The Internet comics community is erupting with news that famed DC editor Julius Schwartz is hospitalized and hovering near death. A few folks have even started offering condolences, and I'm getting e-mails asking if I've heard anything. (As we all know, no one in the comic book business is actually deceased until Evanier posts the obit…)
I know no more than Harlan Ellison has been posting on his message board, which is that Julie is hospitalized with pneumonia. Given that the man is over 88, this is obviously cause for concern. But I might spread a little cautious optimism by pointing out that Julie has been hospitalized for pneumonia before and still managed to make it to subsequent comic conventions. I would also remind all that in May of 2002, a lot of the same forums were reporting on the impending death of Julie's friend, Forrest Ackerman, and Ackerman is still with us. And I always remember a day a few decades ago when two comic fans I knew said, "We have to go visit Carl Barks before he dies." Barks was in his mid-seventies then and he not only lived to age 99, he managed to outlive both of those comic fans.
I spoke to Julie about a week ago and he sounded the way he always sounds…cranky and old. But he sounded that way when I met him in 1970. Whenever I hear more, I'll post it here. In the meantime, let's not bury the guy before we have to.
Of less importance: I am still hand-coding my posts to this weblog, which is why there haven't been many of them. I hope to have this situation cured in the next few days, during which time you may see some bizarre, incomplete things on this page as I do the reinstall. Don't be baffled if things occasionally are a little odd. Or let's just say "odder than usual."