Monthly Archives: July 2020

A quick flashback to when I was 20 years old. I was still living with my parents, still attending U.C.L.A., still ignoring my studies there in order to write scripts for Gold Key Comics and I think still working on the weekends with Jack Kirby. My folks were away in Las Vegas for a few days…a trek they made often and one which I encouraged because it meant I had to the house to myself. When I did, I had a place to take some young lady I was dating. You may be able to guess why.

At the time, I was seeing a young lady named Leslie. I suggested to her that Friday night, we could go to dinner and a movie then go to my house for a bit. She suggested — she suggested, I didn't — that we skip the movie; just grab a pizza and go to my house for more than a bit. I was all for that. She asked though, did I have a copy of "Brandy" to which we could listen?

The number one record in the country that week was "Brandy" (subtitled "You're a Fine Girl") by a group called Looking Glass. I didn't have a copy of it but I said that by Friday night, I would. The first record store I went to was out of it but I bought the last 45 RPM copy of it at the second.

The evening went well up to a point. That point was when we started playing "Brandy."

I picked her up, we negotiated pizza toppings and then picked up such a pie and drove to where I lived. Much of the pizza was consumed, then we adjourned to my parents' bedroom, which is where the phonograph was located. "Brandy" went on the turntable. This story is not heading where you think it's heading and certainly not exactly where I was hoping it was heading.

Leslie and I began "making out" on my parents' bed. No apparel except for shoes came off. There were two obstacles to further disrobing, the first being that "Brandy" was three minutes and eight seconds long. That meant that every three minutes and eight seconds, one of us — usually me, sometimes her — had to interrupt the making-out, get up off the bed and move the tone arm on the phonograph from the end of the song back to the beginning so it could play again.

And again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. We were there for about ninety minutes so "Brandy" was played…let me do the math here…something like twenty-nine times. The obstacle to romance was not her desires. She wanted to do what I wanted to do but we had to kind of sneak up on it and she insisted on "Brandy" playing constantly.

Today, I could easily have my iPhone play it in an endless loop. Back in the stone age, one of us had to get up off the bed and walk over to the phonograph every three minutes. It's hard to get any momentum going for affection when you have to keep starting over every 183 seconds.

But that was only the problem for the first half-hour or so. Around the thirty-minute mark, we got to talking about the song and about the lyrics. They aren't the cheeriest or most romantic words. It's about loss and being alone and never seeing the person you love again…and Brandy is not the happiest person in it. Neither was Leslie as we discussed how, though she had never lost a love to the sea, she identified somehow with the fine girl.

She got more and more depressed so I got more and more depressed. Finally, we both realized nothing was going to happen so we stopped playing the record over and over and, as Leslie suggested, we put on our shoes and I took her home. Then I went back to my home and ate the rest of the pizza. Leslie and I somehow never went out again.

The lead singer on "Brandy" was a gent named Elliot Lurie. Recently, backed up by some new friends, he performed an a cappella rendition of it. It's a nice arrangement but it reminds me of what it reminds me of…

I've decided to end my imaginary stay at an extended Comic-Con International. It was a nice Alternative Reality while it lasted but if I want to live in an Alternate Reality, I can just become a Trump supporter. In case you're interested, I hosted a record 121 panels including the Super Golden Age Panel with Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, Will Eisner, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and C.C. Beck. I'll admit it was a little disappointing when Bob Kane turned out to be Sheldon Moldoff in a clever plastic disguise. Also, it was nice to actually give the Bill Finger Award to Bill Finger.

I came home to find me exactly where I'd left me: Sitting in front of this computer, writing something for this blog. In the next few days, I will post the 28,000th message on this page and in December, we will celebrate this blog's twentieth anniversary. That will occur on December 18th and maybe — just maybe — that will coincide with finalizing the outcome of the November 3rd Presidential Election.

I would guess the next big political news will be Joe Biden's announcement of his running mate…though "big political news" seems to come out of almost anywhere these days. It's hard to remember that after all this campaigning, neither Biden nor Trump officially have their party's nomination and Trump could still dump Pence and replace him with a labrador retriever…probably a neutered, well-trained white one.

Pretty quiet here. The other day, I tried a new fish & chips place that opened not far from me. I had Grubhub deliver an order and the chips were partly-frozen while the fish was battered beyond recognition. The only part of it I could eat was the ampersand.

Some of my friends seemed giddy with excitement to hear that Congressguy Louie Gohmert tested positive for the virus. I wouldn't wish that on anyone but if somebody has to get it, it makes good, karmic sense for it to be a guy who, even as thousands died of it, was declaring the whole thing a hoax and scolding anyone on his staff who dared to wear facial coverings. One fellow I know who saw this on the news was beside himself with glee…but even he had the good sense, while beside himself, to wear two masks.

This year was, in reduced form, the 51st Comic-Con in San Diego…and to the extent I "attended" by being on four panels, I "attended" my fifty-first.

One of the things I've learned about Comic-Con is that it's a real smorgasboard of expectations and thrills. If 130,000 people are there, there might just be 130,000 different answers to the question, "What do/did you want to see happen?" As I've said so many times I'm sick of hearing me say it, you have to pretty much make your own convention because there are dozens of different ones going on there at the same time. Find the one you want in that building and you can have a wonderful time.

Of course, it may be a little difficult to do that when you can't get into that building. Like this year.

I may have heard 130,000 different complaints about the con. That's not counting the biggie, which is "I tried and tried and couldn't get a badge to attend." This year's con succeeded wildly in not having that complaint. But other years, I've heard a lot of folks complain that they went to make some connection that would result in some form of employment and that didn't happen. I've heard "I have this list of comics I need and I couldn't find half of them and the half I could find were way overpriced." And that didn't happen.

A woman complained to me once that all she wanted was to meet and get a selfie with Leonard Nimoy and he was there but the lines to meet him were too long and he left before she got to him. Another woman another year complained that she wanted to meet William Shatner but he wasn't there that year.

The topper may have been the guy who complained to me not that long ago that there was no Golden Age Panel featuring people who wrote and drew comics in the 1940s. I asked him who we should have gotten to attend the con and appear on such a panel and a conversation ensued that went kind of like this: He named a Golden Age Artist or Writer. I said, "He's dead."

He named a Golden Age Artist or Writer. I said, "He's dead."

He named a Golden Age Artist or Writer. I said, "He's dead."

We went around like that about nine times and finally, he named someone who's still alive and said, "He isn't dead, right?" I said, "Right but he's 97 and he can't walk and he's in a nursing home in Florida." I think the guy felt that Comic-Con should have sent a limo for him.

What am I getting at here is that everyone has different things that they want to see or experience at Comic-Con and too many of then act like the whole convention should only be about that. Which brings us to a very silly, narrow-visioned article in Variety called 'Why Comic-Con 'At Home' Was a Bust." Here's why, according to this piece: Its online videos that were promotional vehicles for TV shows and movies didn't attract enough viewers in the estimation of Adam B. Vary.

And I'm not even faulting Mr. Vary, who is "a senior entertainment writer covering the business of genre storytelling and fandom across movies, television and streaming platforms." Variety has never cared much about anything at Comic-Con but movies, television and streaming platforms. Neither have his two previous places of employment, Buzzfeed and Entertainment Weekly. If that Oprah Winfrey magazine had assigned a reporter to cover Comic-Con, he or she would probably be disappointed that the con didn't do a great job promoting Oprah.

In the days leading up to Comic-Con's online version, Mr. Vary wrote a series of articles about what he considered the major events. They were all about the Star Trek panel, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Charlize Theron, Joss Whedon, this new series on HBO Max, that new series on Amazon Prime, Stumptown, The Simpsons, Nathan Fillion, etc. The closest he got to mentioning comic books or anything printed on paper (you know, like Variety used to be) was telling when the Eisner Awards ceremony was and promoting a panel on the challenges of adapting comic books to the screen.

It really isn't isn't that much different from the lady who thought Comic-Con was a failure because she didn't get her selfie with Leonard Nimoy.

I probably don't have to point out that nothing in Comic-Con's mission statement was ever about disseminating promotional videos by which HBO and Netflix can promote their products. If there was a failure to attract enough attention to them, how do you think all the dealers who count on Comic-Con as a place to sell books and artwork and crafts and COMIC BOOKS feel about the impact on their businesses? Keanu Reeves has other places he can promote his new movies. He'll do just fine. So will Netflix and Amazon and Fox and all the others.

Nor do I have to point this out but I will: The kind of panels Mr. Vary cares about would have happened, had they happened this year, in either Hall H or Ballroom 20 at Comic-Con. Hall H seats 6,000. Ballroom 20 seats 4,900. Most of the panels that he says underperformed online had a lot more viewers than that.

And while no one can say how many people would cram into Hall H for any given event if the room had infinite seating…well, Comic-Con welcomes about 130,000 people each year. Clearly, one of the most popular, hard-to-get-into events in the world attracts a lot of people — I'd guess an overwhelming majority — who never go near the kinds of superstar promotional panels that are all Comic-Con represents to reporters who cover movies, television and streaming platforms. And who measure success by how many people tweeted about something…because, you know, Comic-Con fails if it doesn't create buzz for Disney-Plus.

In fairness, as they say, Variety's reporter acknowledges "if Comic-Con [at] Home achieved anything, it was revealing the abiding truth that there is no substitute for the live experience." What I don't get is why he thinks that anyone thought it would be. Did any sentient human being on this planet think that? I don't know. Are there people who think that watching PornHub is a substitute for the live experience?

Well, maybe if that's all that's available at the moment…

Laura Benanti and Christopher Fitzgerald (and a couple of stand-in dancers) perform a song from The Sound of Music. I can't get enough of Laura Benanti…

In the Comic-Con of my mind, I only hosted five panels today but I had a great lunch with one group of friends and a greater dinner with others. I feel like the Alternate Reality con is winding down in my mind and I may be about ready to head home to where I really am.

Folks keep asking me if I think "this virus thing" will abate soon and we'll see a return to normal events. I think "no one knows" is still the only safe answer but I can hope it'll be safe to attend WonderCon next March 26-28 in Anaheim. I can also hope that if they can throw it, it won't be a difficult decision to decide whether or not to attend. But there are still people in this country who'd rather catch a painful, life-threatening disease than admit they were wrong about COVID-19 being no worse than the common cold or some kind of Liberal Hoax.

Question: Will cities or states mandate that you'll have to have a proper face covering to go into a polling place on November 3 and cast your ballot? I can almost hear the arguments: "I have a Constitutional right to vote and there's nothing in the Constitution that says you can deny me that right if I refuse to wear a mask." November third is going to be a long day.

In other news: My next live Cartoon Voices Panel will be at 4 PM Pacific Time on Saturday, August 8. I know that's a ways off so I'll remind you before then but here's a preview of who I've wrangled into participating…

If you're a follower of Cartoon Voice Actors, there must be a couple of folks on there who you'll be delighted to see in the lineup. And I will be resuming my one-on-one webcast Conversations week after next. Some of the ones in the near future won't be live because I'll need to record them at times that are not conducive to gathering a crowd…but some of them will be.

By the way: Folks who've seen my podcasts keep writing to ask what the deal is with the books they see in the background — What are they? And which books do you keep that close to your workspace and why? The answer is that just before the pandemic hit and my assistant stopped working here most of the time, we were rearranging all my bookshelves. So what's on the shelves closest to me is just whatever we stuck there at that moment and not necessarily the final location of those particular volumes. Move along. Nothing to see there.

• Okay, how many people had Louie Gohmert in today's "Person Who Mocked Wearing Masks Tests Positive for COVID-19" lottery?

Here's a video from 1984. As Johnny Carson drives into his parking space at NBC Burbank, he's greeted by Regis Philbin and a camera crew shooting a segment for Regis's show. Johnny must have known about this and agreed to it but he doesn't look all that delighted with the segment. Thanks to Kabir Bhatia for letting me know about this…

I pay as little attention as I can these days to what Donald Trump is saying or doing — more than I'd like but not as much as I might. One thing I do look at is the occasional time (maybe twice a year) when he says something about improving the health care system in this country. While running for office, he promised the greatest, most super-terrific, efficient and affordable health insurance plan ever and since he got the job, he's done as much about it as you and I have. Maybe less.

Aware that he might have to answer for that in debates or elsewhere — for some odd reason, health and hospitalization are on some folks' minds these days — he just came up with a proposal which he says will lower the costs of prescriptions. I am skeptical that Donald J. Trump ever wants to do anything that would cut even a teensy but into the income of large companies…so I'm skeptical about that.

Kevin Drum takes a look at the four elements of Trump's plan and finds — surprise, surprise — that they probably wouldn't amount to much of anything. Because in politics today, if you can say you've done something, you really don't need to actually do it.

Actually, you can set any kind of Digital Video Recorder you have. You can even be old-fashioned and tune-in when what I'm recommending is actually broadcast.

Tomorrow evening, July 28, Turner Classic Movies favors us with a Carl Reiner Film Festival — Enter Laughing, All of Me, The Comic, Where's Poppa? and Oh, God! Five pretty good films…and Carl had nothing to do with it but the movie just before these five is The Apartment, which is one of those movies I simply feel the urge to watch every so often.

The day after, they're running the 1960 Sex Kittens Go to College with Mamie Van Doren, Martin Milner, Louis Nye, Tuesday Weld and a few other folks who amazingly still had careers after appearing in Sex Kittens Go to College. Its director, Albert Zugsmith, was formerly the lawyer who represented Jerry Siegel in his 1947 case against DC Comics over the ownership of Superman. Bob Kane called Zugsmith "the worst lawyer in the world" and the man was almost as good at making movies.

I've decided to just pretend I was at the Comic-Con in San Diego all weekend and that it was such a great convention, they decided to extend it indefinitely. So I"m still in San Diego and I'm hosting eight panels today to go with the 37 I've hosted since last Thursday.

If I went back to my Real Reality (as opposed to that Alternate one), I'd be at home in Los Angeles right now, just like I was all last week, with all sorts of deadlines to meet and not a whole lotta time to be blogging here today. Also, I decided that thanks to an attentive, competent government, COVID-19 didn't spread much in this country in my Alternate Reality and has already been truly contained…which is why we could have that great convention.

I know, I know. You can only live so long in an Alternate Reality because eventually, your Real One needs attention or things can get really, really bad in it.

But maybe I can enjoy this one a bit longer. I'm due at the convention center right now to interview one of my favorite cartoonists — Elzie Segar, the creator of Popeye. Yes, I know that in Your Reality and my Real One, he passed away in 1938. But this is my Alternate Reality and I can have anyone in it I like. And later today, I'm hosting a Jack Kirby Panel with our special guest, Jack Kirby. I miss that guy.

Here's something fun. The Disney folks have this stage production, Tangled: The Musical, based on the feature film. I believe that as with most Disney musicals, they have a couple of different versions of it with different running times. This is a well-shot video of the hour-long version that is performed on Disney cruise ships. Take a look…

A great interview with my favorite singer, Audra McDonald. Thanks to my old pal Bruce Reznick for the link.

I didn't organize or host this panel. The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center, which does such good work of preserving and indexing Jack's work, asked me to be on it. So here you have four guys who love Jack and his work talking for an hour about him…

I awoke this morning in an Alternate Reality…and as I've learned, you have to be careful with those Alternate Realities. They can be very pleasant places to be when your Real Reality isn't comfortable or when your mind is playing "What If?" on you. Trouble is, it's easy to confuse the two and no matter how good that Alternate Reality may feel at the time, you ultimately have to live in your Real one and make the proper decisions as to what to say and do in it. I have seen a lot of people make the wrong choices in their Real Reality because they thought they were still in their Alternate one.

This morning's Alternate Reality found me in a hotel room in San Diego, awaking to think, "Last day of Comic-Con." I looked at my bedside iPhone, which was actually located in the Real Reality but existed in the other one as well, and I thought, "Wow. The convention went by in an eye-blink" and since it was 8:30, I had ninety minutes to get up, clean myself, get dressed, get something to eat and hustle over to the convention center to host the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel at 10 AM…

And then I remembered I didn't have to do that, I wasn't in San Diego, I did this year's Jack Kirby Tribute Panel weeks ago and they put it online last Friday…and the convention wasn't ending today any more than it started last Wednesday evening. That's a nice thing about Alternate Realities. You can call them off at any time. I didn't have to get up just then.

And in that Alternate Reality, today doesn't have to be the last day of the con. I can extend it as long as I want. Maybe I'll keep it going until this f'ing pandemic is really and truly over and we can all head down to San Diego for real. Comic-Con International 2021 is scheduled to start 359 days from today.

The virtual, online version of it seems to have been about as successful as such a thing could be. As I can't write here too often, the folks who run Comic-Con are really sharp and good at what they do.

In a world with no COVID-19 pandemic, I would have enjoyed the hell out of a real Comic-Con this year. In reality, I was so glad not to have to leave my house the last few days. The stress level outside is off the graph and even in here, there are too many things to think about which I try not to spend too much time thinking about.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get down to Room 6A for the 11:30 Cartoon Voices II Panel and…Oh, wait. No, I don't. I can stay here and work on a script or I can even go back to bed. In Real Reality.