You're quite right that that Wikipedia line about Mort Walker's WWII years is screwy. Like you said, Colonel Klink commanded a German P.O.W. camp. What Mort Walker commanded was an American P.O.W. camp that housed German prisoners of war. Here's a link to an article in which he tells about it.
Thanks, Ron. That makes a lot more sense. The linked article is behind the Washington Post pay-after-reading-X-number-of-articles-each-month-wall so here's the relevant quote: "Once he landed in Europe, the forces didn't know what to do with Walker — so he was put in command of a prisoner-of-war camp. "So I had 10,000 Germans in a P.O.W. camp in Naples," he says. "They made me an intelligence officer. I investigated thefts and rapes and murders — all kinds of stuff." That makes a lot more sense.
So I'm watching the Toronto Blue Jays/New York Yankees game and it's time for the 7th inning break (20 minutes ago) and they're getting ready to honor our military. A couple of guys are escorting some old military guy in full uniform to home plate. The old guy looks like he's about 94 years old. Then I hear the announcer introduce the old guy as Addison Morton Walker who is, indeed, 94 years old. As pure luck would have it, I had my trusty Canon Power Shot handy and grabbed as many shots as I could right off the TV screen. They were throwing out information that I didn't catch. Something about his service in WWII.
Addison Morton Walker is better known to most of you as Mort Walker, creator-artist of Beetle Bailey and, with others, Hi and Lois, Boner's Ark, Sam and Silo and about 97,000 other newspaper strips. (97,000 may be a slight exaggeration. The number is more like eight but it seems like 97,000.)
According to Wikipedia, "In 1943, Walker was drafted into the United States Army and served in Italy, where he was an intelligence and investigating officer and was also in charge of a German P.O.W. camp. After the war he was posted to Italy where he was in charge of an Italian guard company. He was discharged as a first lieutenant in 1947." Wikipedia is accurate about 88% of the time but this feels like it's in the 88%, except that I don't think he was "in charge" of a German P.O.W. camp. Makes him sound like Colonel Klink. He might have been "in charge" of liberating it or spying on it or something.
Mort is one of the most widely-read cartoonists who's ever lived and based on my few encounters with him, a very nice man who loves his profession dearly. Nice to see him being honored and they should do that for Private Bailey, too. He's certainly put in enough years.
I had a very busy week last week. I spent Monday prepping for the June Foray Celebration at the Goldwyn Theater the following night. Tuesday was more prep in the morning, set-up and final staging in the afternoon and the show in the evening.
Wednesday, my friend Amber and I boarded an early flight to Baltimore and checked into the Hyatt Regency near the convention center. Thursday morning, we met my longtime buddy Marv Wolfman for breakfast in the hotel at 8:15. At 9 AM, we took a cab to the Baltimore Penn Train Station. At 10 AM, we were on a train to Philadelphia. At 11:15 AM, we were in Philadelphia. We got into a cab and I said, "Take us to the Liberty Bell!"
We spent much of the afternoon sight-seeing, stopping only for lunch at what may well be my favorite place to eat in the country. It's the Reading Terminal Market, which is an in-case-you're-interested .6 mile walk from the Liberty Bell. Lemme tell you about this place…
The Reading Terminal Market is an indoor Farmers Market crammed full of little stalls that sell every kind of food imaginable. There is food you take home and prepare in your own kitchen and food you consume on the premises. As much as I love the world-famous Farmers Market here in Los Angeles, this is better. If all I wanted to do in life was eat, I think I would move to Philadelphia and find the closest living space to the Reading Terminal Market.
It opened in 1893, consolidating a number of smaller markets in the area. It was a train station then but it stopped being that in 1984 and since then, it's just a place where you go to roam the aisles, look at tons of yummy-looking food and make the difficult decision as to what you'll get. There are at least four cheesesteak vendors in the hall and Marv patronized one. Amber got Chinese Food and I opted for this place — The Original Turkey…
I'm a big fan of roast turkey, especially when it's freshly-roasted and what this place serves is as good as any gobbler I've ever gobbled anywhere at any time in my 65 years on this planet. Some of you will probably write and tell me it's heresy of the highest order to go to Philly and not partake of a cheesesteak or at least a little cream cheese. Maybe so…but I could not have enjoyed my meal more than I did.
Our sight-seeing culminated with a backstage tour of the Walnut Street Theater, which is the oldest theater in this country that is still operating. As you probably know by now, it is presently housing a superb production of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum starring my chum Frank Ferrante. Frank has played this theater many times but he still learned things on the tour as a nice lady who works there led him, Marv, Amber and me around. Then we dined until Frank had to dash off to get ready for his second show of the day. Then we saw the show — you probably have some idea by now that I liked it — and took at cab back to the train station and a train back to Baltimore and a cab back to the hotel and an elevator back to…
Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent at the Baltimore Comic-Con, which was quite a fine convention…and, incredibly, almost wholly about comic books. My new knee was giving me a speck of trouble due to all the hiking in Philadelphia so I didn't do my usual con routine of constantly roaming the aisles. I spent most of the time seated in the booth of Abrams Comicarts, signing my book on Jack Kirby and other things I've written, and talking with my friend, Abrams editor Charlie Kochman.
Among the folks I got to see and talk with: Walt and Louise Simonson, John Workman, Todd Klein, Ron Wilson, Paris Cullins, Tom King, Dean Haspiel, Jerry Ordway, Stan and Julie Sakai, Mark Waid, Elliott S! Maggin, Jack C. Harris, Bob Greenberger, John K. Snyder III, Don Rosa, Andrew Pepoy, Joe Staton, Billy Tucci and Thom Zahler. I am surely leaving out Someone Important. My apologies to Someone Important.
Walt and Louise Simonson and me
I did four panels — one with Mr. Kochman about my current book on Kirby, one with Marv Wolfman where we just interviewed each other for an hour, one with other folks talking about Mr. Kirby and a very nice tribute panel about our friend Len Wein. The panel on Len was full of great stories, most of which shared a common theme: Len laughing. I miss Len laughing. Len laughing was a good thing.
This was the first convention I've attended on that side of America since around 2008. In my mother's last few years, she got a bit panicky at the thought of me in another time zone so I only ventured outside Pacific for brief, necessary business trips. Around the time she passed away, my friend Carolyn began getting sicker and so I continued to not venture far from home.
I also had another reason to not go to conventions: They're kind of arranged these days for professional folks like myself to sell things and I don't sell anything. I don't sell things I've written. At most, I will sit for a time at the table of someone else who's selling them. I don't sell my autograph except sometimes when someone with the entire press run of Groo wants them all signed by me and I feel I can't say no because Sergio signed them all. Even then, any money I charge for excessive numbers goes to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. (And by the way, Groo collectors: When are you people going to realize that the value of a comic book is based on its scarcity and copies of Groo that Sergio hasn't signed are much rarer than copies that he has?)
Anyway, the last half of this year, I'm getting around more. I'll be in New York for the New York Comic-Con next week (again, probably behind or around the Abrams booth) and then in November, I seem to be going to the Miami Book Fair.
Getting back to Baltimore: My thanks to Brad Tree, Roger Ash and everyone else involved in putting on this very enjoyable convention. Amber and I flew home Sunday night and I've already told you what happened there. I unpacked and now I'm repacking for what looks like a very busy week in Manhattan. Almost wish I had time to hop a train to Philadelphia, see Frank's show again and eat more of that turkey. I'll probably have to settle for shows I haven't seen before and dinner at Sardi's.
Hey, if you're anywhere near Philadelphia, grab a train, car, Uber, rickshaw, bus, skateboard, Segway or hovercraft and get thee to the Walnut Street Theater by October 22 to see the production of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum that's playing there. Yes, it was directed by and stars my friend Frank Ferrante but friendship can only go so far. If Frank mucked up my favorite musical, I would tell you so. I'd be gentle but firm and I certainly wouldn't be as enthusiastic as I am about it.
I have seen many, many productions of Forum. I'll go see it anywhere that isn't a great hardship of travel and sometimes even if it is. I have seen it ruined. I have seen it destroyed. But I've also seen some great interpretations and what Frank and his ensemble have pulled off here is easily in the top five. maybe the top three. (The best was when I saw it with Phil Silvers, Nancy Walker, Larry Blyden, Carl Ballantine, Lew Parker and others of that caliber. Ain't no way anyone's going to best that but Frank's effort is easily the best I've seen in twenty years.)
Forum is a show that can vary a lot depending on its star. The published text specifically states that performers are expected to bring a lot of themselves to the role instead of slavishly trying to replicate what others have done with the material. So it's open for a certain amount of ad-libs and no two productions ever do the exact same thing, at least with the physical comedy. This cast gets laughs I've never seen or heard before in this play.
Frank is not the only great talent in it. Ron Wisniski is hilariously clueless as Senex. Scott Greer hits every funny note as Hysterium just as Alanna J. Smith hits every musical one as Philia. No one is bad. Everyone is good. Here's a link to buy tickets. Here's a video. What more are you waiting for?
Hey, whatever happened to Darrell Hammond? He was on Saturday Night Live for-practically-ever and for much of that time when someone had to play Donald Trump, Darrell Hammond played Donald Trump. He has since been reduced to being the announcer of the show, channeling Don Pardo since Mr. Pardo passed away.
So how come it's Alec Baldwin playing Trump instead of Hammond? This article will tell you the odd, somewhat depressing story of what went down.
Is there anyone (anyone?) who thinks that a Tax Bill written by Republicans and signed by Donald Trump won't do a lot for the financial well-being of Trump and others in his bracket? The plan as proposed is vague and lacking many details…and it would seem at this stage to be helpful to a lot of lower and middle-class folks, as well. But they'll insist that's so no matter what the final version does and we already have Gary Cohn, who's the the director of the White House Economic Counsel saying he "can't guarantee" that some folks' taxes won't go up. Anyway…
Jordan Weissmann explains why your taxes might go up even as rich folks' taxes go down.
North Carolina Representative Mark Walker — a Republican — admits that his party really doesn't care about deficits when they're in power. It's only when Democrats are in control than the G.O.P. has to yell and scream that deficits are destroying America. Matt Yglesias reports.
Trump says that doing away with the Estate Tax will "protect millions of small businesses and the American farmer." Politifact explains why that gets their Pants-On-Fire rating for lying of the highest order.
Legal scholar Benjamin Wittes doesn't know whether Trump's travel ban is legal or not. But he's studied it enough to decide it's really. really stupid.
Trump wants to pull out of the nuclear deal for Iran. Daniel Larison explains why this would not make us one bit safer and would isolate us from so many of our allies.
Lastly: In the latest Quinnipiac Poll, 56% of the voters they asked said that Trump is "not fit to serve as president," as opposed to 42% who think he is. It's a good measure of how polarized this nation is that only 2% of voters don't fall into one of those two categories. Remember when it was Barack Obama's fault that he was such a polarizing figure? And, hey: 94% of black voters think Trump is unfit. Remember how he had an excellent relationship with "the blacks?"
Here's a nice rendition of one of my favorite Sondheim songs. The singer is Greg Hildreth, who I don't know at all except that he works a lot on Broadway and is currently in the Broadway-bound stage version of Disney's Frozen. In fact, I think he plays Olaf. Good song here, good singer…
Here's an intriguing take on the "Take a Knee" controversy. Stephen Beale thinks that we need to un-militarize football and maybe other sports which are too closely linked to the armed forces.
Full Disclosure: Football is high on the list of things that I could not care less about. I've never sat through even one quarter of a game and I'm not entirely clear on how it's scored. This also holds true for hockey, basketball and most other sports, though my parents did make me sit through a basketball game once when my age was still in single digits. I have a mild interest in baseball although I'm not sure I can name one current player. When I've watched it, it has usually been for Vin Scully and now that's over.
I have no problem with anyone else loving it. You'd be amazed how much you can get done in usually-crowded stores while the rest of America is watching the Super Bowl. I just can't generate any interest in sports, especially the ones which involve men hitting each other. Also, I don't see how anyone could argue that football doesn't cause brain damage — to the players and maybe to certain spectators.
Posted on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 9:31 PM
Given the self-parody he became in his last few decades, it may be hard for some to recall the time when half the men in America wanted to grow up to be Hugh Hefner. For one thing, you didn't have to grow up. For another, there were omnipresent beautiful women who were not reticent to disrobe and, presumably, offer their bodies for other things besides modeling. And for yet another, he was very rich and the monarch of a world where he controlled everything and servants catered to his every need.
He was not shy about showing off the lifestyle or the women. One time, a friend of mine who was producing shows for The Playboy Channel told me he was about to go to The Mansion and pitch Hef — as everyone called him because he asked everyone to call him that — on some new show ideas. The friend said, "I don't know why I've been wasting time developing all these different ideas. The only thing Hef seems to want is tours of his home and shows about what a cool life he has." I was at that home a few times and even when he was nowhere to be seen, you were always aware you were in his kingdom, subject to banishment at his slightest whim. The ass-kissing was about as prevalent as inhaling and exhaling.
Hefner was controversial and probably always will be. He did much for the liberation of women but too often, the idea was to free them from one second-class existence so that that might enter into a different one. If you could overlook a sometimes-fratboy attitude about sex, Playboy was for a long time a very good magazine, well worth reading "just for the articles." I doubt anyone who was ever successful in mainstream publishing was more willing to pay writers and artists and especially cartoonists well if that's what it took to get the best work. Playboy now limps along as a low-selling, utterly unimportant publication produced on a minuscule (by comparison) budget. When Hef was Hef, an issue was an event.
In the eighties, I worked with him on one TV show and we got along well, especially when I started talking to him about one of his greatest loves — cartooning. He'd wanted to be in that profession at one point and in early issues of Playboy, when funds were tight, he drew a few cartoons which showed why he was wise to pursue other avenues. In terms of sheer dollar value, the most expensive gift I've ever received was when he gave me a lifetime subscription to the magazine. I hope he didn't mean his lifetime.
I found him to be a sweet, charming man when you were on his turf playing by his rules. I don't know how he'd have been outside that environment because he never allowed himself out.
One moment that has always stuck with me came about because a meeting we were having was interrupted by someone bringing in the sales figures on a recent issue of Playboy. Hef paused to study the numbers and then he turned to me and said, "You know, after all these years of doing this, I still have no idea what makes one issue sell better than another." I thought that was an extraordinary thing to say.
I know people of power in the comic book industry, past and present, who would never suggest they aren't infallible experts at knowing what will sell. Since that moment with Hef, if someone tells me they know how to make Batman a best-seller, I think, "No, you don't. If Hugh Hefner doesn't know how to make Playboy sell, you don't know how to make Batman sell." I guess to admit what he admitted, you have to own the company.
I'll probably think of other stories to tell in the coming day. Right now, I just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear he died. And you have to wonder, with all that Viagra in his system, if rigor mortis didn't set in a long time ago. And if the mortician is going to be able to get that smug smile off his face.
Posted on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 10:20 AM
I'm a little hesitant to get into this whole "take a knee" controversy. Seems to me a lot of people on all sides are following Trump's lead of using it as a way to say "Sorry, I'm too busy to give a damn about all those Americans suffering down in Puerto Rico." Some of them don't even seem to like the idea of admitting that Puerto Ricans are Americans.
Let me remind you once again about donating to Operation USA, a charity that uses very little of your money for administrative expenses and staff salaries, and puts as much as possible towards feeding, clothing, healing, rebuilding and lifesaving.
If you do want to get into this whole matter of NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem, take fifteen minutes and watch this video of Bob Costas, who I think nails it. I would add that when people say "Athletes should not get political," they never convince me they'd feel that way if they agreed with the sentiments being expressed. So what they're really saying is "Athletes should not express opinions which I oppose."
I also think it's a cheap, dishonest trick when someone is expressing a view that is clearly about racial injustice to try and frame it as "they're disrepecting our military." It's like when a lot of us were out protesting the War in Vietnam and saying our leaders were sending soldiers off to die in the wrong war, the comeback was "You hate our soldiers." It's always easier to rebut the opposition when you lie about their message.
I am way behind in all sorts of things I need to do and I still owe you all a couple of fuller reports on Frank Ferrante in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and on the Baltimore Comic-Con, both of which I enjoyed very much.
Next week, I will be in New York attending the New York Comic-Con. My one panel is about Jack Kirby panel and it's on Sunday, October 8 at 3:15 PM. I will otherwise be signing this book at the Abrams ComicArts table (Both 2228) and wandering the Javits Center.
Also during that trip, I will be visiting friends, visiting publishers and visiting publishers who are friends and vice-versa. I have tickets for one off-Broadway show and three on-Broadway productions, none of which are Hamilton or star Bette Midler. And on Wednesday, October 4, I will be a guest on Tell Me Everything, the fine radio talk show on SiriusXM Insight which stars John Fugelsang and Frank Conniff.
And note to self: I should write another piece about the response to the June Foray Celebration we did on September 19. And no, there is no video from the event online yet and I don't know if there will ever be any…but I'm sure glad we did it. More later.
Sincere-sounding phone call from high muckety-muck at airline. Many apologies. Pilot had already reported hysterical flight attendant. I need not send letter to CEO. She has done this before and has been reprimanded again and threatened with dismissal. I need not send letter to CEO. He is aware of problem and discussions are under way. This is not typical of our airline so please accept some free flights with our compliments. We'll see.
My return flight from Baltimore led to two very strange things happening. The first occurred before the plane took off. The second occurred the following day. My friend and I were traveling on a major airline. I'll tell you in a minute why I'm not mentioning its name.
What occurred is kind of difficult to explain but basically, one employee of the airline — a lady at the gate — told me something. A second employee — a flight attendant — told me something different during the boarding process. I said, "That's not what I was told" and I repeated what the lady at the gate had told me and I even gave her name. The attendant accused me of…well, basically lying about her telling me that. "That's contrary to our policies, sir," she said. "No one would tell you that." My traveling companion backed me up strongly and she was accused of being rude and suddenly this flight attendant was announcing that she had the power to have us both removed from the flight.
I still do not understand how it escalated to that level so rapidly. My companion was a bit loud but other flight attendants had gotten into the discussion and my friend was trying to be heard over several people talking. It is true that flight attendants can have you tossed off the plane but I felt that it was being threatened inappropriately with an attitude of "You don't dare disagree with me because I have the power to have your ass bounced right off this plane!" I was still trying to get to the bottom of the mystery caused by one airline employee telling me one thing and another employee telling me the opposite.
One of the pilots heard the squabble, came out and reflexively backed the flight attendants before he even heard what it was all about. I explained the dispute to him and that got him about a third of the way to my side. I also explained to him that our luggage was already on the plane and that my suitcase held the CPAP unit which I require to sleep. I said, "If you toss us off this plane, you're going to have to unload our luggage and I'll bet that will delay this flight a while." That got him another third of the way to my side.
Then one of the other flight attendants came up and whispered something to the pilot. I suspect she had gone off, checked with the lady at the gate and found out that while that lady was wrong, she had indeed told me what I'd claimed she'd told me. That got the pilot the rest of the way to my side. Within minutes, we were seated and buckled-in and the plane took off, Incident Over.
…except that yesterday, I called the airline not so much to complain but to try and figure out what happened and how to minimize the chances of it happening again. It took a big bit of patience to navigate my way through the automatic call redirect feature to a department called Customer Service or maybe Customer Relations. It was Customer Something. There, I spoke to an extremely nice lady who basically told me that a lot of flight attendants are crazy.
This was not an answer I expected from the Customer Relations department of the airline. I was genuinely amazed at the honesty. Imagine if you called a washing machine company to complain about their product and the person at the other end said, "Yeah, a lot of our washers are junk."
I am not identifying the airline because this woman was so honest with me that I don't want to get her into any trouble. She was on the phone with me for at least fifteen minutes and it got to the point where she was complaining to me about power-mad flight attendants and all the complaints about them that come to her. And I want to emphasize here that neither of us were talking about all flight attendants or most flight attendants. We were talking about a tiny but still unacceptable percentage.
The Customer Relations lady was totally with me and clearly frustrated. She said — and this is a quote — "When I fly now, I just do whatever they say, even when I know it's wrong because you never know what's going to set some of them off. If they somehow get it into their heads that you're a threat to the flight, you're in for a lot of trouble."
This is a woman who works for this airline. She is in a position to receive and deal with complaints about flight attendants who misbehave. And she is afraid of the occasional flight attendant on that airline. She also told me that recently, they had two incidents where flight attendants ejected pilots' wives.
Rhetorical Question: If you were a pilot and they thought maybe your wife was a threat to the safety of the flight, what does that say about you?
The woman on the phone said that she could follow up from her end but that it was unlikely anything would come of it. The flight attendant would say we were hysterical troublemakers or something. It would be my word against hers and no action would be taken. I thought that was an amazing, probably honest admission. She gave me the name and address of the airline's CEO and suggested that a calm, rational letter to him might do some good so I'll be writing that letter later today.
I often call up businesses to complain about this or that…always calm, always reasonable. I am used to being stroked and to receiving perfunctory apologies from people who dole them out by rote about matters that in no way involved them.
The letter will go out shortly to the CEO, if only because I'm curious as to what, if anything, I'll receive in reply. I may or may not mention the lady on the phone because, as I said, I don't want to get her in any trouble. But boy, I was genuinely amazed to find someone in Customer Service who put honesty above defending her employer. How often does that happen?
