Monthly Archives: October 2018

1. The letters printed in letter columns in no way represented the consensus of the readership. They may have been the ones that reflected what the letter-selector wanted to believe represented the readers' opinions. Some letters were phony or so heavily edited that they didn't even represent the letter-writers' views.

2. Most of the editors were very sharp, creative and benevolent. But a couple of them were managing with the same kinds of skills you'd employ if you were running a Jiffy-Lube.
3. No freelancer was paid what he or she was worth.
4. And most of those on staff were not either.
5. When a new comic failed to sell and was canceled, that might have meant that the readers weren't interested in it. But at least as often, it meant that the company didn't know how to market it and/or that the publisher gave up on it too quickly.
6. Approximately 50% of editorial alterations made on the work of the writers and artists were made mainly because someone in the office wanted to look like they were making a vital contribution.
7. When a popular writer or artist was replaced on a comic, the readers would always hate the new guy for a while, no matter who it was.
8. The sales figures published in the little Statement of Ownership boxes that ran in some comics were sometimes rough approximations and occasionally pure fiction.
9. When one artist did the inking on the penciled art of another, the penciler might like the finished product because "He inked it just the way I would have." Or he might have liked it because "He did things I never would have thought to do." The penciler might also have disliked the result for either reason.
10. Still, most artists would vastly have preferred to ink their own work. And better artwork would frequently have resulted if they had.
11. Your work being turned in late was a major crisis which demonstrated unprofessionalism on your part no matter what the reason. Your check getting to you late was an understandable delay that was no big deal and no one's fault so don't complain about it.
12. An awful lot of people who worked in comics could not look at a page of comic art and recognize who had drawn or lettered it.
13. Better comics generally resulted when one writer was more or less in charge of a feature or character for a long time and could make it his or her "own."
14. But it was usually a personal mistake for a writer to get possessive about a strip or character if they did not own the copyright. That made it jarring when they were replaced, as everyone eventually was and is.
15. In the constant struggle to get books to press on time, the unsung, unappreciated hero was usually the letterer.
16. The credit for Editor often did not tell you who was really doing the work you'd normally associate with that job title. There were Editors who never even read the comics they theoretically edited.
17. While there certainly were writers and artists lacking in ability, poor artwork was more often the function of miscasting.
18. And it was rarely the result of the artist "hacking it out" or just doing a "grab the money and run." Some of the guys who were maybe not good enough for their assignments tried like hell.
19. If a comic underwent a major change of writer and/or artist in its first six issues, the comic would probably fail.
20. From about 1970 on, if a reader bought an issue of Heroguy Comics, he wanted a full book of new Heroguy material; no back-up features of other characters (not even Herogirl or Hero-Dog) and no reprints of old Heroguy adventures. Reprints were fine in their place and their place was in comics devoted wholly to reprints.
21. From about 1970 on, readers rarely had the patience to love a comic that did not come out monthly.
22. For some reason, many readers never caught on to the oft-true practice where the great artist who drew that great cover was not the person who drew the insides. It was a lot like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football when Lucy held it for him.
23. A couple of my favorite writers and artists had deep, permanent loathings for each other.
24. If as a writer, you pitched an editor three or four ideas for stories and the editor bought any of them, it would be the one you liked the least. This is true with any kind of writing in any field at any time. It's the same with artists submitting rough sketches.
25. Comics were a great field to work in for a time while you tried to work your way towards something with greater possibilities. And if you got to an "all the work you can handle" situation, that was not always good because it gave you a powerful disincentive to try anything else. I am very glad that I got into the field but even gladder than I never made it my entire profession.

This is my annual post about why I don't like Halloween. It is an amalgam of several past "Why I Don't Like Halloween" posts with some new thoughts tossed in. Nothing that follows should be taken to suggest that I don't want you to celebrate and enjoy Halloween. It's just to explain why I don't. Here is me explaining…

At the risk of coming off like the Ebenezer Scrooge of a different holiday, I have to say: I've never liked Halloween. For one thing, I'm not a big fan of horror movies or of people making themselves up to look disfigured or like rotting corpses. One time when I was in the company of Ray Bradbury at a convention, someone shambled past us looking like they just rose up from a grave and Ray said something about how people parade about like that to celebrate life by mocking death. Maybe to some folks it's a celebration of life but to me, it's just ugly.

I've also never been comfy with the idea of kids going door-to-door to take candy from strangers. Hey, what could possibly go wrong with that? I did it a few years when I was but a child, not so much because I wanted to but because it seemed to be expected of me. I felt silly in the costume and when we went to neighbors' homes and they remarked how cute we were…well, I never liked to be cute in that way. People talk to you like you're a puppy dog. The man two houses down…before he gave me my treat, I thought he was going to tell me to roll over and beg for it.

When I got home, I had a bag of "goodies" I didn't want to eat. In my neighborhood, you got a lot of licorice and Mounds bars and Jordan Almonds, none of which I liked even before I found out I was allergic to them. I would say that a good two-thirds of the candy I hauled home on a Halloween Eve went right into the trash can and I felt bad about that. Some nice neighbor had paid good money for it, after all.

And some of it, of course, was candy corn — the cole slaw of sugary treats. Absolutely no one likes candy corn. Don't write to me and tell me you do because I'll just have to write back and call you a liar. No one likes candy corn. No one, do you hear me?

I wonder if anyone's ever done any polling to find out what percentage of Halloween candy that is purchased and handed-out is ever eaten. And I wonder how many kids would rather not dress up or disfigure themselves for an evening if anyone told them they had a choice. Where I live, they seem to have decided against it. Each year, I stock up and no one comes. For a while there, I wound up eating a couple big sacks of leftover candy myself every year.

That didn't seem healthy so one year, I actually did this: When I was at the market picking out candy to have on hand for the little masked people, I picked a kind I didn't like. So that year when no one came, instead of eating a whole bag of candy, I found myself throwing out a whole bag of candy…and wondering why that had seemed like a good idea. What I now do is that I always have on hand, not for Halloween but for me, little bags of Planter's Peanuts and if any trick-or-treaters ever knock on my door, that's what they'll get.

So I didn't like the dress-up part and I didn't like the trick-or-treating part. There were guys in my class at school who invited me to go along on Halloween when they threw eggs at people and overturned folks' trash cans and redecorated homes with toilet paper…and I never much liked pranks. One year the day after Thanksgiving, two friends of mine were laughing and bragging how they'd trashed some old lady's yard and I thought, "That's not funny. It's just being an a-hole."

Over the years, as I've told friends how I feel, I've been amazed how many agree with me. In a world where people now feel more free to say that which does not seem "politically correct," I feel less afraid to own up to my dislike of Halloween. About the only thing I ever liked about it was the second-best Charlie Brown special.

So that's why I'm home tonight and not up in West Hollywood wearing my Judge Roy Moore costume. I'm fine with every other holiday. Just not this one. I do not believe there is a War on Christmas in this country. That's just something the Fox News folks dreamed up because they believe their audience needs to be kept in a perpetual state of outrage about something. But if there's ever a War on Halloween, I'm enlisting. And bringing the eggs.

The crazy stuff Trump's pulling lately — the latest being this notion he can end Birthright Citizenship (you know…that thing in the Constitution) by Executive Order — strike me as desperation/panic acts by a guy who's pretty sure he's going to end up with a Democratic Congress. That is to say, a Democratic Congress that will have the power to hold hearings and issue subpoenas and even vote to impeach. I wonder how his supporters would have felt if President Barack Obama had said the Chief Exec has the power to change one syllable of the Constitution.

Well, let's go to the news…

• As Jonathan Chait notes, Trump and his mob are lying when they claim to be behind a health plan that protects those with pre-existing conditions. This is not one of those cases where there are two sides to the matter and they just have a different interpretation of some legal language than others do. This is a case of just outright lying. And by the way, let's remember that what some of us want is not insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. It's affordable insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. Any insurance company can cover folks with pre-existing conditions if they charge them enough.
• Josh Marshall discusses the utter cluelessness shown by Mike Pence. He appeared at a campaign rally and brought up a "rabbi" to offer a prayer of mourning for those killed in the synagogue attack in Pittsburgh. All fine except that the "rabbi" (and the reason I put that in quotes) is a R.I.N.O. — a Rabbi In Name Only.
• Ezra Klein discusses Trump's strategy. To him the "opposition party" isn't the Democrats. It's CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC…
• Politifact explains about that $450 billion Saudi arms deal that Trump brags about and which really doesn't exist.
• William Saletan "defends" Trump from accusations that his speeches are creating unrest, divisiveness and maybe even violence in this country.

And have you noticed that the chanting of "Lock her up!" or "Lock him up!" that he so loves and encourages has come to have just about nothing to do with anyone being charged with a crime? It's all about the idea that we should be able to throw people in prison because we just plain don't like what they say. Yeah, that's what we do in this country…

F.I.S.M. is the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques…and you don't really have to know much more about it except that they run a kind of an international Olympics for magicians. Recently at this year's competition, a gentleman named Eric Chien won the Grand Prix with this act. There is no trick photography in what you'll see here if you click. He not only performed this live but he did it in a hall full of experts on magic. Pretty damned impressive…

Strangers have been sending me e-mails that have this at the bottom…

This e-mail message may contain confidential or legally privileged information and is intended only for the use of the intended recipient(s). Any unauthorized disclosure, dissemination, distribution, copying or the taking of any action in reliance on the information herein is prohibited. E-mails are not secure and cannot be guaranteed to be error free as they can be intercepted, amended, or contain viruses. Anyone who communicates with us by e-mail is deemed to have accepted these risks. Company Name is not responsible for errors or omissions in this message and denies any responsibility for any damage arising from the use of e-mail. Any opinion and other statement contained in this message and any attachment are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company.

…and they almost always have the words I highlighted — Company Name — in them, meaning the sender didn't even bother to fill that in. Seems to me it would be more honest if it just said…

No matter what we do in this e-mail, whether it's illegal, inaccurate or just plain stupid, we are not responsible and if anyone is, you are, even if you didn't ask us to send this to you.

Hey, how about an encore performance by the Voctave group? Here are some Disney ditties…

Very early Saturday morning, I turned in and watched the last few innings of the marathon Game 3 of the World Series. In the last three decades, I have probably watched about eight total innings of baseball. I have friends who would skip life-saving medical treatment before they'd skip a ball game, particularly a World Series game. The sport just stopped interesting me about the time my father stopped taking me occasionally to Dodgers games. I don't recall quite when that was but Sandy Koufax was still pitching then and he retired in 1966.

I think part of the problem was that I could never summon up any interest in who won. I was born and bred in Los Angeles but I didn't see why that was any reason to get emotionally invested in whether the Dodgers or even the Angels won. I didn't get a trophy. I didn't get a bonus or a shaving cream commercial. I hadn't been recognized as being the best at anything. And yet, I'd see people who if their team won the pennant were more excited than I'd be if I won an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Tony, a Grammy, a Nobel Peace Prize, a Pulitzer, a Peabody, a Heisman Trophy, an Olympic gold medal, a Powerball jackpot, sex with any or all of the Deal or No Deal models, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

But I watched innings 15-18 the other night because it was such an oddity and just now when I turned on my TV, it was on the same channel. So I have the World Series on and at the moment, Boston is ahead 3-1. They could take it tonight…and I'm just thinking how little that matters to me. I can't name a single player on the Red Sox and the only Dodger I can name is Max Muncy because he's the guy who hit the game-winning home run the other night.

And since I typed the second sentence of the previous paragraph, it went to Red Sox 4, Dodgers 1. If you took a loved one hostage and demanded I care about one team or the other winning, I'd probably say "the home team" because that would make all those people in the stands happy. I think that's Boston.

If you care passionately about this game, I am not for a second belittling that. I might even in a way envy that. Two more innings and you might get a thrill that is unknown and alien to me…a thrill I will never know.

Then again, I can't possibly get depressed because my team lost.

P.S. Oh, they're in Los Angeles. That shows you how much I'm paying attention.

Dan Dreier wrote to ask…

I am an avid reader of your blog and find it both entertaining and informative. You have — and share — many of the same ideals and beliefs that rattle around my own brain container. That being said, I have a question for you. Given the current state of "wokeness" (that I understand to mean one who is unaware becomes aware), have you ever written something that you regret writing? Any storylines, characters, etc., that you are currently uncomfortable with but at the time it/they were acceptable and even sought after?

Hmm. I rarely go back and re-read my old work, in part because when I do, I see all sorts of things I would change now from a creative standpoint. Along the lines of what you're asking about, I'm sure there are lots of things I would now phrase more artfully or perhaps be more or less subtle. And maybe there's something I would change completely but nothing in particular comes to mind except…

Well, in the first issue of Groo the Wanderer back in the Pacific Comics days, there was a quick joke about rape that I think I subconsciously kinda lifted from the movie, Blazing Saddles. I don't recall anyone ever complaining about it or even mentioning it but when it came time to reprint that issue, I did go back through the issue to see if there were any spelling mistakes or anything like that. I saw the line and it struck me as wrong in a couple of ways. Sergio agreed so I personally relettered it into something else. I also don't recall anyone ever mentioning to me that it was changed.

I'm not saying it never happened. I suspect it did because my attitudes about relationships changed a little in the seventies and a lot in the eighties. Maybe one of these days, I'll get up the courage to go back and read more of my old work and I'm sure I'll find some examples. There are advantages to publishers not wanting to reprint a lot of your past efforts.

The harmony group Voctave favors us with some tunes from Cinderella…

This came to me from a reader named Brian David Mannix…

I have never written you before either electronically or conventionally, but I am doing so now because I need to express my feelings about various DC Comics characters and it would really be wonderful if someone would "listen." I quit reading your website a year or two ago because it seemed like the only time you mentioned comics was when someone in the comics industry passed away and I got tired of you "dumping" on President Trump. I don't like a lot of things about our president either, but it just got kind of boring reading about how allegedly horrible he was/is.

I guess this isn't the best way to begin a missive in which I ask you for a favor, but those are my honest feelings. I am not trying to be rude or hurtful, just honest. We people with Asperger Syndrome are not known for our diplomacy or our empathy, but I am not attempting to "tell you off." I have typed several messages to the DC Comics' website contact feature, but have not yet heard back from anyone. I threatened to keep e-mailing them until I got a response, just like Marty Pasko did with "snail" mail back in the 70s, but I guess they weren't very impressed. The people in charge may be too young to even know who Marty Pasko is. I have read, I think in the late, lamented Amazing Heroes, that Mr. Pasko wrote DC so often with so many complaints of (hopefully constructive) criticism, that he came to be known as "Pesky Pasko."

I often joke that I am in a minority; I'm a comic-book fan; but even within that minority I'm in a minority, because most of my favorite comic-book characters are not superheroes. The DC Universe has many fascinating characters who are not superheroes (or supervillains)! And no, I do not mean non-powered but costumed characters like Batman. As far as I concerned, Batman and his ilk are superheroes or supervillains because they wear funny (stupid?) costumes.

One of the best comic-book stories I have ever read featured Slam Bradley in "The 'Too Many Cooks…' Caper." It was in the landmark 500th issue of Detective Comics which was published in late 1980. The story also starred Mysto, Jason Bard, Roy Raymond, Captain Compass, Pow Wow Smith, and The Human Target. In a better world, characters like that would be the stars of a comic-book named Detective Comics and not some freak in a Halloween costume.

How about a team-up between Captain Compass and the Sea Devils? And if the crybabies can't live without their precious superheroes, they could throw in Aquaman. I have a copy of the Showcase Presents black-and-white trade paperback that DC published a few years ago, and my least favorite feature in it is The Flash. I like that feature okay, but I would much rather read about firefighters, frogmen, animals, Lois Lane, and The Challengers of the Unknown, which were some of the other features in the first 20-odd issues of the original Showcase from the 1950s. I really am in a minority, am I not?

The community computer I am using to type this just told me that I have less than ten minutes before it shuts down, so I will close this e-missive for now. Thank you for listening!

Let you in on a secret, Brian. I think most folks who write comic books would much rather write about folks with no special powers. For one thing, you can write about human emotions and themes that relate to your own world more directly.  My own dreams and hopes and feelings would be quite different if I came from another planet and could bench-press a Chevrolet.

Secondly, stories would be easier and neater if we didn't have to keep coming up with menaces that could threaten people with superhuman abilities. When you're writing about characters with the power to save the universe, you have to keep coming up with storylines that threaten the destruction of the universe.

There's also the mix-and-match problem. I like a lot of Superman stories and I like a lot of Batman stories but I can't think of one story I ever really liked with both of them in major roles. Those just get too contrived because any villain who's powerful enough to give Superman a fight would be powerful enough to kill Batman in two seconds. Also, there's a wide discrepancy in the bravery of those two heroes. For Batman, facing down a band of armed gunmen is risking his life. For Superman, it's a yawn.

I don't think they go together but the readership loves to see them in the same comic. The readership also loves its superfolks. DC and Marvel will start doing more comics about characters like Slam Bradley when there's the slightest evidence people will buy them. At the moment, I don't believe there is.  It's not all that different from back in 1990 when someone at Marvel asked me to come up with a book that had not a single super-powered or costumed character in it.  You can read about that unhappy experience here.

Frankly, I think you're wasting your time lobbying DC or Marvel or any of the major publishers about this.  If you want to expend some energy on this cause, try going to your local comic book shop and ask them how they'd feel about ordering and promoting the kind of comic you want to see.  They'd probably order really low unless it was done by some superstar writer and artist.  Then ask them how many copies they'd order if that same superstar writer and artist did a new super-hero team or something full of monsters and the possible destruction of our Solar System.  If you can't convince the folks at your local comic shop, you probably can't convince someone at Marvel or DC.

And if you do convince them, please let me know.  I have several ideas for comics of the sort that I'd love to do.

Ducklings in a swimming pool…

• If someone went in and shot up a convention of armed security guards, Trump would tweet, "This wouldn't have happened it they'd had armed security guards there!"

You may not have noticed this but I have stopped linking to most crowd-funding efforts. I haven't totaled up the precise number but a number of the ones I've plugged here asking you to help fund a publication or film have never come out. As far as I can tell, those who accepted the crowd-funded funds had every good intention and still, long after the announced delivery dates, intend to get their publication published or film completed. And of course, some were finished as promised.

But some have not and I'm trying to decide whether I should stop linking to such efforts. While I do, I'm turning down all such requests so please — especially if you're a good friend — don't ask me.

This is different…first of all, because Mark Waid didn't ask me and secondly, because he's not promising to deliver a product. Mark — who as you know is a fine, popular comic book writer, is trying to deliver a sane, just ending to a lawsuit that could have ramifications for the entire comic book community. The money is definitely being spent just as he explains on his GoFundMe page. Read up on it and see if you want to support him. I sure did.

• Nice game-winning homer by Max Muncy. But I don't think he had that beard when the game started.

• They wouldn't have dared keep Vin Scully up this late.