — Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny and so on — and occasionally on adventure comics, including Magnus, Robot Fighter.

Don was a great, clever guy. Among the zillions of comics he wrote was one of my all-time favorites — a 1959 special called Donald in MathMagic Land. He was also responsible for an awful lot of the puzzle and activity pages that ran in Dell and Gold Key comics, and as you'll see in the video, he was also an inventor. I was pleased to stumble across this video and to be able to see and hear him again…

Jim Newell has the same view I do; that most Republican senators, even though they voted to kill it, didn't really want to repeal Obamacare. If they'd repealed it, they would have had to replace it with something better and it's pretty clear they can't do that.

William Saletan sees John McCain's speech of the other night as a road map out of Trumpism. I agree with the expressed recommendations and like most folks, can list all too many ways Senator McCain has done the opposite. But I think Saletan is wrong to identify the movement as "Trumpism." It was there before Donald Trump was part of our political scene and if he disappeared tomorrow, it would still be there in full force.

Ezra Klein explains — quite well, I think — why Republican attempts to repeal/replace Obamacare failed. They operated from the false premise that Obamacare was a disaster and the public would be pleased to have anything else…and they couldn't even agree among themselves what that "anything else" should be.

Andrew Prokop summarizes the chaos of the Trump administration. And Matt Taibbi predicts the quick failure and ouster of the new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. I'm thinking Trump may keep the guy around longer than Taibbi thinks so as to not have to break in a new laughingstock right away.

Two years ago, who among us would have imagined that the President of the United States would address a convention of Boy Scouts and then the Boys Scouts organization would find it necessary to issue an apology for the President's speech?

The speech to the Boy Scouts was one of the scarier things I've heard out of Trump. Even scarier was the speech he recently gave to a group of police officers, urging them to get tougher on criminals. Actually, in practical terms, he was suggesting they get tougher on people suspected of being criminals, which is not the same thing. I've always thought of myself as pro-police and as I think I mentioned here recently, I think the "bad cops" are exceptions. The reaction of the crowd to Trump's rhetoric makes me wonder a bit.

One of the appeals of Marvel Comics in the sixties was the wonderful rapport we readers felt with the makers of those comics. In some ways, I preferred the content of certain DC books but there was no denying the impersonal, sometimes condescending tone to those comics' letter pages and house ads. The DCs felt like your uncle was telling you a story. The Marvels felt like a friend was the teller…and that friend didn't regard you as a child. If you wrote to DC, you wrote to "Dear Editor." If you wrote to Marvel, you wrote to "Dear Stan and Jack" or "Dear Stan and Steve" — but mainly to Stan.

That came from Stan Lee, of course, but a lot of it was by way of the lady he described as "My Gal Friday, Fabulous Flo Steinberg." That was Stan-Speak for "secretary" and it was appropriate to make a bit of a star out of her because she did so much to enhance the company's image. She corresponded with readers, wrote to fanzines and just seemed to be an important presence in that office. I later learned that she did practically everything there that did not involve the actual writing or drawing of the comics.

She went to work for Stan around 1963 and for a time, the office consisted of her, Stan (who'd stay home to work on scripts a day or two a week) and the occasional presence of artist Sol Brodsky, who'd come in a day or two a week on a freelance basis to design ads and covers and to do art corrections. Eventually, the operation grew and eventually, Flo tired of the grind. When the publisher refused her a $5 raise in 1968, she quit. She relocated for a time in San Francisco and dabbled in the publishing of underground comics. She finally found her way back to New York and a proofreading job at Marvel. She died last Sunday at the approximate age of 78.

In my never-ending quest to know as much about Marvel History as possible, I spoke with Flo on a couple of occasions. She was sweet and friendly…and not that I was looking for it but she didn't have a bad thing to say about anyone in the creative end of Marvel. Stan was great. Jack was great. Steve was great. Everyone there was great though the greatness did not extend to the folks in the business division. She told me that one of the reasons she got into publishing in the seventies was that she'd seen so many people do it wrong that she figured she could do it right.

Still, she was one charming lady. Stan, when you're right, you're right. Flo was fabulous.

Jonathan Chait on the enduring strength of Obamacare.

And I have to voice my suspicion that even a lot of Republican Senators who voted against it are glad it lives on. They can say to its opponents, "Hey, we tried to keep our promise to get rid of it" and now they don't have to come up with a replacement, which they seem to be unable to do. It still needs improvement and that will be a battle…and its foes will still try to sabotage it. But at least they didn't do away with it.

• John McCain must have been confused. He actually voted in sync with his speech.

One aspect of June Foray's career we haven't touched upon is how she established herself as the go-to gal for voiceovers in the Hollywood community. There were casting directors who could name two dozen men who did that kind of work…and a grand total of one woman — June. One of her competitors was a lady who once told me she was jealous of June until she (the competitor) realized this: June wasn't getting all those jobs because she was sleeping with anyone or bribing anyone or anything of the sort. The folks who did the hiring were going to June for the same reason you'd go to a doctor who had a 100% reliability for curing whatever ailed you.

That was why when I was casting cartoons, I hired her. Well, to be honest, at first I hired her because there was a certain thrill to be working with the lady who'd voiced Rocky and Natasha and Nell and other characters. But I kept hiring her because there was no one better. She understood the scripts and took direction well. She was versatile enough to handle anything I threw at her. She was utterly cooperative and patient when we had delays, and she was early for every single job.

One day, I let a young, wanna-be voice actress sit in on one of our recording sessions to see how it was done. Finding herself in the lobby with the legendary June Foray, she seized on the opportunity to get some advice and asked, "What's the most important thing I need to learn?"

June asked her, "Well, let's say you get a job and your call time is for 11 AM. What time do you get there?"

The lady said, "Oh, I'd make sure I was there at least ten minutes early."

June said, "Well then, you're fifty minutes late. You should be there at 10."

About six weeks ago, I went to visit June in her home and I decided to take someone with me. I thought it might brighten June's mood to be reminded how influential her work has been for several generations of other performers…someone like Julie Nathanson. Here's a photo of Julie in her natural habitat, which is in a studio recording something for someone…

She posted this story to Facebook and with her permission, I'm going to share it with you here…

Six weeks ago, my friend, Mark Evanier took me to meet June Foray. Throughout my career of voicing animation, I had somehow never met June and I'd always wanted to. As is the case for so many of my colleagues, she has been a hero to me. A pioneer, a legend, a brilliant force of creative nature. And a truly influential hero.

Mark knew how much I wanted to tell June what she has meant to me. That her versatility made me feel (nearly) fearless in the booth, and excited to see how far I could stretch. That her humor paved the way for so many other comedic, female voices. That her tenacity, drive, and absolutely pure love for the work of cartoon voice acting made me feel concomitantly inspired and almost normal. That she had shown – time and again – that being more than one thing was beautiful. Or at least, more than one character. The fact that she voiced both Rocky and Natasha on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show always floored me. And today, it reminds me just how many different voices we all have to share. Not just actors. ALL of us. We humans. We are so many things. And that's everything.

Anyway, anyway.

I told June all of this on that hot afternoon six weeks ago, in her living room. I sat, teary-eyed, on a little chair before her…and I thanked her for all she had done. She was so visibly happy and touched. It made my heart sing. I had such a delicious feeling of gratitude for the opportunity this visit had afforded me. I walked around her home, staring at animation cels from decades upon decades of cartoon joy. I thanked her again. And then we left.

And now…she's left.

Mark encouraged me to share this story at our "Business of Cartoon Voices" panel at Comic-Con last weekend. Which I did. Certainly more concisely than I have in the preceding paragraphs.

But this last little part is why I'm sharing it here. I had asked June a burning question that day. And her answer was nothing short of perfect.

ME: How did you know it was okay for a woman to be funny?

(June looked at me like I'd asked her how to make a flying pancake out of turtles.)

JUNE FORAY: It was born in me. A woman can do anything. It was never a question.

That's a pioneer. You just do the thing.

Rest peacefully, June. Thank you for being such a gracious host to me in your home, and to so many memorable characters in our hearts.

Our friend, the wondrous Misty Lee, debuts her new magic show this weekend at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood. There are four performances and I'll be at the first one, cheering her on. If you're local and want to see one of them, you can get tickets here. Use the code MISTYLOVESME to save 10%.

If you're not local and want to see her — or even if you are local and want to see her — she's on the episode of Penn & Teller: Fool Us that airs tonight. Before long, I expect you'll be seeing her everywhere.

Norm MacDonald hosts a talk show podcast that's usually pretty good. His most recent one is an hour with David Letterman…and you can tell how in awe of Dave Norm is because he steers clear of a lot of topics that might make Dave even a wee bit uncomfy. Still, it's a pretty good conversation which might leave you with the feeling that Dave wishes he had a venue where he could talk with guests like Norm does…